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> ISSUE 00144 > JANUARY 2020 > rollingstoneindia.com

How Coldplay’s

Chris Martin Fixed Himself

10 Best Indian Singles, EPs, Albums & Music Videos of 2019 Lucky Ali Teams Up With Eliezer Botzer

PRABH DEEP THE POLITICS IN HIS HIP-HOP

Contents ISSUE 144 ‘ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS’

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Prabh Deep:

India’s Most Fearless Rapper

New Delhi’s moshpit-starting, soul-searching star is now thinking beyond hip-hop in 2020.

By Anurag Tagat

Contents

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The Mix 12

How Indo-Canadian Producer Arnob Bal Is Shaping the Sound of Indian Indie Musicians The Mumbai-based sound engineer has recently worked on music with Indian artists Tejas, Short Round and The Koniac Net.

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Magnetic Fields 2019: Notes from the Nonstop Desert Party The music festival is one of the country’s must-attend events.

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Lucky Ali and Israeli Artist Eliezer Botzer Collaborate on the Soulful ‘On My Way’ The Indo-Israeli collaboration has also led to a full-length album called ‘Lemalla.

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Q&A: H.E.R. The alt-R&B rising star talks blues, genre stereotypes and life as a child prodigy.

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Playlist Billie Eilish’s “Everything I Wanted,” Grimes’ “My Name Is Dark,” The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” and more.

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Music Reviews English pop star Harry Styles makes retro-rock with a sensitive touch on his second LP ‘Fine Line,’ Tinashe’s ‘Songs For You,’ an R&B treat and Ozuna’s reggaeton in space.

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Departments Arnob Bal

Online Exclusive Fireball Festival On January 12th, Greenwood Resort in Guwahati will host Fireball Festival which will be headlined by San Diego metal giants As I Lay Dying. Also on the bill are Bengaluru thrash metal band Inner Sanctum, Guwahati metal outfit Rectified Spirit, Gangtok arena rock group Arogya and more.

ON THE COVER Photographer: Ashish Sahu Styled Exclusively: UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON Art Director: Tanvi Shah Fashion Editor: Neelangana Vasudeva Prabh Deep’s Hair and Makeup: Make Over by Anuj Dogra January 2020 | Rolling Stone India

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> ISSUE 00143 > DECEMBER 2019 > rollingstoneindia.com

Alter Bridge Keep It Heavy

A.R.RAHMAN THE MENTOR

The maestro is on a nationwide talent hunt for promising young artists he will mentor for Nexa Music

“To see A.R. Rahman on the cover supporting English music and musicians in India is refreshing..”

‘Walk The Sky’ is probably one of my favorite albums and the songs that they’ve put together on the record are truly amazing. It’s quite an irony since I’m not a big fan of heavy rock music but something just connected me to Alter Bridge’s sound. The piece was really fresh and it’s great to know that sometime in the future I might just see them perform live.

— Rohit Roy

— Abhishek Kapur

A.R. Rahman: The Mentor I think every Nineties Indian kid has grown up listening to A.R. Rahman songs. So to see him on the cover supporting English music and musicians in India is refreshing. I, as a listener, look up to him and I cannot imagine how

grateful the artists must be to be supported and mentored by a legend. Also, “Ahimsa” was the perfect collaboration with Irish rockers U2 that we didn’t know we needed until now.

Connecting With Sarathy Korwar SPOTLIGHT

Eric Nam’s Rise I have been a fan of Eric Nam for a long time. From his Arirang days to his own podcast - it’s beautiful to witness his journey.

Reading this interview of him and where he does acknowledge his Indian fans, it’s a feeling that I cannot put into words.

With Nam acknowledging and reassuring his fans here that he will come to India as soon as he sees an opportunity is what we wanted to hear. Looking forward to seeing him perform live in India someday soon.

— Natasha Mistry

The sounds on Sarathy Korwar’s album are interesting and one of the major reasons why I got into his music. They take you on a journey that you didn’t imagine. From his most recent album, “Mumbay” is definitely my favorite song solely because I relate to it more than the other songs.

—Naveen Kamath

CONTACT US le tte rs : rolling stone india ,

MW.Com India Private Limited, 401, 4th Floor, Todi Building, Mathuradas Mills Compound, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013. e - m ai l: editor@rollingstone-india.com Letters/e-mails will be edited for brevity. s u b scri b e r se rv i ce s :

circulation@rollingstone-india.com, 022-61436327-29

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January 2020

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TheMıx WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S NUTS

Marcus King’s True Blues He used to be an insecure outcast. Now the guitarist is introducing Southern rock to a new generation

PHOTOGRAPH BY

Cameron Wittig

The Mix The Mix BOOKS

Rock & Roll Exposure

WILD HORSES

SCHOOL DAYS ▶

For the cover of 1976’s Hasten Down the Wind, Russell shot Linda Ronstadt after sunset at her Malibu home. “The horse,” he says, “was a complete accident.”

Chuck Berry and Mick Jagger backstage, 1969. “Here we have [rock’s] Generation One talking to Generation Two,” Russell says. “It’s a pretty historic moment.”

MARCUS KING

S

ix years ago, Marcus King felt lost. A long-haired, pot-smoking kid going to school in the small town of Piedmont, South Carolina, he struggled to fit in — he hated sports and missed enough classes to nearly be expelled for truancy. “I have nothing good to say about Piedmont, no good memories,” says the guitarist. “They were trying to put me away, trying to put me into a juvenile detention center, trying to shave my head, put me in a jail. And I was like, ‘I didn’t do anything. I just missed a couple days of class.’ ”

But it all turned out OK. King started taking classes at a local music school to study jazz, leading him to where he is now: one of the most exciting guitarists to break through in years. With a gruff, soulful rumble of a voice, a deep love of Muscle Shoals, and a fluid, rapid-fire guitar style that recalls both Duane Allman and Mountain’s Leslie West, King has been blowing minds at events like Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival and headlining big rooms like New York’s Beacon Theatre on his own. King is about to release an excellent album, El Dorado, produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who had been wanting to work with him for a few years. “It’s staggering how good he is,

FAST FACTS TRUCKIN’ King’s most surreal moment? Covering “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” with Tedeschi Trucks Band on tour in 2018.

CLEAN GREEN

King is trying to be healthy: “It’s been a year of sobriety, with the exception of herbs,” he says.

how crazy-good his vocals are, how he can go anywhere on guitar,” says Auerbach.

King is a big, soft-spoken guy who talks with the battered wisdom of a veteran touring musician (“I love soul food, but you can’t eat that shit every day”). He comes from a long line of music lifers in South Carolina; his grandfather was a country guitarist who played with Charley Pride, and his dad was a local blues hero. “His granddad had a Gibson, his dad had a Gibson, and now Marcus has a Gibson — it’s all ingrained in his brain,” says Auerbach.

King says that music “was medicine for my family.” It turns out he means this literally: “My grandfather started having really bad ulcers, so January 2020

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THIS SPREAD: ©ETHAN RUSSELL, 7

Ethan Russell remembers getting a call from writer Jonathan Cott in 1968. “He said, ‘Do you want to photograph my next interview?’ ” says Russell, who had at that point photographed only one band: Blue Cheer. Cott’s interview happened to be with Mick Jagger for Rolling Stone.

“I thought, ‘This is it,’ ” Russell says. “ ‘I’m happy for the rest of my life.’ ” Russell would become one Ethan Russell of the most prominent photographers in rock, cap- Photographs KQLY PRESS turing the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the $50 Who. His new book, Ethan Russell Photographs, is a collection of iconic images. “When I was around them, I was very shy,” he says of the bands he shot. “I very seldom told them what to do.” Which worked out: “You get the most interesting pictures when the people are not engaged with having their picture taken. [Because] having your photograph taken — what the fuck is that?” ANGIE MARTOCCIO

PLAY WITH FIRE Rolling Stones founder and guitarist Brian Jones at home in East Sussex, England, 1969, before he died in his swimming pool that July. Russell claims Jones spontaneously put on the flag shirt and grabbed the gun. “He was probably hungover,” Russell says.

MILK AND HONEY John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1968. “Photographing Mick Jagger was a huge fucking deal,” says Russell. “John Lennon was that on steroids.”

EMPTY PAGES Steve Winwood, 1968. “He wasn’t very communicative,” Russell says. “He’s a stoner . . . in his own world a little bit.”

ROCK & ROLL CIRCUS Taj Mahal and the Stones rehearsing for The Rock and Roll Circus at Londonderry Hotel in 1968. “It was family entertainment,” Russell says of the concert film.

“When he came to the door, Keith leapt to his feet, strode over, and gave him a hug. Something I’d never seen Keith do.”

the doctor suggested he start playing again. He never stopped again until he died.” Marcus was playing as early as three years old, and his instrument became an important tool as he dealt with his mental health. “I’ve struggled with it since I was a kid: depression, parts of bipolar disorders, obsessive-compulsive, chronic anxiety, all this stuff,” he says. Playing especially helped him get through the death of one of his close friends in middle school. “I had no way to get it out,” he says. “I needed to speak to somebody, even if it was [myself ].”

King started the Marcus King Band at age 15. Within just a few years, Warren Haynes released the group’s first album. When Au-

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January 2020

“It’s staggering how good he is,” says Dan Auerbach.

“How crazygood his voice is, how he can go anywhere on the guitar.”

GET OFF MY CLOUD Charlie Watts and Keith Richards on the Stones’ touring plane in 1972. “We were transitioning at this point into the celebrity culture,” Russell says. “They were at the top of the pyramid. Behind me as I’m taking this picture is Truman Capote.”

erbach heard King, though, he thought his sound could translate even beyond the jamband world. He invited King to Nashville, pushed him to record solo, and wrote songs with him on the acoustic guitar. “I think it was really nice for him to get into the studio and let his guard down, mix it up with some different musicians,” says Auerbach. “We wrote as many songs as we possibly could and just let the cream rise to the top.”

“I feel really proud of it,” King says of the new album. He talks about other highlights from the past year, including rising to the occasion at the Crossroads Festival, where he met Bill Murray, Bonnie Raitt, and Clapton, who embraced King

and told him how much he loves his music. “It still doesn’t feel real, at all,” King says.

King is touring throughout 2020, including opening some dates for Chris Stapleton. As his career takes off, one of his goals is to raise awareness about mental health, especially in music. “I guarantee you Otis Redding did not go to a therapist,” King says. “A lot of us tend to use music as our therapist. But sometimes it’s good to talk to a professional.”

Still, he acknowledges the strange healing effect of his guitar. “Music is kinda like your dog sometimes,” King says. “You feel like it’s the only thing that’s never hurt you. The only thing you can really trust.” JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

The Mix

Mumbai Musicians Randolph Correia and Sidd Coutto Form New Band Laptop The pair’s debut hard-hitting single ‘Granted’ is set to release soon jam at Mumbai’s Island City Studios. He says, “We said let’s just plug in and play. There was no planning, there was no, ‘Let’s do this [or] I have an idea’ we just went into the studio and played and came up with seven or eight different ideas including vocal ideas. So literally the arrangement is exactly the same like we did at the jam.”

The musicians tell us that the way they are

Randolph Correia

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wo indian bands that are synonymous with shaping the sound of the country’s rock scene in the Nineties and early 2000s are Mumbai outfits Pentagram and Zero. Now, Pentagram’s guitarist Randolph Correia aka Func and drummer Sidd Coutto from the erstwhile Zero have joined forces to form a new pulsating electrorock duo called Laptop.

“It was kind of funny because normally you see two guys on stage playing

and they are playing a laptop. But here, there are two guys playing on stage and there is no laptop,” says Coutto.

A year ago, the twosome began conversing on starting a project together. Those conversations eventually led to them jamming and writing a bunch of material.

Coutto says, “We decided to just do something as a two-piece band with our musical talent into one project. Then time flew by and a couple of months back we started

Sidd Coutto

few weeks accompanied by a trippy music video.

Correia tells us that the song was born out of a

going to approach their live set is “almost like a DJ.” The guitarist says, “I think it will be more

eclectic than one might imagine. It won’t be just sticking to the genre that you hear on the EP.” Coutto adds, “I’m playing drums and singing and Randolph is playing guitar – we decided not to hold ourselves back after making music for 20 something years. We’re thinking, ‘How can we entertain the audience in a one hour or twohour span, taking it up and down?’ Whatever we have in order to do that technology-wise and instrumental wise and it’s not just restricted to the two instruments we have on stage.”

Both Correia and Coutto are also quite complimentary to each other. “Randolph has been my favorite guitar player since I was 16,” says Coutto. “We mostly ran into each other during the same gigs also being from the same city and we were always hanging out and having the same laughs and jokes,” the guitarist says. Coutto also tells us that working with Correia reminds him of his younger self and how he was energized starting out in his first band. On what the project means to Correia, he says, “It’s the selfish desire to get back into the same feeling we did like back in the Nineties.” DAVID BRITTO

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KUNAL SHAH; ROYCIN D’SOUZA

recording and now we have a three-song EP coming out soon.”

Before the yet-to-be-titled three-track EP drops in a month, Laptop are readying their debut single in the form of the glitch rock offering “Granted,” slated to be released in a

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The Mix

How Indo-Canadian Producer Arnob Bal Is Shaping the Sound of Indian Indie Musicians The Mumbai-based sound engineer has recently worked on music with Indian artists Tejas, Short Round and The Koniac Net

W

hen growing up in St. John’s, Newfoundland in Canada, Indo-Canadian multiinstrumentalist/producer Arnob Bal managed to get his hands on American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers’ documentary Funky Monks which chronicles the making of their 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik. “I watched it just over and over again religiously because I knew how to play that album at that time, at least on guitar, bass, drums, so I was just fascinated by that.”

He adds, “As I watched it more, I noticed [American producer] Rick Rubin more than the Chili Peppers and I saw what he was doing and kind of how he was guiding them. I was like, ‘Oh that’s what a record producer does. That should be my career.’”

Bal tells us that his father was a singer and that his mother was always a patron of the arts. He says, “Music was a big thing in my family.” The producer’s musical taste includes everything from hip-hop and jazz to rock, metal and even country music. “I was buying CDs

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of film scores, the Ocean’s Eleven soundtrack and ambient electronic tracks which opened up my mind.” Bal also began to develop an appreciation for songwriting while still in school.

After graduating from Memorial University of Newfoundland, Bal traveled for a few years and lived in Scotland before moving to Toronto. “I spent a year in a deadend job working for an American health insurance company.” Once he quit his job, the producer started working on making his own music. In 2010, Bal began collaborating with artists in Toronto and by 2013 he recorded musician DrewLIVE (formerly known as AndrewLIVE)’s album LIVE From The 32nd Floor. He says, “That was the first full-length album I ever produced.

And the title of the album was because we both lived together on the 32nd floor of this condominium in Toronto.” He adds, “Looking back it was just such a huge deal for me.”

Next, Bal was eager to work with a rock band.

After watching Toronto rockers The Lipstick Junkies at a gig upon a

January 2020

friend’s request, he knew he wanted to produce their music. He says, “The energy was just unbelievable.” Bal adds, “I have no idea how I’m going to convince these random dudes that I don’t know that I should produce an album for them.” After Bal’s friend got him acquainted with the group, they began work on The Lipstick Junkie’s debut selftitled record (2014). The producer explains that this was the first album where he came in with a pen and paper and a proper plan to execute. He says, “The second that I showed up for this for the first time to make this album with a band, I felt I’ve just been training my whole life to do this in my mind [and] I’ve just been going through this process and then finally I have the chance to do it.” He adds, “It was such a smooth process.”

In 2015, Bal moved to Mumbai after the passing of his father and he says, “I dedicated to actually living in Bombay, living in the city, making friends and actually making connections.”

During this time, Bal’s then-girlfriend was visiting him in Mumbai from

Canada and she happened to have an aunt living in Bandra. Bal narrates that after finding out he was musically inclined, the aunt gave him a phone number of a local musician. That musician happened to be Mumbai rockers The Koniac Net’s drummer Karun Kannampilly. “He took ownership of me, invited me to places and made sure that I showed up. If there’s a party or something, nine times out of 10 I would just go even if I felt like I didn’t want to go,” says Bal. The following year, Bal also tried his hand at producing Bollywood tracks but didn’t fancy it too much. He says, “I found that the feedback was also uniform and commercialized and in a corporate way.”

Bal’s next project probably has to go down as his most ambitious yet.

The producer worked with Canadian alternative band Roundelay on their 2017 album There Just Might Be Enough Time. What makes it ambitious was that all of Roundelay’s band members were scattered around different parts of Canada at the time. Ask Bal what he did and he says, “Two guys, the guitarist and

singer live in my hometown St. John’s Newfoundland.

The drummer was living in Toronto which is a two and a half hour flight at least from St. John’s and the bass player was living in Whistler, British Columbia, which is on the other end of

D’Souza’s Frank Gabriel Audio studio.

2019 has been quite a year for Bal in terms of music that’s been released by Indian artists he’s worked with. In January Mumbai singersongwriter Tejas released his

electronica leaning single “River” which included Bal’s touch under the moniker FamLi. By April, The Koniac Net put out their new record They Finally Herd Us and in June Mumbaibased singer-songwriter Jishnu Guha aka Short

Round dropped his latest offering Favourite Strangers, with producer credits for both records going to Bal. Currently, Bal is working on voice-overs, his own electronica music under the moniker FamLi as well as Mumbai singer-

songwriter Mali’s forthcoming record. Ask Bal what the best part of his job is and he says, “Every now and then you put on something that you’ve done and it’s actually good and you’re shocked. You’re like, ‘Wow!’ That’s satisfying.”

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PARIZAD D

the country, five time zones away. I was like, ‘Listen, you guys stay where you are. I will fly to you.’” And that’s how Bal got the recording done for the band. He returned to Mumbai to mix the record at The Koniac Net’s guitarist Jason

Magnetic Fields 2019:

Notes from the Nonstop Desert Party

Australian producer HAAi performing at Magnetic Fields 2019.

SACHIN SONI

The music festival is one of the country’s must-attend events

drummer Jyotin Elangbam – were a refreshing dose away from all the electronic music at the festival. The band ran through songs off their 2018 debut EP AKA Lo Peninsula such as the gritty “Another Divine Joke,” the distorted bass offering “Sleight of Hand,” the wistful “Flashback Kid,” their 2017 melancholic single “Tidal Waves” and more.

of the festival respectively.

