Genres

Most people take the apocalypse as an article of faith, but what exactly the apocalypse entails is in the eye of the beholder. Will the universe dissolve and all matter cease to exist, or will the pillaging be more localized? Perhaps the sun will explode. Or, more specifically (and likely), the oceans might rise and drown large swaths of humanity Or maybe the opposite is true, and we’ll simply run out of water like in Mad Max? There are also health issues to consider. What if we develop a mutation that makes a certain portion of society both resistant to death and hungry for human flesh? This seems like a very popular (if scientifically) scenario. Or perhaps it’s a more mundane: maybe we’ll just stop producing babies. Or maybe we’ll slip into a computer-generated virtual reality simulation, with our robot overlords overseeing out inert sleeping bodies. Honestly, I don’t really know how it all will end, and I haven’t given it that much thought, to be honest. But I know someone who has: Bob Dylan. Over the course of his nearly 60 years career, Dylan has written very extensively about extinction events, though his take is always evolving. Initially, Dylan seem to look at the upside of the end of the world. “A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall” is at-times terrifying in its depiction of the dire aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, but it also left room for the emergence of a visionary poet who would serve as a sortof bohemian Moses to lead his people out of the wilderness (spoiler: the poet is Dylan). The track “When the Ship Comes In” sounds downright celebratory as it imagines a post-racial society, until you realize that this society exists in the ashes of traditional Western civilization. During the mid-‘60s, as Dylan forsook folk for fock n’ roll, the bard imagined the apocalypse as a weird mash-up of Cold War terror, religious zealotry, and pop culture schizophrenia. Tracks such as “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” and “Highway 61 Revisited” are gleeful, language-melting odes our impending dome. They imagined a society standing on the precipice of mass confusion. In the context of the chaos of the ‘60s social upheaval, these songs were considered prophetic.As the ‘60s wore on, his vision of the apocalypse grew at turns mournful (“All Along the Watchtower) and menacing (“Wheels on Fire”), but it was never far from his mind. In the time sense, he bends the apocalyptic to help further his own pet projects and theories. Doomsday provided great grist for the mill when Dylan was a fire-and-brimstone preached in the late-70s and early 80s. And, when Dylan released a string of brilliant mid-life-sad-sack records in the late 90s and early aughts, apocalyptic imagery helped illuminate the full range of his personal malaise.

Justin Vernon’s 2016 full-length as Bon Iver, 22, A Million, isn’t just a career-jarring reboot of his sound; it’s a radical revision of the singer-songwriter template. Instead of the guitar-based meditations of previous efforts, the musician erects alien constructions from cyborg falsetto, Auto-Tune-smeared soul, baroque electronica, and bass drops splitting the difference between post-dubstep and modern R&B. Man and machine, nervous system and motherboard — their differences fall by the wayside with each successive cut. In hopes of deepening listeners’ appreciation of this profoundly mutant offering, I’ve put together a mix of key inspirations (Kanye West, Arthur Russell), peers exploring similar ideas (Frank Ocean, James Blake), and illuminating examples of sampled source material (Mahalia Jackson, Sharon Van Etten). Hopefully, you’ll find our playlist to be as deliciously novel and immersive as 22, A Million itself.

