Artists

As LCD Soundsystem release their fourth studio album American Dream, fans owe more than a little gratitude to David Bowie. Indeed, James Murphy has been quick to give the late rock icon credit for encouraging him to reactivate the band six years after their 2010 Madison Square Garden swansong, an action-packed evening that was documented both in the Shut Up and Play the Hits documentary and the live album The Long Goodbye. Murphy had gotten close to Bowie during the singer’s last years and even collaborated with him musically, doing a sterling remix of “Love Is Lost” from The Next Day and performing percussion on two songs on Blackstar. Unsurprisingly, LCD Soundsystem’s performance of “Heroes”—one of Murphy’s favorite songs from long before he had his own coffee brand—was the most poignant moment at their Coachella reboot in 2016.That deep connection between sadly missed master and studious acolyte may explain why American Dream—an alternately moody, anthemic, inspirational, cranky, and expansive masterwork if there ever was one—sounds like it could’ve fit into Bowie’s own 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.Of course, a whole lot has changed since then, and American Dream reflects the shifts that have gone on not just in Murphy’s life and career, but those of his bandmates, too. Many of the album’s most exciting moments point to the influence of the other musical activities of the LCD membership, whether it’s the brooding electro-pop of drummer Pat Mahoney’s band Museum of Love, the continuing dancefloor adventures of Nancy Whang and John MacLean in The Juan MacLean, the edgy post-DFA tech-funk of artists on Tyler Pope’s Interference Pattern label, or the sprightly synth-pop Al Doyle makes with Hot Chip. Likewise, there are traces of the music that fills Murphy’s DJ sets on his own or with Soulwax as Despacio (e.g., Telex, Suicide, The Cars) or his scores for the films of his pal Noah Baumbach, along with hints of his other recent musical obsessions like The Roches, the art-pop sister act revered for their intricate and intertwined vocal harmonies.So all of this belongs alongside Murphy’s cherished Bowie/Eno-isms in our exploded view of American Dream, a work whose creative vision and generosity are as wide as such a title demands.

Regardless of what you think qualitatively about Drake’s music, or his progression as an artist, his impact on culture is undeniable. He’s a pop idol in a classical, pre-pomo sense; his fans not only devour his music, they model their ideas about fashion, art, and even sports around the Toronto emcee. In ranking the songs that defined the “Drake era,” the Fader staff make note that “this is not a “Best Of” or a ranking of any sort, but an acknowledgement of the songs that represent Drake’s expanding influence in music, culture, and our lives.” It’s a subtle but interesting distinction, but nonetheless interesting: they’re not pulling their favorite songs, or even his most popular songs, but tracks that capture the Drake zeitgeist.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...

Now approaching their 50th (!) year as a band, Sparks (a.k.a. Ron and Russell Mael) have been at the forefront of many crucial developments in pop music—glam rock, electronic disco, New Wave, neoclassical baroque n roll—and have put their own singular, absurdist stamp on them all. As their fabulous recent release, Hippopotamus, proves, Sparks’ flair for extravagant art-pop and whip-smart lyricism remains undiminished. And as their contribution to The Dowsers attests, nobody puts together a playlist quite like the Brothers Mael. Here are their liner notes:“Hasai Ojisan,” Shokichi Kina: The most infectious song of all time, from Okinawa, and a huge hit in Japan in the ‘70s“Maria Bartiromo,” Joey Ramone: The late great vocalist for the sublime Ramones solo ode to the TV financial babe.“London by Night,” The Singers Unlimited: Exquisite a cappella work that far outshines even The Beach Boys“Agharta Prelude (Part I),” Miles Davis: Daring to break from his modal work with two amazing quintets in order to explore new musical territory and risk alienating his followers and critics, Miles Davis is always an inspiration.“HeadBangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!,” BABYMETAL: Great fusion of heavy metal and cute Japanese girl pop. One of the best live acts in the world.“I Love to Rhyme,” George and Ira Gershwin: A hymn to the art of, well, rhyming. George Gershwin was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, both in popular song and in "serious" music.“Du hast,” Rammstein: As heavy as heavy gets.“Twisted,” Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross: A lovely ode to insanity.“Past, Present & Future”: The Shangri-Las: Hyper-emotional, classically tinged pop song by bouffanted beauties masterminded by Shadow Morton.“Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65: III,” Dmitri Shostakovich: Rocks like a motherfucker!“911 Is a Joke,” Public Enemy: Dense and tense music from the magnificent duo. Great in concert.“Baltimore Oriole,” Bob Dorough: Idiosyncratic and thus cool vocals by a jazz great.“All Dressed Up for School,” The Beach Boys: Great pre-genius work by Brian Wilson and more interesting to us than the entire Pet Sounds and Smile albums combined.

