Assessing masculinity: The Goon Sax, John Grant, Tyler, the Creator

Three acts contend with the travails of modern masculinity using compassion, detachment, and the occasional flipped bird.

The best Al Pacino performances

In the beginning a Method-ized actor as serious as a bishop but with a sensual glower. Yet already he had Paul Muni tendencies: looking “dark” opened him to casting as every ethnic role on a Hollywood casting director’s list, and when he felt himself lost he overacted.

Ranking #1 albums, U.K. edition: 1981

(Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)[/caption]

In America we dealt with REO Speedwagon and Styx; English citizenry endured Shakin’ Stevens and Cliff Richard.

The force of memory and desire haunts ‘I Carry You With Me’

I Carry You With Me relies on inserts: of food, hands, rueful expressions.

Ranking the Best Picture nominees, 1970s edition

Enshrined by Peter Biskind and Pauline Kael types, the 1970s were really pretty great for American moviegoers. The libertinage of the previous decade encouraged studio heads to approve risks, and Ashby, Altman, Coppola, Polanski, et. al. bolted through that open door.

Ranking songs that peaked at #41 — 1981-1989

The world will too little remember #11 peaks, some of which are classics (Scritti Politti’s “Perfect Way” for one). But #41 is even worse. Imagine falling one notch short of the top forty.

Singles 7/24

Irrelevant since he chose to duet with LL Cool J about race relations, Brad Paisley returns with his best collaboration in years. You might even say it gave him, eh, permission to dance.

Click on links for full review.

Ranking ’90s film soundtrack top ten singles

Fewer soundtrack items charted top ten in the 1990s, but I blame “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” for casting such a pall on the next nine years that contenders hid under tables in terror until, Disney aside, Barbra Streisand did her thing for The Mirror Has Two Faces, co-written and co-sung with…Bryan Adams.

The Hague

Bryan Adams – (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)
Eric Clapton – Tears in Heaven (Rush)
UB40 – Can’t Help Falling in Love (Sliver)
Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams – I Finally Found Someone (The Mirror Has Two Faces)
Bryan Adams, Sting, Rod Stewart – All For Love (The Three Musketeers)
Eric Clapton – Change the World (Phenomenon)
Elton John – Can You Feel the Love Tonight (The Lion King)
Gloria Estefan and ‘N Sync – Music of My Heart (Music of My Heart)
Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson – Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and the Beast)

Meh

MC Hammer – Addams Groove (The Addams Family)
Janet Jackson – Again (Poetic Justice)
Goo Goo Dolls – Iris (City of Angels)
Vanessa Williams – Colors Of The Wind (Pocahontas)
Roxette – It Must’ve Been Love (Pretty Woman)
Aerosmith – I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing (Armageddon)
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories – Stay (I Missed You) (Reality Bites)
Sarah McLachlan – Angel (City of Angels)
Whitney Houston – I Have Nothing (The Bodyguard)
Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle – A Whole New World (Aladdin)

Sound, Solid

Color Me Badd – I Wanna Sex You Up (New Jack City)
Tina Turner – I Don’t Wanna Fight (What’s Love Got to Do With It)
Go West – King of Wishful Thinking (Pretty Woman)
Puff Daddy featuring Jimmy Page – Come With Me (Godzilla)
The Proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (Benny and Joon)
Céline Dion – My Heart Will Go (Titanic)
Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson – The Best Things in Life Are Free (Mo’ Money)
Prince – Thieves in the Temple (Graffiti Bridge)
Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You (The Bodyguard)
Madonna – This Used to Be My Playground (A League of Their Own)

Good to Great

Warren G featuring Nate Dogg – Regulate (Above the Rim)
Brandy – Sittin’ Up in My Room (Waiting to Exhale)
Maxwell – Fortunate (Life)
Chris Isaak – Wicked Game (Wild at Heart)
Mary J. Blige – Not Gon’ Cry (Waiting to Exhale)
Whitney Houston – Exhale (Shoop) (Waiting to Exhale)
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (Wayne’s World)
Bruce Springsteen – Streets of Philadelphia (Philadelphia)
Madonna – I’ll Remember (With Honors)
Whitney Houston – I’m Every Woman (The Bodyguard)

Ranking #1 albums, U.K. edition, 1980

Every few months I like to glance at our English cousin’s charts, fascinated by what their population deserves hitdom.

Ranking ’80s film soundtrack top ten singles

A Star is Born and especially Saturday Night Fever may have introduced record execs to the financial possibilities of the soundtrack, but the concept took off in the eighties. Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, and goddamn Dirty Dancing, of course, Prince scored a coup by himself (Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon). Strange pairings were the norm. If you thought Ann Wilson and Mike Reno, or Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin had no right to share a microphone, then I hope you understand that Sylvester Stallone had no right to share camera space with anyone but himself.

Ranking the Best Picture nominees, 1980s edition

“Don’t say ‘penis’ in this house!” Ron Kovak’s mom could not have known that her command epitomized a decade in which the good and great sometimes looked merely sound and solid, and, indeed, mainstream cinema passed itself off as sound and solid when it was often dreadful or worse.

Ranking #1 albums, U.S. edition: 1973

“A pop potpourri of Paradise Lost and Winnie The Pooh,” declared Rolling Stone in its review of Jethro Tull’s second consecutive chart topper, a description so delicious I cleared my afternoon.