Go Further

More Literary Appreciations of Power Pop

Paul Myers, Paul Myers, S. W. Lauden, Paul Myers, Paul Myers, S. W. Lauden

• Publisher: Rare Bird Books
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781644282076
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Theory & Appreciation

Fun, bright, and playful, Power Pop is a sometimes adored, sometimes maligned, often misunderstood genre of music. From its heyday in the 70s and 80s to its resurgence in the 90s and 00s, Power Pop has meant many things to many people. In Go Further, editors Paul Myers and S. W. Lauden have a whole new crop of writers going deep on what certain Power Pop bands and songs mean and have meant to them. Whether they love or hate it, Go All The Way is a dive into the Beatles-inspired pop rock of the last five decades.Featuring:
Ira Robbins on Priming The Power Pop Pump
Alex Segura on the Ramones & the Archies
Mary E. Donnelly on Shoes
Pat DiPuccio on Greg Shaw & Bomp Records
John Borack on the Shivvers
Dave Hill on Glitter And Glue
Will Birch on the Records
S.W. Lauden on 20/20
Jordan Oakes on Power Pop's first fanzine, Yellow Pills
Brian Vander Ark on Andy Partridge/XTC
Anne K. Ream & R. Clifton Spargo on Teenage Fanclub
Chip Jacobs on Squeeze
Bill DeMain's Greetings From Pop Music City, USA
Thierry Côté on Pag
Doug Brod on Into The Arena
Jim Lindberg on the Replacements
Balin Schneider on The Material Issue story
Mike Randle on Baby Lemonade & Love
Butch Walker on Marvelous 3
Andrea Warner on Puffy AmiYumi
Paul Myers on Los Anglophiles
Rex Broome's Ode on a Rickenbacker

Pag: The Bilingual Power Pop Pioneer Who Became Québec’s First Rock Star

By Thierry Côté

Ask music fans for a definition of “power pop” or a list of who classifies as a power pop act and who does not and you are likely to get dozens of different, ambiguous, and often contradictory answers. Sure, there are some elements that are found in many quintessential examples of power pop songs: ringing power chords, Beatles- or Beach Boys–influenced harmonies, an almost maniacal reverence for the hook, and lyrics about romantic—often adolescent—yearning. However, once you get past those sonic or lyrical touchstones, debates about who and what fits the tag are commonplace, something that is rendered easier by the fact that even some of the most prominent names associated with power pop (Cheap Trick, Todd Rundgren, Flamin’ Groovies) have spent much of their careers dipping in and out of the genre. The year 1972 is often acknowledged as the birth of American power pop, marked as it was by the releases of both Big Star’s #1 Record and Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything? as well as by Raspberries reaching the top five of the pop charts with the epochal “Go All the Way.” Anyone paying attention to the sounds coming from north of the border, though, may have noticed that a young, long-haired French Canadian with dark, piercing eyes was not only already mining similar territory, but also finding significant commercial success with that music, setting the stage for Canada to be a fertile ground for power pop for decades to come.

Born in the Ahuntsic neighborhood of Montréal in November of 1948, Michel Pagliaro—“Pag” to his fans—became obsessed with his father’s Cuban big-band records and doo-wop music at a young age and already owned his first guitar by the time he turned eleven. Soon, Pagliaro was part of the first wave of Québec rock & roll bands, making his Montréal club debut as a fifteen-year-old and playing in several groups (Les Stringmen, Les Bluebirds, Les Merseys) before joining Les Chanceliers in the summer of 1966. Initially recruited as a guitarist, Pagliaro quickly established himself as the charismatic lead vocalist and frontman of Les Chanceliers. Like most of the new groups bursting onto Québec’s music scene in the mid-1960s, Les Chanceliers took their cues from both the yé-yé movement in France and the British Invasion, releasing covers and adaptations of recent French and Anglophone chart hits: the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” became “Tu peux t’en aller,” James & Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet” became Pagliaro and the group’s first hit, “Le p’tit popy,” the Rascals’ “How Can I Be Sure” turned into the moody “À Paris la nuit,” and so on. While the A-sides were usually polished, polite covers, the flips of these early 45s often featured Pagliaro originals that hinted at a burgeoning songwriting talent—“La génération d’aujourd’hui” in particular, with its crashing drums and a searing guitar solo, is an excellent garage-rock youth anthem worthy of a spot on any Nuggets or Pebbles compilation.

In 1968, Pagliaro left Les Chanceliers to embark on a solo career that was immediately successful thanks to a pair of songs originally recorded by French pop superstar Claude François: “Comme d’habitude” (later adapted in English by Paul Anka as “My Way”), which reached number two and spent sixteen weeks in the Québec charts in 1968, and “Avec la tête, avec le cœur,” a 1969 chart-topper. He also hit number one with the original composition “Pour toi pour toi,” which earned him a BMI Certificate of Honor for his contributions to Canadian music, but not much in terms of rock credibility. Again, as successful as Pagliaro was at this time, he seemed more destined to become Québec’s answer to Glen Campbell or Engelbert Humperdinck (whose “Wichita Lineman” and “Call on Me” he also adapted in French) than Québec’s first true rock star.

