My Top 1000 Songs #45: Slipping (Into Something)

The sound of an entire era of my musical development, packed into a single track.

I've kvelled at length on my love of the Feelies and their 1986 album The Good Earth in particular. The record's centerpiece emphasizes the band's strengths--a hushed, slow-building intro eases into a jangly, pastoral bit of Velvet Underground-tinged folk rock, before all hell breaks loose in that final minute, the band frenetically speeding up the pace and pushing the amps into the red. Everything I love about 80s jangle pop and more bracing, noisy indie rock, compressed into 6 ecstatic minutes.

Here it is live in '87:

...and a reunited Feelies in 2013: