So-called "power pop" is a curious genre, for several reasons. Start with that name (I prefer "guitar pop"): that "power" sounds awfully defensive, doesn't it? Understandably, I suppose, since "pop" by itself might mean anything from Frank Sinatra (wonderful, but not exactly helpful) to The 1910 Fruitgum Company (embarrassingly apt) to Barry Manilow (now I understand the defensiveness) to Britney Spears (which reminds me of the sad story of a poor woman's silicone implants going "pop" after some years). Originating in the 1970s, when bein' rockin' was paramount, that name served to distinguish a raft of bands influenced first by the Beatles and then by outfits like Badfinger, the Raspberries, and (later) Big Star, who put heaping doses of melody into their rock, and rock into their melodic pop. Okay, fine - why does the genre attract (and sometimes deserve) as much derision as it sometimes gets? Dismiss out of hand the lunkheaded metal addicts who can't imagine anything less subtle than a sledgehammer to the forehead as being any fun at all - but still, there are those fans and practitioners of the genre who are as rigid as the Taliban in restricting the genre to its handful of accepted chords, high-school romance themes, and three-minute song lengths. These dictatorial types are constantly patrolling the ranges of the genre and exiling those who dare to differ - which is deeply ironic, since the founding artists noted above hardly conformed to these rules. (What the hell does "Beatle-esque" mean, anyway? "Day Tripper," "Yesterday," or "Revolution #9"?) The Raspberries' "Go All the Way" might be a good example: yes, it's mostly an adolescent romance that comes factory-equipped with nostalgia (who - even in 1974 - still referred to sex as "going all the way"?), and it's got the primary musical blueprint of the style (meld Who-style power riffing with Beatles melodies and Beach Boys harmonies) - but it also has more chord changes than nearly any Top 40 hit of the last thirty years. All of this results in the curious fact that the best music of the genre is often barely in the genre: power pop is used merely as a launching pad, while arrangements, lyrics, and rhythm might be explored as thoroughly as in the most wayward moments of prog rock, so long as melody is a constantly held value and pretentiousness is kept more or less in check. (Note that all those chord changes in "Go All the Way" sound natural and expected - you're unlikely to notice there are so many until you try to figure out the song on your guitar.) Which brings us to the two CDs under consideration (finally): The Waxwings' Low to the Ground and Starlight Mints' The Dream that Stuff Was Made Of. The Waxwings' release is blatantly nostalgic, from the cover design (the little "STEREO" logo top center on the front cover) on inward. Almost nothing on the CD would make a Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in the Ford Administration suspect music had changed much since 1976, with its sprightly melodies, perky beats, clean harmonies, and sunny touches of keyboards. The closing track "It Comes in Waves" sounds like an homage to more recent masters of the genre the Posies - it's an eight-minute epic full of swirling aquatic imagery à la "Flood of Sunshine" (although it lacks Jon Auer and his stunning guitar solo). All of this might explain why, even as a fan of the genre, I'd listen to the CD, like it okay, and fail really to remember much of it afterwards. It's certainly not bad - in fact, it's quite well done - and well-done if somewhat unambitious power pop is still a whole lot better to these ears than the cynical purveyors of stupidity clotting up the airwaves and selling tattoos all over MTV. And there are some quite worthy moments, like the snarling guitar that bursts out of the blocks halfway through the opener "Keeping the Sparks," a fine contrast to the gentle acoustic plucking that follows shortly afterwards. But when I try to account for the fact that this album doesn't impress as much as I might have thought it would, the band's self-imposed limitations seem likely suspects. Starlight Mints, on the other hand, recognize that power pop perhaps works best as an influence rather than a genre; that if it has rules, they're to be followed loosely if at all. The Mints use strings (a violin and cello), but their lines are astringent, the playing harsher, and the recording often a bit dark and metallic. Guitars often crackle with grit and distortion, and the parts are sometimes spiky and asymmetrical. All of this serves to cut the sometimes cloying sweetness that is the style's main downfall. The opener "Submarine #3" provides a good example, its strings adding a baroque-glam touch in the campy severity of their rigid eighth notes, cracking like a dominatrix's whip. "Blinded by You" borrows both its underwater piano sound and rhythm from Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes," while the crossed-wires guitar that figures heavily throughout reminds one of what XTC's recent return to "rock" (Wasp Star) should have sounded like. And moments like the propulsive "Sugar Blaster" and "The Twilight Showdown" mix in enough razor-tongued aggression to make certain nothing gets sweeter than it should be. The Waxwings will certainly appeal to fans of guitar pop - but Starlight Mints is more likely to impress those not already fans and does a better job of elasticizing the genre's bounds enough to make one not particularly care which style's fans might claim it as their own.

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