Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 59

My Top 1000 Songs #595: Three Little Birds

[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 those of us of a certain age, it's hard to hear Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" (from 1977's Exodus) without the taint of endless college dorm-room parties blasting the Legend hits collection. (As The Onion has gleefully documented on multiple occasions.) Throw in more recent pop culture saturation via movie soundtracks and tv commercials, and the son...

My Top 1000 Songs #594: If You Wanna

[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 not sure what I'm supposed to think about British guitar alt.rockers The Vaccines. They seem like one of those bands that gets a lot of attention in the UK, while facing some sort of critical backlash in the US as "another post-Strokes guitar band" or something like that. Whatever; I like 'em a lot. And they got off to a killer start with "If You Wanna,...

My Top 1000 Songs #593: Think About Your Troubles

[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.]

A little slow, a little meandering, yet something otherworldly about Harry Nilsson's gorgeous vocals keeps it all on track. It's hard to strip this of its childhood associations with 1970's animated made-for-tv movie The Point, which I still vaguely remember watching as a kid, and the nostalgic embrace of the song (like the rest of the album) may be part of...

My Top 1000 Songs #592: Pleaser

[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 our second selection from tragically overlooked Athens, GA indie rockers The Glands. And like the aesthetically similar, previously-covered "When I Laugh," "Pleaser" is a master-class in combining the slack 90s indie sound of Pavement, Modest Mouse, and Built To Spill with a classic rock-informed radio-friendly hook. It's a song so instantly familiar...

My Top 1000 Songs #591: Obscurity Knocks

[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.]

Kick out the jangles, mother******! Scottish alt.pop act Trash Can Sinatras (aka Trashcan Sinatras) have released charmingly endearing tunes for a couple decades now, but "Obscurity Knocks," the opening track on their 1990 debut Cake, remains a definitive introduction to the band. The Smiths comparisons are unavoidable, but for those of us who love Johnny M...

New Releases: Q1 2024

Well, damn, it's almost April! Finally got around to starting up my 2024 Running List on Spotify (see below). Some solid selections in the first three months. Loving the LPs from the Paranoid Style, Waxahatchee, Hanging Stars, Ducks Ltd., The Umbrellas, etc. Recently picked up a Byrds tribute from an Americana musician named Christian Parker which has been in regular rotation on the Jittery Guy stereo (a nice follow up to his previous tribute to the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo). Anyway, enjoy...

My Top 1000 Songs #590: Fox On The Run

Back in 1975, when I was 9 years old and just discovering the delights of Top 40 AM radio, Sweet's "Fox On The Run" was my first favorite song. I went out to the local Sears and used my allowance to buy Desolation Boulevard , the first record I ever bought with my own money.

Since then, I've had countless favorite songs--well, at least 1000, as we're working our way through right here. But "Fox On The Run" still holds up (the poppy single, not the original harder-rocking album track), a deliciousl...

My Top 1000 Songs #589: My Gap Feels Weird

[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.]

Superchunk's long indie rock career is littered with great songs (several of which I've previously hailed), and I'm guessing this one is more a left-field pick. But it's a personal favorite, a relentless blast of cathartic sunshine for me. 

2010's Majesty Shredding represented the band's dynamite return after a nearly decade-long sabbatical, and it was packe...

My Top 1000 Songs #588: Slackjawed

[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 I generally prefer the Connells' lovely mid-tempo jangle pop, they had a few upbeat rockers that captured the band's gentle beauty and gave it a bit more buzzsaw urgency. "Stone Cold Yesterday," of course, is one of the band's finest hours. But "Slackjawed," from 1993's terrific Ring LP, is right behind. That album's gorgeous folk-tinged "'74-'75" got...

My Top 1000 Songs #587: The Shining Path

[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 some quiet, ethereal music that has lived rent-free in my imagination for decades. I think it gets filed under "soundtrack music"--yet it's possible the song's appearance in a film is something that happened only in my imagination.

In contrast to Shriekback's edgy dance music (best exemplified in the amazing, previously-acknowledged "Nemesis"), "The S...