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This post is part of our Disco 101 program, an in-depth series that looks at the far-reaching, decades-long impact of disco. Curious about disco and want to learn more? Go here to sign up. Already signed up and enjoying it? Help us get the word out by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or just sending your friends this link. They’ll thank you. We thank you.People went out to nightclubs to dance and party before disco. They’d do it after disco, too. Nevertheless, there was a point in the 1970s when disco dominated popular culture like no musical craze has done ever since. It was a phenomenon that impacted nearly everything about people’s lives, from the movies they watched, to the clothes they wore, to the ways they interacted with each other. It was a social and sexual revolution set to a four-on-the-floor rhythm and sweetened with the sound of strings and the sultriest of divas.Disco was so liberating, so exhilarating, that a lot of people inevitably felt embarrassed about what happened at the party once somebody turned the lights on. To many, disco was a discomfiting reminder of an era of foolish, even dangerous hedonism that was cruelly superseded by the rise of Reagan-era conservatism and—most tragically for the LBGTQ community that had fostered it—the devastation wrought by AIDS. For later generations, disco just became a joke whose punchline was the orange Afro wig you wore at a Halloween party. But that’s a huge disservice to a body of music that’s astonishingly varied and complex, one that not only absorbed innovations from across the era’s musical spectrum, but foregrounded the artistry of musicians and DJs far outside America’s cis white mainstream.Like organisms in some primordial jungle, disco needed steamy environments to evolve. Some could be found in the queer vacation zone of Fire Island, where DJs in the early ‘70s developed the process of taking revelers up from a simmer to a boil and back again. They’d export these tactics to bathhouses and clubs back in Manhattan, as well as DIY spaces like David Mancuso’s Loft. Meanwhile, the era’s most vanguard African-American soul, funk, and R&B acts were creating a boogie wonderland. The lush Philly soul of Gamble and Huff, the cinematic sensibility of Blaxploitation soundtracks, and the symphonic seductions of Barry White would all become key elements of disco, as would more rhythm-forward dance-floor sensations like Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa.” Across the Atlantic, the Europeans were refashioning American-style R&B and soul with a sleek, machine-made throb in revolutionary productions like Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby.”The fact that this Giorgio Moroder-assisted orgasmic masterstroke arrived in 1975 illustrates the difficulty in precisely pinpointing a beginning point for the sound. But as our proto-disco playlist illustrates, the foreplay was just as pleasurable as everything that ensued.

Hey, it happens: You neglect to keep up with all that’s new and cool in rap for a month (or several). Then you snap back into focus and, all of a sudden, the hip-hop landscape is completely populated by adolescents with face tattoos who’ve named themselves after prescription pharmaceuticals. “Where am I? How did I get here?”, you might wonder, feeling approximately 5,000 years old. Not to worry——“rap time” moves at a speed that defies all commonly understood laws of physics, anyway. For those who scan through Rap Caviar and feel lost, we’ve compiled a handy user’s guide to rap’s new generation, taking you on a tour through SoundCloud rap, Latin trap, and all things 2018. (Cue up the playlist above for a general overview of the contemporary hip-hop landscape at large, and then dig deeper into each scene below.)

