The Movie Autobiography, Part 3: 1994–2007

Sorry for the delay, but my day job just keeps trying to get in the way of my life.

Today is the final installment of the Movie Autobiography project begun last week.

Let's do this...

1994
Then and Now: Pulp Fiction
Talk about a galvanizing moment. Pulp Fiction is one of the few cinematic experiences I remember from top to bottom: where I saw it, who I went with, what scenes had an immediate impact, etc. In fact 1994 was the year that my sensibility truly returned to the underground, thanks in no small part to Berkeley's now-defunct UC Theater, which ran a mind-shattering rep schedule (not to mention a Hong Kong cinema double feature every Thursday night). It was also the year I started winning free tickets on KALX's Film Close-Ups, where I would eventually become a co-host and reviewer. (Craziness: Greg Scharpen, the show's current host, was a reviewer when I started on the show, way back in 1996!) One last thing: Pulp Fiction dominated this year, which is too bad for Tim Burton's Ed Wood, which would have been my favorite in just about any other.

1995
Then: TIE, Se7en and Heat
Now: Dead Man
Obviously I was not immune to Hollywood's charms, even during my indie reawakening. Other films that had a big impact: Kids, City of Lost Children, and Ghost in the Shell, which remains my favorite anime.

1996
Then: Trainspotting
Now: Fargo
That's not to say that my admiration for Trainspotting has dulled any. It's just that Fargo is the very definition of a film that grows more rewarding every time you see it. I also walked out on a movie in 1996, one of only three times this has happened. It was the absolutely abysmal The Trigger Effect, starring Kyle MacLaclan, Elizabeth Shue, and Dermot Mulroney. (The other two are The War of the Roses, wich everyone else seems to like, and Moulin Rouge!, which made me want to punch Baz Luhrman in the neck.)

1997
Then: Grosse Point Blank
Now: Lost Highway
John Cusack's hitman rom-com barely edged Kevin Smith's hopelessly overwrought Chasing Amy back in the day. I shant waste time here defending my Kevin Smith habit (and no, I will not defend Jersey Girl, mainly because I've never seen it). David Lynch's snake-eating-its-own-tail mindfuck Lost Highway is another classic that gets more interesting with every watch.

1998
Then and Now: The Big Lebowski
Although this was an easy one, a lot of really interesting movies came out in '98. (I never realized it before, but BOTH of Kim's favorite movies, Rushmore and Shakespeare in Love, came out in the same year.) And let's face it, the first fifteen minutes of Saving Private Ryan are the most exhilarating since the opening of Pulp Fiction.

1999
Then: American Beauty
Now: TIE, Sleepy Hollow and Fight Club
Yeah, I drank the Kool-Aid on the overwritten Oscar winner. I have subsequently realized that if you're gonna go with slickness, go with fun slickness.

2000
Then: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Now: O Brother Where Art Thou
A big year for kinda middle-awesome movies (Almost Famous, American Psycho, High Fidelity, Gladiator, Memento, Snatch, Shadow of the Vampire, etc.). Where in the hell did all the horror movies go?

2001
Then and Now: The Royal Tenenbaums
Again, not even close. Shout-outs to Gosford Park, Donnie Darko, Mulholland Drive, and Wet Hot American Summer.

2002
Then and Now: 24 Hour Party People
Runners-up were 28 Days Later and Super Troopers.

2003
Then and Now: Kill Bill Vol.1
Very close runner-up was X2: X-Men United (which was the best superhero movie ever until two weeks ago). 2003 was, without a doubt, the worst year in movies I have encountered.

2004
Then and Now: TIE, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Shaun of the Dead, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Hey, YOU try choosing between those!

2005
Then: Batman Begins
Now: The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Again, Brokeback Mountain may have been the best movie of the year, but I'm not sure how many more times I can watch the damn thing. Honorable mention to Serenity and The Devil's Rejects.

2006
Then and Now: Children of Men
With respect to The Departed and Pan's Labyrinth.

2007
Then and Now: TIE There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men
Couldn't decide last year, can't decide now.

Whew! That's it. A life in movies. I feel a) old, and b) more than a little embarrassed by my pedestrian tastes.

