Note: This playlist follows a loose chronological structure reflecting when these songs were released during 2017—which I like to think provides a more accurate snapshot of the year as it was lived, as opposed to a ranked list based on totally unquantifiable criteria. The cruel irony of being a music critic in 2017 is that the very thing that makes the gig easier—i.e., plentiful, push-button access to practically the entire history of recorded sound—is also the very thing that threatens one’s sense of expertise. The truth is, the two cornerstones of the job description—a) being an authority in your field and b) staying current—are becoming mutually exclusive ideals, as your listening queue perpetually extends like an unchecked email account. Spending quality time with a given record means missing out on another 50 probably-amazing albums that came out this week. I’m at the point now where artists whose work I’ve loved for years, or even decades, will release a new record, and it takes me months to get around to giving it a cursory listen, if I don’t outright forget that it even exists. (Sorry, Liars!) These days, music writers essentially play the role of sommelier, giving records a momentary swish before spewing ’em out and moving onto the next one.It’s an especially pervasive condition in the perennially over-populated field we call indie rock—a term that now encompasses everyone from aspiring Bandcamp chancers to Grammy-winning arena acts. And in between those goalposts you have annual bumper crops of hotly tipped breakout artists, modestly successful mid-career acts still slogging it out, solo albums, side projects, and ‘90s veterans who decide to take a crack at the reunion circuit. And this is to say nothing of the stylistic variation that field covers. Forty years ago, you wouldnt deign to lump Bruce Springsteen, The Fall, William Onyeabor, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, and Hawkwind into the same genre category. Yet when you consider those artists contemporary spiritual offspring—Japandroids, Sleaford Mods, Pierre Kwenders, The Weather Station, Moses Sumney, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard—theyre all huddled under the umbrella of indie.As such, there is no narrative through-line or overarching theme that could possibly connect the songs on this collection of my favorite indie-rock songs of 2017. (Well, other than it was an exceptionally good year for Australia!) Certainly, in this never-ending shit-show of a year, there was a need for music that could help us navigate these tumultuous times, be it Priests emotionally fraught dream-punk (“Nothing Feels Natural”), Algiers palace-storming soul stomps (“The Underside of Power”), or Weaves freak-flag rallying cries (“Scream”). But then, 2017 was so fucked up and draining on so many levels, you could forgive America’s fiercest rabble-rousers—Philly DIY heroes Sheer Mag, pictured above—for wanting to take a momentary break from the brick-tossing and seek solace in the discotheque (“Need to Feel Your Love”).At a time when the very fate of humanity felt more perilous and unknowable than at any point in our lifetime, you take comfort in the little things. Sometimes all I wanted was to escape into a fully realized fantasy of Stevie Nicks making a Cure album (Louise Burns’ “Storms”) or King Krule going Krautrock (via Mount Kimbie’s “Blue Train Lines”) or The Go-Betweens being brought back to life (Rolling Blackouts C.F.’s “The French Press”). In some instances, it was an especially outrageous lyric that provided levity (from Alex Cameron and Angel Olsen’s misfit-romance anthem “Stranger’s Kiss”: “I got shat on by an eagle, baby/ now I’m king of the neighbourhod/ and I guess that I could/ just tear the gym pants off a single mother”); in others, I was transfixed by an extended instrumental build-up (Thurston Moore’s gong-crashing “Exalted”) or a perfectly messy guitar solo (The National’s “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” The War on Drugs’ “Up All Night”). It was a year of being taken by surprise by bands I had taken for granted (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s “Ambulance Chaser,” Guided by Voices’ “Nothing Gets You Real”), awestruck by long-dormant artists who seemingly reemerged from out of nowhere (be it Land of Talk with the intensely aching “Heartcore” or former Only Ones frontman Peter Perrett’s winsome “Troika”), and blindsided by artists I had never heard before (noise-punk powerhouse Dasher’s “Go Rambo,” Montreal sound collagist Joni Void’s “Cinema Without People,” art-pop phenom Jay Som’s magisterial “For Light”).Of course, there is also a regional bias at play here. Even as it’s become the province of national late-night talk shows and destination mega-festivals, indie rock is still nothing without its local scenes, and this playlist inevitably reflects my roots in the Southern Ontario corridor. This year, several under-the-radar acts I’ve been fortunate enough to see come into their own over the past few years—stoner-prog titans Biblical, avant-pop activist Petra Glynt, the Slim Twig/U.S. Girls-led fuzz-boogie supergroup Darlene Shrugg, industrial-electro trio Odonis Odonis—all released excellent albums that effectively bottled up their onstage energy for the world to see.But mostly what you get on this playlist is a lot of great, seasoned, chronically under-appreciated artists doing what they do and continuing to do it very well, from Chain and the Gang’s anti-capitalist garage-punk manifesto “Devitalize” to British Sea Power’s crestfallen “Don’t Let the Sun Get in the Way” to The Dears’ triumphant “1998” to Pavement co-founder Spiral Stairs’ sweetly slack “Angel Eyes” (a touching tribute to his late drummer, Darius Minwalla). There are few rewards for consistency in life, and especially not in the incessant, feed-refreshing world of indie rock. But in a time of insatiable suck-it-up-and-spit-it-out musical consumption, these songs handily passed the swish test, and demanded to be savored.P.S.: Ty Segall’s Drag City catalog isn’t available on Spotify, otherwise I would’ve included his gonzo 10-minute "Cant You Hear Me Knocking"-scaled tour de force, “Freedom (Warm Hands).” Ditto for Boss Hog’s ace comeback album, Brood X, which just goes to show that getting featured in Baby Driver wasn’t the only great thing to happen to Jon Spencer this year.
In July 2017, New Jersey native Nicole Atkins released Goodnight Rhonda Lee, her fourth serving of lush orchestro-soul and regal R&B. But on her best-of-2017 list, she indulges her love of dark, heavy rock and oddball art-pop:1. St. Vincent, MasseductionI’ve always loved Annie’s lyrics. Romantic and smart. Here, she is at the height of her powers, like a female Prince. So glad she exists, because the world needs rock-star superheroes right now.2. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Murder of the UniverseI listened to this album so much this year I thought I was going insane. Kind of King Crimson in a space action movie, complete with a narrator to lead you through this journey.3. The Black Angels, Death SongI saw them perform this record live a few times this year and was blown away, as I usually am by The Black Angels. “Half Believin” breaks my heart.4. The Lemon Twigs, Brothers of DestructionThere are so many exciting and fun musical moments on this EP. Reminds me of the Kinks at times. These brothers are so young and have such a deep, musical understanding of history. I think they’re the most important band I’ve heard in a long time.5. JD McPherson, UNDIVIDED HEART & SOULJD McPherson has one of my favorite voices ever and, on this record, he takes pockets of songs to really unexpected places, turning older sounds into future sounds. Very original, while keeping you warm and fuzzy.6. Queen of the Stone Age, VillainsI put this on when I need to fuck the day.7. Mark Lanegan, GargoyleThis man could sing anything and I’d love it. Fortunately, his poetry is just haunting as his voice, and every record he releases reveals a deeper and more beautiful layer.8. Dion, Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album ’65There are so many melodies on the top of this record that put me in another world. It inspires me greatly.
I’ve shazamed a lot of songs on this album this year, like, “Whoa, what is this?!” Completely original. It melds so many different types of music, but doesn’t sound gimmicky. He gives me the same feeling I had when I was young and Trent Reznor (who he sounds nothing like) came out—like, this person is gonna start an entire new sound that a lot of people are gonna follow.
It’s powerful and raw and amazing and timely. I’m just getting acquainted with it, because it just came out and it’s on repeat.
Moses Sumney had a certain feeling he wanted to capture when he recorded Aromanticism, 2017’s most irresistibly sumptuous debut album. “That moment as you’re feeling asleep,” he told the New York Times in September, “or right when you wake up, when you’re still one foot in and one foot out of the dream world, and everything is really murky and you feel like you’re floating.”The L.A. breakout artist is hardly alone in his quest to capture that ineffable state. This year yielded a startling abundance of music that had the same alluring softness as Sumney’s blissed-out R&B. Fellow travelers like Sampha, Kelela, Nick Hakim, and Syd all double-downed on the combination of smudgy beats, pillowy synths, and diaphanous vocals that had once marked Frank Ocean as an outlier but now seems everywhere. More cerebral and less carnal than the R&B sound that had been dominant since the rise of Drake, it aims to evoke a more solitary variety of bedroom experience than the genre has typically prioritized.That’s not to say there aren’t great songs about love and sex, too. But there’s definitely a more introspective bent to the new R&B, as well as a more adventurous musical sensibility. Though Frank Ocean gets the most credit for charting out this dream space and building a home there, the Weeknd certainly used to know the neighbourhood. Neo-soul mavericks like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Bilal explored it as well. In their own music and productions for FKA twigs, Kelela, Solange and more, the likes of Dev Hynes and Arca approach it from other angles. In any case, Sumney, Sampha, and other sleepy-eyed occupants of R&B’s vanguard made this space just as inviting to listeners this year.
