A global financial crisis in the middle of a U.S. presidential election toppled financial institutions and triggered government bail-outs. In the midst of it all, Americans elected their first African-American President, Barack Obama. In other news, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan and the Olympics were held in Beijing. Take a trip back to 2008 – the year that was too big to fail. I’ve compiled lists of the best films, music and books of 2008, according to the critics and bloggers who make those “Best of the Year” lists every December.
Tag Archives: Music
Songs and Stories
I’d like to announce my latest lists. Like many of my lists, these are meta-lists, in that I have combined numerous “best of” lists I found in books and on the Internet. One is the best short stories of all time and the second is the best songs of all time (see links below). I tried my best to make both lists diverse, but as usual, the resources out there in English are biased toward English-language stories and songs (especially songs!) Nevertheless, I think the lists are interesting and provide some ideas about what to read and listen to.
Best Short Stories of All Time
Best Short Stories of All Time – Chronological
Best Songs of All Time
Best Songs of All Time – Chronological
Authors and Auteurs: The Individual As Creative Force
There appears to be a human impulse to attribute a work of art to a single creator. Maybe this is a consequence of the monotheistic religions that so many humans embrace (or perhaps monotheism is a result of the same human impulse). We honor and celebrate the skill and imagination, the creative power of book authors, playwrights, poets, painters, sculptors, songwriters, musicians, and film directors. The underlying theory, I suppose, is that it takes the creative vision of a single mind to produce a fully-realized work of art. The most controversial application of this theory is the auteur theory developed by French film critics in the 1950s and championed in the U.S. by Andrew Sarris. According to the theory, a film’s director is its author, in the same way that the single person who writes a book is its author. The trouble with the theory is that movies are also a collaborative art – an enterprise involving the coordinated artistic and technical skills of many individuals in addition to the director, such as the screenwriter, the cinematographer, the editor, the sound crew, the set designer, costumers, as well as the actors. The auteur critics used their theory to champion lesser-known directors like Samuel Fuller and Douglas Sirk by showing how they used the relative obscurity of genre and “B” movies to put forth a personal artistic vision. But the theory works less well for many of the films produced by the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and 1940s, when the director may have been just another cog in the machine. Gone With the Wind seems more a product of its producer, David O. Selznick’s vision, than than of its director, Victor Fleming.
Music can also be a collaborative art, especially in the ensembles of rock and jazz, where songwriting and performing are often spread among a number of talented individuals, working together but also taking opportunities to “solo” and improvise, temporarily elevating the individual above the ensemble. Even classical music, in which the composer’s manuscript is usually sacred, conductors and musicians “interpret” the piece, bringing something of their own style and personality to the final performance.
Painting and sculpture, which are now seen as extremely individualistic, were not always so (and, for massive public art projects, are not so even now). A painter or sculptor in the Renaissance, for example, had many assistants, who often executed some of the work. Painters were even known to charge higher rates depending on the percentage of the work they did themselves. Furthermore, those clients commissioning paintings and sculptures often had very specific requirements about the content of the work. The notion of a painter sitting down to a blank canvas and painting whatever he or she pleased is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Are book authors (and poets and playwrights), then, the only true auteurs? In many cases, the author sits down, writes his or her book alone and then sees it published in substantially the same form. But in other cases, this image ignores the reality of publishers and editors who influence not just the subject of books but the style. (Thomas Wolfe is one famous example of a writer who delivered a mass of disorganized writing to his editor, who then whipped it into shape. Yet the editor is not considered a co-author.) There are also ‘authors’, like Homer and those to whom many ancient manuscripts are attributed, who are merely symbols for the centuries of oral tradition that led to the Iliad, the Odyssey and other works handed down over time. And all artists are influenced by other artists – some steal directly, others unconsciously. Some are rebels; some are reformers, and some wish to return to times gone by. They are influenced by the market – what will sell, what will not. The political climate affects them as well as their personal circumstances.
I have raised all these complications as a preface to introducing a number of new lists. Actually, they are mostly reworkings of older lists (although a few of them dig deeper than the lists I’ve already published). These new lists all have one thing in common: they are organized by artist (as in performer, author, director). Some are alphabetical; some are chronological. The main idea is to see the lists in a different way: through the lens of the individual creator and their body of work. They are particularly useful in answering the question: “Which one should I try first?” (E.g., Which David Bowie or Charles Mingus album? Which Titian painting? Which Dickens book? Which Godard film?) Or, for those who have dabbled already, “Which should I try next?”
Rock, pop, R&B, etc.: Musicians and Their Best Albums
Jazz: Jazz Artists and their Best Recordings
Books: Great Authors and their Masterworks, Part 1: 850 BCE – 1870
Books: Great Authors and their Masterworks, Part 2: 1871-Present
Film: Film Directors and their Best Films
Visual Arts: Great Artists and Their Masterpieces
The Best of 2009 & 2010
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
2011 – The Past Wasn’t So Long Ago
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:
2012 – It Was A Very Good Year
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:
Check It Out – My Personal Checklists
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 Terrifying 2000s
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)
The Naughty Nineties
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)
The Execrable Eighties
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)