The Movie Autobiography, Part 2: 1984–1993

On the heels of yesterday's post, which covered the years 1974 through 1983, we continue the latest in a long line of pointless pop-culture lists: Pick a Movie for Every Year of Your Life.

1984
Then: Ghostbusters
Now: Repo Man
Hey, I honestly wish I could claim some cool favorite like Paris, Texas, but I'm trying to be totally honest here.

1985
Then: Back to the Future
Now: TIE, Ran and Real Genius
Hell, I even tried to dress like Marty McFly. As for the tie, Ran is one of the few foreign films I never get tired of watching. It's just friggin' amazing. However, Real Genius may hold the record as the film I've watched the most times. I just couldn't choose. Also, Re-Animator came out in '85.

1986
Then: Aliens
Now: Blue Velvet
Howard the Duck notwithstanding, 1986 was an unbelievable year in film. Just remarkable. Sentimental favorites like Big Trouble in Little China and Ferris Bueller's Day Off stand alongside genuine classics like Manhunter, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Fly, and Sid and Nancy. This was also the year I made the crucial transition from shitting myself every time a horror-movie commercial came on TV to being completely obsessed with horror movies.

1987
Then: Summer School
Now: Evil Dead 2
And yet, despite 1987 being quite possibly the best year in American horror films since the 1930s, my favorite movie was a Mark Harmon/Kirstie Alley vehicle. In my defense, Chainsaw and Dave's whole schtick was that they were into horror movies. So I was basically watching a film about myself. (Seriously, look at this horror lineup: Hellraiser, Near dark, The Lost Boys, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, Prince of Darkness, Predator... man, what a year!) Oh I do have a "regular" pick for this year as well: Wings of Desire.

1988
Then: A Fish Called Wanda
Now: Die Hard
So apparently I've gotten dumber in the last twenty years. Other possible favorites were Dead Ringers, The Last Temptation of Christ, and They Live. My god... I am seriously one of the people I've spent my entire life hating. Die Hard????

1989
Then: TIE, Heathers and Pet Sematary
Now: Crimes and Misdemeanors
So back then I was clearly going through my safe suburban version of an "edgy teen" phase (although, for reasons I cannot begin to explain, I was also a big fan of Steel Magnolias). Apparently I am now a big Woody Allen fanatic. Who knew?

1990
Then: TIE, Edward Scissorhands and Pump Up the Volume
Now: TIE, Goodfellas and Miller's Crossing
Talk about symmetry. In high school, my favorite movies were about high-school outcasts. Now I go in for gritty gangster movies.

1991
Then: The Doors
Now: The Silence of the Lambs
What a weak year for movies! Oliver Stone's ridiculously overblown Jim Morrison biopic was ideal viewing for a classic rock-obsessed sixteen-year-old. But now? Other possibilities were either semi-ironic (Point Break) or deeply cult (Dead Again).

1992
Then: Singles
Now: Glengarry Glen Ross
Another weak year. My senior-year obsession with all things Seattle naturally included Cameron Crowe's grunge rom-com (not to mention the soundtrack). The contemporary pick came down to Reservoir Dogs and Hard Boiled canceling each other out by virtue of their similarity.

1993
Then: True Romance
Now: Dazed and Confused
Given its basic subject matter, it's astounding how great Dazed and Confused is (though apparently True Romance screenwriterQuentin Tarantino agrees).

Tune in next week for the concluding entry, 1994–2007.

The Movie Autobiography:Pick a Film for Each Year of Your LifePart 1: The First Decade

In the fine *bitter defeat* tradition of stealing/copying any and all ideas/content from the AV Club, I'm following up the Album Autobiography with the Movie Autobiography ("inspired" by this and this, respectively).

Once again, such an undertaking raises such logistical questions as "How could you have a favorite movie when you were an infant?," "Are you listing your favorites or 'the best' of each year?," and "Why should anyone give a shit about your opinion?" Luckily, I have answers to all three questions: a) You couldn't; b) I'll get to that; and c) They shouldn't.

