"Flagpole Sitta" — Harvey Danger
"I'm not sick but I'm not well": a college-newspaper band's answer to the Seattle scene, from a group weighing whether to quit when one DJ started playing it. Rolling Stone later called it the best song of 1998.
#Power Pop
5 items
"Here (In Your Arms)"
A synth-pop love song from a Huntington Beach band that began as a way to woo crushes. "Here (In Your Arms)" climbed from Drive-Thru Records and MySpace to number 14 on the Hot 100 in early 2007, with a summer-camp video in which the campers play pogs.
"She's So High" — Tal Bachman
The soaring 1999 power-pop single about a girl out of your league, written and sung by Randy Bachman's son. Tal Bachman's only hit went to number 14 on the Hot 100, topped the Adult Top 40 for three weeks, and won him two Junos.
Fountains of Wayne — "Stacy's Mom"
A cheeky power-pop confection about a kid crushing on his friend's mother, built as a loving homage to the Cars — so faithful that Ric Ocasek assumed the opening riff was a sample. It wasn't. Add the Rachel Hunter video and you have the summer of 2003 in three minutes.
Weezer
The Los Angeles band that made being a nerd sound like the coolest thing in the world. The 1994 "Blue Album" and its Spike Jonze videos — the Happy Days-themed "Buddy Holly" chief among them — turned Rivers Cuomo's sweater-clad geek-rock into a generational touchstone.