Nineteen-seventy-seven was a year of styles congealing and pointing beyond themselves, musical moments coming into focus and then, just as quickly, getting blurry. Four decades later, this single year of music continually haunts us with its greatness through deaths and rebirths, reissues, and reunion tours. With the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks…, the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia AND Leave Home, and The Clash’s self-titled album, it was a major year for punk; through Television’s Marquee Moon and Wire’s Pink Flag, we glimpsed the dawn of post-punk. And I, for one, still don’t know what to call Iggy Pop’s dual masterpieces from that year, The Idiot and Lust for Life, two records that strayed far enough outside the conventions of rock, proto-punk, and post-punk that they should maybe just be left under the art-rock banner. Likewise, Suicide’s ghostly, self-titled classic could be called anything from proto-punk to post-punk to synth-pop; its mercurial nature only amplifies its staying power as we continue to struggle to digest it in light of Alan Vega’s 2016 death.Also along the lines of the weirder, more avant-garde pop: David Bowie (who produced Iggy Pop’s two releases from that year) dropped Berlin-trilogy classics ”Heroes” and Low—the latter produced by Brian Eno, whose own Before and After Science came out that December. These records, alongside Talking Heads: 77, Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express, and Elvis Costello’s debut LP, My Aim Is True, pointed clearly and forcefully toward the New Wave of the ‘80s.Nineteen-seventy-seven also saw rock continuing to explode into a vast diaspora of sub-genres: disillusioned folk rock (Neil Young’s American Stars ‘n Bars, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours), politicized prog rock (Pink Floyd’s Animals), country-inflected jam rock (Grateful Dead’s Terrapin Station), smooth jazz rock (Steely Dan’s Aja), and whatever you’d call Billy Joel’s The Stranger. (Oh yeah, and John Williams’ Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope soundtrack came out.)This (incomplete, to be sure) list has probably inspired thoughts of nostalgia, as well as, possibly, some feelings of melancholy about the music of our own time. If strong opinions about any of these records have surfaced, it’s because 1977 is still very alive today. The year still guides the rock we make, and it still infiltrates our playlists. The political and social issues of 1977 still, in many ways, exist, and we still struggle to respond to them in ways that are appropriate and meaningful. This playlist isn’t going to change the world, but if it leads to a new way of understanding the present, that’s a good thing. Or, if you just jam out to it while cleaning your house or going for a run, that’s fine, too.

Arthur Russell was an extraordinarily gifted musician whose talent flowed unobstructed into myriad areas of musical culture. Born in Iowa in 1951, Russell rose to prominence in the ‘70s and ‘80s through New York’s downtown music scene, where he engaged with avant-garde, disco, experimental, classical, and more, working with artists such as Philip Glass, David Byrne, and Allen Ginsburg. His disco orchestrations were both profoundly complex and thoroughly hip, employing cello and horns in a radically vanguard way. He is perhaps most famous, though, for his use of amplified cello, the reverberated timbres of which provided an impeccably lush counterpoint to his angelic voice and candid words. His intimate solo recordings remain the nucleus of his genius, the extent of which may never even be fully known, as a tremendous amount of unreleased tapes and demos continue to be discovered since his untimely death in 1992.

