Genres

In 1999, Sigur Rós’ Ágætis byrjun bewitched a surprisingly broad swath of music lovers with its heavily textural, exceedingly patient approach to orchestral art rock. But hidden within the gossamer folds of that gorgeous album was something even more novel: lyrics sung in the band’s very own made-up language, Hopelandic. Though indistinguishable for most fans from the group’s native Icelandic, this idioglossia became an attractive part of the Sigur Rós mythos—elaborate world-building is, after all, catnip to pop-culture obsessives (shout out to the MCU).As it turns out, Jónsi and co. were neither the first nor the last to experiment with bespoke jargon. Not all have taken it as far, but some have gone farther: ’70s French prog-rockers Magma record exclusively in Kobaïan, a language from a fictional planet that was apparently also visited by Japan’s ’80s-founded Ruins, who howl in a Kobaïan derivative. New ager Enya adopted her Gaelic-inspired “Loxian” after singing in Elvish for The Lord of the Rings. Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard sometimes slips into a vocabulary she says she shares exclusively with God.On the chiller end of the spectrum, you’ll find Elton John and Talking Heads employing fake speech in Dadaist thought experiments. And off-kilter interpretations, like Tom Waits grunting in German-esque on “Kommienezuspadt,” or Italy’s Adriano Celentano aping American English on 1972’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol.” There’s a lot of quasi-Latin chant out there, but there’s only so much meditation music one playlist can handle, so we skipped some of those songs to make room for a little novelty: Lin-Manuel Miranda rapping in Huttese, and a certain gang of yellow fellows covering the Village People.

As the title goes, this playlist consists of the Chicago house basics. Its compiled by LA writer, researcher and music supervisor Jonny Coleman. Marshall Jeffersons "The House Music Anthem," Phutures "Acid Tracks," and Jamie Principles "Baby Wants to Ride" have been anthologized endlessly. That doesnt make them any less essential, and should come as revelatory to those whose understanding of house begins with Daft Punk and Disclosure.

Ill admit to not having a great critical perspective on EDM as well as being a bit late to the party. Rarely has popular music pushed the aesthetic boundaries of any particular genre, but this seems particularly true with EDM. Most of the pop crossover hits are riddled with cliches, and lack nuance, and most producers dont handle vocals very well, especially with female singers. With all that said, there are still some very amazing tracks on Spins generally awesome top 100 EDM list. The Chainsmokers, Audien, Gesaffelstein, Duck Sauce, Disclosure, and TNGHT tracks are all in my personal cannon (though Id argue that most of those arent what I think are EDM). I was a bit surprised by the lack of recent tracks on this list. I believe theres only one post-2013 track in the top 20. Maybe Spin thinks that EDMs glory days are behind it?

