In January 2017, 2 Chainz launched “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music,” a weekly Spotify playlist that doubles as promotion for his similarly titled upcoming album. Each list nominates a different woman to select new and recent raps: The inaugural edition showcased Karrueche Tran, and subsequent collections featured Amber Rose, Lauren London, Erykah Badu, and Nicki Minaj. Even Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant curated a March 19 installment, but he’s the sole outlier of the playlist’s “thirst trap” theme.While “Pretty Girls” operates under the glare of the male gaze, the lists expand beyond trap. An April 20 installment by New York radio personality and Breakfast Club host Angela Yee includes Fabolous’ Summertime Shootout series, low-denominator wavy rapper NAV, and Tee Grizzley’s school of hard knocks gem “First Day Out,” as well as customary trap selections from Migos, Future, Jeezy, 2 Chainz (of course), and, uh, Drake. Sample from this wide-ranging buffet of mainstream rap’s super-lit highs and mediocre lows.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.
Atlanta-born, Tropicalia-inspired singer-songwriter Adron has just released her new album Water Music -- a love letter to the ocean, described as "a defiantly joyful look at escaping the gravity of land." Featuring sweet, graceful vocals and a nylon-stringed guitar, her soft, breezy songs read like yacht rock for a new generation (which is probably why Steely Dan's Don Fagen personally invited her to open for him!)No stranger to themes as proven by her current concept record, when we asked Adron to make us a playlist, she chose to craft us a mix of "Music for Breakfast." Leading with a chill song from a band known for making "crazy samba," her playlist is pretty close to what you can expect from someone as eclectic and relaxed to make music about the sea. Listen above or go right here, and feel free to pair this with waffles.
After her 2015 single “Waiting Around” racked up 10,000,000-plus Spotify plays on the strength of a Volkswagen-ad placement, New York folk-soul phenom Aisha Badru recently released the first teaser from her upcoming full-length solo debut. The aching ballad “Bridges” is currently available in two forms—a deeply atmospheric, beat-driven take, and a “stripped” version where her voice is accompanied only by somber strings. Collectively, they set the goal posts for the intimate and experimental sounds she’s collected on her Dowsers playlist.“This playlist features a mix of some of my all-time favorite songs, along with some newer songs that I’m loving right now. Over the years, Ive grown to love artists across many genres. I think I subconsciously picked up elements from all ofl the style of music that Ive enjoyed and crafted a unique sound that I can call my own.”—Aisha Badru
Before forming, half of ALASKALASKA met in a Popular Music university course, while the other half mingled among the jazz crowd in South London. Together, its six members found even ground or, rather, a way to seamlessly blend their vast array of influences into a melodic mix that knows no borders. On their 2019 debut album, <I>The Dots</I>, they weave together sex, sax, synths, and sadness into a colorful tapestry of jazz, funk, disco, psychedelia, and pop. To make better sense of the sextet’s rich sonic meld, bassist and producer Fraser Rieley shares with us the music that helped inspire the band to find and refine their sound.Says Rieley: These are “tracks that inspired the making of <I>The Dots</I>. I’m drawn to music that has a certain duplicity, an interesting balance of moods and sentiments. Things that contrast dark and light, happy and sad, depth in texture and tonality, or raw/human components against unusual or jarring elements. Nostalgia and genre also played a big part in how the album was arranged and produced, blending or clashing sounds/instruments/parts that have different musical connotations as a way of making something new and relatable at the same time. Enjoy!”
Throughout the fall of 2017, San Diego ambient post-rock architect Jimmy LaValle has overseen deluxe vinyl reissues of his back catalog on his own imprint, Eastern Glow Recordings. In the same industrious, self-sufficient spirit, he’s created a Dowsers playlist to celebrate fellow musical loners (and the partners with whom they commiserate). “Here’s a playlist of some of my favorite solo artists and duos. As a solo artist myself, I truly love discovering new (to me) music not made by a band. Multi-instrumentalists are kind of a musician’s musician at times, making music because it’s something we have to do. There’s a ton of material I’ve recorded over the years that’s never been released and it’s because I’m constantly creating. I admire these artists and songs, and it also reflects what I’m really currently into instrumentation-wise.”—Jimmy LaValle a.k.a. The Album Leaf
Amyl and The Sniffers rage on stage as if the 21st century never happened. The Melbourne, Australia, band look to the halcyon ’70s for cues on how to not give a f*ck, as they spit and sprint through fast, furious, and female-empowered punk shout-alongs on their 2019 self-titled debut album. They call it “pub punk,” frontwoman Amy Taylor told NME, “because we spend a lot of time in the pub.” Inviting us further into their rough-and-tumble world—or, rather, pub—the band put together a mix for us, full of high-strung punk, greasy garage rock, and apocalyptic post-punk—many of it coming straight out of their native Australia. The members also shared a few quick thoughts on three of their song choices:
Bryce on Cosmic Psychos’ “Go the Hack”: “I love this song because half of it is a solo.”
Dec on Skyhooks’ “Horror Movie”: “It’s almost Halloween. True stories are the hardest to believe.”
Amy on Sleaford Mods’ “Bang Someone Out”: “Sometimes I just wanna bang someone out, too.”
As evidenced by the diverse vibes of her spectacular first three albums, Angel Olsen has excellent taste. Her sense of sound and space is preternatural. This “Sounds of the Summer” playlist for Jagjaguwar offers a unique window into her thinking, collecting a mix of breezy tracks that have inspired her. “Starlight” by Pure X is a hazy beach jam featuring shiny, tremolo-soaked guitars, while the Rolling Stones’ classic “Moonlight Mile” gives a sense of the composed pensiveness that lazy vacation days necessitate. The playlist takes a romantic, serious turn with Donny Hathaway’s “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” pointing toward the sentimental reflection that has always haunted Olsen’s music.
“Needing to be fired up and comforted at the same time brought this playlist around. Its short but potent to me. It has some modern art and inspiration from legends like Kendrick and Atoms for Peace, while mixed with some good memories too.S. Marleys ""Hey Baby"" could play forever and ""Set Me Free"" by The Kinks just fn rocks while giving you a bearhug.” - Robert Wayne Davis (frontman; vocals and guitar)
For over three decades, Anthrax have been at the forefront of the thrash revolution, a campaign that continues on their most recent album, For All Kings. Here, guitarists Scott Ian and Jonathan Donais, and drummer Charlie Benante share their all-time favorite hard-rock and metal jams—plus the odd curveball—in these playlists created exclusively for The Dowsers.SCOTT IAN (GUITAR)Listen to his playlist above.CHARLIE BENANTE (DRUMS)
JONATHAN DONAIS (GUITAR)
This feature is part of our Thrash 101 online course that was produced in partnership with the good rocking folks at GimmeRadio, a free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like Megadeths Dave Mustaine and Lamb of Gods Randy Blythe. Check them out here and sign up for the Thrash 101 course here.
Thank you for checking out the 13th installment of our Thrash 101 program, produced in conjunction with GimmeRadio, your free 24/7 radio station hosted by heavy-music experts and artists such as The Dillinger Escape Plans Ben Weinman and Death Angels Will Carroll. Listen for free here.For over three decades, Anthrax have been at the forefront of the thrash revolution, a campaign that continues on their most recent album, For All Kings. Here, guitarists Scott Ian and Jonathan Donais, and drummer Charlie Benante share their all-time favorite hard-rock and metal jams—plus the odd curveball—in these playlists created exclusively for The Dowsers.SCOTT IAN (GUITAR)Listen to his playlist above.CHARLIE BENANTE (DRUMS)
JONATHAN DONAIS (GUITAR)
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.