First, the ground rules: For each year, I have simply chosen my favorite film, rather than what I consider the "best" or "most important" film. In those cases where my choice at the time differs from my current favorite (either because I saw my current favorite later or because I am no longer, say, eleven years old), I will provide both. For years when I was too young to have an opinion, I'll list whatever I liked as a kid, where applicable.

Now it should be noted that I hold a graduate degree in film history, theory, and criticism, so my current-day favorites should be foreign and boring, with lots of midgets and dream sequences and allegory and criticism of commodity culture. I will be shocked if this turns out to be the case. For someone with "training" in the "aesthetics" of "the cinema," I have astoundingly "pedestrian" tastes. In other words, I tend to prefer "awesome" over "important." Please don't mistake this for false modesty on the one hand, or self-congratulation for "keeping it real" on the other. No, it's simply sad when a person drops tens of thousands of dollars into someone else's pocket just so they can use bigger words to explain why Ghostbusters rules.

The Movie Autobiography, Part 1: 1974–1983

1974
Then and now: Young Frankenstein
See? I told you my choices would be unimpressive. Sure, I love The Godfather, Part II, but I don't love it as much as Young Frankenstein (or other 1974 standouts like Blazing Saddles (What a HUGE year for Mel Brooks!), The Longest Yard, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Zardoz, Dark Star, or my runner-up, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

1975
Then and now: Jaws
I'm not sure "favorite" is the right word for how I felt about Jaws as a child. It's more like "the reason I feared any non-man-made body of water until I was six years old." Still, it seems that no one was releasing children's movies in the mid-1970s, so it's the only thing I remember seeing as a kid. (other notables are Monty Python and the Holy Grail and my runner up, Three Days of the Condor.)

1976
Then: The Bad News Bears
Now: Carrie
Carrie barely edged out The Marathon Man for my current choice. (And remember what I said about no foreign films? Seems like there aren't any in the Wikipedia lists anyway, so it's a non-issue.) Yes, I realize that Taxi Driver came out in 1976. I honestly think Taxi Driver is overrated.

1977
Then: Star Wars
Now: Annie Hall
Finally, a year with some conflicts! Not for my "younger self" pick, which was a no-brainer, but it killed me to have Dario Argento's Suspiria come up second. (And I guess there are foreign films after all. Another personal favorite: Slap Shot, the greatest sports movie ever made.

1978
Then: TIE, Superman: The Movie and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Now: Halloween
Even as a child I knew Superman just wasn't that good. I mean, it shared my heart with a movie in which The Beatles are replaced by The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, co-starring Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, and George Burns! As for my current pick, let's just say it was a big year for horror, with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead in the runner-up spot.

1979
Then: The Muppet Movie
Now: Manhattan
What a great year to be a kid! The Muppets were up against The Black Hole, Breaking Away, Meatballs, and Moonraker. This must have been the year my dad started taking me to movies, because I was crazy about all of those. Oh and Woody Allen wins again, edging out Alien and Apocalypse Now.

1980
Then and now: The Empire Strikes Back
Sorry to Raging Bull and The Shining, but this year was in the bag.

1981
Then and now: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Another runaway winner. This was also a big year for me as a kid, with the big three of semi-racy sword-and-sorcery movies: Clash of the Titans, Dragonslayer, and Excalibur...all of which my dad took me to see in the theater. What was he thinking?? A spacial shout-out to John Landis's An American Werewolf in London.

1982
Then: TIE, TRON, Conan the Barbarian, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Now: The Thing
You think that tie is a cop-out? Well I just couldn't answer with any confidence. I remember each of those films (not to mention The Dark Crystal and The Secret of NIMH) having a massive effect on me. (Also, my dad got in SO MUCH trouble for taking me to see Conan.) Also, Blade Runner was a very respectable runner-up, but The Thing is one of my top five films of all time.

1983
Then: Never Say Never Again
Now: Videodrome
It's very hard to believe that a fanboy like me could pick anything over Return of the Jedi, but for some reason I was quite taken by Sean Connery's controversial late-career return to James Bond. From an "adult" standpoint, 1983 was a shite year for movies. If it wasn't for Videodrome, I would have been choosing between Terms of Endearment and Trading Places.

Go to Part 2, 1984–1993

Siren Festival 2008 at Coney Island!

