The borders around whatever constitutes country music were awfully loosey-goosey long before hick-hop was a thing. Everyone from the original hillbilly and rockabilly cats of the ‘50s through the Californian hippies of the ‘60s to the outlaws of the ‘70s all stepped back and forth along the genre’s boundaries in their own music. In the ‘90s and beyond, country artists began to reach across the proverbial aisle to their brethren and sistren in the rock and hip-hop worlds. Of course, the crossovers flourished in the other direction as well, with former rock-world types like Kid Rock and Hootie & The Blowfish’s Darius Rucker finding warm homes on the state-fair circuit. Those traditional distinctions have never seemed as blurry as they do today, in an age when even the most seemingly unlikely cross-genre matchups—whether it’s Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg or Carrie Underwood and Ludacris—hardly raise an eyebrow. The success of Uncle Kracker is a big reason why country got to be such a broad church (and sometimes a weird and wild one, too).Uncle Kracker’s buddy and former employer Kid Rock may have busted the field wide open with his redneck-MC routine on 1998’s “Cowboy,” but Uncle Kracker’s own pair of smashes with “Follow Me” and “Drift Away” in the early 2000s may have been even more influential. Here was a sound that somehow spiked a down-home and eminently country brand of mellow with the brasher edge of hip-hop. Around the same time, a scrappy Timbaland protégé by the name of Bubba Sparxxx was scoring hits with rawer variations on this new hybrid.You might expect that artists in the country world would not take too kindly to these incursions into their traditional terrain. But if anything, it was a cue for them to get bolder, too. The swagger brandished by superstar duo Big & Rich suggested a greater kinship to Jay-Z than with any old-timers at the Grand Ole Opry. Hell, Big & Rich even have their own Wu-Tang-like posse in MuzikMafia, a loose collective that has dominated country music for much of the century thanks to the duo’s own hits and those of friends and sometime collaborators like Gretchen Wilson and hick-hop icon Cowboy Troy. Given that overall spike in badass attitude, the rise of bro-country stars like Jason Aldean and a new wave of proudly redneck MCs like Colt Ford and Upchurch was inevitable.So where this kind of hybridization still seemed like a novelty in 2004 when Nelly and Tim McGraw delivered “Over and Over”—still the quintessential country-rap slow-jam—it’s now a testament to the fact that American popular music might as well be one giant purple state. And Uncle Kracker helped make it all possible, which is why he belongs in this playlist of essential songs and artists that forced open the rusty gates of country music’s corral.

It’s that time of year again when shop windows fill with red-and-green dioramas, city sidewalks bristle with shopping bags and sharp elbows, and the pressure to reach strictly enforced levels of good cheer can turn the season into one giant, holly-covered bummer. Sometimes it can feel like there’s just no eggnog strong enough to take the edge off.That’s why it’s so nice to have music that understands how you may feel (or not feel) about the whole holiday thing. For every unwelcome tiding of joy, there’s another song that captures the melancholy side of the season, the alienation felt by anyone whose experience of the holidays doesn’t align with a rosy fantasy of cozy contentment as spun by Hallmark Christmas TV movies and radio stations that cruelly play nothing but “Joy to the World” 24 hours a day.Perhaps the most lovably caustic of the holiday-themed classics, “Fairytale of New York” is an especially valuable counterpoint to all that. First released a few weeks before Christmas of 1987 and later included on the Celtic folk-punk faves’ third album, If I Should Fall From Grace With God, the classic song united The Pogues with their friend Kirsty MacColl for a tale of star-crossed lovers whose romance began on a more hopeful note “on a cold Christmas Eve” only to shatter like an ornament dropped from a great height. Singer and co-writer Shane MacGowan casts himself as a wreck reminiscing about good and bad times while spending the big night in a Big Apple drunk tank. MacColl appears as the voice of the other half of this romantic calamity. Hard words are exchanged (a few of them too hard for some stations), and God only knows what misdeeds could’ve inspired lines like “Happy Christmas your arse, I hope it’s our last.”As rancorous as the song may be — and poignant, too, all the more so after MacColl’s tragic death while on a pre-Christmas holiday in Mexico in 2000 — it’s an accurate snapshot of the big emotions that the season elicits in many of us. In fact, “Fairytale of New York” is full to the brim with the same feelings expressed in the rest of this playlist’s special selection of bittersweet holiday fare.Christmas cheer be damned. Go ahead and revel in the loneliness conveyed by Boyz II Men’s “Cold December Nights,” the unrepentant bleakness of Sufjan Stevens’ “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!” or the dread and despair that fill the full-on Santa-pocalypses described in Johnny Cash’s “Ringing the Bells for Jim” and Nat King Cole’s “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot.” To borrow a phrase by LCD Soundsystem’s endearingly Scrooge-y curmudgeon James Murphy, Christmas can break your heart in oh so many ways.

