Rock's Big Questions

The world's greatest closers: Finishing the argument with a can't-miss list ofalbum enders

Aeroplane over the sea is one of my favorite albums of all time — and itfinishes on the sublime.
The Who have always known how to close.
Rain Dogs is Tom Wait' finest moment and he saves the best for last.
Want to discover some great unknown music? Check out the Tindersticks andparticularly the wooden-laden come-down on their debut album.

Editor's note: This is a new feature where Douglas Newman and Jim Beviglia, two of CultureMap's music writers, tackle rock's big questions in a spirited dialogue where no feelings are spared. This edition is Douglas' rebuttal to Jim's article on the best closing tracks of all time.

We encourage you, fair reader, to join the fray by leaving your own arguments and rebuttals in the comments.

Kudos Jim for your varied and unpredictable list! "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy is an inspired choice and "Waterloo Sunset" was lurking around my brain as I compiled my selections. It's a perfect pop song that could have easily become a standard. Ray Davies is a songwriting god.

Thanks for teeing up some of the obvious ones, although you'll notice that I didn't fully take the bait. Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland" (from Born to Run) was just too obvious and I've always preferred the Kinks to the Beatles, so I also skipped over "A Day in the Life" from Sgt. Pepper's.

One of the Fab Four did manage to make my short list, though. I couldn't resist the Dylan trap and was happy to wrestle with choosing his ultimate closer. I could have easily made a solid case for "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" (from Blonde on Blonde) or "Sara" (from Desire) — both epics inspired by ex-wife Sara Lowndes — but I went with what I would deem his most ambitious song.

While a few of my choices might be considered a tad left of center, on the whole I think it will appeal to most serious music fans and novices alike.

"Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan, from Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

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Dylan closes one of the great albums in history with an "eleven-minute voyage through a Kafkaesque world of gypsies, hoboes, thieves of fire, and historical characters beyond their rightful time," as noted Dylanologist Clinton Heylin describes it.

The fingerpicked Spanish guitar is sublime and Dylan's delivery is hypnotic. Take a listen and you'll find that 11 minutes can pass in a flash.

"God" by John Lennon, from Plastic Ono Band (1970)

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OK, so officially it's not the final "song" on the album, but the 49-second "My Mummy's Dead" doesn't really count in my book. If you overlook this technicality, then "God" does serve as the last proper track on Lennon's searing debut solo record.

With lines like "God is a concept by which we measure our pain" and "I don't believe in Beatles," and "the dream is over," it's obvious that Lennon's wrestling with some mighty demons and that makes for some compelling listening.

"The Last Time I Saw Richard" by Joni Mitchell, from Blue (1971)

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This songs never fails to depress me. The vividness with which Joni revisits a dissolved marriage hits you in the gut, made all the more powerful by the mundanity and resignation that infuse her lyrics.

"Love, Reign o'er Me" by The Who, from Quadrophenia (1974)

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The Who know a thing or two about closing albums on a high. "Won't Get Fooled Again" finished off Who's Next with fist-raising fury and the band's masterpiece, Quadrophenia, is wrapped up with the emotional bombast of "Love, Reign o'er Me."

"Radio, Radio" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, from This Year's Model (US Version) (1978)

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A blistering indictment of the radio and recording industries, “Radio Radio” features some of Costello’s most biting lyrics, all set to a furious new wave workout by the singer’s newly minted backing band, the Attractions. Costello spits his turns of phrase in rapid fire with inspiring results: “You either shut up or get cut up, they don’t wanna hear about it/It’s only inches on the reel-to-reel/And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools/Tryin’ to anaesthetise the way that you feel.”

This Year’s Model is an astonishing achievement, an album full of amphetamine-fueled nuggets with no filler.

"Anywhere I Lay My Head" by Tom Waits, from Rain Dogs (1987)

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Rain Dogs is perhaps Tom Waits’ finest moment, an ambitious album of jarring songs that seer themselves into your brain upon first listen. Featuring angular rhythms, clanging percussion, amazing fretwork from guitarist Marc Ribot, and Waits’ gravely howl, Rain Dogs is a surreal joy ride through the inner workings of the songwriter’s twisted mind.

On “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” the album’s final track, Waits is accompanied by a Farfisa organ and a brass section as he explains to the listener his change in fortune. The song then shifts into an uptempo classic New Orleans style brass band romp to take us out.

"Tower of Song" by Leonard Cohen, from I'm Your Man (1988)

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Cohen grapples with the calling to his musical craft in this charming track of the 1988 tour-de-force, I'm Your Man. It finds the musician/poet explaining how he has no choice but to sing, as if the gods have chosen his destiny: "I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice/And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond/They tied me to this table right here/In the Tower of Song."

Notice the sly humor in Cohen's choice of words. Golden voice?