In 2017, the perpetually restless and increasingly prolific post-punk veterans Wire released their 16th album, Silver/Lead, and hosted three editions of their roving curated festival DRILL (in Los Angeles, Leeds, and Berlin). Here, the bands main singer/guitarist Colin Newman reveals the songs that inspired him most this past year. "A list of a few things that have been catching my ear this year. Some artists will be on everyone’s list, some will be on no one’s! It includes one artist celebrating his 50th (10 more than Wire!), one artist who actually thinks Michael McDonald is cool, one band who played in DRILL : LA, and one person who played in the pinkflag guitar orchestra, oh and the best band in Brighton (my hometown) right now. You don’t need me to tell you it’s been an unsettling year but luckily not for music."—Colin Newman of WireNote: Colin also wanted to include Wands "Plum," but it isnt available on Spotify.Photo: Mike Hipple
In times of crisis, indie-pop—or twee, or whatever you want to call the sort of pop music thats exquisitely appointed while singing finely tuned chronicles of furtive glances and squirreled-away heartbreaks—is my comfort-food music. Sweater-weather vibes and hummable melodies were in large supply in 2017 both in the U.S. and abroad. Cheeky British act Peaness (pictured) collected its recent output, including the stellar love song "Seafoam Islands," on Are You Sure?; Chicago scrappers Varsity released the spaced-out yet self-protective "Settle Down"; and British trio Girl Ray put out the stunning, exploratory Earl Grey, which triangulated the songcraft of Carole King, the wooliness of mid-90s K Records, and the exacting wit of Squeeze (as well as a prog freak-out or two) into a gorgeous record.A few of the labels from my 90s college-radio heyday—when I first grew heart-eyed over indie-pop—are still at it, putting out lovingly detailed pop albums. The Spain-based label Elefant, which has been operating since 1989, released La Bien Queridas breezy Fuego, which surrounds the chilled-out alto of Ana Fernández-Villaverde in urgent synths ("Si Me Quieres a Mi") and squiggly guitars ("El Lado Bueno"). The 10-inch by the resurgent British act The Primitives, also an Elefant release, soared with "Ill Trust The Wind," which combined a singsong earworm with guitar fuzz. Matinée Recordings launched in 1997 and this year released a slew of records that included the chiming Other Towns Than Ours by Melbournes Last Leaves, which includes three-quarters of the brainy Aussie indiepoppers The Lucksmiths. The 20th-anniversary comp Matinée Idols throws back to the days of various-artists-CD-based discovery with a Last Leaves track as well as the Snapchat-era lament "Me, My Selfie and I" by Scots Strawberry Whiplash and "Postcard" from the sweetly synthy Swedish band The Electric Pop Group. (Postcards also figured into the making of Jens Lekmans gorgeously forthright Life Will See You Now.)The labels that are still kicking almost make up for the sting of losing Fortuna POP!, the UK-based label that announced its shutdown after 22 years in business and punctuated said farewell with the dreamy Flowers track "Say 123," which combines chugging guitars and vocalist Rachel Kennedys spectral soprano. Bittersweet feelings are crucial to indie-pop, though, so the beauty of that song at least made for a fitting goodbye.
These days, metal’s eclecticism runs pretty deep, and in a climate where so much unrest is bubbling up to the surface, its gratifying to have all this music provide a place of refuge for those who want/need to look away from the news. Metal has always possessed a degree of defiance and attitude, serving as a counterpoint to a mainstream thinking. And now its added more ambience and a broader range of emotion. Its thought-provoking, ability-defying, and at times just a pure exorcism of rage—totally fitting for 2017.Check out the right-on-point sheer aggression of Full Of Hells "Deluminate," the interstellar sound of Mastodon soaring even higher on "Sultans Curse," and the continuing rise of Power Trip on "Executioners Tax (Swing of the Axe)." Our 2017 survey also includes buzzed-about up-and-comers like Code Orange, hardcore revivalists like Higher Power and Trapped Under Ice, heralded mainstays like Pallbearer, the oft mentioned (and must-hear) 83-minute opus by Bell Witch (pictured above), as well as smouldering southern crew Royal Thunder, and total wrenches in the machine like the spastic Pyrrhon. And those are just some of the many far corners metal stretched into this year. We also saw comebacks from Godflesh and Glassjaw, polarizing Grammy recognition for August Burns Red, and then glimpses of future releases from Windhand, Turnstile, Old Wounds, and Gatecreeper. Theyre all here in our round-up of this years best metal.
More than just a cobbled-together collection of songs, playlists can function as snapshots of a particular moment in time, and also provide crucial context for how that moment came to be. Through these playlists, we explored some of the dominant themes in music this year—be it paradigm-shifting innovations, the reemergence of dormant aesthetics, or slow-building movements that reached critical mass in 2017.
Flutes were everywhere in hip-hop in 2017. They provided a wistful counterpoint to the grizzled trap of Future’s ubiquitous “Mask Off,” propped up Drake’s throttling “Portland” with a snaking melody, and popped up on tracks from D.R.A.M. (“Broccoli”), Gucci Mane (“Back on Road”), Kodak Black (“Tunnel Vision”), and Migos (too numerous to list off here). This, of course, is nothing new, and this playlist from Okayplayer provides a quick history of the instrument’s use in hip-hop.
Jason Williamson’s air-hammer delivery and thick-as-marmite East Midlands accent contribute hugely to Sleaford Mods’ appeal, even if some non-Limey listeners may require the use of subtitles—and probably footnotes, too. He belongs to a proud counter-tradition of vocalists who not only defy the pressure to Americanize, but brandish accents that have traditionally been masked as markers of low class in British society. This quality creates a fascinating connection between an otherwise disparate series of singers, poets, and shouters operating not just in the punk and post-punk styles dear to Sleaford Mods, but in folk, electronic, grime, and even sound poetry.
The music of the Internet era has defined itself through diversity, and there are common, shared ideas that emerge from the ethos of digital art. Much of our recent experimental music finds inspiration in the uncomfortable merging of opposing forms—artists like Oneohtrix Point Never and QT spin fantastic new shapes through the juxtaposition of uncanny sound manipulations and inescapably alluring Top 40 mechanics. All of the artists on this playlist share a common inspiration: They pick apart the nature of society’s new favorite medium and the effects it has on our perceptions, memories, and experiences we subject ourselves to. Hit play to take a tour of the sounds emitted from our hyperreal, constantly connected world.