The Helio Sequence

What may have been the very last Coney Island Siren Festival took place this past Saturday, on the hottest day of New York's blistering heatwave. I'll have more to show/tell soon, but in the meantime you can see some snaps at Spinner (first 8 shots are mine). Oh, and some girl wrote the coverage.

**UPDATE**
Here's some more shots...

Times New Viking

Ra Ra Riot


Islands

The Helio Sequence

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Broken Social Scene

SUPERHUGE Concert Weekend, Day 3:The Breeders w/ Matt & Kim and The Whip @ McCarren Pool, July 13

The Deal sisters played a free show at McCarren Pool in Brooklyn, along with The Whip and Matt & Kim (who brought an entire marching band on stage).

The Whip



Matt & Kim



The Breeders

SUPERHUGE Concert Weekend, Day 2:Todd P's Mid-Summer Outdoor Concert @ The Yard, July 12

Crystal Antlers
Todd P's Mid-Summer Outdoor Party @ The Yard, Brooklyn, July 12

Knyfe Hyts
Abe Vigoda

Crystal Antlers
Vivian Girls

Ponytail

Chinese Stars

Titus Andronicus

SUPERHUGE Concert Weekend, Day 1: No Age w/ Telepathe @ South Street Seaport, July 11

No Age
You know when you've seen too many bands in one weekend? When you wake up Monday morning with 700 photos.

Friday, July 11
No Age w/ Telepathe and Abe Vigoda @ South Street Seaport

We arrived too late to catch Abe Vigoda (not a big deal since we saw them the following day). Also had a shitty spot for pics.

Telepathe

No Age

Globalization Cuts Both Ways: Budweiser Purchased by the Belgians

The King of Beers is no longer an American institution. Belgian beverage conglomerate InBev SA is finalizing the purchase of Anheiser-Busch Brewing Company.

In related news, "Apple Pie" has been purchased by the sultanate of Bahrain, and "Mom" is now a subsidiary of Toshiba.

The Album Autobiography:Part 3, 1995–2007

The closer this little project comes to the present, the less my choices diverge. Not exactly a revelation, but it's nice to see that I can still be proud of the music I listened to in high school. I mean, sure, I thought Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" was a pretty good song at the time, but I also purchased everything The Smiths ever committed to disc and I wore out my cassette of Bad Religion's Suffer. So I can hold my head high, while writing off my enthusiasm for EMF and Jesus Jones as youthful folly.

The home stretch...

1995
Then: The Cardigans - Life
Now: Pulp - Different Class
Pavement gets stiffed again: Wowee Zowee comes in a tough second. 1995 was the year I rediscovered vinyl. It was also the year I stopped buying pot and started spending all of my money at Amoeba records in Berkeley. (And dropping the strict chronology for a moment, my actual favorite albums that year were Superchunk's Foolish and The Cramps' Bad Music for Bad People...neither of which was released in 1995.)

1996
Then and Now: Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
Weezer's Pinkerton was a close second that year... I was in a solidly "twee as fuck" punk-meets-indie-pop phase. Oh wait. Still am.

1997
Then: TIE: Pavement - Brighten the Corners; Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out
Now: Radiohead - OK Computer
Duh. (Special shout-outs to Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One and Mogwai's Young Team.)

1998
Then and Now: Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
Apologies to the Beasties' Hello Nasty.

1999
Then: Blur - 13
Now: The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

2000
Then: Outkast - Stankonia
Now: Radiohead - Kid A
A new century, a boring choice. What can I say...Radiohead, she makes-a good records!

2001
Then: Fischerspooner - #1
Now: The Strokes - Is This It
What can I say? I was "working" as a music journalist and I totally drank the Kool-Aid on the whole Electroclash thing.

2002
Then and Now: Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
Not even their shitty last album can spoil me on the majesty of their debut.

2003
Then: The White Stripes - Elephant
Now: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
And it hurt me to have to leave out The Shins' Chutes Too Narrow.

2004
Then: The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows
Now: The Arcade Fire - Funeral

2005
Then and Now: LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

2006
Then and Now: Band of Horses - Everything All the Time

2007
Then: Deerhunter - Cryptograms
Now: Radiohead - In Rainbows
In Rainbows pulled the ultimate "grower."

So there you have it. Thirty-three years of music. One life, feebly encapsulated.