Electronic music is in a funny place right now. It’s as heterogeneous as it’s ever been—a global patchwork of sounds divided by aesthetic, ideology, geography, and even tempo. (See Copenhagen’s so-called “fast techno” scene, whose breakneck energy was best represented by Kulør 001, the inaugural compilation from Courtesy’s Kulør label.) After a long, somewhat uncomfortable stretch in the spotlight, for the better part of the decade, electronic music has largely faded from mainstream view—when was the last time you heard anything about “EDM”? But in that absence of anything resembling a crossover consensus, all manner of ideas have managed to bubble up.Take Slikback. A year ago, nobody in the Northern Hemisphere had heard of the Kenyan producer. Precious few in the Southern, for that matter; he’s only been making music since 2016 or so. But he ended up earning rave reviews for the three sets he played at Kampala, Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Festival, Eastern Africa’s hub for cutting-edge dance music, and a month or so later, his slot at Krakow’s Unsound turned into another hat trick. The very fact that we can speak of a kind of festival network connecting audiences in Eastern Africa and Eastern Europe shows how the landscape has changed in recent years, with artists like Slikback and his sui generis bass music changing the way we think about global undergrounds. His late-2018 remix for Italy’s dancehall-inspired STILL, part of Berlin’s restless PAN crew, further confirmed the Kenyan producer’s arrival.Speaking of bass music, that amorphous category remained the locus of much of electronic music’s vanguard energy, whether that meant Jlin’s continuing mutations in post-footwork, Demdike Stare’s gravelly breakbeat workouts, or the broken rhythms of artists like Bruce, SMX, Pangaea, Parris, and Upsammy. (Undisputed bass anthem of the year: Peder Mannerfelt and Sissel Wincent’s “Sissel & Bass.”) The term “bass music” barely even means anything anymore, at least not anything terribly specific; mainly it just signifies a heavy low end and a certain degree of lurch. But in an era when techno gets drawn ever more narrowly, and house music is often an exercise in retro fealty, the radical openness of bass music was a boon.That’s not to say house and techno didn’t produce great music, even if they rarely sounded essentially new. Even dance music’s nostalgia couldn’t settle on a single reference point, ranging from Lone’s early-’90s ambient-techno reveries to Helena Hauff’s EBM brutalism to the early-’00s minimal revivalism of Huerco S.’ Loidis project. House originator Mr. Fingers put out an album that proved why the genre remains dance music’s gold standard; Octo Octa and Eris Drew honed in on the kinds of ecstatic moods and grooves that feel simply timeless.And while most of the most productive action remained rooted in the underground, that’s not to say that pop crossover was impossible. SOPHIE made one of the year’s most radical record by linking pop pleasures to the most in-your-face experimentalism. Marie Davidson found a wealth of new fans by infusing spiky acid-house revivalism with sly, feminist spoken-word vocals. And Peggy Gou and DJ Koze yielded two of the year’s most universal hits—the kind of tunes that will be filling dancefloors from now ‘til kingdom come—by zeroing in on perfect hooks and a lightness of spirit that was more than welcome in a year as heavy as this one. In a year where it became harder and harder to agree on just about anything, pretty much everyone could find solace in tunes like “It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)” and “Pick Up.”

It was a weird year in American life. It was a weird year in hip-hop, too. Much of mainstream rap descended into a dark pharmacological haze that was alternately illuminating and horrifying; few embodied those twin impulses like the dead-eyed, flat-voiced rapper 21 Savage. Every major chart hit seemed to include Migos, or one of its members. Most rappers spent more time singing and harmonizing than actually rapping, whether it was Future, Lil Uzi Vert, or Kendrick Lamar. Drake entered his Aerosmith/rock-dinosaur phase—likeable enough, still one of the biggest stars, but no longer generating the kind of critical excitement and discourse he once did. And the top newcomer of the year (though technically her debut mixtape dropped last year) was Cardi B, a former Bronx exotic-dancer-turned-reality-TV-star-turned-social-media-darling who may not be a technically proficient rapper, but made up for it with a delightful mix of personality and panache.Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. was arguably the year’s best album, but it also seemed purposely muted and focused on addressing past triumphs, personal failings, and searching for a path ahead. Its defining quality may have been a surplus of hooky, memorable tunes that didn’t overwhelm intellectually like his past work. By contrast, Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory delved into fame, disappointment, and UK beat culture in vivid yet perplexing fashion. Migos’ Culture simply offered a cavalcade of hits. Its magnificently scattershot quality was akin to a Stephen Curry highlight reel: Even the best shooters in the NBA merely average over 50 per cent makes. Playboi Carti’s self-titled debut was wonderfully ephemeral. Nothing felt like a genre-shifting achievement on the scale of last year’s Coloring Book, or 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly and DS2. But in a year when optimism about the world around us was in dangerously dwindling supply, modest artistic breakthroughs felt like small yet important steps forward.

