Amazing how I’ve made it all this way, and still haven’t bothered to explain what the format of this website is going to look like.
Are you ready? Do you really think you’re ready?
Top ten lists.
…
That’s it?
That’s what he’s been building up to, with an excruciatingly detailed five-part introductory essay? Top ten lists?
If you want your money back, you’ll have to talk to the manager.
*****
While spending my time writing about everything except my favorite albums and films, I wanted to pivot at some point, but how? What format would my new endeavor take? How to choose which specific albums and films to write on? Chronological order? Alphabetical order? Draw random lots from a hat? Take requests? See what’s trending on Twitter? Then one day, it hit me:
Top ten lists.
A solution so simple, so utilitarian, so mathematically symmetrical, it was the only choice. Because nothing generates suspense, or argument, quite like a countdown – even a relatively meaningless countdown.
Several years ago, I started a blog with a college friend. For the first several months, we “blogged about nothing,” Seinfeld-style, until one day, we both had an idea: Top ten movies of the ‘80s. But in order to milk it for all it was worth, we published each of our entries in a countdown format. In other words, I posted my #10 choice, then my friend posted his #10 choice, then I posted my #9 choice, then he posted his #9 choice, etc., each of us composing an essay explaining why we chose the film that we did, and each of us possessing no prior awareness of the other’s selections. The series was a runaway hit – with the five friends who were bothering to read our blog.
But I learned something that day. That structure created anticipation. Our friends were itching to know what our next choice was going to be, even if establishing the difference between our tenth favorite film of a decade and our ninth favorite film of a decade was as about arbitrary a process as the one that went into the creation of Maryland’s borders.
Every hit demands a sequel, and so we attempted to follow up Top Ten Movies of the ‘80s with Top Ten Albums of the ‘90s. I say “attempted” because, although I managed to post my ten, my friend only managed to make it to #6 before becoming sidetracked by something lame called “law school.” (Fed up while waiting for him to resume, I ended up writing a post where I “finished” my friend’s top ten list on his behalf while insinuating that he was a pedophile.) I’m going it alone this time.
In the right hands, top ten lists can be a beautiful creation, but in the wrong hands, they can be downright brutal. Let’s be honest, there are a lot of top ten lists out there. There are top 50 lists, top 100 lists, top 283.4 lists … I do not want my lists to turn out like the other lists. You will find, on any given day, in the margins of any given website, clickbait headlines for listicles such as “Top Twenty Rip Torn Movies” or “Top Ten Natalie Imbruglia B-Sides.” I don’t like ‘em. They’re like tissues that aren’t Kleenex, or tape that isn’t Scotch.
But the part-time Buddhist pop culture guru’s top ten lists? My lists are going to be more like scholarly essays than lists. You are going to get your money’s worth. [Reader whispers.] What’s that? You’re not paying anything? I knew I screwed up somewhere.
But the drawback to actually, you know, putting effort into the essay for each entry, as well as the necessity of maintaining my day job, means that I might not be able to post an entry with the level of frequency my ambition desires. Initially, I plan to aim for one entry per month, but perhaps one entry every six weeks, or every two months, will prove to be more realistic. However, when I do post an entry, look out.
*****
Lists, lists, lists.
The most respected “Best Films of All Time” list is the one released by Sight & Sound once every ten years (I think we’re about due for another update?). I remember staring at the results of their 2002 survey, wondering if it was the kind of list I might have given, with confidence, to someone who expressed curiosity about classic movies. Could I appreciate that, when asked to name their favorite films, a representative sample of global film critics and directors would have named comparatively obscure titles such as Ozu’s Tokyo Story and Tarkovsky’s The Mirror? Sure. But would I suggest to a budding film aficionado that they put Tokyo Story and The Mirror at the top of their own “to watch” list? Some people would. I am here to argue politely with those people.
In a similar vein is They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, an aggregate site that has compiled thousands of movie lists from thousands of critics (I believe they’ve also chained a thousand monkeys to a thousand typewriters), and has ranked them, using a mathematically rigorous formula, into a giant uber-list of a thousand movies. It’s spellbinding, it’s breathtaking, it’s mind-melting. It’s also … like Sight & Sounds’ list, not the list of movies I would give to someone who might be new to watching movies. I look at the They Shoot Pictures list, and I wonder how many of the critics behind all these various lists are part-time Buddhists. If you’re wondering what the “critical consensus” around the greatest films of all time is, I’d point you to They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They.
