While much of 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. – Michael Jourdan