Santa Claus is a proudly blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who never leaves the house without his black leather boots and who never fails to get the job done in the toughest of circumstances. So when he’s hurtling from house to house with a bunch of amped-up reindeer on a sled full of Hatchimals and Marvel action figures — all traveling at a velocity that would be dangerously reckless on any other night of the year — you can most definitely believe he needs to hear something harder than Michael Bublé to get through his shift.Thankfully, there’s a legion of metal dudes and hard rockers who know that no season is complete without a very different kind of holiday music. They’re responsible for a valuable counter-tradition of Christmas songs, the kind that combines long-loved tidings of joy and fellowship with the sounds of wicked guitar solos, monster riffs, and blast-beats. Twisted Sister, those legends of Long Island-style mayhem, have arguably been the most enthusiastic purveyors of hard-rock holiday action. After all, the band’s reliably frank frontman, Dee Snider, was always quick to fess up that their biggest hit — 1984’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” — was partly inspired by the tune for “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”Snider and his bandmates made the somewhat unlikely connection between the two songs perfectly clear when they opened 2006’s A Twisted Christmas with a rowdier version of the 18th-century carol than you’ll ever hear at midnight mass. Just as much fun are Twisted Sister’s gnarly takes on “White Christmas” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which Snider and Co. revamped to include such rocker-appropriate gifts as skull earrings, quarts of Jack, cans of hairspray and, of course, “a tattoo of Ozzy” in place of the lame-ass partridge. As sacrilegious as they may seem to those who believe the holidays can only be shiny, bright, and holy, Twisted Sister’s assaults on the holiday-music canon actually do something very worthy. They bring the sounds and sentiments of the season into lives and households that may not fit any cookie-cutter conception of seasonal good times.As such, Dee Snider’s tidings get pride of place in this playlist of songs that range from exuberant (Skid Row’s “Jingle Bells,” Cheap Trick’s “Christmas Christmas”) to sinister (Venom’s “Black Christmas,” Apocalyptica’s “Little Drummer Boy”) to irresistibly crashing (Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter,” Kamelot’s “We Three Kings”). All get the job done on a cold winter’s eve lit only by cheap strands of electric lights.

There’s a kid inside of us, no matter how decrepit we get, and the kid inside Tom Waits probably sounds a lot like the one in “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” a highlight of Waits’ gloriously ragged 1992 masterpiece Bone Machine. Given that there’s “nothing out there but sad and gloom” based on what he’s seen in the lives of the adults around him, the world of grown-ups rightly seems unappealing and bewildering. “How do you move in a world of fog that’s always changing things?” he wonders, articulating a dilemma that stymied so many of the hard-luck characters who tell their stories in the hundreds of songs authored by one of American music’s most cherished mavericks.That question is probably still on the man’s mind as he turns 70. We like to imagine him as the coot prospector he played in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, scratching his head and grumbling, “How the hell did that happen?” in that iconic voice, which never seemed as if it could get any raspier but somehow always did.Then again, turning 70 maybe isn’t such a big deal to a guy who tried hard to seem old before his time. When Waits first emerged in the Los Angeles club scene of the early ’70s, his clear devotion to heroes like Jack Kerouac and Thelonious Monk made him seem like a scruffy relic to listeners more hip to Jackson Browne. He styled himself as a piano-playing Charles Bukowski, tickling the ivories as he spun hard-luck tales equal parts miserable and hilarious. (Check out his 1975 live album Nighthawks at the Diner for vivid early evidence of both his storytelling chops and his ability to delight a crowd.)But anyone who figured they had him pegged would be surprised again and again by what followed in the ’80s and beyond. Once Waits found a long-sought sense of personal stability with wife and creative partner Kathleen Brennan, his creative moves grew bolder, starting with 1983’s stunning Swordfishtrombones and continuing with later triumphs like 2004’s Real Gone. The music they contained could be tender and heartbreaking or crazy and chaotic. Whatever the case, it all remained true to his reliably skewed vision of that confusing grown-up world.In the process, he’d honor his own inspirations—Bob Dylan, Harry Partch, Mose Allison, Captain Beefheart—while inspiring countless younger artists who absorbed his profound influence on how great songs get made and sung. To celebrate the occasion of his 70th, here’s a set of 70 Waits essentials and many more songs that show his grubby fingerprints.

There are a variety of theories as to how a Nordic nation of 10 million people and few other notable exports besides IKEA, Volvo, and gummy candies came to thoroughly dominate the global pop marketplace through its formidable arsenal of performers, writers, and producers.Some point to the country’s generous funding for artists and arts education—“I have public music education to thank for everything,” über-producer Max Martin said in 2001. Others credit the model set by ABBA, the Stockholm-formed phenomenon that may be just as big today as it was during the ’70s thanks to Mamma Mia! In his essential book The Song Machine, writer John Seabrook emphasizes the influence of Denniz Pop, the Swede who helped mastermind Ace of Base in the ’90s and mentored Martin and other future hitmakers before dying tragically young. Or maybe—like the Bulls under Jordan and Pippin or Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!—they just love killin’ it.Whatever the reason, the Swedish control of the international charts only intensified through the 2010s, as producers like Martin and Shellback survived the end of the boy-band age they’d owned via their work for *NSYNC and Britney Spears by becoming equally indispensable to new superstars like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. They updated their trusty formula of don’t-bore-us-get-to-the-chorus structures and major keys with the energy rush and dramatic tension of EDM and other elements that added complexity without sacrificing immediacy. Just consider the woozy twists and turns that fill Martin’s production for Ariana Grande’s “Into You” and the reggaetón lilt in Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care”: fresh variations that otherwise deliver those Swedish pop fundamentals with ruthless efficiency.The same drive to innovate is just as clear in the songs by Swedish artists such as Robyn, who began and ended the decade with a pair of heartache-filled masterpieces, and Tove Lo. As for Avicii—a.k.a. Tim Bergling, the DJ and producer who sadly took his own life in 2018—there may be no artist who more successfully bridged the realms of clubland, streaming, and old-school hit radio. The extent of his influence will be felt even more in the decade to come.But as for now, here’s a playlist that shows how those Swedes got it done.

Even though five years separated Tame Impala’s surprise commercial juggernaut Currents and the arrival of the belated follow-up The Slow Rush, it can feel as if Kevin Parker’s gauzy, blissed-out brand of pop-psych-funk never really went away.

One reason is the staying power of Currents marvels like “Let It Happen,” “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” and many others that never left the go-to playlists in nearly every trendy place of business you happened to enter at any time of day or night. Then there was Parker’s stream of beguiling collaborations with pop, hip-hop, and R&B superstars—Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Travis Scott, and Kanye West among them—and Perth pals like Pond, the psych outfit that includes many past and current members of Tame Impala’s live incarnation.

Industrious even when forced to escape from a fire in Malibu while at work on The Slow Rush in late 2018, Parker primed the pump with a series of advance singles, starting with “Patience.” Like the rest of the music that eventually followed, the preview tracks demonstrated Parker’s eagerness to double down on the influences that permeated Currents—especially the keys-forward splendor of ’70s prog-pop inspirations like Supertramp, Wings, and 10cc—while expanding his palette of rhythmic predilections into house, techno, and French Touch. The Hendrixian flair of Tame Impala’s earlier albums is present and accounted for, too.

So here’s a selection that charts the road Parker traveled to The Slow Rush, an album that feels just as likely to become part of the moment (and part of the ether) as its predecessor did.

Photo Credit: Matt Sav

Fancy-pants scientist types with glasses and clipboards have been telling us this for years: Dancing is good for you. Along with improving the condition of your heart, lungs, muscles, bones, and many other bodily bits, it can increase your agility, flexibility, and endurance as well. And then there are the psychological and emotional effects thanks to the release of all those delicious endorphins. Most importantly, dancing can transform you into a stone-cold fox who feels like one, too. And who the hell doesn’t need that right now?

Though we can’t be there to help move your furniture or do anything else that needs to be done to give you the room to move, we can supply this set of supremely fun and funky favorites that will get you up on your feet and ready to channel that cabin fever into a far more positive outlet. You’ve gotta dance like no one’s watching, although if you do feel like getting out on the balcony or the front porch to share with your neighbors, we’re not standing in your way.

Photo Credit: Matthew LeJune on Unsplash

Moses Sumney is the kind of artist who delights in confounding categories. As the California-bred, Asheville, NC-based singer/songwriter recently told Rolling Stone, “When I was conceptualizing as a teenager what kind of artist I wanted to be, I knew I wanted to be soul and folk. Of course, then I grew up, and I was like, ‘Ooh, now I want to do some rock, and indie, and experimental, and jazz, and blah, blah, blah.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait, why do we have labels? Whatever!’”

