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.

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

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

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

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

1. Talking Heads – Fear of Music

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

2. The Clash – London Calling

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

2.Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

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

3.Neil Young and Crazy Horse -  Rust Never Sleeps

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

5. Gang of Four – Entertainment!

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

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

6.Wire - 154

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

7.Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Armed Forces

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

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

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

9. The Jam – Setting Sons

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

10. Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material

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

11. The B-52’s – The B-52’s

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

12. Swell Maps – A Trip to Marineville

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

13. Linton Kwesi Johnson – Forces of Victory

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

14. Supertramp – Breakfast in America

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

15. Cheap Trick – At Budokan

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

16. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

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

17. The Slits – Cut

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

18. Tom Verlaine – Tom Verlaine

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

19. The Cars – Candy-O

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

20. Iggy Pop – New Values

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