Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 67

My Top 1000 Songs #520: Dead Sound

 [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 this single off their third LP, 2007's Lust Lust Lust, the Raveonettes polish their post-Jesus and Mary Chain sonic blast, a smoother (yet still boisterous) sound meshed with gentler surf rock, sweetened with a resonating melody and captivating harmonies, resulting in a Pixies-like loud-soft-loud dynamic that holds your attention and has you humming al...

My Top 1000 Songs #519: That Summer Feeling

 [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 my heart will always belong to that first (and, essentially, only) Modern Lovers album, there's plenty to love in Jonathan Richman's nearly half-century of music. The wistful, naive aesthetic he's been delivering ever since he left his edgy Velvet Underground-indebted early days behind may be just a little too doe-eyed and childlike for some, but if ...

My Top 1000 Songs #518: Impossible Germany

 [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.]

Most of my "I'm talkin' 'bout the live version!" posts in this list involve the Grateful Dead. Or possibly My Morning Jacket. But Wilco's "Impossible Germany," one of their finest moments after that mad rush of phenomenal records from Being There through Yankee Hotel Foxtrot had passed, is best heard live. I mean, hey, the studio version found on 2007's Sk...

My Top 1000 Songs #517: Bouncing Around The Room

 [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 Phish fans, my entry to the band and their weird, arguably insular culture was through their live music. But while their studio albums may not be top-of-mind for most fans, much less those outside the cult, it doesn't mean there isn't some fine music to be found there. And "Bouncing Around The Room," from 1990's Lawn Boy LP, is an undeniably fun ...

My Top 1000 Songs #516: Falling

 [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.]

Would I think as highly of this song without the Twin Peaks context? I'm honestly not sure. But back in '90, as a second-year law student, gathering around the tv for Twin Peaks was kind of a thing, and that haunting theme music was as much a part of the show's aesthetic as the story and characters. Still, singer Julee Cruise's 1989 debut Floating Into The...

My Top 1000 Songs #515: The Cutter

 [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.]

Sometimes you're listening to a song on the radio, and it's fine. Perfectly good song. But a verse or so in, something switches gears, and you're in a whole new place, an anthem for the ages, and you just want it to go on forever.

Anyway, right. Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Cutter," from 1983's Porcupine album. Starts out winning enough, some jagged guitar-dr...

My Top 1000 Songs #514: Medicine Show

 [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.]

When Big Audio Dynamite's debut arrived in 1985, "The Bottom Line" was the immediate attention grabber, the pithy, catchy track that signaled, Ok, fine, The Clash are no more, but this new Mick Jones outfit's gonna be alright. But I'll always have a ton of affection for album opener "Medicine Show" (though, were I programming the LP, I'd probably re-order ...

My Top 1000 Songs #513: One More Time

 [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.]

When Joe Jackson first arrived with the 1978 single "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" it was almost too perfect. That bassline, the deadpan call-and response vocals, the pointed tale of the jealous guy left behind--my generation's "Mr. Brightside," one might say. It was the song that came on the radio and you'd stop everything to listen, the one we'd all...

My Top 1000 Songs #512: Heroin

 [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.]

Sure, not much dispute on the historical significance, the unmitigated gall, the revolutionary impact of Lou Reed's "Heroin" and the balance of the 1967 Velvet Underground & Nico LP. (The work of the original incarnation of the band, of course, not the later version with Doug Yule inexplicably included on the EP pictured above!)

But is "Heroin" a song you a...

My Top 1000 Songs #511: Sister Golden Hair

 [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.]

America are one of the ultimate guilty pleasures, the band the cool kids were pretty much obligated to disdain in the 70s. That omnipresent Greatest Hits album every suburban mom seemed to own; the borrowed CSNY stylings; those ridiculous "Horse With No Name" lyrics.

But let's face it: "Sister Golden Hair" (from 1975's Hearts, though, let's be honest, mostl...