Power Pop, as a term, never had a chance to be co-opted. It began life as a music-business euphemism for punk rock, invented solely to take the curse of uncommercialism off that beleaguered category. Only later did an identifiable style of music develop behind the term — a style intended, at least at first, to do for punk as music what the Establishment's euphemism had been meant to do as propaganda. But punk has always demanded extremes, while power pop—i.e., music that unavoidably derives from the energy and inventiveness of punk and New Wave rock & roll without necessarily sharing their preconceptions or ideology — omits them entirely. Though it sure beats listening to the Electric Light Orchestra, the Outlaws or Elton John, power pop is a definite step backward—an artistic retreat—from the daring of punk.

Yet there are solid reasons for the rise of power pop, and not all of them have to do with corporate wishful thinking. With the single exception of the Ramones, the abrasive and intensely urban character of hard-core punk doesn't offer much of the casual pleasure, lyrical grace or innocuous sensuality that are the staples of radio rock. Also, a large part of the mass audience was caught in a void, becoming bored with the vapidities of AOR but alienated from disco and unwilling to go the distance with punk. The success of bands like the Cars and the Knack suggested an urgent need for anything that could pass as good old rock & roll.

In the Sixties, music like this—as represented by such great radio bands as Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Dave Clark Five and various bubblegum groups — was the mainstream. Though they were often good (the Young Rascals, the Grassroots) and sometimes better than that (Mitch Ryder), probably almost no one who took rock seriously back then thought much about these artists. Yet for a sizable majority of the audience, they were even more vital than the established heavies. What power pop does is to artificially re-create that Top Forty innocence, but from a standpoint of cynicism and superb craftsmanship.

Of course, for some, there's more to it than that. Paul Collins of Los Angeles' the Beat is clearly motivated by a genuine love of Sixties rock & roll — the kind of love that won't admit to either nostalgia or revisionism. His band's debut album is a solid collection of tough, tight rock miniatures that boast terse, functional melodies and Collins' to-the-point rhythm guitar. The Beat is well honed, uncommonly direct and unpretentious. Collins strikes me as a hardheaded, sensible type who's impatient with frills. (A sure sign: he writes about work in addition to love.) Even his romanticism is pragmatic and understated. Singing about a "Different Kind of Girl," he's content simply to establish this as a good thing, cite a few examples of what it's like and then move on. I happen to like The Beat a lot, but the same qualities that make me like it—its earnestness and lack of posturing—make it seem old-fashioned, too. The Beat doesn't have the corrupt zing of, say, the Knack, whose originality lies mostly in their brazenness.

At the end of the spectrum are the very brazen Yachts, who certainly know the value of posturing. These Englishmen cheerfully assure us—in a tune nicely named "Love You, Love You" — that they're "Cynical, cynical, cynical, cynical/Through and through." Unlike most power-pop groups, however, the Yachts build their sound around keyboards instead of guitars: the demented organ work of chief writer Henry Priestman, whose "96 Tears"-like trashiness and amusing pseudoclassical borrowings are reminiscent of both Jimmy Destri (Blondie's secret weapon) and the Attractions' Bruce Thomas. Yachts' music has real flash and force, and the lyrics often display an elegant, foppish wit ("Apply posthaste Box 202" or "Suffice to say you love me/Can't say that I blame you"). The Yachts suggest how, in today's currency, brash cynicism can be a source of vitality and fun. Unfortunately, to them, it's never anything more than that.

If the Yachts are virtually a parody of Britain's Mod revival, the Members, also from England, take it all much more seriously. Not only does their record's title, At the Chelsea Nightclub, evoke the smoky heyday of the Marquee Club, but their best songs borrow directly from American surf instrumentals ("Electricity"), the early Who ("Chelsea Nightclub" puts the "My Generation" riff to workmanlike, if obvious, use) and lesser Sixties British pop ("SoHo A-Go-Go," which has a wonderful, churning chorus that also, economically, serves as the hook). The Members' music is given a modern touch by the vague white-reggae tint that's as common a trademark of English power pop as is the distinctive ticktock guitar riff — once the signature of the Beserkley bands, then later mechanized by the Cars—of the genre's American contingent. But while the Yachts come on like flaky Tories, the Members' rigid purism is a far more literal-minded example of power pop's innate conservatism.

It's striking how few of these bands have strong, identifiable frontmen—power pop would seem to be a group aesthetic, and a rather faceless one at that. The most visible bandleader, in fact, is a woman, Martha Davis of L.A.'s the Motels, who's also one of the few women in power pop at any level. (Even more than in the Sixties, this is real boys-band turf.) Davis has a forceful, quirky and evocative voice, marred slightly by its showbiz traits. In her lyrics, she tends to strike poses. Musically, Motels is glossy and solid, though the group can't quite escape the sort of session-player stodginess that makes Davis' invocations to excess ring rather false.

Stephen Cummings of the Sports tries to establish a dominant persona, too. But his nasal, drawling yet fast-paced vocals, while effective, also accentuate this Australian group's already obvious similarities to Joe Jackson, whose style hardly bears imitation. Though the Sports have some excellent tunes ("Tired of Me," "Suspicious Minds" and especially "Who Listens to the Radio"), these guys are short on ideas. Like so much current power pop, Don't Throw Stones seems strictly designed for the radio.

More than any other American band, the Shoes, from Illinois, embody the Sixties-revisionist side of power pop at its most lushly romantic. They play off sweet, breezy lead vocals and high harmonies against lunging, tightly controlled, Byrds-like guitar riffs. Their one problem is that while Jeff Murphy's perpetually breathless singing captures a certain kind of adolescent bittersweetness practically to perfection, he's not a strong enough singer to live up to the vocal and instrumental tensions that the group is working toward. Present Tense is almost too pretty and fragile, with some of the same wimp-music undertones that limited and dated so many of the Sixties radio bands. With the Shoes, I find myself wishing for more tough-mindedness.

The Pop are in just about the opposite situation. Despite its upbeat name, this San Francisco group's most interesting aspect is an aura of grimness and doomy fatalism that runs through nearly every song on Go! The top-heavy rhythm section is pushed way out front, with a spiraling, stuttering lead guitar piercing the wall of sound only intermittently. Banks of Eno-esque synthesizers punctuate the beat, and the vocals are harsh, even desperate: when the Pop sing "Waiting for the Night," it sounds more like a cause for dread than for joy. At their best, the Pop take the Cars' commercial synthesis of art-rock techniques and pop themes into more adventurous, less commercial territory.

In many ways, Go! spells out what should be obvious — that power pop today is often no more than a convenient blanket term for several different kinds of music that may be evolving toward a common goal but are traveling by very different routes. Of course, some groups can be defined as power pop only by virtue of their commercial ambitions. The Sinceros, once Lene Lovich's backup band, still sound like a backup band on their first album, The Sound of Sunbathing. They're barely able to sustain the illusion that they've written original material. L.A.'s 20/20 come off as blatant poseurs (with cover art neatly lifted from the Jam's second record) on 20/20, manipulating studio gimmickry, pseudopunk themes and baldly used pop influences to underwhelming effect.

Overall, however, the energy, craft and freshness that most of these groups display is heartening. Even their similarities have a good deal more variety and life than, for example, the California country-rock monolith. The middle-ground audience needs a new middle ground. For the present anyway—or at least as long as the supply of one-syllable English nouns holds out—they may have found one. (RS 306)

TOM CARSON