Whereas his 2017 debut, Aromanticism, inspired many critics to put him at the forefront of a wave of artists redefining R&B, his wildly ambitious follow-up puts him deeper into his own personal gray area—or, to use the new album’s appropriately amorphous title, his area of græ.

The 20-track magnum opus finds him exploring a vast array of musical modes and lyrical themes with uncommon deftness, sensitivity, and imagination. A powerful and beguiling statement of purpose, græ simultaneously confirms Sumney’s uniqueness as an artist and contains pathways to the vast wealth of music that helped form that sensibility. Traces of early heroes like Stevie Wonder, Arthur Russell, and Sufjan Stevens are just as discernible in his sumptuous and spacious songs as the close study he paid to early-’00s masterstrokes by Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake. What’s more, his savvy choices of collaborators on græ—James Blake, Thundercat, Mac DeMarco, and Daniel Lopatin just for starters—are highly suggestive of the kinship he feels with many other contemporary acts operating across the span of electronic music, jazz, indie pop, and oh so much more. Recent collaborations and other points of connection that fill out this playlist makes Sumney’s intentions seem nowhere near as hazy as his music may be.

Photo by Alexander Black

Amid the anxieties of recent times as well as potential concerns about the well-being of musical heroes of a certain vintage, it’s been reassuring to the international community of Sparks fanatics to know that Ron and Russell Mael are weathering things in their customary manner. Along with rave reviews for the Los Angeles-based duo’s new album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, the web has been filling up with the brothers’ stream of quarantine-inspired home videos, including one of Ron showing off his collection of international hand sanitizers.Clearly, this is not how Sparks should have been celebrating their 50th anniversary of crafting irrepressibly witty and wondrous music, but it will have to do. Current circumstances also demonstrate a quality that has long been one of the band’s greatest virtues: an ability to engage with the now—or perhaps 15 minutes beyond it—without ever sacrificing their idiosyncrasies. That’s as true now as it was when the Maels left L.A. to become glam-pop heroes in early-’70s Britain, where their impact was clear on the likes of Queen, who dropped their Zeppelin shtick for a more flamboyant mode not long after they opened for Sparks. It was equally clear when they transformed again, with Giorgio Moroder’s help, to create some of the most effervescent electronic dance pop ever recorded, devising a template for New Order, Duran Duran, The Human League, and many more acolytes.Not that the Maels are much for resting on laurels. Instead, they’ve continually engaged with younger admirers (as they did in FFS, their 2015 team-up with Franz Ferdinand) while releasing new albums that maintain their standards of excellence, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip being another case in point. Their cult may soon see an expansion of their ranks with the pending release of two new movies: Annette, an L.A.-set musical by French director Leos Carax featuring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard singing original Sparks songs, and a documentary about the band by super-fan Edgar Wright.To celebrate the past 50 years of Sparks, we present this set of essential songs by the Maels themselves and many others whose music bears their influence, all to be savored along with the sanitizer of your choice.

Fifty years ago, in a true-life science-fiction story wilder than anything concocted by an Area 51 conspiracy nut, a neon-colored interplanetary vessel lifted off of a top-secret launchpad somewhere in Michigan. Of course, the P-Funk Mothership only existed as an LSD-induced pipe dream back in 1970—it took a few years before audiences got to see George Clinton’s Afrofuturist UFO in all its cosmic glory at halls, stadiums, and arenas around the world. (Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture can still check out a 1990s-vintage rebuilt version.)But Clinton’s almighty vision of psychedelically charged funk and soul was already soaring sky-high, judging by the first three long-players—Funkadelic and Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow by Funkadelic; Osmium by its twin enterprise Parliament—to emerge from his ever-more-sprawling P-Funk collective at the beginning of the ’70s. The surreal and exhilarating contents of those albums and the many that followed would ultimately comprise one of the most inspiring and influential bodies of American music ever made.They’d also prove to be a seemingly limitless resource for several generations of musicians, producers, DJs, and anyone else who ever saw fit to sample the grooves, riffs, beats, and assorted whatnot concocted by Clinton and such pivotal P-Funk collaborators as bassists Bootsy Collins and Cordell “Boogie” Mosson, guitarists Eddie Hazel and Garry Shider, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, drummer Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey, and the Horny Horns. Indeed, P-Funk’s importance in the history and development of hip-hop is incalculable, the Mothership Connection being the force that binds iconic jams by Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, and EPMD to the best of Dr. Dre’s G-funk era to modern-day journeys into parts unknown by Kendrick Lamar. Here’s a set of essential tracks by rocket-powered travelers in the universe that Clinton created.