Decades

In terms of persona, Miguels is poised somewhere between Frank Oceans headcase auteur and Lana Del Reys sun-damaged SoCAl rock-star shtick. Its a bit strained, and his deceleration on Wildheart that hes "speeding through all those red lights...dreaming of a beautiful exit" ("a beautiful exit") or his desire to "fuck like were filming in the valley" ("the valley") feel a little edgy-by-the-numbers, but he generally has a great ears for songs ("coffee") that complement his airy falsetto, and he seems to understand how to reconcile his R&B roots with his more the more experimental sonic motifs of future soul. This playlist, part of Apples ongoing "guests" series, looks his guest appearances. Its great to hear the early collaborations with aughts LA indie rapper Blu.

You really need to go to Red Bull Music Academys critical reclamation of happy hardcore to know what Im talking about -- and you totally should, btw, regardless of how you feel about the music -- but the smiley face graphics they have randomly popping up over the text is as inanely brilliant as the genre. Miles Raymer provides a critical perspective to a genre he says has been treated as "as an awkward phase in dance music’s teen years, the gangly, overenthusiastic cousin of the more sophisticated, intriguingly dark jungle scene." Miles goes on to observe keenly that "happy hardcore quickly became the UK equivalent of what pop punk was in the States at the time" and "like happy hardcore, EDM artists judge their work strictly by its ability to get large crowds moving, using a number of techniques drawn from happy hardcore’s playbook to do the job, from digitally altered pop vocals to aggressively noisy synths to huge drops that come at regularly scheduled intervals."

Aside from being vaguely familiar with Hood and Flying Saucer Attack, I knew nothing about Bristol post-rock. And Im still not sure if its a "real" thing, but the music is quite beautiful. It has all the dreamy textures and ethereal melodies of Sigur Rós, and the shifting, odd tempos of the Chicago scene, but it also sounds fairly dreary in parts, which is a nice touch. Pitchforks Nick Neyland provides an overview:

A group of interconnected musicians traced a filmy circle of darkness around the English city of Bristol during the late 1990s and early 2000s, forming a significant post-rock outpost. They often appeared on each other’s records, started short-lived projects together, and assembled brittle home-recording setups that provided a lo-fi flipside to the city’s trip-hop forerunners.

As a side not, Pitchforks "Essentials" series continues to impress. Their subjects (such as last weeks melodic IDM) continue to be both very idiosyncratic yet strangely intuitive.

Growing up a deeply closeted queer kid, I didnt know that all it would take for me to come careening out of the closet was a visible queer hero. When I discovered underground lesbian filmmaker Sadie Benning in my teens, it was a sucker punch to my carefully constructed “straight” facade. Oh, I was queer. Oh, I was a weirdo. Oh, Im really OK with that. Id spend the next decade gently coming out to various people in my life and discovering underground queer hero after underground queer hero. But when I look to todays artists, those who courageously and unabashedly wear their identities with pride, who challenge mainstream gender norms and publicly claim their queerness as undying strength, my heart sings for all the listeners who find themselves in their music — who can find pride, self-acceptance, and joy in their queerness. From Frank Oceans minimalist heartache to Alynda Lee Segarras folk outfit Hurray For The Riff Raff, from Christine and the Queens androgynous synth-pop to Against Me!s transgender dysphoria blues, this mix from the class of 2015/16 reveals a queerness thats both everything and nothing, complex and simple, political and personal.

This post is part of our Psych 101 program, an in-depth, 14-part series that looks at the impact of psychedelia on modern music. Want to sign up to receive the other installments in your inbox? Go here. 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. Theyll thank you. We thank you.The neo-psychedelic impulse is now so deeply embedded in modern rock that it’s damn near impossible to single it out as a trend at this point. Everything changed when The Flaming Lips’ cuddly, fuzzy, Kermit-the-Frog-gone-shroomin’ freak-pop entered mainstream consciousness in the early ’00s. It wasn’t long before bands as diverse as Animal Collective, My Morning Jacket, Tame Impala, and MGMT—all of whom certainly spent considerable time tripping balls to the The Soft Bulletin—began filtering indie pop, electronica, folk-rock, and beyond through their own, unique neo-psychedelic lenses. But while most of these groups do fall on the cute and fuzzy side, there also exist outfits like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, who prefer devastatingly mind-bending riff and roll.

