Random stuff...you know, running through my head

So Google Reader is going away on July 1.  It's aggravating, but for me it may be a blessing in disguise.  I logged on today, and there were 685 new blog posts just screaming out at me to read them.  216 from Ann Althouse alone.  Sure, there are probably some real gems in there, but in the end how much time does one really have to read blog posts?  So moving forward, I'll be severely reducing the number of blogs I read - whatever platform I end up reading them on.

This is shaping up to be an awesome year for music, at least the music that I like.  In some recent years, I've had trouble coming up with a 10-best list because I couldn't think of that many albums worthy of the designation.  But this year, we've already had:

- Patty Griffin's "American Kid"
- Vampire Weekend's "Modern Vampires of the City"
- John Fogerty's "Wrote a Song For Everyone"
- The National's "Trouble Will Find Me"
- Jake Bugg's debut

John Fogerty...simply impossible to dislike his new album, methinks.

Not to mention the new efforts from Pistol Annies, Kacey Musgrave, Deerhunter's "Monomania," plus Emmylou & Rodney, Phoenix, Dawes, and Yo La Tengo, which I already wrote about.  Good stuff.  And Arcade Fire yet to come this year.

I really enjoyed "Looper," and thought it was the best time-travel movie I've ever seen.  It all worked for me.

Of the summer blockbusters, we've already seen "Iron Man 3" (almost as good as the original, much better than "2"), "The Hangover 3" (I admit I enjoyed it, even though I agree that it probably has no reason to exist), and "Star Trek Into Darkness" (already on record as saying that I think what JJ Abrams has done with the canon is absolutely brilliant, and I loved most of what they did here).

Being extended to 7 games by the Indiana Pacers doesn't do much for the Heat's argument to be considered in the debate for best team ever.

Bill Simmons' "The Basketball Book" is nearly 700 pages of absolute nirvana for a sports fan.  My favorite quote comes from Bill Walton, in explaining what it takes to reach the elite level in the game: "Can you make the choice that your happiness comes from someone else's success?"

Worked my way through "the three Cs" - Connelly, Crais, and Coben.  Of the three, Crais' "Suspect" is the best, and I promise to write more about it at some point.  It's his best work since his masterpiece, "LA Requiem."   And since that was only one of the greatest detective novels ever written, that is saying something.

Admit it - right now, Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is stuck in your head, and you can't get it out.

Happy 35th birthday, "Darkness on the Edge of Town."

I could watch "Lost In Translation" every week for the rest of my life, and I don't think I'd get tired of it.

"Chronicle" was really good - every time I see a movie like that, I think "watch that director - going to be a big deal."

More to come...eventually.

Oh well

So much for my repeatedly thwarted plans to stay connected to the blog.

But in case anyone was wondering how I've been spending my time, I did get to spend some great time last week in Long Beach to celebrate Son #1's college graduation.

Here's what it looked like in person.

Ray Manzarek

This isn't intended to discount his work with the Doors, which in many (if not most) instances is remarkable, but just to point out that he also made a significant contribution (as producer for several albums, and playing organ in a most memorable way) to the success of X, one of the punk era's greatest bands.

I ranked "Los Angeles" as my 48th favorite album of all time, and in that review wrote this about his work on "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss":

And then you reach the album’s last song, and my favorite, “The World’s A Mess, It’s In My Kiss.” This is my favorite song on the album, it’s my favorite song by the band, and it’s one of my favorite songs, period. It contains one of my favorite moments of any song that I’ve heard – the organ solo by Ray Manzarek (of The Doors, who produced the album). At the point the solo begins, John and Exene are trading lines, and then suddenly, the organ takes center stage. All you hear is Zoom’s guitar, Doe’s bass, Bonebrake’s drums, and Manzarek’s incredible organ.

