Pop music is hard to come by these days. With the barren landscape of minimalist German techno and Midwestern math-rock dominating the charts, few bands are willing to daringly take that bold step into straight-ahead, 1960s-style pop/rock anymore. And the few that do are rarely successful. It's finally time for a band to come along that revives this obscure genre from the dead, and with unrivaled spunk and originality to boot.

Either you recognized that the above paragraph was highly sarcastic, or you simply figured it was an excerpt from a review from the year 2051, a future time in which those allegations are facts and bad writing is the norm. Let's face the facts, ladies and gentlemen: you can't turn a corner these days without running into a sugar-sweet Elephant 6 band or a country-pop Beachwood Sparks sound-alike. Some of them are thoroughly horrible, and most of the rest are painfully mediocre. But what about the good ones? What of the talent, the nifty hooksmiths, the steady musicianship of a solid four-piece? What becomes of this?

The Green and Yellow TV make pop music that deserves to stand out among the relentless din of the commonplace. It would be an outright lie to say it sounds like nothing else; in fact, it sounds perfectly nostalgic, in the sense that you swear you've heard it before, or even that it was an integral part of your childhood experience and something you've always loved. They're magnets for those suckers who fall for a good four-part harmony or a rhythmically jangly guitar. They're just that way. Deal with it.

After hearing their first full-length, As Performed By, it's apparent that these guys don't operate under the traditional singer-writes-the-songs hierarchy of indie pop bands. The group effort shines through in the clear partnership of Todd O'Keefe's vocals and guitar, Michael Regilio's second guitar, Io Perry's bass (for this album, anyway, he's since been replaced), and Justin Rocherolle's drums. They're each independently excellent musicians, but their charm lies in their dependence on each other. Each member strongly supports the melody in his own invaluable way, and without one, there is no other.

Each of the nine songs on As Performed By is great. Naming and describing them individually would be trivial. They should be so lucky as to have mastered the art of a concise, cohesive record by their first LP. This isn't bubblegum pop; it's super-glue pop. Over its 29 minutes, the Green and Yellow TV form a tight cluster of remarkably catchy hooks, and it never comes unstuck. And like any outstanding pop record, it begs for a spot in your heavy rotation list.

So either you like pop music or you don't, right? Well, if you do, it might not hurt to check out the Green and Yellow TV. If you're sick of all the boring, mundane pop in today's market, take my word for it and at least give it a shot. It's a breath of fresh air, no matter how saturated with smog the genre's atmosphere has become. And no, this isn't the future, and I'm not joking around anymore.

-Spencer Owen