[REC]

A comely reporter for a late-night news show is trying to make the best of what promises to be a boring night covering the lives of firemen. An emergency call to the station has first responders (with their documentarians in tow) rushing into an apartment complex to aid an infirm old woman whose peculiar behavior has her neighbors fearing the worst. The video camera captures events as they escalate from bad to worse: the woman seems in the throes of a disease that is making her violent; the authorities have quarantined the building; and those trapped inside are dying horribly one by one. And they aren't staying dead.



If anyone is even thinking about making yet another first-person, shot-on-DV film about the zombie apocalypse, they need to take a good, long look at [REC], and be honest about whether or not their project will bring anything new to the table. Though filmmakers Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza are treading paths well-worn by low budget horror auteurs, their attention to character details, pacing, and documentary realism bring a bracing freshness and real suspense to what could have been yet another zombie flick. All genre familiarity goes right out the window as [REC]'s long horrible night unfolds, and even a final reel reveal that threatens to undermine the realism of the piece only serves to heighten our anxiety. The thing fucking works.

Post 100: The One I Might Have Saved.

If anyone's keeping track, yes, this is the hundredth post here on The House of Sparrows. That the House is open at all can be blamed, if you wish, on the inspiration of two leading lights in the horror blogosphere: Stacie Ponder (proprietor of Final Girl) and Arbogast (of Arbogast on Film).

Indeed, the latter has an ongoing blogathon called The One You Might Have Saved, inviting any and all to describe a horror film victim whose plight stirred unusual empathy. I've been meaning to post my own entry in this (this blog was started in large part out of a desire to do so), and believe that this is an ideal occasion for it.

Though the movie that contains this person does not, at the outset, seem auspicious...


...it was smarter than I'd hoped, offering an engaging whodunnit mystery alongside its old school slasher thrills. There's an interesting subtext throughout the film as we're made to wonder what our future will be like as these uniformly horrible young women, our best and brightest, take the reins of government and business in the ensuing years. The film's cynicism in depicting the sisters' ongoing betrayal of the social values the sorority was ostensibly established to uphold is deliberate, and often bracing. (I also noted that Claire, an Asian-American character played by Jamie Chung, had a number of character details that fleshed her out more believably than non-white characters in many, many other genre films.)

In any event, it begins with a rather lovely, though one doubts seamless, single take crawling through Theta House, taking in all manner of debauchery during a party. The camera ducks into a quiet, dark kitchen, the music is muted, and we see her for the first time.


This is Mrs. Crenshaw, the house mother of Theta Pi, played by Carrie Fisher. She's beautifully captured here, holding it down in the (moral?) center of Theta Pi, quietly mixing a drink even as her charges are indulging far lustier vices throughout the house. It's a good hook for older viewers of this teen-oriented (if R-rated) slasher, and those of us who came of age when this actress was in her prime share, perhaps, her isolation from (but presence within) the youth-heavy antics surrounding her.

Which include the murder that drives the film, and the secret forged by the film's numerous heroines (all Theta Pi sisters, all seniors). We catch up with Mrs. Crenshaw at the end of senior year, sternly but lovingly giving her end-of-year address to the sisters...


..along with some bracelets to the graduates, bearing one link for each of the 22 graduates. Clearly unaware that it's the spirit of generosity, and not the gift that counts, the girls junk the bracelets as soon as Mrs. C splits:


But Mrs. Crenshaw's feeling more wistful, and generous, and is captured (alone, again) taking a final look at the house as she's known it.


And she's off. A huge and insane party, with DJs, bubble machines, and lots of sex begins at Theta House.

And before night falls, the killer strikes. And again. And again.





Back at the house the sisters realize that their past is coming back for them. And the aforementioned Claire suffers the film's most visually weird death.




Amid all the carnage two of the girls have time for a catfight over a boyfriend, but the return of Mrs. Crenshaw is clearly a signal to Cut The Shit:


"Wow, who knew Mrs. Crenshaw was such a bad-ass?" Some belated and unheard respect from the girls, as Mrs. C goes downstairs to save the fucking day.

She enters the kitchen, finds the killer, and starts blazing away:



For the first time in the film, the killer retreats.



And Fisher gives us the best lines in the film:


No, she is not. Why?


Damn right.