For me, it’s a supremely exciting moment. I’ve heard it hundreds if not thousands of times, and the feeling is always the same. I don’t want it to end, and I feel more alive while it is playing. At that moment, the lyrics and the themes don’t matter. All that is left is the music.

If you haven't heard it, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

American Triumph

If justice were to prevail, Patty Griffin would be a household name in the world of music, and her 2002 masterpiece "1000 Kisses" would be discussed in the same breath as American classics like "The Band," "Blood on the Tracks," and "Nebraska."  In the world in which we live in, as Paul McCartney might say, the story is a little different.  I've no idea how many records she sells - I could be wrong, but I doubt her albums go platinum -  but over the last decade Griffin has comfortably occupied and even solidified a notable position in the Americana genre, admired and even loved by devoted fans but residing just outside the periphery of mainstream stardom.  At this juncture, she's probably better known by many as being the current companion of Robert Plant, with whom she has toured and recorded, filling quite adequately the niche established by Alison Krauss on her album with Plant, "Raising Sand."

Since "1000 Kisses," Griffin has not been terribly prolific - two studio LPs that were good but didn't come close to approaching the greatness of her 2002 triumph, a live recording, and "Downtown Church," a compelling but unusual and somewhat inconsistent concept album incorporating old folk and gospel songs with just a couple of Griffin originals.

That all changes with "American Kid."  It is without question a great album; just how great it is will be determined with time.  It's too early to tell, but I suspect there will come a day when Griffin fans engage in strong but good-natured arguments over whether "1000 Kisses" or "American Kid" is the artist's best - the way that devoted fans to this day discuss if not argue about the relative merits of "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver."

The songs on the new album were inspired by Griffin's father, but they tell a universal story about a man - a kid, really - who goes to war and comes home profoundly changed by the experience.  It is a testament to the album's strength that many of these songs could be talking about veterans in any American war - from the Civil War on down to the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The sites may have changed, but the stories remain the same.  Consider these lyrics, from "Not a Bad Man":

I bet you see a stranger
When you look at me
When I look in the mirror
I know that's what I see
I just want a little sleep now
Sleep as silent as the snow
But I am not a bad man
I just wanted you to know

Or these, from "Faithful Son":

Oh, my God
I cry in fear
Afraid you have forgotten me here
Afraid you have forgotten one
Your quiet, dull and faithful son
Who's seen the loneliest of days
And fought the dirtiest of ways
With the main inside
Who would have run away
From the promises I made

The musical approach of the album hearkens back to Griffin's 2002 triumph - for the most part, guitar, bass and percussion, with the occasional banjo or mandolin thrown in for good measure.  And there is also a chilling beauty in many of the songs, particularly two ("Ohio," and "Highway Song") on which the aforementioned Plant sings harmony vocals.

It was too much to ask of Griffin that she replicate the success of "1000 Kisses" on every one of her recordings.  That she has been able to do it at all is reason for jubilation and celebration.  

The Vinyl Collection: Rockpile

I think I may have found a way to stay connected to the blog during this period at work where I'm writing thousands of words about the state budget and the governor's proposed local control funding formula for public schools.

Recipe - take an album from the vinyl collection, attache a picture, and write as many words as I'm in the mood and/or have time for.  No albums that would be considered an all-time classic, and nothing that I also own on CD.  So now that we have those ground rules set...

"Seconds of Pleasure" was the first (and only) album released under the moniker of Rockpile, although the band - Guitarists Dave Edumunds and Billy Bremner, bassist Nick Lowe, and drummer Terry Williams - had performed on notable albums released by Edmunds and Lowe.

Even though they were pub-rock veterans, both Lowe and Edmunds got thrown into that amorphous, late 70s category that meant everything and nothing - "new wave" - probably because Lowe produced the early Elvis Costello albums and Edmunds covered a Costello song (although so did Linda Ronstadt, and it didn't do much for her artistic integrity).

