Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 75

My Top 1000 Songs #444: Gold Soundz

[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.]

Pavement's second full-length, 1994's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, offered a few stabs at moving their distinctly indie sound into an almost alt.rock-radio-friendly space. "Cut Your Hair" was one obvious effort; "Gold Soundz" similarly added a veneer of approachable pop without abandoning the unique iconoclasm that made them the Most! Important! Band! of the...

My Top 1000 Songs #443: Sitting In My Hotel

[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.]

"Sitting In My Hotel" is not exactly the most well-known of Kinks tracks. It's a quiet little ballad tucked onto 1973's Everybody's In Showbiz, an (underrated) transitional record that, like Muswell Hillbillies before it, was a loose concept album of sorts--focused on life on the road--before Ray Davies kicked off his divisive fully-theatrical period. It en...

My Top 1000 Songs #442: Little Mascara

[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.]

Yep, we've all been in total Replacements mode lately, ever since the remixed version of 1985's Tim landed, taking one of history's greatest rock & roll records and giving it the fresh look it deserved. So it's opportune that "Little Mascara," one of many truly essential tracks on the LP, has come up on the list while I'm still deeply embedded in an ongoing...

My Top 1000 Songs #441: Landed

[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.]

"Landed," off Ben Folds' 2005 sophomore solo LP Songs For Silverman, is another in a series of slightly-bitter but ultimately self-critical break-up songs. Which might cause it to get lost among Folds' other, arguably more colorful work, if not for the music--a beautiful mid-tempo piano ballad with a rousing chorus that sounds like a throwback to peak Laure...

My Top 1000 Songs #440: 7 Chinese Brothers

[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.]

Every song on 1984's Reckoning is pretty much perfect... but for some reason, "7 Chinese Brothers" has always struck me as just a little bit more perfect than most. Or, to put it a different way: R.E.M. changed my life back then, and each song on Reckoning (and the prior year's Murmur) retains the almost magical capacity to transport me back to that moment ...

New(ish) Releases: The High Water Marks

I don't know if this is my favorite album of 2023, but it's definitely one of the most entertaining. More importantly, it serves the important purpose of scratching that old-school Elephant 6 itch.

I can't overstate how big a part of my (musical) life the myriad bands in the loose, not always clearly defined Elephant 6 collective were for me in the mid-90s. The Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, and Neutral Milk Hotel were at the center of my universe for awhile, alongside Dressy Bessy, the...

My Top 1000 Songs #439: Spectacular Views

[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, the relentlessly upbeat (at least musically) rocker from Rilo Kiley is not dissimilar from their later "Portions For Foxes"--which isn't to suggest I don't like their mellower, more Americana-centric work as well. But its appearance on the band's second LP, 2002's The Execution Of All Things, showed a band starting to stretch out. And the thing just c...

My Top 1000 Songs #438: '74-'75

[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 Connells have loads of gorgeous, jangly ballads, full of hum-along melodies and sweet, mellow vibes. So it was kinda interesting that this one in particular, from 1993's superb Ring, was the one that won the band a little (short-lived?) attention beyond the college radio confines. I mean, yeah, "'74-'75" is fucking gorgeous, gentle and heartfelt and war...

My Top 1000 Songs #437: I Wanna Destroy You

[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 songs in the Soft Boys' (and Robyn Hitchcock's solo) catalog I enjoy more, songs whose off-kilter power pop run through with Hitchcock's askew sensibilities are thoroughly engaging. "I Wanna Destroy You" (from 1980's superb Underwater Moonlight), as the title suggests, is a more aggressive song, closer to the British punk ethos from which the band...

My Top 1000 Songs #436: Broken Arrow

[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 "Expecting To Fly," another standout on 1967's timeless Buffalo Springfield Again, "Broken Arrow" is a Buffalo Springfield song in name only. Once again, it's just Neil Young in the studio, aided by producer Jack Nitzsche and an orchestra (though bandmate Richard Furay later added some backing vocals). 

The six-plus-minute multi-part suite gives a glimp...