Staff Mixes

Thirty years ago, Chile returned to democracy after being shackled by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet for 17 years. Under his oppressive regime, Pinochet put a deadly hault on numerous forms of artistic expression — one of its most famous (atrocious) examples was the kidnapping and murder of protest folk singer Victor Jara who helped lead the New Chilean Song Movement of the late Sixties, early Seventies. You see, Chilean music wasn’t allowed to be political, or much less, criticise its government. Enter Los Prisioneros, a Chilean pop rock band with a knack for glossy anthemic hooks became one of the most defiant groups of their generation. Formed in the late Seventies, the San Miguel band’s early songs proved to be controversial in a time of extreme censorship, so their music gained popularity through labeless cassette distribution. Eighties songs like “El Baile De Los Que Sobran” and “De La Cultura De La Basura testified them as working class heroes with a rebellious spirit who know how to expertly navigate their way around insatiable synth melodies and catchy drum machines made for the dance floor. This era was also the height of the rock en español explosion in Latin America, so their rosy-hued disco pop wasn’t as welcoming in the mainstream — who demanded more rock guitars and, seemingly, pretentious frontmen — a vast departure from the scrappy, socially discontent group Los Prisioneros were known as. So when their fourth studio album dropped, 1990’s Corazones, it wasn’t an instant hit for the reasons aforementioned, yet it slowly became a South American legacy. It also marked a critical time in Chilean history when it was at a crossroads. Part autobiographical, part social-commentary, the record poignantly reflects the stigmas of Chile’s disenfranchised population, and it emotionally evoked the turmoil of an overwhelming transition in politics, all over sleek electronic pulses and intoxicating synth riffs. Songs like “Tren Al Sur” and “Estrechez de Corazón” pack one hell of a rhythm too that lends itself to high-gloss dance rock with a socially political edge. It’s a style that decades later would inspire hordes of Chilean pop groups like Javiera Mena, Alex Anwandter, and Dënver — bands that too fight battles of classism while demanding LGBTQ+ rights over disco-inflected dance pop. The early 2010s saw the first latest explosion of Chilean pop, and it traveled around the globe, a sort of electropop manifesto pioneered by Los Prisioneros.

Fifty years ago, in a true-life science-fiction story wilder than anything concocted by an Area 51 conspiracy nut, a neon-colored interplanetary vessel lifted off of a top-secret launchpad somewhere in Michigan. Of course, the P-Funk Mothership only existed as an LSD-induced pipe dream back in 1970—it took a few years before audiences got to see George Clinton’s Afrofuturist UFO in all its cosmic glory at halls, stadiums, and arenas around the world. (Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture can still check out a 1990s-vintage rebuilt version.)

But Clinton’s almighty vision of psychedelically charged funk and soul was already soaring sky-high, judging by the first three long-players—Funkadelic and Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow by Funkadelic; Osmium by its twin enterprise Parliament—to emerge from his ever-more-sprawling P-Funk collective at the beginning of the ’70s. The surreal and exhilarating contents of those albums and the many that followed would ultimately comprise one of the most inspiring and influential bodies of American music ever made.

They’d also prove to be a seemingly limitless resource for several generations of musicians, producers, DJs, and anyone else who ever saw fit to sample the grooves, riffs, beats, and assorted whatnot concocted by Clinton and such pivotal P-Funk collaborators as bassists Bootsy Collins and Cordell “Boogie” Mosson, guitarists Eddie Hazel and Garry Shider, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, drummer Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey, and the Horny Horns. Indeed, P-Funk’s importance in the history and development of hip-hop is incalculable, the Mothership Connection being the force that binds iconic jams by Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, and EPMD to the best of Dr. Dre’s G-funk era to modern-day journeys into parts unknown by Kendrick Lamar. Here’s a set of essential tracks by rocket-powered travelers in the universe that Clinton created.

Fifty years ago this summer, Sly and the Family Stone were melting down amid a mess of missed shows, internal frictions, and bad PCP. Yet the funky utopia they briefly represented remains utterly compelling even now.

The band’s mastermind was Sylvester Stewart, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who had first gained fame in San Francisco’s music scene as a DJ and producer under the handle of Sly Stone; this surname would also be used by the two bona fide siblings among his bandmates. Sly and the Family Stone were integrated not only when it came to matters of race and gender but also in terms of Stewart’s remarkably inclusive creative vision, one that would be presented with an exuberance that dissolved any boundaries between rock, funk, soul, pop, and psychedelia.

As per the boastful title of the band’s 1966 debut, they were indeed a whole new thing. And on the heels of their set at Woodstock in August 1969, record buyers were ready to go wherever Stewart wanted to take ’em. Alas, life within the Family fold had already become a far heavier trip than listeners could have known based on their three iconic hits of 1969 and early 1970—“Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Everybody Is a Star,” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”—and the massive success of 1970’s Greatest Hits, the most indispensable album ever to bear the title. Things just got heavier after that, though Stewart managed to prevent his complete personal collapse long enough to make two more masterpieces in 1971’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On and 1973’s Fresh.

As grim and weird as the later chapters of this story have been, the music Sly and the Family Stone made in their imperial phase is somehow as inventive, exhilarating, and downright joyful as ever. One reason it still feels fresh is the abundance of hip-hop, R&B, and dance tracks powered by samples of the originals’ hooks, horns, and harmonies—and, of course, the unbeatable grooves provided by the rhythm section of bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico. Here’s a set of songs that wouldn’t be half as amazing if not for their sturdy foundations of Stone.

The legend of The Stooges has been documented in every medium possible—books, documentaries, box sets, Audi commercials—and all support the undeniable case that punk rock as we know it would not exist without the glass-smashing, chest-slashing hysterics of Iggy Pop and his Ann Arbor bastard brethren. But while it’s tempting to plot The Stooges along a linear fuse that led to punk’s big bang, the group’s 1970 sophomore release, Fun House, has always defied such a simple narrative.

