PB & Julie + Julie C. Trivia

Talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-generation (X), Volume II

In a previous post, I kicked off my series on Gen-X pop culture with a piece about MTV (ICYMI, you can read it here: https://peanut-butter-and-julie.com/2021/03/05/talkin-bout-my-g-g-g-generation-x/). Today, I’ll take a look at some of the most iconic Gen-X movies.

When I began working on this piece, I didn’t really have a specific cut-off year in mind. But once I finished my first draft and realized the latest year here was 1999, it just seemed perfect. After all, once Gen-Xers started turning thirty, we became culturally irrelevant; the Millenials were waiting in the wings to have the youth culture torch passed to them.

That’s not to say there aren’t fantastic movies from this century. I rank Almost Famous, Memento, Ocean’s Eleven, Arrival, Zodiac, Up, Burn After Reading, Catch Me If You Can, American Hustle, Shutter Island, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and Inside Man as some of my all-time favorites. But the majority of movies that helped shape Gen-X – and vice versa – were released in the 20th century.

By the way, my first draft was more than twice this length, so at some point, keep your eyes peeled for another volume – and give me your suggestions in the comments!

Without further ado, here are some of the most significant films of the Gen-X era.

John Hughes oeuvre

For better or worse, no single filmmaker did more to define Gen-X cinema than John Hughes. Hughes himself was a boomer but he found a way to tap into the Gen-X zeitgeist as none of his contemporaries could, and in the process, created some of the most iconic films of the 1980s. After spending time in the advertising business, Hughes went to work for National Lampoon magazine and parlayed that into screenwriting. His script for National Lampoon’s Vacation, based on a story he wrote for the magazine (“Vacation ’58”), was optioned by Warner Brothers. The film was a success and garnered Hughes a three-movie deal with Universal.

Hughes’ directorial debut, Sixteen Candles, was released in 1984, and though it has aged poorly (the casual racism and rape jokes have made it unwatchable for me), it was a must-see for me at the time. The Breakfast Club, Hughes’ follow-up, has aged much better; my husband and I watched it again recently and it still holds up quite well (though I will say I sympathize much more with Vernon in my adulthood, which led me to discover that at the time The Breakfast Club was filmed, Paul Gleason was eight years younger than I am now). Weird Science was never my favorite anyway, and I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched it in a long time. I doubt it has held up very well either, but that Oingo Boingo theme song still slaps.

Hughes also wrote the scripts for two films that were directed by Howard Deutch, Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful (Pretty in Pink is a personal favorite, largely due to my long-standing crush on Andrew McCarthy and that killer soundtrack). The final teen film that Hughes himself directed, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was released in 1986; by that point, Hughes was ready to move on to more adult-oriented fare. But his legacy as the king of ’80s teen comedies was sealed. Hughes died in 2009 of a heart attack, at the age of just fifty-nine, and a generation mourned.

This soundtrack was a “who’s who” of my mid-eighties favorites

Fun fact #1: John Cusack was originally hired to play The Breakfast Club‘s bad boy John Bender but Hughes eventually recast the role with Judd Nelson because Cusack didn’t look threatening enough.

Fun fact #2: Pretty in Pink originally ended with Andie and Duckie together. Test audiences lost their minds and a new ending – with Andie choosing Blane – was commissioned. By the time the reshoot was scheduled, Andrew McCarthy was starring as a Marine in a play and had shaved his head for the role. So he was given this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad wig.

Heathers

If you’ve ever said “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw” or “I love my dead gay son”, you’re definitely a Gen-Xer. Heathers, Michael Lehmann’s endlessly quotable, pitch-black comedy, stars Gen-X poster child Winona Ryder as Veronica, the only non-Heather in her clique at Westerburg High School. When Veronica meets J.D. (Christian Slater), the sociopathic new kid in town, all hell breaks loose. Upon its release in 1988, Heathers bombed (pun intended), earning only $1 million. But the film found an audience on home video and went on to become a cult classic.

Fun fact: Screenwriter Daniel Waters wrote the script with Stanley Kubrick in mind to direct the film. The cafeteria scene at the beginning of the film is an homage to the barracks scene in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Waters was unable to get the script to the famously private Kubrick and turned to Michael Lehmann, whom Waters had met through a mutual friend.

Reality Bites

Reality Bites was one of the first films to be written and directed by Gen-Xers (Helen Childress and Ben Stiller, respectively). Its coming-of-age theme is universal, but the dialogue is all Gen-X. Winona Ryder stars as Lelaina, a recent college graduate and aspiring filmmaker learning to navigate adulthood along with her closest friends Troy (Ethan Hawke), Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), and Sammy (Steve Zahn). The whole “Will they, won’t they?” thing gets a little old; it’s obvious from the beginning that Lelaina and Troy will end up together (and frankly, they’re both kind of assholes anyway). Garofalo and Zahn steal every scene they’re in; I particularly love the poignant sequence where they anxiously get their first AIDS tests (a Gen-X rite of passage). One of my favorite things about Reality Bites is the soundtrack, which features retro jams like “My Sharona” and “Tempted” as well as songs from artists like Crowded House, Lenny Kravitz, and U2.

This is the appropriate response to hearing “My Sharona” on the radio

Fun fact: According to Childress, the title isn’t meant as a play on the phrase “reality sucks”; while writing the script during the 1992 election season, Childress kept hearing the term “sound bites” and came to think of Lelaina’s short films as “little bites of reality”.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist

The year 1982 – “the summer of Spielberg” – was dominated by these two box office behemoths, released just a week apart in June. My generation just couldn’t get enough of them. I saw both of these films multiple times during their initial release, and have watched both countless times in the intervening years. Forty years later, the magic of these two movies still has the power to thrill, delight, terrify, and move me.

Fun fact #1: Both films have their roots in an unproduced screenplay called Night Skies, which Spielberg conceived as a horror sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg was contractually obligated by Universal Pictures to not direct another movie while E.T. was in development, and brought in Tobe Hooper. Hooper, who directed one of the most iconic horror films ever (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), wasn’t interested in the sci-fi elements of Night Skies and suggested to Spielberg that they make a ghost story instead.

Fun fact #2: Steven Spielberg discovered Heather O’Rourke while eating lunch at the MGM commissary; O’Rourke and her mother were there with Heather’s older sister Tammy, who had a role in Pennies from Heaven. After he finished his lunch, Spielberg approached the family; Heather was signed to Poltergeist the following day. The runner-up for the role of Carol Anne Freeling, Drew Barrymore, was offered the role of Gertie in E.T. instead.

My research for this piece led me to this priceless clip of six-year-old Drew Barrymore being the absolute fucking cutest…

…and this one of a four-year-old Heather O’Rourke in a McDonald’s commercial

Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino’s ultra-violent, darkly comic ode to 1950s hardboiled crime novels blew into the 47th Cannes Film Festival like a hurricane. Pulp Fiction won the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, on its way to becoming the most buzzed-about (and best) film of 1994. Tarantino, like a lot of the directors on this list, is actually a boomer, but his sensibility is all Gen-X. Coming off the success of his feature-length debut Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino was given an $8.5 million budget and a creative blank check. After winning the Palme d’Or and opening the New York Film Festival, Pulp Fiction was given a wider release than most indie films (about 1,100 screens). While it wasn’t the highest-grossing movie of 1994 (it finished the year in tenth place), it was one of the most profitable, earning more than $200 million worldwide. Come Oscar time, Pulp Fiction raked in seven nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman), Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay.

