RnB

Over at the Brooklyn Vegan blog, Andrew Sacher recently took on the task of selecting 30 Essential Psychedelic Soul Songs. The psych soul sound emerged when straightforward R&B artists tapped into the late-‘60s/early-‘70s countercultural vibe with trippy arrangements and often socially conscious lyrics. But it can be a slippery beast: On the early end of the timeline, it can be tough to draw the line between progressive but still relatively straight late-‘60s R&B and its turned-on, tuned-in cousin. On the later end of the timeline, all the wah-wah floating around tends to blur the border between acid soul and the realm of blaxploitation.But Sacher does a fine job hitting plenty of the genre’s highlights: The Chambers Brothers’ loopy, barnstorming epic “Time Has Come Today” and The 5th Dimension’s flower power harmony-pop classic “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” rub shoulders with the heady swirl of Funkadelic’s “Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow” and Terry Callier’s hypnotic, jazz-kissed psych folk saga “Dancing Girl,” along with a healthy batch of contemporary tracks. But as satisfying as the list is, it largely sticks to marquee names and iconic cuts, and as Sacher rightly points out, there’s plenty more territory to be explored.In that spirit, here’s an addendum to the BV playlist; think of it as a psychedelic soul annex. You’ll find more esoteric acts like Black Merda, Madhouse—not the Prince side project—and William S. Fischer, as well as unexpected artists like Muddy Waters, Chubby Checker, and jazzman Stanley Cowell dipping a toe in the psych soul waters. Closing the list with a cut from Childish Gambino’s 2016 tour de force Awaken, My Love! underscores the fact that this sound needn’t be tied to a single era.

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.Panicked by the backlash and other problems caused by disco’s market oversaturation, most of the big record labels had abruptly shuttered their dance-music departments by the end of the decade. Yet they overlooked something that should’ve been obvious: A whole lot of people hadn’t tossed out their boogie shoes.And so those dancers found new havens in places like the Paradise Garage, where DJs like Larry Levan and François Kevorkian fostered new innovations in the art of the mix. In so doing, they inspired musicians to try their own experiments in disco science. One Paradise Garage regular was a downtown cellist and composer named Arthur Russell who began releasing a more avidly peculiar brand of dance music under names like Loose Joints and Dinosaur L. Elsewhere in New York, punks and no-wavers developed their own take, with labels like ZE Records and 99 Records becoming hotbeds for the “mutant disco” sound pioneered by acts like ESG (pictured) and Liquid Liquid. Meanwhile, hip-hop began its move from the Bronx to Manhattan, the first step in a burgeoning revolution.Back in the overground, labels like SOLAR and acts like Shalamar and the S.O.S. Band ruled the radio with a shiny, synth-heavy sound that bridged the gulf between disco and the urban pop that would define the new decade. A 1979 masterpiece that built something shiny and new out of the old aesthetic, Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall had already shown what was possible. Rick James and Prince had their breakouts next. In Chicago, DJs and producers found new ways to sate their dancers’ undimmed appetites for disco by integrating the sounds they wanted with Italo disco and electro, and the result became known as house. Meanwhile, a New York club kid named Madonna was paying very close attention to everything that was going down.As wild and adventurous and modern as this music could be, all of it had disco in its DNA. And as this playlist of post-disco essentials demonstrates, many of these mutations have proven to be just as hardy.

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.Over the course of 1975 and 1976, disco was most definitely ascendant as radio programmers and DJs fed the new appetites and clubs competed to have the most advanced sound systems and the largest glitter balls. The apex was reached in 1977 as Studio 54 swiftly became not only the most famous disco in New York, but the world, too. Later the same year (and well into the next), Saturday Night Fever turned America into a land of wannabe Tony Maneros in tight-fitting white suits, strutting down every street to the ubiquitous sound of the Bee Gees’ soundtrack.At its worst, disco in its imperial phase was a whitewash of the dance music that preceded it, the blandest examples removing soul’s passion and funk’s hardness. But the foremost practitioners—like Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, also architects of hits for Diana Ross and Sister Sledge—made music of indisputable sophistication. It could be also be cheekily subversive, like when French producer Jacques Morali cast a series of hunks, dressed them up as gay archetypes of the era and somehow sold the Village People to Middle America.Like all parties, this one couldn’t last forever. By 1979, disco suffered a fatal counter-attack by its haters, i.e., the white dudes whose traditional position of privilege was threatened by a cultural surge that was so strongly female, African-American, and gay. But no matter how many records they tried to blow up in baseball parks, there was no way to erase the mark made by so many of the tracks on this playlist.