"The Not Knowing" by Tindersticks, from Tindersticks I (1993)

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I implore anybody who's up for discovering some unfamiliar music to seek out Tinderstick's sublime debut. The English band boasts a remarkably consistent catalog in a career now 17 years deep, but its first offering is, as one critic gushed, a "chamber pop masterpiece of romantic elegance and gutter debauchery."

Tindersticks bring the dark, dank and emotionally wrenching musical exercise to a close with this elegant woodwind-laden come-down. It's the perfect end to a perfect record.

"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" by Radiohead, from The Bends (1995)

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The Bends signaled the true arrival of Radiohead as one of the planet’s most promising bands, a distinction the band would achieve in spades in the following years. The final track of the album is the beautiful ballad “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” with its spellbinding repetitive guitar arpeggio and Thom Yorke’s inspired vocal wail.

The final lines of the album is also a quintessential closer, “All these things we’ll one day swallow whole/And fade out again and fade out again/Immerse your soul in love.”

"Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2" by Neutral Milk Hotel, from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)

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One of my favorite albums of all time, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a song-cycle of astounding beauty, depth and originality. Fuzz guitar, organ, singing saw, accordion, trumpet, Uilleann pipes, euphonium, and Jeff Mangum’s unaffected voice and surreal lyrics mesh to form a kaleidescopic head trip.

The record’s final track, “Two Headed Boy Pt. 2,” opens with a bowed saw intro and segues into a lyrically dense ballad featuring just an acoustic guitar and Magnum’s voice. A sublime ending to a breathtaking album.

The first article in this debate:

For Closers only: Great finishing songs that demand rock recognition

Movie Review

Reminders of Him taps into grief, grace, and the power of moving on

Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers in Reminders of HIm

Photo by Michelle Faye / Universal Pictures

Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers in Reminders of HIm.

Texas author Colleen Hoover has gone from being a popular writer to a full-on celebrity in the 2020s. The new film Reminders of Him marks the third adaptation of her books in just 19 months (a fourth, Verity, is scheduled for release in October 2026). All of her books that have been adapted so far — most notably It Ends With Us — are female-led stories that feature elements of romance and trauma, catnip for studios looking to appeal to the underserved demographic of women.

Leading the way in this film is Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe), who returns to her hometown of Laramie, Wyoming after spending years in prison for killing her boyfriend, Scotty (Rudy Pankow), in a car accident. That relationship resulted in a daughter, Diem (Zoe Kosovic), whom Kenna gave birth to while imprisoned and is now being raised by her grandparents, Patrick (Bradley Whitford) and Grace (Lauren Graham).

Yearning to be a part of Diem’s life, Kenna tries to reconnect with Patrick and Grace, only to be rebuffed by Scotty’s best friend, Ledger (Tyriq Withers), a former NFL player who now owns a local bar. In running interference, Ledger starts to become closer to Kenna, discovering that her tragic mistake shouldn’t be the only thing that defines her.

Directed by Vanessa Caswill and written by Lauren Levine, the film features mostly surface level examinations of its themes and average performances, yet it winds up being effective thanks to a willingness not to rush through its storytelling beats. The filmmakers take the slow and steady approach toward the coupling of Kenna and Ledger, setting up their bond through a series of heart-to-heart conversations that makes any romance feel earned.

The majority of the focus is on Kenna reclaiming her place in the world, and on Ledger coming to terms with the fact that the person who killed his best friend is not inherently a bad person. The film definitely could have gone deeper in its explorations of grief and anger, but the sheer amount of time it takes in addressing the characters’ doubts and fears turns out to be sufficient for a film that’s not aiming to be considered a dramatic masterpiece.

It also helps that Caswill and Levine do a solid job of establishing the variety of characters that inhabit the film. Kenna and Ledger don’t always feel like fully-formed people, but they become so through their interactions with each other and the other townspeople. Lady Diana (Monika Myers), a girl with Down syndrome who lives in Kenna’s apartment complex, and Roman (Nicholas Duvernay), Ledger’s co-worker at his bar, help to broaden the appeal of the two leads.

Monroe has, to this point, been best known for starring roles in horror films like It Follows and Longlegs. While she does somewhat well in this role, her delivery is often more flat than you’d expect for a character going through what she does. Withers thankfully doesn’t remind viewers of his recent bomb Him, demonstrating a crossover appeal that should serve him well in the future. Whitford and Graham don’t get to do much, but their combined experience gives their roles exactly what is needed.

It may sound like damning with faint praise, but Reminders of Him is a competently made film that knows how to serve its core audience without insulting anyone who may not automatically be all-in for such a story. The filmmakers don’t try to force any of the key moments down the audience’s throat, and that stands out in a genre that’s not always known for its subtlety.

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Reminders of Him opens in theaters on March 13.

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