Indie

While its understandable that some listeners would think that all the great soul music in Memphis came from the Stax/Volt stable, its simply not accurate. Not only were there other R&B imprints that challenged Stax’s standing in terms of their ability to score hits, there was no shortage of acts at other labels whose musical vision was the equal of the vaunted Stax roster. The Willie Mitchell-produced tracks Al Green cut for Memphis mainstay Hi Records in the ‘70s remain among the deepest, most transcendently sensual songs ever recorded in any genre, and they dominated both R&B and pop radio. The tunes James Carr laid down for the less celebrated Memphis label Goldwax Records were easily as intense as anything in the Otis Redding oeuvre. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the searingly soulful sounds that emerged from the musical bounty of the Bluff City.

Young Thug says “Metro Boomin want some more,” Kodak Black says “Lil Metro on that beat,” and most famously, Future says, “If Young Metro don’t trust you, I’m gon’ shoot you.” Regardless of which rapper is identifying Leland “Metro Boomin” Wayne at the moment, odds are you’ve heard his name and his beats on the radio a lot in the last few years. The St. Louis native began driving to Atlanta to collaborate with musicians as a high school student. Since his flashy piano work on 2013’s “Karate Chop,” he’s been one of Future’s closest collaborators, and he’s slowly expanded his clientele across the music industry, from Kanye West to Nicki Minaj.Although Metro Boomin is a master of the heavy bass and busy hi-hat programming of Atlanta’s ubiquitous trap sound, his work isn’t as singular or distinctive as previous kings of the scene like Lex Luger and Mike WiLL Made-It. Instead, Metro has distinguished himself with the sheer variety of sounds that he’s integrated into the trap blueprint, from the haunting chords of “Bad and Boujee” by Migos to the ethereal flute sample of “Mask Off” by Future.Metro Boomin is also a big collaborator, crafting the woozy groove of ILoveMakonnen’s quirky hit “Tuesday” with Sonny Digital and working alongside three other producers on Big Sean’s “Bounce Back.” His ear for bringing together the contributions of others served him well as he executive produced Drake and Future’s hit collaborative album What A Time To Be Alive and 21 Savage’s breakthrough mixtape Savage Mode. Sample 2017’s hottest producer with this playlist of his greatest hits.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Five years ago, Mike WiLL Made-It took over the airwaves, his murky, undulating trap beats powering Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance,” Rihanna’s “Pour It Up,” Ace Hood’s “Bugatti,” Lil Wayne’s “Love Me,” and many more hits. Meanwhile, he orchestrated Miley Cyrus’ emergence as a Top 40 libertine, delighting poptimists and infuriating others in the process. His sound was difficult to escape.Today, while fellow Atlantan Metro Boomin has taken over as mainstream rap’s omnipresent producer, Mike WiLL Made-It has scaled back. He’s focused on his Ear Drummers’ camp, particularly Rae Sremmurd, the brothers from Tupelo, Mississippi who made surprisingly durable pop-raps like “No Flex Zone,” “No Type,” and last year’s Billboard chart-topper “Black Beatles.” When it seemed impossible to play a mainstream rap hit without hearing his Brandy-supplied audio signature, Mike WiLL Made-It’s beats swung like pendulums—sort of like a trap version of those damned drops that bedevil electronic dance music. Listen to “Bandz A Make Her Dance” and “Love Me” back-to-back for those similar percussive builds.Mike WiLL Made-It’s latest full-length production showcase, Ransom 2, reveals that his techniques have grown far more complex. For “Razzle Dazzle,” he arranges a frizzy feedback storm over a booming kick drum; on Rae Sremmurd MC Swae Lee’s “Bars Of Soap,” he pairs 808 drums with icy synths reminiscent of Giorgio Moroder aficionado Alchemist; another Ear Drummers protégé, Andrea gets “Burnin” with a flurry of menacing cowbell percussion and dancehall chants.With cameos by Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, and other boldfaced names, Ransom 2 proves that Mike still has plenty of juice. And while no one may have paid attention to his 2015 Miley disasterpiece, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, he can still orchestrate a beautiful pop catastrophe: On the one-off single “It Takes Two,” Carly Rae Jespen and Lil Yachty remake Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock’s funky hip-hop classic into a thinly veiled advertisement for Target. Hear the latest evolutions of Mike WiLL Made-Its sound on this playlist.Click here to add to Spotify playlist!