Lowe and Edmunds each released strong albums in both '78 and '79, and then "Seconds of Pleasure" came out in the fall of 1980.  It was about as far from a new wave album as one could possibly imagine - if anything, it sounded like a recording by a band that had been frozen in the Arctic for 25 years.  It's hard-rocking, and it's fun, and ultimately as lightweight and disposable as they come.  But I really liked it at the time, and still pull it out every now and then when I'm in the mood for some loud and fast fifties-influenced sounds.

Sacramento Horror Story

I have no idea whether David Stern's mother is still alive, but I have a feeling he spent at least part of his Mother's Day wondering what he ever did in his life to deserve the Maloof family.  I get that what Stern is doing in his efforts to keep the Kings in Sacramento is probably against most (if not all) of the precepts of business, but in my book he deserves credit for recognizing that franchise hopping destroys the soul of professional sports.  And yeah, maybe Sacramento didn't deserve its team either.  I don't remember shedding a lot of tears on behalf of Kansas City fans at the time the Kings moved out here. 

I have no idea what will happen in the next few days, and there's a small part of me that just wishes they'd leave and let Sacramento figure out some other way to redevelop the shameful stretch of K Street that would be transformed if a new arena was built downtown.  But damn it, if they do end up leaving, I hope every sports site and pundit across the country recognizes that what is happening here is wrong.  They won't write books about the Kings because we're not Brooklyn and have never had a group of players to match the boys of summer (but then again, no one ever has), but if we do lose the Kings it will be just as much an injustice as when the O'Malleys stabbed Brooklyn in the back and took their team to Chavez Ravine (not right away, but close enough).

And at least the O'Malley family knew how to run a business, turning the L.A. Dodgers into one of the most successful and lucrative franchises in the history of professional sports (strong enough to survive Frank McCourt, baseball's version of the Maloofs).  But the Maloofs?  Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the evidence at hand I'd have to say that the Maloof boys (and they are boys, never having matured into men) have run every golden egg they've ever been handed straight into the ground.  I'm not sure if "evil" fits, because to call someone evil makes an assumption that the subject at hand at least has some sense of what he/she is doing.  These guys are like the worst frat guys you could possibly imagine.  Living on mommy and daddy's money, partying like it was going out of style, flaunting their wealth in the most distasteful ways one could imagine.

What did Sacramento do to deserve this?  Oh, we supported a horrible team for years, leading the league in consecutive sellouts during an era when approaching .500 was considered a successful season.  The entire world (well, maybe not L.A.) fell in love with the great Kings team of the early aughts, and then the Maloofs embarked on their little family project to see how just how successful an enterprise they could turn into garbage.  And now that they've gouged the town and the fans for everything they had, they can't resist taking one last jab at the city, because to accept the bid would mean that...hey, get this...they might actually have to go out and work for a living.  You know, like the rest of us do, except we're not paid millions and we're actually held accountable for our performance.

If the NBA Board of Governors or whatever highfalutin name the billionaires who run the league call themselves agree to ship the team off to Seattle, then it will be a dark day for professional sports.  Because the almighty dollar is what it's all about, I'm prepared for the worst.  But I can't help but think that there's an owner or two out there thinking to themselves right now, "I get what these guys are trying to do, but let's face it - they're just a bunch of dicks, and we don't owe them a damn thing."

American Horror Story

Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" is a terrifying film made even more so by the fact that there are large swaths of the film where nothing much happens.  You watch high school students during the course of their day at and around school, the students being followed in long-tracking shots reminiscent of the legendary Big Wheel scenes in "The Shining."  You know what is coming, so you watch these scenes with an increasing sense of dread, wondering what lies behind every corner and every door.  But as they unfold, they seem entirely ordinary.

