1001 Albums: #19. Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Songbook

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Songbook
Verve, 1959

Clocking in a 3 hours and 15 minutes, Ella Fitzgerald's exhaustive take on the Gershwin Songbook is intense. It took me a week to work through, and when you're dealing with the First Lady of Song, it's not like you can just breeze through it. This is just luscious. Just pure romance. Burning through all these great ladies of jazz, it's like what do you even do with that? How do you even objectively tackle folks who are unimpeachable? I could listen to them sing all day long, and in the case of this one, I pretty much have! 

1001 Albums: #18. Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly's

Sarah Vaughan - Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly's

EmArcy, 1958

Another live record, and I dig this one quite a bit more than Duke Ellington's Ellington at Newport. For one it has a more off the cuff feel while still capturing Sarah Vaughan's incredible voice and charm. Toward the end of "Willow Weep For Me" she flubs a line and sings, "I really fouled up this song real well" to the laughter of the crowd. That's what I want out of a live record! To see the artist as a human being is part of the reason to go to a live show, and it's one of those things where the flaws are what make it special. But my god could this woman sing. I've been listening to a lot of these records in the kitchen lately and it's been a real treat. We're in the middle of a four album span where 3/4 of the records are from three of the great ladies of jazz. And you think about Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald and you wonder how white people have the nerve to think they are somehow superior. I think about what it must have been like to not only be black, but a black woman, singing for white folks for their entertainment, and yet being seen as something lesser. It is truly obscene. This record, on the other hand, is truly sublime. 

1001 Albums: #17. Jack Elliott - Jack Takes the Floor

Jack Elliott - Jack Takes the Floor
Topic, 1958

Ramblin' Jack Elliott is the bridge between Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan that I never knew existed. His story is a good one too. The son of a Jewish doctor, Elliott ran away from his New York home to join the rodeo as a teen and though he was eventually dragged back home, it wasn't too long before he hit the road under Guthrie's wing. While the throughline between Eliott's stripped down folk music and Bob Dylan is crystal clear, they honestly seem a little bit like the same person. Both were city slicking Jewish dudes obsessed with Woody Guthrie, yet where Elliott stayed a cowboy Bob Dylan became, well, he became Bob Dylan. This is the music of the dirt, and I've always had a soft spot for the music of the dirt. 

1001 Albums: #16. Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin

Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin
Columbia, 1958



Imagine hearing that voice for the first time. This was the last album released while she was still alive, and reading up on her death is one of the most heartbreaking things I've read in a while. Just so tragic how someone who was able to make such stunningly gorgeous music suffered so greatly. These recordings are world weary and weathered. Well, her voice is at least, compared to her dulcet tones in the 30s. The sweetness is gone, but the orchestrations are epic and sappy, and contrast wildly with the newfound rasp in her voice and make this an incredible listen. 

1001 Albums: #15. Tito Puente - Dance Mania

Tito Puente - Dance Mania
BMG, 1958

I'm glad that the book mentions Tito Puente's turn on the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episodes of The Simpsons as one of the reasons anyone under the age of 40 knows his name. That me! I have listened to more Latin music in the last week than I have in my entire life up to this point. I think I'm getting to the point where I can ID an Afro-Cuban rhythm, which is exciting. This album is lively as hell, and does plenty to chip away at the cynicism of this aging rock chump.

1001 Albums: #14. Little Richard - Here's Little Richard

Little Richard - Here's Little Richard
Specialty, 1957

I think the question isn't "What was the first rock and roll song?" but "What was the first rock and roll song that made rock and roll rock and roll." You always see Bill Haley & The Comets "Rock Around the Clock" touted as the first true rock and roll song, which has a real "It's your cousin, MARVIN BERRY" vibe about it. Honestly with all the Jim Crow stuff it's a real stew of shit when it comes to deciphering the origins of rock and roll music. You have white artists appropriating black music and black artists who aren't allowed a platform to perform their music due to Jim Crow and racism country-wide. You have someone like Little Richard, who on top of being black was also queer, and it almost seems like a miracle that "Tutti Frutti" is such an enduring classic. There is just something so perfect about that opening "Whop bop b-luma b-lop bam bom" that transports you to a place of pure joy. If "Tutti Frutti" isn't the first rock and roll song, maybe it's the first rock and roll song that truly perfected the craft. That's a tune you can still listen to today and feel exactly what it must have felt like hearing that on the radio in 1957. The energy is unimpeachable. There are other great numbers on this record--"Ready Teddy," "Long Tall Sally (The Thing)"--and though a lot of them mine the same sort of sonic turf (many of the songs are effectively variations on the same theme). Regardless, this is what magic sounds like.

1001 Albums: #13. Machito - Kenya

Machito - Kenya
Roulette Jazz, 1975

More Afro-Cuban jazz! Initially I thought this was gonna be some tribal African music or something like that, so hearing the fiery Latin jazz of the opener "Wild Jungle" caught me totally off guard. Kenya is quite a bit livelier than the Sabu record from a couple entries ago, but it just feels like a different piece of the same patchwork. There's plenty of conga, but the horns and grooves take center stage here. This one is another fine example of an album I thought would make this project difficult, but lo, it turns out being a music lover is quite easy. Literally, all you have to do is listen. The albums here are curated by 94 music critics so you know you're not really going to get any duds, and all that is required is an open mind and ears. 