Diggs delighted us with her funk remixes, R&B tunes and trippy jazz. Diggs' selection also included English acid jazz band Jamiroquai‘s “Cosmic Girl” which went down well with the crowd. Delhi Sultanate for his part spun vinyls which ranged from reggae, ska, drum and bass and more which got everyone grooving.

Natasha Diggs

SPRYK’S DREAMY AUDIOVISUAL SET Mumbai producer Tejas Nair aka Spryk had a treat for our eyes and ears on day one of the festival. The electronica artist presented a sublime audio-visual set at the BUDX South Stage by Budweiser Experiences. Spryk went from triggering samples to playing some sweet snare and kick drum patterns on an octopad while pensive visuals were projected on a thin sheet in front of the producer. Spryk also engaged the audience with jazzy electronica tunes which was a good fit at the festival.

NATASHA PULPY DIGGS AND SHILPY AND BFR SOUND JBABE’S ADORING SYSTEM’S SUN DOWNER MORNING SETS DELIGHT LO AT THE PENINSULA RAY-BAN SHOWCASE STUDIOS SHOEGAZE DESERT PSYCH OASISSTAGE ROCK Imphal shoegaze group Lo Peninsula amped things up with their psychedelic tunes on the first day at the BUDX South Stage. The group – comprising guitarist-vocalist Nitin Shamurailatpam, bassist Avinash Thokchom and

Over at the JioSaavn Stage, the likes of Pune producer Pulpy Shilpy (day two) and Chennai’s lo-fi artist JBABE (day three) treated attendees to wonderful sundowner sets atop the Alsisar Palace.

Pulpy Shilpy’s poetic words accompanied with jazz and soul influences made for quite a moving set. JBABE – who also performed on day two with his band, alt-rockers The F16s – sported a sequined bedazzled jacket and performed tracks off his recently released debut album Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. JBABE’s chilled out electronica juxtaposed with rock elements, synths and lush vocals created a fascinating sundowner atmosphere. The two artists sets were perfect for attendees to begin with for what was to be long nights ahead.

THE HARP MEETS

ELECTRONICA

WITH ‘ASRAR’

Day two saw the BUDX South Stage filled with attendees eager to check out the collaborative project ‘ASRAR’ comprising Mumbai harpist-vocalist Nush Lewis and producer Riatsu. The performance was specially curated for Magnetic Fields 2019 and it didn’t disappoint. Riatsu triggered bass lines and synths while Lewis strung together beautifully arranged harp parts and quaint vocals that sat together superbly. Overall, the set was well put together and we hope it makes its way to other cities soon.

Magnetic Fields commission ‘ASRAR’ featuring Nush Lewis (left) and Riatsu on the BUDX South Stage.

JBABE

New York City-based DJ Natasha Diggs and reggae dancehall artist Delhi Sultanate (BFR Sound System) both put on emphatic “good morning” sets over at the Ray-Ban Studios Desert Oasis Stage on day two and three

FROM TOP: WOLFMAN; MOHIT MUKHI

E

VEN THOUGH we attended Magnetic Fields 2018 and came away from it quite chuffed, 2019’s edition went a notch higher and probably cemented the event as a must-attend for any music festival junkie. Here are some of the highlights from the three-day nonstop party extravaganza which took place between December 13th and 15th at the Alsisar Palace in Rajasthan.

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WHEN THE F16s SERVED SOME RIFFS

Maribou State

On day two of the festival Chennai band The F16s, like Lo Peninsula earlier, brought some rock to the party amid all the dancefloor vibes around us. The group was at their effervescent best churning out raucous riffs, guitar solos, pulsating drum parts, clever keyboard work, groovy bass lines as well as frontman Josh Fernandez’s dreamy vocals. The F16s’ set consisted of material from their 2016 album Triggerpunkte as well as from this year’s four-track EP WKND FRNDS.

Mumbai post-hardcore band Pacifist’s performance at the Peacock Club stage, to put it mildly, was thumping. The group – comprising vocalist Sidharth Raveendran, guitarist-producer Apurv Agrawal, drummer Varun Sood, bassist Utkarsh Jaiswal and guitarist Ashish Dharkar – ran through material off this year’s debut EP Greyscale Dreams and created quite the headbanging atmosphere inside the Peacock Club, as part of a showcase put together by artist and event label REProduce Artists. It was intriguing to hear a band of Pacifist’s decibel level make their way to the Magnetic Fields lineup.

Hopefully, the festival continues to program heavy acts like them for future editions.

MARIBOU STATE’S ECLECTIC AND DIVERSE LIVE SET U.K. duo Maribou State comprising Chris Davids and Liam Ivory took electronica music to a whole new level with a diverse live set.

For their performance, the pair was accompanied by a drummer, an additional percussionist who doubled up as a bassist and two singers churning out honeyed vocals. The band displayed moody funk and R&B tunes with elements of jazz, soul and rock thrown into the mix at times. Definitely one of the highlights of the festival, Maribou State delivered quite a punch that was perhaps missing from last year’s lineup, when U.K. jazz/electronic artist Kamaal Williams pulled out of the lineup at the last minute.

PALMS TRAX KEPT THE PARTY GOING ON THE LAST DAY AT THE RAY-BAN STUDIOS DESERT OASIS STAGE If you are attending Magnetic Fields, you better be ready to party not just over the weekend but well into the final performance of the festival. Palms Trax, who hit the Ray-Ban Studios Desert Oasis Stage, went on to play a pumping last set.

The Berlin-based electronic artist’s techno sounds were the perfect swan song for the festival as attendees filled the sand around the stage with their dance moves and grooved along like they had never before. DAVID BRITTO

Palms Trax

FROM TOP: ABHISHEK SHUKLA; WOLFMAN

PACIFIST TURNED THE PEACOCK CLUB UPSIDE DOWN

The Mix

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n 2015 when Tamil Nadu’s Chennai Street Band formed with just composer/producer Srihari Jagannathan and drummer Goutham Healer they were initially playing a lot of commercial gigs. “We played film music predominantly,” says Jagannathan. After meeting guitarists Akshay Yesodharan and Renin Raphael, bassist Adithya Gopi and keyboardist Sebastian Satish at a gig was when they

‘Payanangal’

The seven-track album ranges from fusion rock, poignant ballads, sing-along tunes and more began working on their own material. Now, the group is out with their debut seven-track album Payanangal.

The new LP – which the band started tracking in 2017 – includes everything from pop offerings (“Nadodi,” “Yaaro Aval”), ballads “Paravaigal Naam” and the

title track) and rock songs (“Mayavi,” “Vaazhkai Oru Vattam”). Jagannathan tells us that the inspiration for the songs comes from his time traveling on solo trips. He says, “I met people from all across the globe who were like-minded. I used to journal my thoughts after hearing

their stories; it kind of made me realize we are all the same. It was liberating and life-changing for me.”

He adds, “[The record is] a cycle of life.”

Payanangal was recorded at Voice and Vision Studios in Chennai and predominantly produced

by Jagannathan. The

record was mixed by engineers Pradvay Sivashankar and Vivek Thomas. Next, Chennai Street Band is working on music videos for “Nadodi,” “Yaaro Aval” and “Mayavi.” On the live front, a tour is in the pipeline. The band also has plans to start work on a Hindi EP titled Safarnama at the beginning of next year. “We want to tour, perform live and take the music to as many music festivals as we can,” says Jagannathan.

DAVID BRITTO

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COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Alt Pop Group Chennai Street Band Release Debut LP

W

By Jann S. Wenner

How Chris Martin Fixed Himself 18 |

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hen coldplay first appeared in our pages, in 2000, Rolling Stone wondered: Were the new Brit-pop group “the next Radiohead? Or the next Verve, or Travis?” Today, it’s clear they were none of those things. Over the past 20 years, Coldplay have carved out their own place in the world: as stadiumfilling, genre-defying optimists in an age of irony. They are arguably the biggest band in the world today — their tour behind 2015’s A Head Full of Dreams grossed $523 million, a run they kicked off with a set at the Super Bowl with Beyoncé and Bruno Mars. All of that success caused frontman Chris Martin to take a step back.

“There was a slight sense of peace,” he says on a recent afternoon in New York. “All we have to do now is follow the muse.” Coldplay’s eighth album, Everyday Life, is unlike anything they’ve made before, a meditative double disc that embraces gospel, folk, and even Afrobeat. Martin addresses such hot-button subjects as gun control, mass incarceration, and racism (“Trouble in Town” features audio of Philadelphia police officers harassing innocent black suspects), as well as fatherhood (he has two children with ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow). He’s proud of the album, even if he’s a little uncertain of its commercial viability. That contentment is something Martin has been working toward as long as he’s been writing. Here’s how he got there.

What was the urge in you to play music? When did that start for you?

When I was 11, I was at a very old-fashioned [boarding] school, and this teacher came in that was a bit of a maverick. I’d been told before that I wasn’t allowed to be musical, really, because I didn’t sing in the choir and stuff. And then this guy came in and said, “No. Everybody’s musical.” There were a bunch of these kids’ keyboards around the room, and he said, “Everyone go and mess around.”

Something just opened. At the end of the class, I said, “Hey, this is what I got!” And he was very encouraging. That’s when the little fire started.

In that moment?

In that moment. I didn’t know what to do about that for a few years.

I was having a bit of a rough time around 13, 14 [years old], and that’s when I knew: “I’ve got to go and make something of myself.

Just hanging out and playing football is not working for me.”

MACHETE BANG BANG

After 20 years of leading one of the world’s biggest bands, Chris Martin decided he was done pleasing other people — and hit a new creative high

CHR I S M ART I N

You didn’t fit in with those guys?

I did a bit, but I was going through some stuff with religion and sexuality, getting all confused, like most kids at that age. You’re like, “What is happening?” And it can be brutal. But that lit the fire of, “All right. I’m going to just work.”

Who were you listening to?

I had a very strange dual education. On the one hand, I was listening to a lot of church music, because we had to go and sing those hymns every day — those beautiful, big songs. Then I was into this band called James, all the sort of shoegazing stuff in England in the early Nineties. The Cure. Then I was into U2 and R.E.M. This guy in the year above me was obsessed with soul and rhythm & blues.

The new album opens up with this fullout invocation of church, and a gospel choir.

Throughout the album, there’s a lot of cathedral stuff. What was your relationship with God and the church growing up?

I was lucky when I was a kid, because my mom is from Zimbabwe. So I’d go there and see a very different side of the world. That made me realize there’s a much bigger story going on than just me. My relationship with God at that time was to see God as a man in the sky with a beard, who was quite nice, but also quite punitive.

If you did things wrong, you might risk burning for possibly a substantial amount of time, which is terrifying for kids. In the midst of the scariness of it is also a real warmth that comes from a lot of the great prophets, Jesus included. So there was a lot of beautiful stuff being fed to me.

So, for a while I was like, “Half of this feels really right and half of it feels really scary.”

You share that background with U2. That was very much at the core of who they were and how they started out. Still, today, they’re preaching.

So, what happened to me was, when I went to boarding school, I walked a bit funny. And I was also very homophobic, because I was like, “If I’m gay, I’m completely fucked for eternity.” And I was a kid discovering sexuality. “Maybe I’m gay. I can’t be.” I was terrified. I was in a boarding school with a bunch of quite hardcore kids, and for a few years they were very much like, “You’re definitely gay,” in quite a full-on manner, quite aggressively telling me that. It was weird for me for a few years.

Did you think you were gay? You must have.

I don’t know. I was like, “Even if I am, I can’t be, because it’s wrong.” So that was creating terrible turmoil.

Did they convince you that you were?

I started to worry about it, for sure. At about 15 and a half, it all just stopped overnight, once I was like, “Yeah, so what if I’m gay?”

What stopped?

The worry about anyone teasing you. It might have been reading about Elton [John], realizing that a lot of my heroes are gay; it doesn’t really matter.

What that did was ease a big pressure, and made me question, “Hey, maybe some of the stuff I’m learning about God and everything, I’m not sure if I subscribe to.” For me today, God is everything and everybody, and it’s love, and it’s the miracle in every cell of everything.

You’ve been making commercial music for almost 20 years. You’ve made eight records in that time. Why does it take you so long to make a record?

That’s a great question. I feel we could have made 50 records in that time, but they’d be even worse.

Is that self-effacing?

It’s not self-effacing at all. But Rolling Stone and us have a checkered history, so I don’t know what you might think about it. All journalists and us have a checkered history, and we embrace that, but I don’t want to ever assume, “Yeah, we’ve made eight masterpieces.” I remember when we first landed in America, to do SNL, and I read a Rolling Stone review of our single, and it was not good.

Which single?

Our first, “Yellow.” I was like, “Right.

We’ve got to get better.”

It’s interesting that you remember that, other than the 30 other good things we said about Coldplay. We said you were the biggest band of the year [in 2005].

Yeah, thank you. Why does it take so long? There’s just something in my body which says when something’s finished. And it’s only happened eight times. Actually seven times in the last 19 years, because once it didn’t happen, and we still released the album: our third album, called X&Y. But that did rather fantastically, didn’t it?

But how it did is not [important].

What’s the moment that says, “We’re done now”?

If this sounds pretentious, forgive me, [but] if the album title is there in our heads, it’s like a picture frame. And it’s very clear what fits inside it.

So even if there’s 15 quite-good songs, if they don’t fit the picture frame, they don’t come in. So there are a lot of spare things floating around. Not as many as Bruce [Springsteen], who released that 72-track Tracks . . .

So how does Everyday Life feel different to you?

Well, it’s its own world. We had to grow a bit of balls to be able to do this one. It’s the first time we really said what we think about some things. And it’s trying to be empathetic. It’s completely unfiltered. It’s very raw and pure.

In a certain way, it feels like a concept album. Why a concept album, or even a double album, in a time when people are mainly concentrating on singles?

Why are we shooting ourselves in the balls? Because that’s what I was told to do. The last thing we did was so fun, and we played to a lot of people in a lot of places. And we did the Super Bowl, and it was amazing, so there was a slight sense of

We had to grow a bit of balls to be able to do this one. It’s the first time we really said what we think.

It’s completely unfiltered, and it’s very raw.

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peace. All we have to do now is follow the muse. I just wanted to sing about other people and how I feel about other people, how I feel about the world right now and everything that’s going on. It’s not really a concept beyond: “What does every day look like for me and everybody else?”

And then at the end you say, “Got to keep dancing when the lights go out.” Is that the message to take from this album?

Yeah. I think, honestly, the thing we’ve done with this album is like, “Fuck it. I don’t care what anybody thinks. Just let it flood through.” The way I feel about life right now is, you’ve got to just hold it so preciously and embrace it and embrace everybody, and do your best to look after other people, ’cause ultimately that’s looking after yourself, to see us as one. We travel the world so much that I really see us as one big family. I don’t believe in tribalism. I don’t believe in nationalism. I believe, like, we were put here by something way greater than us, and I’m in awe of that and so grateful to be here, let alone to be in this job.

You have a couple of kids songs on there, like “Daddy.”

“Daddy” is partly about a bunch of people I know whose dads abandoned them. It’s partly about me feeling like, “Am I with my kids enough?” And it’s partly about the mass incarceration problem in America. Because so many dads are forcibly removed from their families on a systemic and institutionalized basis, which is wrong. So those kind of emotions all bubble together and then something like that comes out.

It doesn’t even sound like a rock song.

We’re not a rock band. Let’s get that straight!

And then you’ve got “Guns” [“The judgment of the court is we need more guns . . .”], which is a really uncharacteristic kind of Coldplay song. It sounds like a protest song.

Clearly, because I live in Los Angeles now, I’m much more aware of the Second Amendment issues. I play music all the time, and suddenly a song sort of drops from the sky, and those are the ones that are the good ones. So many songs on this album happened like that.

It sounds very Paul Simon, in the vocals and the rhythm.

The honest answer is that it comes from listening to Paul Simon and Rammstein, which is a strange marriage. I was asking one of our producers, Bill [Rahko], who’s a heavy metal-er, to teach me how to play those kind of riffs. I thought it would be interesting to try stuff like that on an acoustic folk song.

When did you find that falsetto voice?

When Radiohead broke through, I was a teenager, and they were from a similar background to me. So it opened up my whole world in terms of “Maybe this can be done.”

That record was The Bends, and Thom Yorke had heard Jeff Buckley singing falsetto. And then I found out “Oh, wow, I can sing really high like that.” I think that at the age of 17 [or] 18, Jeff Buckley and Radiohead really opened up a whole new world for me.

You worked with Brian Eno for a couple of albums. How much did U2 influence you?

FROM TOP: MATTHEW MILLER; MATT COWAN/GETTY IMAGES

IN MY PLACE Top: Martin performing in Amman, Jordan, in November. Coldplay played most of their new album, an experience they called “a dream.” Above: Martin with Beyoncé at the Super Bowl in 2016. She joined Coldplay for “Formation.”

On our third album, you can definitely hear U2.

That’s the only time, if you want the honest answer, that we said, “Let’s step into that space.” I think that U2 and R.E.M. were an influence in how they operate: how they treat each other, how they split their money and credit, and their unashamedness in allowing themselves to be big. It’s funny to be talking about this when we just made a record that’s tiny and small.

But still, you’re going to be a stadium band.

Who knows? Whether anyone comes is [to be seen]. And we’re not touring this album. We’re doing some strange little events and some tiny shows, because it’s more intimate. What the

phrase “stadium band” means to me is a collective consciousness, really. Are there going to be points when the whole building is singing the same thing, or in the same zone? It’s not them watching you, or you playing to them — it’s us creating this one thing together. ’Cause it’s a big energy.

What are you thinking about onstage?

I’m thinking about those moments. We really love when the wristbands light up. They were basically made by this guy that made sex toys. He was supposed to come to a show 10 years ago and he couldn’t get to the show, and he wrote an email to Phil, who’s my best friend, our creative director, and Phil said, “We’ll arrange something.” And in return, this guy said, “By the way, I’ve been inventing this wristband that lights up. Do you guys want it?” Phil’s like, “Are you fucking [kidding]?

Yes.” So we invested in it and made it. So I look forward to when those switch on, because that’s when I really feel like, “OK, I love [performing for] this many people.” I love it.

When you go see Bruce Springsteen, it’s the same. He’s very consciously trying to lift you up.

When Bruce Springsteen came into my life, it was the same as when Rumi the poet came into my life. It was fucking life-changing. Because Bruce made it and then was like, “OK, what am I going to do from this position?” Rather than, “I’ve made it, let me retire and have a horse ranch.” [He says], “What am I going to do with this gift I’ve been given?” And he delivers on it a thousand times over. He pours everything into it. I realized from seeing Bruce, [my job] is to be totally and unashamedly of service to the people that are listening. Just to be 100 percent

used by the forces that gave you this gift in the first place.

