Here it is, the latest installment in my countdown of the best albums made over the last 40 years. As we close in on my actual 40th birthday, so too do we close in on the end of the list. You can see 201 -300 here. Here is 301-400. And here is 401-500.

200. Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)

Due to a lawsuit and perhaps overall freaked-outedness over the overwhelming reception to Born To Run, Broooooooce took a few years to put out this follow-up. Perhaps tinged by this experience it’s like the dark underbelly of that previous record with many of the same themes but explored from a more resigned and embittered angle. While this makes it less of a fun listen, it adds to the rewards the record unlocks over time.

199. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Primal Scream may or may not have signaled a big watershed in British rock with this amalgam of house, Stonesy rock, and other dance music that was in the air at the time. Shuffle beats were already all the rage among Britain’s baggy-pants set (I’m looking at you, Chameleons UK and Happy Mondays) and Stone Roses made it safe to shake ones ass back in 1989 with “Fools Gold.” Still this was a triumph from start to finish and doubly so for being completely unexpected given the ordinariness of their previous two records.

198. Faces – Ohh La La (1973)

As Rod the Bod increasingly looked to his solo stardom to provide him with opportunities to deflower virgins, his tenure with The Faces began to draw to a close. On their last album he gets in some great moments but it’s Ronnie Laine who shines all over the second half on songs like the title track. Ron Wood of course would go on to join the Stones.  A raucous, appropriately boozy valedictory for a great band.

197. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
No longer the world’s most humble supergroup, Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar were becoming better known in their own right by the time the New Porno’s third record came out, plus their second album had gained them a wider following as well. So, time to switch it up with bigger more detailed production and arrangements that are decidedly edgier from main songwriter Carl Newman. Tracks like “Falling Through Your Clothes” and “Three or Four” are much more intricate than before, but there are still power pop home runs like “Sing Me Spanish Techno.”

196. Prince and The Revolution - 1999 (1982)
Here’s where precociousness crossed over into genius with Prince showing himself to be one of the most talented and important artists of his generation. The first three tracks are a knockout punch – “1999″, into “Little Red Corvette” into “Delirious.”  Then there’s the ribald “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” which features the immortal line “…Girl, I wanna fuck the taste outta your mouth..” – a line that would make George Clinton blush. And Chortle.

195. Gram Parsons – G.P./ Grievous Angel (1973/74)
Yeah I’m cheating by listing two albums on one CD as one album but it’s been available this way since 1990 so deal with it. They are of a pice too, with most of the same musicians and Emmylou Harris’ wonderful duetting featuring on both. More to the point, they both have great original country rock gems like “The New Soft Shoe” mixed in with inspired covers. Sadly Gram OD’d between the release of the first and second record, making this the capstone of an illustrious and unlikely career – from trust fund kid to Keith Richards best friend and left coast country troubadour.

194. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Kanye knows you think he’s an asshole – matter of fact he thinks he’s one too. He also thinks he’s a genius and by the evidence here he’s at least incredibly talented, His most diverse and diverting record to date casts him as a curator – a guy who can’t shut his mouth or find the off switch for his brain. Sampling King Crimson and Smokey Robinson, West transcends hip-hop and makes a melange of elctronica, funk and head music that’s complex and fascinating.

193. DJ Shadow – Endtroducing… (1996)
Shadow’s innovation here was to take the cut and paste techniques of hip-hop and apply them to the big beat instrumentalism of elctronica, making an album that was innovative yet rooted in the crate digging culture that underpins both genres.

192. Pixies – Trompe Le Monde (1991)

Seen objectively it’s not surprising that this album heralded the end of the band – a grab bag of new songs, old re-worked leftovers (some of which dated back to their earliest songs) a Jesus and Mary Chain cover and at least one outright throwaway (“Space (I Believe In)” which seems to be about hiring a session musician to play the tabla and interpolates the theme from Perry Mason).  What makes Pixies great was that despite all this it’s still a terrific album, recapturing some of the aggression of their first records but also pointing the way to Black Francis’ lusher solo work.

191. TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (2004)

On their first album TVOTR codified their unusual synthesis of Peter Gabriel -like art rock, Pixies-ish indie and doo-wop influenced vocals. The vocal interplay especially sets them apart on songs like “Ambulance” which grows layers of voice to support it’s screwed up tale of twisted love.

190. Steely Dan  - Katy Lied (1975)
Becker and Fagan had hit their stride and the songs and arrangements are as smooth as the Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s playing. What makes this really kick ass though are the darkly funny lyrics about suicidal stockbrokers (“Black Friday”) and uncles you should stay away from (“Everyones Gone to the Movies”). Also, the tempos get kicked up nice and good.

189. Eurythmics - 1984 (For The Love of Big Brother) (1984)

What is this doing here? All but excised from the history of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox’s band as if by some totalitarian government, this soundtrack was a commercial blip between big 80s albums for them. Artistically it’s their best, most underrated and least known record though. Perhaps it helps that my exposure to it initially was during a high school acid trip? Either way the compositions reach a grandeur that they never equaled and its among the very best new wave synth albums ever.

188. Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue (1980)
This is the essence of a fan’s album, one of those deep catalog items that while not first rank,  is  beloved by some Stones fans just as it’s equally reviled by many others. I obviously belong to the former set, appreciating the way it extends and comments on many of the advances of Some Girls while bearing it’s own ramshackle charm. The title track is even more disco than “Miss You” – it should come with a coke spoon. “She’s So Cold” is a musical cousin of “Shattered” with it’s stuttered rockabilly thwang but “Down in The Hole” and “Send it to Me” break some new ground. Great fun for the initiated.

187. Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)

Blondie hit the big time with album three powered by the classic “Heart of Glass” but backed up with a clutch of other great tunes. The penchant for girl group sass and art-rock chill is intact but the experiments (not least of which was disco) mostly pay off here. Equally important was the way Debbie Harry was adding more depth and nuance to her vocals while Clem Burke was doing the same behind the drumkit.

186. Blur – The Great Escape (1995)

An expansion of the sound and ideas of their previous record, this has had a rough go from the fickle British music establishment who had anointed Blur as saviors of the industry and set up the Blur vs. Oasis rivalry. It’s been an unfair slagging – it’s not the huge leap forward for the band or for British music that Parklife was but how could it have been? Concentrate on Damon Albarn’s incisive character studies, Alex James lithe and supple bass lines, Graham Coxon’s inventive guitar parts, and the crackerjack melodies and it’s clear this is pretty great in it’s own right. At this point Blur were giving Ray Davies and the Kinks a serious run as chroniclers of British life.

185. Iggy Pop – Lust For Life (1977)

Iggy continues his David Bowie-led rehabilitation as a solo star. Perhaps the funniest part of this album is the sweet yearbook photo-esque cover shot of Iggy, what a nice boy! Inside though are more songs that, while lacking the gutwrenching crunch of The Stooges, use their more varied dynamics to explore a variety of dark territories. His second solo disc in less than a year he sounds energized by the rise of US and UK punk, music explicitly inspired by his own early work. In turn his early solo stuff would help to inform post-punk and new wave and at least one cruise line ad.

184. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Tonight’s The Night (1975)

Neil Young hit a commercial trough in the mid 70s which coincided with him finding what I would consider his true voice – ragged, cracking, and fronting Crazy Horse. He produced a series of tough, sad, and raw records that weren’t released in sequence (this one was recorded in 1973) but add up to a picture of an artist struggling to tell his story and those of his friends. Specifically in this case, Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten who had OD’d and inspired the songs here just as Kurt Cobain’s overdose would inspire a similar album nearly 20 years later. The music is all over the place, seemingly recorded in one take and suffused with feeling. One of his most affecting records.

183. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange (1994)

I spent a good chunk of senior year in college cruising around Ithaca in my friend’s Nissan Sentra blasting this record – it was rolling perfection. Spencer had led Pussy Galore, and like that noise-rock band, JSBX could come off as a novelty concept band. Here however they dig in deep to upend the blues with disco strings, turntable effects, and hard-hitting groove songs that get down and dirty about how Spencer likes to bed a mature “full grown” woman like his wife. The whole trio is on fire here with Judah Bauer and Russel Simins (not that Russel Simmons) pushing Spencer deeper into the pocket while he pushes right back. Bracing stuff.

181. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (melt) (1980)

Gabriel continued down the art rock path post-Genesis, carving out two albums that were solid but didn’t suggest much in the way of a future direction. Here though he was suddenly mistaken for a new-waver by folks who didn’t know his history – his songs got both poppier and harder and his subject matter became less theatrical and more grounded in the real world. This is particularly true of “Biko”,  an incredibly moving account of South African political prisoner Stephen Biko which was one of the first pop songs to bring the injustice of Apartheid to a wide audience. It also incorporated many of the world rhythms that would inform Gabriel’s subsequent work. There was also the hit “Games Without Frontiers”, a clever slice of discofied cold war protest that you could dance to.

180.Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen(1978)

Could there have been a Weezer, a Green Day, a Pixies, a Descendants without this? It’s damn unlikely- this is punk revved up with pop smarts and sprung to a high tension. There is also a seam of Krautrock running through that emerges most obviously on “Moving Away From the Pulsebeat” but still informs the drive and arrangements of songs like “Fiction Romance.” Also not obvious at the time was Steve Shelley’s sexual orientation – still very much taboo except as something to flirt with a la David Bowie. This adds a particular edge to some of the more furtive lyrics and unrequited laments.

179. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire (2004)

Stars bring new wave back with this record, a stellar leap in songwriting and playing from their first few. Simultaneously looking backwards at a string of romantic failures and forwards into the dark abyss of what even then seemed a future of endless war, this is bleak stuff delivered with a tongue-in-cheek and a stack of great melodies.

178. Pretenders - Learning to Crawl (1984)

Chrissie Hynde dares to go where most rockers fear to tread, a loose concept album about motherhood. She had lost almost her entire band to drugs between their second album and this one, while also becoming a mother and the loss and discovery of both permeates these songs. Hynde at her best is a brilliant songwriter and her eye for detail and wry turn of phrase is all over this record.

177. Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material (1979)

These Irish punks may have been late to the party but they make up for it with sheer aggression and catchiness. There was also a political edge that was sharpened by their proximity to the violence that was ongoing in Northern Ireland at the time. This is what war-zone rock sounds like.

176. Stevie Wonder - Fullfillingests First Finale (1974)

Wonder’s talent was uncontainable in the 70s, easily transcending Motown’s factory line straightjacket he operated in as a teenager and developing a unique and compelling point of view. This was smack in the middle of Stevie’s hot streak, and is heavy on slower burning grooves that stick like crazy.

175. Led Zeppelin - Zoso (1971)

This is the Zeppelin record that is their most ubiquitous, if not their best. The track list is a veritable afternoon playlist on any classic rock FM station with “Stairway to Heaven” right smack in the middle.

174. Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (1992)

After the commercial failure of Paul’s Boutique no-one expected the Beasties to make another record, let alone one that brought them to a new and eager audience in the 90s. They gave these fans a new side of the band to respond to, recording live funk and hardcore jams and splicing them up into new songs as well as building whole songs from their noodling. The clever rope-a-dope rhymes remained as did a penchant for clever samples.

173. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

This is infamous for the documentary film on its genesis that inadvertently captured a band at loggerheads with a dysfunctional music industry. Buying the masters from one Warners Bros. label which deemed it uncommercial, this became one of the first file-trade shared sensations before a new deal with yet another Warners imprint allowed an official release that also became the bands biggest hit. It’s a stunning record, challenging and accessible in turn. To look at the final release date only would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the battered landscape of tottering towers, ghosts of American flags, and wars on war were a response to the attacks of September 11th and their aftermath but in fact the whole thing was written and record before then.  In it’s prescience it perhaps needed to be delayed to be heard in its true light.

172. N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton (1988)

A huge hit with zero radio play, this brought controversy to popular music that had seen it all. What was shocking in 1988? Full on violence and debasing mechanical sex. Fun yes? But the talent of Ice Cube in particular, Dr Dre, Eazy-E and Ren to put the tales of debauchery and mayhem over with a mordant humor and highly individual wordplay made it listenable. Of course for all the life of the street rhetoric that this stuff supposedly captured a huge chunk of the audience were kids white and black, far removed from the ghetto life described but looking for a thrill. It was still fresh, funny, and transgressive here but by the mid 90s this would dominate hi-hop for better or worse.

171. Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress(2003)

My favorite Belle and Sebastain album may be their least typical work but there you go. Made up of odds and ends that hadn’t found their way to other B&S records, the production is given muscle and detail by the 80s hitmeister Trevor Horn of Buggles and Yes fame. This balances the band’s more twee tendencies with touches of Thin Lizzy and classic Squeeze and helps to emphasize how much of a unit the namd ws musically with surprisingly rocking instrumentation. Stuart Murdoch is more firmly in control of the group again though and serves up some of his finest lyrics throughout, whether musing on the sexuality of Mike Piazza, winking at the sexual politics of an office romance, or working his subtle religious obsessions into every nook and cranny.

170. Husker Du - Zen Arcade (1984)

1984 was a watershed year for American indie rock with The Replacements, R.E.M., Meat Puppets  and Minutemen all turning in seminal records. The Huskers joined in with this massive double album, showing the enormous range of Bob Mould and Grant Hart’s songwriting and the sheer power of the Minneapolis power trios attack. It’s dense and the plot is impenetrable in the best concept album fashion but the record is magnificent.

169. Frank Black - Teenager of the Year (1994)

For Black’s second solo album, he dug deep to unleash a mighty 22 track opus that showed his full depth and range, from grinding Iggy and Ramones derived rockers to the overdubbed one-man pop of “Headache” to the classic Who riffing of “Freedom Rock” with stops off at reggae and the history of California as played by 80s-era The Fall.

168. Talking Heads  - Little Creatures (1985)

The irony is that Talking Heads’ most accessible pop-friendly lighthearted record was fraught with tension to make as David Byrne moved the band away from jointly developing songs by jamming into playing pre-written songs he’d brought in. It’s a damn good set of songs too, thankfully, following their fan base into the mature topics of child-rearing and interest in matters political. The hooks are plentiful and the band is powerful even if innovation has taken a backseat to pleasure.

167. Brian Eno - Here Comes the Warm Jets (1973)

Brian Eno broke away from Roxy Music (or was broken off) – his weirdness just couldn’t continue to mix with Bryan Ferry’s louchness. For his first solo disc the weird is in full flower with art rock smashing up against 50s and early 60s style arrangements and gloriously odd lyrics. This is glam rock at its most unhinged and barely gave a hint at the ambient realms Eno would explore later in the decade.

166. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders (1993)

The alternate universe Brady Bunch facepile on the cover of Tribe’s third album give some insight into how revered they had become. Ranging from The Beastie Boys to Chuck D. to Afrika Bambataa, Dr. Dre to Whodini, it’s hard to imagine that kind of universal consensus happening now. The album itself is their biggest hit and is chock full of creative rhymes and killer beats. It may not push as hard as the first two records in new directions but as a statement of what they could do this is a killer record.

165. Silver Jews - The Natural Bridge (1996)

The Jews started out as a vehicle for Dave Berman and Pavement’s Steve Malkmus but by this point had become Berman’s thing, excising much of the skronkier noise aspects  for a deep fried country feel. Berman was also coming into his own as a songwriter with quirky slow-burners like “Pet Politics.”

164. David Bowie - ”Heroes” (1977)

The second part of Bowie’s Berlin adventure with Eno, this continues the experimental half vocals/half instrumentals formula of Low as well as much of the musical approach. The songs are a touch more anthemic though and Robert Fripp’s guitar takes on an even more prominent role, one that would continue in Bowie’s work over the next two albums.

163. Prince - Sign ‘O” The Times (1987)

Prince gives us his White Album, a magnum opus that disgorges every style the man is capable of and then some, an incredible potpourri of funk, rock, soul, folk, art-rock and new wave that puts a neat capstone on his utter domination of 80s pop (unless you count that other semi-androgynous high voiced black artist). This is also one of his bleakest albums, tempering his usual sex and saviour schtick with some harsh realities like AIDs and crack.

162. Ramones - Leave Home (1977)

Album two from The Ramones was never going to have the sonic boom impact of the first, but it is a statement that these guys have invented their formula and are going to stick with it. It helps that the formula is amazing, classic pop songcraft supercharged within an inch of it’s life. There are plenty of classics here including the likes of “Sheena is a Punk Rocker,” “Commando”, and the gorgeous “I Remember You.”

161. Leonard Cohen - I’m Your Man (1988)

Cohen was well and truly in the wilderness in 1988, with a label that wouldn’t even release his recordings in the United States. With this record he overhauled his singer-songwriter sound with sequencers and synthesizers and matched them with a dark set of brooding wonders perfectly suited to his rumbling baritone. The result created a sensation among musicians if no-one else and began his artistic rehabilitation in the US.

160. Elvis Costello and The Attractions - Blood & Chocolate(1986)

Costello’s last album with the Attractions was also one of his best – a great breakup album that coincided with his stealing Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan to be his new bride. The music is a return to his lean early stuff with melodies that are top notch, and the crack band burns up the grooves.

159. Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls and Marches (1981)

I’ve avoided EPs here because no-one seems to know what they are – long singles? Short albums? Increasingly in the CD age they were a single album track with a bunch of other stuff appended. This however cannot be ignored, the first extended Mission of Burma record is a bruising mind expanding treat, like Brian Eno gone hardcore punk. So ferocious were they live that co-leader Roger Miller had to split the band due to tinnitus brought on by their sonic assault. This implies brutality without subtlety however and this simply is not the case. These are songs, with intricate structure and incredible dynamics. The re-issue helpfully appends two of their best songs, the A and B side of their debut single “Academy Fight Song”.

158. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (2009)

Neko Case was already well on her way past the Americana of her early recordings into a unique amalgam of  noir California pop and indie rock all anchored by that honey and fire voice. This album is suffused with a nature gone terribly wrong, animals and plantlife and weather all jockeying with people for supremacy. It’s all taken to another level with the thoughtful arrangements worthy of Lindsey Buckingham.

157. Richard & Linda Thompson  - Shoot Out The Lights(1982)

A tough record that memorializes the disintegration of the Thompson’s marriage. The songs are lean and extra-mean, Richard’s guitar is scathing and Linda’s voice is suffused with regret and anger. There is a voyeuristic thrill in just how great this record is – it’s a compelling and compulsive listen.

156. OST - The Harder They Come (1973)

This movie and its soundtrack were they pathway for many non-Jamaicans to discover reggae music. Star Jimmy Cliff has three classics here including the title track but the disc is filled out with a treasure trove of great singles from the previous few years like Desmond Dekker’s “Shanty Town” and Scotty’s “Draw Your Breaks” – an essential collection of early reggae (and a bit of ska).

155. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

Pink Floyd had finally become superstars six years after their leader Syd Barrett had broken down and retreated from the band, a victim of mental instability. Soldiering on with David Gilmour on guitar and vocal duties and the rest of the band (but increasingly Roger Waters) filling in the songwriting gap, they had gone from experimental art/prog rockers to having a huge hit album and now were haunted by their own origin story. Here they attempt to exorcise that demon on an album that explores their own alienation and fears of madness bought on by a profile even greater than that of Barret’s in their first blush of fame. The man himself is said to have wandered into their studio at Abbey Road to see what was happening with them, a bloated, unrecognizable ghost who had moved back in with his parents. A deeply felt and wounded record that is the band’s most human.

154. R.E.M. - Automatic For The People (1992)

Before I address what’s good about this album I do have to point out the lone stinker in the bunch, “Everybody Hurts”, a Hallmark card of a song that to some is one of their most affecting songs. Not I. Give me “Star Me Kitten”, a gauzy, lust-infused song with a hard center of sadness that seems to be written as it goes along. Or the string infused “Drive” which carves a deep melancholy even as it echoes Gary Glitter. Or the stunning “Man On The Moon”, a heartfelt tribute to the late Andy Kaufman. It’s a record that is veined with sorrow, painful nostalgia, regret, all the emotions that in many ways the band avoided in their earlier work.

153. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig (2008)

Cave is re-energized here, having rocked out hard with his Grinderman side-project. This is a concept album of sorts with Lazarus rising in modern day America, and rising again with a bevy of women from track to track. The old testament here is The Stooges and Cave is preaching fire and brimstone like nobody’s business.

152. U2 - War (1984)

U2 make the transition from post-punk to stadium rockers here, or at least go in that direction. They still have a strong Clash influence but bits of Bowie are leaking in on songs like “New Year’s Day.” What also set them apart were their passionate politics, still a rarity in the early 80s. They’d have bigger albums in this vein but not better.

151. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)

Teacher and former high school jock Bob Pollard had been turning out little lo-fi gems for several years on the side, finally getting enough attention to move to a small nationally distributed indie label for this, their breakthrough. The crappy recording quality is a purposeful veil, forcing the brain to listen harder to the extraordinary songs within. The first nine tracks were like a sledgehammer to the head, sounding like an undiscovered trove of field recordings from the 30s of the great lost progenitors of indie rockdom. These Ohioans have a lot to answer for in other bands affecting a similar low-fio aesthetic to obscure rather ordinary or even lousy material but the plus side is a trove of great songs, even if Pollard would prove to be an uneven judge of his own best material.

150. Beck - Mutations (1998)

Officially this was merely a breather and not a follow-up to Odelay, and  sonically this is a very different record. Nor was it a return to Beck’s folk roots as the arrangements are baroque, bringing to mind Nick Drake or Scott Walker. Nigel Godrich is along to produce and he brings a depth and detail that’s similar to his work with Radiohead, though the album never sounds like them at all. Instead it’s Dylanesque in it’s wordplay and images of decay, and also in it’s survey of musical styles from blues to bossa-nova that sounds both timeless and utterly modern.

149. Danger Mouse/ Jay-Z – The Grey Album (2004)

Not at all legal, grey was what you got when you mixed white and black – in this case Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles White Album. While the result could have been just a  gimmicky stunt, Danger Mouse is extremely thoughtful about the ways in which he cuts up and juxtaposes the Beatles music to set off some of  Jay-Z’s most personal rhymes. The result catapulted Danger Mouse into the first rank of in demand producers even as it burned up file-sharing sites and created some new legal fees for The Beatles already well-compensated legal team.

148. The Kinks – Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
For all intents and purposes this is Americana before the term existed, dredging up he sound of American popular music in much the way The Band, Dylan and Little Feat were all doing. The Kinks match this with a lyrical conceit that is amusing and telling, with Ray Davies using their British place-names and ennui in place of typical American blues locales and laments. They do visit the new world on the second half, if only in their own imaginations with “Oklahoma U.S.A.” being one of their loveliest compositions.

147. Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me (1987)

What the hell was going on here? College rock, as it was called, was pretty firmly in the punk, roots, new wave, or synth camps when J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph tossed this guitar driven grenade in the mix. Pulling as much from sources like Neil Young and Black Sabbath as Black Flag and The Ramones, this was heavy and yet not metal, a true “Sludgefest” as the title of one song put it. They had invented grunge without meaning to, and it would take a few years and other bands like Mudhoney adding to the movement for Nirvana and Pearl Jam to take the fusion of punk and classic rock over the top. Call to action: the incendiary but loving cover of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.”

146. The Roots – Things Fall Apart (1999)
The Roots succeed in their mission to transcend the flavor of the month syndrome that had taken over in hip-hop leading to a lot of flash but not a lot of substance.  The Roots definitely look back to the Native Tongue movement but they  aren’t defined by the past. For one thing their live instrumentation sets them apart from the sample-heavy sounds of the late 80s and early 90s, for another Malik B. and Black Thought have their own identities and rhyme skills without being derivative of anyone else.

145. Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974)

Album two was a commercial (if not artistic) setback for the Dan, but tehy came back on all fronts on this third record which found them sharpening their unique jazz-influenced sound and snarky intellegentsia lyrics.  They scored their second big hit with the insinuating bossa nova of “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” but it’s tracks like “Monkey in Your Soul” where the crack session crew really cut loose.

144. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells (2001)

It’s hard to remember now but this record operated with the Strokes debut as a one-two punch, giving listeners hope that great rock could exist beyond the morass of nu-metal that dominated the airwaves at the time. As both bands crested 1 million copies sold of their respective records it actually seemed like the next big movement had arrived, right on schedule ten years after grunge. Well they did spawn a whole host of bands especially in England but the pressure from an imploding industry to funnel it’s money into sure bets limited their impact. Even so, it’s easy to see why the impact of Jack and Meg White’s two person racket was so outsized – killer songs that looked back to the classic verities of Zeppelin and the unvarnished attack of punk rock, allied with a strong visual bent and a charismatic frontman.

143.Superchunk - Foolish (1994)
This is yet another great breakup album, informed by the broken marriage of Superchunk leader Mac McCaughan and bassist Laura Ballance. The music is tempered from the band’s early feverish pace, with several songs breaking the 4-minute mark and more varied and somber arrangements working their way into the likes of “Driveway To Driveway” and “Like a Fool.”

142. B-52′s – B-52′s (1979)

Any album that could get John Lennon and Yoko Ono out of retirement can’t be a bad thing. More specifically the couple heard the song “Rock Lobster” while on vacation and recognized in Cindy Wilson’s ululations that the world was finally ready for Yoko. The B-52s were the sonic equivalent of John Waters here – Polyester if not full on Pink Flamingoes in their embrace of camp. They prefigured the 90s obsession with irony and the ongoing retro explosion but did it with their own unique flair.

141. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On (1971)
Marvin Gaye’s declaration of independence from Motown’s assembly line was a mind-expanding slice of layered soul that is considered by many to be the best soul album ever made. It’s certainly one of the most breathtaking, with Gaye’s songwriting and arranging on songs like the title track and “Flyin’ High (in The Friendly Sky)” hitting a Brian Wilson like level of detail attention and orchestral grandeur.

140. Bruce Springsteen – The River (1980)
The Boss shows us both the serious and the playful side on this double album, chock full of songs that split the difference between the bombastic anthems of Born To Run and the introspective ballads on Darkness on The Edge of Town. This is chock full of strong songs from the raucous “Out In The Street” to the rockin’ “Cadillac Ranch” which prefigured his Born in the U.S.A. sound  to the pensive “Wreck on the Highway.”

139. T. Rex – Electric Warrior (1971)

Glam rock kicked off in the UK as a craze with this monolithic groove monster of an album – all Chuck Berry riffs and clomping beats tied together with Marc Bolan’s strange lyrics and Flo and Eddie’s endearingly whiny backing vocals. This paved the way for punk by returning to the simpler pleasures of great songs and tight arrangements deliberately harking back to early 60s styles without aping them. The songs are great and widely varied, part of Bolan’s brief purple patch of albums and singles that ran out after 1973.

138. Eminem – The Slim Shady LP (1999)
This debut record sent shockwaves through both rock and rap, becoming a huge hit and propelling Marshall Mathers to major stardom. His sheer audacious talent prevented charges of racial claim-jumping, along with his alliance with Dr. Dre behind the production boards. It’s both funny and deadly serious and the controversy arose because Mathers wasn’t about to call out which was which. Unlike the senseless and ultimately boring beefing and cap-popping of gangsta rock these rhymes are deeply personal which made the violence disturbing in a whole different way. Audacious.

137. The Clash – Combat Rock (1982)

Derided by some as their worst record, most bands would kill for something as tuneful, smart and varied as this. Sadly just as this took them to a much bigger commercial level tension in the band between Mick Jones and Joe Strummer came to a head, with Strummer firing Jones(who went on to form B.A.D.) and returning in 1985 with a much inferior version of the band. As the last real Clash album, this carries a poignant hint of what might have been as U2, The Police, Peter Gabriel and others made much hay by going down roads the Clash had opened up. The sound by Who producer Glyn Johns is made for arenas and sure enough the band garnered hits with “Rock The Casbah” and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” The depth is added on songs like the bongo fury of “Car Jam,” the achingly gorgeous “Straight To Hell” and cold war lament “Innoculated City.” You wish your band was this good.

136. Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (1998)
Big beat electronica reached it’s commercial zenith with this stomping party record, the brainchild of Norman Cook who had been bassist for UK poppers The Housemartins in the 80s before starting Beats Intl in the early 90s as a song-oriented cut and paste electronic project. As Fatboy Slim he dived full-in into Chemical Brothers territory but here on album two he perfects the formula. It doesn’t hurt that he had Spike Jonez along to direct a set of clever videos but it’s the infectious  and hooky songs that make this one thrive.

135. The Cars - The Cars (1978)

The Cars were the first post-punk/new wave band to get radio play on America’s FM stations, bringing classic songwriting rigor to the new amped up sound and paving the way for new wave to hit hard a few years later. What this really was, was power pop chilled out with a Bowie affect, what Cheap Trick would have sounded like if they had dug Roxy Music instead of The Move.

134.M.I.A. - Kala (2008)

This ups the ante considerably over M.I.A’s amazing debut, fixing her in firmament that calls out everyone from Jonathan Richman in “Bamboo Banga” to Pixies in “20 Dollar” to her clever sampling of The Clash on the hit “Paper Planes.” It’s not how she references her influences however, it’s the way she transcends them to make a distinctly transcontinental dance music that takes no prisoners politically or musically.

133.Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide (1991)

Cope was an eccentric in the great British tradition, jabbering about ley lines and dressing up like a turtle for the cover of his album Fried. He does have an ear for a great song though, and had a few hits on college radio before suddenly pulling this amazing double album out of his fanny er, pack. Incorporating himself into the baggy pants ecstasy subculture he hijacked the beats of bands like Happy Mondays and twinned them with canny songwriting skill and some bite from his post-punk milieu.

132. Sonic Youth – Dirty (1992)
Sonic Youth were midwives to the grunge and indie rock explosion of the early nineties, having championed bands like Mudhoney and Seattle’s Sub Pop records and serving as ambassadors from for Nirvana to join the ranks of Geffen records. In turn, they responded to the revolution of 1991 with their most focused hard rocking set yet, produced by Nirvana’s producer Butch Vig. The results show that SY cleans up real nice, but there’s no mistaking something like “Swimsuit Issue” for a song that was going to get radio play on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” levels. “Sugar Kane” however takes a familiar set of tricks that the band had deployed before and pretties them up enough to make you believe that they really could have been part of the classic rock canon.

131. The Jam – Setting Sons (1979)
Very nearly a concept album about World War I (taking notes, PJ Harvey?) there are plenty of songs here that reflect the themes of warfare and youth squandered in the trenches. This is their most ambitious album to date not just thematically but musically as well, with full orchestration on “Smithers-Jones” and tricky time changes on “Little Boy Soldiers.” The songs that are off-topic are strong enough (like the killer “Girl on The Phone”) to not mar the sense of accomplishment with the exception of a Who-aping version of “Heat Wave.”

130. Elastica – Elastica (1995)

A surprise hit in the US and UK, Elastica filled their debut with spiky riff-bombs that were descended (to the point of a lawsuit) from punk and post-punk staples like Wire, The Damned, The Jam and others. The way it’s all served up is wholly original though, the tautness reflecting the voice of Justine Frischmann and the aloof stance of her bandmates. It’s also fiendishly consistent with not an ounce of fat across the sharp songs or lean arrangements. Ahead of their time really if you look at The Strokes and other New York sound revival bands of the 00s.

129. Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole (1997)
Though they had clear antecedents in the likes of Aphex Twin and Future Sound of London just to name two, Chemical Brothers reached out to a broader audience by nodding to traditional song structure and reaching out to hip-hop and psychedelia as explicit influences. It’s here on thier secodn album that it all comes together helping to take electronica for a brief stroll in the mainstream.

128. Nick Lowe – Jesus of Cool (1978)
Lowe was a major player in Britain’s pub-rock scene, a back-to-basics precursor to punk that counted Joe Strummer’s 101ers among their practitioners. He branched out after the breakup of his band Brinsley Schawrz in two directions, as a producer (most famously of Elvis Costello) and a solo artist. His songwriting would always be a strong suit but it’s on this solo debut that he’s at his most winningly varied, with tracks that are harder and less country tinged than subsequent outings. His quirky sense of humor abounds (this was a guy who responded to the release of David Bowie’s Low with an EP entitled Bowi) as does his love for sheer genre craft, from the gentle art-rock of “I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass” to the pure pop of “Tonight” to the chilly post-punk of “36 Inches High.”

127. R.E.M. – Document (1987)

R.E.M. decide to play at being an arena rock band and funnily enough become one, while retaining much of their quirky charm and general artsy bent. The guitars ring, the drums pound and Stipe enunciates(mostly) but as in their previous four records it’s Mike Mills’ bass leading the way and even when they toss the word “love” into “The One I Love,” it’s a cruel trick.

126. Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
This is where PE come into their own propelled by the fury and denseness of the Bomb Squads production and the relentless flow of Chuck D. and Flavor Flav.  It’s an immersive riot of sound and ideas on songs like “Bring The Noise” and PE dares the listener to simply keep up. What amazes is that so many of the building blocks were the same as for groups like Run-D.M.C. and Eric B. and Rakim, scratching, samples from soul records like James Browns, call and response rapping, but it’s supercharged into something altogether new here. Revelatory.

125. The National – High Violet (2010)
This was far from the big leap its predecessor had been, rather it’s like an expansion of that record’s highly polished multilayered sound and gauzy ennui filled vibe. It’s one of the most amazing, deeply depressing records you are likely to hear. It’s the sound of arrested adolescence hardening into disappointing adulthood, sometimes wryly as on “Afraid of Everyone” – probably the best summation of how fear rules our divided country. “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out..”

124. The Mekons – The Curse of The Mekons (1991)

Still obscure in the UK, The Mekons had scored their first ever radio play and stellar reviews after ten years of recording when they delivered this record to their American label, A & M. The record was rejected, leading to the band to leave the label and go through the crappy process of buying back their own work. It is of course one of their best, a big sweeping epic that surveys life as lefty radicals in the wake of the end of the Cold War.

123. The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me (1987)
 The catch 22 for American Indie rock bands in the 80s was that you were never going to get played on the radio or become known in the mainstream because the industry was stacked against you, so if you did find success it obviously meant you had sold out. Or so the myth went. So powerful was this point of view that it led to deep feelings of guilt in bands like The Replacements who began to see glowing reviews translated into a major label deal all the way to Kurt Cobain who felt bewildered and apologetic when Nirvana actually achieved the huge stardom he had hoped for.  This was The Replacement’s and more specifically Paul Westerberg’s initial bid to be a big band but as the cover art suggests they were acutely aware of their underdog status and the tradeoffs implied in going mainstream. They’d also shed guitarist Bob Stinson, a force of nature who was not so easily channeled beyond beer fueled punk rave-ups. While the results could have felt neutered (and did on subsequent follow-ups) here the songs are among their best and the sympathetic ear of eccentric Memphis legend Jim Dickinson as producer insures that for all the horns and strings, the real nature of the band shines through.

122. Archers of Loaf – All The Nation’s Airports (1996)

Archers takes a big leap into strange conceptual spaces, an album that sounds like what happens when your flight is elayed and you just observe the goings on in the terminal, wondering “Is that guy an assassin? I wonder how many miles that salesman has logged? Is that pilot drunk?” The songs are wiry and tightly melodic with most of side one running together as a suite.  There are moments like on “Scenic Pastures” that approach a pure pop bliss state while hewing to the skewed indie rock they do so well.

121. Portishead – Dummy (1994)
Massive Attack may have been there first but Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbon’s took trip-hop to a much wider audience, deservedly so given the inventive fusion of chanteuse torch songs with deep-crate samples and hip-hop beats and scratches. What’s still striking is how natural the fusion feels. Paved the way for  a whole host of imitators and inspired folks from Amy Winehouse to Radiohead.

120. The Smiths – Meat is Murder (1985)

While R.E.M. did their bit for American guitar based indie with a smarty-pants bent, The Smiths did their part across the part. Instead of Stipe’s mumbling however The Smith’s had Morissey’s hyper articulate snark set against the many guitar textures Johnny Marr was able to crank out like clockwork. This, their second album, is widely considered their most uneven and it is, but a great band’s so-so album is still better than a  so-so band’s great moment.

119. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – On The Beach (1974)
Apocalypse Neil Young style, featuring roaming killer hippies in the California canyons, vampires, and entertainment industry execs. In fitting with this stretch of his career the music is woozy, boozy and bluesy, full of frayed edges and lonesome laments.

118. Spoon – Gimme Fiction (2005)
This takes the new spare soundscape that Britt Daniel had steered to on the previous Spoon album and blows it up to cinematic proportions. Every guitar squiggle and bass change up feels freighted with significance, weighted with value. The arrangements highlight the effortless glide of Daniel’s melodies on songs like “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine” and the show stopping groove of “I Turn My Camera On.” Grows better and better with each passing year.

117. PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love (1995)
Until this record PJ Harvey was the name of Polly Jean Harvey’s band but here on her third outing it became just she. Of course she has a set of musicians she’s working with but the palette is broadened here, resembling most closely the work of her soon-to-be lover Nick Cave. Along with a wider set of sounds and moods come clarity and detail that her three piece just wasn’t built for, and a bit more theatricality. If some sheer rawness is sacrificed, in it’s place is Harvey’s still strong love of a chugging guitar riff and an eerie chord, and her forceful sensuality.

116. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (1989)

An album that increasingly seems remarkable for its encyclopedic foreshadowing of the next decade of British rock music, the Roses debut comes out of the gate remarkably assured.  “I Wanna Be Adored” rolls in like a summer storm, a drop-dead killer melody that points towards the classic rock aping of Oasis but is wholly uncanny. “She Bangs The Drums” is britpop like Blur would vault to the fore five years later and “Fool’s Gold” a genre defying trip to the Hacienda club that kicked off the whole ecstasy, beats and guitars craze over the ensuing few months.