SOUNDCLOUD RAP

Have you, a full-grown adult, ever been shaken to your core by sheer proximity to a group of teens, certain that they will roast your entire existence simply because they can? Welcome to the lawless land of SoundCloud rap: the movement that, over the past year and a half, has eclipsed the DIY implications of its somewhat dismissive moniker and officially infiltrated the mainstream. Originally, its biggest songs gathered steam on——you guessed it——SoundCloud’s weekly “most played” charts, which ostensibly bypassed stodgy industry gatekeepers to gauge exactly what fans respond to most. But for a while now, the movement’s been gradually outgrowing its home base, with curated playlists becoming the preferred platform for “discovery.” (Scare quotes intended.) And its biggest songs have ascended to the upper echelons of the Billboard charts in recent months: Lil Pump’s “Gucci Gang” hit No. 3 on the Hot 100 in December; 6ix9ine’s “Gummo” peaked at No. 12 later that month; and, most recently, two separate singles from Lil Skies have been simultaneously cruising up the charts.It often feels as though these rappers are more united in visual aesthetic than they are in sound: Crayola-colored dreads, bountiful face tattoos, and worrisome Xanax references abound. (For a while, the scene was also disproportionately stationed in South Florida, though it’s branched out a bit, with Trippie Redd based in Columbus, 6ix9ine repping Brooklyn, and Lil Skies heralding from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania.) But aside from its brash attitude, there are a few common threads that tie the scene’s disparate acts together. The mix is often purposefully overblown and heavy on the digital distortion. Track run times are generally short enough to sustain a social media-saturated attention span. Influence-wise, SoundCloud rappers take cues from the improvisational sing-song style of Chief Keef, the gothic scuzz of ‘90s Hypnotize Minds acts, and the melodies of ’00s emo. Perhaps the most unpleasant quality of the movement is that its biggest stars have been regularly revealed to be terrible human beings——but what else is new in 2018?

TRAP 3.0

It’s impossible to come up with a concise expression of what trap music sounds like in 2018 when the style is easily more diverse than it’s ever been——not to mention more prominently represented within mainstream hip-hop. (Hell, Taylor Swift albums come with Future features these days.) No one needs an introduction to Migos or Young Thug in 2018; but perhaps you’ve breezed through Rap Caviar lately and wondered, “Who the fuck is Lil Baby?” Atlanta remains the trap-music capital of the universe, and if there’s any one label that represents the style’s most popular iteration right now, it’s Quality Control Music, the label founded by legendary A&R rep Coach K. Migos are the label’s marquee act, but the label’s recent Control the Streets, Vol. 1 compilation provides a slightly more in-depth overview of sound of the moment: mostly downcast, with plenty of minor keys to go along with the stuttering snares.Beyond the Migos, though, Atlanta’s most ascendant trap stars over the past year have been Playboi Carti and 21 Savage. Carti’s supremely bass-boosted “Magnolia” was everywhere last year; and if trap’s most recognizable beatmaker these days is Metro Boomin, its most promising newcomer is Pi’erre Bourne, the Atlanta producer behind the single, whose sparse but immersive style is starting to take off. Meanwhile, 21 Savage’s slurry delivery, eerie beats, and nihilistic lyrics have infiltrated the charts over the past year; his understated “Bank Account,” produced by Metro Boomin, was a breakaway hit in 2017, and lately, it’s felt like half the Hot 100 has a 21 Savage feature, from Post Malone’s “rockstar” to Cardi B’s recent “Bartier Cardi.” You can’t talk about trap in 2018 without mentioning Cardi, who had the biggest come-up in 2017 rap with her explosive No. 1 hit, “Bodak Yellow.” That song, in turn, interpolates the flow from Kodak Black’s 2014 single “No Flockin” (hence the titular reference). South Florida’s answer to Lil Boosie, Kodak’s also seen a boom in notoriety, despite what seems to be constant legal trouble; his “Roll in Peace” single, featuring fellow problematic rapper XXXtentacion, has sat near the top of SoundCloud’s most-played charts for what feels like centuries in rap time (more accurately, about five months).Clearly, then, trap’s purview extends far beyond Atlanta in 2018. Baton Rouge prodigy YoungBoy Never Broke Again (formerly known as NBA YoungBoy) has been making waves in recent years for his wise-beyond-his-years storytelling, in the lineage of hometown heroes like Boosie or more recently, Kevin Gates. Chicago’s Famous Dex might not be a household name (which is probably a good thing, given the rapper’s alleged history of abuse), but his minimalist, slippery style looms large over the purposefully off-kilter sounds of 2018 trap and SoundCloud rap. He’s far from the only trap star with a troubling rap sheet: see Arlington, Texas MC Tay-K, whose raw 2017 breakthrough single, “The Race,” literally narrates the 17-year old’s run from a murder charge, for which he’s currently awaiting trial. Newcomers Tee Grizzley and Molly Brazy represent the dichotomy of Detroit street rap: Grizzley’s pathos-heavy “First Day Out” is a masterful mix of the joy and pain felt on his first day released from prison, while Brazy’s party anthems harken back to the bounce of Cash Money and No Limit productions from around the time the 18-year-old was born. And as evidence of Chief Keef’s underwritten influence over how trap music sounds in 2018, Dallas’ Cuban Doll named her recent turnt-up tape Aaliyah Keef, after the 19-year old’s two biggest inspirations.

