When I’m looking for a neo noir life soundtrack to start off the new year I usually reach for a film score that shows up somewhere between James Caan’s John Wayne pictures and his cocaine fueled Hollywood burnout days. So it’s a good thing that in 1981 he starred in Michael Mann’s first film Thief, a caper flick about professional safe crackers. And it’s even better that Tangerine Dream scored the whole thing – that way whether no matter which dystopian metropolis I find myself in next year I’ll always have the right music to escape to.