Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 57

My Top 1000 Songs #615: Mannequin

[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.]

Amidst the non-stop barrage of (mostly) pithy yet clever stabs of arty punk rock on 1977's landmark Pink Flag LP, Wire sneak in a winningly catchy pop track. "Mannequin" sports your basic Who/Kinks 3-chord power pop motif and la-la-las and and sing-along harmonies, paired with an admittedly nasty dis track--a bitter takedown of a model, perhaps, or maybe, m...

My Top 1000 Songs #614: Back Again

[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.]

Longtime San Francisco musical fixture Barbara Manning released some excellent solo records in the late 80s/early 90s (and deserves more credit for laying the groundwork for a lot of today's indie women musicians). At the same time, she was gigging with her band the SF Seals, culminating in 1994's terrific LP Nowhere (or is it Now Here?). The album opens wi...

My Top 1000 Songs #613: Silver

[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.]

Over the last two records, indie singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, through her shifting vehicle Waxahatchee, has pivoted into stripped down, Americana-tinged acoustic rock. (I'm currently enjoying this year's lovely Tigers Blood.) Prior to that, the band offered hard-edged indie rock, peaking on 2017's terrific Out In The Storm, which added some polish t...

My Top 1000 Songs #612: Brain Damage/Eclipse

[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.]

Do kids today still go through the obligatory Dark Side Of The Moon phase? Certainly for those of us growing up on Pink Floyd in the 70s and 80s, there came the moment when you were introduced to the monumental right of passage: locked in your room, headphones on, playing the 1973 LP from end-to-end with the lyric sheet splayed across your knees, moving onl...

My Top 1000 Songs #611: Clones

[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'm probably plucking this one from the guilty pleasures file, but Alice Cooper's 1980 single "Clones (We're All)" is an absolute hoot which I've never tired of. Cooper's odd, brief dip into new wave territory came out at the tail end of middle school, and I wasn't exactly a fan of the hard rock for which he was best known (though I've since come to appreci...

My Top 1000 Songs #610: Death And The Maiden

[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.]

Heading back to New Zealand's early 80s indie scene. This list has already paid props to faves like the Clean, the Chills, the Bats (and, more recently, Look Blue Go Purple), now it's the Verlaines' turn. On this infectious yet skewed slice of jagged jangle pop, the band, having already turned to French poet Paul Verlaine for their name, go all in with a ch...

My Top 1000 Songs #609: Jane Of The Waking Universe

[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 a few times before, I could easily fill this list with dozens of Guided By Voices (and Robert Pollard solo) tunes. But that would get boring, so, like other great (albeit far less prolific) acts like the Beatles, Who, Clash, etc., I've tried to cherry-pick a few absolute faves, even if that selection might change with my whims. Which brings us to "...

My Top 1000 Songs #608: Weakest Shade Of Blue

[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.]

Absolutely choice little pop song from the Pernice Brothers, off 2003's Yours, Mine & Ours. Not much to say about this one--just one of those insanely catchy tracks (maybe a throwback to the classic jangly  power pop of Tommy Keene?) that came out when I was still burning mix CDRs for people, and instantly became a song I felt obligated to include on every ...

My Top 1000 Songs #607: 10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box

[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'm an absolute sucker for late 60s UK psych-pop. But not many songs hit that perfect sweet spot, catchy and melodic with just enough of the studio gimmickry of the day to give it a trippy psychedelic vibe. But this one-off from Aquarian Age nails it--a little dark & haunting, odd vocal quirks, light orchestration, flanged guitars, and so on. Fans of Piper ...

My Top 1000 Songs #606: Holes

[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 a second track off Mercury Rev's amazing 1998 Deserter's Songs. With "Holes," the band moves beyond its noisier post-punk roots and fully embraces gentle, more ambient yet proggy mood pieces, delivering a song that I've always found deeply spiritual and emotionally resonant. You've got the massive orchestral swells and eerie wails for drama, but at h...