Arca’s profile is strange and eclectic: Although featured on albums by Kanye West and Björk, the Venezuelan producer’s solo work lives mostly in the shadows, existing as cult favorites of electronic musicians and intellectuals. His expressionist, synth-based tracks stream into the headphones of people in cafés and living rooms, studied like Johnny Marr studied Marc Bolan; a frequent thought of listeners might be: “How does he do it?”“Vanity,” from 2015’s Mutant, opens with the sounds of profoundly distorted mallet percussions echoing into magnetic eternity, which are quickly usurped by a bassline so smooth and boundless it spills beautifully into the rest of the mix. “Anoche,” which will appear on his self-titled record due April 7, brilliantly doubles detuned synth notes on top of one another as meticulous percussion enters and exists with free will. The lyrics are pure romantic splendor and despair.Of course, Kanye West’s Yeezus, from 2013, must be mentioned here, as the record benefits from not one but four tracks produced by Arca. “Hold My Liquor” and “Blood on the Leaves” are arguably the two most reflective and emotionally explosive tracks on the album: The former centers around a pristine, slow-burning synth pulse, while the latter features spectacularly placed samples and monolithic bass. Arca’s work on “Meditation” by Babyfather (a.k.a. Dean Blunt) feels more vintage and laidback, like a modern Ghostface Killah beat, while FKA twigs’ “Lights On” is a dissonant, palpitating seduction.If the trajectory of his previous works are any indication, Arca’s self-titled record could go down as his masterpiece. Brace yourself for it with this playlist of tracks spanning his luminous career.

Following the US election on Nov 8, 2016, we asked Dowsers contributors to discuss the moods and music the results inspired. We collected their responses in a series, After the Election.I have studied music since I was a child, but in my memory there is one singular moment in which more was revealed to me about the potential of the art form than in any other event in my life. I was an undergrad student at Webster University, where I was studying music history and piano, when this metamorphosis happened. It was very simple: I was working on an assignment in the music building’s computer lab, half listening to a conversation between my friend Shumpei, a Japanese composition student, and one of the composition professors. Shumpei, for his senior project, was writing a symphony, and he was describing the work to the professor, saying that he was fleshing out this or that part of it on that particular day. The professor was intrigued by this project, especially because in today’s composition programs, most students are working in electronic, atonal, or highly-specialized experimental composition. For Shumpei to be writing a symphony was very strange. Then the professor posed the question that was immediately and permanently seared into my mind. He asked, “What’s it about?”It had never occurred to me that classical music could be “about” something. Clearly operas were about something, and program music was about something. But instrumental works? It seemed insane to me. My first thought was that the professor was joking, being facetious, testing Shumpei with an obviously rigged question. But as the conversation unfolded, I started to become attuned to a new plane of meaning in music. I became aware of its essence.I share this anecdote not only because it continues to resonate with me today in my work as a historical musicologist, but also because it frames the way I associate music with contemporary historical events. Whether one likes it or not, Trump’s election is the most significant, unexpected, and potentially transformative political event that has occurred in the adult life of a person my age. I am not saying this in the affirmative or the negative—I am merely being dialectical about it. It is going to produce a new political terrain. Neoliberalism is under siege, the Democratic Party has fractured, the category of “president” is changing, and, most importantly and ideally, the Left has a new position from which to critique—and hopefully overcome—capitalism. From a Marxist standpoint this is truly an interesting situation.I have found myself listening to Beethoven for the past week. At first I did not question it, for this is typical of someone in my line of work. But as I started to realize that I was listening almost exclusively to Beethoven, I began to wonder why this was. As I have thought about it for the past few days, I find myself contemplating not only Beethoven, but the French Revolution, Hegel, and subjectivity. I don’t intend to descend too far into philosophy here, but I will point out that for Adorno, Beethoven’s music represented a particularly sensuous, philosophical image of society. He believed that in Beethoven’s music resided hope and transformation, that his music personified the emerging human quest for consciousness, becoming spirit. “Art is more real than philosophy,” Adorno wrote in his fragments on Beethoven, “in that it acknowledges identity to be appearance.” This means that, to put it reductively, art’s forms, like those of society, are subject to change, that the whole is mediated by the individual parts, that the totality can become something greater than itself, something non-identical, something other.What will Trump do? I don’t really know. I want to believe that he wont be that bad, and that, in opposition to him, we will witness the first revolutionary Left that has existed during any of our lifetimes. In my opinion, this possibility—as the sectarian, dead “left” has shown in the past decades—could not have existed if Clinton had become president. The code word here is “revolution,” and it always must emerge in opposition to something. Trump is the better opponent.My point with all this is that I look to Beethoven’s music for hope, because it was truly revolutionary in every sense of the word—its forms, its relationship to tonality, and, of course (!) its dialectical relationship to the French Revolution. His music is living proof that spirit cannot be extinguished. Beethoven during his lifetime (1770-1827) witnessed the rise and delay of the possibility of freedom, and this had a profound impact on his development as a composer. In no other body of music can one bear witness to such dizzying moments of hope and despair.The Eroica asked what it would mean if a particular interval resolved upward instead of downward, allowing the listener to observe as the status quo of form was broken apart before their very ears, melodies conversing and intertwining, down literally becoming up. The fugue of the op. 110 piano sonata contemplates, among other things, what would unfold if a theme was inverted, played as its own negative. The counterpoint and orchestration of the “Harp” quartet is sublime, especially in the last 90 seconds of its first movement, which contains gestures that continue to legitimately blow my mind. The late quartets investigated tonality to its full potential, so much so, in fact, that most music for the following 75 years was a form of sublimation, trying to catch up to what Beethoven did. This is distilled in Josef Danhauser’s 1840 painting Liszt at the Piano, which shows Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt playing at the keyboard under the consterned bust of his great predecessor, a symbol of Beethoven’s domination of all of his 19th century pupils.To invoke the opening to this essay: What is music about? It is about humanity and possibility. It is an image of ourselves in which the rules do not have to apply, allowing us to work through our desires, our fears, our fantasies, and our losses. I conceived of this playlist as covering a range of classical works that I consider to have significant moments of beauty and freedom, but due to the lengths of the movements I would have selected, as well as the fact that for me, Beethoven is *the* subjective composer, I decided to make this a Beethoven Essentials, of sorts. These are some of his most inspiring flourishes of autonomy. I have listened to Beethoven this week because, if we were living in a sonata form, we would be in the development. There has been a thesis and an anti-thesis, and there is hope. Things are changing, whether we like it or not. It is up to us to determine how we recapitulate.

