I’ve often heard my birth year described as the absolute nadir of the 1970s: after all, the year’s top-selling US single was The Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”, as deathless an encapsulation of mid-seventies kitsch as one could imagine. Easy listening, in addition to prog-rock and earnest singer/songwriter stuff seemed to dominate. Punk and new wave were still a year or two off from creating seismic change (in the UK, at least.)
Still, scanning through this year’s number-one singles, look beyond the likes of Olivia Newton John, John Denver, Barry Manilow, etc. and you’ll find imperial phase Elton John (for good (“Philadelphia Freedom”) and for ill (his pointless Beatles cover)), Earth, Wind and Fire (somehow their only Hot 100 number-one) and even David Bowie (with help from arguably the coolest Beatle.)
You also have The Bee Gees thrillingly reinventing themselves with “Jive Talkin’”, reflecting how disco, not yet entirely dominant, started seeping into the mainstream. This mix’s first third is made for dancing, bouncing between instrumental funk (Average White Band–the number one song when I was born), orchestral splendor (ELO) and pure camp (Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes). It shows how disco gradually spread across the globe, from Philly (The Spinners) to Miami (KC and the Sunshine Band) and over to Munich, with Silver Convention’s remedial but transcendent simplicity setting the stage for Donna Summer’s 16-minute-long orgasmic aria, truly like nothing preceding it in the clubs or on the charts.
Perhaps another innovative single, 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” evokes the era more vividly, its watery electric piano and overdubbed expressionist vocals suffusing the air like pea soup; both its era-specificity and peculiarity anticipate the weird assortment of songs that follow. On one hand, the artists everyone knows: Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Heart, Steely Dan (albeit with an (admittedly catchy) album track about a pedophile!); on the other, the cultish stuff my contemporaries will lionize decades later—Sparks, Roxy Music, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and even some proto-punk/new wave stuff like Patti Smith and Brian Eno.
Going forward, these annual playlists will feature at least thirty songs and occasionally a few more if I can’t justify leaving anything off.
1975: Such A Crazy High
Average White Band, “Pick Up The Pieces”
Silver Convention, “Fly Robin Fly”
Earth, Wind & Fire, “Shining Star”
LaBelle, “Lady Marmalade”
Bee Gees, “Jive Talkin’”
Disco Tex and His Sex-O-lettes, “Get Dancin’ (Part 1)”
KC & The Sunshine Band, “That’s The Way (I Like It)”
Donna Summer, “Love To Love You Baby”
Electric Light Orchestra, “Evil Woman”
The Spinners, “They Just Can’t Stop It The (Games People Play)”
Dionne Warwick, “Once You Hit The Road”
Elton John, “Philadelphia Freedom”
Shirley & Company, “Shame, Shame, Shame”
David Bowie, “Fame”
10cc, “I’m Not In Love”
War, “Low Rider”
Paul Simon, “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
ABBA, “Hey, Hey Helen”
Joni Mitchell, “Edith and the Kingpin”
Fleetwood Mac, “Say You Love Me”
Tim Curry, “Sweet Transvestite”
Sparks, “Looks, Looks, Looks”
Teach In, “Ding-A-Dong”
Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”
Steely Dan, “Everyone’s Gone To The Movies”
Patti Smith, “Gloria: In Excelsis Deo”
Brian Eno, “The Big Ship”
Heart, “Crazy On You”
Roxy Music, “Just Another High”
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”
Courtesy of The Criterion Channel, I kicked off 2023 re-watching everything Mike Leigh directed up through Four Days In July (except for the presently unstreamable Bleak Moments) and concluded the year viewing every feature and short directed by Hal Hartley up through Henry Fool. In between, I saw lots of good stuff for the first time; here are my ten favorites.
1. STARTING OVER
As late-70s divorce films go, there are Kramer Vs. Kramer people and Starting Over people; count me as one of the latter. As a Boston-shot-and-set movie from this era, it’s even better than Between The Lines. Also, you have Burt Reynolds at his best (imagine if he chose to make more intelligent rom-coms like this!), the always engaging Jill Clayburgh and of course a hilarious Candice Bergen, truly “Better Than Ever” (at least until Murphy Brown.)
2. THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW
Even “minor” Douglas Sirk is pretty great because he just can’t resist a shot of three creepy clown dolls seconds after the opening credits or dialogue like “It’s just so incredibly atomic!” or weird framing such as placing that unsettling little robot (“Rex”) in the left foreground while relegating star Fred MacMurray to the back. If this were in Technicolor instead of black-and-white it might be as celebrated as All That Heaven Allows.
3. UNFORGIVEN
My attempt to see every single Academy Award Best Picture winner continued this year, with this one from 1992 by far the most revelatory of those I watched. As someone who has often admired but rarely loved Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker, “We all got it coming, kid” is a more vulnerable and profound conclusion than I would have ever expected from him. A revisionist Western nearly up there with McCabe & Ms. Miller, no less.
