Hottest Record in the World (BBC Radio 1)
May 7, 2017

Hottest Record in the World (BBC Radio 1)

What This Is: A British perspective on the hottest new music, according to BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac. The playlist compiles Macs daily selections into one ever-expanding mix.

What to Expect: According to Mac, youll get everything "from dance bangers to hip-hop and indie," but theres so much more. Her omnivorous tastes make for an intriguing listen, where sensitive singer-songwriters flow into woozy electronic, bubbly indie pop, sneering indie rock, smooth R&B, and sleazy mainstream hip-hop. Of course, English artists dominate much of the mi

20 New Rappers To Watch Out For In 2015
August 31, 2015

20 New Rappers To Watch Out For In 2015

Source: ComplexFor those of you not attuned to the fast-moving tastes of rap blogs, most of these names will ring unfamiliar to you. And to be frank, theres nothing wrong with that, since these up-and-comers are in their woodshedding phase. Boogies The Reach has drawn critical acclaim and a deal with Republic/Interscope, while fellow UMG signee Post Malone seems like the proverbial industry plant. Nef the Pharoahs "Big Tymin" has dominated the San Francisco Bay Area all summer; and D.R.A.M.s "Cha Cha" has inspired countless Vine memes and a thinly-veiled Drake homage. Good hunting.

Stereogums Favorite New Music

Stereogums Favorite New Music

Stereogums weekly compilation of their favorite songs on the indie rock/pop/hip-hop spectrum.

The 40: Essential New Music
February 27, 2018

The 40: Essential New Music

It’s a great big world, and there’s a ton of new music being released into it each week. How to keep up? Lucky for you, the staff at The Dowsers is sifting through it all each week, every week, and so we figured we’d curate the fruits of that labor into a new playlist franchise we calling “The 40: Essential New Music.” Updated every Monday, “The 40” brings together the 40 best new tracks from across multiple genres. If it’s good, it’s in there. If it’s not, then you can probably skip it. Enjoy.

Billboard Top 100

Billboard Top 100

Billboards iconic top 100 chart, updated weekly. This is pulled from their Spotify account, which only includes 90 or so songs, oddly enough.

Hype Machine Top 10
June 10, 2015

Hype Machine Top 10

Source: Hype MachineHype Machine Top 10; Listen for free at bop.fmBlog aggregator Hype Machines top 10 tracks. Updated weekly.

Mixmags Best New House
May 21, 2018

Mixmags Best New House

What This Is: Mixmag is the preeminent British resource for electronic music and clubbing culture. They’ve been doing this since 1983, and they’ve traversed the various peaks and valleys of electronic music’s long journey since that time. What To Expect: The absolute best house music out today. Mixmag (generally) updates this every week, and their picks are (generally) unimpeachable.

NPR All Songs Considered (Unofficial)
May 7, 2017

NPR All Songs Considered (Unofficial)

What This Is: An ever-growing playlist featuring songs from NPRs revered radio show thats been running since 2000. This is your go-to source for discovering new music—especially in indie and pop—as well as the greatest influences behind that music. This may be unofficial, but its every bit comprehensive.

What To Expect: All Songs Considered not only spotlights "essential new songs," but also has special "Guest DJ" features, so the playlist is a bit scattered with new and old tracks. But while you may randomly hear some classic Dylan and Bowie, these oldies mostly weave in seamlessly with Bob Boilen and Robin Hiltons fresh picks, which lean heavily on quirky alt-pop purveyors (think: MGMT, alt-J, St. Vincent), raw singer-songwriters (Angel Olsen, Waxahatchee), indie folk vets (Fleet Foxes, TK, TK), indie rock phenoms (Courtney Barnett, Car Seat Headrest), and the occasional socially conscious rapper (Kendrick Lamar, Anderson.Paak).

Pitchforks Best New Tracks

Pitchforks Best New Tracks

Check out Pitchforks pick for the best new tracks, updated weekly or as they arrive.

Spotify’s Top 100

Spotify’s Top 100

The top 100 tracks from Spotify, updated weekly.

'90S THROWBACKS
Indie Rock Face-Off: Neo vs. ’90s

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.

The Year in ’90s Metal

It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.

Out of the Stacks: ’90s College Radio Staples Still At It

Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.

Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.