Well, if Dave Edmunds has said good things about Eric Carmen/The Raspberries, then Dave will now like them too! This thread has turned out to be a merger of worlds!!! (At 52:35, Eric Carmen, Dave Edmunds, Jack Bruce and Simon Kirke.)
I’m a bit surprised, while they never meant much in Europe, I thought they were more of a household name in the US. Stylistically I’d lump them together with indeed Big Star, Badfinger, Billy Squier’s Piper or Cheap Trick (interestingly enough, none of these bands were big in Europe, we like either rock OR pop, not so much something in the middle). But I think Carmen is right in that interview, Power Pop wasn’t really music for the first half of the 70ies. Had some of these bands stuck around, they would have likely done better in the post-punk era when newcomers like Blondie, The Romantics or The Cars let the genre re-emerge. Suddenly it was cool again to have shorter songs, a catchy chorus and a haircut plus show some on stage sartorial chic, even dress up in uniform suits.