Which is exactly the point.  Van Sant isn't out to make some bold statement about what causes mass shootings and murder, although there are shots where bullying takes place, where violent video games are played, and where weapons of destruction are casually bought on the Internet.  What he's saying is that this could happen anywhere - or anytime.  And that's why the film is so terrifying.  There is no sense to what happens - no one is picked out for anything in particular that they did.  It's nothing more than a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - in particular, the large rooms like the library and the cafeteria, where there is no place to hide.  The sense of disorientation is enhanced when Van Sant, on more than one occasion, rewinds the timeline of the narrative and shows us a different perspective of the same event.

None of the kids in the movie were professional actors, and they are entirely believable.  They go about their days, and they react to the horror that envelops them in entirely realistic ways.  For the most part, they freeze where they are, reacting a sense of panic and disbelief so strong that it traps them like cement.  Yet even those demonstrating a presence of mind are not safe.  It's entirely random.

"Elephant" is not a fun movie to watch by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a very effective one.

History

It was always going to happen, eventually.  But hearing the news for the first time this morning, it felt as it should - like a milestone, a moment in history that you would always remember.

 

And even though I'm a bit more fanatic about sports than your average fan, I have to admit that I had no idea who Jason Collins was - my attention to the NBA has dropped in recent years with the slow descent of the Sacramento Kings, and it's only during playoff time that my antennae are raised to any relevant degree.  And it's not as if the Washington Wizards have made many recent postseason appearances.

 

Nothing I can say will equal the brevity and the poignancy of the statement by Jason's twin brother Jarron, so I'll just reprint it here:

 

"Today, Jason has taken a huge weight off his shoulders. And I've never been more proud of him."

He Stopped Loving Her Today

 

R.I.P., George Jones.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert wasn't the first film critic I read on a regular basis - that distinction goes to Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice - and surely like many others, I watched him on TV for a long time before I began to read his work with any regularity.  But all these years later, there's little doubt that I've read more of his reviews than any other critic, in any other field.  Before the advent of the Internet, I'd buy the new edition of his Home Movie Companion every other year or so, because in order to keep the volume at a manageable size, they'd have to drop reviews - and sometimes, those were of films like "Red Sonja," which never threatened to make a mark in the annals of film history but which inspired what I still think was some of Ebert's best writing.  To wit...an excerpt from his review of "Red Sonja."

"First, she [Sonja] must learn the ways of the sword from the Grandmaster, a character who looks like a cross between Fu Manchu and Clara Peller (the "Where's the beef?" lady). He tells her, "To be a great swordsman...you need a great sword." She nods intently, and selects one from the stock he has on hand. Then she rides out of the ampitheater by passing beneath a statue of the Buddha, who was squatting in such a familiar position that I instinctively knew why he looked so contented. "

"Along the way, Red Sonja meets Kalidor, a muscular swordsman with a great sword. They encounter a little emperor and his valet, who does not carry a great sword but does have several small knives..."

"Kalidor loves Red Sonja. He wants to kiss her. She rebuffs his advance, and says, "I have vowed to love no man who cannot defeat me in battle." This is a tough one for Kalidor. He knits his brow and puzzles it out. "But...if I defeat you," he says, "then you will be dead...and then how will I love you?" His logic is irrefutable, but they fight anyway."

"Red Sonja is one of the ranking goofy movies of our time...The exact time frame of the story is a little hard to figure out, but using the evidence on the screen, I have been able to narrow it down to the epoch between the rise of Buddhism and the year brass brassieres went out of style."

 It also must be worth something that I can remember quite clearly the first time I watched a complete episode of "Sneak Previews."  I don't remember the exact date, but it had to be sometime around the Fall of 1981, because the two "headline" films being reviewed that night were "Prince of the City" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman."  If I recall correctly, both films got two thumbs up, although they seemed to prefer the latter - meaning that even legends can get one wrong every now and then.

But in criticism, there is no "right" and "wrong."  Ebert was quoted as saying that it was his job to explain how he felt about a movie, and not how the viewer should feel about it.  And that's exactly right.

R.I.P.