It’s 2018, and the economy (for now) is booming. We live in an age in which we consume more pop culture and feel worse about it than ever before. We are more aware of the taboos and criminal acts that percolate beyond the stage lights, if not beyond the withering gaze of social media. We look for heroes, and everyone seems to be found wanting--too flawed, too corrupt.When you survive a chaotic, contentious year like this one--most fans will agree it wasn’t great, but will debate just how bad it was--you narrow your gaze from the forest and turn towards the trees. There is Pusha T’s Daytona, a marvel of economy and caustic wit. There were innovations that worked, such as Tierra Whack’s medley of minute-long pop R&B and rap suites, Whack World. There were innovations that didn’t work, like G.O.O.D. Music’s summer series of EP-length albums, all produced by Kanye West, which after a strong opening with Daytona went rapidly downhill from there. There was the surprisingly poignant return of Lil Wayne, the one-time child star who has grown into an elder statesman after a series of tragic, near-fatal setbacks. There was a boomlet of fast-talking, sexually-forthright women who dazzled rap aficionados, even as a true commercial breakthrough for them (save for City Girls’ appearance on Drake’s “In My Feelings”) remained just out of reach.Rap has atomized so much that it’s possible to ignore the headline-grabbing noise and simply find something you like. Fans of idiosyncratic street-rap flows glorified 03 Greedo, Key!, and Maxo Kream. Meat-and-potatoes backpackers contented themselves with PRhyme and Roc Marciano. Followers of the Chicago school of poetic, jazzy lyricism flocked to Noname and Saba’s new work. In the Bay Area, there was SOB x RBE, Mozzy and Nef the Pharaoh. In Los Angeles, there was Nipsey Hussle and Jay Rock. In New York, there was Sheck Wes and Flatbush Zombies.However, hip-hop culture remains a consensus culture. We exult in its nooks and crannies, its regional curiosities and local flavors, but we turn to the mainstream to make sense of it all. Cardi B, a woman whose big, boisterous personality and social media prowess outpaced her musical talent, proved an unusual choice for Most Valuable Player. Drake is Drake, and with nearly a decade of sad-boy vocals and tough-titty bars in his catalog, he seemingly has few surprises left to offer. Travis Scott is a blockbusting Michael Bay of rap, all maximalist noise that signifies nothing. The less said about Post Malone, the better. Future, J Cole, A$AP Rocky, YG, Nicki Minaj...they seemed to falter in 2018 with work that paled in comparison to past glories.In 2002, another semi-lousy year for hip-hop concluded with the promise of 50 Cent’s “Wanksta,” and the following twelve months brought Jay-Z’s triumphant “retirement,” OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, T.I.’s Trap Muzik and the commercialization of crunk. Today, hope continues to animate a culture that’s poised to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” next year. Who will rehabilitate this aging genre and prevent its deterioration into bland rap singing and Spotifycore? Who’s going to take the weight?

