100th video on YOUTUBE! Thank you, Eric Carmen.

Check out my 100th video on youtube (softsoundpop). It's "Sparrow" by Cyrus Erie, featuring Eric Carmen and Wally Bryson--soon to form the Raspberries. It's a pretty bouncy tune, kind of has a Badfinger "Come and Get it" with just a bit more caffeine. Also a good number of "la la's" thrown in there. In fact, I can't help but hear a little of the Banana Splits theme song after the piano intro. Tell me you hear it to, or i'll have to give up life.

If you'd like to see the vid click here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfoRtSerjsw

While I'm on the subject of Eric Carmen, isn't it a dirty shame how he looked in his mug shot. Everyone looks bad in any mug shot, especially if they were drinking, and it was kind of messed up that the most attention he's gotten in the last 20 years isn't his 2000 CD or the Raspberries reunion, but his appearance in the pic. Plus, most sites printed something along the lines of "Remember that guy who sang "Hungry Eyes", well he got arrested for DUI." Man--what the heck. This guy wrote "Go All the Way", "Ecstacy", everything else. He wrote "Hey Deanie", "She Did It", created the most perfect and pure examples of Power Pop in musical existence.

The Who sometimes gets credit for the creation of the genre; other times it's Badfinger. But it's most assuredly the Raspberries. I go on the record right here and now until someone convinces me with striking evidence that will floor me enough to make me change my opinion.
Look i like the Who and Badfinger, but there's a certain lack of consistency in their sound that excludes them from the title of "Kings of Power Pop" (I just made that up now). The Who were loud (read: POWER) and at times melodic (read: POP), but they were very experimental--long songs, the whole "deep lyrics" thing--c'mon now. Then there's Badfinger. They did have "No Matter What" which beat "Go All the Way" to the charts by a year. And "No Matter What" was a power pop single, and maybe "Baby Blue" or "Come and Get it" were too, but as far as whole albums, the Power Pop poops. They had a bluesier sound, and this disqualifies them as power pop.
Then you have the Raspberries and Eric Carmen. He was so single mindedly focused on creating a sound, that it followed him from the Cyrus Erie single, through the Raspberries, and shows up in a diluted form in his solo stuff. Even his Raspberries tunes that could come across as "schmaltzy" (not my word) like "I Can Remember" kicks but eventually. Then a song like "Let's Pretend" which wouldn't even be considered a ballad. It's just slower power pop. In Carmen's hands, the slower songs are given an energy that is missing from, say, a Badfinger.
Well i didn't really expect to spend the last 1/2 hour defending Eric Carmen, and I'm certainly not finished. We'll continue this tomorrow, as right now I'm getting the uncontrollable urge to watch "Terror in Beverly Hills" with Stallone, and not Sly.
See ya tomorrow!