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.

Look into your heart!

Was 1990 really the 90s, or was it just the hangover from the 80s? While you ponder that, consider that Nirvana and Tarantino were still a year away and a little show called Seinfeld was confusing a tiny audience before supplanting Cheers as NBC’s big sitcom property. There was also the little matter of Gulf War I, which bears the same relationship to Gulf War II as Caddyshack, Airplane!, Chinatown do to their respective sequels.

So, cast your mind back 20 years – here are the Best Movies of 1990:

25. Dick Tracy

Flawed? Absolutely… but like almost everything else Warren Beatty is involved with (Town and Country notwithstanding) there are fascinating bits to be found. Part of the first wave of comic book films in the wake of Tim Burton’s Batman, Dick Tracy takes it’s color scheme straight from the comics. The set design is mesmerizing, with scenes that seem as much from the paintings of Charles Sheeler as from Chester Gould’s classic strip. Then there are the plethora of heavily made-up star cameos by the likes of Pacino and DeNiro. Madonna is heavily made-up too but unfortunately it’s no cameo and not much of a performance. Yet it’s not enough to sink a diverting film. Don’t let the atrocious trailer (below) put you off:

24. Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Not a patch on the original, this sequel has it’s own charms as a sort of Airport ‘90 on roids. Willis is back in smirking form as New York cop John McClane and this time he’s fighting terrorists in a pre-9/11 airport. One plus is a bigger role for Bonnie Bedelia as McClane’s wife Holly, and some pretty gnarly plane crashes. Director Renny Harlin rode this film to next-big-thing status despite following it up with Andrew “Dice” Clay’s debut Ford Fairlane, and went on to a brief marriage to Gena Davis. Here’s Bruce Willis fighting the dad from TV’s Good Times:

23. The Witches

Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of  Roald Dahl’s book captures the macabre grotesquerie at the heart of most of the best children’s tales from the likes of the Brothers Grimm. Anjelica Huston is majestically wicked as the head witch presiding over a witches convention at a nondescript hotel which two boys have the distinct misfortune of stumbling into.

22. Days of Being Wild

Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai took viewers back thirty years to 1960 for a tumultuous film that explores the ennui of a guy named Yuddy who is too preoccupied with searching for his mother to choose between the two women in is life, one a glamourpuss and the other more shy and down to earth.

21. Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Almodovar was still in his shock and awe period with this one, a film that asks the question “Who’s hotter?” Victoria Abril or Antonio Banderas? By any normal standards Banderas is a nutball stalker yet Almodovar works the audiences and Abril’s sympathy until it seems perfectly reasonable that she should fall for the man holding her captive.

20. Total Recall

Philip K. Dick likely never imagined that his highly cerebral sci-fi would  become re-purposed after his death as a slew of Hollywood action flicks but that’s exactly what happened. While this isn’t the best of the bunch it’s hardly the worst, with the mind-bending plot mostly left intact and augmented by Gov. Ah-nuld’s spectacular sparring with up-and-coming Sharon Stone.  Paul Verhoeven is in the directors chair for this one, but it’s rather tame considering what he gets away with in Robocop and Starship Troopers (not to mention Showgirls). Even so he manages to sneak in enough subversion and winks to make for an entertaining popcorn ride.

19. White Hunter, Black Heart

Typically maligned by critics, this film dates from a period in which Clint Eastwood’s directorial efforts were seen as an actor’s indulgence rather than a career in itself. What makes this so interesting is the fact that Eastwood tips his hand to a director and type of film he admired – John Huston – going so far as to play the Huston-based character. Yet as a director his one-take philosophy would seem at odds with Huston’s seeming nonchalance towards schedules and the orderly process of a shoot. Set around the filming of an African Queen-like epic Eastwood amiably chews the scenery and delivers more dialogue in each scene than in his entire spaghetti western career. This also previewed Eastwood’s coming interest in the underbelly of tough guy types like Huston, as the realities of Africa intrude on his fantasy of big game hunting. Here Clint and Lost’s Lapidus discuss the war with a not very nice lady:

18. Tremors

A superior b-movie if there ever was one, Tremors advances tongue in cheek across a desert landscape populated by tough, sometimes dim, but always determined characters who – as it turns out – may be wormfood for giant carnivorous slimies. This clever take on the cycle of life has great performances all around from Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward and Family Ties dad Michael Gross cast brilliantly against type as a survivalist. The special effects are on the right side of cheesy and assured directing by Ron Underwood keeps things tense and lively.

17. Blue Steel

Way before she became the first woman director to win an Oscar Kathryn Bigelow cut her teeth on clever thrillers like this and Near Dark. Jamie Lee Curtis has one of her best dramatic roles as a rookie cop who has to use her weapon on day one and pays a strange and twisted price for it at the hands of loony Ron Silver.

16. Wild at Heart

A letdown perhaps after Blue Velvet but Nicholas Cage’s overacting finds a willing partner in David Lynch’s embrace of the strange. Mixed in are Laura Dern and her mom, Harry Dean Stanton, Elvis, and the creepiest Willem Dafoe performance ever. And that’s saying something. Also, Jack Nance discourses on dogs.

15. Edward Scissorhands

A gothic fish out of water tale that set the “Tim Burton” tone to follow and established Johnny Depp as a rising star beyond being a 21 Jump Street pinup. A surprisingly touching story about a mechanical boy who finds himself in a plastic fantasyland suburb, taken in by a family that loves him even as they are baffled by him. The part of the film that works less well is the love subplot – Winona Ryder and Depp have good chemistry but her blond hair is a distraction, as is a newly muscled Anthony Michael Hall as her lout of a boyfriend. Still the set design and imagination is amazing and Vincent Price is magnificent in his last role as Edward’s father/inventor.

14. The Freshman

Andrew Bergman’s The Freshman is a movie-lover’s comedy, the centerpiece being Marlon Brando’s delicious send-up of his own iconic performance in the Godfather. Along for the ride are Bruno Kirby in excellent form and Matthew Broderick, before his fussy naif routine became ossified on Broadway.

13. Ghost

Is this the least likely film for one of Airplane!’s directors to have been involved with? A genuinely romantic delight, Demi Moore is at her most luminously beautiful as Patrick Swayze’s widow. Swayze makes good use of his sensitive brand of masculinity while Tony Goldwyn corners the market on best friends who bear watching. Even so the movie is nearly stolen by Whoopi Goldberg as the fake medium who discovers a very real ability to see dead folks.

12. House Party

The Hudlin brothers created a warm, funny slice of life with House Party which was a surprise Sundance discovery and box office hit.  Though it could be seen as a late entry in the 80s teen movie cycle, it also foreshadowed goofy fare like the Harold & Kumar series that sandwich a dollop of social commentary in between the good times and gags. Neither stars Kid, nor indeed Play, would find much success later on but Robin Harris, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell and the Hudlins would all go on to bigger and better in the subsequent decade.

11. Reversal of Fortune

Not to be confused with the Bette Midler/Shelley Long epic Outrageous Fortune , this tells the true story of Klaus and Sunny Von Bulow who, if you lived in New York in the 80s like me, were all the rage. Specifically, did Klaus murder Sunny? Jeremy Irons gives a deliciously icy performance that’s expertly matched by Glenn Close and Hollywood conservative Ron Silver shows what ac-TING! is all about by playing lefty lawyer Alan Deshowitz to the hilt.

10. Cry-Baby

There is no question that John Waters began to mainstream his most outlaw ideas by the late 80s, yet his subversive kinkiness still gave a kick to more supposedly “friendly” fare like Hairspray and this film, which along with Edward Scissorhands helped to established Johnny Depp as a young actor willing to take chances. The film itself is a loving send-up of 50s rebel flicks – in some ways it’s a much more successful and less spoofy take on Top Secret! complete with great musical numbers – could a Broadway musical version be far behind?

9. Internal Affairs

Not to be confused with Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs, this too is a cop drama thriller but it features top notch performances by Andy Garcia and Richard Gere at his scuzziest. The bonus is a Baldwin brother and Roseanne’s sister in meaty supporting roles, and a top notch script aided by atmospheric direction from Mike Figgis.

8. Miami Blues

George Armitage has never attained the renown of fellow Roger Corman alums such as Jonathan Demme, but then he only has a handful of films to his credit of which this and Grosse Point Blank are easily the best. This is also one of Alec Baldwin’s best films, an underrated piece of work that harks back to 70s genre-bending pulp. Baldwin a charming violence-prone con man, Jennifer Jason Leigh is the sweet woman who loves him, and Fred Ward is the grizzled cop on his trail. Funny, fast-paced and surprising, this is an often overlooked gem.

7. King of New York

Could there be a more perfect combination of sensibilities than Abel Ferrara and Christopher Walken? This movie finds them both in peak form, with Walken playing a drug dealer just out of the pen and looking to reestablish himself. Lawrence Fishburne is terrific as his pal, and David Caruso reminds us why he was once considered an actor.

6. Pump Up the Volume

Oh Samantha Mathis, what happened? Christian Slater builds on his superior Heathers cred with the now-quaint tale of a teen with a pirate radio station. I can confirm that the soundtrack was standard equipment in many a freshman college dorm room even if the movie is a bit too much Footloose for it’s own good. Fun either way and Samantha Mathis, come back!

5. The Grifters

This is pitch black neo-noir with a great Oscar-nominated cast including Angelica Huston and Annette Benning along with John Cusack. Psychologically acute and satisfyingly twisty, this is one of Stephen Frears’ very best films and a great pulp classic. True to the feel of the Jim Thompson book on which is based, it also has a compelling sense of existing outside of time.

4. Europa Europa

A true story-based Holocaust film that is riveting and unforgettable – much more so than The Piano in my opinion. Much of this is due to a great performance by Marco Hofschneider as a young Jewish boy who so thoroughly hides his identity that he becomes a Hitler Youth member and is held up as a paragon of Aryan virtue. Julie Delpy is simply fantastic as the young woman who wants to fool around for the Fuhrer.

3. La Femme Nikita

At this point it’s hard to get past the endless strip mining of this material (a lousy American remake starring Bridget Fonda, not one but two TV shows) and director Luc Besson’s current status as the French Jerry Bruckheimer. Yet this film was a riveting blast of smart action upon release, prefiguring Tarantino’s work just a year later in it’s artfully staged violence, clever plotting, and woman as-action-hero stance.

2. Miller’s Crossing

The Coen Brothers followed the freneticism of their first two films with the more subdued but equally impressive gangster drama that is Miller’s Crossing. Stylistically audacious, this is the first cinematic taste of their thirties fetish with dialogue that crackles like His Girl Friday. Still the issues of allegiance and identity are explored through modern prisms of sexuality and creed. Gabriel Byrne is at the top of his game as a consigliere who has to think 5 steps ahead. Albert Finney and Jon Polito are evenly matched as rival gang bosses, Marcia Gay Harden is the moll who’s steppin’ out and John Turturro is her conniving weasel of a brother.

1. Goodfellas

The last out and out classic Scorsese flick? It’s beginning to seem that way. Goodfellas is in the top rank of the man’s work, a true story that is alive with vibrancy. As stylized in it’s own way as the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing buy visceral where the Coen’s go cerebral. You can smell the red sauce, the blood, the clean tablecloths. There are so many scene’s of sheer mastery from the tracking shot intro of the mobsters hanging out in the restaurant (“This is Johnny two-times ’cause he said everything two times…” ) to Pesci’s classic “Why am I funny?” to Ray Liotta getting trailed by a chopper. DeNiro does some of his most subtle work here and the control of the material, which span some 25 years, is unerring.

The year 1980 marked the waning of the malaise era in America and the second year of Thatcher in the UK.  The anything goes 70s was being supplanted by the glossy, go-go 80s where the shiny surface masked such travails as AIDS and a resurgent Cold War.

The first year of the decade catches music frozen in midstream – hip-hop is beginning to surface across singles and a few albums such as Kurtis Blow’s debut, disco still lived, post-punk was giving way to new wave, and classic rock wasn’t yet classic. Here then are the 40 best albums of 1980:

40. The Sound – Jeopardy
Mostly overlooked in the UK during their career and wholly overlooked in the US where their albums weren’t even released, The Sound seems an unlikely candidate for a best of the year list. They now have a small but deserved cult following who quite rightly slot them in alongside contemporaries like XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs with leading a tough tuneful postpunk sound that still impacts bands like The Strokes and Spoon today.

39. Robert Palmer – Clues
On his way to louche Power Station lead singer and solo artist backed by manikin models, Robert Palmer was actually interesting. His 70s albums usually had fine songs and a crack band putting the man through some hot R & B paces (Sneaking Sally Through the Alley is the best of these). Clues was a left-turn towards new wave and rock signaled by the Gary Numan cover but achieved more ably on songs like “Johnny and Mary” and the delightful title track. Palmer’s previous rhythm excursions serve to underpin everything here with a strong groove, grounding the record and connecting it to his past work just as the harder edge looked forward to the ersatz rock of his future commercial breakthrough.

38. The Fall - Grotesque (After the Gramme)
The Fall’s first essential album, this chugs along consistently with some of Mark E. Smith’s best songs and freshest rants. The hooks are there and the playing stays on the right side of tight. It’s not hard to imagine “New Face in Hell” lodging in young Stephen Morrissey’s brain as a touchpoint just as “How I Wrote Plastic Man” would be later transmuted by Elastica.

37. Pylon – Gyrate
Pylon came out of the same fertile Athens, Ga. Scene as The B-52s and R.E.M. but never had a scintilla of the commercial success that those other two bands did. What they did have was a spring wound sound that owed more than a little to the Gang of Four. In this they actually were similar to R.E.M. at this point in their careers. Singer Vanessa Briscoe helps to distinguish the band from their British forebears and their co-scenesters as does the cooly detached guitar playing of Randy Bewley which recalls Tom Verlaine. Gyrate is terrific album which marries the herky jerky rhythms to the atmospheric and even majestic arrangements.

36. Alex Chilton – Like Flies on Sherbert
Released in many forms and different times across different labels and countries, this captures Chilton at his career bottoming out on the cusp of re-discovery and a major shift in focus away from rock to gutbucket R & B and standards. Though it’s been described as a sorry mess, the high art sloppiness of artists like Spoon and lo-fi fetishism of Bob Pollard give this  record a kinder frame of reference. Covers like “Boogie Shoes” are stripped to deranged minimums while the prickly guitar squalling of “My Rival” neatly prefigures Sonic Youth and Pixies. For those who were interested in seeing how far Chilton could go after Big Star’s Sister Lovers it’s a bracing trip.

35. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
The knock on The Police is that they were a bunch of cynical journeyman who lucked into punk and new wave and rode it to success. While that’s true to a point, it misses the song skills of one Gordon Sumner, along with the elegant instrumental chops of all three members, without which they would have been little more than three bottles of blond hair-dye. On this, album number three, the band began to tap into their ambition with bigger, more anthemic songs and an eye for world events. While Sting’s pomposity is always lurking the sheer joy evident in the grooves is enough to keep it at bay, delivering what might be the band’s most consistent record.

34. The Suburbs - In Combo
For a brief moment in 1980 the Minneapolis rock scene was dominated by this band, whose guitars and synths sound would be soon eclipsed in local adulation by the harder edged punk of Husker Du, The Replacements and Soul Asylum even as they persevered. The songs here borrow from British punk, American punk, funk, and post-punk and it works, prefiguring bands like Interpol and the Killers while still hewing to their own distinct sound.

33. Prince – Dirty Mind
Like the Suburbs, Prince was sent forth from Minneapolis to commingle elements of several different genres in new and better ways. While his 1978 debut suggested a Funkadelic follower this third album added to the palette with pop and rock arrangements and some stunning songs like “When You Were Mine” and the salacious “Head.”  Aptly titled, this signaled the start of his hot and heavy phase which also coincided with his songwriting and commercial peak over the next decade.

32. The Cars - Panorama
The Cars were looking to vary things a bit on their third outing. Already one of the most successful new wave bands (the new wave moniker was ironic since they were Bostonians), Ocasek, Ben Orr and company wanted to get cred as artists as well. Ocasek even produced pioneering synth duo Suicide’s second album, surely a sign of where his head was at. Indeed Panorama is darker and less immediate than the hook extravaganzas that were the Cars’ first two albums. The single, “Touch and Go”, is one of the band’s best and most challenging songs combining icy Tangerine Dream-ish verses with bouncy country and western derived choruses. Not surprisingly the single and album stiffed.

31. The Brains- The Brains
The Brains blew some minds in 1980 with their off-kilter new wave, yet never achieved the success they deserved (like so many of these albums). Their debut included their best known song, “Money Changes Everything”, made famous three years later by Cyndi Lauper’s hit cover. There is more here than just that song though – The Brains suggested an alternate take on classic rock sensibilities fused with post-punk approaches to songwriting and instrumentation that sets them apart from bands with similar components like The Cars. The Brain’s touchstones were as likely to be Mott The Hoople as opposed to Roxy Music. A terrific lost classic.

30. Iggy Pop - Soldier
By 1980 Iggy’s career had been well and truly revived in the wake of punk and three excellent solo albums. So it’s understandable that Soldier isn’t quite on par with his best – it’s still pretty damn good. This is despite a tortured creation process that according to rumor included fights with Bowie, James Williamson, and the session band. Said band includes ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock who by then was in The Rich Kids. Still you can’t beat down and dirty Iggy like “Dog Food” or the sublime “Low Life.”

29. Suicide – The Second Album
This Ric Ocasek-produced gem was originally and oddly credited to Suicide’s two members, Martin Rev and Alan Vega, but subsequent re-issues have rectified this and returned it to the seminal band’s catalog. Suicide’s first album was ahead-of-its-time ghostly synthpop in 1977 and so it is with this follow-up. However the palette has broadened considerably from their groundbreaking debut. The music is still electronic but the sound is bigger, the songs more epic. Within a few short years bands like Depeche Mode and New Order would be running with the sound that Suicide helped create.

28. The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
Before Robyn Hitchcock made a name for himself as a solo purveyor of macabre quirkery he led The Soft Boys alongside guitarist Kimberley Rew whose heavy melodic guitar style is an often unacknowledged influence on the likes of Johnny Marr and Peter Buck amongst others.  The lyrics equate falling in love to insects laying eggs under your skin and at their rousing peak The Soft Boys declare “I Wanna Destroy You.” And they do.

27. The Jim Carroll Band – Catholic Boy
Poet and Basketball Diaries memoirist Jim Carroll took a cue from his fellow downtown NY scenester Patti Smith and started a band to explore his musical musings. Luckily, like Smith, Carroll proved to be a natural gracing us with this last blast of classic CBGB’s style New York punk. Though “People Who Died”, a litany of friends who met untimely ends, is the best known track there is plenty here to delight aficionados.

26. Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette
Like Jim Carroll, Grace Jones was a New York fixture but in the disco party scene. While she had transitioned from modeling to performing in clubs in the late 70s it took the reggae production team of Sly and Robbie to push her (and them) into a new musical dimension. Whether covering Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” or Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” Jones and team make these songs their own with slinky grooves and her trademark hard-edged voice. This is more than just disco, it’s domme disco.

25. Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
This album is one of those unique records that could have been released yesterday, a week from now, or indeed 1980. It simply sounds like nothing else.  Alison Statton’s detached vocals glide above the terse guitar and pulse like keyboards as songs like “Credit in The Straight World” build and circle around their themes and motifs.

24. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy
It was bands like Young Marble Giants and The B-52s that caused John Lennon to declare to Yoko that the music scene had finally caught up to her musical experiments. He was about ten years too early but to help the pill go down he returned to recording as well after his self-imposed five year exile and traded off songs with her on a concept album meant to evoke their marriage. In a sense this is really two EPs that don’t fully assimilate with each other – Yoko’s avant-pop and Lennon’s slick songcraft celebrating the joys of house-husbandry. Nevertheless it’s some of the best work from each of them and ultimately a sad epitaph to Lennon who would be assassinated shortly after the album’s release.

23. The Psychedelic Furs - The Psychedelic Furs
The Psychedelic Furs emerged from London with this debut album and one of the most interesting takes on post-punk, aided by Richard Butler’s rasping croon which can snarl like Johnny Rotten or insinuate like David Bowie. The band locks into a tight groove on tracks like the dubby “Wedding Song” and the slow burner “Imitation of Christ” churning it’s way through rich chord changes.

22. XTC – Black Sea
XTC pulled back from their earlier arch art moves on their previous LP Drums and Wires but they embraced pop hooks fully on this, their third (and best) album. Partridge and Moulding still write songs about architecture, history, and other such things but here they come across all punchy and direct on tunes like the magnificent “Towers of London” and the transcendent “Generals and Majors.”

21. Bruce Springsteen - The River
Brooooce splits the difference between Born to Run’s anthems and Darkness on the Edge of Town’s noir menace with this generous double that can feel overstuffed but rewards with a clutch of great songs. “Out in The Street” is still a live staple, as it should be given the effortless updating of classic early 60s swagger that recalls the Shangri-La’s and Dion but then there’s the balance of a pensive song like “Stolen Car.” This is the Boss arguably at the height of his powers.

20.  Swell Maps - Jane From Occupied Europe
It would be hard to imagine a whole swath of indie rock, from Pavement to No Age to dozens of groups in between without the experimental songcraft of Swell Maps. From the Cold War-baiting album title to the even more breathtaking tunes their second album is a lofty triumph of soundscapes and sideways hooks that unexpectedly sink in.

19. The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Hoboken’s Feelies flew the nerd rock flag high at a time when few bands dared to be uncool. Now though you just check the way the cover of Weezer’s debut album references the blue background portrait of this, The Feelies first. The title is apt as they sound ready to leap off of their feet with their Velvets meets the Beatles jangle pop. Later incarnations of the band would sound more conventional but here they serve up a fairly original take on some venerable forebears.

18. Squeeze – Argybargy
Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook, the two main songwriters in Squeeze, helped keep Britpop alive through the new wave era, serving as the link between bands like The Kinks and future bands like Blur. Argybargy is chock full of sharp-edged tunefulness and armed with an armada of great singles from “Pulling Mussels (From a Shell)” to “If I Didn’t Love You”, not to mention should-have-been singles like “Separate Beds.”

17. X - Los Angeles
John Doe and Exene Cervenka took on a distinctly Los Angeles approach to punk with an assist from Doors keyboard man Ray Manzarek in the production chair and their ace in the hole – guitarist Billy Zoom. Though Exene’s sometimes off-key harmonizing can grate on some ears the boy/girl vocal arrangements were highly influential on bands like Pixies and the seamy downtown lifestyle songwriting is full of gems on this, their debut.

16. The Specials - More Specials
The Specials first album flew in the face of Britain’s rising racial tensions with an interracial band and music that fused the balls-out attack of punk with the skipping beat (and many of the songs) of 60s Jamaican ska. The Specials were nothing if not ambitious though and this followup  sees them broadening an deepening in every way. If not as immediate as its predecessor, More Specials also jettisons the casual misogyny of songs like “Little Bitch” for the satire of “International Jet Set” and the timeless melody of “Do Nothing.” The epic “Stereotypes” introduces Ennio Morricone as an influence stretching the original shorter single past the seven-minute mark. Sadly tensions would split the band apart into Fun Boy Three and Special AKA after their best single, 1981’s “Ghost Town” though they recently reunited for a short tour.

15. Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
While American’s knowledge of this band begins and ends with the 1982 song “Come On, Eileen”, a massive one-hit-wonder, this debut was celebrated in the UK as a groundbreaking fusion of punk spirit and soul songwriting chops. Singer Kevin Rowland is no Al Green, his slightly strangulated vocals recalling the yelping of folks like Tom Verlaine, but against the R & B chops of the band it makes for a bracing combo – and they know it.

14. The Jam - Sound Affects
Paul Weller and company just kept getting better and better after their debut. This, their fifth album, is also arguably their peak with a terrific batch of songs the grabs you right from the start with “Pretty Green.” Speaking of start, “Start!” is one of their best songs, extracting a bassline derived from the Beatles “Taxman” and constructing a sturdy groove around it that hints at the soul stylings to come on future Weller and Jam albums.

13. Devo – Freedom of Choice
Devo posited their theory of de-evolution on their early art-damaged albums, that the human race was essentially devolving into a stupid drooling mass of automatons. This is of course satire and what better way to slide into it than to be it so the band “dumbed” their sound down, losing the most dissonant elements, and gaining big shiny synth driven hooks. The result is their most enjoyable album, beyond even their signature song “Whip It.” “Gates of Steel” grabs you by the throat, “Girl U Want” is a classic and the title track was an apt send-up of the American electoral process.

12. Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Get Happy!!
Like Dexy’s, Elvis the C here takes classic soul moves and roughs them up with punk attitude though he is both less and more faithful to the source. Less in that he can’t help but write his own  wonderfully convoluted wordplay and punnery as well as slipping in left fielders like the stately “Riot Act.” More in that he lifts elements faithfully from Stax and Motown and even covers Sam & Dave.

11. The Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue
Partisans argue over which Stones albums are the most underrated and Emotional Rescue can stake a claim to the number one slot on the list, overlooked as it usually is in favor of it’s predecessor Some Girls and follow-up Tattoo You. It’s a gritty grimy affair that effortlessly swims in the sleaze that the band strained to evoke on later albums like Undercover. The title track is the best known song here, a delightful slice of falsetto disco cheese with an insinuating melody and Jagger’s hilarious spoken come-ons: “Yes, you will be mine…” he intones. But “She’s So Cold” is a nervy jittery marvel in their rockabilly vein, “Down in The Hole” a slice of molten blues decadence, “Send it To Me” a clipped cod reggae attempt. The fact that most of this is less played out makes it a great secret treasure in the Stones’ twilight period of relevance.

10. Joy Division – Closer
The death of Ian Curtis by suicide after the release of this, the band’s last album before regrouping as New Order, can’t help but cast a pall over a record that should have signaled a bright future. The band was playing with song structure, rhythm, melody, all in an attempt to stretch past the focused terseness of their groundbreaking debut. For the most part it works, and there are intriguing signs of the electronic and dance flourishes that New Order would pioneer.

9. Roxy Music – Flesh + Blood
Flesh + Blood has a bit of a mixed reputation in Roxy Music land but its outlandish covers of “Eight Miles High” and “In the Midnight Hour” are endearing in their slick disco pop-ishness. More important is the fact that the sound they perfect here is what fuelled dozens of bands in next 2-3 years from Duran Duran to ABC to Haircut 100. While that’s not inherently a good thing, Roxy Music (and increasingly singer and leader Bryan Ferry) own the sound and deploy it better than any of their followers on songs like “Over You.”

8. The Clash - Sandinista!
Oh, what a glorious mess. London Calling, their 1979 double album, was simply too tight and consistent to rank as the band’s equivalent to The Beatles White Album. This triple (!) record threat (on vinyl) however, fits the bill – dividing fans and acolytes with a huge smorgasbord of songs that ru the gamut from punkified Reggae covers (“Police on My Back”) to hip-hop (“Magnificent 7”) to out and out dub, art-rock surf, Motown, and kids covering Clash classics. No weed-fuelled idea was too puerile to commit to tape and surprising amounts are worthwhile. More importantly, no two people make the same mix tape of favorites out of this.

7. AC/DC - Back in Black
Like Joy Division, Australia’s hard rock heroes AC/DC ought to have been laid waste by the loss of an iconic lead singer. Yet after the death of Bon Scott (from general carousing), new singer Brian Johnson and company took up right where the band had left off, creating their masterpiece and one of the finest rock albums ever. Their hard-partying, tune-loaded approach also paved the way for the rise of 80s hair bands (along with Def Leppard), essentially acting as a bridge between the blues riffing of Led Zeppelin and the leaner, less prog-rock sounds to come.

6. Pretenders – Pretenders
The first Pretenders album was a showcase for one of the most unheralded rock lineups, one that would be sadly devastated over the next four years by drug abuse. From brilliant guitarist James Honeyman-Scott to propulsive drummer Martin Chambers to bassist Pete Farndon the band rocked out on both blazing rave-ups and moody ballads. Chrissie Hynde’s expressive vocals and crackerjack songwriting provided the canvas for what would be one of the most acclaimed debuts of the 80s. Sadly Honeyman-Scott and later Farndon would both die of overdoses after the release of the band’s second album, and Hynde would later rely on a succession of sidemen under the Pretenders name to flesh out her still considerable songwriting and fronting skills.

5. Killing Joke - Killing Joke
Killing Joke were amazingly visionary as well as difficult to pigeonhole. Described variously as post-punk, goth, metal, industrial, and electronic, they fittingly landed this debut on EG, the same label as Brian Eno. Why not for a band whose influence ranges from Nirvana (who famously nicked the riff for “Come as You Are” from them) to Metallica to Pigface and even an early version of The Sugarcubes. The music is martial, chugging, spacious, often cinematic and apocalyptic in the way that only early 80s Cold War influenced bands can be.

4. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (“Melt”)
Did someone mention Cold War angst? Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” is loaded with it, as well as an irresistible melody that tricked American’s into thinking this was some new wave debut rather than the third solo record by a former prog-rock frontman. And why not, since this very well might be the best record of his career. The surfaces Producer Steve Lillywhite conjures are immersive and widescreen, the dread suffusive, and yet the album isn’t a downer – particularly on the incredibly moving finale of “Biko.” In its sound and subject matter the record prefigures so much of what would be done in the rest of the decade, usually with far less finesse.

3. The Wipers – Is This Real?
Portland’s Greg Sage led The Wipers, one of the most criminally underappreciated bands to emerge from the American punk scene. From Sage’s blazing guitar chops to his yearning, questioningly tuneful songs like “D-7” and “Don’t Know What I Am” this record is the equal of anything The Replacements, Husker Du, or anyone else would bring out over the next few years.

2. Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Talking Heads released a remarkably consistent yet adventurous string of albums beginning with their 1977 debut and extended their streak with this remarkable melding of African rhythms and arrangements alongside David Byrne’s jittery vocals and the band’s skewed hooks. Producer Brian Eno plays a larger role, essentially as a de facto band member. The tension this created may have led to the band’s long three-year layoff in the studio after this was released but the record it created is a landmark.

1. David Bowie - Scary Monsters
It can be said now that this is the last of a string of classic Bowie records that began with Hunky Dory in 1971. What a way to go out – “Ashes to Ashes” extends his Berlin sound to revisit Major Tom from “Space Oddity”, another Tom (Verlaine) gets a stellar cover treatment with “Kingdom Come” and overall the record shows man at his peak. The 80s would be indelibly influenced by his example musically and professionally (think Madonna’s many ch-ch-ch Changes) but sadly Bowie himself would lose the plot after the of-the-moment Let’s Dance in 1983.

Malcolm McLaren was a bastard. There, I’ve said it. Yet he was one of the greatest impresarios of the 20th Century. The Sex Pistols as a concept were very much his creation, a “swindle” in his words that combined the nascent punk rock of his former charges The New York Dolls and bands like The Ramones with situationist sloganeering, social shock and awe, the bondage and fetish gear purveyed in the boutique operated by he and his then wife Vivienne Westwood, and a grand dose of P.T. Barnum-style showmanship.

This in turn launched the UK punk revolution, which confined to the media market of The British isles and coinciding with the Queen’s jubilee, had a cultural impact that seemed far greater than the New York scene that had inspired it.

The Pistols tumultous 18-months in the spotlight begat bands like The Clash, The Jam, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Slits, Siouxie and The Banshees and trailed a legion of followers who would form a subsequent generation of  bands like Shane McGowan and The Pogues and Stephen Morrissey who formed The Smiths.

McLaren engineered the sacking of the Pistols talented bass player Glen Matlock, replacing him with the barely talented but colorfully doomed Sid Vicious, alongside the man he re-named Johnny Rotten upon anointing him lead singer. When Rotten started to have ideas beyond being a McLaren puppet he too quit at the end of a grueling American tour, and the band recorded tracks with Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs.

In the subsequent psuedo-documentary/propaganda film The Great Rock and Roll Swindle McLaren played up all this activity as part of an elaborate scam that included signing to three seperate record labels in arow and pocketing the advance.

Post Pistols McLaren put together Adam and The Ants, this time fusing African tribal drumming to primal rock to less ground shaking effect, though it did pefigure the fascination with African music that would take hold in the 1980s. He then swapped lead singer Adam Ant (who went on to a fairly successful career sans McLaren) for 14 year-old Annabella Lwin to form Bow Wow Wow which added a not so subtle under-aged sex element to songs like “Louis Quatorze” and hitched their wagon to the home-taping boom at the time with songs like “C30-C60-C90 Go.” The teenybopper sex symbol thing prefigured later starts like Britney Spears and home taping at the dawn of the 80s was a controversial bugaboo to the record industry – the illegal downloading of it’s time.

Bow Wow Wow would break free as well, leaving non-musician McLaren to start up projects under his own name. This included the fantastic singles “Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch” which were explorations of the burgeoning hip hop scene, especially DJ scratching. As tempting as it might be to cry cultural imperialism the quality of the tracks which prefigure the sound mash-ups of producer/DJs like Prince Paul and Fatboy Slim is undeniable. However unlike punk, his influence on the overall development of hip-hop was slight.

His next move was even more audacious – mixing hip-hop with opera on the Fans album and “Madame Butterfly” single. Surprisingly it worked, though again the impact was minimal compared to past successes.

As McLaren transitioned into a talking head and cultural commentator, so to did his originally ideas reverberate into the mainstream. Anytime you see the “typical” punk mode of dressing or variations thereupon  (safety pins, rubber, fishnets, boots, torn clothes) McLaren and Westwood’s original vision survives.

McLaren died yesterday of Leukemia.

Trailer for The Great Rock and Roll Swindle:

“Somehow or another I remain permanently cool…”

“Buffalo Gals”

“Madame Butterfly”

Film and TV actor Robert Culp died today in Los Angeles at the age of 79. For a baby boomers he will always be best known for his role opposite Bill Cosby as a spy in I Spy, a show that broke down televisions race barriers. But to Generation Xies like myself it was his role as cynical FBI agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero that made him an indelible part of our childhood. Then there were the film roles – Paul Mazursky’s brilliant first film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in which Culp played Natalie Wood’s husband – a man getting in touch with the swinging sixties sexual liberation in spite of his contradictory instincts, or as the venal mayor of New York in the silly Tim Hutton graffiti drama Turk 182, and in countless other parts large and small. He wasn’t an actor who disappeared into his roles, but the mannerisms that conveyed easy mastery in I Spy somehow were made to signal vulnerably swaggering libertinism in Bob & Carol, ill-at-ease conservatism in Hero, and waspy tweediness in his recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Most of all for me though, Culp reminds me of a childhood growing up in Reagen era America. Seeing this actor who had played and lived so many groundbreaking roles in the sixties play Bill Maxwell, a fascinating amalgam of conservative law & order types, must have induced vertigo in those who remembered. All I saw as a 10 year-old was a close cousin to folks like Garry Trudeau’s Uncle Duke character from Doonesbury, former semi-counterculture types who had surfed the conservative wave into strange places. I read a lot of Doonesbury as a kid, and probably 70% of it was way over my head, but I did learn a lot.

Culp invested Maxwell with enough sensitivity and awkwardness to make him likable, but also enough abrasiveness to function as a parody of Reagen-era figures like Caspar Weinburger or good old Don Rumsfield, a guy who could have been played by Culp in a biopic. Yet there was something ineffably cool in his swagger and his fast talk.

“What’s the scenario?” he would say before encountering a hostile situation, a phrase borrowed later by hip-hoppers Tribe Called Quest. I loved these lovable rogues as a kid, these cynics who had seen it all, the friends of my father who had lived life and scoffed at the idea that there was anything left to learn. I was a premature 40-year old curmudgeon in a 10 year-old’s body and Bill Maxwell was my hero.

