Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 70

My Top 1000 Songs #491: Spanish Jam

[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.]

Gonna break a few of my list rules here: First off, this is an instrumental, and I'm largely steering clear of these, a few exceptions aside. Moreover, it's not even really a proper song. Rather, "Spanish Jam" is the unofficial name given to a jam that the Grateful Dead segued in and out of at a few dozen performances over their thirty-year run. It showed u...

My Top 1000 Songs #490: Herded Into Pools

[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.]

Serious music fan that you are, presumably you've had this happen to you as well? You go out one night to see a band you like, but whose discography you don't necessarily know inside and out. You wake the next morning, groggy and hungover, and there's some song you simply can NOT get out of your head, something you heard the night before, dim memories of th...

My Top 1000 Songs #489: My Little Town

[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 song from my childhood that has steadily grown on me over the decades.

As a 9-year-old kid first discovering pop music, Paul Simon's "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" was one of the first Top 40 hits that I came to know from my local station, alongside other hits of 1975 from the Bay City Rollers, Sweet, Queen, Abba, etc. It was a fun little tune, with ...

My Top 1000 Songs #488: Elevate Me Later

[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.]

This is my fourth pick from Pavement's 1994 sophomore LP Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, which seems like entirely too many songs from any one album, Pavement or otherwise, but here we are. And while the three prior choices seem like more obvious stand-alone tracks, with "Elevate Me Later" more in the "deep cut" territory, it's a song that I've always loved in ...

My Top 1000 Songs #487: My First Band

[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.]

Yeah, kinda cheesy to run this back-to-back with yesterday's pick, Zappa's "Joe's Garage." But I used to play them back-to-back on my radio show--also, as my fellow DJ Mick Sludge would point out, kinda trite--and they've become a little intertwined in my head. "My First Band," a 1985 single from the Ben Vaughn Combo (before Vaughn went on to a long and ill...

My Top 1000 Songs #486: Joe's Garage

[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.]

There are the serious Zappa people out there. Then there are the non-Zappa people out there.

Me, I'm mostly ambivalent. I enjoy some of the late 60s/early 70s fusion stuff. But I hate all the marimbas. And once he starts singing, I'm usually turned off (as it's often sophomoric and/or misogynist). 

Still, there are treats among the late musician's vast and va...

My Top 1000 Songs #485: Song Against Sex

[Wait, where's #484? That one was written up out-of-order but updated yesterday; check it out here.]

Neutral Milk Hotel's second and final LP, 1998's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, gets most of the attention, which isn't crazy since it's only one of the most unforgettable musical works ever recorded. Still, the band's debut LP, 1996's On Avery Island, was no slouch--comparably unique and disturbing and often deeply affecting.

Lead-off track "Song Against Sex" gets things off to an energetic, spell...

My Top 1000 Songs #483: Save It For Later

[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 closely associate this song with the whole early 80s new wave vibe; but, to be honest, I didn't really develop an affection for the song until a few years later, through a cover version. 

I was kinda lukewarm on the English Beat back in the day (or The Beat, as I guess they're called over there, but not for those of us familiar with the US power-poppers of...

My Top 1000 Songs #482: Back Of My Hand

[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.]

Another defining moment in late 70s/early 80s new wave-flavored power pop. The 1979 single from UK rockers the Jags, included on their 1980 debut LP Evening Standards, tends to be relegated to the one-hit-wonder bin (if remembered at all), though both the band's albums (most of which were pooled onto an excellent Best Of collection) were full of great track...

My Top 1000 Songs #481: Working Girls

[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.]

Some lovely jangle pop from the Pernice Brothers, off 2001's terrific The World Won't End. Lots of nice, endlessly charming tunes out there from Joe Pernice and his various configurations, but this one stands out for me. Some of his prettiest vocals, with chiming guitars and a great melody to hum along to--hard not to love, and perfect for any mixtape.

"'Ant...