THE NEW RAP-ROCK

The most memorable outfit on last weekend’s Grammy red carpet was not an ethereal gown or a suave tuxedo; instead, it was the ever-so-over-it Lil Uzi Vert’s mall-goth cargo pants, a triumphant comeuppance for anyone who spent the early ‘00s lurking Warped Tour, replying to flirty AIM messages with “Rawr xD,” or raving beneath the nearest underpass. It was bound to happen eventually: At some point over the past couple years, the well of ‘90s nostalgia ran dry, rap merch began looking like a Hot Topic sales rack circa 2002, and a new rap-rock movement had kicked into high gear. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug——especially when it sets its dreamy gaze on a trend so deliciously garish——but this isn’t your older brother’s rap-rock. Instead of macho mosh-pit metal, rap’s new generation is drawing from the more sensitive strains of ‘00s emo and pop-punk, which makes sense given hip-hop’s embrace of melody over the past decade. Along with the past decade’s steady blurring of genre boundaries, this moment seems inevitable. In fact, it may represent a more fully-realized vision of rap-rock than its original iteration——not to mention finally vindicating Lil Wayne’s “rappers are the new rock stars” mantra on Rebirth eight years ago.Uzi’s 2017 breakthrough, “XO TOUR Llif3,” is so far the defining hit of the new rap-rock movement, with ultra-depressing lines like “Push me to the edge/ All my friends are dead” sung in Autotuned pop-punk cadences. An even bigger hit (and one that’s even more on-the-nose) is Post Malone’s “rockstar,” with its callouts to Jim Morrison, TVs tossed out hotel windows, and the actual lyric “I’m with the band.” But as far as a figurehead, the scene’s most promising leader was by and large Lil Peep, the heavily-tatted, deeply emotive rapper who died of an overdose last November at age 21. Emo-inspired anthems like “Awful Things” capture the romantic nihilism of a doomed generation; in his stead, members of his GothBoiClique crew, like Lil Tracy and Horse Head, keep the legacy alive.

TEAM POSI-VIBES

It’s easy to feel beaten down by the world in 2018. And if things weren’t dark enough as it is, it’s all the more disheartening when hip-hop headlines and playlists feel increasingly dominated by unrepentant abusers and the gatekeepers who support them. Meanwhile, minor keys and eerie vibes have dominated rap production for the past few years, thanks in large part to the influence of Metro Boomin. Have we officially descended into full-time cultural nihilism? Well, not yet: A largely unconnected group of artists from across the map are keeping the flames of optimism flickering by basking in rap’s sunnier side.For the past couple years, Lil Yachty’s lighthearted trap has been an easy target for haters of “rap these days.” But along with his Sailing Team crew, the 20-year-old’s purposefully rinky-dink take on the past decade of Atlanta hip-hop——from Soulja Boy’s playful ringtone rap to the exuberance of early-‘10s groups like Travis Porter——has demanded serious consideration. Just as bubbly, but even more impressive rap-wise, are Sailing Team member Kodie Shane’s “Drip On My Walk” (buoyed by two simple piano keys) and Maryland rapper Rico Nasty’s Nickelodeon-themed bops. And it would seem that the boy-band format is back in style, minus the choreography and major-label svengalis. The super-ambitious Brockhampton crew has amassed a cult-like following for their inclusive, genre-spanning DIY jams. And perhaps the least expected ray of light in the 2017 rap landscape came from Baltimore’s Creek Boyz, whose trap chorale “With My Team” is a genuinely heart-warming ode to crew love.

