Montreal synth-soul duo Milk & Bone recently released their dreamy debut album, Deception Bay, on Bonsound Records. In advance of their upcoming North American tour, they’re letting us road-test their road mix. “When we’re out on tour, it gets difficult to find artists to listen to that we all love, but that we haven’t listened to the day before. There’s a lot of driving involved, and we need for the designated driver to stay focused and for the rest of the crew to be able to relax. Here’s a selection of music that keeps us both awake, but soothes us at the same time. Songs that’ll energize you and make you ready to get things going when you get to your destination.”—Milk and Bone
It’s a sign that Riot Grrrl’s musical—as opposed to just socio-political or feminist—legacy has begun to take root in the wider consciousness when icons of the movement besides Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna are being plumbed for their take on feminist punk’s sonic legacy. Here, Bratmobile vocalist, queen zinester, and punk activist Allison Wolfe charts the nine songs that have meant the most in her life, with tracks ranging from bluegrass duo Alice Dickens and Hazel Gerrard to ‘90s Seattle pioneers The Gits. It’s no surprise that ex-NME editor Laura Snapes is behind this piece: Her features work helped change the music weekly from old-boys rag to a once-more intelligent read (before its recent nosedive, that is). Divided into five-year segments, this deeply personal mix reflects key moments in Wolfe’s life, and largely reads as a beautifully pitched homage to her activist mother, a pioneering feminist Playful in places (Bow Wow Wow) and heart-wrenching in others (Dolly Parton), it’s a refreshingly candid exploration of the importance individual songs play in our musical—and socio-political—development.
I don’t know very much about Britpop. I like Pulp somewhat, especially when this woman I am friends with (read: attracted to) comes over to my apartment and plays it for me. I don’t like Blur. I like Oasis all right, but I really don’t know their music well. I like Radiohead—is that Britpop? I love The Smiths. Are they Britpop? Determined to find answers and to investigate my own general distaste for the style, I decided to dig into Pitchfork’s recent 50 Best Britpop Albums list.The first thing I see on the page is a Sgt. Pepper-style mural, ostensibly with all of the important Britpop figures on it. I recognize Thom Yorke and the guys from Oasis. I see the guys from Trainspotting. Did they do Britpop? There’s a smiling milk carton, some dancers, and around 30 other people I don’t recognize. But by reading through the feature, I start to develop a better understanding of what Britpop is.It began in London in the ‘90s, which answers my question about The Smiths (but then... is Morrissey Britpop?), and I find that Britpop is characterized by “anthemic melodies, social observations of British culture and daily life, and their country’s musical heritage,” according to the article. I learn what Britpop isn’t: The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Coldplay, Kasabian. As I listen to some of the tracks on the playlist, I note that most of them are upbeat, many have light, airy atmospheres, and the guitar tones are largely bright and shiny with little distortion or overdrive. I actually recognize a number of these songs from the radio. I am having sort of a coherent moment.I see a supplementary interview with Danny Boyle and remember that Trainspotting 2 came out a few weeks ago. I put two and two together: This list is meant to coincide with Trainspotting 2. I am a big fan of some songs on the soundtrack of the original, namely those by Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, New Order, and Lou Reed… So, the tracks that aren’t Britpop. As I read through the Boyle interview, searching for information that might lead me to understand why Britpop is important to think about in 2017 or why I should really care about it as a musical style (other than it’s in the pantheon of rock styles), I strike out. And there isn’t much rhetoric in the copy of this playlist to convince me of the genre’s greatness. The interview ends with Boyle responding to a question of whether he prefers Oasis or Blur: He says that he comes from Manchester, so the answer should be obvious. It isn’t to me, so I have to do some research.Despite my skepticism, I actually enjoyed the article and the playlist. I learned what Britpop is for Pitchfork and why Danny Boyle popularized it in Trainspotting, and I acquired a comprehensive playlist of the best Britpop songs. I still don’t like Britpop, and I’m not convinced that it’s important for me to think about today, but at least I now know what it entails. And hey, that’s progress.
