Genres

This Beatles acolyte learned the lesson: he imitated their eccentricity because he was a natural eccentric and a natural songsmith, not because he wanted to write Great Songs. For a while they poured out of him; he was the shaggiest, loveliest, and most self-destructive of the seventies singer-songwriters. His was a doomed project, for meshing Nelson Riddle’s orchestral pop and the American Songbook tradition it invokes with a Vietnam generation’s fetish for revelation sounded impossible then, and it hasn’t worn well. But he and Carole King should have composed more soundtracks for children’s TV — imagine sequels to “Chicken Soup with Rice” written by the author of “Cuddly Toy”!And “Spaceman” is more devastating than “Rocket Man” and “Space Oddity,” fools.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

A hip-hop cannon was created in 1994. Nas, Notorious B.I.G., Outkast, Gang Starr, Beastie Boys and Scarface all released breakout albums that were epochal and genre-defining. Some of these tracks -- "One Love," "Juicy," "Mass Appeal" -- have been so rhapsodized and overplayed that its difficult to listen to them with fresh ears, or to even believe that there was a time in hip-hop when these tracks were new. Illmatic, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and Hard to Earn were all released within the span of a little more than a month. Hip-hops bench in 1994 was also deep, and Mosi makes a point in his write-up to state that these "were the years when hip-hop became universal." Classic tracks also came in from the West Coast ("Captain Save a Ho," "Playaz Club") and the South ("Front, Back and Side to Side"). As a note, Mosi uses singles released in 1994, even if their albums came out in the previous year, which explains the presence of tracks from Doggystyle and Enter the 36 Chambers .

Unlike Eminem fictionalizing his rap-battle life in 8 Mile, or JAY-Z pumping his hustler memoirs behind Frank Lucas story in American Gangster, Kendrick Lamars contribution to the upcoming soundtrack for Black Panther appears to be more than just autobiographical inspiration. The first hint was Kendricks collabo with Vince Staples in a trailer, the second being "All the Stars" with labelmate SZA. The newest single, "Kings Dead," features K Dot, Jay Rock, Future, and James Blake tipping the cap to Wakandas monarchy. And though Run the Jewels has been saluted by Marvel in print and featured in one Black Panther trailer with their banger "Legend Has It," Kendrick was a natural choice for curating the official soundtrack, given that his loyalty ‘n’ royalty theme "DNA." echoes the philisophies of Chadwick Boseman’s TChalla, the lone king of a country who sometimes kicks ass with The Avengers when not leading the most technologically advanced nation in the Marvel universe.Hip-hop artists have long used movie soundtracks to catapult some of the biggest hits of their careers, from Public Enemys "Fight the Power" in the 80s, to Coolios "Gangstas Paradise" in the 90s, to JAY-Zs "La La La" in the 00s. The Bad Boys II soundtrack, for example, was helmed by Puff Daddy to exploit the roster of early-’00s Bad Boy Records, while the previously mentioned 8 Mile and 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Trying corraled some outside rappers within a mostly Shady/Aftermath/Interscope package. In honor of Black Panther’s arrival, this playlist celebrates 30 years of hip-hop soundtrack hits, from the "left it off the album and we needed a home for it" variety to the "worldwide platinum single that just happened to be attached to a movie” kind.

Hip-hop in 2018 is in a weird place. There’s a million miles between the narcotized beats and nihilistic rhymes of the Soundcloud set and the more nuanced lyrics and big beats of a Kendrick Lamar or Pusha T. To paraphrase Yeats, the center is pretty jacked. Still, there are some central themes that run through many of the year’s best tracks: a desperation about where we are as a country and a culture, and a desire to change this. You can hear it in Childish Gambino’s “This is America” as well as Huncho Jack’s great “Modern Slavery.” The malaise underlines everything from JPEGMAFIA’s “Baby I’m Bleeding” to Kanye’s “Ghosttown.” We’ve still got a lot of time left in this year, but though there has not been an unqualified album-length masterpiece (maybe Pusha T came closest, but that’s hardly even an album), there are new amazing singles coming out nearly every week. We’ve collected our favorites here, and we’ll be updating this throughout the year.

