The party line is that electronics first entered the rock realm via prog rock in the early to mid ‘70s, but in fact, synthesizers were already on the scene when a psychedelic haze was still hanging in the air. Though The Monkees were often derided as prefab pop stars, they were actually the first to employ synths in a mainstream rock context, using one of the earliest Moogs on two of their trippier tracks, “Daily Nightly” and “Star Collector.” The Beatles got their licks in as well, from the big fat synth tones on “Because” to the screeching, Moog-generated white noise that builds up in the coda of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Even the blues-rooted Stones took an electronically assisted sojourn into outer space with “2000 Light Years From Home.” Of course, there were plenty of underground acts incorporating synths into their sound, from the Velvet Underground-goes-electronic vibe of the United States of America to the visionary Silver Apples and their homemade gear. It was an era when anything seemed possible; actor/singer Anthony Newley even teamed up with Dr. Who composer Delia Derbyshire for what was probably the first (and freakiest for its time) electronic pop song, “Moogies Bloogies.” Ultimately, all the aforementioned artists were innovators in electronic rock. With the counterculture in ascendance, the sky wasn’t the limit — the stars were. -- Jim Allen

The loss of Leonard Cohen is an incalculable one. But part of the reason he’ll be missed so much is also one of the reasons the world without him might be a bit less bleak than we expect. The power of his poetic vision was so strong that he ended up deeply influencing generation after generation of artists operating in every stylistic sector, from folk rock to post-punk. Countless singers have covered Cohen’s songs over the years (including some of the artists you’ll encounter here), but these are the people whose own work has been irrevocably imprinted with the inspiration of the man from Montreal. It might not always be immediately obvious, but it’s undeniably there, whether it’s in the devilish alt-rock antics of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, the moody singer/songwriter style of Suzanne Vega, or even the grunge-era growl of Afghan Whigs and Nirvana (whose longing for “a Leonard Cohen afterlife” in “Pennyroyal Tea” takes on a whole new resonance in this context).

Krautrock wasn’t all about fuzzed-out guitars and primal drumbeats; much of the innovation that came out of the German underground in the late ‘60s and ‘70s (spilling over slightly into the early ‘80s) came from mighty Moog-wielding electronic sorcerers eager to rewrite musical history in their own image. From the hypnotic, highly textured synthscapes of rock’s first real synth band, Tangerine Dream, to the proto-techno man-machine music of Kraftwerk, the electronic side of the krautrock revolution could be soft or stormy, melodic or assaultive, accessible or out on the edge. But those trailblazing German synth meisters laid down sounds that influenced the whole world for generations to come, from the synth-poppers who followed in the footsteps of Kraftwerk to the trance nation that claims Tangerine Dream among its key influences.

There’s never been a time when there wasn’t craziness going on in the world. Sometimes there’s more than others, and sometimes it hits closer to home, but nobody really needs to tell you about it. Instead, it might be more useful if you could have something to lessen the angst a little bit and provide a little solace for the spirit, a warm bath for the soul. That’s something music’s always been great at, and the heavier things get out there, the more we need it. With that in mind, here’s an ultra-mellow mix of tunes designed not just to chill you out but to immerse you in a restorative sonic cocoon.

We’ve plucked palliative tunes from a broad, seemingly disparate spectrum of styles—everything from ’90s alternative to ’60s spiritual jazz, bossa nova to folk rock, ambient electronics to Memphis soul. But the ostensible differences notwithstanding, all the tracks are unified in a singularity of purpose: talking you through, tucking you in, and taking your tension down as many notches as possible.

A mighty assemblage of artists is on board for that important task. There’s the cosmic jazz journeys of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, the harmony-pop heaven of The Beach Boys and The Bee Gees, the sweeping, synthesized textures of Ana Roxanne and Julianna Barwick, the gentle balladeering of Emilíana Torrini and Nick Drake, all tumbling together in the service of settling you down and sending you someplace that feels friendlier than what the wider world’s got to offer you at the moment.

Photo by Josh Boot on Unsplash

The party line is that electronics first entered the rock realm via prog rock in the early to mid ‘70s, but in fact, synthesizers were already on the scene when a psychedelic haze was still hanging in the air. Though The Monkees were often derided as prefab pop stars, they were actually the first to employ synths in a mainstream rock context, using one of the earliest Moogs on two of their trippier tracks, “Daily Nightly” and “Star Collector.” The Beatles got their licks in as well, from the big fat synth tones on “Because” to the screeching, Moog-generated white noise that builds up in the coda of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Even the blues-rooted Stones took an electronically assisted sojourn into outer space with “2000 Light Years From Home.” Of course, there were plenty of underground acts incorporating synths into their sound, from the Velvet Underground-goes-electronic vibe of the United States of America to the visionary Silver Apples and their homemade gear. It was an era when anything seemed possible; actor/singer Anthony Newley even teamed up with Dr. Who composer Delia Derbyshire for what was probably the first (and freakiest for its time) electronic pop song, “Moogies Bloogies.” Ultimately, all the aforementioned artists were innovators in electronic rock. With the counterculture in ascendance, the sky wasn’t the limit — the stars were.

