Genres

The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.

When I asked my hipster neighbors about the first things that come to mind when they think about indigenous cultures, they said the following: feathered headpieces, teepees, dream catchers, tobacco, ritualistic ceremonies, genocide, and the worship of mother nature. Not all these terms are positive, to say the least, and it’s important to recognize the centuries of historical oppression the native population has endured here in the U.S., as well as in other regions of the Americas. It is also utterly important to celebrate their rich, beautiful traditions -- traditions that respect life in all its forms. With the rise of social media, more and more indigenous artists are stepping into the spotlight, recounting their stories via songs with a modern spin, which is in itself an act of resistance. Ottawa Canada DJs A Tribe Called Red incorporate powerful powwow drum and chants into hard-hitting EDM, while Ecuadorian beatmaker Nicolá Cruz blends hypnotic Andes Step into his mix. Dakota rapper Frank Waln ferociously spits eye-opening tales that take place at the “rez” (or reservations), and Bolivian Quechua singer gets the ZZK treatment in her charango and zampoña-driven hymn. The artists, featured on this playlist, are multifaceted, inspiring, and sincere. Ultimately, the music empowers their tribes, their communities and the listener.

Click here to subscribe to the Spotify playlist.When Papa Wemba collapsed onstage at a concert in Côte d’Ivoire last April, the world lost another one of its musical giants. A bandleader, singer, and fashion icon from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Papa Wemba — who was 66 when he died — was as bold and eccentric as they come, beloved across Africa and the West for his piercing vocal style, outrageous outfits, and countless albums of infectious music, which mixed traditional Congolese and Cuban-style rhythms with intertwining electric guitars, intricate multi-part harmonies, and global influences.Born Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba in 1949 in what was then the Belgian Congo, Papa Wemba first made a name for himself as one of the founding singers of the legendary Kinshasa soukous band Zaiko Langa Langa — sometimes referred to as the Rolling Stones of the Congo for their rebellious sensibilities and amped-up take on the rumba-inspired guitar and vocal music of previous innovators like Franco Luambo Makiadi and Sam Mangwana. After releasing numerous hit records and helping invent a dance called the cavacha, Papa Wemba broke off and started his own group, Viva La Musica. Later he relocated to Paris and teamed up with an international cast of collaborators (including “world music” champion Peter Gabriel) to explore everything from Latin music to soul/R&B to some astonishingly eccentric synth and drum machine sounds.Papa Wemba also starred in the hit 1987 Congolese film La Vie est belle, and he pioneered the dandy-ish “sapeur” style, inspiring generations of Congolese youth to stroll the streets while sporting rainbow-colored three-piece suits, furry hats, bowler caps and old-timey tobacco pipes. The songs on this playlist take in his distinct legacy — spanning his career from the early ‘70s up to some of his latest releases, like his well-received album from 2010, Notre Pere Rumba.

Anyone familiar with the writings of Haruki Murakami knows that he’s a massive music geek with a particular interest in jazz. From the beginning of his career, his books have been filled with musical references. He longed to be a musician way before becoming a writer but lacked the necessary chops. Instead, he ran his own jazz bar, immersing himself in music 24/7, and even after becoming a writer, he continued that immersion—music is a constant part of his environment when he’s working. His official website offers a tantalizing photo of his vinyl collection, which he estimates at more than 10,000 records, and he even published a pair of books containing his own essays on his favorite jazz artists.An enterprising soul named Masamaro Fujiki has taken it upon himself to tally up the tunes in Murakami’s collection into a massive Spotify playlist. In its current state, the playlist contains only a small portion of the music on the author’s shelves—but even that ends up in excess of 3,000 tracks. According to Fujiki, he based his playlist on a Q&A website Murakami put up a couple of years back and on his music essays. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the albums represented are jazz: Murakami’s tastes cycle between bop (Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young), cool (Stan Getz, Bud Shank), and vocalists (Beverly Kenney, copious amounts of Billie Holiday), which are interspersed with classical offerings (Prokofiev, Mozart, Tchaikovsky) and occasionally punctuated by a handful of rock records (The Beach Boys, CCR).If we take this to be an accurate sampling of Murakami’s collection, he definitely isn’t much of a modernist. He is, however, clearly capable of going deep when it comes to his chosen niches, as exemplified by the presence of obscure artists like Swedish sax man Lars Gullin and contemporary jazz vocalist Stacey Kent among all the icons. Fujiki has declared his intent to add more music to the list when he can, but in the meantime, what he’s already created is an impressive achievement—one that allows you to tune in to the celebrated author’s wavelength for a while and muse on the way his listening habits inform his singular literary style.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

