It's really weird, just a couple days ago I had an urge to listen to "The Breakup Song." In the pantheon of power-pop, that weird jangly little early-80s neo-movement berated by Jello Biafra as a watering down of punk aesthetic that I love anyway, there are some truly cool bands. The Feelies. The dBs. The Shoes (yes almost all of the bands had "The").
Then there are some acts who are generally well-regarded but weren't exactly fuel for the hipsters of the era. Dwight Tilley, Marshall Crenshaw (the American Elvis Costello), The Smithereens.
But at the other end of the spectrum, still living fully in the power pop space, are the really square guys that cross over a little too much into plain ol' bar rock. Pittsburgh's own legendary Donnie Iris. The first Huey Lewis album (watch these nerds invent that metalcore walking-in-place move). The Greg Kihn band was absolutely in that latter category, but put Kihn's best songs on a compilation and they would fit nicely next to way edgier stuff like 20/20's "Yellow Pills.".
But power pop was always a genre about singles. Most of the bands weren't as skilled as the ur-band Cheap Trick — folks like Kihn had 5-6 truly great tunes with great hooks spread across 1-3 highly mediocre LPs. So making a hooky, upbeat playlist of power pop jams (or listening to the Yellow Pills compilations, named after that 20/20 song) is probably the best way to enjoy the genre anyway.
Here's "The Breakup Song," one of his three most recognizable songs along with "Valerie" and "Jeopardy," which probably owes a lot of its longevity to Weird Al's parody version. But Kihn died of Alzheimer's today, and that's a real shame. RIP.