4. THE WAGES OF FEAR
Obviously no one ever told Mario (Yves Montand) (or his pal Luigi (Folco Lulli), LOL) about that old adage, “You Can’t Win.” A thriller barely surpassed in thrills and mounting intensity. Also, perhaps the best movie without a score until The Birds. William Friedkin’s (RIP) 1977 pseudo-remake Sorcerer is near the top of my watchlist, though I’m holding out for a theatrical screening.
5. THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
Victor Erice’s memory piece should resonate for those who recall childhood as something approaching a fever dream—it may appear ordinary on the surface, but it teems with mystery and engages in the act of discovery. The kids attending a screening of the 1931 Frankenstein is up there with all-time great scenes of characters in movies watching other movies.
6. THE RIGHT STUFF
Maybe the best film about space travel after 2001: A Space Odyssey? Apart from sections of the score, it might’ve been made yesterday. Of the impressive ensemble and appearances by everyone from Lance Henriksen to Jeff Goldblum, it was most surprising to see how charismatic a young Dennis Quaid was—he lights up every scene he’s in and I can’t help but think his career subsequently did not live up to this potential.
7. MABOROSI
The title translates as “a trick of the light”, which Hirokazu Kore-eda already depicts masterfully in his first narrative feature. The subject matter’s not dissimilar to his subsequent films even if it’s comparatively opaque. Still, the visual language he uses to propel it forward is so inventive and intuitive I hope I can see it in a cinema one day.
8. VIRIDIANA
Often entertained but rarely moved by many of his films, Luis Buñuel hits the bullseye on this one—even if the moral now seems quaint, the audacity with how sinuously he blends the comic with the horrific to arrive at it still startles. As a lapsed Catholic myself, I felt both reverence at his depiction of religious iconicity and the wicked glee with which he masterfully dismantles it.
9. HEAT
In Michael Mann’s more-revered-with-each-passing-year crime epic, Robert De Niro’s rare stoicism beautifully balances out Al Pacino’s fervent (if inspired) outbursts while Val Kilmer’s groundwork eventually reveals itself as a life-force when he finally flashes that million-dollar smile near the end. A world I would never want to physically exist in but am happy to witness from the other side of the screen.
10. IVANS XTC.
Barely released at the time and long since unavailable, this early digitally-shot feature now plays like an immediate precursor to Mulholland Drive without much of the Lynchian weirdness but all of the gimlet-eyed perception of modern Hollywood. An Academy Award for a tremendous Danny Huston would’ve been much, much more satisfying than the two given to Russell Crowe around this time.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
All The King’s Men (1949)
Black Girl
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Catch Me If You Can
Deep End
Hour of the Wolf
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Lady Macbeth
Rachel, Rachel
The Third Generation
Tricia’s Wedding
Unbreakable
Trust
BEST REWATCHES (not including anything for 24 Frames):
When asking what the absolute worst era for music actually was, most Boomers and Gen-X-ers will probably answer the 1970s and the early 70s in particular. A time immediately predating me, I have no authority on what it was really like or how things turned so… brown coming out of the comparatively Day-Glo 1960s. Browsing through a list of the era’s number one hits, one finds support to back up this notion: “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree”, “The Candy Man”, “My Ding-A-Ling”—all easy targets for sure, but don’t forget when bad hits happened to good people like Paul McCartney’s putrid “My Love”. On the other hand, “It’s Too Late”, “You’re So Vain”, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” and Macca’s own “Band On The Run” also topped the charts. No matter the era or the year (as we’ll see here), there was always plenty of excellent pop music to go with all the bad stuff.
Scan through the following list of fifty songs and you’ll see there’s a lot going on: the golden age of the singer/songwriter with figures as disparate as Randy Newman, Todd Rundgren and Cat Stevens; the last great gasps of Top 40 AM radio (The Fortunes, George Baker Selection); truly new sounds from other lands (CAN’s krautrock, the peculiar, Polish vocalese of the Novi Singers); psychedelic hangovers (the Martyn’s, Linda Perhacs); perennial, titanic figures at their peaks (Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Elton John, Paul Simon); UK glam-pop (T. Rex, Sweet) and UK art-rock (Pink Floyd, Roxy Music and their ex-member Brian Eno.)
Arguably, the creative leaps in music made by African-American artists most crucially defines this period. While Dionne Warwick and James Brown each push their aesthetic (baroque pop-soul and relentless funk, respectively) as far as they reasonably can, an upstart such as Gil Scott-Heron heavily anticipates hip-hop, another like Bill Withers writes songs rivaling Newman’s own and Curtis Mayfield, a relative veteran redefines the times by singing explicitly of them. The Pointer Sisters recontextualize the past for the present, The Fifth Dimension convey how sophisticated the latter could be and Barry White and Gladys Knight & The Pips thrillingly look ahead towards what would later become disco.