One cannot listen to Slayer without intent. When you listen to Slayer, you are not just listening to Slayer, but committing to a philosophy—the mere act of listening to Slayer situates you as a bearer of dualities: reflective, yet aggressive; grizzled, yet tender. Of all the American thrash metal bands that came out of the ‘80s, Slayer has been one of the most enduring, and for good reason. They are the a dependable machine. Frankly, they slay. Built on the partnership of guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, as well as bassist and singer Tom Araya, most of Slayer’s discography boasts a remarkably united sound, consisting of a perfect blend of grimy guitars, kerosene-fueled solos, and bone-crushing percussion. Between their macabre themes and hellish garb, their demonic affect is total. Araya’s howls are so iconic by now that, for many, his voice *is,* categorically, metal itself. And being a fan of Slayer has social currency: when you encounter someone in public wearing a Slayer shirt or sporting a Slayer tattoo, you can be reasonably sure that that person is sick as hell. Here are a few essential tracks that go right to the deep end of the inferno.

Broken Social Scene were on a roll in the early ‘00s. After releasing the great, mostly instrumental Feel Good Lost in 2001, their big breakthrough came the following year with the instant classic You Forgot It In People, which achieved a perfect balance of being simultaneously intimate and monumental. Coming up in the middle of the post-millennial indie-rock revival, BSS held their own among bands like The Strokes, Interpol, and The Walkmen. In 2005, they released their masterful and complex self-titled record, which contained a gigantic list of contributing personnel and boasted a 63-minute runtime. BSS were steadily becoming one of the most powerful supergroups in modern rock. Then, they took a sort-of hiatus, and exploded into a diaspora of side-projects before releasing Forgiveness Rock Record in 2010. So what, exactly, did they do during those five years? Okay, take a deep breath.In 2007, Kevin Drew released his first “solo” album, under the title of Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew: Spirit If..., which was followed by what was essentially a Broken Social Scene tour that included tracks from that album and also from their previous records. The following year saw Brendan Canning’s own project, Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning: Something for All of Us… (which featured guest vocals from Drew). Guitarist Andrew Whiteman’s band Apostle of Hustle released the jangly, shuffling National Anthem of Nowhere, whose title track had been road-tested in BSS shows; guitarist, bassist, and horn player Charles Spearin (also of Do Make Say Think) organized an avant-garde record called The Happiness Project. Feist released her mainstream breakthrough The Reminder (whose “I Feel It All” shares DNA with Drew’s “Safety Bricks”); fellow vocalists Emily Haines and Amy Millan put out their respective solo debuts.These albums represent a whirlwind of musical energy—yet, none of it went towards a proper Broken Social Scene album. What would have happened if the band had put out an album that reflected its members’ work from 2006-2009, instead of waiting until 2010 to team up for Forgiveness Rock Record? We can’t know for sure, but we can get close. This playlist envisions a “lost” BSS record of sorts, a potential album that never existed. So, close your eyes, travel back to the person you were 10 years ago, and pretend you’ve discovered a new Broken Social Scene record. Here we go.

