Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 90

My Top 1000 Songs #304: The Card Cheat

[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.]

Once again breaking one of the guiding principles of this Top 1000--don't just list every single song on your all-time favorite album! But the flesh is weak.

While much of 1979's London Calling was a deliberate pivot by the Clash from their punk roots into flat-out rock & roll, "The Card Cheat" was arguably the biggest departure. The song rests upon a piano-...

My Top 1000 Songs #303: Web In Front

[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.]

So, 1993. Living in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood, in a musty old Victorian whose high ceilings ensured perpetual chilliness, where we'd have to circle around to the circuit breaker if we ran two appliances at once. On weekends, if I got a break from work, slogging away as a junior associate in a large law firm, I'd walk down 24th Street to Aquari...

My Top 1000 Songs #302: Drowned

[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 Who are probably the single most important band in creating and shaping my life-long obsession with rock & roll music, the band whose catalog I first waded into back in middle school, on the cusp of my teen years, and made a conscious decision that, yep, this is what I need at the core of my very soul. And 1973's Quadrophenia has long been my favorite W...

My Top 1000 Songs #301: Heaven

[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.]

It was hearing Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians' 1985 LP Fegmania, and the single "Heaven," that first turned me on to the skewed indie pop glory of Robyn Hitchcock. I quickly worked backwards, poring over all the music he'd previously released (as a solo artist and, before that, with the Soft Boys); and I've kept up with everything he's released since (no m...

My Top 1000 Songs #300: Everything Merges With The Night

[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.]

Yes, we're heading back to the well, with yet another pick off the album that's made more of an impact on my life than nearly any other, Brian Eno's Another Green World . Trying to be selective with my choices, but "Everything Merges With The Night" is such a remarkable beauty I couldn't resist. (Plus, hey, its sedate, ethereal nature makes such a great cont...

My Top 1000 Song #299: Terms Of Psychic Warfare

[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 second Grant Hart-penned track I'm snagging from Hüsker Dü's 1985 LP New Day Rising. And while "Books About UFOs" is chipper, joyous pop (run through a sonic blender), "Terms Of Psychic Warfare" takes a darker turn, a classic break-up song rendered new... while every bit the blueprint of the perfect pop song (once again run through that sonic blender of...

My Top 1000 Songs #298: Help Me

[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 another song where I have a complicated personal history. As detailed in Jittery White Guy Music, I grew up without any real rock music in the house. The 8-track tapes my dad played when I was a kid tended to be along the lines of The Carpenters and Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and soundtracks from western movies. (The one exception was Paul & Lin...

My Top 1000 Songs #297: Mr. E's Beautiful Blues

[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.]

Mark Everett (a.k.a. E) & his revolving cast of Eels have a vast catalog packed with everything from quirky, offbeat baroque pop to emotionally devastating post-punk balladry. But "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" stands out as a relatively straightforward, buoyant pop song, harmless smile-inducing fun. It first appeared tacked on to the end of 2000's Daisies Of Th...

My Top 1000 Songs #296: Sally MacLennane

[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 first heard the Pogues on their second LP, 1985's Rum Sodomy & The Lash, when the record hit the college station and everyone gobbled it up, the DJs all enthralled by their Irish drinking songs as performed by a band which sounded like they'd grown up on the Clash & Elvis Costello (who produced it). The immediate favorite for me was the jubilant "Sally Ma...

My Top 1000 Songs #295: Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards

[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 surprisingly sweeping anthem from Billy Bragg's 1988 album Worker's Playtime, as Bragg moves far beyond his earlier folk-punk roots into something truly grandiose. The joyfully infectious tune moves effortlessly through vaguely-connected narratives ranging from the Cuban revolution to the nuclear era to rock & roll fandom. The song slowly builds from stri...