William Shatner began his outside-the-box musical career in the 60s, recording spoken-word versions of rock hits. In the 2000s, he resumed his recording career, and ever since it has taken him into strange, unexpected territory, with a head-scratching array of collaborators including Henry Rollins, Joe Jackson, Lyle Lovett, Sheryl Crow, Steve Vai, and many more. This year even saw the release of a Shatner Christmas album.Shatners musical moonlighting began while he was still inhabiting the role that would define him for generations of fans: Star Treks Captain James T. Kirk. His 1968 album The Transformed Man found him delivering dramatic, spoken versions (with musical backing) of some of the most popular songs of the era, like Bob Dylans "Mr. Tambourine" and The Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Was he delivering these out-there performances in earnest or with a broad wink? To this date, thats never really been determined, but that nebulousness has always been part of the fun.It took until 2004 for the always-busy actor to finally follow up The Transformed Man. His second album, Has Been, opened with his version of Pulps "Common People," and the rest of the record was occupied with original material, mostly co-written with Ben Folds, that found Shatner doing duets with everyone from Henry Rollins ("I Cant Get Behind That") to Brad Paisley ("Real"). Has Been turned out to be a surprise hit, and it earned such a rapturous reception that Shatner was inspired to embrace music more wholeheartedly than ever before. A string of albums followed over the next several years, each one demonstrating both his eclecticism and his willingness to go out on a limb. In retrospect, its hard to believe it took him so long to tackle the concept of Seeking Major Tom, an album of outer space-themed rock classics like David Bowies "Major Tom," Elton Johns "Rocket Man" (a song hed famously done live on TV but never recorded before), and Duran Durans "Planet Earth."Ponder the Mystery took the trippy themes a step further, as producer Billy Sherwood of Yes helped Shatner create an appropriately interstellar-sounding prog rock album that featured contributions from artists associated with Tangerine Dream, Hawkwind, Frank Zappa, and other art-rock outfits. Never one to be pigeonholed, Shatner followed that cosmic outing with a country album, Why Not Me, co-helmed by Jeff Cook of country superstars Alabama, with original tunes featuring guest appearances by Neal McCoy and Cash Creek.For 2018, Shatner took a simultaneously traditional and typically confounding turn on Shatner Claus, a Christmas album unlike any other. After all, where else are you likely to hear his old pal Henry Rollins shouting along with "Jingle Bells" or Iggy Pop crooning on "Silent Night?"

In music, there’s a lot that can be said without ever uttering a single word, and 2019 turned out to be an excellent example of the many ways in which that idea can be borne out. Of course, there are genres where a lyrical no-fly zone is the norm, like jazz, classical, and electronic, so it’s no surprise to find some of the year’s most ear-catching instrumental tunes coming from those quarters (and you will indeed encounter a couple herein). But even in the realms of rock, funk, and folk, where most of the time, vocals are a given, 2019 produced a number of tracks where either the singer stuffs a sock in it or there isn’t one to begin with.

You might think that corralling cuts from all across the stylistic spectrum like this would result in a playlist with only slightly less schizophrenia than a double feature of Shine and A Beautiful Mind and that the disparate genres would wind up sounding incongruent. But that’s not the case at all. Maybe there’s something about the absence of the human voice that normalizes these tunes’ unexpected tumbles into each other.

When the neo-psychedelic guitar frenzy of Chris Forsyth segues into the minimalist avant-jazz of trumpeter Steph Richards, or the elegant, solo acoustic-guitar tapestries of Michael Chapman bump up against the tinkling electronic manipulations of Sarah Louise, and then that segues into the beyond-category madness of TOOL, it ought to feel as if you’re following a circuitous path, but it doesn’t. By the time the syncopated funk grooves of Lettuce give way to the flesh-tearing punk-jazz melee of Blacks’ Myths with a surprising degree of ease, you’ll have long since stopped worrying about genre distinctions and settled into some of the most intoxicating wordless wonders of 2019.

When “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X became a phenomenon in 2019, with its genre-twisting collision of country, pop, and hip-hop landing it on the charts for all three genres (not to mention the GRAMMY® awards it nabbed in 2020), many casual observers were surprised by the idea of African-American artists making waves in the country world. But the fact is, there have been black country artists in every era, going all the way back to the music’s beginnings.

