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.