Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 138

Still Missing From Spotify!

I realize that Spotify (and streaming media generally) gets a bad rap in the music world. Payouts to artists are criminally deficient, and then there's the whole debate over tangible vs. digital music. Me, I still like to own the physical album, even if I immediately rip my CDs to a digital library and rarely touch them again. It's just part of growing up in the 70s and 80s and holding on to that emotional need to personally "own" my music. 

But I also enjoy the Spotify service, which allows me t...

Big Audio Dynamite: No. 10, Upping St. (1986)

In preparation for my next Top 10 list for Toppermost, I'm taking a trip through my old BAD albums. And while Mick Jones' post-Clash music was far more interesting than that of his former bandmate Joe Strummer, my current lookback is also a reminder that later albums grew a bit spotty (though Jones could still be counted on for some killer singles). But those early BAD albums still hold up great.

The debut, This Is Big Audio Dynamite, was a fresh blend of rock, pop, and dance music, riven with sa...

Eden James: All The Good Blank Are Taken (2021)

Damn, another great 2021 release! New York-based Australian rocker Eden James makes no qualms about his influences: This is a flat-out ode to Lou Reed & David Bowie circa 1972 ("Black Book" going so far as to nick the "Sweet Jane" riff), a loving trip through Stones-tinged glam that also calls to mind a bit of Mott the Hoople and, especially, Peter Perrett & The Only Ones. Despite the 70s glam touchstones, it's got a punchy, current sound, songs like "New York" slipping a lit bit more into Strok...

Funkadelic: Maggot Brain (1971)

Funkadelic's Maggot Brain turns 50 years old this week, and there's been a bit of online attention to this often overlooked classic, so I pulled out my old copy to refresh myself.

Notwithstanding the title of this blog (and my book), drawn from a pithy encapsulation of my musical taste from a high school friend, I'm a huge Funkadelic fan. Their early/mid-70s brand of heavy funk hits a sweet spot for me. But their first few albums, culminating in Maggot Brain, were a heady mash-up of rock, psyched...

Kelly Hogan: I Like To Keep Myself In Pain (2012)

Kelly Hogan makes country music for those of us who wouldn't be caught dead listening to country music. Like Neko Case (with whom she has performed over the years), Hogan has a drop-dead voice that I'd listen to regardless of whatever songs she happened to wrap it around, and taste in material that, while cribbing freely from country, jazz, and singer-songwriter pop, avoids some of the sappier cliches that can drag down comparable artists.

Hogan got her start with 80s college radio band The Judy ...

Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970's Adult Cinema (2003)

Picked this one up on a lark from Amazon awhile back, and while it's silly and almost certainly bogus, it also makes for some damn fine background music. It's ostensibly a collection of songs gathered from 70s porn flicks, so you've got the predictable assortment of funky bass and wah-wah guitars, silky soul, and slinky beats. The CD itself has no liner notes (just a random assortment of censored photos), so there's no way of telling if these are actually drawn from 70s porn or, more likely, cre...

Starbelly: Four (2018)

Starbelly were a fine, largely under-the-radar power pop band from the late 90s/early 00s, right in that sweet spot for folks who like Sloan, Jason Falkner, and particularly Myracle Brah. They released two LPs before parting, with co-frontman Cliff Hillis continuing to release terrific music on his own. They regrouped a couple years back, their sound pretty much unchanged, the production just a bit shinier and more up-to-date. (The title confused me into wondering if I'd missed a release along t...

Jennifer Trynin: Cockamamie (1994)

One of those shoulda-been-huge albums that had its brief time in the sun but has since largely disappeared from public consciousness. Which is a damn shame, as I really like this record a lot.

Trynin's debut placed her among the many women who seized the alt.rock spotlight at the time, sounding somewhere between Liz Phair and PJ Harvey and Bettie Serveert and the Breeders. It's very much a '90s alt.rock album, meaning noisy, grungy guitars and big, rocking hooks, with a crisp, dry sound that give...

Various Artists: Ram On (Tribute to Paul & Linda McCartney's Ram) (2021)

Here's another recent release I'm enjoying--a fine (though by definition entirely inessential) note-for-note recreation of Paul & Linda McCartney's 1971 power pop classic Ram. Oddly enough, it's the third recent tribute to the album, following a home-brewed studio recreation by indie rocker (and Death Cab for Cutie guitarist) Dave Depper, as well as a live tribute to the album from Tim Christensen.

I've written before about the deep personal significance the original record has for me, as the fir...

Sleater-Kinney: Top 10 Songs

I've been relatively quiet for a few weeks as I enjoyed some post-vaccination travel (you can read some of my road trip observations & confessions in the two-part Fear & Bison on the Post-Pandemic Trail). But I'm not done here; still too many albums to talk about!

While I work on picking out the next target, you can check out my Sleater-Kinney Top 10 and career overview over on Toppermost. Got that one published just in time for the release of their new album, Path of Wellness. I'm still digestin...