THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

44. BOSTON: More Than A Feeling/ Smokin' (1976)
Masterminded by Tom Scholz, the Brian Wilson of AOR, this delightful paean to the redemptive power of music and lost love is the definitive slice of hair metal for those who own no heavy rock; a joyous rapture of three-and-a-half minutes of pop beauty. With its repeated suggestion to, "hide in my music and forget the day," aching guitar and Brad Delp's soaring, operatic tones, it has rightfully become an anthem that unites stoner and superintendent alike. Kurt Cobain, of course, was later to rewrite it and call it Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Availability: More Than A Feeling Collectables CD
43. THE JACKSON 5 : I Want You Back/Who's Lovin' You (1970)
When The Jackson 5 made their US debut with this, on live TV in autumn '69. Michael Jackson was a dynamic nine-year-old who desperately wanted to be a star. The song, penned by The Corporation (Freddie Perren, Fonze Mizzel, and Deke Richards) for Diana Ross, was given to the Jackson family by Berry Gordy.With it they took the world by storm, zooming straight to the top of the US pop and R&B charts. Rappers Naughty By Nature sampled the bubblegum smash for their own hit single, 1991's OPP.
Availability: Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5/ABC Motown CD 

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CULT RECORD: DE LA SOUL:"THREE FEET HIGH AND RISING" (1989)

De La Soul appeared on the scene in 1989 as the polar opposite of Public Enemy and N.W.A., proclaiming a "Daisy Age" and sampling Schoolhouse Rock, Johnny Cash, and learn-French-yourself records. The music steered by producer Prince Paul of Stetsasonic, was rooted on black pop at its most cheery and integrationist: doo-wop, '60s soul, and, most presciently, P-Funk. Fans who'd grown tired of the stereotypical crotch-grabbing, trash-talking rapper flocked to the band, though the cut "De La Orgee" is as misogynistic as anything on a Dr. Dre album and "Potholes in My Lawn" aims at sucker MCs. In fact, De La Soul's private metaphor jive and boho musicality represented a challenge to rap from within; the group remained every bit as obsessed with identity ("Me, Myself, And I") and cool ("Plug Tunin'") as anyone else in the genre. Perhaps the true difference marking 3 Feet High and Rising as the definitive arrival of "alternative hip-hop--though, race excepted, the Beastie Boys achieved the same thing first-- is its (middle class?) tone of prosperity and entitlement. Most hip-hop sounds pulled from adversity; De La Soul languidly gorges on the fruit of the vine.

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CULT MOVIE: SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943)

The ambiguous blend of good and evil so suited Hitchcock that many of his films could have been mentioned here.(His other classic noirs include Notorious and The Wrong Man, a fine tale about a family wrecked by police procedure.) In this film, Wright plays a bored young girl called Charlie who invites her uncle Charlie (Cotten) to visit but soon discovers that he is a murderer. The film is full of pairs (both obvious and subtle): the two Charlies, the two detectives, the two suspects, even the two conversations about murder techniques and the double brandy Charlie orders in the Till Two bar. This is said to be Hitchcock's favorite film possibly because he worked some of the details of his early life into the script including a rare (for him) glimpse of a benevolent screen mum called Emma (the director's own mother Emma was very ill when he made this).
Director: Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Teressa Wright, Joseph Cotten

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CULT RECORD: CAN: " TAGO MAGO " (1971)

In creating a unique sound-world of wanderlust and wonderment, Can is up there with Hendrix and Miles Davis. Each phase of Can's meandering career has opened up vast vistas of fertile terrain for subsequent bands to colonize and cultivate: avant-funk( Talking Heads, PiL, Cabaret Voltaire), trance-rock (Loop, f/i, Cul de Sac), lo-fi (Pavement, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282) and post-rock (Bark Psychosis, Laika). Can also uncannily anticipated many moves made by entire genres of contemporary "sampladelic" music, such as ethno-techno, jungle, and ambient hip hop. Basically, when it comes to psychedelic, dance music, those crafty Krauts wrote the goddamn book.
Can's core members-- bassist Holger Czukay, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, drummer Jaki Liebezeit and guitarist Michael Karoli-- came from avant-garde and improv-jazz backgrounds; Czukay and Schmidt had both studied with Stockhausen. But instead of exploring aleatory noise or jerky time signatures, Can discovered-- through the Velvet Underground, and later via James Brown-- the Zen power of repetition and restriction. Minimalism and mantra-ism were hallmarks of the Krautrock aesthetic, but what set Can apart from its peers was a fervent embrace of groove. Like Miles Davis's early-'70s albums ( On The Corner, Dark Magus, etc.), Can's best work fuses "black" funk with "white" neo-psych freakitude. Recording in its own studio in a Cologne castle, the band adopted a jam-and-chop methodology similar to that used by Davis and his producer Teo Macero: improvise for hours, then edit the best bits into coherent tracks. As then band's Macero figure, Czukay worked miracles with a handful of mikes and two-track recording. Can's proto-ambient spatiality actually diminished when they went to 16-track in the mid '70s.
Named after a sorcerer, Tago Mago contains Can's most disorienting, shamanistic work. Torn between two impulses-- James Brownian motion and post-Floyd chromatic flux-- the double album spans the polyrhythmic roil of "Mushroom" and "Oh Yeah,"Aumgn'"s dub-reverberant catacombs, and the fractal sound-daubings and scat-gibberish of "Peking O"-- a meisterwerk.

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

46. CURTIS MAYFIELD: Move On Up/ Beautiful Brother Of Mine/ Give It Up (1971)
Lifted from the Gentle Genius' eponymous debut LP, this eloquent, uplifting anthem for black empowerment proved a big hit with the British public, rising to number 12 in the UK charts in 1971. Edited down to just under three minutes from its original eight-minute album length, Move On Up appeared on a 3-track maxi single with two equally soulful cuts on the flip. Mystifyingly-- given its infectious chorus, rich instrumentation and sleek dance pulse-- the song failed to dent the US charts.
Availability: Move On Up-- The Singles Anthology 1970-90 Sequel CD
45. FLEETWOOD MAC: Oh Well (Part 1)/ Oh Well (Part 2) (1969)
Following the timeless Albatross and Man Of The World, Peter Green made it three smashes in a row with an upbeat shuffle based on an acoustic guitar hook and a simple, yet quietly profound song. It breaks down into a totally unexpected Spanish guitar and recorder instrumental, as atmospheric as Albatross, which spills across the B-side and makes Oh Well an audacious little eight-minute symphony. Awesome.