Captain Beefheart was a man, but also an idea, and to write a straightforward piece about him here seems antithetical to his essence. He had a mustache sometimes and other times he had a goatee; sometimes he wore a fedora and other times he wore a cowboy or top hat. Despite having no musical training, he played numerous instruments. Occasionally, he composed at the piano, which he did not know how to play. He was friends with Frank Zappa, who produced Trout Mask Replica. His music is indisputably its own strange amalgamation, but it was still as directly tied to the confusion of the ‘60s as any music ever was, fusing blues, beat poetry, jazz, rock ‘n roll, psychedelic, noise, and avant-garde. His voice was almost magical and he could shift between gravelly falsetto and rumbling baritone at the drop of a harmonica. To try to make sense of Captain Beefheart is pointless, and furthermore, it goes against his very being. Sure, he can be understood as a social phenomenon, but this playlist isn’t about that. It’s called “Captain Beefheart Insanity.” Just go with it.

In an era where taking ownership of and proclaiming faith in one’s own project seems a rarity, Chief Keef’s confidence in his own work and that of his friends is a breath of fresh air. When asked by Complex to list his favorite songs, he submitted a list almost exclusively of his own music. He justified this by pointing out that the meaning of each song is communicated in the title of each song, and the list ends up reading like more of an OKCupid “About Me” than a list of favorite songs. An interesting aberration here is “Gucci Mane’s Entire Catalog,” although Keef gives a bit by disclosing that his favorite Gucci song is “Spanish Plug.”

Anthony Gonzalez is a singular force in French electronic music. Since 2001, operating primarily as M83, he has created everything from nostalgic shoegaze rock and pulsing electronic dream pop to film soundtracks, asserting his meticulousness both as a composer and performer. 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts explored the intersection of sampled sound, electronic synths, and post-rock, evoking both Mogwai and My Bloody Valentine, while the melancholy and ecstatic Saturdays = Youth stands strong as 2008’s best ‘80s album. Employing battalions of excellent vocalists, mixers, engineers, and more, Gonzalez always manages to push his perfect rhythms into crystalline atmospheres of sound. His expansive music is equally perfect for midnight cruises with friends and packed music festival fields, insisting that feeling sad can feel good, as long as you are dancing through it.

The ‘90s were an unstable moment for female-driven pop music. Coming out of new wave and post-punk, the decade’s mainstream pop struggled to find its true identity within the context of the grunge of Hole, the coffee-house croonings of Sarah McLachlan, and the hip-hop stylings of Lauryn Hill and the Fugees. Then came the divine intervention of Britney Spears and producer Max Martin, two of the musicians responsible for infusing bubblegum pop with the vitality and sugary veneer of pounding Swedish house and electropop. With their provocative and skirt-shakin’ single “...Baby One More Time,” which featured clean dance rhythms, driving piano chords, and cresting synths, they transformed the game. The next few years saw the infiltration of the new style into the music of both established and rising pop stars such as Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Brandy, Monica, and more, ushering in a new era of pop history.