Fun fact: Quentin Tarantino has explicitly stated that the briefcase is a MacGuffin (“an object, device or event that is necessary to the plot and motivation of the characters, but insignificant or irrelevant in itself”), but that didn’t stop fans from speculating about its contents. One popular theory suggested that the briefcase contained Marcellus Wallace’s soul, which film critic Roger Ebert dismissed as “nothing more than a widely distributed urban legend given false credibility by the mystique of the Net”.

Star Wars trilogy

Star Wars was the first blockbuster film whose box office success was fueled in large part by Generation X. The oldest Gen-Xers were twelve years old when Star Wars (we didn’t call it “Episode IV” or “A New Hope” at the time) was released, and many of us were in our teens by the time the trilogy concluded. We coveted the tie-in merch and built the Legos. We dressed up like the characters for Halloween. Any cylindrical object became a lightsaber. I’ll admit that I wasn’t particularly into Star Wars at the time; I just didn’t see the big deal (I have come to regard the series more highly in my adulthood). But my disinterest aside, there’s no question Gen-X was responsible for making Star Wars a box office monster and a cultural icon.

Fun fact: George Lucas took story inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, in which two peasants agree to escort a man and a woman across enemy lines, not realizing that the man is a general and the woman is a princess.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Cameron Crowe, another boomer, wrote the defining film of the Gen-X era. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling and adapted from Crowe’s book of the same name, was based on Crowe’s experiences as an undercover reporter at Clairemont High School in San Diego. The characters in Fast Times feel like fully-formed people rather than teen-movie stereotypes; they grapple with real-world problems such as jobs, relationships, and sex. The cast – predominantly unknown at the time – was a “who’s who” of future movie stars, including Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and Nicolas Cage (billed under his birth name, Nicolas Coppola).

Fun fact #1: In 1981, Cameron Crowe began dating Heart’s Nancy Wilson (the two were married in 1986). Heart recorded a song called “Fast Times” that was supposed to appear on the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack but it wasn’t used in the film. Heart included the track on their 1982 album Private Audition. Wilson herself appeared in Fast Times as “Beautiful Girl in Car”.

Fun fact #2: Andy Rathbone, whom Crowe befriended while attending Clairemont, was the basis for the Fast Times character Mark “Rat” Ratner. Rathbone went on to write more than fifty books in the …for Dummies series, beginning with Windows for Dummies in 1992.

Andy Rathbone, left, and Brian Backer as Mark Ratner

Back to the Future

Back to the Future was the biggest movie of 1985, by a pretty large margin; it ruled the box office all summer long. It held the top spot for eleven non-consecutive weeks, and was still in the top ten in its twenty-fifth week of release. I personally saw it three times in the theater (it was playing at the Campus Theater in Ann Arbor and my friends and I LOVED to hang out on and around campus). Director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale conceived of the idea for BTTF back in 1980; they were turned down more than forty times by studios who didn’t think the film could compete with the raunchy teen sex comedies popular at the time. After the success of 1984’s Romancing the Stone, Zemeckis secured a $15 million budget from Universal. BTTF went on to earn a total worldwide gross of almost $400 million. It also received five Oscar nominations and launched a franchise that includes two sequels, an animated television series, theme park attractions, a video game, and a stage musical.

Fun fact #1: In the first draft of the screenplay, Doc Brown’s pet was a chimpanzee named Shemp. A studio exec asked the creators to change it because films with chimps never did well, and Shemp became a dog named Einstein.

Fun fact #2: Although Michael J. Fox was the first choice for the role of Marty McFly, Fox was contractually obligated to Family Ties at the time, and the creators had to move on or risk the studio backing out of the deal. Zemeckis wanted C. Thomas Howell for the role, but the studio pressured him to cast Eric Stoltz. Five weeks into filming, it was obvious to everyone that Stoltz was not the right fit for the part; Stoltz himself told a crew member that he wasn’t a comedian and didn’t understand why he’d been cast. Zemeckis convinced the studio to do whatever it took to get Fox and to give him an additional $4 million to extend the shoot. Filming with Fox began on January 15, 1985 – less than six months before the film’s scheduled release date. For three months, Fox spent his days on the Family Ties set and his nights and weekends filming BTTF.

By the way, Fox’s hiring necessitated the recasting of Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer. At five feet, seven inches, Melora Hardin is two inches taller than Fox. The film’s female crew members overwhelmingly agreed that Marty should not be shorter than his girlfriend, and Hardin was replaced with the five-foot, four-inch Claudia Wells. Just seventeen years old at the time, Hardin was understandably devastated.

Fight Club

Another iconic Gen-X film directed by a boomer (David Fincher was born in 1962), Fight Club feels like the apex of Gen-X cynicism. I’ll admit that I hadn’t yet read the Chuck Palahniuk novel on which the film is based and mostly saw Fight Club because of how much I’d loved Fincher’s previous two films, Seven and The Game. I was wholly unprepared for how deeply Fight Club would inhabit me. I empathized with The Narrator’s insomnia and his desire to feel something other than depression and apathy, his need to “destroy something beautiful”. Fincher did a brilliant job satirizing toxic masculinity and rampant consumerism and told a damned entertaining story in the process; in doing so, Fincher accomplished the rarest of feats – a movie that’s better than the book.

20th Century Fox execs HATED the movie and didn’t know how to market it. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a polarized response. Christopher Goodwin, writing for The Australian, opined that “Fight Club is shaping up to be the most contentious mainstream Hollywood meditation on violence since Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.”

Fun fact #1: For the film’s first fight scene, Fincher instructed Edward Norton to actually hit Brad Pitt but didn’t warn Pitt. Fincher, a perfectionist who tends to film multiple takes, used the first take of this scene in the finished product.

Fun fact #2: The Dust Brothers composed the excellent electronic score, but they weren’t Fincher’s first choice. Fincher was looking for an artist who’d never scored a film before and initially pursued Radiohead; Thom Yorke, exhausted from promoting the band’s 1997 album OK Computer, declined. Yorke went on to compose the music for 2018’s Suspiria and his bandmate Jonny Greenwood has famously collaborated with Paul Thomas Anderson on five films, earning an Academy Award nomination for 2017’s Phantom Thread (and another one this past year for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog).

The Brat Pack – The Outsiders, Red Dawn, St. Elmo’s Fire

In addition to most of the John Hughes films discussed above, the so-called Brat Pack starred in several more iconic ’80s films. The term “Brat Pack” was coined for a 1985 article in New York magazine. Two popular movies from that year – The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire – were referenced in the article, thus the Brat Pack is generally defined as actors who starred in one or both of those films. Among its members are Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Judd Nelson (all three of whom starred in both of the aforementioned films), as well as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, and Demi Moore.

Technically speaking, most of the members of the Brat Pack are young boomers (the notable exceptions are Ringwald and Hall; Robert Downey Jr. and Charlie Sheen, sometimes cited as Brat Packers, are also Gen-Xers, having both been born in 1965). But the films they starred in – films like The Outsiders, Red Dawn, The Breakfast Club, and St. Elmo’s Fire – were Gen-X touchstones.

“Brat Pack” was meant derogatorily, of course; the word “brat” conjures up images of bad behavior. I don’t remember what they’d done to earn the moniker – perhaps they (gasp!) partied too hard, the way a lot of twenty-somethings do? – and I didn’t really care anyway. I just loved the movies, especially anything Andrew McCarthy – the love of my sixteen-year-old life – was in.

<sighs>

Fun fact: Harry Dean Stanton was something of a mentor to the group. Stanton, at the time in his fifties, co-starred in several films featuring Brat Packers, including Repo Man, Red Dawn, and Pretty in Pink.

