Tommy Keene

Despite the onetime hegemony of the Beatles, “power pop”—predicated on an idea that a four- or five-piece band majoring in loud, ringing guitars, with harmony-finessed vocals putting across well-written songs could re-conquer the world—never quite did. In the case of Washington, D.C., native Tommy Keene, that’s just too damn bad. Keene, who scored a couple of college-radio hits (“Back Again [Try],” “Places That Are Gone”; the latter included here) on the indie Dolphin label in the mid-’80s, then signed to Geffen, has a knack for muscular melodic rock, where sweet harmonies are juxtaposed with metallic guitars and his own rasping vocals. It’s a perfect recipe for first-rate power pop, which he and his band recreated the summer before last on various nightclub stages, and someone had the smarts to record the shows. If you enjoy such pop revivalists as Alex Chilton and Dwight Twilley, here you go.