The killer throws his pimped-up tire iron at her and misses, wedging it in the wall behind her. She's about to kill him and give the movie an awesome fucking ending. Until her gun jams:


She's trying to fix the damn thing, and her desperate grunts in the next few seconds tear a gasp from me. Faster than 7capture can grab it, the killer runs over, shoves the table against Mrs. Crenshaw, thus impaling her with the weapon wedged in the wall behind her.



There's a weird, sad silence here:


Is the killer gloating? Quietly paying respect to the awesome, otherwise unrespected woman who simply deserved better than she's getting here? Taking a moment to acknowledge the genuine sacrifice of the sole decent person on his/her long slate of victims, past and future?

God love her, she rallies for one last, desperate shot against the departing killer, but we feel how empty her threats are now, and mourn how widely her last shot misses its mark.


And finally Mrs. Crenshaw dies as we found her: in the kitchen. Alone.


I'm not completely sure why she resonates with me. Though it's a three-scene role, Fisher plays it more than solidly. Mrs. Crenshaw's the most clearly (if not the only) sympathetic character in the whole film (an intentional ploy of the film's design), and, as suggested earlier, perhaps she was the only character in this film that I, in my ever-increasing dotage, could really latch onto. Maybe it's her resemblance to my mom.

All I know is that as I grabbed images for this piece I could easily speed through the film, but found myself gripped anew by her scenes. Too involved to really break down Fisher's performance, or Stewart Hendler's direction of her scenes. Instead I was simply struck by her gentle but tough humanity. And, particularly, saddened by her death.

So here's to you, Mrs. Crenshaw.

You, dear, are The One I Might Have Saved.

INSIDIOUS

Happy couple Renai and Josh Lambert (Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson) have moved into a new house. Their domestic bliss is shattered when, after taking a tumble in the attic, their son Dalton falls into a coma. Josh retreats into his work (ostensibly to pay the debts incurred by Dalton's ongoing treatment). And Renai finds herself increasingly agitated by a number of unsettling disturbances that threaten to shatter the Lambert household for good.


Though I was never quite on board with either Saw or its various sequels, your proprietor has followed the work (and become something of a fan) of filmmaker James Wan. The revenge drama Death Sentence confirmed that Wan's interests extended beyond gore and violence, and though scant few gave Wan credit for it, his grip on the conflicted morality of his protagonist (as well as the ultimately soul-destroying void left in the wake of the film's violence), coupled with some masterfully-executed set pieces, showed that he was a genre filmmaker with increasing sensitivity and broadening focus.

Reuniting with Saw-scribe Leigh Whannell, Wan crafts a haunted house film that is mindful of its traditions (with nods to THE HAUNTING, POLTERGEIST, and the more recent PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) while laden with the patented Stygian imagery that has figured in all of Wan's films. But there's a strong sense of ordinariness to the Lambert's domesticity, which is slowly and knowingly upended as the film unfolds - Wan is just as confident showing the internal sources of conflict between the Lamberts as the malevolent external forces that shadow them. And though some have blanched that the movie shifts its focus from Renai to Jeff in its last half, the shift is more than earned by a lovely scene in which Jeff, confronted by the truth of his son's drawings, finally accepts his responsibility as a parent. It's a great turn by Patrick Wilson, and maybe the finest acting moment in Wan's oeuvre so far.

The main criticism leveled against this film is that its second half over-explains the story and loses steam after the masterfully sustained suspense of the first half. I can only say bullshit: the arrival of a downright goofy pair of ghost hunters followed by their extremely grounded boss (an excellent supporting turn by Lin Shaye) adds some nice variation and raises the stakes considerably, and whatever losses are incurred by fully exposing the previously little-seen spooks are more than balanced by the drama of the Lamberts fighting to save their son. The emotional intensity of the climax, a startling coda, and finally a gorgeously malignant post-credits shot seals the deal, and closes the circuit on the thing.


Wan's next project appears to be FALL NIGHT (or perhaps NIGHTFALL), about a Texas criminal sent to a prison run by vampires. And yet I'd be keen to see the musical that Wan says he's ready to make. And as I said before, I'd love to see him remake Gaslight.

RUBBER

Tedious.

Under the watchful eyes of a rag-tag, binocular-equipped audience, an abandoned tire comes to life in the middle of the desert. Wandering aimlessly across the landscape, the tire discovers an ability to inflict harm, which it cheerfully unleashes upon a bewildered set of human targets. The hunt is on for this head-exploding killer, even as the nature of his reality becomes more and more questionable.


