A quarter-century ago this month, I returned to my hometown for a friend’s wedding and, for the first time, felt like a stranger there. Since relocating to Boston three years earlier, my parents and a few good friends had moved to other states, so I no choice but to rent a car and a hotel room for a weekend.
I feel there’s a long essay here but I’m still piecing it together. In the meantime, I came across some photos I took during this trip of the Milwaukee Art Museum as its Santiago Calatrava-designed addition was under construction. It was a big deal for the city, having been announced back when I was still living there. It was originally expected to be completed the year before my visit but this had been pushed back to 2001.
Upon my arrival downtown, I stopped by the construction site to see what progress there was. Behind a chain-link fence, the new Quadracci Pavilion with its retractable wing-shaped roof was far from finished. One can just make out the Eero Saarinen-designed War Memorial Center in the background (which sits atop the bulk of the original museum) beyond the rubble and the new architectural touchstone rising from its ashes.
My next trip back was two years later. I visited the museum and its completed addition with an old friend who herself had moved back to town. Whenever someone asks me, ‘What is there to do in Milwaukee?”, I tell them to get a Friday fish fry at Kegel’s Inn, some frozen custard from Kopp’s and to spend an afternoon at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Quadracci Pavilion under construction, October 2000Quadracci Pavilion, November 2008
We returned to Colorado for the first time in a decade. One highlight of our trip was a visit to Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, which is located in the White River National Forest.
It’s easiest to get to this remote locale by a shuttle bus near Aspen; we booked our tickets for the bus two months in advance given that we’d be there close to peak fall foliage.
For near-optimal viewing conditions (and to avoid large crowds), our bus was at 7:30 on a Thursday morning. Even for late September, it was so cold that there was some frost on our rental car; I’d also wished I brought mittens along for my freezing fingers.
It was all worth it. So named for their shape, the two peaks that make up Maroon Bells were gorgeous, especially against all the yellows of the surrounding aspen trees.
Rather than attempt a more strenuous hike deeper into the woods, we stuck to the basic “scenic” path, a loop whose furthest point is the bridge pictured above.
Viewed from that bridge, the tableau is straight out of a painting.
I could stare at this view in person all day (and luckily, the temperatures rose considerably throughout the morning.)
I’m sure this would’ve looked perfectly lovely without the changing leaf colors, but still–this was a treat to see.
The two peaks are the park’s main attraction, but other mountain ranges are visible in most directions.
We lucked out with such bold, blue skies.
Back towards the loop’s beginning later in the morning, the foliage practically popped against the tall pines and the rocks and dirt of the mountains.
The trail back to the starting point, around 10 AM. A full day of possibilities awaited us.
In 2007, I posted a list of my 25 favorite funniest films; since we need humor more than ever, here’s an updated version with a few new entries.
1. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (director: Mel Brooks, 1974): As if anything else could be on top. A gifted cast (from Gene Wilder’s virtuoso, operatic comic performance to Madeline Kahn’s divine, sordid brilliance) and a hilarious, stoopid-cerebral screenplay (from “walk this way… no, this way” to “He… vas… my… BOYFRIEND!”) come together in a service of an irreverent but sympathetic genre tribute.
2. BRINGING UP BABY (Howard Hawks, 1938): Anyone crafting a romantic comedy today should study this smart, breezy one and take note of Cary Grant’s and Katharine Hepburn’s giddy, contagious chemistry, which arguably no pair has topped since.
3. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, 1974): I loved it for the laughs as a teenager. Now, I just can’t get over how conceptually weird and formally absurd it is–a crowd pleasing, sublimely silly avant-garde comedy.
4. A CHRISTMAS STORY (Bob Clark, 1983): This pitch-perfect adaptation of various essays from master humorist Jean Shepherd endures because of how easily recognizable he made his childhood without diluting its sting.
5. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Rob Reiner, 1984): Although ALL YOU NEED IS CASH preceded it, this is the grandaddy of most mockumentaries. It works because it gets inside its targets’ skins all too well, and you’ll never see more finely tuned deadpan delivery elsewhere. So good I’m actually hesitant to watch this year’s long-belated sequel.
6. AIRPLANE! (Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, 1980): This beats anything else on the list for laughs-per-second: no other film comes close. A fine balance of playing it straight and total anarchy, it throws every gag it can possibly think of up on the screen, and it’s remarkable how many of ’em stick.