Missy is easily one of hip-hop’s most innovative talents. Her and Timbaland’s production effectively globalized the genre, and she’s always been underrated as a rapper -- she mined the space between singer and rapper a good decade before Drake got there. Some albums are better than others, but she never fell off, and it’s a travesty that she hasn’t released one in over a decade. Although her singles are epochal, she’s much more than a singles artist, and she’s the latest in Al Shipley’s amazing “deep cuts” series.

Click here to add to Spotify playlist!It’s endearing to hear expressions of ardent fandom from someone who inspires fervent adulation himself. Such is the case with Neil Gaiman: Though he is the creator of landmark comic The Sandman and a modern-day master of fantasy fiction and weird storytelling of all kinds, he gets unabashedly fanboyish when the subject turns to heroes like Lou Reed (“His songs were the soundtrack of my life,” he said when Reed died in 2013) and David Bowie. Indeed, Gaiman claims that one of his great sorrows in life was learning that his father had tickets for the final Ziggy Stardust show but didn’t take him because it was a school night. And don’t get him started on Tori Amos, whose devotion to The Sandman led to a close friendship, or The Magnetic Fields, a.k.a. “My favorite live band.” Gaiman even bought 69 Love Songs in bulk so he could give it away to friends.The latter was one of the albums he listened to a lot while writing American Gods, a mind-bending saga about an epic battle between gods old and new that is this season’s coolest TV event. As in so much of Gaiman’s work, music plays a major role throughout his storytelling, so you can expect the same on the small screen. In anticipation of its April 30 debut on Starz, we present a wide-ranging selection of music that Gaiman knows and loves, much of which has seeped into his writing in very direct ways. As you might expect from such a deft writer, he has a fondness for masters of wordplay like Stephin Merritt and Elvis Costello, though he has an equally strong allegiance to underappreciated songwriters like Greg Brown and Thea Gilmore.There’s also a wealth of songs that his stories have inspired, as heard on the enjoyably daffy tribute album Where’s Neil When You Need Him? and Jarvis Cocker’s contributions to Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stories, another recent TV adaptation. And though the man’s own musical endeavors are limited, he was an eager foil for his wife Amanda Palmer—better known as one-half of avant-cabaret act Dresden Dolls—during their touring show of songs and stories in the fall of 2011. Of course, the contents do get awfully strange at times, but that’s exactly how Gaiman’s devotees prefer them.

I don’t know very much about Britpop. I like Pulp somewhat, especially when this woman I am friends with (read: attracted to) comes over to my apartment and plays it for me. I don’t like Blur. I like Oasis all right, but I really don’t know their music well. I like Radiohead—is that Britpop? I love The Smiths. Are they Britpop? Determined to find answers and to investigate my own general distaste for the style, I decided to dig into Pitchfork’s recent 50 Best Britpop Albums list.The first thing I see on the page is a Sgt. Pepper-style mural, ostensibly with all of the important Britpop figures on it. I recognize Thom Yorke and the guys from Oasis. I see the guys from Trainspotting. Did they do Britpop? There’s a smiling milk carton, some dancers, and around 30 other people I don’t recognize. But by reading through the feature, I start to develop a better understanding of what Britpop is.It began in London in the ‘90s, which answers my question about The Smiths (but then... is Morrissey Britpop?), and I find that Britpop is characterized by “anthemic melodies, social observations of British culture and daily life, and their country’s musical heritage,” according to the article. I learn what Britpop isn’t: The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Coldplay, Kasabian. As I listen to some of the tracks on the playlist, I note that most of them are upbeat, many have light, airy atmospheres, and the guitar tones are largely bright and shiny with little distortion or overdrive. I actually recognize a number of these songs from the radio. I am having sort of a coherent moment.I see a supplementary interview with Danny Boyle and remember that Trainspotting 2 came out a few weeks ago. I put two and two together: This list is meant to coincide with Trainspotting 2. I am a big fan of some songs on the soundtrack of the original, namely those by Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, New Order, and Lou Reed… So, the tracks that aren’t Britpop. As I read through the Boyle interview, searching for information that might lead me to understand why Britpop is important to think about in 2017 or why I should really care about it as a musical style (other than it’s in the pantheon of rock styles), I strike out. And there isn’t much rhetoric in the copy of this playlist to convince me of the genre’s greatness. The interview ends with Boyle responding to a question of whether he prefers Oasis or Blur: He says that he comes from Manchester, so the answer should be obvious. It isn’t to me, so I have to do some research.Despite my skepticism, I actually enjoyed the article and the playlist. I learned what Britpop is for Pitchfork and why Danny Boyle popularized it in Trainspotting, and I acquired a comprehensive playlist of the best Britpop songs. I still don’t like Britpop, and I’m not convinced that it’s important for me to think about today, but at least I now know what it entails. And hey, that’s progress.