115. Urge Overkill – The Supersonic Storybook (1991)

This is the ambitious Chicagoans statement of purpose, a record chock full of pounding beats, crunchy Cheap Trick riffs and trick arrangements that always seem to have a surprise up their sleeve. “Bionic Revolution” injects a bit of surprising soul, as does an ace cover of Hot Chocolate’s “Emmaline” and the whole thing seems primed for maximum windows down car cruising.\

114.Lou Reed -Coney Island Baby (1976)

After a lot of flailing around, sometimes interestingly and sometimes excruciatingly, Reed found his legs with this refreshingly straightforward set of songs. The melodies are reminiscent of the third Velvets album and the mood is sweeter than most of his 70s work, a welcome reboot.

113. Blur – Parklife (1994)
Blur’s brilliant third album kicked off the Britpop boom of the 90s, a welcome return to the standards set by the Kinks, The Smiths, The Jam, and other gloried exponents of the empire’s take on rock and pop. Damon Albarn’s incisive writing is born aloft by Graham Coxon’s edgy guitar coloration and Alex James bass playing which seems to channel prime McCartney. The songs are veddy British but universal in their catchiness, from the neo new wave ass shaker “Girls and Boys” to the massive weather as depression metaphor “This is A Low.” Peerless.

112. Sinead O’ Connor – The Lion and The Cobra (1987)

This debut was clearly indebted to art rock like Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, but O’ Connor has a hugely distinctive voice and taste that also wandered over to R & B and hip-hop, leading to an album that is utterly distinctive. Though she would become a big star only with her next release (and flame-out by the one after that) this is still the best display of her idiosyncratic talent.

111.Unrest – Imperial F.F.R.R. (1992)

This is one of those amazing records that seems fully formed in every way, from cover art to song titles to musical and lyrical content creating a distinct mood and worldview. Unrest signaled their mutation from an arty hardcore band with a few singles before unleashing their sex drenched jangle pop on the world. Songs like the luxuriant “I Do Believe Your Blushing” rub shoulders with the bracing Krautrock experiment of “Champion Nines.” Somehow it all sounds completely unique ad utterly enveloping.

110. Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on The Run (1973)
McCartney and band decamped to Nigeria to record this album, and not a lick of it is influenced by any music other than what Paul already knew. It was however influenced by their feeling of being outsiders under siege and away from home, and this manifests itself in his toughest sounding and most focused non-Beatles work. It’s also one of  his best. Deploying all of his arranging tricks, he elevates the songs to little gems.

109. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (1977)
A commercial monster of an album, this spawned several top ten singles at a time when one or two per album was the norm, setting the stage for later blockbusters like Thriller. With it’s complex backgroup of marriages broken and spouses shared it’s a quintessential 70s album in all the best ways, and the full integration of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks here makes the long-lived band even more than the sum of its parts.

108. X – More Fun in The New World (1983)

For their fourth album X continued to work with producer Ray Manzarek and also kept to a path of steadily broadening their punk-inflected sound with more rockabilly and a few ballads here and there. The biggest change are more topical lyrics tweaking the state of Reagan’s America. This is another strong set from John Doe and Exene.

107. Roxy Music – Roxy Music (1972)

A colossal mindfuck, Roxy’s first album exploded the boundaries of art-rock, glam and straight-up pop. Eno and Ferry push and pull at either side of these songs, one side trying to drag it all into a smoothed out continental chill the other blurting gobs of noise and jarring juxtapositions. “Re-Make/Re-Model” is like King Curtis’ “Texas Soul Stew”  forced through graduate school at knifepoint. So many bands and artists were obviously spurred into action by this that it seems silly to list them. Huge.

106. Hole – Live Through This (1994)
It almost seems like Courtney was mourning her husband months before he died, as this was released coincidentally on the Tuesday after his body was discovered. Or, perhaps the truth lies in the rumor that these songs were mostly written by Cobain? Either way this is Courtney Love’s one sheer masterpiece, a howl of an album that channels her rage and drama into coherent powerful rock anthems.  It’s an amazing album performed with passion and guts.

105. Talking Heads  – More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

On their second album the Heads claim to serve up more of the same but this is a more guitar based affair drawing on their live sound. The also began to be seen as a real commercial prospect, having a hit with their version of Al Green’s “Take Me To The River” which presaged their deeper dive into funk and other non-rock idioms. The whole record shows off a tight focused band that plays the hell out of a great set of quirky songs.

104. Wire - Chairs Missing (1978)
Wire’s second album expands and deepens on the formula set out on the first record – the songs are longer and more textured and if anything the riffs are catchier. “I Am The Fly” and “Outdoor Miner” are worth the price of admission alone as they are two of the greatest post punk songs ever and are different enough from each other to deserve note. “Fly” is buzzsaw guitars married to an insinuating much copied bassline with some of the best icky lyrics in the world while “Miner” is a sweetly beautiful pop confection which seems to sneak in a keyboard riff from Del Shannon. Simply amazing.

103. Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)

The Smiths ended gloriously with this record, their most detailed set of songs yet. The Morrissey/Marr partnership may have been fraying but the interplay is awesome even on the cheeky ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” which, like many a great Motown classic, seems to comment on itself. The record is chock full of great tunes.

102. Iggy Pop – The Idiot (1977)

Iggy seemed washed up in the wake of The Stooges dissolution and the new punks who were inspired by them in 1976-77. After lying low for several years he re-emerged with longtime patron David Bowie who produced and co-wrote a set of songs for this debut solo record. The Bowie influence is obvious but Iggy does have his own thing to say and way of saying it, even if the raw power of The Stooges is here channeled into a more mature slow burning set. Bowie would later borrow “China Girl” back for his Let’s Dance album, and the difference between the claustrophobic dread here and Bowie’s glossy theatrical take speak volumes.

101. The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)

Jack and Meg were genuine stars when this came out, and driven by the indelible riff of “Seven Nation Army” this fourth album was even bigger than their previous breakout third. They are clearly stretching out, covering a Bacharach/David chestnut and having fun with the likes of “It’s True That We Love One Another”, one of Jack’s patented nursery ditties.

Welcome to the first installment of the 500 Best Albums of the Last 40 Years. An insane list but on the cusp of my 40th birthday, one I've given a lot of thought to. The rankings are somewhat arbitrary but it would be fair to infer that I'm not sure that number 500 (Spoon - Girls Can Tell) is a worse record than 475 (The Beach Boys - Surf's Up), but that I do think number 235  (Helium - The Magic City) is a better record. Really this is a statement of the music that has mattered to me and that I look at as yardsticks when I listen to other albums. But there are rules.

Only albums released between January 1, 1971 and publication are eligible. No greatest hits collections or retrospective compilations. The only exception I've made is for collections of artists releases that were singles only and were being released as an album for the first time. Without further ado, here is the first set records, 500-401. Stay tuned for 400-301 etc.!

500. Spoon - Girls Can Tell (2001)

After Spoon's disastrous experience with Elektra records it seemed like they would be one of many indie rockers who put out a few good Pixies-ish records in the mid-90s before skulking away to day jobs. Instead Britt Daniels went to Merge Records and embraced a sort of pop classicism, an embrace of great songwriting and arrangements that hint at but don't yet embody his later stripped-down ethos. While the vinyl on the album cover echoes the backwards looking nostalgia inherent in songs that "...long for the days when people used to say Sir and Yes Ma'am..." this record represented a new future for Spoon.

499. The Kinks - Sleepwalker (1977)

The 70s is considered an age of decline for the Kinks and certainly the band had moved on from the brit-pop classics of the 1960s that define their canon. Still there were many pleasures to be found even in their arena rock incarnation. Ray and Dave Davies may have coarsened and broadened their attack for endless stadium tours of America but the brothers were still capable of subtlety and wit on this paen to sleepless nights and werewolf-like transformations, not unlike the one their band had undergone.

498. Poundcake - Aloha Via Satellite (1996)

Talk about obscure. Part of the same Boston 90s scene that included Jen Trynin, these guys spit out just the one album before disbanding but it's a marvel of crunchy power pop with clever lyrics about the suckiness of western Mass, the way the record industry packages female rebellion (this was at the time that Riot Grrls were giving way to Alanis Morisette) and science.

497. Supergrass - I Should Coco (1995)

This exuberant debut came on like the second coming of the Faces, both Small and otherwise. This was the kid brother band of Britpop, getting caught by the fuzz but still feeling alright. Nagging back-up vocals, spring-loaded hooks and melodies galore.

496. Archers of Loaf - VeeVee (1995)

After their pounding debut, VeeVee feels like a band slammed sideways until everything is slightly off-kilter. There are times when it feels like they may have lost the ability to play but they're fucking with you, teasing out the dynamics on songs like "The Greatest of All Time" in which the frontman of the world's best/worst rock and roll band meets untimely death in a variety of ways. There's also "Harnessed in Slums" which might just be AOL's mightiest song and "Floating Friends" which is like a sadder, chaste version of Jontahan Richman's "Astral Plane."

495. MF Doom - Mmm Food (2004)

Doom proliferates in side projects, alter-egos, mixtapes and the like to the point sometimes of diminishing returns but here he's laid back and downright frisky. On a surface level he celebrates eating everything from MC's to hoe-cakes but consumption is consumption, and there's a sly wink to consumerism embedded in many of these tracks. The rhymes are top-notch as are the samples, many of which reference his Marvel-sourced character from old comic book LPs.

494. Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got (1990)

Most Americans got their first glimpse of the Irish lass' face in the video for "Nothing Comapres 2 U", an obscure Prince song that she sang into the camera with tears rolling down her cheeks. Even without the video accompaniment this is a powerful album, as contradictory as its star as it dabbles in breakbeats, stately ballads,and new wave crunchers.

493. The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978)

Almost all the UK punks had a hell of a time following up their debuts. How dare you try to build a career! All the young punks with their new boots and contracts were expected to flop on record number 2 and go back to the dole line. Even worse was what the Clash did, bringing in American (!) record producer Sandy Pearlman to polish up their sound to a fine roaring sheen. Still this suffers in comparison only to the rest of their body of work.

492. The Auteurs - New Wave (1993)

Coming in on a sneer and a guitar flourish, The Auteurs found their own way into the mid 90s Britpop explosion. As literate as their name implied, Luke Haines and co. spun out stores of showgirl brides, show biz disappointments, and lessons learned the hard way all backed with tasty riffs and a knowing world-weariness that belied the debut status of the album.

491. The Cardigans - Gran Turismo (1998)

The Cardigans gimmick was happy sounding pop songs that were actually about pretty dark stuff, so when they went against the grain on this record and wrote music that was nearly as dark as an even deeper more troubling set of lyrics fans and critics revolted. There has been no reappraisal of this record but for me this is their most interesting work, influenced just a touch by trip hop. Of course it's really hearing icily pretty Scandinavian blonde Nina Persson sing about how desperately fucked up she is that makes this so compelling. "Do you believe that love will save the world?", she asks. "I really don't think so," she intones back to herself as much as to the listener.

490. Blur - Blur (1997)

Considered their "American" album, Blur spiked their obvious British influences like Bowie and The Kinks with a heavy dose of indie rock style dissonance and attitude. For their trouble they got a genuine stadium anthem with "Song 2" (the one that goes "Wooo-hooo") and a wonderfully varied set of textures and moods without really cracking the US music market (frontman Damon Albarn would have far more success later with the hip-hop influenced Gorillaz). "Beetlebum" is one of the best songs ever about being a lazy sod.

489. The dB's - Repercussion (1982)

This could be the ne plus ultra of jangle pop, all adenoidal energy and nervous arrangements marking the bridge from Jonathan Richman's nerd blues to R.E.M.'s arty abstract Americana.

488. Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear (1978)

Album premises don't get much more screwed up than this: Marvin Gaye was stuck in a divorce battle with his soon-to-be ex (who also happened to be Motown founder Berry Gordy's sister). As part of the settlement he pledged the entirety of the royalties of his next album to her. Instead of giving into the temptation to hurt his own brand by recording, say, an all-flugelhorn cover version of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music Gaye poured all of his pain into a concept album about the divorce itself. An eminently listenable and fascinating middle finger.

487. Broadcast - HaHa Sound (2003)

Broadcast took a lot of familiar ingredients like Krautrock, trip-hop, and 50s hi-fi sounds and mashed them into something wholly their own. While the result could have been arch and distanced it is instead warm, personal, enveloping, particularly on this album.

486. Slick Rick - The Great Adventures of Slick Rick(1988)

Not shy and certainly not unassuming, Slick Rick is one of rap's great storytellers.Detailed, funny, raunchy and all delivered in a jaunty half-British inflection, the man's flow is supreme on this debut. His attitude towards women is antediluvian, which can be a hurdle for the listener but these are the kinds of stories guys tell each other on the corner or in the locker room - tall tales to crack each other up.

485. Roxy Music - Country Life (1974)

The cover is notorious of course but the contents deliver up the goods as far as prime Bryan Ferry led Rpxy is concerned. Suave, smooth and thrilling.

484. The Who - Quadrophenia (1973)

The last great gasp of prime Who on record - they'd do some more fine songs but were never able to string another disc (let alone two) together as consistent as this. Another concept album, Townshend this time looks back to the 60s London mod scene which birthed the band ans also prefigured the soon to boom punk movement. While it doesn't all come off and the story is a convoluted mess the music is mostly magnificent.

483. Hot Chocolate - Cicero Park (1974)

A British band with a a knack for soul and funk and a weakness for fuzz guitars, Hot Chocolate would have bigger hits but this, their debut, is one of the lost gems of the era. From "Emma", a slow burner that Urge Overkill would cover in the 90s to the original, superior "Brother Louie" which Stories would take to the top of the charts. this is full of great songs that are subtle in their genre straddling.

482. Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2006)

Ah, La Winehouse - alive when I started this list, dead by the time it ended. It's too much to credit her as a pioneer or innovator. It's equally unfair to judge her as an imitator. With the hep of Mick Ronson as a producer she transmute old soul tropes into something modern and distinctly her own and her voice was a clarion call. Sadly she leaves too short a legacy to deduce the impact on the future.

481. Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills 'n' Bellyaches (1990)

I saw these guys open for Pixies shortly before this came out and they seemed like a bunch of wankers onstage at Irving Plaza. A set of guys from Manchester with shades standing still, one guy shaking maracas like a moron, and 25 other boyos all smoking cigarettes as if to create a homemade dry ice effect. Their dance oriented sound was so out-of-step with the American college rock sound as to seem hostile. They were unknown in the States until this, their second LP, was released. The sinuous grooves and dancefloor cool moved the advances of The Stone Roses on into a full blown "baggy pants" sound that would find echoes in U2's new continental sounds the following year. Sadly the band themselves spiraled into  a drug fuelled abyss that blunted follow ups and follow through.

480. Deerhoof - Milk Man (2004)

Deerhoof worked their creepy charm to full effect on this record, which took their noise rock into more melodic territory. Though they would become even more accessible there is something about the teetering on the knife edge of chaos that makes this the most interesting record in their oeuvre. While the vocals can be off-putting in their girlishness, the childlike nature of Satomi Matsuzaki's   delivery is uniquely suited to the unsettling songs inside.

479. Ween - La Cucaracha (2007)

Ween are known for their juvenile sense of humor and their lack of fidelity to any particular style or song structure (or indeed to style or structure.) While that can make them seem indifferent and uninviting but the sheer exuberance of the arrangements and the depth of the depravity on this record make it utterly engrossing, even hilarious.

478. Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030 (2000)

A dry run for Damon Albarn's Gorillaz project, this was a supergroup consisting of he, Del Tha Funky Homosapien,  Dan the Automater, Kid Koala and luminaries such as Prince Paul and Sean Lennon  lending a hand. Del's career was revived by the cool future-set rhymescapes, which were abetted by a lush cinematic sound design that makes this a uniquely fascinating hip-hop album.

477. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (2010)

In typical new millennium fashion Deerhunter skirt and flirt with multiple genres within indie rockdom, with a little lo-fi here matched with a pinch of punk there and a seasoning of noise rock. What makes this their best to date is the full-fledged embrace of great songs, arranged for maximum impact.

476. Spacemen 3 - Recurring (1991)

Another band that mined the past to pioneer the future, these guys started out as one of Britain’s vanguard psychedelic revivalists in the mid-80s but ended up prefiguring both the baggy pants scene and the electronica tinged 90s. Before going off to form the better-known Spiritualized, Jason Pierce begrudgingly fused his songs to partner Sonic Boom’s set to create essentially two solo EPs and the band’s last outing. While this obviously sounds like a disjointed way to go out its actually my favorite of their records, mind blowing and valedictory all at once.

475. Beach Boys - Surf's Up (1971)

The Beach Boys get knocked for being square and boring but that simply overlooks how deeply weird the band could truly be. They do have a Charles Manson co-writing credit in their catalog, remember. Released well after Brain Wilson’s mental meltdown this is a hodgepodge including at least one revelatory outtake from the legendary 1966 Smile sessions with the title track. This is very strange soft rock, fascinating stuff.

474. Public Enemy - Yo! Bum Rush The Show (1987)

This is the mighty PE still becoming a force to be reckoned with, but it’s mightily impressive nonetheless. Chuck D. and Flavor Flav already have their tag-team style locked down and the rhymes are fast and furious. The main difference between this debut and their later classics is how much sway Def Jam house producer Rick Rubin had over the overall sound, which makes this that much more interesting in contrast to the full-bore aural assault to come.

473. Cibo Matto - Viva! La Woman (1996)

Two Japanese women transplanted into New York’s downtown scene came up with the art-rock grooves that make this record so great. The underlying theme is very much about eating, food prep, shopping for ingredients and any underlying meaning you want to derive from this song and rapped over shimmering immersive electronica. Shut up and eat!

472. Primal Scream - XTRMNTR (2000)

An absolute monster of an album from a band that shed sounds and POV like a chameleon in love with David Bowie. This is far removed from their ecstasy infused early 90s sound but it also is indebted to electronica. This time though it's roughed up with clattering beats, overdriven guitars and keyboards and menacing lyrics, with the exception of the gorgeous "Keep Your Dreams." It's appropriate that My Bloody Valentine's reclusive noise genius Kevin Shields is on board for this even though none of this really sounds like that band (despite the title "MBV Arkestra" referencing both them and Sun Ra).

471. U2 - Zooropa (1993)

What? Zooropa? I might as well go ahead and reveal (spoiler alert!) that the album that this is spun-off of, Achtung Baby, is nowhere to be found on this list. Blasphemy! And that's exactly the point. While I've always had a grudging regard for U2 their own sense of self-importance and tendency towards bombast makes them a band low on my repeat plays list. What makes this refreshing is it's tossed off nature, merely meant as a little something to tie in to their massive Zoo TV tour that trod the globe in the wake of Achtung's massive success. As such the band drop their guard, allowing more humor and light to infiltrate. The lead single is sung by the guitarist for chrissake!

