My Top 1000 Songs #339: Chipper Cherry Daylily

[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 one that I imagine is from way out in left field? Which is a damn shame, because this band slays.

While it's increasingly rare these days, every now and then I belatedly stumble across an artist who's been around a few years and have the joy of diving into a rich back-catalog of great music. Discovering indie power-pop band The Shazam in the mid-00's (courtesy of a snail-mail mix-CDR trade back when that was a big part of my musical life) was one such experience. Their 1999 sophomore LP Godspeed The Shazam blew me away, and remains a personal favorite to this day.

"Chipper Cherry Daylily" may not be the most immediate track on the album--"Sunshine Tonight" is probably a stronger pick--but it captures the band's energizing blend of power pop, hard rock, and glam, a sly and silly and endlessly fun track that blends Cheap Trick and Sweet and early 70s Move (whose LP Shazam presumably influenced the band's name) into a blazing earworm confection. It's the one that really made my ears perk up and fall in love with the band.