Grease

When I started working on this post, I asked my husband – also a Gen-Xer – what he thought were the most iconic movies of our youth, and the first thing he said was “Grease“. It was a somewhat surprising answer, because he really doesn’t like musicals, but he hit the nail on the head. Grease is one of the first movies I distinctly remember seeing in the theater. A LOT of us saw it in the theater; made for about $6 million, Grease earned more than $132 million in its initial release, making it the highest-grossing film of 1978.

Fun fact: The film’s soundtrack has sold 38 million copies and was the second-best-selling album of the year (after Saturday Night Fever, the soundtrack to another John Travolta movie). The Grease soundtrack remains the eleventh-best-selling album of all time.

The Goonies

One of the first films to star Gen-Xers in the majority of the lead roles, The Goonies was one of the most popular movies of 1985 and remains a cult classic to this day. Steven Spielberg executive produced this adventure flick from a script by Christopher Columbus. The charming teen cast is headed by Josh Brolin and Sean Astin as brothers Brandon and Mikey Walsh, whose family is facing foreclosure by a greedy developer who wants to demolish the homes in their neighborhood (nicknamed the Goondocks) so he can build a swanky new country club. Mikey and his friends set out in search of the treasure of pirate One-Eyed Willie, hoping it will be enough to pay off the developer and keep their homes. Along the way, they encounter a family of criminals, countless booby traps, bats, a giant octopus (cut from the finished product for being too cartoonish), and a pirate ship full of treasure.

Fun fact #1: Executive producer Steven Spielberg asked Cyndi Lauper to be the musical director for The Goonies. Lauper included her friends The Bangles, who had opened for her on her Fun tour and were still relatively unknown at the time (their breakout second album, Different Light, was released the following year). The highlight of the soundtrack is Lauper’s own “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”, which became Lauper’s fifth top ten hit. The video was directed by Goonies helmer Richard Donner and features appearances by the film’s cast, Spielberg, pro wrestlers Roddy Piper and André the Giant, and the members of The Bangles.

Fun fact #2: The house used as the Walsh home in the film, located in Astoria, Oregon, is a popular tourist destination.

Quick Hits: April 23

On this day in 2001, Fatboy Slim released his single “Weapon of Choice”, which features Bootsy Collins on vocals. The video for “Weapon of Choice” was directed by Oscar winner Spike Jonze and stars the delightful Christopher Walken. Fatboy Slim earned six trophies at the MTV Video Music Awards that year and took home the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Music Video.

Shirley Temple was born on this day in 1928. Temple became an overnight sensation at the age of six when she starred in 1934’s Bright Eyes, which features the song most closely associated with her: “On the Good Ship Lollipop”. The United States was at the height of the Great Depression, and Temple provided a respite from the anguish of unemployment, homelessness, and hunger. Temple was the #1 box office draw from 1935 to 1938 and won an honorary Oscar in 1935. In her adulthood, Temple was a diplomat, serving as a United Nations delegate and US Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was Temple’s favorite dance partner (“It was kind of a magic between us”). They were the first interracial couple to dance together onscreen (in 1935’s The Little Colonel). Here’s a scene from one of their later collaborations, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

John Cena, Kal Penn and John Oliver are all celebrating their 45th birthdays today.

“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by The Four Tops was released on this day in 1965. The single spent nine weeks atop the Billboard R&B chart and two non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 (it was toppled by The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man” and The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, respectively). It was the second-best-selling single of 1965, after (and I am not making this up) “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.

Because I needed another time-wasting activity, I just discovered this YouTube channel that discusses a film or television series based on real events and how closely it adheres to the historical record. Amadeus is a movie I’ve seen only once (when it was in theaters), but after watching this video I’ve decided it’s time for a re-watch. Some of the other clips by History Buffs cover everything from Gladiator to Braveheart to Saving Private Ryan to Bohemian Rhapsody. And down the rabbit hole, I go…

Yes, that’s Jeffrey Jones as Emperor Joseph II

Singer Michael Feinstein, a friend of Liza Minnelli’s, appeared on SiriusFM’s The Jess Cagle Show this week with an interesting addition to that heartwarming Lady Gaga/Minnelli moment at the Oscars.

And finally, Robert Morse has died at the age of ninety. Morse is best known for his portrayal of J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which earned Morse his first Tony; he reprised the role for the 1967 film adaptation. I appeared in my high school’s production of How to Succeed… so it holds a special place in my heart. Morse won his second Tony for playing Truman Capote in Tru (and an Emmy for the airing of the one-man play on PBS’s American Playhouse). Morse may be familiar to TV audiences for his role as Bert Cooper on Mad Men.

I love this so much!

22 Awesome Albums From ’72

***** CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS REFERENCES TO DEPRESSION, DRUG USE, SUICIDE, A PLANE CRASH, CANCER, AND DEATH *****

These albums are all turned fifty in 2022. This list is chronological by release date.

Paul Simon – Paul Simon

CHART POSITION: #4 in the US (it went to #1 in four other countries: Japan, Finland, Norway, and Sweden)

SINGLES: “Mother and Child Reunion”, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”, “Duncan”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Mother and Child Reunion”, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”, “Run That Body Down”, “Paranoia Blues”

FUN FACT: The inspiration for the name “Mother and Child Reunion” was a chicken-and-egg dish Simon saw on a Chinese menu.

Harvest – Neil Young

CHART POSITION: #1 (Harvest was the best-selling album of 1972 in the United States)

SINGLES: “Heart of Gold”, “Old Man”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Heart of Gold”, “The Needle and the Damage Done”

FUN FACT: Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor provided background vocals for “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold”.

Something/Anything? – Todd Rundgren

CHART POSITION: #29 in the US

SINGLES: “I Saw the Light”, “Couldn’t I Just Tell You”, “Hello It’s Me”, “Wolfman Jack”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference”, which was featured on the soundtrack to one of my all-time favorite films, Almost Famous.

FUN FACT: Rundgren was a prolific writer in those days (he claims to have written “I Saw the Light” in twenty minutes), which he has attributed to his use of Ritalin.

Eat a Peach – The Allman Brothers Band

CHART POSITION: #4 in the US

SINGLES: “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More”, “Melissa / Blue Sky”, “One Way Out”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “One Way Out” (ALSO featured on the Almost Famous soundtrack), “Mountain Jam” (based on Donovan’s “There Is a Mountain”)

FUN FACT: The album’s gatefold art, done by W. David Powell and J. F. Holmes, is incredible; the pair were “profoundly influenced” by Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.

in 1991, *Rolling Stone* selected *Eat a Peach* as one of the 100 greatest album covers of all time; shown is the gatefold art by W. David Powell and J. F. Holmes

An example of Hieronymus Bosch’s work, *The Garden of Earthly Delights*

Pink Moon – Nick Drake

CHART POSITION: N/A

SINGLES: None

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: Written while Drake was in the throes of severe depression, the songs of Pink Moon are breathtaking but bleak, so “favorite” might not be the appropriate word. Pink Moon is worth experiencing; just be prepared to go to a dark place.

FUN FACT: Drake is one of the least commercially-successful artists on this list, but his music has inspired countless other artists, including Kate Bush, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, and The Cure’s Robert Smith (in fact, The Cure’s name is derived from a Nick Drake lyric from the song “Time Has Told Me”). His tragic death by suicide in 1974 meant that Pink Moon would be Drake’s final album.