470. Funkadelic - The Electric Spanking of War Babies (1981)

This was Funkadelic's last gasp- George Clinton would also put Parliament out to pasture in the 80s preferring instead to travel under his own name. It's a great way to retire the Mothership though, with hints of reggae spiked throughout the funk jams and the hilarious "Icka Prick" satirizing the workout craze in the most scatalogical ways possible, complete with a female chorus singing rounds of "That's disgusting..."

469. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (2006)

This is where Colin Meloy and his band get the major-label budget to explore and indulge, for better or worse but mostly better. While "Yankee Bayonet" is the kind of classic literate folk infused indie rock that is their stock in trade, along comes a song like "The Perfect Crime" to slither and pose like an amped-up cousin to the Eagles' "One of These Nights." Which sounds like it would be awful but it isn't.

468. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Xtra-Acme USA (1999)

Intended as a leftovers and remixes collection tied to their fine 1998 album Acme, in many ways this is the more compelling listen stocked as it is with superior versions of songs on the original (such as the Dan the Automater remix of  "Lovin' Machine") that in some cases paradoxically strip back some of the hip-hop influence. Wonderfully eclectic.

467. The Coolies - Doug (1988)

Fatally ahead of their time in their knowingly postmodern take on music, The Coolies reached their apex with this concept album (or is it a spoof of concept albums?) about a skinhead who steals a transvestite chef's recipes, becomes famous for them, and loses it all. Is this any less ridiculous than the premise of Tommy? The band's songs expertly suggest without outright imitating such standard bearers as The Who and John Lennon while also working in a variety of genres from rock ballads to rap. It works because they never condescend to the material, the story, or the listener and teh hooks are there every time.

466. Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)

Elliott Smith made some surprising stylistic shifts during his too short career, from indie punk member of the band Heatmiser to folkie punk solo artist to the lush classic rock arrangements found here. What underpins them all are his songwriting chops, his sincerity and an all too melancholic worldview. Engrossing.

465. Giant Sand - Center of the Universe (1992)
Somewhere between Neil Young and Dinosaur Jr. lies Howe Gelb and his Giant Sand nom de band, and if that suggests that he sings in a warbly croak so be it. But here he's augmented by Victoria Williams, Susan Cowsill and Vicki Petersen to sweeten the vocals. The songs come on like molten lava country rock with off-beat tangents into earthquake country, small town sartorial values, and the creation of the Universe which Gelb imagines as more of a big sneeze than a bang. Giant Sand has released many albums since 1985 but this is their most winningly consistent.

464. Islands - Return to the Sea (2006)
After the idiosyncratic Unicorns broke up after a sole album co-leader Nick Diamonds took the drummer with him and founded Islands. This debut proved them to be just as unique, but with an even broader palette (steel drums! rapping!) and a slyer sense of humor. Sadly subsequent albums have paled against the exuberant performances and arrangements on display here, not to mention the consistently clever lyrics.

463. Gorillaz - Gorillaz (2001)

Damon Albarn engineered a pretty nifty post-Blur career with what started out as a side project spun out of the Deltron 3030 core band. Dan the Automator and Del are carried over but a whole visual component was added with Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlitt designing alter egos for the principals which also included Miho Hatori from Cibo Matto. This precise lineup only existed for this first album but it's also their best, a surprise hit based on the genius cross-splicing of brit pop tunefulness and hip-hop beats.

462. Alex Chilton - Like Flies on Sherbert (1979)
An album to make perfectionists twitch, this is Alex Chilton at his most shambolic and unhinged which to some of us is beautiful. Chilton made this in part to disavow the songcraft of his recently passed Big Star years, and would similarly disavow the off-the-cuff nature of this in his next incarnation. Still we have this document full of false starts, off-kilter tunes, incredible droning slabs of awesome like "My Rival" and "Rock Hard." Not for everybody but if it's for you, it'll keep for life.

461. Sly & The Family Stone - Small Talk (1974)

Underrated late(er) Sly still better than the competition. Though it's not as revered as some of his other releases the likes of "Loose Booty", "Time For Livin'" and "Say You Will" became sample touchstones for 80s and 90s hip-hop. Not just for the crate diggers.

460. Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing (2008)
D.C. based rapper Wale turned out one of the freshest and cleverest mixtapes in a decade defined by the label-less release. Here he spills clever couplets riffing off of and interspersed with episodes of Seinfeld. The conceit works not just because Wale is an obvious fan but because he has something to say beyond simply refrencing the show. The peak is on "The Kramer" which samples and deconstructs the meanings layered in actor Michael Richards' infamous racist tirade at a comedy club.

459. The Raincoats - The Raincoats (1979)

Beloved of Kurt Cobain who convinced his label to re-release the band's entire catalog despite negligible commercial prospects. Though they rose out of punk their sound was fairly unique, incorporating elements of middle eastern drone and even folk. Led by Gina Birch and Ane DeSilva they were not shy about weaving feminist themes into this debut but they were rarely dogmatic. A great exampe is their brillaint cover of The Kink's "Lola" which gains a whole extra layer of gender-fuckery simply by keeping the original pronouns.

458. Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997)

A ridiculously accomplished gem from the premier 90s critic's band. The range here is so broad, from krautrock to Velvet's  strum to shoegazy gauze, that it functions as a delightful grab bag survey of all the stuff that made indie rock geek's hearts go pitter-patter as the last century began to draw to a close.

457. Throwing Muses - The Real Ramona (1991)

Throwing Muses came out of the same Boston scene as Pixies and in many places they paved the way for the other band, most significantly by signing to Britain's 4AD label and using Gil Norton as a producer. While Pixies are now a much bigger band than they ever were during their first go-round the Muses are still relatively overlooked. This record was their best balance of pop hooks and jagged edges and should have made them stars. Stepsisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnely knew their way around a gripping song as well as a good riff.

456. Spoon - Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga (2007)

At this point Britt Daniel and co. had defined the sound of their band which means it felt like less of a great leap than previous albums and more of a refinement. The ethos of Spoon is very much based on editing and paring down songs to their core, giving an off the cuff yet meticulously arranged feel to the entire album. The songs themselves are great with the acoustic guitar and horn driven strum of "The Underdog" giving the band their first significant radio play.

455. Galaxie 500 - This is Our Music (1990)

The swansong for a band that looms large in retrospect but had only a dedicated cult during their lifetime. This isn't terribly different than their other releases, perhaps more refined in their American take on the kind of dream-pop more associated with Britain's shoegazer bands. The approach may share their slabs of guitar and detached vocal style but Galaxie came armed with a better batch of songs and cleverer covers than most bands.

454. Cat Power - You Are Free (2003)

Cat Power, AKA Chan Marshall, morphed from an avant indie rocker to a darling of AAA Radio but this record captured her in mid-shift, and it's her best for splitting the difference. Her voice shines in all it's vulnerable cool-chick timbre but the songs have real bite and unusual, even dissonant arrangements. These are mixed in with outright country and even blues shadings without ever really landing in a particular genre. The lyrics are by turns gripping, sad, even spiritual, and the sense of the enterprise being hard fought and wrung out is only heightened by the five year span between this and the preceding LP and her well-known stage fright.

453. Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

When Paul Simon broke from his partnership with Garfunkel it seems to have freed him up to explore the power of rhythm, as he does to great effect on this, his second solo record. The Dixie Hummingbirds are along to augment the R & B feel Simon aims for and succeeds at reaching, though there are also wonderful ballads and the brilliant single "Kodachrome."

452. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994)

The insular world of industrial music was always a bit harsh on Trent Reznor - his songs and his face were just too pretty to be genuine and compared to Skinny Puppy or Ministry he was a Johnny Come Lately. Still this album took a subgenre into the realm of the multi-platinum and it did so because it's that damn good. You have to be to get a chorus like "I want to fuck you like an animal" major radio play, even if the offending word is dropped out. The songs are expertly arranged and produced with a great deal of variety in tempo texture and feel, making it eminently listenable and yes, making the abrasive bits easier to swallow.

451. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (2008)

Their interest in psych-rock and use of Producer Dave Fridmann led some to tag these guys as knockoffs of The Flaming Lips but their sensibility is quite different as is their palette. "Electric Eel" could be right out of 1984 with a vibe that suggests Quincy Jones' work with Michael Jackson while "Time to Pretend" is an expert evocation of kids in a band fantasizing about fame Duran Duran style.

450. Eminem - The Eminem Show (2002)

The last in a stunning trilogy that began with his debut, this is the record where Eminem is all about the perils of his own fame, which ought to be a bore and would be if he wasn't such a  great rapper and Dre a top-notch producer. Eminem also deserves credit for excoriating the Bush admionistration much earlier than most other artists, certainly none as major as he was in 2002, on the brilliant "Square Dance" among other songs.

449. Butterglory - Are You Building a Temple in Heaven (1996)

Seemingly brimming over with hooks and tunes, Matt Suggs and band knock it out of the park on their second album. Their closest sound-alike might be Yo La Tengo but these guys are simpler and less obtuse, let alone unlikely to break into a ten minute guitar workout. Just a top-notch batch of instantly hummable indie rock that will lodge in your head for years.

448. Big Black - Songs About Fucking (1987)

Big Black was the bastard baby of Steve Albini, a guy who would be more revered in rock circles for his brilliantly sharp production (though he prefers to term it recordings) of others work such as Pixies, The Auteurs, PJ Harvey, The Breeders, and Nirvana. His two albums with his own band are where he developed his audio ethos - clear unfettered sound with the drums at the fore, yet without the signature 80s "boom".  Albini is aggressively politically incorrect (just look at the title and cover art) which can be alienating and which is likely the point, but get past this and into the angular driving pummel of the band and it all makes sense.

447. World Party - Goodbye Jumbo (1990)

Ex-Waterboy Karl Wallinger became known for holing himself up in the studio and trying to recreate classic albums to see how they were done. Thankfully he was canny enough to recombine his influences on his own albums as World Party, so that the Stones and Prince and George Harrison borrowings fuse into something new and distinct. The "woo-woos" in "Way Down Now" for instance are clearly cousins to "Sympathy For The Devil" but the songs is entirely different, and great.

446. Unrest - Perfect Teeth (1993)

While their previous album was a revelation, this is a consolidation of the distinct and unusual sound this former hardcore band from D.C. had forged. Both tighter and bigger sounding, these songs run the gamut of what the band could do with their new found pop skills and fast-strummed style and they get deeper into their tongue in cheek obsessions with sex, the cultishly famous, and all things sensual.

445. Ice Cube - Death Certificate (1991)

Ice Cube's second solo disc proved that he was even more incendiary apart from N.W.A. It's a bruising album that leaves no stone unturned and no prejudice unindulged most notoriously on "Black Korea". The template of songs about slinging drugs and getting laid would get tiresome real fast - within a few months it became the default in hip-hop pushing aside the Native Tongue sounds emanating from the east coast. Ice earns his stripes though with his superior delivery and story-telling skills. The irony is that most of his fans were white kids, propelling the record to multi-million sales.

444. Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (1971)

It's hard now to fathom how alienating Ozzy Osbourne and his crew were when Black Sabbath first started to gain notice. Like Ice Cube he has become such a safe emasculated figure that the sheer shock of hearing music like this is difficult to recapture. In addition the deep sludgy narcotized grooves have been subsumed by metal, grunge and even indie rock to such an extent that the outrage over the anti-musicianship their sound seemed to represent is quaint. Like punk, Sabbath was in part a reaction to the professionalism overtaking rock at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s, and represented by progressive acts like Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer. A song like the marvelous  "Sweat Leaf" simply anti-intellectualizes any higher thinking right out of you.

443. Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep (1994)

Horrorcore was the short-lived hip-hop genre that Gravediggaz pretty much created and it was seen by some as a further degradation of the music from the pimps and hos and drug dealing into outright mayhem. Really these guys were smart enough to know they were actually sending up gangsta rap by pushing the boundaries to incredibly absurd heights while also pointing out subtly the difference between the way society branded white murderers as aberrant serial killers while blacks were gang bangers. In fact the core of Gravediggaz is Wu-Tang mastermind RZA along with De La Soul producer Prince Paul so tongues are lodged firmly in cheeks. As would be expected from those two part of the fun is the varied and creative production and samples.

442. RJD2 - Dead Ringer (2002)

Engrossingly brilliant electronica with a heavy bent towards hip-hop. RJD2 in fact was signed to underground rap label Definitive Jux, an unusual status for a white producer/DJ. This record brims with inventive noir-ish textures and clever transitions making it one of the few records of this type to move out of the heavy shadow cast by the aptly named DJ Shadow.

441. Dinosaur Jr. - Green Mind (1991)

A band record in name only, J. Mascis here sets out to fully get past the loss of Lou Barlow and barely uses regular drummer Murph at all and yet it's still a terrific record. Anchored by Mascis' strong songs, molten guitar slinging and uber slacker vocals Green Mind was a small step towards  more mainstream acceptance and repped the first Dinosaur album on a major label.

440. Sleigh Bells - Treats (2010)

Duo Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller crafted a debut that practically bursts at the sonic seams, all over-amped and distorted yet with a chewy pop center. It's incredibly arresting stuff - witness "Crown on the Ground," a song that feels like an escalating series of climaxes built on a killer beat, Miller's cock-rock guitar and Krauss' ultra-girly singing.

439. Black Flag - Damaged (1981)

Probably the ultimate hardcore punk album, fast furious and from California. The reaction of parents and other authority figures to the music in general and Black Flag in particular only made the funny songs funnier and the angry songs angrier - Henry Rollins spits venom and guitarist Greg Ginn wrote the best set of songs this band ever had.

438. The Wrens - Secaucus (1996)

The Wrens were about as star-crossed as a band could get. This, their second album, was a huge improvement on their debut presenting a wonderfully off-center take on the niceties of mid 90s indie rock. Sadly problems with their label and the pull of day jobs kept them from capitalizing on the good vibes and the follow-up would take seven years to come out.

437. Juliana Hatfield - Bed (1998)

Juliana Hatfield took her spunky sass and gruff guitar work solo after the Blake Babies split in the early 90s, becoming a college rock favorite and linked to Lemonhead's leader Evan Dando despite her claims to still be a virgin. By 1998 it had all imploded, a major label deal had been left behind and college rock had moved on to nu-metal. Bed finds her alternately depressed and debauched, as befits the title and the many reasons to stay there.  While that may sound glum it's  instead gripping and alluring, a document of someones wrong choices marathon set to glazed riff rock.

436. Television Personalities - And Don't The Kids Just Love It (1980)

Ridiculously ahead of its time, the first full-length from Dan Treacy's band is a delightful gathering of conversational songs about everyday life for a shy depressed British guy. In sound he neatly prefigures a whole slew of folks from The Smiths to Guided by Voices and the recording and playing is casual if not completely amateurish. What puts it over are terrific songs and a distinct point of view.

435. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have it So Much Better (2005)

Following up a widely praised and distinctive debut is really hard and this second offering from Glasgow's finest deviates only somewhat from the template they started from. But it's a great template: cracking rhythm section, arch vocals, springy Wire-like guitars.

434. Jonathan Richman - Jonathan Sings! (1983)

For Richman, this is a relatively adult album with kiddie songs for actual kiddies and love songs for grown up women - wives even! That doesn't stop the title track from flirting with a little extra-marital flirtation, nicely mirrored by a revamped band that features female backing vocals to bolster and sometimes undercut Richman's nasal verses.

433. Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)

This is Nirvana's last will and testament, a re-affirmation that the late Kurt Cobain was a brilliant songwriter and gripping performer. Cobain was also a big-time promoter for other bands and lends a hand to Leadbelly, The Vaselines and Meat Puppets with terrific covers. Though the original songs in most cases are superior the renditions of "All Apologies and "Something in the Way" are incredible. Supposedly Cobain had talked about Nirvana heading towards a more acoustic pastoral path with R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, which this album would have previewed. Instead he struggled with his heroin addiction, almost dying in Rome of an overdose before taking his own life shortly after this performance was recorded.

432. Royal Trux - Thank You (1995)

The breakup of skuzz-noise rockers Pussy Galore led to two arguably more interesting bands - this and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Where Spencer stripped things down to their elements Trux kept the dirt and grime under the stewardship of Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema. As time went on the couple began to incorporate elements of 70s boogie (think Canned Heat or even Grand Funk Railroad) into the guitar fueled murk. While this added professionalism rubbed some fans the wrong way it allowed Royal Trux to develop some actual songwriting chops, in full evidence here. Propulsive and down and dirty.

431. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimist (2009)

Who knew that the Beach Boys would become a primary influence over so much indie rock in the new millennium? At one extreme was Animal Collective which  made a sound that approximated the Manson family taking charge of the California popsters. Grizzly Bear still love the popness inherent in the best of Brain Wilson and the gang but they bring their own jazzy shadings to their material. The arrangements are superb, beyond even the vocals. The music itself is actually quite distinct, suggesting the softer sounds of 60s and 70s forebears but executing it in a very postmodern baroque manner. An album to curl up and get lost in.

430. Bob Dylan - Street Legal (1978)

This is one of those albums in a long-lived artists' catalog that separates the casual listener from the fan. Some Dylanites hate this but those who love it, love it. Few fans are indifferent. This is his last  album before becoming a born-again Christian and you can feel the turmoil all over the hard rock and r&b grooves. In fact it was his affair with one of the backup singers on this that led him down the path to religion, as he was still adrift in the wake of the breakup of his marriage to Sara Lowndes.

429. Naked Raygun - All Rise (1986)

Part of the bruising Chicago hardcore scene, these guys hid their pop hooks behind sheer walls of guitar and pummeling breakneck drums. By the time album three rolled around they were ready to drop their guard a bit with aching yelps like "I Remember" upping the emotional ante while the band still stopped and started on a dime. A lesser-known influence on a host of 90s rockers ranging from practically everyone on Touch and Go records to math rockers like Polvo and Helmet.

428. Morrissey - Bona Drag (1990)

Morrissey's old band The Smiths saved many of their best songs for singles only releases and so he followed suit in teh early years of solo-dom. While I've stayed away from compilations from the most pat, this is an excellent collection of non-album tracks that happens to be the guy's best album outside of the aforementioned band.  Though some scoffed at the thought of Morrissey without songwriting partner Johnny Marr he more than holds his own on this collection.

427. Jason Forrest - Shamelessly Exciting (2005)

It should come as no surprise that the digital age would proliferate the postmodern music concrete sound that had already been established by sampling kings like Steinski, Prince Paul, Negativland and their ilk. Among the best practitioners is Jason Forrest, who gleefully creates new songs by slicing and dicing old content whether it's lite FM staples of the 70s or his 36 favorite punk tunes.

426. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2008)
After pushing the envelope for several releases Radiohead instead pushed their business envelope with a  pay-what-you-want download model for their first album away from EMI. Musically this is a consolidation of everything Radiohead can do, akin to The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers. Like that classic, top-notch songwriting and production makes this eminently accessible without being shallow.