Still Living

This is the longest I've gone between posts since I started this blog, and it's not for lack of anything to write about (in fact, I'm keeping a list, just in case I forget about something).  To say it's been busy at work would be an understatement, and as has been my wont for most of my adult life, I've made things more difficult than they probably needed to be with self-inflicted stress.  But overall things are good, I'm still kicking, and at one point or another I'll be able to engage more often and dispense the particular (if not peculiar) brand of wisdom that regular readers have always found here.

Not Fade Away: Yo La Tengo

According to Wikipedia, Yo La Tengo formed in 1984, and has been recording albums under that moniker with the same personnel since 1992.  Nearly all of their albums have been critical hits, but for some reason the band has never  penetrated my consciousness with any regularity.  The first album of theirs that I bought was 1990's "Fakebook," an acoustic outing that turned out to be almost entirely different than the rest of their catalog.  I've bought one or two others, including their anthology, but for the most part they've been a band that I respected more than actively enjoyed.

I'm not even sure what possessed me to buy "Fade," their new album released in January.  It may have been some enthusiastic tweets from Michele Catalano, or the A- that Christgau awarded the album on his Expert Witness blog.  But whatever the reason, I'm glad that I did because "Fade" is clearly the record to beat for 2013 album of the year, a consistently strong work that strikes a perfect tone from its very first chords and maintains that tone throughout, when the album fades out behind a "joyful cacophony" of guitar, bass, drums, strings, and horns.

It's a very modest album, reminiscent of Jack White's "Blunderbuss" in that guitarist Ira Kaplan never feels the need to show off his chops in a "listen at me, I'm an underappreciated guitar genius!" kind of way.  The music is beautiful, an atmospheric mix that bands like Grizzly Bear (and even, forgive me, Bon Iver) could only hope to approach on their best days.  The highlights for me are "Ohm," the album's loudest tune that evokes a bit of Arcade Fire, "I'll Be Around" (not the Spinners classic hit, although there is a great video on YouTube of the band covering that song), "Before We Run," the closing song, and most of all "The Point of It," which simply is a gorgeous song.

If there is a better album released this year, that would be a great thing, because the bar set by "Fade" is so high that it would need to be really good.

Sophie

As annoying as pets can be - especially cats who insist on being fed and watered at the first hints of sunrise - it's not until something unexpected happens to one that you realize what an integral part of the family they are.

We've had Sophie for 18 years now, which means that Son #1 (now 22) was 4, and Son #2 (now 18) was just a baby.  It's not likely that either one of them remembers a time when we did not have her.  She's slowed down over the years, to the point where she sometimes needs help jumping up onto the bed or the couch, and to the point where the days of doing things like jumping up on the counter are long gone.  She's had some health issues in recent months, and even though those issues didn't approach the level of life-threatening, we had begun to mentally prepare ourselves for the inevitable.

When we got home the night of the Academy Awards, she somehow slipped out the front door when we were taking the garbage out, and we didn't notice she was gone until we woke up the next morning.  By then she was long gone, or at least gone.  To say that we felt horrible was an understatement - even though she was old, this was certainly not the way we wanted to lose her, and since she rarely went outside for more than a few minutes at a time (in our backyard, usually to nosh on a little grass), our confidence in her ability to survive in the big bad outdoors was not very high.

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending.  After 9 days of putting up signs, visiting vets, walking, running and driving all over the neighborhood, she was found near our local supermarket, and dropped off at the local vet, where Debra was able to pick her up.  I was on a work trip out of town, and was frankly amazed at the outcome - it just didn't seem possible after all that time that we'd see her again.

So now she is back, a little lighter and a little more tired than normal (although with a cat, can you really tell?).  The picture above was taken on Saturday morning, in her favorite place - a place where she is spending a lot of time right now.  We know that she won't last forever, but we're glad to have her back home where she can go back to being her old, annoying normal self.  In other words, part of the family.

Oscars!