For casual David Bowie fans who spin the radio hits and not much else, A Clockwork Orange may not be the first work of science fiction that comes to mind when chewing on the well-read singer’s labyrinth of influences from the realms of film, literature, fashion, and avant-garde art. After all, whether we’re referring to Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel or Stanley Kubrick’s notorious film adaption from 1971, the story is a blend of pitch-black satire, graphic violence, and Cold War-inspired dystopia that feels worlds removed from the cosmic-hippiedom-meets-androgynous-space-alien quirkiness soaked into Bowie’s most popular expressions of sci-fi rock: “Space Oddity,” “Starman,” “Life on Mars?”—even the riff-fueled “Ziggy Stardust.” In fact, a more apt connection might be Kubrick’s other landmark from the same era: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1968 (just over a year before Apollo 11’s touchdown on the moon ignited a global fascination with space travel), the director’s sweeping meditation on human evolution, outer space, and extraterrestrial life slammed into psychedelic culture like an asteroid, helping to unleash a whole new movement in space rock.However, dig deeper into Bowie’s cluttered universe (lyrics, interviews, photographs, production credits, etc.), and relics of his fascination with A Clockwork Orange emerge in all corners. It’s a fascination that lasted throughout his career, right up through the release of 2016’s Blackstar, a brilliant, strange, and moodily intoxicating album awash in sci-fi references.Let’s begin with the singer’s ever-changing visual aesthetic: Bowie himself once stated to Rolling Stone writer David Sinclair that the look for his 1972 classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars reflected in part his love of the outfits worn by the sociopathic antihero Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell) and his ultraviolent droogs. Those costumes (black bowler hats, bovver boots, suspenders, codpieces) were the brainchild of designer Milena Canonero; by appropriating elements of “London street style,” she helped lay the groundwork for an iconic (and much imitated) look that wound up seeping into glam, punk, hardcore, and even heavy metal. Incidentally, Canonero and Bowie eventually worked together on 1983’s The Hunger, an erotic vampire flick sporting heavy Dario Argento vibes.Bowie again turned to the film for inspiration during the making of 1973’s Aladdin Sane, a harder-rocking album that finds the singer’s alter-ego turning mischievous, even nasty at times, much like Alex. In addition to sleeve art featuring airbrush work from Philip Castle, whom Kubrick hired to design the movie’s infamously outlandish posters, there were some seriously Clockworkian wardrobe moves, including Bowie’s classic printed silk turtleneck.Shifting from aesthetics to the music itself, let’s return to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. While touring in support of the record, Bowie opened concerts with a recording of Beethovens Symphony No. 9, yet another nod to Alex, who describes the piece as “bliss and heaven” in one of the movie’s most biting scenes. There’s also the use of the word “droogie” in “Suffragette City.” Though a fairly minor reference, it speaks volumes about Bowie’s intimate understanding of Burgess’ original vision. After all, “Suffragette City” isn’t one of Ziggy’s orchestral ballads, floating dreamily like an orbiting satellite. It’s gnarly proto-punk inspired by The Velvet Underground and The Stooges—exactly the kind of slasher you’d expect a violent street gang to blast before a night of smashing storefronts and busting heads.Again, this seems like an odd fit for the red-haired Bowie, who (truth be told) never fully embraced the sneering menace that would come to be associated with punk rock in the late ’70s. But much like The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger (who interestingly enough owned the movie rights to the novel for a short while), he certainly flirted with such notions. Bowie seemed attracted to the transgressive darkness that often surrounds youth culture and street gangs, especially as they are portrayed in the book and film incarnations of A Clockwork Orange, both of which, it should be noted, were censored and condemned on numerous occasions in the United Kingdom and the United States. They possessed a undeniable and dangerous allure. Back in the ’70s, any artist who dared make allusions to them clearly was looking to be edgy.But it was more than just trying to be provocative (though that always was a factor during his glam years). Bowie truly loved A Clockwork Orange, of which his most passionate expression pops up on the previously mentioned Blackstar and the cryptic “Girl Loves Me.” Pay close attention to the lyrics and you’ll notice how the singer, displaying a linguist’s virtuosity, brilliantly litters the song with the Nadsat spoken by Alex and the droogs (itself a Nadsat term). Originally conceived by Burgess, it basically is working-class British slang heavily inspired by Russian:

You viddy at the CheenaTruth is me with the Red RockYou be loving little zipshotDevotchka want ya golossSpatchka want the RussianSwear to dead fun is dang dangViddy viddy at the CheenaGirl loves meHey cheenaGirl don’t speakGirl loves me

Bowie was a sci-fi junkie, one well-versed in the writings of Michael Moorcock, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, and George Orwell. He especially loved Orwell’s dystopian landmark Nineteen Eighty-Four, which served as the thematic basis for 1974’s Diamond Dogs. On top of all that, he starred in the cult flick The Man Who Fell to Earth and in 2013 was inducted into the Museum of Pop Culture’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. But the fact that Bowie returns to A Clockwork Orange on Blackstar, which he knew would be his last album, drives home the work’s stature in his personal universe. Deep down Bowie really was a droog.