The rest of Greatest American Hero (not including Joey Scarbury’s cheese classic theme) could all be cut out as far as I was concerned. William Katt, who played the teacher in an alien superhero suit? Meh. I shared Maxwell’s contempt for his inability to control it’s powers. The only thing I found interesting about that character was when they changed his name from Ralph Hinckley to Ralph Handley because John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagen halfway through the show’s brief run in a bid to impress Jodie Foster.

As an adult I watched Culp’s terrific performance in Bob & Carol and it reminded me of my parents and the crazy ways they tested the boundaries of marriage in the late 60s and 70s. In their case the seams burst – inevitably really given that it’s hard to fathom their ever having been married now.  In Culp’s character, from his modish outfits which echoed my father’s own au courant threads in the era to the easy appeal he had to women, there was the hint of the familiar for me. So too was his initial  jealousy as his wife, played by Natalie Wood decides to take him at his word and try some experimenting of her own – as is the hilarious scene in which he forces himself to go with the flow of the philosophy of openness he has embraced.

In a strange way the reality of the reactions that these fictional characters went through helped me to understand how bewildering, exciting, and disappointing the sexual revolution was for my parent’s generation. One of the other touches in Bob & Carol that rang true was that all of the characters are in their 30s, as my parents were then – not the teens and twenty-somethings who were rolling around in the mud at Woodstock. These were adults on the cusp of a rapidly changing world.

I Spy and Culp’s role on and off screen also reminds me of my parents, specifically their strong belief in Civil Rights. It may be hard to fathom now in the Obama era but a show prominently featuring a black man and his white partner in espionage was in danger of not being carried by southern affiliates in 1965. When the network had second thoughts about casting Cosby because of his skin color Culp made it clear that he would walk too. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Culp and Cosby traveled to Memphis to support the striking sanitation workers there.

The two actors would remain lifelong friends, with Cosby saying this about Culp tonight:

“The first born in every family is always dreaming of the older brother or sister he or she doesn’t have, to protect, to be the buffer, provide the wisdom, shoulder the blows and make things right,” he said. “Bob was the answer to my dreams.”

Culp talks about Cos and I Spy:

One of the best scenes from Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice:

Prime I Spy – both Cosby and Culp were multiple Emmy noms with Cos winning for their blend of action and comedy:

Culp guests on a rival spy spoof as a waiter:

It’s fair to say that although he enjoyed a number 1 single at the height of the 1960s Alex Chilton’s influence has far, far exceeded his record sales. While he may not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame his genius, his songs, and his career have inspired multiple generations of bands and several important genres ranging from the blue-eyed soul of Hall & Oates, the power pop of Cheap Trick, 80s alternative and indie rock like The Replacements and R.E.M., and lo-fi experimentalists like Pavement, Guided by Voices, and No Age.

I remember listening to a cassette of his band Big Star’s second album, Radio City in high school and wondering what kind of world could let music so perfect go undiscovered by so many. But I’m skipping ahead.

Like some alternate universe Bowie, Alex Chilton had distinctly different phases of music. Unlike Bowie there was never any hint of premeditation – Chilton seemingly couldn’t help himself and would go so far as to renounce his previous work. It started in Memphis with the Brill Building blue-eyed soul of the Box Tops. Chilton was just 16 when “The Letter” ascended the charts but his voice was at it’s huskiest. He chafed at the restriction of having songs written by others for the band to play and he to sing but he stuck with them through lesser hits like the wonderful “Cry Like a Baby” and some better than average singles and albums.

By 1970 the band had broken up and Chilton bummed around the Memphis scene before hooking up with fellow songwriter Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel who were all members of a band called Icewater. They called the new band Big Star, in homage to a chain of southern supermarkets. Big Star’s first record, #1 Record was released on soul label Stax’s Ardent imprint and was a sales disaster. Yet the glorious songs inside were anything but. Inspired now by the shimmering songcraft of mid 60s Beatles and Kinks but with an undertow of wonder, nostalgia and heartbreak that was all their own, like all Bog Star albums it’s an essential for any serious rock fan. It was also completely out of touch with where the music world was in 1972.

Bell split from Big Star and would die in a car crash in 1978 (the posthumously released I Am The Kosmos Cosmos (thanks for catching the title mis-spelling Aaron) includes his only released solo single alongside never before released tracks.) Big Star went their separate ways initially but regrouped for 1974’s Radio City which found the band with a lean, tough sound and tighter more dynamic playing and Chilton’s best set of songs yet – some consider this his masterpiece. It’s a mind blowingly good record. Like it’s predecessor it was a complete flop commercially, in part due to Stax’s money woes.

Chilton was becoming increasingly frustrated – if his brilliantly arranged and executed songs couldn’t find an audience, why bother with the niceties at all? Recording for a third album commenced in 1975 but the sessions were chaotic to say the least. Where Radio City found tension in pushing and pulling the songs and adding different coloration here and there these new sessions featured songs that seemed scotch-taped together, on the brink of despair or even madness. Weary, resigned, resentful, defiant and yet with an undeniable tunefulness at it’s core – the sessions sat unreleased for years. In 1978 they appeared in Europe under the title Third and also Sister Lovers with slightly different track listings. Once heard (they’ve since been issued in their entirety) they are unforgettable and every bit as satisfying as the first two records if not more so. A whole chunk of indie rock starts right here.

In the meantime Chilton had hit the bottle hard and finally began to launch a solo career that was even more shambolic than Sister Lovers had been with surly, sometimes atonally barbed guitar playing and casually tossed off production and arrangements. While this could be hit or miss at times it also resulted in the amazing “Bangkok”, some great covers, and the fantastic 1980 album Like Flies on Sherbert.

He also began producing for groups like The Cramps and The Replacements (their new major label rejected the results) who returned the favor with their tribute song “Alex Chilton” in 1987, one of their most beloved tunes. In a nice twist it was produced by Memphis legend Jim Dickinson (who also recently died) – the producer of Big Star’s Sister Lovers sessions.

By the 80s Chilton was playing blistering guitar in Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, a Memphis band that added punk grit to rockabilly and blues and had also returned to making solo records. Now however he was reincarnated as a gritty soul man, pumping out greasy R & B with sweaty abandon. While the covers-heavy content may have disappointed some fans, albums like High Priest were extremely enjoyable.

The 90s brought long overdue accolades and elder statesman status along with a series of Big Star reunions that seemed a bit grudging on Chilton’s part, as he was clearly lukewarm on the idea of living in his own past. Yet his heart attack came on the eve of a Big Star performance scheduled this weekend at SXSW. Viewers likely didn’t know it but the theme song to That 70’s Show was a rerecorded version of Big Star’s “Out in The Street” by Cheap Trick – making it a bigger hit in the 90s than it had ever been initially.

Alex Chilton was a true American great. There was a time when meeting a fellow Big Star or Alex Chilton fan was to meet a kindred spirit. R.I.P.

Here are just a few of his career’s many high points:

The Box Tops – “The Letter”

The Box Tops – “Cry Like a Baby”

The Box Tops on Mike Douglas do “Turn on a Dream” and “Soul Deep”

Big Star – “Thirteen”

Big Star – “Ballad of El Goodo”

Big Star – “September Gurls”

Big Star – “O My Soul”

Big Star – “Kanga Roo”

Big Star – “Kizza Me”

Alex Chilton covering the Seeds on “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”

Alex Chilton – “Bangkok”

Chilton on 120 Minutes circa 1985

Alex Chilton – “No Sex”

The Replacements – “Alex Chilton”

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.

Lamborghini Reventon

The decade started with such excitement. As the century turned it seemed that automotive design was on the cusp as well, looking backwards with retro designs like Volkswagen’s New Beetle, Chrysler’s PT Cruiser and Ford’s GT as well as forwards with Audi’s original TT and Ford’s original Focus series.

The 00s ended with excitement too – only it was the bad kind that leads to acid reflux and no jobs. Noted Italian design firms such as Bertone and ItalDesign were hanging on by a thread, if at all. Some of the most storied brands in the automotive world were similarly imperiled or had disappeared entirely: Saab, Pontiac, Saturn, Chrysler, Dodge.

Nevertheless it was a fascinating and sometimes frustrating ten years of automotive design. Here are my favorites in no particular order. Note that I’ve included both production models and concepts in the mix.

1. 2009 Chevrolet Camaro

The protracted build-up to the actual launch of Chevy’s newest Camaro (which included an appearance in Transformers almost a year before availability) blunted some of the freshness of this neuvo-retro-musclecar. With a clear eye though it’s evident that this is the most successful bridging of past and present in the segment. The design takes copious cues from the first generation late 60s Camaro but renders them in fresh and dynamic ways that could only be achieved with current design and manufacturing technology.

2. 2007 Audi R8

Audi has been at the forefront of raising the bar for interiors for almost two decades now and the R8’s interior is as lovely as ever. The real innovation though is striking exterior which finds a fresh take on the mid-engined supercar cliche. Aside from the perfect surfacing and detail work and Audi’s trademark use of advanced headlight design, there are the distinct contrast colored side blades which help to break up the side surfaces.  As it should, the design flair of the R8 is making it’s way back through the rest of Audi’s lineup.