Thick as a Brick – Jethro Tull

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US, Australia, Canada, and Denmark

SINGLES: None

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Thick as a Brick, Part I”, “Thick as a Brick, Part II”

FUN FACT: Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, offended by a critic who labeled the band’s previous effort, Aqualung, a “concept album”, decided to record a Monty Python-style spoof of a concept album. Thick as a Brick consists of two songs, the aforementioned “Thick as a Brick, Part I” and “Thick as a Brick, Part II”. And while it received mixed reviews at the time of its release, Thick as a Brick is generally considered one of the ten best prog-rock albums ever.

Machine Head – Deep Purple

CHART POSITION: #7 in the US, #1 in six other countries, including the UK and Australia

SINGLES: “Never Before”, “Lazy”, “Highway Star”, “Smoke on the Water”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Highway Star”, “Smoke on the Water”, “Space Truckin'”

FUN FACT: Machine Head is a pivotal album in the development of heavy metal, but it almost didn’t happen. Deep Purple intended to record the album at the Montreaux Casino in Switzerland, but the casino burned to the ground when a fan set off a flare gun at a Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention show. Fortunately, there were no major injuries from the fire, and the band was able to book another venue. Deep Purple’s most iconic song, “Smoke on the Water”, was written about the incident.

You Don’t Mess Around With Jim – Jim Croce

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US and Canada

SINGLES: “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”, “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)”, “Time in a Bottle”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, plus “New York’s Not My Home”, “Photographs and Memories”, “Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy)”

FUN FACT: “Time in a Bottle” was not originally intended as a single (in fact, he’d released another album by then), but after Croce’s death in a plane crash in September of 1973, radio stations were bombarded with requests for the song, forcing the label to release it as a single. It went on to become Croce’s second #1 hit (“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” was the first).

I had to include this clip of Jim Hopper (David Harbour) doing a dad dance to “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”

Exile on Main St. – Rolling Stones

CHART POSITION: #1 in five countries, including the US, the UK, and Canada

SINGLES: “Tumbling Dice”, “Happy”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Tumbling Dice”, “Sweet Virginia”, “Rocks Off”, “Shine a Light”, “Soul Survivor”

FUN FACT: Liz Phair’s 1993 debut album, Exile in Guyville, is a song-by-song response to Exile on Main St (though not in the literal sense). A Spotify user helpfully put together a playlist for comparison.

Honky Château – Elton John

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US, #2 in the UK

SINGLES: “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)”, “Honky Cat”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”, “Honky Cat”, “Rocket Man”

FUN FACT: Honky Château was Elton John’s first recording to feature two members of his road band, bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson. Olsson performs with John to this day (Murray died in 1992 of skin cancer).

Eagles – Eagles

CHART POSITION: #22 in the US, #13 in Canada

SINGLES: “Take It Easy”, “Witchy Woman”, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above

FUN FACT: “Take It Easy” was written by Jackson Browne and Eagle Glenn Frey. The lyric “Well, I’m a-standing on a corner/In Winslow, Arizona/Such a fine sight to see/It’s a girl, my Lord/In a flat-bed Ford/Slowin’ down to take a look at me ” was written after Browne’s vehicle broke down in Winslow (Frey added the part about the girl in the Ford). In 1999, the city of Winslow commissioned a statue and mural at the corner of Second Street and Kinsley Avenue. The mural depicts a red Ford flatbed truck and an eagle.

Obscured by Clouds – Pink Floyd

CHART POSITION: #46 in the US, #6 in the UK

SINGLES: “Free Four”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Burning Bridges”, “Wot’s… Uh the Deal?”, “Childhood’s End”

FUN FACT: Obscured by Clouds was the soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film La Vallée.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie

CHART POSITION: #21 in the US, #5 in the UK

SINGLES: “Starman/Suffragette City”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Five Years”, “Moonage Daydream”, “Starman”, “Ziggy Stardust”

FUN FACT: The primary inspirations for the Ziggy Stardust character were English singer Vince Taylor and American proto-punk icon Iggy Pop.

Bowie performing “Starman” on Top of the Pops (the British equivalent of American Bandstand)

Roxy Music – Roxy Music

CHART POSITION: #10 in the UK; didn’t chart in the US

SINGLES: “Virginia Plain”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Re-Make/Re-Model”, “2HB”, “Bitters End”

FUN FACT: “Virginia Plain” was recorded during the Roxy Music sessions and released as a single in advance of the album, only to be scrubbed from the finished product. In later printings of the album, “Virginia Plain” is included. “2HB” is Bryan Ferry’s love letter to Humphrey Bogart and includes the lyric “Here’s looking at you kid”, as well as a sax solo influenced by “As Time Goes By”. The model on the cover, by the way, is Kari-Ann Muller, who also appeared on the cover of Mott the Hoople’s 1974 album, The Hoople. Muller would later marry Chris Jagger, Mick’s younger brother.

Superfly – Curtis Mayfield

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US

SINGLES: “Freddie’s Dead”, “Superfly”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: Just listen to the whole dang thing, okay?

FUN FACT: This funk/soul masterpiece was the soundtrack to the Blaxploitation film of the same name; the album was so successful, it’s one of the few soundtracks to outgross their accompanying movie.

#1 Record – Big Star

CHART POSITION: N/A

SINGLES: None

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Thirteen”, “The Ballad of El Goodo”, “In the Street”,

FUN FACT: #1 Record only sold about 10,000 copies upon its initial release but fifty years later, the album is considered a power-pop masterpiece. Big Star’s Alex Chilton, who’d achieved fame at the age of sixteen with The Box Tops (“The Letter”, “Cry Like a Baby”), is a legend of the genre who inspired artists like The Replacements, R.E.M., and The Posies.

Close to the Edge – Yes

CHART POSITION: #3 in the US, #4 in the UK

SINGLES: “And You and I”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Close to the Edge”, “And You and I”

FUN FACT: Among the inspirations for Close to the Edge: Symphony Nos. 6 and 7 by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, Wendy Carlos’s Sonic Seasonings (widely regarded as the first new-age album), and the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha. Close to the Edge was the first Yes album to feature the iconic band logo created by Roger Dean.

Foxtrot – Genesis

CHART POSITION: #12 in the UK (Genesis didn’t crack the Billboard 200 until their follow-up to Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound)

SINGLES: “Watcher of the Skies”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Supper’s Ready”

FUN FACT: “Supper’s Ready”, at just over twenty-three minutes, is the longest song Genesis ever recorded. The song is comprised of seven parts and undergoes multiple key and time signature changes. Foxtrot was the last of three Genesis album covers to be designed by Paul Whitehead (Trespass and Nursery Cryme were the other two).

Here’s Genesis performing “Supper’s Ready” live in its entirety

Talking Book – Stevie Wonder

CHART POSITION: #3 in the US (#1 on the R&B chart)

SINGLES: “Superstition”, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Maybe Your Baby”, “You’ve Got It Bad Girl”, “Superstition”, “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)”

FUN FACT: Wonder’s Music of My Mind was also released in 1972, and while it’s a fine album, Talking Book is better. Talking Book earned Wonder his first Grammy, and on the same night, Wonder took home his first of three Album of the Year awards for his subsequent album, Innervisions, which was released during the same eligibility period.

Transformer – Lou Reed

CHART POSITION: #29 in the US, #13 in the UK

SINGLES: “Walk on the Wild Side/Perfect Day”, “Satellite of Love”, “Vicious”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: All of the above, “I’m So Free”, “Goodnight Ladies”

FUN FACT: Transformer was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, who were both hugely influenced by Reed’s work with The Velvet Underground. “Vicious” was inspired by Reed’s friend and mentor Andy Warhol, who suggested Reed write a song about someone vicious. When Reed asked Warhol what he meant by “vicious”, Warhol replied, “Oh, you know, like I hit you with a flower.”

