The Toms
The Toms
1979, Black Sheep Records
Reissue: 2005, Not Lame Recordings
Over the decades, the genre that my proctologist and I like to call power pop has acquired all sorts of geeky baggage. It’s associated with music for nerds and sad sacks. It’s catchy hooks and ringing guitars for the terminally uncool.
Part of this is simply because power pop bands always went for the regular Joe look. Smiling guys in jeans and T-shirts. Suits with skinny ties are as wild as it gets. There’s nothing wrong with that, but on the surface these bands tend to look more dorky every decade.
Another part of it is because most young people don’t know what the hell power pop is. If you’re under 35 and have even heard the term, I’m impressed. It’s usually thrown around by crumbling music nerds like me, who still compare most guitar pop to Big Star and The Raspberries. The best power pop is timeless like all good music, but it’s a genre that all but requires you to reach for 50-year-old references.
The result of this is that power pop became the domain of outsiders, dweebs and old people and THAT’S OKAY (speaking as an outsider, a dweeb and an old person).
However, it didn’t used to be like that. If you listen to the vintage stuff made by ambitious young men and can imagine yourself back in 1979 (whether you were there or not), it becomes clear that power pop was a reflection of the dating scene. It was horned-up and virile. Its influences were The Beatles, The Beach Boys and talking to pretty girls.
Maybe it was far from innovative, but it had something to say, even if it was just “let’s go out on a date”, which counts.
It’s something that I can’t stop thinking about when I listen to this power pop punch-in-the-face by The Toms, an album that I would call definitive.