The Dowsers prides itself on being the first music magazine devoted to the playlist experience—and in 2017, that experience became all the more multi-faceted. By nature, playlist-making is a highly personal process, an opportunity for anyone to play the role of radio programmer and tailor their song selection to suit a particular mood, activity, or obsession. Increasingly, we’ve seen them become a more communal medium, whether it’s bands releasing a curated mix to hype a new record, streaming services using them to break new artists, fans crowd-sourcing set lists to create shareable post-show souvenirs, or one of the biggest rappers in the world taking the “playlists are the new albums” mantra literally. But in 2017, we also saw playlists that moved beyond the realm of the promotional to the political, be it through pointed statements or charity initiatives. It may still feel strange to think a playlist could change the world, but in 2017, the act of dragging-and-dropping reached new levels of artistry, activitism, and influence.1. Your Discover WeeklySpotify’s Discover Weekly playlist was launched in July of 2015, but with the music service now boasting more than 60 million paying subscribers and playlists eclipsing albums as the dominant way fans consume music, the weekly personalized mix is more relevant than ever. Essentially based on the concept of collaborative filtering, the algorithm looks at songs it knows you like, then recommends you songs adjacent to those songs in other users’ playlists and libraries. The result is often uncannily precient recommendations. If you’ve become as addicted to this playlist as so many others, there’s good news: The more users Spotify adds, the more data there is to mine, and the better these recommendations get.
2. RapCaviarIn 2017, RapCavier was the Avatar of playlists. It adorned billboards, spawned its own tour,stirred up controversy, and turned its creator, Tuma Basa, into an industry celebrity. It’s easy to be cynical about it all, but also very difficult to turn away. Week after week, it simply delivered the goods, helping break an entire new generation of rap artists (it’s no coincidence that Lil Uzi Vert headlined the tour) while also being one of the first playlists to incorporate video. In an era that was supposed to have decimated the tastemaker class, Basa and his playlist provided essential listening.
3. Drake, More LifeThis is among the best of Drake’s clumping-tracks-together things, and that’s very much because More Life is consciously a “playlist.” This isn’t a low-stakes gambit or a cheap marketing gimmick (at least not entirely), but an honest engagement with a new form. More Life is loose and meandering, and sometimes the individual components seem slight and tertiary. But like the best playlists, it captures a moment, a feeling, and a place. More Life is enjoyable and, as anyone who listens to a lot of classic albums knows, enjoying music trumps appreciating it—and this release is infinitely better than any other non-sweater-meme Drake release in years. For that, we can thank the generations of mixtape compilers, playlist curators, radio DJs, and compilation creators for helping define this new form. But, most of all, we should thank Drake for getting that the lines between artist, audience, critic, and curator are porous, and for making an initial foray into what this intersection looks like.
4. Grim Kim’s 150 Raddest Metal Albums Ever Made by People Who Happen To Not Be DudeThis past July, NPR released their list of the 150 greatest albums made by women. On first glance, the list appears to be wide-reaching in its scope. Meshell Ndegeocello, Sleater-Kinney, and Egyptian superstar Umm Kulthum all make appearances, with iconic figures like Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell nabbing the top spots. However, renowned metal critic Kim Kelly quickly noted on Twitter that the “definitive” countdown failed to include any albums metal albums by women—so she Tweeted out a list of her own, and then a Spotify user named Jim Fenner compiled (most of) them all into a 1,023-track, 87-hour playlist. Kelly’s crash course does more than simply construct a history of women in metal; she highlights the diversity in female and non-binary artists who have transgressed the genre itself.
5. The Bathroom BansWithin the Spotify ecosystem, you’ll find a multitude of playlists created by the streaming service in response to current events, be it mixes that benefit Mexico City’s earthquake victims, or expressions of support for American dreamers jeopardized by the Trump administration’s DACA repeal. But The Bathroom Bans (part of Spotify’s recently launched I’m with the—banned series) is more than just a playlist protest against repeated attempts by Republican state government to enforce which type of public restrooms trans people are allowed to use. Threading expository animated videos (narrated by Halsey) with tracks by trans/gender-fluid artists and their vocal allies, it nudges the playlist format toward the realm of narrative documentary.
6. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “For Puerto Rico” PlaylistAll-star charity singles have a bad reputation that is entirely earned. But Hamilton playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Almost Like Praying” (proceeds from which benefited victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico) was unexpectedly fire, bringing together everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Dominican icon Juan Luis Guerra for an impassioned, dembow-driven love song to Puerto Rico. The track was introduced through Miranda’s “For Puerto Rico” playlist, which not only presented a soulful portrait of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and its diaspora in the U.S., it also raised money for hurricane-relief efforts through a Spotify donation based on the number of followers it acquired. As an added incentive, the songwriter pledged that, if the playlist hit 50,000 followers, he would share an old photo of himself, dressed as J.Lo. (At the time of this writing, the count was over 73,000, but we’re still waiting for the big reveal.)
7. Aphex Twin’s Field Day setThere’s a reason why Reddit users frantically threw together a playlist of the tracks that Aphex Twin spun during London’s Field Day just hours after the set ended on June 3. The U.K. producer born Richard James remains one of electronic music’s most cherished and mysterious figures, and the singularity of sound and vision has spawned a fervent fan base that tracks his every movement. Admittedly, listening to a playlist comprising tracks exclusively from a DJ set is an odd experience; as an unmixed, dangling historical artifact, experienced within the confines of headphones or home speakers, it’s not how or where James wanted this music to be heard. But your mind fills in some of the blanks: the 3D mapped light instillation; the entrances and exits of the segues; the sweat and flesh of the festival crowd. It’s an incomplete experience, but it’s also interactive, and feels less like you’re staring through a tiny peephole at a much larger world and more like you’re parsing an ancient, oblique text.
8. Frank Ocean’s BlondedAfter a four-year silence that ended with last year’s widely acclaimed Blond(e), Frank Ocean greeted 2017 with renewed vigor. On top of dropping a handful of new singles, he also released a dynamic playlist, “Blonded,” that appears far more personal and revelatory than the artist-branded content that label publicists crank out for streaming services. The first installment, revealed on February 24, included Celine Dion and Teen Suicide alongside obvious nods like Prince and Nina Simone. His March 10 update ventured further afield with jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, prog-pop enigma Todd Rundgren, and techno iconoclast Actress. And this most recent update from this past August features everyone from Frank Sinatra to Geto Boys to Japanese Breakfast. “Blonded” aspires to the ideal of music consumption in the streaming era—now that we can listen to everything, we can consume anything (and switch things up when the mood strikes). It remains to be seen if Frank Ocean’s ideological generosity will eventually manifest in his music.
9. Four Tet’s 60-Hour (And Counting) MegamixAt the time of this writing, the primary Spotify playlist by Four Tet (a.k.a UK producer/DJ Kieran Hebden) spans 695 songs and runs over 60 hours. By the time you read these words, it will have probably grown. Over the past few months, it seemed to serve primarily as a vehicle for Hebden to build anticipation for his ninth long-player, New Energy, mixing in tracks from the record with songs from peers (Bicep), inspirations (Sly Stone), and aliases (um, 00110100 01010100, which is the artist page stub where an album of Four Tet b-sides resides in Spotify). DJ mixes are a dime-a-dozen, and it’s not hard to find plenty by Four Tet out there in the ether. What’s much more rare to find is such a comprehensive compendium of all the sounds that go into an artist’s aesthetic. For a veteran like Hebden, an experimental cosmonaut who’s as likely to fold 2-step garage into his music as he is ‘70s jazz fusion or Nigerian funk (or…Selena Gomez), a standard 15-track playlist simply wouldn’t capture the breadth of his tastes. Hell, 10 of those wouldn’t. At nearly 700 tracks and counting, this mix is at least beginning to come close.