Click here to subscribe to the Spotify playlist.In 1995, the Dangerous Minds soundtrack yielded the smash hit "Gangstas Paradise" by Coolio and LV. The rest of soundtrack featured respected West Coast acts like Rappin 4-Tay and Big Mike flanked by Aaron Hall, Immature, and DeVante Swing of Jodeci. It was a winning formula: R&B + credible rappers + covers of 70s song. The album went triple platinum.A year later, Atlantic/Big Beat would try their hardest to copy the Dangerous Minds formula, ironically with the High School High soundtrack. The film itself, starring Jon Lovitz, Tia Carrere, and Mekhi Phifer, was a modest hit, spoofing the Michelle Pfeiffer-in-a-leather-jacket approach to reaching the "urban" youth in school, a formula already spun in films like The Substitute, Lean on Me, and Stand and Deliver. The soundtrack was designed for crossover success, largely off the inclusion of Quad City DJs breakout dance hit "The Train (Come On Ride It).” "The Train" went platinum, hitting No. 3 on the charts. Atlantic/Big Beat also double downed on The Braids, a Canadian art rock band, and their slick R&B cover of Queens "Bohemian Rhapsody," produced by Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind. It failed to catch on like "Gangstas Paradise,” peaking at No. 42 on Billboard.Unknowingly, the High School High soundtrack was a trojan horse for the last remaining non-jiggy major label rap acts to get one last check. The year was 1996, or in terms of Jiggy vs. Real Hip Hop, Year Two post-Bad Boy. Acts like KRS-One, Grand Puba, Pete Rock, A Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul, all on major labels for close to a decade by 1996, were slowly being erased from the charts in favor of Puffy and Biggies Steven Soderbergh approach to the game: one for you, one for me. In their case, it was one song for the ladies and the clubs, one song for the streets: "One More Chance Remix" and "The What”; "Big Poppa" and "Warning”; "Juicy" and "Unbelievable.” The graduating class of Raps Golden Age had two choices: adapt or die. The lineup on the High School High soundtrack chose the latter. Whereas acts like Mic Geronimo switched their entire sound in the Post-Bad Boy wave, from boom-bap poet on 1995s The Natural to jiggy thug on 1997s Vendetta, Artifacts, Wu-Tang, and The Roots made the kind of songs that got them signed in the first place, years before Christopher Wallace changed the landscape. When you remove forgettable R&B cuts from The Braxtons, Changing Faces, and Faith Evans from the tracklisting, and toss Quad City DJs and The Braids onto your random gym mix, what you have left is an uncontaminated collection of rap songs that were radioactive on major label releases by 1997. Even Lil Kims contribution, "Queen Bitch," ghostwritten by Biggie, still garners her respect 20 years later from the headz for being so raw — Kim bragged about being a "disease free bitch.” Wu-Tangs "Wu Wear: A Garment Renaissance" was a strategic audible billboard for their new clothing line by RZAs brother/Wu Wear CEO Power, and it peaked at No. 6 on the rap charts. Pete Rock & Large Professors "The Rap World" was a favorite of Biggie himself; he hummed the chorus to Pete on a chance meeting a year later. The Roots carried on their gloomy slanged-out paranoia from illadelph halflife on "The Good, The Bad and the Desolate.” And "Semi-Automatic: Full Rap Metal Jacket" proved why Wu-Tang slipped up not by releasing an Inspectah Deck solo album immediately after Wu-Tang Forever.The new tracklisting of High School High is a snapshot of rap before lines in the sand were drawn between Real vs. Commercial. All the rappers on the album were indeed commercial acts, but their sound wasnt indebted to Diana Ross records. Almost every rapper involved would go on to make statements against commercial rap (or even at Biggie and Puffy, directly or subliminally). The reaction to the Anti-Puffy Movement would later inspire classic albums from Company Flow, Lootpack, and Freddie Foxxx on an indie level and the beginning of the Ruff Ryders sound — both sects deliberately made unpretty rap in defiance. But for a brief time, on a soundtrack to a movie few still remember, rappers werent in opposition to anyone, they were only trying to further their own cause. -- Zilla Rocca

Bradford Coxs music with Deerhunter and Atlas Sound has been rooted the more noisy sectors of modern American indie music, but his playlist for Spotify is much more expansive. It draws from everything from the classic pop of Dee Clark and Elvis Presley to the Cuban fusion of Bola De Nieve and Lo Borges. The African balladry of Ballaké and J Omwami is particularly beautiful. This is delicate and sublime music, and while it doesnt necessarily reflect Coxs specific aesthetics, it does reveal something of the emotional texture he sometimes injects into his music, especially his "solo" work with Atlas Sound.