My mom has hosted an Academy Awards party nearly every year since 1968, and during that 45-year period, I doubt that I've missed more than three or four of them.  I still miss the days when the Oscar telecast was in late March or early April - I always connected the show with the start of spring, and as a harbinger of warmer weather.  Having said that, there's also something to be said for getting the awards season out of the way before March Madness begins.

We always have a contest, and we always require every participant to make a selection in every category - regardless of how many of the nominated movies they've seen that year.

This year I saw more of the nominees than any other year in recent memory, thanks in large part to a son (#2) who was determined that we hit the major contenders during his holiday break from college.  Last week we (wife and I) saw "Life of Pi," completing our Oscar cycle for 2012-13.  In my book, this was an excellent year, and there are no sore spots for me in the list of major nominees.  And this was a very interesting year in the realm of Oscar buzz, and let's just say that it's a good thing I didn't forge my predictions in stone when the nominations were first announced in early January.  So, without further ado...

Best Picture

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

I saw all of these except "Amour," and liked them all, but some much more than others.  There's little doubt in my mind that the best movie on this list is "Zero Dark Thirty," but given the snub of Director Kathryn Bigelow and the (ridiculous, in my view) controversy over the movie's depiction of torture, zero would also seem to be the best word to describe its chances of winning.  When the nominees were announced, I would have chosen "Lincoln," but that was before the momentum shifted to "Argo," despite (and in this case, perhaps because of) the snub of Ben Affleck in the Best Director category.  Plus, "Argo" and Affleck have won everything in sight since the Golden Globes.  And Affleck's story, going from ridiculed has-been actor to universally admired director, is hard to resist.  There's no reason to think that the "Argo" trend will change here.

And the winner is:  Argo

Best Director

Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlen,  Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Thanks to the two most prominent snubs in recent memory, this is a really interesting category.  Again, when the nominations first came out, I was prepared to vote for a "Lincoln" sweep, but in its own inimitable way, the Academy seems to have decided that it is the film that needs to be punished for the snub of Ben Affleck.  It doesn't really make any sense, but that's what seems to be happening.  So while Spielberg could win, and in my book he would be a worthy winner, I don't think he will - and there will almost certainly be at least three cameras pointed directly at him to capture his reaction.

And the winner is:  Ang Lee

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

I haven't seen "Flight" or "The Master," but I don't think that matters one bit.  Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as our 16th President is truly extraordinary, one that will be remembered for as long as people are going to the movies.  No contest here.

And the winner is: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quenzhenane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Although an upset is possible - the Academy has done stranger things than to vote for Riva - the deserved favorite here is Jennifer Lawrence, who in a very short time has established herself as one of the great actors of our generation.  She was great in the sometimes silly "Hunger Games," and even better in the harrowing "Winter's Bone."  But this is her best role yet, and as good as Bradley Cooper was in "Silver Linings Playbook" (and he was surprisingly good), when the two were together onscreen, there was little doubt about which of them had the greater presence and charisma.

And the winner is: Jennifer Lawrence

Best Supporting Actor

Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

You just never know with these supporting categories.  I could easily see any of these actors winning - they're all pantheon level actors, and they've all won one before.  Arkin was funny in his role, but I kinda wish they've gone with Leonardo DiCaprio for his startling turn as an evil plantation owner in "Django Unchained."  This one is anyone's ballgame.

And the winner is: Tommy Lee Jones

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

On the other hand, this is probably the easiest pick of the night.  Anne Hathaway is as big a lock as there can be, although her big scene left me strangely unmoved.  In fact, I think she was better in, and should have been nominated for, "The Dark Knight Rises."

And the winner is: Anne Hathaway

My other picks:

Original Screenplay: Amour
Adapted Screenplay: Lincoln
Foreign Language Film: Amour
Cinematography: Life of Pi
Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary Short: Open Heart
Animated Feature: Wreck-It Ralph
Animated Short: Head Over Heels
Live Action Short: Curfew
Editing: Argo
Production Design: Anna Karenina
Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Makeup: The Hobbit
Score: Life of Pi
Song: "Skyfall"
Sound Editing: Life of Pi
Sound Mixing: Les Miserables
Visual Effects: Life of Pi

Have fun!

