It’s time for another installment of the Decades series, which will eventually have me covering notable albums from every year between 1970 and 2009. Forty years, somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 albums. Wow.

I’ve made it through the first seven years of each decade so far. Twenty-eight years down, 12 to go. Over the next several weeks I’ll be covering the year 1977, first counting down my 10 favorites before covering albums that are new to me.

Kicking things off is the fifth album by living legend Randy Newman.

#10 – Little Criminals – Randy Newman

By all rights, this album should be higher on the list. It’s a Randy Newman album, after all. But I confess that I’m very unfamiliar with this recording, less so than anything else in his catalog, so I couldn’t bump it up the list in good faith.

I know opening single ‘Short People,’ of course, the unexpected hit that made it all the way to #2 on the Hot 100. It’s the only Newman-performed song to make it into the top 50, and it helped make Little Criminals his best-selling album.

Newman wasn’t a big fan of the cutely satirical track, as it caused him plenty of heartache from people who misunderstood it. But it probably made him a pretty penny.

The rest of the album is a lot gentler, more in the vein of 12 Songs or Sail Away. Those are my favorite Newman albums, so this one is right up my alley.

Standout tracks include ‘Baltimore,’ ‘I’ll Be Home,’ ‘In Germany Before the War,’ and the title track. I also really enjoy ‘Rider in the Rain,’ a pleasant little country western detour that features the Eagles on backing vocals.

Newman has released only six more albums in the nearly 50 years since this one came out (setting aside his plentiful movie soundtrack work). I sure wish one of our greatest songwriters was more prolific.