Your proprietor was as taken with the weirdness and energy of the trailer for this film as anyone else, but was disappointed to see it reveal itself, very very quickly, to be this year's Dot The I. Though the effects and filmmaking skills are there to fully fulfill its promise, director Quentin Dupieux immediately informs his audience that they're in for navel-gazing, coy gamesmanship, and tedious self-reflexive commentary that promises to undermine any thrills they might experience in the movie's running time. This promise, alas, is the one that Dupieux ultimately keeps, and it's sad to see a film that could easily have supported its outre premise fall into a self-congratulating rut of half-assed philosophizing; worse still the manner in which it talks down to its audience. Too dim to take any of its conceited games anywhere of interest, too arch to be any damn fun, there's no fucking reason for this movie to exist, or for you to see it.

This...future, part final (20-1)

20. Einstuerzende Neubauten, "Weil Weil Weil"

I was skeptical about the growing interactive/collaborative nature of Neubauten’s process, especially after the uneven PERPETUUM MOBILE. But ALLES WEIDER OFFEN was an insanely cohesive dispatch, with the band sounding terrifyingly focused. This track brought us the familiar metal-pipe-to-the-head sonics of yore, with some truly startling electronic accents to put us away.

19. Prince, "Black Sweat"

"All instruments and voices: Prince." If a DJ segued from Nine Inch Nails to this s/he wouldn’t lose a single person from the floor. And if Michael Jackson had locked everyone else out of the studio and made a perfectly-cut diamond like this once in a while, he might still be with us.

18. David Bowie, "Sunday"

The Thin White Duke begins HEATHEN in a decidedly pensive mood, hovering over dozens of possibilities and sounding almost forlorn. But there’s something in his voice that hasn’t stopped, and when he finally stretches out in come the drums of Sterling Campbell (an undersung Bowie sideman) and suddenly we’re on wings.

17. Gary Numan, "Fold"

Another Numan disc, another killer track-two, this one a nice subversion of the nu-metal formula of quiet-verse, screamed-chorus – Numan keeps it bottled in even as the chorus spreads its wings behind him. And for a victory lap he finally jumps up an octave and pelts out “Oh, oh, oh, oh” like it fucking means something during the final minute.

16. Yoshida Brothers, "Rising"

Specifically the break where everything drops out except for the duelin’ shamisen and the drums, because it always makes me lose my shit.

15. Clint Mansell/Kronos Quartet/Mogwai, "Death Is The Road To Awe"

Though I hadn’t liked Mansell’s previous score for Darren Aronofsky, THE FOUNTAIN was my favorite film score of the decade, and a powerful collection of sonic talent. This track, the climax of both the album and the film, brings together the various motifs of the score and painfully, gorgeously follows them to oblivion and far beyond.

14. SunnO))), "Alice"

A drone-metal road to paradise – the slow emergence of the strings from the group’s patented squalls of guitar makes for some compelling fucking drama, indeed. An elemental masterpiece, carved out of sound.

13. Spoon, "Was It You?"

Mark told me he had, basically, an Earth-2 Tubeway Army track to play. This track certainly vibes early Numan dystopia, but there’s a distinctly American suburbia within it. To these ears it’s the most aurally stimulating track on GIMME FICTION, employing dozens of miniature sounds to create an unsettled, dark atmosphere. Jim Eno’s drums sound like they’re counting time to the delivery of some terrible, terrible news.

12. John Zorn, "Tears Of Morning"

A gorgeous piece for piano, bass, and cello, and one of Zorn’s most overtly Morriconesque film cues. Zorn’s masterstroke here was bumping accordionist Rob Burger from his regular instrument to piano, where his light touch was something of a revelation – I notice that Burger’s been on piano for Zorn ever since.

11. King Crimson, "The Power To Believe II"

There’s nothing about this last decade’s Crim that isn’t contradictory – guys in their 50s rocking louder and tighter than punks half their ages; the bass replaced with whatever the hell a Warr Guitar is; a drummer who refuses to play the guitar part; a leader who refuses to lead; and finally, in this track, an ethereal, otherworldly din that couldn’t sound less like a beat combo.

10. Burial, "Raver"

The conclusion of the murky dubstep disc UNTRUE, with some truly lovely synth washes letting in just the right amount of light. Reminds me of darker, earlier, more insular days, while sounding like the present moment. Desperate, desolate, and even romantic.