Most of what we refer to as proto-punk—be it the sneering garage rock compiled on Nuggets or the heavy-duty psychedelic blues of Blue Cheer—is really just a louder, scrappier take on the British Invasion sounds that dominated the ’60s. And even the wild, death-trippin’ rock ’n’ roll of The Stooges’ canonical 1973 album Raw Power wasn’t that far removed from, say, the raunchy thrust of early KISS or Aerosmith. But from Ron Asheton’s opening guitar strike on “Down on the Street,” Fun House instantly feels so much darker, heavier, and—thanks to Ron’s drummer brother Scott and bassist Dave Alexander—funkier than anything of its vintage. A boiling-hot cauldron of early heavy metal, bad-trip psychedelia, James Brown, and free jazz, Fun House is anarchy executed with military precision—not so much a display of controlled chaos as chaotic control. To mark the album’s 30th anniversary in 2000, Rhino Records released a box set, 1970: The Complete Fun House Sessions, that compiled every single take from the album’s original recording sessions—we’re talking 142 tracks to document a seven-song album that yielded no viable non-album outtakes. And on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in July 2020, the box set is being issued on vinyl for the first time at a price tag of $400. But while some may question the value of hearing 14 versions of “T.V. Eye” in a row, for Fun House devotees, such financial and practical considerations are immaterial. Because that’s what Fun House does to you—it’s less a record than a sinister spell, that mysterious cursed object in a horror movie that you’re warned not to upset, lest you unleash its horrible powers, but you do it anyway. More than a mere proto-punk classic, this album belongs to its own subterranean netherworld, one whose pathways continue to burrow into all corners of the underground, as this playlist of Fun House favorites and followers can attest.

Suffice to say it’s not been a good year for best-laid plans. On the brighter side, 2020 has seen a welcome abundance of acts and artists who spent years (sometimes decades) underneath the radar and who have returned with new music that instantly reminds us why we loved them in the first place.

Some—like Tame Impala and Grimes—really weren’t gone for long but clearly had too much going on in their lives to find the necessary time to realize their big ambitions, and we’re happy they finally did. Other cases—like Paramore’s Hayley Williams and LINKIN PARK’s Mike Shinoda—involve familiar lead singers who’ve been understandably careful about how they want to launch their post-band careers. Someday, hopefully, Zack de la Rocha will feel as if he’s ready to do the same and let some of those unheard collaborations with Trent Reznor, DJ Shadow, and Questlove outta the vault—his guest spot with Run The Jewels will do fine for now.

Then there are those who are back after some truly epic-length hiatuses. There was no lack of coverage for the end of eight-year waits for new material from Bob Dylan and Fiona Apple (and Brandy and Alanis Morissette, too) or the 14-year pause for The Chicks. Yet those gaps hardly compare with the more extreme creative layovers that recently concluded, like the 29 years in between new albums by The Psychedelic Furs, the 35 in between efforts by the original lineup of X, or the 36 for Bob Geldof and his Boomtown Rats.

Arriving at the tail end of 2019 was one of the weirder comebacks: the first new album in 16 years by Gang Starr, constructed under controversial circumstances by DJ Premier from unreleased raps by his former partner Guru, who wasn’t around to argue over the results since he died of cancer in 2010. Similarly surprising (and awesome) is the return of Eddie Chacon. Formerly one half of Charles & Eddie—a ’90s soul-pop duo who scored a global hit with “Would I Lie To You?” before disappearing into oblivion—Chacon left the music business decades ago to become an art and fashion photographer. Full of gorgeously eerie and deeply stoned alt-R&B made with Solange and Frank Ocean collaborator John Carroll Kirby, Chacon’s very belated solo debut, Pleasure, Joy & Happiness, is the kind of album that feels very much worth the wait even if you had no idea you were waiting for it. Here’s hoping this playlist of 2020 returnees directs you to more music that gives you that feeling.

‍Photo by Sachyn Mital

Like everyone else in the world, Billie Eilish may be wishing that 2020 had gone a lot differently. Back in February, she entered the grand pantheon of performers enlisted to sing a theme for a James Bond movie. Her mission: to somehow wrest something mellifluous out of lyrics based on a title that would be un-singable in any other circumstances. In the case of her movie assignment and her accompanying single, that title was No Time to Die, the 25th official entry in the franchise of espionage thrillers about agent 007 that was launched by 1962’s Dr. No.As fine as it is, Eilish’s moody and grandly orchestrated song would not feel complete until it followed the tradition of its predecessors by accompanying a Bond-movie opening credit sequence (intros which, in keeping with other efforts to make the series more contemporary and less sexist, now feature far fewer shadowy female nudes than they once did). Alas, “No Time to Die” still awaits that honor, since its namesake film—one of many big Hollywood releases delayed by the coronavirus crisis—will not be seen on big screens until November.

A James Bond theme without a James Bond movie might hardly count as poignant to some people. After all, it can be hard to overlook the character’s reputation as a repellently chauvinistic and possibly sociopathic symbol of badly outmoded colonialist and Cold War ideals who murders in service of the state. And don’t get us started on that thing Roger Moore used to do with his eyebrows.But just like the sight of Daniel Craig in swim trunks, there’s so often something magnificent about the music the Bond movies have produced, caused, or inspired. Whether shaken or stirred, songs like Eilish’s contribution swell with all the high drama, old-school cool, and/or cheesy grandeur that listeners could possibly desire—and perhaps crave more than ever now that the pandemic has torpedoed so many of the summer’s usual pop-cultural distractions. Here’s a playlist of Bond-related songs (both official and not) to make you feel more suave than you ought to.