Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 12

My Top 2000 Songs #1010: I've Got A Feeling

Alright, I've given up the exercise of simply adding more songs to the Top 1000. We're now calling it a Top 2000. Satisfied? 

And while I got most of the Beatles out of the way in the first 1000--honestly, how many Beatles songs do we need?--I'm dipping once again into Let It Be--my least favorite of the latter-period Beatles records, yet still full of great music (particularly as I've recreated it). "I've Got A Feeling," heard in its raw, live rooftop performance version on the original LIB (a s...

My Top 1000 Songs #1009: Personality Crisis

I'd probably categorize the New York Dolls more as one of those "artists I totally respect and who had a huge influence on a ton of bands I love" than as a band I actually listen to much. Still, their 1973 self-titled debut remains a hoot. The late David Johansen's Jagger-isms, coupled with touches like Todd Rundgren production and a Bo Diddley cover, keep it more closely tethered to traditional rock & roll than, say, the Stooges or early Roxy Music. And lead-off track "Personality Crisis" manag...

Petra Haden: Sings The Who Sell Out (2005)

Having included Petra Haden's cover version on today's write-up of Shuggie Otis' "Strawberry Letter 23," I came to the devastating realization that I had yet to feature Haden's astounding tribute to The Who Sell Out on these pages. A shonda!

Haden, for those not up to speed, is musical royalty. The singer & multi-instrumentalist and her two sisters (triplets!) are daughters of late jazz bass legend Charlie Haden; she's recorded countless solo albums and collaborations, while first coming to my at...

My Top 1000 Songs #1008: Strawberry Letter 23

On his second solo album, 1971's Freedom Flight , singer/guitarist Shuggie Otis delivered a sweeping melting pot of musical styles, from R&B to blues to pop. "Strawberry Letter 23" in particular renders a striking cross-section of post-60s music influences, a lush radio-friendly pop song that has a distinctively early 70s vibe but incorporates sly psychedelic and funk touches that elevate it above its yachty soft rock foundation. It works just fine as a pretty little song from way back, but there...

New Releases: Smug Brothers

I posted about Columbus, Ohio's Smug Brothers two years ago, when they had their last full-length release. The general assessment remains the same: Just picture Guided by Voices' kid brothers, from the lo/mid-fi tracks that range from fully-realized indie pop wonders to tossed-off snippets; to the absurd song titles (Voltaire Basement! Sidewalk Champagne!); all the way to the amateurish collage cover art. As with their thousand prior releases, there are another fistful of stand-alone tracks that...

My Top 1000 Songs #1007: Radio

Teenage Fanclub's 1991 breakthrough Bandwagonesque was such a revelation for me at the time, its blend of Big Star's melodic pop with postpunk bravado the sort of thing I played to absolute death when I first bought it, that I couldn't help but feel some trepidation when its follow-up landed two years later. But 1993's Thirteen (maybe driving home the Big Star connection with that title?) was a pleasant surprise, at least as solid as its predecessor. It was even more full of amped-up power pop g...

My Top 1000 Songs #1006: Dreamworld

I'm again indulging my love of late 60s UK psychedelic obscurities. The End's lone album, 1969's Introspection , doesn't get the same attention as other classics from the era (aside from curiosity value as a record produced by the Stones' Bill Wyman). But it's a pretty solid listen, particularly its opening number, "Dreamworld." The track squeezes in all the touchstones of the genre--echoing vocals, weird time shifts, organ fugues--and feels like an epic pre-prog suite jammed into four and a half...

My Top 1000 Songs #1005: Homosapien

The title track off Pete Shelley's first solo album after leaving the Buzzocks, 1981's "Homosapien" is one of those songs I dimly recall hearing back in high school--maybe on the radio, or more likely on one of those late-night cable video shows or at a party. The lyrics themselves didn't register at the time--for me, it was all about that electronic beat, still kinda novel at the time, and one of the earlier tracks to define what I understood to be "new wave" music back then.

I'm also pretty sur...

The Asteroid No. 4: Several Shapes Of Solar Flares (2024)

I'm a huge fan of long-running Bay Area neo-psychedelia revivalists The Asteroid No. 4, whom I raved about a few years ago. But I managed to overlook last year's Several Shapes Of Solar Flares, belatedly picking it up a couple weeks back. So it's a little too late to call it a new (or even new-ish) release, but better late than never.

No real surprises here, just another solid slab of slightly trippy, reverb-drenched voyages into the cosmos, with enough jangly and poppy touchstones to keep it gro...

My Top 1000 Songs #1004: Suspicious Minds

To quote the Wonder Stuff: Never loved Elvis. That much should be evident from his absence from the first 1000 songs on this adventure. (Presley, that is. Plenty of Costello on the list.)
Don't get me wrong; I don't dislike Elvis. But I just don't have the same emotional connection with pre-Beatles artists as I do with what came later. Still, what a great song, right? The 1968 single, essentially his last hurrah, sounds more like an introduction to his schmalzy Vegas phase than it does his early,...