Nashville-via-Detroit power-pop maestro—and one-time wingman to Jack White in The Raconteurs—Brendan Benson is back with a new single, “Half a Boy (and Half a Man)” on White’s Third Man Records label. As he puts the finishing touches on his first solo album in nearly half a decade, and preps the upcoming reissues of his back catalog, Benson made us this playlist of great moments on the mic. “This list began as a ‘favorite singers’ list. After listening though, I think a more apt theme would be ‘favorite vocal performances.’ There are way too many to list, but I thought these were some fine examples of some really inspired and moving vocals. The power that comes from a believable vocal delivery is undeniable. It can reach deep inside you and tug at your heart strings. (What are those, btw?) It can make you pull your car over to cry on the side of the road. It can cause rebellion and incite riots. It can give you physical sensations like goosebumps or chills. It can make you believe in love. Or it can make you despise love. It’s all about the singer and the song.”—Brendan Benson

The erudite Brian Eno once said, “There were three great beats in the ’70s: Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat, James Brown’s funk, and Klaus Dinger’s Neu!-beat.” They are so great, in fact, that strains of their DNA can be detected in practically every groove-based genre of the last 35 years. These include not just hip-hop and techno, but industrial and jungle/drum ’n’ bass as well. Bringing together landmark recordings from all three, this playlist is a sprawling tapestry of densely undulating polyrhythms, purring 4/4, and ecstatic syncopation punctuated with seriously nasty breaks. The bulk of the tracks feature Kuti, Brown, or Dinger, obviously. There are exceptions, however. Kraftwerk, for instance, explored Dinger’s motorik rhythm to great effect years after the group and drummer had parted ways. Hit play and find out why Eno knows what the hell he’s talking about.

Bleep, the moody northern English take on techno, was arguably the UK’s first homegrown take on electronic music.The origins of bleep lie in Northern English breakdancing crews. Bradford’s Solar City Rockers crew was home to both George Evelyn, who would later form Nightmares on Wax with Kevin Harper, and Unique 3, who in 1988 recorded what is generally acknowledged as the first instance of bleep: “The Theme,” a record that nailed the acidic squirts, looming sub bass, and icy synth melodies that would later define the genre. One year later, “The Theme” would be joined in the shops by Nightmares on Wax’s debut single “Dextrous” (which the group would later re-work) and Forgemasters’ ominous “Track With No Name,” the first record on Sheffield indie label Warp.Warp—now home to everyone from Aphex Twin to Flying Lotus—would make its name as a bleep label, with its iconic purple record sleeves a guarantee of steely Sheffield quality. In 1990, Warp released an astounding run of bleep records, from LFO’s hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck self-titled classic to Nightmares on Wax’s “Aftermath,” Sweet Exorcist’s “Testone,” and Tricky Disco’s eponymous hit, which bothered the higher reaches of the UK charts (annoying mainstream radio DJs considerably on the way).In the same year, Birmingham’s Network Records (Warp’s only serious competitor for the bleep crown) put out two enduring bleep classics in the form of Nexus 21’s twinkling “Self Hypnosis” and Rhythmatic’s circuit-bending “Take Me Back,” while in the US a young Roger Sanchez gave the bleep sound a New York spin on Egotrip’s Dreamworld EP and Underground Solution’s “Luv Dancin’.” DJ Moneypenny (as Chapter 1) and Bobby Konders (as Freedom Authority) were among the other American producers to catch the bleep bug, with the former’s 1990 release “Unleash The Groove” even featuring a “Love in Sheffield” remix. Meanwhile, down in Miami, Ralph Falcon and Oscar Gaetan (a.k.a. Murk/Funky Green Dogs/Intruder/Liberty City) were clearly paying attention. The duo included Nightmares on Wax’s “Dextrous” on their brilliant 1998 mix CD The House Music Movement and you can hear echoes of bleep’s spacious, sweet-and-sour ambience in songs like Liberty City’s “Some Lovin’.”In 1991, Warp released debut albums by both LFO (Frequencies) and Nightmares on Wax (A World of Science), but by 1992 bleep was definitively on the wane, as the release of Warp’s seminal Artificial Intelligence compilation saw the label move towards the kind of brainy techno that would be later known as IDM. By this point, Nightmares on Wax had also moved on, edging towards the downbeat hip-hop for which they are known today. But bleep was by no means dead. LFO would release two more albums, 1996’s Advance (including the brilliant “Tied Up”) and 2003’s Sheath (home to “Freak”), and the group’s Mark Bell would go on to work as a producer with everyone from Björk to Depeche Mode before his death in 2014.In the UK, the influence of bleep could be heard in contemporary musical genres such as rave (e.g., Altern 8’s “Infiltrate 202”) and jungle (as on A Guy Called Gerald’s “28 Gun Bad Boy”), later filtering through to UK garage (Dem 2’s “Destiny”), dubstep (Benga & Coki’s “Night”), bassline (T2’s “Heartbroken”), grime (D Double E’s “Streetfighter Riddim” or Maniac, Maxsta, and Boothroyd’s “No Retreat”), and even footwork (DJ Taye x DJ Manny’s “The Matrixx”).In many cases, the influence of bleep was more subliminal than direct, as Neil Landstrumm explained in a 2014 Resident Advisor history of bleep. “Every few years [bleep] seems to pop up,” he said. “Think of grime, sub-low, dubstep, garage, speed-garage, the new techno styles, new house… the ghosts of bleep are still in there, whether consciously or not. I doubt, for example, More Fire Crew had ever heard of bass and bleep, or many of the first wave of dubstep artists, but its there.”Elsewhere, the influence of bleep has been more overt and none more so than in the work of Neil Landstrumm himself, who has released a number of records that consciously reference bleep’s Northern sound, including his 2017 EP A Death, A Mexican And A Mormon, from which “The Tomorrow People” is taken. Doncaster’s Mella D is another producer who has taken the influence of bleep into the modern world, notably with “Movement,” from his 2017 Warehouse Music 001 EP, a song that proves the enduring appeal of bleeps, bass, and thundering beats.