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CULT MOVIE: THE EVIL-DOLL ( 1936 )

Best known for Freaks and 1931's Dracula, director Browning's 20-year career also included this oddity. His last but one film before retirement, it was originally titled The Witch Of Timbuctoo but the title was changed when the script was altered because of censorship concerns.. Co-written by actor/director Erich von Stroheim, the story follows a Devil's Island escapee (Barrymore) who hits upon the idea of shrinking humans to doll size for his own evil ends (can't think why no one's thought of it before). Undeniably silly, the bizarre film mixes horror, sci-fi, melodrama and revenge thriller all into one, and contains a plethora of ideas and images ( Barrymore in drag being one of them) that were considered shocking in 1936.
Director: Tod Browning Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

48. SMALL FACES: Tin Soldier/ I Feel Much Better (1967)
Many's the fan who fantasizes about a whole Small Faces album the calibre of this two-headed monster. Their masterpiece compresses everything they excelled at into a fiery three minutes, 20 seconds. From Steve Marriott's count-in to Kenny Jones' conclusive tumble of tom-toms, it's a feral rock'n'soul hybrid that presaged The Rolling Stones' Exile sound, beautifully captured by engineer Glyn Johns, Ian McLAgan's broody Wurlitzer and Hammond introduction summons a squall of guitar and drums, which becalms for the tensile verse sung by Steve--"I am a little tin soldier who wants to jump into your fire," invoking Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale-- before he goes off like a volcano on a river-deep, mountain-high chorus with guest female vocalist PP Arnold, Ronnie Lane and Mac all singing. If this performance doesn't stir you, you're made of ice. On the flip, they turn a throwaway ditty into a psychedelic tour-de-force complete with speeded-up vocals, fake fade and a roaring coda which anticipates Led Zeppelin by a couple of years.
Availability: Small Faces Castle CD
47. QUEEN: Bohemian Rhapsody/ I'm In Love With My Car (1975)
Recorded on the same piano as the Fabs' Hey Jude, Bo Rap is one of the most complex and beguiling singles ever made. Overrated by those who love it and underrated by those who don't, the public voted it the most popular UK number 1. No one can deny the copper-bottomed durability of this the very embodiment of utter pop nonsense. It's the ultimate 3-in-1 offer-- ballad, heavy rock and high camp on a scale unseen since Kenneth Williams screamed "Infamy, infamy! They've all got it in for me!" 11 years previously.
Availability: The Platinum Collection: Queen Greatest Hits I, II, III EMI CD

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CULT RECORD: PUBLIC IMAGE LTD.: METAL BOX (1979)

If Johnny Rotten had gotten his way, the Sex Pistols would never have made the thuggish but populist hard rock that make them such a world-historical force. Instead of mod, glam and proto-punk ( the Stooges, New York Dolls), the Pistols would have been informed by his favored listening: Captain Beefheart's fractured avant-boogie, Peter Hammill's art-rock exorcism, the space and stealth of Can and dub reggae. Of course, if Johnny had prevailed, the Pistols wouldn't have revolutionized rock, merely exempted themselves from it. Which is precisely what Rotten did with Public Image Ltd., the studio-based experimental unit he formed after turning his back on punk rock godhood in 1978.
Initially released as three 12-inches in a tin canister (an attempt to deconstruct the "album" that actually succeeded in making you approach records in a new way), subsequently repackaged as the double-LP, single CD,  Second Edition, Metal Box is where PiL's anti-rock-ism ceases to be a pipe dream and starts looking like the future, your future. From the soul-flaying savagery of "Chant" to the appalling grace of "Poptones," Levene's guitar work makes him post-punk's very own Hendrix; he's equally stunning with synths on the apocalyptic "Careering" and Satiesque "Radio 4." Lydon's scalpel-sharp words -- dissecting suburbia's "layered mass of subtle props" on "No Birds," anatomizing the abject horror of his mum's death on "Swan Lake"-- are matched by his most untethered singing. But it's Wobble who is PiL's heart and soul: his deep-strata bass is what drags you through the terror-ride, but it's also the handrail that keeps you hanging in there.

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CULT MOVIE: ONCE UPON TIME IN AMERICA (1984)

Sergio Leone's final film as director has never yet been released in its entirety. Noodles (De Niro) and Max (Woods) are childhood friends who rise in the Jewish mafia but whose friendship turns to betrayal. An attempt to edit the film into chronological sequence proved disastrous. Leone himself edited the 225-minute version, and it is only in this print that you come to realize how the characters relate to one another and the importance that time, seen through the use of flashbacks, has on the narrative and those involved. Beautifully photographed, the streets of New York almost resemble the dusty plains of Leone's Fistful of Dollars. Like that film, this can be brutal, especially the rape scene with Noodles and Deborah (McGovern). You'll need a padded seat to watch it all through.
Director: Sergio Leone Cast: Robert De Niro, James Wood, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

50. DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: Son Of A Preacher Man/ Just A Little Lovin'(Early In The Morning) (1968)
The greatest white soul singer? Dusty's performance here made her a contender. John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins' song was first offered to Aretha Franklin, who turned it down. Recorded by Dusty as part of her Dusty In Memphis sessions, it proved an unbeatable synthesis of a fragile vocal allied to the tough, brassy sound that stood for Memphis at its best. When Aretha eventually recorded the song, Dusty claimed that, "She did it the way I wish I'd done it." Yet Dusty's rendition remains definitive.
Availability: Dusty In Memphis Philips CD
49. THE RONETTES: Be My Baby/ Tedesco And Pitman (1963)
"BOOM-BA-BOOM-CHA". The symphonic hurricane starts simply enough. Then in come the bone-rattling castanets, swooping strings, crunching snare, boisterous tympani. Then the final thundercrack-- "whoa-oh-oh-oh." Suddenly, you're drenched in 15 orchestras and 43 voices. Brian Wilson calls it the most perfect pop record of all time. Not so much a record to dance to-- despite its air of violence-- as to dream to. After all, when The Ronettes toured with The Rolling Stones in 1964 the screams from the aggro boys for them matched the girls' hysteria for Jagger, Jones and co. The flip, however, is a contender for the least-played tune in jukebox history, Tedesco And Pitman is the action of a paranoid and eccentric Spector. He regularly placed dodgy instrumentals on B-sides to ensure no mistake could be made about which was the plug(he'd been outraged when DJs flipped The Crystals' Oh Yeah Maybe Baby to make There's No Other (Like My Baby) a hit in '61). It was also an excuse to vent in-jokes like the notorious Do The Screw Parts 1 and 2.
Availability: Best Of The Ronettes Uni/Abco CD

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CULT RECORD: THE RUNAWAYS: "THE RUNAWAYS" (1976)

When The Runaways released their debut in 1976, they had no company. In addition to gender, youth also set them apart. At 17, lead guitarist Lita Ford was the group's senior member; singer Cherie Currie, rhythm guitarist Joan Jett, bassist Jackie  Fox and drummer Sandy West were each a not-so-sweet 16. Stoner girls across America didn't have access to Currie's knee-high silver platforms, but they did copy the basic elements of her look-- feathered hair, blue eyeshadow, and raccoon eyeliner. Ford in particular came across as an ass-kicker, and lyrically, the group's numerous come-ons are aggressive, not passive. A clumsy T. Rex strut with Donna Summer-style orgasmic moans added for emphasis, "Cherry Bomb" is one of the first rock songs to encourage girls--not boys-- to be "wild." Elsewhere on The Runaways, only "Dead End Justice"-- a juvie hall breakout drama complete with dialog-- combines cheap thrills and female rebellion effectively.

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CULT MOVIE: HOOP DREAMS (1994)

Ambitious film spanning five years in the lives of two basketball hopefuls from inner city Chicago. In the cut-throat world of US sports, both boys make it into an elite high school which produced one of their idols, NBA star Isiah Thomas, but have trouble with grades and their home lives. Their longing to escape and become NBA stars is palpable, making their struggles more poignant. Amazingly Hoop Dreams was not even nominated for a best documentary feature Oscar. A key moment comes when one mum asks:"Do you all wonder sometimes how I am living? How my children survive and they're living? It's enough to really make people want to lash out and hurt somebody."
Director: Steve James Cast: Arthur Agee, William Gates

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TOP TEN: TANYA DONELLY (BELLY)

1. MARY MARGARET O'HARA: "Miss America"
2. X: "Under the Big Black Sun"
3. BEATLES: "The Beatles"
4. ENNIO MORRICONE: "The Mission"
5. MADDER ROSE: "Panic On"
6. NEIL YOUNG: "Harvest"
7. PATTI SMITH: "Horses"
8. NICK DRAKE: "Time of No Reply"
9. YMA SUMAC: " Xtabay"
10. HARRY NILSSON: " The Point!"

