Three Minutes, No Witnesses
Ten songs built to the same exact specification: maximum hooks, minimum running time, zero commercial traction. The Big Star lineage in full — Memphis to Melbourne, Chicago to Zion, Illinois. Every song here could have been a hit. Most of them should have been. Welcome to the neighborhood.
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01
Flamin’ Groovies — “When I Heard Your Name”
Recorded in ’73, years before the Sire deal and the record everyone knows. But honestly, this might be better. It’s rawer, a little more desperate, and Cyril Jordan sounds like he’s chasing something he can just barely hear. Norton put it out as a b-side in 1980 and it still barely got noticed. If you’ve only ever heard “Shake Some Action,” start here first.
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02
The Scruffs — “My Mind”
Big Star’s city, Big Star’s studio — Ardent shows up in the credits here too. But the Scruffs were doing it scrappier and cheaper, and “My Mind” has a hook that just doesn’t quit. I’ve played this probably fifty times and it still hits exactly the same way. Then you go back and listen three more times because you want to figure out how they did it.
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03
Pezband — “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
Chicago power pop that was playing the circuit before anyone was calling it power pop. This was their debut single on Passport in 77 — the track that put them on the map. Still holds up as one of the tightest two minutes and fifty seconds to come out of that city.
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04
The Rubinoos — “Fallin’ in Love”
Track 1 on Back to the Drawing Board. Everyone cites track 2, which is fine, but why does nobody talk about this one? Same wide-eyed Beserkley energy, maybe even more immediate — gone in under three minutes and leaves a mark. I’d genuinely love to know if they ever opened with this live.
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05
The Sports — “Reckless”
Stephen Cummings sounded like he was born in the wrong country for his talents. The Sports were tracking UK and US power pop in real time and making it feel completely natural, which is genuinely hard to do. This is the title track from their debut — and it’s ridiculously confident for a first record. Melbourne had an underground that doesn’t get nearly enough credit.
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06
The Jags — “Back of My Hand”
This one actually hit #17 in the UK. Top of the Pops appearance, Island Records, the whole thing. I’m including it as proof that even when something worked, it didn’t really work — one good record, the moment passed, and now they’re in a playlist like this. Peak Costello-adjacent power pop and it still couldn’t stick.
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07
Shoes — “Burned Out Love”
Zion, Illinois. Population 24,000. The Bonn brothers were recording in a basement, and it sounds this polished. By Tongue Twister they had a real deal but none of the commercial follow-through that should have come with it. The strings in “Burned Out Love” surprised me the first time I heard it — more wistful than the jangle stuff, and somehow even better.
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08
The Plimsouls — “Play the Breaks”
Peter Case’s band got their one real moment via the Valley Girl soundtrack — “A Million Miles Away,” that’s the one everyone knows. This is from their final album, a little more muscular, less jangly. It came out too late in the band’s run to do anything. Case went on to make great records solo. The Plimsouls mostly went unmourned, which is wrong.
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09
Tommy Keene — “Places That Are Gone”
Geffen signed him. Geffen had no idea what to do with him. This is the song I play when I want to explain to someone why Tommy Keene matters — everything’s in the right place, the hook is there, but there’s something underneath it that feels like loss. He toured and made records for thirty years and never got anything close to what he deserved. Died in 2017. Still the most underrated person in this genre.
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10
The Flashcubes — “Christi Girl”
Their own label, two singles, and that was basically it. I found this on a comp a few years back and spent an hour trying to figure out who these guys were. “Christi Girl” is exactly the kind of song where you hear it and think: how is this not famous? A major label deal seemed like a sure thing in ’78. It didn’t happen. That’s the whole story of this genre in one sentence — and this is the video from a 1978 TV performance, which makes it somehow better.
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