Click here to subscribe to this playlistsWhen Rolling Stone asked Nas to list his 10 favorite hip-hop tracks for a feature in their May 2014 issue, he limited his selections to songs released in the late ‘80s. His choices—which comprise the first 10 tracks on this playlist*—represent a transitional era in hip-hop: the mythical Golden Age when artists like Run-D.M.C., Big Daddy Kane, and Public Enemy were shaking off the genre’s cheesier disco roots in favor of a sharpened lyrical style.But beyond the Rolling Stone list, Nas has routinely paid homage to his predecessors elsewhere, mentioning the early innovators that influenced him on songs like Hip Hop Is Deads "Where Are They Now" and Life Is Goods "Back When." With this playlist, weve supplemented Nas original Top 10 with other personal favorites, based on references the rapper has made on record and in other interviews. On "Back When," which samples MC Shan and Marley Marls 1986 track "The Bridge," Nas talks about putting up a poster of the duo in his teenage bedroom. But even though, like them, Nas hails from Queensbridge, hes praised Shans Bronx-bred rival KRS-One as "someone that artists need to study"—"The Bridge Is Over," Boogie Down Productions response to "The Bridge," may have even paved the way for Nas eventual diss records against Jay-Z.Nas hasnt just studied Golden Age rap; he was raised by it. He grew up hearing fresh voices distilling real New York life onto record through blunt lyricism, a style he would adapt and evolve on his own a few years later. Hes mentioned that Kool G Raps "Streets of New York"** was a direct influence on "N.Y. State of Mind."Most of Nas favorite rappers hailed from one of the five boroughs. But hes also acknowledged the impact of artists from outside the East Coast, citing Ice Cubes Death Certificate and Scarfaces Mr. Scarface Is Back as formative releases. Those albums preceded Illmatic by only a few years, but given that Nas was only 21 when his classic debut came out, they were still crucial to his artistic development.Unlike Redhead Kingpin and the many other forgotten legends Nas cites on “Where Are They Now,” Nas has maintained both career longevity and musical relevancy. He’s been teasing his 11th studio LP since he claimed it was finished on DJ Khaled’s “Nas Album Done” last year, and he still claims that album is coming at some point in 2017. Until then, acquaint yourself with the songs that got Nas started in the first place.* “Plug Tunin,” Nas’ choice from De La Souls 3 Feet High and Rising, isn’t on Spotify. “Me Myself & I” has been substituted in its place.**"Streets of New York" isnt on Spotify; its been replaced by "#1 With A Bullet."

