Leonard Cohen:"Songs of Leonard Cohen" (1968)

At a time when a growing number of pop songwriters were embracing a more explicitly poetic approach in their lyrics, the 1967 debut album from Leonard Cohen introduced a songwriter who, rather than being inspired by "serious" literature, took up music after establishing himself as a published author and poet. The ten songs on Songs of Leonard...

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David Cronenberg:"Videodrome" (1982)

Well before he adapted William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's debt to the beat writer was laid bare with Videodrome, a phantasmagoric journey through fractured psyches and cathode tubes. The film features several of Burroughs's trademarks, including a stream-of-consciousness narrative, a paranoid, conspiratorial tone, and overriding...

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Elastica:"Elastica" (1995)

Elastica's debut album may cop a riff here and there from Wire or the Stranglers, yet no more than Led Zeppelin did with Willie Dixon or the Beach Boys with Chuck Berry. The key is context. Elastica can make the rigid artiness of Wire into a rocking, sexy single with more hooks than anything on Pink Flag ("Connection") or rework the Stranglers' "No...

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Sam Mendes:"American Beauty" (1999)

A darkly comic critique of suburban stupor with a measured touch of redemption, American Beauty became the most laureled film of 1999. As written by Alan Ball and directed by theatre wunderkind/film neophyte Sam Mendes, the tale of Lester Burnham's final year of life keenly delves into the repressed desires, rampant materialism, skewed values,...

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Magnetic Fields:"69 Love Songs" (1999)

As the sprawling magnitude of its cheeky title suggests, 69 Love Songs is Stephin Merritt's most ambitious as well as most fully realized work to date, a three-disc epic of classically chiseled pop songs that explore both the promise and pitfalls of modern romance through the jaundiced eye of an irredeemable misanthrope. A true A-to-Z catalog...

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Bernardo Bertolucci:"Last Tango in Paris" (1972)

Ironically, the film that heralded the arrival of a mainstream adult cinema, with its frank and often brutal depiction of impersonal (and often nearly fully clothed) sex, was actually one of the last films to give such raw and uncompromising treatment to the subject matter. Last Tango in Paris certainly ranks among Marlon Brando's greatest acting...

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Interpol:"Turn on the Bright Lights" (2002)

One might go into a review like this one wondering how many words will pass before Joy Division is brought up. In this case, the answer is 16. Many are too quick to classify Interpol as mimics and lose out on discovering that little more than an allusion is being made. The music made by both bands explores the vast space between black and white...

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Ingmar Bergman:"Summer with Monika" (1951)

An innocent youth finds love and, eventually, heartbreak in this film, which ranks among Ingmar Bergman's simplest and most unaffected. Harry (Lars Ekborg), the unworldly, unhappy hero, suffers at his job and in his personal life. Then he falls in love with the superficial Monika (Harriet Andersson), who shows...

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Antony and the Johnsons:"I Am a Bird Now" (2005)

Antony and the Johnsons' second full-length recording, the haunting and affecting I Am a Bird Now, is a far more intimate affair than their debut. Antony's bluesy parlor room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience that's both exhilarating and disquieting. "Hope There's Someone" is a somber opener, and its plea for companionship,...

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