9. Wire, "The Agfers of Kodack"

So nice to hear new Wire after so many years without. Sometime-lead vocalist Graham Lewis just punches this one out (and for the first time on the SEND disc, the Lewis/Newman vocal duets manifest, and do it with a vengeance). These motherfuckers make me feel GREAT about getting older, reminding us that the post-punk era was more vast than we’d thought, and never really ended.

8. Radiohead, "Dollars and Cents"

I swore up and down, no doubt to the point of tedium, that this was an ideal Bond theme – its swirling strings and insistent rhythm would lend themselves perfectly to a Maurice Binder title sequence. Turns out “Lucky” from OK COMPUTER was already an intentional Bond theme, so I went ahead and used this in the score of a play I directed instead.

7. Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi"

A nice balance between the electropop gloss of the other singles and more dramatic songwriting. The song’s truly psychotic narrative of fame, lust, and envy makes it the darkest chart single I can remember since “Every Breath You Take,” and the prettiness of (and genuine longing within) the vocal lines only poison it further. This one can only end in death, and reminds us that opera was pop music, once.

6. Sigur Rós, "Glósóli"

The crescendo brings copious tears every single time.

5. John Zorn, "Makaahaa"

Zorn’s easy listening phase kicked off in earnest with this, and continues through his Dreamers project. I must confess I wasn’t on board with this at first, but after absorbing some of the source material relating to tiki culture (the music, especially) I returned with gusto. Marc Ribot’s guitar-playing is just right, evoking a dreamy surf and the twi-lit beach it embraces.

4. Björk, "Vökuró"

She might as well be singing in Martian, but Bjork’s dispatch from the still alien territory of Icelandic musical tradition honors it, while nailing the universal elements within it.

3. Robert Fripp, "Affirmation: New York"

The spiritual aspects of Fripp’s Soundscapes became more overt this decade, reaching a high point on this track from LOVE CANNOT BEAR. It dovetailed nicely with an emergence of a spiritual aspect in my own life and work. Nothing but love for the mind, heart, and work of a man who continues to inspire and teach.

2. Merz, "Warm Cigarette Room"

The first song I thought of when compiling this list, and the first song I’d heard from the UK’s experimental folk artist. There’s a hazy vibe through this, and a film blanc story of quiet, internalized desperation that I’ve tried, more than once, to find a theatrical equivalent for. It’s an evocative track, certainly, and one that makes me stop whatever I’m doing whenever it comes on.

1. Radiohead, "How To Disappear Completely"

This is the one I keep coming back to, the one where the band just take their time, where Yorke’s dislocation from one world takes him to another one. This is the closing monologue from Jack Arnold’s THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN set to music, and the moment when Yorke hitches his falsetto to the passing music is positively euphoric.

This...future, part 2 (35-21)

Noticing in compiling this that many of my favorite musicians are older than me. Perhaps I'm out of touch with the music of the younger generation, and yet I'm finding that my heroes are making work that fully engages the going-on-forty me (and the present moment) as much as they thrilled the younger me back in the day. One wonders if we'll be saying as much about The Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, or the fucking Strokes in 2020. Anyway, onward.

35. Peter Hammill, "Friday Afternoon"

That voice, ever brittle in Hammill’s increasing dotage but still so dramatically present. Hammill confronted mortality across the decade, and here gives powerful voice to the pain of the gap left by an acquaintance’s sudden death. In concert, however, the Thin Man remains very much alive.

34. David Byrne/Rufus Wainwright, “Au Fond du Temple Saint”

The renowned duet from Bizet’s THE PEARL FISHERS, sung at last by people who don’t sound like hefty tenors but nonetheless bring artistry, skill, and heart to the piece. Dad says “You just want to kiss them both for singing it.” I can’t put it better.

33. Gary Numan, “Walking With Shadows”

Among the new wave icon’s less-mentioned talents is a bizarre knack for track twos – his albums usually begin well, leading from a great opener into another track that deepens the mood, opens the album up, etc. On THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE, for example, the soaring instrumental “Airlane” segues nicely into the urban, industrial “Metal”; the title track of BERSERKER gives way to the magnificent funk of “This is New Love.” So does PURE’s opening salvo (a title track carrying a serial killer’s thought on his victim pre-, during-, and post-murder) lead into “Walking With Shadows”, a trip into a coma patient’s mind and an encounter with the spirits lurking within. Widescreen, symphonic darkness, and supernaturally seductive.

32. Andrew W.K., “Party Hard”

I crack a smile just thinking about this thing. Not since the Fleshtones has mindless party rock sounded so carefully, artfully cultivated and maximally crafted to bring the most joy to the most people.