7. THE LADY EVE (Preston Sturges, 1941): Essential classic slapstick-heavy screwball romantic comedy written and directed by the perfector of it. Fonda and Stanwyck were never funnier and the scenes at the Pike family home are as inspired as anything by the Marx Brothers (see #19 below).
8. NINE TO FIVE (Colin Higgins, 1980): A deliciously dark feminist office comedy, it briefly revived screwball in the irony deficient 80’s, showed that Dolly Parton could hold her own as a comedienne with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, and makes the top ten chiefly for its gleefully wicked fantasy sequences.
9. BEST IN SHOW (Christopher Guest, 2000): I’ve wavered between this and WAITING FOR GUFFMAN as Guest’s quintessential mock-doc (the latter was on this list’s first iteration) but as far as funny goes, for me, his dog show satire now eclipses his community theater one because you expect weirdoes in the latter, not so much here. Lynch, Coolidge, Willard, Levy, Posey—all of them doing hall-of-fame level work.
10. ELECTION (Alexander Payne, 1999): This sharp, nasty, Preston Sturges-worthy comic fable has aged extremely well, wringing laughs from the very painful realization that high school isn’t all that different from adulthood. Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon have never been better.
11. SLEEPER (Woody Allen, 1973): Not his “best” film but certainly the craziest and quickest-paced. Only Allen could get away with a throwaway line about getting beaten up by Quakers or something as wonderfully insane as the climatic cloning (croning?) sequence (and Diane Keaton proves his equal in the funny department.)
12. HAIRSPRAY (John Waters, 1988): Leave it to the risqué Waters to nearly achieve household name status with this PG-rated satire, which features a star turn from a pre-tabloid talk show Ricki Lake, an odd, odd cast (Debbie Harry and Jerry Stiller!), and a sweet, if slightly warped sensibility.
13. THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (Wes Anderson, 2001): Perhaps more moving a “comedy” than any other film on this list, the comic stuff tempers but never obscures the tragic stuff in Anderson’s endearingly quirky family portrait.
14. FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (David O. Russell, 1996): The closest the 90’s came to a true screwball comedy, it’s a riot packed with armpit licking, baby naming, last name-mispronunciation, and a surprisingly, successfully acidic Mary Tyler Moore.
15. HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971): “Has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage” went one of the original reviews and while not always a laugh riot, the film’s shaggy, disarming (and at times exceedingly black) humor never fails to make me smile.
16. A SERIOUS MAN (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009): From RAISING ARIZONA to THE BIG LEBOWSKI, the Coens earned their comedy stripes but this is their funniest effort, not to mention their most personal and possibly darkest film. It takes chutzpah to present a fully-formed philosophy summed up as “YOU CAN’T WIN” and find the hilarity in that.
17. OFFICE SPACE (Mike Judge, 1999): Taping into the slacker-cum-office drone zeitgeist, this cult classic would be only a wish fulfillment fantasy if it didn’t hit so uncomfortably close to home for so many.
18. TOOTSIE (Sydney Pollack, 1982): An insightful comedy that transcends its concept (and inevitable datedness), since it evokes a world of issues and ideas that encompasses more than the words, “Dustin Hoffman does drag.”
19. DUCK SOUP (Leo McCarey, 1933): For an act that came from the vaudeville tradition, The Marx Brothers must have seemed incredibly subversive in their cinematic heyday, and they still do today.
20. A NEW LEAF (Elaine May, 1971): Brilliant, not only for casting Walter Matthau as a priggish, trust fund cad or Elaine May directing herself as a proto-Shelley Duvall character, but also for May convincing Matthau to get so thoroughly soaked in the film’s outrageous finale.
21. ALL ABOUT EVE (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950): Packed with at least four iconic characters/performances and endlessly quotable, it’s possibly the funniest Best Picture Academy Award winner ever (and also one of the best, period.)
22. ALL OF ME (Carl Reiner, 1984): Lily Tomlin always brings her A-Game (see #8, #14, THE LATE SHOW, etc.) but here even she’s nearly outshined by Steve Martin whose graceful and deliriously silly physical dexterity practically invents Jim Carrey’s entire shtick on the spot.
23. THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (Sylvain Chomet, 2003): This very French animated feature is heavily indebted to silent silver screen clowns from Chaplin and Keaton to Tati, yet it’s one-of-a-kind: rarely has humor derived from the surreal or the grotesque seemed so charming.
24. THE IN-LAWS (Arthur Hiller, 1979): You wouldn’t think so on paper, but Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are an ideal mismatched duo to the point where they could’ve easily starred on a reboot of THE ODD COUPLE. Also, the Richard Libertini sequence makes me laugh harder than anything else I’ve ever seen (even AIRPLANE!)
25. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (Mike Cheslik, 2022): I’ve used the trope “like a live-action Warner Bros cartoon” many, many times, but no film has so fully lived up to such a description as this demented effort that, to quote and old tourism campaign, is truly Something Special from Wisconsin.
Jens Lekman’s epic new album Songs For Other People’s Weddings has me thinking about my own wedding. Twelve years ago today, Steve and I got married in an outdoor ceremony at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens near Boothbay Harbor. It’s one of our favorite places and seemed like the best possible space to exchange vows even if it meant some degree of travel for most of our fifty-odd guests.
Keeping the event intimate, rather than hiring a DJ or a band, we put together two iTunes playlists for the reception: the second one was for the dancefloor with all the usual suspects (“Dancing Queen”, “Groove Is In the Heart”, the then-new “Get Lucky”) along with a sprinkling of personal favorites like Calexico’s “Crystal Frontier (Widescreen Mix)”; more of the latter informed the first playlist which soundtracked our cocktail hour and dinner.
I know I printed out copies of both playlists but can’t find either of them now. Thus, I’ve recreated the first one below to the best of my memory. It has plenty of theme-appropriate love songs including one I put on my first mix CD for Steve (“I’ve Been Waiting”), a few long-beloved standards (“Time After Time”, “Not Enough Time”, “Then Came You”) and other classics that have become 21st century Gen-X friendly wedding reception staples (“This Must Be The Place”, “Friday I’m In Love”).
Such a mix would not be complete with some of our all-time favorite songs. Steve requested “A Message” and “Somewhere Only We Know”; I made sure there was room for “This Is The Day”, “Elevator Love Letter” and “I’d Rather Dance With You” (and also “Spanish Flea” for fun) and together we wanted “California Stars” and “Into the Mystic”. “Santa Fe” looked forward to our honeymoon, while the cover of “Just Like Heaven” that ends this playlist actually led off the second one as it is what we chose for our first dance.
I have so many memories of that evening (many of them increasingly blurry as it went by in such a whirlwind) but one of the happiest was sitting at the head table, my husband next to me, and the euphoric Saint Etienne song that gives this mix its title playing overhead. If I had rarely known happiness and bliss beforehand, I felt both sensations in full force all around me at that very moment.
Nothing Can Stop Us: Chris & Steve, 9/21/2013
The Cure, “Friday I’m In Love”
Aretha Franklin, “Baby, I Love You”
Cyndi Lauper, “Time After Time”
Ivy, “This Is The Day”
Beirut, “Santa Fe”
Kings of Convenience, “I’d Rather Dance With You”
Washed Out, “All I Know”
Kirsty MacColl, “In These Shoes?”
Florence + The Machine, “Cosmic Love”
Coldplay, “A Message”
Billy Bragg & Wilco, “California Stars”
Matthew Sweet, “I’ve Been Waiting”
Van Morrison, “Into The Mystic”
Talking Heads, “This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)”
The Spinners & Dionne Warwick, “Then Came You”
Saint Etienne, “Nothing Can Stop Us”
Luna, “Lovedust”
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, “Spanish Flea”
Pink Martini, “Hey Eugene!”
Michael Kiwanuka, “I’m Getting Ready”
Keane, “Somewhere Only We Know”
K.D. Lang & The Siss Boom Bang, “The Water’s Edge”
Round three includes a few records I’ve been meaning/waiting to hear for years (in some cases, decades) and others from years ago I hadn’t heard of until recently.
41. Charles Mingus, “Let My Children Hear Music” (1972): Late-period Mingus although you’d never guess since it’s as robust as early or prime-period Mingus (his artistry was that consistent.) The large ensemble allows his intricate arrangements to swell, and breathe, even on the recitation track.