Did you pick up anything more specific than that from Bruce?

I also love his music. I first got in through listening to Johnny Cash’s “Highway Patrolman” cover, which led me to Nebraska. I was like, “Oh, this is not what I thought Bruce Springsteen was.” Then I went back to [Greetings From] Asbury Park and Born to Run. It all started feeding in, and looking at his attention to detail . . .

He’s single-minded. He’s a rigorous fucking thinker. You and I met backstage at a Bruce show.

Yeah, we did. Across a crowded room. You said, “Can you get me a drink, please?” and I said, “No, I’m a rock star.”

I knew you were a rock star. You were suspicious why a member of the press was sitting opposite you in the dressing room.

Definitely. At the time, I’m like, “This is the guy who has Us Weekly, and paparazzi, and stuff.” I’m like, “I don’t know how I feel about this.” I now have very different feelings about you as a person, who I really love.

Let me just ask you two things. I saw somewhere you were described as the world’s sexiest vegetarian.

Yeah. I think that’s wrong on three counts.

What other self-deprecating news do you have for me?

I’m North London’s most hardworking pescatarian who eats turkey. Less of a glamorous title.

What does being a sex symbol, stadium star do to your head?

You’d have to ask someone else. I don’t feel like that right now, Jann. When I’m doing it, I feel like that.

You’re kind of an anti-rock-star — except that you’re extremely discreet.

I don’t know what you mean by that.

You play your cards close to the vest.

I do. Yeah.

And you stay out of the way of the press.

I try to.

Why? All our songs are very personal. So it’s all in there, all of the loves and the losses and everything. It’s all in there. And I’m more subscribed to the Bob Dylan thing of don’t explain any song, because why ruin someone else’s interpretation of it? All of our songs are very personal to me, and must in some way have been poured through the percolator of our life.

You were quoted as saying you want to be the biggest band in the world.

Yeah.

Have you done that?

I would never say that.

I’ve heard it before. The Beatles said that.

U2 famously said that. What’s that about?

I don’t care about that thing anymore. I feel like I realize that our job is just to be the best us in the world. And exist because we love it, and we really love it, and reach as many people as want to be reached by making records and by traveling around to see people. We are the best Coldplay ever.

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From Cardi to Kacey to Drake to Mitski, it was a decade shaped by new-look rock heroes, country rebels, dance-floor confessors, and reflective rap gods

The Best Songs of the Decade

Dancing on My Own Robyn 2010

“I’M RIGHT OVER HERE, WHY CAN’T YOU

see me?” Robyn might as well have been singing to U.S. pop audiences in the 2000s, who mostly ignored her as she spent years refining her bright, fizzy synth-pop sound to perfection. Then came “Dancing on My Own,” the killer single that elevated her to something approaching voice-of-a-generation status among America’s burned-out youth. Written and produced with fellow Swedish ace Patrik Berger, it’s a relatable hit of heartbreak at the club with a chaser of empowering uplift — exactly the disco anthem we needed in the long hangover of the financial crisis. Robyn was no torch diva, but she sang the hell out of this one, her warm vocals pushing against the precision-tuned track.

“Dancing on My Own” just kept building as the 2010s went on, soundtracking a memorable scene in HBO’s Girls and countless karaoke nights. “All the big pop acts that I’ve been into over the years — whether it’s ABBA or Prince — managed to combine amazing melodies and honest human emotion,” Robyn said. “But coming out of the super-super-commercial pop industry in the Nineties, maybe people forgot about the fact that pop music can do both of those things.”

The Best Songs of the Decade

Adele 2011

freshly hurt by the end of her relationship with an older photographer, then-21-year-old Adele walked into producer Paul Epworth’s northwest London studio and made the greatest breakup song of the 2010s. “I never get angry, but I was ready to murder,” she later recalled.

“It’s me saying, ‘Get the fuck out of my house’ instead of me begging him to come back.” You can hear it in her voice, an all-time performance whose roaring fury is downright biblical.

“Rolling in the Deep” was a global chart-topper that made Adele a superstar and proved that classic soul could still conquer the world. “Carole King is the last person [before Adele] who wrote the kind of lyrics women immediately could relate to,” marveled Aretha Franklin. “I love to hear a schoolgirl on the school bus yellin’ ‘We coulda had it all!’ ”

Taylor Swift 2012 the devastating centerpiece of Red is about a relationship that’s long over, except in Swift’s memory — and in her ex’s dresser, where he keeps a borrowed scarf he can’t bring himself to return.

The disappointment in her voice is still fresh as she thinks about the sweettalking guy who turned out to be “so casually cruel in the name of being honest.”

(She freestyled that line while soundchecking for a concert: “I was just playing these chords over and over onstage, and my band joined in and I went on a rant.”) Tabloids quickly identified the scarf thief as Jake Gyllenhaal, but the brilliance of “All Too Well” is in how it makes you feel like you were right there with her, too.

6. Runaway

Kanye West 2010

“it’s like a man’s anthem,” West told Access Hollywood, “but it’s a woman’s

Alright Kendrick Lamar 2015 “AS A KID FROM COMPTON you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth,” Lamar told Rolling Stone in 2015. In the most lasting single from his era-defining masterpiece To Pimp a Butterfly, he dramatizes that inner conflict in vivid, immediate terms. “Alls my life, I had to fight,” he begins, quoting Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to evoke generations of inherited trauma. By the time Pharrell’s buoyant production kicks in, Lamar has found reason to believe: “If God got us, then we gon’ be alright.” In the context of the album’s complex emotional journey, it’s a moment of cautious optimism. Once “Alright” reached the world, it became something more: an anthem for a new civil-rights movement, its chorus chanted at countless Black Lives Matter protests across America.

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Formation

5. All Too Well

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Beyoncé 2016

4 anthem. Like, ‘Let’s have a toast with a douchebag!’ ” Speculated to be a mea culpa for his dust-up with Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs, “Runaway” mixes self-indictment, self-awareness, and self-obsession

NONE OF BEYONCÉ’S many hits embodied her unrivaled cultural power in the 2010s better than “Formation,” a stylish song-ofmyself flex that was also a rallying cry for millions. Celebrating her roots in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, she claimed the black experience in the Deep South as a source of pride; with a single horny couplet, she forever changed the meaning of date night at Red Lobster. The genius of “Formation” — especially taken in conjunction with the striking imagery of its music video and Super Bowl performance — is in its bold tangling of the personal and the political, wrapping the tragedy of Katrina in the glamour of a Givenchy gown and daring you to call it a contradiction. “I’m an artist,” she said, knowing some had missed the point, “and I think the most powerful art is usually misunderstood.”

into a nine-minute epic that’s sad, frightening, and almost incomprehensible in its scarred beauty — from its slasher string intro to its vocoder-smeared closing. “I need more douchebag,” West screamed

at guest rapper Pusha T during the song’s recording. The result is peak Old Kanye.

7. Thank U, Next

Ariana Grande 2019 when grande split up with SNL’s Pete Davidson after a very public whirlwind romance, the obvious thing to do was to drop a celebrity diss track.

Instead, she released one of the most generous breakup songs of all time — an ode to lessons learned and self-love set to a fluttery track that suggests a mind at peace already moving on to new discovery. “Even almost got married/And for Pete, I’m so thankful,” she sings. Grande wrote several versions of the song, including one where she and Davidson get married: “Then we broke up again, so we ended up going with that verse,” she said.

9. I Like It Cardi B feat. Bad Bunny and J Balvin 2018

nobody ever accused Cardi B of thinking small.

“I Like It” is her hugely expansive vision of hip-hop as a multicultural, worldwide block party. Cardi brings in Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny and Colombian reggaeton star

PREVIOUS PAGE: JOE SCARNICI/FILMMAGIC. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: ANDREW WHITE/ PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT; SHAMIL TANNA/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

3. Rolling in the Deep

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feelings they engender) that becomes a global smash. “It was just that word,” she said of the title.

“It’s really cool.” Pensive but proud, “Royals” is hushed low-fi pop-rap, with Lorde mumbling her lines like a kid dreaming up poetry while distractedly staring at her phone.

It is a classic dispatch from teenage wasteland rendered in a whole new language of millennial malaise.

Follow Your Arrow

12. Old Town Road Lil Nas X 2019

Kacey Musgraves 2013

lil nas x — a 19-yearold peddler of Twitter memes deploying a $30 web-sourced beat — made history topping the Hot 100 for a record 19 weeks with his two-minute countryhip-hop masterpiece. “I got bored one day and made this song,” Nas told Rolling Stone of “Old Town Road,” a moment of pop disruption that cheekily appropriates cowboy tropes, samples a Nine Inch Nails track, and features Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, and child country star Mason Ramsey, among others, on various remixes, tapping a bottomless well of American cross-racial conversation.

As Nas said, “Wow, it’s rock, country, hip-hop, all in the same room.” Yeehaw!

FROM TOP: ALYSSE GAFKJEN; MATT BARON/SHUTTERSTOCK

THE TEXAS COWGIRL made her big entrance with “Follow Your Arrow,” and right from the git-go, she had her own style. Over guitar twang, the then-25year-old Musgraves serves up some homespun advice: “Make lots of noise/ Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into.” Originally written as a poem for a friend who was taking a trip overseas, the song whipped up a fair amount of controversy, but Musgraves refused to back down. “Even if they don’t agree with the girls-kissinggirls thing, or even the drug reference,” Musgraves said, “I would hope that they would agree that no matter what, we all should be able to love who we want to love and live how we want to live.” She’s been following her arrow ever since.

Balvin to shine on her trap groove, riding a sample from the 1967 boogaloo classic “I Like It Like That.”

All her guests rise to the occasion — who else but Balvin would compare himself to Lady Gaga and Jimmy Snuka in the same verse? But Cardi runs shit like cardio, turning “I Like It” into a Number One smash.

10. Hotline Bling Drake 2015

drake (rightfully) slammed the Grammys for awarding this not-veryrappy song Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Performance, wondering if they picked those categories just “because I’m black.” But in

their defense, it’s a pretty great little jam. Along with being inescapably catchy (Caribbean in feel but powered by a 1970s soul sample), “Hotline Bling” was also a marvel of the internet, inspiring countless covers and memes of its video to mark a new era in Top 40 democracy.

11. Royals Lorde 2013

inspired by a picture of Kansas City Royals slugger George Brett, and Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne, a 15-year-old New Zealander, Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, penned a softly swaggering ode to her own fantasies of greatness (and the mixed

13. Your Best American Girl SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? MIRANDA LAMBERT

The Country Star on Taylor Swift, Pregnancy, and Spanx My favorite album was: Brent Cobb’s Shine On Rainy Day. My favorite song was: “Girl Crush,“ by Little Big Town.

The artist who had the best decade was: Taylor Swift. The TV show I couldn’t stop streaming was: Godless and Ozark.

The misstep I learned the most from was: Rushing. Take a breath, and take it in. The best new slang term was: “AF.” Something cool I did that nobody noticed was: Getting married. The best outfit I wore this decade was: A yellow dress with pink heels with a gold pistol attached, to the ACM Awards in Vegas.

The most “2010s” moment of the 2010s was: The invention of Spanx leggings. The strangest thing someone said about me in the media was: I was pregnant, again.

Mitski 2016

the indie-rock anthem of the decade didn’t come from a record-geek college-boy band. It was by a 25-year-old Japanese American woman singing, “Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me” over My Bloody Valentine guitar swells. “I didn’t grow up in the U.S.,” Mitski Miyawaki said of the song. “It came from wanting to just fit into this very American person’s life, and simply not being able to.” Yet, as the shyly hulking guitars gain power and her voice pushes forward, you can feel her power past alienation toward an ecstasy of her own making.

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The Best Songs of the Decade

Shallow

ideas. With “Springsteen,” he ditched fiddles and pedal steel for the chugging sound of the song’s namesake and unfurled the memory of a teenage love affair that had sparked at a Springsteen show between “I’m on Fire” and “Born to Run.” It’s all true, up to a point. “It didn’t happen with Springsteen, ironically, it happened with another artist,” Church said.

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper 2017

GAGA BEGAN the 2010s as music’s new glam

queen, but her glitter started to fade a little as she detoured into jazz and Lilith Fair country rock. “Shallow” reignited the drama she was loved for. Gaga’s duet with actor Bradley Cooper, from the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, built a towering moment of power-ballad glory with not much more than an acoustic guitar, their chemistry, and Gaga’s sweeping vocals. “We just had an instant connection,” Gaga said later of Cooper. “I felt comfortable with Bradley.”

Gaga wrote the song with superproducer Mark Ronson, originally thinking it might run in the closing credits of the film.

Instead, it serves as a pivotal onstage triumph for Ally, the insecure singer Gaga plays in the film. As Ronson said later, “Everybody’s life experience and trials and tribulations are being channeled in that song.”

22. Drunk in Love

Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z 2013 “i kind of freestyled the verse,” Beyoncé explained of this ode to morningafter memories of an all-nighter spent riding the “good-good” wood of her man’s “surfboard.” Her husband, Jay-Z, freestyled his part as well, unfortunately referencing Mike Tyson and Ike Turner. Yet nothing could take away the power of Beyoncé celebrating her own desire.

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23. Despacito

J Balvin and Willy William 2017

“the beautiful thing about ‘Mi Gente,’ ” said Balvin in 2018, “is that I wrote it in Spanish with Willy William, a producer from Paris. . . . And it hit Number One [in the charts] around the world.” Colombian reggaeton star Balvin campaigned for a borderless pop future, crooning about musical inclusion over producer William’s infectiously forlorn synth-horn riff and rattling beat. “Mi Gente” was a smash even before Beyoncé swooped in to give it a remix. As Balvin noted, “It wasn’t a strategy to make it bigger. . . . It was for the culture.”

16. Stoned and Starving Parquet Courts 2012

cat-sitting for a friend, Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts decided to go on the stoned bodega crawl through Ridgewood, Queens, that became the inspiration for the decade’s premier indie-guitar banger.

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Parquet Courts zoned out gloriously as Savage turned choosing between roasted peanuts and licorice into a rich existential riddle.

17. Get Lucky Daft Punk feat.

Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers 2013

the french robots took the edge off a rough decade with this plush disco pastiche featuring funk wizard Nile Rodgers on guitar and Pharrell Williams on the mic. “I don’t know if it’s a disco track,” Williams later hedged. “It feels a little bit more, like, post [disco].” Replacing the Seventies disco-diva wail with Williams’ light falsetto helped “Get Lucky” rise like a phoenix while still feeling warm and invitingly human.

18. Bad and Boujee Migos 2016

“we did it the trap way, not the pop way,” Offset told Rolling Stone, reflecting on the unlikely rise of “Bad and Boujee” from the strip clubs of Atlanta

2020

to the top of the charts.

Nearly six minutes long and layered with inventive, acrobatic rhymes, it turned “raindrop, drop-top” into a cultural catchphrase, and made the simple act of spending too much money feel like a bold avant-garde statement.

19. Hold On

Alabama Shakes 2012 the new-school Southern blues-rock band wrote its breakout single the old-fashioned way, riffing during a club show while frontwoman Brittany Howard made up lyrics about “trying to inspire [herself ] to keep working, stay positive.” The elusive rawness of “Hold On” was a huge part of its appeal.

20. Oblivion Grimes 2012

with sunrise-tinted bangs and an otherworldly soprano, Canadian eccentric Claire Boucher ushered in a new era of oddball dance pop with her 2012 LP, Visions, and its standout single “Oblivion,” which contemplates the perils of

being a woman out after dark. She said of the song’s difficult inspiration, “I was assaulted,” adding, “I was just so terrified of men for a while.”

21. Springsteen

Eric Church 2011 country rebel Church specializes in building small moments into big

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee feat. Justin Bieber 2019

puetro rican pop stars Fonsi and Daddy Yankee already had a hit with their breezy collaboration “Despacito.” Then Bieber hopped on the remix and the most popular mostly-in-Spanish song ever was born.

SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? QUESTLOVE

The Roots Drummer on Cancel Culture and LOL’ing The artist who had the best decade was: Donald Glover. I enjoyed watching him make every snarky critic eat their smug shit. My least favorite trend in music this decade was: All the obituaries I had to write about its participants. The best new slang term of the decade was: This can be really corny to answer. Probably the most telling is “LOL.” Nine times out of 10 we aren’t laughing when we do “LOL.” The best live show I saw in the 2010s was: The Roots/Outkast/Lionel Richie. Lionel Richie took names and kicked ass! The misstep I learned the most from in the 2010s was: Cancel culture and all of its consequences is real. Something cool I did that nobody noticed was: Getting Jay-Z on Twitter.

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15. Mi Gente

Truth Hurts Lizzo 2017

“TRUTH HURTS” took a long, strange journey to

become Lizzo’s first Number One hit. She wrote it in 2017, inspired in part by a tweet (“I did a DNA test and found out I’m 100% that bitch”) from a little-known British songwriter to whom Lizzo later gave a co-writing credit. But the song didn’t become a hit until two years later, after a groundswell of popularity on Twitter and TikTok, and its appearance in the spring 2019 Netflix rom-com Someone Great. “That song is my life, and its words are my truth,” Lizzo said. Indeed, it’s the ultimate Lizzo anthem, a sassy sing-rap ode to euphoric self-love in the face of getting your heart stomped that perfectly sums up her status as a twerk-soul voice of the people. That DNA test she took? It was 100% correct.

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“What I heard is that he was in the club in Colombia and heard the song,” Daddy Yankee said. “Justin Bieber always does a great job when it comes to interpretation.”

27. Chandelier Sia 2014

an author of hits by Rihanna, Beyoncé, Flo Rida, and many others, Sia had her own huge smash rewriting party-girl clichés

on “Chandelier,” which she based on her own struggles with drinking.

“Sometimes I’ll write one that I relate to,” she said.

“Those are the ones I don’t give away.”

25. Adorn

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Miguel 2012

in the early 2010s, as R&B artists chased the hiphop and EDM zeitgeist, this California upstart showed up out of nowhere sounding like a singer from another era; Miguel exuded the style and grace of a Motown romantic on his plush debut slow jam, a song that felt sweetly old-school right down to its anachronistic-sounding title.

26. Mask Off Future 2017

the atlanta rap spaceman was one of the decade’s most prolific, unpredictable artists.

“Mask Off ” was Future at his far-out best, over Metro Boomin’s flute-loop sample. As his collaborator Kendrick Lamar put it, “He’s his own genius.”

