The Flaming Lips may be one of the few mainstream crossover acts whose latter-day material is actually even crazier than their early work. Over the course of their 30-plus year career as a psychedelic-pop mainstay, the Lips have maintained an inspiring ethos of consistently challenging themselves to never stay in one place for too long. In the field of psychedelic rock, phaser-pedal effects and guitar solos are so often used as shorthands for mind-expanding, reality-altering music. So it’s refreshing that Wayne Coyne and friends have found so many ways to work within that Technicolor playing field while constantly pushing its boundaries and reconfiguring the rulebook.At the outset of their career, The Flaming Lips wore their Oklahoma roots with pride, fusing a joyous cowpunk silliness with their LSD-fried noise rock freakouts. But it didn’t take long for major labels to see them as potential beneficiaries of the early ’90s alt-rock boom, and once the Lips signed to Warner Bros., they took to their expanded studio capabilities with glee. Albums like Transmissions From The Satellite Heart—which spawned the surprise hit single “She Don’t Use Jelly”—and Clouds Taste Metallic bear the same garagey feel as their earliest work, but with a newfound sense of instrumental chaos, as fuzzed-out bass guitars and crashing drums led the way for Coyne’s childlike tales of animals and Christmas. But the band took things to the next level with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin, an orchestral, Brian Wilson-style studio masterpiece that left the rock-band format behind for a layered collection of sonic experiments and celebratory declarations of life.As the Lips pushed into the ‘00s, they continued to work within this studio-sculpted realm on records like Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots before completely throwing that approach out the window with the loose, jammy 2009 LP, Embryonic. A dark, unsettling collection of minimal, rhythmic, but heavy songs, Embryonic shot a jolt of energy into the band’s seemingly complete major-label success, paving the way for even more radical visions from the group. Since that album, the Lips have continued to evolve, experimenting with longer, more improvisational songs (some lasting as long as 24 hours!), and exploring the moodier side of their sound with instrumental-leaning albums like The Terror and Oczy Mldoy.Where The Flaming Lips will go from here is anyone’s guess. For most bands, scoring a beloved ‘90s hit and signing to a major label is excuse enough to call it a day and spend the rest of your life playing reunion tours. But The Flaming Lips are too restless for that, too bursting with imagination and cosmic sounds—a rock band as experimental as they are pop. Their sound is a difficult beast to summarize, but with this mix we’ve attempted to illustrate what a colorful, slowly unfolding path the band has taken over the years. Strap in, and keep your eyes to the stars.

Few artists have embodied the sound and ethos of their entire genre the way Miles Davis did with jazz. When Davis’ career began, even the shift from the uppity early 20th-century sounds of bebop to the laid-back tones of cool jazz was considered a highly controversial move, yet by the end of his life, he was leading his band into 30-plus-minute psychedelic freefalls, pushing the genre ever onwards into the future while taking inspiration from whatever styles suited his fancy. Even his most relaxed-sounding work bears all the creative energy of a true maverick, and his powerful visions of what jazz could be endure in their vividness even today.As an emerging voice on Manhattan’s mid-’40s bebop scene, Davis originally distinguished himself with his smooth, minimal style of trumpet playing—ironic, given how bold his ventures into jazz would become. His first major stylistic shift came with his development of cool jazz, embodied most famously on the 1957 album Birth Of The Cool, a compilation of sessions dating back to 1949-50. But even this sound wouldn’t contain Davis for long—by the end of the ‘50s, he had become a firm collaborator with big-band arranger Gil Evans, recording a number of orchestral jazz masterpieces such as Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain, as well as the defining document of modal jazz (and possibly jazz in general), Kind of Blue.From here, Davis would only push the limits of his craft even further, and the loose, hard-to-define post-bop sounds of albums like Miles Smiles and Nefertiti would eventually bloom into the electric, rock-fueled incantations of In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, two albums that ushered Davis into the ‘70s completely unbeholden to any notions of traditionalism or boundaries. As Davis’ arrangements and performances became increasingly frenzied (see the amorphous funk of On The Corner or the free-flowing fusion of Agharta), his health started to decline as well, which resulted in a hiatus that lasted until the ‘80s, upon which Davis returned for a final string of records powered by synths and drum machines (including the rap-crossover Doo-Bop) before passing in 1991.The mark that Davis has left on music is staggering. His reflections of jazz are both tender and enigmatic in equal measure, and tackling his entire career is no small feat. But to explore the music of Miles Davis is to understand the shifting state of culture in America, to see the ways in which our borders have materialized and dissolved as time has marched on, and to understand how the unleashed insanity of a later album like 1977’s Dark Magus can secretly be brewing under the stately calm of early work like Milestones all along. Davis’ career may be daunting, but the beauty of it is that there is no wrong place to start—no matter where one decides to pick up the thread, there are countless revelations to be found.

