I have put links for all my meta-lists for the best of 2009 and 2010 in this post – each one is a compilation of numerous best film, best music and best books lists for each year. Have a look:
BEST BOOKS OF 2009 BEST BOOKS OF 2010
BEST FILMS OF 2009 BEST FILMS OF 2010
BEST MUSIC OF 2009 BEST MUSIC OF 2010
As you know by now, I’ve been collecting ‘best of the year’ lists for a decade and I’m slowly publishing them on my blog. Here’s the best of 2011:
Every December, like clockwork, film, book and music critics (and bloggers) publish their “Best of the Year” lists in newspapers, magazines and websites. And since 2002, I’ve been collecting those lists and collating them to find out which books, movies and albums made it onto the most lists. I’m going to publish all these lists eventually, but for now, I’ve put up the most recent ‘best of’ compilations, from 2012. Take a look:
As you may already know, I don’t just make lists, I also like to play with my lists. (Contrary to popular belief, this does not lead to blindness.) I have been wanting to take my best music, literature and film of all time lists and set them up so you can see which items I’ve checked off, and so you can do the same. If you’ve ever spent any time on listsofbests.com, you know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, WordPress (at least here in the cheap seats) doesn’t allow for such sophisticated programming. Undaunted, I have found an alternative ‘check-off’ method. Instead of checking off each movie I’ve seen, book I’ve read and and piece of music I’ve listened to, I have highlighted it in blue – Royal Blue, I might add. (See below.) So now, if you care (and, honestly, why would you?), you can find out which of the “best evers” I have partaken of so far. And to make the fun last longer, you can make a copy of each list and do the same. Happy listing!
My Film Checklist
My Literature Checklist
My Music Checklist
The fall of the Twin Towers. Al-Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism on the rise. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Intifada. Chechnya. The Janjaweed. The tsunami. SARS. Benazir Bhutto assassinated. The Great Recession. The Patriot Act. Reality TV. Mel Gibson. There was plenty to be scared of in the first decade of the 21st Century. We were so frightened, we even started a war against terror itself. We started out with Clinton and ended with Obama, but mostly we got the misunderestimations of George Bush. There were other, less terrifying developments: The Eurozone. GPS. Hybrid cars. Atheism bestsellers. Martha Stewart went to jail. Peter Jackson did LOTR fans proud (except for Tom Bombadil fanatics). Kids got their news from The Daily Show. Hunter Thompson’s ashes were shot from a cannon. Vets coming home with PTSD were refused treatment by the government they bravely served. It was that kind of decade.
Here they are: some of my favorite books, films and music from the 2000s.
Favorite 00s Films
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007)
Fat Girl (Breillat, 2001)
American Splendor (Berman, 2003)
Capturing the Friedmans (Jarecki, 2003)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001)
Dogville (von Trier, 2003)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Moore, 2004)
Grizzly Man (Herzog, 2005)
Talk to Her (Almodovar, 2002)
Juno (Reitman, 2007)
The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck, 2006)
Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann, 2001)
Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 2001)
No Country for Old Men (Coen, 2007)
Once (Carney, 2006)
Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky, 2000)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)
Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008)
Tarnation (Caouette, 2004)
Traffic (Soderbergh, 2000)
Downfall (Hirschbiegel, 2004)
Waking Life (Linklater, 2001)
The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009)
Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
Favorite 00s Music
PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000)
Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynne (2000)
U2 All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
Mariza Fado em Mim (2000)
Greg Osby Invisible Hand (2000)
Pérotin Perotin (Hilliard Ensemble) (2000)
