My Top 1000 Songs #814: Half-Man/Half-Mole

[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.]

Chris Knox isn't the most accessible of the old-school New Zealand Flying Nun acts--though he occasionally comes up with like-minded catchy, hum-along indie rock, just a little more raw & stripped down. "Half-Man/Half-Mole," off 1995's Songs Of You And Me, is Knox in his most tuneful mode. The song features his trademark lo-fi buzz that's a surefire way to avoid any alt.rock radio play, even at the height of the mid-90s alt.rock moment (though it shockingly found its way onto Beavis & Butthead!). There's an insistent buzzsaw guitar with percussion that sounds more like he's banging on a table with a pair of spoons; yet the din is in service of such a smile-inducing melody it's gonna be stuck in your head for the rest of the day, try as you may to shake it.

Beavis & Butthead:

Slowed-down industrial-style cover from last year: