A lot of cool news on the music front for power pop fans!

The first big news is a 4 CD box set from Michael Mazzarella from The Rooks! This is a 4-CDR collection represents all of Michael’s released material to date, covering his songs with The Broken Hearts, The Rooks and solo albums. The 4 CD-R set will come with a bonus CD-r that contains 21 previously unreleased demos, many of which were written either for The Rooks (“Christine Obscene”, “Shine Your Light On Me”, “To Tell The Truth”, “Crimson Girl”) while others (“Save Me Baby”, “Out Of The Rain And The Thunder”, “Metropolis Mine”, “We’re Gonna Move”) were written for Michael’s current band Sonic Blue Sound Revue. Find out more information – HERE

Big Power Pop fave artist from the last five years, Greg Pope is getting ready to release a new full length but he’s snuck out a sneak peak at THIS LINK – Go there and get primed for more from Pope.  The album is due on November 12th but is available digitally now.  Greg Pope’s main site is HERE.

Pop Detective Record is getting busy yet again – a new album from Sweden’s The Dahlman’s has arrived digitally and the CD coming later in the month.  PGH will have a full song from the album in “The Surprise Box” this coming week so make sure you check in.  You can buy the album digitally right now at CDbaby HERE

THE WANDAS – Came across a really cool band I’ve not heard about this past week that really impresses and it appears no one in the power pop world has written about – Let’s change that!  Read the article HERE and listen to the band HERE.

THE CLOUD!  THE CLOUD!!  Of course, 2011 has been the year of ‘the cloud’ and the activity and options for music fans continues to look more and more hopeful.   The landscape and amount of information with all those options is, though, a bit confusing.  I found THIS article this week from The Boston Herald that gives a nice overview of options for music fans.  Check it out HERE. 

The Beach Boys’ “SMILE” box set has been released this past week!  Mike Baron has written a great article on “Smile” and if you go to THIS link you can read it and get more information on the project, as well.  You can watch this promotional, 5 minute video on the project below before heading over to the article.

ULTIMATE FAKEBOOK Reunion Show!!  They broke up back in 2003 but they are got together last weekend!   Read about the show HERE

ROCK BAND R.I.P./LONG LIVE ROCK BAND!   Have you had time to think about how Rock Band totally over-took the world of music fandom in 2007 and 2008 and then by the end of 2009, it was TOAST?!  Okay, maybe you haven’t but there was a time, more than likely, that you were geeking out to RB – Go to THIS link to read about what the next plans for RockBand may be.

RHINO HANDMADE has a new release that arrived this past week – the Ultimate Box Set for fans of THE SMITHS.   Warning: if you are on a strict budget and have issues with salivating with unusual box sets, avoid clicking on THIS LINK to get more information.

Attention ROCKERS!!  Now, many of you may know of the social network for kick-ass middled rockers last Fall with Rock And Roll Tribe but here’s a online magazine that came on scene not too long ago that you should be checking out.  GREAT, interesting content and articles and, for power pop fans, there’s a great interview with Paul Collins, as in Paul Collins’ Beat(of course).  Check it out HERE.  Paul is old friend, at this point and one of the truly great guys in the world of power pop but in general.  Make sure you go to THIS LINK to watch and read the interview with Sir Collins.  I’ll be connecting up with Paul in the not-so-distant future to do an extensive interview and overview of his career for Pop Pioneers – I’ll keep you posted.

As an add-on to the interview with Paul Collins – I tripped across a record of this that I totally, completely missed that came out in 2008!!   I’m guessing many of you may be in the same boat – check it out HERE.    Now, last year, he released his best album in many years, THE KING OF POWER POP.  It is a must own for pop geeks, to put it mildly.  Check it out at Kool Kat HERE

BE-BOP DELUXE – Okay, power pop fans talk about the “B-Troika” in genre – The Beatles, Badfinger and Big Star.  Not sure what the Russian word is for ‘quadruple’ or ‘quad’ or a package of four but I always considered BBD a progressive power pop band, believe it or not – and they have been one of ABSOLUTE favorite bands(along w/ “Red Noise”) – ever!  I mean, ever.  So it saddened me greatly to come across this article about Bill Nelson and his main record company in the 70s and early 80s, basically, hosing him.  Of course, stories like these are nothing new but if you are a fan, read the article HERE.  If you’ve never heard Be-Bop Deluxe before, please, please check the band out.  The best place to begin for newbies is THIS  compilation.

You may have heard ,but have to mention it here because it’s still sounds so bizarre – Lou Reed and Metallica doing a record together.  Listen to the samples at Amazon HERE 

General Music News:  the last recorded material from Amy Winehouse is coming out – read about it HERE