Category: Power Pop Live Albums

Power Pop Live Albums

Power Pop is a name for music that comes in and out of fashion.

It fits within the gap created between The Beatles and The Who as a singles band.

The sound is melodic and features vocal harmonies but the guitars are amplified. Similar to AOR in some ways but without the pretensions.

Pete Townshend is credited with inventing the phrase when he said in 1967 “Power pop is what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop The Beach Boys played in the days of ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ which I preferred.”

The early bands described as power pop included Badfinger, Big Star and the Rasberries in the early 1970s.

The power pop phrase disappeared for a few years and came back in the late 1970s with the Rich Kids (a great formed by Glen Matlock after he left The Sex Pistols and also featured Midge Ure before Ultravox.) Music by Nick Lowe and the first studio album by Elvis Costello, My Aim is True fit uncomfortably under the new wave and punk banner.

The phrase reappeared again in the early 1990s when Teenage Fanclub had modest success sounding like a more amplified version of Big Star.

To help you to find the best live power pop albums I have created a readers poll.

Best Power Pop Albums

Sadly few of these bands achieved lasting success so there aren’t many live albums to choose from.

Power pop live albums include:

10cc In Concert 1975 (King Biscuit Flower Hour)
Big Star – Big Star Live 1974
Big Star – Columbia Live at Missouri University 1993
Blondie Live in Philadelphia 1978 & Dallas 1980
Cheap Trick At Budokan 1978
Dodgy So Far On Three Wheels Dodgy On The Radio 1996
The Kinks One For The Road 1980
The Knack Live From The Rock ‘n’ Roll Fun House
Raspberries – Live On Sunset Strip 2005
Squeeze A Round And A Bout 1990
Wings – Wings Over America 1976
XTC Live In Concert 1980