Masterpiece

  • Nothing was revealed

    A new book about Bob Dylan's masterpiece, "Blood on the Tracks," fusses over the details while missing the story.
    By Steven Hart April 27, 2004

  • "12 Monkeys"

    Combining time-travel thriller and experimental film, Terry Gilliam's 1995 oddball classic steals a tale of doomed love and cruel fate from Hitchcock -- then pays back the debt.
    By Virginia Vitzthum August 19, 2002

  • Air Jordans

    What changed leisure footwear forever and created the wonderful, hideous behemoth of contemporary consumer culture? It's gotta be da shoes.
    By Damien Cave August 5, 2002

  • The James Bond title sequences

    Maurice Binder's gorgeous, abstract, erotic openings to the classic 007 films captured the '60s pop revolution in its purest form.
    By Charles Taylor July 29, 2002

  • "You Really Got Me"

    Desperate for a hit in 1964, an obscure band named the Kinks slashed up a cheap guitar amp with a razor blade. The rest was history.
    By Charlotte Robinson July 23, 2002

  • Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World"

    In this artistic and technological breakthrough -- today almost impossible to find -- the sinewy French explorer took us all into unknown depths.
    By Greg Rubinson July 15, 2002

  • "Songs for Swingin' Lovers"

    Beyond the magnificent late-night gloom (and the bombast of "My Way") you'll find Frank Sinatra's finger-poppin' classic, a joyous exploration of rhythmic invention.
    By Charles Taylor July 8, 2002

  • "Joy of Cooking"

    Irma Rombauer might have been a terrible cook, but her elegant instruction manual belongs in every kitchen.
    By Douglas Wolk July 1, 2002

  • "More Songs About Buildings and Food"

    It's 1978, and a band of Manhattan art-school geeks called Talking Heads teams with Brian Eno to produce the funkiest nervous-breakdown record ever made.
    By Paul A. Toth June 24, 2002

  • Pac-Man

    With its canary-yellow Everyblob hero, its masterfully simple design and its abstract realm where even death was a cheerful event, Pac-Man brought video gaming out of the bars and into the malls.
    By Chris Green June 17, 2002

  • Kieslowski's "Three Colors"

    Just when it seemed that European cinema had become fossilized, the great Polish director created the slickest -- and loveliest -- concept album in art-film history.
    By Jonathan Kiefer June 10, 2002

  • "Fight the Power"

    Public Enemy's explosive 1989 hit single brought hip-hop to the mainstream -- and brought revolutionary anger back to pop.
    By Laura K. Warrell June 3, 2002

  • "Star Wars"

    Who cares about "Attack of the Clones"? After reinventing popcorn cinema with his giddy space western, George Lucas can do whatever he wants.
    By Brian Libby May 28, 2002

  • "Dark Shadows"

    Years before Buffy, Angel and Anne Rice, this ultra-cheapo Gothic soap opera entranced a generation with soulful vampires, werewolves and lost love.
    By Joyce Millman May 20, 2002

  • Manet's "Olympia"

    With a single shocking canvas depicting a prostitute in repose, Édouard Manet ushered in the brave nude world of modern art.
    By Mary Elizabeth Williams May 13, 2002

  • "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"

    Thirty years before "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" the scruffy hippies of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band persuaded skeptical country legends to join them in the studio -- and created bluegrass' greatest moment.
    By Miriam Pace May 6, 2002

  • The Holiday Inn sign

    Exploding with color, optimism and razzle-dazzle, the now-extinct Holiday Inn "Great Sign" was a true design landmark of the American century.
    By Andrew Nelson April 29, 2002

  • Brady's portrait of Grant

    On a June afternoon in 1864, Mathew Brady invented candid portrait photography -- and changed our vision of American masculinity.
    By Jeff Galipeaux April 22, 2002

  • "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

    Was Nirvana's angry, culture-shifting 1991 anthem really a revolution? Maybe not. But it changed my life.
    By Jamie Allen April 15, 2002

  • "The Outer Limits"

    "We control the vertical. We control the horizontal." The creepiest series in TV history combined existential inquiry with a memorable monster menagerie.
    By Mark Holcomb April 8, 2002

  • Barry Bonds' 2001 season

    Many baseball fans will never adore the San Francisco Giants' moody superstar. But en route to perhaps the greatest individual season in the sport's history, Bonds emerged as the wounded hero of a wounded nation.
    By Joan Walsh April 1, 2002

  • Philip Roth: The Zuckerman books

    Over 21 years, eight novels and 2,200 pages, the titan of American writing has published the most ambitious literary series of our time.
    By Ken Gordon March 26, 2002

  • "Jesus Christ Superstar"

    Andrew Lloyd Webber's much-mocked rock opera is actually a classic work of '70s spiritual exploration -- and besides, Our Lord is hot.
    By Julene Snyder March 19, 2002

  • "Sign O' the Times"

    Part '80s musical retrospective, part angry social document and all booty-thumping housequake, Prince's 1987 classic stands as pop's last great double album.
    By Bomani Jones March 11, 2002

  • Masterpiece: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

    With music and mind-blowing visuals, Stanley Kubrick created a wildly popular avant-garde film that asked all of the biggest questions -- without venturing any easy answers.
    By Brian Libby March 5, 2002
Page 1 of 2  oldest ⇒
Salon Directory › m › Masterpiece (33 stories)

From Salon's blogs