Whats This Playlist All About? The grungy indie rockers compile a list of favorite tunes as they prepare for the April release of their third album, Twerp Verse.

What You Get: A playful, kitschy mix of oddball sounds that oddly kind of work together. Find yourself swaying to the doe-eyed Irish folk of The Roches before thrusting to the X-rated raps of Cupcakke. Elsewhere, charming lo-fi (Frankie Cosmos) sits alongside groovy, kaleidoscopic pop (Shintaro Sakamoto); streamlined dance bangers (Zedd); growling metalcore (Code Orange); and spooky, melancholic marvels (Sparklehorse).

Greatest Discovery: Young singer-songwriter Sidney Gishs "I Eat Salads Now," a witty and charmingly weird slice of DIY guitar-pop.

How Does This Reflect Speedy Ortiz in 2018? Twerp Verse singles like the dark, twisted "Villain" and the disorienting pop of "Lean In When I Suffer" blend together some of the more warped riffs and sardonic wit sprinkled throughout the playlist. Like the mix itself, Speedy Ortiz have become a little harder to pin down—in a good way.

Seattle band Spesh spin out a swirling, dream-pop sound lovingly indebted to British C86 indie and shoegaze. The songs are soft-focus but supple, faded technicolor seeping in at the edges to overtake the typical Pacific Northwest gray. For this playlist, the band dig deep into UK influences such as the Pastels, Cocteau Twins, Orange Juice, and many more, but also include further afield faves from Björk to Roedelius. Spesh says, "[This is] music we dance, eat, sing, cry, love, and wake up to. Songs and bands that have influenced the way we see and do and play things."

Glasgow’s Spinning Coin are the latest in a long, storied lineage of winsome, delightfully discordant Scottish indie-pop bands. With their Edwyn Collins-produced debut, Permo, due to arrive on Domino Records on Nov. 10, the group collaborated to make us this playlist of current and eternal favourites.

SEAN ARMSTRONG (VOCALS, GUITAR)Diana Ross & the Supremes, “Someday Well Be Together”Listened pretty much exclusively to Diana Ross & the Supremes for a couple of years. Fell in love with the vocal style—soft and harsh at the same time. Amazing vibrato, and the songs were so intense and real.Sean Nicholas Savage, “Pupil of The Night”Otherworldly pop music. Listened to his album Flamingo over and over in the van on my first tour of Europe. It was the perfect soundtrack—full of wonder and strangeness, and an incredible voice.King Krule, “Czech One”Really love the way King Krule produces his music. A loose collage with jazz influences, and a lot of feeling. Warm, brilliant atmospheric sounds.Keel Her, “Dont Look At Me”Fantastic and prolific. Has thousands of songs, all brilliant, and quite varied. Very inspiring to anyone who wants to home-record.RACHEL TAYLOR (VOCALS, KEYBOARD)Éliane Radigue, “Kyema (Intermediate States)”A beautiful and restorative piece of drone music. For years I would listen to it while falling asleep. Its a nice listen on a long walk as well.Mary Margaret OHara, “Bodys in Trouble”This record is brilliant. Mary rarely performs these days, but every year she puts on a St. Patricks party in Toronto called The Martian Awareness Ball. When we met, she invited me to play one of them without having heard my music. It was my first gig! I felt so lucky.Tasseomancy, “29 Palms”Sari and Romys tunes are gorgeous and trippy. I remember when they released this record, it felt like Id received a gift.Elliott Smith, “Coming up Roses”Every autumn I seem to fall back into an Elliott Smith vortex. This is one of my favourites.JACK MELLIN (VOCALS, GUITAR)Brigid Mae Power, “I Left Myself For A While”A beautiful song from an amazing album I have been listening to obsessively for weeks.Anne Briggs, “Ride, Ride” *Anne Briggs makes sacred, elemental, earth music, best listened to in deep meditation.* This song isn’t available on Spotify, so listen to it on YouTube instead.Trash Kit, “Leaves”I really love Trash Kit. I listen to this album regularly first thing in the morning! There are two Rachels in this band, and they are/have been involved in lots of other great bands—Bamboo, Halo Halo, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and more!Sex Hands, “Pivot”Can you work out what this concept album is about? Sex Hands are also involved in other great things—check out The Birth Marks and Irma Vep.CHRIS WHITE (DRUMS)Joe Meek and the Blue Men, “The Bulblight”I love Joe Meek productions. I like to think of him up in his flat on Holloway Road coming up with these mad sounds.Funkadelic, “Back In Our Minds”This sounds so cool. Funkadelic make you feel good—they can transport you with their music.The Breeders, “Off You” Me, Sean, and Rachel went to see The Breeders the other week. They have so many great songs. I love the synth stab in this one.Golden Teacher, “Dante and Pilgrim”Friends from Glasgow making great tunes. Kicked off at Green Door Studios; amazing live.CAL DONNELLY (BASS) Delta 5, “Mind Your Own Business”One of the first covers I played that I liked.OutKast, “Aquemini”Production sounds like a swamp house, and I like swamp houses.Duds, “No Remark”Friends from Manchester playing great tunes.Dele Sosimi, “E Go Betta”A song I was shown fairly recently that blew my tiny mind.BONUS TRACKS FROM JACK!Alvvays, “In Undertow”We played with Alvvays recently. It was a great pleasure. They have lots of wonderful tunes! I am addicted to them these days.Girl Ray, “Trouble”Really looking forward to supporting Girl Ray. They have sooo many amazing songs!Angel Olsen, “Stars”This is definitely one of my favourite songs and albums from the past few years. Love it! “Sister” is also an incredible track worth checking out.