When members of Midlake, Franz Ferdinand, Grandaddy, Travis, and Band of Horses started exchanging ideas via email in 2013, they probably didn’t care that they were taking part in a long, if sometimes neglected, tradition in the music world. Nor should they—the idea of putting together a supergroup for its own sake is pretty dumb. That this particular congregation of musicians savored the chance to play together and socialize is reflected in the title they chose for the project: BNQT, pronounced “banquet.” And they’re hardly the only example of ad hoc all-star ensembles in recent indie-rock history that have redeemed the supergroup concept.
Within days of each other, Cam’Ron and Kevin Gates released tracks with unlikely samples. Cam’Ron’s romantic “10,000 Miles” has him singing “Lookin’ up out my Benz” over the familiar twinkling piano riff from Vanessa Carlton’s massive 2001 hit “A Thousand Miles,” while Gates’ more reflective “What If” utilizes Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us” to inquire if God is “Just a thug like one of us.” Adult contemporary pop is no stranger to hip-hop and it often lends itself to a variety of mood-setting styles. Rappers utilize its piano ballads and campfire-ready acoustic guitar lines, either reworking the lyrics or topping off familiar strums with harsher beats. The final product can yield some surprising results that often are friendly to radio.
Kevin Parker told The Guardian last year that he didn’t think there was such a thing as an Australian psych scene. It seemed an oddly Trumpian (i.e., easily disproven) thing for the Tame Impala mastermind to say, given the amount of evidence to the contrary oozing out of Oz in recent years. Though Tame Impala and Pond have risen the highest in terms of international profiles, they keep close ties to the likes of Mink Mussel Creek, The Growl, and GUM. Over in Melbourne, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have their own posse of like-minded travelers, such as The Murlocs, Pipe-eye, and The Babe Rainbow. Here’s a selection of songs by young Australian bands who may not constitute a scene per se, but who share an eagerness to take you on a trip.
Michael McDonald’s status as a pop-culture punchline is perhaps best epitomized by the 2005 comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin, wherein an electronics-store employee played by Paul Rudd squirms with annoyance as a McDonald live DVD plays on a loop at work. But these days, McDonald is about as cool as he’s ever been. The “yacht rock” sound with which he’s associated has become a renewable source of inspiration for dance and hip-hop producers. And over the past decade, McDonald has collaborated with a number of hip younger artists that appreciate the distinctively smoky grain of his voice, including Thundercat, who even reunited McDonald with longtime collaborator Kenny Loggins on his acclaimed 2017 single “Show You The Way.” This playlist charts McDonald’s transition from being your dad’s favorite crooner to your teenage cousin’s.
Over the past two years, there’s been such a remarkable abundance of great music by female artists in the overlapping territories of alt-country, roots, and Americana that it could fill this playlist many times over. From the folky, sepulchral sounds of Pieta Brown, to the Kitty Wells-style honky-tonk throwbacks of Rachel Brooke, to the raw and tender country blues of Adia Victoria, it’s a boom time all round.
There was a time, not too long ago, when the term “LGBT rapper” did not exist. Of course there were lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender rappers out there but, the truth is, they simply were not accepted by the mainstream hip-hop community. The fact that there are now enough LGBT rappers to fill this playlist (as well as enough bad ones that not all of them had to be included) shows how far the genre has come in a relatively short period of time.
When it comes to classic rockers who are revered by punks, alt-rockers, and indie brats, Bruce Springsteen may not possess the lofty stature of Neil Young, but the guy’s also no slouch. His influence tears across the first decade and a half of the 21st century like a ’69 Chevy with a 396. Adam Granduciel’s The War on Drugs–whose 2017 release, A Deeper Understanding, frequently nicks the gauzy, hushed heartache and mechanistic throb of Tunnel of Love—are just the latest in a long line of current artists who worship the Jersey legend.
What made the late Sharon Jones and her band, the Dap-Kings, so unique was their ability to feel unapologetically old-school, yet without any residue of weepy nostalgia. Anchored not just by Jones’ attention-seizing voice, but the group’s agilely stabbing horns and preternaturally metronomic rhythm section as well, their music pops, sizzles, and jumps with a sweaty, determined modernism. It’s a sound that has exerted a huge impact on 21st-century pop, pushing retro-soul into the mainstream while also seeping into the work of more left-field artists.
We remember the heroes and innovators we lost over the course of 2017 by revisiting the playlists we created in their honor, both to celebrate their achievements and/or shine a light on the less-traveled corridors of their career.
The passing of Chuck Berry on March 18 at the age of 90 put the final punctuation mark at the end of this musical pioneer’s story. But the legacy left behind by the man who made rock ‘n’ roll what it is today largely rests on a relatively small group of milestone singles—about a dozen or so, mostly released between the mid ’50s and mid ’60s. And, when you’re talking about an artist like Berry, that leaves a lot of things out. On this collection of Chuck Berry esoterica, you’ll find just about everything you can think of and then some: calypso, jazz, Latin-tinged jams, psychedelic experimentation—you name it.