All that and novelties (Redbone), Broadway (Pippin), the rock movie musical (Paul Williams, more convincing there than as a singer-songwriter) and of course, the inaugural international smash from Eurovision-winning ABBA, whom we’ll see plenty of in the next couple of years. We officially begin next week with 1975!
1970-74: Keep On Keepin’ On
Al Stewart, “A Small Fruit Song”
Rodriguez, “Crucify Your Mind”
Novi Singers, “Torpedo”
John Martyn & Beverly Martyn, “Auntie Aviator”
George Baker Selection, “Little Green Bag”
Tom Jones, “Daughter of Darkness”
Linda Perhacs, “Parallelograms”
Van Morrison, “Into The Mystic”
George Harrison, “What Is Life”
Randy Newman, “Have You Seen My Baby?”
Cat Stevens, “Don’t Be Shy”
Harry Nilsson, “Jump Into The Fire”
Redbone, “The Witch Queen Of New Orleans”
Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Bill Withers, “Harlem”
Serge Gainsbourg, “Melody”
Dionne Warwick, “Amanda”
James Brown, “Hot Pants”
The Fortunes, “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again”
The Who, “My Wife”
Ben Vereen/Pippin Original Cast, “Magic To Do”
Big Star, “The Ballad of El Goodo”
CAN, “Spoon”
Carly Simon, “You’re So Vain”
Curtis Mayfield, “Superfly”
The Fifth Dimension, “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All”
Paul Simon, “Mother and Child Reunion”
Lou Reed, “Satellite of Love”
T. Rex, “Telegram Sam”
Todd Rundgren, “I Saw The Light”
Barry White, “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Babe”
Bryan Ferry, “A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall”
Elton John, “Grey Seal”
Gladys Knight & The Pips, “I’ve Got To Use My Imagination”
Sweet, “Little Willy”
The Pointer Sisters, “Yes We Can Can”
Stevie Wonder, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing”
John Cale, “Paris 1919”
Pink Floyd, “The Great Gig In The Sky”
Al Green, “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”
ABBA, “Waterloo”
Brian Eno, “Mother Whale Eyeless”
Steely Dan, “Any Major Dude Will Tell You”
Richard & Linda Thompson, “I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight”
Throughout this blog, I’ve posted annual playlists, at first in accordance with my 100 Albums project (from 1990-on), then rather haphazardly filling in the gaps. Last year, I deleted them all; in 2024, I’ll be posting new, improved versions of them every Sunday in chronological order from my birth year (1975) until the present.
I originally intended to go all the way back to 1965 when the Beatles’ influence fully gelled and pop music evolved into something that one could easily differentiate from early rock and roll, doo-wop, and everything else that came before. Instead, I’m sticking with my own timeline, but preceding it with two playlists each covering a five-year period featuring roughly ten songs from every year (again, in chronological order.)
I’m uncertain as to how comprehensively one can sum up a single year in ten songs, so the only ground rule I implemented below was one song per artist. I’ve selected beloved tracks from all-time favorites (Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, The Velvet Underground, Stevie Wonder), glorious one-shots (We Five, The Darlettes, Margo Guryan, Mason Williams) and songs that more or less begat seismic shifts in what pop music could be (James Brown’s rhythm-forward soul, The Mothers of Invention practically inventing psych-rock and The Beatles perfecting it, Desmond Dekker importing first-wave ska to the rest of the world.) Subsequent playlists will see examples of all three categories.
Over this particular five-year period, one can detect some evolving trends: although both were ostensibly conceived of as mood-music, there’s a world of difference between something like “Spanish Flea” and “69 année érotique”; similarly, The Miracles and The Supremes represent one golden mean of soul-pop, while Sly & The Family Stone and Dusty Springfield (in Memphis) each exemplify vastly different ones. In later years, there’s as much of a push to innovate via prog (“One Way Glass”), tropicália (“A Minha Menina”) and whatever swamp-rock “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” is as there’s one to comfort via the good ol’ bubblegum of “Sugar Sugar” and “Quick Joey Small”. Still, 1969’s “Space Oddity” is deliberately placed at the end as a bridge between explaining what the 1960s did to pop culture and anticipating what the next decade might achieve.
Check back next week for a companion playlist for 1970-74!
