Indie

Thisisrnb.com is one of the best R&B fan sites on the Internet, and its recent post on Jeremih’s influences is proof. Short but sweet, these 10 tracks reveal that many if not most of the singer’s recent hits rely on samples for songwriting inspiration. It’s obvious that Whitney Houston’s deathless hi-NRG chestnut “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” informed the hook for the 2015 Jeremih smash with Natalie La Rose, “Somebody”; and that Snap!’s Euro-rave conqueror “Rhythm is a Dancer” led to his chorus on “Don’t Tell ‘Em.” But did anyone know that he copied a vocal line from Shai’s sappy a cappella ballad “If I Ever Fall In Love” for the hook of his most recent chart smash, “Oui”? One can conclude from this list that the “Birthday Sex” king has grown a little derivative, but leave it to Thisisrnb.com to assess his recent creative direction more kindly. “Some writers are just naturally gifted with the ability to remix, remake or flip a set of lyrics into a different melody or copy a melody with different lyrics,” goes the post, which is unsigned. “We’d be interested to know if he has been consciously doing remakes of big hits to hopefully land another big hit, or if it’s been more organic and just came out during sessions.”

In May 2017, LCD Soundsystem released “Call the Police," their first new music in seven years. An indulgent self-lament that morphs into a middle-aged rallying call, the song is both brilliant and heartbreaking—that is, once you finish rolling your eyes at the fact that it exists in the first place. Since the first LCD Soundsystem reunion show was announced at the start of 2016, James Murphy spent the next year doing exactly what he told everyone he wouldn’t do: cashing in on the residual fervor generated by his past success, and on the reunion economy at large. Its in this transitional period of Murphy’s career that his playlist for the Ten Songs That Saved Your Life site (he actually chose 15*) take on a new context. His list includes the obvious forebearers of traditional rock, LES post-punk, and quintessential European electronica. They are highly indicative of his own music, which has often subtly reimagined sounds already thought to have hit their apex. But keep in mind that on this mix, Murphy is not flaunting his inspiration; he’s talking salvation. So much of his music has dressed itself in sardonic humour before it sucks all the air out of the room with its unabashed honesty. It’s a skill that the best of the best share. Whether it’s coming from Roberta Flack or David Bowie, there is something both comforting and emancipatory about someone else speaking your truth better than you ever could. Perhaps this is why Murphy’s own resurgence has been so unnervingly easy to swallow. When artists are this impressive, sometimes catalyzing entire subgenres through their work, it’s difficult to argue why you shouldn’t pedestalize them. On the other hand, it makes it similarly easy to give them a pass when they get under your skin.* Some of Murphys selections are not available on Spotify and thus not included on this playlist. You can listen to his original version here.

In January 2017, 2 Chainz launched “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music,” a weekly Spotify playlist that doubles as promotion for his similarly titled upcoming album. Each list nominates a different woman to select new and recent raps: The inaugural edition showcased Karrueche Tran, and subsequent collections featured Amber Rose, Lauren London, Erykah Badu, and Nicki Minaj. Even Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant curated a March 19 installment, but he’s the sole outlier of the playlist’s “thirst trap” theme.While “Pretty Girls” operates under the glare of the male gaze, the lists expand beyond trap. An April 20 installment by New York radio personality and Breakfast Club host Angela Yee includes Fabolous’ Summertime Shootout series, low-denominator wavy rapper NAV, and Tee Grizzley’s school of hard knocks gem “First Day Out,” as well as customary trap selections from Migos, Future, Jeezy, 2 Chainz (of course), and, uh, Drake. Sample from this wide-ranging buffet of mainstream rap’s super-lit highs and mediocre lows.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

In his intro for the "article," FACT editor-in-chief Joe Muggs makes an interesting distinction:

Well Indietronica, very pleasantly, isn’t really “a thing”. It’s not a scene, it’s not something with clubs or events dedicated to it, it’s not a marketing bracket or a pseudoacademic category, it’s never anything that people would think to say they’re into. It sometimes feels more an agglomeration of things that have fallen between the cracks of cool, an ad-hoc arrangement of dweebs, dorks and hobbyists all finding quiet corners of the music world where they can get on with their own tinkerings unmolested.