When bands adopt an air of world-weary resignation, it can feel like such a pose. Have they really lived enough to earn the ennui so soon after high school? Can these sensitive souls really be saddled with such a heavy burden? For anyone who feels dubious about the extent of their anguish, one of Morrissey’s greatest lyrical putdowns seems pertinent (as they so often do): “You just haven’t earned it yet, baby.”In light of that, it feels significant that the members of The National—like LCD Soundsystem and The War on Drugs, two other revered alt-rock acts with brilliant new albums in 2017—had some road on them by the time the fates smiled in their direction. Frontman Matt Berninger and the band’s two pairs of brothers—Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf—all had played in a series of little-known bands in Cincinnati through the ‘90s before eventually convening in Brooklyn in 1999. Success was anything but an overnight phenomenon for The National either, the players maintaining their various graphic-design and personal-assistant gigs for years until the 2005 release of their third album Alligator sent the band above the proverbial parapet.All of which is to say The National do sound like they’ve earned it. And just as Berninger’s lyrics reflect on the sacrifices, compromises, regrets, and triumphs that color the experience of anyone who’s been in the world long enough to know the score, their music—whether ambitious or intimate, stately or urgent —points to a wider range of influences and elements than you’re likely to hear in musicians who’ve only just earned the right to buy their own bourbon. For this Family Tree feature, we reveal the music that helped form The National’s sound (i.e. the roots), along with songs by peers (i.e, the branches) whose artistic sensibilities also seemed to arrive fully grown. We also highlight The National’s impact on younger bands (i.e., the leaves) who are well on their way to achieving the same degree of maturity—albeit without getting prematurely tired, cynical, and dull. There is such a thing as aging gracefully, after all—hear The National’s latest album, Sleep Well Beast, for further proof.
Given Berninger’s capacity for elegant brooding, it’s hardly a surprise that masters of misery like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave have long been his inspirations. His devotion to Tom Waits is just as evident, especially in the late-night, booze-soaked songs like Alligator’s “All the Wine.”But there’s always been more strident elements in The National’s songs—indeed, Berninger considers The Strokes the most significant band of the oughts, and songs like the early standout “Murder Me Rachael” boast a similar live-wire energy that offsets the music’s more morose tendencies. Likewise, Bryce Dessner’s background in classical music adds further unexpected and unpredictable elements, as do the electronic textures that have become more prominent over the past decade of recordings. Like R.E.M., Radiohead, and the Arcade Fire—all of whom have been cited as inspirations, too—The National have somehow managed to push themselves in artistic terms while maintaining massive followings. That feat gets trickier all the time.
When The National emerged as one of the key American rock acts of the 2000s, they were thankfully not an outlier. In fact, they shared many of their most compelling qualities with a host of peers, many of whom had also spent the previous decade or so toiling in obscurity and waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with them. In regards to the lyrics’ more literary sensibility and the sheer scale of ambition, The National had a clear kinship with Sufjan Stevens, an artist who became a close friend and sometime collaborator. (He and Bryce Dessner are also part of the team behind the stunning Planetarium.) Okkervil River’s Will Sheff shared Berninger’s ability to thoroughly inhabit the characters in his songs. Of course, Justin Vernon’s Bon Iver emerged as a fellow inhabitant of countless long dark nights of the soul. And in the music of Grizzly Bear, Beirut, and Antlers (as well as less-celebrated faves like Crooked Fingers), there was the same fondness for the kind of creative curveballs that shatter expectations just when things threaten to become too familiar. That all makes for a new golden age of sensitive beard-wearers, this playlist’s inclusion of the mighty Sharon Van Etten notwithstanding.
The National’s ability to keep moving and tweak their own formulas makes them an exemplar as much as any single aspect of their sound does. Nevertheless, their flair for songs that balance the anthemic and the intimate is certainly a well-treasured trait for Future Islands. Moreover, the sumptuous songs of Natalie Prass evince the same eagerness to synthesize Americana, alt-rock, and orchestrally enhanced pop classicism and do it on a grand scale. Meanwhile, Berninger’s thornier side emerges in Strand of Oaks and Hiss Golden Messenger, two equally iconoclastic acts that followed in The National’s wake. Two of their strongest stylistic heirs hail from the U.K. Though Frightened Rabbit formed in Scotland in 2004, their strengths didn’t fully emerge until recent albums like 2016’s fine Painting of a Panic Attack, produced by Aaron Dessner. From Yorkshire, Grass House may herald a new wave of acts steeped in the aesthetic prerogatives and musical modes that The National has helped propagate over the past decade. They may still be young and relatively unscarred by life’s slings and arrows, but we won’t hold that against them.