But I’d give you a different list.
Then there’s the spiritual sister site to They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?: Acclaimed Music. I feel like Acclaimed Music hews closer to my own part-time Buddhist taste in terms of providing a good starting point for budding students of popular music than They Shoot Pictures does with film. I would genuinely recommend their rankings to the rock history neophyte. My biggest issue with Acclaimed Music is that I think their formula ranks recent albums too highly. I guess there are sensible people who would consider Arcade Fire’s Funeral to be the 24th greatest album of all time, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to be the 26th greatest album of all time, and Rubber Soul and Led Zeppelin IV to be the 32nd and 33rd greatest albums of all time, but that person may not be me.
The nice thing about these aggregate lists is that you could argue with the rankings, but since the rankings are merely a compilation of other people’s rankings, then who precisely are you arguing with? The sites are merely reflecting a certain consensus, and can claim full plausible deniability.
Then there are the Rolling Stone type of lists, and I don’t just mean their “500 Greatest Albums” list. I used to see features on the Rolling Stone website like “100 Greatest Metal Albums” or “50 Greatest Debut Albums,” and, you know what? Sometimes I would bite. I got bored, and so I would click. But it would be a sad, half-hearted click. The first source of my remorse? The blurbs that would accompany each pick. They were never particularly long. The blurbs rarely deviated from conventional wisdom, almost as if Rolling Stone was consciously trying to be the anti-Pitchfork. The writers often described things with a formula like: “all [adjective][noun] and [noun][noun].” Allow me to craft a couple of examples: “with David Byrne coming on all twitchy exasperation and Wall Street jitteriness.” Or “Jim Morrison crawling over the tracks, all bluesy swagger and Sunset Strip lechery.” It’s like they were giving you the same classic flavor you loved, but with a tangy new gimmick. Here’s what the writers behind each blurb were not doing much of: telling me how they personally felt about the music they were writing about. (While Ultimate Classic Rock tends to take a similar approach with their lists, since they strike me as such a comparatively small-time operation, theirs don’t rub me the wrong way as much.)
Well. You will read my essays and you will know that I love my choices. No posturing to hipsters or pandering to the masses here. No contrarian picks intended to generate outrage. No selections that might flatter an imaginary audience but aren’t particularly close to my heart. My most embarrassing choices will not be shifted up or down the ranking in order to avoid your ridicule. Instead, be prepared for random anecdotes about my disgruntled youth and the occasional dig at my father’s middlebrow taste.
These days, I suspect certain readers hoping I take this list-making opportunity to “highlight overlooked works by underrepresented groups!” will probably come away disappointed. The existence of such a site is not something I oppose per se, but to quote Star Wars, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
I’m partially sympathetic to the impulse of canon revision, because nothing is sacred. One thing I want to make sure I’m not saying to people is, “Hey, person from a completely different background than mine, here is the shit you’re supposed to like.” But I think it would be dishonest of me (and not that useful either) to talk about works of art I don’t genuinely love as if I did genuinely love them, just because doing the opposite would result in everything I discuss stemming from a well-represented segment of society. Am I starting to sound like Jann Wenner in his recent New York Times interview? Ewww. On the simplest level, these are merely my personal favorites.
And I think there’s a difference between admiring the underlying ideological intentions of a work of art and connecting with that work of art on a personal level. Does the story exhibit nuance, humor, insight, originality? Am I able to step into the protagonist’s shoes? Those are the questions I like to ask.
Maybe it’s the bitter taste of all the suburban, upper-middle class kids I was surrounded by in high school who seemed to feel guilty about their privilege, but why do I get the sense that most of the folks who have the mental energy and emotional bandwidth to view art through that type of lens have been the beneficiaries of more loving, stable family upbringings than mine, and are perhaps the daily recipients of inspiring support from their psychologically well-adjusted spouses? I’ve just never felt like I’ve had a gift for being outraged on behalf of people who are not me. I’m the kind of guy who just tries to wake up in the morning and get through the day without doing anything terrible to myself or others. As a result, perhaps I tend to gravitate more toward stories or songs that explore themes such as loneliness, alienation, confusion, regret, longing, etc. The inner journey is what I find most compelling.