1965-69: Watch Out, The World’s Behind You
Marvin Gaye, “Ain’t That Peculiar”
James Brown, “Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag”
Dionne Warwick, “Are You There (With Another Girl)”
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, “Spanish Flea”
Tom Lehrer, “The Vatican Rag”
We Five, “You Were On My Mind”
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, “The Tracks of My Tears”
The Darlettes, “Lost”
Unit 4 + 2, “Concrete & Clay”
Vince Guaraldi Trio, “Linus and Lucy”
The Mothers of Invention, “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”
The Beatles, “She Said She Said”
Lou Christie, “Trapeze”
Nancy Sinatra, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”
The Rolling Stones, “Under My Thumb”
Nina Simone, “Four Women”
Simon & Garfunkel, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”
The Supremes, “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
The Temptations, “(I Know) I’m Losing You”
Norma Tanega, “You’re Dead”
Cat Stevens, “Matthew & Son”
The Free Design, “I Found Love”
The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset”
The Monkees, “For Pete’s Sake”
Scott Walker, “Montague Terrace (In Blue)”
The Who, “Pictures of Lily”
Lulu, “To Sir With Love”
The Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”
The Zombies, “This Will Be Our Year”
Dr. John, “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya”
Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, “Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)”
My ten favorite new-ish books I read in 2023 (unranked; in alphabetical order by author’s last name):
Maria Bamford, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult
She’s such a singular comedian and presence that you go into it hoping it’ll fully capture that voice on the page; it does, even if I almost wish I waited for the audiobook. Still, her delivery’s only a facet of what makes her so unique. While early on, she emphasizes that this parody of self-help books is indeed a parody, it’s not totally lacking in useful advice—a tightrope where she balances laughs and their not-so-funny origins effortlessly, just as she does in much of her standup work.
Emma Cline, The Guest
Cline’s second novel is as composed, subtle and biting as any fiction Joan Didion (see below) ever wrote, even if it’s decidedly of today rather than any kind of throwback or homage. Her titular protagonist, a directionless Millennial sponging off of anyone she can find (or trick into aiding her) comes off as a more serious version as one of the characters on the great, late TV series Search Party; Cline’s also shrewd enough to lace some dark humor within her thriller structure.
A.M. Homes, The Unfolding
I’ve been waiting nearly a decade for Homes (May We Be Forgiven) to release another novel. I can’t say I was expecting this, a relatively compact what-if about the machinations of a network of conservatives planning to “take back America” after the first Obama election; however, I was not surprised to discover how humane and complex she renders these indefensible characters, presenting an extensive understanding of how they got where they are without at all excusing them for their actions.
Evelyn McDonnell, The World According to Joan Didion
Even more compact, McDonnell sidesteps the usual biographical doorstop for something more closely resembling a critical work about her subject, partially in the way Rob Sheffield did a few years ago for The Beatles. What Didion means to McDonnell and, more significantly to the culture she reported on and invited her readers to view through an ever-distinct lens is what drives these reflections and observations; it was enough to make me want to revisit Slouching Towards Bethlehem immediately.
Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
This Irish author’s long-awaited fourth novel is nearly his longest, definitely most ambitious and possibly darkest (a real feat coming from the guy best known for Skippy Dies.) Yes, it’s an epic tome about a dysfunctional family but one where it really does take 600+ pages to peel back all of its layers and arrive at an expertly detailed comprehension of where everything went wrong and the weight of what would be lost if it were to end tragically. Murray’s prose here can be frustrating in its lack of compromise but also admirable for that same reason.
Alex Pappademas and Joan Le May, Quantum Criminals
Not every band warrants a book about them, but one as popular and simultaneously cultish and divisive as Steely Dan surely does. This picks apart their distinct jazz-pop and personal history via short chapters about characters populating their tunes (like “Deacon Blues”, “Peg” and “Josie”, for starters) and the other characters who wrote and performed them: Donald, Walter and a revolving cast of bandmates, session musicians and influential figures. With Le May’s drawings enhancing Pappademas’ insightful prose, it’s a hoot if you’re a fan and might even convert those few listeners on the fence.
Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
Patchett’s latest is another novel whose ambitious structure consists of a series of gradually revealed puzzle pieces where their assemblage is as intriguing as the complete picture they eventually form. As the narrator relays a story from her past as a summer stock actress to her three daughters on their family farm during Covid lockdown, Patchett maintains the momentum of these parallel narratives with a deft hand while also exploring the notion of performance, both onstage and off.
Ian Penman, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors
I’ve been looking for a new book (or any old one, for that matter) on New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder for some time. Penman’s short but still bountiful mosaic of essays (some of them a sentence or two long) is a new way of viewing this iconoclast: it considers how an artist’s dense body of work (in this case, 40-odd films over a 13 year period) lives on decades after his death and continues to reveal new facets and contexts to those revisiting or for the first time discovering them.
Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars
Just when you think you didn’t need another book about the Academy Awards, this TheNew Yorker contributor comes out with perhaps the best one on them, or at least the most entertaining and relevant as the institution reaches its century mark. Focusing on about a dozen of the most notable editions (Midnight Cowboy’s win, the Snow White/Rob Lowe disaster, the La La Land/Moonlight mixup), it’s a fizzy read acknowledging the utter ridiculous of the Oscars while also making the case for their continued relevance.