It is commonly stated among music lovers that Radiohead are the best band in the world. Since forming in 1985, they have won countless awards and released numerous songs and albums to universal acclaim, advancing new avenues in sound and musical technique with each passing year. With its immaculately complex song structures and lyrical focus on the increasing integration of technology into social life, their 1997 masterwork OK Computer revitalized rock n’ roll in the ‘90s. Its follow-up, the cold, prismatic Kid A, with its otherworldly tones and its portentous, opaque text, frequently tops lists of the best albums of recent memory. Their live performances have gained an almost mythological status, mystifying audiences with the gargantuan sounds these five mortal beings can produce, from Jonny Greenwood’s pristine guitar solos and imaginative use of synthesizers to Phil Selway’s machinelike focus and intensity at the drums.
On August 20, 2002, NYC was a much different place than it was just a year previous. Post-9/11, the air hung heavier, thick with apprehension and paranoia—exactly the type of environment ripe for an album as stunningly devastating as Interpols debut. Looking back 15 years, Turn on the Bright Lights remains the chiming centerpiece of 21st-century post-punk because it so acutely reflects its time and place of origin, while capturing a deep-seated malaise that would extend well past that time and place.Some 20-plus years before that, post-punk rose and fell with a sound that was so sharp and brutally real, there was no chance it could survive long. like PiL would invent it; bands like Joy Division would fully embody it. Their songs—tightly wound and always teetering on the edge of catharsis without ever fully realizing it—articulate that maddening clench in the pit of the stomach that refuses to ever completely let go. Its a similar feeling that Interpol intricately conveys on tracks like "PDA" and perfect album opener "Untitled," with its thick bass and quivering guitar jangle streaked in wavering drones. It doesnt hurt that Paul Banks stoic baritone fluctuates at the same low, dolorous tremble as Ian Curtis did.But where those pioneers stripped punks fiery brutality down to its starkest essence, Interpol also paint it in varying tones of goth and grey, echoing gloomy sonic architects like The Cure, Bauhaus, and Echo & The Bunnymen, whose seductive atmospherics, pounding rhythms, and damaged guitar jangle haunt slow-burning ballads like "NYC" and "Hands Away.”While Interpol may have found influence from dreary 80s England, their debut is purely rooted in early 00s New York. But youll never have needed to experience either time or place to wholly absorb the myriad shades of discontent—the disillusionment, dread, isolation, and alienation—rendered so achingly intoxicating on any one of these songs.
In July 2017, New Jersey native Nicole Atkins released Goodnight Rhonda Lee, her fourth serving of lush orchestro-soul and regal R&B. But on her best-of-2017 list, she indulges her love of dark, heavy rock and oddball art-pop:1. St. Vincent, MasseductionI’ve always loved Annie’s lyrics. Romantic and smart. Here, she is at the height of her powers, like a female Prince. So glad she exists, because the world needs rock-star superheroes right now.2. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Murder of the UniverseI listened to this album so much this year I thought I was going insane. Kind of King Crimson in a space action movie, complete with a narrator to lead you through this journey.3. The Black Angels, Death SongI saw them perform this record live a few times this year and was blown away, as I usually am by The Black Angels. “Half Believin” breaks my heart.4. The Lemon Twigs, Brothers of DestructionThere are so many exciting and fun musical moments on this EP. Reminds me of the Kinks at times. These brothers are so young and have such a deep, musical understanding of history. I think they’re the most important band I’ve heard in a long time.5. JD McPherson, UNDIVIDED HEART & SOULJD McPherson has one of my favorite voices ever and, on this record, he takes pockets of songs to really unexpected places, turning older sounds into future sounds. Very original, while keeping you warm and fuzzy.6. Queen of the Stone Age, VillainsI put this on when I need to fuck the day.7. Mark Lanegan, GargoyleThis man could sing anything and I’d love it. Fortunately, his poetry is just haunting as his voice, and every record he releases reveals a deeper and more beautiful layer.8. Dion, Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album ’65There are so many melodies on the top of this record that put me in another world. It inspires me greatly.
I’ve shazamed a lot of songs on this album this year, like, “Whoa, what is this?!” Completely original. It melds so many different types of music, but doesn’t sound gimmicky. He gives me the same feeling I had when I was young and Trent Reznor (who he sounds nothing like) came out—like, this person is gonna start an entire new sound that a lot of people are gonna follow.