42. Rosali, “No Medium” (2021): I’m far from the first to claim having trouble telling her voice apart from Aimee Mann’s in a blind test; how matter how uncanny the resemblance, her music is its own thing. Love how the acoustic opener gives little inclination to how electric and loud she can be.
43. Madonna, “Evita: The Complete Motion Picture Soundtrack” (1996): Just like JCS (the only Webber/Rice show I know well), the cheesiness gets by on its conviction & verve. An icon playing an icon requires a balancing act here steadied by the vulnerable catch in Madge’s vocals (trained or not.)
44. Bastille, “& (Ampersand)” (2024): Relatively stripped-down arrangements are most encouraging for a band so beholden to bombast & “Blue Sky & The Painter” proves Dan Smith hasn’t lost his knack for hooks (it’s this album’s “Pompeii”); the rest, while thoughtfully crafted tend to blur together.
45. The Auteurs, “After Murder Park” (1996): Third time not the charm as it pales somewhat compared to their first two. Blame Britpop oversaturation or just falling into formula although lyrics (“Unsolved Child Murder”) are still sharp, anticipating Haines’ next project more than the wan music.
46. ELO, “A New World Record” (1976): With such eccentric hit singles (“I’m TAKING / a DIVE!”), of course the deep cuts lean towards orchestral appropriations and operatic flourishes. Lynne could’ve sold out after “Evil Woman”; instead, he crafted a concise distillation of oddball pop, and it sold.
47. Marika Hackman, “Big Sigh” (2024): I can name numerous singers I like whom Hackman reminds me of but I’m not yet sure what distinguishes her from them. For example, Cassandra Jenkins could craft a blurry, sonic playground like “Vitamins” but would she title one of her catchiest songs “Slime”?
48. Don Armando’s 2nd Ave Rhumba Band, “Deputy of Love” (1979): See, disco can be campy *and* classy. This August Darnell production even quotes the “Bonanza” theme with some subtlety. Happily, there’s nothing restrained about the glorious cover of “I’m An Indian Too” from Annie Get Your Gun.
49. Echobelly, “Lustra” (1997): Follow-up to “On” (an all-time fave) didn’t get a US release at the time which tells you more about record co. hijinks than a dip in quality. While not as brisk or sparkly, Sonya Madan’s still in fine form with guitars occasionally edging closer to shoegaze bliss.
50. Liza Minnelli, “Results” (1989): Like Streisand & Barry Gibb a decade before, Liza & Pet Shop Boys mesh together beautifully covering Sondheim, Tikaram, Elliman and of course Tennant/Lowe (even if “Rent” retains more power when sung by a boy.) A gutsy experiment that shouldn’t work but does.
51. a.s.o., “a.s.o.” (2023): I dug trip-hop in the 90s & still love it now; the prospect of trying to recreate that sound has promise & I wouldn’t necessarily mistake this for Morcheeba, Portishead, etc. but it’s merely pleasant—a sonic bath agreeably wafting overhead but nothing that lingers on.
52. The Upsetters, “Return of the Super Ape” (1978): A massive sound that’s also most intimate with each percussive clang and ting nearly synchronizing with heavy basslines, its vocals alternately smooth like a calm breeze and as dense as a clogged drain. The reggae Kinks to the Wailers’ Beatles?
53. Original Cast Recording, “Operation Mincemeat” (2023): As I attempt to appreciate modern musicals more, this British WWII-set one is a prize, conforming to genre conventions & also slyly rewriting them, tempering period swing jazz with newer genres, accentuating story but never obscuring heart.
54. Jens Lekman & Annika Norlin, “CORRESPONDENCE” (2019): A year-long, two-way musical conversation between two Swedes. Mostly acoustic with some orchestral flourishes, he muses on endless beauty and badly-aged movies, she on cults and lengthy winters; they both find solace in each other’s words.
55. Hot Chocolate, “Cicero Park” (1974): Why is top 10 hit “Emma” forgotten but “You Sexy Thing” still gets played up the wazoo? Debut LP from these Brits is almost a Steely Dan informed by funk & soul rather than jazz & irony with nary a weak cut in the bunch—even the one called “Disco Lady” rocks.
56. Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily, “Love In Exile” (2023): Even though Aftab’s sinuous vocals naturally dominate, this is more a communion between the three artists than singer-with-backup. Often stretched out to nearly fifteen minutes, their “songs” develop into epic, freeform poems.