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

52. MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS: Heatwave/ A Love Like Yours(Don't Come Knocking Every Day) (1963)
Heatwave has it all-- a smouldering lyric penned by Holland-Dozier-Holland, a fervid call and response from Martha Reeves, Rosalind Ashford and Annette Sreling Beard, a pounding beat motored by baritone sax and hand claps-- and it earned the trio their first US Top 5 single, provided a blueprint for their follow up, Quicksand and helped establish the Motown sound. Not bad for a group who only got a break when Mary Wells failed to turn up for a Marvin Gaye session. Martha, the then Motown secretary, plus pals stood in; their raucous harmonies earning the group a recording deal of their own.
Availability: Come And Get These Memories/ Heatwave Motown CD
51. THE TORNADOS: Telstar/ Jungle Fever (1962)
The brainchild of troubled producer Joe Meek, the forever celestial Telstar was a homage to the US satellite then beaming the first global television pictures into the sitting rooms of 1962 Britain. Crucially, Meek swamped The Tornados in reverb(utilizing the acoustics of his Holloway flat-cum-studio's bath-room), leaving his self-written lead line to an amplified Calvioline-- a proto synthesizer with an aching, futuristic tone. Telstar still zings from the speakers, as readily evoking pre-Beatles Britain as it does timeless cosmic wonderment.
Availability: Telstar Castle CD 

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CULT RECORD: SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES: " THE SCREAM " (1978)

1976: Siouxsie Sioux is the queen of punk; a style-terrorist whose swastikas and fetishistic peek-a-boo bustiers are a kick in the eye of straight society; an ice bitch whose skull-piercing howl obliterates the legacy of all the traditional, wispy songstresses who came before. 1991: Siouxsie is a simpering sophisticate, dolled up like some Hollywood starlet with toenails polished and hair curled. Where once she shocked, now she aims to seduce. From the macabre malevolence of "Carcass" to the feminine wiles of "Kiss Them for Me," what a long, strange trip it's been...
Siouxsie and the Banshees always represented the more fantastical strand of punk, Sioux and Steve Severin were suburban London kids raised on the glam theatrics of Bowie and T. Rex, swayed by decadence and romanticism. So while all their contemporaries were busy negating and demystifying, the Banshees cultivated an aura of magic and mystery, making punk something altogether less dour and more otherworldly. In the process, they inspired the early-'80s "positive punk" movement( Southern Death Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel), which later evolved into Goth.
The Banshees' first gig, in September of 1976, was a shambolic mess. Sioux, Severin, and pals Sid Vicious and Marco Pirroni (later of Adam & the Ants) borrowed the Sex Pistols' equipment and massacred unlikely songs such as "The Lord's Prayer" and the Bay City Rollers' "Young Love." When the Banshees' brilliant debut The Scream materialized two years later , Vicious and Pirroni had been replaced by Kenny Morris and John McKay, and the band had found a sonic identity: twisted art-punk that is at once jagged and melodic, McKay's thick gashes of guitar chafing against Siouxsie's caustic wail. Sioux's and Severin's lyrics are riddled with imagery of psychic and bodily fragmentation, but the morbid vibe is leavened with black humor. In "Suburban Relapse," for instance, Siouxsie plays a housewife driven berserk by domesticity: '"Whilst finishing a chore/I asked myself 'what for?'"

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CULT MOVIE: MARIHUANA (1935)

The fact that this is also known as Marihuana, The Weed With Roots In Hell, will give you an idea of the film's attitude to an illicit spliff. A reporter goes undercover to investigate a dope ring when a bunch of teenagers become addicted to marihuana after just a single toke. As a direct result, an innocent summer becomes awash with drowning, alcoholism, heroin addiction, kidnapping, pregnancy and death. But of course! Gloriously inept performances and terrible direction make this a classic among B movies, although the tag line: "Weird orgies! Wild parties! Unleashed passions!" hints that Esper (who had  made a film about an addicted doctor called Narcotic in 1933) may have been considerably more interested in exploitation than social responsibility. For more along the same lines, see Reefer Madness (1936) in which a high-school principal warns students' parents about a couple called Mac and Jack who entice good kids to their apartment and turn them into reefer addicts leading,in one case, to life in a mental hospital. Incredibly, this film is on DVD in a trilogy with the equally astoundingly bad Cocaine Fiends and Sex Madness.
Director: Dwain Esper Cast: Harley Wood, Gloria Browne

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

54. BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS: Jamming/ Punky Reggae Party (1977)
That there's hardly anything to Jamming is somehow central to its appeal. The song's insistent hook ensured that it was the first Bob Marley record to cross into the clubs and his first Top 10 single. No less ground-breaking was its B-side. Painstakingly assembled by Lee "Scratch" Perry in Miami, Britain and Jamaica, Punky Reggae Party saw Marley and Perry giving punk the thumbs up. The song has dated better than Perry's claim that he wrote it to heal the (ultimately fatal) toe injury that Marley had just sustained playing football.
Availability: Exodus Island CD
53. THEM: Baby Please Don't Go/ Gloria(1964)
Dozens of singers, from John Lee Hooker to Big Bill Broonzy, had already tackled Baby Please Don't Go by 1964. But it's the treatment meted to it by Them that most people remember-- an amphetamine punk riot, ignited by Van Morrison's libidinous harmonica solo. Morrison wrote the equally fab B-side himself-- Gloria's cathartic one word chorus somehow seems mainlined from the very core of human longing. Simultaneously grubby and transcendent-- just like the thing it describes-- the song's primal power has since been harnessed by artists as disparate as Jim Morrison and Patti Smith.
Availability: The Story Of Them Deram CD 

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CULT RECORD: MOTORHEAD: "ACE OF SPADES" (1980)

Igor Stravinsky once remarked that the baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi didn't write 685 concertos, he wrote one concerto 685 times. It could be similarly argued that every hemi-semi-demiquaver recorded by Motorhead in its 20 years of existance is a minor variation on the group's triple-speed signature song "Motorhead," written by Lemmy Kilmister shortly before he was booted from English prog-bores Hawkwind in 1975: distorted bass amped up to the point of insanity, Kilmister's throat-cancer roar, drug-marathon imagery, incomprehensible soccer choruses, and thrashy, trebly, speed-freak guitar crusted over the top like a ripe scab.
Motorhead's formula is pretty much everything you could want in an unfashionable rock band, even if you discount the grinning mechanized skulls, biker paraphernalia, and profoundly unwashed appearance. It seems like an obvious move in retrospect, but Killmister may have been the first Brit to plunder the Detroit Iggy/Nuge/MC5 thing the way Beatles took over Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Motorhead was the loud, wet fart punctuating the Mentos commercial of late-'70s British rock, and Motorhead-influenced groups from Discharge to Metallica dominate loud working-class music to this day; as a teenager, a pre-Metallica Lars Ulrich was president of a Motorhead fan club.
1980saw Ace of Spades, probably Motorhead's greatest studio album, with Kilmister's bad-neighbor policy rendered as crunch and spit and blood; tune for tune it's almost the evil twin of AC/DC's Back in Black, released the same year. Busy Motorhead also found time for a classic collaboration with Girlschool, the St Valentine's Day Massacre EP, an inspiration for the grrrl-rock bands of the '90s.

