While much of Anthony Moore's earlier work is pleasant yet dispensable, 1979's Flying Doesn't Help falls into a different class altogether. Elaborate yet accessible, the effects of More's (now minus one "o") masterwork can be felt on a number of levels. The opening track, a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story called "Judy Get Down," is "Lady Madonna" for a new generation, both in its playful use of double entendres and in its unfailing Beatlesque melodicism. The songs that follow run the gamut from mordant to mischievous to desolate. More manufactures a musical landscape that is starkly beautiful, emotionally charged, and a tad dangerous, not unlike the best of John Cale's solo material. [In 2012 the Floating World label paired Flying Doesn't Help with an alternate version of Moore's 1981 follow-up, World Service, in a two-disc set.] ~ Michael Jourdan

Rovi