57. Dory Previn, “Dory Previn” (1974): Less noteworthy for her vocals than her point of view, she’s almost the Shelley Duvall of pop music except not necessarily eccentric; quirky, for sure—even her most conventional tunes emit perspective and feelings that are homegrown rather than manufactured.
58. Elton John, “The Fox” (1981): Not difficult to see why this flopped as it sounds like little else of its time (apart from the yacht rock of “Chloe”). Since the title track & “Breaking Down Barriers” could fit on any of his prime 70s albums, call this one ambitious, overreaching & underrated.
59. Foxing, “Nearer My God” (2018): If I were 15 years younger this could’ve hit me as directly upon release as Death Cab For Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” did. This is far more experimental and messier but after a few songs one admires their ever-widening scope and refusal to settle for less.
60. The Soundcarriers, “Celeste” (2010): Deftly aims for that precarious spot midway between The Doors & Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66: plenty of organs, flutes and mind-melting harmonies like a less bro-tastic Fleet Foxes. Somehow both cool & uncool in equal measure, deliberate anachronisms & all.
Honorable Mentions: Burn!, Coming Apart, The Magic Christian, My Night at Maud’s, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Sweet Charity
For My Watchlist: Age of Consent, Boy, Last Summer, Lions Love, The Milky Way, The Passion of Anna, The Sterile Cuckoo
*
That halcyon year before Covid, the theatre I worked at put on a “Summer of ‘69” series spotlighting some of that year’s chestnuts on their fiftieth anniversary (plus the documentary Woodstock, a thrill to take in on the big screen in all its split-screen glory.) As part of this series, for the first time I saw Medium Cool and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid; easy to see why the latter was a phenomenon although it felt a little creaky a half century on while the former was revelatory for its docu-fiction hybrid and Robert Forster’s presence. In this series, I also rewatched Midnight Cowboy, whose Best Picture win remains galvanizing—proof of how quickly the culture was changing—and Sweet Charity, flawed and mawkish but still containing three or four of the all-time best musical sequences in film.
However, Army of Shadows was an easy choice for the top slot. Not officially released in the US until 2006 (I first saw it then at the Kendall Square Cinema), this moody, minimalist account of French resistance fighters during World War II is still my favorite Jean-Pierre Melville film even if the Alain Delon-starring Le Samourai from two years before remains his most popular and iconic. Simone Signoret might have won an Oscar a decade earlier for Room At The Top but had this received a domestic release at the time, she should have been a shoo-in for another one.
Kes and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? were relatively recentdiscoveries as were Funeral Parade of Roses and Putney Swope though I had no qualms about rating the first two far higher than the others. Z, which originally required three separate viewings for me to stay awake through is one I’d love to revisit, ideally in a cinema. A very recent watch, Ken Russell’s currently non-streaming Women in Love (recorded off of TCM) is one of his best thanks in part to Glenda Jackson’s tremendous performance. Still, if you want the most accurate vision of what 1969 was really like, check out the Maysles brothers’ Salesman, a documentary about door-to-door bible hawkers that plays out like Death of a Salesman (minus the death) in real time.
I have my own reasons for each of my watchlist selections (Agnes Varda, Michael Powell’s obscure last film, one of Liza Minnelli’s first, etc.) and almost caught Last Summer when it appeared on TCM’s schedule a year or two ago but then either failed to record on my DVR or didn’t air at all. If the cable network ever gets really adventurous and screen Milton Moses Ginsberg’s Coming Apart (which I last saw decades ago in grad school with the director in attendance), I wouldn’t mind returning to this single-shot, Rip Torn-starring oddity.
1. The Lobster Pot in Provincetown, Mass. Commercial Street is unimaginable without its piercing red glow.
2. Deluxe Town Diner, Watertown, Mass. I lived a ten minute walk away in the early 2000’s and can still sense the delicate taste of their sweet potato pancakes.
3. Rosebud Bar & Kitchen, Davis Square, Somerville, Mass. Now the fancy front of a restaurant attached in the back, I ate this a few times back in the day when it was merely a diner (and the food was never as good as the Deluxe Town Diner’s.)
