Ranking #60 singles, U.S. edition: 1997-2006

Living in Miami in the 1990s meant in part being aware of Ricky Martin. I saw the video for his World Cup anthem in summer 1998, about nine months before “The Cup of Life” wowed easily wowed industry vets (and Madonna!) at the Grammys. It’s as loud as a SCUD missile, but energy and excellent selling go a ways in pop music, both of which distinguish Prince’s best single since “7.” With a less boxy mix and less ageism on AT40 “Black Sweat” might’ve been the hit it deserved. The morning-after euphoria of Jill Scott’s “The Way” and a cut from one of the finest late ’90s hip-hop albums (Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star holds up well) are rivals.

The best films of 2023: #16-20

Forced to post a generalization, I’ll assert that 2023 was a damn good year for film. I saw a lot of them, reviewed most of the ones I watched — a new record. But then I also watched and reviewed a lot of films in 2020 and 2015 without arguing for the merits of the year. In this crop the inhumanely prodigious François Ozon and the insistently repetitious Paul Schrader share space with a doc about a rock pioneer and one of the sharpest recent films about work.

If I reviewed the film, click on the director hyperlink.

Ranking #69 singles, U.S. edition: 1997-2007

Rested, shorn of a crucial member, the Eagles returned in 2003 for a world tour almost as terrifying as the American invasion of Iraq.

Ron DeSantis: Little man, what now?

I called it. When Floridians reelected Ron DeSantis by a double-digit margin in November 2022 I wrote: “Like Richard Nixon in January 1973, two months after one of the century’s most convincing landslide victories and sixteen months before resignation, Ron DeSantis has peaked. On every phone and TV, behind every sofa, he will see Donald Trump’s Dorito-colored face as it sorts through the slovenly cogitation necessary to come up with nicknames.” Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire said it repeatedly: they either liked him but loved Donald Trump, or they liked his policies, recoiled at the man, and went back to being insulted by Donald Trump.

Ranking #93 singles, U.S. edition: 1971-1972

(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

I had to stop at two years: the selections swarmed like bees. The Muppets-worthy pop funk of “Can You Get To That?” is the most charming thing George Clinton put his name to, exceeding “Atomic Dog.” Joni Mitchell celebrates her relationship with, well, Graham Nash with a dulcimer-anchored miracle of a pop song about which it’s hard to be objective, so pervasive is it a coffeehouse standard. Erstwhile Mitchell associate Neil Young pulls together one of his classic chimp-writing-Hamlet lyrics reliant on a fat-stupid guitar riff that no one outside Funkadelic and the Stooges were selling.

Ranking #100 singles, U.S. edition: 1975-2007

My first-place finisher excepted, no classics hid among the few songs which peaked at the loneliest and lowest Hot 100 chart position. The implied ignominy may explain why I flipped past several years and found not a one. The ’70s were better; 2005, however, produced three. As Trump proves his invincibility with millions of a fervent but diminishing cult the welding of power chords and synth patches on “Killer” prove eloquent signifiers of dread. Beck’s final Hot 100 appearance, a sweet uncomplicated Rio-drenched ditty called “Girl,” epitomizes why I briefly cared about him in the same way Tom Petty’s own final Hot 100 appearance does. I was reintroduced to Andre 3000’s 12-bar blues elegy to Katrina survivors.

Ranking #75 singles, U.S. edition: 1974-1977

“I’ve been ‘bound to Mississippi down to New Orleans,” Waylon Jennings announces on Ray Pennington’s “I’m a Ramblin’ Man,” a #1 country hit, one of his first crossover hits, and a shit-kicker of a song. Released at the peak of the outlaw movement, “I’m a Ramblin’ Man” might’ve been recorded by Merle Haggard in the late ’60s.

My rent payed with it: The best of Jazmine Sullivan

Weened on auteurism, I still lose my shit when an artist in the streaming era cobbles together a track with the fewest collaborators. Jazmine Sullivan’s done it since 2008 while also establishing herself as a formidable singer. Since “Bust Your Windows” and “Lions, Tigers & Bears” she has come up with novel metaphors to make sense of jealousy and putting up with garbage from guys who don’t deserve her.

Ranking #23 singles, U.S. edition, 1999-2002

Why does Madonna scowl? She hears the strains of Alien Ant Farm’s Michael Jackson cover. She might also feel the heat from “Love at First Sight,” pure buoyancy, the closest the bubbles of French pop house champagne tickled the nose of the American top 40 listenership. Man, do I feel like a woman!

Ranking #75 singles, U.S. edition: 2000-2007

I haven’t wanted to spend time with The Rainbow Children for fear that it will infect me with malaria, so maybe Prince hid a killer ballad or two on that misbegotten 2001 album. Shaping and nudging and begging for a comeback, he released Musicology months after a George Harrison tribute in which the Jehovah he said he adored sent his guitar heavenward as if it were Elijah or Enoch. “Call My Name,” hushed and faintly sinister, is his best feel-u-up in a decade: he can’t stop writing songs about an anonymous “you,” so maybe it’s Jehovah pop after all. It’s fine if you don’t like it as much as I do.

Some observations on Oscar nominations 2024

If the number of nominations is indicative, then Oppenheimer will have as splendid an Oscar night in March as it did at last summer and early fall’s box office. Christopher Nolan’s loud, declarative film about the man responsible for the Manhattan Project led the pack with thirteen nominations. Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s bright one-of-a-kind hit, came close with eight, though it came third after Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, in which Emma Stone learns to be sexually voracious.

Ranking #89 singles, U.S. edition: 1969-1972

Early ’70s Beach Boys remain a mystery. Despite the list I put together a few years ago I Feel like I’m stumbling on a pebbly shoreline where the party broke up hours ago. “Long Promised Road” sounds familiar: the Beach Boys, or, more specifically, Carl Wilson’s, attempt to catch up with the Joe Cockers and The Bands and Leon Russells and other white belters with whom America was briefly besotted. Wilson, who plays almost every instrument, has a wistful tone that complements his colleagues’ energetic backup vocals (an unwell Brian Wilson among them). The synthesized intro doesn’t quite recall 1971, adding to the track’s woozy out-of-time air. Somewhat controversial among fans, Surf’s Up features co-writing by one Jack Rieley, a manager devoted to the Boys’ public image at a time when they felt as much an oldies act as Elvis.