Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 149

Various Artists: Strum & Thrum (The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987)

Here's a brand new compilation issued by indie label Captured Tracks, and it's just fantastic. Anyone who has dropped by these parts knows I am a diehard devotee of 80s jangle pop, the post-Byrds Rickenbacker guitars and gentle hooks of bands like R.E.M., the Connells, Winter Hours, et al. But this collection digs deep, unearthing a lot of music I'd never heard and that managed to stay under the radar of even those of us who were college radio DJs with a steady in-flow of underground singles at ...

Elton John: Tumbleweed Connection (1970)

If 14-year-old me knew that 54-year-old me would one day be praising the work of Elton John, he'd have been pretty surprised, if not downright pissed. Back in the earlier days of my rock music obsession, Elton was on the short-list of artists for whom I had not just disinterest, but outright antipathy (see also, e.g., Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, the Eagles). His radio-friendly pop was way too mainstream, or even schlocky, for my emerging hipster taste.

But in recent years, I've mello...

Sonic Youth: Goo (1990)

Like many Sonic Youth fans of my era, I'm particularly wedded to their last two indie albums, 1987's Sister and 1988's Daydream Nation. It was on those two that they successfully wedded their experimental noise collages with serious hooks, delivering songs that were surprisingly catchy, but still a long way from commercial radio friendliness.

When they signed to Geffen, there was some concern their rougher edges would be sanded off (as certainly happened to varying extents with contemporaries lik...

Wendy Carlos: Switched-On Bach (1968)

I'll be the first to admit that, while I think I have relatively varied taste within the rock format, my musical pursuits rarely stray far from rockist tendencies.

I don't own a single classical record. And I don't have a lot of electronic music, aside from more obvious artists like Kraftwerk and Stereolab.

But I have tremendous love for Wendy Carlos's synthesized classics. I think I first heard Switched-On Bach back in junior high, when a music teacher played it for us, and I picked up a cassette...

The Shazam: S/T (1997)

I've previously talked about The Shazam's unbelievably great second LP, 1999's Godspeed the Shazam , where their upbeat power pop got a healthy kick of glam, and was just riddled with insane hooks. Their debut isn't quite at the same level, but it's still a terrific power pop nugget. The band leans more to the hard rock side of things, punchy 70s-styled rockers (drawing the inevitable Cheap Trick comparisons, though I greatly prefer the Shazam to Cheap Trick). 

Opener "Let's Away" is a bit more po...

David Bowie: Metrobolist (The Man Who Sold The World) (1970)

After discovering (and being floored by) Bowie as a pre-teen courtesy of a cassette copy of ChangesOneBowie (at the time his definitive greatest hits collection), I set about digging deeper into his back catalog. Ziggy Stardust , of course, came first, and it remains my favorite (neck and neck with Hunky Dory). Conventional wisdom at the time (which I drew largely from the Rolling Stone Record Guide, my bible as I explored the classic rock canon) was that his pre-Hunky Dory releases were far less...

Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001/2002)

The long-awaited deluxe edition reissue of my favorite Wilco album, Summerteeth, is due out shortly; so as I await that one (one of the first I chatted about in this space), figured I'd pull out my other favorite Wilco album.

Having spent the past week in election mode (and still nervously trying to distract myself) -- which is why I've been slow to post lately -- I've been relying on old favorites to get me through. And re-listening to Summerteeth's amazing follow-up was a helpful reminder of wh...

Eels: Beautiful Freak (1996)

Eels -- essentially the rotating cast of musicians centered around singer-songwriter Mark Everett -- just released a new album, Earth to Dora (pretty solid on first listen); this sent me scurrying back to re-listen to their discography and update my home-brewed Eels compilation (which I've inserted below).

While there have been some great Eels albums over the past quarter-century (2005's Blinking Lights & Other Revelations is a personal fave), I'm still loyal to the band's 1996 semi-debut, Beauti...

Van Duren: Idiot Optimism (1979/2000/2020)

While a lot of power pop bands (fairly or otherwise) are quickly tagged with a "kinda sounds like Big Star" label, Van Duren is probably more deserving of it than most. He was a denizen of the same 70s Memphis rock scene that birthed Big Star; and after the dissolution of the band, he did some playing with both Chris Bell and drummer Jody Stephens.

He recorded and released one proper LP, 1978's superb Are You Serious? His second album, Idiot Optimism, was recorded the following year, but despite ...

Michael Carpenter: Songs of Other People #6 (2020)

Australian musician Michael Carpenter is one of those perennial power pop artists who's been plugging away for years but not getting much attention outside of the diehard power pop community. Which is a shame, as he's a fine craftsman of catchy tunes, easily enjoyed by anyone with a ken for Matthew Sweet or Jason Falkner or the Fountains of Wayne. But besides a litany of great originals, he's a prolific purveyor of cover songs, both on myriad tribute albums and on his home-brewed series of album...