It’s impossible to imagine what hip-hop, house, and techno might have used for a rhythmic foundation if not for the 808 beat. That’s why the impact that inventor Ikutaro Kakehashi—who passed away April 1 at age 87—had on the past four decades of music is incalculable. Since the fine 2015 documentary 808 tells you everything you could want to know on the subject (and way more), we let the music do the talking with a set that includes many of the most famous uses of the 808 (and its successor the TR-909) by early adopters like Arthur Baker as well as such present-day devotees as Kanye West, who transformed the beat into the sonic epitome of emotional desolation on 808s And Heartbreak.
Few filmmakers ever displayed as much savvy about music—or were so eager to show off their sheer love of it—than Jonathan Demme. The director, who passed away on April 26 at the age of 73 after a battle with cancer, established his impeccable and impressively diverse tastes—from The Fall and The Feelies to Big Youth and Boogie Down Productions—long before indie-movie hotshots like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson followed suit in the 1990s. This playlist includes the iconic tracks famously featured in his films, as well as selections from the many musicians with whom Demme collaborated.
The late Chris Cornell—who took his own life on May 18 at age 52—was one of the most dynamic and adventurous singers to emerge in the ’90s. This playlist highlights the underrated non-Soundgarden songbook of the only rock vocalist to have worked with both Timbaland and the Zac Brown Band, while always sounding unmistakably like himself.
Prodigy of Mobb Deep was one of the best rappers on the planet because he was dark. He didn’t have Pac’s tortured-thug activist energy, Big’s charisma or hitmaking ease, or Nas’s wisdom combined with the ear of a jazz musician. It didn’t matter. While other rappers laughed and joked, or screamed in your ear, Prodigy calmly explained how he would end your life while referencing the Book of Revelations and the Illuminati. The MC passed away on June 20 at age 42 from complications related to a painful life-long fight with sickle-cell anemia; this playlist salutes the greatest writer of threats in rap history.
There’s something almost transcendental about early Linkin Park. They were too anthemic to be fully nu metal, too hip-hop to be rock, and too emo and mainstream to be “cool.” But Chester Bennington’s lyrics had a radically human core, one that embraced and tried to work through longing and alienation. And their music was very intriguing, boasting intelligent percussion, authoritative washes of reverbed guitar, disciplined use of electronics, and methodical pacing. In the wake of Bennington’s shocking suicide July 20 at age 41, we published this playlist tribute to a band who, for certain angst-ridden teenagers, were like The Smiths of their era.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were already anachronisms when they met as jazz-obsessed teenagers in the late ‘60s and began to write the droll, harmonically complex songs that made Steely Dan one of the greatest and most unique bands of the ‘70s. So it’s not surprising that a duo who worked tirelessly to get the best performances out of skilled session players never had much interest in hip-hop and the art of sampling. But the Steely Dan songs that have been sampled by multiple rap artists offer a case study in how many options the band’s rich arrangements offer to beatmakers. Becker, sadly, passed away from esophageal cancer on September 3 at age 67. But his music lives on—and continues to find new audiences—through the many hip-hop, rock, and R&B tracks collected here.
With ’80s noise-pop pioneers Husker Dü, Grant Hart played the misfit McCartney to Bob Mould’s lacerating Lennon, providing the honey chaser to his partner’s hoarse-throat howls. Following the band’s extremely acrimonious break-up, Hart gradually faded into obscurity, releasing a small handful of under-the-radar records while Mould enjoyed a steady, successful career as an alt-rock elder statesman. Recent years had been especially trying: Hart lost both parents in quick succession, and he was injured in a fire that destroyed his longtime family home in South St. Paul. And then 2017 brought the diagnosis of the kidney cancer that ultimately claimed him on September 14 at the age of 56. With this playlist, we pay tribute to the man who forged the Dave Grohl prototype of the shit-hot drummer who also a tender tunesmith.
Before his death from cardiac arrest on October 2 at age 66, Tom Petty was a man of the people in a way that Dylan and Springsteen couldn’t be, because they just seemed too oversized, too mythic, too huge from the get-go. Like the characters he tended to write about, Petty was always somewhere between underdog and self-made outcast. Yet the chip on his shoulder was the rare and beautiful kind that seemed to make him more empathetic to people rather than less so. That’s what you hear in these songs, some of which are hits, while others are deep cuts from albums that didn’t quite get as much love as they should’ve. (For more, check out this playlist of the contemporary artists keeping Petty’s spirit alive.)
Gord Downie was effectively Canada’s Bruce Springsteen—a rock star with blue-collar blood, whose intimate portraits of Canadian life could stir a patriotic fervor with a simple small-town namedrop. His band, The Tragically Hip, was huge in Canada and in Canada only, however, since Downie’s untimely passing from brain cancer on October 18 at age 53, more people outside the country are tuning into his peculiar genius. Here’s a playlist of 23 songs to introduce non-Canadian newcomers to Downie’s deep discography. While it includes some Hip hits, these aren’t necessarily the band’s most popular songs. Rather, they’re ones that mostly venture beyond the band’s bar-rock roots and don’t require an Encyclopedia Canadiana to decode. And they’re the ones that most directly communicate Downie’s singular combination of outsized passion, white-knuckled intensity, sly humor, absurdity… and grace, too.