425. Quasi - Hot Shit (2003)

A pretty balls out protest record, Quasi don't bother with the niceties of Green Days rock opera American Idiot. Instead they literally say "Fuck You" to the likes of Don Rumsfeld in song in "White Devil's Dream". This is not to say they are devoid of subtlety - check out the searing ballad "No One" that comes on like an update of "Every Breath You Take", an abusive person or leader who cannot help but control.

424. Helium - The Dirt of Luck (1995)

Mary Timony led Helium into a tightly sprung sound for this, their first full length. Her singing makes the most of her affectless delivery, making even her nastiest diversions sound offhand which adds to their power. The arrangements in retrospect lay the groundwork for the punk/prog new wave hybrid sound to come - here it's more striped-down and feral. Powerful stuff.

423. Public Image Limited - Album/CD/Cassette (1986)

The man who was asked to audition for the Sex Pistols because he wore a Pink Floyd t-shirt with the words "I Hate" crudely scrawled across it here teams up Cream's Ginger Baker, metal guitarist Steve Vai, Ryuchi Sakamoto, and Material mastermind Bill Laswell who also produced. It's a big sounding record full of detail and not a bit of gloss with a distinct prog feel that betrays John Lydon's interest in Krautrock. Fans were outraged but these songs are fascinating and "Rise" is one of his very best songs.

422. Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971)

Baby Huey was dead before his one and only album even came out on Curtis Mayfield's label. Curtis also produced, lending a  sympathetic  ear to Huey's terrific voice and his shit-hot backing band The Babysitters. Had the 400-pound perfomer lived he would have been a force to be reckoned with in 70s soul, a mix of Mayfield's songwriting gifts and social conscience, a pinch of Sly's funk, and big chunk of Otis' soulfullness.

421. Negativland - Escape From Noise (1987)

This was one of my first experiences with cut-up samples and musique concrete, having bought this when it came out. It rocked my teenage world with it's combination of highly skewed songs (the folk balled "Nesbitt's Lime Soda", the proto-industrial sample driven "Christianity is Stupid" and conceptual tracks like "Time Zones" which splices up a right-wing radio talk show host and his caller into the trippiest, most ominous circular conversation ever.

420. Kool Keith - Black Elvis/ Lost in Space (1999)

To describe Kool Keith as a character doesn't even begin to do him justice. An eighties fixture from his stint in Ultramagnetic MCs, Keith's distinctive flow and lyrics allowed him to reinvent himself as a more edgy indie rapper as Dr. Octagon and then build upon that with this album under his own name. While mainstream rappers were aggrandizing over their Bentleys, Keith decided to play the part of Black Elvis, ultra successful businessman. What's funny is how he externalizes what a Jay-Z mostly keeps internal but for Keith rapping about Dow Jones and secretaries is strictly fantasy.

419. Bjork - Post (1995)

Bjork's second post-Sugarcubes album strikes what's still her best balance between experimental quirkiness and accessibility. The palette of electronic sounds and sometimes abstract beats is downright gorgeous on tracks like "Isobel", augmented by strings and even a sock-it-to-them orchestration on showstopper "It's Oh So Quiet." A textbook case of how to fit experimentation into a pop template.

418. The Mekons - So Good it Hurts (1988)
The Mekons were a distinct oddity by the time this album came out. Starting out as a post-punk sister band to Gang of Four they slipped quickly into obscurity only to emerge in the mid 80s with a ragged Hank Williams influenced sound. The band by this point still included mainstays Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh but had expanded to include the golden voice of Sally Timms. This can be seen as a dry run for their purple patch of records that span into the early 90s but I'd argue this ought to be included as it shows the bands songwriting beginning to hit it's stride on new wavers like "Ghosts of American Astronauts", country tinged punk like the title track, the dub tinged "Johnny Miner"  and a scathing femme cover of the Rolling Stones' "Heart of Stone."

417. Devo -Q. Are We Not Men?A. We Are Devo (1978)

"God made man, but he used a monkey to do it.." sang this band that managed to out art-damage all other new wave bands with this skewed conceptual release. Devo posits that man is "de-evolving" and they for one welcome the change. They are mostly joking but the 10% that isn't likely comes from the experience of witnessing the National Guard fatally fire on students at Ohio's Kent State. So conformity is twisted inside out on "Jocko Homo" and non-conformity is goosed on their complete redefinition of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction", one of the greatest covers of all time.

416. Elliott Smith - Elliot Smith (1995)

Elliott Smith first came to attention for most folks for this, his second solo set. Acoustic, wavery, seemingly slight these songs have a strong impact over time. Anything but easy listening.

415. Supertramp - Breakfast in America (1979)

My wife absolutely hates this record and I understand. A bunch of fairy-voiced Brits singing about the hardships of being rock stars. You know, on the road, a different groupie every night, dealing with hippie haters (in 1979!) Maybe it's because I remember this in heavy rotation on my sibling's hi-fi's as an 8-year but I love every soft-rock lick and electric piano burble on this album.

414. No Age - Everything In Between (2010)

No Age was lumped into a lo-fi punk bucket but they increasingly showed a fondness for more nuanced strains of indie rock and pop culminating in this glorious record. The catch is that it all happens with  just two people, vocals drums and guitar. Yet the variety of textures, moods and sounds thay are able to get out of that limited palette are heartening.

413. Galaxie 500 - On Fire (1989)

In some ways these guys were the American answer to Britain's Spacemen 3, a group that built something new out of the framework of 60s psych-rock. In this case there are elements of the Velvet's drone and aspects of folk thrown in. This is a great collection of songs that showcased a band on the very outskirts of indie rock orthodoxy (ie not remotely punk or new wave) creating another touchstone that others would build on in the following decades.

412. Sparks - Kimono My House (1974)

The Mael brothers are expert opinion-dividers. There are as hated (especially influential by Trouser Press editor Ira Robbins) as they are revered. They were certainly doing things ahead of their time, employing some of the same moves as similar trailblazers Roxy Music though replacing Bryan Ferry's louche loverman routine with a kinetically arch humor. It's no surprise that these Los Angeles natives would find more success on the other side of the world given the success UK acts in a similar vein (10cc comes to mind in addition to Roxy). This is one of their most song-centric albums, as well as being theatrical in a very glam rock way.

411. The Jesus Lizard - Liar (1992)

Pummeling. Tuneful, yet pummeling.

410. Depeche Mode - Music For The Masses (1987)

Man I hated these guys in high school. All the girls liked them but I liked bands with guitars and weird songs like Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, Pixies. This stuff? Of course as I grew older I reminded myself to be open and to listen to songs, as George Michael might say, without prejudice. And this band has some incredible songs spread throughout their catalog. This is where the highest percentage of them reside (other than on singles collections). The album sounds big and bold - perfect to vault them into arenas, but the textures were their most varied yet. A breakthrough for them and for synth pop.

409. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals (2008)

Did I mention I liked cut and paste compositions? That's all that Greg Gillis does here, splicing together his favorites bits of hundreds of songs across genre (but lots of rap, classic rock, and indie) adding beats and creating an endless playlist of highlights.

408. Superchunk - Indoor Living (1997)

Superchunk do the mature thing on this record, broadly expanding the palette of their sound (keep in mind that their publishing company was called All The Songs Sound The Same) and their subject matter. Martinis, dead jazz musicians, and sweet, sweet infatuation on the soaring "Marquee" all figure in this time.

407. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009)

Typically these guys have fascinated me more than compelled me. I love what they do but I'm rarely in the frame of mind to want to listen to it. That is until this record which unearthed just enough structure and melodic sense to make the experimentation and sound explorations feel like a discernible path instead of a diversion. Oddly enough this may be there least formally structure set of songs but the repeated sections and hooks work to suck you in and the vocals add the final bit of payoff.

406. Pretenders - Pretenders II (1981)

Pretenders had the unenviable task of following up their instant classic debut and predictably critics were less kind the second time around. The formula is reprised including covering one of her then-husband's obscure Kink's nuggets. Nevertheless the album is a great one and Hyde's songwriting is top notch, as is the playing of the band's classic ill-fated lineup.

405. Dr. Dre - The Chronic (1992)

This is THE gangsta rap album, for better or worse. Mostly for worse as few imitators lacked the style, production chops, a guest like Snoop Dogg or the talent and brains to make entertainment out of the acceptance of life's horrors. It's a major shift from Public Enemy's in-your-face bravado to Dre and Snoop's blunted "that's life."

404. Air - Moon Safari (1998)

Incredibly influential, these Frenchmen smashed a bunch of traditions together, from chanson to folk, to pop to electronic experimentation and dance music and out came this classic. At times it threatens to devolve into wallpaper but the arrangements and varied tempos keeps it fizzy.

403. Game Theory - Lolita Nation (1987)

Just as Sonic Youth would do a year later, the lesser-known band Game Theory puts their fingers on the national pulse. This is a big sprawling statement of an album, dense with hooks and melody but also, as befits a double-album, byways and the occasional  dead end. Undeservedly obscure.

402. The Strokes - Room on Fire (2003)

As you may have seen elsewhere on this list, I'm a fan of the underrated follow-up record which this is a prime example of. The Strokes debut unleashed a swarm of guitar bands eager to rawk owt in the same New York style. Here they trim some of the bright edges off their sound and float in guitar tracks on top of stop-start beats like a dub track, or imitate keyboards. The first album was lo-fi but it was like a coat of dust on chrome polished songs, on this record it's more like a coat of rust.

401. King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader (2003)

One of Doom's many side projects but easily my favorite. The rhyming is top notch and the choice of samples is particularly clever - ranging from the Japanese monster films that gave this project its moniker to the incidental music from cult 70s Japanime Battle of The Planets.

Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon

1975 was smack in the middle of one of the best decades for film ever and this list certainly proves it out – Beatty, Nicholson, Hackman, Spielberg, Lumet, Pacino, all at or near peaks. Enjoy the extravaganza of some of my favorites films from that year and feel free to disagree in the comments!

26. The Fortune

Given the pedigree of the stars involved and the point in their careers The Fortune should be some kind of classic but the weight of expectation and masterworks from both stars within the same years render this enjoyable romp an obscurity. A period piece (the 70s were really obsessed with the 30s) with real-life buds Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty playing conniving friends and romantic rivals alongside Stockard Channing, this is due for a re-evaluation.

25. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother

It’s often forgotten that Gene Wilder co-wrote Young Frankenstein with Mel Brooks, and here he attempts the classic satire feat solo with Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective hero. Though it may not reach the heights of that previous film much of the cast is replicated including the wonderful Marty Feldman, and much agreeable lunacy ensues.

24. The Return of the Pink Panther

Blake Edwards and his star Peter Sellars would return to this well many, many times, as would their studio. As downright awful as these outings can be this initial return after a several  year layoff is one of the best. David Niven is swapped out of the cat burglar role for Christopher Plummer but this sets the template for the series formula.

23. The Eiger Sanction

Tongue-in-cheek sub-Bond adventure with Clint Eastwood in the lead, this is good dumb fun. It’s also directed by an up-and-coming director who would gain acclaim much later in his career, a fellow named Clint Eastwood. Along to chomp on the mountain scenery are Jack Casady and George Kennedy.

22. Cooley High

Low budget and full of heart, this is like  American Graffiti from the black perspective. A slice of 60s life enlivened by Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington in one of his best non-Sweathog roles.

21. The Sunshine Boys

Another product of the Neil Simon hit making factory which ruled Broadway in the period and was colonizing screens large and small with stuff like the Odd Couple and Plaza Suite. Walter Matthau plays older and George Burns plays younger as members of an estranged vaudeville team reunited for TV. Jack Benny was set to play the Burns part but backed out with terminal illness, recommending Burns who hadn’t starred in a film since before World War II. Burns won an Oscar for Supporting Actor for this role.

20. Switchblade Sisters

This film doesn’t involve Sir John Giulgud at all, and it likes it better that way. The ultimate tough girl film, this got an enthusiastic re-release under the auspices of Quentin Tarantino in 1996. This is no John Hughes vision of High School – the mean girls here are the Dagger Debs and they mean it – to the point of getting thrown into juvie . Every B-movie cliche is embraced with gusto.

19. Farewell, My Lovely

For whatever reason filmmakers in the 70s were fascinated by film noir of the 40s and this Raymond Chandler adaptation goes so far as to grab one of late noir’s breakout actors, Robert Mitchum, to star. Mitchum is both the strength and the weakness here: Too old for the part yet with tremendous charisma. Matching his laconic style, the film is unhurried in rolling out its detective story.  Stunning sets and photography make it time well spent.

18. A Boy and His Dog

Before Sonny Crockett was partnered with Tubbs, he was partnered with a telepathic dog in this dark sci-fi classic. There’s a touch of Dr. Strangelove to the proceedings leavened with some humorous interplay between man and beast. Man finds food for dog and dog finds ladies for man. In theory everyone wins but in practice Don Johnson’s johnson leads him astray one time too many.

17. Deep Red

If Hitchcock were an Italian splatter film director, he would be Dario Argento. Cheesy, scary and bloody, this was the film that crossed Argento over to midnight screens in the United States and no doubt helped kick off the wave of slasher movies by Americans that were to follow.

16. The Great Waldo Pepper

Re-teaming George Roy Hill and Robert Redford for a third go-round probably seemed like a slam-dunk, so maybe it was the lack of Newman that led to the relative failure compared to Butch Cassidy and The Sting. Witha  strong Willaim Goldman screenplay and plenty of period action and humor, it’s a very underrated film. Also, dogfights!

15. The Man Who Would Be King

Great imperialist fun with two of Britain’s finest, Michael Caine and Sean Connery and you get Christopher Plummer as Rudyard Kipling. John Huston directs with a wink at Gunga-Din but there’s no getting around the queasy all-too-now reality of two foreigners getting up to their eyeballs in trouble by scheming in Afghanistan.

14. Rollerball

Clearly the future will undergo a great craze for 70s style decor judging from this cheeseball classic. You can make the argument that they got malaise-era government bankruptcy right, as well as reality TV and extreme sports.

13. The Wind and the Lion

Utter historical bunk with just enough truth there to be subverted, but it hardly matters in a film this entertaining. The usually bellicose John Milius turns in a surprisingly anti-Imperialist and questioning towards America’s foreign policy. Sean Connery does a Berber chieftain by way of the highlands to perfection, with Candace Bergen as the comely kidnapped American. Brian Keith as Teddy Roosevelt is not to be missed.

12. Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir’s ethereal tale about missing schoolgirls brings to mind Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides in its gauzy Hamilton-inspired cinematography and allegorical nature.

11. Death Race 2000

Almost as camp as Rocky Horror – Casanova Frankenstein is a character name in this gleeful poor taste festival that posits a future in which road racing is combined with road rage and points are given for mowing down spectators and pedestrians. Avoid the crap remake.

10. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Beloved of A/V geeks the world over, the Monty Python troupe made the leap to TV with this historical romp which features rampant silliness, coconuts for horses, and French-style rudeness. Accept no substitutes.

9. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

This gender bending musical spectacular pioneered the midnight movie scene. Unsuccessful in wide release it became a perennial for outcasts to check out at late night showings, eventually spawning its’ own culture of dress-up and call-and-response to the screen that neatly prefigured  today’s dress up for ComicCon culture.

8. Night Moves

One of the most underrated films of the decade, Arthur Penn’s take on noir (a genre that merited much revisiting in the 70s)   finds just the right Bogart stand-in with hard bitten everyman Gene Hackman. Then there’s Melanie Griffith typecast as she was in this period as jailbait and a skeevy James Woods in a bit part.

7. Jaws

One of the most influential films on the business of movies, Jaws ushered in the era of the summer blockbuster. It’s also quite good. It’s easy to forget Spielberg’s verisimilitude with everyday life but the texture of New England island resort living helps to permeate and elevates the underlying b-movie origins of the plot. Richard Dreyfuss is the cocky egghead stand-in for Spielberg himself – a new generation with new gear and imagination against the old school represented by Robert Shaw’s salty Quint. The male bonding scenes between Roy Scheider and the two other men help make the film, grounding the monster movie horror in real humanity.

6. The Passenger

Antonioni had something to prove with this, his last great work. Only able to get financing with a big star attached he got Jack Nicholson at the peak of his career. Ostensibly a thriller of sorts about an American reporter in North Africa, it not surprisingly plays out as an existential fable with tendrils that reach all the way to David Lynch’s Lost Highway.

5. Three Days of the Condor

I was never a huge fan of the late director Sydney Pollack. In fact I’m on record as preferring his acting to his directing. That said, this is one of his best films. A solid contender in the paranoid Watergate thriller sweepstakes so popular in the 70s, it’s an oblique commentary on how detached citizens can become from the real doings of their governments dressed up as a sub-Hitchcock adventure. Redford is just teh right side of believable as a bookish CIA analyst seemingly far removed from the action and Max Von Sydow is phenomenal as an assassin. The only bum note is a shoehorned romance with Faye Dunaway but it’s not enough to kill the mood.

4. Nashville

Whether you consider this Altman’s masterpiece or not, it’s a remarkable film and the one that sets all the touchstones  for calling another movie “Altmanesque.” In addition to the overlapping dialogue that was already his trademark there is the sprawling cast of characters centered loosely around a place, an event and even an industry – in this case the Nashville music scene.  The remarkable cast is a treat, especially Lily Tomlin. The plot can seem a bit schematic by the end but it’s a story worth experiencing.

3. Shampoo

The knock on Beatty was that he was a vain, emptyheaded cocksman more consumed with his image and the perception that he was doing great work than anything else. Shampoo allows him to play a parody of himself that lives up to all of these assumptions and undercuts them first with comedy and then with tragedy. As a horndog hairstylist he fools women’s husbands into thinking he’s gay and beds their wives but his ambition and his desire for something more with Julie Christie begin to tug at him. Goldie Hawn has never been better as the woman who loves him in vain.

2. Dog Day Afternoon

The quintessential American film of the 70s, this masterpiece directed by Sidney Lumet challenged audiences to sympathize with Al Pacino’s bankrobber, a character who keeps testing your ability to stick with him. Yet both the audience and other characters in the film find themselves feeling for the guy, perhaps in part out of a sense of his own scrappy ineptitude. It was a time when the old ideas of authority were being upended – the chant of “Attica! Attica!” shorthand for a society that felt more like rioting inmates than wardens.Yet Pacino finds that being a symbol is a lot easier than being a complicated human being with motivations that might be tough for outsiders to understand.

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Some films that win Best Picture at the Academy awards seem like lame-o compromises, but in a strong year for film this was a powerhouse. Staying true to Ken Kesey’s groundbreaking novel, Milos Forman’s film features one of Jack Nicholson’s most indelible performances. Produced by Michael Douglas and originally intended to star his father Kirk, the long delay in production led to the perfect casting of Nicholson as the anti-hero McMurphy. Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Rathched has become equally iconic as a figure of cold implacable authority and a terrific ensemble including Danny DeVito, Vincent Schiavelli and Brad Dourif. An unforgettable tour de force.

Ah, the 80s.  If you wanted original programming you had your three networks (until Fox came along at the end of the decade and HBO jumped into original shows around the same time) plus PBS. Nowadays you’d have to go to the likes of the Sci-Fi Channel… oh excuse me, SyFy to see the level of cheese on display below.