Note: This playlist follows a loose chronological structure reflecting when these songs were released during 2017—which I like to think provides a more accurate snapshot of the year as it was lived, as opposed to a ranked list based on totally unquantifiable criteria. The cruel irony of being a music critic in 2017 is that the very thing that makes the gig easier—i.e., plentiful, push-button access to practically the entire history of recorded sound—is also the very thing that threatens one’s sense of expertise. The truth is, the two cornerstones of the job description—a) being an authority in your field and b) staying current—are becoming mutually exclusive ideals, as your listening queue perpetually extends like an unchecked email account. Spending quality time with a given record means missing out on another 50 probably-amazing albums that came out this week. I’m at the point now where artists whose work I’ve loved for years, or even decades, will release a new record, and it takes me months to get around to giving it a cursory listen, if I don’t outright forget that it even exists. (Sorry, Liars!) These days, music writers essentially play the role of sommelier, giving records a momentary swish before spewing ’em out and moving onto the next one.It’s an especially pervasive condition in the perennially over-populated field we call indie rock—a term that now encompasses everyone from aspiring Bandcamp chancers to Grammy-winning arena acts. And in between those goalposts you have annual bumper crops of hotly tipped breakout artists, modestly successful mid-career acts still slogging it out, solo albums, side projects, and ‘90s veterans who decide to take a crack at the reunion circuit. And this is to say nothing of the stylistic variation that field covers. Forty years ago, you wouldnt deign to lump Bruce Springsteen, The Fall, William Onyeabor, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, and Hawkwind into the same genre category. Yet when you consider those artists contemporary spiritual offspring—Japandroids, Sleaford Mods, Pierre Kwenders, The Weather Station, Moses Sumney, and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard—theyre all huddled under the umbrella of indie.As such, there is no narrative through-line or overarching theme that could possibly connect the songs on this collection of my favorite indie-rock songs of 2017. (Well, other than it was an exceptionally good year for Australia!) Certainly, in this never-ending shit-show of a year, there was a need for music that could help us navigate these tumultuous times, be it Priests emotionally fraught dream-punk (“Nothing Feels Natural”), Algiers palace-storming soul stomps (“The Underside of Power”), or Weaves freak-flag rallying cries (“Scream”). But then, 2017 was so fucked up and draining on so many levels, you could forgive America’s fiercest rabble-rousers—Philly DIY heroes Sheer Mag, pictured above—for wanting to take a momentary break from the brick-tossing and seek solace in the discotheque (“Need to Feel Your Love”).At a time when the very fate of humanity felt more perilous and unknowable than at any point in our lifetime, you take comfort in the little things. Sometimes all I wanted was to escape into a fully realized fantasy of Stevie Nicks making a Cure album (Louise Burns’ “Storms”) or King Krule going Krautrock (via Mount Kimbie’s “Blue Train Lines”) or The Go-Betweens being brought back to life (Rolling Blackouts C.F.’s “The French Press”). In some instances, it was an especially outrageous lyric that provided levity (from Alex Cameron and Angel Olsen’s misfit-romance anthem “Stranger’s Kiss”: “I got shat on by an eagle, baby/ now I’m king of the neighbourhod/ and I guess that I could/ just tear the gym pants off a single mother”); in others, I was transfixed by an extended instrumental build-up (Thurston Moore’s gong-crashing “Exalted”) or a perfectly messy guitar solo (The National’s “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” The War on Drugs’ “Up All Night”). It was a year of being taken by surprise by bands I had taken for granted (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s “Ambulance Chaser,” Guided by Voices’ “Nothing Gets You Real”), awestruck by long-dormant artists who seemingly reemerged from out of nowhere (be it Land of Talk with the intensely aching “Heartcore” or former Only Ones frontman Peter Perrett’s winsome “Troika”), and blindsided by artists I had never heard before (noise-punk powerhouse Dasher’s “Go Rambo,” Montreal sound collagist Joni Void’s “Cinema Without People,” art-pop phenom Jay Som’s magisterial “For Light”).Of course, there is also a regional bias at play here. Even as it’s become the province of national late-night talk shows and destination mega-festivals, indie rock is still nothing without its local scenes, and this playlist inevitably reflects my roots in the Southern Ontario corridor. This year, several under-the-radar acts I’ve been fortunate enough to see come into their own over the past few years—stoner-prog titans Biblical, avant-pop activist Petra Glynt, the Slim Twig/U.S. Girls-led fuzz-boogie supergroup Darlene Shrugg, industrial-electro trio Odonis Odonis—all released excellent albums that effectively bottled up their onstage energy for the world to see.But mostly what you get on this playlist is a lot of great, seasoned, chronically under-appreciated artists doing what they do and continuing to do it very well, from Chain and the Gang’s anti-capitalist garage-punk manifesto “Devitalize” to British Sea Power’s crestfallen “Don’t Let the Sun Get in the Way” to The Dears’ triumphant “1998” to Pavement co-founder Spiral Stairs’ sweetly slack “Angel Eyes” (a touching tribute to his late drummer, Darius Minwalla). There are few rewards for consistency in life, and especially not in the incessant, feed-refreshing world of indie rock. But in a time of insatiable suck-it-up-and-spit-it-out musical consumption, these songs handily passed the swish test, and demanded to be savored.P.S.: Ty Segall’s Drag City catalog isn’t available on Spotify, otherwise I would’ve included his gonzo 10-minute "Cant You Hear Me Knocking"-scaled tour de force, “Freedom (Warm Hands).” Ditto for Boss Hog’s ace comeback album, Brood X, which just goes to show that getting featured in Baby Driver wasn’t the only great thing to happen to Jon Spencer this year.