3. 2008 Alfa Romeo 8C

Alfa Romeo spent much of the 90s floundering, as did parent company Fiat. Like the French, Italian companies have increasingly mistaken outre design for good design but Alfa beagn to bring things back on track in the latter part of the decade, primarily with the lovely (if overpriced) 8C.  As a design the 8C is nearly perfect in every way, a monument to the importance of proportions.

4. 2005 Aston Martin V8 Vantage

Any Aston Martin made over the last ten years looks great but the V8 is the cleanest, clearest expression of the design ethos.  Lithe, muscular and unencumbered by extraneous detail.

5. 2008 Chevrolet Malibu

After a long, long spell in the doldrums GM design finally began to wake up and reassert it’s primacy within the product development process (though it may have come too late to rescue the company as a whole.) The latest generation Chevy Malibu is a prime example. It’s simply the best resolved design in the family car segment with the kind of detailing and strongly defined theme that is more usually seen on luxury vehicles by brands like Audi and Acura. The roofline is key to the design, especially as it relates to the flowing hood line and shoulder indent.

6. 2007 Maserati GranTurismo

Maserati shook off a string of mediocre designs with the Quattroporte and especially the GranTurismo. A more expressive design than competitors like Aston Martin and Porsche and rightly so – the curve of the front fenders over the wheels are themselves worthy of celebration.

7. 2007 Audi A5

The fantastic R8 notwithstanding, Audi seemed to concentrate over the last decade more on interiors and headlights than on the whole of their designs – a far cry from their great run in the 90s and 80s. Yet at the end of the decade signs of a reintegration were apparent with the graceful A5 coupe as a prime exponent.  The undulating shoulder line is contrasted perfectly by the hard swath at the lower door skins and the wraparound of the front and rear fascias. It adds up to a lovely modern take on the traditional coupe.

8. 2009 Ford Flex

The decade was peppered with so-called crossovers, neither fish-nor-fowl mashups of cars and SUVs that all to often resembled genetic experiments gone horribly wrong. A happy exception was Ford’s Flex which, much like Chrysler’s iconic minivan in the 80s, recast the venerable station wagon. This time it’s as an aspirational vehicle, less Mom’s taxi than family luxobarge. This is reinforced by the Range Rover-like contrast roof, strategic chrome and brushed aluminum highlights, and an imaginative interior.

9. 2008 Lamborghini Reventon

Lamborghini’s stock in trade has always been low-slung drama but ownership by the German’s at Volkswagen seemed to mellow their design sense. On the one hand it was a relief to not be confronted by the tacky wings and scoops that adored some of their late 80s creations but what followed was very nicely rendered but a bit cold.  Not so the threatening Reventon. Like Cadillac’s recent design language, the Reventon’s brutally sharp edges are inspired by the Stealth bomber but Lamborghini takes it all a step further with a killer matte paintjob. A great example of how subtly tweaking the details of an existing design language can substantially alter the feel of the result.

10. 2008 Dodge Challenger

The Challenger would appear to be the most slavishly retro of the big 3’s musclecars, following Ford’s Mustang and Chevy’s more futurist Camaro. Yet a closer look reveals that the Challenger is more faithful to the idea of its early 70s predecessor. If anything the stance of the newer car is tougher, the look is bluffer, and the feel is kind of an amalgam of 70s cues with a contemporary application. Unusually the production model is better looking than the concept on which it’s based primarily due to the ditching of Dodge’s trademark crosshair grille design.

11. 2009 Ford Fiesta

Ford of Europe has continued to explore design possibilities even as the North American arm has sometimes fallen back into blandness. Thankfully CEO Alan Mullaly has decreed that all designs msut be shared between markets which means the dynamic and appealing little Fiesta will soon be sold here (though sadly not in 3-door from shown.)

12. 2002 Ford Thunderbird

The new T-Bird came at the tail-end of the retro craze and was one of the sales flops that led to Ford radically restructuring their business and leadership team. This had little to do with the slick design of the car which ably updated the themes of the 1955 original  with it’s own particular flavor. The unusual declining shoulder line and lovely headlight placements are echoed by the circular taillights and the trim beltline cut.

13. 2000 Mini Cooper

On one level the new Mini is the apogee of fake retro – like the VW New Beetle it’s a theme that belies much of what was original about the car that it’s meant to evoke. In the Mini’s case that means that the car is more maxi-sized than truly Mini, and Alec Issigoni’s groundbreaking hydragas suspension and innovative packaging are largely abandoned. And yet the design has proved to be arguably a bigger hit than the original (though not in total sales), becoming a must-have automotive accessory for elites in markets like the United Sates where the original barely made a dent. It’s also a canny updating of the original Mini theme with far better materials and execution befitting a product pitched at the style market rather than the original people’s car orientation of the classic version.

14. 2003 Land Rover Range Rover

How do you update an icon? Land Rover redid the Range Rover once before this model, with a blandly rote refresh that took all the thematic elements and re-rendered them unimaginatively. This third generation model also hews close to the original formula set forth in 1970 by William Town’s original design.  However it extracts a new purity and refinement, highlighting iconic elements like the roof and blacked out D pillars and the upright fender vents and tying it together perfectly. In addition the new interior was an industry-leading luxury cocoon.

15. 2005 Pontiac Solstice

When GM’s now dead “performance” brand decided to get into the Miata fighting business it did so with a tough, sporty little design that was one of the best the brand had produced. Alas, though, it wasn’t enough to stave off the reaper.

16. 2003 Infiniti FX45

Infiniti was early to the crossover party with this crossbreeed between an SUV and a sports sedan and stylistically they nailed it. All curves and bulges with big wheels and a characteristically 00’s turret-like greenhouse The FX chooses sides rather than compromising and the side it chooses is sporty, thank you.

17. 2005 Chrysler 300

Chrysler’s decade was simply awful and yet the 300 was decided bright spot, a successful relaunch of the big American sedan for a new millennium. The high shouldered styling set the trend for the rest of the decade and the muscularly purposeful design led to a slew of concepts (but sadly no production) responses from rival firms.

18. 2004 Toyota Prius

The Prius ubiquitous nature has rendered it bland but at launch it was a breakthrough. A truly futuristic looking car to match it’s future-facing powerplant. The design has become shorthand for caring about the environment, as well as being environmentally compatible in subtler ways such wind resistance that add to efficiency.

19. 2008 Bentley Brooklands

Bentley’s VW owners haven’t seemed to figure out quite what to do with teh brand stylistically but oh the big bold Brooklands! The kicked up beltline, huge wheels, imposing grille all say move out of our way, plebian. Elegant, purposeful luxury.

20. 2006 Ford F-250 Super Chief

This concept set forth a number of stylistic elements that have since wended their way through Ford’s car and truck line-up but as a pure expression of truckness in the new millennium the Super Chief sets the standard.

21. 2006 Nissan Urge

Nissan’s Urge concept took a cue from ultra-modern furniture design, reducing the elements to major shapes like the silver side swaths and the dark fenderettes over the wheels.  A cool added element was the inset open door panels, designed to give driver and passenger a motorcycle-like sensation of openness with the full-body protection of a car.

22. 2006 Saab Aero-X

Saab’s Aero-X looked like a leftover Star Wars prop and in a perfect world would have helped define the companies new direction. Instead it defined the road not taken as GM starved the company of investment.

23. 2006 Renault Altica

Renault’s appealing chunky Altica concept was riddled with neat surface elements like the broad shoulder lines that extend from the front fenders to define flares over the rear wheels. Also cool were the rear quarter panels with random geometric shapes in place of a full window. Practical? Non. Pleasing to the eye? Oui.

24. 2006 Citroen C-Metisse

Citroen’s C-Metisse concept signaled a new willingness for the storied French company to once again explore groundbreaking design. The van-like hatch is most striking for the way the rear wheels are framed by the broad flares which intersect the descending swath of greenhouse. The side glass echoes the circular wheel openings enhancing the relationship, as do the chrome strips at the extreme rear corners.

25. 2007 Ford Interceptor

Ford’s Interceptor concept was a vision of what the blue oval’s Chrysler 300 fighter might have been before budgets constraints and runaway gas prices put the kibosh on production. The low roofline and gunslit windows all bespeak the influence of Chrysler’s big sedan but Ford also finds it’s own way to express the brand with the wide stacked grille and headlight design and sweeping wheel openings.

26. 2007 BMW Concept CS

BMW’s concepts during teh decade were sometimes as polarizing as their production cars but were often more successful as designs. The big CS previewed themes that are starting to creep into BMW’s that are in dealerships but is also an extremely well-resolved take on the  sedan-as-coupe trend that has spread through the ranks of German companies since Mercedes-Benz introduced the CLS.  The body surfacing is particularly nice here as is the overall form which is well-proportioned given its size.

27. 2002 BMW GINA

The GINA was tucked away inside BMW’s design center for most of the decade before finally being revealed post the launch of the disappointing Z4 which it obviously influenced. This is what ground-breaking conceptual car design is all about – literally stretching the boundaries with a fabric wrapped frame which stretches to accomodate everything from active aerodynamic aids to door openings.

28. 2007 Toyota iQ Concept

Toyota’s production iQ is notable as well, a sort of smarter Smart car but the concept takes the great packaging a step further with surface elements that seem to transform from concave to convex depending on where the viewer stands.