Of all the many artists and songwriters who cited the Doors’ mercurial frontman as an inspiration, no fan may have been quite as ardent as Patti Smith. “Jim Morrison probably got the closest to being an artist within rock and roll,” she once said. “His death made me sadder than anyone’s. He was really a great poet.”That last word is an especially significant one. When the Doors’ career as Elektra recording artists was launched with the release of “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” on the first day of 1967, the idea that a poet had any business being in a rock ‘n’ roll band was still a radical one. Claiming Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire as his own heroes, Morrison was determined to bring a sensibility that was both unabashedly literary yet as sexy and dangerous as you’d hope for from a guy who looked so good in tight black leather pants. As a rock ‘n’ roll poet, Morrison had also introduce explicitly adult content and subversive themes into a musical form that was still marketed first and foremost to teenagers. No wonder that “Break on Through” sparked the first of many controversies for the Doors when Elektra balked at releasing it with its original lyric “she gets high” lest such a blatant drug reference offend radio programmers. The single flopped anyway, only later becoming one of the Doors’ signature songs.That first single also served as an opening salvo for a band whose musical ideas proved just as influential as Morrison’s lyrical provocations. Robbie Krieger’s spidery guitar lines were as distinctive as the Ray Manzarek keyboard sound the band used in place of bass guitar. And while drummer John Densmore was capable of supplying all the required force and momentum, his rhythms were equally suggestive of non-rock influences like bossa nova and German cabaret music. The latter influence signposted when a cover of “Alabama Song” showed up alongside that debut single and the band’s first true hit “Light My Fire” on the Doors’ self-titled album.The wild, passionate and daring music that followed the Doors’ first recordings was bound to make a strong impression on musicians for generations. Sometimes this influence was glaringly obvious. That was certainly the case for vocalists who’d perform with the surviving Doors in the years after Morrison’s death in 1971, starting with the fellow rock legend who very nearly replaced him: Iggy Pop. Such was Iggy’s admiration for Morrison that he smuggled many of the Lizard King’s lyrics inside his own songs, including “The Passenger”. Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland and the Cult’s Ian Astbury were two more Morrison devotees who fronted later versions of the Doors.Despite the punks’ oft-stated disdain for hippies, many of the blank generation’s key acts were Doors fans, too. Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen even described the band as “the most perfect and compatible four musicians in the history of time.” Siouxsie & The Banshees considered them a core inspiration, later covering “You’re Lost, Little Girl” and “Hello I Love You.” Legendary Manchester producer Martin Hannett modeled his productions for Joy Division on the sound of Waiting for the Sun. Meanwhile, the Stranglers’ use of keyboards explicitly evoked Manzarek’s and the spare, eerie feel of “The End” was closely studied by Bauhaus. Then there was the example Morrison set with his rich baritone and literary gravitas for heavy-duty singers and songwriters like Nick Cave and Mark Lanegan. X and the Gun Club were two of many later bands from the Doors’ hometown of Los Angeles acknowledged their stylistic debt.More recently, retro-rockers like Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Allah Las have been equally brazen about their devotion. Indeed, the realm of the Lizard King is and always has been a crowded one – this playlist serves as your passageway.

Critic Andy Beta provides an overview of Italo Disco (which he calls, "the most amazingly uncool genre ever created") in this Pitchfork feature. To be a bit snobby, including Paul Lekakis as Italo Disco is a bit questionable, but Andy is trying to take a wide swipe. Regardless, the genre is limitlessly influential and helped spawn everything from Chicago House to DFA-era New York electro. This playlist demonstrates why with a collection of the kitschy, endlessly addictive cuts. The Gary Cat Park song is a gem, among many others.