Alvvays 2014

“a lot of people ‘grow up’ and get mortgages and have big dumb weddings, and this song takes the piss

out of that,” Alvvays’ Molly Rankin explained.

By soaking the satire in sweet distortion and an achingly pretty melody, the Canadian band wound up with one of the decade’s most romantic songs at the same time.

30. We Found Love

Sorry

Rihanna feat.

Calvin Harris 2011

calvin harris’ rave-y demo of this song floated around for months (it was rejected by Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls). Then Rihanna got a hold of it and turned it into an uplifting modern standard that’s been crushing wedding receptions ever since. “I want each track to be as good as it can possibly be,” Harris said, “and that usually means me not singing on it.”

Justin Bieber 2015

“SORRY” MARKED a new maturity for the

then-21-year-old Bieber, who was looking to move past his unfortunate bad-boy phase into new musical and personal territory. “Sorry” was co-written by Justin Tranter, who took pride in creating songs that “let men be allowed to be vulnerable,” and produced by Skrillex, who strove to “keep it simple” with an almost elegiac beat. “It was about a girl,” Bieber later said. And like so many great songs that are simply about a girl, it’s coy and tender and just delicately cocky enough to give the tune a shot of big-boy energy. Bieber worried it might be a little too safe. But as Skrillex later put it, “When you listen to his lyrics, you can tell he’s becoming an adult.”

28. Archie, Marry Me

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31. Sign of the Times Harry Styles 2017

it sure wasn’t the traditional way to start a post-boy-band solo career.

Styles could’ve begun life after One Direction with a January 2020

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The Best Songs of the Decade The Best Songs of the Decade

32. Bodak Yellow Cardi B 2017

35. Night Shift

Lucy Dacus 2017

“the first time I tasted somebody else’s spit/I had a coughing fit,” Virginia singer-songwriter Dacus sings to kick off this six-minute indie-rock ballad, one of the decade’s truly bracing breakup songs. “I dated this person for like five years,” she said. “To kiss anybody else — it felt really weird.”

the flow was borrowed from Kodak Black’s “No Flockin,” but the transformation of stress-mode fury into feminine glamor was pure Cardi. She wrote her rhymes on a plane, listening to a beat her producer J. White had sent her. “Every bitch that I don’t like came to my head,” she said. “And I pictured me slapping it to them.” When she knocked Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” from the Number One spot, Swift sent her flowers to celebrate.

36. Sicko Mode

33. Hold On, We’re Going Home

Maren Morris 2015 morris didn’t have a record deal when she recorded “My Church,” a gospel-tinged stomper about flipping through the car radio and finding salvation in Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. A couple of million streams later, the

Drake 2013

if the drum pattern on top sounds like “Billie Jean,” there’s a reason: Drake and producer Noah “40” Shebib’s humble attempt to channel their power as a “Quincy Jones-Michael Jackson production duo” and create a timeless track that could “be played at weddings in 10 years.” R&B with a hip-hop mindset, “Hold On, We’re Going Home” cemented Drake’s place as the central hitmaker of the decade.

Travis Scott feat. Drake

2018 it unfurled more like a playlist than a single: three distinct sections and three guests in just over five minutes. A verse from Drake — recorded the day before Scott’s LP Astroworld was set to be released — contributed to the chopped-up format. As Scott put it, “Something so crazy for the kids.”

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“WHEN I PUT THAT SONG ON,” Lorde told The New York Times, “I’m as moved as I am by anything by David Bowie, by Fleetwood Mac, by Neil Young. It lets you feel something you didn’t know you needed to feel. There’s something holy about it.” Slick California pop tinged with just the right aftertaste of romantic nostalgia, “Teenage Dream” was one of five Number One hits from Perry’s album of the same name. No one had done that since Michael Jackson’s Bad. Perry concocted the song with producers Max Martin and Dr. Luke during sessions in Santa Monica, California, building around what she called “a Chaka Khan-fierce little beat.” Considering the song’s almost scientifically pop precision, it’s no surprise its recording involved reworking the song “four or five” times to nail “that euphoric feeling of having a teenage love, all over again.”

37. My Church

Billie Eilish 2019 “i don’t want to be in the pop world,” Eilish said. “I want it to be, ‘What kind of music do you listen to?’

‘Billie Eilish music.’ ” In that spirit, her signature goth-pop banger refuses to be pinned down, musically or emotionally; Eilish is on her knees one moment, a dominating bad guy the next, swerving through an underworld all her own.

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Katy Perry 2010

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34. Bad Guy

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aspiring Texas songwriter had her debut country hit.

38. God in Chicago

Craig Finn 2017 a hybrid of deadpan piano dirge and spokenword short fiction, the decade’s best story song wearily details a drug run

SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? MARGO PRICE

The Country Singer on Sturgill, Dolly, and Her DMs The best album of the decade was: Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. That album changed the game. My favorite song of the 2010s was: Brittany Howard’s “Stay High.” It’s a song I wish I wrote. The artist who had the best decade was: Dolly Parton.

There’s not a lot of things that people see eye to eye on anymore, but Dolly is this cultural icon. The craziest thing that happened to me in the 2010s was: I went from being a waitress to playing SNL. The show I couldn’t stop watching was: Breaking Bad. I’ve watched it twice all the way through. The misstep I learned the most from: Checking my DMs. You open a couple of dick pics and you’re like, “OK, I’m not going in there again.”

with a dead buddy’s sister that becomes a road trip, and then a heartbreaking hookup that may turn out redemptive. Or not. “I attempted to turn it into a more traditional song,” the Hold Steady frontman said. When the chorus finally lands, its like the sun bursting through a dank Midwestern sky.

ble future-blues that announced the arrival of a major talent. Packing a novel’s worth of narrative into a five-minute slow jam, it name-checked Stanley Kubrick and dissected a drug-buddy hookup with an aspiring dental student at Coachella, outing a generation’s numbness.

39. Bad Liar

The Weeknd 2011

Selena Gomez 2017

gomez ditched the Disney-princess pop of her teens for the grownup grooves of Revival in 2015, telling Rolling Stone, “I felt confident and comfortable in who I am. I felt sexy. I was aching to do stuff like that.” She nailed it two years later with this spare confession hooked to the bass line of the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” An art-pop adventurer was born.

41. Novocane

Frank Ocean 2011 ocean’s debut single was a sexy, unnerving, indeli-

42. High for This a creepy song in which a man tries to talk a woman into doing drugs before they have sex, “High for This” was the ideal intro to the Weeknd’s narcotic sound. The opening track on his debut LP, House of Balloons — a chronicle of “whatever thoughts I was having when I was under the influence at the time” — forecast R&B’s brooding future.

43. Call Me Maybe

Carly Rae Jepsen 2011 “we liked how it turned out, but I can’t say I expected this,” said Jepsen of “Call Me Maybe,” one of the

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sugary pop tune. Instead, he wrote a song connecting the Seventies-glam balladry of Bowie and Queen to our own worried moment. As Styles explained to Rolling Stone, “ ‘Sign of the Times’ came from ‘This isn’t the first time we’ve been in a hard time, and it’s not going to be the last time.’ ”

most dominant Songs of the Summer of all time. Everyone from Katy Perry to the Cookie Monster covered it, and it inspired countless song-as-meme videos. Not a bad debut for a thirdplace in the 2007 season of Canadian Idol.

44. Beez in the Trap

Nicki Minaj 2011 following a directive, “Nicki needs some rap shit,” from her record label Cash Money/Young Money, producer Kenoe delivered a track with a spartan, slow-rolling boom that gave the fiery rapper tons of space to rock out and deliver a master class in oldschool playground swagger.

“I am,” Minaj noted, “always in the trap.”

45. Mariners Apartment Complex

47. 212

Sounds of the Decade Think all music sounded the same during the 2010s? Well, you’re sort of right. Here are five sonic trends that defined the times.

Saxual Healing The sassy spawn of “Careless Whisper” After two decades of total exile, the saxophone made its big, blustery return in 2011 as the screaming partygoer on Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” and the hype man of Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory.” By middecade, it was practically inescapable, showing up in songs

by Fifth Harmony, Jason Derulo, and even Taylor Swift.

WHO USED IT BEST Carly Rae Jepsen, on “Run Away With Me” WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHERE WE HEARD IT

48. Girl Crush

Little Big Town 2014

The Millennial Whoop Over-the-top melisma, Gen Y-style Early in the decade, singers inexplicably started yelling “Wa-oh-wa-oh” in their songs — Katy Perry on “California Gurls,” Kesha on “Tik Tok,” Frank Ocean on “Ivy.” Sometimes it sounded happy, sometimes it sounded sad, but it always seemed awesomely unnecessary.

WHO USED IT BEST Comedy pop trio the Lonely Island, who parodied it on “F**k Off” WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHERE WE HEARD IT

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Lana Del Rey 2018

the first taste of Del Rey’s revelatory Norman Fucking Rockwell! was this psychedelic-folk gem, a meta-pop collaboration with Jack Antonoff that shuffles classic-rock allusions (“kiss the sky,” “candle in the wind”) and emotions, pivoting on the linchpin title verse of Leonard Cohen’s abjectly needy “I’m Your Man.” But Del Rey owns every word, carving out a complex sad-girl persona rooted in Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter tradition.

46. N**as in Paris Jay-Z and Kanye West

2011 appearing as their one-off duo, Watch the Throne, in Paris on June 18th, 2012, Kanye West and Jay-Z performed their dazzling victory lap “N**as in Paris” 12 times before a rapturous crowd. That excess was the point; inspired by West’s fashion-world exploits at the time, the song was the highest high on Watch the Throne, featuring a dubstep breakdown and a Will Ferrell cameo. It’s also the most purely cathartic moment of either rapper’s epic career so far.

Azealia Banks 2011 after falling into “a bit of a depression and shit” when her first attempts to break through in the music business proved unsuccessful, Banks made it work by going back to New York rap basics, jump-cutting from street queen to prepschool mean-girl thespian to R&B diva. Before the ascendancy of Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, “212” crowned Banks the fiercest female MC alive.

Trap Hi-Hat Snaps The skittering soul of Atlanta Drum-machine hi-hats programmed at a speed and complexity no human could ever play fluttered out of the South via hits by Migos, Future, and others, and became a go-to beat — from Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love” to Ariana Grande’s “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” and Halsey’s “Without Me.” WHO USED IT BEST Migos, on the diamond-bright “Stir Fry” WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHERE WE HEARD IT

Whisper Pop “Wait, what? Speak up, damn it.”

In olden times, you couldn’t be a pop star if you couldn’t belt out your lyrics. But in the 2010s, a new wave of singers started whispering their way into our hearts — Lana Del Rey evoked entitled California malaise with her bored, breathy sighs, while moody teens Lorde and Billie Eilish went for more of a mumbling-into-their-sleeves vibe.

WHO USED IT BEST Eilish, on “Bad Guy” WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE WHERE WE HEARD IT

‘Glitch-core’ Vocals The emo A.I. apocalypse WHERE WE HEARD IT Twenty years after Auto-Tune made its debut on Cher’s “Believe,” vocals are chopped, pitch-shifted, and digitally messed with to a hilarious degree. Justin Bieber got turned into a sad dolphin on “Sorry,” and Selena Gomez became a yodeling Cylon on “It Ain’t Me.” WHO USED IT BEST Kanye West, who made his voice an anguished bass guitar on “Runaway” WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE

CONTRI BUTORS Jonathan Bernstein, Emily Blake, Jonathan Blistein, David Browne, Nick Catucci, Jon Dolan, Brenna Ehrlich, Suzy Exposito, Jon Freeman, Andy Greene, Kory Grow, Will Hermes, Christian Hoard, Charles Holmes, Joseph Hudak, Brendan Klinkenberg, Elias Leight, Joe Levy, Angie Martoccio, Danny Schwartz, Claire Shaffer, Rob Sheffield, Hank Shteamer, Brittany Spanos, and Simon Vozick-Levinson

some radio programmers in Nashville might have worried about its homoerotic undercurrent. But “Girl Crush” was immediately recognized as one of the most indelible jealousy songs in country music history. “I knew as soon as I heard the hook of the first chorus that we had to have this song,” Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild told Rolling Stone.

49. Every Breaking Wave U2 2014

with production assists from Danger Mouse and One Republic’s Ryan Tedder, Bono and team delivered a soaring anthem exploring his sense of “how hard it is to give yourself completely to another person.” If the song conjures Coldplay, it’s a testament to how fundamental U2 remains to the sound of mainstream rock. And the acoustic version is just as good.

50. Turn Down for What

DJ Snake and Lil Jon 2013 a french producer and an Atlanta hollerer team up for a defiant party anthem so over-the-top you can’t help but laugh out loud every time you hear it. The song showed up everywhere, including Michelle Obama’s social media feed, where she rocked out to it in a Vine clip promoting good nutrition: “Turnip for what!”

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In the 2010s, genres merged and melded, pop felt more global and more intimate, and the biggest superstars were the most ambitious rule breakers

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The Best Albums of the Decade

Kanye West

2010

FORGET, IF YOU CAN, THE RED HAT, THE OUTRAGEOUS tweets, the overpriced sweatpants. (You’ve

ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES

maybe already forgotten the gospel record he put out two months ago.) Remember, instead, the gravity-defying artistic leap that Kanye pulled off with his fifth LP. Stung by the ferocious backlash to his 2009 VMAs meltdown — a moment that, quaintly in retrospect, seemed like rock bottom for his public image — he hid out in Hawaii and emerged with the ultimate

The Best Albums of the Decade And while he memorably heaped contempt on racist laws and the South Park writers’ room, Kanye saved the most bitter shots on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for himself (“Blame Game,” “Runaway”). Under all the bluster, this is a concept album about his own inability to stop breaking America’s heart. Nearly a decade later, it still hurts.

2. Lemonade

Beyoncé 2016 “who the fucks do you think I is?” Beyoncé asked on her monumental sixth LP, proceeding to deliver a thunderclap statement of

Red

Taylor Swift 2012

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3. To Pimp a Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar 2015 lamar defined hip-hop’s state of the art with a sprawling 78-minute epic as influenced by Ralph Ellison and John Coltrane as it is by Biggie and Tupac.

The groundbreaking rapper embraced cutting-edge beat architecture while knighting new-school jazz masters like Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper, swerving from the free jazz of “For Free?” to the G-funk of “King Kunta.”

At the center of it all was Lamar’s chaotic ambition and smoldering confusion, as he turned “we gon’ be

alright” into a #blacklivesmatter slogan and “how much a dollar cost” into a riddle for the ages.

5. Blackstar

David Bowie 2016 bowie spent his whole career as rock’s cracked actor — but he saved one of his most stunning performances for the final curtain. After years on the down-low, Bowie dropped Blackstar on his 69th birthday — but just two days later, the world was shocked to learn the Starman was gone. As his producer Tony Visconti said, “He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift.” It’s the testament of a man who knows he’s got no time to waste — he stretches out into sci-fi space jazz, drawing inspiration from Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo, still experimenting up to the end. Visconti summed it up: “His death was no different from his life — a work of art.”

6. Take Care

AT THE TENDER AGE of 22,

Swift was already America’s favorite country singer. But with Red, she grew up with a bona fide pop classic, proving she could do it all. As she told Rolling Stone, “Different phases of your life have different levels of deep, traumatizing heartbreak.” Swift effortlessly went outside her Nashville safety zone for the album, collaborating with Swedish pop scientist Max Martin, Kanye West collaborator Jeff Bhasker, and alt-rock songwriter Butch Walker; after Swift and Martin finished Red’s electro-stomping first single, “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” she called it “a breakup song in the form of a parade.” But everything she tried made sense. Swift hit all the levels on Red, showing off her mastery of Nashville twang, disco flash, guitar-hero swagger, even a dubstep drop. She set out to top Prince (“Red”), U2 (“State of Grace”), and Britney (the Martin-produced “22”) — yet every moment sounds unmistakably like her. “All Too Well” remains her most majestic rock ballad: like the young Bruce Springsteen, if somebody dared him to sing about a scarf instead of a car.

marital collapse, personal triumph, radical blackness, Southern roots, and boundless musical vision. She rocks out with Jack White on “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” kicks gun-toting country on “Daddy Lessons,” and links her story to a deeper sense of African American roots on “Formation.” Lemonade was the only place in pop where Father John Misty and Kendrick Lamar felt equally at home, part of a collaborative conversion helmed by the queen herself, reigning supreme as the rare pop goddess who inspires as much love and empathy as shock and awe.

Drake 2011

drake has never been more magnetically, confoundingly Drake than he was on this primal sigh of a second official album.

The deliciously dark selfown “Marvins Room” finds him duetting with the recording of a woman, while the title track pairs him with Rihanna, his verses gliding past her elegant choruses. Throughout, he makes his newly found high life seem like a luxe cocoon; “I’m rich,” he said at the time. “I can do whatever I want.” What he managed, somehow, was to reinvent poor-me longing as rich-boy swagger, christening a new era of male vulnerability in hip-hop.

7. Melodrama

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Lorde 2016

lorde’s debut, Pure Heroine, injected breathy candor into pop music, making her a teen star.

With its follow-up, she took her sound to the next level. Working with producer Jack Antonoff,

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case for his genius/jerkoff duality. The secret sessions at Avex Honolulu Studios saw Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Justin Vernon, and others turning in career-best performances under the guidance of Kanye’s absurd yet effective house rules (“No hipster hats” . . . “Just shut the fuck up sometimes”).

Presiding over it all was the greatest producer of his generation, pulling from 40-plus years of popular music to spin his symphony of wounded pride, from the lush falsetto soul of “Devil in a New Dress” to the heavy-metal thunder of “Hell of a Life.”

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Adele 2011

“IN ORDER FOR ME to feel confident with one of my songs, it has to really move me,” Adele has said. “That’s how I know that I’ve written a good song for myself — it’s when I start crying.” With 21, the world cried with her. Adele’s debut, 19, established her staggering jazz-steeped vocal firepower.

For its follow-up, she found co-writers who helped her create material worthy of her talent, especially Paul Epworth, who co-wrote the searing post-breakup stomper “Rolling in the Deep” and the soaring old-school/newschool R&B tune “He Won’t Go.” Adele communicates bracing vulnerability, even as her singing seems resolutely in charge, which created a pop blockbuster that has sold 31 million LPs worldwide and stands with forebears Dusty in Memphis and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black among the great Brit soul records of all time.