The overall unsteadiness of 2017 stretched to pop, which seemed plagued by an existential crisis that could be chalked up to the still-developing sea legs of streaming-music discovery, the panic of radio programmers looking over their collective shoulders at the looming threats posed by Spotifys Rap Caviar and Apples A-Lists, or just overall exhaustion. (It was a trying year.) The best pure pop pleasures of the year came largely from those artists who decided to cast formula to the wind and instead veer off in their own direction.Carly Rae Jepsens "Cut to the Feeling" (a holdover from the E•MO•TION era that proved how her cast-offs pack more punch than even the most precision-grade Max Martin concoction) led the charge, its call for letting it all out urged along by a squad of synths clapping; Paramore distracted from the heartache at the core of After Laughter by eclipsing it with laserbeam guitars and Hayley Williams height-scaling vocals; Miguel threw himself into his vocals as well on War & Leisure, singing like it was the only thing keeping him from certain doom. Radio wasnt without its pleasures; DJ Khaleds seemingly improbable Santana interpolation got life from Rihannas dead-serious flirtations on "Wild Thoughts," while Camila Cabellos slinky "Havana" felt like a trap-pop update of the "Smooth" formula, only with Young Thugs tongue-twisting rhymes standing in for Carlos licks.Kelly Clarkson and Kesha announced their liberation from pops mathematicians with albums that felt more like their live presences, electric and whipsawing through genres and giggling at the fun of it all. Ne-Yo, trapped in the purgatory of vocal features and top-down label uncertainty over the "marketability" of R&B for so long, put out "Another Love Song," a suited-up return to his Year of the Gentleman era that also stood out for actually expressing romantic pleasure. It aided a resurgent year for the genre on multiple levels: younger artists like Khalid, SZA, and Jordan Bratton used their soul-side-ready voices as a jumping-off point into modern textures; the sibling duo Chloe x Halle twinned and looped their ghostly voices into next-generation gold on The Two of Us; Luke James triple-dipped with his star turn as Johnny Gill in BETs outrageous New Edition biopic, the woozily coital "Drip," and a recurring role (complete with weekly singles releases) on Foxs girl-group musical soap Star; and Michigans Curtis Harding threw it back to the hot-buttered era on the stunning, sumptuous Face Your Fear. Pops best moments provided a metaphor for the year—the noisy mainstream might have its ever-more-fleeting moments, but the really satisfying moments lurked within more hidden corners.

When I was a 13-year-old girl completely oblivious to the immense power of femininity, Tori Amos "God" struck something within me. "God sometimes you just dont come through / Do you need a woman to look after you?," she trills with a mix of steeliness and sass. Perhaps its the blatant heresy she so coolly savors, but that line continues to sting so good, as long as religion and patriarchies continue to dominate our existence. Over two decades and some 15 albums later, we expect nothing less from Amos, who keeps writing, recording, and touring relentlessly; slipping in and out of personas; and crafting her art on cosmic concepts that intricately break down life here on Earth in all its bliss and terror.Amos is a carefully constructed contradiction: a classically trained musician and provocative pop star; a ministers daughter with an angelic voice and a wildly wicked sense of humor; an independent woman who respects tradition as much as she subverts it. For this Family Tree feature, we honor her musical lineage, whose roots stretch back to Lennon and Led Zeppelin, then branch out to Fiona Apple and PJ Harvey, and continue to flourish through artists like St. Vincent and Lorde.

THE ROOTS

At the ripe ol age of two, Tori started playing piano. Soon, she was on scholarship at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. But she found her greatest muses in the rock records her older brother would sneak into the house. Led Zeppelins sticky, swampy pagan rock would leave an impression, especially those Robert Plant wails that effortlessly ooze with sex. So would the fabulous flamboyancy of Freddie Mercury—you can see his histrionics channeling through her when she works two pianos at once in concert. In fact, shes even claimed Mercury wrote her To Venus and Back track "Sugar" from beyond the grave. Shes said the same about John Lennon, whose ghost may or may not have helped write the Boys for Pele song "Hey Jupiter," whose chords mirror another rock god: Prince.Of course, there are plenty of rock goddesses tangled among Amos roots as well. Her most ethereal proclivities bring on constant comparisons to art-pop auteur Kate Bush, who can draw sensuality out of the steeliest synths. Stevie Nicks is another one of her spirit animals, and Tori covers her Rumours material often. But perhaps her most striking trait—her raw, vulnerable songwriting—draws from the beautifully raging poetry of Joni Mitchell and punk priestess Patti Smith.

THE BRANCHES

Tori Amos released her debut album Little Earthquakes in 1992. At first blush, her flowery, flowy piano rock seemed a far cry from the testosterone-fueled grunge blowing in from the Pacific Northwest. But her songwriting and delivery, stripped bare of pretense and posturing, shared much with that genres tortured confessionals. At the same time, her music felt like an antidote to all that muscular angst, even though anger and pain very much powered her own cathartic cries. This potent femininity would quickly seep its way into the alternative-rock consciousness through prolific artists like PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, and Ani DiFranco.Songs like "Silent All These Years" would help give voice to equally strong, immensely gifted women armed with a piano or guitar and a helluva lot of thick skin. On “Sullen Girl,” Fiona Apple channels her own trauma as a rape victim into one of pop music’s most hauntingly elegant depictions of the terror, depression, and isolation that comes with such hell. And, like Tori, her words flow so eloquently, so naturally, with every little waver in her voice holding infinite emotion. But it wasn’t just women who felt her allure. Trent Reznor was also a fan, and the two were often linked. Tori’s “Caught a Lite Sneeze” references Pretty Hate Machine, while “Past the Mission” features Mr. Self Destruct himself on backing vocals.