What did you need to launch a show in the 80s? A cool vehicle (whether it be a motorcycle, car, helicopter, or boat) a slab of beef for a leading man with a  name like Rex or Perry, a crusty lieutenant type, a woman with big hair and shoulder pads, and a kick ass theme song.

Automan

Automan was an early 80s view of high-tech which was like Tron turned inside out – picture the pitch meeting:  “Instead of the guy getting sucked into the computer, the computer is  a guy who gets sucked into our world!” Where he befriends charisma-free Desi Arnaz Jr. Quick, let me back in! Along for the ride is Cursor, a “special effect”that doesn’t quite earn the sobriquet “special” but does appear to be a bit of a digital horndog. Love the font. Bonus points for having their slab of beef be computer generated.

Riptide

A mangy crossbreed of the helicopter show genre (there was such a thing – witness Blue Thunder and Airwolf), comical detective show, and geek chic plus a soupcon of Miami Vice‘s seaside setting. The rawkin’ guitar and Mike Post theme song credit is a giveaway that 70s and 80s cheese master Stephen J. (Magnum P.I.) Cannell is behind the scenes though this lesser show failed to light up the ratings. Make my slab of beef a double.

The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo

A spinoff of a show that was itself a cheese landmark, Greg Evigan’s starmaking vehicle BJ and The Bear, this stuntmen’s meal ticket starred country singer Claude Akins in the title role. Imagine if the Smokey and the Bandit movies were about Jackie Gleason‘s character, only played with a lot less verve and no cussing. Where’s the (slab of) beef?

Hello Larry

Maclean Stevensen’s career post-M*A*S*H had vital signs that resembled one of Frank Burns’ patients. This was yet another comeback attempt. I’d summarize the plot but the theme song does that for you, in excruciating detail. What it doesn’t explain is Meadowlark Lemon’s involvement. Meadowlark – fire your agent!

Street Hawk

Knight Rider with a motorcycle, what could go wrong? Rex Smith is the slab of beef designated as the lead, a pre-Murphy Brown Joe Regalbuto is the geek factor and the theme song is ripe for a re-working as a rap backing track.

Hardcastle and McCormick

A steakhouse of intrigue? Roaming accountants? Nay, Hardcastle and McCormick were judge and ex-con bound together to fight crime with a fast car. Daniel Hugh-Kelly is admittedly a high grade slab of beef and Brain Keith as the judge is a long way from the charming 60s bachelor-dad-com Family Affair. The tire budget must have been substantial going by the smoky burnouts and chirping 180s that are the show’s stock in trade.

Manimal

The improbably named Simon MacCorkindale led this fantasy about a dude who could shape shift into a handful of animals via pre-filmed transformation footage that rarely matched the surrounding scenes.  Here the feeling at the network seemed to be that the theme footage (and title) didn’t tell viewers enough to figure out the basic outline so they include some helpful exposition. Next time, try lyrics a la Hello Larry. Bonus points for using a horse as cool vehicle.

Whiz Kids

Nerds! You expect Ogre to jump out of the Hardcastle and McCormick credits to come on down here and kick some nerd ass. But he doesn’t. Instead we get lame magic, the kid from Little House, Barney Miller‘s Wojo sans hairpiece, and the lovely Andrea Elson who made my 12 year jockey shorts chafe when she played the violin. Too much information?

Hart to Hart

The best expositional voiceover ever? At least the best on this list. “When they met, it was moider…” If he were still alive, I’d want Lionel Stander as my GPS device voice. The theme is double time disco with a delicious horn intro that sounds like a Mack truck that went to finishing school and you get lots of Hollywood’s hottest dead spouse (Wagner’s wife Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances on their boat during a three person party involving Christopher Walken while Powers husband William Holden died non-mysteriously of cancer during the show’s run) non-couple in action. Bonus points for using a plane as cool vehicle.

TJ Hooker

Shatner running full speed is a special effect in and of itself. See him grab onto a car hood! See his stunt double do all the work! Adrian Zmed is a lean cut of beef to be sure but then you’ve got a slice of cheese cake that is Heather Locklear, the pin-up Beatles to Heather Thomas’ (see The Fall Guy below) Stones. How many different vehicles does Shatner subdue in this intro? Lots, including a school bus and a small plane.

Helltown

The video quality may be bad but believe me, the show is worse. Creepy murderer Robert Blake was still just the quirky dude from Baretta and somehow producers thought that viewers would swallow his ghetto priest character if they got a past his prime Sammy Davis Jr. to warble the theme song as he did for that earlier show.  But wait, you get Whitman Mayo’s head superimposed over a hungry goat, lots of nuns, cattle, even a black cat. Looks like a casting call for Manimal.

Foul Play

Remember the slight but charming comedy suspense caper starring Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn. Well this is the TV version and its exactly the same! Only there’s some lady as Goldie and Barry Bostwick in the Chevy role. But that’s better, right? Just like disco-ing up the Barry Manilow theme from the film is an improvement. Hey same shot of Highway 1 as in the movie. Mostly.

Hunter

The slab of beef in this case is pro football refugee Fred Dryer. The big hair and shoulder pads is the lovely and overqualified Stephanie Kramer. The vehicle is a Dodge Daytona, by all accounts an anemic piece of 80s automotive trash (basically a K-Car with a turbo engine and a swoopier body) that’s thrown around here like a Lamborghini. Don’t be fooled by the Mike Post theme song, this one is produced by Cannell’s sometime partner Frank Lupo.

The Fall Guy

Boy as a singer that Lee Majors sure is a good actor! The tongue-in-cheek theme song sets the tone for the stunt heavy show with Majors as beef supreme and Douglass Barr as a junior patty. Markie Post brings the hair and pads in her pre- Night Court days and Heather Thomas is an animated pin-up there to make up for the lack of a crusty lieutenant type.

Small Wonder

A change of pace from the relentless shoot-em-ups on this list, instead we have a pre-feminist creation myth set to 50s style easy listening tripe. All the men on this show look like Botero paintings.

The Powers of Matthew Star

I’m Lou Gossett Jr., and I’ll be providing expositional voiceover for this inspiring story of an alien prettyboy who comes to earth as a refugee, and then dates cheerleaders and develops his awesome poers to, us, move books. Hey he’s on the football team! This is the least alienated alien ever. You’ll just have to take my word for the fact that their are exciting run-ins with enemy assassins and so forth since you won’t see any of that action in the intro.

The Pheonix

Ancient astronauts leave a gift for mankind in some South American pyramid, a purse-lipped fellow devoid of body hair who resembles Space: 1999 star Barbara Bain. Only prettier. Is that James Earl Jones doing the voiceover?

Stingray

So the guy’s git a nice car – is that enough to build a show around? Sure when your main character is a slab of beef named Ray (or “Identity Unknown” according to this credit sequence). Occupation: Unknown? We call that unemployed round these parts. Anyhoo he does seem to have a sideline in shadow puppetry, glasses wearing, and the same kind of quasi-Masonic symbiology used in the credit sequence for The Phoenix.

Tales of The Gold Monkey

This Indiana Jones ripoff answers the burning question: What did the dad from Seventh Heaven do before that show and after his role in Star Trek: The Motion Picture? The answer is, he starred opposite a dog in a leather eyepatch as a Harrison Ford wannabee. Sure he’s low on the slab of beef meter but he does get the cool transportation right with a seaplane. Roddy McDowell must have had the same agent as Meadowlark Lemon.

Cover Up

How’s THIS for slabs of beef – it’s like a butchers shop in here. Sadly star Jon Erik-Hexum ended up on a slab himself after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a prop gun. Which makes his credit in especially poor taste Nevertheless it’s nice to see a credit sequence that dares to juxtapose the world of modeling with the world of soldiering, an implicit indictment of Reagen-era America’s superficiality in the face of it’s undeclared wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Or maybe it’s just plain cheesy editing.

Matt Houston

“Get me a Magnum!” was undoubtedly the cry from a TV executive jealous of the success of Tom Selleck’s action detective series on CBS. His minions delivered the equine monikered Lee Horsley, a supreme slab of beef. This whole credit sequence looks like the setup for a Will Ferrell movie. And then there’s Buddy Ebsen as Uncle Roy. Killer theme song though.

Ted Knight in Caddyshack

The movie industry was in transition in 1980 – away from the auteur-driven seventies golden era and towards the age of the eighties blockbuster. Ringing out the old guard were duds like Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, which became shorthand for out-of-control directorial hubris and Robert Altman’s Popeye which made a better soundtrack than a film. Representing the new were high-concept low IQ sequels like the troubled Superman II and the execrable Smokey and The Bandit Part II, each of which were hits out of all proportion to their quality. Kneel before Zod indeed.

However there were plenty of fine films from all over the spectrum in 1980 and here are the 20 that I think are keepers (after the jump) :

20. Foxes

Part of a cycle of bad girl films that also included the more popular but inferior Little Darlings, Foxes is helped by having Jodie Foster in the lead and a delightfully seedy and nihilistic take worthy of L.A., not to mention co-star Cherie Currie of The Runaways. There isn’t much of a plot to speak of, just loose vignettes of drinking, doping and doing it and the parents who are too self-absorbed to care. Enlivened by an era-appropriate cheese and sleaze rock soundtrack.

19. Return of the Secaucus Seven

This is John Sayles first film and it has a warts and all quality consistent with its ultra-low budget. It’s also a charming character study ripped off thanklessly for Lawrence Kasdan’s glib The Big Chill a few years later. The premise is the same, a group of counter-culture inclined pals from the 60s reunite now in their early 30s – aimless and struggling with an adulthood they once mocked. The main cast remains pretty anonymous today but they all give solid natural performances. On the fringes are Clark Gregg as an idealistic politico and David Straithairn as a goofy townie who has more depth than first appears.

18. Caddyshack

Maybe not a great film as a whole but as a collection of riffs it’s pretty dynamite. A sort of battle of the comedy stylings you get Ted Knight doing the classic haughty slow-burn, the great Rodney Dangerfield in a star-making turn as a sort of one-man Marx brother, Chevy Chase doing his louche smug deal, and Bill Murray doing the kind of off-the-wall character work that would be emulated by the likes of Will Ferrell years down the road. And a kick-ass Kenny Loggins song.

17. The Elephant Man

The film that catapulted David Lynch into the mainstream for a brief moment. The Lynchian weirdness is there in the very subject matter and the obsession look in the eye of Anthony Hopkins, as well as the choice to film in lush black and white. Yet it also passes as costume drama of a sort if you put aside the strangely unnerving soundtrack. Produced by Mel Brooks, and not coincidentally featuring a wonderful turn by his wife, Anne Bancroft.

16. Ordinary People
Robert Redford showed his mettle as a director by taking on this tricky film which succeeds for the most part in exploring a young man’s difficulty growing up and adjusting to a terrible family tragedy that is tearing his parents apart. The acting is what puts this over the top with Timothy Hutton rightly praised for his seamless work in the lead, the lovely Elizabeth McGovern as a fellow teen, and Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore who are fantastic as the parents. Moore in particular is as far as she can get from her sunny Mary Richards character on TV – brittle, wounded and wounding it’s a great and brave performance.

15. The Stunt Man

Richard Rush is one of the great almost-was Hollywood directors – praised by Truffaut but with a maddeningly scattershot body of work. At his best though here and to a lesser extent the 1974 cop buddy movie farce Freebie and The Bean his satire was both cutting and prescient. The Stunt Man was actually made in 1978 but languished until Rush could find a studio to release it, just in time for it’s twisted view of the mashup between fiction and reality to find it’s ultimate expression in the election of a b-movie star as President. Peter O’ Toole is the film director who seems to enjoy controller and manipulating everything, including Steve Railsback as a paranoid Vietnam vet pulled into the orbit of the film and leading lady Barbara Hershey. Naturally this entertainingly Machiavellian look at film making was only able to find a cult audience but it’s a cult that endures.

14. My Bodyguard

A sweet quirky tale enlivened by fine performances and well delineated characters. I shudder to think of what someone would do with a remake today – you would lose the charm of Chris Makepeace as the bullied rich kid and the layered menace of Adam Baldwin as his bodyguard for hire. Then there’s a young greaseball named Matt Dillon who has more charisma is his slicked-back hair than Taylor Lautner can muster with his perfectly chiseled abs.

13. Stardust Memories

Considered something of a letdown after Manhattan, Stardust Memories fuses the coldly abstract European experimentation of Interiors with the warm and schticky New York relationship comedy of Annie Hall. The effect can be disorienting and self-indulgent but it’s also fascinating. Woody was accused of treating his fans like dirt for the scenes of hero worship that are clearly played for putdowns but their is as much self-loathing those moments as there is misanthropy. Consider it Woody’s White album, a meandering, frustrating, sometimes brilliant mess.

12. Melvin and Howard

Jonathan Demme broke out of the genre pic ghetto with this delightful retelling of a story that may be true or may be a tall tale. He never judges or pushes the scales on the subject of speculation, the real-life Melvin Dummar who claims to have befriended Howard Hughes when he picked him up as a hitchhiker on a Nevada highway. Paul LeMat is perfect as Dummar, a man who takes his passenger (played to the hilt by Jason Robards) to be a bum until Hughes dies and apparently leaves him $150 million. Or does he? Mary Steenburgen won an Oscar as Dummar’s wife who is desperate to win some dough given the constant financial pressure they find themselves in. A classic.

11. The Shining

After the torpid costume drama of Barry Lyndon it was unclear where Stanley Kubrick would go next – he’d done high satire with Dr. Strangelove, a war movie with Paths of Glory and sci-fi with 2001. What genres were left? Horror, naturally. While Stephen King may have lamented the changes his source material underwent this remains a classic – not least of which because of Jack Nicholson’s unhinged lead performance. Part of what some folks objected to was the hint of menace already apparent in Jack before he even hits the winding road to the Overlook Hotel with wife and son in tow. The point Kubrick was making was that the ghoulish resort was the catalyst but the rage and derangement was there to be tapped into – in everyone but especially men.

10. Breaker Morant

Not an easy film to watch but Bruce Beresford’s epic telling of a true story is riveting as a drama of miscarried justice, prejudice, and the travails of war. Set during the Boer War it concerns three Australian officers serving with British forces in South Africa in the 19th century. While acting under their understood rules of engagement they kill a group pf Boer prisoners including, it turn out, a German. When the German government protests the British government decides that the easiest remedy is to court martial and execute the three Australians. Beresford doesn’t shy away from exploring the different racial and cultural differences that come into play, from Boer collaborators to African tribesman to the very real disdain in which the British held the Australians. Bryan Brown and the late Edward Woodward are both spectacular. Their sacrifice can’t help but echo in our own time of war crimes that are condoned by the brass while only the rank-and-file are held to account.

9. Used Cars

A final kiss-off to the malaise years, this is one of the great American satires, worthy of Preston Sturges. It’s the work of Robert Zemeckis, on his way to blockbuster fare like the Back To The Future series, but before he became too besotted by CGI technology to take an interest in actual people. Of course it’s hard not to take an interest when you have Jack Warden playing a dual role as conniving twin brothers who run adjacent competing used car lots. Or Kurt Russell at his slippery best as a fast-talking salesman who stashes cash in his fridge in preparation for a run for office. The scene where a typically dour (actual!) Jimmy Carter speech is jammed to make way for a ribald guerrilla TV spot is priceless.

8. The Blues Brothers
If Used Cars was a farewell to an era of diminished expectations than The Blues Brothers was a sly, overstuffed paean to two of the biggest tropes of 70s filmmaking – the car chase and the antihero. Every great populist work of the closing decade featured one, and ideally both of these – see for instance Smokey and The Bandit, Convoy, Billy Jack, the Dirty Harry series. Director John Landis and stars Belushi and Ackroyd pump both ideas up to ridiculous abstraction. Yes the Blues Brothers are anti-authority outcasts but really, they’re on a mission from God (compare this to the conflict between “Dirty” Harry Callahan’s moral code and the letter of the law his superiors keep citing.) You thought the car chase in French Connection was cool? Try a full half-hour plus of cars backflipping, crashing, balletically colliding and converging on Chicago’s downtown en masse. Plus some fine music from Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway. And Aretha can act!

7. 9 to 5

Like The Blues Brothers this verges quite literally into cartoon territory but it’s delicious satire of gender roles in the workplace was grounded in a reality that still rings true. Granted there are more women in corporate leadership roles now than at the time of this film but the progressive solutions to making a better workplace advocated by Lily Tomlin’s Violet still are rare in most offices today – onsite day care, time sharing etc. The film’s a hoot – in addition to Tomlin there’s Jane Fonda cast against type as uptight Judy and Dolly Parton who is more than just the curvy body her co-workers and boss see her as. Dabney Coleman would make a career out of playing chauvinists like Franklin Hart, who sees each of these women as appendages to his career or his libido.

6. Airplane!

Don’t judge Airplane! by the pale, unfunny films it inspired, include it’s own sequel. Zucker Abrahams and Zucker or ZAZ as they are known to the faithful wrote and directed a deeply inspired and silly takeoff of self-serious 70s disaster flicks like Airport. The real genius is that it is nearly a scene for scene remake of straight-faced 50s disaster movie Zero Hour – even some of the dialogue is retained. Another great move was casting such icons of probity as Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges in key roles. The final coup de grace was taking an actor known for his stolid portrayal of bad guys who had never done comedy before – Leslie Neilsen – and casting him as the doctor. This one film changed his entire career and made him a bigger star than he was ever destined to be. Everyone has their favorite bit of dialogue or sight gag. Mine include telling an operator to put Hamm on the line and to hold the Mayo (clinic, natch) and a mirror that turns out to be a doorway.

5. The Empire Strikes Back

Is this the best film in the Star Wars series? It’s the one I most enjoy watching, that’s for sure. There’s something about the middle film in a trilogy – it’s the meat in the sandwich when done right. (Don’t try to tell me it’s a sextet – the latter three films that have been appended to the beginning of the story should be best forgotten.) There’s a bit of the feel of a World War II era film, something like Casablanca, where the outcome of a great struggle was less than clear and the feeling of impending doom and sacrifice give everything an extra frisson. It’s the most adult in the series with plenty of juicy conflict, genuine frights and surprises, and a gratifyingly downbeat ending.

4. The Big Red One

Sam Fuller spent years trying to get this film made, a fictionalized account of his own World War II experiences liberating Italy. Ultimately the casting of Mark Hamill hot off of Star Wars helped shale the studio funding loose that he needed to complete his masterwork. Fuller had already proved himself a master of efficient war dramas like The Steel Helmet but never had he had a scope as large as this epic work which follows an American platoon through bombed out villages. At heart it’s a piece that celebrates bravery while simultaneously mourning all the humanity that war strips away.

