Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 24

King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard: Paper Mâché Dream Balloon

I've generally taken a pass on prolific 2010s+ psych/prog act King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Even getting past the band's name, I don't much care for modern-day prog, especially when it's got some heavy metal leanings; throw in the fantasy/sci-fi thematics and cult-like jam band following, and their mythos seems pretty impenetrable.

Still, at the urging of some online denizens, I decided to set aside my preconceptions and plunge into their back catalog to see if maybe I'd been missing out. And...

My Top 1000 Songs #909: Wild West End

[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.]

Never been a huge Dire Straits fan (Mark Knopfler's Dylan-like growl a bit of a stumbling block), though I enjoy their records in small doses. I still remember the self-titled debut coming out in 1978, "Sultans of Swing" utterly inescapable on the radio. I biked over to the local public library and checked out the record--at 12, with no car or cash, I was s...

My Top 1000 Songs #908: Hearts Are Trump

[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.]

Sure, German new wave band Trio were basically a novelty act--Casio toy keyboards, lo fi guitars & deadpan lyrics--but they also wrote some wickedly fun ditties. Having heard "Da Da Da" (later revitalized by a memorable Volkswagen commercial, right up there with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon") and "Boom Boom" on the radio, or maybe seen the videos on late night c...

My Top 1000 Songs #907: The Funeral Party

[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.]

Like (probably?) a lot of people, I first got into The Cure through their more approachable upbeat songs. 1985's Head On The Door was the first Cure album that got my attention, highlighted by catchy pop tracks like "In Between Days" and "Close To Me" I could play on my college radio show; followed by the next year's Standing On A Beach singles collection, ...

My Top 1000 Songs #906: New Lover

[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.]

Two days after Chris Bell's crushing break-up song, we've got singer-songwriter Josh Ritter with a less depressing yet truly world-class divorce song (off 2013's The Beast In Its Tracks). Over a gentle, hypnotic, descending chord progression, Ritter admits his contributions to the break-up, wishes future romantic happiness to both himself and his ex with se...

My Top 1000 Songs #905: This Is The Remix

[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.]

This doesn't necessarily count as an actual "song," but it's probably my favorite excerpt from DJ Girl Talk's 2010 album All Day . It's the third (and most polished) of his not-entirely-legitimate mash-up collections, an endless array of mix-and-match raps from hip-hop artists spliced atop snippets of rock songs new and old. This particular 6-minute medley b...

My Top 1000 Songs #904: Speed Of Sound

[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.]

This is my third visit to Big Star co-founder Chris Bell's posthumous I Am The Cosmos LP. Is that overkill for an album that didn't even exist until some 14 years after the musician's tragic passing? Perhaps. But there's just so much beauty there (and that's not even touching the upbeat rockers). "Speed Of Sound" is one of the most heartbreaking break-up so...

My Top 1000 Songs #903: I'm Not Bitter

[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.]

Seattle living legend Scott McCaughey is attached to so much great music--both with his two long-running primary bands, the Young Fresh Fellows and the Minus 5, and with countless other projects--that highlighting any particular song(s) as standing head-and-shoulders above the rest is a fool's game. This is particularly true with the Minus 5. While the Youn...

My Top 1000 Songs #902: She's In Parties

[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.]

While my college years were dominated by shiny happy jangle, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy indulging my inner goth on occasion. Once I'd started spending time with Joy Division, the Cure, and the early Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus seemed like the next logical step (though, like Joy Division, they had ceased to exist before I heard any of their music). Alas, th...

My Top 1000 Songs #901: New York Groove

[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.]

Look, I could try to be cool and claim I was hip to little-known UK pop/glam band Hello--kind of a less aggressive Sweet--when they released this single back in 1975. But I was 9 and only knew the songs they played on my local AM radio station, Chicago's WLS--and this was not played on the radio.

So, like most kids, I heard it for the first time three years ...