The World Is a Ghetto – War

CHART POSITION: #1 in the US

SINGLES: “The Cisco Kid”, “The World Is a Ghetto”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “The Cisco Kid”, “Four Cornered Room”, “The World Is a Ghetto”

FUN FACT: The World Is a Ghetto was the best-selling album of 1973 and was selected as Album of the Year by Billboard magazine.

Can’t Buy a Thrill – Steely Dan

CHART POSITION: #17 in the US

SINGLES: “Do It Again”, “Reelin’ in the Years”

MY FAVORITE TRACKS: “Do It Again”, “Dirty Work”, “Only a Fool Would Say That”, “Reelin’ in the Years”, “Fire in the Hole”,

FUN FACT: Steely Dan’s name is a reference to a steam-powered, strap-on dildo in William S. Burroughs’ novel Naked Lunch (the dildo’s full name is Steely Dan III from Yokohama).

Grammy Best New Artist Headscratchers

The 64th annual Grammy Awards were held on April 3, and the coveted Best New Artist prize went to teenage pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo. Over the years, the Grammys have made some head-scratchingly bizarre decisions in the Best New Artist category, often favoring pop one-hit-wonders over genre artists who are more likely to stand the test of time.

Awards are by their nature subjective, and it’s definitely worth noting that some of the most significant musical artists of the modern era – including Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Simon & Garfunkel, The Rolling Stones, Bee Gees, Queen, Michael Jackson, Prince, U2, Madonna, Nirvana, The White Stripes, and Lady Gaga – WEREN’T EVEN NOMINATED.

Only time will tell what Rodrigo’s legacy will be, of course. In thirty years, will pop culture bloggers be wondering why she beat Glass Animals or Japanese Breakfast? It’s impossible to say, but her win got me thinking: which Best New Artist winners were the biggest head-scratchers, and more importantly, which other nominee(s) should have won instead?

Tom Jones (1965)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: THE BYRDS

No disrespect to Welch crooner Tom Jones, who burst onto the scene in 1965 with top ten hits “It’s Not Unusual” and “What’s New, Pussycat?”, but The Byrds are arguably the greatest and most influential American rock band of all time. These days, Jones is best known for his flashy Vegas performances and his philandering (Jones estimates he was sleeping with about 250 women per year at the height of his fame, all while married to his high school sweetheart Linda). Meanwhile, The Byrds released not one but two albums – Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! – in 1965, and made some of the most important records of the late ’60s, including Fifth Dimension and Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

José Feliciano (1968)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: CREAM

Latin music artist José Feliciano is best known for his annoyingly catchy Christmas tune “Feliz Navidad” and his acoustic cover of The Doors’ “Light My Fire”. Meanwhile, Cream – rock’s first supergroup – was making some of the most enduring music of the late 1960s. Comprised of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce, Cream was a blues-rock/psychedelic powerhouse, and though they only released four albums, they remain one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Starland Vocal Band (1976)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Boston

Boston was, without a doubt, the best new artist of 1976. Their eponymous debut is an embarrassment of rock riches, featuring singles “More Than a Feeling”, “Long Time” and “Peace of Mind”, as well as several more songs that continue to get AOR airplay more than forty-five years later. Boston has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and is still considered one of the greatest debut albums ever. But the Recording Academy went with literal one-hit wonders Starland Vocal Band, whose cheesetastic ode to daytime nookie “Afternoon Delight” went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Debby Boone (1977)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Foreigner or Andy Gibb

Gospel artist Debby Boone – daughter of Pat – had one crossover hit, “You Light Up My Life” (the theme song to the movie of the same name), which went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for an unprecedented ten weeks. And though she’s technically not a one-hit-wonder (she had two other singles that cracked the Hot 100), Boone’s contributions to popular music begin and end with “You Light Up My Life”. Meanwhile, Foreigner’s self-titled debut featured three top-ten hits – “Feels Like the First Time”, “Cold as Ice” and “Long, Long Way from Home” – and kick-started their career as one of the most popular American rock bands of the 1970s and ’80s. Andy Gibb, younger brother to The Bee Gees, burst onto the pop scene at age nineteen with his debut, Flowing Rivers. The album produced two #1 hits: “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” and “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water”, and though Gibb’s career didn’t have the longevity of Foreigner’s, he still would have been a better Best New Artist pick than Boone.

A Taste of Honey (1978)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: The Cars, Elvis Costello or Toto

A Taste of Honey’s debut single “Boogie Oogie Oogie” was a smash hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it remains one of the most enduring songs of the disco era. I am unabashedly a disco fan, but when you stack A Taste of Honey’s career against The Cars, Elvis Costello, or even Toto, it just doesn’t hold up. Personally, I’d probably pick The Cars, one of my all-time favorite artists. The Cars’ eponymous debut is a power-pop classic, featuring the singles “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friend’s Girl”, and “Good Times Roll”, as well as “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”, “Bye Bye Love”, and my personal favorite, “Moving in Stereo”. Costello would have been a fine pick as well; his third album, Armed Forces, is the one that attracted the attention of the Recording Academy, and it is a banger. And yes, even Toto, whose single “Hold the Line” might be my favorite song of 1978, would have been a better choice.

Sheena Easton (1981)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: The Go-Go’s

Scottish chanteuse Sheena Easton exploded onto the pop scene in 1981 with the one-two punch of “Morning Train (Nine to Five)” and “For Your Eyes Only”, the theme song to the James Bond film of the same name. Easton is lovely, but The Go-Go’s were the rightful winners of the Best New Artist prize that year. Their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, remains the only #1 record in history by an all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. I’ve waxed rhapsodic about Beauty and the Beat before (ICYMI: https://peanut-butter-and-julie.com/2021/07/08/beauty-and-the-beat-at-40/), and I’ll probably do so again; its importance in rock history – and my own personal life – cannot be overstated.

Milli Vanilli (1990)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Literally anyone else (Neneh Cherry, Indigo Girls, Tone Lōc, and Soul II Soul were the other nominees)

In one of the most mortifying incidents in Grammy history, Milli Vanilli was forced to return their Best New Artist Grammy after it was revealed that the duo hadn’t actually provided the vocals for their debut album, Girl You Know It’s True. With the benefit of hindsight, Indigo Girls are the obvious choice, but literally any of the other nominees would have been a better pick, even Tone Lōc, who at least did his own rapping on hits like “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina”.

Hootie & the Blowfish (1995)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Alanis Morissette

Hootie & the Blowfish’s debut album, Cracked Rear View, is inexplicably the 19th-best-selling album in US history, and while their brand of pop-rock is entirely too bland for my taste, I guess I understand their appeal to the general music-listening population. But you know what album sold even more copies than Cracked Rear View in 1995? Jagged Little Pill, the phenomenal debut album by Alanis Morissette that spawned six singles, including the top-ten hits “You Oughta Know” and “Ironic”. Morissette actually won four Grammys for Jagged Little Pill, including Album of the Year, which makes her Best New Artist loss to Hootie & the Blowfish even more inexplicable.

Paule Cole (1997)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Fiona Apple

There’s nothing inherently wrong with singer-songwriter Paula Cole, known primarily for the top twenty hits “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait”. It’s just that she isn’t Fiona Apple. Apple is one of those preternatural talents that comes along once in a generation, and her astonishing debut album Tidal was one of the best albums by any artist that year. Classically trained on the piano as a child, Apple began writing her own songs at the age of eight. The songs on Tidal – including “Sleep to Dream” and “Criminal” – were all written by the time she was seventeen. Apple did win a Grammy that night (Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “Criminal”) but the fact that she went home without the Best New Artist prize is a travesty.