If his brother, Angus, is AC/DC’s Chuck Berry (all about dazzling flashes of lightning and speeding, razor-wire licks) then Malcolm Young was their Bo Diddley, a brilliant groove engineer (as well as songwriter—let’s not forget that) who could ceaselessly combine and recombine the essential, fundamental components of boogie. We present a cannonballed salute to the greatest rhythm guitarist in hard rock, who passed away November 18 at age 64 after a years-long struggle with dementia.
The Dowsers prides itself on being the first music magazine devoted to the playlist experience—and in 2017, that experience became all the more multi-faceted. By nature, playlist-making is a highly personal process, an opportunity for anyone to play the role of radio programmer and tailor their song selection to suit a particular mood, activity, or obsession. Increasingly, we’ve seen them become a more communal medium, whether it’s bands releasing a curated mix to hype a new record, streaming services using them to break new artists, fans crowd-sourcing set lists to create shareable post-show souvenirs, or one of the biggest rappers in the world taking the “playlists are the new albums” mantra literally. But in 2017, we also saw playlists that moved beyond the realm of the promotional to the political, be it through pointed statements or charity initiatives. It may still feel strange to think a playlist could change the world, but in 2017, the act of dragging-and-dropping reached new levels of artistry, activitism, and influence.1. Your Discover WeeklySpotify’s Discover Weekly playlist was launched in July of 2015, but with the music service now boasting more than 60 million paying subscribers and playlists eclipsing albums as the dominant way fans consume music, the weekly personalized mix is more relevant than ever. Essentially based on the concept of collaborative filtering, the algorithm looks at songs it knows you like, then recommends you songs adjacent to those songs in other users’ playlists and libraries. The result is often uncannily precient recommendations. If you’ve become as addicted to this playlist as so many others, there’s good news: The more users Spotify adds, the more data there is to mine, and the better these recommendations get.
2. RapCaviarIn 2017, RapCavier was the Avatar of playlists. It adorned billboards, spawned its own tour,stirred up controversy, and turned its creator, Tuma Basa, into an industry celebrity. It’s easy to be cynical about it all, but also very difficult to turn away. Week after week, it simply delivered the goods, helping break an entire new generation of rap artists (it’s no coincidence that Lil Uzi Vert headlined the tour) while also being one of the first playlists to incorporate video. In an era that was supposed to have decimated the tastemaker class, Basa and his playlist provided essential listening.
3. Drake, More LifeThis is among the best of Drake’s clumping-tracks-together things, and that’s very much because More Life is consciously a “playlist.” This isn’t a low-stakes gambit or a cheap marketing gimmick (at least not entirely), but an honest engagement with a new form. More Life is loose and meandering, and sometimes the individual components seem slight and tertiary. But like the best playlists, it captures a moment, a feeling, and a place. More Life is enjoyable and, as anyone who listens to a lot of classic albums knows, enjoying music trumps appreciating it—and this release is infinitely better than any other non-sweater-meme Drake release in years. For that, we can thank the generations of mixtape compilers, playlist curators, radio DJs, and compilation creators for helping define this new form. But, most of all, we should thank Drake for getting that the lines between artist, audience, critic, and curator are porous, and for making an initial foray into what this intersection looks like.
4. Grim Kim’s 150 Raddest Metal Albums Ever Made by People Who Happen To Not Be DudeThis past July, NPR released their list of the 150 greatest albums made by women. On first glance, the list appears to be wide-reaching in its scope. Meshell Ndegeocello, Sleater-Kinney, and Egyptian superstar Umm Kulthum all make appearances, with iconic figures like Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell nabbing the top spots. However, renowned metal critic Kim Kelly quickly noted on Twitter that the “definitive” countdown failed to include any albums metal albums by women—so she Tweeted out a list of her own, and then a Spotify user named Jim Fenner compiled (most of) them all into a 1,023-track, 87-hour playlist. Kelly’s crash course does more than simply construct a history of women in metal; she highlights the diversity in female and non-binary artists who have transgressed the genre itself.
5. The Bathroom BansWithin the Spotify ecosystem, you’ll find a multitude of playlists created by the streaming service in response to current events, be it mixes that benefit Mexico City’s earthquake victims, or expressions of support for American dreamers jeopardized by the Trump administration’s DACA repeal. But The Bathroom Bans (part of Spotify’s recently launched I’m with the—banned series) is more than just a playlist protest against repeated attempts by Republican state government to enforce which type of public restrooms trans people are allowed to use. Threading expository animated videos (narrated by Halsey) with tracks by trans/gender-fluid artists and their vocal allies, it nudges the playlist format toward the realm of narrative documentary.
6. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “For Puerto Rico” PlaylistAll-star charity singles have a bad reputation that is entirely earned. But Hamilton playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Almost Like Praying” (proceeds from which benefited victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico) was unexpectedly fire, bringing together everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Dominican icon Juan Luis Guerra for an impassioned, dembow-driven love song to Puerto Rico. The track was introduced through Miranda’s “For Puerto Rico” playlist, which not only presented a soulful portrait of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and its diaspora in the U.S., it also raised money for hurricane-relief efforts through a Spotify donation based on the number of followers it acquired. As an added incentive, the songwriter pledged that, if the playlist hit 50,000 followers, he would share an old photo of himself, dressed as J.Lo. (At the time of this writing, the count was over 73,000, but we’re still waiting for the big reveal.)
7. Aphex Twin’s Field Day setThere’s a reason why Reddit users frantically threw together a playlist of the tracks that Aphex Twin spun during London’s Field Day just hours after the set ended on June 3. The U.K. producer born Richard James remains one of electronic music’s most cherished and mysterious figures, and the singularity of sound and vision has spawned a fervent fan base that tracks his every movement. Admittedly, listening to a playlist comprising tracks exclusively from a DJ set is an odd experience; as an unmixed, dangling historical artifact, experienced within the confines of headphones or home speakers, it’s not how or where James wanted this music to be heard. But your mind fills in some of the blanks: the 3D mapped light instillation; the entrances and exits of the segues; the sweat and flesh of the festival crowd. It’s an incomplete experience, but it’s also interactive, and feels less like you’re staring through a tiny peephole at a much larger world and more like you’re parsing an ancient, oblique text.
8. Frank Ocean’s BlondedAfter a four-year silence that ended with last year’s widely acclaimed Blond(e), Frank Ocean greeted 2017 with renewed vigor. On top of dropping a handful of new singles, he also released a dynamic playlist, “Blonded,” that appears far more personal and revelatory than the artist-branded content that label publicists crank out for streaming services. The first installment, revealed on February 24, included Celine Dion and Teen Suicide alongside obvious nods like Prince and Nina Simone. His March 10 update ventured further afield with jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, prog-pop enigma Todd Rundgren, and techno iconoclast Actress. And this most recent update from this past August features everyone from Frank Sinatra to Geto Boys to Japanese Breakfast. “Blonded” aspires to the ideal of music consumption in the streaming era—now that we can listen to everything, we can consume anything (and switch things up when the mood strikes). It remains to be seen if Frank Ocean’s ideological generosity will eventually manifest in his music.
9. Four Tet’s 60-Hour (And Counting) MegamixAt the time of this writing, the primary Spotify playlist by Four Tet (a.k.a UK producer/DJ Kieran Hebden) spans 695 songs and runs over 60 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, mixing in tracks from the record 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). DJ mixes are a dime-a-dozen, and it’s not hard to find plenty by Four Tet out there in the ether. 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 nearly 700 tracks and counting, this mix is at least beginning to come close.
10. Ivanka Trump’s 991122 PlaylistEven in the streaming-dominant age, it’s still extremely rare for a playlist to make international headlines—but then this feat is probably only the 8,654th weirdest thing to happen under the current presidential administration. On October 15, Ivanka Trump posted this cryptically titled playlist to her Spotify profile, and given its timing (appearing 10 days before her and Jared Kushner’s eighth anniversary) and the egregiously lovey-dovey nature of the songs featured within, manymediaoutletsspeculated that the mix was designed as the soundtrack to a sexy-time couple’s retreat. However when you consider the themes of nostalgia (Adele’s “We Were Young,” Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man”) and looming separation (Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” Passenger’s “Let Her Go”) running throughout the playlist, it’s possible that Ivanka and Jared are actually preparing themselves for a different sort of getaway.
Throughout 2017, we here at The Dowsers have used playlists to provide an alternate lens on the most talked-about albums of the year, breaking down the records to reveal their key influences, collaborators, and sample sources. Here’s your opportunity to chronologically revisit the top records of 2017 with fresh ears:
There may be no other contemporary player who’s logged as many miles, taken as many left turns, or made as many friends on his musical journey than Thundercat. The artist more prosaically known as Stephen Bruner began playing bass at age 15, absorbing the lessons of jazz fusion greats like Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Jaco Pastorius. He soon joined his older brother Ronald Jr. as a member of Suicidal Tendencies, serving the L.A. thrash-funk-metal institution for the better part of a decade, while still making time to tour with Snoop Dogg and build a rep as a session musician for the likes of Erykah Badu and Bilal. Even after Thundercat established his own flair for spaced-out, vanguard R&B with his debut solo album The Golden Age of Apocalypse in 2011, he continued collaborations with Flying Lotus on the Brainfeeder label and forged a new one with Kendrick Lamar. He and brother Ron were also a part of Kamasi Washington’s formidable group for The Epic. The influence of these past hookups are easy to hear in the astonishingly diverse sounds of Drunk.
DAMN. is the sound of a young artist at the peak of his abilities delivering his music straight, no chaser. Each song feels as if it is coming from a different universe, be it the ‘90s slow ride of “HUMBLE.” or the futurist R&B of “LOVE.” or the absolutely bipolar “XXX.,” which travels between Metro Boomin minimalism, Public Enemy fury, and smooth boom-bap consciousness in the span of four minutes. Though Lamar’s influences are vast and easily traceable (the bassy Afrofuturism of Flying Lotus, the beat-poetry prophecies of the Last Poets, the self-aware party-rap of OutKast), on DAMN. he synthesizes them effortlessly, letting his own musical voice shine through more clearly than ever before.