It’s powerful and raw and amazing and timely. I’m just getting acquainted with it, because it just came out and it’s on repeat.
As music scholar Tim Lawrence brilliantly makes the case in his recent book, Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983, disco couldn’t die no matter how hard the haters tried. Instead, as the new decade began, disco mutated into a variety of exciting and scintillating new strains. Though Lawrence’s book is primarily concerned with the influence of hip-hop and post-punk experimentalism on what dance music was becoming—as well as the wizardry of DJs like Larry Levan and the socioeconomic conditions in New York itself—there were also developments of a more technological nature.It’s easy to hear how the plush strings of Philly soul were giving way to layers of synthesizers and sequencers: This was funk and R&B for a new space age, the latest sonic innovations creating a dramatic spike in the bounce-per-ounce ratio. Sadly, Roger Troutman never provided a firm indication of the winning ratio, not even on the opening track of Zapp’s epochal 1980 debut album, but he did help provide a synth-funk blueprint that continues to yield some of the plushest and most pleasurable music known.Nite Jewel—the Los Angeles singer and musician otherwise known as Ramona Gonzalez—has been one of synth-funk’s foremost purveyors in contemporary times, since her music began showing up on MySpace in 2008. With such fellow Angelenos as her husband and producer Cole M.G.N. and the ever-industrious Dâm-Funk, she’s fostered a sparking new golden age for synth-funk fantasias like the kind that used to flow freely from the likes of Zapp, Mandré, and the SOLAR Records stable. As Nite Jewel drops her fourth album, Real High, it’s high time to head deep into the neon-lit nights this music evokes.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.
Some bands are predominantly studio entities who take their music on the road out of promotional obligation; I’ve always felt that Mogwai is a live band who happens to make albums. And despite having never seen them live (they ended up canceling the Chicago show I had tickets for a few years ago), I’ve found their generous offerings of live tracks over the years to be a fine substitute. These selections really glorify Mogwai’s post-rock essence, allowing the band to be heard in their element as a cohesive, refined unit that flows, climaxes, and recedes together. These tracks showcase the band’s uncanny ability to instantly switch from glacial drones to gnarled, meteoric guitar lines that tower above the mix. Their agility is amazing to me, as is their ability to collectively commit to a dynamic or timbre within a split second. As a member of a noise-rock band myself, these are things I aspire to do with my own group, and Mogwai is one of the ensembles I always turn to for sonic advice.Their earlier, more guitar-centric music is clearly on display here, with excellent and moving performances of “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home” and “Cody.” Unfortunately, their unbelievable live LP, Special Moves, which has great performances of later tracks “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead” and “I Love You, I’m Going to Blow Up Your School,” isn’t available in its entirety on Spotify, but I highly recommend seeking it out elsewhere. Government Commissions (BBC Sessions 1996-2003), however, is well-represented in this playlist, and it contains some breathtaking moments, from the reverb washes of “Superheroes of BMX” to the slow-burn intensity of “Hunted By a Freak.” Many of the other tracks here are from EPs and reissues. Mogwai has really done their fans a service by releasing so much live material over the years; to submit yourself to it is to experience the true nature of their music.
I came to Yo La Tengo late. Rob Sheffield’s lead review in Rolling Stone did the persuading. The Blue Mask? I’m there (his Lovesexy analogy crumbles though). Confident enough in its smarts to use declarative sentences, employing guitars and vibes and synths to shape sounds commensurate with the relationship it’s celebrating, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out was a good first album but a taxing one. I got I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One on the defunct Columbia House’s website; it soundtracked a summer of county wide commuting to my first journalism internship. One Saturday afternoon I got too stoned listening to “”Spec Bebop.” Summer Sun I embraced without a worry three years later: eleven miniatures, capped by a hushed version of “Take Care.” I may overrate the album because that tour was spectacular: two men and a woman switching instruments and no loss of momentum or joy in the other’s company. We liked the band enough to drive to Jacksonville in 2003, a not inconsiderable concession especially if you know the world’s dullest city. The tour for I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, which made a stop in February 2007 at the long gone Studio A, also charmed the hell out of me; the album itself was a take it or leave it deal.Take or leave my opinion. If being a fan means the demonstration of passion and the willingness to forgive mistakes or mere competence, then I’m not one. But I love these songs.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary and more.
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Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