LATIN TRAP

As trap has evolved into the dominant sound for popular rap, Spanish-language hip-hop has responded in kind, and Latin trap has exploded into an undeniable force. Reggaeton had been the defining sound of the Latin urban charts for the past decade, but over the past two years, Latin music has adopted trap music’s lurching bass, 808 drum patterns, and half-rapped, half-sung cadences. Southern hip-hop’s influence has bled into Latin music for much longer than this particular moment, but artists within the scene seem to agree that “La Ocasión”——the moody 2016 smash from De La Ghetto featuring Arcángel, Anuel AA, and Ozuna——officially sparked the Latin-trap boom; the track currently has more than 465 million views on YouTube. However, the scene’s biggest star, and the one most primed for a mainstream crossover to English-speaking audiences, is Bad Bunny——the Puerto Rican rapper who, just two years ago, was uploading his songs to SoundCloud in his time off from bagging groceries at a San Juan supermarket. He hasn’t released an official album yet, but you’ll find his name all over popular Latin-trap playlists, Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, and, increasingly, the Hot 100. English-language rappers are taking notice of the movement’s massive popularity, and in the past year, there’s been an increasing amount of bilingual collaborations. Late last year, Nicki Minaj and 21 Savage hopped on the remix to Puerto Rican artist Farruko’s hit, “Krippy Kush,” which also features Bad Bunny and former dancehall producer Rvssian. And in August, Cardi B released an official Spanish remix to her No. 1 single “Bodak Yellow” featuring NYC-based Dominican rapper Messiah.

THE WILD CARDS

Though it may feel like rap in 2018 is overwhelmingly dominated by teenage SoundCloud upstarts and corporate-curated Spotify playlists, that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for genuinely idiosyncratic individuals to step out, too. There’s no formal connection between these particular rappers, many of whom stand apart stylistically even within their respective local scenes. But in 2018, as ever, rap is nothing without its sui generis weirdos, even if these artists aren’t yet represented on the charts, or on the most prominent streaming playlists. Watts, California’s 03 Greedo is impossible to pin down, as evidenced by his sprawling, versatile mixtapes that often clock in at 30 or 40 tracks long; from super-tough West Coast gangsta rap to spacy R&B ballads, you never know what you’re going to get from the rapper/producer, though he’s described his own style as “pain music that’s popping.” Along with Greedo, Drakeo the Ruler’s currently shifting the sound of L.A. street rap, with his deft, free-associative flow and vivid vocabulary. (Does anyone truly know what “Flu Flamming” means? No. Does it matter? Not in the slightest.) And Sacramento’s Mozzy has quietly become one of the most striking voices in West Coast rap, with his intense, super-detailed street-life narratives; Kendrick even gave him an unexpected shout-out at the Grammys this past weekend. Meanwhile, Chicago continues to breed true individuals, from the hyper-minimal, two minute bursts of subdued trap from Valee (whose shape-shifting flow has gotten him the attention of Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint) to CupcakKe, whose colourful, outre sex raps have earned her a sizeable LGBT fanbase. And Chattanooga, Tennessee’s BbyMutha channels the energy of trailblazers like Gangsta Boo and La Chat into tough, thoughtful, bad-ass underground anthems.

Kendrick Lamar is the most important hip-hop artist of his generation. For this special feature from The Dowsers, we take an in-depth look at his life and art through a 10-part playlist investigation...

James Spaders bravado scenery-chewing isnt the only reason to watch NBCs twist-filled spy drama The Blacklist. Great songs from the past (Golden Earrings massive "Radar Love," Harry Nilssons withering "One") and the present (Mark Lanegans weary "Bleeding Muddy Water," The Kills swaggering "Sour Cherry") lurk underneath the bullets and double-crossings. The show managed to squeeze in a cameo by Brooklyn metallurgists Liturgy, who were joined on drums by a cameoing Peter Fonda as they tore their way through "Harmonia." Music supervisor John Bissells keenly selected tracks further propel the shows breakneck plots and, at moments, allow its harried characters time to reflect and be human.