4. Bunghole Liquors, Salem, Mass. A favorite of weird-and-naughty-signs-aficionados far and wide.
5. Becky’s Diner, Portland, Maine. Not sure how vintage the arrow is, but it is undeniably beautiful.
6. Strand Theater, Rockland, Maine. I’ve never been inside but this sign is an exclamation point on this coastal city’s downtown strip.
7. Leon’s Frozen Custard, Milwaukee. I could write a whole essay on the frozen custard stands of my hometown. It’s probably the third-best in terms of taste but certainly number one in design.
8. Miller High Life, some random bar on Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View, Milwaukee. Of course it’s Milwaukee!
9. The General Store, Valley Junction, West Des Moines, Iowa. Spotted on one of my last visits when my parents lived there.
10. Duffy’s Cherry Cricket, Denver. Ate at a restaurant nearby on a visit a decade ago. Maybe I’ll check it out when I’m back there a few weeks from now.
11. Taos Inn, Taos, New Mexico. Probably my favorite neon sign of this group. Respect the eagle!
12. C.O. Bigelow Drugs, Manhattan. No trip to NYC for me is complete without a stop here.
13. Colony Theatre, Miami Beach. Have not seen inside and I fear it would not fully live up to this exterior, taken on a December Thursday evening.
14. Southern Cross Hotel, Key West. One doesn’t see so much yellow-greenish neon; it’s stunning.
15. Salsanera, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. This stopped me in my tracks on a visit nearly ten years ago; no way was I going to walk by without a snapshot of it.
Since coming up with my own list of 100 favorite films of this century to date, it’s inevitable I’d want to do the same for albums. During my 100 Albums project some years back, I said I’d never rank them, but those were all-time favorites to date; I can handle ranking a quarter century. Either way, I’ve included links to the 37 titles that were part of that project.
As for these rankings, like the film list, the top 30 or so is based on how I feel about each album right now—how much I return to it, how much I want to return to it. My number one in 2025 would have been the same in 2020, 2015 or 2010; the rest of the top ten is aligned with those periods as well, obviously apart from the entry that came out in 2023 and maybe Hometime, which I’ve always loved but whose presence in my life has grown exponentially in recent years (as did Riot On An Empty Street roughly a decade ago.) Rankings below #30 or so are even more intuitive although I was surprised to see Local Valley so high as it came in at a mere #7 on my top albums list of 2021.
As for metrics, four artists appear with three albums each (Sam Phillips, Saint Etienne, Kings of Convenience, Tracey Thorn—four for her if you count Fuse) and an additional thirteen have more than one slot. The most common years to appear are 2003 and 2004 when I was in my late 20s, writing for a music website and absorbing so much stuff. That more than half of these entries are from the 2000’s I can only chalk up to my age or perhaps having had more time to live with and retain them. Ideally, if I did this exercise in another 25 years for a half-century of music, the 2010’s and 2020’s would have just as much representation. Also, ask me to formulate another list like this in a year or two and don’t be surprised if it shifts all over the place.
Round two includes prog-rock, a contemporary cast recording, a porto-broadway hybrid, Tropicalia, and more.
21. Maria Somerville, “Luster” (2025): Gossamer, 1000-thread count dreampop is exactly what I need right now. Like a soothing rush, it comforts but occasionally startles, gracefully delving into realms one wouldn’t expect from a song’s first note, maintaining that thrill of discovery.
22. Stew, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (2009): Not extensively Shakespeare-skilled so I can’t say how well this suits the material but these generally lovely miniatures (both instrumental and not) are refreshing in light of his more labored post-“Passing Strange” theatrical efforts.
23. Neil Young, “Sleeps With Angels” (1994): “Safeway Cart” well utilized in Claire Denis’ “Beau Travail” & the rest is as good, sometimes better (“Piece of Crap” isn’t one.) Solid for a CD-length era LP which is impressive considering the man’s, well, lack of consistency post-1979.
24. Aztec Camera, “High Land, Hard Rain” (1983): Frame’s fresh-facedness is his greatest asset but also a potential curse if he ever threatens to turn dour (unlike, say, Jens Lekman who can pull this off.) Crisp tunefulness abounds; at worst, it’s samey over the course of a full LP.
25. Al Stewart, “Modern Times” (1975): The closing title track anticipates his two big hits (title tracks of his next two albums) but the whole LP reminds one he has so many gems beyond those hits. Whether quoting Vonnegut or Marvin Gaye, his heart’s always in it which counts a lot.
