At this time in ten years ago, in 1998, in the world of movies, music, and even television, we knew we were living in a different era than we were at the beginning of the decade. We knew and could recite collectively that Nirvana's Nevermind was the great album of our era and had irrevocably changed music. We knew and could recite collectively that Pulp Fiction was the movie of the decade, that it had irrevocably changed movies, and that we could never go back again. We even knew that every sitcom to come out heretofore would have echoes of Seinfeld and The Simpsons, and to argue about diminishing their influence would be an exercise in futility.
We have that same feeling about television now, in a sense - this is the decade in which The Sopranos changed basic tenants of television, including the length of seasons, the quality of material on the small screen, the limits of what a show could cover, the amount of intelligence and detail that could go into the craft, etc. We don't have that in music and movies. Looking ahead to 16 months from now, in which magazines will be synopsizing this decade of the 00's, what will they say? What will our era be known as and known for?
I think the results will be wide, the choices for Album and Movie of the decade will be highly disparate, and probably disappointing. I was thinking this today driving around listening, straight through, to Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, an album I think, with two others, stands at the highest pinnacle of quality of all records released in my adult lifetime, which, coincidentally, happened legally on January 17, 2000. In fact, this is the first decade I can consider myself an "adult," however cognizant I might have thought myself before the time.
Does everyone feel like this, starting on that downhill curve of their 20's? Well, me start with the "this" that I mean, and let me start with music. What is this decade musically? A time of a great movement in music, like Alternative was? Not really - what was there, indie music? Hip hop? Bland pop-punk? Those seemed to be doing pretty well before too. In fact, of the three albums that I think of as the highest quality this decade is by a pop-punk artist whose peak was thought to have been 1995 - Green Day, whose American Idiot will no doubt find itself near the top of many Album of the Decade lists next year, including mine if I write one. It is and remains an extraordinary work, but more than that, it stands out as such a singular success for three reasons - 1) It's a work of frustration and rage, which is related to the frustration and rage that we've arguably felt all decade, 2)In an era in which albums as a collective work declined, in order to give way to a music industry that has progressed online, it is a reminder of the mastery of a full ALBUM and of what such a thing is capable. And most importantly, 3) We've heard it before, but we've never heard anything like it. That's what I want to explore more.
If this decade is full of work in which there's no clear agreement on what it all "means" and what can define us, I'd like to make a case for that indefinition as who we are. People, I think, are generally interested in the world of pop culture in the last 20 years, perhaps moreso than at any other time in America's history - those of us in our 20's and 30's have a bit of an inflated sense of how great our pop culture is - this year, Entertainment Weekly devoted an issue to the 100 "New Classics," 100 Top albums, movies, TVshows, books, etc., released since 1983 - which means, basically, the lifespan of the vast majority of its readers. Recently, the London Times released a Top 100 list of the greatest movies ever made in which #2 was Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which is a little ridiculous, but certainly indicates that we're ready to dismiss the conventional thinking about what are the "Great Movies" and embrace our own culture. #3 on the list was E.T.
"Best of" all time lists, as I've talked about too often, is more of an indication of current modes of thought than they are definitive discussions of what are the "Best" ever. Such a thing is impossible to quantify. Recently, Roger Ebert devoted some speculation over the fact that in every decade, Citizen Kane is universally declared as the greatest of all movies - strange convention, eh? As each year, Best Of TV lists come out, any top 10 nowadays will likely include The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, possibly even Sex and the City - we are, truly, going to think of our time as the golden age of television.
But it's sort of a useless battle, because if there's one thing that we can agree on for our time, it's that everything there is to say about life has been said, including the fact that we've said everything there is to be said. The reason "Best Of" lists seem so useless now is because we've said to the point of boredom that The Beatles are as great as music gets and that Citizen Kane is the world's greatest movies - it's even become convention to counter with Bob Dylan and The Godfather as "rebellious" answers.
But here's a question I have for people who are like myself - when people ask you what your favorite movies are, when were they made? When did you see them? And which of them, when you think about the movies that moved or excited you most, are truly your favorites? When I make my list (and I like to think I'm well versed in movies), I have some movies that have been named forever - The 400 Blows, Raging Bull - but also movies in my time, Boogie Nights and What Time Is It There? and Waiting for Guffman and Blood Simple. Now, obviously these are movies in which our older, more "influential" movies have made possible, but if I'm to answer that question truthfully, I'm going to answer with the movies that made me most love the capabilities of movies. And, as a man born in 1982, it's not as if Boogie Nights "feels" particularly newer than, say, Tokyo Story - it is, of course (it looks back on an era that happened after Tokyo was released, after all), but I saw Tokyo Story for the first time this year, I saw Boogie Nights when I was 16.
My point is this - why do I have to have my thoughts of Tokyo Story, which is a beautiful movie that has passed the test of time and made me cry, automatically more valid than my thoughts of Boogie Nights? How about those of you that would answer Happy Gilmore or Dumb and Dumber as your favorite movies? Are you wrong? I don't think so - I asked you what movies you enjoyed most. I don't enjoy those movies, but it's not up to me. There is no best movie ever made, there's just many opinions about it. Many, but not enough.
We define the culture, and there's nothing "true" about what's best and what isn't. Those of us that grew up being told, as I was, that The Beatles were the best band in rock history and that Citizen Kane is the pinnacle of moviemaking have absorbed that information but we don't have to necessarily conform to that notion even if we like The Beatles and Citizen Kane. When we were kids, we didn't really think a black man would be seriously contending for the presidency, even though we were told such a thing was possible. There was supposed to be outrage when the Obama candidacy began skyrocketing, and certainly to an extent there was (and we haven't even seen the end of it or the worst of it yet), but there sure seem to be plenty able-minded adults who decided they didn't actually care, and, in fact, really liked the guy. As adults in our 20's and 30's, we, now, decide the messages about taste that we want the next generation to develop.
I want my art now, if it's great, to tell me what I've heard and seen and then take it a step further. I want to hear about confusion and not tell me everything, but I want it to also be full of craft and life and ideas. I found myself, a night ago, talking about the third album I think stands as a pinnacle of quality for this decade - Blackalicious's Blazing Arrow. I said to a friend of mine that if it had just been more popular, I would absolutely call it the greatest hip hop record ever made. It's perfect from beginning to end, and at 17 songs, that's a long time to be perfect. It comes with fury and excitement out of its first track and only gets better in each track. It's rap that raps faster and louder and more precise than any I've heard, its moments of soul that move and cause you to swoon, it's samples and poetry and rhythm and love and sex and everything that hip hop has promised us it is. Why isn't it the best hip hop record ever made? Certianly if it had sold half of the records that Kanye West's The College Dropout had, it would find itself on as many Best of the 2000's lists as Dropout will.
Same goes for movies - I think the best this decade are probably not that popular. I think I'm Not There was unlike anything I've ever seen, and it included many things I've seen. Same with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Those are truly the two that jump out at me as truly special and extraordinary, but also as movies that comment on our own over-analyzed sense of identity, movies that tell us about how hard it is to know who we are when we've talked so much about who we are. Which is something we need to talk about - doesn't it make since everything there is to say has been said, we need to throw out everything and start at the basics? This is a time that, I think, we can say truly that our culture is the one that is most important - or it is, at least, as important as anything that's come before, and it's because we have to think on topics that compound the things we already know of that are supposedly great. Now, great means something else.
