Essentials

The era when I was old enough to discover music coincided with the first peak of Morrissey’s solo career, during which he released a run of fabulous singles between 1988’s Viva Hate and 1991’s Kill Uncle* (his commercial peak wouldn’t come for another three years). My friend Greg assembled a fab mix tape that began with “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” ran through most of the marvelous first third of Louder Than Bombs, and ended with “Asleep” and “How Soon is Now?” Nudged out of uncommitted asexuality by new friends, I found the Smiths/Morrissey the ideal soundtrack, although I preferred Soho’s “Hippychick” to “How Soon is Now?” and so should you – what better way to repudiate Morrissey’s disco-baiting “Panic”? Hang the singer.This list contains of twenty-five favorites I return to with varying degrees of pleasure. Morrissey dishing is better than Morrissey moping: no “Suffer Little Children” here. As for the albums, my admiration for Meat is Murder grows. Long dismissed by, well, me, as a mausoleum for the exhausted wit of their first phase, it sounds now like a welcome run through Morrissey’s increasing confidence in the delineation of his blue balls. The self-production adds color and a sheen that makes me wonder what else John Porter obscured on the eponymous debut. And Johnny Marr’s six- and twelve-string odysseys get raunchier and more intricate: the Britfunk workout “Barbarism Begins at Home” sustains a groove and prepared the world for “The Queen is Dead.”Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

Every group has its breakout star, and for Atlanta rap trio Migos, Quavo has long been their Beyoncé. But as they rose to new commercial heights in 2017 with the chart-topping single “Bad and Boujee,” the spotlight shifted to another member, Offset. And that left Takeoff—who doesn’t appear on “Bad and Boujee” or the group’s hit Calvin Harris collaboration, “Slide”—looking like the odd man out. Takeoff even had to defend himself to an interviewer at the BET Awards, motioning to his impressive jewelry and asking, “Does it look like I was left off ‘Bad and Boujee’?”But Takeoff (a.k.a. Kirshnik Khari Ball) is nobody’s weakest link. In fact, he’s arguably the best MC in Migos, with a flair for vivid word choices and a distinctively raspy voice that contrasts with his uncle Quavo’s buoyantly melodic delivery. And he’s held down the chorus and first verse on some of the group’s hits, including the recent “T-Shirt” and 2014’s “Fight Night,” which was the highest charting Migos single before “Bad and Boujee.”Takeoff’s hoarse bark often recalls Rick Ross on the group’s most ominous trap anthems like “WOA” and “Cross the Country.” But the way he bites down on consonants with a percussive flow reminds me of Memphis legend MJG, another skilled rapper who was sometimes overshadowed by his partner 8Ball. And he’s displayed a facility for more light-hearted tracks like “Playa Playa,” and even made up for his absence from “Slide” with an appearance on Calvin Harris’ equally smooth “Holiday.” Takeoff released his first official solo track “Intruder” in 2017, and it’s an encouraging glimpse at how capable he is at holding down a song without the help of Quavo and Offset.

Though the term is tossed around a lot, there’s really no such thing as a “one-hit wonder.” If the criteria were simply having one Top 40 Billboard hit, then blink-182, Gorillaz, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix would all be considered one-hit wonders. Even artists that produce only one successful single can have a profound musical impact beyond that song. And there must be at least one power-pop enthusiast out there who knows every Fountains of Wayne song—or at least one besides “Stacy’s Mom”—by heart. Still, we all know what the term “one-hit wonder” generally implies. It’s an artist that produces one massively popular song that completely overshadows all other aspects of their career, whether it lasts for one album or several decades.This playlist consists of one-hit wonders in the post-millennial indie-pop realm. The majority of these groups adhere to the strict definition of the term, having produced at least one single that landed in the Billboard Top 40 charts. But researching this playlist yielded some surprises about artists that I incorrectly assumed only had one recognizable song. Foster the People has actually had a bunch of hit singles, though only “Pumped Up Kicks” has reached No. 1. Noah and the Whale has had several songs chart in the UK, but “5 Years Time” is the only song that resonated elsewhere. Of Monsters and Men has had other successful singles, but “Little Talks” is the only one that has breached the Billboard Top 40. And The Ting Tings were going to be included on this list, until Wikipedia informed me that the band actually had a handful of other singles that charted in the US besides “That’s Not My Name.”Aside from Fountains of Wayne, the most obvious one-hit wonder on this playlist is Gotye. “Somebody That I Used To Know” was a huge No. 1 hit in at least 10 countries, and is likely stuck in your head now that you’ve read its name. But does anyone even remember “Eyes Wide Open,” Gotye’s single released before “Somebody That I Used To Know,” and his only other song to chart in the US?The truth is that someone out there definitely knows that song, and also considers a few other Gotye songs “personal hits” to them the same way, say, Louis XIV’s “Finding Out True Love Is Blind” is to me—it may never have been a literal chart hit, but it was a smash single in my heart. That’s the tricky thing about calling artists one-hit wonders: They never truly are. In the world of indie-pop, however, that distinction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not having hit songs gives you more cred, anyways.