The Album Autobiography:Part 2, 1985–1994

We now enter the second decade of An Album for Each Year of Your Life. By the age of ten I had completely severed my own taste in music from that of my parents (although my father's Pink Floyd obsession did stick with me). As a result, I was wholly at the mercy of the marketplace: MTV still showed videos at this point, so I had cobbled together a totally confused cultural identity that was equal parts breakdancer, hair metal fan, and New Waver. In other words, I was a ten year old with a television set.

1985
Then: Wham! - Make It Big
Now: INXS - Listen Like Thieves
Well 1985 is a little embarrassing on both ends, if only because of my utter rock snobbery. Granted, my other childhood choices were Phil Collins and Tears for Fears, so I was never going to look like a super-cool 10-year-old. But INXS? Really? I had to be completely honest with myself here and admit that while The Cure, The Replacements, The Smiths, or Jesus and Mary Chain would make me sound a lot cooler, Listen Like Thieves is still my favorite of the lot, back to front. Besides, Meat Is Murder is definitely my least favorite Smiths album.

1986
Then: Janet Jackson - Control
Now: The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
Who knew 1986 was such a powerhouse year for childhood albums? Graceland, Invisible Touch, Run DMC's Raising Hell, and Peter Gabriel's So all ruled my 12-year-old life.

1987
Then and Now: U2 - The Joshua Tree
At the time, INXS's Kick was pretty hot shit as well, but the rooftop video for "Where the Streets Have No Name" was the tiebreaker. These days I consider U2 a little melodramatic, but I can't argue with the album's impact (or its continued appeal).

1988
Then: Living Colour - Vivid
Now: Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking
Welcome to high school! Truth be told, I was mostly listening to "classic rock" at this point in my life. As for the "Now" category...this was the toughest call so far, with Daydream Nation, Straight Outta Compton, and Surfer Rosa all vying for the top spot.

1989
Then: B-52s - Cosmic Thing
Now: Pixies - Doolittle
Doolittle would have taken then and now honors, but I didn't get into the Pixies until 1990.

1990
Then and Now: Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
Nothing about choosing this album as my current favorite from 1990 feels right. I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of indie releases were left off the Wikipedia list of 1990 albums. That, or I'm just not as different from my high school self as I thought.

1991
Then and Now: Nirvana - Nevermind
It's something of a cliché now, but looking through the list of 1991 albums, it truly was the year music stopped sucking. Tribe released The Low End Theory and a rapper named 2Pac released his first album. Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, and Pearl Jam debuted. And two little masterpieces called Nevermind and Loveless came out. Jesus.

1992
Then: Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Now: REM - Automatic for the People
High school graduation! These two albums could have gone either way, really... they're apples and oranges. Does the fact that it's getting harder to separate Then from Now mean your tastes are largely determined in your teens?

1993
Then: Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Now: Breeders - Last Splash
Okay, this probably has more to do with how these respective bands have aged than it does with these two albums, but... nothing wrong with that. And yes, I admit In Utero just wasn't poppy enough for me.

1994
Then: Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album)
Now: Blur - Parklife
Honesty is overrated. While there's nothing wrong with either of these picks, every fiber of my ego was screaming for Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

Continue to Part 3 (1995–2007)

The Album Autobiography: Pick an Album for Each Year of Your LifePart 1: The First Decade

Steve Hyden over at the A.V. Club Blog presented a challenge (that he found via Idolator) that no compulsive list-maker could hope to resist. Especially one whose post-vacation malaise has made doing actual work all but impossible.

The concept is relatively simple: choose one album from each year that you've been alive. Within that framework, however, some questions arise almost immediately: Are you simply choosing what you currently consider the best album from that year? The "most important" album from that year? The one you liked the best during the actual year in question? Rather than sticking to a rigid set of rules, I've decided to cut the baby in half, essentially presenting two lists at once. For each year I've chosen the album I currently consider the overall champ, along with the album I would have chosen at the time. For the years in which infancy and toddlerhood would make the choice impossible, I'm going with the albums that resonated most clearly in my early childhood. In other words, those that my parents probably played the most around the house. (It should be noted that the two most important albums of my childhood, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and The Beatles' Abbey Road, were released before I was born.)