10. Ivanka Trump’s 991122 PlaylistEven in the streaming-dominant age, it’s still extremely rare for a playlist to make international headlines—but then this feat is probably only the 8,654th weirdest thing to happen under the current presidential administration. On October 15, Ivanka Trump posted this cryptically titled playlist to her Spotify profile, and given its timing (appearing 10 days before her and Jared Kushner’s eighth anniversary) and the egregiously lovey-dovey nature of the songs featured within, manymediaoutletsspeculated that the mix was designed as the soundtrack to a sexy-time couple’s retreat. However when you consider the themes of nostalgia (Adele’s “We Were Young,” Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man”) and looming separation (Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” Passenger’s “Let Her Go”) running throughout the playlist, it’s possible that Ivanka and Jared are actually preparing themselves for a different sort of getaway.
We remember the heroes and innovators we lost over the course of 2017 by revisiting the playlists we created in their honor, both to celebrate their achievements and/or shine a light on the less-traveled corridors of their career.
The passing of Chuck Berry on March 18 at the age of 90 put the final punctuation mark at the end of this musical pioneer’s story. But the legacy left behind by the man who made rock ‘n’ roll what it is today largely rests on a relatively small group of milestone singles—about a dozen or so, mostly released between the mid ’50s and mid ’60s. And, when you’re talking about an artist like Berry, that leaves a lot of things out. On this collection of Chuck Berry esoterica, you’ll find just about everything you can think of and then some: calypso, jazz, Latin-tinged jams, psychedelic experimentation—you name it.
It’s impossible to imagine what hip-hop, house, and techno might have used for a rhythmic foundation if not for the 808 beat. That’s why the impact that inventor Ikutaro Kakehashi—who passed away April 1 at age 87—had on the past four decades of music is incalculable. Since the fine 2015 documentary 808 tells you everything you could want to know on the subject (and way more), we let the music do the talking with a set that includes many of the most famous uses of the 808 (and its successor the TR-909) by early adopters like Arthur Baker as well as such present-day devotees as Kanye West, who transformed the beat into the sonic epitome of emotional desolation on 808s And Heartbreak.
Few filmmakers ever displayed as much savvy about music—or were so eager to show off their sheer love of it—than Jonathan Demme. The director, who passed away on April 26 at the age of 73 after a battle with cancer, established his impeccable and impressively diverse tastes—from The Fall and The Feelies to Big Youth and Boogie Down Productions—long before indie-movie hotshots like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson followed suit in the 1990s. This playlist includes the iconic tracks famously featured in his films, as well as selections from the many musicians with whom Demme collaborated.
The late Chris Cornell—who took his own life on May 18 at age 52—was one of the most dynamic and adventurous singers to emerge in the ’90s. This playlist highlights the underrated non-Soundgarden songbook of the only rock vocalist to have worked with both Timbaland and the Zac Brown Band, while always sounding unmistakably like himself.
Prodigy of Mobb Deep was one of the best rappers on the planet because he was dark. He didn’t have Pac’s tortured-thug activist energy, Big’s charisma or hitmaking ease, or Nas’s wisdom combined with the ear of a jazz musician. It didn’t matter. While other rappers laughed and joked, or screamed in your ear, Prodigy calmly explained how he would end your life while referencing the Book of Revelations and the Illuminati. The MC passed away on June 20 at age 42 from complications related to a painful life-long fight with sickle-cell anemia; this playlist salutes the greatest writer of threats in rap history.
There’s something almost transcendental about early Linkin Park. They were too anthemic to be fully nu metal, too hip-hop to be rock, and too emo and mainstream to be “cool.” But Chester Bennington’s lyrics had a radically human core, one that embraced and tried to work through longing and alienation. And their music was very intriguing, boasting intelligent percussion, authoritative washes of reverbed guitar, disciplined use of electronics, and methodical pacing. In the wake of Bennington’s shocking suicide July 20 at age 41, we published this playlist tribute to a band who, for certain angst-ridden teenagers, were like The Smiths of their era.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were already anachronisms when they met as jazz-obsessed teenagers in the late ‘60s and began to write the droll, harmonically complex songs that made Steely Dan one of the greatest and most unique bands of the ‘70s. So it’s not surprising that a duo who worked tirelessly to get the best performances out of skilled session players never had much interest in hip-hop and the art of sampling. But the Steely Dan songs that have been sampled by multiple rap artists offer a case study in how many options the band’s rich arrangements offer to beatmakers. Becker, sadly, passed away from esophageal cancer on September 3 at age 67. But his music lives on—and continues to find new audiences—through the many hip-hop, rock, and R&B tracks collected here.
