Recommended Pop music (#1 - #10)
Pop
- 50's Pop
- 60's Pop
- 70's Pop
- 80's Pop
- 90's Pop
- Ambient Pop
- Asian Pop
- Baroque Pop
- Beatles-pop
- Brill Building Pop
- British Pop
- Britpop
- Bubblegum Pop
- California Pop
- Chamber Pop
- Dark Wave
- Delicate
- Doo Wop
- Dream Pop
- Euro-Pop
- Folky Pop
- French Pop
- Garage Pop
- Hong Kong Pop
- Italian Pop
- Jangle Pop
- Japanese Pop
- Merseybeat
- New Romantic
- New Wave
- Noise Pop
- Party Pop
- Piano
- Pop
- Pop Underground
- Pop/Rock
- Power Pop
- Psychedelic Pop
- Quirky
- Sunshine Pop
- Swamp Pop
- Swedish Pop/Rock
- Synth Pop
- Teen Idol
- Today's Top 40
- Twee Pop
- with Electronic Production
- with Live-band Production
AARON BOOTH: Back Stories
These 10 breezy tunes, chiming with jangly guitars, awash in reverb and waves of Beach Boys harmonies, form the perfect life soundtrack for sun-drenched souls who are dreading the end of summer. Beautiful currents of melancholy and nostalgia gently mix on this stellar slacker-pop album from Canadian singer/songwriter Aaron Booth. There is a relaxed, subtle energy to his smoky acoustic guitar songs. And Aaron’s lilting voice effortlessly delivers lines that are filled with poetic simplicity, both dreamy and conversational. The melodies float atop a miniature bed of tasteful lo-fi ornamentation. But I could just as easily imagine these tunes being sung at a beach bonfire beneath the stars, just a voice and guitar, and they would lose none of their power. “Back Stories” will surely please any fan of Nada Surf or Badly Drawn Boy. It has echoes of John Lennon’s sentimental side, too. Gentle and light, but not without a bit of bite.
CD price: $12.99 / MP3 price: $9.99
A. BALLAD NIGHTLY: All In Good Time
Simultaneously blending echoes of Iron and Wine, Ryan Adams, Wilco and Jeff Buckley, this album somehow engages both the daring spirit and tender vulnerability. Wrapping up gentle folk in lush pop harmonies, cradling thoughtful songwriting with sometimes-hushed, sometimes-assertive vocals that are threaded through these songs like a golden thread, the songs on All in Good Time capture a unique pocket of inspired and sincere writing, serving as a culmination of “sensitive male folk pop” but with volumes of courage and determination. Somewhere between the rush of falling in love and the beautiful bitterness of having your heart broken, you’ll find emotions so delicious that you can’t quite let them go; such is the magic of A. Ballad Nightly.
CD price: $15.00 / MP3 price: $15.00
THE MERCIES: The Mercies
With a jaunty nod to British and American influences, The Mercies have made a record that would be right at home in the Elephant Six Collective. Cheeky keyboards dart through uncluttered kick and snare while overdriven guitars bounce along with melodies, offering a tight and tidy package of guitar pop. Just when you’re really settling in to the album, you’re pummeled with stacked, clean, multi-part harmonies, and occasional affected drums that further drive the slightly dreamy sound directly out of this atmosphere and into orbit. The record even sports a mellower acoustic track. Perhaps the most impressive part of the overall product is that The Mercies have managed to build a cohesive album that hints at the best parts of the last wave of industry changing bands (The Killers, Inerpol), but aren’t afraid to make a pure pop song that as jubilant as it is catchy.
MP3 price: $9.99
GRAND HALLWAY: Yes Is The Answer
With lilting melodies that are quietly spellbinding, Grand Hallway puts forth this record of lovely, roomy, and melancholic piano pop. Just when you think you’ve settled into the gaunt beauty of drums and piano, a profusion of strings, pedal steel, and vibraphone slide, and then burst out of the seams of this recording, leaving their colorful trails over the tape until they disappear from earshot again. The perfectly delicate and restrained, but dreamy nature of Tomo Nakayama’s lead vocals puts a sobering face of reality on these songs; while many of the instruments are often enough running riot behind the melodies, Nakayama’s fine-drawn vocal themes are padding through the reigned-in ruckus. Beyond the actual instrumentation, these are songs that never become predictable as time signature and tempo changes take you from gauzy, ride-heavy 4/4 verses to frenetically waltzing bridges and choruses. It’s a nostalgia-inducing tearjerker of a record that makes you feel a little better for having heard it… and felt it.
CD price: $10.99 / MP3 price: $10.99
THE PERISHERS: Let There Be Morning
Championing the subtle, celebrating the understated, undercurrent, underplayed and looking more towards the shadows than the light, the Perishers' songs whisper to the heart like some remnant of a half-forgotten dream, partially faded but tugging at your shirt tails. In the ballpark of Coldplay and Keane, embracing the dream pop and emo rock worlds, their subdued, charming songs vividly paint a black and white imagination. Where other bands exert energy being catchy and grabbing, these guys exert energy being emotional, reflective and fully exploring the internal life of every song, giving their album, "Let There Be Morning," a magical, entrancing quality. It's like that quantity versus quality comparison; here, you're going to find the latter.