Click here to subscribe to the Spotify playlist.When Papa Wemba collapsed onstage at a concert in Côte d’Ivoire last April, the world lost another one of its musical giants. A bandleader, singer, and fashion icon from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Papa Wemba — who was 66 when he died — was as bold and eccentric as they come, beloved across Africa and the West for his piercing vocal style, outrageous outfits, and countless albums of infectious music, which mixed traditional Congolese and Cuban-style rhythms with intertwining electric guitars, intricate multi-part harmonies, and global influences.Born Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba in 1949 in what was then the Belgian Congo, Papa Wemba first made a name for himself as one of the founding singers of the legendary Kinshasa soukous band Zaiko Langa Langa — sometimes referred to as the Rolling Stones of the Congo for their rebellious sensibilities and amped-up take on the rumba-inspired guitar and vocal music of previous innovators like Franco Luambo Makiadi and Sam Mangwana. After releasing numerous hit records and helping invent a dance called the cavacha, Papa Wemba broke off and started his own group, Viva La Musica. Later he relocated to Paris and teamed up with an international cast of collaborators (including “world music” champion Peter Gabriel) to explore everything from Latin music to soul/R&B to some astonishingly eccentric synth and drum machine sounds.Papa Wemba also starred in the hit 1987 Congolese film La Vie est belle, and he pioneered the dandy-ish “sapeur” style, inspiring generations of Congolese youth to stroll the streets while sporting rainbow-colored three-piece suits, furry hats, bowler caps and old-timey tobacco pipes. The songs on this playlist take in his distinct legacy — spanning his career from the early ‘70s up to some of his latest releases, like his well-received album from 2010, Notre Pere Rumba.