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.

When it comes to real rock rebellion, even the most badass American and British artists in history have nothing on the rockers of Iran. The rock ’n’ roll scene in Iran goes all the way back to the ’60s, when influential artists like Farhad Mehrad were beginning to make their presence felt. In the ’70s, artists such as Kourosh Yaghmaei, who became a sort of Bob Dylan-like figure, made their mark, and multiple directions opened for Iranian rock. But the sociopolitical tumult that came with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought drastic cultural changes.

Out went the Shah; in came the Ayatollah and the Ministry of Culture, a government body that required all musicians to be officially sanctioned in order to ply their trade. The reprisal against those who tried to defy these rules included oppression and even imprisonment. Still, artists like the Comment Band, Farshid A’rabi, and the B-Band managed to cut through and make their voices heard.

By the ’90s, things began to loosen up just a little bit, and more Iranian rockers rose up. But the threat of government oppression remained a very real concern. On one hand, there were artists who found ways to fight against it, such as the heavy-metal bands Mordab and Angband, which came to the fore in the 2000s. But at the same time, a number of Iranian alternative-rock bands began to expatriate. Groups like Yellow Dogs and Hypernova made their way to the U.S., and the Tehran duo Take It Easy Hospital relocated to London. But even those Iranian bands that left their homeland behind are still part of its musical legacy. And the story of Iranian rock stands to prove that in the end, the spirit of rock ’n’ roll can rise above just about anything.

