Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 172

Today I Will Listen To An Eagles Album

It's been de rigueur to hate the Eagles for as long as I can remember.  Certainly since the Dude righteously declared "I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man," back in The Big Lebowski, right up through The Good Place's depiction of the Medium Place -- the limbo of "eternal mediocrity" between heaven and hell -- as having a jukebox programmed to play nothing but live versions of Eagles songs.
When I was first discovering pop radio as a pre-teen back in the mid-70s, the Eagles were already a radio...

Spirit: Potato Land (1973/1981)

Spirit are one of those bands from the golden age of classic rock that I don't think get enough attention (in terms of radio play or general credibility).  I mean, sure, you'll sometimes hear "Got A Line On You" -- an uncharacteristically straight-ahead rocker -- on the radio, or maybe even "Fresh Garbage," but can you name much more than that?  Which is a damn shame, because their catalog is littered with greatness (as well as weirdness). 

They had a run of good-to-great albums...

Paul & Linda McCartney: Ram (1971)

Of the thousands of records in my collection, this may be the one with the most emotional resonance and formative importance.  But I've held off on saying anything about it (though I did write up indie guitarist Dave Depper's wonderful 2011 note-for-note recreation) -- largely because I was still working on my book, in which I devote a few pages to Ram, and figured I'd let that speak for itself.  But now that the book is published -- and, yes, I'd be delighted if you'd check it out...

New Release Round-Up

I've got a stack of relatively new stuff I've been checking out lately.  Here are some quick takes after a spin or two:

Ratboys: Printer's Devil (2020)
Ratboys are a noise pop band led by Julia Steiner, catchy bubblegum-tinged power pop with a bit of an edge.  Steiner reminds me of Charly Bliss's Eva Hendricks, a schoolgirl squeak in her voice that gives the crunchy pop a buoyant energy.  It's mostly upbeat rockers, with a couple midtempo tunes weaving in a mellower pastoral...

New Order: 1981-1982 EP (1982)

This 5-song EP was my introduction to New Order (and ultimately Joy Division, which I eased into only after being drawn in by New Order's more approachable sound), and will always have a fond place in my heart.

It's relatively obsolete at this point; the songs were later included on the 2008 deluxe-edition of New Order's 1981 full-length debut Movement .  (For some inexplicable reason, last year's latest re-re-issue of Movement included selected demos as bonus tracks but omitted the ...

The Raveonettes: Chain Gang Of Love (2003)

The Raveonettes are one of my go-to bands when I absolutely need to play something loud enough to peel the paint off the walls.  We all get those moods, and the Raveonettes gladly oblige.

Is the debt they owe to the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy obvious (particularly on their earlier albums)?  You bet.  Their full-length debut is practically a Psychocandy rewrite, distinguished by the interplay of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo's vocals.  Yet tons of post-J&MC...

Game Theory: Real Nighttime (1985)

I love this band.  Can't believe I haven't included them here previously, something that occurred to me only upon reading news of a forthcoming collection of late-period recordings.

The late Scott Miller was a sort of pop wunderkind, blending the retro-psychedelic-tinged 60s pop of his peers in the Paisley Underground with Big Star's melodic power pop and R.E.M.'s Byrdsy jangles, as well as strains of post-new wave experimentation.

Real Nighttime was my introduction to the band (they'd had...

Real Estate: In Mind (2017)

New Jersey indie band Real Estate have a new album dropping shortly, so to gear up I figured I'd pull out their last one, 2017's lovely In Mind.

Over the course of the past decade, Real Estate have been remarkably consistent, each of their four albums (and a like-minded solo album by singer Martin Courtney) providing a relaxing blend of '70s laid back singer-songwriter stylings, '80s indie jangle, and more contemporary freak folk.  I can't really pick a favorite, as the formula is pretty...

The American Dream: S/T (1970)

One of my favorite things about music in the internet age is the ability to discover long-forgotten artists from the '60s and '70s.  It never ceases to amaze me how many bands managed a few songs that sound as worthy of inclusion in the classic rock canon as those that found success, yet barely registered at the time, only to be discovered by some online blogger scouring the cut-out bins or keeping up with record labels specializing in unexpected reissues.

I don't know much about The...

U2: Achtung Baby (1991)

U2 remain one of those bands I know I'm supposed to like more than I do.  Scratch that -- I actually like them quite a bit; it's just that I so rarely feel inspired to pull out a U2 album and cue it up.  Some of this is an unfair result of their omnipresence back in high school and college, albums like Boy and Unforgettable Fire and especially Joshua Tree being so culturally pervasive that, like Led Zeppelin a decade earlier, the thought of actually playing one of their records...