Evanescence (2003)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Fountains of Wayne

Don’t get me wrong, if “Bring Me to Life” comes on the radio, I’m going to sing along, but Fountains of Wayne, led by Chris Collingwood and the late, great Adam Schlesinger, is one of the greatest pop bands of the 21 century. Welcome Interstate Managers was actually the band’s third album, but it’s the one that made the Recording Academy take notice. The album contains Fountains of Wayne’s biggest hit, “Stacy’s Mom”, as well as “Mexican Wine”, “Bright Future in Sales”, “Hackensack”, and my personal favorite (for obvious reasons), “Hey Julie”.

Adam Schlesinger died from complications of COVID-19 in March 2020; the remaining band members teamed up with Sharon Van Etten for a tribute

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (2013)

WHO SHOULD HAVE WON: Kendrick Lamar or Kasey Musgraves

This is the most recent entry, but enough time has passed to safely say that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were a flash in the pan. Kendrick Lamar and Kasey Musgraves have written some of the past decade’s most compelling music in their respective genres (hip-hop and country). Lamar even won the incredibly prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Music, which typically goes to classical compositions, for 2018’s Damn.

AND ONE TIME THE GRAMMYS GOT IT INCONTROVERTIBLY RIGHT:

The Beatles (1964)

WHO THEY BEAT: Petula Clark, Astrud Gilberto, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Morgana King

Once in a blue moon, the Recording Academy gets it right. This was one of those times.

Quick Hits: April 15

The Stranger Things 4 trailer is finally here, and it’s a doozy!

Here’s an exclusive interview with the Duffers, who break down the trailer for us in a non-spoilery way:

The RMS Titanic, under the command of Captain Edward Smith, sank into the North Atlantic one hundred and ten years ago today, so it’s a good day to watch a Titanic-themed movie (although I know my hubby will veto this idea).

Leaving this here for no particular reason:

Today would have been Glenn Shadix’s 70th birthday. Now I know what you’re asking me: “‘Who the heck is Glenn Shadix?'” You might not know his name, but you’d probably recognize his face, or even just his voice. Shadix made small but memorable appearances in movies like Beetlejuice and Heathers, and he did extensive voice work in animation, including The Nightmare Before Christmas, for which he provided the voice of the Mayor of Halloweentown. Shaddix died in 2010 of blunt force trauma after he fell in the kitchen of his condo.

Flashdance was released on this day in 1983. The film was a surprise hit, grossing just over $200 million (it was the third-most-profitable movie of the year, after Return of the Jedi and Terms of Endearment) and was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Song for both “Maniac” and “Flashdance… What a Feeling” (the latter won). The soundtrack, which also includes songs by Kim Carnes, Donna Summer and Laura Branigan, was a huge hit as well, reaching #1 on the Billboard 200. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year (it lost, rightfully, to Thriller). Flashdance was the first collaboration between producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, a professional relationship that lasted until Simpson’s untimely death in 1996 and yielded hits like Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Crimson Tide.

Seth Rogen is celebrating his 40th birthday today. If you’re not already following Rogen on Twitter (@Sethrogen), do yourself a favor and check him out. He posts pictures of his pottery and talks about weed and his spaniel Zelda.

Gilbert Gottfried has died at the age of sixty-seven. After his death, Gottfried’s family revealed that he had suffered from ventricular tachycardia. Gottfried appeared in dozens of films and television series, but to me, he’ll always be Aladdin‘s Iago.

Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues”, was born on this day in 1894. Raised in poverty and orphaned by the age of nine, Smith used her hardships as fuel for her music. She signed with Columbia Records in 1923, where she made more than 160 recordings. Smith’s recording career ended abruptly with the advent of the Great Depression, but she never stopped performing. Smith died from injuries sustained in a car crash on September 26, 1937; she was just forty-three years old.

If you’ve never seen HBO’s Emmy-winning *Bessie*, starring Queen Latifah, I highly recommend it.

Photos from the set of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer have made their way to the internet. Shown are Cillian Murphy as Robert J. Oppenheimer and Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, who served as commissioner of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Other cast members include Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty and Matt Damon as Manhattan Project head Leslie Groves. The film is slated for release in July 2023.

And finally, here is a toddler dancing to Eminem, and now I’m off the listen to The Eminem Show.

@caitlinhunter758
#funnybabie #toddlersoftiktok #fyp #foryoupage #foryou
♬ original sound – caitlinhunter758

I identify with this child soooooooooo much!

Quick Hits: April 11

It’s been three very long years since season one of Russian Doll. Like many series, filming on the existential time loop comedy’s second season was delayed due to COVID. Judging by the trailer, I think it will have been worth the wait. If you haven’t watched the first season, you have plenty of time to catch up before season two drops on April 20.

All hail Natasha Lyonne, Russian Doll‘s co-creator, executive producer, star, and all-around badass

At a concert in his hometown of Detroit, Jack White surprised the audience with a proposal to his girlfriend Olivia Jean. The two proceeded to get married onstage.

Estelle Harris died on April 2 at the age of ninety-three. Harris is best known for her role as Estelle Constanza on Seinfeld and her voice work as Mrs. Potato Head in the Toy Story series. Harris was born Estelle Nussbaum in Manhattan and grew up in the Pittsburgh area. She married Sy Harris in 1952 and raised three children. Once her youngest child was in school full time, Harris began pursuing her show business dreams, making her film debut in 1977’s Looking Up at the age of forty-nine.

On this day in 1967, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead made its London Debut at the Old Vic. Tom Stoppard’s existentialist/absurdist/meta tragicomedy takes two minor Hamlet characters and puts them center stage, where they live out their predetermined fates and contemplate the meaning of their existence. The play came to Broadway the following year and raked in eight Tony nominations and four wins, including Best Play. You can watch the film adaptation on Acorn, Tubi, Amazon, or (if you have a library card) Hoopla.

TRUE STORY

Everyone Loves Lady Gaga Right Now (buzzfeednews.com)

Business as Usual at 40

Business as Usual, the debut album by Men at Work, was released forty years ago this month. It would go on to become one of the best-selling albums ever by an Australian artist.

Men at Work was founded in 1979 by lead singer Colin Hay, guitarist Ron Strykert and drummer Jerry Speiser; they were later joined by multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham (saxophone, flute and keyboards) and bassist John Rees. They quickly became one of Australia’s most popular unsigned acts. In 1980, they recorded two songs, “Keypunch Operator” and “Down Under”, and released them as an independent single (“Down Under”, by the way, was the B-side). Although the single failed to chart, it was successful enough to get the band a contract with CBS Records.

Men at Work began recording Business as Usual in the summer of 1981. In the meantime, CBS released the band’s first Australian single, “Who Can It Be Now?”, which went to #2 in August and earned the band Best Debut Single at the annual Countdown Music Awards (the Aussie version of the Grammys). Business as Usual was released in October, along with their second single, a “popified” version of “Down Under”; both album and single went to #1 in Australia.

Despite Men at Work’s success in their native land, CBS was hesitant to release the album internationally. But the label’s A&R rep, Peter Karpin, believed in the band and convinced the label to release the album in Europe and North America.

Business as Usual arrived in the US in April of 1982. “Who Can It Be Now?” was the first single released in the US. Aided by a video that showcased the band’s quirkiness (and a stint opening for Fleetwood Mac on their North American tour), “Who Can It Be Now?” became Men at Work’s first #1 single in the US in October. Shortly thereafter, Business as Usual reached the top of the Billboard 200 – and stayed there for an astonishing fifteen weeks (the album would ultimately be the second-best-selling of the year in the US, behind only Michael Jackson’s Thriller).

