American Power Pop 1980-1989: Album Review

It’s not particularly related, but it kind of is: made in 1986, the low budget documentary Heavy Metal Car Park is an essential document in understanding at least one of America’s 20th century adolescent tribes.

In form a series of interviews with young fans waiting outside for the start of a Judas Priest gig, however brief, cultural lines are laid down without much subtlety.

Halfway through, a teenager in a zebra print t-shirt crops up to give his opinion of Madonna, saying she, ‘Can go to hell as far as I’m concerned…She’s a dick’, before launching a similar assault on the by that point long dead phenomenon of punk rock.

You could go on, but there isn’t the space.

At that point, had you accidentally wandered into the action wearing a single-breasted suit and skinny tie you’d probably have been left upside down dangling off some powerlines.

On the way, you might have been listening to your local college radio station to a thing called new wave, a handle created to throw a blanket over music that had spark and energy but lacked punk’s sense of confrontation.

Unlike its British counterpart post punk – which drew on influences like dub, funk and the experimental use of synthesisers – this movement’s roots were more traditional, taking cues from The Cars, Cheap Trick and Tom Petty.

Throw on some better threads, and you were pretty much there.

I Wanna Be A Teen Again serves neatly as an ‘Everything you wanted to know about but were afraid to ask’ for the whole thing, painstakingly curated with an obvious dedication to the source material.

At 78 tracks, it’s a collected playlist that would take you about 15 years of crate digging to assemble yourself, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

A logical starting point would be The Knack, the LA quartet whose single My Sharona, it’s reckoned, birthed this new movement and simultaneously killed off disco.

Possibly a bit cheesed off decades later, she’s not about for this one, the alternative pick instead being the less aggressive and more melodic Want Ya from the band’s second album.

Other material is double take worthy, like the former punk and soon-to-be goth totem of Lords Of The New Church Stiv Bators gone glam on Not That Way Anymore, whilst Utopia (I Just Want To Touch You) and The Spongetones (Here I Go Again) have to be applauded for their utterly shameless ripping off of The Beatles.

For scholars of 80’s pop there are some excellent diversions. Whilst the Ramones sound a bit subdued on My Kind Of Girl (maybe pondering what they’d helped to create), a pre-Sunshine Katrina And The Waves thrill on Don’t You Want Crying, The Long Ryders’ I Want You Bad riffs on lovely Paisley Underground vibes and The Go-Go’s launch a hundred C-86 indie bands with How Much More.

Whilst that’s all great – and interesting – there a lot of other songs in the roster which present at the same tempo, are about the same thing (girls and/or sex) and that were made with the same guitar/bass/drums ingredients. Seekers of diversity might want to look elsewhere.

Those cards on the table, if you’re a connoisseur you’re still obviously in for a treat; few stones have been left unturned and it could never be a bad thing to hear early versions of The Bangles and Marshall Crenshaw, whilst the inclusion of Rick Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl shows how broad this congregation was.

I Wanna Be a Teen Again is the sound of another groovy rock n’ roll car park. Just don’t tell zebra t-shirt guy.

• Andy Peterson

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