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CULT MOVIE: SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

Wilder's classic movie straddles many genres. Film writer Richard Corliss calls it "the definitive Hollywood horror movie" but it can also be watched as a straight satire of the movie industry and/or the greatest film noir. The film could have been even darker in tone; it originally opened with Holden as one of a number of talking corpses, narrating the story from the morgue. Yet the film as we know it now is mordant enough with Holden vacillating charismatically between the right and the wrong woman, only in this instance the wrong woman is a silent movie actress( Swanson ). The pairing of Holden and Swanson was fortuitous; it could have been Brando and Mae West or Montgomery Clift and Mary Pickford. America's sweetheart in exile turned the part down because the story was vulgar. She was right, of course, but it is also one of the most compelling movies ever to come out of Hollywood.
Director: Billy Wilder Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

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TOP TEN: STEVE TURNER (MUDHONEY)

1. PAGANS: "Buried Alive"
2. ALEXANDER "SKIP" SPENCE: "Oar"
3. BLACK FLAG: "Jealous Again" and "Nervous Breakdown" EPs
4. LINK WRAY: "Early Recordings"
5. VARIOUS ARTISTS: "Ear Piercing Punk"
6. VARIOUS ARTISTS: "Scum of the Earth" Part 2
7. SPACEMEN 3: "Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to"
8. CHRIS KNOX: "Croaker"
9. FEEDTIME: "Shovel"
10. RUDIMENTARY PENI: "Death Church"

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

56. SLADE: Cum On Feel The Noize/ I'm Mee Now An'That's Orl (1973)
The first single to enter the chart at number 1 since The Beatles' Get Back, was written by Noddy Holder about how it felt to be on the stage with the biggest band in the land. Like the earlier hit, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, it attempted to encapsulate the ear-shredding mayhem at Slade gigs. The opening, "Baby baby bay-beh!" was only intended to be a guide vocal. On the INDIERIDER jukebox, though, it's a call to arms as stirring as "Time, gentlemen please." The much-loved B-side has never been reissued.
Availability: Greatest Hits: Feel The Noize Polydor CD
55. THE STONE ROSES: Made Of Stone/ Going Down (1989)
In the mid-'90s The Lord Nelson on London's Old Street still had a vinyl jukebox wiyh a copy of Made Of Stone that used to stick on John Squire's solo, driving the barman to distraction, The cascading intro, the epic phased chorus (unconsciuosly) nicked from Primal Scream's Velocity Girl, the dark city centre spite-- it's not one for summer evenings and coctail umbrellas, unlike the flip, a sun-kissed piece of sexual abandon, so jaunty it should have been written by a whistling milkman.
Availability: The Complete Stone Roses Silvertone CD 

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CULT RECORD: THE ONLY ONES: "THE ONLY ONES" (1978)

At the height of the British punk explosion in 1978, the Only Ones opened their debut album with " The Whole of the Law," a defiantly sentimental love ballad tugged along by a cheesy lounge saxophone and singer/songwriter Peter Perret's tragic-romantic lyrics. Live, the band's leopard skin vests, furs, pink top hats, sharkskin smoking jackets, and shades had more in common with glam than punk. Also, the musicians were accomplished players: powerhouse drummer Mike Kellie did time in the late '60s hard rock/blues outfit Spooky Tooth; Alan Mair was a lissome, inventive bassist; and guitarist/keyboardist John Perry, as fluid a lead  guitarist as has ever strapped on a Stratocaster, coolly ripped off otherworldly solos that shadowboxed with Perrett's suggestive, flowery, mystical, debauched verses.
Perrett's heroin addiction gave the band its cryptic languor, the same junkie blues Nikki Sudden's Jacobites would later tap; vocally, his gloomy croak doesn't land far from Tom Verlaine, either. And as a songwriter he was the shit. The Only Ones classic, "Another Girl, Another Planet," later covered by the Replacements among others, is formally perfect power-pop from the edges where jadedness almost replaces desire; "The Beast," an equally accomplished slow creeper, turns Perrett's habit into a monster on the prowl. The stance isn't novel, but that only helps explain why this exquisite debut album has a timeless/trendless quality that fans in the postpostpunk '90s and '00s still turn to for dark solace.

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CULT MOVIE: EVIL DEAD (1982)

The Evil Dead had a budget of less than $100,000 and was essentially director Raimi, his brother Ted and a group of mates ( including star Cambell and then-assistant film editor Joel Coen) making a jokey horror movie set in a woodland cabin. Despite the lack of cash, they produced some great effects as Cambell and pals accidentally unleash abominable demons. (Many of the crew returned five years later to do it all again as semi-remake Evil Dead II-- Budget $3m -- with even more gore and humor. Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness cost $30m. ) Some have complained about the graphic gore (especially the raped-by-a-tree scene ) but no-one can deny that all three are the funniest, most cleverly made horror movies around.
Director: Sam Raimi Cast: Bruce Cambell, Ellen Sandweiss

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

58. MUDDY WATERS: Mannish Boy/ Young Fashioned Ways (1955)
Raw, earthy and hip-grindingly lubricous, Mannish Boy epitomises Muddy Waters' own vodoo-infused band of Windy City electric blues. The record--the foundation of modern rock music and inspiration for the '60s British blues boom-- begins with an  exultant whoop followed by Waters' gravelled vocal over a monolithic blues riff,"I'm a hoochie coochie man," Waters hollers and no one would doubt him. Flip it over and you've got another classic: Young Fashioned Ways. As potent as the day it was recorded.
Availability: The Anthology Universal CD
57. ROY ORBISON: Oh Pretty Woman/ Yo Te Amo Maria (1964)
 It's those silly little details that stick in the head and define the greatest records. That crawling bass-line, that sausy growl, the wide-eyed gasp of "mercy", all contribute to a cinematic vision of loveliness walking down the street. The bid O seals it with his resonant, melancholic voice launching fearlessly into a compelling chorus. It defies you not to sing along and carries a timelessness that will surely make it a hit of TV ads, soundtracks and karaoke nights forever. Orbison wrote it for his wife Claudette, and like the B-side, ( I Love You Maria ), adapted it from and old Mexican tune.
Availability: The Very Best Of Roy Orbison Virgin CD

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CULT RECORD: MOBY:" EVERYTHING IS WRONG" (1995)

Techno's tug for its fans, as far as i can tell from gazing into their smooth, pierced, trusting faces (while we're all high on drugs), is that it imagines the sound of a huge, cozy waiting room where we can all dance and relax until capitalism finally exhausts itself. It's incredibly passive-aggressive music-- harsh sounds for gentle souls. The noise of the industrial world thrashing away outside the window translated into the future chirp of nature's biochip. All this makes Moby uneasy. The most talented composer ( not just DJ )in the genre, he's also the only one interested in the present day dilemma, the sound of what to do with your dirty socks and dank spirit after the rave wakes up.
Everything Is Wrong is a revival retreat for kids out of the loop. With an ingenuity lo-fi indie rock claims as its domain, Moby constructs the ultimate suburban disco-- all ages, all genres. His remake of "All That I Need" made explicit hardcore punk and techno's confused ascetic aesthetic, mixing grindstone guitars with boingy keyboards. "Feeling So Real" and "Every-time You Touch Me" could've been dance floor classics, but the ragamuffin entreaties, diva howls and keyboard flourishes were immaculately arranged by an obsessive outsider with the mall's sound system in mind. Moby's trick, which fellow auteurs Prince and Trent Reznor have rarely pulled off, was to make it all (even the New Age ballads) seem goose-pimply and tangible. His vulnerable, self-aware persona keeps his music within reach, even at its most otherworldly. The classical benediction, "God Moving Over the Face of the waters," paints a beautifully intimate portrait of a spiritually wracked face. For Moby, a song only really works if we want to reach out and touch it.