“Down Under” was the band’s second US single, and also reached #1 in January 1983. Men at Work’s most iconic song, “Down Under” is a love letter to their homeland, complete with a reference to Vegemite. Once again, the band released a promotional video highlighting the goofy lyrics and Greg Ham’s iconic, and ultimately controversial, flute riff (more on that in a minute).

“Be Good Johnny” became the third and final single from Business as Usual, but by then the band was already working on their second album, Cargo.

At the 25th Grammy Awards, Men at Work received the coveted Best New Artist award, beating out Asia, Jennifer Holliday, The Human League and Stray Cats.

The band with their Best New Artist Grammy

Cargo, released in 1983, proved a more modest success, peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200 and producing two top-ten singles, “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake”. Long-standing tensions between Colin Hay and Jerry Speiser led to Speiser and John Rees being dismissed from the band in 1984. Men at Work released just one more album, 1985’s Two Hearts; it was a critical and commercial flop. Men at Work disbanded the following year, though they have reunited for live performances over the years.

About that “Down Under” controversy: in 2007, on Australian quiz show Spicks and Specks, host Adam Hills asked, “What children’s song is contained in the song ‘Down Under’?”. The answer was “Kookaburra”, a popular Australian nursery rhyme. The following day, Larrikin Music, which owns the copyright to “Kookaburra”, was flooded with emails and phone calls. Larrikin decided to take legal action, and sued the song’s writers, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, for copyright infringement. On 4 February 2010, Justice Peter Jacobson ruled that “Down Under” reproduced “a substantial part of ‘Kookaburra'” and that Larrikin’s copyright had indeed been infringed. Although he was not named in the suit, Greg Ham, who performed the flute riff in the song, took the judgment particularly hard. Ham lamented, “I’m terribly disappointed that that’s the way I’m going to be remembered—for copying something.” Ham began struggling with depression; rumors spread that he was using heroin as an escape. Ham was found dead at his Melbourne home on April 19, 2012. Though several newspapers reported that Ham had suffered a heart attack, his cause of death is still being debated.

It’s hard to overstate how dominant Men at Work was for about a two year period. Their brand of new wave/pop rock was infectious and fun, and they were a smash crossover success. And though the band flamed out quickly, we’ll always have Business as Usual to remember them by.

Quick Hits: April 4

I am enjoying Shining Vale immensely. A horror-comedy series that delivers both genuine laughs AND genuine chills, Shining Vale also offers a thoughtful, refreshingly candid take on marriage, mental health issues, and intergenerational trauma. The entire cast is crushing it, especially Courteney Cox as protagonist Patricia Phelps, an author with clinical depression and a massive case of writer’s block, and Mira Sorvino as Pat’s muse/alter ego/possible demon, Rosemary. The nod to The Shining isn’t in name only; a number of easter eggs pay homage to both Stephen King’s 1977 novel and Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 1980 film adaptation. This week’s episode, “Whispering Hope”, was the best yet, with Pat answering the question of how far she’ll go to complete her novel. With two episodes left in the season, I’m pleased to say I have no idea where the story will go next.

Greg Kinnear, Courteney Cox and Mira Sorvino star in *Shining Vale*

On this day in 2008, super couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z were married in New York City.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z are one of the most fabulous showbiz couples, whether performing together, walking the red carpet, or sitting courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game (Brooklyn-born Jay-Z was part owner of the team for ten years)

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies opened on this date in 1971 at the Winter Garden Theatre. Follies was directed by Broadway legends Harold Prince and Michael Bennett (Bennett was also the choreographer). Follies initially received a lukewarm critical reception, and it was a commercial flop as well, losing almost $800,000 by the time it ended its run after 522 performances. Follies nonetheless raked in eleven Tony nominations and took home seven awards (it lost Best Musical to Two Gentlemen of Verona, a musical adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy). A film adaptation is in the works; I am skeptical. Fun fact: The Munsters‘ Yvonne De Carlo originated the role of film star Carlotta, who sings one of Follies‘ show-stopping numbers, “I’m Still Here”.

Sondheim and book writer James Goldman were inspired to write *Follies* by a New York Times article about a reunion of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls

Anthony Perkins was born on this day in 1932. Although primarily known for his portrayal of Norman Bates in Psycho and its three sequels, Perkins was a versatile, Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor and singer who was equally adept at drama and comedy. He spent his early career playing romantic leading men while hiding his sexual orientation; in fact, his partner of several years was Tab Hunter, who also tended to play the romantic type (there’s a movie in development about their relationship, with Andrew Garfield the frontrunner to play Perkins). Perkins went to tragic lengths to deny his true self, but he did spend the last nineteen years of his life married to actress-photographer Berry Berenson, with whom he had two sons. Perkins passed away in 1992 of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of sixty (to compound the tragedy of their story, Berenson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01).

Tony Perkins hit teen-idol status in the late 1950s

The film that changed Perkins’ life, for the better and the worse

Perkins with Berry Berenson on their wedding day

Heath Ledger was born on this day in 1979. Ledger burst onto the scene in 1999 when he made his American film debut in 10 Things I Hate About You, Disney-Touchstone’s delightful take on The Taming of the Shrew. Ledger was charming as the film’s Petruchio, Patrick, and he had sparkly chemistry with Julia Stiles. Over the next several years, Ledger gave us one killer performance after another, alternating between crowd-pleasers like The Patriot and A Knight’s Tale and indies such as Monster’s Ball and Brokeback Mountain. The latter film garnered Ledger his first Oscar nomination; Philip Seymour Hoffman swept the awards circuit that year for his astonishing turn as Truman Capote in Capote, but Ledger sure gave him a run for his money. In 2008, he delivered his most iconic performance yet, as The Dark Knight‘s Joker. On January 22, 2008, twenty-eight-year-old Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, the result of acute multiple-drug intoxication. The Dark Knight was released that July to critical acclaim and a massive box office haul (more than $1 billion); that awards season, Ledger posthumously won the Oscar, the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and the SAG.

Ledger with Jake Gylenhaal in Brokeback Mountain

ICONIC

Ledger’s ex-wife Michelle Williams with their daughter Matilda (who apparently plays the trombone, which is super badass)

Elmer Bernstein would have been 100 years old today. Bernstein composed music for more than 200 movies and television series, including To Kill a Mockingbird, The Magnificent Seven, Ghostbusters, The Age of Innocence, and Far From Heaven (his final film). Bernstein died in 2004 at the age of eighty-two.

Elmer Bernstein received a total of fourteen Oscar nominations, winning just once, for 1967’s *Thoroughly Modern Millie*

And finally, the Grammy Awards were held last night. As far as I know, no one slapped anyone else. Jon Batiste was the night’s big winner, with eleven nominations and five awards, including Album of the Year for We Are. Nineteen-year-old Olivia Rodrigo won three awards, including the coveted Best New Artist prize. Lady Gaga stunned on the red carpet in her black and pink Armani Privé gown. And Billie Eilish paid tribute to the late Taylor Hawkins while performing “Happier Than Ever”.

Sign O’ the Times at 35

If you’re making a list of the most brilliant double albums in history – Songs in the Key of Life, The Beatles, Bitches Brew, Blonde on Blonde, Physical Graffiti, and yes, 1999 – Prince’s 1987 masterpiece Sign O’ the Times has to be on that list.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that part of my love for this album is driven by nostalgia. Sign O’ the Times (along with George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Terence Trent D’Arby’s Introducing the Hardline According to…, INXS’s Kick, George Michael’s Faith, and R.E.M.’s Document) was the soundtrack to my freshman year in college. And a very good year it was.