There are themes that I think are universal, no matter one’s background. I’m talking about part-time Buddhist themes. I’m talking about stories where guarded characters become more open-hearted, or where complacent characters deal with loss and grow. I’m talking about songs where the singer grapples with turmoil, solitude, frustration, or bitterness.
My taste is my taste, but the ideas that draw me to art are, I imagine, the same ideas that I think draw most humans to art. My suggestion to readers of all stripes is: take what may be of value to you, and toss the rest in the compost bin. Also, I tend to find discussions of that nature devoid of humor. In summary: if anyone wants to be appalled at me for not being more of an activist type of writer, or for my top ten lists lacking this group or that group (although there might actually end up being some of that anyway), you have my permission.
Also, I should clarify that I am not ranking my lists on a scale of most part-time Buddhist to least part-time Buddhist (whatever the fuck that might be), but rather on a scale of most favorite to least favorite, yet still analyzing each work from a part-time Buddhist point of view. My hope is, like a toothbrush that passes over all the disgusting, plaque-stained portions of one’s teeth as well as the portions that don’t need any brushing but end up get brushed anyway, I might write about a few works that I don’t have too much to say about, but when all is said and done, I will inevitably hit all the cracks and crevices I originally intended to reach.
And so, I’ve decided to start with that most part-time Buddhist of decades: the 1960s.
*****
I suppose the 1960s were not the summit of human existence, but why does it sure as hell seem like it? Maybe if I’d actually lived through the ’60s, I would have seen how phony, pretentious, hypocritical, bigoted, and cynical the mores of the era actually were, but nope.
Instead, I get to pretend that life and art were so much better, man, and that every other decade since has been one big drag. Maybe it’s these rose-colored glasses I found at a flea market in Santa Cruz and put on my face a few minutes ago, but I feel like something happened in the ’60s – something, like, good. Really good. Something that speaks to me today, as if it had been created for me, today. The whole decade was like one sustained transition from the incipient sparks of part-time Buddhism to a raging inferno of part-time Buddhism. What I’m trying to say is that the ’60s is where pop culture and part-time Buddhism fully collided.
Though it might be a smarter marketing strategy to boast that all of my top ten choices will SHOCK, SHOCK you, I don’t think any of my ’60s album choices will be particularly surprising. You might, if anything, be more shocked by the albums I leave out.
First, I had to ask myself one critical question: how many Beatles albums? Five? Seven? It’s entirely possible that I could have compiled a list of top ten albums of the ’60s consisting of ten Beatles albums and nothing else, and felt more or less satisfied with that list. Except … come on, man.
In the end, I made a somewhat controversial decision: no more than three Beatles albums. An honest ranking? Some type of “anti-Beatles” salary cap? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. Frankly, standing back and soaking in my list at a distance, I think the other seven albums I’ve chosen can go toe-to-toe with those snubbed Beatles albums that barely missed the cut any day of the week (except, perhaps, the eighth day of the week).
I must also confess that my album list skews heavily toward the tail end of the ’60s. On a simple song-by-song basis, I would proclaim the whole decade magnificent from top to bottom, but the album, to give an opinion I suspect many share, didn’t really approach that Russian novel level of artistic grandeur until late in the day. Look: just because an album didn’t make my top ten doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s great, or even that I dislike it. But when you’re talking about the top ten, you are talking about the big boys.
In contrast to music, I wouldn’t say that the 1960s were necessarily the peak decade for film, or even my favorite decade (the ’70s might be vying for that crown), but it just makes sense to pair the lists together. Unlike pop music, I think film had already tapped into the part-time Buddhist spirit prior to the ’60s, with the ’40s and ’50s boasting a healthy share of part-time Buddhist excellence. I would not, by comparison, feel comfortable compiling a Top Ten Albums of the ’50s list, which would probably take a writer with a stronger fondness for jazz to pull off. Otherwise, we’ve got, what, Elvis’s first album, a bunch of those Capitol Sinatra thingies, and Broadway cast recordings?