Johann Sebastian Bach Mass in B Minor (Gächinger Kantorei & Bach-Collegium Stuttgart/Rilling) (2000)
Macy Gray The Id (2001)
Buddy Guy Sweet Tea (2001)
Jason Moran Black Stars (2001)
Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Beck Sea Change (2002)
Sleater-Kinney One Beat (2002)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever to Tell (2003)
The New Pornographers Electric Version (2003)
Arcade Fire Funeral (2004)
Sufjan Stevens Illinois (2005)
My Morning Jacket Z (2005)
Petra Haden Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out (2005)
John Adams The Dharma at Big Sur (BBC Symphony Orch./Adams) (2006)
The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America (2006)
Camera Obscura Let’s Get Out of This Country (2006)
Arcade Fire Neon Bible (2007)
The New Pornographers Challengers (2007)
The Swell Season Once: Music From the Motion Picture (2007)
PJ Harvey White Chalk (2007)
Los Campesinos! Hold On Now, Youngster… (2008)
Tune-Yards Bird-Brains (2009)
Leonard Bernstein Mass (Baltimore Symphony Orch./Alsop; Sykes) (2009)
Favorite 00s Books
Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)
Ian McEwan Atonement (2001)
David McCullough John Adams (2001)
Leif Enger Peace Like a River (2001)
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (2002)
Janet E. Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002)
Edward P. Jones The Known World (2003)
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
David Maraniss They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 (2003)
Steve Coll Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)
David Crystal The Stories of English (2004)
Tim Riley Fever: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Transformed Gender in America (2004)
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go (2005)
Charles C. Mann 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005)
Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
Duncan Clark The Rough Guide To Classical Music (2005)
Michael Pollan The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006)
Julie Phillips James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (2006)
Philip Lopate (ed.) American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now (2006)
Alex Ross The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007)
Annette Gordon-Reed The Hemingses of Monticello (2008)
Mark Harris Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood (2008)
Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton, the cigar, and the blue dress that never made it to the dry cleaners. Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas and the Coke can. Desert Storm and the Scud Stud. CNN and the 24-hour news cycle. The Rwandan Genocide. The Bosnian Genocide. Kosovo. Grunge mashed up heavy metal and punk and draped a torn flannel shirt over it. Riot grrls took third wave feminism and added electric guitars and explicit lyrics. And speaking of explicit lyrics, they put warning labels on rap CDs, helping sales under the law of unintended consequences. The 90s was the era of sex, lies and the Intertubes. James Cameron was king of the world. Disney started making animated classics again. They freed Nelson Mandela. Alternative music and indie film briefly took over, until the big corporations caught on and cashed in. A lot of us started thinking it might be worth it to pay more for organic. Scientists cloned a sheep – hello, Dolly. Al Gore started talking about something called ‘global warming.’ On TV we had Friends (hairdo: the Rachel), ER (hairdo: the Clooney) and, of course, Steve Urkel.
Here are some of my favorite films, books and music from the 1990s:
Favorite 90s Films
Short Cuts (Altman, 1993)
Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995)
Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999)
Schindler’s List (Spielberg, 1993)
Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)
Happiness (Solondz, 1998)
Ed Wood (Burton, 1994)
Fargo (Coens, 1996)
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (Morris, 1997)
The Celebration (Vinterberg, 1998)
Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993)
Lone Star (Sayles, 1996)
Microcosmos (Nuridsany/Pérennou, 1996)
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
Rushmore (Anderson, 1998)