I first met Janelle Monàe when she was 22 years-old and opening up for the Oakland neo-soul legend Raphael Saadiq at the San Francisco venue Bimbos, a mid-size club on the outskirts of that city’s North Beach neighborhood. A few months before, she’d released her debut EP, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase). It was an exciting, groundbreaking collection. It combined the wild, post-rap funk of Outkast and afrofuturism of George Clinton with the tech dystopianism of William Gibson and a more formalalistic, Brechtian remove. For a kid weaned on semiotics and Gang Starr, this collision was enthralling, if a bit messy. Janelle’s voice was captivating, but the songs sometimes couldn’t keep up with her energy -- the backing vocals blurred together, and the choruses weren’t always memorable. In short, I liked the idea more than her music.Regardless, she was a dynamic personality, and I was excited for the interview. About a half hour before she took the stage, her manager took me backstage, where Janelle was cloistered inside of small changing room -- more of a closet than a suite. She was already outfitted in her signature white tuxedo shirt, with her hair was bunched up into its beehive coif. She was nervous, but friendly. She offered me a water, which was nice of her. I spent the first 10 minutes of the interview trying to place her in the lineage of afrofuturism, discussing Octavia Paz and Parliament. In retrospect, it was a dumb move -- I assumed that her reading of herself was the same as mine, and didn’t allow her to speak for herself -- and the strategy bit me in the ass when, with five minutes left in my appointed interview window, she, annoyed and maybe embarrassed, declared that she didn’t know much about afrofuturism, she’d barely even heard of it. I felt shitty and a little bit disappointed. I hated that I had put her in a foul mood, and, more selfishly, I had no idea if anything in the interview was usable.But her live show that night was rapturious, a prolonged ecstatic release of energy that found her bouncing, jerking, and bounding across the stage in barely controlled dance patterns. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. And though she doesn’t make dance music, you couldn’t help but move. It didn’t matter that here hooks weren’t quite there, or that she hadn’t yet been able to name her own style, the performance was special, even singular. Since then, she’s made some jaw-dropping tracks that’ve shown immense growth and refinement, but the music, though oftentimes very very good, has never quite escaped her heavy conceptual framework. Luckily, she’s entirely catches up with herself on Dirty Computer. The album largely, though not entirely, loses the funkified Android conceit of her earlier work. It’s both more personal and more self-assured. It glides where her other music tends to churn, and the hooks are immediately catchy, and stick in your head. It’s still occasionally directive of other people’s work -- “Make Me Feel” sounds remarkably like Dirty Mind-era Prince, for example -- but she entirely makes it her own here; the sums of her influence coalesce into something much more personal and singular. It’s the best work of her career, and may end up being both the most fun and important album of 2018.The album’s two opening tracks are among the most memorable one-two punch in recent memory. Brian Wilson’s vocal remain pop’s greatest invocation, and amidst his lilting, layered , the lead-off title resurrects Janelle’s dreamy, sensual landscape. She invites us to “look closer” at the “text message caught up in the sky.” Once again, she’s identifying with hardware (a dirty computer, in this case), but the vocals are warm and human, and, soon, we hear MLK reciting the Declaration of Independence. We’re onto “Crazy, Classic, Life” now -- one of the neat tricks the front half of the album pulls off is blurring the space between songs, so that it all sounds like one, long jam -- and Janelle quickly asserts a theme that will run through the album. It’s 2018 now, and her and people like her are no longer on the margins; they’re now the “rulers” and “kings.” “Im not Americas nightmare,” she coos on the song’s pre-chorus, “Im the American dream.”In that way, it resembles Frank Ocean’s Blonde, another coronation of a queer America that was curtailed by Trump’s election a few months later. Monàe’s work contains little of Ocean’s melancholy or ambience; Dirty Computer is pure pop music, euphoric and uncluttered. “PYNK,” which features Montreal steam pop producer Grimes, is a technicolor march down the broadest boulevards of American culture. The song hems together and subverts lyrical archetypes. Witness the pre-chorus:“So, here we are in the carLeavin traces of us down the boulevardI wanna fall through the starsGetting lost in the dark is my favorite partLets count the ways we could make this last forever"Taken out of context, this could be sung by Tom Petty, Britney Spears, or any number of chroniclers of main street adolescence. That Janelle is using this in the service of an anthem to pansexuality should be subversive, but, in 2018, it seems perfectly normal. This is a victory for all of us.Monàe’s previous music has always seemed to exist in a different time. The revved-up guitar riffs and funky drummer breakdowns place her in the ‘60s, while the lyrics’ runaway-Android lover motif put her firmly in the (20)40s. But Dirty Computer feels necessarily of this time. The world caught up with her. The techno-dystopian daydream of her earlier work has become a crippling reality, and, yes, that’s unfortunate. But the sheer, self-conscious otherness of Janelle, which ten years ago was a commercial liability, is not only permissible, but is celebrated, and this album is funky testament to this new freedom.

Shibuya-Kei is a subgenre of Japanese pop that originated in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. If you were a music nerd in the ‘90s, you probably remember Cibo Matto, Cornelius or Buffalo Daughter. The base of the music was 80s synthpop, but there was also a coat of shimmering guitars stubbled with quirky electronic flourishes and occasional forays into jazz or lounge. It was self-consciously cheeky music that occasionally teetered towards kitsch, and was viewed, by Western hipsters, with a tinge of exoticism. Birgitta has some wonderful playlist on her Spotify channel, and this one does a great job at capturing the genre’s oddness, thought it’s curious that she didn’t include Pizzicato Five.