3. Coal Miner’s Daughter

One of the best music bios ever, Sissy Spacek does her own singing and fairly becomes country legend Loretta Lynn while Tommy Lee Jones is magnetic as her husband and manager. It’s a fascinating and moving portrait of a rise to stardom but also of the marriage that gets pushed and pulled in every direction on the way. The depiction of poverty in the Appalachians is acute and devastating and no punches are pulled when it comes to the machinations of the music biz as well.

2. Raging Bull

The apogee of the DeNiro/Scorsese collaboration, Jake LaMotta could be one of the characters inhabiting Malle’s Atlantic City by the time he’s shown here as a would-be entrepreneur ex-boxer gone to fat. Michael Chapman’s black and white cinematography give the film the feel of 40s pulp photography come to life and Scorsese’s delight and knack in the knockabout rhythms of Italian-American discourse makes every scene zing. This was the first introduction for most film buffs to  Joe Pesci, who plays LaMotta’s scrappy brother. Cathy Moriarity is also great even if her age range is less believable than her co-stars.

1. Atlantic City

Leave it to avowed Frenchman Louis Malle to tap into the psyche of an America poised to elect Ronald Reagan after a decade of disappointment and malaise. Atlantic City the setting is depicted as a past it’s prime fantasy land degenerated into drugs and sleaze. All over the signs of the old Atlantic City are being obliterated by the wrecking ball, making way for a future 80s of corporate casinos and hermetic entertainment. Burt Lancaster is the walking embodiment of this decay and by movie’s end, a renewal that might be a hollow reflection of youth. It’s easily one of his best performances. Equally good is Susan Sarandon as Sally, the younger woman who he feels compelled to protect but who herself is driven to learn from the world around her.

Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in Heathers

1989 – the year that gave us the superhero blockbuster with Tim Burton’s Batman (alas too flawed a film to quite make my final list) and a slew of Amerindie classics by future top line directors like Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant and Steven Soderberg. Here, then, are the best 15 films of 1989:

1. Say Anything

If the 80s were the golden age of the teen movie (and trust me, they were) two of the absolute genre peaks occurred in 1989 with this film and Heathers. The two are diametrically opposed – despite some very funny moments this is a film that treats three-dimensional characters with a great deal of dignity and invests depth into the classic boy meets girl formula. Heathers on the other hand disembowels the entire cycle through satire. Cameron Crowe, who wrote the outstanding Fast Times at Ridgemont High, writes and directs here and shows a sharp eye for character and detail.

John Cusack plays the sweet, straightforward guy who is animal instinct to Ione Skye’s brainy Diane, a girl who looks to have a bright future thanks in part to her loving supportive father and his desire to see her succeed. John Mahoney is excellent as well in a tricky role, allowing Diane to see that as much as he loves her, he may not always know what the right thing to do is. The supporting cast is rounded out ably by John’s sister Joan and Lili Taylor in a hilarious turn. Then there’s the iconic scene when Cusack as Lloyd tries to win Diane over with nothing but a boombox over his head and a Peter Gabriel tape.

2. Heathers

Up until the very end Heathers is a take-no-prisoners satire of Reagan/Bush I America as embodied by the John Hughes film cycle, a deranged roller coaster that is full of sardonic humor and killer riffs. Winona Ryder was the dream girlfriend in this – sarcastic, sexy, and decidedly dark-edged like a film noir femme fatale. Yet the real tempter is her new boyfriend played by Christian Slater in full Nicholson mode, eyebrows arched and face twisted into a smirk.

From the chillingly flip conversations these kids have with their parents to the false grieving for dead students who were either picked on or despised the film seemed to welcome two fresh new voices, director Michael Lehmann and writer Daniel Waters. Their follow-up teaming on Hudson Hawk pretty much sums up what happened to them afterwards, not unlike the tacked on feel-good ending of Heathers in contrast to the “prom in heaven” that was originally written.

Still, this is a brilliantly caustic film about what happens when people subsume their identity too long to run with the herd and more to the point, how the same herd will always regroup despite outside danger.

3. Henry V

It’s hard to recall now but Kenneth Branagh was hotly tipped as the next Laurence Olivier, a young British actor/director who was finding a new slant on Shakespeare onstage and then onscreen. It was Olivier’s wartime version of this same play that catapulted him to worldwide stardom in 1944, and Branagh finds a different way into the same material, appropriate for  1989. A tour de force for actors like Judi Dench, Ian Holm and real-life Branagh squeeze Emma Thompson, this Henry V is suitably cinematic yet always focused on the nuances of the acting. Less triumphal than the 1944 version, it’s imbued with the spirit of sacrifice.

4. My Left Foot

Another talented actor from across the pond made a splash with American audiences in 1989 in Jim Sheridan’s retelling of Christy Brown’s life story. Though the temptation is to chalk this up as another Oscar-bating performance as critiqued in Robert Downey Jr.’s Tropic Thunder monologue (“Never go full retard!”)  Daniel Day Lewis gives a brilliant turn as an artist with cerebral palsy who is thought at first to be simpleminded and helpless. The portrait is rounded out by his working class family who both help him and hold him back, and his own substantial ego and doubts. His family and neighbors have to then adjust him as a successful artist, which is almost more alienating than the cerebral palsy. Lewis and Sheridan never succumb to easy sentimentalizing, making the portrait that emerges that much more moving.

5. The Killer

Before bringing his talent for balletic bullet slinging and operatic plotting to America John Woo was at the vanguard of Hong Kong’s action flick renaissance, and this re-imagining of Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic Le Samurai is probably the peak of Woo’s pre-American (and probably post-American career).  Woo’s favorite star, Chow Yun-Fat, anchors all the heightened tension and the relentless slo-mo acts of violence.

6. Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee’s masterpiece takes place on the hottest day of the summer in Brooklyn. While The Cosby Show existed in one fictional universe in the same New York borough Lee’s Bed-Stuy existed in another, one where racial tensions simmering just below the surface are ready to ignite at any provocation. Lee seems to say that though the fullscale riots and radical politics of the 60s and 70s appear to be over, the underlying issues remain and fester. In fact, New York would see outbreaks like the Crown Heights riot during this time of supposed quiescence and the Rodney King beating was a few scant years away. The controversial finale steal leaves audiences talking and has the power to divide opinion, just as Lee intended. The sweltering cinematography by longtime collaborator Ernest Dickerson should also be noted.

7. Sex, Lies and Videotape

Along with Spike Lee, Steven Soderberg helped tp define the new era of indie films in the late 80s starting with this Sundance award winning debut. James Spader is at his quirkiest, Peter Gallagher shows that he and his eyebrows have range and Andie MacDowell actually comes off as a fine actress in this story of a drifter who’s interest in talking about sex rather than doing the act gets women to open up on tape about their own sex lives and fantasies. Though it sounds like the plot of a Skinemax special the finely drawn relationships, particularly between sisters Laura San Giacomo and MacDowell, elevate this to the level of fascinating viewing. Spawned a legion of bad imitations.

8 .  Parenthood

Edging ever-so-close to sitcommery but still landing right side up this was the movie that helped tame Steve Martin, for better or worse. Once audiences accepted  the wacky funnyman as a normal suburban dad roles like Cheaper By The Dozen came calling and the template was set for others like Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy to become suitably defanged for general consumption. Which isn’t to say this film isn’t charming, because it is. While today this Ron Howard directed vehicle would slot in nicely on TV next to something like Malcolm in the Middle, at the time it was a sweetly poignant take on modern American family life. A great cast goes a long way here with Dianne Wiest, Rick Moranis and Jason Robards in particular standing out.

9. Parents

The flip side of Parenthood was this similarly-titled pitch dark satire directed by actor Bob Balaban. In a stylized suburban 50s a child starts to suspect that his parents are rather monstrous, and what’s with the cuts of meat dad Randy Quaid keeps bringing home to work? It’s a wicked dissection of the horrors which lurked beneath the gleaming commercial surface of atomic-age America – a time period further sanitized and pre-packaged as happy times by the outgoing Reagan administration.

10. Crimes and Misdemeanors

One of Woody Allen’s underrated best films, this superficially bears some structural resemblance to his great 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters in it’s blending of comedy and drama and would later find it’s themes recycled in the less compelling Match Point many years later. The intertwined stories concern Martin Landau, a successful married man whose mistress begins to get out of hand. He turns to his brother, played by Jerry Ohrbach, who arranges to have her killed. But Landau is racked with guilt and suddenly begins to look for some divine presence in the Universe – in part out of fear and in part out of longing for the punishment he feels the crime warrants. This is contrasted with Allen who is hired to make a documentary on his smugly successful TV star brother in law, played by Alan Alda in one of  his best performances. Allen uses the role of filmmaker to exact a creator’s revenge on Alda, yet it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Similarly Landau begins to realize that the punishment he fears is simply never going to happen. To the contrary his life is better than ever. It’s an alternately very funny and deeply felt film.

11. When Harry Met Sally…

Little did Rob Reiner know that he would set off an entire revival of romantic comedies with this gem of a film. More to the point, very few of them hold the faintest of candles to this clever, funny, and touching film that asks the question, “Can men and women ever just be friends?” The cast is at it’s best – in fact all of the actors here have yet to surpass their warm, funny work in this film toplined by Billy Crystal and a career making performance by Meg Ryan. Ample support is given by the wonderful late Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher, both of whom transcend the dregs of the best friend roles that were cloned out in the thousands of knockoffs that followed.

12. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Steven Spielberg has some set of balls. The third Indiana Jones flick makes up for the overstuffed second film with crackerjack pacing and introducing brilliantly the father/son relationship between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The interplay and timing between the stars gives the film an extra lift and the story a welcome level of tension that propels it neatly until a typically Spielbergian ending that’s one part mysticism to two parts sentimentality. The cojones come in with the Monty Python-esque object of pursuit, the cup of Christ, which for Spielberg is no more a real or religious relic than a spaceship or an Indian cult. It all gets subsumed as the latest magical mumbo-jumbo Indy has to come across at the adventure’s end.

13. Mystery Train

Jim Jarmusch was one of the directors that helped  nurture the American indie film movement during the 1980s with gems like Down By Law.  Mystery Train is a love letter to Memphis as seen through the eyes of characters who inhabit three separate but overlapping story arcs. As is his wont, Jarmusch peppers his cast with actors and amateurs and gets standout performances from two guys better known for the contributions to the world of music – a hilarious Screaming Jay Hawkins and The Clash’s Joe Strummer.  Don’t miss the moody evocative cinematography by Jarmusch fave Robby Muller.

14. Meet the Feebles

Before there was Avenue Q and before Peter Jackson  became the go-to director for big Hollywood epics he cut his teeth on delightfully subversive fare like this send-up of the Muppets. This could fairly be said to be the Bad Lieutenant of puppet flicks chocked as it is with sex, violence and gore galore. Darkly funny it is, but it’s also surprisingly human for a film populated by puppets.

15. Drugstore Cowboy

This may still be Gus Van Sant’s best film, despite helping to kick off the heroin chic trend that blighted early 90s pop culture. Matt Dillon showed he had star material as the head of a band of junkie thieves which included Kelly Preston and Heather Graham. Evocatively shot and imaginatively edited, you’ll never throw a hat on a bed again after seeing this.

1979 was one of those amazing years in music that just makes the jaw hit the floor. When it comes to albums the year was chock full of stone cold classics. At the end of the seventies music was perched on the edge of the great fragmentation that would take hold in the eighties and especially the nineties – punk, funk, disco, pop all rubbed shoulders along with the first stirrings of hip-hop (see my 1979 songs playlist for the full melange).

This is not to mention the themes that cut across the songs in a year that saw the a rising conservative movement regain power in Britain and begin to assert itself against the doomed Carter administration in the United States. Underneath was the roiling racism and anti-immigration of a resurgent fascist National Front in the UK and an America that wanted to put Watergate and all of the conflicts of the 60s behind them, as they would in 1980 by electing Ronald Reagan president.

Musically punk was becoming post-punk, reggae, dub, krautrock and even disco were becoming influences across the spectrum and even if rap was yet to make itself known on the album charts – it was out there being formed. These are my favorites – what are yours?

1. Talking Heads – Fear of Music

Talking Heads were in the midst of an amazingly fertile creative period which Fear of Music sits smack in the middle of. This was their third LP and their second with Brian Eno as co-Producer. Opener “I Zimbra” is a glorious red herring, a slice of afro-funk that marches on in like a refugee from the next album they’d do, Remain in Light, which was suffused with African rhythms from stem to stern. Fear of Music was a whole other bag – like a lot of 1979s best, the re-heating of the cold war brings a dread and an exploration of themes of totalitarianism on tracks like “Life During Wartime” and “Electric Guitar”. As usual though David Byrne’s lyrics bring a distinct New York art fried sensibility whether trying to decide what city to live in: “…how about Memphis, home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks?” or railing against the smugness of animals: “..they don’t even know what a joke is!” All of this is brought to jumping, nervy life by one of the all-time great rhythm sections, Tina Weymouth on bass and Chris Frantz on the drum kit and some of Eno’s most spectacular soundscapes. One of the best albums from one of America’s best ever bands.

2. The Clash – London Calling

I mean, duh. I did my college history thesis on this album’s distinct confluence of musical influences that include (as Robert Christgau and others have pointed out) various permutations of the 100-year old myth of Staggerlee, a black man who shot a white man just because he could. The Clash find the resonance of this in Jamaican rude boys, Rastafarians, working class Brits and losers of all stripes who try to break their losing streaks – all to often with violence. Punk wasn’t supposed to last past album one and the Sex Pistols had the good grace to implode in a blaze of bad karma. The Clash followed up their classic debut with a solid but unsurprising second record and by all rights should have been looking for a way out. They found one by expanding their musical palette and worldview, creating a rare double-album where every single song is spectacular including the unlisted bonus “Train in Vain”, which yielded their first US hit. The dumb asses at Sony music think that exposing people to great music for free is bad for sales so I have no official video to embed. Thus, Sony continues to demonstrate the marketing acumen that has led their entire industry into the crapper.

2.Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division was a band that marked the place where punk became post-punk – aggression curdled into depression and introspection and rhythm sections began to incorporate the mechanisms of krautrock and even the elongated bounce of Jamaican dub. You can still hear echoes of The Stooges and New York band Suicide in there too – like Suicide the synthesizer tones give the barest hint of new wave and alternative music to come – much of which would be pioneered by Ian Curtis band mates after he killed himself and they formed New Order.  In the Nazi sourced band name there is also the fascination with totalitarianism that was rampant at the time and found it’s counterpart in the revival of the National Front in Britain.

3.Neil Young and Crazy Horse -  Rust Never Sleeps

Rust Never Sleeps is the blueprint for a classic album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, one half acoustic laments and the other half blazing rock anthems, with much of the record recorded live and sounding it. It helps that this might be his strongest set of songs on any single album, from the acoustic and electric “Hey, Hey, My, My” and “My, My, Hey, Hey” later infamously quoted in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note to the fantasia of “Pocahontas” where Neil imagines hanging out with the titular native American princess and Marlon Brando, the heartbreaking “Powderfinger” which feels like a scene out of a Herzog film, the outrageous randy boast of “Welfare Mothers” and on.  “The king is dead but he’s not forgotten, is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” Young wonders, neatly conflating the 1977 death of Elvis and rise of the Sex Pistols in one verse. Utter genius.

5. Gang of Four – Entertainment!

Gang of Four’s debut LP took the politics and punk snarl of The Clash and married them to scouring brush guitars that were close cousins the scratchy style found on old 60s soul records, plus a pinch of reggae styled deep bass. Among the many highlights is “I Found That Essence Rare” a slice of deconstructionist Marxism that you can shake your ass to:

“Aim for the body rare, you’ll see it on TV
The worst thing in 1954 was the Bikini
See the girl on the TV dressed in a Bikini
She doesn’t think so but she’s dressed for the H-Bomb”

6.Wire - 154

Wire’s third album in under two years put a definite exclamation mark on their first incarnation, giving the impression that the band was striving for this mixture of electronics and melody even from the short sharp guitar based songs they had started with. 154 can be uneven but it contains thrilling melodies and surprising soundscapes, plus the band’s typical disdain for ceremony typified by singing the word “Chorus” with an audible smirk just before the, you guessed it, chorus of the indelible “Map. Ref. 41 N. 93 W.”

7.Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Armed Forces

Armed Forces sometimes gets short shrift but to me it’s the Costello record par excellance – his best set of songs and lyrics and some of the Attractions most inventive arrangements. Costello wittily and perhaps too-blithely sends up the resurgence of National Front activity in Britain by making a theme record about “emotional fascism” where lovers are really “Two Little Hitlers.” Nick Lowe lends a dynamic production palette and the gem “What’s so Funny About Peace Love and Understanding” which would forever be associated with Costello afterward. Lyrical gems like “I’m in a chemistry class/I want a piece of your mind/You don’t know what you started/When you mixed it up with mine/Are you ready for the final solution?” are backed up by muscular playing and witty touches like the faux-fouled up vocal dub in “Accidents Will Happen”.

8.Public Image Ltd. – Metal Box/ Second Edition

Neil Young may have sang “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten/Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” on Rust Never Sleeps but for some observers Rotten’s new band PIL was exceeding the promise of The Sex Pistols with their new music. After all the Pistols were merely supercharging the template set by The Stooges, New York Dolls and Ramones. PIL were doing something else entirely, with Jah Wobble’s gonad shaking basslines lifted from stoned-out underwater Jamaican dub records and Keith Levene’s guitars similarly tuned in by way of surf rock and Richard Dudansky’s drumming like a disco record sped up. On top of it all was Rotten’s chanting, moaning, cajoling. It’s an extraordinary record that sounds both timeless and unrepeatable and it proved to be both – PIL would never reach these heights again nor ever revisit the sound as the core group imploded. Originally the record was issued, appropriately enough given the cinematic sweep of the sound, in a metal film canister filled with three discs – hence the title. Second Edition was the conventionally-sleeved re-issue.

9. The Jam – Setting Sons

The Jam was too retro to be punk but too edgy to be hard rock. Instead they got tagged as Mod revivalists, a scene which they would remain the only relevant members of despite spawning several other Who-inspired bands. In hindsight they were a crucial link between the Britpop of the 60s and the resurgence of the same in the 90s – showing that the elements that made The Kinks and The Who local treasures could still be tapped in the midst of punk and new wave. Setting Sons was a concept album of sorts about war, set both in an apocalyptic future foretold by The Clash in “London Calling” and the near past of British colonial warfare that sent local boys home in boxes. Yet the record is anything but somber with crackling arrangements and killer songs like “Wasteland” and “Smithers-Jones” and detours like the marvelous “Girl on The Phone” with only a misplaced cover of “Heat Wave” to spoil things.

10. Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material

The last gasp of British punk’s first wave came by way of Belfast, Ireland with a band that was uncompromisingly critical of the warring factions that continued to tear their country apart, calling them to task with brutally hard anthems that shone with a rare combination of hope and anger on tracks like the classic “Alternative Ulster” where they exhort listeners to “Alter your native land…”

11. The B-52′s – The B-52′s

Like Stiff Little Fingers, this was a gem I first discovered in my older brother’s record collection but there’s where the kinship ends. The B-52′s resembled a John Water’s film more than anything else happening musically at the time, mining garage sale kitsch and pop-culture avant-garde to come up with a debut that was stunningly original. Even better, you could dance to it. Named as much for the giant beehive hairdos of singers Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson as for the warplanes, their 50s and 60s in a blender ethos was trotted out at a time when this stuff was not seen as being cool at all. Of course, they didn’t give a shit and their highly original songs, killer guitar playing by the late Ricky Wilson and blend of vocals both electrifying and campy have made this a classic. Bonus points go to the indelible “Rock Lobster” which John Lennon heard on vacation deep in the middle of his house-husband phase. Zeroing in on the band’s reclamation of Yoko Ono’s most outre vocalisms Lennon declared the world ready to hear new music by both he and she, and the comeback Double Fantasy was born.

12. Swell Maps – A Trip to Marineville

The world is awash in lo-fi indie experimenters, from No Age to Deerhunter to the late great Guided By Voices, but Swell Maps set the template for sprawling, fascinating messes. To hear them tell it a total lack of musical training led them to put art over chops and belch out this remarkably tuneful, shambling, and noisy debut. “Do you believe in art?” they ask and it’s hard not to grin back and say “fuck, yeah!”

13. Linton Kwesi Johnson – Forces of Victory

Just as reggae, dub and ska were becoming a major influence on musicians across the color and sound spectrum, the golden age of Jamaican music was on the wane. Linton Kwesi Johnson’s life mirrored the migration of the music he would leave a lasting mark on, born in Kingston Jamaica he was raised in London’s Brixton district. Johnson considered himself a “dub poet”, concentrating on delivering socially conscious lyrics that cut to the heart of the black British experience. Luckily he fell in with Dennis Bovell and his band who provided a taut and hooky musical bed o all of Johnson’s classic albums. Forces of Victory is album number 2 for Johnson and quite possibly his best with track after track of great songs like “Want Fi Go Rave” and “It Noh Funny.”

14. Supertramp – Breakfast in America

Supertramp are about as uncool as a band can be but Breakfast in America is a soft rock classic as well as their commercial and artistic peak. Though the band started out as British prog rockers backed by a mysterious Goldmember-like Dutch millionaire, they developed a taste for pop success with hits like “Give a Little Bit” and “Bloody Well Right.” Much of the record is devoted to the lament of rock stars who have reached a certain station – the touring, the whoring, broken marriages, breadheads who don’t get them, and of course the joy of discovering America. The songs are leavened by a British tongue and cheek sensibility, particularly the title track. Guilty pleasure or not, Pink Floyd took all these themes and inflated them over two discs, a lot more misogyny and a lot less humor for The Wall this same year. I find this much more listenable.

15. Cheap Trick – At Budokan

After three brilliant but underachieving albums it was hard to see Cheap Trick as anything other than a cult band. Their particular melange of influences, The Move, The Who, The Beatles (especially but not limited to the hard rocking stuff) made them come off almost as punks when they debuted in 1977, compounded by their subject matter which took in suicide, murder, and lust in every permutation. In Japan however they were treated like gods, leading to this live album which unexpectedly made them stars in the US as well. Oddly enough, stripping off the production gloss that had accumulated on albums two and three allowed the killer hooks and raw riffs of songs like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Auf Wiedersehen” to breathe and emphasized the punkier hard rocking aspect of the band to positive effect. Though today we would call what they do power pop, they would have an influence on both the hair metal that would follow them through the 80s and bands like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins who supplanted them in the 90s.

16. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

Tusk had the unenviable task of following up Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 juggernaut Rumours which at the time was the best-selling album – ever. Lindsey Buckingham’s brilliant songs and arrangements sprawl all over what was a double-album – one that flopped in comparison to its predecessor and the amount of label money spent on it. Nevertheless it is chock full of jaw dropping songs and performances as well as weird detours, making it the apex of the 1970s California sound embodied by the Mac, The Eagles, James Taylor and others.

17. The Slits – Cut

This record is about a million miles removed from Tusk, The Slits were three British women who were among the last in the punk scene to put a record out. This gave them time to pick up a lot of the Reggae and dub cues that were permeating the best records of the time, putting their own distinctly female point of view on great songs like “Typical Girls” and “Love Und Romance.” The amateurish singing and playing at times adds to the charm and the songs are sturdy enough to shine through the occasional bum note. A catchy treasure.

18. Tom Verlaine – Tom Verlaine

After a disappointing second album Verlaine’s band Television, one of the pioneers of New York’s legendary CBGBs scene, were no more, and he duly set off on a solo career. Though his profile would never be particularly high the quality of his work was often the equal of his original band, certainly on this debut which featured a number of songs originally meant for Television. His vaunted guitar playing blisters as always and his vocals, while characteristic in their warbly-ness, are also distinctive. It’s a great set of songs – good enough for Bowie to crib “Kingdom Come” the following year.

19. The Cars – Candy-O

Like Fleetwood Mac, The Cars had the task of following up a widely admired hit record, in this case their debut. Though Candy-O wasn’t as big a hit, it showed that The Cars stardom was no fluke and cemented their status as leaders of the burgeoning new wave sound (despite being from Boston and not England.) “Let Go” supplied the brilliant hit single quota but the insistent Bowie-esque groove of the title track, “Dangerous Type”, “Double Life” and “It’s All I Can Do” would become radio staples. An under-appreciated grower.

20. Iggy Pop – New Values

Iggy roared back to life after the Stooges implosion in the early 70s just in time to be hailed as a punk godfather, with a little help from his old buddy David Bowie. New Values was already three records deep into his comeback and if the energy was beginning to flag just a tad Iggy showed he still had something to say. The title track and “Five Foot One” are tough, vintage fare but tracks like “Endless Sea” added a surprising and not unwelcome touch of synthesizer.

At the end of the seventies music was perched on the edge of the great fragmentation that would take hold in the eighties and especially the nineties – punk, funk, disco, pop all rubbed shoulders along with the first stirrings of hip-hop. It’s also the year Sony‘s Walkman would hit the market, revolutionizing the way people would enjoy and consume music with it’s portability and the rise of mixtape culture. This playlist of some of my favorite songs from 1979 captures a little bit of the essence of a great year for music. So hit play, kick back by the pool, at work with your headphones on, or even while operating heavy machinery, and enjoy!

Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool

A few weeks ago we looked at the best albums of 1969 – now it’s time to take a look at that year’s best films. It was a year when the line between exploitation pic and blockbuster were blurrier than ever and when the close of a tumultuous decade was cause for reflection around the world. Here are my favorites from 1969:

1. Army of Shadows

Jean Pierre Melville was one of the most American influenced of France’s new wave directors. However Army of Shadows might be his most personal work, moving away from the pulp fiction basis of much of his other films and painting an unsparingly bleak portrait of life in the French Resistance, of which Melville was a member during World War II.  Stripping away the romanticism of so many films on the subject, Melville hones in on the core values of survival, trust, and betrayal. It was a film completely out of step with the student revolts then sweeping Europe and France in particular – it’s cold response was consistent with a generation that saw the war – ended just 25 years ago then – as history best left forgotten. It’s only now that the film has been rightly judged as a masterpiece of cinema.

2. The Wild Bunch

The streak of nihilism that pervades Army of Shadows is also present in Sam Peckinpah’s signature work The Wild Bunch, a film which turned the Western genre inside out even more thoroughly than Sergio Leone was doing with his spaghetti westerns. From the opening shot of a scorpion being swarmed by fire ants to the bloody battles that ensue, The Wild Bunch seems to suggest that endless, mindless competition is the very stuff of nature – indeed of life. Which is not to say that there isn’t a tongue and cheek element to the proceedings. William Holden is at his best here along with Ernest Borgnine and Warren Oates. Along with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, set the standard for a new era of depicted onscreen violence that matched the senseless depravity of what people were seeing on the evening news in the midst of the Vietnam War.

3. Midnight Cowboy

The first and only X-Rated Best Picture Oscar winner, Midnight Cowboy cemented a shift in American cinema towards a more naturalistic storytelling based on characters who were gritty rather than traditionally heroic. Dustin Hoffman, here playing sleazy grifter Ratso Rizzo, was in on this shift starting with The Graduate. Here his range opposite Jon Voight as a naive Dirk Diggler-like cowboy gigolo in training cemented his status as a star in a universe where stardom was being bestowed on “normal” actors. In the decade to come, other “ordinary” looking actors like Gene Hackman and Al Pacino would become box office draws as well, based on their acting talent.

4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The buddy movie par excellance, the first teaming of superstars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, a pop nihilist blockbuster take on the Western genre, all combined to make this one of 1969′s biggest hits. Unlike the Wild Bunch which served it’s bleak vision up straight Butch Cassidy wears anachronisms on its sleeve, always winking at the audience so that we know what’s happening isn’t real. This sometimes leads to sequences that have aged rather poorly – the bicycle ride set to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” comes to mind. When it works though, it’s a thrill ride that presaged the Summer blockbusters to come such as Jaws and the Indiana Jones films.

5. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

The name Dario Argento is rightly associated with over-the-top gore but this early film in his directing career is actually a sophisticated thriller with knowing nods to Hitchcock. To be sure there are stirrings of the Argento to come, but here it’s as much about the suspense and helplessness as it is about anything graphic (though there are some bloody scenes). It’s a flashy film that at times seems like some of the Swinging London sexploit thrillers that were on their way out (dare I put Blow-Up in this category?) though the setting is hip Rome.

6. Easy Rider

Just as The Bird with The Crystal Plumage was elevating swinging sex thrillers to a Hitchcockian level, so Easy Rider took the low budget exploitation flick so well perfected by Roger Corman and company and turned it into a cultural phenomenon. Easy Rider was of course, a far bigger success, turning Dennis Hopper who directed and starred into a momentary phenomenon, along with Peter Fonda. It was a third vet of Roger Corman’s quickie film factory who achieved the most lasting fame from the movie however, Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar as a “straight” who gets turned on by the counterculture motorcyclists. Like many of the films on this list (Butch Cassidy and The Wild Bunch to name two)  Easy Rider ultimately reaches for a similar effect as the hugely influential Bonnie and Clyde. Though it hasn’t aged as well as some of the others, its a fascinating look not just at where the so-called counter-culture was at but at the rising tide of independent filmmaking and production which it represented.

7. The Italian Job

The Italian Job is like Bird With The Crystal Plumage in one way – set in Italy but with a British feel. In fact it’s ridiculously wonderfully British, beginning with star Michael Caine on down to supporting players Benny Hill and Noel Coward. Yes you read that right. By all means avoid F. Gary Gray’s crap remake for this original which romps around the way the a great caper  movie ought to – all the way to the great and veddy British climax featuring rooftop leaping Mini Coopers.

8. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Over The top? Very much so but Sidney Pollack’s film also offers great performances from screen vet Gig Young, who won an Oscar, and Jane Fonda who was on her way to becoming a breakout star. Bleak, allegorical, and at times hard to take, it’s as much a commentary on a society gone mad in 1968/69 as it a depression era lament. Set at a dance marathon in the 30s with flashbacks and forwards it’s ultimately an engrossing if depressing film.

9. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Long the butt of jokes, the single James Bond movie starring George Lazenby has a hard core of devotees who claim it rightfully as one of the best and most overlooked of the series. Sean Connery had big shoes to fill so its not surprising that Lazenby was welcomed with less than open arms. What is surprising is how much of the feel of this film was later returned to in the recent mega-successful series reboot Casino Royale which introduced Danial Craig. While this Bond is never as brutal as Craig’s, he is as vulnerable – falling in love and falling out of favor with his own agency. Diana Rigg is fantastic as always as the woman who steals his heart and Telly Savalas is a great villain.

10. Medium Cool

While some of these films were stuck metaphorically in the brutal wave of assassinations, protests and civil breakdown of 1968, Haskell Wexler’s groundbreaking Medium Cool was actually filmed during one of the year’s defining moments – thr protests turned riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Part documentary, part drama starring Robert Forester (who starred in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown) – Wexler freely mashes up real people and actors – staged and real events – and dares the viewer to try to untangle the mess that so-called real life had become at the end of the decade. Wexler’s job is to raise questions but unlike most mainstream filmmakers then and now, he doesn’t pretend to know what the answers are.

11. Z

Z like Medium Cool starts with real, tragic events – in this case the installation of a military dictatorship in Greece and the overthrow of democracy. Director Costa-Gavras fashions a gripping thriller out of this raw material – a searing film that would find it’s counterpart in such post-Nixon American fare as Network and All The President’s Men.

12. Women in Love

Until Borat Ken Russell’s Women in Love had probably the most famous male-on-male nude wrestling scene in cinema. Yet that great grappling sequence between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed is only part of what makes this a great drama. As great as the acting is all-around the movie is practically stolen by newcomer Glenda Jackson. Based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel, this somewhat atypical Russell film explores the knotty ties between men and women (not to mention men and men and women and women) in a way that resonated even in newly liberated 1969.

13.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The ultimate character study, the film tricks you into liking and caring about the title character even as she extols the virtues of fascist leaders like Mussolini. This portrait of a free-spirited unconventional teacher played brilliantly by Maggie Smith isn’t afraid to give you warts and all. Ultimately you may be left with the queasy feeling that unlike Robin William’s toothless teacher in Dead Poet’s Society, Miss Brodie’s popularity amongst the student body may not be such a good thing.

14. The Plot Against Harry

A low budget wonder filled with unknowns, this clever bit of satire was relatively unknown for years until being unearthed and released in 1969. There is an almost cinema verite feel to it’s depiction of everyday life in the 60s, seemingly away from the strife gripping much of the country. There is a definite feel of The Royal Tennenbaums in Harry’s release from prison and uneasy attempts to come to terms with the grown daughters and wife he left behind. The wry humor and matter-of-fact pacing make this a surprisingly subversive pleasure

15. Take the Money and Run

Woody Allen’s first film as a director is a more raucous affair than his classic period mid 70s work and its more uneven but that doesn’t mean that the laughs aren’t there. Taking all the influences of mid 30s Warner’s gangster flicks and French new wave that made Bonnie and Clyde so bracing and turning them on their ear, this is a Mad Magazine style gag-filled comedy classic.

The Stooges - one of 1969's best

For our latest flashback we take you on a trip back to 1969 – the year of Woodstock and Altamont when peace and love co-existed with the fallout of the turbulence of the previous year’s wave of assassinations, the election of Richard Nixon, and the continuing trauma of the Vietnam War.

It was a rich year for music with a number of major acts at their peak, a few hidden gems, and the roots of a few genres like funk, punk, and alternative beginning to emerge. So what albums make my favorites list? Here they are in no discernible order at all – my top 25 of 1969:

1. The Beatles – Abbey Road

Though 1970′s Let it Be would be the last album the Beatles would release, Abbey Road is the last one they recorded and it functions as their true swansong, closing the book on what could be the greatest career in rock. Their most lush album also features the best ever harmonies from all four Beatles – ironically their voices had never blended so sweetly across so many tracks. Paul McCartney’s bass playing is at a peak, nearly a lead instrument in its expressiveness and tonality.

In fact this is often described as McCartney’s album which is a bit unfair. Side 2′s extended suites are indeed the work of McCartney and George Martin in terms of sequencing though the encompass Lennon and George Harrison songs but Side 1 belongs to Lennon’s sequencing. More importantly Harrison’s songs are his two best to date (“Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”) and Lennon is no slouch with tracks like “Come Together” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. That second side? Pure bliss and a knowing, fitting coda for 8 years of innovation and musical accomplishment that eclipsed all others.

2. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed

Let it Bleed is the second of a set of classic albums that define the Stones at the peak of their powers (the others being Beggar’s Banquet (1968), Sticky Fingers (1971), and Exile on Main Street (1972)) . It’s similar in sequencing and feel to the previous record but builds on many of its strengths with a darker more chaotic vibe. “Gimme Shelter” and “Midnight Rambler” take the voodoo groove of “Sympathy For The Devil” and run with it. “Let it Bleed” is a country blues epic and the magnificent “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” with it’s angelic boy’s choir and killer buildup served as the basis for entire albums of material by the likes of Primal Scream and every inferior overblown Guns N Roses ballad.

3. The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground

After the lacerating feedback and experiments in sound that marked their previous record White Light/White Heat VU explored a quieter and just as compelling side, with some of Lou Reed’s strongest songs. Absent was John Cale, who had acted as a provocateur to Reed in much the same way as Brian Eno would for Bryan Ferry a few years later in early Roxy Music. As in Roxy though,  the Reed’s pop sensibility would win out though “The Murder Mystery” is as ear challenging as anything in their catalog. Despite such standout tunes as “Candy Says”, “Pale Blue Eyes” and “What Goes On” not to mention drummer Mo Tucker’s charming lead on “After Hours” the record was a flop – just like the first two Velvet’s albums.

4. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield Neil Young lit out for a solo career and promptly released two records in 1969. The first was a fine and eclectic effort aided by Jack Nitsche with grand orchestrations and overdubs throughout. The second Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, which came out a scant four moths later, was with a bar band called Crazy Horse and featured blazing guitar epics offset with yearning country rock. For the rest of his career he would use the sound of this album as a touchstone – from the intensity of “Cinnamon Girl” to the twang of the title track to the long workouts of “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Down by the River”.

5. The Band – The Band

The first Band album Music From Big Pink signaled a shift away from the expansiveness of psychedelia into a more earnest and rich exploration of roots music, what today would be called Americana. As praised as that record is (and justly) the self-titled follow-up is even better, with seemingly timeless songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Rag Mama Rag” exploring a mythic America that Bob Dylan would similarly limb on his most recent records like Time Out of Mind.

6. Led Zeppelin -  Led Zeppelin II

Jimmy Page was a legendary guitar-slinger for hire throughout much of the 60s, rumored to have played on tracks like “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks amongst many others. His last big gig was in the Yarbirds, filling a guitar chair previously occupied by Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Zepplelin was his own creation though as he proved by ditching the original moniker of The New Yardbirds and spewing out two great albums in their inaugural year. As great as the first record was though, as with the Band and Neil Young it’s LP number 2 that cemented the legend – “Whole Lotta Love”, “Heartbreaker”, “The Lemon Song”, all charge ahead with brutal efficiency while “Thank You” nods at the broader palette that would open up subsequently.

7. The Kinks -  Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire

A spat with the musicians union had all but killed The Kinks career stateside, which may or may not have spurred Ray Davies into his explorations of Britishness that would lay the groundwork for the Britpop bands of the 90s like Blur, Pulp and to a lesser extent Oasis. Arthur is named for Davies brother-in-law and taken in part from the story of his sister’s family and their emigration to Australia. It’s a tougher-edged record than Village Green Preservation Society with uptempo tunes like “Victoria”, “Driving” and “Arthur” setting the pace. The extended “Shangri-La” is one of the Kinks best and most ambitious songs, a multi-part extravaganza that would make the Decemberists green with envy.

8. Sly and the Family Stone -  Stand!