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CULT MOVIE: CALIGULA (1980)

For all the furore surrounding this movie, the end product is less entertaining than the documentary The Making Of Caligula, which is included on the DVD re-release, and nowhere near as strange as the real emperor's four-year reign. The chaos surrounding this film, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione's bid to prove that porn really is an art form, can be seen from the credits (which say it is "adapted" from Gore Vidal's screenplay) and from the plethora of versions. The original unrated version lasts 156 minutes, an R-rated cut on video is 41 minutes shorter( minus most of the sex scenes), a 210-minute version was shown at Cannes while the original UK cinema version lasted 150 minutes. Confused? You will be because two completely different versions are now available on laser-disc and DVD. Guccione says the new DVD version will change the way people think about movies. But it won't change the way most of us feel about this particular movie or the acting.
Director: Tinto Brass Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

60. CARLY SIMON: You're So Vain/ His Friends Are More Than Fond Of Robin (1972)
Tough and atmospheric to the point of being scary, You're So Vain deserves to be feminist anthem number 1 rather than Gloria Gaynor's flouncy I Will Survive. Almost every line sounds like one you'd only think up five minutes after you wanted to say it-- "some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend"-- eek! And who doesn't think, "clouds in my coffe" every time they slip on a latte? The flip is a sweet, vaguely Todd Rundgren-esque ballad that, in the shadow of the A-side, it's hard not to think of as sarcastic.
Availability: The Very Best Of Carly Simon Global TV CD
59. OASIS: Live Forever/ Up In The Sky (1994)
A childhood spent with Ma Gallagher's country records subtly reveals itself in the sentimental chord sequence and guitar solo at the heart of Live Forever. It's Liam's singing, though, that makes the difference between a good pop tune and one that lures the goose pimples out, taking baffling non-sequiturs like, "Maybe I don't really want to know how your garden grows/I just want to fly" and turning them into poetry. It was Van Morrison who came up with the term, "inarticulate speech of the heart," but it fits few artists as well as Oasis here.
Availability: Definitely Maybe Big Brother CD

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CULT RECORD: BIG STAR: "RADIO CITY" (1974)

Unlike that Velvet Underground saying, everyone who heard Big Star didn't go out and form a band. They just became critics. Or critic-practitioners like Greg Dulli, the dB'S, and the Bangles. Revisionists insisting that "September Gurls" was pop's summit, and not the jangly equivalent of learning calculus. ( On Live, taped after Radio City, a DJ asks, "Does it feel anachronistic to be playing this kind of music in the mid-1970s?" Just wait, fella.) For his admirers, Alex Chilton almost single-voicedly created a subcultural and highly theoritical ideal of sloppy/exquisite rock that sustained indie romantics throughout the middling '80s.
Without Bell, Radio City features Chilton's more typically enervated sensibilities on "Daisy Glaze," "You Get What You Deserve," and "What's Going Ahh," while bassist and new cowriter Andy Hummel anchors the harder-bottomed funky rock of " O My Soul" and "Mod Lang."  "I'm In Love With a Girl" and "Way Out West" have as much winsome charm as anything Brian Wilson did with the Beach Boys. "Back of a Car" and "September Gurls" are power-pop immortals; listen to how the riffs and lyrics simultaneously approach orgasm. An all-but-perfect album, it sold diddly in its day.

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CULT MOVIE: RAGING BULL (1980)

Raging Bull is about boxing in the same way that Battleship Potemkin is about a boat. Like all the best sport films, the sport itself is a vehicle for exploring more complex themes, not least the relationship between masculinity and violence. Raging Bull shows its subject Jake LaMotta, warts and all, as a figure whose capacity for violence in the ring is indivisible from his capacity for violence outside it. De Niro, in arguably his finest performance, went into full-on Method mode and gained several stone to provide the film's most arresting image as the young winner becomes a fat loser. The juxtaposition of soaring strings above scenes of brutality would be done again-- Barber's Adagio For Strings in Platoon, for instance--but seldom have the beauty and savagery been allied to such devastating effect.
Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

62. SQUEEZE: Up The Junction/ It's So Dirty (1979)
" I never thought it would happen, with me and the girl from Clapham" -- surely the finest opening line ever? Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook's distillatuion of a loser's life into three minutes of impeccably rhymed couplets is kitchen sink drama of the bleakest kind, despite the tense-troubling final verse. So much goes on, there's barely time for the music-- perhaps the reason why Jools Holland left shortly afterwards. In contrast, the flip is a horribly misogynistic character piece as a Jack-the-lad confesses to a conquest ("Give it some gold to put round its neck").
Availability: Cool For Cats Universal CD
61. T-REX : Children Of The Revolution/ Jitterbug Love/ Sunken Rags(1972)
Mark B may have driven a Rolls-Royce 'cause it was good for his voice, but this sounds more like a juggernaut. The colossal riff would have sounded equally at home at the Walton Hop or on the Wheeltappers and Shunters' jukebox in '72. Bolan's generosity with B-sides meant you got two flips for your five pence, including the stupendous Jitterbug Love. It's all so simple that, come 1973's unravelling of T-Rextasy, he must have kicked himself for giving it away. The muse would never come so easily again.
Availability: The Essential Collection Universal CD

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CULT RECORD: PRINCE: " DIRTY MIND" (1980)

Think of him as the Picasso of pop. Recall that film of Picasso at work: just one curved river of a stroke on canvas and the artist's presence is unmistakable; a second's splash of Prince's keyboard whoopee cushioned against a syn-bass and a falsetto squeal provokes exactly the same instant recognition-- the master's line. Picasso had as acute a memory for images as Prince does for sound, both evoking predecessors and peers in grinning caricatures, more repo jobs than tributes. Both worked obsessively-- art as sex-- passing through periods that baffled followers: genius-craftsmen able to reassemble their convoluted insides externally, but without a shred of self-recognition.
The difference is that Prince is the Picasso of pop. That means the shapes he seizes on are partially public; he cannot just stay closeted in the studio. Matery here extends beyond comanding all the instuments, all the genres. It requires playing the publicity and audience games required for hit records, demonstrating musical and visual prowess in stadiums and night clubs, moving from music to music videos and musical films. Assuming the aura of reclusive celebrity and frustrated genius. Making a comeback. Ratifying it all with a box set. Working under a pseudonym, like Bowie.  Prince has done all of this, hurling himself into each public role of the pop celebrity, yet always as the arrogant, self-absorbed Picasso playing with form, not as a social actor. Sure, as Madonna's partner in the '80s deconstruction of the rock god, as a player in the fields of sex, race, sexuality, belief, and the meaning of the blues, Prince's pop had consequences. But ultimately, unlike most music in this blog, it will endure as something detached from context-- the master's line.
Dirty Minds is Prince's most stripped down tough and yet, simultaneously, most new wave album."Dirty Mind" is a pure drum-machine thud-thud-thud, with Cars synthesizers dancing around. "When You Were Mine" is perfection, so coiled in ideal rhythm chords you almost never notice what a lowslung guitar workout it is. His falsetto now a snake's tongue, outrageous porn fantasies like "Head" and "Sister" are pure cockmanship. "Partyup" sums this thirty minute vibrator ride up as " revolutionary rock and roll"; hah! Dirty Mind isn't that communal.