As those who watched Ken Burns’ much-buzzed PBS documentary Country Music already know, DeFord Bailey was a member of the Grand Ole Opry back in the 1920s, paving the way for generations to come. With the 1939 Western film The Bronze Buckaroo, Herb Jeffries—who proved equally comfortable with jazz and country—became the first African-American singing cowboy star of the movies. The 1960s saw the start of one of the biggest careers in country music: that of Country Hall of Famer Charley Pride. And Stoney Edwards was a reliable presence on country radio throughout the ’70s.

The world first came to know Darius Rucker as the big-voiced frontman for roots-rock superstars Hootie & The Blowfish in the ’90s, but when he reinvented himself as a solo star in the 2000s, he was strictly in a Nashville state of mind. The 2000s also birthed a precedent for Lil Nas X’s country/rap crossover in the “hick-hop” sound of Cowboy Troy from Big & Richs crew. So even before “Old Town Road” came along, country in the 2010s was wide open for African-American artists, from the siren sound of Mickey Guyton to the R&B-inflected twang of Kane Brown and the romantic croon of Jimmie Allen.

Nobody with half a head on their shoulders would ever suggest that African-American country artists weren’t relatively few and far between, but it’s important to remember that there’s scarcely been a time when they werent a part of the scene.

If you’re mixing up a cool Brazilian cocktail to keep you from overheating this summer, here are a few essentials you’ll need to have on hand. Start with a little cachaça, some lime, and a pinch of sugar, then add a dash of samba, some bossa nova, and a touch of Tropicália if you really want to keep things on the cool side.

Brazilians have never been strangers to sweltering, sun-baked days, and they’ve always known exactly how to counter all that heat—by crafting music that sounds and feels as if it’s lifting a breeze off of the ocean and sending it right in your direction. Sure, Brazilian musicians know how to work up a feverish intensity when the spirit moves them, but they’ve always been masters at maintaining a sub-zero level of chill. You can hear it in the supple, sensuous sounds of bossa nova originators Luiz Bonfá and João Gilberto. Then you can follow it through to the pioneers who gained stardom in the ’60s by putting their own slant on the style as part of the MPB (música popular brasileira) movement, like Elis Regina, Marcos Valle, and Edu Lobo.

Even when forward-looking artists like Os Mutantes, Gal Costa, and Caetano Veloso started making headway in the Tropicália scene by blending Brazilian rhythms with elements of psychedelia, they still found plenty of ways to keep things breezy. In later years, the likes of Bebel Gilberto and Céu brought modern electronic touches into the mix, and singers like Luciana Souza swept in with a jazz influence, but they still served up the sort of sounds that would work just right in combination with a cool caipirinha lifted to your lips on a sultry summer afternoon.

Get set to realign what you thought you knew about some of your favorite songs—specifically, their origins. The past several decades have been loaded with widely loved tunes that have secret pasts. From rock staples to pop anthems to soul milestones, heres a heavy batch of classic cuts you never knew were not the original versions.

Some one-hit wonders even built their entire careers off a stealth cover. Toni Basil’s lone success, the 1982 No. 1 “Mickey,” was the result of gender-tweaking a 1979 tune called “Kitty” by British glam-rockers Racey.

You wouldn’t have wanted to be a member of Motown group The Undisputed Truth when their minor 1972 hit “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” found a place in the R&B pantheon courtesy of The Temptations’ version later that same year. The New Wave era brought plenty more. Blondie’s 1978 single “Hanging on the Telephone” first found life as the opening cut on power-pop cult heroes The Nerves lone release, a self-titled 1976 EP. Bow Wow Wow’s ’80s smash “I Want Candy” was originally written and recorded in 1965 by The Strangeloves, a band that included future Blondie producer Richard Gottehrer. Even some artists famous for revamping classic tunes have been known to slip one by. Though Joan Jett scored a bunch of hits by rebooting other artists’ songs, most people are unaware that her biggest track, “I Love Rock ’N Roll,” was a 1975 glam-rock nugget by The Arrows.

A decade later, The Lemonheads were another act known for covers whose biggest single was widely mistaken for an original. “Into Your Arms” originated not with Evan Dando but with the Australian duo Love Positions, who released it in 1989, after which band member Nic Dalton joined The Lemonheads, eventuating their version of the tune.

Even ex-Beatles were part of the phenomenon. One of the biggest hits of George Harrison’s solo career was 1987’s “Got My Mind Set On You.” The song never gained much traction in its 1962 release by R&B singer James Ray, but George became familiar with it and retained it all those years later. One of the things this goes to show is that you never can tell where a great song will wind up.