Indie

By its very nature, a “best of” list presupposes and celebrates the immanent meaning and importance of a genre or time period without really questioning the conditions for the possibility of the music being examined. What does ambient music mean? What purpose does it serve? What aspects of social life drive listeners toward it? Only when these questions are answered can a work be determined as great, a failure, or somewhere inbetween. Pitchfork’s “The 50 Best Ambient Albums” list is thoughtful and well-researched when it comes to giving a sense of the style employed by these artists, on occasion dipping into what influenced a particular album, or what that album, in turn, influenced. The blurbs accompanying each album accurately describe what the music feels and sounds like, offering flowery accounts of the instruments used. And yet something feels safe about this kind of list. It doesn’t really pierce the veil when it comes to technique and musical theory, nor does it discuss the music in relation to bourgeois society. The reader is simply left to assume that ambient music is important, has always been important, and will always be important. However, if we want music (and music criticism) to be truly meaningful, to actually get at the essence of society and potentially transform it, we will have to change the way we think about it. That said, there is a lot to digest with this list, a lot of music to learn about, and a great deal of fine writing. Regardless of the ranking of each work, Pitchfork has consolidated 50 important ambient works in one place, which is an achievement in itself. It is the task of the reader to determine their meaning.

On Double Booked, his 2009 concept album for Blue Note records, pianist Robert Glasper played around with the idea of being torn between two venues-slash-identities: the dance club and the jazz hall. The first half of Booked found Glasper playing in a hard-swinging acoustic trio anchored by his fearsome piano chops. (That’s where he turned it loose on Monk’s “Think of One.”) And the second half of this double-album set was the debut of Glasper’s electric-fusion “Experiment” ensemble. (This is the band that frequently works with emcees like Snoop Dogg and Yasiin Bey, as well as R&B talents like Erykah Badu and Brandy.) The brief skits on Double Booked were meant to be excerpts from messages left on Glasper’s voicemail (ah, the 2000s!), evidence of different collaborators pulling an over-stretched keyboardist in one stylistic direction or another.But the not-so-well-kept secret is that this creative hustle is the way Glasper prefers to live his artistic life. He signaled his interest in blowing past archaic genre-divisions back in 2007, on his trio album In My Element — also known as the album where he created a medley from Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” and Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place.” Since then, he’s used his supposedly “jazz coded” acoustic trio to cover works by Kendrick Lamar (“I’m Dying of Thirst”), while also putting some extended, exploratory soloing into his “Experiment” ensemble (see that group’s performance of the Glasper original tune “Festival”). On the occasion of Glsaper’s latest release with the Experiment, we’ve collected some of his best compositions and performances, whether they draw inspiration from pop, rock, rap, jazz—or all of the above. Naturally, we’ve included his bravura guest-artist appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, too.

As an imaginative abbreviation of the phrase “gangster funk,” and a sound inspired by the Ohio Players’ “Funky Worm” synthesizer melody as well as Zapp’s car stereo wrecker “More Bounce to the Ounce,” G-funk dominated West Coast hip-hop for the better part of a decade, and even longer if you add post-G-funk homage like YG’s “BPT.” So why limit this best-of roundup to a mere 30 tracks? Music journalists Max Bell and Torii MacAdams don’t really explain why, though they acknowledge the “glaring omissions” that result from such a truncated list. Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Warren G, and DJ Quik get two selections each (the number-one pick, Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Nuthin’ But a G Thang,” is an Apple Music exclusive, hence its absence from the Spotify playlist). But there’s nothing from Mack 10, Soopafly, 2Pac’s infamous alter ego Makaveli, Daz Dillinger’s highly underrated Revenge, Retaliation and Get Back, or Cube’s supergroup Westside Connection. Wait, no “Bow Down?” These must be East Coast writers.

There is something special about Kranky Records. Amidst a sea of labels that release a consistent bill of fare, Kranky puts out everything from avant-garde electronic and ambient to noisy dream pop, going out of their way to shed light on original and imaginative voices. Since its founding in Chicago in 1993, Kranky has released albums for such visionary artists as Deerhunter, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tim Hecker, and more. In her time on the label, Liz Harris (Grouper, Mirrorring) has developed a wholly unique and prismatic aesthetic, while Bradfox Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound) took his bedroom pop project to its post-punk and shoegaze fruition. With hazy synths, towering guitars, impressionistic vocals, and a decidedly experimental sensibility, Kranky Records really does do it all.