Nostalgia aside, Sign O’ the Times is a killer album, stacked with one amazing track after another. Is it Prince’s best album? That’s up for debate, obviously, though I’m guessing many people would say his best album is Purple Rain. But Sign O’ the Times is my favorite Prince album, hands down.

Released on March 31, 1987, Sign O’ the Times was Prince’s first album after the dissolution of his backing band, The Revolution. It was originally conceived as a triple album, but Warner Brothers balked at the idea and Prince was forced to trim it down to a double. The songs encompass an array of genres, including funk, R & B, rock, psychedelic pop, folk, and even gospel. Many of the tracks have a raw, unfinished feel, which was obviously by design (Prince never did anything by accident).

Fun fact: in 1986, Prince created an androgynous alter ego named Camille, whose voice Prince produced using a pitch-shifting technique. Prince actually recorded an entire album as Camille but the project was scrapped (the album will finally see a release sometime this year, according to Third Man Records, who recently acquired the rights). Four of the songs from the Camille sessions ultimately ended up on Sign O’ the Times: “Housequake”, “Strange Relationship”, “U Got the Look” and “If I Was Your Girlfriend”.

While not Prince’s most commercially successful outing – that’d be Purple Rain by a landslide – Sign O’ the Times sold well enough to land it in the top ten on the Billboard 200, where it peaked at #6. It also yielded three top ten singles – the title track, “U Got the Look” (with special guests Sheena Easton and Sheila E.) and “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” (an additional single, “If I Was Your Girlfriend”, made it to #67).

Sign O’ the Times was critically acclaimed as well. It was voted the best album of 1987 in The Village Voice‘s annual Pazz & Jop list. Robert Christgau, music critic for The Village Voice, called Sign O’ the Times “the most gifted pop musician of his generation proving what a motherfucker he is for two discs start to finish” and said the album “established Prince as the greatest rock and roll musician of the era—as singer-guitarist-hooksmith-beatmaster, he has no peer.” In 2004’s The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Michaelangelo Matos declared that Sign O’ the Times is “the most complete example of [Prince’s] artistry’s breadth, and arguably the finest album of the 1980s.”

At the 30th Grammy Awards, Sign O’ the Times was nominated for Album of the Year along with U2’s The Joshua Tree, Michael Jackson’s Bad, Whitney Houston’s Whitney and Trio by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Though The Joshua Tree took home the prize, it would have been a tough vote for me. Prince probably didn’t give a shit about awards, anyway; he created music because the music was inside him. And maybe a little bit for the women.

Check out this very cool New York Times video about the creation of “Sign o’ the Times”, which includes interviews with sound engineer Susan Rogers and Prince’s former fiancée and muse Susannah Melvoin.

By the way, Susannah Melvoin co-wrote one of Sign O’ the Times‘ standout tracks, “Starfish and Coffee”. While researching this piece, I found this charming version featuring the Muppets. The song was inspired by a quirky former classmate of Melvoin’s, Cynthia Rose, who “always stood at the back of the line, a smile beneath her nose”.

The 94th Academy Awards

CONTENT WARNING: ASSAULT

Whew! Well, another Oscars ceremony is in the books, and what a doozy it was. I can’t believe I missed it!

Okay, let me explain. About a year ago, my husband and I ditched cable and went to streaming exclusively. We don’t have a live TV option because it’s just not cost-effective for us (the same way that cable wasn’t cost-effective for us), so for the first time since I honestly don’t remember when, I was unable to watch the Oscars. I really wasn’t that bummed about it until I woke up yesterday morning and found out what I missed.

Let me get this out of the way right up front: Chris Rock’s “joke” about Jada Pinkett Smith – who suffers from alopecia – was tasteless and demeaning. I want to give Rock the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn’t aware of her alopecia, but she’s been pretty open about it (the Smiths, like it or not, are pretty open about a lot of topics) and frankly, it wouldn’t have made the joke funnier anyway. I’d love to see a moratorium on mocking people for their appearances. I’d also love to see a moratorium on toxic masculinity. Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock – and make no mistake about it, it was an assault – was not about “defending her honor”, it was about Smith’s inability to control his emotions.

The remainder of the ceremony became the “Will Smith Show”. The presentation of the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, which went to Questlove and the team from Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), was completely overshadowed by the altercation. Minutes later, Smith used his Best Actor acceptance speech to tearfully apologize to the Academy and his fellow nominees but not to Rock himself [Smith released a public apology to Rock yesterday, and the Academy has announced it will conduct a formal review of the incident].

Lupita Nyong’o deserves an award for her facial expressions (and on an unrelated note, how fucking gorgeous is her skin?)

The slap wasn’t the evening’s only controversy. In a move intended to reduce the length of the broadcast, the Academy announced that the presentation and acceptance of the awards in eight categories – Best Animated Short Film, Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Editing, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Sound – would be pre-taped an hour before the broadcast began. Criticism was swift and sharp. Eventual Best Actress winner Jessica Chastain let it be known that she planned to skip the red carpet in favor of seeing the presentation of Best Makeup and Hairstyling (the team from The Eyes of Tammy Faye won, and no doubt they appreciated the support from their leading lady). Ultimately, a bunch of super talented artists lost out on their big Oscar moment (and at three hours and forty-two minutes, the broadcast was the longest in four years anyway).

In another head-scratcher, Rachel Zegler (Maria in Best Picture nominee West Side Story) took to Instagram a week ago with the news that she hadn’t been invited to the ceremony to cheer on her fellow cast and crewmates. The Academy was quick to ask Zegler to attend the ceremony as a presenter. Zegler cheekily referenced the incident in her pre-award banter (co-presenter Jacob Elordi: “Growing up in Australia, I never thought that I would stand on this stage” Zegler: “And I never thought that I would be here six days ago”).

In an evening beset by scandal, there were high points as well. For the first time since 2018, the Oscars had an official host and not one or two but three amazing women (Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall) were selected for the job. Ariana DeBose became the first openly queer woman of color to win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story). CODA‘s Troy Kotsur became just the second deaf actor in history to win an Oscar. Jane Campion became the third woman – and the second in a row! – to win a Best Director Oscar. We saw a Pulp Fiction reunion (Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta handed out the award for Best Actor) and tributes to the fiftieth anniversary of The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were on-hand for that) and the sixtieth anniversary of the James Bond franchise. And in the evening’s most poignant moment, Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli presented the Best Picture Award; at one point, Minnelli’s confusion prompted Gaga to say “I got you”, to which Minnelli replied, “I know, thank you”. The exchange was picked up by the mics and hearts around the world melted.

This is like a lesson in how to facilitate older people while honouring who they are.
What a class act by @ladygaga with legend Liza Minnelli.
The conferred whispers of "I gotcha" "I know" picked up by the mikes make it especially touching.pic.twitter.com/2JOWyrTQxn
— Naomi O'Leary (@NaomiOhReally) March 28, 2022

The night’s biggest winners were Dune, which took home six awards – Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects – and CODA, which won all three awards for which it was nominated (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay). Kenneth Branagh finally took home an Oscar on his eighth try, winning Best Original Screenplay for Belfast (fun fact: Branagh is the only person to be nominated for Oscars in seven different categories!). And twenty-year-old Billie Eilish is now halfway to an EGOT after she and her brother Finneas won Best Original Song for “No Time to Die”.

And finally, the fashion: