Rock + Alternative

Up until quite recently putting together a Complete Fleetwood Mac playlist wasn’t even possible. If you had explored the band’s catalog across all streaming services, you would’ve encountered the same problem: While every record from the Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham era was available (including expanded editions of Rumours, Tusk, and the crazy underrated Tango in the Night), and the Peter Green-era titles, while hobbled by a few nit-picky omissions, were largely intact, the stretch of albums linking these two periods was totally MIA.Of course, the fact that Kiln House (1970), Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), Mystery to Me (1973), and Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974) have been added to the group’s streaming catalog shouldn’t register the same level of excitement as, say, AC/DC or Bob Seger opening up their discographies to Spotify and Apple Music for the very first time. Nevertheless, they are vital titles that deserve love from serious classic-rock fans. Not only are they key to understanding Fleetwood Mac’s gradual (and frequently bumpy) journey from British blues and hard rock to sun-drenched California pop, they boast some of the best tunes of the band’s long and winding career. Bare Trees is particularly sublime. A favorite for more than a few longtime Mac obsessives, it’s a hazy, zoned-out, comedown album showcasing a trio of gifted songwriters in Christine McVie, Danny Kirwan, and Bob Welch.When encountering these albums, the uninitiated will immediately notice they’re all over the stylistic map. After all, they document a band searching for an identity after the hasty departure of founding member Green, whose moody vision and six-string genius dominated the group (despite him splitting lead vocal duties with ’50s-rock fetishist Jeremy Spencer). Where McVie’s “Spare Me a Little of Your Love” is a moving slice of singer/songwriter fare infused with gospel’s ecstatic longing, Kirwan’s “Sometimes” is rambling, countrified folk-rock that sounds as if it could’ve been recorded in a remote English cottage. The American-born Welch—who, along with McVie, was the outfit’s most dependable songwriter during this time—complicates things further, penning both hyper-lush pop ballads (“Sentimental Lady”) and post-psychedelic jams drawing in touches of fusion and The Grateful Dead (“Coming Home”).But despite their deliciously messy nature, these records also show how Mac began moving towards tightly crafted pop-rock before Buckingham and Nicks’ entrance at the tail end of 1974. The most obvious instances are the McVie cuts “Prove Your Love” and “Remember Me,” which find her deep, enigmatic voice and genius for melancholic balladry already locked in place. But there’s also odd stuff like “Forever,” from Mystery to Me: Benefitting from Mick Fleetwood’s interest in African music and percussion, the rhythmic ditty totally hints at the quirky shuffles that Buckingham had the drummer work into both Tusk and Tango in the Night.At this point, fans adamant that Fleetwood Mac peaked during the Buckingham and Nicks years (something I won’t argue against) might be wondering why I haven’t delved into those records as much. Well, they’ve been picked apart and examined so intensely I decided to devote more words to the group’s lesser-known recordings in hopes of exposing folks to music they possibly haven’t heard. That said, I do want to touch on the otherworldly and exotic Tango in the Night—which everybody reading this needs to add to their library ASAP—because it’s a goddamn great record: kind of like Tusk in how it packs a lot of eccentric sounds and ideas into songs that are insanely catchy, only this time around Buckingham decides to be a ruthless editor. A perfect example is the title track, which pushes his fascination with rhythm as a compositional element to new extremes, sounding like some kind of classic-rock interpretation of 4AD-style dream pop. Just brilliant—so much so, in fact, that my playlist has more tracks from it than Buckingham and Nicks’ 1975 debut with the band. Risky, but I think you won’t be disappointed

The Flaming Lips may be one of the few mainstream crossover acts whose latter-day material is actually even crazier than their early work. Over the course of their 30-plus year career as a psychedelic-pop mainstay, the Lips have maintained an inspiring ethos of consistently challenging themselves to never stay in one place for too long. In the field of psychedelic rock, phaser-pedal effects and guitar solos are so often used as shorthands for mind-expanding, reality-altering music. So it’s refreshing that Wayne Coyne and friends have found so many ways to work within that Technicolor playing field while constantly pushing its boundaries and reconfiguring the rulebook.At the outset of their career, The Flaming Lips wore their Oklahoma roots with pride, fusing a joyous cowpunk silliness with their LSD-fried noise rock freakouts. But it didn’t take long for major labels to see them as potential beneficiaries of the early ’90s alt-rock boom, and once the Lips signed to Warner Bros., they took to their expanded studio capabilities with glee. Albums like Transmissions From The Satellite Heart—which spawned the surprise hit single “She Don’t Use Jelly”—and Clouds Taste Metallic bear the same garagey feel as their earliest work, but with a newfound sense of instrumental chaos, as fuzzed-out bass guitars and crashing drums led the way for Coyne’s childlike tales of animals and Christmas. But the band took things to the next level with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin, an orchestral, Brian Wilson-style studio masterpiece that left the rock-band format behind for a layered collection of sonic experiments and celebratory declarations of life.As the Lips pushed into the ‘00s, they continued to work within this studio-sculpted realm on records like Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots before completely throwing that approach out the window with the loose, jammy 2009 LP, Embryonic. A dark, unsettling collection of minimal, rhythmic, but heavy songs, Embryonic shot a jolt of energy into the band’s seemingly complete major-label success, paving the way for even more radical visions from the group. Since that album, the Lips have continued to evolve, experimenting with longer, more improvisational songs (some lasting as long as 24 hours!), and exploring the moodier side of their sound with instrumental-leaning albums like The Terror and Oczy Mldoy.Where The Flaming Lips will go from here is anyone’s guess. For most bands, scoring a beloved ‘90s hit and signing to a major label is excuse enough to call it a day and spend the rest of your life playing reunion tours. But The Flaming Lips are too restless for that, too bursting with imagination and cosmic sounds—a rock band as experimental as they are pop. Their sound is a difficult beast to summarize, but with this mix we’ve attempted to illustrate what a colorful, slowly unfolding path the band has taken over the years. Strap in, and keep your eyes to the stars.

With each new Gorillaz album, more attention is paid to the number of guest collaborators invited to perform than to the group’s only consistent musical member: Damon Albarn. Humanz, which arrives this week, is no different. The songs released so far center around performances from Benjamin Clementine, Popcaan, Vince Staples, Jehnny Beth, D.R.A.M., Pusha T, and Mavis Staples, with Albarn happily orchestrating things from behind the curtain. But he’s a strong performer and highly sought-after collaborator in his own right, one completely worthy of the spotlight he avoids. His selfless attitude, which foregrounds other performers in his own work, makes him such a great songwriting partner.Taking cues from The Kinks and XTC, Albarn’s early work in Britpop act Blur focused on couching his biting social commentary in character studies, a theme that continued even after the band’s influences drifted further and further beyond the white cliffs of Dover. As the band began to pull apart in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, Albarn walked away, melodica in hand, and started the horror film-loving, The Specials-aping, cartoon outfit Gorillaz, beginning a lifetime of long-standing—and very fruitful—collaborations with the eclectic and diverse likes of Bobby Womack, De La Soul, and Tony Allen, among many others.He’s had countless other projects, including Mali Music, Rocket Juice & The Moon, and DRC Music, as well as his Honest Jon’s label, all of which show the songwriter using his visibility in pop music to give credit where credit is due, and to highlight the work of incredible musicians who have inspired him.This playlist goes deep into Albarn’s discography, putting his songwriting talents front and center and focusing on the not-so-guest-heavy songs that form the bedrock of Gorillaz’s nearly 20-year career. It also contextualizes his work with Blur, the band that put him on the map, and any and every collaboration he’s been involved with in between.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

At this point in our young century, Dan Auerbach’s trademark sound is damn near inescapable. His entrancingly fuzzy slide work, moody atmospherics, velvety reverb, and love for prominently framed percussion all pop up in albums by garage punks, shaggy hard rockers, folkies, rappers, and even pop divas. Of course, it’s through the wildly influential jams of The Black Keys (whom Auerbach has co-produced for most of the duo’s career) that his sound has left such a profound impact on modern music, but that’s not its only path. After all, in addition to maintaining a solo career—including his upcoming June 2017 release Waiting On a Song—as well as a clutch of side projects (The Arcs record from 2015 is a particularly tasty highlight), he has evolved into one of the music industry’s most in-demand producers.Much like The Black Keys’ music, Auerbach’s immediately identifiable work behind the boards has become more sophisticated with time. Patrick Sweany’s “Them Shoes,” from 2007, is a slab of husky, stripped-down blues rock that’s light years removed from the intensely textural swamp funk and gris-gris soul comprising Dr. John’s 2012 gem Locked Down, one of Auerbach’s most ambitious productions to date. Even when Auerbach, who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of music history, steps outside of his rock ‘n’ blues comfort zone, he leaves a unique sonic imprint on the work of other artists. This is certainly the case with Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence, on which he wraps the singer’s art-pop noir in layers of nostalgia-kissed echo and sustain so plush, your ears will sink into them. This is also true of Nikki Lane’s outlaw-country epic All Or Nothin, which boasts the same throbbing groove hypnotics heard on the Keys’ albums.Compiling tunes from all these albums and a whole mess more, including some overlooked production nuggets like the Buffalo Killers’ stoner-rock trip Let it Ride, our playlist is sure to impress even the most diehard Auerbach fans.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

"Strange days have found us, and through their strange hours we linger alone" – Jim Morrison"Beauty always has an element of strangeness" – Charles BaudelaireThere was always something dangerous about The Doors. From the very beginning it was blindingly obvious that they stood far apart from the rest of the 60s Sunset Strip scene, not to mention the entire rock world. Sophistication? Sure. Darkness? Undoubtedly. Sensuality? You bet. Blend all of the above with a generous dose of transgression and you start to zero in on The Doors magic mixture. Not coincidentally, that same confluence of elements is pretty much the definition of 19th century Frances Symbolist poetry movement, as epitomized by Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. It was an influence that is obvious to any fan of both The Doors and the French Symbolist, but it’s also an influence that Morrison spoke to when he mailed French literature expert and Duke professor Wallace Fowlie, thanking him for producing a translation of Rimbuad’s complete poems, and relaying, "I dont read French that easily. . . . I am a rock singer and your book travels around with me."If course, Morrison was hardly the only singer of that era to be influenced by poetry. The second half of the 60s saw a giant evolutionary leap for rock n roll lyrics, one that inspired fans to append the "poetry" label to rock for the first time. Bob Dylan got that ball rolling, followed closely by The Beatles, but the arrival of The Doors gave the rock-as-poetry concept an even bigger boost of an entirely different kind. Jim Morrison was rocks first real poetic enfant terrible, an heir at last to the moody mien of poetrys original dark princes, Baudelaire and Rimbaud. It was all right there in The Doors very first introduction to the world at large. The first line of their first single, "Break on Through (To the Other Side)," which was also the opening cut on their debut album, immediately served notice of Morrisons intentions. "You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day" was both a world away from what was coming out of most rock singers mouths and an entirely different kind of enhanced lyricism than that of Dylan or John Lennon.Dylan and Lennon dazzled their disciples with phantasmagorical, LSD-aided imagery perfectly in tune with the psychedelically stimulated times. But while acid undeniably acted as a launching pad for some of Morrisons lyrics, The Doors werent wowing fans with "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" or gently calling to Mr. Tambourine Man in search of a "jingle-jangle morning." Sure, Morrison was a lyricist who liked to paint vivid, sometimes psychedelic pictures with words. But he was also a libertine who loved nothing better than to line up taboos and, well, break on through to the other side. In all of these things, he was blazing his own trail on a path begun a century earlier by Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and company. Like The Doors singer, the French Symbolist poets were iconoclastic hedonists for whom nothing was more important than the derangement of the senses in the service of experiencing lifes absurd carnival to its fullest and finding an artful way to describe it. The bad boys of their eras literary scene, they might have been rock stars if the possibility existed at the time. But their visions burned as deeply and brightly as anything to emerge since. Morrison drew as much from these transgressive poets as he did from John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. He was an avowed admirer of their dark visions, from Baudelaires deliriously decadent Flowers of Evil to Rimbauds daring A Season in Hell. There was even a book dedicated solely to the topic of Morrisons relation to Rimbaud. But if you want to pick up on the connection all you need to do is listen.Its not so far a leap, for instance, from The Doors "End of the Night" to Baudelaires "Death of the Poor." The former finds Morrison crooning:

Realms of bliss, realms of lightSome are born to sweet delightSome are born to sweet delightSome are born to the endless night

In the latter, Baudelaire declares:

It is death who gives us life in excitationIt is the end of life, the one hope, the one delightThat, divine elixir, is our IntoxicationAnd which gives us the heart to follow the endless night

Parallels between Morrison and Rimbaud arent tough to spot either. Take the opening of the latters legendary A Season in Hell:

Once, if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed.One evening I seated Beauty on my knees. And I founder bitter. And I cursed her.I armed myself against justice.I fled. O Witches, Misery, Hate, to you has my treasure been entrusted!

It doesnt require a great contortion of sensibility to draw a line between that and "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)," where Morrison cries:Listen to this, Ill tell you about the heartacheIll tell you about the heartache and the loss of GodIll tell you about the hopeless nightThe meager food for souls forgotIll tell you about the maiden with wrought iron soulMorrison never seemed to be aping his influences, but its certainly possible to imagine that he and the poets he admired were reporting from the same spiritual/psychological precipice. Of course, Morrison wasnt content to be considered merely a "rock poet" either; he published two books of his own verse, eventually combined as The Lords and The New Creatures. But The Doors singular mix of music and imagery remains the most intoxicating indication of the Symbolists sway over Morrison.

For all the alluring and disturbing images that David Lynch has presented to movie audiences over the last 40 years, the filmmaker has always been just as particular about how his films sound as how they look. This has been obvious to listeners since they were enveloped by the harrowing soundscape that Lynch and Alan Splet created for 1977’s Eraserhead, the two men spending months concocting a mind-bending array of noises and drones in a garage. The same process yielded a catchy, if eerie, ditty called “In Heaven (Everything Is Fine).” As sung by the chipmunk-cheeked figure known as the “Girl in the Radiator,” Lynch’s song provides the film with an even more startling and disorienting bolt of lightning, even with the gloom already surrounding it.Lynch would toy with the idea of extremes again and again in the soundtracks of his films and TV shows that followed, including Twin Peaks, his landmark work in WTF TV whose reboot has just arrived to the world. The new show finds him teaming up with Angelo Badalamenti again, his go-to composer since 1986’s Blue Velvet, and another master of generating unease by aural means. Together, their musical approach consistently emphasizes themes of flux and decay that start as sumptuous or sickly sweet and disintegrate into doomy ambient passages or something more psychologically assaulting.Likewise, Lynch’s song choices have been just as daring and confounding. The filmmaker’s fondness for keeping the time periods of his stories ambiguous is reflected in his continual juxtaposition of ‘50s pop, early rock ‘n’ roll, ‘60s girl-group ballads, and lounge music with discordant blasts of industrial and metal. The latter category is especially prominent in his harder-edged films, like 1997’s Lost Highway, for which he enlisted the help of Trent Reznor and used songs by Marilyn Manson and Rammstein for typically nightmarish purposes.This love of extremes has also been fundamental to Lynch’s own musical projects, which have long been part of his career and have become much more prominent over the last decade as he shifts away from filmmaking to other artistic endeavors. Lynch has released two albums bearing his own name, collaborating with American singer Chrysta Bell, engineer John Neff, Polish composer Marek Zebrowski, and the likes of Karen O and Lykke Li.Even so, for many fans, it’s the haunting approximation of a sock-hop in hell in Twin Peaks that best represents the director’s aural aesthetic—a sound first developed by Lynch and Badalamenti for Into the Night, a 1990 album for singer Julee Cruise. As such, it makes for a fitting first stop in our tour of Lynch’s sonic world, a place that’s as intoxicating as it is straight-up terrifying.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

A guitar hero in the terms truest sense, British axeman Mick Ronson distinguished himself with dazzling riffs for Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, Bob Dylan, and others, but it was his early 70s work with David Bowie that really made Ronson a legend. Over the course of three years and four milestone albums, Ronson and Bowie gave rock n roll a radical facelift. When they were finished refashioning the music in their own image, it bore a passing resemblance to its former countenance, but its features were forever changed.Ronson was Bowies right-hand man from the revolutionary art rock of 1970s The Man Who Sold the World to the idiosyncratic songcraft of 1971s Hunky Dory, the glam-rock glory of 1972s Ziggy Stardust, and the arch, almost unhinged future-rock of 1973s Aladdin Sane. Its no coincidence that those albums form the backbone of Bowies legacy—without Ronson on hand for all of those milestone sessions, each of those albums would surely have sounded significantly different. By extension, its totally within the realm of possibility that Bowies breakthroughs, both artistic and commercial, might never have happened at all if the lad from Hull hadnt been by his side for them.Bowie made a big jump from the trippy ballads of Space Oddity to the bristling rock and bruising riffs of The Man Who Sold the World. It’s important to note that Ronson wasn’t just some random session dude wandering in for the date; he and drummer Mick Woodmansey had played together in a band called The Rats and were specifically recruited to be part of Bowie’s new band, as was Rats bassist Trevor Bolder, who would replace Tony Visconti on bass on the next album. Ronson led the charge that brought Bowie into a whole new realm, with not only immortal riffs (like the regal but foreboding one that defines the title track) but also the hard-rocking roar of less-celebrated, equally intense tracks like “Black Country Rock” and “She Shook Me Cold.”By the time Bowie cut Hunky Dory, with producer/bassist Visconti gone, arrangement chores fell to Ronson on top of his guitar duties. Ronson was more than prepared to help usher Bowie into his next remarkable evolutionary leap. The guitarist’s orchestrations helped make the reflective ballad “Changes” not just touching but transcendent, and gave the dizzying “Life on Mars” just the right air of grandeur, shining a spotlight on Bowie’s increasingly complex compositional powers. And Ronson’s lyrical licks on deeper cuts like “Song for Bob Dylan” showed his nose for nuance.If the Bowie-Ronson team hadn’t already assured its place in rock history by that point, their status was cemented by 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Not only was it the quintessential guidepost of glam rock, it was one of the primary influences on the next generation of mavericks that peopled the punk and New Wave revolution. Remaining resolutely anti-flash, Ronson propels Bowie’s conceptual tale of an alien rock star with short, sharp blasts of power. “Suffragette City” and the less ubiquitous “Hang On to Yourself” are punk five years ahead of time, attitude-laden bursts of streamlined rock ‘n’ roll stripped to the bone and spoiling for a fight. And Ronson’s simultaneously martial and magisterial riffs on the barnstorming title track remain among rock’s most goosebump-inducing moments.If Ziggy was the iconoclastic charmer gleefully leading his disciples down a merrily hedonistic path, 1973’s Aladdin Sane was its sociopathic sibling, setting fireworks off in your ear for the sheer twisted joy of it. While the former anticipated punk, the latter, still years ahead of that style, feels like a calling card for post punk. Bowie’s lyrics were at their wildest, and Ronson’s axe matches him step for step, deconstructing rock ‘n’ roll before your very ears on the edgy, off-kilter “Cracked Actor” and giddily reconstructing old-school signifiers like the blues riff at the heart of “The Jean Genie” and the Bo Diddley groove of “Panic in Detroit.” Ronson even works his wild squalls into the arch, postmodern cabaret rock of “Time.”This astonishing four-album flush of brilliance was obviously far from the last blast of greatness for either Bowie or Ronson. But not counting the arrestingly quirky covers album Pin Ups, it was their final creative surge as partners. All these years later, that partnership still stands as a brightly beaming moment constantly imitated but never even close to equaled.

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.

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.

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.