Despite its reputation as the No. 1 music-industry disruptor of 2019, Lil Nas X’s honky-hop hybrid “Old Town Road” owes a great deal of its success to an age-old formula: the promotion of the chorus from cleanup hitter to leadoff batter. Although its usage has gained considerable traction in the streaming era (when shortened attention spans demand that artists engineer their tracks to elicit love-at-first-click), you can find examples of chorus-verse-chorus songwriting throughout pop history. This playlist provides a brief history of songs in which the first verse is secondary, chronologically charting how the practice has evolved over time. Back in the days of Elvis and The Beatles, it was an instant invitation to get up and dance to the devil’s music. For iconoclastic rockers like Neil Young and The Clash, it was a means of putting their social messaging front and center. At the height of hair metal, bands like Bon Jovi and Twisted Sister put their shout-along refrains up front in anticipation of engaging with their arena-size audiences. And as hip-hop and R&B have become the dominant forms of pop music in the 21st century, it’s becoming increasingly common for artists in the former camp to lure you in with hooks steeped in the latter.

"Everywhere started out as this simple acoustic love song," the then 18-year-old Michelle Branch modestly told MTV back in 2001, when her debut single was quickly climbing the charts. In fact, "Everywhere" could be heard just about anywhere, as it captured the spirit of both moody post-grunge rock and breezy Y2K pop. At the time, Branchs guitar-fueled confessions were something of a savvy response to the sexed-up pop of Britney and Christina, and while she electrified with some Alanis-like sass, she did so with with a youthful, innocent optimism. Still, "Everywhere" isnt such a simple love song. Branch is not pining or pouting. Her lyrics are bold and vivid and maybe even a little abstract: "Youre everything I know/ That makes me believe/ Im not alone." Is she talking about a boy or something grander? Either way, her delivery is empowering—shes confident while still vulnerable, and she ties both together in an instantly undeniable hook. A new generation of female singer/songwriters was most certainly listening. Here are five ways "Everywhere" made its mark on the music scene.It signaled the true end of 90s angst.Gone was the dark, disillusioned edge of grunge; the cool, canny pop star who could rock hard and still radiate a touch of sunniness had arrived. Soon after the release of "Everywhere," Vanessa Carlton was pounding her piano with the same balance of sass and sincerity in "A Thousand Miles." Sara Bareilles would later do the same with the deceptively defiant "Love Song."It inspired a new form of passionate pop-rock.In 2002, Kelly Clarkson would claim the first American Idol title. Shed soon use her newfound fame to propel cathartic, hard-rocking pop hits like "Since U Been Gone" to iconic status. KT Tunstall also came blazing through, wielding her guitar and commanding just as much respect with her infectious, soulful rock. It helped bring femininity to emo. Branchs influence would even stretch to emo hero Hayley Williams, whod inject the pop-punk scene with some much-needed feistiness and femininity with her band Paramore. It pushed country music in new directions. You can even thank Branch for helping reinvigorate country music in the mid-2000s by not only co-starring in her own country-pop project The Wreckers with friend and singer Jessica Harp, but also inspiring one precocious singer/songwriter by the name of Taylor Swift. "Youre one of the first people who made me want to play guitar," Swift once told Branch.It still can be heard just about … everywhere.Even now, traces of "Everywhere" still echo through pop, rock, and country, especially in the spunky yet candid songwriting of newer artists like Meg Myers and Kacey Musgraves. In a way, this once "simple acoustic love song" continues to make its imprint just about everywhere.

Erykah Badu is this generations queen of soul. Her music is the sound of apocalyptic premonitions, bedroom recriminations, African headwraps, Rhodes keyboards, political claptrap, Nag Champa ashes, and dusty, broken breaks. It’s an oeuvre that is hypnotic, sensual and, above all else, iconic. It’s safe to say that Erykah from Dallas is an emancipation artist: She’s liberated the funk from soul, soul from the past, history from herself, and her audience from their seats. It’s a loopy, wrinkle-in-time logic: One of the foundational figures of R&B’s current futurist, post-everything heatwave is a woman who was considered a nostalgist when she first appeared 20 years ago.And if those mathematics are confusing, swiggle this: What artist, of any genre, has remained as consistently unpredictable or this fearlessly unremitting in her will to constantly redefine her sound for as long as Ms. Badu? If R&B is the lingua franca of modern music, then Erykah was the one who tagged the Rosetta Stone.But what are Erykah’s musical foundations? Luckily, that’s an immensely answerable question. She has always been generous in citing her various influences, and we’ve scoured various interviews, DJ sets, mixtapes, live setlists, and sample databases to compile a list of the tracks that made Erykah, Erykah. If you want to hear her best work, check out our Erykah essentials playlist here; if you’re looking to understand how she got here, this is the place to start.There are at least a few basic sensibilities at play in Erykah’s music. Funk is at the forefront, in various permutations, from the genre’s godfather, James Brown, to his various global descendents: Fela in Lagos, Maurice Washington in Chicago, Prince in Minneapolis, Zapp in Cincinnati, and Thundercat in Los Angeles. Brown’s “King Heroin,” which Erykah included on her phenomenal FEEL BETTER, WORLD! mixtape, features the godfather at his most pensive and mournful, calling for a “revolution of the mind”—another liberation of sorts—over a slinking, understated backdrop.There’s a similar sadness running through Fela’s “Army Arrangement,” which Erykah selected as part one of her favorite Fela tracks in an interview with OkayAfrica. The track was recorded in 1985, as Fela was facing concurrent five-year sentences for trumped-up currency-smuggling charges. After he was imprisoned in Nigeria, his record label gave the masters to Bill Laswell, who chopped up the track’s 30-minute length into something more approachable for Western audiences. "Listening to it was worse than being in prison," Fela quipped. Luckily, the full original version has been restored, and you can hear echos of the track’s loping, hypnotic funk throughout Erykah’s own work.But while funk may be the spoken undercurrent, it’s hardly the only note. Her take on interplanetary psychedelia is also present here. For her BEATS BEES LIKE FOR B-BOYS AND B-GIRLS mixtape, which premiered in 2016 on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show, Badu chose Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War.” Sun Ra, an afrofuturist pioneer, was perhaps most famous for claiming that he was an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace. “Nuclear War” is the apocalypse as a shuttling, chanted, obscene zen koan. This 11th-hour spiritualism is refracted through Erykah’s own shambolic, shamanistic 2008 masterpiece, New Amerykah Part One, an album that alchemizes the dread and loathing of George W. Bush’s second term. That album also famously sampled Eddie Kendricks’ moody “My People...Hold On,” a track that skirts the boundaries of funk, jazz, psych, and soul to craft an an ode to perseverance and defiance.And while the almost all of the selections here are culled from artists of the African diaspora, the exceptions are notable. For a Complex interview in 2015, she revealed that Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon taught her the value of “evolving through experimentation.” It echoed what she told Rolling Stone in a 2011 retrospective of the album, where she relayed being turned onto the Floyd in 1995 by Andre 3000. In that aforementioned Complex interview, she also names Joni Mitchell’s Blue as one of her favorite albums, saying that the Laurel Canyon icon has “one of the most soothing voices I’ve ever heard. The music is haunting.”There’s an underlying tenderness and intimacy in Mitchells work that informs both singers’ work, regardless of which genre the songs work within. It’s the same delicacy that informs many of her soul picks, from Stevie Wonder’s phosphorescent “Visions” to J Dilla’s ethereal “Bye.,” which chopped The Isley Brothers’ “Don’t Say Goodnight” to haunting effect. While no one one-ups Dilla, Erykah did her own impressive interpolation of the Isleys’ version of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me” for her 2016 hit collaboration with Andre 3000, “Hello”—a track that conveys the tenderness and warmth of those old friends and lovers.And, in many ways, that yin-yang dynamic—the balancing of intimacy, poetry, and grace with power, prose, and rhythm—sums up Erykah. She’s not only one of pop music’s most powerful artists, but one whose work channels the brightest and boldest impulses of the best popular music of the past five decades.

The propulsive James Jamerson bass lines, Benny Benjamin’s funky-but-precise rhythms, the elegant, atmospheric orchestrations — given the opportunity, who wouldn’t want to assimilate all those elements at the intersection of pop and soul and assemble their own Motown pastiche? We’re not talking about artists covering classic Motown tunes, either. From the “You Can’t Hurry Love” groove of The Jam’s “Town Called Malice” to the New Jack-meets-Jackson 5 vibe of New Edition’s “Candy Girl” and Amy Winehouse’s brassy, sassy “Rehab,” these tracks take the Motown template and go someplace with it.

Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusses classic composition was originally recorded by Cy Grant in 1964, and, a year later, was covered by Nina Simone, whose version became one of the iconic tracks of that decade. Since then, its been covered, sampled and remixed dozens of times, including recently by Lauryn Hill.

Its hard to believe that the Disney-loving, noodle-haired teen hanging from Britney Spears arm in the 90s would not only become one of pops biggest stars, but also a bona-fide, critically lauded hit-making powerhouse. Sure, lending his sky-scraping pipes to *NSYNC——one of the decades more successful forays into boyband-hood——guaranteed him a degree of visibility, respect, and fandom. But who could have predicted this unthreatening symbol of wholesome tween-pop would mastermind a career typified by unabashed sexuality, genre-bending sounds, and boundary-breaking hits?And with the release of his fifth album, Man of the Woods, on the horizon, Timberlake isnt taking his foot off the gas yet, with the album teaser seemingly nodding to yet another gear-change. Thanks to its slo-mo scenes of JT frolicking in nature (a field, some mountains, the snow!), many scathingly assumed he, like Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga before him, planned to cast off the pronounced black-music influences that helped make his name and “rebrand as a white man.” And yet, in spite of the Gap ad-ness of the marketing campaign, one listen to singles “Filthy” and “Supplies” reveals all you need to know about this record: His signature aesthetic (i.e., meticulously produced, R&B-spiked pop) remains firmly intact and, in true JT-style, any country melodies and “southern-fried guitars” in the mix are mere seasoning to his soulful pop meat.In fact, Man of the Woods appears set to expand Timberlakes sound in much the same way each of his albums has, from the minimalist heartthrob pop of 2002s Justified to the sophisticated soul of 2006s FutureSex/LoveSounds to the chameleonic futurism of 2013s The 20/20 Experience (parts one and two), each exploration heralding a new creative phase for the industry darling. Here, we break down the man and his music into his four most distinct phases, and unpack the influences behind them.