31. Fantomas, "The Golem"

The whole DIRECTOR’S CUT album was one of the decade’s more remarkable experiments, but the unstoppable horror juggernaut of this track sticks out by sheer force. Basically a death metal track with intelligible lyrics, delivered with gusto.

30. Depeche Mode, "Ghost"

They’ve become a cleaner band in, um, various ways. This track captures the bright metallic sheen their music has accumulated, but recaptures the suspense, breadth, and powerful textures of their greatest work. It’s as if Alan Wilder missed the band, and sneaked in after hours to tweak a non-album track. This track single-handedly re-interested me in the band, and I’m curious to see what they build next.

29. Mogwai, "Black Spider"

A fine first track and piece of film music. The sequences and chords recur throughout the album and film ZIDANE: A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY PORTRAIT, but (appropriately, considering the film) it feels like it’s setting up for a drama beyond its immediate scope. This may have been the track that kicked off my infatuation with the vibraphone this decade.

28. The Flaming Lips, “Are You A Hypnotist?”

YOSHIMI was a weird touchstone – everyone, it seems, had it, but no two listeners had the same relationship with it. This is a dark horse candidate for the favorite track, but I doubt I’m alone in loving it. A gorgeous film blanc dalliance with a femme fatale, nowhere to hide on a plane without shadows. Blinding brilliance conceals just as well, we find.

27. David Lynch, “The Ghost of Love”

“Straaaaaaange…” That familiar Jimmy-Stewart-on-crack voice makes its musical debut here. Ordinarily when a background figure steps to the forefront it’s for direct, emotional address (see Clint Eastwood, “Gran Torino” from the film of the same name), but Lynch’s familiar voice makes this song his most alien and evocative sonic offering yet. Proof positive of the man’s musical gifts; everybody seems to forget that he wrote “The Pink Room,” not Badalamenti.

26. Wire, “One Of Us”

The departure of Bruce Gilbert (long the greatest source of Wire’s sonic contrariness) gave some of us pause, but the lean trio of Grey, Lewis, and Newman carried on without missing a beat. A gentler single, but matching a pleasant pop hook with fuzzy grit and ethereal electricity. A great opening shot from the new, dare-I-say improved Wire.

25. U2 – “Vertigo”

I’m not invested in arguing against their status as the World’s Greatest Rock Band, particularly when their supporting evidence is this grand. An enthusiastic rocker to kick off HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB, “Vertigo” also made for one of the decade’s more powerful cultural moments, as the band pointedly played it “LIVE. LIVE. LIVE” on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE the week after Ashlee Simpson had her lip-synch meltdown. With all of Simpson’s bonehead fans rising to her defense and stating that they actually like it when their idols don’t sing, U2 made a compelling and finishing argument that never should have been necessary.

24. Yoko Kanno, with Origa – “Inner Universe”

One of the better anime themes, an ideal opening for each episode of GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX. The textures of the Russian and English lyrics add a weird yearning to the quiet emotion of the show’s characters. The organic voice stands for the soul of the machine, finding a beating human heart in the electronica surrounding it.

23. Robert Fripp with Daryl Hall, “Mary”

The five missing Daryl Hall vocal tracks from Fripp’s 1979 EXPOSURE popped up on the disc’s 2006 re-release. All of them show Hall as engaged as Fripp was with the punk, new wave, and other musics emanating from New York in this crucial period. But of these newly-surfaced tracks I keep returning to this one, a tiny gem in the Fripp catalogue with Hall in fantastic, soulful voice (and, per the liner notes, improvising the vocal line as he goes).

22. Robert Palmer, “I Need Your Love So Bad”

A gorgeous and heartfelt performance of the Little Willie John track brings Palmer’s powerful and assured blues album DRIVE to a mournful end. Absurdly, Palmer’s life ended soon after at age 54.

21. Radiohead, “House of Cards”

Tender but tense. Musically sweet, and at one point this year a badly-needed source of sonic comfort. Lyrically dark, and a mirror of some feelings I’m sadly not sad to possess.

This Used To Be The Future, part 1 (50-36)

Andy Khouri has begun a blog-a-thon of sorts, inviting/daring his online friends and acquaintances to, per the graphic above, list, rank, and write about their favo(u)rite songs of the almost-completed decade.

