VA: Buttons: From Champaign To Chicago

Vintage power-pop from the Midwest is the name of the game for this brand spankin' new Numero Group anthology. Expect more hooks than a tackle box on each and every track herein!

"In the 1970s and early '80s, the Land of Lincoln was home to hundreds of bands that were serving up soaring melodies, guitar-powered hooks, earnest vocal harmonies, dancefloor-filling rhythms, and as much Beatles-like personality as they could muster. Cheap Trick were the Illinois band who were able to sell updated pop to the masses that filled the arenas, and Shoes proved a band could rise from a basement studio and score a major-label deal and international attention, but the vast majority of Illinois power pop bands played the clubs for a few years, left behind some demo tapes or self-released singles, and then vanished without a trace. The archivists at the Numero Group pay loving homage to the glory days of Illinois power pop with Buttons: From Champaign to Chicago, a compilation that features 19 lost classics of Midwest pop, most of which are as hopelessly obscure as any record collector could wish." - Allmusic

"Buttons feels a bit like a powerpop answer to Lenny Kaye's Nuggets. It’s very much—by specific design—intended to pick up where Jordan Oakes left off in his Yellow Pills series. And like those pair of projects, Buttons is both historical document and damn-good-listen...Typical of the genre, many of these tracks have that haven’t-I-heard-this-before vibe, which isn’t to say that these songs rip off other songs—mostly, they don’t: there’s just that friendly familiarity that’s part and parcel of powerpop." - Musoscribe