To an extent, "Indietronica" is a catch-all for both electronic music tracks with pop song structures, and, conversely, for indie pop tracks with electronic embellishments, both of which are made by musicians who are largely not within mainstream culture, but its a bit of a critical crutch that this list defines too broadly. Hot Chip and even Caribou definitely fit the mold, as where theres a lot more going on in tracks by clOUDDEAD or Sampha than just Indietronica. The latter belongs in the same electronic singer-songwriter tradition as James Blake (whose also included on the list), while cLOUDDEAD fall into the experimental hip-hop camp. Of course, you could also make the case that the point of bands are to resist easily classification altogether. Regardless, this is a really enjoyable and cohesive set of tracks.

Trip-hop took college campuses, or at least my dorm room, by storm in the mid-90s, and then very quickly fell out of view. A lot about the psych hip-hop genre still seems overcooked, underwhelming and redundant, but certainly not all of it. This is the sort of list that FACT usually knocks out of the park, and this is no exception. The list provides a good overview of the micro-genre, though well quibble with calling Meat Beat Manifesto trip hop. It also works great as a playlist as trip-hop songs have a uniformity of sound that translates well into this type of mix.Note: Some of the songs here simply arent available online, so we didnt quite make it to the full 50.

Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.Those who can’t remember the ‘60s may be doomed to repeat them, but that may be more a blessing than a curse. Though other eras ebb and flow in terms of their musical influence on the present moment, the Age of Aquarius appears to be a constantly churning river that runs through every subsequent period in pop culture, providing inspiration anew to each fresh crop of strummers, slammers, and shouters. 2016 was no exception to this phenomenon—of the albums released over the course of the year, there was no shortage of records sporting a significant ‘60s flavor. Of course even among ‘60s fetishists, everyone has their own variation. For instance, current troubadours like Ryley Walker and Itasca show fealty to the acoustic guitar-wielding folkie songsmiths of bygone days, while The Explorers Club and Seth Swirsky pay homage to the sunshine pop powers of The Beach Boys and their ilk, and Night Beats and The Warlocks represent the drop-some-acid-and-floor-the-distortion-pedal approach to psychedelia. All in all, 2016 turned out to be a pretty good year for the ‘60s.

If you were a teenager in the ‘80s (as I was), you could be forgiven for thinking the ‘60s were lame. Between yuppies dancing around to Motown milestones in The Big Chill to classic rock radio’s ossification of a couple dozen hippie-era hits (whose ubiquity proved that familiarity does indeed breed contempt), any right-thinking young person was bound to eschew the Aquarian age in search of greener pastures. Most likely, you gravitated toward the bright, gleaming light beckoning from the New Wave/post-punk realm, where everything seemed fresh and vibrant.But as I discovered pretty quickly into my obsession with college radio—and contemporary chronicles like Trouser Press, New York Rocker, and Creem—punk’s tabula rasa/year zero ideal didn’t hold much ground when you got into the nitty-gritty of what followed it. The flood of ‘80s acts who arrived in punk’s wake, for all their bold new moves, still sported a slew of influences from the ‘60s—sometimes overtly in the form of cover tunes, and sometimes more subtly in the influences they’d assimilated.The more I viewed the music of the ‘60s through the filter of ‘80s bands who were breathing new life into the airwaves and record stores again, the more attractive that bygone era seemed. Sometimes a cover version could put you on a direct route to the original artist’s oeuvre: For instance, ‘60s L.A. psych underdogs Love, who would be posthumously deified a couple of decades later, were more popular than ever as an underground phenomenon in the ‘80s. The Damned’s cover of their “Alone Again Or” made it easy to find your way to the seminal Forever Changes; and once you were there, the spelunking was endlessly rewarding.Even on the less obvious end of the spectrum, it didn’t take a cultural anthropologist to trace the links from, say, the power chords of The Jam and Secret Affair to mod OGs like The Who and Small Faces. Nor was it too tough to determine that the chiming guitar riffs of R.E.M. and The Cleaners From Venus led straight back to first-gen jangle kings The Byrds.It wasn’t just ‘60s rock that revealed itself to me in this manner. The ‘80s synth-pop bands may not have had much of a musical investment in psychedelia and such, but the pop, R&B, and girl group sounds of the ’60s were another story. It was easy to follow the paths of the likes of Naked Eyes to the glittering legacy of singers like Dionne Warwick, who previously might have seemed like a middle-of-the-road musician from another generation to my amateurish ears. And while New Orleans R&B wasn’t especially accessible to an ‘80s kid growing up in The Bronx, Devo’s mechanized take on the Allen Toussaint-penned Lee Dorsey classic “Working In the Coal Mine” illuminated a whole new world to be explored.Of course, in a pre-Internet world, these explorations of the past were far more difficult than they are for teens, or anybody else, today. But the thrill of the chase was as much a part of the fun as the end result.

No Wave always seemed like more of an idea or a scene than a particular music aesthetic -- theres a lot of space between Liquid Liquid, ESG and Sonic Youth, for example -- but there are general common denominators (detuned guitars and shouted vocals). The scene was entirely based in New York, began in the late-70s and fizzled out by the mid-80s. It got its name from the amazing Godard quote, "There are no new waves, there is only the ocean," and while it was never popular, per se, the bands associated with the scene were endlessly influential, inspiring everything from hardcore to DFA-era electro pop. Im sure a no wave purist would scoff at some of the inclusions on this list, but its still a good primer for the genre.

Within days of each other, CamRon and Kevin Gates released tracks with unlikely samples. CamRons romantic "10,000 Miles” has him singing "Lookin up out my Benz" over the familiar twinkling piano riff from Vanessa Carltons massive 2001 hit "A Thousand Miles," while Gates more reflective "What If" utilizes Joan Osbornes "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.Janet Jackson took advantage of the infectious guitar on Americas "Ventura Highway" to create the romantic pop jam "Someone To Call My Lover," and also brought on Carly Simon herself to rework her "Youre So Vain" into the sassy, slam poetry-filled "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)." Didos "Thank You" turns ominous in Eminems iconic and gorgeously dark "Stan," and Rihanna turned the dark and moody "Im with You" by pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne into party anthem "Cheers (Drink To That)."In some light-hearted, ridiculous moments, Elephant Man reimagines Nelly Furtados "I’m Like A Bird" for his single "Gal Bruk," Project Pat toys with the haunting, atmospheric sound of Alanis Morissettes "Uninvited" for his track "Sucks on Dick" featuring Juicy J, and Ice Cube reimagines the lyrics of No Doubts "Dont Speak" for his bleak "War And Peace."Some samples are more subtle: Adeles "Hometown Glory" just barely creeps up at the beginning of Childish Gambinos "Heartbeat," overshadowed by a rough, aggressive beat, and Nicki Minaj and Cassies reference to Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” may go unnoticed because of how briefly they slip it into “The Boys.” No matter how small the contribution, the unlikely juxtaposition of adult contemporary pop and hip-hop can be enough to spark an unexpected musical idea.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

This post is part of our Disco 101 program, an in-depth series that looks at the far-reaching, decades-long impact of disco. Curious about disco and want to learn more? Go here to sign up. 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. They’ll thank you. We thank you.Thanks to a cadre of specialty imprints, as well as guerilla crate diggers like Awesome Tapes From Africa, music fanatics can now explore numerous reissues and compilations that chart the evolution of dance music in post ’60s Africa. It’s from this wealth of archival work that Resident Advisor has constructed “Afro Disco,” a collection of cuts that show how the scorching syncopation of mid-’70s Afrobeat gradually cooled into a purring, disco-inspired repetition by the dawn of the ’80s. Another key change is a heavier reliance on synthesizers and chunka-chunk guitars fed through the kind of coked-out effects that Chic’s Nile Rodgers pioneered. RA’s aesthetic is so tightly focused (big surprise there) that one could easily imagine these tracks being released as their own compilation.