Power Pop
Power pop is guitar-driven pop rock that combines loud, crunchy chords with bright melodies, vocal harmonies and short, tightly written songs.
The model is mid 1960s British beat music played with more force. Pete Townshend of the Who used the phrase in 1967, and the style formed in the early 1970s, with another wave around the end of that decade. Lyrics are usually about love and longing, set to an upbeat sound. It is sweeter and more tuneful than punk or hard rock, and punchier than soft rock.
Artists it is known for: Big Star, Badfinger, Raspberries, Cheap Trick.
- Family
- Pop
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States and United Kingdom, early 1970s
- Also called
- powerpop
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have power pop among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Power Pop artists
Florence Road
Blondie
The Cars
Dinosaur Jr.
Todd Rundgren
The ReplacementsThe power pop artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.