With ’80s noise-pop pioneers Husker Dü, Grant Hart played the misfit McCartney to Bob Mould’s lacerating Lennon, providing the honey chaser to his partner’s hoarse-throat howls. Following the band’s extremely acrimonious break-up, Hart gradually faded into obscurity, releasing a small handful of under-the-radar records while Mould enjoyed a steady, successful career as an alt-rock elder statesman. Recent years had been especially trying: Hart lost both parents in quick succession, and he was injured in a fire that destroyed his longtime family home in South St. Paul. And then 2017 brought the diagnosis of the kidney cancer that ultimately claimed him on September 14 at the age of 56. With this playlist, we pay tribute to the man who forged the Dave Grohl prototype of the shit-hot drummer who also a tender tunesmith.
Before his death from cardiac arrest on October 2 at age 66, Tom Petty was a man of the people in a way that Dylan and Springsteen couldn’t be, because they just seemed too oversized, too mythic, too huge from the get-go. Like the characters he tended to write about, Petty was always somewhere between underdog and self-made outcast. Yet the chip on his shoulder was the rare and beautiful kind that seemed to make him more empathetic to people rather than less so. That’s what you hear in these songs, some of which are hits, while others are deep cuts from albums that didn’t quite get as much love as they should’ve. (For more, check out this playlist of the contemporary artists keeping Petty’s spirit alive.)
Gord Downie was effectively Canada’s Bruce Springsteen—a rock star with blue-collar blood, whose intimate portraits of Canadian life could stir a patriotic fervor with a simple small-town namedrop. His band, The Tragically Hip, was huge in Canada and in Canada only, however, since Downie’s untimely passing from brain cancer on October 18 at age 53, more people outside the country are tuning into his peculiar genius. Here’s a playlist of 23 songs to introduce non-Canadian newcomers to Downie’s deep discography. While it includes some Hip hits, these aren’t necessarily the band’s most popular songs. Rather, they’re ones that mostly venture beyond the band’s bar-rock roots and don’t require an Encyclopedia Canadiana to decode. And they’re the ones that most directly communicate Downie’s singular combination of outsized passion, white-knuckled intensity, sly humor, absurdity… and grace, too.
If his brother, Angus, is AC/DC’s Chuck Berry (all about dazzling flashes of lightning and speeding, razor-wire licks) then Malcolm Young was their Bo Diddley, a brilliant groove engineer (as well as songwriter—let’s not forget that) who could ceaselessly combine and recombine the essential, fundamental components of boogie. We present a cannonballed salute to the greatest rhythm guitarist in hard rock, who passed away November 18 at age 64 after a years-long struggle with dementia.
Moses Sumney had a certain feeling he wanted to capture when he recorded Aromanticism, 2017’s most irresistibly sumptuous debut album. “That moment as you’re feeling asleep,” he told the New York Times in September, “or right when you wake up, when you’re still one foot in and one foot out of the dream world, and everything is really murky and you feel like you’re floating.”The L.A. breakout artist is hardly alone in his quest to capture that ineffable state. This year yielded a startling abundance of music that had the same alluring softness as Sumney’s blissed-out R&B. Fellow travelers like Sampha, Kelela, Nick Hakim, and Syd all double-downed on the combination of smudgy beats, pillowy synths, and diaphanous vocals that had once marked Frank Ocean as an outlier but now seems everywhere. More cerebral and less carnal than the R&B sound that had been dominant since the rise of Drake, it aims to evoke a more solitary variety of bedroom experience than the genre has typically prioritized.That’s not to say there aren’t great songs about love and sex, too. But there’s definitely a more introspective bent to the new R&B, as well as a more adventurous musical sensibility. Though Frank Ocean gets the most credit for charting out this dream space and building a home there, the Weeknd certainly used to know the neighbourhood. Neo-soul mavericks like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Bilal explored it as well. In their own music and productions for FKA twigs, Kelela, Solange and more, the likes of Dev Hynes and Arca approach it from other angles. In any case, Sumney, Sampha, and other sleepy-eyed occupants of R&B’s vanguard made this space just as inviting to listeners this year.