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and drawing equal influence from Kate Bush and Katy Perry, she dove into the deep end of her own heartbreak, sadness, and loneliness on wrenching ballads like “Liability” and “Writer in the Dark,” and the dance-floor explosion “Green Light.” “You need to be awe-struck,” she said of her approach to music, summing up the sense of wonder amid turmoil that makes Melodrama so uniquely arresting.

9. Interstate Gospel

Pistol Annies 2018 the best nashville supergroup of the century — comprising ace songwriters Ashley Monroe, Angaleena Presley, and Miranda Lambert — created a set of bone-deep reflections on midlife that could be hilarious (the post-divorce shuffle “Got My Name Changed Back”) or heart-scarring (the grueling image of depression of “Best Years of My Life”).

“We’re not on a soapbox,”

This Is Happening LCD Soundsystem 2010

Presley said. “We’re doing dishes and writing songs about it.” Drawing from bluegrass, honky tonk, and rootsy rock, Pistol Annies delivered a modern country classic.

11. Golden Hour

JAMES MURPHY’S New York

Kacey Musgraves 2018

crew, LCD Soundsystem, defined the dance-rock boom of the 2000s. With their third LP they poignantly evoked the feeling of weary hipsters searching for meaning after the party. “Everybody’s getting younger/It’s the end of an era — it’s true,” Murphy mourns on the opener, “Dance Yrself Clean.” The hooks are sharp, the beats kinetic, and the lyrics to songs like “Drunk Girls” and “All I Want” are droll, sarcastic, and heartbroken. This Is Happening made the Top 10 and helped LCD fill Madison Square Garden for a legendary farewell gig.

musgraves changed what country singers could talk about with her liveand-let-live hit “Follow Your Arrow.” But it was her 2018 LP that fully reimagined the genre.

There is a celebration of psychoactive plants set to vocoder and banjo (“Oh, What a World”), a love letter to the LGBTQ community (“Rainbow”), a yeehaw filter-disco diss track (“High Horse”). Golden Hour took home a Grammy for Album of the Year, and even led to a gig opening for pop heartthrob Harry Styles, who said of Musgraves, “It’s impossible to listen to [her] too much.”

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The Best Albums of the Decade

Blonde

harder. It inaugurated a new retro-Nineties golden age. “Stoned and Starving” became a millennial anti-anthem, a five-minute power drone about the search for junk food: “I was debating Swedish Fish/ Roasted peanuts, or licorice.” Pure poetry.

Frank Ocean 2016

BEFORE HIS SECOND ALBUM, Ocean was a prisoner

— to the strictures of R&B, to the success of his stunning 2012 debut, Channel Orange, and to misconceptions about his sexuality. So he doubled down on his experimental ambitions with an enigmatic opus that pushed his art into wide-open new territory — interpolating the Beatles, referencing indie-folk artist Elliott Smith, and name-checking David Bowie and Brian Eno in the LP’s extensive liner notes. Blonde was preceded by a series of blown release dates in the summer of 2016; when it finally arrived, it came with a zine full of sensual, summery imagery that proved a nice complement to songs like the gorgeously swooning “Pink + White,” the bleary guitarscape “Ivy,” and the tensely drifting chipmunk-soul lament “Nikes.”

Ocean’s lyrics reference Trayvon Martin and Hurricane Katrina, grounding his escapist sound in the politics and pain of real life, and making Blonde feel like a trick mirror for our times.

17. Acid Rap

Chance the Rapper 2013 chicago upstart Chancelor Bennett’s second release — a free mixtape that has been downloaded 1.7 million times — introduced a turbulently psychedelic new sound and voice that seemed hopeful even when he was rapping, “I know you scared/You should ask us if we scared too.” At a time when Chicago was being cast in the media as an endless war zone, Chance’s frenetic ebullience inspired against-the-odds optimism.

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18. So Beautiful or So What

Kanye West 2013

just when it looked like Kanye the celebrity was finally threatening to devour Kanye the musician, he bounced back with his most intense, confrontational album ever.

Yeezus was a surprise blast of industrial avant-rap, constructed with the help of producer Rick Rubin, who was brought in late in the process. As Rubin told Rolling Stone, “I was thinking like Alan Vega and Suicide, that kind of noise-synth minimal vibe.” Kanye amped the aggression, from “Black Skinhead” to “New Slaves” to the Nina Simone-Billie Holiday tribute “Blood on the Leaves.” But he saved his best trick for last, with the vintage soul of “Bound 2” — his most obscenely tender love song.

It” and his own hit “Mi Gente,” which kicks off Vibras, the most universal Spanish-language LP of the 2010s. Balvin’s internationalist ease comes through on “Brillo,” a duet with new-school flamenco singer Rosalía, while “Machika” brings Brazilian pop

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16. Light Up Gold Parquet Courts 2013

just what you least expected from indie rock

in 2013: a nonstop manic guitar rave, from a band of merry Texas pranksters running wild in Brooklyn.

Parquet Courts crammed their breakthrough album, Light Up Gold, full of relentless guitars and shroom poetry, daring all other bands to try a little

Paul Simon 2011

simon’s most satisfying set in decades was made by going back to basics, instead of building songs around beats as he had on recent LPs. “The stimuli was a guitar in my lap,” he said. But his 12th solo album also engaged the

Brothers The Black Keys 2010 BEFORE THEY RECORDED their sixth

15. Vibras

J Balvin 2018 colombian reggaeton smoothie Balvin was all over the radio in 2018, thanks to his appearances on Cardi B’s “I Like

queen Anitta together with Aruban singer Jeon. “My music doesn’t discriminate,” Balvin sings. It was a well-timed message.

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album, the Black Keys were hardly in the safest creative space: The Ohio garage duo had drifted apart personally, and drummer Patrick Carney had just gone through a crippling divorce. “Pat was fried from his divorce,” said singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach. “When he heard the lyrics to ‘Next Girl,’ he was just so stoked. The rest of the session, it was smooth sailing.”

Brothers went on to become their most cathartic record, with lyrics touching on marital discord and hope for the future, set to beautifully smudgy R&B, soul, and low-fi funk. “Tighten Up,” the Danger Mouse-produced slice of staccato bump and grind, even became the band’s popradio breakthrough.

FROM TOP: ANDREW CHIN/FILMMAGIC; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/GETTY IMAGES FOR IHEART RADIO

13. Yeezus

present, sampling blues and gospel as Simon’s lyrics invoked a CAT scan, a kid on triple deployment in Iraq, Jay-Z on a billboard, and a Vietnam vet working in a carwash while trying to write a film script. Even when his subject matter is otherworldly (the African-flavored “The Afterlife”), the storytelling feels unmistakably real.

gnettes that leverage small moments and vague malaise into big revelations.

“The album is . . . a year of emotions,” she said. “Twelve months of fucking every day, up, down, up, down.”

The highlight is “Depreston,” in which a failed house-hunting trip leads to heartbreaking observations on aging, loss, and aloneness.

19. 1989

22. A Moon Shaped Pool

Taylor Swift 2014

on the cusp of turning 25, Swift took the biggest risk of her career, abandoning country to follow the “blatant pop music” she’d tried on Red into a full-scale dance-floor rebirth. 1989 channeled the music of her birth decade and created a synth-pop fantasia, experimenting musically and lyrically on songs like the cheeky “Blank Space” and the atmospheric romance of “Wildest Dreams,” indulging an electro introspection that influenced Lorde and Carly Rae Jepsen, among many others.

20. A Seat at the Table

FROM TOP: PATRICK LEWIS/STARPIX FOR HBO/SHUTTERSTOCK; SAMIR HUSSEIN/WIREIMAGE

Solange 2016

solange knowles spent years fitting herself into different musical boxes.

But with A Seat at the Table, she found the right mix of modern R&B and Seventies-steeped soul, and emerged as a poet laureate of the 21st-century black-female experience, articulating frustrations with racial stereotypes (“Mad”) and fetishes (“Don’t Touch My Hair”), while honoring her roots by writing the album in her family’s Louisiana hometown. “I wanted to reclaim that space,” she said.

Mission accomplished.

21. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit Courtney Barnett 2015

the sharpest indie-rock singer-songwriter of her generation, Barnett packed her debut with vivid vi-

Radiohead 2016

radiohead kept a low profile for much of the decade — all the better to floor us when they returned after a five-year gap with this deep, dark dream of an album. While

SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

The ‘Hamilton’ Creator on Musical Surprises My favorite album of the 2010s was: Beyoncé’s 4, just because it has one of my favorite songs of all time, “Countdown.” I think the surprise drop for her self-titled album was the most innovative thing about the 2010s — it changed the way we exist. My favorite song of the 2010s was: I will refer you to “Countdown.” The artist who had the best decade was: Donald Glover. He was being recognized for different talents in different things, all at the same time. The craziest thing that happened to me in the 2010s was: Honestly, it’s the Hamilton wave that keeps cresting. I thought we’d do well with school groups [and] maybe run one or two years. Everything else has been gravy.

Anti Rihanna 2017

RIHANNA BEGAN this century

as the queen of bangers, unloosing a string of unstoppable hits like “Umbrella,” “S&M,” and “We Found Love,” while making compact R&B albums at an equally impressive clip. With Anti, one of pop’s most successful singles artists mastered album-oriented expression and made the best music of her career. “I was determined not to settle for what everybody thought this should be, or when they thought it should come, or how,” she said. “I stuck to it until I felt something again!” The process took nearly three years, and included contributions from Timbaland, DJ Mustard, The Weeknd, and many others.

Rihanna got psychedelic with a cover of a song by Aussie space-pop band Tame Impala, and referenced Florence + the Machine. More impressive was the way she made her sonic wanderlust feel urgent, sculpting some of her most immediate songs, like the vulnerable, shimmering “Kiss It Better” and the Drake duet “Work,” and how she capped off the album with a smoldering run of modern torch ballads. On “James Joint,” she tells us that she’d “rather be/Smoking weed/Whenever we breathe/Every time you kiss me.” On Anti, freeing her mind opened up a window to a new kind of soul.

it’s bookended by two lost gems from the Nineties (the twitchy “Burn the Witch” and the gentle “True Love Waits”), the real triumph of A Moon Shaped Pool is everything in between, with Jonny Greenwood’s gorgeous orchestration and Thom Yorke’s vulnerable songwriting pushing the band to new heights of emotional realness.

23. Body Talk

Robyn 2010 robyn was an international star at 15, but it took 15 more years to make her first full-length masterpiece.

Body Talk proved there may be no artist better at marrying modern pop science with soulful club jams, harnessing precisely calibrated hook fests to ego-dissolving dance-floor bliss. The heart-on-sleeve scenario of “Dancing on My Own” is the paradigm, while “Hang With Me” is Euro-disco with achingly real emotions, and the robo-rap showcase “Fembot” brings out a feminist subtext in her music that parallels Janelle Monáe’s cyber soul.

24. Modern Vampires of the City

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Vampire Weekend 2013 after forming at Columbia University, the boat-shoe-wearing blog-loved indie-pop crew toned down the sunny globe-trotting guitars of their 2008 debut and stared down quarter-life crisis with a broodingly lovely album of reflections on morality, God, uncertainty, and romantic decay; fittingly, they debuted Modern Vampire’s first single, “Unbelievers,” dressed as skeletons on late-night TV just days after Hurricane Sandy shut down New York, and on songs like “Diane Young” and “Hannah Hunt,” Ezra Koenig turns the search for faint glints of redemption in his own emotional wreckage into a drama of Dylan-esque grandeur.

26. Beyoncé

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The Best Albums of the Decade Beyoncé 2013

watching a loved one die of cancer, singing “One thing that’s real clear to me/ No one dies with dignity,” taking on tragedy with plain-spoken truth.

29. Teens of Denial

Car Seat Headrest 2016

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27. Damn.

Kendrick Lamar 2017 after the sprawl of To Pimp a Butterfly, with its widescreen jazz-rap portrait of the nation, Lamar changed gears completely. Damn. was his most unabashed rap banger to date, rocking hard from start to finish, scoring his first Number One hit with “Humble.” Despite guests from Bono to Rihanna, Lamar kept the flow fast and furious as he raged about “the feelin’ of an apocalypse happenin’.”

As he explained, “The best entertainers have to have the most wickedest sense of humor, to be able to take pain and change it into laughter.”

28. Southeastern Jason Isbell 2013 after then-girlfriend, fiddle-player-songwriter Amanda Shires, helped get him to quit drinking and go into rehab, alt-country singer-songwriter Isbell made this focused album, a stripped-down, often reflectively quiet collection of unsparing honesty and vivid detail. With Shires adding harmonies, he addressed his demons on “Cover Me Up,” and with “Elephant,” he authored a penetrating song about

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indie-rock prodigy Will Toledo got his start just out of high school, writing songs in his parents’ house or, sometimes, alone in their car, and putting the results on the internet. By his 10th LP, Teens of Denial, he had a real band and total mastery of chaotic guitar poetry à la Pavement, haymaker hooks à la Guided

by Voices, and gut-check unburdening à la Liz Phair.

“I’m so sick of/Fill in the blank,” he sings on the album’s opening anthem, but there is as much empathy as apathy on highlights like the crushing six-minute centerpiece “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales.”

30. Thank U, Next

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Billie Eilish 2019 EVERYONE KNOWS that pop was big business in the 2010s, but that didn’t stop 18-year-old Eilish from making her insanely catchy blockbuster debut the DIY way. Writing and recording with her brother at their childhood home in L.A.’s Highland Park (sometimes singing her vocals while slouched in bed), Eilish reinvented punk rebellion for the extremely online generation, from the gleeful button-pushing of “Bad Guy” to the goth drama of “My Strange Addiction,” to the straightedge eye roll of “Xanny.” As her dad explained to Rolling Stone, Eilish “has no tolerance for people she’s not interested in and doesn’t give a shit whether you like her or not.” That uncompromising spirit came through in her distractedly mumbled vocals, sinister delivery, and a lyrical sensibility inspired by horror movies like Alien and The Babadook. Despite (or perhaps because of ) its total disinterest in mainstream pop formula, the LP touched a nerve no one could have expected; the week When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? came out, Eilish had 14 songs in the Top 100, and when it debuted at the top of the charts in the spring of 2019, she became the first artist born in the 21st century to have a Number One album.

January 2020

Ariana Grande 2019 after dealing with a series of personal traumas — a terrorist attack at her Manchester concert, the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, and her breakup with Pete Davidson — Grande channeled her feelings into the stellar Thank U, Next. “NASA” swirled into space, while “Ghostin” stared tragedy in the face, and the title track was a graceful break-up ballad for the ages. The LP was part of a creative surge for Grande, her second album in less than six months. “I just want to fucking talk to my fans, and sing, and write music and drop it,” she said.

32. Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Lana Del Rey 2019

del rey made captivating noir pop throughout the 2010s. For Norman Fucking Rockwell!, she immersed herself in L.A. singer-songwriters, from classic Laurel Canyon albums to recent work by her friend Father John Misty. “I just feel such a connection to that

AMANDA EDWARDS/FILMMAGIC

recorded in a secrecy that made the Manhattan Project look like a chill hang, Beyoncé’s self-titled fifth album was the mother of all surprise releases when it hit in 2013 — an especially insane feat since Beyoncé came with a blockbuster visual album as well. The music inside was her most ambitious up to that point, especially on mountainous sex sagas like “Drunk in Love,” an epic duet with Jay-Z, and the sumptuous, string-bathed “Rocket,” which opens with the queen intoning, “Let me sit this ass on you.” It was the sound of the glossiest star in the world chasing her musical and physical urges in any direction that felt true.

Be the Cowboy

singer-songwriter world,” she said. The result was a modern masterpiece of doomily romantic California ache. Her torpid Seventies majesty seemed to stretch out endlessly, whether Del Rey was offering a passing prayer for the late Dennis Wilson, singing about dancing to the Eagles in Malibu, or losing herself in the fading-sunset glow of “Venice Bitch” and “Mariners Apartment Complex.”

Mitski 2018 “I MISS SEEING that swaggering cowboy on-

stage,” Mitski Miyawaki told Rolling Stone, explaining the title of her stellar fifth album. “I miss being mesmerized by that, and I thought, ‘Well, I should just be that cowboy that I want to see onstage.’ I’m just going to be the thing that mesmerizes me.” On Be the Cowboy, the then-27-year-old singer-guitarist was a new kind of indie-rock hero — a self-determined young woman crafting perfectly sculpted, powerhouse songs that fuse goth romanticism, noisy guitar tumult, folk earnestness, and arty pop savvy, while channeling her twentysomething ennui into indelible lyrics like “Nobody fucks me like . . . me.” Miyawaki, who lived in 13 different countries before her family settled in the United States, played in a metal band after college, but eventually found her musical voice writing songs like the elegantly sludgy, starkly unburdening “Your Best American Girl,” a breakout indie hit from her 2016 LP, Puberty 2. Massive media buzz helped lead to a spot opening arena dates on Lorde’s Melodrama tour. With Be the Cowboy, Mitski made her inner turmoil feel universal, from the cathedral-size swoon of “Pink in the Night” to “Me and My Husband,” a trenchant marriage parody set to Beatlesque piano chords.

“I don’t really see the point in putting together a bunch of words for the sake of my own expression,” she said. “I’m interested in having someone understand me.”

35. Black Messiah

D’Angelo 2014 neo-soul architect D’Angelo’s first album in 14 years was an immaculately layered, relentlessly funky, and politically urgent statement, reflecting a concern for detail that often seemed missing in the straight-to-streaming era. You can hear echoes of ragtime and jazz, Parliament, and Prince as D’Angelo fills each song with his beguiling, twistingly intricate multipart harmonies. Released in part as a response to a jury’s failure to indict a Ferguson, Missouri, cop for the shooting death of Michael Brown, Black Messiah was a comeback no one expected that felt right on time — and one of the most welcome returns of the decade.

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36. Dark Matter

Invasion of Privacy

Randy Newman 2017

Cardi B 2018

FROM TOP: LEANN MUELLER; TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES

CARDI B DIDN’T NEED to make music to become a

. . .

star. She was already a huge social media presence and a hilarious reality-TV personality. But she recorded one of the most entertaining hip-hop albums of our era anyway, radiating brash old-school Bronx charisma as she spit unforgettable lines like “I started speaking my mind and tripled my views/Real bitch, only thing fake is the boobs.” Cardi did a bloodyshoed stomp up the charts with the dragon-breathed “Bodak Yellow,” declared herself “like Big Pop mixed with Tupac” on the Chance the Rapper-assisted “Best Life,” and convened a cross-cultural convo with Latin pop stars Bad Bunny and J Balvin on the surprise summer smash “I Like It.” As she told Rolling Stone, “I used to tell myself that I will always be myself.” On Invasion of Privacy, she’s the only Cardi the world will ever need.

american music’s greatest comic ironist released only one album in the 2010s, but it was a gem, perhaps Newman’s most mordant assessment yet of his fellow man.