Elvis Costello famously opined that once rock ‘n’ roll dropped the “‘n’ roll” part of the equation and just became popularly known as “rock,” something vital was lost—all “the sex and swing,” as he put it. A similar observation could be made about indie rock, which has, over time, largely shed the “rock” half of the term and is know just casually referred to as “indie.” For old-school underground denizens, that minor semantic shift is indicative of a greater identity crisis: A sound that, 30 years ago, represented an abrasive affront to and stern ideological rebuke of mainstream pop has become so diluted, sanitized, and co-opted that many of its modern-day adherents are pretty much indistinguishable (musically and beard-wise) from the ‘80s dad-rockers that indie rock initially set out to overthrow. However, seen from a different angle, indie rock’s evolution into “indie” isn’t so much indicative of what the genre has lost as what it’s gained: an explosion of aesthetics that has opened up wide swaths of the underground for artists other than scruffy, wool-toqued white dudes with guitars and fuzzboxes.At this point, indie has become so sonically eclectic that finding commonality among the countless artists huddled under its umbrella requires some Cliff Claven-in-Final Jeopardy logic. But amid the buzzing, infinitely-tunnelled ant farm that the underground has become, the 100 artists in our Best of 2018 indie revue rise above by exuding a certain fearlessness, be it a willingness to lay their eccentricities, vulnerabilities and peculiar curiosities bare; a burning need to speak truth to power; or an unfettered eagerness to blow it all up—expectations, traditional song structures, the world itself.That restless spirit manifested itself in all sorts of wonderful ways this past year. It’s in the ripped-off-BandAid lyricism of Snail Mail and the rousing motorik protest-punk of IDLES. It’s Jeff Rosenstock racing through the most epic, exhilarating song ever about paralyzing ennui (“USA”). It’s U.S. Girls reminding us that the problem with American politics goes way deeper than 45 on “M.A.H.” It’s Khruangbin turning Middle Eastern surf-funk into the new psychedelia on “Maria También” and Beijing duo Gong Gong Gong administering hypno-therapy via primitive drone blues on “Siren.” It’s Let’s Eat Grandma setting out to make a bright synth-pop record and ending up with the dark prog album that Lorde has yet to grace us with. It’s Father John Misty stepping out of his head and showing us his heart on “Just Dumb Enough to Try.”It’s former Dirty Beaches drifter Alex Zhang Hungtai closing his latest record with a 20-minute church-organ-summoned slow-motion apocalypse. It’s Sandro Perri opening his with a 24-minute electro koan (“In Another Life”). It’s Zeal & Ardor welding chain-gang chants with heavy-metal muscle to forge a modern soul music. It’s former Pipette Gwenno using her blissed-out psych-pop reveries to resuscitate the lost language of Cornish. It’s the reformed Daughters rendering their brutal industrial post-punk with heavenly grandeur on “Satan in the Wait.” It’s Deafheaven making arena rock for burning hockey rinks (“Honeycomb”). It’s MorMor turning a bedroom beatmaking exercise into a personal exorcism on “Heaven’s Only Wishful.” It’s lapsed hardcore crew Fucked Up dropping some E and stepping onto dancefloor on “Dose Your Dreams” (and going ‘til the break of dawn with their promising New Order-esque offshoot Jade Hairpins).It’s Kaia Kater and Odetta Hartman uprooting folk music from the earth and letting it drift into the great beyond. It’s nêhiyawak addressing Indigenous cultural erasure through spoken-word poetry and scabrous shoegaze on “page.” It’s Tommy and the Commies making the passing of Pete Shelley a little easier to take with the Buzzcockerific “Devices.” It’s the traditionally sardonic Stephen Malkmus delivering a poignant state-of-the-union on “Middle America.” It’s the outsized swagger and ardor of nouveau gender-agnostic glam phenoms like Hubert Lenoir, Ezra Furman, Art D’Ecco, and Christine and the Queens. It’s Kurt Vile achieving peak Kurt Viledom on the nine eternally zen minutes of “Bassackwards.” It’s Japanese tricksters CHAI making manic roller-derby disco like an old issue of Grand Royal come to life. It’s surly survivors like Mudhoney and Jon Spencer proving there’s no expiration date on good ol’ punk-spewed haterade. And there’s something equally special to be savored in the other 70 tracks featured here.Sure, “indie” may no longer represent the ideological badge of honor it once was. But from a pure aesthetic-exploration standpoint, its defining value—independence—has never felt truer.