In times of crisis, indie-pop—or twee, or whatever you want to call the sort of pop music thats exquisitely appointed while singing finely tuned chronicles of furtive glances and squirreled-away heartbreaks—is my comfort-food music. Sweater-weather vibes and hummable melodies were in large supply in 2017 both in the U.S. and abroad. Cheeky British act Peaness (pictured) collected its recent output, including the stellar love song "Seafoam Islands," on Are You Sure?; Chicago scrappers Varsity released the spaced-out yet self-protective "Settle Down"; and British trio Girl Ray put out the stunning, exploratory Earl Grey, which triangulated the songcraft of Carole King, the wooliness of mid-90s K Records, and the exacting wit of Squeeze (as well as a prog freak-out or two) into a gorgeous record.A few of the labels from my 90s college-radio heyday—when I first grew heart-eyed over indie-pop—are still at it, putting out lovingly detailed pop albums. The Spain-based label Elefant, which has been operating since 1989, released La Bien Queridas breezy Fuego, which surrounds the chilled-out alto of Ana Fernández-Villaverde in urgent synths ("Si Me Quieres a Mi") and squiggly guitars ("El Lado Bueno"). The 10-inch by the resurgent British act The Primitives, also an Elefant release, soared with "Ill Trust The Wind," which combined a singsong earworm with guitar fuzz. Matinée Recordings launched in 1997 and this year released a slew of records that included the chiming Other Towns Than Ours by Melbournes Last Leaves, which includes three-quarters of the brainy Aussie indiepoppers The Lucksmiths. The 20th-anniversary comp Matinée Idols throws back to the days of various-artists-CD-based discovery with a Last Leaves track as well as the Snapchat-era lament "Me, My Selfie and I" by Scots Strawberry Whiplash and "Postcard" from the sweetly synthy Swedish band The Electric Pop Group. (Postcards also figured into the making of Jens Lekmans gorgeously forthright Life Will See You Now.)The labels that are still kicking almost make up for the sting of losing Fortuna POP!, the UK-based label that announced its shutdown after 22 years in business and punctuated said farewell with the dreamy Flowers track "Say 123," which combines chugging guitars and vocalist Rachel Kennedys spectral soprano. Bittersweet feelings are crucial to indie-pop, though, so the beauty of that song at least made for a fitting goodbye.
These days, metal’s eclecticism runs pretty deep, and in a climate where so much unrest is bubbling up to the surface, its gratifying to have all this music provide a place of refuge for those who want/need to look away from the news. Metal has always possessed a degree of defiance and attitude, serving as a counterpoint to a mainstream thinking. And now its added more ambience and a broader range of emotion. Its thought-provoking, ability-defying, and at times just a pure exorcism of rage—totally fitting for 2017.Check out the right-on-point sheer aggression of Full Of Hells "Deluminate," the interstellar sound of Mastodon soaring even higher on "Sultans Curse," and the continuing rise of Power Trip on "Executioners Tax (Swing of the Axe)." Our 2017 survey also includes buzzed-about up-and-comers like Code Orange, hardcore revivalists like Higher Power and Trapped Under Ice, heralded mainstays like Pallbearer, the oft mentioned (and must-hear) 83-minute opus by Bell Witch (pictured above), as well as smouldering southern crew Royal Thunder, and total wrenches in the machine like the spastic Pyrrhon. And those are just some of the many far corners metal stretched into this year. We also saw comebacks from Godflesh and Glassjaw, polarizing Grammy recognition for August Burns Red, and then glimpses of future releases from Windhand, Turnstile, Old Wounds, and Gatecreeper. Theyre all here in our round-up of this years best metal.
