I'm driving around in my gray 1984 Honda Accord and I turn my FM dial to the oldies station, the one my dad enjoys. I think to myself, "Nothing beats the sounds of mono."

From the pit of the driver's seat, I sit and jiggle my butt to the beginning strums of pop song evolution. I hear three-minute gems from Eddie Cochran, the Beach Boys, a commerical jingle for True Value Hardware, the Supremes . . .

As I pull up to my favorite record store, I realize that, heck, the independant scene is experiencing its own three-minute revolution. Under the K Records axis, bands such as Unrest, Tsunami, Heavenly, Velocity Girl and Tiger Trap are putting the pop back into the punk. They are crafting pop songs where anger is replaced by irony and power chords are replaced by powerful beats, just as Cochran did years ago.

Although the indie-pop movement has been going on since the early '80s, people are finally starting to tune in. With the release of Velocity Girl's first full-length album Copacetic on Sub-Pop Records, indie-pop might be turning into indie-popmania soon. But I doubt it.

You'll find this platter a change of pace from vintage Velocity Girl 7-inches such as "My Forgotten Favorite" and "I Don't Care If You Go." No need to worry. Although the Girl has long since suffered comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, it finds its own frequency with the new full-length release.

Found on the shelves between Unrest's Imperial and the last Vertigo album, Copacetic is a pop firecracker waiting to be lit. Once ignited, the Washington, D.C.-based Velocity Girl pulls out all the stops: the sshhhh of Archie Moore's Fender Jaguar and Jim Spellman's pounding danceable beats make this album impossible to just sit and watch spin.

In an ideal world, the band's first single "Crazy Town" would be on everyone's dial. With dueling guitar strumming, singer Sarah Shannon's Petula Clark imitation and easy-to-memorize lyrics like "I went walking around this crazy town/you're all I found/the same old thing" -- it's made to be overplayed.

Tunes such as "Pretty Sister" and "Copacetic" maintain the single's mid-tempo pedal-hopping flare. After feeling their oats, band members soon get down to their pop roots and dish some healthy doses of noisy innocence. "Audrey's Eyes," "57 Waltz" and "Catching Squirrels" play on the same channel as Heavenly's Le Jardin de Heavenly -- a radio wave rated G.

The song "Pop Loser" is made for cranking your hi-fi sets up to 10. I've had the dial permanently set on this one for plenty of repeated listens and it has yet to bore. Lyrics such as "All day long I guess I had the same thought /Wanted to show you all the records I bought/Waited at the bus stop and I stared in disgust/But then I realized you don't ride the same bus" recall the Beach Boys giddiness or the playful hook of a Phil Specter tune.

Recorded in Memphis, Tenn., home of Graceland and the legendary Sun Studios, Copacetic is a slice of pure American pop when three minutes is all you have to keep the listener to stay tuned.