Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 44

It Was 40 Years Ago Today...

Taking a day off from my Top 1000... as I'm back in my hometown for the weekend, heading for my 40-year high school reunion.
Yeah, I'm that old.
Of course, like every event in my life, it's mostly just an excuse to make a mix. So I threw together a quick playlist of about 130 songs that came out during my time in high school (fall 1980 through spring 1984). It's available below for enjoyment by my contemporaries (or the 80s-curious).
As they're going to be playing it at the reunion, I had to go bey...

My Top 1000 Songs #735: Cynical Girl

[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 already talked about how Marshall Crenshaw's "Whenever You're On My Mind" is the perfect jangly power pop song.

 So, "Cynical Girl," off his 1982 self-titled debut? Yeah, same.

Live 1985:

My Top 1000 Songs #734: The Middle

I suppose this one is the epitome of the Guilty Pleasure. I can't say I care for Jimmy Eat World; I think I listened to one of their albums once and quickly decided it wasn't for me. And even this song sort of snuck in; as far as I can remember, I didn't hear it at the time of its 2001 release--rather, the first time I heard it was when my kids, a few years after that, went to rock & roll summer camp, and this is one of the songs they played. And I thought, hey, what a damn catchy song! 
That it ...

My Top 1000 Songs #733: Stage Fright

[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.] 

Not a ton of appearances from The Band on this list; they're one of those bands I know I'm supposed to love, but for whatever reason have never totally clicked for me. I tend to like Band-influenced bands more than The Band themselves. (Which, perhaps not coincidentally, is how I feel about Dylan covers as compared to actual Dylan music.) Sure, we've got "...

My Top 1000 Songs #732: Makin' Like A Rug

[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.] 

Our second visit to Chicago indie rockers Eleventh Dream Day, and like the last one, it comes from 1993's El Moodio , and is another rare spotlight for drummer/guitarist Janet Beveridge Bean. Over a Yo La Tengo-adjacent savage guitar skronk (the riff arguably inspired that band's "From A Motel 6"?), Bean and frontman (and former husband) Rick Rizzo swap dia...

My Top 1000 Songs #731: Higher Ground

[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.] 

Tell me you couldn't just listen to that funky wah-wah clavinet riff all day long! I don't listen to a lot of Stevie Wonder (I suppose I should?), but "Higher Ground" (off 1973's Innervisions) is, pardon the pun, on an entirely different plane for me, a funk anthem to end all funk anthems. (Plus, he apparently played every instrument on the track... what a...

My Top 1000 Songs #730: Turpitude

With the usual caveat that I'm being selective about including songs from the past 5 years to mitigate the risk of recency bias... we're gonna snag ourselves another hot little number from The Paranoid Style, one of my absolute favorite bands of recent years. "Turpitude," off 2019's excellent A Goddamn Impossible Way Of Life , gallops along on a pleasant barroom shuffle and some amiable woo-oo-oohs, a platform for Elizabeth Nelson to wax eloquent about a few highly specific 90s recollections, nam...

My Top 1000 Songs #729: Jenny Artichoke

[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 me, "Jenny Artichoke" is one of the great lost pop songs of the 1960s. British band Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with the US band of the same name) were better known as a psychedelic act, with a couple albums of light pop-psych in the late 60s before briefly pivoting into a more arty prog outfit called Fairfield Parlour (underrated!). But this 1968...

My Top 1000 Songs #728: Your New Twin Sized Bed

[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.] 

Just a damn fine break-up song off Death Cab For Cutie's great 2008 record Narrow Stairs . Or, to be fair, a heartbreaking ode to permanent singledom, but it has the vibe of having just lost someone. It's a simple yet twisty little guitar wiggle with a nonstop barrage of just emotionally devastating lyrical couplets to wallow in. The makings for a perfect m...

My Top 1000 Songs #727: Blue Thunder

[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.] 

Gauzy dream pop from Galaxie 500, the lead-off track on their 1989 sophomore LP On Fire. A slow and muddy river of sound, Dean Wareham sounding almost too sleepy to get the (minimal) words out, gradually reaching a crescendo of falsetto la-la-las... "I'll drive so far away" as a welcome promise.
The single version added a bleating saxophone, but I prefer th...