Click here to subscribe to the Spotify playlist.If you want a taste of just how radical progressive metal’s transformation has been, look no further than Animals as Leaders. The instrumental power trio’s brainy blend of djent and jazz fusion is light years removed from the genre’s roots in the scorching, technical precision of old school heavies like Dream Theater and Fates Warning. Where those outfits basically are hair metal dudes with killer chops, Animals as Leaders look like clean cut, lovably nerdy computer programmers. Over the last two decades, progressive metal has spawned dozens of similarly unique hybrid outfits. Periphery incorporate seething, emo-spired screams and metalcore crunch, while Mastodon enjoy slathering their prog with sludge. At the heavier end of the spectrum lurks The Dillinger Escape Plan, the undisputed champs of mathcore, as well as those Swedes in Meshuggah, who basically were the first band to cross progressive metal with extreme metal and neck-snapping polyrhythms. Press play and get cerebral.

Subscribe to the Spotify playlist right here.Tom Waits has not only one of the most distinct voices of all folk-rock crooners, he also has one of the most nuanced and studied approaches to narrative and musical accompaniment of any modern songwriter. His gravelly, whiskey-soaked voice, one whose every forlorn syllable bears witness to a lifetime of tragic loss, conjures somber and lamenting narratives almost effortlessly and constructs unmistakably American stories with vivid language and crushing pathos. The content he takes up, which ranges from hobo adagios and flower funerals to tearful reflections on missed opportunities, moves even the most stoic of listeners. His relatable melodies and his jazz- and blues-flavored progressions and cadences meld into a strange and unmatched sound—one of a singular, time-worn voice gliding sympathetically above 88 melancholy black and white keys, ever-searching for the heart of Saturday night.

James Spaders bravado scenery-chewing isnt the only reason to watch NBCs twist-filled spy drama The Blacklist. Great songs from the past (Golden Earrings massive "Radar Love," Harry Nilssons withering "One") and the present (Mark Lanegans weary "Bleeding Muddy Water," The Kills swaggering "Sour Cherry") lurk underneath the bullets and double-crossings. The show managed to squeeze in a cameo by Brooklyn metallurgists Liturgy, who were joined on drums by a cameoing Peter Fonda as they tore their way through "Harmonia." Music supervisor John Bissells keenly selected tracks further propel the shows breakneck plots and, at moments, allow its harried characters time to reflect and be human.

It could be argued that Colemans greatest influence was beyond the borders of jazz. Generations of rock and experimental musicians have internalized the lessons of Coleman, understanding that oftentimes some of the most beautiful music first sounds ugly and random. You can hear Ornettes jagged, screeching stabs in everyone from the Grateful Dead to Television, but more than just a style or type of playing, Coleman taught musicians a new way to approach music -- an improvisational and at times confrontational method that was akin to a primal scream. Of course, Ornette could pull that off because he had chops, and the head-first style would later generate a lot of really bad noise, but weve tried to collect some of the better examples here. Some of these artist are explicitly indebted to Ornette. Thurston Moore has sited him as an influence; Nation of Ulysses named their song after him; and both the Grateful Dead and Lou Reed played with the man.

The xx have taken their time releasing the follow up to 2012’s Coexist. There have been rumors (and even this extensive New Yorker write-up from 2014 on the making of the album), but nothing has materialized and fans have been scrambling for clues as far as what the album might sound like. Jamie XX’s solo album was a full embrace of dance culture, but it’s unclear whether this more signals a broader move for a band in this direction. This playlist, a compilation of the music they’ve been listening to in the studio, and released alongside news of a larger world tour, is probably our best signal to date. Some of their picks are not surprising. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” negotiates brittle classic pop melodies with the hedonistic grime and baggage of Velvet Underground, a juxtaposition that The xx have mined in their own work. With its tear-drops keys, and its overlapping male/female vocal harmonies, Drake collaboration with PartyNextDoor, “With You,” sounds like a reworked track from The xx’s debut. And, yes, like all of us in 2016, The xx are going to be listening to Sampha, Frank Ocean, and Solange. But there are some surprises here. The inclusion of Ace’s glam-tinted pub-rock classic “How Long” is a bit startling at first, but the bright hook and easy groove mirrors the more sanguine moments from the last xx album, and the inclusion of No Wave pioneers Liquid Liquid and proto-punkers Suicide show that they’ve been immersed in the modern experimental lands of modern music. But even if the new album ends up sounding nothing like any of this, they’ve certainly given us an enjoyable playlist. Nina Simone’s “Baltimore” is a late-period jewel that matches her singular vocal phrasing with a reggae-tinged interpretation of a great Randy Newman song, and “A Forest” remains one of the Cure’s strongest track. -- Sam Chennault

The most striking vocalists have always had an otherworldly quality about them, from D’Angelo’s subverbal warble to angelic high tenor of Smokey Robinson. Thom Yorke is no different, and, like those other singers, he’s able to convey something deeply humanistic in his otherness. Stripped from the context of Radiohead’s heavily textured sonic experimentation, the beauty of Yorke’s voice is arguably more evident here. It’s also interesting how you can track the progression of modern alternative music through this playlist, how it evolves from the sadsack balladry of the late 90s and early naughts to the IDM-informed formalistic experimentation of the past few years.