Secrets & Lies (Leigh, 1996)
The Sweet Hereafter (Egoyan, 1997)
All About My Mother (Almodóvar, 1999)
Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1997)
The Apostle (Duvall, 1997)
American Beauty (Mendes, 1999)
Election (Payne, 1999)
Boys Don’t Cry (Peirce, 1999)
Brother’s Keeper (Berlinger/Sinofsky, 1992)
Favorite 90s Music
World Party Goodbye Jumbo (1990)
The Sundays Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (1990)
They Might Be Giants Flood (1990)
Sinéad O’Connor I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990)
Rosanne Cash Interiors (1990)
Franz Liszt Sonata in B minor (Pollini) (1990)
Erik Satie Erik Satie (Queffélec) (1990)
R.E.M. Out of Time (1991)
U2 Achtung Baby (1991)
Throwing Muses The Real Ramona (1991)
Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Suites (Rostropovich) (1991)
Elliott Carter The Four String Quartets (Juilliard Quartet) (1991)
R.E.M. Automatic for the People (1992)
Josquin Des Prés Missa “Ave maris stella”; Motets & Chansons (Taverner Consort & Choir/Parrott) (1992)
Aimee Mann Whatever (1993)
Liz Phair Exile in Guyville (1993)
Anonymous Adorate Deum: Gregorian Chant from the Proper of the Mass (Nova Schola Gregoriana/Turco) (1993)
PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love (1994)
Letters to Cleo Aurora Gory Alice (1994)
Johnny Cash American Recordings (1994)
John Dowland Complete Lute Works, Vol. 1 (O’Dette) (1995)
Alban Berg Wozzeck (Barenboim; Grundheber; Meier; Baker; Clark) (1994)
Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet) (1994-1999)
Garbage Garbage (1995)
Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill (1995)
Emmylou Harris Wrecking Ball (1995)
Aimee Mann I’m With Stupid (1995)
Beck Odelay (1996)
Radiohead OK Computer (1997)
Sarah McLachlan Surfacing (1997)
The Sundays Static & Silence (1997)
Bob Dylan Time Out of Mind (1997)
Yo La Tengo I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)
Garbage Version 2.0 (1998)
John Scofield A Go Go (1998)
Lucinda Williams Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)
Steve Reich Music for 18 Musicians (1998)
Wilco Summerteeth (1999)
Tom Waits Mule Variations (1999)
The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs (1999)
Jim Hall & Pat Metheny Jim Hall & Pat Metheny (1999)
Favorite 90s Books
David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest (1996)
Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things (1997)
Zadie Smith White Teeth (1999)
Daniel C. Dennett Consciousness Explained (1991)
Richard Fortey Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth (1997)
Philip Gourevitch We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (1998)
Janet E. Browne Charles Darwin: Voyaging (1995)
Andrea Barrett Ship Fever: Stories (1996)
John McPhee Annals of the Former World (1998)
Norman Rush Mating (1991)
Tony Judt Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (1999)
Tim Riley Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary (1992)
David McCullough Truman (1992)
Julia Cameron The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (1992)
Dennis Overbye Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe (1991)
Aljean Harmetz Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca–Bogart, Bergman, and World War II (1992)
I just need two words to sum up what was wrong with the 80s: Ronald Reagan. He’s the guy that fired the striking air traffic controllers, thereby sending the message to employers everywhere that the government was on their side, not the side of the workers and their unions. He’s the guy that made it cool to be conservative, to blame the poor for their poverty, to pretend that racism and sexism were problems of the past and those who didn’t buy this outrageous lie had a “victim mentality.” They made ‘tax and spend’ liberal a four-letter word, while raising government spending to record highs. What was that stuff trickling down, anyway? It wasn’t water and it smelled kinda funny.
And what did our culture give us as the backdrop for this class war? MTV: Paula Abdul dancing with cartoons. Boy bands. Boy George. Big hair for women (and hair metal bands); buzz cuts for men. Speaking of hair, A Flock of Seagulls. And in the theaters: Porky’s. Flashdance. Iran-Contra. Wait, that last one was real, wasn’t it?