THE LEAVES

Twenty-five years after her solo debut, Tori continues to reinvent herself as she navigates a contemporary landscape rife with musicians influenced by her. These artists capture her passion, her freakiness, and her luminous grace in their own lucid tales that often shift and warp modern ideals of love, sex, power, and gender. The weird, snarling dance mix of Tori’s "Raspberry Swirl" could work as a rough template for St. Vincent’s wacky, whimsical compositions. Traces of her most mystical odysseys weave through the dark, eerie dream-pop of Bat For Lashes and Zola Jesus. Provocative piano women like Amanda Palmer take a bit of Tori’s unapologetic fire and let it loose themselves, too—heck, Palmer is even married to author Neil Gaiman, the subject in a few of Tori’s songs. And even some of pop’s biggest stars embrace Tori’s insatiable need to articulate the immensity of being a powerful woman. Just take it from Lorde: “I’m 19 and I’m on fire.”

Before Tracy Chapman came along, 1988 sure didnt seem like it was waiting for her. Remember, the U.S. had been through two terms of Ronald Reagan, and the sense of American entitlement (or at least white American entitlement) had reached toxic levels. The "greed is good" era was in full swing. Conspicuous consumerism had become a virtue, if not a requirement. It felt like the entire country had taken a worrying swing to the right.The album charts, airwaves, and MTV rotation were overloaded with bigger-is-better hair metal and synth-swathed, hi-tech dance pop. Nobody was expecting an androgynous young African-American balladeer with an acoustic guitar to bring back Americas social conscience and rise almost overnight from obscurity to iconic status.But when Tracy Chapmans self-titled debut album arrived, packed with undeniably urgent tunes that could only be classified as protest songs, it was as if the world suddenly realized it had been nursing a Chapman-sized void for years, which was finally being filled. And the world responded in kind: a No. 1 record all over the globe, an armful of Grammys, a Top 10 hit with "Talkin Bout a Revolution," and saturation of just about every arm of the media, from magazine covers to radio playlists.Though nobody had heard of Chapman before April of 88, by September she was co-headlining Amnesty Internationals Human Rights Now! tour, alongside socio-politically savvy rock titans like Springsteen, Sting, and Peter Gabriel. But the force of her songs, sound, and persona made it impossible to imagine any other scenario.In the year of "Dont Worry, Be Happy," here came a forthright troubadour with a force-of-nature voice delivering songs about domestic abuse (the chilling, a cappella "Behind the Wall"), the harsh realities of American poverty ("Fast Car"), the madness of materialism ("Mountains O Things"), worldwide injustice ("Why?"), and of course, the long-overdue arrival of a political sea change (the rabble-rousing"Talkin Bout a Revolution," which proudly proclaimed, "finally the tables are starting to turn").Sure, an eyeblink later we had The Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, et al. But when that first Tracy Chapman album burst into being, it felt like something unprecedented was happening, or at least something the likes of which the nation hadnt seen since the days of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs more than two decades earlier. And it was lost on no one that this charge was led by a sexually ambiguous woman of color in a time when a doddering, reactionary white man defined Americas image.30 years after Chapman first made her mark, the U.S. finds itself at a troubling juncture once more, a time when an alarming number of citizens have swung to the right yet again, and all the social ills of the 80s are threatening to take up residence in the heart of America again. If Tracy Chapman were making her debut now, when theres such a grievous crevasse in our nations liberty, she would probably be described as "woke."But Chapman was woke long before that colloquialism ever even existed. If songs like "Fast Car" and "Talkin Bout a Revolution" were unleashed for the first time in 2018 instead of 1988, theyd feel just as much like a desperately needed breath of clean, fresh air. In fact, if you dust those tracks off and take them out for a spin right now, youll find that they still speak to the state of things with just as much resonance as ever. And while its a shame that theyre still so necessary, its a blessing that theyre still so unshakably powerful.