Music » Power Pop Music

Electrifying performers and pure-pop songwriters of the highest order, Toronto's Barenaked Ladies have emerged over a decade as that strangest of beasts. They'll never land a dishy cover story in Mojo Magazine, but as they reflect on those ribald years between 1991 and 2001, the five can allow themselves wry smiles, knowing that sometimes, just sometimes, the cream rises to the top. In addition to familiar radio staples such as "Pinch Me," "The Old Apartment," "Jane," "Alternative Girlfriend," and the ubiquitous "One Week," there's a trump card on All Their Greatest Hits that will prove irresistible to completists: the Ladies' buttery, acoustic version of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a Dangerous Time." Recorded eons ago for a Cockburn tribute disc that almost immediately went out of print, the song has until now been a rare and highly coveted collector's item. Two news songs--"Thanks That Was Fun" and "It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)"--were recorded specifically for this collection, while two others ("Brian Wilson" and "What a Good Boy") are captured live. But what really brings this album home is, ironically, "If I Had $1,000,000." One of their very first hits cut as the Ladies were learning to dovetail their so-called "acoustic hip-hop" into slicker pop sensibilities, "$1,000,000"--a simple knock-kneed love song with harmonies so tight they're practically braided--is a snapshot of a band with all the pieces in place just as the planets were about to align. --Kim Hughes

Release Date: 1992-06-29, Audio CD, Virgin Records Us

The debut of this Vancouver indie supergroup led by Zumpano's Carl Newman sent critics scrambling to the early '80s and mid '60s for power-pop forebears, and it sent everyone else bouncing down the street and shouting out car windows. In a happily urgent record full of tight harmonies and cryptic storytelling, the high point undeniably remains the great single "Letter from an Occupant," which rides Neko Case's country-crooner voice nearly off the rails. --Tom Nissley

Tour edition of their 1997 Creation album coupled with afive track bonus CD featuring 'About You' (Acoustic),'Between Us', 'For You', 'Try And Stop Me' & 'Who Loves TheSun'. All tracks on the bonus CD are non-album cuts. Doubleslimline jewel case. 1995 Gef

Release Date: 1993-02-09, Audio CD, Virgin Records Us

Release Date: 2002-05-14, Audio CD, Sony

After a four-year hiatus notable for some film and television soundtrack work, a lapsed contract, and a relaxed songwriting schedule Fountains of Wayne return with their third and best CD to date. The New York-based power-pop quartet delivers a diverse feast of infectious melodies and endlessly clever lyrics. Songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood still slide on a sweet scale between the Beatles and the Monkees, but they've branched out from '60s sounds to include bona fide alt rock ("Little Red Light," "Bought for a Song"), orchestrated pop ("Halley's Waitress"), a country lark worthy of Dwight Yoakam ("Hung Up On You"), and hints of psychedelia ("Supercollider"). The Cars-flavored "Bright Future in Sales" and "Stacy's Mom" warrant heavy-rotation airplay. Following their acclaimed eponymous debut and the vastly underrated Utopia Parkway, Welcome Interstate Managers leaves no doubt that Fountains of Wayne are gaining strength. --Jeff Shannon

"I wear my influences like a f***ing badge," proclaims lead singer-songwriter Courtney Taylor regarding Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia. But while the Dandy Warhols liberally steal Rolling Stones riffs, Iggy Pop vocals, Britpop sonic surfing, and even Burt Bacharach horn sections, they give it back in spades, delivering one of the best rock albums of 2000: a masterpiece of sex, beauty, strife, and wry, raunchy-cool attitude. --Beth MassaThe long hiatus that led to the Dandy Warhols' masterful third album, Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, promoted leaps-and-bounds growth in this already excellent band's music. Layers, layers, and more layers of guitars coexist here with trippy soundscapes, doot-doo-doo choruses, and even an eyebrow-cocked nod to hip-hop ("Yo, bitch," frontman Courtney Taylor mutters, sounding like Lou Reed reading an Ice Cube lyric sheet). By turns galloping, propulsive, hushed, and majestic, this is music that openly steals--from the Stones, Kinks, and Cars, among others--while fusing its sources into a unique whole of its own. Taylor lives up to the wide-screen promise of the disc's title, offering a series of what Game Theory once called "pointed accounts of people you know." The characters here brag about how they "got a beautiful new Asian girlfriend" ("Solid"), live the bicoastal high life in "itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny ridin'-up-your-butt bikini[s]" ("Horse Pills"), seek reassurance that an affair is "just a casual, casual, easy thing" ("Bohemian Like You"), and offer advice in the middle of a breakup argument: "Hey, man, turn that shit off." Seedily glamorous and replete with the best vocal asides since Jarvis Cocker let it bleed all over Pulp's Different Class, Thirteen Tales will convince you that rock is alive--and that you should still care. --Rickey Wright Dandy Warhols Photos More from Dandy Warhols The Dandy Warhols Come Down Odditorium or Warlords of Mars Welcome to the Monkey House Third Album, the follow up to 1998's 'Come Down', which produced two singles: 'Everyday Should Be a Holiday'& 'Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth'. This new album adds further depth to the band's sound. It's the most complete D.W. record to date.

Fountains of Wayne's second album is somewhat of a new thing under the sun: Pet Sounds for '90s Jersey high schoolers. Main-men Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood litter these songs with cultural references (Pink Floyd laser shows, tattoos, Puff Daddy, lavender Lexuses, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me"), but their "Valley of Malls" is saturated with as much bittersweetness as that of Adam Sandler's wedding singer. The pop-savvy Schlesinger--who also puts in time as a member of Ivy and wrote That Thing You Do!'s title song--is wiseacre enough to dub a touching ELO tribute "Prom Theme," but when the album ends with one of the kids falling for "The Senator's Daughter," it feels as openhearted as when Brian Wilson puzzled over why he just wasn't made for these times. --Rickey Wright

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