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CULT MOVIE: ED WOOD (1994)

Two cheers for Burton for not making this a camp classic but instead an affectionately amusing piece about the man who has posthumously been dubbed the worst film director in the world. It would have been easy to camp it up: Wood (Depp) was a director, after all, who claimed to have gone to war wearimg panties and bra underneath his uniform. A director whose cast, as girlfriend Parker says in the film, consists of "the usual gang of misfits and dope addicts". Burton gets one more cheer for giving the film some emotional depth, with its depiction of Wood's relationship, with Lugosi (brilliantly played by Landau) who is his co-star, friend and patient. A very funny, affectionate movie. Bill Condon's Gods And Monsters (1998), with Ian McKellen as the openly gay horror movie director James Whale, may also appeal if you enjoyed this.
Director: Tim Burton Cast: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

64. THE SPECIALS FEATURING RICO: A Message To You Rudy/ Nite Klub (1979)
Their debut albun would include cover tributes to Jamaican heroes The Maytals and Prince Buster, but this cut was originally made in England by Robert Livingstone Thompson, aka Dandy Livingstone, in 1967. The Specials' version was more low-slung, showing off trombonist Rico Rodriguez, another Kingstonian relocated to Blighty. A monster double-A-side with the stomping Nite Klub, which received less radio airplay,because of its, "beer tastes just like piss" reference.
Availability: The Specials Chrysalis CD 
63. NINA SIMONE: I Love You Porgy/ Love Me Or Leave Me (1959)
The A-side, a sublime reading of the Gershwin standard from Porgy & Bess, was Nina Simone's debut hit, displaying her ability to nail unexpected emotion to the most familiar canvas. But the flip introduced an entirely different performer, a daredevil jazz stylist who dared to capture a 1930s ballad from the repertoires of Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. In place of their yearning sensitivity, she substituted a swaggering self confidence that transformed the lyric, making her the real mistress of the affair.
Availability: Blue For You: The Very Best Of Nina Simone Global TV CD
 

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CULT RECORD: NICK DRAKE: " PINK MOON " (1972)

As lovely in photographs as Ophelia about to float down the river, with the gentlest voice and most delicate sense of phrasing to come out of the Renaisance Faire of late '60s English folk rock, Nick Drake is a perfect muse for arty girls and boys just cracking their first volume of Keats's collected letters. It helps that Drake died in the dark bloom of his youth, overdosing on antidepressants in his childhood bedroom at age 26, in 1974. It also doesn't hurt that he wrote incessantly about his growing melancholia, setting his spare verses to arrangements filigreed with cello and flute, or just his own elaborate finger-picking on guitar. Discovered by folk impresario Joe Boyd while still at Cambridge, Drake recorded his first album, Five Leaves Left, at age of twenty, but like the tubercular poet he so resembled, he already seemed aware that his time on the sod would be short.
The comparison to Keats is apt; whether consciously or not, Drake seemed to write from the Keatsian principles of negative capability and detachment: the ability to rest within mystery and not to seek answers, and the talent to leave one's ego behind and become absorbed in the fleeting beauty of the world. Many of his songs are in the second person, describing his intense loneliness and desire for communion in cool detail. The lyrics often invoke fairy tales or classic poetic images ("I never saw magic crazy as this/ I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea," he sings in "Northern Sky,"( the song from Bryter Later that many aficionados consider his apotheosis ), but they're never florid. Drake's extreme depression tempered his extreme romanticism. The songs testify both to the seductiveness of pretentious dreams and to the knowledge that such wistful hopes always fail.
Lo-fi purists should stay away from the first two albums and go directly to Pink Moon , Drake's final complete work. Only Drake's whispery vocal and forceful guitar, with an occasional dab of piano, shape these songs, whose titles are all fragments or single words. Unlike other "mad records" by artists such as Daniel Johnston or Syd Barret, Pink Moon's rough soul bears the smoothest of edges. The melodies still seduce, their execution still soothes.

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CULT MOVIE: GLORIA (1980)

Although the idea of teaming tough-talking gangsters with smart-mouthed kids isn't exactly new territory,  the casting of Gena Rowlands ( the late director's wife) as the tough-talking  gangster's moll is what carries the film. A family is wiped out by the mob for giving information to the FBI, with only the seven-year-old son surviving. Gloria ( Rowlands ) is the former gangster's girl living next door who bergrundgingly looks after the kid. From here a cat-and-mouse chase ensues, with Gloria and her street smarts trying to save the kid and herself. Cassavetes gives the film a suitably smoky feel but it is devoid of some of the usual touches and Rowlands' Oscar-nominated turn drives the film. Avoid the 1999 Sharon Stone remake.
Director: John Cassavetes Cast: Gena Rowlands, Julie Carmen, John Adames

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

66. THE FLAMINGOS: I Only Have Eyes For You/ Goodnight Sweetheart (1959)
The Flamingos had been recording since 1953, cutting records for Chance, Parrot, Checker and Decca with varying degrees of success, usually concentrating on original material. But when the Chicago-based vocal group signed for George Goldner's End label in 1958, Goldner suggested a switch to standards, a ploy that paid off. I Only Have Eyes For You had been around forever-- dance bandleader Ben Selvin notched a hit with it during 1934. The Flamingos, however, completely re-shaped the oldie, their opening guitar chord followed by piano triplets and that haunting, echo-filled " shoo-bop-she-bop" phrase spooked up the Al Dubin and Harry Warren classic and created what many consider as greatest of all doo wop releases. Art Garfunkel's shameless identikit arrangement in 1975 topped the UK charts, while The Flamingos' version, featuring the lead of Nate Nelson and the flowing falsetto of Terry Johnson, has been heard over 50 soundtracks, memorably in Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale.
Availability: The End Story Westside CD
65. KETTY LESTER: Love Letters/ I'm A Fool To Want You (1962)
The song was hardly new. Dick Haymes had charted with a ballad rendition of the Edward Heyman and Victor Young song in 1945. As far as Arkansas' Ketty Lester was concerned, it wassn't even going to be an A-side, merely the reverse of a song called I'm A Fool To Want You. But it was Love Letters, all decked out in a gospel-piano setting, that got the airplay and kickstarted a singing career that somehow merged into one that was slightly more thespian; Ketty eventually becoming a regular on the TV series, Little House On The Prairie.
Availability: Love Letters Collectables CD 

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CULT RECORD: ULTRAMAGNETIC MCS: "CRITICAL BEATDOWN" (1988)

In the infinitely bizzare and colorful pantheon of hip hop, the Ultramagnetic MCs stick out like a caucasian at a Farrakhan rally. Combining an old-school Bronx flavor with futuristic funk and dusted, off-beat rhyme flows-- patented by the master of metaphor Kool Keith (a.k.a. Rhythm X)--these space cowboys have always marched to their own drummer, trooping through the outer limits at warp speed. Always original, unpredictable, and entertaining, Ultra inhabits the zone where rap meets Rod Serling. Early singles like "Space Groove" and "Something Else" carved out an underground following for the group, which, unfortunately, did not translate into healthy sales for its debut, Critical Beatdown. Nonetheless, producer Ced Gee, fresh off his work on Boogie Down Productions' monumental Criminal Minded, constructed a musical timebomb of chunky breakbeats (courtesy of James Brown), booming 808, and finely carved slices of aged funk, fortified by DJ Moe Luv's turntable trickery. This certified classic also  featured lyrics like, "I go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9/As i take your mind off and on to a new track/ to train ducks how to act/ Respect me, when i whip your brain," which had brothers scratching their heads-- but still riding the bozack of former Bellevue patient Kool Keith.