I can’t complain too much, though. On a personal level, the 80s brought me together with my life partner and true love (you know who you are) – but I can promise you that Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Here are my favorite books, films and music of the 1980s:
Favorite 80s Films
Stardust Memories (Allen, 1980)
Wings of Desire (Wenders, 1987)
The King of Comedy (Scorcese, 1982)
The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky, 1986)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen, 1989)
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)
Raging Bull (Scorcese, 1980)
Blue Velvet (Lynch, 1986)
Brazil (Gilliam, 1985)
Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
Say Anything… (Crowe, 1989)
My Dinner With Andre (Malle, 1981)
sex, lies, and videotape (Soderbergh, 1989)
The Thin Blue Line (Morris, 1988)
Raising Arizona (Coens, 1987)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen, 1986)
This Is Spinal Tap (Reiner, 1984)
Baby It’s You (Sayles, 1983)
Local Hero (Forsyth, 1983)
Atlantic City (Malle, 1980)
Return of the Secaucus Seven (Sayles, 1980)
The Vanishing (Sluizer, 1988)
Sans Soleil (Marker, 1983)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (Richter, 1984)
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (Ophüls, 1988)
Favorite 80s Books
Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children (1981)
D.M. Thomas The White Hotel (1981)
Gerald Mast A Short History of the Movies (1986)
Raymond Carver Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories (1988)
Randy Shilts And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987)
Howard Zinn A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (1980)
John Gardner The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (1984)
Anthony J. Lukas Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1985)
Don DeLillo White Noise (1985)
T.C. Boyle World’s End (1987)
Art Spiegelman Maus, Vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History (1986)
Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
James M. McPherson Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988)
Taylor Branch Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988)
Ernst Mayr The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (1982)
A.J. Ayer Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1982)
Robert Middlekauff The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (1982)
John Diekelmann Natural Landscaping: Designing with Native Plant Communities (1982)
Martin Amis Money (1984)
Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth (1988)
Tim Riley Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album By Album, Song By Song, The Sixties And After (1988)
Jack Connor The Complete Birder: A Guide to Better Birding (1988)
Kenneth O. Morgan The Oxford History of Britain (1988)
R.F. Foster Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (1989)
John Kobal John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies (1988)
Favorite 80s Music
Talking Heads Remain in Light (1980)
Dire Straits Making Movies (1980)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro (London Philharmonic Orch./Solti; Te Kanawa; Popp; von Stade; Ramey) (1982)
Elvis Costello Imperial Bedroom (1982)
The Roches Keep On Doing (1982)
Paul Simon Hearts and Bones (1982)
Tom Waits Rain Dogs (1985)
Domenico Scarlatti Best Sonatas (Ross) (rec. 1984-1985, rel. 1991)
Elvis Costello King of America (1986)
Peter Gabriel So (1986)
Paul Simon Graceland (1986)
U2 The Joshua Tree (1987)
Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (1975, rel. in US, 1987)
Alison Krauss Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection (1987-1994)
Béla Bartók 6 String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet) (1988)
k.d. lang Shadowland (1988)
Johann Sebastian Bach The Well-Tempered Piano, Part 1 (Jaccottet) (1989)
Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas (The English Concert and Choir/Pinnock) (1989)
It wasn’t the best of times, but it wasn’t the worst of times either. Not so much the Me Decade, as the meh decade. Soft rock – the oxymoronic soundtrack to the 70s, that and disco, and the Grateful Dead. I’m OK, You’re OK. Transcendental meditation. I watched Watergate, the Bicentennial, and Son of Sam on TV. The Vietnam War ended and Saturday Night Live began. Nixon, Ford and Carter occupied the White House. We waited in line for gas, first in ’74, then again in ’79. I saw Godspell – twice.
Here are some of my favorite films, books and music from the 1970s.
