Farewell And Thanks To Not Lame Records--Power Pop promoters cease operations

For all the amount of time I may listen to Bad Brains, Boris, and Big Black albums, anyone who is reading these posts understands that I also have a sweet tooth for pop music. While my smile is not reminiscent of Shane McGowan's, I still enjoy a well executed and well harmonized pop song. I blame it on my years as a child listening to AM radio, and singing along to Beach Boys anthologies.

I have to give credit to people like Bruce Brodeen of Not Lame. He and other fans of this genre turned a pejorative term into a compliment. Like the term yuppie, which was meant to castigate young people of the 80's who only cared about money and success and not the social values that young people valued in the 60's. Some people took that term and adopted as a badge of honor. Not anything I would be proud of personally.

But power pop was a derisive term I believe--anything you might compare to the Beatles would wind up on the losing end. So bands like Badfinger and The Raspberries, who followed in the footsteps of the Fab Four were seen as also rans. Power pop was a genre of music that was technically well executed pop music, with huge hooks, great melodies, intricate arrangements, possibly baroque and complicated arrangements, but in essence superficial. A bunch of copycats who are unoriginal and inspiring.

The other and sane view is, I like harmonic catchy sounding music played with panache. I want to listen to it and this is the music I wish to consume. I think sometimes these people have too much of a chip on their shoulders as far as punk goes. Styles and fads come and go. I think being doctrinaire musically is unhealthy and ultimately that attitude has little to do with the spirit of music. And these days there are so many things that fall under the power pop aegis that in some ways the term is not a good description. Cheap Trick, The Jam, The Barracudas, Big Star, XTC, The Posies, Tommy Keene? But why do people fight about this anyway?

Bruce Brodeen formed the Not Lame label to promote music that he liked, and over sixteen years put out hundreds of cds and on his web site sold melodious pop music from all around the world. Notably he put out a Posies 4 cd boxset, filled with all sorts of demos, curiosities, live tracks, ephemera. Simply amazing. It goes beyond the idea of mere profitmaking in a business venture. He also put out a Jellyfish boxset, which had twice as many discs as their studio recorded output.



Not Lame has put out numerous Tribute Cds, to Gene Clark, ELO, The Cars, Bubblegum Music, Buffalo Springfield, Teenage Fanclub. He reissued out print power pop cds, albums that were only available on vinyl, and promoted acts like The Rooks, Shazam, Bobby Sutliff, The Black Watch, Myracle Brah, Martin Luther Lennon. It seemed he sold some of these albums because he heard them and thought they were good. Whether they were on some small obscure indie label or on EMI. They could be from California or Finland.
He even put out a guide to power pop music called Shake Some Action!

So I just wanted to say thanks for a good 16 years from a great music label. Bruce Brodeen is moving on to new projects, but his love of  tuneful pop has not wavered. Here's to Bruce and people like him who tirelessly work and sacrifice for the love of music. Thanks.