Every vinyl collector loves the thrill of the hunt: that burst of adrenaline and that lustful feeling that accompanies a hard-earned acquisition tell the collector he’s – in very rare and very weird cases, she’s – alive. Yet few things are more depressing to a collector than the unfulfilled wishlist, no matter how much he tries to keep it at …

The discography of Tom Waits can generally be divided into two, B.C. and A.D.-type eras — the jazz-folk barroom balladry of his first seven records on the Asylum label and the madman-making-a-carnival-out-of-a-junkyard that followed. To zero in even further, one could make the case that Waits’ oeuvre has no fewer than five distinct periods, but we’ll go with the two …

[xrr rating=3.0/5]Remember when Pirates of the Caribbean was only a theme park attraction? Me neither. Pirates have long captivated our collective imagination, inhabiting both villain and antihero roles in various forms of storytelling since they first roamed the high seas. Hell, they’ve even been used to sell knock-off sugar cereals and announce the impending arrival of an animated, pants-wearing sponge. …

A cadre of whackos and crooks populate True Romance, the 1993 Tony Scott-directed/Quentin Tarantino-written film where you can see Brad Pitt smoke pot out of a honey bear and Gary Oldman play a racially-confused pimp. But the one scene that everyone still talks about nearly 20 years later features Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper. The former is a mafia hit …

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco (2007) Drugs help. When Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy went to rehab (no, no, no) in 2004, the band had just come off the masterful one-two punch of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) and A Ghost Is Born (2004), two of the most experimental, sophisticated albums of the decade. Then after he cleaned up, they produced Sky …

[xrr rating=3.0/5] Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters, a compilation of interviews given by the reclusive musician between 1973’s Closing Time and the 2008 collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, is a tale of two Tom Waits. Compiled by Paul Maher Jr., the anthology zeros in on the sharp contrast between the Waits before meeting wife Kathleen Brennan …

James Taylor in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) Okay, let’s be real: the performance from Monte Hellman’s ’70s anti-road movie that everyone remembers is not James Taylor as the affectless, unnamed driver, but Warren Oates as his colorful racing rival. Oates is great fun to watch, but the film wouldn’t work without Taylor’s bewildered displacement — that weird sense that he seems …

Five years is an eternity in the life of a record. When coming up with this feature, the question the Spectrum Culture staff pondered was this: “How well do these albums play NOW!” Not five years ago, but how have they aged in our memories. While some acclaimed albums of ’06 remain strong on our list, some critically-lauded ones didn’t …

20. Fucked Up – David Comes to Life [Matador] The most ambitious band to vaguely fit under the description of “hardcore punk” since Refused dissolved, Toronto sextet Fucked Up have outdone themselves with this year’s David Comes to Life. A rock opera is precisely the sort of thing punks set out to kill, but David Comes to Life never wants …

25. St. Vincent – “Surgeon” [4AD] To know Annie Clark is to love her. The versatile songstress and musician has been making indie hearts melt since her time with the Polyphonic Spree, and her 2007 debut Marry Me was beloved for its cheeky sense of humor (see: the album’s “Arrested Development”-inspired title) and the sheer skill she exhibited. She’s released …