29. 2007 Mazda Taiki

Mazda trotted out their new design ethos on a number of concepts towards decades end. The look is meant to be inspired by the elements interacting with nature, such as water on rock or wind on sand. The best of these was the Taiki with its nifty sculpted rear-wheel nacelles and flowing headlight elements.

30. 2008 Land Rover LRX

Land Rover’s LRX concept was a clear production ready glimpse of how they could (and will) move towards a smaller, friendlier SUV. Though others (notably Subaru’s Forester) have tried to scale down the segment this is the most successful attempt yet, aided by great detail work like the  dropped edge of the hood over the front wheel arch and the reverse wedge of the greenhouse.

31. 2009  Cadillac CTS Coupe

Cadillac started to revamp their design language in the late 90s but the refinement of their hard-edged “Art & Science” theme at the end of this decade was far more aesthetically successful than initial forays. The CTS sedan is quite handsome but it’s this Coupe concept (due to go into production soon) that really moves things forward with it’s radically sloped backlight and V shaped C-pillar.

32. 2009 Fisker Karma

Designer Henrik Fisker started his own company in the middle of the decade and began re-bodying BMW’s and others. His true plan emerged with the reveal of the Karma prototype – to build luxury gas/electric hybrids. Luckily the Karma is drop dead gorgeous with sinuously bulging fenders and a tapering greenhouse. Production is expected to commence late in 2010.

33. 2008 GMC Denali XT

The car-like pickup truck has had a mixed history since the glory days of Chevy’s El Camino and Ford’s Ranchero (roughly the 60s and 70s) and lesser 80s entries like Dodge’s compact Rampage, Subaru’s delightful Brat and Volkswagen’s odd Rabbit/Golf based model. The idea was revived by Honda this past decade for the Ridgeline  but GMC showed this very attractive concept that suggested how the attributes of both vehicle types could be melded harmoniously.

34. 2009 Audi Sportback

Audi gave some clues to their emerging next-gen design language with the Sportback concept, while also throwing their hat in the crowded and often ugly German luxury hatch field dominated by BMW.  Strong defined character lines give the flanks a sculpted look while their signature stylized headlamp elements echo the palm-like shape.

35. 2009 BMW Vision EfficientDynamics

Another brilliant BMW concept, the Vision is all intersecting planes and overlapping elements while exhibiting a light, glassy greenhouse that allows the elements to float together.

36. 2000 Jaguar F-Type

Jag’s F-Type concept was almost too good. It’s safety-reg unfriendly low glass height and lack of even a pretense of a roof made the design impossible to translate well to production despite repeated tries. Pity, as it’s purity is exquisite.

37. 2001 Buick Bengal

Look past the oh-so-00s vestigial rear doors that never became a trend and the Bengal concept offers a clean, uncluttered reboot of Buick’s antiquated design cues. The front end is especially nice with it’s canted headlamp strips and broad dollar-grin style grille.

38. 2001  Ford Forty-Nine

Chrysler kicked off the the trend of incorporated classic custom car cues into production and concept vehicles with the Plymouth Prowler in the mid 90s but Ford’s delicious Forty-Nine is a touchstone in post-modern retro-futurism. While cues nod to Ford’s iconic 1949 coupe, the whole is an homage to chopped and channeled “sleds” with modern headlight and interior technology that places the design in a contemporary context. If only Ford’s production models were as interesting in North America.

39. 2001 Dodge Super8 Hemi

Like the Ford Forty-Nine, Trevor Creed designed the Super 8 Hemi to be an amalgam of 50s cues and modern touches. The result was far more polarizing but with the benefit of hindsight can be seen to have it’s own virtues. Creed was reported to have been shocked by the extent of negative reaction, having considered this as a testing ground for ideas that would be used on a production basis. The wraparound windshield and roof shape are the clearest nods to 50s elements but the side strakes and brutally short overhangs could only be from the present time.

40.2002  Dodge Razor

Ah the road not taken. Though Pontiac’s Solstice got much of the contemporary attention, Dodge’s concept for a small, raw sports coupe was arguably even more compelling. A simple design that incorporates a strong stance, upright a-pillars and suggestive upkicks around the rear wheels it’s a pity  Chrysler’s German masters couldn’t see their way to producing this gem.

41. 2003 Cadillac Sixteen

Cadillac’s superb Sixteen cast a long shadow over the brand in that none of their production vehicles has yet to look as wonderfully impressive and clear of purpose. The central spine and stylized grille have made their way throughout the lineup though but it’s that elegantly formal roof and pillar-less sidelight that stick in the retina.  The double side-hinged hood adds a touch of retro whimsy.

42. 2003 Chevrolet SS

Chevy’s response to Chrysler’s impending big sedans and Ford’s big sedan concepts was the overtly sporty SS, a softer and sleeker take on the segment. The small rounded greenhouse is nestled atop bulging fenders and aggressive wheels giving a sense of power but also a sense of tidy maneuverability unusual in the class.

43. 2003 Ford 427

Ford kicked off the decade with the brilliant 427 concept for a full-sized American sedan, lacked the stones to actually produce it, and then watched Chrysler steal their thunder with the 300.  The 427 is traditional sedan in stance but in detail and execution its completely contemporary from the neat interlocked squares within the headlight elements to the chrome strip on the lower bodysides that echoes the single strip below the window line. The front end treatment did wind up, in watered down form, on the first-generation Focus.

44. 2004 Jeep Rescue

From a design standpoint this was a tough decade for Jeep but the Rescue was a terrific concept that pointed to what might have been. Emphasizing the core values of the brand but on a bigger canvas it’s immediately identifiable as a Jeep despite being a big four-door SUV, a full size and a half beyond anything the brand had marketed. The only positive that came from this concept was the idea of a 4-door Wrangler. When Jeep did attempt to size up they did so with the atrocious Commander which lacked entirely the grace and elemental rightness of this design.

45. 2008 Morgan LifeCar

Morgan has been known for 45 years essentially for their resistance to modernism. Even their most advanced car harbors a wooden frame that harks back to pre-war sports car construction. So the LifeCar, a fuel-cell powered electric sports car concept, came as something of a shock. Even more so was it’s machine age meets iPod body design which is of a piece with Morgan’s traditional theme but augmented by a novel hinged passenger canopy that mimics the scissoring of the front-hinged hood-and-fender tops unit.

46. 2001 Honda Unibox

While automotive design is often about hinting at or even obscuring the mechanics underneath the body panels, Honda’s Unibox concept is like a translucent watchback boldly exposing and flaunting the pure engineering below.

47. 2002 Mercedes-Benz F400 Carving

There have been a few tilting concepts before but they tended to be more like slightly evolved cycles. Here Mercedes gets the tilt jones on entirely with the suspension but the lack of roof (and windshield!)  and open front wheels still give a motorcycle feel but within a conventional layout.

48. 2006 Volvo C30

Volvo’s decade long design language which mimicked the idea of a sectioned violin found it’s best expression in the little C30, which also incorporated the glass hatch that distinguished the P1800 sports  coupe of the late 60s. In addition the floating center section of the dash connected the brand to classic Swedish furniture design.

49. 2004 Ferrari F430

The last two decades were hardly the best for Ferrari from a design standpoint as longtime stylist Pininfarina struggled to respect the brand’s and reflect modern forms. By keeping things simple the F430 managed the job ably. Front air intakes and exposed circular headlamps all look back to past Ferraris as does the overall mid-engind layout and theme but the execution is admirably smooth.

50. 2007 Nissan Pivo 2

There are certain design quirks that Japanese manufacturers go for but which can seem downright eccentric to others. Things like a dashboard mounted robot head that comments on your driving with helpful tips and glowing LED eyes.  The body of the vehicle also rests on a turntable that allows for full 360 degree rotation and the wheels and fenders can pivot to allow for four way steering.

If the 80s and 90s saw music fragmenting into hundreds of tiny subcultures the 00s offered a way out – in part by destroying the very music industry machinery that encouraged such fragmentation. File sharing may have killed music but it also saved it by letting people hear thousands of songs they never would have been exposed to.It also freed musicians like M.I.A., Radiohead, and Girl Talk to make music that was as boundary-less as their audience.

Here they are, my pick for the 100 best albums of the last decade:

Best of the 00s 100-76

Best of the 00s 75-51

Best of the 00s 50-26

Best of the 00s 25-1

Children of Men

The decade that’s ending has the ignominy of following the 1990’s, an era that will be looked back on as a creative peak rivaling the 1970’s for cinema. This is not to say the 00’s sucked as there were some great films and wonderful talents that emerged all over the world.

Pixar proved that the Toy Story movies were merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to animation that was artistic and commercially successful. Judd Apatow may have faltered of late but he also found a way to freshen the comedy genre and inject a sometimes Cassavettes-like realism into broad can-you-top-this flicks. Superhero films were abundant but Sam Raimi with Spider-Man and especially Chris Nolan’s two Batman films showed a new level of complexity within an often two-dimensional genre.