The work of late hip-hop musician J Dilla is particularly suited to the record industry’s strategy of releasing anything a dead icon has created, no matter how modest or inessential. When he was alive, he would hand out CDs full of beats and short instrumental loops to his friends and collaborators. After he passed away in 2006, those same discs became fodder for bootlegs like J Dilla Anthology and Instrumental Joints Volume 1.However, the recent deluge of Dilla’s posthumously released material has tested the wallets of even his most fanatic disciples. There are remastered projects that didn’t get a full airing during his lifetime, like last year’s The Diary—a proper version of his shelved and oft-bootlegged 2002 album Pay Jay—and his extended Detroit crew has repurposed his beats with fresh vocals that are “produced by J Dilla” for Rebirth of Detroit, Yancey Boys’ Sunset Blvd. (a group comprised of Dilla’s brother Illa J and Frank Nitt), and Slum Village’s Villa Manifesto. Most of all, Yancey Media Group, a label established by his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, has issued official collections of his beats: Dillatronic, The King of Beats, Lost Tapes, Reels + More, Dillatroit, and much more. Perhaps overwhelmed by the thousands of beats Dilla made in his life, the label has developed an annoying, even if unintentional, tendency to reuse material on different projects—for example, track 31 on Dillatronic is the same as track 663 on Jay Dee’s Ma Dukes Collection.This playlist attempts to sift through the wellspring of Dilla’s recordings to pick out some gems. There isn’t much background information on when these tracks were made, but a knowledgeable Dilla fan can pick out some clues: The King of Beats collection seems typical of his mid-’90s jazzy hip-hop period when he worked with The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest; Dillatronic reflects his early-’00s, pre-Donuts years and his techno-inflected trunk music. A handful of vocal selections from The Diary and Yancey Boys round out this primer that will prepare you for a deep dive into the world of Dilla.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Jay Jenkins burst into national consciousness in 2005 as Young Jeezy, but a few years later the Atlanta rapper shortened his official handle to simply Jeezy. And he’s certainly not “young” anymore, as he turns 40 on September 28. For over a decade, Jeezy has stood with his friend T.I. and his collaborator-turned-foe Gucci Mane as one of the titans of trap music, the street-hustler variation on southern rap that has become one of modern Atlanta’s biggest cultural exports.With a hoarse but gregarious voice, Jeezy was at first more known for his ad libs than his rhymes, cackling “ha haaaa” and “yeahhhh” on his multiplatinum Def Jam debut Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, and his group Boyz N Da Hood’s self-titled album, both in 2005. But there was also an unflinching darkness to his music that he retained even in crossover hits like the Akon collaboration “Soul Survivor.” And an unlikely political bent emerged in his music with the 2008 album The Recession, which contained hip-hop’s biggest unofficial Barack Obama anthem, “My President.”Jeezy The Snowman’s career has cooled off in the years since his rapid ascent to stardom, but he’s remained one of Atlanta trap’s most consistent hitmakers. He was early to adapt to new sounds like DJ Mustard’s west coast groove on “R.I.P.” and traded introspective bars with JAY Z on “Seen It All.” More recently, in 2016 he returned to the top of the charts with Trap Or Die 3 (a sequel to his 2005 breakthrough mixtape), which featured “All There,” a posthumous hit for the late Bankroll Fresh. And it’s hard to imagine Jeezy retiring anytime soon even as he marks another decade of life.

Prince may have owned the 80s, but his former collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis owned R&B in the 80s (and early 90s). They first rose to prominence as members of The Time, but theyre probably best known as the go-to producers for Janet Jackson. Though, really, diminishing their contributions to one band or one singer does them a disservice. Check out Soulbounces succinct retrospective of their best hits.

Joe Gibbs was one of reggae’s great businessmen and ambassadors, and also one of the genre’s great producers. He was responsible for the highly influential African Dub series, introduced Dennis Brown to America, and worked extensively with the great Lee “Scratch” Perry. The write-up to this playlist on FACT provides an excellent detail to all of this, and the playlist itself is a monster. Though one wonders why they limited themselves to so few songs, the chronological order works to its advantage, as you can hear Gibbs’ sound (and, by extension, the sound of reggae in general) evolve from the late-60s throughout the 70s. As a note, some of these songs were not available on Spotify, but we did our best to recreate it.

John Coltrane went insane sometime around 1960. Once he hit that perfect balance of drugs, free jazz, and ingenious sidemen, it was game over for vintage hard bop. The Village Vanguard concerts of November 1961 saw the beginnings of the classic quartet—Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones—and their search for visionary new sounds and modes. In many ways, Coltrane revolutionized the concert experience through his visceral and spiritual engagement with his music of that period. Through these live performances, ranging from Coltrane Live in Paris to his essential contributions to Miles Davis’ 1960 tour, Coltrane delivered, through both his saxophone and his leadership, some of the most potent expressions of the post-war existential crisis that would ever be heard.

John Coltrane went insane sometime around 1960. Once he hit that perfect balance of drugs, free jazz, and ingenious sidemen, it was game over for vintage hard bop. The Village Vanguard concerts of November 1961 saw the beginnings of the classic quartet—Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones—and their search for visionary new sounds and modes. In many ways, Coltrane revolutionized the concert experience through his visceral and spiritual engagement with his music of that period. Through these live performances, ranging from Coltrane Live in Paris to his essential contributions to Miles Davis’ 1960 tour, Coltrane delivered, through both his saxophone and his leadership, some of the most potent expressions of the post-war existential crisis that would ever be heard.