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—is just the latest in a long line of current artists who worship the Jersey legend. In addition to The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn (who has penned more than a few American anthems soaked in the Boss’ doomed romanticism and epic piano runs), The Killers dropped an entire album, 2006’s Sam’s Town, documenting the Vegas act’s collision of post-punk propulsion with gruff protestations and engine-roaring dynamics strung out on Born to Run. And, of course, the Arcade Fire (who actually pal around with their hero) slipped a whole mess of Springsteenisms—including the “Dancing in the Dark”-style pulse powering “Keep the Car Running”—into their 2007 blockbuster Neon Bible.Rewind to the pre-2000s (back when alterna-types generally were gloomier and harbored far deeper suspicions of mainstream rockers), and Springsteen’s influence admittedly was less pervasive. Not only that, those artists who were inspired by him rarely wore it on their sleeves like their post-Y2K counterparts. Where a tune like The War on Drugs’ “Up All Night” actually sounds like the Boss, The Replacements’ heartland ballad “Here Comes a Regular” evokes more of a spiritual connection in its evocation of small-town drinking buddies and dive bar fatalism. Paul Westerberg’s protagonist, broken yet restless, sounds as if he walked right out of the grooves of The River.Yet an even more interesting example is U2 and The Joshua Tree: There’s virtually nothing on the album that sounds overtly like Springsteen (though “In God’s Country” definitely reads like one of his song titles), yet the case can be made that the band’s fusion of anthemic rock, arena-sized yearning, and self-consciously grandiose lyrics drenched in American imagery could have only arrived in a post-Born in the U.S.A. pop market. (It should be noted Springsteen delivered U2’s Rock Hall induction speech in 2005.)The Clash also channel the Boss without nicking anything in particular from his music. This is especially true of London Calling, a record oozing the same sweaty belief in rock ’n’ roll redemption that Springsteen pumped out all throughout the ’70s. Of course, punks weren’t supposed to dig classic rockers, but the late Joe Strummer was having none of that. “His music is great on a dark and rainy morning in England,” he wrote to rock documentary filmmaker Mark Hagen in 1997. “Just when you need some spirit and some proof that the big wide world exists, the D.J. puts on ‘Racing in the Streets’ and life seems worth living again—life seems to be in cinemascope again.” All hail the Boss!

SRSQ (pronounced “seer-skew”), the solo project of Kennedy Ashlyn, came in the wake of a tragic event: “the worst thing to happen in my life thus far,” she told Noisey. Ashlyn lost Cash Askew, her partner in the dream-pop duo Them Are Us Too, in the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, CA, in 2016. As SRSQ, Ashlyn channels her grief into gray, gossamer goth-pop that ebbs and flows with the celestial allure of the Cocteau Twins. She calls it “griefwave” or “grating pop for the unfit,” and her 2018 debut album, Unreality, embodies just that. As much as making her own music has been a necessary therapy, listening to others’ is just as healing, and she’s shared a moody yet mesmerizing list just for us.Says Ashlyn: This is a “soundtrack for people who wear sunglasses or live underwater. Overstimulation overtime forces mitigation. Embrace a blasé-faire attitude; stay unhinged.”

Like his longtime associate DJ Drama, producer Donald Earl Cannon hails from Philadelphia but made his mark on hip-hop after relocating to Atlanta, where his brassy, sample-driven productions stood out on hit albums by Jeezy, 2 Chainz and Ludacris. But he’s also shown love for his hometown, working with Philly artists like Freeway and Lil Uzi Vert, whose breakout hit “Money Long” was co-produced by Cannon with Maaly Raw. As the in-house producer of Drama’s Gangsta Grillz series of mixtapes and albums, Cannon’s bombastic tracks have been blessed by hall of famers like Lil Wayne, Jadakiss, and even Outkast, who collaborated with him on “The Art of Storytellin’ Part 4.”