And so, with the benefit of hindsight, I give you...

THE ALBUM AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Decade 1

1974
Then: Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark
Now: Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
I could really have given this one to Joni in both categories, but I used the option to pull in another great album (which itself just barely edged Gram Parson's Grievous Angel).

1975
Then: Fleetwod Mac - Fleetwood Mac
Now: Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
So after the relative ease of 1974, I realize how effing impossible this is gonna be. In the "Then" category, only Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here got stiffed. BUT, 1975 was a ridiculous year for music: Born to Run, Blood on the Tracks, Natty Dread, Tom Waits's Nighthawks at the Diner, Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Black Sabbath's Sabotage, and Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised all came out that year. Am I gonna have to keep naming all the runners-up? I'll try to control myself, but I had to give you a taste of just how difficult this is gonna be.

1976
Then: The Eagles - Hotel California
Now: The CBGB trifecta: the self-titled debuts of Blondie, The Ramones, and The Modern Lovers
The Eagles barely edged ELO's A New World Record, which is odd because my dad hated The Eagles. Proof that not even our parents can counteract cultural ubiquity.

1977
Then: TIE: Fleetwood Mac - Rumors; Steely Dan - Aja
Now: Iggy Pop - The Idiot/Lust for Life
Okay, there's a lot of cheating going on already, but this year represents the essential split between my mom (Fleetwood Mac) and my dad (Steely Dan), and I couldn't hope to ever pry these records apart from one another. As for the Iggy records, I own a French vinyl pressing that contains both full albums, so I honestly consider them as one work. ("The Year Punk Broke" was also tough, with debut albums from Wire, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Television, and Talking Heads.)

1978
Then: Steve Miller Band - Greatest Hits (1974–1978)
Now: Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
Finally, a weak year in both categories.

1979
Then: Pink Floyd - The Wall
Now: The Clash - London Calling
A pair of massive (if unoriginal) candidates mark the end of the 1970s... and the end of my Chicago childhood. California, here I come...

1980
Then: Billy Joel - Glass Houses
Now: X - Los Angeles
A weak album year, even in retrospect. I suppose I was listening to the radio in the car all the time, since we had moved to southern California. So albums don't seem to have as much resonance as singles like "Another One Bites the Dust," "Funkytown," "Rock With You," and Christopher Cross's "Sailing."

1981
Then: Journey - Escape
Now: X - Wild Gift
Although I am a massive X fan, this still blows me away. As Steve Hyden noted in his list, 1981 was a barren graveyard. With MTV newly ascendant (we got it right away in L.A.) and the transition from "classic rock" and punk to "new wave" and hardcore in full bloom, there just weren't many brilliant albums to chose from. As for my younger self, I was transfixed by radio and MTV as well, and was surprised to see that even on albums I recognize from the time (including the Journey album above, the Go-Gos' Beauty and the Beat, and others), I really only know the big singles. This is also when my taste had become totally independent of my mother's, who would have chosen Juice Newton's Juice and Dan Fogelberg's The Innocent Age.

1982
Then: Men at Work - Business as Usual
Now: Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Yes, I liked Business as Usual just a little more than Thriller. As for my choice of Bruuuuuuce... well that was surprising given the great hardcore stuff out at the time (Black Flag, Bad Brains, etc.), but Nebraska just slays me every time I hear it.

1983
Then: Duran Duran - Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Now: REM - Murmur
By the age of nine, I was utterly torn between wimpy dance music (Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, etc.) and wimpy metal (Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Quiet Riot). My mom, in the meantime, was addicted to Elton John's Too Low for Zero.

1984
Then and Now: Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
It was close on both ends, with childhood favorites like "Weird Al" Yankovic's In 3-D and Duran Duran's Arena and such current classics as The Smith's self-titled debut and The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime all taking a backseat to the Purple One's greatest masterpiece.

Continue to the second decade (1985–1994).

Zombie Maid!!!

Watch a higher-quality version HERE.