B-Sides + Guest Spots

Beyonce is a national treasure. She’s not someone who requires a critical or commercial reappraisal. She’s had her missteps here and there, but we’ve all known since near the beginning that she possesses a gift that’s nearly unparalleled in modern R&B. So it makes sense that her b-sides and deep album cuts are going to be great. Al Shipley, from the blog Narrowcast, provides a really great overview of the highpoints. It’s a fun playlist that takes a reveals special moments from a very known commodity.

Frank Ocean is a great artist, but not a particularly gifted vocalist, at least not in the traditional sense. His range is rather limited, his phrasing is straightforward and voice is somewhat generic. His power lies in the risks he takes, as a musician, songwriter, and as a personality. There are few albums of the past decade as adventurous as Channel Orange, and there have been few celebrities who’ve navigated the media machine as seamlessly and eloquently as Ocean. Stripped of the context of his own music, his guest turns work best when he’s allowed to be himself; either in the prickly politics of “Church in the Wild” or on the laconic, SoCal anthem “Sunday.”

Missy is easily one of hip-hop’s most innovative talents. Her and Timbaland’s production effectively globalized the genre, and she’s always been underrated as a rapper -- she mined the space between singer and rapper a good decade before Drake got there. Some albums are better than others, but she never fell off, and it’s a travesty that she hasn’t released one in over a decade. Although her singles are epochal, she’s much more than a singles artist, and she’s the latest in Al Shipley’s amazing “deep cuts” series.

Anderson.Paak is a hip-hop renaissance man. When I first saw him at SXSW in the spring of 2016, he would veer between singing, dancing, playing drums, and rapping, often within the span of a few minutes. At that festival, he was seemingly everywhere -- I saw him at least five times over the course of four days -- and he was also indefatigable. His debut album, Malibu was quickly rising the charts, and he was easily the most buzzed about rapper there. This playlist collects his appearance on other people’s tracks. His raspy, slightly nasally voice fits well with both the robust, electro-powered production of TOKiMONSTA and KAYTRANADA and the skeleton lo-fi soul of Blended Babies. It’s a really compelling collection, and an introduction to both the breadth of his talent and some of the better West Coast underground musicians of the past few years,

Khalif “Swae Lee” Brown and Aaquil “Slim Jxmmi” Brown were an unknown pair of brothers from Tupelo, Mississippi, when they caught the attention of Atlanta super producer Mike WiLL Made It. He signed the duo to his Ear Drummers label, and flipped the company’s name backwards to dub their group Rae Sremmurd. They were soon off to the races with a smash debut single, “No Flex Zone,” that was remixed by Nicki Minaj and Pusha T, and have been rubbing elbows with major stars regularly ever since. They’ve assisted on singles by Wiz Khalifa and Ty Dolla $ign and branched out into EDM with Baauer and Dillon Francis. And Swae Lee has become in demand as a writer, notching credits on songs by Gucci Mane and even Beyonce.

For fans of R&B ballads, the supersized emotions, frequent vocal gymnastics, and production maximalism can seem to be the most direct window to the artists’ inner life, revealing some deeper vulnerability or emotional longings that the more uptempo tracks generally ignore. Beyoncé, being Beyoncé, does this better than most. This Spotify playlist, from KH Bionic Chiu, is one in a series of pop star ballad playlists. The track selection is solid, even if there’s very real rhythm to the selections and the inclusion of the Luther Vandross so close to the top of the list is a curveball. Usually these type of playlist front-load the hits and get around to the collaborations, and, here, a track like “Best Thing I Never Had” doesn’t appear until we’re over a dozen tracks into the playlist. -- Sam Chennault

Subscribe to the Spotify playlist right here.Tom Waits has not only one of the most distinct voices of all folk-rock crooners, he also has one of the most nuanced and studied approaches to narrative and musical accompaniment of any modern songwriter. His gravelly, whiskey-soaked voice, one whose every forlorn syllable bears witness to a lifetime of tragic loss, conjures somber and lamenting narratives almost effortlessly and constructs unmistakably American stories with vivid language and crushing pathos. The content he takes up, which ranges from hobo adagios and flower funerals to tearful reflections on missed opportunities, moves even the most stoic of listeners. His relatable melodies and his jazz- and blues-flavored progressions and cadences meld into a strange and unmatched sound—one of a singular, time-worn voice gliding sympathetically above 88 melancholy black and white keys, ever-searching for the heart of Saturday night.

We here at The Dowsers adapted this playlist from Marshall Bowden’s “10 Great Forgotten Bob Dylan Tracks,” a listicle the writer put together for Paste magazine. Admittedly, the word “forgotten” is overstatement. Seeing as how Dylan is one the most analyzed artists in the history of recorded music, there simply isn’t a whole lot in his catalog that hasn’t been obsessively chronicled. Headline hyperbole notwithstanding, Bowden proves a knowledgeable fan with a sharp ear for minor gems. There are no missteps here. Each and every cut succeeds in helping paint a fuller picture of the icon’s vision. If you’re a Dylan fan looking to move beyond his classic albums and songs, this playlist will make a great guide into the deep end.

He may be one of R&B’s smoothest crossover stars of the last two decades, but Usher has always kept a foot in hip hop. Whether he’s collaborating with his mentors Diddy and Jermaine Dupri, making a political statement with Nas, or providing hooks for hits by Wale and DJ Khaled, Usher has often rubbed elbows with rap’s elite, even earning the nickname “Ursher” from Ludacris. Guest verses by Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross have powered his later hits, and Atlanta rappers like Jeezy and Young Thug have often turned up to help Usher represent his hometown. And hip-hop producers like Lil Jon, Just Blaze and Polow Da Don have provided the beats for some of his greatest songs. -- Al Shipley

Springsteen believes deeply in the power of faith and overcoming, and many of his songs embody these messages. Built on the ruins of unspeakable tragedies, much of his music sees heroic protagonists escaping desolate conditions, leaving bad relationships, and coming to terms with the despair of their everyday lives. In the timeless, anthemic “No Surrender,” a duo of protagonists remind each other to give themselves up to the thrill of being alive and feelin’ it, to bailing out of school with virtue in their hearts and rock n’ roll at the foreground. His late-career powerhouse “We Take Care of Our Own” holds a fist up in national solidarity, submitting that nobody fights alone when they’re on American soil. For The Boss, unbounded optimism and raging passion are the formula for overcoming the overwhelming suffering embedded in contemporary life.