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CULT MOVIE: DEATH IN VENICE (1971)

A work of genius or an extra large helping of Venetian ham? Visconti's film tends to be underrated by those who overrate the Thomas Mann book it was based on-- it is not, to be frank, one of the author's major works. The writer in the original is here portrayed as a composer-- loosely based on Mahler, whose music adds much to the film's operatic effect-- who goes to Venice to die of consumption (and/or melancholy) and becomes obsessed with a beautiful young boy. Slow-moving, over-the-top, even camp at times, the film has enough scenes of breathtaking beauty to be worth viewing.
Director: Luchino Visconti Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Mark Burns

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

68. THE WHITE STRIPES: Fell In Love With A Girl/ I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself (2002)
The Stripes at their most bubblegum and jukebox friendly, but also at their rawest- not for nothing did a Beeb advert use the track as an example of how one of their headstrong radio jocks might scare people at a wedding party. Behind the title, it is deceptively adult stuff- our man's caught in two minds about pursuing his latest conquest any further, seeing as she's already got another lover. More comlpex emotions on the flip, with a caustic rush through Bacharach and David's lovelorn classic.
Availability: White Blood Cells XL CD
67. MARTHA AND THE MUFFINS: Echo Beach/ Teddy The Dink (1980)
The song Toyah should have recorded and an evergreen post-work fave (for the line, "From nine 'till five i have to spend my time at work/ The job is very boring i'm an office clerk), Echo Beach efficiently sums up a million wistful daydreams of relief from the rat race. The Canadian Muffins featured two Marthas- Johnson on vocals on vocals and Ladly on the characteristically New Wave sax break. The other sonic highlight is that chimingguitar riff, which also appears in more sprightly form on the B-Side, Teddy The Dink-a simlpe tale of a whacky bank employee.
Availability: Then Again: The Best Of Martha And The Muffins Muffin Music/BMG

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CULT RECORD: PERE UBU: "THE DUB DANCE" (1978)

Before punk hardly even existed Pere Ubu had gone a step further. The basslines are filaments of dub, coated and werded-out by synthesizer artist Allen Ravenstine; the guitars lurch in sluggish psychedelia as if under the influense of Can; big David Thomas's birdy voice is a freaky sideshow of arresting seriousness. But put together, you don't hear influences: even twenty years later, Ubu echoes out of the future. Occasionally-- at the end of " Heat of Darkness," in the anthemic  chorus to "Final Solution," punk's un-"Free Bird"-- the band walks it home as well as anyone from the Velvets before to Mission of Burma after. But it's just one weapon in an asrenal; as intellectualized teen Goths with a visceral appreciation for the links between Godzilla and Alferd Jarry, as urban Cleveland poets of the saltmined Cuyahoga Flats, as grotesque-surreal art absurdists who could really play, Pere Ubu was nearly boundless.
Dub Housing opens "I have these arms and legs, they flip-flop flip-flop"; Thomas has never been in finer theatrical form, the unggainly, traffic-dodging humanist. Sound here is murkier in places, but there's a delighted groove present too; fewer real songs, but more musical adventure. Pruning indulgences from all three albums leaves the most luminous C-90 tape in alt-rock history. Drummer Scott Krauss and bassist Tony Maimone dance in cement, Ravenstine is spastic and uneathly without pretense, and guitarist Tom Heman's crescendos aren't announced: they bubble over. Ayleresque free jazz trades off with punk-jizzed boogie woogie on "Laughing"; the shanty "Drunken Sailor" meets a similar joyous explosion on "Caligari's Mirror."

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CULT MOVIE: BARTON FINK (1991)

This Coen brothers film works as a very sharply observed black comedy complete with their favourite vignette of a leader with a Hitler complex: a tyrant behind a desk at the other end of the room from the viewer and the central character. Goodman is a joy to behold in the kind of ( the smoothtalking, unreasonably affable psycho) he would reprise in their later work O Brother, Where Art Thou? And in the title role Turturo does, as one critic who seriously disliked the film said, offer the most "fanatically detailed caricature of a nerd since the heyday of Jerry Lewis". But for all that it is very funny indeed. Fink is loosely based on Clifford Odets, a playwright whose dream of theatre for the common man evaporated in the swimming pools of Beverly Hills, but this is not an attack on Odets or anyone else. You could even argue that it's a warning by the Coen to themselves not to lose their own individuality in the smooth path to hell that Hollywood can be.
Director: Joel Coen Cast: John Turturo, John Goodman, Judy Davis, John Mahoney

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

70. RAY PRICE: Crazy Arms/ You Done Me Wrong (1958)
At a time when his contemporaries were busy reinventing themselves as rockabillies, Ray Price took a stand with his first glorious beer joint shuffle, and it knocked Blue Suede Shoes from the top of the US country charts. A record that reeked of stale cigarettes and beer puke, it almost poured its own drink. Price's booming tenor could slice through the noisiest bar room, and as of the fiddle/ steel guitar backing wasn't hard-bit-ten enough, it's under pinned by a fabulous 4/4 bass. The flip, You Done Me Wrong, is a fine faux-Cajun two-step.
Availability: The Essential Ray Price Columbia CD
69. "TENNESSE" ERNIE FORD: Sixteen Tons/You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry (1956)
Country legend Merle Travis wrote Sixteen Tons as a commission from Capitol Records who wanted an album of contemporary folk tunes. Travis soon found himself in deep trouble with the prevalling anti-communist hierarchy in the US who regarded songs about workers' right as subversive. When the massively popular Ernie Ford featured it in 1955 on his TV show, which became the faster seller in Capitol's history. It's simple, memorable and as powerfull as anything by Springsteen.
Availability: The Ultimate Collection 1949-1965 Capitol CD 

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CULT RECORD: CYPRESS HILL: "CYPRESS HILL" (1991)

Like Public Enemy, Cypress Hill arrived with an impressive enough mix of noise and menace to change the soundtrack of hip hop. The difference is, what Cypress brought really sounded like noise. While Chuck D and Flaw drove a finetuned, James Brown-powered 98 Olds, these cartoon-voiced gangstas did their drive-bys in a low-rider Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Their spare, off-kilter beats were less stirring than unsettling-- shuddering and squeling like a wheel on a broken rim and framing the nasal, joyfully nihilistic lyrics of Latino lead rapper B-Real ( a sort of Cheech Marin-meets-Eazy-E) in some of the creepiest, most distinctive urban sonics ever. "How I Could Just Kill a Man," with its flashback guitar screams and tense, arid groove, is a genre-changing classic, marrying the gritty sound of New York rap with the frontier dystopia of L.A. gangsta.
For all the scariness and eccentricity, Cypress Hill is full of undeniably catchy tunes. There's the somnambulant " Stoned Is the Way of the Walk," the singsongy "Hole in the Head," the jumpy "The Phunky Feel One," and, best, of all, "Hand on the Pump," proof that, in DJ Muggs, Cypress Hill has an absolute genius of breakbeat concrete. Looping only a fraction of Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl," Muggs continually frustrates one of the most familiar chord progressions in all pop, dooming Chandler to sing the first measure, word, and note of his 1962 doo-wop hit for all eternity-- duke, duke, duking along like a wind-up toy butting into a wall. Like most of the album, "Pump" derives its lyrical power from the dialectic of goofy and deadly, and, in the line " puffin' on a blunt," namechecks a hip-hop prop that would become as pervasive in rap as Muggs-style production (House of Pain and Funkdoobiest produced by him, Redman, Beatnuts, and countless others simply owing him their sound). By the release of Dr. Dre's The Chronic,pot became the national fiber of hardcore hip hop.