26. King Crimson, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” (1969): Neither put off nor enchanted by much prog-rock, I appreciate the skill and creativity of this admittedly seminal work although it doesn’t move me much. “Moonchild” gets a bit lost but the rest exudes dynamism; vision, even.
27. Original Broadway Cast Recording, “Hadestown” (2019): Much to digest in this musical adaptation of the Orpheus myth but the momentum rarely flags and it doesn’t lose the plot. Perhaps some cringey musical theatre tropes but Anais Mitchell’s melodic dexterity often overcomes them.
28. Rob Dickinson, “Fresh Wine For The Horses” (2008): Wouldn’t swap any Catherine Wheel LP out for this (except maybe the last one). Still in great voice even if the tempo’s too mid (among other things.) Predictably, he sounds most comfortable when the guitars are loud (“Handsome”).
29. Eddie Gale, “Ghetto Music” (1968): Hypnotic “The Rain” should be a standard if it isn’t considered one already; the rest is a cohesion of rumbling & clanking percussion, horns and soulful vocals. Creates a singular, haunted vibe, as if Coltrane had eschewed cacophony and also lived.
30. Eddie Chacon, “Pleasure, Joy and Happiness” (2020): Low-fi, low-key soul, perhaps recorded in (as opposed to for) someone’s bedroom. Concise & a bit slippery, a single listen plants a seed for another five or ten, not to pick up on something missed but to detect all of its nuance.
31. Hiss Golden Messenger, “Quietly Blowing It” (2021): MC Taylor can’t help it if his voice heavily resembles 1970s Dylan but I wouldn’t call this cosplay, exactly when the arrangements are more Van Morrison-ish. Happily, the melodies are strong enough to serve as the focal points.
32. Ennio Morricone, “Ad Ogni Costo” (1967): The *bonkers* main theme moved me to check out the rest of this score, which isn’t nearly as wild (particularly once it moves into “Black Orpheus” territory); still want to see the film to reconcile it with star Janet Leigh’s (!) presence.
33. Bon Iver, “SABLE, fABLE” (2025): I gave up on him when he could no longer string together comprehensible song titles but the first “disc” is a deliberate reminder of why his debut endures; the rest is a less pretentious Coldplay which is preferable to a less douchey John Mayer.
34. MF DOOM, “Operation: Doomsday” (1999): Wouldn’t it be grand if 100 years from now this is what hip-hop scholars studied rather than Drake? Although I wonder if Gen-Z and beyond will get all the junky old cartoon references: “Hey!” is infinitely funnier if you know what it samples.
35. Gordon Jenkins, “Manhattan Tower/California (The Golden State)” (1946): Broadway-style vignettes strung together in suites resembling proto-LP “sides”. Obviously ancient to modern ears but not without ingenuity or even a little satire which leavens the cornier stylistic touches.
36. Caetano Veloso, “Transa” (1972): Talk about a voice that just commands attention, rendering all else near superfluous. Not devaluing the music, though: lithe and intuitive, it’s somehow intimate *and* expansive. This makes me want to delve much deeper into Tropicalia for sure.
37. They Might Be Giants, “Cast Your Pod To The Wind” (2007): Bonus disc with 12th LP “The Else”. Clever title, cleverer tunes (as usual). More of a throwback to the earlier stuff which is always welcome. Uneven, but whenever it lands a hook, you marvel at how simple they make it look.
38. A.R. Kane, “69” (1988): Starts as proto trip-hop, then the titles get weird (“Baby Milk Snatcher”) & the music gets weirder: it’s nearly psychedelia but not exactly how you’d usually describe that genre. Not easy on the ears, but not unpleasant; like unearthing a lost corridor.
39. Marvin Gaye, “Here, My Dear” (1978): D-I-V-O-R-C-E rarely sounds this F-U-N-K-Y. The divine “Is That Enough” at almost 8 minutes could even go on longer. Maybe this didn’t need to be a double LP but my attention rarely drifted and “A Funky Space Reincarnation” is all that & more.
40. Mercury Rev, “Deserter’s Songs” (1998): You don’t often hear this much whimsy in rock (if you can even call it that.) Mewling vocals, tricky time signatures, instrumental passages, occasional misdirection—it’s an acquired taste although I feel like applauding the effort anyway.
Haunted Jukebox 