Of the infinite subgenres crammed under the rock ‘n’ roll umbrella, no two feel as diametrically opposed as country-rock and glam. The former is a emblematic of authenticity, traditonalism, humility, and lonesome landscapes; the latter is the product of artifice, stardust-speckled futurism, flamboyance, and seedy inner-city alleyways. But on his two solo releases to date—2016’s Dolls of Highland and the new Full Circle Nightmare—Portland-via-Shreveport tunesmith Kyle Craft effortlessly initiates a holy communion between roots and ritz, casting his audacious, satellite-chasing voice and saucy narratives in a downhome brew of teary-eyed guitars and barrelhouse piano rolls. And he’s just the latest, most visible participant in a long conversation between these polar-opposite aesthetics.Before they became ‘70s pomp-rock icons, David Bowie and Elton John cast their vivacious voices in more rustic settings on their early records, while their peers in The Rolling Stones wallowed in southern-bordello sleaze on Exile on Main Street. And ever since, glam-loving rock acts from The Flaming Lips to Jack White to Girls have twisted heartland sounds to suit their own whimsical worldviews or, in the case of The Replacements, expressed solidarity with gender-bending outsiders. There is, of course, also a deep history of openly queer artists—from renegade troubadour Patrick Haggerty (a.k.a. Lavender Country) to doomed glitter-rock sensation Jobriath to avant-disco polymath Arthur Russell to modern-day indie acts like The Hidden Cameras and Ezra Furman—who’ve infiltrated the notoriously conservative arena of Americana, balancing sly subversion with sincere appreciation. Follow the lipstick traces into the heartland with this playlist of artists who serve up the glitz with a side of grits.