Matt Singer, Opposable Thumbs
In all of its iterations, Siskel & Ebert was both a fun watch and innovative in transforming how we consume cinema and connect with others in talking about it. This book shows that what transpired behind the scenes was just as compelling as the show itself. It seems so simple now, the notion of placing two highly competitive critics, both with outsized personalities in a room together and giving them free reign to argue about movies (and everything else.) Singer reveals the whole story in a compulsively readable account recommended for both film and TV enthusiasts.
Here’s my complete 2023 Booklist, with titles in chronological order of when I finished reading them (starred entries are books I’ve re-read):
Douglas Coupland, Binge
Ramzy Alwakeel, How We Used Saint Etienne To Live
Warren Ellis, Nina Simone’s Gum
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Paul Murray, The Mark and The Void*
George Saunders, Liberation Day
Larry Widen and Judi Anderson, Silver Screens: A Pictorial History of Milwaukee’s Movie Theaters
David Mitchell, Number 9 Dream
Eve Babitz, Eve’s Hollywood
Matthew Horton, George Michael’s Faith (33 1/3 series)
Andrew Sean Greer, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
David Sheppard, On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno*
Tim Blanchard, Like Magic In The Streets
Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
Shawn Levy, In On The Joke
Craig Brown, 150 Glimpses of The Beatles
Hanya Yanagihara, To Paradise
Michael Schulman, Oscar Wars
Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos*
Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women
Charles Bramesco, Colors of Film
Joseph Lanza, Easy Listening Acid Trip
Ian Penman, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors
Emma Cline, The Guest
Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile
Donna Tartt, The Little Friend
Kent Jones (ed.), Olivier Assayas
Ted Gioia, Music: A Subversive History
Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself*
Pauline Kael, The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of…
Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero Of This Book
Geoff Dyer, Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It
Tracey Thorn, Bedsit Disco Queen*
Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land
Adam Levin, Kodachrome Milwaukee
Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy
Alex Pappademas and Joan Le May, Quantum Criminals
Mike Doughty, I Die Each Time I Hear The Sound
John Hodgman, Vacationland*
A.M. Homes, The Unfolding
Joshua Ferris, A Calling For Charlie Barnes
Sara Gruen, Water For Elephants
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn
Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
Sam Wasson and Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: An Oral History
David Wondrich, Imbibe!
Dale Peck, The Garden of Lost and Found*
Judd Apatow, Sicker In The Head
Guy Maddin, My Winnipeg*
Kenneth Womack, Solid State
Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
Maria Bamford, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult
Don Lee, Lonesome Lies Before Us
Matt Singer, Opposable Thumbs
Stanley Elkin, Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers
Werner Herzog, Every Man For Himself and God Against All
Evelyn McDonnell, The World According to Joan Didion
Growing up, my parents and I revisited a canon of classic Christmas movies every year: The Bishop’s Wife featuring Cary Grant at the peak of his ineffable charm; Miracle on 34th Street with Edmund Gwenn’s archetypical Santa Claus and nine-year-old Natalie Wood giving her contemporary child actors a run for their money; Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s, both starring Bing Crosby as a cool priest and in the latter sequel, Ingrid Bergman as his nun counterpart; It’s A Wonderful Life, its first three-quarters seemingly interminable to a child until George Bailey wishes he’d never been born and the rest is pure magic that director Frank Capra, James Stewart and Henry Travers (as Clarence the Angel) all sell the heck out of.
The three of us found a new holiday classic via A Christmas Story during its original 1983 theatrical run. In witnessing little Ralphie’s exhaustive efforts to ask for a Red Ryder BB Gun in 1940s Indiana (including the frozen pole licking, copious Bumpus hounds, an alarming department store Santa and his cranky helper elves, etc.), I don’t think my parents or I had ever laughed so much at the movies. An adaptation of humorist Jean Shepherd’s book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, the film was only a minor box office hit (although I recall many commercials for it airing at the time.) The following year, we saw it again at the second-run Times Cinema on Vliet St. It was as riotously funny to us as the first time. A year later, after cable TV finally came to Milwaukee, seemingly everyone had seen the film. At a holiday party that year, numerous kids remarked to bespectacled me, “You look just like that kid from A Christmas Story!”
I can credit Ralphie and company for a newfound desire to find more holiday films to love. When I was 9, my mom and I attempted to watch every version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol we could see, from the 1938 edition with Reginald Owen to the then-new, made-for-TV one starring George C. Scott (I wonder if I could watch it today without thinking of his performances in Dr. Strangelove or Hardcore.) At the time, I enjoyed the novelty of 1970’s Scrooge, a musical adaptation with Albert Finney; revisiting it last year, it’s still a fizzy take on the oft-told legend with a terrific score, even if the Christmas Future sequence where Scrooge essentially goes to Hell is trippy, cheesy and very much of its time. The 1951 version still has the best Ebenezer, Alistair Sim even if his partial resemblance to Klaus Kinski makes me long for the Werner Herzog version of this story that never was.