Dark Matter catalogs historical calamities: science on trial in “The Great Debate,” the Cuban Missile Crisis on the brink in “Brothers,” and fascism on Broadway in the sardonically smiley “Putin.”

And when he pares back his sweeping classicAmericana sound for somber family tragedies like “Wandering Boy” and “Lost Without You,” the darkness really hits home.

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The Best Albums of the Decade

Frank Ocean 2012

when ocean brags about his “great gray matter” on Channel Orange, it is truth in advertising. Lush and mysterious, evoking the downcast smolder of Seventies Sly Stone and the inner visions of Stevie Wonder, the moody soul romantic’s first official release is a gorgeously bleary midnight ride into an L.A. where unemployed dudes live off their stripper girlfriends and cab drivers double as shrinks for lovelorn back-seat confessors.

Ocean’s bold vision helped transform R&B into a more wide-open place for the rest of the decade.

38. A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

Sturgill Simpson 2016 hailed a savior of “real” country music after his second album, 2014’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Simpson did everything he could to defy that notion on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, creating a love letter to his son influenced by Marvin Gaye that was more like a psychedelic-soul song cycle than a Nashville outlier.

The album is full of surprises, including Simpson’s endearing reimagining of Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” And just to prove he hadn’t left his roots totally behind, he included “Call to Arms,” an anti-war anthem worthy of the deepest outlaw tradition.

Ctrl R&B SINGERS IN the 2010s

often seemed to hide their voices behind walls of reverb and booming trap beats. SZA broke that mold on her selfassured debut. “I had to just say what was on my mind,” she told Rolling Stone. “I decided to take down the reverb and be in the forefront.” She created Ctrl with a small team of producers, who holed up in an L.A. studio listening to Brazilian jazz, Nineties hip-hop, and Nirvana for inspiration.

The result is a winningly candid breakthrough (“Let me tell you a secret: I’ve been secretly banging your homeboy,” she sings on “Supermodel”), with clean hooks that are easy to shout along to and several undeniable hits. “I think [musical] clutter comes from nerves,” SZA explained. “It doesn’t come from choice.”

39. El Mal Querer

Rosalía 2018 no artist in the 2010s brought together the ancient and the modern as seamlessly as Spanish singer Rosalía did on her magic trick of a second LP, which uses centuries-old Andalusian flamenco as a taking-off point for a modern pop adventure. Rosalía delivers smoldering lyrics about rapture

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SZA 2017

January 2020

and jealousy over the subtle dance-floor shudder of “Pienso en Tu Mirá,” guided along by a festival-ready electronic bass, and “Bagdad,” which riffs beautifully on Justin Timberlake’s 2000s touchstone “Cry Me a River.”

41. Coloring Book

Platinum Miranda Lambert 2014 LAMBERT HAD as good a decade as almost

any other artist alive, and this nearly immaculate set is so catchy, confident, and wide-ranging that it’s almost unfair to other Nashville stars. Lambert had just turned 30, and gone were the gun-toting revenge songs that had partly defined her work. “I’m not just burning houses down anymore,” she told Rolling Stone. “I have more to sing about.”

She veers from tender meditations on fame to cheeky celebrations of her hair color (the title track, which turns “What doesn’t kill you, only makes you blonder” into an extremely sticky melody) to faux-vaudeville and Western swing. Every song is perfectly constructed but feels like it is broadcast from her soul — none more so than “Bathroom Sink,” a portrait of self-doubt, written

by Lambert alone, that grows from acoustic sketch to raging rocker, the sound of a world-beater willing to show her vulnerabilities.

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Chance the Rapper 2016 after kids told him they were inspired by his popular mixtape, Acid Rap, to drop LSD, Chance reflected on “the responsibility of being a popular artist,” and grounded his next release in gospel as he opened up about life issues like clean living and raising a family (aptly seconded by the Chicago Children’s Choir on “All We Got”). The mood shifts from jubilant (“No Problem”) to defiantly woozy (“Mixtape”). Millions took heart, and Coloring Book became the first streaming-only album to both chart on the Billboard 200 and win a Grammy Award.

43. Tempest

Bob Dylan 2012 dylan told “Rolling Stone” his 35th studio album had been “worked out in rehearsals . . . during soundchecks.” Yet there is nothing casual about his only collection of original material this decade. Songs like “Pay in Blood” and “Tin Angel” are killer displays of late-career firepower, while the music summons jump blues, Western swing, and British folk ballads.

And seven years later, lines like “This is hard country to stay alive in/Blades are everywhere, and they’re breaking my skin” cut even deeper than when he first sang them.

44. Days Are Gone Haim 2013

“when we started playing . . . we didn’t know people in any scene,” Alana Haim told Rolling Stone.

That sense of freshness and pure pop innocence came through in the L.A. trio’s

FROM TOP: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR COACHELLA; JOHN SHEARER/WIREIMAGE

37. Channel Orange

unshakably catchy songs.

The three sisters of Haim retro-fit fluttery Nineties R&B, synth-y Eighties pop rock, and breezy Southern California soft rock, leavening tunes like “Falling” and “Don’t Save Me” with a seemingly innate sense of melodic craft. Every song on Days Are Gone bristles with bright hooks and skittery percussive energy; the peak moment of cocaine-crisp L.A. gold is “The Wire,” which reimagines the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” as if Fleetwood Mac had been in the studio to help out on harmonies.

45 Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) 2015 THE RECORDING OF

an absurdly unlikely hip-hop musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton transformed how America thinks about musical theater, Broadway, and itself. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda combines rap, R&B, and show tunes with absolute authority, quoting Biggie, Eminem, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, entering its most indelible lines (“I’m not throwing away my shot!” “Who tells your story?”) into the national vernacular, while inspiring endorsement from Obama and the dumb fury of Trump.

46. Wrecking Ball

FROM TOP: BRUCE GLIKAS/BRUCEGLIKAS/FILMMAGIC; OVIDIU HRUBARU/SHUTTERSTOCK

Bruce Springsteen 2012

america was crawling out of the Great Recession in 2012, but Springsteen still had business to settle: “The blood on our hands will come back on us twice,” he sings, running out the money changers over a hip-hop/gospel beat on “Rocky Ground.” Wrecking Ball was his most savagely despondent LP in years, surveying our democracy in chains on the ballad “Shackled and Drawn,” while still praying for a shared language of love and support on “We Take Care of Our Own.” “I’ve written about this stuff for . . . 30 years,” he told Jon Stewart in a Rolling Stone interview. Wrecking Ball shows how vital his voice remains.

47. 22, a Million Bon Iver 2016

“it used to be just a G chord on a guitar for many years,” Justin Vernon said about the dramatic sonic evolution on Bon Iver’s gorgeously glitchy third album. “This time we went looking for different kinds of sparks.” With its dense layers of synths, processed samples, Auto-Tuned vocals, and fluttering horns, 22, a Million was both a myth-busting creative rebirth for Vernon and a firm farewell to the wave of sad-sack folk-strumming that acts like Bon Iver,

Fleet Foxes, and Iron and Wine had crystallized at the dawn of the decade.

“Say nothing of my fable, no,” Vernon sings. “What on Earth is left to come.”

48. You Want It Darker

Leonard Cohen 2016

confined to his Los Angeles home for health reasons, Cohen recorded lyrics his son, Adam, later produced into finished tracks to create the 82-year-old torch poet’s rumbling prayer of a final album. “This particular predicament is filled with many fewer distractions than other times in my life, and actually enables me to work with a little

more concentration and continuity,” Cohen noted.

Equally droll — and never morbid — the songs address loss and relationship travails over beautifully minimal waltzes, with Cohen’s coal-mine-deep voice seeming to rumble into the eternal. His words are as powerful as his vocals.

“My lost was saying found/ My don’t was saying do,” he offers, chasing the dark truth right up to the end.

49. Watch the Throne Jay-Z and Kanye West

2011 a decade after Kanye proved himself as an elite producer on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint, modern rap’s greatest frenemies reunited for this gold-plated monument to their own imperious cool. “If we were gonna do it, we were gonna do it together,” Jay said, explaining their insistence on in-person sessions in New York, Paris, Los Angeles, and Bath, England. “No mailing it in.” Their tag-team act on “Otis” and “N----s in Paris” is as purely delightful as rap got in the 2010s, but what makes Watch the Throne a highlight of both their catalogs are the glimpses of spiritual and political turmoil on “Murder to Excellence,” “New Day,” and “No Church in the Wild.”

50. Emotion

SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? LINDSEY JORDAN OF SNAIL MAIL

The 20-Year-Old Indie-Rock Prodigy on Bon Iver and Boof My favorite album of the 2010s was: The self-titled 1975 album.

The artist who had the best decade was: Frank Ocean.

He just did. The craziest thing that happened to you in the past 10 years was: Touring in Asia and having fans in Jakarta.

Selling out shows in places where I just, like, would never have been able to travel to before, and having people sing the words back. The TV show I couldn’t stop watching was: Euphoria. The best slang term of the decade was: Calling something that’s ugly or bad “boof.” My most surprising encounter with a fellow artist was: Justin Vernon. I’ve been listening to Bon Iver since I was, like, 13. The most “2010s” thing of the 2010s was: Kanye and Donald Trump. That shit was crazy.

Carly Rae Jepsen 2015 hungry to prove she was more than the one-hit wonder of “Call Me Maybe,” the Canadian singer worked with indie co-producers like ex-Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij and Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes, as well as old hands like Swedish song doctor Max Martin, to make her own flavor of Madonna-steeped synth-pop. “[I’m] a woman who is very fascinated by the subject of love,” she said, “who loves nothing more than creating music about it.” The hook overload is intoxicating, and Jepsen’s emo passion feels sweet and self-aware in a way you can’t help but get behind.

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Prabh Deep:

India’s Most Fearless

Rapper

New Delhi’s moshpitstarting, soul-searching star is now thinking beyond hip-hop in 2020

BY A N U R AG TAGAT Photography by A s h i s h S a h u

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Styled exclusively in: U n i te d Co l o r s o f B e n e t to n Fashion Editor : N e e l a n g a n a Va s u d eva Art Director : Ta nv i S h a h Hair and makeup : Anuj Dogra

Jacket, T-shirt, joggers and sneakers, all by United Colors of Benetton

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P R A B H DE E P

O

n C h r i s t m a s D a y, Prabh Deep premiered the video for “Amar,” a super-smooth horn sectionaided track in which he’s actually talking about preparing for his death, his soul’s journey to immortality and even a fleeting reference to the 1984 antiSikh riots.

He outlines the most important things to him in life on the song: “Iss duniya ch pehla pariwar mera/Duji meri neend mainu pyaari/Teeja mera kamm naale/Chauthi meri maut jiddi kara mai tyaari.” Family, sleep, work and a death he’s preparing for – that’s perhaps where the New Delhi-based firebrand hip-hop artist and producer’s priorities lie at this juncture. Despite the reference to ’84, there’s a separate album (tentatively called 84-18) that he’s working on, whereas his latest EP KING is “very personal.” He adds, “I got bored of rap, man. I wanted to try some soul and I suck at it, but I’m still trying. I’m not scared of experimenting and changing my sound. Some artists they’re really scared of changing their sound, because they fear they’ ll lose their audience. With me, it’s different. Whenever I change my sound, I gain a new audience.”

Recently turned 26, Prabh Deep was heralded as the next big thing in 2017 itself, when he and producer Sez On The Beat worked together on the former’s debut album Class-Sikh, the first big release on New Delhi/Mumbai-headquartered label Azadi Records. He might be a total braggart and ready to throw down on songs like “G Maane” and “Suno” off Class-Sikh – which even won him the Toto Funds the Arts Music Award in 2018 – but Prabh’s socially conscious verses and stance taken on issues like drug abuse and the world’s increasingly right-wing bent has been a much-needed elbow to the face of mainstream (and largely superficial) Punjabi music.

He leveled up in 2019, from start to finish.

With the One Eight Project at Bira91’s April Fools Fest in New Delhi early last year, a live band featuring saxophone, drums and singers made the rapper think beyond just

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beats and words. With help from synthbass artist Hashbass aka Harshit Misra, keyboardist Archit Anand and more, songs like “Amar” and “Maya” began to show off Prabh’s production chops, which leaned on soul, R&B and pop.

In July came his collaboration with Srinagar rapper-producer Ahmer and Sez, “Elaan.” One of the most important songs of 2019 that almost foretold the ongoing lockdown in Kashmir, Prabh Deep proved why he’s one of the country’s most fearless rappers with his verse. He questions, “Apne aap kolo puch/Twaade dil vich paida kitti kinne nafrat?”

(Ask yourself, who created such hatred in your heart?) KING was mellower than this, but it didn’t stop Prabh Deep from pulling no punches on the closing title track, in which he mixes references to Pokémon as well as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and U.S. president Donald Trump. He says with a laugh when he’s asked about it: “I love to mix and match and bringing two different cultures toge ther and see how people react to it.”

If you change someone’s mentality with your songs, just on a personal level, then there can be a bigger change in society as well. thinking differently. .

Excerpts from the exclus ive interview: When you’re producing and rapping and in control of it all, how much self-doubt is involved in that process?

There is no such thing as selfdoubt for me, particularly. I know when a song is not finished yet, so I’m not going to put it out. That’s the only thing... the next album is a solo project and I’m mixing and mastering it. I learned how to play keys, synth-bass and all that stuff.

Self-doubt toh nahi hota, so I keep working on songs until I know it’s finished.

The title track off KING opens with Pokemon references and Modi-Trump references. What is your thought flow in terms of pop culture references and tying them together?

(Laughs) I love to mix and match and bringing two different cultures together and see how people react to it. People reacted

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P R A B H DE E P

to it pretty crazily. The same people who like Pokémon are the same people who don’t like Modi (laughs). I thought, ‘These two things are my favorite!’ That was my whole point. You see what’s happening in the country right now and it’s pretty fucked up. I’ve said it, like, six months ago, what’s happening now.

There’s a soul music influence on KING and I think that goes well with how philosophical you get on this record.

What’s the objective?

I feel like when people change from within, there’ ll be a bigger change in society as well. If you change someone’s mentality with your songs, just on a personal level, then there can be a bigger change in society as well. People start thinking differently.

Have you seen that with people who come up to you after shows?

For sure, man. People come up and say things like, ‘We used to support BJP’ and ‘We had fucked-up opinions.’ But after understanding somebody else’s perspective, they have a clearer mind about what’s right and wrong. Shit really changes.

I’ve had the opportunity to sit in a big-ass studio in different countries but when I come back home, this is my zone where I can just create.

In addition to your own stuff, you featured on “Elaan” by Ahmer.

What was it like contributing to that song?

“Elaan” is a very close to my heart.

I remember writing this verse in different locations – I was in Bombay one time with Uday [Kapur, Azadi Records co-founder] in a hotel. I wrote half of the verse there, I wrote another half in a metro when I saw uncles talking about politics and thought about how fucked-up their ideology is. I wrote some of it at home and at the studio. That’s why it came out so hard-hitting and powerful.

When Sez played the beat and I heard Ahmer’s verse, I was like, ‘Fuck, I need to add this verse to this song. This was meant for this song’. It fit perfectly. Ahmer and Sez had to stop me because I was writing too much. The original verse was much longer.

So there could be a part two of the song?

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There could be an extended version of the song, with more from me and Ahmer.

Do you sit down and write every day?

Nah, man, I don’t follow that process at all. I don’t have any rapper processes and I don’t even consider myself as a rapper anymore because I just… I’m in a zone where I just sit down with my mic, hit record and spit. The thoughts come naturally to me and I sit down and write, but otherwise I don’t force myself to sit and say, ‘I have to finish this song today.’ If it’s coming from the inside and I really want to, then I’ll do it.

Amidst this constant cycle of touring, writing and recording, where do you feel most comfortable when you want to write something, whether it’s angry and even soulsearching?

I think it’s in my bedroom. I’ve had the opportunity to sit in a bigass studio in different countries but when I come back home, this is my zone where I can just create. It just comes out naturally, I don’t have to think about any concepts or anything.

The words just fit perfectly. I don’t have to worry about how people are going to react to it or how much money I’m going to make from it. The whole KING EP had songs close to my heart. It’s still very close to my heart, because everything I wrote, every word is straight from the heart, it’s coming from a real place.

Earlier this year, you had Beebay TV with [singer] Lit Happu and Sez, which was a riot in terms of taking down terrible desi hiphop but also encouraging people to check out the good ones. What happened to it?

We stopped, we’re not doing it any more. Sez is going in a different direction, Happu is going in a different direction and so am I. We’re just focusing on our own stuff.

It was fun while it was on. But you have to understand, we haven’t even tapped into 1% of the population right now [with our music]. We have to work hard and

drop more music. Maybe when we get really famous, we’ll come back to this and then everything will be smoother.

People asked ‘Why are you making fun of other rappers?’

People aren’t open to ideas here. Like the Beebay thing, for example, it’s everywhere in the States – hip-hop runs on that funny shit. There is a comedy aspect to hiphop as well, which is what people don’t understand in India. That’s what we tried to do but kaafi hate bhi mila usse [we got hate for it].

People were really hurt?

Yeah man, really butthurt. These guys were like, ‘Give me your address, I’ll come to your house.’ I’d say, ‘Here’s my address, come to my house and I’ll beat you up’ (laughs).

People acted really funny, man.

You were trying to promote good rap too.

You have this sub-label coming up soon.

What was the starting point?

I always wanted to start my own thing.

I was just waiting for the right time and for someone to sign. I was waiting for the opportunity. I had heard a lot of demos from a lot of artists, but I never clicked with any of it. But then I met this crazy soul/jazz singer Arshia Saxena from Bombay just last week. She blew my mind in the booth, I fell in love with her voice. She’s a reflection of me, in a sense, like how fast I work and how I am. I just go on the beat and kill it in one hour. That’s what she did in front of me and I was like, ‘Damn, this is crazy.’ I had to sign her. I signed her as soon as we finished the song. I told her the deal of sub-label and told her the plans I had and she was onboard. It’s really exciting for me.

