Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 119

All My Favorite Songs #35: Beyond Belief

In which our Elvis borrows the Beatles' audio engineer and comes up with his most Beatlesque work to date. Even among the lush sonic palette of 1982's Imperial Bedroom, its opening track is a clear stand-out. The hushed opening with its subtle bass & hi-hat combo, Elvis barely above a whisper, builds to a whirlwind of aural thrills, swirling keyboards and explosions, stop & start dynamics. But the vast headphone-filling landscape sticks the landing due to Elvis' mad rush of lyrics, some impenetr...

All My Favorite Songs #34: Decades

I realize the dark, goth vibes of Joy Division, and Ian Curtis' inimitable baritone, are not for everyone. Certainly, if I were trying to change someone's mind, I'd go with something a little more upbeat and almost-poppy, like "Love Will Tear Us Apart." But "Decades" is a monumentally striking song, particularly emotionally wrought even for a band whose body of work is frequently emotionally wrought.

Sonically, the tune demonstrates the remarkable amount of ground the band covered in their brief ...

All My Favorite Songs #33: Solsbury Hill

I first discovered Peter Gabriel around the time of his third solo LP, when "Games Without Frontiers" was all over the radio. (I didn't get into his earlier work as the frontman of Genesis until a little bit later.) I worked my way backwards, and really loved his first two albums. The 1977 debut was a bit more hit and miss, with a few songs that didn't work for me, but from the first spin "Solsbury Hill" caught my attention. A nifty little acoustic guitar riff, nothing too fancy, but something a...

Dentist: Making A Scene (2022)

Anyone who's stopped by these parts before knows I'm an absolute sucker for women-fronted punk-pop bands. Some of my favorite records from recent years have come from acts like the Beths, Alvvays, and Charly Bliss. So the new one from New Jersey trio Dentist falls right in my sweet spot.

I'm not as familiar with their prior records, which sounded a little more lo-fi and K Records-like to my ears. Making A Scene is much more polished and punchy, frothy little guitar-driven pop songs designed for v...

All My Favorite Songs #32: Tomorrow Never Knows

Look, you can't say I didn't warn you right off the bat that this list was gonna be top-loaded with Beatles songs. The good news is this is the last one for at least a month, and we'll actually be mixing things up a bit, with our first entries from the 1990s (and even the 2000s) in the days ahead.

As for "Tomorrow Never Knows," it's a monster. Who but the Beatles (well, ok, maybe the Velvet Underground) would have the cojones to record a song--in 1966!--comprised of a single chord and a whole lot...

All My Favorite Songs #31: Draft Morning

I'm guessing the first Byrds tune to make an appearance here is a bit of a left-fielder. And, yeah, you've got all those amazing Dylan covers, and band-defining originals like "Eight Miles High." But "Draft Morning," off my favorite Byrds record--1968's Notorious Byrd Brothers --has long captivated me. (And I guess I'm not the only one, as in searching for some graphics here I found a German greatest hits album that uses the song for its title.)

The song is among the band's most political, a Vietn...

All My Favorite Songs #30: Life On Mars

As noted last week, I'm torn between two tracks from 1971's Hunky Dory for my top Bowie pick; and while I ended up going with "Queen Bitch," it could've gone either way. "Life On Mars" is a very different song, of course. "Bitch" opts for a basic, Who-like crunchy guitar riff, pure Velvet Underground-derived simplicity, the guitar-driven glam that would characterize much of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. In contrast, "Mars" is huge and operatic and almost proggy, Bowie's theatrical side taking...

All My Favorite Songs #29: Sweet Jane

One night back in college, my short-lived band played on a triple-bill "Battle of the Bands" at a campus party. We tore through a bang-up "Sweet Jane," highlighted by a pretty cool, Hendrix-like introductory jam from our lead guitarist, who was pretty talented. (In contrast, I played a pretty terrible rhythm guitar, turned way down in the mix.) But the song lost a bit of its punch, since both of the other bands had already also covered "Sweet Jane" in their sets.

It's just that kind of song, I gu...

All My Favorite Songs #28: It's All Too Much

After a two-week reprieve, the Beatles are back to continue top-loading the list. I get the sense this one doesn't end up high on most people's lists of top Beatles songs, and frankly I don't get it; I've found it one of their most thrilling tracks since I first heard it as a kid.

It's probably the only George Harrison-fronted Beatles tune to make the cut, and also the band's most unabashedly psychedelic song, a Harrison acid trip set to deliriously layered music. Lyrically, it's George at his mo...

All My Favorite Songs #27: Wish You Were Here

It took some time, but another one of my favorite bands from childhood finally makes an appearance on the list. I tend to listen to Pink Floyd more as an album band than for individual songs, most of which work best in their original context. Still, the title track from 1975's Wish You Were Here holds up well as a stand-alone piece, one of the rare tunes that, if it comes up on the radio, I'll have to drop everything and listen, however many thousands of times I've heard the damn thing. It's got...