Your proprietor's listening habits are less diverse and hungry than his cinematic ones, so I've opted to write about fifty songs, choosing a maximum of one song from an album (some albums would offer up to five compelling entries and a couple of also-rans for a top 100 list). Herewith is part one of the House of Sparrows' most precious play list, dated twenty-ought-ex.

50. Vagabondage, "Raise Your Glass"

Since this band is/are friends of mine, I’ll put this at the bottom of the list to dodge any complaints of a conflict of interest. Offering inherently singable choruses that are perfect for boozy pub shout-alongs, this song is absolutely timeless, and if there’s any justice it’ll survive its creators for generations.

49. Peaches, "I Feel Cream"

The airy vocals and minimal-disco synth riff make one long for the sexy grit of her earlier work, until the gorgeous rap over the bridge, with another synth swirling up under, shows us that she’s merely shifted gears.

48. Gwen Stefani, "Early Winter"

“Why do you act so stupid?/You know I’m always right” tells us that there are TWO reasons why this breakup’s happening, and the final chorus just nails us. A gorgeously produced and sung pop ballad.

47. Gorillaz, “5/4”

A triumphant, tricky, but danceable riff, with beautifully sarcastic Albarn vocals. And then “SHE TURNED MY DAD ON/SHE MADE ME KILL MYSELF!” just kills me.

46. Sparks, “Let the Monkey Drive”

It’s just good advice.

45. Von Iva, “Do It!”

A drums/analog keys/voice trio from San Francisco, staffed entirely by bad girls. Bex’s FAT synth riffs make this one the keeper, with the always-gutsy vocalist Jillian Iva just pelting it out. Makes me proud to live where I do.

44. Loretta Lynn, “Women’s Prison”

I’m still not sure if the glorious instrumental finish is simply Lynn’s resigned heroine’s ascent to heaven, or Jack White and the boys busting into the joint to save her. A killer track either way, as the man used to say.

43. The Fall, “Theme from ‘Sparta F.C.’”

WE HAVE TO PAY FOR EVERYTHING BUT SOME THINGS ARE FOR FREE! (HEY!)
WE LIVE! ON! BLOOD! WE ARE SPARTA F.C.! (HEY!)
ENGLISH CHELSEA FAN THIS IS YOUR LAST GAME (HEY!)
WE’RE NOT GLATASARY WE’RE SPARTA F.C.! (HEY!)

42. Einstuerzende Neubauten, “Sabrina”

Since busting through the scene in 1980 with metal-on-metal schaben, the boys from Berlin have grown a bit quieter with each album. Their 2000 disc, entitled (aptly enough) Silence is Sexy, opens with this nicely slow-burning number, the ambiguous but infectious chorus of which I found myself singing fairly often in my quieter, darker moments.

41. Brian Wilson, “Surf’s Up”

The whole SMiLE reconstruct just pummels you with good spirits, but the last half of this quieter piece, busting out with full-tilt ethereality, is the disc’s most transcendent moment.

40. The Hives, “Hate To Say I Told You So”

As it turns out, rock’n’roll didn’t need saving in 2000 after all, but those monochrome-clad boys from Sweden were so nice to volunteer.

39. Johnny Cash, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

The first four tracks of AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND sound like an enclosed narrative to me, with the title track offering an apocalyptic, scene setting prologue; “Hurt” showing a man undone by his life; “Give My Love To Rose” redeeming him at least in part by a scintilla of his humanity remembered; and then finally this track, which finds him rising the fuck up to take action. Cash’s voice is nearly shot, but dammit, the impulse is still there.

38. Painkiller, “Your Inviolable Freedoms”

Yes, a slightly different lineup assembled for the ambient dark thrash trio during John Zorn’s 50th birthday celebration. But Zorn and Laswell remained tight, the replacement of Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris with Chicago jazz percussionist Hamid Drake opened the band to more fluid expressionism (while sacrificing none of the Painkiller mandated heaviness), and the addition of wild card Mike Patton on vocals and other noises loaned the still-heavy group an out-there, positively psychedelic edge that I hadn’t heard in any Zorn recording. This sixteen-minute jam is the real deal.

37. Radiohead, “There There”

Yorke’s never sounded smaller and more urgent to me, surrounded by drums but cutting through. Your conscience.

36. Coldplay, “Lost!”

The organs and drums jump out of the fucking radio, and announce plainly that the band isn’t simply rewriting “Clocks” again. Producer Brian Eno’s keyboard shimmers swell up during the choruses, and Chris Martin’s non-semantic yowling at the end seals the deal.