As the year approaches the halfway mark, we bring you our list of the best indie rock songs of 2017 to date, featuring heavyweights like The National and LCD Soundsystem and striking new voices like Jay Som and See Through Dresses.Some of these artists, like EMA and Algiers, grapple with the surreal confusion of our times; others, like Broken Social Scene and Grizzly Bears new work, offer a soothing balm, while Japandroids try to raise spirits and Waxahatchee attends to matters of the heart.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Keeping tabs on new releases is a job in and of itself these days, what with the scattering of arenas for announcing albums, distributing music, and telling your friends about what youve been listening to lately. Gone are the relatively simple days of heading to a shop staffed by people who have earned your trust (either individually or through some hivemind-harnessed power) and plunking down money for the things their employees, or some underpaid alt-weekly denizen, recommended.But the explosion of releases occasioned by the rise of digital platforms in particular has allowed me to take more chances on virtual A-sides. Playlist-surfing is how I found out about the British three-piece Peaness, whose name still causes me to stifle giggles when I say it on the radio and whose chunky, standoffish take on twee is absolutely delightful. And it’s how I first heard the Montreal duo She-Devils, whose come-hither cabaret promises a dark ride. And! I found out about the sweetly vicious Florida trio UV-TV through, of all things, a blog.It’s also been a solid year for older acts who are still in the music-making business, thus shoring up the "it’s been a good year for music" claim that Im pretty okay with staking at this early June moment. The Afghan Whigs, who I adore enough to continent-hop in their honour, released the uneasy, swirling In Spades; Mark Lanegan soldered his scorched-earth burr to warm electronic textures on Gargoyle; Juliana Hatfield pointed her hooky disdain toward the Trump administration on Pussycat; and Stephin Merritt got big and conceptual again with 50 Song Memoir, which has perhaps one of the best musical encapsulations of the quixotic relationship between humans and felines ever put to tape. That moment on “‘68: A Cat Called Dionysus” when he drolly sings "he haaaated me… but I… loved… him" could probably soundtrack more than a few self-aware rom-coms, too.

No way in hell will I essay my own context-building, not when exemplary profiles by Philip Gourevitch and Jonathan Lethem exist. Besides, my intro to James Brown I credit to an episode of The Cosby Show in which Rudy Huxtable did her best “baby baby baby” lip syncing to “I Got That Feelin’.” What Gourevitch wrote in 2002 about “Please, Please, Please” strikes me as definitive:

The song doesn’t tell a story so much as express a condition. The singer might be speaking from the cradle of his lover’s arms, or chasing her down a street, or watching the lights of her train diminish in the night; he might be crouched alone in an alleyway, or wandering an empty house, or smiling for all the world to see while his words rattle, unspoken, inside his skull. He could be anyone anywhere. His lover might be dying. He might be dying. He might not even be addressing an actual lover. He could be speaking of someone or something he’s never had. He could be talking to God, or to the Devil…Speech is inadequate, so the singer makes music, and music is inadequate, so he makes his music speak. Feeling is stripped to its essence, and the feeling is the whole story. And, if that feeling seems inelegant, the singer’s immaculately disciplined performance makes his representation of turmoil unmistakably styled and stylish—the brink of frenzy as a style unto itself.