The candor that Mac DeMarco display on This Old Dog—in which he reflects on a fraught relationship with his father—is one element that evokes his ‘70s singer/songwriter heroes, a pantheon that includes James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Harry Nilsson. Yet the music’s effervescence and spirit of playfulness demonstrate his deep devotion to mavericks like Jonathan Richman and Yellow Magic Orchestra just as clearly. All the while, he inches closer to his long-stated ambition to make an album as strong as his favorites, with Neil Young’s Harvest and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band as a couple he often cites. Any way you slice it, This Old Dog is a shockingly mature effort for a guy who remains famous for interrupting a gig to stick a drumstick up his butt.
Though her existence has changed immeasurably since “Royals” broke her wide in 2013, Lorde has not lost the unabashed fandom that’s proven to be one of her most endearing qualities. Indeed, she’s continued to be a rarity as a young artist who expresses a keen understanding of a remarkably diverse array of new and old sounds without sounding derivative of any of them in particular. And while many of the most dramatic moments of her sophomore album Melodrama do suggest the influence of a few of her most-cherished touchstones—single “Liability” is a close cousin to Kate Bush’s “The Man With the Child In His Eyes,” for instance—the connection between her own music and the stuff she loves is more a matter of shared energy and attitude.
SZA has been upfront about her eclectic influences. She’s indebted to powerful vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and Lauryn Hill, who grew up near SZA’s hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey. She’s professed love for Purity Ring, who produced “God’s Reign,” an Ab-soul song on which SZA appears. And SZA’s music exudes a calming effect akin to that of Little Dragon, blending elements of other genres to push R&B into stranger and more interesting territory. It must be difficult to be a singer on a Top Dawg Entertainment roster dominated by rappers, but a few years of background work seemed only to prime SZA for a stronger solo debut.
Flower Boy is Tyler’s coming-out party. It’s the point where Odd Future’s enfant terrible pulls off the bandages, and reveals a true(r), more mature self. He still has the same tools in his kit—he’s still ripping off the Neptunes, and he’s still a very self-conscious provocateur—but he does refine, expand, and, ultimately, negate his prior persona. It’s an exciting and unexpected transformation.
American Dream—an alternately moody, anthemic, inspirational, cranky, and expansive masterwork if there ever was one—sounds like it could’ve fit into David Bowie’s back catalog. If you’re looking for a precise location, it’d be between Low and Lodger, the point in Bowie’s Berlin tenure when he shifted from Krautrock- and Kraftwerk-influenced experimentalism into a harder rock and dance sensibility. Yet the most Bowie-esque element of the new album is its adventurous spirit, something that’s continually been part of the LCD Soundsystem aesthetic as Murphy refined and extended the hallmarks first heard in the dance-punk moment of early-‘00s New York.
Harmony of Difference is the soundtrack to a film by A.G. Rojas that premiered during the Biennial at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in March 2017, and it shows the growth and diversification of Washington’s sound. He already draws heavily from the often overlooked glory days of the early ’70s when musicians extended the jazz tradition into rock, funk, and African music. Deeper grooves power some of the tracks on Harmony, and the solos are more concise—where The Epic’s definitive tracks clocked in at longer than 10 minutes, the best music here often comes in under six. All of Washington’s stylistic advances are represented on “Truth,” which also provides a nifty recapitulation of what made The Epic so special, with its robust rhythms, a choir carrying a soaring melody, and a solo that would do John Coltrane proud. It’s jazz eclecticism at its best—music that is both inclusive and deeply artful.
Now 23, Archy Marshall has applied his inherent cool to two King Krule LPs, both of which feature an inimitable postmodern pastiche of blues, dub, lounge, hip-hop, jazz, downtempo, and experimental noir. His latest, The OOZ, is an itchy, bleary smear of atmosphere and attitude, swinging on saxophone and laden with songs about marginalized Bohemian existence, sung in Marshall’s tongue-swallowing Cockney twang. Given his lifelong exposure to off-the-radar music, it’s no surprise that Marshall’s stated influences—and the less obvious ones—comprise a sonic roadmap through the global underground. From ’80s New York no wave to golden-era hip-hop to mid-century country crooners to Jamaican classics to of-the-moment indie agitators, King Krule has swallowed it all and spit out something wholly unique and utterly captivating.
Taking a plunge into Karin Elisabeth Dreijer’s sound world can be as unsettling as it is exhilarating. Even though the sometimes brutal yet oddly buoyant electro-pop of her (now-defunct) sibling duo The Knife remains a fundamental element of the songs she creates as Fever Ray, the project continues to expose her broad range of influences, from dark metal to African music to the soundtracks of David Lynch and Miami Vice to the work of Meredith Monk and Kate Bush. And while the cumulative effect can be as chilly as a New Year’s Eve party in Göteborg, there’s always a charge—and sometimes even a warmth—thanks to the stormy emotions and vulnerabilities that exist just below the surface.
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.
Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.