All my conversations with electronic-music heads have had a common theme recently: Everyone agrees that there was little consensus in dance music this year. It’s been that way for a while, really. Every year, there are more scenes running in parallel, fewer standout anthems that everybody can agree on. But this year, even dance music’s broad, diffuse overground felt scattered. Plenty of reliable figures kept doing what they do best—Four Tet and the Caribou side project Daphni turned out well-regarded albums, for instance—but aside, perhaps, from Bicep, there were few emergent artists with wide crossover appeal.The good news, though, is that there were plenty of pockets of brilliance across the underground, both in terms of micro-scenes and individual artists boldly blazing their own paths. In terms of the former, the most exciting was a nameless corner of the UK bass spectrum, largely headquartered in Bristol, encompassing labels like Hemlock, Hessle Audio, Timedance, Livity Sound, and Whities. Even here, there’s no single rhythmic signature or sonic feature that unites them all, the way there is with dubstep or techno. Instead, it’s a shared predilection for highly abstracted sound design, deliriously drawn-out patterns, and twisted arrangements that turn on a dime. Minor Science’s shuddering, jewel-toned “Volumes,” Mosca’s wild, whip-cracking Latin-dub raver “Peyote Stitch,” and Batu’s feverishly repetitive “Murmur” were all standouts here, alongside stellar tracks from Lanark Artefax, Airhead, Ploy, Hodge, Parris, and the artist known simply as Joe.If that’s the “scenius” end of things, the genius end was just as fruitful. Confidently sailing far beyond the known limits of Chicago footwork, Jlin continued to melt minds with her own brand of dazzlingly polyrhythmic, ultra-vivid, triplet-riddled club tracks. Laurel Halo, never one to repeat herself two records in a row, hit upon the strangest, squishiest sounds she’s conjured yet—an enveloping amalgam of funk, affectless electro-pop, and musique concrete. Errorsmith, designer of Native Instruments’ popular software synth Razor, put his creation through its paces on a head-spinningly intricate album of synthesized percussion and needling sound design that, despite its wanton experimentalism, is also one of the most giddily enjoyable records of the year. And as far as singularity of vision goes, few could touch Fever Ray, who returned from a eight-year absence with the brilliant, challenging, sometimes sexy and sometimes confounding Plunge. “IDK About You,” highlighted here, was one of its wiliest curveballs: a 160-BPM co-production with the young Portuguese batida producer Nídia Minaj (also included here with her own “Underground”) that put an unprecedentedly breathless spin on Karin Dreijer’s creepy, out-of-body pop.The link between electronic music and pop is practically as old as electronic music itself, but this year there were still artists who made the relationship feel fresh. The Korean-American singer/producer yaeji turned out a heady, low-lit fusion of house, ambient, and trap music. Sophia Kennedy, an American living in Hamburg, brought her experience writing music for the theater to an odd and deeply infectious album for DJ Koze’s Pampa label. And even TORRES, best known as an indie rocker, broke new ground on “To Be Given a Body,” the absorbing final track from her album Three Futures: It’s a captivating fusion of storytelling and wispy-yet-weighty ambient production, and I couldn’t stop listening to it this year, often cueing it up multiple times in a row. It’s an outlier on this list, but it also feels like a jumping-off point. Hopefully, 2018 will bring more songs like it—fresh energy and fresh ideas from artists way out on the margins of a deeply decentered genre.
Are you all year-end-listed-out at this point? Well, we regret to inform you we have one more for you. But this one looks forward instead of back, collecting the most tantalizing teasers from albums due in 2018. Hear ace new tunes from reigning chart royalty (Migos), returning mid-2000s sensations (Franz Ferdinand, The Go! Team, Fall Out Boy, MGMT), returning early-2010s sensations (Rhye, Tune-Yards), bubbling-under phenoms due to break through in a big way (Hookworms, Lucy Dacus, Rayvn Lenae, and Kyle Craft, pictured above), still-vital ‘90s veterans (Superchunk, Belle & Sebastian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Manuel Menuck), and left-field curios who’ll soon be your new favorite bands (Texan Thai-funk fusionists Khruangbin, Tijuana shoegazers Mint Field). And cap it all off with what’s either the weirdest Jack White song yet or a messily edited audio trailer for what sounds like Jack White’s weirdest album yet. Hit play and feel the future—because 2017 is soooooo last year.
