Let's try to define it. It could cover a wide range of styles, but in this case, our focus is guitar-driven power pop from 1975 through 1982 or so. It was, primarily, an American (or North American, as there are some Canadians represented) form. In England, it seemed to bleed over into other genres: bubblegum and glam, punk, pub rock, and new wave. As a sub-genre, it seemed to consist primarily of acts who were, at best, bubbling under. Why? Who knows. There was certainly less deserving music taking up space on the airwaves: coprolites, opera men, yacht rock, down south jukers.... This stuff is made for summer and the road. I road tested these songs on a cross country trek earlier this week. My ears are still ringing...couldn't keep the volume down. While some of these bands were national acts - in part due to early MTV exposure - most seem to have been local or regional.  While I tried to make the list comprehensive, it is biased towards some of those local and region...

Acid Eaters... ...what would be their penultimate album. The Ramones, covering mostly garage punk, mostly Nuggets era stuff, with some bigger name bands' cuts thrown in. A few tunes were from before the psychedelic era, but it was all the type of stuff that they covered well. They usually put at least one cover on each album, and they were always tight and spirited, as good as or better than the original. It was disappointing. The songs sounded rushed, uninspired. I started the Acid Eaters playlist by assembling the tunes they had covered on their other albums. After that, I added covers by the Jam and the Clash and carried on from there. To be included, a song had to be a cover by a punk, new wave or - at least at some point - “underground” band. It had to be a cut from a proper album or maybe the b-side of a single. No tunes from tribute albums or projects like the original album , the Band's Moondog Matinee , half of Rundgren's Faithful , or albums like  Throu...