Long time readers of this august blog will have noticed that your humble scribe has an affinity for power pop music, said obsession often accompanied by a bizarre slide into an affected writing style. *Ahem*. Anyhow, yes, I do like power pop, but figuring out what's new and what's good in a world jam packed with "stuff" is definitely a chore.
Until a year or so ago I got much of my new release info from Not Lame, a retail site/record label that offered an incredible array of interesting stuff. Not Lame finally fell prey to downloading and the other ills of the music business and no longer exists, but owner Bruce Brodeen is still sounding the power pop charge with a series of books collecting the many thousands of reviews he wrote over the years. Book 7 (!) in the series (the first to be released) is out and may still be available from
http://www.goodmusicguy.com/power-pop-prime-is-ready
I've already rediscovered several artists reading the compilation of reviews and look forward to the entire multi-volume series! Bruce is also still involved in the annual much-anticipated "International Pop Overthrow" series, massive and cheap 3 CD compilations of great NEW pop songs from a wild and diverse group of artists. Vol. 14 of the series is just out. 67 songs (!) available from
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/International-Pop-Overthrow-CD---Volume-14-shipping-this-coming-week--.html?soid=999817019776&aid=JQEPDHNzdCw
But others continue to scour the globe for the best power pop, and I've been getting a lot of recent "fun" from Ray over at Kool-Kat (http://www.koolkatmusik.com/). Ray explains the new releases in a weekly e-mail and also often tosses in cool extras from the bands, like demos, unreleased tracks, live shows, etc. He's also a fast shipper and very friendly, so worth checking out!
It's great that folks are out there combing the country-side so lazy no-goods like yours truly can sit back and savor the fruits of their efforts. Or something like that...
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