I’ve been talking to this girl and heard her stuff but wanted to see what she could do under pressure in the studio, because that’s where the main game is. She’s killed it there and that’s when I thought about signing her. There’s also Harjas Preet aka HRJS, who’s a rapper, I like him so much and I’d love to sign him. This is not a political, hiphop space [with my label]. It’s a very soul, jazz scene. We’re taking it in a different direction.

You’re putting out material constantly.

What side do you stand on? Rappers being

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Blazer and knit by United Colors of Benetton

prolific because people are following them, or taking time with a record?

I believe in both things. I believe in consistency. I’m really fast, I can make three songs in a day. I’ve done it and I can do it again. What I do is, I see the kind of projects that aren’t fitting into the record and put them out as singles. On top of that, I’m working on another record. The new one should be out in February or March. I’m still finishing a couple of songs.

You have to keep making music. Some artists just put out two singles and make their fans wait, which is a cool thing to do and then drop an album. It could go wrong as well, though, when people wait for too long and then the album… (laughs) it’s a very tricky thing. People wait years for your album and then it’s just 30 minutes of the same shit you’ve been putting out before. What’s the point?

From now on, we made the decision that from Delhi only, we’re traveling with our own party, with a full crew. Otherwise, we’re not doing a show.

People might say you should be more accommodating.

Yeah man, but they don’t understand. I don’t want to do six shows a week. I want to do one show in a month and give people an experience. A good 90-minute set that people can go crazy and feel, ‘Oh shit, we saw something crazy today’. Good production, good visuals and ambience, all these things matter to me, because people pay good money to see me and I don’t want that experience to go to waste.

I have material for like two hours and 30 minutes. Name one rapper who has that much material.

What has changed in terms of your live shows in the past year?

2019 has been a rollercoaster ride for me in terms of shows. The KING EP tour was perfect because that was our own production and everything was in our own control.

When we got other shows, though, I realized there’s no structure in India when it comes to gigs. Nobody is solving any shit, everyone is going on with their own drama. There are certain rules to this, basic necessities for artists.

Sometimes when it’s not fulfilled, it just pisses you off. Very little things, like when you’re on stage sound-checking for 40 minutes and you’re on the last five minutes of it and suddenly there’s feedback. It just pisses you off, because you’re like ‘Yo, I’ve been soundchecking for 45 minutes and this is the first thing you should do, cut the feedback.’

You also have a fashion line that’s about to start, called FLY. What can you tell me about that?

It’s not a clothing line or a merch kind of thing. It’s more of an artist thing, where there’s a designer on board and I’m getting into fashion now, competing with (brands like) Off-White, Supreme. My designer Shaurya Vir Singh and I, we manifested it for so long, we talk so often and knew we didn’t want to do it on a smaller scale.

That’s the ideology we follow with music too – let’s go big and make it huge. That’s the reason when you check the analytics and the graph between October 2017 and December 2019 – from when Class-Sikh released to now – it blew my mind, to see the craziest growth in two years and it’s all organic. We didn’t spend a single penny on promotions.

It’s going to be a proper brand. Kind of how you hear about Beats By Dre used by every artist in the West, we want to give out clothing to every artist in this country, release their music videos and support the system and make an economy out of it. Indian economy’s shit right now (laughs), so we want to bring this in.

I don’t want to do six shows a week.

I want to do one show in a month and give people an experience.

A good 90-minute set that people can go crazy. crazy today’.

And you’re ready to perform it?

Yeah of course, I’ll do it. I don’t like to sit on it. I have a third album coming out and a couple of singles, a few more collaborations.

There’s lots of material that’s already out and the strangest part is people know the new songs too.

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10 BEST INDIAN ALBUMS OF 2019 This year brought hotly anticipated hip-hop, faithrestoring indie tunes and evocative rock that ensured the relevance of full-length records 1. Peter Cat Recording Co. Bismillah

in 2019, New Delhi’s Peter Cat Recording Co. weren’t just about gypsy, jazz, psychedelic rock and waltz like their previous releases.

Much more rooted in jazz with hints of electronic (“Where The Money Flows”), Bismillah presented a celebration sound in many ways (“Floated By,” “Memory Box”). Tropical vibes permeate on “Soulless Friends,” while there’s lush nostalgic rock on “Heera,” which tells us there’s deliberation but also acceptance of the way things are (“I’m This”). There’s a burst of brass on “Remain In Me” and a cinematic end with “Shit I’m Dreaming,” showing us yet another warped chapter in the history of Peter Cat. — ANURAG TAGAT

2. Parekh & Singh Science City

in pondering the bigger picture, Kolkata-bred dream pop duo Parekh &

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Singh deliver yet another winner. By no means is Ocean easy to follow up, but Science City was readied years ago and then released in chronology via U.K. label Peacefrog.

There’s a sense of affection and wonderment on songs like “Monkey,” “Hello” and “Be Something,” but vocalist, guitarist and producer Nischay Parekh perhaps grasps on to the most heartfelt epiphanies on songs like “Summer Skin” (“Time’s a waste of life,” he sings) and the duo space out on “Forward Slash” and “One Hundred Shadows” while introducing serious grooves on “Crystalline.”

— A.T.

Herd Us encapsulates the sound of that era extraordinarily well, juxtaposed with modern pop motifs (and sci-fi lyrical allusions) and clever arrangements even as we move into the 2020s. If some say that rock is dead, then They Finally Herd Us is a resurrection. – DAVID BRITTO

4. Shubhangi Joshi Collective Babelfish

on their debut eighttrack album Babelfish, Mumbai indie-pop outfit Shubhangi Joshi Collective packs a stellar bunch of songs together that flow seamlessly. The band’s record – featuring vocalist-guitarist Shubhangi Joshi, bassist Titus Pinto, keyboardist Nishant Nair and drummer Aamir Ismail – opens with “Last Ticket Journey” which includes a pacing drum pattern and embellished keyboard parts. The band charms with “Curious Cat” and presents funkgroove on “Surfing With The Times.” Joshi puts forward cheeky lyrics like “Spare me your last minute, crying.” The acoustic pop tune “Why Stay Away” is a slow yet flowing song that pulls you in one note at a time while “Help Me Remember” is a bossa nova jazz-inspired number. The album also features Joshi’s 2017 single “Foolish,” the flavorful “Cynic On The List” and the relaxing record closer and live staple “Ode To The Moon.” – D.B .

Jaago

in a fashion that recalls ghazals and even bhajans, Suryakant Sawhney sits with a harmonium and a mic to make a melancholic proclamation that’s turned many club venues and festival grounds upside down this past year. It goes: “Doob raha hai desh yahaan (this land is drowning.)” In his sedate, jaded voice through the course of eight kaleidoscopic dance tracks, Lifafa hits just the right nerves about 21st century existence. Over otherworldly layers of synth and also house patterns, the singer-producer oscillates between youthfulness (“Chaku Chidiya”,) love (“Nikamma,” “Din Raat”) and disillusionment (“MJRH”). — A.T.

Blackstratblues

3. The Koniac Net

When It’s Time

They Finally Herd Us mumbai rockers The Koniac Net comprising vocalist-guitarist David Abraham, guitarists Jason D’Souza and Aaron Dmello, bassist Adil Kurwa, vocalist Mallika Barot and drummer Karun Kannampilly have crafted a remarkably resounding album with the 11-track They Finally Herd Us. The record brings forth catchy melodies (“Crawling,” “Here We’ll Be”), gritty guitars (“All Hail Backslider,” “Cobra Avalanche,” “In Vein”) and killer drum fills on “Alison.” For any Nineties rock lover, They Finally

ONE COULD ARGUE that Mumbai instrumental rock group Blackstratblues’ fifth album, the eight-track When It’s Time, is nothing short of a stellar piece of art. The group’s talisman Warren Mendonsa shines on almost every track with his largerthan-life guitar solos and intricate chord progressions. Drummer Jai Row Kavi is at his thumping best when he is beating the daylights out of his kit on “Black Hole X3” with solid drum parts and dynamic fills. Bassist Adi Mistry’s ability to play to the mood and hold just the right groove sits perfectly with the rest of the band as keyboardist Beven Fonseca lays a canvas for Mendonsa to go berserk on. – D.B .

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6. Lifafa

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“Anti Indian” to a beat that can set clubs aflame.

He’s almost holding back tears in his voice for India’s daughters (“Snowlin”) but remembers the power of irony (“Ok Sir,” “Middle Class”).

There’s club bangers and then there’s the heartfelt EDM turn with “Thamizhachi,” in which he and OfRO encourage women to be as fearless and badass as possible in their pursuits. — A.T.

9. Taba Chake Bombay Dreams arunachalese singer-songwriter Taba Chake’s folk/rock LP Bom-

Divine

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Kohinoor

THE DROP OF Divine’s debut LP was something of a land-

mark event in the Indian hip-hop scene with the anticipation building over months, spanning the launch of his own label and entertainment conglomerate Gully Gang Entertainment, a semi-autobiographical film (Gully Boy), a documentary (Gully Life – The Story of Divine) and more. And it was well worth the wait. The eight-track LP is scorching in its veracity and Divine’s lyricism is uncompromising on the groove of razorline beats that flirt with electronica, R&B, even elements of jazz and more with bold horn variations mixed in. There’s a compelling commercial tinge to the sonic palette of the album that is offset by the raw force and honesty of Divine’s bars and the rapper doesn’t hold back, going all out to tell his story on the high-octane LP. The album opener “Kohinoor,” “Wallah,” “Vibe Hai,” “Chal Bombay” and the closer “Too Hype” especially stand out. Joined by fellow Gully Gang rappers Aavrutti, Shah RuLe and D’Evil, American rappers Nas and Dave East, Indo-American singer-songwriter Sid Sriram and Bangladeshi-American DJ/Producer Sanjoy, Divine truly gets his squad out to deliver. – JESSICA XALXO

bay Dreams is a record that’s not hard to listen to.

Chake’s guitaring is experimentative, mercurial and intuitive as he flits from serene folk pop/rock ballads (“In Waadiyon Mein,” “Meri Dastaan”) to Nyishi folk songs with electric

bridges (“Hugulo”) and punk-rock declarations (“Keeping Me From Sleep Tonight.”) He mingles the airy with the edgy, taking to the ukelele on the vulnerable “My Other Side,” introducing ambient drops and delving into the romantic and adventurous on “Walk With Me” and “Aao Chalein,” crooning and rocking in his husky voice. Bombay Dreams is an album that is authentic, raw and intrepid, letting you into a space that feels like home with Chake employing Hindi, English and his native Nyishi to take you there. — J.X.

Winit Tikoo

Tamasha

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8. Arivu x OfRO Therukural after being the sharptongued rapper of Tamil group The Casteless Collective in 2018, rapper Arivu and producer OfRO arguably became the voice of South Indian hip-hop with Therukural. Within seven tracks, Arivu is acerbic in his takedown of two-faced-

KASHMIRI MUSICIAN Winit

ness (“Kalla Mouni,”) but also squares up with so-called nationalists on

Tikoo’s long-awaited debut nine-track album Tamasha includes all of the artist’s influences from rock, grunge, Hindustani classical music and more. There’s plenty for everyone on this record from soaring guitar solos on

the powerful “Zindagi” and the bluesy “Ajnabi.” Tikoo channels melodic rock on “GDS” and shakes things up with ghazals on “Faiz.”

The album comes together beautifully midway through the rousing “Pagal,” punctuated by a guitar solo that

flows straight into a delightfully arranged section by sarangi player Shahrukhh Khan. The record simmers down with the melancholic “Chanab” before we hear the aggression on the title track which is a total headbanger. – D.B.

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10 BEST INDIAN EPS OF 2019 From experimental debuts to fusion offerings, this year was filled with eclectic and promising releases the sonic palette. Transitioning from the dark trap and bass blends of his first album to smooth jazz hooks, melodic vocals, eclectic basslines, guitar riffs and groovy synth with KING, the rapper reinvented his sound with the self-produced record.

Bringing bassist Harshit Misra aka Hashbass and keyboardist Archit Anand on for the semi-autobiographical “Maya,” the first single from the EP, Prabh Deep surprised listeners with just how experimental he could get. The rapper wasn’t a lone wolf either on KING, getting fellow Punjabi rapper HRJS to lend vocals on the groovy “Khat” and harmonization

by Tansolo on the melodic “King.” The one thing that didn’t change? The rappers evocative socio-political commentary, proving once again that Prabh Deep’s voice wouldn’t be lost in a sea of trends. — J.X.

The F16s

1. MOSKO Teeth

WKND FRNDS

3 if you’re looking for a sonic delight, look no further than New Delhi dance-rock act MOSKO’s debut four-track EP Teeth.

Helmed by vocalist Kavya Trehan and guitarist Moses Koul and accentuated by bassists Abhinav Chaudhury and Amar Pandey as well as drummers Karan Malik and Suyash Gabriel, the record includes a belting opening track in “Smooth” and moves to the jumpy breakdown-friendly “Mosey Pants.” The EP also delivers a mellifluous listen with “YDEK” and ends with the euphoric glitch leaning “Drance 109.”

Throughout Teeth, Trehan’s hooky vocals stand out while Koul’s intricate guitar work creates quite a treat for the ears. — DAVID

CHENNAI ALT-ROCKERS

The F16s hit all the right spots on their beautifully arranged new four-track EP WKND FRNDS. A labor of love that was in the works for a few years, the record is packed with diversity, harmonies, synth-driven effervescence and dance-y elements that sit well with slow-paced burners.

Opening up with the moody “My Baby’s Beak,” the band space out on “Boudoir” before going all synth and melodic with “Amber.” The closing title track sums

5. Vaisakh Somanath Thevai

up the entire EP well with a range of musicality featured in it — from guitar licks, groovy drum parts and claps, plus a memorable vocal harmony when frontman Josh Fernandez pleads “Why don’t you stay.” – D.B .

BRITTO

2. Pacifist Greyscale Dreams

Firing an opening salvo to seek the ever-neces-

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sary introspection into modern existence, Mumbai post-hardcore band Pacifist breathed into the music circuit some much-needed substance. Piecing together the best parts of American artists like At The DriveIn, Fugazi and Converge, Pacifist’s debut EP took on keyboard warriors (on the chaotic “Reactionary”), societal and political apathy

January 2020

(the simmering “Double Down”) and lived up to the moshpit-provoking dissonance legacy of the subgenre. “Pedigreed” is suitably wiry and peppered with calls for “jump!” but the title track changes everything. Pacifist reach into a shattered part of 21st-century urban living, occasionally swinging and kicking with a punk bridge

section, but ultimately settling down amongst the shards. — ANURAG TAGAT

4. Prabh Deep KING a follow-up to his 2017 breakout debut LP ClassSikh (produced by Sez On The Beat), New Delhi rapper Prabh Deep’s EP KING is a record that isn’t afraid to keep switching up

kochi-based Tamil singer-songwriter Vaisakh Somanath brought his much needed wide-eyed worldview, measuring it out in spoonfuls of groovy, saxophone-leaning soul and R&B on his four-track debut. Somanath talks about changing society and oneself in his calming lilt, delving on alternative living as though it’s

an option long ignored.

You’re rarely going to hear songs about homeschooling (“Pattampoochi”) and sustainable living (“Neelavaanam”) delivered as succinctly and cinematically as Somanath has.

Environmental conservation might be the need of the hour, but Somanath isn’t going to shout about it, rather offering a sweet song about living within one’s needs and looking at the world through the eyes of love (“Thevai”). It’s layered, intelligent pop at times, although Somanath does allow himself one escape route on the upbeat, jazz-leaning love song “Mayapenne.” — A.T.

7. Jatayu Chango Tales

on their debut EP, Chennai jazz-fusion band Jatayu take a page from the

book of greats like John McLaughlin, but also carve out their own voice in the process. Anchoring the sound on their five-track EP Chango Tales are collaborations with seasoned German violinist Holger Jetter and Swiss instrumental group Krond-Flast.

With wonderment and a soul-seeking mind, Jatayu go from flittering Carnatic guitar riffs (“Shringara”) and dexterous jazz rhythms (“May I?”) to seriously sinister psychedelic jams (“Pazhi”) to emerge out of a shell with euphoria (“Chango”), choosing tropical (read: South Indian) hues. — A.T.

Swadesi x Bandish Projekt Khulle Naagde

FOLLOWING UP their 2016 collab Katal Kalaa, bass music don Bandish Projekt and hip-hop crew Swadesi returned with something even more hard-hitting on Khulle Naagde. With Swadesi now including MCs Maharya and the mercurial 100RBH, the EP opens with a silver-tongued turn from MC Mawali on the seismic opener “Antariksh.” To the call of “Aamhi Kon?” (Who are we?), “Khaari Baat” blends ethnotronica with an acerbic takedown of the class divide.

Whether it’s Tod Fod calling out truths (the bass-break heavy “Kathore Satya”) or 100RBH throwing down one of his most incendiary verses on “Jhand,” Khulle Naagde proves just how unstoppable a pairing like this can be. – A.T.

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8. No Honey Future Like new delhi alt/electronic trio No Honey’s debut EP Future Like is almost hypnotic in its sonic potency.

Diving deep into synth with its haunting opener about toxic relationships, “Sit Back”, No Honey gets it right with immersive lyricism amidst melodic keys and the swell of vocalist Abhilasha Sinha’s boomy vocals. “Alone Tonight” leans on producer and guitarist Keshav Dhar’s background (guitarist of rockers

Meera

I’ve Never Been Happier To Be Lost AHMEDABAD-BASED musician Meera Desai’s

debut EP I’ve Never Been Happier To Be Lost is a saccharine, sonic probe into the questions of life. The airy, upbeat opener “Divine” is an inquiry into faith and feels as liberating as the stripped notion of belief itself. Featuring the sound of waves, “Salt” comes next with its emotive string section during the bridge, exploring the story of the Indian-Tamil boy Pi from Yann Martel’s bestselling book Life of Pi. The folksy “Homes” has elements of jazz and the EP closer, “Distance,” dances on a bed of pulled guitar strings, the melody rippling beneath Meera’s vibrant, evocative vocals. There’s a haunting, almost airy and crystalline sound to I’ve Never Been Happier To Be Lost, strengthened by the gravity of Meera’s lyricism which in its simplicity, is infinitely profound. – JESSICA XALXO

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Skyharbor) to talk about the pace of love, bringing in elements of prog rock and an emotive guitar bridge.

It’s followed by the bass leaning, pop induced love track “No Honey.” Percussionist Suyash Gabriel really comes into his element on the EP closer “Courage,” layering the drums to build an uptempo, groovy dance track with emotion. As electronic as Future Like is, it experiments with rock, pop, ambient and more to deliver a sound that makes you anticipate the trio’s next offering. — J.X.

