Volume 11 of the Green Monkey Music Project is completed and available for download!

If the participants of this mix want to discuss their own selections, please feel free to do so! I’ll put a pointer on this post if you end up posting about it on your own blog (or you could always just add comments here, I suppose).

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POWER POP!
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Rules and Theme Details

The Participants Discuss Their Selections:
Domboy!
Allen L.!
Splotchy!
Bubs!
Beth!

The Songs:
Splotchy
Bubs
Domboy
Allen L.
Tenacious S
Lulu
Beth

Track Listing
01 – Surrender – Cheap Trick [splotchy]
02 – Twist Top – The Clean [splotchy]
03 – Substitute – The Who [splotchy]
04 – Boys Don’t Lie – Shoes [splotchy]
05 – Life on the Line – The Raincoats [splotchy]
06 – Go All The Way – The Raspberries [splotchy]
07 – Feelin’ Alright – Len [splotchy]
08 – The Electric Version – The New Pornographers [splotchy]
09 – Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand [bubs]
10 – Dreaming – Blondie [bubs]
11 – Cruel To Be Kind – Nick Lowe [bubs]
12 – Crawling to the USA – Elvis Costello [bubs]
13 – Girls Talk – Dave Edmunds [bubs]
14 – Everybody’s Happy Nowadays – The Buzzcocks [bubs]
15 – Ever Fallen in Love – The Buzzcocks [bubs]
16 – Basket Case – Green Day [bubs]
17 – Ca Plane Pour Moi – Plastic Bertrand [domboy]
18 – The Don – The View [domboy]
19 – Crazy Taxi – Andy Hui [domboy]
20 – Mr Brightside – The Killers [domboy]
21 – Get Over You – The Undertones [domboy]
22 – Baby Talk – Generation X / Billy Idol [domboy]
23 – Go Square Go! – Glasvegas [domboy]
24 – We’re All Going To Die – Malcolm Middleton [domboy]
25 – Everybody’s Girl – Rick Springfield [allenl]
26 – I Wanna Be With You – The Raspberries [allenl]
27 – My Life Still Sucks (in a Bad Way) – The Andersons [allenl]
28 – I Knew The Bride – Dave Edmunds [allenl]
29 – Starry Eyes – The Records [allenl]
30 – I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend – The Rubinoos [allenl]
31 – Where Have You Been All My Life – Fotomaker [allenl]
32 – Your Daddy Don’t Know – Toronto [allenl]
33 – Town Called Malice – The Jam [tenaciouss]
34 – Do Anything You Wanna Do – Eddie and the Hot Rods [tenaciouss]
35 – Better Things – The Kinks [tenaciouss]
36 – Cynical Girl – Marshall Crenshaw [tenaciouss]
37 – Suddenly Cool – The Methadones [tenaciouss]
38 – Terror Bends – My Teenage Stride [tenaciouss]
39 – Rubella – Smoking Popes [tenaciouss]
40 – You Made Me Like It – 1990s [tenaciouss]
41 – Friday on My Mind – Easybeats [lulu]
42 – I’ve Been Waiting – Matthew Sweet [lulu]
43 – There She Goes – The Las [lulu]
44 – Heart – Rockpile [lulu]
45 – Less Than Zero – Elvis Costello [lulu]
46 – Jailbreak – Thin Lizzy [lulu]
47 – Girl of My Dreams – Bram Tchaikovsky [lulu]
48 – Going Down to Liverpool – The Bangles [lulu]
49 – The Box Tops – The Letter [beth]
50 – Big Star – Don’t Lie to Me [beth]
51 – Big Star – September Gurls [beth]
52 – REM – Jesus Christ [beth]
53 – Alex Chilton – Thing for You [beth]
54 – The Replacements – Alex Chilton [beth]
55 – In the Street – Cheap Trick [beth]
56 – What’s Going Ahn – The Posies [beth]

Here’s a discussion of my selections for the Power Pop mix, Volume 11 of the Green Monkey Music Project.

What the heck is power pop? You can read various definitions on the web and still not have a clue. It became clear to me how unclear the concept was when I started looking for my selections.

Surrender – Cheap Trick
From Heaven Tonight, their third album. I have absolutely no doubts about this song’s power poppiness. If you open up a dictionary to the page with the entry on power pop, chances are it will play this song.

Twist Top – The Clean
Another fantastic pop song from The Clean. You really should consider picking up their two-disc Anthology collection, or risk me calling you a loser.

Substitute – The Who
Some really nice early power pop from The Who. I had a strong hankering to include A Quick One, but this one is more straightforward and rockin’.

Boys Don’t Lie – Shoes
The Shoes were a somewhat obscure (to people outside of Chicago, at least) power pop group hailing from Zion, Illinois. Pretty vocals, heavy-but-not-too-heavy guitars, the recipe for a perfect power pop song.

Life on the Line – Raincoats
A band and album that I discovered several years ago, but quickly became one of my favorites. This song has one of my favorite lines in any rock song, a combination of great lyrics and awesome vocal delivery: “Her logic was too tangled, I couldn’t untangle it”. I don’t know… I might be stretching the concept of power pop with this one. This song I was the most unsure of. Still, it has great guitar and nice drums. It’s power pop to me, dammit.

Go All The Way – The Raspberries
Okay, if someone said I couldn’t use Cheap Trick’s Surrender as an example for power pop, I would use this song instead. The chorus is so pretty, and the opening guitar riff is so rocking. I would not be surprised if Angus Young of AC/DC wore out a few 45’s of this song.

Feelin’ Alright – LEN
Okay, I substituted this song at the last minute for Big Country’s In A Big Country. I have just heard that BC song too many damn times. This has a nice pop feel to it, and for some reason I like that they use the word “dumb” in the lyrics.

Electric Version – The New Pornographers
Something from this millenium? Well, okay. This is a great pop song from a great power pop band.

I have some good news for the stellar participants in previous Green Monkey mixes who were awarded a GMMP Master badge, but never had the opportunity to helm their own mix.

Due to a very exciting development, I’ll probably be able to do mixes in a way similar to my original GMMP mixes. I will just need song title and artist provided, and I’ll most likely be able to provide the music.

Green Monkey Masters!

NOW IS YOUR TIME.

Manx
Barbara
Beth
Bubs
J.D.
Lulu

We’ll obviously be doing the mixes one at a time, to prevent my head from exploding.

As a GMMP Master, you get to pick the theme, number of participants, and number of songs per participant.

So, start a-thinking. The mixes will be initiated in the order that people submit their mix rules.