Since their 2005 debut, San Diego power trio Earthless have been pushing stoner-rock to new extremes in cosmic exploration and rhythmic intensity——and mostly without the use of vocals. However, on their upcoming release, Black Heaven (out March 16), guitarist Isaiah Mitchell steps up to the mic on a full-time basis. To celebrate his graduation to proper frontman, we asked him to curate a playlist of inspirational voices. Thin Lizzy, “Honesty is No Excuse”: Phil Lynott has one of my all-time favorite voices. His phrasing is wonderful. The longing in his voice.....Andy Irving and Paul Brady, “Lough Erne Shore”: Paul Brady has one of the most unique voices I’ve ever heard. Absolutely beautiful. I wish I could sing like that.Bad Brains, “Banned in D.C.”: H.R. is my favorite all-time punk vocalist. An incredible force of nature. Power.Charley Patton, “High Water Everywhere - Part 1”: Patton also has one of the most unique voices I have ever heard. When I close my eyes and listen to his recordings, I see an old man with a few teeth. Gritty and gravelly. Not a cooler voice in the world. Such an old sound. I wish I could sing like him, too.Freddie King, “Same Old Blues”: One of my all-time favorite vocalists and guitarists. The sound that comes out of him is one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. He sounds big because he is big. Belts it.Traffic, “40,000 Headsman”: Steve Winwood is another all-time favorite. So much soul. There’s this brassy sound to his voice that I love——like Sam Cooke.Sam Cooke, “Cupid”: One of my favorite songs of all time by one of my all-time favorite singers. Sams voice was one of the smoothest and velvetiest sounds to come out of a human.Townes Van Zandt, “Rake”: His voice, phrasing, and lyrics are unmatched. How he can keep all that together and play guitar the way he does to accompany what he has to say, I still don’t know. Another great example of Townes’ mastery of voice and guitar is “Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold.”Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money”: Warren Zevon is pretty new to my life. A good buddy introduced me to him and now I’m hooked. Just a total bad-ass. The voice and lyrics fit together just right.Muddy Waters, “Long Distance Call”: Muddy is one of my earliest heroes. Such an animated voice. One of the most imitated singers of all time.Howlin’ Wolf, “Spoonful”: Wolf is as important to me as Muddy is. Big man with a bigger voice. He was the full package on stage, playing great slide guitar and blowing harmonica, backed up by one of the greatest voices of all time.Fleetwood Mac, “Jumping at Shadows”: Peter Green is another one of my hands-down, all-time favorite voices. He bears it all.Cream, “We’re Going Wrong”: Out of all the singers I’m into and try to imitate, I think I approach my vocals with a Jack Bruce filter. It’s not obvious, but I hear his voice while singing songs I’ve written. I don’t always go the Jack Bruce route, but I’m glad the path is there when I need it.Stevie Wonder, “I Was Made to Love Her”: He gave it all. Pure joy. Arguably the greatest male voice of all time. It doesn’t need explaining.Peter Tosh, “No Sympathy”: Solid as a rock. Such a bad-ass. Preaching.The Band, “It Makes No Difference”: Rick Danko is up in my top five favorite vocalists. He sounds like he’s singing the last performance of his life and absolutely gives it everything he’s got and doesn’t hold back. Everyone on this list does that, but Danko hits me in a different way.The Four Tops, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”: Levi Stubbs, to me, has one of the defining voices of Motown. When the verse kicks in on “Reach Out,” the power that comes through the speakers floors me every time.Sandy Denny, “Late November”: Beautiful and powerful all rolled into one. Music is the healer. You have to give in completely if you want it to heal you. She gave it all.ZZ Top, “Just Got Paid”: One of my all-time favorite bands and guitar players. Billy Gibbons has a voice that doesn’t fit with the way he looks… at least in his early days. Great lyrical content. All hail the Reverend. The real deal.Sonic’s Rendezvous Band, “City Slang”: Fred “Sonic” Smith has a voice I wish I had. Cool as hell. Deep. Another person whose sound is the epitome of cool. One of my all-time favorites.

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.

The work of late hip-hop musician J Dilla is particularly suited to the record industry’s strategy of releasing anything a dead icon has created, no matter how modest or inessential. When he was alive, he would hand out CDs full of beats and short instrumental loops to his friends and collaborators. After he passed away in 2006, those same discs became fodder for bootlegs like J Dilla Anthology and Instrumental Joints Volume 1.However, the recent deluge of Dilla’s posthumously released material has tested the wallets of even his most fanatic disciples. There are remastered projects that didn’t get a full airing during his lifetime, like last year’s The Diary—a proper version of his shelved and oft-bootlegged 2002 album Pay Jay—and his extended Detroit crew has repurposed his beats with fresh vocals that are “produced by J Dilla” for Rebirth of Detroit, Yancey Boys’ Sunset Blvd. (a group comprised of Dilla’s brother Illa J and Frank Nitt), and Slum Village’s Villa Manifesto. Most of all, Yancey Media Group, a label established by his mother, Maureen “Ma Dukes” Yancey, has issued official collections of his beats: Dillatronic, The King of Beats, Lost Tapes, Reels + More, Dillatroit, and much more. Perhaps overwhelmed by the thousands of beats Dilla made in his life, the label has developed an annoying, even if unintentional, tendency to reuse material on different projects—for example, track 31 on Dillatronic is the same as track 663 on Jay Dee’s Ma Dukes Collection.This playlist attempts to sift through the wellspring of Dilla’s recordings to pick out some gems. There isn’t much background information on when these tracks were made, but a knowledgeable Dilla fan can pick out some clues: The King of Beats collection seems typical of his mid-’90s jazzy hip-hop period when he worked with The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest; Dillatronic reflects his early-’00s, pre-Donuts years and his techno-inflected trunk music. A handful of vocal selections from The Diary and Yancey Boys round out this primer that will prepare you for a deep dive into the world of Dilla.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.