The black metal mythology is well known at this point, pored over by metalheads like the Greeks studied Homer: the church-burning, the murder, the suicide, the darkness. In Hyperborean black metal, as Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix calls it, the nascent style focused on dark themes, Norse imagery, burst beats, and epic walls of sound built on distorted guitars. These albums often used lo-fi recording techniques as well; for Burzum’s seminal Filosofem, for example, Varg Vikernes selected the worst microphone possible, one from a headset. Newer black metal has maintained much of the core sound of Hyperborean black metal, yet newer bands like Ashbringer, Panopticon, Deafheaven, and False have begun to transform the game.Contemporary black metal often features more frequent tempo changes, lighter, thinner guitar tones, more uplifting climaxes, high-quality production, and brighter imagery. This isn’t necessarily to say it’s more optimistic—in a largely unchanged society, these musicians are as despairing as their predecessors. And yet the forms of expression they have come to use to channel that despair exists in a fundamentally different musical landscape, one that has seen the full unfolding of post-rock, grunge, and indie. Just as Gandalf returned to his followers in The Two Towers after what appeared to be certain death, black metal comes back to us now, appearing transformed and disfigured, beckoning with rippling beauty and crushing riffs. These are the complex and grand songs of the new wave.

Back in 1984, when he was the Aussie post-punk poster boy for heroin chic, no one would’ve expected Nick Cave to last another decade, let alone more than three. Nevertheless, Cave has not only survived but thrived, making remarkably productive use of his time both as frontman for The Bad Seeds and with his many other musical and literary endeavors. A new compilation has arrived, Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (1984-2014), ahead of his band’s North American tour later this month. It’s a valuable primer on the singer’s history with the quasi-supergroup he initially formed in London in 1983 with members of Einstürzende Neubauten, Magazine, Foetus, and Cave’s original cadre of degenerates, The Birthday Party.But even though the compilation is curated by Cave with help from his longtime foil Mick Harvey, it only tells one part of the saga. A fuller picture requires digging deeper into the music he made inside and around the edges of The Bad Seeds’ mighty oeuvre—this includes key Birthday Party tracks that anticipate his trajectory, as well as the many covers he’s recorded of such heroes as Lou Reed, Serge Gainsbourg, and Leonard Cohen, all of which bear Cave’s thumbprint just as dramatically as any of his originals do. He’s also been an eager collaborator and musical partner for a wide array of fellow mavericks, including the veteran UK cult group Current 93, Marianne Faithfull, and his ex-girlfriend Anita Lane, with whom he and a few of The Bad Seeds cut a majestic version of the Sister Sledge hit “Lost In Music.”Another early song recorded with Lane, Mick Harvey, and Blixa Bargeld, “A Prison in the Desert” comes from the soundtrack of John Hillcoat’s 1988 drama Ghosts… of the Civil Dead and anticipated Cave’s latter-day career as a prolific film composer with his trusty partner Warren Ellis. And of course, there’s Grinderman, the ferocious Bad Seeds side project that helped rejuvenate the mother ship with its rude demonstrations of middle-aged lust and the savage wit that’s as fundamental to Cave’s artistry as any of his melancholy qualities. Some similarly indispensable studio and live tracks from The Bad Seeds that are sorely missed on Lovely Creatures complete our alternate history of this surprisingly hardy alt-rock icon.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Released in conjunction with a trio of new digital singles—including “No Frauds,” her half-hearted response to Remy Ma’s ferocious “shETHER” diss—Nicki Minaj’s “Queens Got Da Crown” playlist is an admirable survey of her borough’s vaunted rap lineage. Nicki’s selections lean towards rap’s clubby mainstream, so instead of Nas’ “The World Is Yours,” we get “Hate Me Now.” Some historical figures like MC Shan aren’t included at all, but pioneering group Salt-N-Pepa gets three tracks. (Perhaps the least known artist here is Stack Bundles, who was murdered in 2007.) Overall, the playlist is inelegantly sequenced, with each artist’s picks bunched together. But give Nicki credit for revealing Queens’ deep hip-hop roots to her younger teen followers, especially the ones who may be more familiar with her “Super Bass” megahits instead of her “I Get Crazy” mixtape origins. The only act who doesn’t hail from Queens here is JAY Z; his “Can I Get A…” presumably merits inclusion because, uh, he owns TIDAL.(Note: Nicki’s playlist includes a remix of Mya and JAY Z’s “Best of Me” that’s featured on the Backstage soundtrack, which is a TIDAL exclusive. We substituted it with the original “Best of Me” from Mya’s 2000 album Fear of Flying.)