This vibrantly beautiful French film, about two seventeenth-century composers who played the viol (cello), toys cleverly with history in the manner of Amadeus. Gerard Depardieu stars as Marin Marais, a dissolute musician looking back on his youth. The teen Marais — the actor's son, Guillaume Depardieu, is sensational in his first screen role — studies with a stern and reclusive master, Sainte Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle). Seduced by the glamour of the king's court, the ambitious student ultimately rejects Sainte Colombe's discipline and his daughter (Anne Brochet). Though the film is strikingly directed by Alain Corneau, who draws superb performances, it's the music — hauntingly played by Jordi Savall — that gives wings to this rueful tale of art, love and loss.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.