Genres

The Rolling Stones re-release of Sticky Fingers provides a nice argument that the 1971 album is one of the best in their catalog, and also one of the best rock albums of the 70s, period. The live tracks and alternate versions capture the Stones some great (if previously bootlegged) b-sides, while the proper album reveal the Stones in all of their tattered, strung-out glory. You should listen to it yourself for yourself, and also enjoy this collection of great Stones album cuts that Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler collected for Wandering Sound. Aside from creating a great business, Yancey was also 100% correct when he said that "Country Honk" is a superior version of "Honky Tonk Women."

This 2013 playlist incited more than a few guffaws, and its not hard to see why. Nas "I Can" is interpreted as a warning "against the temptations of sex, drugs and ignorance." Jay Zs "Where Have You Been" is cast as a "defense of family values." Warren Gs "Regulate" is seen as a defense of "property rights." Compiled by Stan Veuger for conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, his selections emphasize how rap, like all music, touches upon universal themes that can be recast as right wing or liberal. And lets not forget that yes, mainstream raps celebration of unfettered capitalism is a decidedly conservative impulse. Its kind of an ingenious list in a way...but then again, didnt Eminem mock this kind of thinking in "White America"? -- Mosi Reeves

Post-metal requires some explanation, as FACTs Robin Jahdi freely concedes in the magazines latest "best ever made" endeavor. "Where do you draw the line between post-metal and doom, or modern black metal, or even prog?" he writes. "The truth is post-metal takes in all of these elements without being entirely any one of them."For the layperson, there are a few recognizable names here, like Tool, as well as indie gods like Neurosis (pictured), Boris, Isis (the L.A. band, not the so-called Islamic State), and Jesu. But this is mostly an opportunity to immerse ourselves in a sound we may have only heard fleetingly. For more FACT lists, visit their Spotify page.

By its very nature, a “best of” list presupposes and celebrates the immanent meaning and importance of a genre or time period without really questioning the conditions for the possibility of the music being examined. What does ambient music mean? What purpose does it serve? What aspects of social life drive listeners toward it? Only when these questions are answered can a work be determined as great, a failure, or somewhere inbetween. Pitchfork’s “The 50 Best Ambient Albums” list is thoughtful and well-researched when it comes to giving a sense of the style employed by these artists, on occasion dipping into what influenced a particular album, or what that album, in turn, influenced. The blurbs accompanying each album accurately describe what the music feels and sounds like, offering flowery accounts of the instruments used. And yet something feels safe about this kind of list. It doesn’t really pierce the veil when it comes to technique and musical theory, nor does it discuss the music in relation to bourgeois society. The reader is simply left to assume that ambient music is important, has always been important, and will always be important. However, if we want music (and music criticism) to be truly meaningful, to actually get at the essence of society and potentially transform it, we will have to change the way we think about it. That said, there is a lot to digest with this list, a lot of music to learn about, and a great deal of fine writing. Regardless of the ranking of each work, Pitchfork has consolidated 50 important ambient works in one place, which is an achievement in itself. It is the task of the reader to determine their meaning.

Any list that limits the most important rap capital of the past decade to just 50 songs is bound to be an argument starter. But Maurice Garland is well-equipped for such a task, having covered the scene since the early 2000s as a writer, tastemaker and current radio talk host (often with political firebrand Killer Mike). While theres one too many Kilo Ali songs, and a few curious choices (Gucci Manes "Pillz" over "Freaky Gurl" and "Lemonade"?), this is a solid reflection of the vaunted rap history of the ATL. -- Mosi ReevesNote: Not all of these songs are on Spotify, hence the playlist having less than 50 tracks.

As we begin our journey with the Dowsers, a few things are essential: a domain hosting platform, a CMS, and a Michael Jackson essentials playlist. We could quibble with Rolling Stone that many of these are Jackson 5 tracks and not Michael solo tracks, but the greatness of each and every one of these is pretty much inarguable (with the possible exception of "Butterflies"). Jacko doesnt share the cred of Prince, or the romantic boomer idealism of James Brown, but his music and his persona still loom over the pop landscape.(Note: since Rolling Stone initially published this feature as a Top 50 list, "We Are the World" has slipped off the accompanying Spotify playlist. But then you dont really need to hear that song again, do you?)

Some may argue that shoegaze is not even a sound but an otherworldly sensation that engulfs both listener and creator from the ground up (literally). See, it wasnt the shoes these artists were gazing at, but the pedals beneath them—pedals that could turn a simple six-string into a conduit to another state of consciousness. In the entire musical spectrum, shoegaze is really just a blip, a micro-genre for guitar geeks and perpetual daydreamers, yet its worth a 50 All-Time Best playlist from Pitchfork because its been so influential to nearly every indie movement following it—and still is. Id even go as far as to say that many of those dark, dreamy, atmospheric soundscapes dominating 21st-century indie, electronic, even hip-hop could arguably be traced back to Kevin Shields feet. And Pitchfork agrees My Bloody Valentine is where shoegaze starts and (basically) ends. From there, their list isnt too terribly shocking, loaded at the top with the genres usual suspects (Slowdive, Ride, Swervedriver) and sprinkled with artists like M83 and Ulrich Schnauss who have shifted their gaze downward once or twice for some notable space excursions. But shoegaze has never been about the artists themselves—theres no room for ego in all that ecstatic haze, after all.

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,

On Double Booked, his 2009 concept album for Blue Note records, pianist Robert Glasper played around with the idea of being torn between two venues-slash-identities: the dance club and the jazz hall. The first half of Booked found Glasper playing in a hard-swinging acoustic trio anchored by his fearsome piano chops. (That’s where he turned it loose on Monk’s “Think of One.”) And the second half of this double-album set was the debut of Glasper’s electric-fusion “Experiment” ensemble. (This is the band that frequently works with emcees like Snoop Dogg and Yasiin Bey, as well as R&B talents like Erykah Badu and Brandy.) The brief skits on Double Booked were meant to be excerpts from messages left on Glasper’s voicemail (ah, the 2000s!), evidence of different collaborators pulling an over-stretched keyboardist in one stylistic direction or another.But the not-so-well-kept secret is that this creative hustle is the way Glasper prefers to live his artistic life. He signaled his interest in blowing past archaic genre-divisions back in 2007, on his trio album In My Element — also known as the album where he created a medley from Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” and Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.” Since then, he’s used his supposedly “jazz coded” acoustic trio to cover works by Kendrick Lamar (“I’m Dying of Thirst”), while also putting some extended, exploratory soloing into his “Experiment” ensemble (see that group’s performance of the Glasper original tune “Festival”). On the occasion of Glsaper’s latest release with the Experiment, we’ve collected some of his best compositions and performances, whether they draw inspiration from pop, rock, rap, jazz—or all of the above. Naturally, we’ve included his bravura guest-artist appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, too.

As an imaginative abbreviation of the phrase “gangster funk,” and a sound inspired by the Ohio Players’ “Funky Worm” synthesizer melody as well as Zapp’s car stereo wrecker “More Bounce to the Ounce,” G-funk dominated West Coast hip-hop for the better part of a decade, and even longer if you add post-G-funk homage like YG’s “BPT.” So why limit this best-of roundup to a mere 30 tracks? Music journalists Max Bell and Torii MacAdams don’t really explain why, though they acknowledge the “glaring omissions” that result from such a truncated list. Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Warren G, and DJ Quik get two selections each (the number-one pick, Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a G Thang,” is an Apple Music exclusive, hence its absence from the Spotify playlist). But there’s nothing from Mack 10, Soopafly, 2Pac’s infamous alter ego Makaveli, Daz Dillinger’s highly underrated Revenge, Retaliation and Get Back, or Cube’s supergroup Westside Connection. Wait, no “Bow Down?” These must be East Coast writers.