This all changed with a trip to London in 1969, where Pagliaro spent time recording and reworking his image. He returned to Québec in the fall with longer locks, a look influenced by mod fashion, and a batch of new, harder-edged songs that better fit his new Jim Morrison–like appearance. The first of these to be released as a single in 1970, the blistering “J’ai marché pour une nation,” revealed a new Pagliaro, one who wrote his own material with his musicians instead of adapting existing hits, a rock singer with a huge, heavy sound closer to Cream and Deep Purple. His evolution continued with “Give Us One More Chance,” his first English-language single with national distribution for the Much record label. An elegant ballad with hints of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “Give Us One More Chance” also boasts one of Pag’s most soulful vocals. While writing in English certainly opened up new markets, Pagliaro did not view it as a career move but rather an attempt to “try new things.”1 “Give Us One More Chance” also showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that a francophone singer from Montréal could produce credible, world-class rock music in English. As Pagliaro’s introduction to the anglophone audience, it was a resounding success: the song made Canada’s top ten in 1970 and earned him another BMI Certificate of Honor. But Pagliaro was just starting to hit his groove.

Next up for Pagliaro was the first of three quintessentially power pop singles he released over the span of a year that could all conceivably be described as the best Badfinger song Badfinger never recorded. “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy,” released in 1971, is simply two minutes and forty-three seconds of pure power pop ear candy, a song blessed with crisp production, arena-sized power chords, shimmering acoustic guitars, an instantly unforgettable melody, angelic harmonies, and more hooks over its brief running time than most full-lengths. Recorded at Apple Studio in London (whether in part or in its entirety remains unclear), “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy” displays both a sophisticated arrangement and an effortless musicality that could have made it a worthy candidate for inclusion on an early Paul McCartney solo album had it been penned by the ex-Beatle (down to the melodic bassline and the subtle “woo-hoo” in the outro), but with the extra oomph that made songs like Raspberries’ “Go All the Way” or “Let’s Pretend” burst out of speakers. It was a huge hit across Canada, selling more than 50,000 copies and reaching the top ten in English Canada while hitting number two in Québec, where it spent an astonishing thirty-seven weeks in the singles charts. In the United States, it drew the attention of Cash Box, who noted its “McCartney-ish touches” in its December 25, 1971, issue as well as its “potential to spread across the border,”2 but the single ultimately tanked there.

Not that Pagliaro cared: “M’Lady,” released a few weeks after “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy,” was already well on its way to the top of the Québec charts, where it would stay for four weeks. Just as catchy as “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy,” “M’Lady” is a more muscular brand of power pop, sounding not unlike Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child” as performed by George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass orchestra on amphetamines. That its chiming electric and acoustic guitars (including a particularly Harrison-like slide part) and lively wall-of-sound production would recall the late Beatle’s magnum opus is perhaps no coincidence, as word circulated in late 1970 that Pagliaro had met Harrison during a visit in London earlier that year and that the two had already begun working together.3 Though the rumor remains unconfirmed, it is not inconceivable that Pagliaro, already recording at Apple Studio, could have dropped in on a Harrison or Badfinger recording session. In any event, “M’Lady” continued Pagliaro’s winning chart streak and confirms that while not usually included as one of the originators of power pop alongside Badfinger, Raspberries, or Big Star, he was certainly dipping his toes in the same waters.

Finally, “Some Sing, Some Dance” confirmed that “Lovin’ You Ain’t Easy” and “M’Lady” were no flukes and that Pagliaro had a real knack for meticulously crafted, hypermelodic three-minute perfect pop gems. On the unabashedly romantic “Some Sing, Some Dance,” electric guitars mostly take a backseat to brightly strummed acoustics i...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Glitter and Glue
• Priming the Power Pop Pump
• The Cultivation of the Cult-Pop Fan
• Pop & Power: Archie Meets Ramones
• The Records
• No Substitute: The Story of the Shivvers
• Teenage News (An Ode to Greg Shaw)
• Yellow Pills (And Other Gateway Drugs)
• Perfect Vision: The Story Behind Power Pop’s First Fanzine, Yellow Pills
• Los Anglophiles: Jangly Pop Echoes in Distant Canyons
• Into the Arena
• Pop Snaps
• Pag: The Bilingual Power Pop Pioneer Who Became Québec’s First Rock Star
• My Fantastic Place
• Blow You Away
• Hold My Life
• Greetings from Pop Music City, USA
• Out of Time: The Material Issue Story
• Once the Teenagers Leave the Fanclub
• 68% Pure Imagination: My Time in Baby Lemonade and Love
• Marvelous
• Love So Pure: Puffy AmiYumi Was Always Too Good for This World
• Ode on a Rickenbacker