CD price: $15.00
JASMINE ASH: Shine
Jasmine Ash. Rarely has there been a name so suited to an artist's sound. Jasmine: the warm, intoxicating scent that invites images of mellow and reflective days drifting through a perfectly manicured garden park. Ash: the light and feathery, sublimely delicate bits that spark up and float down from a mid-summer backyard campfire. With this third full-length release, we find the aptly named songbird writing with a level of authenticity that rivals female writers of the 60s, but this is clearly a folk pop record for the modern age. The record opens with a long time personal favorite, "Fall," as remixed by Hidden Fortress (the British audio-visual duo that seems to be getting their hands on everyone from Imogen Heap to your favorite new local), and continues through nine tracks of vocals that gingerly lead stacked harmonies, crystal clear guitars, laid back electric piano, digital beats, and live drums. Ash's melodies are so quickly memorable that they well may be the ones to finally dislodge Regina Spektor's bouncing melodic vowels from that loop that's been trolling around our heads for about a year now. Ash is like Spektor in another way; sure she's got CDs on CD Baby now, but there's a feeling that she'll be showing up in the more conspicuous pop culture outlets sooner rather than later.
CD price: $12.97
IMAGINARY AIRSHIP: Where Dreams Take Flight
When an album opens with an acoustic guitar that’s as delicately toned and recorded as the one that starts this album, it’s impossible not to immediately fall in love with it. When the next things you hear are a slow rise of keyboard in the distant background, a tiny arpeggiated synth line, and vocals swelling and welling up in their sad statements, it’s impossible not to think there’s something special waiting for you. While a lot of this album takes influence from more mellow and swirly moments of both Pink Floyd and the Flaming Lips, there’s an overall lamenting sleepiness to this record that allows you to be drawn from acoustic guitar + keyboard songs to the more rare, full-on jaunty rock. The whole package benefits from the psychedelic production and song structures employed from bow to stern of this Imaginary Airship, and come to think of it, there couldn’t be a more perfect name for this band.
CD price: $10.00 / MP3 price: $10.00
MIAM MONSTER MIAM: L'homme Libellule
Casually moving from keyboard doom pop to rollicking space dance to the more finessed and grown up sound of trip hop, Miam Monster Miam’s brand of bizarro Belgian pop en Français is at once compelling, trippy, and fun. This reviewer’s French is limited to the phrase “Je ne parle pas Français,” but the sweet melodies coupled with the suave, deep delivery (smacking of Serge Gainsbourg) transcend whatever barriers might exist between the language in which the record was recorded and those non-speakers who want to listen; you simply don’t need to know what these songs are about to dance to them or enjoy their beauty. There’s something of the French duo Air’s work represented here, but where Air leans toward Burt Bacharach at times, Miam Monster Miam’s music looks more to the space age and the psychedelic with a smirking nod to the Belgian disco pop trio, Telex. Heavy on the keyboard patches (but not in a cheesy fake strings sort of way), almost every piece is a synthpop dance gem, and the ones that aren’t are just pretty.
CD price: $12.97 / MP3 price: $12.97
LES CHAUDS LAPINS: Parlez-moi d'amour
A thoroughly delightful jaunt into jazz era French songs, “Parlez-moi d’amour” (“Speak to Me of Love”) is a record for lying in a shaded hammock with cold glass of chablis on the lawn next to you. Picture some folks slowly treading the boards of their living room, couples tied up in each other’s arms as they step lightly from side to side while the sweet summer air settles on the other side of the screen door. Featuring banjo, ukuleles, a string section, and a couple of confident singers, the record uses music first made famous by the likes of Edith Piaf, Josephine Baker, and Charles Trenet. While the music is, of course, laden with plenty of French lyrics, there’s something immediately appealing about their coquettish delivery. It’s the sort of “saying it without saying it” eye-batting-from-across-the-room that gives Les Chauds Lapins their musical verve; even if you can’t understand the lyrics, you know what they’re singing about. There’s no better language for getting that kind of romantic message out.
CD price: $13.95
THE GRAND MAL CONSORTIUM: ...and the night will walk a dead one once again
Sweden's Grand Mal Consortium are an exemplary folk pop band, taking advantage of modern technology while still writing songs that are about the SONG. Their bouncy rhythms are deceptive when put up against some of the more somber lyrics, but overall, the album has a fantastically sparkly quality to it, and is simply stacked with ear-popping melodies and their complimentary harmonies. While a guitar plays an arpeggio, an organ cascades through the scene, right along the cheeky lyrics and the pumping rhythms. With acts like Peter Bjorn and John emerging from Scandinavia, it might be tempting to stack these folks on the pile, but their craft is just as honed as the afore mentioned hitmakers, and their music is more lush... more filled out. It borders on chamber pop, but it's got that Swedish sweetness to it that makes it even more agreeable.
CD price: $10.00 / MP3 price: $10.00