Of all of my parents’ beloved holiday perennials, their favorite, 1942’s Holiday Inn, pairs Crosby with Fred Astaire. The former plays a New York City entertainer who retreats to the Connecticut countryside, opening a hotel/nightclub that only operates on holidays; it primarily exists as a vehicle for a selection of seasonally themed Irving Berlin compositions including the debut of what is often cited as the best-selling single of all time, “White Christmas”. My folks usually waited to watch it on Christmas Eve after I had gone to bed. By my teenage years, I began accompanying them, first viewing it on a VHS tape recorded from an airing on local independent WVTV Channel 18, then on a store-bought cassette and eventually on DVD. It soon became one of my favorites, seen so many times that I could probably recite all of its dialogue today. It hasn’t aged entirely well (gratuitous blackface number alert!) and some of the holidays celebrated are a stretch (George Washington’s Birthday?) but those Christmas (and New Year’s Eve) scenes are evergreens. The 1954 sequel titled White Christmas (duh) substitutes an absent Astaire with Danny Kaye; it’s fine but not nearly as affecting as its predecessor.
Apart from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (one of my husband’s favorites), Tim Burton’s and Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (not a Halloween film!) and It Happened On Fifth Avenue (a hidden gem from 1947 about a benevolent bum and the kindness of strangers), as an adult I didn’t much seek out other holiday classics (despite no shortage of new ones via The Hallmark Channel) until the pandemic hit three years ago. With time on our hands and the world of streaming at our fingertips, we found a few worthy new candidates for the canon: Remember The Night, written by Preston Sturges and teaming up Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck (a few years before Double Indemnity) and Holiday Affair, a sort-of-comic noir with Robert Mitchum and a young Janet Leigh. However, the Christmas film I’ve grown to love most in the past decade is Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around The Corner from 1940 with Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as two employees in a Budapest gift shop. Sharp and tender in equal measures, its stellar last twenty minutes is what all romances, comedies and romantic comedies should aspire to be.
In putting together the list below, I considered some excellent Christmas-adjacent titles like The Apartment, Carol, Holiday, Tangerine and Catch Me If You Can. In the end, I selected only films that I felt compelled to actually watch at Christmas and not any other time of year. I did make room for this year’s The Holdovers, which doesn’t entirely comply to these rules (I first saw it in September at TIFF and the time of year did not alter my enjoyment of it); still, it already exudes enough of that elemental seasonal spirit to earn its place here.
Gryner purposely set out to make a “Yacht-Rock”-inspired record and fully understood the assignment, working with veterans of the constituted-after-the-fact genre (more of a feeling, really) and constructing songs harkening back to another era while somehow remaining contemporary in their outlook (more like timeless, actually.) So, if “Loose Wig” and “Burn The Boats” recall Steely Dan, and “Jack” is in sync with Toto and “The Chance” references Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like The Wind”, her resilience and the newfound joy her craft exudes prevents them from serving as mere homages; as a matter-of-fact, they also sound like Emm Gryner songs—melodic, inviting, yearning and effervescent.
4. Romy, Mid-Air
I was hoping for a good debut solo album from this vocalist of The xx but honestly wasn’t expecting one this good: diving headfirst into electronic dance music (particularly diva house), she manages to sound cool, calm and collected as ever while simultaneously like she’s having the time of her life. Full of paeans to same-sex lust and love, it also liberates her from her past poker-faced ambiguity. On “Enjoy Your Life”, she turns a basic three-word cliche into a code to live by and in turn, a means of salvation, while on the insistent “She’s On My Mind”, her declarations of desire blossom, build and gradually turn euphoric.
3. The Clientele, I Am Not There Anymore
I fell in love with this mostly-active-in-the-00’s indie British trio on their 2017 return, Music For The Age of Miracles, which became of one my favorites of that decade. On this follow up, they reprise their trademark autumnal chamber pop but suffuse it with more instrumental segues and spoken-word tone poems and even some subtle electronics. Stunning opener “Fables Of The Silverlink” serves as an overture with melodies and motifs reappearing throughout the rest of the album, which soon emerges as a complex, hour-long song cycle about childhood memory and infringing mortality. If that sounds intimidating and arty, it’s just as often embracing as on the crisp, clear pop of “Blue Over Blue” or the absorbing, Middle Eastern-accented “Dying In May”.
2. Everything But The Girl, Fuse
Sonically, this picks right up where their last record, 1999’s Temperamental left off, but only to a point. In the interim, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn both released multiple solo efforts, some of them pretty accomplished ones, so it follows that this return conveys maturity and wisdom gleaned since then. Although predominantly electronic, these ten songs are encouragingly evolutionary, alternating bangers like “Nothing Left To Lose” and “Caution to The Wind” with more atmospheric, delicate stuff such as “Run A Red Light” with its enthralling sense of space and reverberating piano chords. Thorn’s vocals are also occasionally adjusted and enhanced, revealing new shadings as applied to lyrics charting the passage of time and a tenuous future—perhaps, not so tenuous; is this the beginning of a superb second act?
1. Corinne Bailey Rae, Black Rainbows
Best known for her 2006 hit “Put Your Records On”, this Brit’s released only three more albums since that year’s self-titled debut; each one has revealed depth and exhibited growth beyond that pleasant single but her first effort in seven years is something else. Expertly swerving between genres and tones, it’s a tour de force whether essaying Afro-futurism (“Earthlings” beats early Janelle Monae at her own game), heavy, insistent thrash rock (!) (“Erasure”, “New York Transit Queen”), Laura Nyro-esque balladry (!!) (“Peach Velvet Sky”), creeping exotica that turns on a dime into Prince-worthy psychedelia (“He Will Follow You With His Eyes”) or a heady, multipart groove workout (“Put It Down”). Inspired by her residency at Chicago’s Stony Island Arts Bank, Black Rainbows is unwavering in ambition and breathtaking in scope. Although very much its own thing, taking it all in, I can’t help but compare it to another groundbreaking fourth album by one of my favorite artists (whom I could even imagine covering the crystalline “Red Horse”.)
If ever an act was perfectly positioned for a victory lap, it’s the venerable duo of Russell and Ron Mael, more in the spotlight than ever thanks to Edgar Wright’s documentary about them and their divisive musical film Annette. It also doesn’t hurt that this delectably-titled 25th (!) studio album catalogs all of their strengths while continuing to reveal new hues in their art-pop palette, including the anthemic (and typically snarky) “Nothing As Is Good As They Say It Is” and also “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”, a lovely summation of the brothers’ philosophy without the snark. Maybe their best since Lil’ Beethoven?
9. Robert Forster, The Candle and The Flame
Forster’s fourth album since Grant McLennan (his partner in The Go-Betweens) passed is his quietest and most domestic-focused, even if all of it apart from opener “She’s A Fighter” preceded his wife’s cancer diagnosis (update: she’s still fighting it.) One expects such maturity and taking stock from a 65-year-old, although Forster was already doing so (rather brilliantly) nearly twenty years ago on Oceans Apart. These nine observations are all of a piece, but “Tender Years” is the key: “See how far we’ve come”, he poignantly sings, and he’s earned the gravitas for it to really mean something.
8. Slowdive, everything is alive
After a solid, self-titled reunion album six years ago, this iconic 90s shoegaze band is consistent as ever but with a hunger to reassess and evolve. The dominance of electronics (nearly half the songs are built on synth riffs) sets it apart from all their past work without obscuring the elements that made them Slowdive. Those tired of waiting for another Cure album may find “kisses” a more-than-adequate substitute; still, alternating the poppier stuff with a pastoral instrumental (“prayer remembered”) and slow-building, eventually shimmering rave-ups like “shanty” and “the slab”, they prove nearly as vital in 2023 as they did with 1993’s Souvlaki.
7. Christine and The Queens, Paranoia, Angels, True Love
Leave it to this oddball to attempt an honest-to-god triple album in the streaming era (although at 97 minutes, it could’ve been a double). Having come out as trans-masculine last year, Chris (formerly Héloïse Letissier) nearly goes for broke with an Angels In America-inspired concept LP about shifting identities, spiritual yearning and god knows what else. He seems determined not to repeat himself and everything from the discordant, eleven-minute “Track 10” (actually Track 7) to the lovely, simple “Flowery Days” not only suggests new, intriguing directions but a passion for development and growth which, four albums in, is timed just right.
6. Jessie Ware, That! Feels Good!
I don’t envy Ware the task of having to follow up the exceptional What’s Your Pleasure?; her fifth album is more a lateral move than any attempt to top it. Leaning further into the hedonistic pleasures of disco and dancefloor soul, it may come off as a little expedient at times—little here matches last year’s glorious, pre-album single “Free Yourself”, although the samba-inflected “Begin Again” comes close. Regardless, Ware’s effusiveness nearly saves the day whether she’s indulging in a parade of double-entendres (“Shake The Bottle”) or easing on down the road towards some kind of unabashed bliss (“These Lips”, “Hello Love”).
The succinct, Neneh Cherry-worthy “Tiny Garden” is one of this year’s best singles, but Woods’ third album offers a lot more to love. Reallocating her focus from the cultural essaying of 2019’s LEGACY! LEGACY! towards the intimacy and fragility of relationships, she tempers her alternative R&B/folk with nifty poetic interludes (“I Miss All My Exes”, “Let The Cards Fall”) and simple hooks that exude restraint but also undeniable pleasure (“Practice”, “Boomerang”). While not necessarily an innovator nor yet an icon, her natural talent and deeply felt point of view are in ample supply.