At the turn of the millennium, it seemed unlikely that an aging record nerd hollering about his favorite bands could possibly become the vessel for an entire angst-ridden generation—but that was before we had Sound of Silver. When James Murphy released his second full-length as LCD Soundsystem 10 years ago, he revealed the deeply sentimental roots behind all the dance-punk chic, the hopelessly melancholic critic who, no matter how many albums he might amass in his enormous collection, still can’t escape the simple truths of getting older and saying goodbye to all your friends. Though their short-lived retirement is now over, with the arrival of their first new album in seven years, it wouldn’t be LCD Soundsystem without gazing longingly towards the past. So we’ve taken the occasion to unpack James Murphy’s shining moment, the weepy behemoth of a dance record that is Sound of Silver.Murphy’s influences are as vast as they are easily traceable (all one has to do is look up the lyrics to the climactic band-listing outburst of “Losing My Edge”), yet the real magic of the album is how confidently it inhabits its own skin, effortlessly mixing the mechanic rhythms of Kraftwerk, the starry-eyed synth-punk of New Order, and the reckless rock worship of Lou Reed into something as comfortable in the club as it is at home on a turntable. Its endlessly looping electronics nod to the simple majesty of Detroit techno as well as the prickly brain-funk of the Talking Heads, yet what’s fascinating about Murphy is the way that he turns his love of these disparate artists into his own defining quality. LCD Soundsystem is a band of fanboys and fangirls playing for devotees of their own, celebrating the act of loving music and creating something entirely theirs in the process. Sound of Silver was the moment where Murphy’s band ceased to be a loving tribute to the many shapes of punk and New Wave, and became a fully-armed dance unit for the 21st century. Without further ado, we present our mix of the many sounds the fuelled one of our era’s most distinguishing voices.

How Björk managed to become such a powerful force in mainstream pop culture is one of the great unexplainable mysteries of our time. Over the course of her 40-plus-year career making music, Björk has epitomized the ideal of the free-spirited artist, taking her work wherever her muse may lead it without bending to the will of commercial trends or mass-market crowd pleasing. And yet she is one of the most distinct, consistently celebrated voices of the turn of the millennium, a pop-art maven whose work is difficult to even put into words, and yet whose sense of emotion and sonic innovation is unmistakable.Part of Björk’s rise to stardom can certainly be attributed to the wonderfully eccentric music videos she deployed with the help of directors like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze right as she was emerging as a solo artist. The early ‘90s very well may have been the right place and the right time for weirdos like Björk (and Radiohead and Aphex Twin) to shimmy their way into the mainstream via MTV, even if, in Björk’s case, her videos were always more popular than her singles (at least in the U.S.). Not that that ever slowed her stride; tracing the evolution of Björk’s work, her earliest material is probably the most accessible music she ever made, her albums becoming more mutated and surreal with each release while always remaining a present and powerful locus of the cultural moment.To say that Björk is an acquired taste would be an understatement, and that’s exactly how her music should be. Between her uncannily raw voice, her assorted spread of disorienting producers and collaborators, and her childlike commentaries on love and sexuality, Björk’s work is about as confrontational and avant-garde as it gets, only magnified to a level of public consciousness that few artists ever achieve. Whether you’re a curious newcomer unfamiliar to her strange world or a hyper-fan just seeking some nourishment, we’re here to break down Björk’s music into something that almost resembles common sense.