Unlike most hyphenated sub-genres, soul-punk isn’t really a collision of two different musical forms. It’s not so much a modification of punk as a reassertion of what’s been embedded in the music all along——do-or-die, preacher-man passion, pulpit-shaking intensity, and floorboard-smashing backbeats. After all, when you strip down the sound of proto-punk legends like the MC5 and Stooges, you’ll find an engine powered by Motown spunk and James Brown funk. And that emphasis on rhythm certainly wasn’t lost on future generations of garage-rockers—from the New Bomb Turks to Make-Up to The Bellrays—who liked their rama-lama with a little fa-fa-fa.But soul-punk is more than just revved-up guitar carnage loosened up with hip-shakin’ moves. The conversation works both ways: In The Jam and Dexys Midnight Runners, you had bands that retained the formal qualities of classic ‘60s soul, but updated them with a working-class punk perspective. In the Afghan Whigs, you see the two forms fuse and explode into a cinematic maelstrom. And in the gospelized post-hardcore of the Constantines and the drum-machined manifestos of Algiers, you hear more modern variations that violently shake off soul-punk’s retro, party-hearty associations to forge a new kind of protest music for the here and now.

When SoundCloud launched in 2007, it was initially populated by DJs who posted hours-long sets, like the much-missed collective East Village Radio. It was the new MySpace, a service where Flying Lotus posted workshop demos, and labels like Warp and Ninja Tune posted advance singles of upcoming albums. Some of the service’s earliest legal battles were against major labels that objected to DJs mixing their tracks without legal consent, as well as musicians that posted their material without proper clearance. Eventually, it turned into a YouTube-style service where people uploaded “freeleases” in search of internet buzz. Bryson Tiller, Kehlani and, most famously, Chance the Rapper are just a few who uploaded their mixtapes to SoundCloud.Before SoundCloud rap was a phenomenon feted by Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Complex, and dozens of lesser trend-hunter publications, there was Tumblr rap, the nickname briefly given to buzzy acts like SpaceGhostPurrp and Antwon; and MySpace rap, which yielded “hipster rappers” like the Cool Kids, Uffie, Pase Rock, and Amanda Blank. (Before he signed with Lil Wayne’s Young Money and went supernova, Drake was one of MySpace’s most popular unsigned artists.) SoundCloud rap may be useful today to describe a gaggle of rappers that share sonic traits: lo-fi production, hooky chants, emphatic lyrics that are usually talk-sung, and vague shock tactics that are as punk rock as Billy Idol. But at the end of the day, SoundCloud is just a service.With that in mind, SoundCloud rap sounds like an extension of a thread that arguably began in 2010 with Odd Future (whom some publications compared to the Sex Pistols). As the genre of rap becomes more notional than actual—lyrics are harmonized and sung in barely recognizable hip-hop cadences, and beats are reduced to murky approximations of a boom-bap tempo—MCs trade form for texture, and professionalism for bellicosity. SoundCloud rappers are representative of the genre’s post-regional phase, when it’s no longer uncommon for a Philadelphia hook-man like Lil Uzi to sound like a trapper from Atlanta, a Texas melodicist like Post Malone to sound like a rapper/singer from Chicago, or a Florida bedroom producer like SpaceGhostPurrp to sound like a gangster from Memphis. In the whirlpool of internet culture, everyone is a digital representation of Chris Anderson’s “long tail” theory.This doesn’t mean that SoundCloud rap isn’t responsible for vital work. Those aforementioned stories are motivated by controversial upstarts like XXXTENTACION, Tay-K (both of whom are facing serious criminalallegations) as well as Lil Pump, Lil Peep (RIP), Wifisfuneral, Smokepurrp and a handful of others landing on Billboard’s streaming-enhanced Hot 100 charts. Smokepurrp’s drawling “Audi”—with its chants of “lean, lean, double cup” and pummeling trap bass drums—is as vital as any 2 Chainz single this year, and Rico Nasty’s loopy nursery chant “Hey Arnold” replicates Lil Yachty’s charm. (In fact, the latter eventually appeared on a “Hey Arnold” remix.)Still, much of SoundCloud rap’s entrée into the 2017 Zeitgeist can be credited to its successful atomization. There are dozens of rappers who fit into the rubric, and it’s unlikely that you’ll remember most of them five years from now. But it’s fun while it lasts.