Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Doug Powell - Curiouser - 1998


Power pop is fundamentally music written for the radio that nowadays plays nowhere near the radio. The talented Doug Powell handles multiple instruments and technical aspects, but more importantly writes simple pop songs. For Curiouser, Powell recorded "flaws and warts" onto an eight track and released the raw product in an attempt to emulate the freshness and excitement of spontaneity and creation. Surprisingly, Curiouser is not raucous or noisy, but a solid pop record. The sound is fine and the songs are well-structured enough to avoid that demo rip-off feeling. If the liner notes didn't indicate the rudiments of this experiment, none would be the wiser. Of course the project reeks of evil-genius Todd Rundgren, but the tunes are unmistakably Powell's. "Just Like Montgomery Cliff" shares a strange celebrity fascination with the Clash. Powell's former Nashville neighbor, Cheap Trick's Tom Petersson, helps out on "When She Awoke" (later laid down with the rest of Swag). The great piece "Torn" also graces the excellent Nashpop collection. "Cross My Heart" exudes pure obsessive romanticism: paralyzing and fascinating. Sometimes Powell's forlorn feeling recalls Freedy Johnston, but with better vocals. Curiouser actually gets better as it rolls. Don't see Doug Powell shooting up the charts, and of course he deserves much more credit than he'll ever get, but, in a perfect world, he rides the top of the pops. -AMG

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Curty Ray, Midnight Rambler from the SONS OF THE DOLLS Blog left a comment at my blog asking if you had the cover scans for the Johnny THUNDERS tribute. I wonder if you can help? Thanx again for that great link, anyway.

wkc said...

Thanks again for another excellent share! Doug is a majaor talent that hopefully more people will become aware of

Gyro1966 said...

Good stuff!

Curty Ray said...

http://www19.zippyshare.com/v/73963848/file.html

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