Unlike my ‘60s album list, I feel comfortable stating ahead of time that my ’60s film list will include a pair of mainstream Hollywood films that have been widely viewed and widely enjoyed, and yet have rarely appeared on lists like these. At last, they will appear on a top ten list, prominently placed, for all the world to see. I should also mention that my film essays might as well contain a flashing neon “SPOILER WARNING” at the top of the post, as I don’t feel I can legitimately dive into proper part-time Buddhist analysis of a film without discussing its ending, as that is often where the tastiest part-time Buddhist honey in the hive can be found. Sometimes I might even refer to the end of a movie in the first paragraph. Just thought I’d let you know.
Now, some of you might be wondering why, if I am claiming to be such a committed part-time Buddhist, I am not writing about contemporary popular music and contemporary cinema. After all, shouldn’t a part-time Buddhist engage with the present and not live in the past? The problem with that idea is that … I don’t like contemporary music and film as much as I like late 20th century music and film.
It is not my desire to be labeled an old fart. I consider myself open-minded. A little spark of joy dies inside me every time I read what were then-contemporary reviews of albums or movies I personally adore, only to discover a respected writer of the era panning that album or movie, or every time an older artist I admire is asked about a younger artist I also admire and their response is an ornery rant about how much they can’t stand the younger artist. “You fools!” I say to myself. “You just didn’t get the new style! History is laughing at you!” However, if a person who loved contemporary pop music were to hear my thoughts on that music today, they would think the same of me. “Pfft, he’s just this nostalgic, narrow-minded, middle-aged jerk who can’t appreciate anything that’s less than 20 years old.”
I don’t want to be that guy, I swear! I don’t want to be my generation’s Woody Allen (uh, in more ways than one, but let’s pretend I’m talking about the bookish, easily caricaturable 1977 version of Woody Allen, not the “other” version). I used to be puzzled how an intelligent and creative mind such as Allen’s could hold up old-timey ’30s jazz and the era of the “Great American Songbook” as the summit of 20th century music, and take potshots at, and seemingly express complete disinterest in, the rock era. Though not without its charms, I find the musical era he preferred to be less adventurous, more reliant on formula, and focused, at least lyrically, on a superficially cutesy, Valentine’s Day card view of relationships. I think of the scene in Annie Hall where Shelley Duvall’s character starts going on and on about how much she enjoyed a Bob Dylan concert, and Alvy prominently rolls his eyes: “You catch Dylan?” “Me? Uh, no, no, I couldn’t make it that night, my raccoon had hepatitis.” Oh yeah, that Dylan, he’s so lame – as opposed to real music like … Guy Lombardo?
At the risk of starting a long discussion that is probably best saved for another time, I think performers creating music in the ‘60s had a few distinct advantages that performers of today do not, such as:
- The technology of stereo multi-track recording more or less being a brand new invention
- The widespread pervasiveness of an unnaturally repressed post-war social environment that made it much easier for artists to break taboos and push boundaries
- The relatively scarce logistical means and higher financial costs associated with creating and distributing professional records, making the ones that did find their way into the marketplace literally more “valuable”
You know … stuff.
To be fair, even when I was a 16-year-old pimply-faced brat in the mid-90s, almost 95% of my favorite music stemmed from the ’60s and ’70s, so I’m nothing if not consistent.
But I do feel, even if I can’t establish it with empirical certainty, that the pop music of the ’60s frequently addressed topics that were intrinsically more part-time Buddhist than the pop music of other eras did. It was an age when performers stared suffering squarely in the eye and attempted to craft inscrutable, enigmatic poetry out of it. There might be performers out there doing the same thing today, but if so, I may not have come across them yet. Hell, if someone out there wants to write about contemporary music from a part-time Buddhist angle, then be my guest.
Did I mention my Void theory earlier? Sometimes I feel like the void that once existed when recorded music and feature films were brand new formats has, by now, kind of been … filled. There’s a giant pile of stuff that’s accrued over the years. And all you musicians and film-makers out there today? Bless your little hearts, but part of me wonders if you’re simply adding more piles of stuff onto this already massive pile of stuff. Do we really need more stuff? Has the void been filled?
And yet I might suggest that another, slightly related and yet less glamorous void has yet to be filled – a smaller pile currently dwarfed by the other pile. Perhaps the era of creation has drawn to a close, and the era of appreciation has reached its dawning.
So let the appreciation commence. Up next: the Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru’s top ten films and albums of the 1960s, counting down from #10 to #1.