1001 Albums: #12. Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool

Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool
Capitol, 1957

Jazz still has that foreign film without the subtitles feel for me, and I reckon it will for a while. I would probably need a semester long How to Listen to Jazz class to truly get it. That would honestly probably do the trick. I took a class on Film Music through the music department at KU during my undergrad and it absolutely blew my mind. Not only did I gain a greater appreciation for film scores and how they did a lot of heavy lifting in delivering a film's emotional impact, but I learned a ton about timbres and orchestrations and all that musicology stuff. The final in that class involved picking a movie from a list--I chose Bernard Herrmann's score for Citizen Kane--and identifying every music cue in the film. I watched Citizen Kane five or six times, IDed the cues, the instruments involved, how they worked in the greater cinematic landscape, and I feel like I learned more about film in that class than any of the classes from the film department proper (I did take a film music class through the film department from the legendary Chuck Berg, but like all of his classes it was a sumptuous softball of film (music) appreciation than it was a scholarly powerhouse). That's as close as I can get to jazz, and while that class was helpful for like, identifying oboes and bassoons, there's so much social and cultural history to jazz that it is tough to properly assess without a 700 page book on the subject. 

But here we are, listening to one of the most famous jazz records of all time and it's still essentially pearls before swine. It's lovely to listen to, and I wish I had more context for how this fit into jazz as a whole. The book provides a little context, and there's a nice little trivia bit that reminded me he did the score for Louis Malle's excellent Elevator to the Gallows, which I now need to revisit, but there's just so much history. In my waning days at KC Public Library I visited Kansas City's American Jazz Museum as research for a breakout box (think a breakout room, but self contained in a lockbox for teenagers to figure out how to break into, which shouldn't it be called a break-in box? I digress) about Kansas City's music history. I left before the project reached completion, but it was fun to hang out in that space. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool, another record I can see myself randomly throwing on while cooking dinner.

1001 Albums: #11. Sabu - Palo Congo

Sabu - Palo Congo
Blue Note, 1957



There is a fair bit of world music in this book, and I'm here for it. It's another one of my musical blind spots. Here Louis "Sabu" Martinez opens my eyes to the wild and wonderful world of the conga drum. It's pure percussion, and there's something about this recording that feels very primal. Like we are hearkening back to the dawn of time or something. Some tracks are straight up Sabu going wild slapping the skins, but the tracks where the conga serves as the base for the more traditional jazz-folk numbers were my favorites. "Rhapsodia Del Marvilloso" in particular. 

1001 Albums: #10. Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners

Thelonious Monk - Brilliant Corners
Riverside, 1957

I have listened to this album four times in the past five days and it sticks in a way none of the other jazz records I've listened to so far have. There's just so much personality and a true willingness to go out there. There's a freedom of this that you're never going to find in big band. Again, jazz is firmly outside of my comfort zone. I've listened to a couple of John Coltrane records but that's it. Of all the albums I have covered so far, this is the first one I can see myself going back to. It's the first jazz record on the list that has an actual composer's touch rather than a conductor's touch. Brilliant Corners sounds like alchemy, like pure magic.

My whole impetus for listening to the 1001 Albums was to always have something I could put on while choring. Doing the dishes, making dinner, woodworking, hanging drywall, etc. It's nice to just throw something on without thinking. "What's next on the list? Thelonious Monk? Cool!" There's something liberating about that. 

1001 Albums: #9 - Count Basie - The Atomic Mr. Basie

Count Basie - The Atomic Mr. Basie
Roulette, 1957

We are in the midst of a string of jazz and world music albums that, quite honestly, are absolutely perfect for cooking dinner too. While I complained about the lack of blues representation on this list, there is a ton of jazz, which is great because the whole point of listening to 1001 albums was to find stuff outside of my comfort zone. Despite the absolutely incredible album cover, The Atomic Mr. Basie is a fine jazz record for popular consumption. Nothing explosive about it. As previously noted I lack the context or vocabulary to properly analyze jazz records, but I did enjoy listening to this one. However I've since listened to the next record on the list--Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners--and it pretty much punted The Atomic Mr. Basie from my brain. 

1001 Albums: #8. The Crickets - The "Chriping" Crickets

The Crickets - The "Chirping" Crickets
Brunswick, 1957



As an indie rock devotee, The "Chirping" Crickets feels like patient zero of nerdy white dudes playing rock n' roll music. Buddy Holly has been an alluring figure to me since I was a kid. As previously mentioned (and something I will probably mention in every other post until we get out of the 1960s), the first music I came to love on my own was oldies. When I was 10 or 11 I vividly remember getting a couple of oldies compilations for my birthday. I remember the confused looks on the faces of some of the dads at the party. It was decidedly uncool, but KC's erstwhile Oldies 95 radio station was all I really listened to. This was the late 90s, and I'd soon crawl out of my cozy sock hop swamp into the actual swamp of rap rock, but those were halcyon days of establishing a musical bedrock. The clean, chiming electric guitars here are what really do it for me. There's just something undeniable about songs like "Oh Boy" and "That'll Be the Day." You can hear a whole branch of pop music history sprouting on those songs. You can practically see the artists that would take that sound further sitting by the radio hearing those songs for the first time. 

1001 Albums: #7 - Frank Sinatra - Songs For Swingin' Lovers!

Frank Sinatra - Songs for Swingin' Lovers!
Capitol, 1956



Talk about emotional whiplash! In the span of a year Sinatra went from the sad bastard after midnight opus In the Wee Small Hours to that straight-up Sinatra swagger. This album is what you think about when you think about Frank Sinatra. I mean look at the exclamation point baked into the title! This is the sun coming up on the long dark night. These lush love songs are decidedly not my favorite thing on earth, but it's hard to deny that this album isn't magnetic. There's just nothing not to like here. Nelson Riddle's arrangements are impeccable. It also helps that this Sinatra guy can sing. 

1001 Albums: #6. Duke Ellington - Ellington at Newport (1956)

Duke Ellington - Ellington at Newport 

Columbia, 1956

First impression: Damn, this sounds really slick for a live recording. 
Consulting the Oracle: "Informed that the concert recording was flawed, Columbia executives sent Ellington into a New York studio to re-record the set on the Monday after the gig. The resulting album is a patched together fusion of live recordings, studio retakes, and canned applause. It became the biggest selling record of Duke's career." So there you have it, and as a result it's a truly fantastic "live" album. I loved the element of the host introducing the band members and bantering, and the presentation of the event. You feel like you're there! That's a big cliche but I've never encountered a live album that had that could so vividly transport you to a time and place. I won't pretend that I am equipped to talk about jazz so I'll leave it at that.

1001 Albums: #5. Fats Domino - This is Fats (1956)

Fats Domino - This is Fats
Imperial, 1956

Fats Domino's hybrid of R&B and Rock and Roll is the sort of music history lesson I was looking for when undertaking this project. Brain-wise, it's easier for me to undertake something if there is a clear structure and purpose, even if that purpose is something as loose as "Listen to 1001 albums in order over the next five years or so." The appeal of this style of music is apparent even nearly 70 years later. In a way it's both of its time and timeless. It's a rock and roll history lesson and an absolute delight. A true crowd pleaser too! See: My 22 month old baby girl toddling into the kitchen to show me her dance moves during "The Fat Man's Hop." My personal favorite track was the downtrodden "Blue Monday" (which made me want to hear an R&B cover of New Order's song of the same name). 

1001 Albums: #4. Louis Prima - The Wildest! (1956)

Louis Prima - The Wildest!
Capitol, 1956

The Wildest! was the litmus test for this whole project. I'm just so eager to get to the mid-60s and even as a kid who grew up only listening to Oldies 95 in Kansas City, I was trepidatious of the grandpa music. But is Louis Prima actually grandpa music? Yes, it is. But is it a whole heck of a lot of fun? Absolutely. I put this on while making dinner the other night and it was a delight. You can't help but get into "Just a Gigolo/ I Ain't Got Nobody." And even though The Brian Setzer Orchestra effectively killed "Jump, Jive, An' Wail" (not exactly Setzer's fault here, as it was death by over-saturation and how cringey the whole swing fad of the late 90s looks in hindsight), that song encapsulates the fun, swinging, New Orleans big band sound that Prima does so well. 

1001 Albums: #3. The Louvin Brothers - Tragic Songs of Life (1956)

The Louvin Brothers - Tragic Songs of Life
Capitol, 1956

The extent of my knowledge of the Louvin Brothers is that they were super religious (this album cover in particular is what I immediately thought about when this album came up on the list). Listening to Tragic Songs of Life, you can hear how influential it was to country music and bluegrass. And yet as pure as this record is, it made me realize that blues is incredibly underrepresented. For instance, the only John Lee Hooker record is from 1989 and Robert Johnson only gets a cursory mention in someone else's write-up. I suppose it's a matter of scope and you have to start somewhere, and I'm sure there will be some that crop up as we go along, but considering how influential the genre was to modern music it seems odd not to at least start there. After all, the is a very rock-centric list, so it would make sense. It's not like these guys weren't releasing albums, despite blues being rooted in the pre-album age of singles and 78s. I think I'm just miffed because it's a genre I want to learn more about and you have Elvis listed before Muddy Waters.

The racial politics of Rock and Roll are a whole can of worms I keep dancing around as I, for instance, try to listen to Elvis' debut without recalling the "It's your cousin, MARVIN Berry" sequence from Back to the Future where Marty McFly rewrites history and has a white man creating modern Rock and Roll. I wrote a paper for an African American Music class I took in college that hinged on that scene. The thesis was essentially about white colonialism in music, in which African-Americans create a revolutionary sound that is co-opted and further popularized by white guys time and time again from Rock and R&B to Jazz to Hip-Hop. Anyway, that's a brain detour, back to the Louvin Brothers. This is as enjoyable as anything on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and a very pleasant and despite the gospel influences isn't preachy and in fact has a whole lot of sin scattered across its tracks (not excepting murder! See "Knoxville Girl," which is a terrifyingly upbeat account of a man murdering his beloved in surprisingly gruesome fashion).

1001 Albums: #2. Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (1956)

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley
RCA, 1956

The book refers to Elvis' first album as "a frustratingly inconsistent record." And they have a point! This is Elvis in his infancy as one of rock and roll's biggest stars. For one, there are only a handful of songs that you can tag as "Certifiably Elvis." He spends a lot of time crooning here, and his voice sounds like he could be anyone. But on "Blue Suede Shoes," his cover of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" (which ties with "Tryin' to Get to You" as my personal favorite cut on the record), and "Just Because" you can hear all of that future greatness. It's like looking at baby pictures of your kid. In hindsight they were always going to grow up to look like your kid, but when they're a baby you have no idea what they're going to look like when they're six. The prominent features are used sparingly here, but this is more of a fascinating bit of music history than it is a compelling record. It's not a drag by any means, but we're a few years off from full blown idol status. 

Below you can find the same song performed 12 years apart to see what I'm talking about.

 

1001 Albums: #1. Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours (1955)

Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Capitol, 1955

Every time I listen to Belle & Sebastian, I immediately think of the first time I ever heard Belle & Sebastian: In the movie High Fidelity. In that scene, Jack Black's character ridicules his coworker for putting on some "Sad Bastard Music." In that regard, Belle & Sebastian don't really have a leg to stand on. They make Sad Bastard Music through and through. Listening to Frank Sinatra's 1955 album In the Wee Small Hours, I feel like I tracked down the original sad bastard. The book says Old Blue Eyes was essentially DOA at this point in his career, and it took the pluck of a lone true believer of a record exec to get him signed. History is full of stories like this. It's Van Gogh being wholly unappreciated in his time and dying in squalor over and over. It's the underdog story. It's needing one person to believe in you, taking your shot, and making it. 

The whole album has the vibe of a late night drunk dial. It's 3AM, pouring rain, you're standing in a phone booth crooning "I'll Be Around." Sinatra's voice is obviously terrific and floats on top of Nelson Riddle's forlorn arrangements. It's a far cry from "My Way" or "Fly Me to the Moon." That In the Wee Small Hours is hailed as one of the first concept albums helps me reconcile why I like this one so much. Not that I had anything against Sinatra, it's just that in my head I file it under Grandpa Music. Nothing wrong with Grandpa Music, just not really a place where if I spend too much time in that realm it starts to feel like I'm doing it ironically. This is much less Grandpa Music than expected and a welcome surprise. The 1950s chunk of this project was almost enough to keep me from embarking on this journey, but this one makes me feel like it's gonna be a-ok. 

My Favorite Movies of 2019

I love catch-up time, in which I take Mid-December to Early February to try and see all of the movies I wanted to see from the previous year. Living in the middle of the country means that it often takes a while for the good stuff to get to me, and why I end up finalizing my list on Oscars weekend. 2019 was a weird year where it was basically like, nothing, nothing, nothing, FLURRY OF GREAT FILMS AT THE VERY END. While there were a handful of rock solid 4.5 star films, it took until mid-November before I saw a 5 star classic (and then I saw three more that earned that 5 star designation and another that came as close as you can get). Weirdly, 2019 ended up being one of my favorite years for movies of the past decade, and it's right up there with 2014 in terms of films that are going to stick with me forever. 

15. Us

Directed by Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele used the goodwill he earned from Get Out to make something truly wild. Though the film is a bit of a mess and the script would have benefitted from another draft or two, there’s no denying that Peele is a nascent directorial master and his ability to craft tension while delivering a sticky and complex message is breathtaking.

14. Booksmart

Directed by Olivia Wilde

“Superbad for Girls” this is not. It’s better than Superbad. Well, sorta. Though this movie gets in all of the “waning days of high school” movie tropes, it feels more like a feature than a bug. A lot of that is due to how this movie is subverting that genre while also existing within it. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever imbue this thing with so much sweetness, heart, and fall-out-of-your-seat humor. It’s an impressive debut from Olivia Wilde and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

13. The King

Directed by David Michod

2019’s winner for movie I expected to enjoy, but based on the previous work of the director, didn’t have the highest hopes for. And lo, this movie was awesome. Michod’s quasi retelling of Shakespeare’s Henriad is gritty and grimy despite casting Hollywood’s cleanest babyface as Hal. I feel like everytime I see Timothee Chalamet’s face in a photograph, I want to hate him. I want to hate the way his name is spelled Timothee. And every single time I see him in a movie I feel like I’m watching one of the great talents of his generation. Chalamet is outstanding here (just like he is outstanding in everything). Michod’s co-writer Joel Edgerton gives a wonderfully soused performance as Falstaff, and the movie also features great supporting roles from Sean Harris, Thomasin Mackenzie, and Ben Mendelsohn. Honestly, my only real quibble with The King is that it’s nearly two-and-a-half hours long and I didn’t think it was long enough! I was down to watch four, five, six hours of middle age warfare. I also want to heap praise on my boy R Pats for his wonderfully haughty and sassy performance as The Dauphin. I feel like I sound like I’m joking when I talk to people about how much I love R Pats, but I’m not. I respect anyone who can take my hate for them and prove me wrong, and to do it in such a way that I have to question my reality. The work he is doing is so great it feels like it has to be part of a monkey’s paw curse.

12. Paddleton

Directed by Alex Lehmann

This was the first great film I saw in 2019, and until November it was my favorite movie of the year. It’s a quiet story about how the friendship between two men deepens when one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Mark Duplass and Ray Romano play the buddies, with Duplass’s Michael convincing Romano’s Andy to go on a road trip with him to get the drugs he needs to end his life when the cancer becomes too much to bear. While that is a sad as hell plot, Duplass and Romano bring a lot of humor to the story and watching them cement this sweet friendship was the sort of unsentimental heartwarming that I love to see. Despite most movies being by men and about men, you rarely see movies that portray this much vulnerability in their friendships. I related to this a lot because I feel so much love for my close friends, but it’s a kind of love that is hard for guys to show one another so it just lives inside of me. Director Alex Lehmann does extraordinary work here, and I was just as impressed with his 2016 film Blue Jay which I also saw in 2019. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

11. The Farewell

Directed by Lulu Wang

The story of The Farewell is simple: Grandma has cancer, but no one in the family will tell her because per Chinese custom they would rather her enjoy her last days than spend them worrying. Director Lulu Wang takes that story (based on her own experiences) and makes a film that is bursting with warmth, intimacy, and humor. She also draws an incredible dramatic performance after Awkwafina (which is absolutely stunning when you put it side by side with her hilarious performance in Crazy Rich Asians) who carries the film’s emotional weight.

10. Marriage Story

Directed by Noah Baumbach

Noah Baumbach is so hit or miss with his films that I am always trepidation going in. The guy has literally made one of my favorite films--The Squid and the Whale--and one of my least favorite films--While We’re Young. Frances Ha is great, Greenberg is awful, Mistress America is really really good, The Meyerowitz Story is blah. Marriage Story is an absolute triumph and edges out The Squid and the Whale as Baumbach’s masterpiece. The performances from Scarlett Johanssen and Adam Driver are impeccable, and Baumbach does a tremendous job getting you to root for them as they set out on their divorce journey. As the proceedings devolve into total ugliness and the couple wages a proxy battle with their ruthless attorneys (featuring excellent turns from Laura Dern and Ray Liotta), the irony of the film’s title only becomes more pronounced. Honestly, this is a better Woody Allen movie than Woody Allen can make.

9. The Lighthouse
Directed by Robert Eggers

I wish I could have seen this one on the big screen because I think it’s the best looking movie on the screen. Robert Eggers proved to be a master of atmosphere on The Witch, and he continues that good work here tenfold. The stark black-and-white photography in its boxy aspect ratio gives the film it’s mood and claustrophobic fee. The sound design--which features a foghorn that blares out in the background every ten seconds or so--puts you on this desolate island with these two salty madmen. Robert Pattinson continues his brilliant campaign of working with every auteur he can get his hands on (see: the Safdie Brothers, Claire Denis, David Michod, Christopher Nolan, James Gray, David Cronenberg). He is clearly living his best life and the work he is doing is remarkable. However, the real standout here is Willem Dafoe who’s turn as the old sea dog wickie Thomas Wake is one of my favorite performances of the year. Dafoe tends to be overlooked when it comes to these things (see: His transcendent performance as Vincent Van Gogh in last year’s At Eternity’s Gate) but I see you Willem. This movie is gross, uncomfortable, and melts down into a blend of mythological and Lovecraftian horror and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

8. Her Smell
Directed by Alex Ross Perry

It's a tough sell making a film about a toxic psychic vampire like Becky Something, and yet Alex Ross Perry makes a movie that is totally arresting, even when Becky is at her absolute worst. This film works so well because it charts a clear character arc over five vignettes and doesn't leave you with an easy resolution. Becky is never fixed, and will always be broken. And of course none of that works without Elisabeth Moss, who delivers a career defining performance. As expected, she was overlooked this awards season, but she is absolutely on fire here.

7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Directed by Joe Talbot

A strong vision makes this a film feel totally singular and it's wonderful to watch. I felt like this one pairs well with 2018's Blindspotting (which takes place on the other side of the bay in Oakland) in how it tackles modern displacement and gentrification with grace. First time director Joe Talbot tells a lyrical story (written by him and the film’s star Jimmie Fails, based partially on Fails’ own experiences) about a city that has changed so much that the people who remember what it used to be like and what made it special are being confined to the fringes.


6. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
Directed by Quentin Tarantino

After seeing this in the theater, I knew I liked it but couldn’t really explain why. I thought the movie was a rambling mess but I would have sat with those characters for 10 hours and enjoyed every second of it. The world was great, but did that make it a good film? After rewatching the movie when it came out on DVD, I now feel confident on saying yes, this is a great film. While it’s not without divisiveness for Tarantino’s trademark futzing with things like “historical accuracy” and “facts,” I’m definitely in the camp that welcomes his wild revisionism. And while this was dubbed “Tarantino’s Manson Movie” in the early going, it’s much more of an examination of a fading TV star and his stuntman in the twilight of the era of peace and love and that particular brand of 1960s filmmaking that Tarantino is obsessed with. As always, Tarantino’s films present an unfiltered look at his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema and it’s a joyous thing to experience.

5. Knives Out
Directed by Rian Johnson

Rian Johnson’s old-school murder mystery should be taught in every screenwriting class. This is how you do it, Robert Towne style. Though Johnson crafts an airtight Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery with his script, what makes Knives Out so great is it’s fantastic dark humor and that its takedown of spoiled one-percenters. A movie like this doesn’t need biting social commentary, but that Johnson includes it and makes it such an integral part of the film’s core themes is what makes this one of the best films of the year (in addition to being the most purely entertaining film you’re going to see). 

4. Uncut Gems

Directed by the Safdie Brothers

The stressfulness of this film should not be understated. You’ve likely heard that it’s basically an anxiety attack in 24 frames per second, and those rumors are true. And while that sounds like a miserable movie-going experience, this film is totally compelling. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. A lot of that has to do with Adam Sandler’s virtuosic performance as Jewelry store proprietor Howard Ratner, whose self-sabotaging behavior, gambling addiction, and ability to find make the absolute worst decision in any given situation serve as the uneasy engine of this panic attack on celluloid. Everytime you feel like things have leveled out again, Ratner finds a creative way to end up naked in the trunk of a car or get beat down on a busy city sidewalk. Though Ratner is one of the most unlikable protagonists you’re ever going to meet, you still find yourself rooting for him as he makes insane wagers and finds himself trapped in a Russian nesting doll of bad situations.

3. Jojo Rabbit

Directed by Taika Waititi

Taika Waititi has made some of my favorite films from the last decade, and he caps of the 2010s with his most well-rounded directorial work to date. What works best is Waititi’s ability to balance his brilliant sense of humor with the stakes of World War II. It’s sensitive territory, but the end result is a film that uses satire to show the foolishness of behavior that is horrifyingly making a comeback in our world (or more likely never left and the alt-right clowns are just feeling emboldened as they make their last stand to preserve their wholly fake version of reality). Young Roman Griffin-Davis does tremendous work as Jojo, and his performance is the engine that makes this film work. At its heart it’s a story about how fanaticism takes root, and how hard it is to peel back all the layers to find the goodness underneath. Though the film is one of the year’s funniest, the premise only works if Waititi addresses the horrors of the Third Reich, and he does so in unexpected and heartbreaking ways.

2. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Directed by Celine Sciamma

Ten minutes into Portrait of a Lady on Fire I knew I was going to have to upend my year-end list. The filmmaking is just impeccable, and if we are talking about a director’s vision Sciamma is neck and neck with Bong Joon Ho for the best director of the year. It makes it even more aggravating that the Academy seems to have barred women from the Best Director category. The compositions in this film are just breathtaking. The best of the year without question. While I usually need to have my arm twisted to watch a period piece, this movie is basically throbbing with desire. Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel and their magnificent eyebrows pull of this slow-burn forbidden romance so convincingly there are moments that literally took my breath away. There is a scene where Merlant’s Marianne is posing Haenel’s Heloise to paint her and they come face to face, and you just stop breathing. You can feel their connection, and when Marianne snaps out of it and moves back to her canvas you know exactly what this film is about. This is stunning work and I am in love with this film.

1. Parasite

Directed by Bong Joon Ho

In the autumn of 2019, the stars aligned where I was off, my mom was off and able to watch the kids, and I could go see a movie. There were really only two options for which weird art movie I was going to go see: The Lighthouse, which I had been looking forward to since it was announced, and Parasite, which had the kind of press that made it sound like a no-doubt Movie of the Year candidate. I chose Parasite. I can’t explain why, but that is what happened, and I had the most rapturous movie-going experience of the year. It’s rare to find a movie that plays so perfectly to my own sensibilities but still manages to surprise me. It’s a classic tale of haves and have nots, and the have nots slowly infiltrating the lives of the haves and continuing to inhabit their lives even when it becomes clear that the Kim family are flying by the seat of their pants (“You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all,” says Kim patriarch Ki-taek at one point). The dark comedy here is sublime, and while the film is essentially a balancing act of high-stakes silliness, Bong Joon Ho finds these incredible ways to microdose the story with these little indignities that lead to the explosive finale. There were a lot of movies in 2019 that reflected the growing class disparity and income inequality (Knives Out, Hustlers, Us, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, to name a few) but it’s hard to argue that any did it better than Parasite. Though Knives Out is a close second in this category, Parasite truly gets under your skin in a way no other film did in 2019. There’s just such a clarity of vision with this thing, and the visual storytelling is just as potent as the story being told in the script. There were a lot of great films released in 2019, but Parasite was the only Top 5 of the Decade masterpiece.

My Favorite Albums of 2019

I had so much fun working on Best of the Decade stuff that I neglected to get to all the records I wanted to listen to from 2019. That said, 2019 was a weird year where I really liked a handful of records and only really LOVED one. Sometimes that’s just how things shake out, but there’s a reason why only one 2019 album made my Favorite Records of the Decade list, and I’m pretty confident It will stay that way unless I uncover something outstanding that I missed. Time to put this one to bed.

15. Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center

It wouldn’t be a year end list without acknowledging what great thing Phoebe Bridgers did this year. After collaborating with fellow brilliant young songwriters Lucy Dacus & Julien Baker as Boygenius in 2018, Bridgers collaborated with Conor Oberst for Better Oblivion Community Center in 2019 and the result is an excellent record that never feels belabored and captures the energy of two great songwriters making magic.

14. The Menzingers - Hello Exile

Want to get the direct line to my heart? Just open your album with some crunchy power chords and you’ve got me. The Menzingers might as well be the patron saints of crunchy power chords at this point, and they’re as good as ever on Hello Exile. They sound bigger than they did on their Best of the Decade worthy After the Party, but the songs still hit you right in the gut. I still think this band would be better served by keeping their albums to 10 songs a pop, but it’s hard to argue when the bands songs are all so damn good.

13. Mike Adams at His Honest Weight - There is No Feeling Better

This album’s opening track– “Pressing Mesh” --was on one of those Spotify weekly release playlists in the summer, and There is No Feeling Better became one of my most anticipated albums of the year. The album is much more subdued than the blissed out power pop of “Pressing Mesh” would have you imagine, but it’s such a lovely record it’s hard to hold that against it. Adams knows his way around a tune, and tracks like “Do You One Better,” “Wonderful to Love,” and “No Feeling Better” highlight the interesting avenues he’s able to pursue outside of the power pop mold.

12. Kishi Bashi - Omoiyari

The three singles that preceded this album’s release– “Marigolds,” “F Delano,” and “Summer of ‘42”--pretty much single handedly got this album on my year-end list. Omoiyari is one of the year’s most vibrant records, full of sweeping emotional moments and lush arrangements. Despite the heavy subject matter of a song like “Summer of ‘42,” which is a love story set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, there is so much joy in this record.


11. Ruston Kelly - Dirt Emo Volume 1

What strange alchemy is this? A Nashville country singer interpreting some of the greatest hits from my adolescence? Yes please. This is a very loose covers record, but that just adds to the charm. It helps that Ruston Kelly can SING, and his voice adds a new layer to these songs, some I’ve listened to hundreds of times. The brief verse and chorus of My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” is gorgeous and haunting. Saves the Day’s “At Your Funeral” is one of my favorite songs from high school and Kelly lends it an air of grace. There is an ache to “Teenage Dirtbag” and “Dammit” that you don’t get from the originals. And then there is his cover of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” which is so good it has caused me to reexamine Swift as an artist because that is a hell of a song. And that’s what you want from a covers record. You want to hear the songs you know interpreted in a way that you find things you never saw before.

10. The National - I Am Easy to Find

Based on the strength of the album’s lead singles, I had I Am Easy to Find pegged as an Album of the Year no doubter. The thing with the National is I tend to fall in love with their albums a year or two after they are released. They’re the ultimate slow-burn band. The concept behind this one--it’s billed as a collaboration with filmmaker Mike Mills, who produced a moving short film set to music from the album--is intriguing, but ultimately it leads to some poor booking decisions in regard to the tracklist. It’s in my top ten because there is a masterful album buried in here, you just need to cut away 6 tracks or so. First on the chopping block is “Roman Holiday,” which is inexplicably in the single spot at Track 3. It’s a listless tune that kills the momentum set by “You Had Your Soul With You” and “Quiet Light” and causes the listener to reset before “Oblivions,” which is problematic because it’s one of the most emotionally intense tracks on the album and “Roman Holiday” kills the flow. Instrumental-esque pieces “Her Father in the Pool,” “Dust Swirls in Strange Light,” and “Underwater” add texture, but ultimately they work better in Mills’ film than the album itself. I’d also argue for turning “Hey Rosey” and “Hairpin Turns” into b-sides. That’s a hell of a lot of work, but what is leftover is some of the most engaging and interesting stuff the National has ever done. The introduction of female voices into the bands very male sound is eye-opening and incredible.

9. The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru the Passion 

Thrashing Thru the Passion feels like a true return to form (read: Boys and Girls in America form) for the Hold Steady. Franz Nicolay is back on keys, and coincidentally, the songs never stop rocking. Heaven is Whenever and Teeth Dreams found the band spreading their wings a bit (coinciding with Craig Finn’s launching a solo career and growing as a songwriter), and while I like those albums, they’re more of a mixed bag than the first four records in their discography. Since the B Side of Thrashing Thru the Passion was already released piecemeal on Spotify over the last couple of years, the album lacks the punch to make it an absolute killer, but it’s still the Hold Steady doing what the Hold Steady does best, which is making kick ass rock and roll records that you want to exhaust yourself listening to.

8. Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains

Upon hearing of David Berman’s death, all I could muster was a quiet “Goddamnit” under my breath. Having read the interviews and profile pieces that came out in advance of Berman’s rebranding (and reemergence from 10 years of self-imposed musical hibernation), it was clear that the dude was in a weird place, and when the news came out that he was dead, it was hard to think that it was anything but by his own hand. It’s hard not to look at this as a suicide note, the same way it was hard not to read Mastersystem’s album from last year as Scott Hutchison’s suicide note. Purple Mountains is the most depressive album from Berman, who was always a serial depressive by nature. And yet it’s right up there with the rest of the Silver Jews classics. The songwriting chops that will be Berman’s lasting legacy are on full display here. But you hear a song like “All My Happiness is Gone” and you wonder why no one was checking in on the dude. Berman leaves behind some of the greatest songs of all time, and on Purple Mountains he proved that he was better than ever. And that is heartbreaking. It’s all heartbreaking.

7. Laura Stevenson - The Big Freeze

Considering that Wheel was in my Top 5 of the decade, I’m going to be all over anything Laura Stevenson puts out into the world. Where Stevenson’s albums typically balance quiet, sensitive tunes with raucous pop songs, The Big Freeze is moody, somber, and it goes deep. It took me a long time to come around to this one, and honestly it really comes down to the timing of the release. It came out in Spring, but this is a Winter record if there ever was one. A record built for driving around in the cold using the warmth of these songs to keep you alive.

6. Craig Finn - I Need a New War

Look, I wear my Hold Steady/Craig Finn homerism pretty clearly on my sleeve, but what am I supposed to do here? Finn wrote two outstanding albums in a year that was, quite frankly, wanting for outstanding albums. Finn’s fourth solo outing is his best, and it’s a real treat to track his progress from Clear Heart, Full Eyes to now. It’s a growth chart, and Finn’s already keen eye has grown keener. The way he nails different shades of melancholy is particularly impressive. While the Hold Steady has always had a lot of sadness in their tunes about druggy youths and party kids, Finn really lets it unfurl here. Finn’s solo work has always been a fantastic counterpoint to the Hold Steady, and it’s a treat that we get both the party and the comedown in the same year.

5. Orville Peck - Pony

Orville Peck answers the question: What if The Magnetic Fields’ “Two Characters in Search of a Country Song” was a band. Though Peck’s true identity is a loosely kept secret, I prefer to pretend the man behind the fringed leather mask is a true outlaw. A ghost. A queer cowboy belting out tunes in a Roy Orbison-esque croon about hustlers, drifters, and outcasts living lives in the dust. Pony comes dangerously close to being pure pastiche, but Peck commits so fully to these songs that they feel true and rise above the gimmick. The returns could be diminishing next time out, but for now Orville Peck has made one of the most compelling albums of the year.

4. Matthew Milia - Alone at St. Hugo

On Alone at St. Hugo, Frontier Ruckus’ frontman Matthew Milia returns to the fertile grounds of his youth that made Eternity of Dimming one of my favorite albums of the decade (#2 to be precise). I’m a big fan of both Fruckus records that came after Dimming, but Alone at St. Hugo comes closest to capturing the magic of that record. It’s a shaggy collection of tunes that finds Milia leaning into Big Star-esque power-pop with wonderful results. Milia's detail oriented songwriting continues to be some of my favorite stuff in the business.

3. Why? - AOKOHIO

AOKOHIO was one of the most exhilarating album experience of the year for me. The album was released piecemeal in six movements every other week and it was just such an exciting way to experience an album. It ensured that no tracks got lost in the middle, and that you could spend time with all of it. AOKOHIO had its fair share of haters upon release, and a lot of the criticism seems to stem from the fact that a lot of the tracks are more like song fragments than songs proper. To the haters I say: Do you not appreciate Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes? Yoni Wolf is as Ohio as he comes, so it makes sense that there is some GBV in his blood. Ultimately this feels like an artist grappling with middle age and still feeling totally unsettled. It makes for a fascinating listen and includes some surprisingly spritely pop gems (“Rock Candy,” “Reason”) in addition to his classic depressive meditations (“Peel Free,” “The Crippled Physician”).

2. PUP - Morbid Stuff

Toronto punks PUP continue to figure their thing out album after album. 2016’s The Dream is Over made my list, and Morbid Stuff  held the top spot for a not insignificant portion of the year. I feel like they have really found their identity on this one. They’re brash, they’re funny, the riffs kick ass, the hooks are outstanding, the energy is out of control, they can get dark when they need to, they get it. You know that feeling when an album just clicks? Where you're halfway through and you have that epiphany of like, "Holy hell, this is a great records, I can't wait to listen to this ten more times today!" Morbid Stuff does that, and just revisiting it to do this write-up I want to listen to it ten times today.

1. Oso Oso - Basking in the Glow

This pick was tipped when it ended up as the only album from 2019 on my Favorite Albums of the Decade list, so no surprise here. It’s just another opportunity for me to rave and rave about this wonderful album. What really works about this album for me is its emotional transparency. Jade Lilitree lays it all out there, and does so with no artifice and a wide-eyed clarity you rarely see. These songs are bursting with life and are almost sinisterly catchy. It’s one of those albums that hit me immediately and just stuck. I knew it was going to be my album of the year a little over halfway through when “A Morning Song” finished. It didn’t matter what the last four songs sounded liked because the first six were so incredible. And that the last four ended up also being incredible was just good fortune.