Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 17

My Top 1000 Songs #969: Fifteen Rounds

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I've previously shared my appreciation for the music-nerd sub-genre of bands quietly crafting brief snippets of quirky Guided By Voices-influenced indie pop. Compounding the obscurity factor are Unlikely Friends, asuper-group of sorts, some guys from various Pacific Northwest indie actswho teamed up for a few records in the 2010s. Nothing world-changing, ...

My Top 1000 Songs #968: Green Is The Colour

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

The Pink Floyd wilderness years--between the psychedelic Syd Barrett era and the post-Dark Side mega-selling-concept-album era--could be a mixed bag. There were masterpieces (most of Meddle) and dreck (most of Ummagumma), and a bunch of soundtrack albums from little-known films with a little of each. I have a soft spot for the more pastoral folk rock that s...

My Top 1000 Songs #967: So What

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Time for an odd entry on the list. Because this song is downright evil. Just a nasty bit of business. From an album I bought and never played a second time. But it's also one of those songs I still sometimes hear playing in my nightmares, so I guess I'm stuck with it being a part of my life.

I was never a fan of Ministry's industrial club music, but back in ...

My Top 1000 Songs #966: Under The Milky Way

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Australian alt.rockers The Church are one of those bands I know I should spend more time with, but I kinda missed them the first time around, and by the time I got around to picking up a bunch of their records, it felt like the time had passed. But I do like that run of 80s records, blending college radio jangle with Cure-like goth-pop and maybe a touch of ...

My Top 1000 Songs #965: Bad Reputation

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I don't remember exactly how I first came across singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston. But in 1994--when his third (and IMHO best) album This Perfect World came out--I'd just moved out to the suburbs ourside San Francisco, and was occasionally dropping by the local Tower Records for some retail therapy after a long day at the office and commute home. And I haz...

My Top 1000 Songs #964: The Truth Is Not Real

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Sagittarius were a short-lived late 60s pop-psych studio creation, the brainchild of songwriter/producer Gary Usher (best known for producing a lot of early surf records, writing a few early Beach Boys songs, and producing the Byrds' best album). For 1968's Present Tense, Usher teamed up with sunshine pop singer Curt Boettcher and various friends and studio...

My Top 1000 Songs #963: Hideaway

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

The first time I heard Olivia Tremor Control's 1996 long-playing debut Dusk At Cubist Castle, I was blown away, and its impact has barely diminished over time. One of the core bands of the Elephant 6 collective, they explored late 60s psychedelic pop, with the feel of a few guys with a home studio trying to push the boundaries with a limited budget but unli...

My Top 1000 Songs #962: Fun & Games

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

For their follow-up to 1987's nearly untouchable Boylan Heights, which gave the sweet jangle of R.E.M. and the Smiths a gentle, melodic sheen, the Connells added just a touch of the ol' amplifiers. 1989's Fun & Games doesn't stray too far from its predecessor, but there's a little more buzz on top of the jangle. The dichotomy is best heard on the title trac...

My Top 1000 Songs #961: Dyna-Mite

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

As described in both my book and previously in this blog, I have enduring, unapologetic love for Sweet, whose bubblegum-pop-glam with an (increasingly over time) hard rock energy made them one of the first bands I fell in love with as a nine-year-old getting lost in Top 40 radio back in 1975. And that love extends even to one of their cast-offs. The songwri...

My Top 1000 Songs #960: Opened

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Unlike the Breeders' breakthrough second album Last Splash, which had some fully-realized and obviously enduring songs, 1990's Pod feels more like Kim Deal tossing off some rough sketches for tracks Frank Black wouldn't let the Pixies record. Of course, these are some pretty great sketches, given a prickly, dry production by the late Steve Albini, a chance ...