My Top 2000 Songs #1127: Sword Swallower

Scott Miller's Game Theory blended 80s college radio jangle pop with some new wave touches, often hitting on brilliant pop but increasingly bogged down by Miller's tendency towards arty complexity, making for sometimes challenging records where you had to put in a little work to find the hooks. After that band's demise, he regrouped with the Loud Family for another half dozen or so records. Miller modernized his sound somewhat, a more 90s alt.rock-sounding indie pop, but still inserting enough weirdness to keep it far from straightforward power pop.

As with Game Theory, the self-indulgence could be distracting, but Miller could still deliver infectious gems. "Sword Swallower," an unrecorded Game Theory song included on the Loud Family's 1993 debut Plants And Birds And Rocks And Things (title borrowed from the ridiculous lyrics of America's "Horse With No Name"), is probably the most straight-ahead pop song by the latter band. It barely hits 90 seconds, fast and furious and absurdly catchy, a cacophony of guitars and synths and wicked harmonies, and as always Miller's imaginative lyrical genius.

Performed by Game Theory a few years previously: