Playlist Reviews

At the time of this writing, the primary Spotify playlist by Four Tet (a.k.a UK producer/DJ Kieran Hebden) spans 599 songs and runs over 51 hours. By the time you read these words, it will have probably grown. Over the past few months, it seemed to serve primarily as a vehicle for Hebden to build anticipation for his ninth long-player, New Energy. At one point, the title of the playlist—typically an evolving string of emojis—was recently updated to include the album’s release date (Sept. 29), and he’s been adding tracks from the record as they’ve been released, mixing them in with songs from peers (Bicep), inspirations (Sly Stone), and aliases (um, 00110100 01010100, which is the artist page stub where an album of Four Tet b-sides resides in Spotify).Prior to that, the playlist garnered a bit of back in January, when Hebden used it to compile songs by artists from countries impacted by Donald Trump’s travel ban, including Syrian-born singer Omar Souleyman, whose album To Syria, With Love was produced by Hebden. "Its basically a place for me to share things Im listening to, and is becoming a good personal archive of music Ive enjoyed," Hebden told NPR about his playlist at the time.That’s about as coherent a definition as you could need or want. The playlist isn’t a mix and it’s not designed to be; while it flows together in parts, it’s capricious by design. It works reasonably well if you listen to it on shuffle, though expect to be taken down some pretty dark alleys, such as “3” by noise unit Pita (a.k.a. Austria’s Peter Rehberg, who runs the Mego label), which is a boss tune and a personal favorite of this author, but likely to clear a room with its jet-engine feedback shrieking. That “3” is flanked here by everything from Joni Mitchell to CAN to Coltrane to Autechre to Burial to Radiohead to HAIM to Prince to Seefeel... well, the sprawl is precisely the point. (It’s two whole days worth of music, after all.)DJ mixes are a dime-a-dozen, and it’s not hard to find plenty by Four Tet out there in the ether. (This Tokyo set from Dec. ‘13 is particularly smokin’.) What’s much more rare to find is such a comprehensive compendium of all the sounds that go into an artist’s aesthetic. For a veteran like Hebden, an experimental cosmonaut who’s as likely to fold 2-step garage into his music as he is ‘70s jazz fusion or Nigerian funk (or...Selena Gomez), a standard 15-track playlist simply wouldn’t capture the breadth of his tastes. Hell, 10 of those wouldn’t. At 599 tracks and counting, this mix is at least beginning to come close.

What’s This Playlist All About? As she prepares for the release of her much-anticipated major-label debut album, Heard it in a Past Life, the singer/songwriter who already has Pharrell Williams’ blessing puts together a mix of songs that she’s “got on repeat.”What You Get: Rogers shows off her country and folk roots by bookending the playlist with iconic voices Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris. In between is a treasure trove of charmingly offbeat gems—no matter how popular they’ve become—from the moody electro-pop of La Force and Clairo to the bombastic rap of Cardi B, the groovy indie pop of Your Smith, the introspective folk of S. Carey, and a little anthemic magic from tour buddies Mumford & Sons.Greatest Discoveries: There’s an awesome trio of songs near the top that flow so well together: the groovy feel-good soul of Natalie Prass melts right into Lizzo’s infectious funky “Boys” before Kamasi Washington slides in with his life-affirming exploratory jazz.How Does this Playlist Reflect Rogers’ Own Style? This serves as a wonderful companion to Rogers’ own music, which itself dips into a little of everything—a little gentle twang, a little electro panache, a little DIY edge—all while sounding completely fresh.

What’s This Playlist All About? Pop darling Carly Rae Jepsen was tasked by NPR’s editors with creating a summertime playlist that encapsulates the sound and feel of what they’ve dubbed roséwave. Jepsen, one of their “patron saints” of the genre, accepts the challenge with what she says is “an odd shuffle of songs… some sad, but mostly happy and all epic artists.”What You Get: An airy mix of American road-trip classics and fresh, slightly left-of-center pop. Fleetwood Mac kick off the playlist in style with “Dreams,” before America, Lou Reed, and Marvin Gaye slide in with their own timeless melodies that go down as smoothly as a glass of bubbly on a hot day. From there, aside from Billie Holiday’s “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” in which the jazz queen urges us to “leave [y]our worry on the doorstep,” Jepsen reserves the rest of the playlist for more modern mellow tunes, including ROSALÍA’s breezy flamenco-pop, Robyn’s honeyed dance-pop, and Amason and Esther’s dreamy melancholic melodies.Greatest Discovery: Poolside’s soft, shimmery “Harvest Moon,” a refined spin on yesteryear’s chillwave that evokes life in its finest form—perhaps floating in a pool with no care in the world.What Carly Rae Jepsen Song Belongs on This List, Too? Most of CRJ’s feel-good grooves could easily slip in anywhere here, but we’d choose the soft synth gem “Too Much,” from her latest album, Dedicated, which captures the rush and thrill of a sweet, rosé-soaked summer romance—or at least an impromptu living room dance party.

