I don’t follow power pop or whatever you want to call that melodic heaven with power chords, catchy hooks and harmony vocals nowhere near as much as I did 10 or 15 years ago. That’s kind of a sad, because that’s still and forever will be the foundation of my music taste. Maybe I had a little melodic overdose too somewhere along the way, because I don’t get as easily excited about power pop albums these days. I’m sure people are still making great records and I should just dig harder. I do every now and then check my trusted sources like Powerpopaholic and Absolute Powerpop to keep myself informed. I’m very pleased that they are keeping this thing alive, so old chaps with power pop hearts like yours truly can get their monthly fix.
Despite everything I said above I still love rockin’ pop music and I might be contradicting myself in this blog post. Ryan Allen and His Extra Arms from Michigan is one of the guys that I’m still following closely and listen to everything he puts out. His new album Basement Punk comes out this Friday 30th of September on Save Your Generation Records. I’ve had the chance the listen to it for the past four weeks and while listening to it I’ve felt fourteen years younger. Mal ‘n Ange has been my jam lately and it’s breathing life back into my pop addiction. It makes me want to make nostalgic trip to my record shelf and start blasting those all-time favorites by TFC, The Posies, Matthew Sweet, The Sugarrush, DM3, Popsicle.. and I probably will do that and I will be smiling all the time. So thanks Ryan for such a great pop record that turned out to be my very own Cocoon. This is Mal ‘n Ange. You can hear the rest and/or buy a copy on his Bandcamp page.