In 2017, the perpetually restless and increasingly prolific post-punk veterans Wire released their 16th album, Silver/Lead, and hosted three editions of their roving curated festival DRILL (in Los Angeles, Leeds, and Berlin). Here, the bands main singer/guitarist Colin Newman reveals the songs that inspired him most this past year. "A list of a few things that have been catching my ear this year. Some artists will be on everyone’s list, some will be on no one’s! It includes one artist celebrating his 50th (10 more than Wire!), one artist who actually thinks Michael McDonald is cool, one band who played in DRILL : LA, and one person who played in the pinkflag guitar orchestra, oh and the best band in Brighton (my hometown) right now. You don’t need me to tell you it’s been an unsettling year but luckily not for music."—Colin Newman of WireNote: Colin also wanted to include Wands "Plum," but it isnt available on Spotify.Photo: Mike Hipple
Dennis Lyxzén is the lead singer of post-hardcore heroes Refused, mod-rock revolutionaries The (International) Noise Conspiracy, punk thrashers AC4, and currently, the shadowy post-punk outfit INVSN (who are currently touring North America in support of their latest album, The Beautiful Stories). Dennis created this playing specially for The Dowsers—here, he explains the concept behind it.Growing up in the north of Sweden as a working-class kid there are certain elements of American culture that fascinate and enthrall. Lana Del Rey sings about the real underclass of the USA—not the hard-working people that Bruce sings about, but the real freaks and misfits and about a darkness inherited in the culture. A world filled with sex and drugs and violence with a language of alienation and despair. Under the glamour and glitz, there’s a darkness and depth that give way to a more nuanced picture of America.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StlsK9chYQ0"Love" is, granted, one of her more hopeful and optimistic songs even though it is still filled with longing and a sense of disconnect. To celebrate the release of our cover version—and to try and position Lana Del Rey as a part of a fine musical tradition—INVSN gives you 19 songs from the American Underbelly.1. Townes Van Zandt, "Waiting Around to Die" (1968)The true outsider and part of the outlaw western tradition. Townes claims this is the first song he ever wrote. A song about gamblers and thieves and liars. One of the most haunting songs about human despair ever written.2. The Velvet Underground, "Candy Says" (1969)In a time of peace and love and bubblegum pop, The Velvet Underground wrote songs about sex and drugs and violence. But not speculative or cynical. It always just seemed like stories about their lives. Lou Reed kept singing about the outcasts and the junkies until he died.3. Tom Waits, "Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis" (1978)Tom Waits needs little introduction. Balancing on the edge of the absurd and the dark, but still a mainstay in American music. His songs and stories always touch on the tragic, on the fates of people that never get songs written about them. Beautiful and sad and scary.4. Nico, "Vegas" (1981)Once a part of The Velvet Underground, Nico was the embodiment of everything they sang about. She was a tragic but fascinating figure. She wrote music and songs like no one else, and lived life like her songs.5. T.S.O.L., "Code Blue" (1981)Even by punk standards, TSOL were an anomaly. Weird surfers that exploded with violence and cross-dressing. They were grave robbers and, by any standards, frightening and real. Sure. a song about necrophilia might be goofy, and it would definitely not fly in 2017, but it’s something different and it’s a representation of a fixation with everything extreme and forbidden.6. The Gun Club, "The House On Highland Ave." (1983)The Gun Club took punk and added blues and gospel and country music. They wrote songs about death and murder and drugs and Jeffrey Lee Pierce was tortured soul in the true sense of the term. This song about hope and murder is one of the greatest songs ever written about said subjects.7. Christian Death, "Awake At the Wall" (1984)Goth and all of its glorious darkness never made as big an impact in America as it did in Europe. The biggest goth bands were always imports. Christian Death was, of course, a golden exception to this. Filled with death and darkness and anguish and despair, they made some true American classics.8. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, "Tupelo" (1985)Nick Cave might be Australian, but few people have delved deeper into American culture. His early recordings are filled with so much violence, and are steeped in a language stolen from the blues and the gospel.9. Sonic Youth, "Death Valley 69" (1985)Sonic Youth came armed with equal parts punk and art-school sensibility. Inspired by Manson and Madonna, they set about to become a staple of American alternative culture. Even with their most successful albums, the darkness was never far away. (The Raymond Pettibon artwork for Goo was inspired by the Moors Murders of the 1960s.)10. Dead Moon, "Dead Moon Night" (1989)Few bands have symbolized the American underground as well as Dead Moon. Always the outsiders, always freaks, and always autonomous to a default. Dark brooding songs that channel outlaw country and Delta blues but with a punk edge. Dead Moon are truly an institution of the American Underbelly.11. Pain Teens, "Bondage" (1991)Pain Teens were on the fringes of the punk scene in Texas. Using tape manipulation and sampling, they become more of an experimental noise unit, singing about sex and murder and trying to push the envelope both musically and thematically.12. Lustmord, "Ixaxaar" (1992)Lustmord came to prominence in the early 80s with heavy ambient industrial music rooted in the tradition of everything extreme: mass-murder, death, religion, and the usual subjects. Over the years, his music has become more contemplative, but it’s still very much a part of something different from the ordinary. With an album called The Monstrous Soul, how can you really expect anything else?13. Diamanda Galas, "The Thrill is Gone" (1998)With a voice that has been called the most unnerving, vocal terror Diamanda has haunted us with music about death and religion and darkness like few others.14. PJ Harvey, "The Whores Hustle and The Hustler Whores" (2000)PJ has always had a knack for telling stories about human suffering and alienation. From the streets of NYC to Palestinian refugee camps, the stories are real and bleak. This song from Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea is a portrait of the underclass and the conditions of life that they have to endure.15. Morrissey, "First Of the Gang To Die" (2004)Morrissey is, of course, a Brit in exile. And as much and American has embraced his Britishness, he has also embraced his new home. This song about gang-culture in Los Angeles is both beautiful and sad, and talks about an undercurrent of American violence that dictates the life of the underclass. A true masterpiece.16. Chelsea Wolfe, "Wasteland" (2011)Chelsea Wolfe has worked hard the past 10 years and carved out a nice niche as the new queen of darkness. With heavy gothic themes and album titles like Pain Is Beauty, she is carrying the tradition of American darkness onwards with her own sound.17. Crime And The City Solution, "American Twilight" (2013)From Australia to Berlin to London to, finally, Detroit, Simon Bonney has immersed himself in American culture so much that he made some fantastic Americana records as a solo artist in the 90s. With lyrics about the homeless and junkies and about despair and darkness, "American Twilight" is a fantastic testimony of the American Underbelly.18. Lana Del Rey, "Ultraviolence" (2014)The reason we are here and the reason we are making this list in the first place. No real explanation needed. A beautiful and haunting song about love and violence. Stealing lines from The Crystals and singing about cult leaders, Lana continues the tradition of American darkness with fine form.19. Marilyn Manson, "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" (2015)Marilyn Manson is one of the most American artists of all time. The bastard child of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson, and a true representation of the opposite poles of a culture of glamour and violence. Drugs and sex and death have filled his songs and life for the past 25 years, making him a true institution of American culture. Here’s a song from his latest record that shows there’s no sign of him slowing down.
In September 2017, Enter Shikari released their fifth album, The Spark, which saw the British post-hardcore experimentlists foreground the synth-pop sounds that have always been an undercurrent in their work. It’s a move that makes even more sense once you hear what the band were blasting this year. “For us personally, 2017 was a game of two very distinct musical halves. We started the year looking backwards and touring in celebration of 10 years since the release of our debut album, and then halfway through the year we released what we would consider to be our most forward-thinking music so far.“While we were putting our list together, it became apparent that it’s been a good year for great music. It’s probably been a good year for shit music too, but we haven’t been listening to that. It’s always amazing how some people can still release new music from beyond the grave. Still, were glad they did.“This is a list of music released this year that we’ve been enjoying, from the smooth tones of Brian Eno to help with mindfulness, to the big bangers like Astroid Boys.”—Enter Shikari
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.