Top 50 Albums of All Time, #24 - Talking Heads, 1977-80

OK, so I'm cheating with this one.  But it's my list, right? 

After several weeks of trying to nitpick the differences between the Talking Heads' first four albums, I've reached the conclusion that to take any one of them out of the context of what the band accomplished in the late 1970s would be a mistake.  Each one of the albums has its own distinct identity, but together they form a cohesive whole, and paint a picture of a band that over the course of a four-year period, figured out exactly what it wanted to do, and achieved it with spectacular results.

Listening to the debut album, Talking Heads '77, is what it feels like to read the first book by a great novelist.  All the pieces are there - the talent, the musicianship, the songwriting - all that it lacks is a sympathetic editor who can pull all of those pieces together and help the artist realize their potential and their vision.

With More Songs About Buildings and Food, the band found that editor in producer Brian Eno. As Robert Christgau wrote at the time, Eno and the Heads were the ideal producer-artist collaboration, and you can hear his contributions in the record's every groove.  If anything was lacking on the debut, it was a sense of sound - and love him or hate him, one thing that Brian Eno can do very well is create a distinctive sound.  Where the music on the debut sounded a little flat, on the sophomore effort it is full and distinctive.

On Fear of Music, David Byrne the songwriter and the band as musicians went in a completely different direction, but one that was no less successful.  Even more than "Psycho Killer," the songs on Fear of Music were insular, jittery and sometimes even a little scary (just listen to "Animals" and "Drugs," next time you have a chance).  At the time it came out, I remember telling a classmate that it should have been called "Dance Music for Neurotics."  Christgau didn't like it quite as much, but Lester Bangs loved it even more - which probably tells you everything you need to know.

And even with all that - three great albums, all critically acclaimed, and even a radio hit with a definitive cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" - little the band had done before (with the possible exception of "I Zimbra" on Fear of Music) was sufficient to prepare one for the epic soundscapes of Remain in Light.  I freely admit that I didn't get it at first, giving it a listen and wondering what the hell had happened - yes, I could hear David Byrne's voice in there, but this was so far outside the "Talking Heads mold" that it was a little off-putting (and besides, "The River" came out on the very same day, and it was such a rich feast that there was little time left for anything else).

It was only when I saw the Heads in concert - the first tour with the "expanding band" concept that would become legendary a few years later with the release of "Stop Making Sense" - that everything began to click.  What seemed expansive just two years earlier now seemed downright tame, as the band and Eno took the music well beyond the boundaries of punk or new wave, or whatever you wanted to call it, and created something that, to these ears, was unique.

The band would go on, without Eno, to record two more excellent albums, but nothing would ever quite match the excitement and the innovation of the first four.  But even if their career had ended in 1980, their election to the Hall of Fame would have been secure. 

Top 50 Albums of all Time, #25 - "American IV: The Man Comes Around," Johnny Cash

And so we finally break the Top 25, and from here on out every selection will be an existential crisis, as I argue with myself on whether I have this or that album rated too low, too high, or whatever.  But from this point on, we're talking degrees of magnificence.  There really isn't much to choose between these records, and depending upon the day or my mood, I might rank them differently (with the exception of those at the very top).

