Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 50

My Top 1000 Songs #682: Vanishing 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.] 

As noted previously, I actually prefer XTC's brief stint as a faux retro-60-psyche-pop outfit called the Dukes of Stratosphear to much of XTC's proper work. There may be XTC songs I prefer--we've had a few of them on the list already--but, as a unified whole, the Dukes' 1985 EP & 1987 LP (combined on the truly essential 1987 Chips From The Chocolate Fireba...

Reissue: Young Fresh Fellows

I've been waiting for a remix of this album for... oh, I dunno, nearly 40 years? And it's finally here! Just what I needed to pull myself out of a bit of a slump.

I've written up the Young Fresh Fellows' wonderful 1984 debut Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest before--a fun, low-key and lo-fi party record that conjures late 60s garage bands but with an 80s college radio sensibility, ranging from rollicking retro rock to jangly power pop. The one drawback, alas, was the utter lack of any disc...

My Top 1000 Songs #681: The Magic Number

[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 most kids of my generation, I spent Saturday mornings in the early 70s watching cartoons and other Saturday morning kids' shows. My parents were pretty restrictive about the tv in our house (not obsessively so, but definitely limits on weekday viewing when I was younger), so Saturdays were a special time when my younger brother and I could spend a few...

My Top 1000 Songs #680: Stray Dog & The Chocolate Shake

[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.] 

Here's another one of those songs that finds its way onto this list not because I can confidently proclaim it as one of History's Greatest Songs, but simply because something about it captures a particularly moment in my life and will always have some sort of indefinable emotional resonance for me.

A deep cut from indie band Grandaddy's 2003 LP Sumday--the ...

My Top 1000 Songs #679: I've Seen All Good People

[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 I traversed the "every-teen-boy-in-the-70s-must-undergo-a-lonely-prog-phase" part of my life, moving from Genesis to King Crimson and beyond, I drew a hard line in the sand at Yes. Didn't care for Jon Anderson's tenor vocals; the music (especially on those LP-side-length suites) was self-indulgent even for prog; and the Yes fans in high school, the ones...

My Top 1000 Songs #678: The Split

[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 filled this list with a lot of great music from New Zealand's legendary Flying Nun label. But while jangly/fizzy post-punk acts like the Clean, the Bats, the Chills, etc. are often nearly (alternative) radio-friendly, it can be a little harder to wrap your arms around the more experimental work of Chris Knox--both as a solo artist and one half of the ...

My Top 1000 Songs #677: Mrs. Vanderbilt

[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.] 

Obviously, when Paul McCartney puts his heart into it, he can craft one of the greatest pop songs in music history. But a lot of my favorite Macca numbers are the ones where it sounds like he's kinda half-assing it, tossing off some silly lyrics that feel like little personal in-jokes, or maybe placeholders until he circles back with something a little mor...

My Top 1000 Songs #676: The Happy Song

[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.] 

What, you don't know the Noise Petals?

Probably not--these guys were some college friends of mine who recorded a couple EPs and used to play gigs on campus, so if you weren't spending the mid-80s in lovely Princeton, New Jersey, they were probably outside your radar. So, yeah, a little inside baseball here, but--my list, my rules. And since they were a huge...

My Top 1000 Songs #675: Little Fluffy Clouds

[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 am, as you've likely surmised, generally a two-guitars-bass-and-drums kinda guy. But this jubilant bit of electronica was pretty inescapable back in 1990, well-timed for my law school years when I was a little at sea musically and picking up whatever caught my attention. Spoken-word samples from an interview with singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones are ba...

My Top 1000 Songs #674: Can't Get A Line

[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.] 

"Can't Get A Line" is a stand-out on what's probably my favorite Old 97's LP, 2001's Satellite Rides. The enduring indie Americana stalwarts try their hand at British Invasion-fueled pop, and somehow arrive at the perfect blend of country-rock twang and Beatles-styled power pop. Rhett Miller hands the singing & songwriting duties to bassist Murry Hammond, ...