Some think that Young Thugs elastic, start-stop flow and roaming, stream-of-conscious lyrics make him future of rap, while others question hes merely a Lil Wayne clone given way too much hype. Make up your mind via this excellent overview from Beats Neil Martinez-Belkin, which features early hits and guest appearances.
Once upon a time, Americana musicians dismissed synthesizers, drum machines, vocal processing, and programming as soulless products of our modern technological state. Where archaic, time-tested instruments like banjo, guitar, and drum kits express authentic human experience, these newfangled gizmos, with their myriad robotic zaps and pulsating repetitions, are cold and artificial. This was some deeply ingrained thinking, and let’s not forget: It was just over 50 years ago that, according to legend, hardline folk revivalist Pete Seeger attempted to take an axe to the cables amplifying Bob Dylan’s infamous electric set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. And that was over nothing more than some electricity!Times sure have changed. You can’t throw a rock these days without hitting an Americana, blues, or other roots-flavored artist who isn’t plucking a banjo over bubbling drum machines or weaving acoustic fingerpicking around club grooves. Currently, one of the biggest bands in the U.S. is Judah & the Lion, whose omnipresent mega-hit “Take It All Back” is high-energy bluegrass filtered through the digital production qualities of hip-hop. The same goes for The Avett Brothers’ “Ain’t No Man” off of True Sadness, which is laced with flickering synthesizers.Sonically speaking, some of this stuff ventures pretty far out. Where Judah & the Lion and The Avetts are fairly subtle in their digital flirtations, singer/songwriter Justin Vernon—a.k.a. Bon Iver—sounds like an Auto-Tune-drenched cyborg on his critically acclaimed 22, A Million, a full-length album that’s a million light years removed from the rustic indie folk that launched his career. Then there’s the Gazzo remix of American Authors’ “Best Day of My Life,” which turns the bouncing, folk-pop ditty into a bass-thumping banger perfect for sets at the Electric Daisy Carnival. Can you imagine what Pete Seeger would think of roots music mixed with EDM? We shudder to think.
‘90s R&B has emerged as a default sample source for hip-hop and R&B over the past few years. You can credit Drake for pushing this into the mainstream, but the predominance of ‘90s samples in alternative R&B, and the impact of artist such as The Weeknd or Bryson Tiller on pop music, has added wood to the slow-burning fire. And it’s a good match; the looseness and more textural sounds of Genuine or Alliyah provide a nice counterpoint to the aggressiveness of modern, EDM-influenced R&B. This playlist focuses on the songs that have sampled ‘90s R&B, rather than the source material itself. It would be nice if they paired the sampling and sampled songs, but, as it is, the playlist is a nice survey of the genre’s more mellow side.
The storied songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin won their first joint Oscar at the 2020 Academy Awards for “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again,” a disco-tinged, self-affirming strut from the Elton biopic Rocketman. That Oscar capped off a decade of big-ticket soundtrack songs, whether they were high-concept tracks like Lana Del Rey’s glammed-up Great Gatsby lament “Young and Beautiful,” heart-tugging ballads like Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born duet “Shallow,” or Pharrell Williams’ giddy Despicable Me 2 bounce “Happy.” Musicals were in high supply during the 2010s as well, with La La Land and Frozen leading the pack of song-filled fantasias that took viewers to far-off lands.
As President Barack Obama’s historic term in office winds to a close, his legacy remains unsettled, and so does his presence within hip-hop culture. When he emerged in the mid-2000s as a talented Illinois senator, Chicago rapper Common rapped on Jadakiss’ “Why” remix with eerie prescience, “Why is Bush acting like he trying to get Osama/Why don’t we impeach him and elect Obama?” Four years later, as Obama capped a historic run to the White House, he became a pop culture meme celebrated on Jeezy’s “My President is Black” and Nas’ “Black President.” But there was also an emerging leftist critique against the Democratic president– see Mr. Lif’s “What About Us” and dead prez’ “Politrikks” – and that criticism only increased as he battled with an implacable Republican Congress, failed to prosecute Wall Street executives responsible for the 2008 economic recession, struggled to extricate the country from wars in the Middle East, and tried to bring the country out of an economic recession.Only time will tell which image resonates the most: the pop icon from Jidenna’s “Long Live the Chief” who shifted the country towards steady but incremental progress, or the establishmentarian whose policies resulted in insubstantial trickle-down gains for the working class, leading African-Americans like Ice Cube to declare that “Everythang’s Corrupt.” The arrival of his Republican successor, real estate tycoon Donald Trump, only muddies the waters of how we’ll eventually perceive this historic figure. As YG raps on “FDT,” “[Trump] got me appreciating Obama way more.”
Regardless of what you think qualitatively about Drake’s music, or his progression as an artist, his impact on culture is undeniable. He’s a pop idol in a classical, pre-pomo sense; his fans not only devour his music, they model their ideas about fashion, art, and even sports around the Toronto emcee. In ranking the songs that defined the “Drake era,” the Fader staff make note that “this is not a “Best Of” or a ranking of any sort, but an acknowledgement of the songs that represent Drake’s expanding influence in music, culture, and our lives.” It’s a subtle but interesting distinction, but nonetheless interesting: they’re not pulling their favorite songs, or even his most popular songs, but tracks that capture the Drake zeitgeist.
Were now living in an era in which an alternative band sees a guitar as nothing buta shiny accessory. Yes, folks, weve made it back to the synthpop future (the 80s, that is). And while the sound has been a big part of this millenniums musical DNA, from its most ethereal potential to its cheesiest excesses, its now officially reached stadium—or, dare we say, stratospheric—status. like Bastille and Chrvches are embracing all the hallmarks of soaring arena rock—slow builds and huge hooks—and taking them on EDMs thundering path to euphoria via a retro-futuristic rocket. Even modern folk heroes like Mumford & Sons havetossed aside their mandolins to get in on the fun. What results are glittery and glossy pop anthems, built on synths and samplers, that feel downright galactic. Heck, some artists have even based their whole existence on this celestial idea. See: M83, Empire of the Sun, and Walk the Moon.
Dummy Magazine has an interesting artist-curated playlist series that focuses on very specific themes or motifs and engages some truly knowledgable figures, thus avoiding the cliched, self-serving, PR-crafted "artist-curated" playlists that plague mainstream music services. This one looks at the 10 best "proto grime" tracks. Theyve tapped DJ Logan Sama, who has been connected to the grime and underground hip-hop and electronic scenes in the UK for the past decade.
Lil Wayne became the best rapper alive in the mid-2000s with an amazing run that culminated in the 2008 blockbuster Tha Carter III. Since then, Weezy’s star has dimmed somewhat as proteges like Drake and Nicki Minaj have taken over the rap game, but he’s remained a voraciously prolific MC who can still surprise fans with flashes of the brilliance of his peak period. And the highlights of his post-C3 albums, as well as the posse cuts where he still regularly upstages younger stars, display the punchlines and melodies we’ve come to expect from the living legend. He’s taken to frequent promises to retire, but these tracks affirm that he’s still got plenty of gas left in the tank. -- Al Shipley
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.
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.
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.
