This month’s theme music has been brought to you by Power Pop©. I’ve recently made a playlist of my top 300 anthems of melodic hooks, harmonious vocals, energetic performances, and cheerful sounding diatonic tones underpinned by that ever present teenage sense of yearning, longing, despair, and self-empowerment. You know, real BOMP shit!

It was the first music to grab me as a kid, the music that still continually stays with me as an adult. I also believe that Power Pop comes in a wide range of flavors from differing eras, but still incorporates the same celebratory sound. KISS is power pop! Cheap Trick is God! Big Star is Life! Shoes were one of the most underrated bands of the punk era! Paisley Underground wasn’t as much of a psychedelic movement as it was a Power Pop revival! Replacements and Soul Asylum and Husker Du were Power Pop! Jon Brion is a genius! Jellyfish, although they sounded like freakin’ Supertramp, spawned some amazing Power Pop offshoots! I hated “Stacy’s Mom“! Stay tuned to this space for more of my controversial self-referential hyperbole and heresy on this thing called music!

In the meantime, enjoy this playlist!