Favorite 60s Books
Thomas Pynchon Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 (1973)
Kurt Vonnegut Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene (1976)
E.E. Cummings Complete Poems 1913-1962 (1972)
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon (1977)
John Rawls A Theory of Justice (1971)
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward All the President’s Men (1974)
Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (1974)
Frances Moore Lappé Diet for a Small Planet (1971)
Alice S. Rossi (ed.) The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir (1973)
E.L. Doctorow Ragtime (1975)
Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976)
John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever (1978)
Augustus Napier & Carl Whitaker The Family Crucible (1978)
Leon Edel Henry James: A Life (1953-1972)
E.O. Wilson On Human Nature (1978)
Steve Martin Cruel Shoes (1979)
Favorite 70s Music
The Velvet Underground Loaded (1970)
Van Morrison Moondance (1970)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Déjà vu (1970)
Derek and The Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)
John Lennon John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Al Green Compact Command Performances: 14 Greatest Hits (1970-1974)
Hound Dog Taylor Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers (1971)
Carole King Tapestry (1971)
Joni Mitchell Blue (1971)
The Who Who’s Next (1971)
T. Rex Electric Warrior (1971)
Neil Young Harvest (1972)
Randy Newman Sail Away (1972)
Yes Close to the Edge (1972)
The Modern Lovers The Modern Lovers (rec. 1972, rel. 1976)
Bob Marley Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers (1972-1983)
Dave Holland Conference of the Birds (1973)
Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Paul Simon There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973)
The Who Quadrophenia (1973)
Yes Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973)
Joe Pass Virtuoso (1974)
Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks (1975)
Bruce Springsteen Born to Run (1975)
Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here (1975)
Patti Smith Horses (1975)
Early Music Consort of London Music of the Gothic Era (1976)
Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall (1976)
Albert Collins Ice Pickin’ (1978)
Giuseppe Verdi Otello (Domingo; Scotto; Levine) (1978)
Elvis Costello This Year’s Model (1978)
The Roches The Roches (1979)
Talking Heads Fear of Music (1979)
Favorite 70s Films
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975)
Taxi Driver (Scorcese, 1976)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog, 1974)
Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)
Annie Hall (Allen, 1977)
3 Women (Altman, 1977)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel, 1972)
Badlands (Malick, 1973)
Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1972)
Cries and Whispers (Bergman, 1972)
A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes, 1974)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970)
The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich, 1971)
A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971)
MASH (Altman, 1970)
Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971)
The Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
Nashville (Altman, 1975)
Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979)
All my earliest memories come from this decade. My first books and first movies. Bambi at the drive-in. Mary Poppins. The mysteries of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The Bounty Trilogy. Jules Verne. First explorations of nature in my backyard. First day of school. My first library card. Reading books in the ‘back back’ of the light blue station wagon. My first fishing pole – catching sunnies and, once, a snapping turtle, in the Saddle Brook. My first trip on an airplane – visiting the pilot in the cockpit. Watching the Apollo astronauts on TV. The shooting of Bobby Kennedy. The Vietnam War on the evening news. Hippies making out in Glen Rock Park.
So in the spirit of that immense decade, here are my top films, books and music of the 1960s. To see the complete lists, check out the menu at the top of the page.
Favorite 60s Films
8½ (Fellini, 1963)
Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux [My Life to Live] (Godard, 1962)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960)
À bout de souffle [Breathless] (Godard, 1960)
Repulsion (Polanski, 1965)
Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960)
L’avventura [The Adventure] (Antonioni, 1960)
El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (Buñuel, 1962)
Jules et Jim [Jules and Jim] (Truffaut, 1962)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
La jetée [The Pier] (Marker, 1962)
Nóż w wodzie [Knife in the Water] (Polanski, 1962)
The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer, 1962)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
Le procès [The Trial] (Welles, 1962)
The Servant (Losey, 1963)
Bande à part [Band of Outsiders] (Godard, 1964)
Faces (Cassavetes, 1968)
Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969)
Favorite 60s Books
Thomas Pynchon V. (1963)
Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Tom Wolfe The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)
Kurt Vonnegut Cat’s Cradle (1963)
James Watson The Double Helix (1968)
J.D. Salinger Franny and Zooey (1961)
Jorge Luis Borges Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (1962)
William Hinton Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (1966)
Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)
John Barth Giles Goat-Boy (1966)
William L. Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960)