FIRST STEPS

Björk’s major breakthrough as a solo artist in the ‘90s largely fit in with certain sonic trends of the era. House music, trip-hop, and an umbrella sense of “alternative” were all having their moment, and these sounds largely informed the surreal dance pop of Debut and Post. “Army of Me,” with its Led Zeppelin-sampling backbeat and grimy production (courtesy of 808 State’s Graham Massey), sounds like a Portishead song that’s been set on fire, and these influences would carry through even to her modern work. Tracks like “Joga” and “Pagan Poetry” stir dark electronics with an orchestral sense of melody, while “Lionsong” drifts in and out of its beat as Björk delivers a painfully intimate serenade on dissipating love. But lest her sound become too easily categorized as “electronic,” let us not forget the shimmering, theatrical opus that is “It’s Oh So Quiet,” a surprise hit if there ever was one, thanks to its old-school brass-band arrangement and unhinged sense of release.

THE NEXT LEVEL

Part of what’s made Björk’s music so enduring over the years is the way she’s managed to synthesize a plethora of influences into something wholly her own. Take “Where Is The Line,” for example, a highlight off the a capella concept record Medúlla: The track combines a flurry of throaty beatboxing with distorted programming and operatic singing to bizarre effect, creating something otherworldly that still manages to call back to Björk’s early fascination with drum ‘n’ bass. Songs like “Possibly Maybe” and “Cocoon” show off just how atmospheric Björk is capable of being as well, both numbers swelling with deep synthesizer tones and light glitchy effects that contrast with her stark, passionate voice. Her knack for composition shines through as well on songs like “Black Lake” and the film-scoring “Ambergris March,” the former a somber requiem of slowly unfolding strings, the latter a peculiar yet lovely parade of bells and hand drums.

THE DEEP END

Whether she’s teaming up with collaborators or exploring the most extreme recesses of her sound, Björk is anything if not adventurous. Her earliest hit came with the Icelandic jangle-pop group The Sugarcubes, whose song “Birthday” may very well have set the stage for Björk’s massive solo career. Her starring role in Lars Von Trier’s Dancer In The Dark resulted in a soundtrack of original songs as well, with “Cvalda” blurring the line between old Hollywood theatre and skull-crushing factory sounds. But Björk’s primary interest has always been revealing the physical intricacies of the body through otherworldly distortion, whether through the thrashing dance rhythms of “Pluto,” the primal a capella funk of “Triumph of a Heart,” or the echoing siren song of “Storm.” Entering Björk’s unusual sonic world can be unwieldy business, but as alien as it might seem, what’s consistently enthralling about her music is how utterly human it truly is.

On paper, it might not seem like Ariel Pink has achieved anything drastic or revelatory with his lo-fi take on pop music. He’s certainly not the first songwriter to record smeared demo tapes on cheap equipment, or to reinvent AM-radio sounds from the ‘70s and ‘80s for the new millennium, or to tackle sexuality and gender fluidity with a theatrical flair. But it’s the way Pink combines these impulses—infusing his melodies with a terrifying, intensely antisocial sense of longing, and imbuing his ironic sense of humor with legitimate emotional release—that makes his music so insular and universal all at once. The man also has an innate ability for crafting snappy, gratifying songs that worm their way into your head, taking a little bit from every era in musical history while remaining unequivocally on his own trip.Whether he’s updating the vulgar antics of Frank Zappa and Ween for the 21st century, reinterpreting yacht-rock staples like Hall & Oates and Michael McDonald as gothy lords of the underworld, or evoking a Rocky Horror-like delight in sexual freedom and deviance, Ariel Pink is a truly unique voice in pop music, an experimental wizard as avant-garde as he is accessible. Hit play on our mix above to hear just what makes him tick.

One of the most elusive, confrontational, and downright bizarre artists to ever grace the pages of rock history, Frank Zappa staked his entire being on messing with people. To outsiders, his music can seem both needlessly intellectual and disgustingly immature, but beneath all his crude jokes and mind-bogglingly complex compositions lies one of the first true avant-garde composers to make major waves in the rock mainstream. His cynical tirades and knotty arrangements certainly have a way of testing his listeners’ limits, yet the magic of Zappa’s music is how much fun the man clearly had designing his eccentric sounds, fusing the worlds of classical music, rhythm and blues, free-form jazz, and comedy as if they were naturally meant to be together all along.As a young L.A. guitarist gigging in the city’s ‘60s freak scene, Zappa immediately stood out from his contemporaries with his staunch anti-drug stance and utter distaste for the entire flower power movement, backing up his satirical and sarcastic music with daring, genre-defying arrangements and serious instrumental chops. Early releases like Freak Out! (1966) embodied Zappa’s sense of humor, but it wasn’t until 1969’s Uncle Meat and Hot Rats that Zappa began to fully let his compositions run wild, incorporating long sections of free improvisation with performances so coordinated and tight that it’s almost hard to believe people actually played them. Zappa’s early phase reached a zenith with his two most popular records to date, Over-Nite Sensation (1973) and Apostrophe (1974), which mixed his juvenile sensibility with a bluesy take on classic rock, making for surprisingly hooky songs that still felt like one big joke.As Zappa’s career went on, he took every possible opportunity to use his music to express his political ire, none more prominently than the filthy-funk epic Joe’s Garage (1979), which envisioned a world where the government has outlawed music. He continued to approach his music from a more serious angle in his later years, commissioning orchestras to perform his work (as on The Yellow Shark) and even pioneering computer music in the late ‘80s on albums like Jazz From Hell. But even at his most academic and studious, Zappa was never one to keep a straight face. Though he died in 1993 of prostate cancer, his sense of irony and musical dexterity has lived on to this day, inspiring everyone from Ariel Pink to Phish.Zappa’s world is certainly a peculiar one, and reconciling his jokey disposition with his outlandish music requires a certain level of patience and adventurousness on the part of the listener. But his music represents a freedom in expression that one rarely sees in the mainstream, a win for the freaks whose legacy continues to endure. To crack the code on one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most mischievous maestros, hit “play” on our mix, and hold on tight.

This post is part of our Psych 101 program, an in-depth, 14-part series that looks at the impact of psychedelia on modern music. Want to sign up to receive the other installments in your inbox? Go here. Already signed up and enjoying it? Help us get the word out by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or just sending your friends this link. Theyll thank you. We thank you.The world of metal can often be an intimidating one for those who have never found the courage to wade into its deafening, shriek-laden waters. But of all the genre’s various offshoots and sub-genres, stoner metal may be the most welcoming to the untrained ear. Though its nomenclature may imply a no-sober-listeners-allowed policy, the real heart of the genre comes more directly from a familiar source than any other branch of metal: good ol’-fashioned classic rock. The borders of what specifically encapsulates stoner metal are as up for interpretation as any other genre (the worlds of doom, sludge, drone, and psych-rock are often collected under the banner as well), but what really defines its sound is its commitment to atmosphere, tone, and thick, steamrolling riffs that work less through violent, rapid-fire assault than they do through gradual, suffocating immersion.Whether it’s in the satanic blues of stoner originators like Black Sabbath and Candlemass, the molasses-like trudge of torch-bearers like Sleep and Kyuss (pictured), or the voided-out psychedelia of boundary-pushers like Boris and Sunn O))), stoner metal’s influence is vast and unique, linking the worlds of ‘70s rock with that of ambient music, shoegaze, black metal, and more through its subsuming, hazy riffage. You don’t need to be under the influence to get sucked into the genre’s all-encompassing sound, so take a tour through our playlist and see if stoner metal is the strain for you.

Summing up the career of Beck Hansen is like trying to cram the entire history of music into a cookie jar. He’s a rock ‘n’ roll Renaissance man, a left-field weirdo turned superstar, a maestro of pop who’s color-blind when it comes to genre, and possibly the whitest musician ever who can still drop bars like he was born to rhyme. Beck’s path has been one long, twisting rabbit hole of sharp turns and aesthetic reinventions. And he’s amassed one of the most unique and utterly fun canons in recent pop history, one that breaks down the barriers between countless styles and scenes for the sake of reveling in the endless possibilities of music.As we sit on the eve of Beck’s 10 studio album Colors, we took the opportunity to revisit his many alternate personas, and examine the ways in which his various sonic detours seem to both contradict and complement one another simultaneously. Whether it’s in the hip-hop zaniness of Odelay, the wounded folk ballads of Sea Change, the tricked-out funk of Midnite Vultures, or the charged-up alt-rock of Guero, Beck always seems to find a way to fit his many musical whims into the same playful, surreal universe, pulling off each experiment with the visionary confidence of a pro. It’s anyone’s guess as to which direction he’ll choose next, but for now, join us as we unmask the Four Faces of Beck.

BECK: THE ALT-ROCK HERO

It’s no accident that Beck’s rise to fame coincided with a cultural moment for freakdom; the ‘90s alternative boom made the perfect breeding ground for his slacker-friendly version of rock, and Beck did his homework on how to sound like a total dropout. Early winners like “Devils Haircut” and “Lord Only Knows” illustrated Beck’s uncanny ability to make classic country, boom-bap, and power pop feel like slightly different versions of the same thing, all fueled by a giddy and inextinguishable energy. His later forays into rock, such as the stomping “E-Pro” or his work on the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World soundtrack, turned the fuzz up even more, embodying a platonic ideal of distortion-heavy garage rock that felt both low-key and larger-than-life at the same time.

BECK: THE HIP-HOP NERD

Beck embodies white-boy rap at its most purely goofy, wearing his awkwardness like a superhero cape and casually dropping insane lines like “Mr. Microphone making all the damage felt/ Like a laser manifesto make a mannequin melt.” Though his earliest slam-dunks like “Loser” and “Where It’s At” prided themselves on their crate-digging underdog charm, Beck’s take on rap continued to evolve along with his sound. The party-starting recklessness of tracks like “Novacane” has gradually morphed into a sophisticated, stream-of-consciousness flow, heard best on paranoid songs like “Cellphone’s Dead” and “1000BPM.” That Beck is still able to integrate his peculiar raps into albums that predominantly operate in folk or rock zones is a testament to how natural an MC he truly is.

BECK: THE FOLK TROUBADOUR

The most traditional of all his incarnations, Folk Beck often signals a turn towards the melancholy from everyone’s favorite loser. Between aching songs like “End Of The Day,” “Ramshackle,” and “Nobody’s Fault But My Own,” Beck’s acoustic guitar numbers often capture him at his most solitary and introverted—and deep in the process of developing a surprisingly universal language of song compared to his usual grab-bag mashups. But Beck’s folk side isn’t all doom and gloom; psychedelic pieces like “Jack-Ass” and “Dead Melodies” are as wide-eyed as his most joyous work, and on primitive early cuts like “Asshole” and “He’s A Mighty Good Leader,” his music takes on an almost punk quality, ringing with out-of-key notes and slack-jawed apathy. As with Beck’s other manifestations, one gets the sense that even if Beck had pursued an entire career in folk music, it would have been just as rich and surprising as the Beck we ended up with.