THE POP WUNDERKIND

*NSYNC might have had some monster hits (“Bye Bye Bye” being one of the best pop songs to come out at the turn of the millennium), but it wasnt until JT launched his solo career that his potential for super-stardom really registered on the industrys radar. “Like I Love You” was an instant smash, a divinely low-key debut that fused effortless vocals and Usher-style dance moves with stabbing acoustic guitar, whispered sweet nothings, and stark, skittering beats. Not only was he working hard to unshackle himself from his family-friendly, boy-band reputation, but he was also laying down his statement of intent to the record-buying public. And what a statement it was. Gone were the days of five-part harmonies and his-and-hers double-denim, and in their place were revelations of dream-shattering infidelity (“Cry Me a River”), impossibly delicious falsetto, and brazen explorations of sensuality (“Rock Your Body”). In fact, Justified really did what it said on the tin, commercially vindicating Timberlakes decision to walk away from *NSYNC, and unapologetically establishing his own sound.

THE SOPHISTICATED LOVERMAN

Justified let us all know that JT was more than just a boy-band heartthrob, his overt sexuality and incredible songwriting merely hinting at the sophistication, worldliness, and sense of humor that FutureSex/LoveSounds would unleash on an unsuspecting public. JT had resoundingly grown up, the groove-laden R&B of his debut now eclipsed by a new electro-laced sound. He began exploring a funkier direction, riffing on Princes dirty-party dynamic on the Timbaland-helmed “SexyBack,” layering hip-hop beats and futuristic synths over meticulous production and flawless vocals (“Sexy Ladies / Let Me Talk to You”). Its both a vibe that he returns to with regularity—with the mastery and control of “Suit & Tie” nodding to perennial smoothie Marvin Gaye and neo-soul titan Maxwell—and a style that has influenced the next generation of post-boy-band hopefuls, like ex-One Directionite Zayn Malik.

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Hes starred in multiple films, hes besties with Jimmy Fallon, hes hosted Saturday Night Live, hes appeared onstage with Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks, hes soundtracked multiple box-office hits, hes guested on records by Michael Jackson, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, Madonna, and JAY-Z... is there anything JT cant do? Apparently not. After firmly staking his claim as one of pops biggest stars with FutureSex/LoveSounds, JT took some time out, lending his talents to a smorgasbord of side projects. In anyone elses hands, this apparent pandering to the masses might have proven to be a disastrous move, but in true Midas-style, JT turned a career breather into a chance for more creative expansion. Most notably, he wrote one of 2016s biggest hits, the interminably happy “Cant Stop the Feeling!” from DreamWorks Trolls movie.

THE SONIC INNOVATOR

Justin Timberlake has never been one to shy away from pushing the boundaries. When we expected nothing but tweeny ballads, he gave us minimalist pop with Justified. When we expected sultry R&B, he gave us sophisticated synthy funk with FutureSex/LoveSounds. When we expected more of the same meticulous control, he gave us the rangy, experimental two-part album The 20/20 Experience, complete with forays into neo-soul (“Pusher Love Girl), Afrobeat (“Let the Groove Get In”), and ambient soul balladry (“Blue Ocean Floor”). And right on time, just as we begin lending weight to allusions of country influences on new album Man of the Woods, JT drops singles “Filthy” and “Supplies,” and throws our assumptions back in our faces. In fact, JT seems to be mining different hometown influences here, nodding instead to his Tennessee hip-hop homeboys Chamillionaire and 8Ball & MJG in his dirgey bass and lightning-quick vocal deliveries. But JT’s albums have always been a complex feast of varying influences, from the pop verve of Michael Jackson to the filthy funk of Prince to the haunting melancholia of David Bowie, and theres no reason why Man of the Woods should be any different.

Click here to add to Spotify playlist!After a four-year silence that ended with last year’s widely acclaimed Blond(e), Frank Ocean has greeted 2017 with renewed vigor. He has dropped two singles, “Chanel” and “Slide,” the latter a pairing with Calvin Harris and Quavo from Migos. He has 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. “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.