Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 64

My Top 1000 Songs #547: Float On

[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.]

Modest Mouse are one of those bands I should like more than I do. Musically, they check a lot of the right boxes, distinctively jagged 90s/00s indie rock that slots them in comfortably alongside acts I adore like Pavement, Built To Spill, Granddaddy, etc. Largely it's because I find Isaac Brock's vocals an acquired taste, which I've never quite acquired; an...

My Top 1000 Songs #546: A Good Idea

[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.]

Sugar's 1992 debut Copper Blue was an unexpected treat, Bob Mould pivoting from a couple post-Hüsker Dü solo records back to a rock & roll trio, emphasizing the Dü's pop side while showing what he could do with some big, booming production replacing that the thin SST sound of yore.

Plenty of great songs therein--more to come, check this space!--but it was "A...

My Top 1000 Songs #545: Shabby Doll

[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.]

In the Introduction to Jittery White Guy Music (still available on Amazon! Makes a great gift for your music nerd friends!), I wrote about my twisted musical brain and my relationship with Elvis Costello's 1982 Imperial Bedroom:

Anyway, yeah, "Beyond Belief" remains the pinnacle of that record (and, for me, the near-pinnacle of Elvis' long & wondrous career)...

My Top 1000 Songs #544: Sub-Rosa Subway

[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.]

The 1976 debut LP from Canadian rockers Klaatu was an odd blend of proggy semi-hard rock and ornate, Beatlesque pop--somewhere between Queen and Wings and ELO. It's largely remembered these days for (a) the original version of the sci-fi epic "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft," which became a highly improbable yet wonderful single from The Carpente...

My Top 1000 Songs #543: Wey-Wey-Hep-Uh-Hole

[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.]

Robyn Hitchcock at his most absurdist, a rollicking slab of nonsense off the Soft Boys' 1983 collection Invisible Hits. But the silliness is elevated by a muscular delivery over a Bo Diddley beat, Hitchcock and Kimberley Rew waging a jiggly guitar battle above a tragically under-appreciated rhythm section. There is such a wealth of wonderful Hitchcock mater...

My Top 1000 Songs #542: Goodbye 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.]

Squeeze update "Norwegian Wood" for the new wave/power pop era on 1979's (underrated?) Cool For Cats LP. "Goodbye Girl" gives a fleeting, room-spinning one night stand a colorful percussion backdrop, the distinctive Tilbrook/Difford vocal duet, and some odd Britishisms I still can't quite figure out (is "sunlight on the lino" just talking about a linoleum f...

My Top 1000 Songs #541: Second Hand News

[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 never sure if this one goes into the Guilty Pleasures file. Even as a mere ten-year-old when Rumours became a monster hit in 1977, I recognized the album as way too mainstream-friendly for my nascent taste; and once I got into punk and indie as a teenager, listening to Fleetwood Mac was greatly frowned upon among the cool kids. But once I hit middle age...

New Releases: Ducks Ltd.

February 2024 is off to a pretty great start! Last week we had the latest from the Paranoid Style, and I've been playing it repeatedly. And today we get the new one from Toronto indie rockers Ducks Ltd. I loved their 2021 LP Modern Fiction , which unabashedly invoked the 80s jangle of The Feelies and The Go-Betweens and New Zealand acts like The Bats. Harm's Way doesn't mess much with the sound, which is fine, 'cuz I could listen to this stuff for days. The sound remains relatively stripped down,...

My Top 1000 Songs #540: Box Elder

[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.]

Proto-Pavement, an early, lo-fi, pre-Slanted & Enchanted track (released as a single in 1989, then on the 1993 Westing (By Musked & Sextant) compilation of early cuts) that helps introduce the band's 90s indie aesthetic. Brisk and to the point, it's a kinda nasty little kiss-off, equal parts ugly break-up song and rousing proclamation of independence. Less ...

My Top 1000 Songs #539: Skateaway

[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.]

Dire Straits kinda fall into the guilty pleasures bucket. They're not a band I'm supposed to like, and on the intermittent occasions when I play them, it tends to be as background music while I'm doing something else. But I unapologetically love "Skateaway," off 1980's generally solid Making Movies. It balances the band's catchier pop side and their more at...