BECK: THE DANCING KING

At the end of the day, Beck is a popsmith through and through, willing to use any means necessary to get a musical idea across and start moving some bodies. As time has gone on and Beck albums have begun to surface less frequently, he’s turned to the singles format to release some of his most upbeat and summery songs, such as the electro-clash sing-along “Timebomb,” or the bass-rattling silliness of “Wow.” But Beck’s knack for snappy rhythms and disco-ready beats is rarely as explicit as it is on his 1999 funk fantasy Midnite Vultures. Veering between banjo-laden soul hootenannies like “Sexx Laws,” slinky techno ravers like “Get Real Paid,” and slow-grinding anthems like “Debra,” it’s the musical equivalent of a dive off the mansion balcony into a pool filled with Kool-Aid, as relentlessly tasteless as it is incredible. And as with all Beck, it’s exactly in those kinds of clashes where the fun really starts.

In the 10 years that have passed since Annie Clark first emerged from the Texas woodworks as St. Vincent, her very essence has seemed to undergo a radical transformation. Though such evolution is natural for any artist over the course of a lifetime, it feels especially befitting for a performer such as Clark, whose work has always tugged at the tensions between constructed, elegant beauty and the well of animalistic chaos simmering underneath. She’s gone from a charming, low-key indie starlet to a full-blown art-pop maven, and looking back upon her marvelous catalog now, we can start to see how the hints at what St. Vincent would become were secretly hidden in plain sight all along.From her very first album, Marry Me, Annie Clark seemed to decorate her songs with a Disney-like sense of fantasy and wonder, constructing the kind of delicate, baroque pop that seemed as if it could’ve come out of a doll house. But her guitar work suggested something more contorted, tearing forth from her songs like the chestburster from Alien, and making it clear that despite how fragile her musical creations seemed to be, Clark was concealing something that absolutely needed to be freed.As she continued to release albums like the gossamer Actor and the surreal Strange Mercy, her penchant for discordant riffs, extraterrestrial synth effects, and danceable grooves only grew stronger, but it was her meeting with David Byrne that truly signalled a major shift in her approach. After collaborating together on the funky, horn-laden Love This Giant album, Clark took a little piece of Byrne with her, and her follow-up self-titled release saw her constructing an entirely new persona whose artifice and coldness came with some of the most hard-hitting rhythms she had constructed yet. Having completed the journey from a twee curiosity into a living, Bowie-esque art-celebrity installation, her latest material sees her embracing pop music more than ever before, without losing her taste for folding the provocative into the seemingly innocent.It seems that as time has gone on, Clark has become more and more comfortable with the violent undertones that even her earliest work had motioned towards, urging movement and release over quiet appreciation. With her latest album, MASSEDUCTION, coming down the pipeline, we took the opportunity to take stock of how far Annie Clark has come, and to ready ourselves for whichever version of St. Vincent will emerge from the chrysalis next.

Straight from the decrepit basements of Memphis comes one of the most distinctive, experimental, and otherworldly communities in all of hip-hop, where hissy cassettes, mutilated R&B samples, punishing 808s, and MCs firing off at breakneck speeds are only the beginning. Obsessed with satanic possession, graphic depictions of murder, and turning rap music into a kind of sonic and atmospheric purging, the movement first gained prominence in the ‘90s with Three 6 Mafia, and grew to comprise a vast network of interconnected crews and producers. These beats may be dusty, but beyond their low fidelity lies a surprisingly prophetic vision of rap music to come: stuttering hi-hats, pounding bass, and rhythms that are so aggressive and upbeat that one can’t help but hear the delirious sounds of modern trap laced within the sludge. This is by no means a “Memphis Rap Greatest Hits” — the genre is endless, and many of its most crucial gems are buried within the hallowed corridors of YouTube. But if you’ve never known “horrorcore” to apply to anything outside of ICP, hit that play button and let Satan be your guide.