"sunshine" pop

I'm fascinated by guys who continued to craft great pop music after the tide had turned decisively to rock. That they did this, though, doesn't always mean that elements of rock were eschewed altogether. Pet Sounds and Rubber Soul both have thematic strands that unify the songs, which to me is a sign of the onset of the self-important rock mindset, but they're both also great pop records... My taste is such that the music's meaning gets lost if it's dragged out for too long. Can you think of any song that conveys its meaning more effectively and directly than I Want to Hold Your Hand? I sure can't. ...Curt Boettcher is one of those 60s figures who stayed true to pop. There's not a great deal of information available on him, but he's another guy I would credit with inventing sunshine pop. Along with producing some of the Association's greatest singles, he released two amazing albums of his own, one called Begin under the heading of the Millennium, and the other called Present Tense, released under the name Sagittarius. The latter album, produced by Gary Usher, is tragically under appreciated. I would characterize it as archetypal sunshine pop, yet it has some of the conceptual unity I was talking about just now. I suppose that in the wake of Sgt. Pepper's it would have been almost impossible to make a record where the focus was on the parts instead of the whole. But if you break Present Tense down into its parts, it has four or five bona fide classic pop songs, all replete with lush orchestral textures and lovely multi-layered vocals. The session players are not credited on the album sleeve, which is frustrating because the playing is outstanding. ...What I've started to realize about sunshine pop is that the name can be quite deceptive. Often times the stuff's actually pretty sad. Maybe it's just because of where I'm at right now, but today's song really got to me this morning, especially when Boettcher sings but you'll understand another time, so I guess I'll save my breath. It's the kind of line that seeps into your chest and moves up into your temples, and then you have to struggle to hold back the tears. It's such sweet pain, and I can't make up my mind right now whether to embrace it carefully or run from it as fast as I can...