It’s not easy deducing the recent shift of trap-oriented Southern rap from Dolby stereo action-movie bombast into weird, ominous electronics. When asked about their influences, current leaders like 808 Mafia and Mike Will Made-It tend to cite earlier contemporaries like Zaytoven and Drumma Boy or, if they’re feeling generous, pioneers like DJ Toomp. You can certainly chart a through-line from the swampy keyboard menace of 1997-era Three 6 Mafia and No Limit to Rae Sremmurd’s just-released SremmLife 2, the latter featuring a notable homage to early Triple Six via the Juicy J collaboration “Shake It Fast.”But where did Three 6 Mafia get its inspiration for horrorcore gems like “Where Da Killaz Hang”? That’s the premise for this speculative look into the electronic underpinnings of third-wave trap. We doubt that Metro Boomin, for example, sat around studying classic Aphex Twin tracks before he decided to layer haunted house-styled keyboard arrangements over his FL Studio drum patterns. Instead, we turn to the earliest corollary for his work on Future’s bleedy-eyed DS2: movie soundtracks, particularly when it comes to the electronic horror of John Carpenter, and the unsettling ambience of Tangerine Dream. We also think that the ongoing electro revival that sparked in the early 2000s may have a subconscious impact. Cumulatively, these sounds may be just mainstream electronica clichés, and pop culture moments symbolized by the famous scene in the recent cult classic Drive where the protagonist shifts his car over the gooey electro crush of Kavinsky’s “Nightcall.”There are a few more concrete examples to be found, too, once we take our heads out of the clouds. Fragments from 8-bit arcade games abound, especially the Street Fighter II soundtrack. Producers often rely on presets and sound libraries found in equipment like the Roland Integra-7 synthesizer. A Whosampled search reveals that Mike Will Made-It sampled Spain balladeer Camilo Sesto’s “Agua de Dos Rios” for his “Drinks On Us.” Of course, he wasn’t drawn by Sesto’s voice, but the alluring melody that kicks off the song. It seems that when it comes to this current iteration of trap music, producers will draw inspiration from wherever they can find it.

The productions of Montreal musician Tim Hecker move electronic music to unexpected places. His early work fused the dry, pulsating rhythms of techno with the bare minimalism of Brian Eno. Alongside other avante garde electronic artists and collaborators Ben Frost and Oneohtrix Point Never, Hecker has carved out a music vocabulary that mines the ethereal underpinnings of dark industrial spaces. Aaron from Beats has compiled a great playlist of his influences, which range from the modern classical of Philip Glass to shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine.

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.

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.

Although gatekeepers often want to tell us what jazz is and what it isn’t, the music has always thrived and developed by ignoring any strict definition. That openness can lead to vigorous debate, a dialogue that can underlines the music’s ongoing vitality and richness. When improvisation remains at the core of jazz practice, the actual context for the performance can go all over the map, as you can hear on these 50 emblematic tracks of jazz in 2017.There are those who still love to swing, whether it’s cornetist Kirk Knuffke lovingly surveying the compositions of the great Don Cherry (“Art Deco”), the quartet Hush Point updating west-coast verities (“Rhythm Method”), or Mike Reed’s Flesh & Bone summoning the spirit of Charles Mingus (“I Want to Be Small”). But the rhythmic thrust of jazz has embraced a huge variety of approaches, from the fusion of dance music and rock by the hard-hitting Kneebody (“Drum Battle), the loose funkiness in the atmospheric landscapes of guitarist Matthew Stevens (“Cocoon”), or the throbbing post-no-wave improvisation of guitarist James Blood Ulmer’s scintillating collaboration with Scandinavian heavies The Thing (“Baby Talk”).Few genres allow its elders to maintain both broad listenership and artistic relevance like jazz. Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Roscoe Mitchell continued to collide adventurous currents in spontaneity with a rigorous compositional ethos (“Panoply”), while his old Chicago neighbor drummer Jack DeJohnette tackled some rock favorites created in the Hudson Valley with collaborators John Scofield, Larry Grenadier, and John Medeski (“Up on Cripple Creek”). Supported by a fiery young band, masterful hard-bop drummer Louis Hayes saluted his early employer Horace Silver (“Señor Blues”), while the soulful singer Gregory Porter celebrated one of his key mentors, Nat King Cole, in lush surroundings (“Pick Yourself Up”). And though the US will always be the birthplace of jazz, a complement of European explorers like Cortex, Kaja Draksler, and Silke Eberhard prove it belongs to the world now.

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.