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange (1962)
Richard Taylor Metaphysics (1963)
Frank Rhodes Fossils (1962)
Favorite 60s Music
Patsy Cline 12 Greatest Hits (1957-1963)
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles The Ultimate Collection (1959-1972)
Wes Montgomery The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (1960)
Freddie King Hide Away: The Best of Freddy King (1960-1966)
Etta James The Sweetest Peaches: The Chess Years, Part 1 (1960-1966)
Bill Evans Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961)
Johann Sebastian Bach St. Matthew Passion (Klemperer) (1961)
Dexter Gordon Go (1962)
Lee Morgan The Sidewinder (1964)
Gustav Mahler Das Lied von der Erde (Ludwig/Klemperer) (1964-1966)
Joe Henderson Inner Urge (1965)
Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (1965)
Sun Ra The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra (1965)
John Coltrane A Love Supreme (1965)
B.B. King Live at the Regal (1965)
The Beatles Rubber Soul (1965)
Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Various Artists Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era (1965-1968)
Richard Wagner Tristan und Isolde (Chor und Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele/Böhm; Nilsson; Windgassen; Ludwig) (1966)
Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde (1966)
Larry Young Unity (1966)
Various Artists Chicago/The Blues/Today! (1966)
The Beatles Revolver (1966)
Albert King King of the Blues Guitar (1966-1968)
Jefferson Airplane The Worst of Jefferson Airplane (1966-1969)
Janis Joplin Greatest Hits (1966-1970)
The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Aretha Franklin The Very Best of Aretha Franklin: The ’60s (1967-1970)
Van Morrison Astral Weeks (1968)
The Beatles The Beatles [White Album] (1968)
Claudio Monteverdi Orfeo (Ensemble Vocal et Instrumental de Lausanne/Corboz) (1968)
Various Artists Tropicália: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound (1968-1970)
Dusty Springfield Dusty in Memphis (1969)
The Who Tommy (1969)
Crosby, Stills & Nash Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969)
The Band The Band (1969)
The Beatles Abbey Road (1969)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve often felt that I was born just a little too late – if I had been born in the 1950s instead of the 1960s, I would have been around for all those anti-Vietnam campus protests, and the beginning of the counterculture. They seemed like heady, exciting times to me (especially when I was a teenager in the 1970s) and I felt like I had missed out on the time of my life.
So I was thinking about the 1950s and I decided to look through my literature, music and films lists to find my favorites from that decade. Here are the results:
FAVORITE ‘50s FILMS
Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950)
Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, 1950)
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951)
Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen, 1952)
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Tati, 1953)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953)
The Band Wagon (Minnelli, 1953)
The Earrings of Madame de… (Ophüls, 1953)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
The Apu Trilogy (Ray, 1955-1959)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Touch of Evil (Welles, 1958)
FAVORITE 50s MUSIC
T-Bone Walker, The Complete Imperial Recordings (1950-1954)
Elmore James, The Sky Is Crying: The History of Elmore James (1951-1961)
Sarah Vaughan, Sarah Vaughan (with Clifford Brown) (1954)
Elvis Presley, The Sun Sessions (1954-1955)
Ray Charles, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, The Clovers, Atlantic & Atco Remasters Series: Sampler One (1954-1958)
Jascha Heifetz, Beethoven and Brahms: Violin Concertos (1955)
Buddy Holly, Memorial Collection (1955-1959)
Chuck Berry, The Great Twenty-Eight (1955-1965)
Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (Karajan; Schwarzkopf; Ludwig) (1956)
Frank Sinatra, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956)
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus (1956)
Thelonious Monk, Brilliant Corners (1956)
Nat “King” Cole, After Midnight (1956)
Otis Rush, The Classic Cobra Recordings (1956-1958)
Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast) (1957)
The Everly Brothers, Cadence Classics: Their 20 Greatest Hits (1957-1960)
Champion Jack Dupree, Blues From the Gutter (1958)
The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out (1959)
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959)
Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959)
FAVORITE 50s LITERATURE
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
Isaac Asimov, Foundation; Foundation & Empire; Second Foundation (1951-1953)
Samuel Beckett, Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable (1951-1953)
A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1952)
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories (1953)
J. D. Salinger, Nine Stories (1953)
Walter Kaufmann (ed.), Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (1953)
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1953)
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955)
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction (1955)
William Golding, The Inheritors (1955)
J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1955)
James Agee, A Death in the Family (1957)
Harold Brodkey, First Love and Other Sorrows (1958)
Günter Grass, The Tin Drum (1959)
To see my five-star albums, books and films, click on the appropriate tab at the top of the page. I’m interested in what you think, and what your favorites are.