Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 105

My Top 1000 Songs #158: Queen Of Eyes

Robyn Hitchcock and the Soft Boys update Syd Barrett-era Floyd psyche-pop and Byrdsy jangle, opening the door to R.E.M. and the mad rush of 80s college radio jangly guitar bands. It's a delightful little pop gem, off 1980's wonderful Underwater Moonlight , another entry on the list of songs that would have dominated AM Top 40 Radio in an alternative universe where people were rational. 

Hitchcock's lyrical absurdism is on full display, though the rush of silly rhymes seems almost like an homage to...

My Top 1000 Songs #157: Burning Airlines Give You So Much More

As much as I love Brian Eno's quieter, ambient work (particularly as found on 1975's Another Green World and parts of 1977's Before And After Science ), "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" is one of those songs that's always made me wish he'd persevered longer as a quirky pop/rock artist before delving into primarily instrumental music and production work. Like most of 1974's joyfully twisted Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), "Burning Airlines" is a bit skewed, drawing from the art/glam m...

My Top 1000 Songs #156: Growin' Up

It may have taken until his third album for Springsteen to truly hit his stride musically & commercially; but his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, was packed with tremendous, enduring compositions, arguably diminished only by his presentation as a latter-day early-60s Dylan rather than as a full-on rock and roller. (Ah, to have a re-recorded version of that album with the E Street Band, only some of whom appeared on a few songs on the record... though a 2009 performance of the complete al...

My Top 1000 Songs #155: Slack Motherfucker

A relentlessly fun and definitely NSFW punk anthem that essentially introduced long-running post-punk stalwarts Superchunk to the world. A Gen-X "Take This Job And Shove It," it's a bit of catharsis aimed at the co-worker from hell. "I'm working, but I'm not working for you, slack motherf*cker!"

I first hear this around 1991 (it had come out a year earlier), just as I was starting my first real job, and it was kinda cool having a workplace rebellion nugget (even if the song didn't necessarily tra...

My Top 1000 Songs #154: A Million Miles Away

Seems crazy, but this is the third song on the list from the Valley Girl soundtrack; guess that movie played a big role in my high school (musical) life.

Originally found on the Plimsouls' excellent 1983 album Everywhere At Once, "A Million Miles Away" is hard to pigeonhole--a little too musically interesting for power pop, a little too driving and energetic for new wave. Maybe it's just a good old-fashioned rock & roll song, with guitars that draw on Byrdsy jangle with punk-era energy, and a bub...

My Top 1000 Songs #153: Catholic Block

Sonic Youth were one of those bands revered by the college radio crowd that I struggled to get behind. Their first albums were just a little too discordant and noisy for me. 

But when Sister dropped in the summer of '87, that all changed. I got back to school late that summer, my senior year, and the record was waiting at the station. My friends Chris and Mike (DJ Mick Sludge) and I brought it back to the dorm and cranked it up. This time the songs, while still laden with strange guitar experimen...

My Top 1000 Songs #152: Expecting To Fly

One of Neil Young's first forays into the frontman spotlight. When I first checked out Buffalo Springfield during my middle school explorations of classic rock history, I was more quickly drawn to "Mr. Soul" and "Broken Arrow," but this track has always had a particularly strong hold on me. It's essentially a teaser for Neil Young's solo debut (the song features just Neil and producer Jack Nitzsche, a Buffalo Springfield track in name only), and the beauty of the song confirms why Neil was just ...

My Top 1000 Songs #151: Cut Your Hair

Pavement's 1992 debut Slanted And Enchanted was such a life-changer, the wait for a follow-up couldn't help but be filled with some trepidation. Sure, the 4-song EP that followed in late 1992 was all-killer no-filler, but, still, just four songs. And then... nothing. They fired their drummer, brought in a new guy, but 1993 was radio silence. 

Were they gonna be a one-and-done band? Or squander the goodwill from their stellar debut with a delayed sophomore effort that would fall woefully short? (S...

My Top 1000 Songs #150: Barnaby, Hardly Working

It's pretty easy to pinpoint the precise moment when Yo La Tengo pivoted from just another half-way great college radio band to one of my favorite acts of all time.

Circa '89, I was living on the South Side of Chicago, attending law school. I'd periodically treat myself to the long drive north to Evanston, near Northwestern, and stop by all the indie record stores where I'd spent much of my time (and money) during high school and college. On one trip, I spotted the new President Yo La Tengo album...

My Top 1000 Songs #149: Pleasant Valley Sunday

Too cute to have back-to-back Goffin/King songs on the list? Hey, don't look at me, I just work here.

I went through the standard Monkees trajectory. As a kid in the 70s, I grew up watching Monkees reruns in syndication, and counted a Monkees greatest hits album as one of the first records I owned. Then, by the time I was in high school and into classic rock, prog, punk, new wave, etc., the Monkees were strictly verboten, an uncool pre-fabricated tv band, and their music was relegated to guilty p...