“Smokestack Lightning” is on the soundtrack to The Wolf of Wall Street, a boring film about boring people who think they are interesting because they are high.
Other 1956 ‘world music classic’ compositions include “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley, “Fever” by Little Willie John and “Love Is Strange” by Mickey & Sylvia.
“Milestones” by Miles Davis is the 829th entry in my top 1000 songs. There is no hierarchy in this top 1000 list. It’s like a giant mixtape you can put on shuffle.
829 songs (six years in the making; i.e. compiling) account for about fifty hours of music. When finished, the list will feature more than 58 hours of music. The average song length in my calculations is three minutes and a half.
It appears that the introduction of sound film coincides with the drafting of the Production Code. Did sound pose a threat more than imagery? Or was it the combination of sound and image that finally saw film evolving from a mere sideshow attraction to a genuine and ‘real’ mode of fiction consumption?
I remember a scene in Duck Soup where the Marx Brothers poke fun at the Production Code by showing a woman’s bedroom and then showing a woman’s shoes on the floor, a man’s shoes and horseshoes. Harpo is sleeping in the bed with a horse; the woman is in the twin bed next to them.
