For every band faithfully recreating the ‘60s sounds of the Beatles, the Who, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds, there are hundreds more incorporating influences from the intervening 60 years as well. Purists often cry foul at anything that strays too far from Badfinger, Raspberries, and Big Star, but that means they’re potentially missing out on some great new music.

Recent releases like the Beths’ Straight Line Is A Lie, White Reaper’s Only Slightly Empty, and The Prize’s In The Red seem perfect for power poppers, but all three deftly evade easy categorization—forcing fans to assess their merits on a song-by-song basis. Even Sloan’s fantastic Based on The Bestseller, which is rightly embraced by the power pop community at large, contains many moments that fall outside the genre’s walled garden.

I think of this as the Cheap Trick Paradox™. Rockford, Illinois’ finest have written some of the best power pop songs ever—including “Surrender,” “I Can’t Take It,” and “On Top of the World”— but that doesn’t automatically make them a power pop band. It’s been said many times, but it’s truer than ever the further we get from the ‘60s: “You know it when you hear it.” (Or “when you know you know…” as The Beths would have it.)

Which is probably why the modifier “adjacent” is thrown around more often these days. Using “power pop adjacent” signals that this is music power pop fans will probably also like, whether or not it perfectly adheres to each fan’s personal rules. It also makes it pretty clear that the music lover, critic, or musician using it isn’t interested in tedious semantic arguments.

“To me, the best parts of power pop are in the intangibles,” Liquid Mike front man Mike Maple wrote in a recent Remember The Lightning guest post.

“Does the song sound hopelessly optimistic or innocent? That’s what I’m looking for. It might sound crazy, but that’s why I’ve always found AC/DC to be power pop adjacent. It’s just the least jaded music of all time.”

Liquid Mike’s sound isn’t easy to pin down. One track might recall ‘90s alternative, grunge, or pop punk, while the next is reminiscent of 2000s emo, lo-fi pop, or heartland rock. But Maple’s Guided By Voices-style melodies and hooks shine throughout the Michigan band’s rapidly-expanding catalog, including their latest album, Hell Is An Airport.

“Is Liquid Mike power pop? I don’t know,” Maple continues. “I think sometimes we are, sometimes we aren’t. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking either one. Someone at a show the other day said we sounded like American Football combined with Cake. Who am I to tell them they’re wrong?”

Like Maple, New Mexico-based singer/songwriter Javier Romero (who releases music as Strange Magic) has a complicated relationship with the genre.

“I feel good about people calling Strange Magic power pop as long as they seem to feel good about it. I will say that there exists a flavor of power pop that I find to be kind of annoying and cloying, so as long they’re not talking about that variety, I’m good.”

I discovered Strange Magic thanks to their staggering four-album run in 2023— Toro At The Gong Show, AM/FM/AC & Heat, Zugzwang Alakazam, and Mirrors & Smoke —featuring some of the best lo-fi power pop songs in recent memory. Many of those tracks were later included on the 2024 compilation Slightest of Hands.

On Strange Magic’s latest album, Effervescent, Romero evolves his frenetic indie rock approach to a sound that’s often more in tune with ‘70s Laurel Canyon and post- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Wilco than early ‘60s Liverpool. Which makes evolutionary sense when you consider the Byrds’ influence on power pop legends such as Teenage Fanclub.

Romero name checks Big Star, the Replacements, and early Elvis Costello as influences—along with Fountains of Wayne’s debut album—and praises Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade. Examples of great power pop in Strange Magic’s catalog include “Blood Mad Summer Ache,” “The Incredible Wanderlust,” and “Irish Goodbye In Reverse.”

“Strange Magic is maybe some proportion power pop. Perhaps 75%? I think it can vary from song to song or album to album. Right now, our live set is very power pop adjacent. I’m not sure the new album is very power pop at all, but who’s to say?” Romero said.

Over in France, Lùlù unleashed one of the best power pop adjacent albums of 2025 with their self-titled glam- and punk-infused debut. The collection features anthemic lyrics delivered in French and Italian over totally infectious, instantly relatable music.

“Power pop is such a vague but convenient tag. I sure use it to describe Lùlù even though I think we mix in a lot of things,” singer/songwriter Luc Simone said.

“When I started Lùlù, I was a fan of power pop but my background was more punk rock and pop punk, so I set out to write a statement song that turned out to be ‘Lùlù.’ It’s resolutely power pop in my mind, with the obligatory reference to telephones and heartbreak.”

Simone associates power pop with ‘70s/‘80s favorites the Nerves, the Beat, and the Shivvers, along with Weezer and Jason Faulkner from the ‘90s. He points to French peers Alvilda as an example of stellar modern power pop, while describing Welsh pub rockers the Tubs and Scandinavian bands Sekunderna, Teini-Pää, and Plastic Tones as power pop adjacent.

“It’s fun to set yourself limitations and then color outside of the lines,” Simone said.

New York power popper Teddy Grey of Dots (formerly the band Wifey) is just as happy with “pop punk” or “pop rock.”

Grey didn’t set out to write power pop songs but says he has done it more intentionally after reviewers kept using the term to describe hooky early singles like “Mary Ann Leaves The Band” and “DiMaggio.”

“Generally, I think that when people describe your music as power pop, they’re doing it in a complimentary way,” Grey said. “More often than not, it means that they’re lumping you in with bands like Fountains of Wayne, Big Star, and Cheap Trick. Who’s gonna be upset about that?”

Grey names Big Star as the guiding light of pure power pop these days while acknowledging that their continued importance has as much to do with the band’s mythology as their timeless music.

“No definition of power pop is complete without understanding that it is a doomed genre, made by bands who are terminally underrated and unlucky during their time. The vision we have in our heads of the prolific pop songwriting genius who can never catch a break and often dies tragically young and broke is fundamental to the cult of power pop,” Grey said.

Joyce Manor, Charly Bliss, Antarctigo Vespucci, Tony Molina, and the Blackburns top Grey’s list of current favorites, but he acknowledges that all of them are probably more power pop adjacent than straight ahead power pop.

“I’m not a purist. Just give me a good hook and write a nice guitar line and I’ll call you power pop. And all of these artists certainly do that,” Grey said.

The power pop gods might be throwing fans a few curveballs these days, but there are still plenty of bands peddling the pure stuff.

Fronted by the guitarist/songwriting duo of Tanner Duffy and Dustin Lovelis, Long Beach, CA’s Softjaw has a sound firmly rooted in ‘70s/‘80s influences including Badfinger, Cheap Trick, the Shivvers, the Records, Shoes, the Knack, and 20/20.

“We started the band to sound like the Nerves meets Big Star,” Lovelis said. “We’re a rock and roll band with diminished chords and harmonies, like most power pop bands.”

Softjaw has only released a handful of singles and EPs to date, but there’s a full-length album already in the works. For examples of unabashed power pop in their impressive catalog, start with the early track “Don’t Go Walking Out” and their most recent release, “Undercover Lover.”

“Dustin and I have our own solo projects that allow us to explore different songwriting methods. Softjaw is our take at rolling up all our favorite pieces into one tight knit package of a song,” Duffy said. “If people describe Softjaw as power pop I feel like they know what’s up and I wanna give them a big old high five.”

I’d high five any of these artists for their hooky releases, even if some fall short of purist genre definitions. And I’ll happily continue calling Cheap Trick a power pop band despite the fact that plenty of their songs fall into the adjacent category—or outside the genre completely.

Opinions will definitely vary and the debates will rage on, but I suppose that’s all part of the fun. In the end, I agree with Maple who concludes: “Good music is good music.”