Then there was the aftermath of 9/11 and the ongoing nightmare of the Bush presidency. The films that grappled with this best were the ones that did so obliquely, even sub-texturally. The Dark Knight comes to mind here as well with a Wall Street Journal editorial even claiming to see a vindication of Bush in the film’s vision of Batman as over-surveilling rule-breaking vigilante against an amoral enemy. Or consider the TV in the background of one of Sideways most discomfiting, riotous scenes as Paul Giamatti sneaks into the bedroom of an amorous, thieving couple while Donald Rumsfeld talks on the screen behind them.

While undoubtedly I missed a few trends here are the 100 films that I truly enjoyed this decade, in rough order of release. Let the arguing commence!

Aardman's Chicken Run skewered WWII escape dramas

1. Chicken Run


You Can Count on Me didn't let us down

2. You Can Count on Me


Best in Show was no dog

3. Best in Show


High Fidelity celebrated a lost world...and lists like this one

4. High Fidelity


Cameron Crowe's autobiographical Almost Famous put a band-aid on it

5. Almost Famous


Wonder Boys brilliantly adapted Chabon

6. Wonder Boys


Gladiator asked if we were not amused...

7. Gladiator


Harron's American Psycho taught us about business cards... and plastic tarp

8. American Psycho


Memento fractured and reversed narrative ... what was I saying?

9. Memento


Peter Jackson's Tolkein trilogy ruled them all, bringing the epic to new heights

10. The Lord of the Rings: Trilogy


Ghost World made the planet safe for nerd girls and the Buscemis who love them

11. Ghost World


Shrek was Eddie Murphy's best performance of the decade (yes, including Dreamgirls)

12. Shrek


The Closet was workplace farce at it's best

13. The Closet


Donnie Darko proved impossible for Richard Kelly to follow-up (though he keeps trying)

14. Donnie Darko


The Royal Tenenbaums was Wes Anderson's ode to family

15. The Royal Tenenbaums


Waking Life had us flipping light switches to make sure we were awake

16. Waking Life


Moulin Rouge mashed up styles of music and cinema into a sumptuous treat

17. Moulin Rouge


Spirited Away was a modern Through The Looking Glass

18. Spirited Away


Ripley's game suggested that Matt Damon might age to resemble John Malkovich

19. Ripley’s Game


About a Boy proved that Hugh Grant is best as a (lovable) cad

20. About a Boy


Talk To Her showed that Almodovar could combine a new maturity with a Volkswagen-sized vulva

21. Talk to Her


Adaptation had Cage's two best performances of the decade

22. Adaptation


The Kid Stays in the Picture made us feel bad for losing Ali MacGraw to that McQueen guy

23. The Kid Stays in the Picture


Spider-Man wasn't related to Morris Spiderman D.D.S.

24. Spider-Man


About Schmidt gave us a vulnerable Nicholson

25. About Schmidt


24 Hour Party People took us to Madchester with the brilliant Steve Coogan as ringmaster

26. 24 Hour Party People


The Bourne Identity proved action movies didn't have to be edited by a Benihana's chef

27. The Bourne Identity


Y Tu Mama Tambien was some sad, sexy, slyly political stuff

28. Y Tu Mama Tambien


Rivers and Tides let us into the genius of artist Andy Goldsworthy

29. Andy Goldsworthy – Rivers and Tides: Working With Time


Finding Nemo immersed us in an undersea world

30. Finding Nemo


Errol Morris' Fog of War lifted the veil on Robert McNamara

31. The Fog of War


Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation whispered in our ear and introduced us to Suntory time

32. Lost in Translation


Infernal Affairs was good enough for a Scorsese-helmed remake

33. Infernal Affairs


American Splendor bought multi-dimensional Harvey Pekars to life

34. American Splendor


The Triplets of Belleville pedalled us across the Atlantic

35. The Triplets of Belleville


My architect looked at the professional and very personal legacy of architect Louis Kahn

36. My Architect: A Son’s Journey


The Weather Underground supplied talking points for the Republican campaigns of '08

37. The Weather Underground


Whale Rider showed us how to make our warrior face

38. Whale Rider


28 Days Later showed us where monkey rage leads

39. 28 Days Later


The Kill Bill films kicked our asses in a tracksuit

40. Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2


Brad Bird's The Incredibles was the American Beauty of the animated world. Think about it.

41. The Incredibles


Alexander Payne's Sideways burrowed into the heart of male middle-aged ennui

42. Sideways


End of The Century showed us the broken hearts of The Ramones and broke our hearts at the loss

43. End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones


Gondry and Kauffman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind taught us the difference between Pope Alexander and Alexander Pope

44. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


Vera Drake showed that bravery doesn't always announce itself

45. Vera Drake


Shaun of the Dead introduced us to pale, lumbering Brits and the zombies who want to eat them

46. Shaun of the Dead


Who better than Alfonso Cuaron to introduce hormones into the Harry Potter universe in the best film of the series so far.

47. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


Dig made The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Masacre actually seem like interesting bands

48. DIG!


Tom Dowd and the Language of Music allowed us to hear classic soul and rock with new ears

49. Tom Dowd and the Language of Music


Team America introduced us to full-on puppet nookie- with strings attached

50. Team America: World Police


Wallace and Gromit get a full-length film worthy of their legacy

51. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit


Good Night and Good Luck made us mourn for journalism while marveling at Straitharn's masterful performace as Murrow

52. Good Night. And, Good Luck


Grizzly Man made us hope that Werner Herzog would steer clear of narrating our life story. Oh, and avoid bears.

53. Grizzly Man


After Innocence was a devastating look at the American judicial system

54. After Innocence


Kung Fu Hustle put the slap back into slapstick, and a few kicks too

55. Kung Fu Hustle


We couldn't quit Brokeback Mountain

56. Brokeback Mountain


World, Amy Adams. Amy Adams, meet world. Now play nice...

57. Junebug


A History of Violence repped a new era for Cronenberg

58. A History of Violence


Apatow's 40-Year-Old Virgin ushered in the Apatowization of American film comedy

59. The 40-Year-Old Virgin


Batman Begins was origin story as high adventure

60. Batman Begins


Kiss Kiss Bang Bang bought us our Robert Downey Jr. back, and Shane Black's cool factor

61. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang


Walk the Line was the best in a slew of music biopics

62. Walk the Line


Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was a preview of coming attractions for the nation's Bush-era economy

63. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room


Pan's Labyrinth made fascism really, really scary

64. Pan’s Labyrinth


Casino Royale emerged from the surf, dripping wet, as the best Bond movie since the 1960s

65. Casino Royale


The Lives of Others eavesdropped on the menaing of art and surveillance

66. The Lives of Others


A Scanner Darkly had Keanu Reeves' most animated performance in the most faithful Philip K. Dick adaptation ever

67. A Scanner Darkly


The Departed was grand guignol drama from Scorsese

68. The Departed


Children of Men took us into a bleak future

69. Children of Men


Block Party took Chapelle to my old neighborhood to put on a star-studded show

70. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party


Borat showed us that Sascha Baron Cohen may not have the balls of co-star Ken Davitian

71. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan


Greengrass staged United 93 as a straightahead pseudo-doc - and it worked

72. United 93


Little Miss Sunshine showed us the clutchless running van start

73. Little Miss Sunshine


Tristram Shandy hilariously adapted the "unadaptable" post-modern classic

74. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story


Half Nelson was all good with a great performance by Ryan Gosling

75. Half Nelson


Ratatouille made the kitchen an acceptable place for vermin

76. Ratatouille


Persepolis told Marjane Satrapi's life with indelible imagery

77. Persepolis


The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men flipped a coin to decide our fate

78. No Country for Old Men


The Bourne Ultimatum was a series best

79. The Bourne Ultimatum


Juno taught us that in China they shoot babies out of t-shirt guns

80. Juno


The Diving Bell and the Butterfly could read our blinks

81. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly


There Will be Blood drank our milkshake

82. There Will Be Blood


Knocked Up suggested we consider a smashbortion

83. Knocked Up


Michael Clayton was just a janitor - a dreamy George Clooney janitor

84. Michael Clayton


Fincher's Zodiac nurtured a deep consuming obsession

85. Zodiac


3:10 To Yuma was a rare remake that bested the source

86. 3:10 to Yuma


Eastern Promises totally kicked our ass, naked

87. Eastern Promises


2 Days in Paris showed their family a compromising picture of us with a balloon

88. 2 Days In Paris


We were strung along by Man on Wire

89. Man On Wire


WALL-E was the sweetest post-apocalyptic movie ever

90. WALL-E


The Dark Knight asked why so serious?

91. The Dark Knight


Milk was here to recruit us

92. Milk


Iron Man needed a scotch

93. Iron Man


Happy-Go-Lucky taught us to drive

94. Happy-Go-Lucky


Synecdoche, New York created a smaller version of our lives in a warehouse

95. Synechdoche, New York


Inglorius Basterds demanded it's Nazi scalps!

96. Inglorious Basterds


Up broke our hearts in the first 15 minutes and named us Kevin

97. Up


In The Loop found new and creative ways to curse us out

98. In the Loop


The Hurt Locker defused our bomb

99. The Hurt Locker


Spike Jonze's adaptation of Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are began the wild rumpus

100. Where The Wild Things Are