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CULT MOVIE: FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1997)

Too weird to win over the masses, too rare to sink without trace, Gilliam's Fear And Loathing... is a healthily bizarre curio. Devotees of writer Hunter S Thompson's account of his drug-fuelled voyage around Vegas with his Samoan attorney will love this, even though it can't quite capture the laugh-out-loud quality of the book. But if you don't like Thompson and like films to have a plot, this will impress you about as much as the drunk who tries to engage you in conversation when you're walking home. All that said, we wouldn't have missed it for the world.
Director: Terry Gilliam Cast: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

72. THE CHANTAYS: Pipeline/ Move it (1963)
It's hard to believe that this supremely laid back instrumental was originally called 44 Magnum. Released on the tiny US Downey label as the B-side to an all-but-forgotten vocal track, Pipeline was flipped on its Dot re-issue, to catch hold of California's emerging surf music craze. Even today, Pipeline remains unique; the opening glissando guitar figure and easy, loping melody setting it apart from other rock instrumentals of the era.
Availability: Two Sides Of The Chantays Repertoire CD
71. THE MONOTONES: Book Of Love/You Never Loved Me (1958)
This vocal six-piece grew up in a housing project in New Jersey and sang in a Baptist choir directed by Cissy Houston before breaking away for this sole hit. On every level it is inane-- a bassist who sounds like Fozzie Bear, an upturned dustbin for a drum kit, the comically insincere lyric, "Baby baby baby/ Ilove you yes I do/ Well it says so in this book of love"-- but it is also indescribably gleeful. American Graffiti incarnate, it should come as no surprise that the melody was pinched from a toothpaste ad.
Availability: The Golden Age Of Rock'n'Roll Vol.7 Ace CD

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CULT RECORD: NUGGETS (1972)

There has been an incredible boom in reissues of old psych crap these last few years, but the truth is that this trend is three decades old. In 1972, Lenny Kaye put together a two-LP compilation for Elektra called Nuggets. It pulled together a variety of "lost classics" from the '60s by bands such as Texas's 13th Floor Elevators, California's Count Five, and other American combos who sprouted in the wake of the British Invasion. Where bands like the Stones were reacting to an impulse supplied by America's electric blues scene, bands like the Seeds were reacting to the Stones, and creating a disturbed, drugfueled, all-American version of electro-Anglo grub-blues readymades. This was the sound of the first punk revolution. And the fact that the tracks on Nuggets were grouped not by their hit status but by their aesthetic greatness was a total revelation inside the confines of oldies reissues. Within a few years, series dedicated to more obscure tracks began proliferating.

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CULT MOVIE: THE EXORCIST (1973)

Regularly voted the scariest movie of all time, thanks to William Friedkin's taut direction, wonderful performances ( especially from Jason Miller as Father Karras and Burstyn, who damaged her spine carrying out one effect) and the gripping source material by William Peter Blatty (who has a cameo as the producer of the film Burstyn is acting in). Many scenes have become the stuff of legend: possessed child Regan (Linda Blair) vomiting pea soup or getting a bit graphic on the bed with a crucifix-- but the creeping horror of the movie remains embedded in your mind well after the credits have rolled. A director's cut version is available, featuring Regan's infanous "spider walk" and an altered ending.
Director: William Friedkin Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow

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THE 100 SINGLES YOU MUST OWN

74. HARRY J ALL STARS: Liquidator/ La La Always Stay (by Glen And Dave) (1969)
When fledgling producer Harry Johnson recorded one of his first tunes at Studio One's facilities in Brentford Road, Kingston, little did he know that his work would soon be celebrated by a scene of shaven-headed white boys in London. Yet Liquidator was the archetype of skinhead reggae, marked by its vocal-free spaciousness, shaffling, post-rocksteady rhythm and razor sharp organ melody. This sound would soon be opportunistically plundered, but with no less success, by another hot young Jamaican Lee "Scratch" Perry.
Availability: Young Gifted And Black Trojan CD
73. MARY WELLS : My Guy/ Oh Little Boy (What Did You Do To Me) (1964)
She might have been a fabulous singing talent, but a business brain she wasn't. Leaving Motown in 1964 for a film career that never surfaced, Mary Wells sadly sank without trace, leaving behind a string of hits that had helped found Berry Gordy's empire. My Guy, penned by Smokey Robinson, was a prime example, meshing Wells' sexily sweet vocals with a lyric of nursery rhyme simplicity to gain her a number 5 chart placing. Her then fans included The Beatles, who dubbed her their " sweetheart" and invited her over to the UK to play.
Availability: Motown Early Classics Spectrum CD 

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CULT RECORD: MARIANNE FAITHFULL: "BROKEN ENGLISH" (1979)

"I saw an angel with big tits and I signed her." Not exactly the epigram most young women would want to be remembered by, but one which Marianne Faithfull-- the "angel" in question according to Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, circa 1967-- has utilized for her own purposes ever since, turning herself into another kind of cliche altogether. In the course of her 25-year career, Faithfull has gone from disposable blonde popsie to hallowed grande dame of knowing self-ruination; but because the beautiful are supposed to be damned, her constant pose as weary victim of this rough, tough, rotten world is-- at times, anyway-- quite satisfying to contemplate. It's not always entirely convincing, but it's usually rather well done.
While Faithfull may credit herself with writing the lyrics to the Stones song "Sister Morphine" (disputed by the Jagger/Richards songwriting team, which owns its rights), her real talent is her ability to impose her carefully-created mythic persona-- elegant but damaged blues chanteuse-- on any song she handles. The gut-wrenching "Broken English," about female terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, is the apex of this process. Written after two years of junkie-squatting with a band led by her then-husband Ben Briersley, the songs on the album-- not to mention the fact that Faithfull performs them as if singing from a cabaret in hell-- render Faithfull a haggard rock angel, utterly ruined by the Rolling Stones. The title cut, "Guilt," and the extremely blue "Why'd Ya Do It"-- on which Faithfull haughtily spits out venomous lines like" every time I see your dick I see her cunt in my bed"-- are extremely convincing meditations on anger, sex and jealousy, while the modern folk parable " The Ballad of Lucy Jordan " and a cover of Lennon's 'Working Class Hero" make stunning use of Faithfull's flat, scratchy delivery. Broken English is indeed the critical masterpiece it was hailed as.

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CULT MOVIE: CITIZEN CANE (1941)

One of the many remarkable achievements of this all-time great is to define the way we see media moguls. Not just William Randolph Hearst, whose life partly inspired this, but also Murdoch and Maxwell; all are seen through the refracting lens of Welles' fictional creation. Yet Welles (and writer Herman Mankiewicz) also smuggled details of the star's biography into the film and this movie has as much to say about Welles as about its apparent subject ( this is especially true of its portrayal of Kane's relationship with his parents). Pop it in the video again and see if you can remember which scene comes next-- one of the film's great gambits is the way it defies the chronology of time, relying on its emotional chronology to tell the story.
Director: Orson Welles Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten

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