What’s This Playlist All About? The mastermind behind the airy, intimate sounds of The xx offers up a head-nodding mix ideal for throwing your own little dance party in your living room. “As there will be no parties for a while, I thought I’d restart the playlist and share some of what I’ve been playing out and at home,” he says.

What You Get: The DJ and producer takes us through a spectacular crate-digging journey that kicks off with his own skittery, skeletal 2020 single “Idontknow,” which seems to masterfully condense the most mesmerizing qualities of the tracks that follow. There’s the soft, string-laden comfort of composer Nicholas Britell, the minimalist funk of Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, the heady electronic of God Within, the atmospheric rap of Dave, the heart-pumping trance of Rove Ranger, the loose dance grooves of Fatback Band, and plenty more experimental twists and turns in between.

Greatest Discovery: The squiggly sonic exploration of Minor Science’s “For Want of Gelt,” whose spacey synths are eventually blown to bits by a dizzying eruption of percussion.

Is “Idontknow” a Sign of Things to Come? Let’s hope so. The track, which starts out taut and rigid, gradually unspools into Jamie xx’s signature hypnotic textures. It speaks to life in 2020: the anxiety of social distancing and the hope and relief of eventually coming back together. “I made ‘Idontknow’ as an outlet for my frustration over not being able to finish any music for a while,” he wrote on Instagram. “I tried to be less precious with my ideas and just let go... Now, we can’t go out to dance and we need an outlet more than ever, I hope you dance to it at home and let go for a moment.”

Photo Credit: Julio Enriquez

What’s This Playlist All About? Independent London label Local Action—who specializes in far-out genre blends, heavy grime, esoteric electronic, and heady pop and R&B (be on the lookout for their release of DAWN’s stunning new album New Breed out January 25)—helps us “ease into 2019” with a fresh mix of “ambient, modern classical, piano, OSTs and everything in between.”What You Get: Over a half-day of enchanting instrumentals and quietly devastating masterpieces that look back through the decades (even centuries). Get a taste of Erik Satie’s melancholic piece de resistance “Gymnopedie No. 1,” whimsical soundtrack sounds from Christopher Larkin, cosmic avant-rock from David Sylvian, heartbreaking orchestral splendor by Silver Mt. Zion, multidimensional ambient transcendence from Yves Tumor, and some sensual piano bliss from Enya for good measure.Greatest Discovery: Hmm, this is hard, but it’s best to get familiar with Japanese ambient pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura’s patient, percolating keyboards and drones on tracks like “Water Copy” and “Soto Wa Ame - Rain out of Window.”Is a 15-hour “beatless” playlist really necessary? If you have to ask, you just don’t get it.

What’s This Playlist All About? Just as we were gearing up for Weezer’s long-awaited Black Album, they surprise drop their Teal Album, an unabashed set of covers that tackles such classics as Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” TLC’s “No Scrubs,” and MJ’s “Billie Jean.” This playlist serves as an excellent accompaniment, as it rounds up a bunch of seemingly random, but rather excellent, tracks that are ripe to get their own Weezer treatment. Because “when life isn’t easy, stick to Keeping It Weezy.”What You Get: As with most things Weezer, this playlist is far from predictable. There’s the band’s own slippery foray into funk with “Can’t Knock the Hustle” and their beloved cover of Toto’s “Africa.” But in between is some cacophonous grit from Nine Inch Nails, slick robo-pop from Jamiroquai, piercing ‘70s rock badassery from Neil Merryweather, too-cool French jazz-pop from Michel Legrand, psychedelic gold from The Glass Family, and rainbow-infused glam rock from Jobriath.Greatest Discovery: The mind-altering cosmic chaos of “Dreamt Person v3” from electronic maestro Venetian Snares.Which of These Tracks Should Weezer Cover Next? We’d love to hear a smoothed-out, Weezerfied version of Death Grips’ glitchy growler “Black Paint.”

What’s This Playlist All About? Fresh off his stint alongside Maroon 5 and Travis Scott at the 2019 Super Bowl Halftime Show, the ATL rapper cobbles together a nearly 350-track playlist that hops from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to “Straight Outta Compton” to “Smooth Operator” with unexpected ease.What You Get: Expect plenty of Big Boi’s own material, from his OutKast days to his solo excursions (including all of his last album Boomiverse) to collaborations with artists like Janelle Monae (the gloriously funky “Tightrope”) and Phantogram (as the bassy indie-electro/hip-hop project Big Grams). Unsurprisingly, rap’s great revolutionaries show up often (N.W.A., Ice Cube, Goodie Mob, A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde), but he also throws in a ton of ‘80s and ‘90s radio mainstays—some MJ, Billy Idol, New Edition, Sade, Guns N’ Roses, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana (who, interestingly, kick off the list with five songs)—as well as some undisputed classics by the likes of Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and Prince.Biggest Surprises: Mumford & Sons are well represented here (even with a live version of “The Cave”), and so is Kate Bush. He also slips in a Greta Van Fleet song toward the end—perhaps his next collaboration?!Does This Make Up for That Halftime Show? Let’s just say, you’ll have wasted more time watching that 13-minute performance than listening to all 25 hours of this.

What’s This Playlist All About? To spotlight the 40th anniversary of “Disco Demolition Night,” a vinyl-destroying stunt pulled off by disgruntled disco-hating disc jockey Steve Dahl at Chicago’s Comiskey Park on July 12, 1979, Stereogum’s Nate Patrin took on the task of proving that—even four decades later—disco was due a great deal more respect. According to Patrin, “This playlist is all the proof you need that no matter where it came from or where it went after it ‘died,’ disco had something for everybody.”

What You Get: The mix features only tracks from the 1970s, only one song per artist, no rock crossovers—and no Bee Gees, because, according to Patrin, “you’ve probably made up your mind about them already.” Sequenced chronologically, the list has plenty of sass, sex, and sleek beats, but it also features some of the decade’s weirdest and wildest jams, from indisputable legends like ABBA, Donna Summer, and Chic to Eurodisco maestros and funky misfits tearing up dance floors from New York to London and well beyond. Hear feminist knockouts (Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”) alongside dark and doomy theatrics (C.J. & Co.’s “Devil’s Gun”), soul-baring epiphanies (Teddy Pendergrass’ “You Can’t Hide from Yourself”), and, of course, The Trammps’ undeniable classic “Disco Inferno.”

Greatest Discovery: The smooth, nearly psychedelic “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,” a slinky, brass-filled groove from 1977 by jazz drummer Idris Muhammad—it’ll make you fall for both jazz and disco at the same time.

Final Verdict: Has Disco Aged Well? Looking back, disco seems far more prophetic than anyone ever imagined. Without freaky, funky, forward-thinking tracks like Cerrone’s “Supernature,” Space’s “Magic Fly,” or Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” artists like Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem would have never existed. That’s probably why the rock purists were so afraid of disco’s potential takeover.

What’s This Playlist All About? The musical historians over at Pitchfork dive deep into the grimy, gritty, often grisly world of industrial music and all of its shades of gray since England’s Throbbing Gristle brought the idea of “Industrial Music for Industrial People” into the public consciousness back in 1976. As Pitchfork’s Sasha Geffen writes, “This was the sound of work, but it was also the sound of the refusal to work.” It was much more than that, too, as the genre grew from its queer and trans outsider roots to become an outlet for American artists like Trent Reznor, who turned it into a shockingly successful mainstream phenomenon. (Note: Unfortunately, a few of the albums featured are not available on Spotify, so the playlist does not fully reflect the complete list.)What You Get: Industrial progenitors Throbbing Gristle, the original “wreckers of civilization” (according to a member of the British Parliament), understandably dominate the list, kicking it off with the punchy, disco-sleek groove “Hot on the Heels of Love” from 1979’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats. They also appear later with the nightmarish yet eerily hypnotic “Hamburger Lady” from the year before. In between, the term “industrial” is flexed and stretched, from Coil’s dark and ambient landscapes (“Ravenous”) and Ministry’s testosterone-pumped metal meld (“The Land of Rape and Honey”) to Nine Inch Nails’ subversive synth-pop seductions (“Closer”) and clipping.’s Afrofuturist hip-hop explorations (“A Better Place”).Greatest Discovery: Well before clipping. there was Tackhead, whose members played with hip-hop godfathers Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash before diving into more abrasive, metallic beats. “Mind at the End of the Tether” shows how innovative these guys were, threading samples and raps through a web of edgy electronic sounds.Does the Playlist Really Represent the Best Industrial of All Time? It’s certainly a respectable starting kit, though the mix itself seems rather tame for industrial standards. The curators have, understandably, picked some of the poppiest, most digestible tracks from their album selections. That is, until you get to the very end and realize industrial’s most unsettling, blood-curdling possibilities with “Horsemeat Yak Trip” from Controlled Bleeding’s 1985 album Knees and Bones.

What’s This Playlist All About? A changing of the season comes with a changing of sounds. Say goodbye to the breezy pop of the summer and hello to the pensive songs of the fall. Courtney E. Smith of Refinery29 helps us navigate the latest in pop and indie to soundtrack longer, chillier nights as you indulge in the “best of the pumpkin-season foods.”

What You Get: A fierce feminine force of independent women calling out “false gods” (Taylor Swift) and “prophets” (King Princess) and allowing us to explore their “holy terrain” (FKA twigs). Elsewhere, Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard goes out on her own with the bluesy, funky “History Repeats,” and Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek does the same, lamenting on the dance floor with synth-pop sweetener “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings.” Meanwhile, Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris assert their own hotness with the sass-rich “Way Too Pretty for Prison,” and The Highwomen (Morris, Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, and Amanda Shires) tell “stories still untold” in the multi-part beauty “Highwomen.”

Greatest Discovery: Angel Olsen’s “Lark,” a bone-chilling anthem thick with strings and the singer’s cathartic howls. It holds more emotion in six minutes than any of this year’s full-length Hollywood dramas.

Best Pick: You’ll have to head all the way down to the bottom of the playlist to hear Smith’s most left-field pick, from none other than Kim Gordon, of Sonic Youth fame—the oldest yet boldest of this group—offering up material from her first solo album, represented here with the industrial-tinged “Sketch Artist.”