"What gave me the idea I could and should produce Johnny Cash?"  In his house in the Hollywood Hills, sun squeezing through the stained glass windows, Rick Rubin is sitting cross-legged and shoeless on a sofa almost the size of Johnny's favorite room.  One black dog lolls on his back, next to him.  "There's no good answer to that; it just felt like the right thing to do.  I'd been thinking about who was really great but not making really great records; what great artists are not in a great place right now.  And Johnny was the first and the greatest that came to mind.  A unique character, kind of his own force of nature.  Someone who doesn't fit into any guidelines - whatever he does it's always, well, Johnny Cash - and who didn't seem inspired to be doing his best work right now." - liner notes, Cash Unearthed, by Sylvie Simmons

"The Man Comes Around" was the fourth Johnny Cash album produced by Rick Rubin, and the last released before Cash's death in September 2003.  That May, Cash had lost his dear and beloved wife June Carter Cash, and it's not much a stretch to imagine that as he and Rubin were recording the album in 2001 and 2002, that death was not far from his mind.  The album is a valediction - Cash confronting his own mortality through a series of songs steeped in death and pain ("Hurt," "I Hung My Head," "Sam Hall," "Streets of Laredo"), sending his eternal love to June ("First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"), and wondering aloud what might await on the other side ("The Man Comes Around," "We'll Meet Again"). 

"It was hard work.  I spent a lot of time on that song, "The Man Comes Around" - weeks and weeks writing and working the lyrics around to the way they are.  I was trying for something special.  It went through all sorts of changes.  I'd written it as a poem - I haven't written many poems before, but that's how it came out - based loosely on the Book of Revelation in the Bible, and I would go from one interpretation to another on this very complicated interpretation - or to me it's very complicated - until I finally found some lyrics that worked.  I probably have 40 or 50 verses that I wrote that I didn't use."  - Johnny Cash, liner notes, Cash Unearthed

There is an early version of "The Man Who Comes Around" on "Unearthed," and it is instructive to listen to the two versions back-to-back.  The first is primarily Cash on acoustic guitar with what I would call a pretty standard country music backing.  The song is undeniable, but on that version there is a clear disconnect between the power of the lyrics and the music, which doesn't rise to the occasion.  And that is where Rubin came in - because the structure of the song on "American IV" is part of what makes the song so frightening.  There's the spoken intro, coming in as if from another world, and then the unmistakable lead-in to the song, sung in almost staccato fashion:

There's a man going around taking names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There will be a golden ladder reaching down
When the man comes around

Clearly, not everyone will get to use that golden ladder.   This is a truly frightening song, real end-of-the-world stuff - and likely indicative of the things that were running through Cash's mind at the time.

"Usually when I send Johnny songs it's with no real pitch, just "Listen to them and see what ones you like."  But I do remember saying when I sent him Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," "I think this particular song is  really special one.  I feel like the words have a lot of power and with you singing them it's really going to take on a whole new light." - Rick Rubin, liner notes, Cash Unearthed

I've told this story before, but it bears repeating.  The first time I heard "Hurt," I was doing something that I've done dozens of times in my life - spending my lunch hour wandering around The Beat, the great downtown Sacramento record store that is one of the few remaining bastions of independence in the industry.  Like they often do, they had a number of albums on the CD player on shuffle, so the songs weren't coming up in any particular order.  The first "American IV" song I heard that day was "Tear Stained Letter," and I remember thinking "wow, that really sounds awesome."  A few other songs went by, and then all of sudden there was "Hurt."  And I stood there in front of the speaker, goose bumps running up and down my entire body, totally transfixed by what I was hearing.

If the album consisted of just those two songs, that would probably be enough.  But in addition to the great songs already mentioned above, Cash turns in great performances of several classic standards, including "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "In My Life," "Desperado," "Danny Boy," and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," as well as his own take on "Personal Jesus" and a new version of his old song "Give My Love to Rose."

It's a great album, and a fitting testament to a great, great artist.

American IV: The Man Comes Around
Produced by Rick Rubin

The Man Comes Around/Hurt/Give My Love to Rose/Bridge Over Troubled Water/I Hung My Head/First Time Ever I Saw Your Face/Personal Jesus/In My Life/Sam Hall/Danny Boy/Desperado/I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry/Tear Stained Letter/Streets of Laredo/We'll Meet Again