Facing such a statue in the park, I saw fit, more than ever, to include songs I wanted to hear again, hence the absence of “I Got You” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” On the other hand, I included a track from 1991’s forgotten post-prison Love Over-due called “(So Tired of Standing Still We Got to) Move On,” boasting some of the most ferocious rhythm lickin’ of his career — and that’s saying a lot. Also a contender is “What Do You Like” from James Brown Plays the Real Thing, designed to showcase his organ playing. He’s also responsible for one of the more galling examples of plagiarism in popular music: forget “rewriting” and use the verb “re-releasing” Bowie’s 1975 “Fame” as “Hot (I Need to Be Loved, Loved, Loved)”; it works because “Fame” is a monster and so is Mr. Lickin’ Stick.Sigh. An evening I anticipated listening to new music I’llnow spend listening to Star Time. Sigh.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

It always comes back to Black Sabbath. It really does. In the case of Japanese metal, Sabbath was more or less the spark that catalyzed the genre in the East. In 1970, the Tokyo-based Flower Travellin’ Band—whose gloomy heavy metal merged psychedelic and prog trends—released their first LP, Anywhere, which included a cover of the title track of Sabbath’s self-titled record from the same year. The following year, they released the weighty, howling Satori, a landmark record that sounded like equal parts Sabbath and The Stooges and solidified the genre’s sovereignty in Japan. Since Satori, many bands have fought to live up to its standard. Fortunately, to help sort through almost 50 years of heavy sounds from the Land of the Rising Sun, Loudwire has made their definitive list of The 10 Best Japanese Metal Bands.The list is a decent primer into the country’s history in metal; yet, surprisingly, it does not include Flower Travellin’ Band or other important, early groups like 44 Magnum or Bow Wow. The ‘80s glam-metal band Loudness is represented here, and so is late-’80s/’90s power-metal group X JAPAN, who pioneered “visual kei,” which is basically the Japanese stylistic equivalent of glam and punk rock, in terms of incorporating fashion into the aura of a band.The list does hit solid modern groups like Maximum the Hormone and Dir En Gray, but surprisingly, leaves out Church of Misery. Teenage metal sensations BABYMETAL are on here as well and, whatever your opinion of them may be, it cannot be contested that they’re one of the most popular Japanese bands on the planet. To me, they sound like what would happen if Katy Perry made a metal record, so I’m a little skeptical of their inclusion as one of the greatest Japanese metal bands. But they’re massively successful, so it’s fine.And, of course, doom/drone/extreme-metal masters Boris are here. Alongside BABYMETAL, they’re probably the other dominating force from Japan in the contemporary Western metal scene. Boris, whose 2005 album Pink is considered a contemporary metal landmark, is celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band in 2017 as they prepare to release Dear. Before you explore their latest, turn your back to the sun and delve into our rich history of Japanese metal, which uses Loudwire’s list as the foundation while expanding the scope with some supplementary selections of our own.* Unfortunately, the music of Abigail and Maximum the Hormone is not available on Spotify, but it can be found onYouTube. Abigail, who is self-described as “the most evil band in Japan,” is particularly worth investigating.

Whenever it seems impossible to sum up the state of jazz, that’s usually good news. It means that the genre remains one of America’s (and the world’s) most inventive traditions. Here are 20 tracks, available on streaming services, that have left a strong impression over the first half of 2017.A partial rundown: Trumpeter Christian Scott experimented with trap-music influences (“The Reckoning”). Suave Blue Note singer José James veered into contemporary R&B territory with his album Love In A Time of Madness—but also made room for one vintage-sounding come-hither number (“To Be With You”). Bob Dylan’s pipes aren’t anywhere as flexible as James’, but his triple-disc set of standards, Triplicate, offered surprisingly warm takes on jazz standards like “Stardust.” And a crew of jazz veterans including drummer Jack DeJohnette and guitarist John Scofield turned in a sizzling instrumental interpretation of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”Jazz was mixing (and scrambling) everyone’s preferred musical categories long before “blurring the boundaries” became a cliché. So we’ve included sometime classical-pianist Cory Smythe’s partly improvised “Blockchain.” (Smythe also plays on a vivid new avant-garde set from saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock.) Cellist Tomeka Reid appears in the string trio Hear In Now, as well as in bands led by Jaimie Branch and Nicole Mitchell. Elsewhere, we’ve got swinging fire from the likes of Miguel Zenón (playing his own composition “Academia”), while Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra dig into the music of Modern Jazz Quartet co-founder John Lewis. Improvisers are off to a potent start in 2017—thanks to pop-song inspiration, big-band tradition, fusion energy, and an overall taste for experimentation.