14. The Tubs, Dead Meat
For sure, the vocalist bears a heavy resemblance to Richard Thompson but within thirty seconds of rousing opener “Illusion pt. II” it’s obvious this foursome is no mere homage or tribute act; their welcoming melodies, intricate guitar lines and rarely obvious chord changes all sound effortless like good pop music should but seldom does. I suppose one could argue the originality of things like the spiky riffs of “Sniveller” which conjure up postpunk to a degree bands like Franz Ferdinand have been trading in for decades now, but that doesn’t render it any less of a thrill to hear.
13. Sufjan Stevens, Javelin
Not a return-to-form in the style of Carrie and Lowell, just as that record wasn’t one in relation to Seven Swans. Apart from the uninspired, simplistic lyrics of 2020’s The Ascension, he has never been one to rest on his laurels; what makes Javelin so intriguing is in how it resolutely sounds like a Sufjan Stevens LP while also a push forward to reassess and explore what that means in 2023 (and beyond.) Knowledge that it’s a tribute to a recently deceased partner adds unignorable context but even without that news, this shows him refusing to be complacent and remaining engaged with wherever his muse(s) take him.
12. Alex Lahey, The Answer Is Always Yes
What can you do after two ten-track, near-perfect power/punk-pop albums? Logically, you’d shoot for a third, but on her first release in four years, this Aussie singer/songwriter takes a slightly different approach, opting for more looseness and impulsivity on introspective, pandemic-era observations like “Permanent” and “The Sky is Melting”. Rest assured, she still brings the hooks (the latter’s ascendant chorus is one of her best) and her never-wavering sense of economy, but from “Good Time” to “Shit Talkin’”, she’s refining her craft while never obscuring a sense of who she is, which is no small feat.
11. Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
She nearly turned into a more elusive Pat Benatar over her increasingly slick past two records (note: this was not a good thing), so her about-face here is a bit of a relief. It also reminds me of the similar shift Sam Phillips made on Fan Dance two decades ago but far less minimalist, employing choirs and strings, pedal steel guitar and more atmosphere than those last two albums together offered. “My Love Mine All Mine” is one of the least likely fueled-by-Tik Tok crossover hits and that it could’ve easily happened to any of these 11 tracks reveals this collection’s consistency.
20. Yves Tumor, Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
According to my Spotify “Wrapped” for this year, my favorite genre was “Art Pop”; thus, it seems right to kick this countdown off with something fully of that description, near Fiona Apple-length LP title and all. I highlighted effusive single “Echolalia” in my mid-year report, but Sean Lee Bowie’s fifth album under this moniker is often as catchy as it weird, spiced with vintage samples, shape-shifting song structures and in “Operator”, a cheerleader chant previously adopted/rendered demented by Faith No More three decades ago (and in this artist’s hands, just as effectively today.)
19. Meg Baird, Furling
I felt moved to hear this after Dusted Magazine praised it mid-year and opener “Ashes, Ashes” registered with me in no time. A languorous six-minute comedown of wordless sighs over a piano-and-rhythm-with-vibes vamp, it’s a perfect mood-setter for this gentle, gauzy, occasionally devastating folk opus. Like The Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler, Baird’s breathiness and cheery but sustaining high tone contrast skillfully with the minor chord progressions and pastoral acoustic settings. An affable companion to my top album of last year, Beth Orton’s Weather Alive.
18. Paul Simon, Seven Psalms
Five years into his retirement from touring, octogenarian Simon made an unexpected return with a record unlike anything else he’s done: a 33-minute song cycle inspired by the Book of Psalms featuring seven movements and released both physically and digitally as one unbroken track. Potentially a challenging listen for those looking for another addition to the man’s voluminous songbook, it’s also a reminder of his innate talent, with both words and music continually revealing nuance and something approaching enlightenment on each listen. If this proves his final word, it’s one of his most profound.
17. The National, Laugh Track
I am among those wondering why these Dad Rock Gods opted to put out two albums six months apart this year instead one killer release. First Two Pages of Frankenstein hit my honorable mentions list (“Tropic Morning News” might end up their deserved legacy hit) but I’ve come to prefer Laugh Track for being a bit roomier and also a whole lot more ambitious. The seven-minute “Space Invader” with its thunderous coda is the peak, but diversions on either side of it (a Bon Iver duet; scrappy, improvised closer “Smoke Detector”) make the case that these are much better than mere leftovers.
16. Meshell Ndegeocello, The Omnichord Real Book
Thirty years on from her debut album (and nearly ten since her last set of original songs), Ndegeocello returns with a lengthy, typically genre-averse collection. Although the titular electronic instrument is present throughout, it is but one ingredient in a blend of soul, funk, jazz, folk and rock that no matter how spacy or boundary pushing rarely drifts off into the ether or loses focus. She’s endured as an artist not only for her capacity to explore but also for her ability to connect, a distinction that often separates a legend from a flash-in-the-pan.
