In the last ten years or so, the power-pop genre is becoming harder and harder to define. It doesn’t matter if you do it loud or quiet, fast or slow … as long as there are guitars and melodies, you’re in.
It’s not a bad thing actually; it’s just that it takes a bit longer for you to choose your preferences. Spinning Jennies are what you’d call the initial idea of power-pop. Their songs really do rock, and sometimes they rock so hard that you actually start to wonder about the mentioned genre, but when the vocals and the melody come in, there’s no doubt about you being on the right wave-length.
It may come pretty natural for a band to become better with every new release, but with the ‘Jennies, it’s so obvious that their first and last release are almost incomparable. Trying to describe their latest sound, it comes to mind that they could very well be the underground reflection of Weezer. In fact the line between them becomes so thin, that it could almost be the other way round.
They hit the nerve right from the very beginning with So Far So Good and it’s melodic power-chord assault. It’s followed with the sing-a-long chorus of Forget My Name, with kinda “sweet” boogie backing, and some of the tunes that will definitely make you go “gee weez-er” are Three Minus One, with it’s lovely mid-’60s guitar riff, or Carry On Attack, which sounds like something from Syd Barrett’s songbook played by Rivers Cuomo & Co.
While we’re still in the Britpsych area, there’s also a song called You’re The Only One, combining it’s pure-pop jangle with some melodic quirkiness that they got on some audio “sell out”, and steppin’ forward to the next decade, you’ll also find them “spinning” along some guitar lines borrowed from the ‘Zeppelin (The Real Ramona) and Thin Lizzy (Eddie $$$).
Sometime soon, in the music encyclopedias describing the “power-pop” term, the name of the Spinning Jennies will be among the first ones to see. Give them a spin yourself, they’re gonna take you up to the stratosphere and back!
[Released by JAM 2002]
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