Why #POWERPOPMONDAY!? Have you been outside today? Have you just returned to the office after a two-week vacation? That’s why.

Although power pop is often derided by modern critics as redundant and shallow, one cannot deny the simple pleasure of verse-chorus-verse rock streamlined down to the basics established during the early British invasion days: Three minutes of guitar, bass, drums, and sometimes keyboards with a strong vocal melody, a meaty guitar hook and subject matter that ranges from falling in love and falling out of love to rocking out and going out. In other words, it’s avoidance in a three minute dose, all sugary and sweet as to go down smoothly.

The artists gathered in the embedded playlist below, span the entire history of power pop, from early ’70s pioneers like Big Star, Shoes and Dwight Twilley Band, to ’90s coulda-beens, Sloan, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub, and on through 2013 and Mikal Cronin, an artist who’s more Matthew Sweet than his garage rock pedigree would seem indicate.

Don’t get too hung up on the specifics of who made the cut and who didn’t. You may consider some artists in the playlist to be more new-wave, or garage or punk. As an uptempo rock style, power pop overlaps with all of those genres. Just turn it up and pretend it’s sunny and 75. Your psyche will thank you.