10. SkyEyes SkyEyes new delhi psychedelic/ blues outfit SkyEyes chan-

nel a mixture of American rock bands Creedence Clearwater Revival and Lynyrd Skynyrd on their debut four-track eponymous EP. The record features strong vocal sections by Diyatom Deb and emotion-soaked instrumentation from drummer Akhil Kumar, bassist Barun Sinha and guitarist Sushant Thakur. The guitarist shines across the EP with his raging riffs and sweet solos.

The EP opens with the easy listening and breezy “Mad Man’s Tale” before we hear the emotional power ballad “Betrayal” while “Last Train” is a total jam song.

The closing track, “Letter To My Father,” pairs the melancholic lyrics with bashing rock. SkyEyes have packed a punch on their debut EP, we await to see what they have in store next. — D.B.

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10 BEST INDIAN SINGLES OF 2019 Protest, subversion and experimentation reigned strong this year

1. Three Oscillators (feat. Karshni)

hop, showcasing Prabh’s skills in the producer’s chair. The addition of bassist Harshit Misra aka Hashbass and keyboardist Archit Anand on the song along with Prabh Deep’s heavy delivery makes for a fine listen.

— DAVID BRITTO

“Drowning”

mumbai electronica artists Three Oscillators and Pune/Mumbai singer-songwriter Karshni’s “Drowning” was the early summer track we did not see coming. Accentuated by warping and granular glitches that flow with the synth-bed of the song, going with the current, melodically disrupting but not fighting against it, “Drowning” is meditative and an absolutely experimentative winner. Earlier this year, the artists told Rolling Stone India that the song was about vulnerability and navigating one’s way out of a horrible place, and both the lyrics and production lend a palpable buoyancy to the desolation. Karshni’s balmy vocals trickle seamlessly into the Three Oscillators stream of fluid samples, and “Drowning” emerges — tranquil, organic and clean. – JESSICA XALXO

2. Swadesi (feat.

Prakash Bhoir) “The Warli Revolt” if Indian hip-hop truly came of age and became fully authentic in 2019, a lot of credit goes to Mumbai’s multilingual, socially conscious crew Swadesi.

MC Mawali, 100 RBH,

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Tod Fod – along with Warli tribal chieftain and Adivasi activist Prakash Bhoir – raise their fist on “The Warli Revolt.” To the sample of a Maharashtrian horn section that ushers in the song, Swadesi announce a revolution to fight not just for forests, but for human rights.

The rappers take turns in condemning corruption and false promises, while highlighting the importance of roots and the strength of those very bonds. — ANURAG TAGAT

5. Dopeadelicz “Aai Shapath Saheb Me Navtho” when the beat kicks in for Mumbai rap crew Dopeadelicz’s track “Aai Shapath Saheb Me Navtho” you immediately think of Nineties gangsta rap, much like how you’d

Thermal and a Quarter

think about rapper Stony Psyko’s Snoop Dogg-inspired look. On this tell-all song, Stony Psyko spills the beans of being caught by the Mumbai police and getting through to them with his dope rhymes. While Stony Psyko spits bars about his real name, his religion and address, the track is led by a smooth beat underlined with slick treble piano notes. — D. B.

6. Aarlon “Vidroh”

“Leaders of Men”

3. Prabh Deep “Maya”

a track that featured as one of our Editor’s Pick of the month earlier this year is New Delhi rapper Prabh Deep’s “Maya.” Many months on (and a few new singles later), we still can’t get enough of it. The mellow and emotive song leans almost towards experimental jazz meets hip-

January 2020

BENGALURU’S ROCK

veterans Thermal And A Quarter’s second single “Leaders of Men” off their upcoming album A World Gone Mad is a well-packaged blues offering that you can listen to on loop.

Vocalist-guitarist Bruce Lee Mani’s coolly takes down politicians and leaders in powerful positions not just

4 in our country but across the globe. Sonically, the song gives you everything you want from a blues number; a booming bass line, a groove that hits all the right spots and a spellbinding guitar solo.

– D.B .

with the right dashes of Linkin Park, Architects and Bring Me The Horizon, Hindi metal band Aarlon perfect a verbose, emotive sound on their single “Vidroh.”

Addressing the need to break away from India’s heavy-handed middle class expectations, Aarlon eschew all the tired and worn-out tropes and dig deeper into metaphors and their lyrical arsenal.

The battering rhythm matches up just as well, providing a precisive modern metal-edged riffs from Piyush Rana and Ritwik Shivam over vocalist Pritam Goswami Adhikary’s unhinged growls. — A. T.

7. Arogya “Dark World”

Gangtok rockers Arogya’s sublime track “Dark World” was their first English language track after years of finding a base in the Nepali rock circuit. Singer Rainjong Lepcha’s vocal prowess shines throughout the song as he goes from high octane notes to chilling screams that resonate with the pumping riffs and grooves across the shimmering synth-rock offering. The hooky chorus when Lepcha sings “You turned my world/Dark and bare” might just channel your inner goth to join in and belt out with the band.

— D. B.

8. Mood Station “Rawn Sapatal Rawh”

Mizo rock/metal band Mood Station come across as a revelation of sorts for anyone following heavy music, possibly signaling that the North East has a sort of self-sufficient circuit at times. On the lead single off their self-titled album, which went out on streaming platforms midway through this year, Mood Station show us the power of just one riff that’s overdriven to frenzied levels. Mixing electronic elements with stretchy synth work and intricate drum fills, it doesn’t matter

Ahmer x Sez On The Beat (feat.

Prabh Deep) “ELAAN”

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24-YEAR-OLD BREAKOUT Kashmi-

ri rapper Ahmer Javed aka Ahmer delivered one of the most hard-hitting debuts of the year. The fiery, confrontational and resolute LP Little Kid, Big Dreams (produced by Sez On The Beat) fused dissent with a dark soundscape to scream resistance. Set to an old school beat looped around a detuned guitar line, Ahmer belts in Koshur, Hindi and Urdu on “Elaan,” speaking out on his experience of the militarization of Kashmir, the identity of its people and the complicity of Indian politics, citizens and the media.

Joined by New Delhi rapper Prabh Deep, the two addressed the country through their lenses on “Elaan,” delivering a jolting call of awareness to the masses with intuitive production

by Sez. – J.X.

a single bit that you may not understand the lyrics, because “Rawn Sapatal Rawh” is a maniacal, arena-rock sized stomper.

— A. T.

10. MC Altaf (feat.

DRJ Sohail) “Code Mumbai 17” Mumbai rapper MC Altaf ’s old school hip-hop track “Code Mumbai 17” is a dynamite ode to his neighborhood of Dharavi (pincode 400017). Altaf really came through with impeccable lyrical delivery, his bars hitting the nail with every line. Belting, “Na tu gangster/ Teri soch hi napak hai/ Main hoon kal ka sach/ Kyunki kaanon mein Wu-Tang

hai (You’re no gangster/ Your ideology is flawed/ I’m tomorrow’s truth/ My ears are hooked on [the] Wu-Tang [Clan],)” the rapper spoke of his origins and neighborhood pride.

Mumbai DJ/Producer DRJ Sohail mirrored the style of Nineties hip-hop footed with a glitchy groove, giving Altaf a beat to drop some really incendiary verses that confront the stereotypes the residents of Dharavi face. The 20-yearold may have audiences fooled with his swagger but through his Hindi/ Urdu free-flow on “Code Mumbai 17,” MC Altaf proved just how powerful and disruptive experiential artistry can be. — J. X.

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11 BEST INDIAN MUSIC VIDEOS OF 2019 Here’s a look at standout visual representations of songs which included slick animation, storytelling, superb camera work and more

1 The Local Train “Gustaakh”

IT UNDERSTANDABLY took a while for The

Local Train to release another music video off their 2018 album Vaaqif. The animated, stop-motion incorporating clip for the arena-rock staple “Gustaakh” comes across as a labor of love directed by Mumbai’s Vijesh Rajan and his team at Plexus and produced by Mosambi Juice Production’s

2. Vasu Dixit “Nadiyolage” bengaluru musician Vasu Dixit released the music video for “Nadiyolage” under his eponymous folk project earlier this year on World Music Day. Based on a Kannada poem of the same name (translating to ‘A River

Krish Makhija (with an able assist from associate producer Harshvir Oberai). A fully digital age that’s also Orwellian, there’s references to megalomaniac leaders, building statues, new currency and a giant teddy bear gone rogue that makes for an action-packed, allegory-heavy viewing experience. – ANURAG TAGAT

Poem’) by Bengaluru poet Mamta Sagar, the video is a spiritual glimpse into the universe through the eyes of a lone grasshopper. The acoustic-folk track pairs well with the immersive visuals which traverse the celestial and the earthly, exploring how souls see the surreal and

the in-between, even turning psychedelic at times.

In the music video directed by Bengaluru-based filmmaker Rita Dhankani, Dixit transitions in and out of the frames, his aura flickering to life and dissipating to a world that has no end in the cycle of life. – JESSICA XALXO

3.Black Letters “In My Senses” kerala-bred, Bengaluru-based alternative rock outfit Black Letters’ music video for their song “In My Senses” (from their 2019 album Still As You) features

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retro nostalgia through a cult-classic couple reunion. Directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker Pranav Bhasin, the cinematic five-minute cut begins with what seems like an abduction. Black Letters vocalist Sharath Narayan sings as he lays in the backseat, pierced through the abdomen with an arrow, while a woman (Pranjal Asha) resembling yesteryears Bollywood icon Madhubala in her role as courtesan Anarkali glances back from the shotgun seat, torn. It’s only at the end of the music video that viewers realize the band is reuniting Anarkali with her lover Salim (Satyajit Ravindra Varma) as she gets out of the car and Akbar’s (Vishaal Ram) cold body is laid on the grass. The band’s late night drive leads to a historic, futuristic and bittersweet reunion for the once separated historic lovers from Hindi cinema while acting as a commentary on the trappings (no pun intended) of love. – J. X.

4. Parekh & Singh “Summer Skin” kolkata dream pop duo Parekh & Singh’s music video for “Summer Skin,” off their 2019 album Science City, is a tran-

quil meditation on the makings of love and life itself. With science serving as a metaphor for the thrill and discovery of the everyday and the passing of seasons, the duo deliver a distinct visual experience that not only makes you question the purpose of time but the strictures of it too.

It’s hard to look away from the layered frames and even though it takes a while to catch on to a reasonable conclusion, you’ll definitely walk away with one. – J. X.

5. Smalltalk “Tired”

mumbai alternative band Smalltalk’s accompanying music video for their single “Tired” is as laidback as the song itself.

In the almost zen-like clip directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker and musician Jishnu Guha, the band is seen in a range of relaxed activities from playing cards, doing a bit of meditating, competing in a game of noughts and crosses, trying their hand at Jenga, plonked on a couch watching a movie, sipping on illuminated drinks and more. If you’re looking for something stress-free to watch, Smalltalk’s “Tired” certainly ticks all the boxes.

– DAVID BRITTO

6. Parikrama

8. The F16s

“Tears of the Wizard” for their first video in 20 years, New Delhi rockers Parikrama have created quite a stir with “Tears Of The Wizard.” In the video directed by Sujit K. Jha, the band travels in a van (their song “Am I Dreaming” plays in the background as an Easter Egg of sorts). Soon after, the van breaks down and Parikrama – dressed in an all-black attire – step out into the tranquil nature of Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh. The band is then seen performing the track against lush backdrops of mountains, rivers and fields, even as subtle visual cues point towards an entirely different storyline.

At the end of the video, drummer Srijan Mahajan is woken up from a dream and we see the rest of the band still in the van traveling. – D. B.

“Amber” chennai alt-rockers The F16s‘ first single, the dreamy “Amber,” off their new EP WKND FRNDS came with a charmingly crafted animated video by Deepti Sharma.

The filter-heavy imagery follows a young girl who

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9. Your Chin “Luv Important” when you hear lyrics like “You cannot leave me/I won’t walk out/I wiped your snot,” one would probably think it’s tough to match up to Mumbai-based producer Your Chin aka Raxit Tewari’s quirky, open-ended, often outlandish lyricism. But

is trying to fit in with the “hip” crowd but is not able to and ends up struggling to find her true self. Come for the animated versions of the band (plus Indian indie scene regulars like their former managers Tej Brar and Kalidas Shenoy), stay for the band’s signature dose of melancholic rock. – D. B.

with help from director M.G. Bopanna and actor Sautrik Mukherji, the electro-synth offering “Luv Important” meets its visual match.The video is trippy and mesmerizing at times with plenty of abstract imagery, including some which could cause you to do a double-take. – D. B.

Peter Cat Recording Co. “Floated By”

10. Aabha Hanjura “Roshewalla” Part 1 and Part 2 bengaluru-based Kashmiri folk-fusion artist Aabha Hanjura has her own way of saying “sab kuch theek ho jayega (everything will be alright in the end)” about her home’s ever-changing volatile condition on the twopart “Roshewalla.”

At a time when the territory of Kashmir continues to be on lockdown for over four months, the song and video perhaps provide some hope to optimists about how love will prevail, even through the harshest of times. Produced by

AMONGST INDIA’S (and now France’s) favorite indie bands this year, Peter Cat Recording Co. offered “Floated By” as the first single off their album Bismillah, featuring wedding footage from vocalist and guitarist Suryakant Sawhney’s marriage to video journalist and filmmaker Surabhi Tandon.

When he’s not on groom duty, Sawhney got behind the camera himself, along with filmmakerfriends Sachin Pillai and Nitish Kanjilal. If the horn sectionaided “Floated By” gave everyone fuzzy feelings, it’s because it almost comes across as the perfect Indian wedding song with Sawhney’s affectionate lyrics set to somewhat surreal camera work. A video bonus: drunk uncles dancing their troubles away. – A.T.

Kochi-based production house MadGenius and directed by Vishak Nair, there’s puppetry and visual effects blended together to create gripping storytelling, much like the kiddie audience in the two-part video. – A. T.

11. Uday Benegal “Antigravity”

as part of a release by Nexa Music, Mumbai musician Uday Benegal stars in the video for the pulsating rock rager “Antigravity.” Directed by Dubai-based filmmaker Tejal Patni, we’re treated to a visual delight that ranges from abstract imagery to people breaking free and expressing themselves through art.

Benegal is seen as a sort of museum installation held inside a glass structure filled with water. – D. B.

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Lucky Ali and Israeli Artist Eliezer Botzer Collaborate on the Soulful ‘On My Way’

O

N THE FOLKSY, cinematic song “On My Way,” Indian singer and pop artist Lucky Ali and Israeli artist Eliezer Cohen Botzer take on the idea of confluence and fusion.

It was in 2017 that the two artists met, introduced by Botzer’s producer and friend Bob Stark. The EliAli project, who are now set to release an album called Lemalla, was born out of “trying to build the bridge of understanding,” as Ali puts it in a behind the scenes video.

Botzer says while he was actively seeking out a collaboration with an Indian

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musician, Ali was the best fit.

The Israeli artist adds over an email interview, “Meeting Lucky surpassed all my expectations. I was amazed

by Lucky’s personality. He is a rare artist, a teacher and a true inspiration. Lucky has a wise perspective of life that is expressed in his care of humanity. His beautiful personality spreads simple love…”

A veteran voice in India for Bollywood as well as his own material, Lucky Ali says he “didn’t think too much” about accepting Botzer’s invitation to collaborate.

Over the course of nearly

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three years, Lemalla began taking shape between Tel Aviv and Bengaluru, aided by supporting musicians and recording engineers in both countries. Ali recalls how Botzer’s team landed at his farm in Bengaluru, “And then we became friends, that was the natural course of things.

And that’s how music happens, you can only make music if you’re friends and there is love and understanding… Angry people can’t be making music.”

In the video directed by filmmakers Dvir Keren and Chinkx Bug, “On My Way” features footage of Bengaluru and Tel Aviv and both Ali and

Botzer meeting and singing.

Botzer says of the track, “It’s a traveler’s song, a song of dialog among friends and prayer within the journey. Distance makes me miss home, and traveling with an open heart makes everywhere we go, home.”

Through behind the scenes footage, listeners can get a glimpse of Lemalla, with tracks like “Amaraya, “In My Life” and “Virtuality.” They range from rock to fusion and folk, featuring lyrics in English, Hindi and Hebrew.

Botzer adds that when lyrics were being discussed and translated amongst the

musicians, there was already an understanding of the emotion behind the words.

“Even without knowing the text. It felt like an intuition becoming fruitful and true,” the artist says.

With “On My Way” already chalking up over 450,000 views on YouTube, Lemalla will receive a release in the coming months song by song with more videos. Botzer answers an obvious question about taking his collaboration with Ali to the stage, “Performing together is on the cards. We are all very excited by this new joint adventure.” ANURAG TAGAT

revital topiol

The Indo-Israeli collaboration has also led to a full-length album called ‘Lemalla’

L

ong before she started calling herself H.E.R., Gabi Wilson was on an almost preordained path to stardom. She appeared on the Today Show as a 10-yearold prodigy, performing an eerily accomplished cover of Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” before signing a record deal at age 14. She grew up to be a multi-instrumentalist (lead-guitar chops very much included) alt-R&B auteur in the tradition of Keys and Prince, with exquisite control of her powerhouse voice. With five Grammy nominations for 2019 and a new album due early this year, H.E.R. is well on the way to fulfilling her considerable potential at age 22. “I’ve really put in the time and work,” she says. “I’m so happy that everything has been, you know, manifesting.”

What was your journey like from child prodigy to the fully formed artist we heard on the first H.E.R. recordings, in 2016?

It’s one thing to be able to sing well, but another to be an artist and find your own voice within music. And that’s what the goal was for me in my teenage years. I had to find myself. As a young woman, I experienced high school and heartbreak, and the music I started to write was a little bit more poetic, and more inspired by spoken word. The real raw emotional things that sit in the back of our minds, that you were afraid to say? That’s how I started to write my music. And that’s how H.E.R. Volume One came about.

So you went to regular high school as you were pursuing a musical career?

Was it basically like Hannah Montana?

Exactly! Yeah, some people would be like, “When are you gonna be famous?” Or, “Weren’t you on TV? Like, why do you go here?” And some adults would be like, “Your music’s never gonna come out.”

I hated a routine life — I wanted to be on tour. I was in class thinking, “I can’t wait to get in the studio.” I really prayed for everything I have now, but I’m thankful I was able to be a regular kid.

Q&A

H.E.R. The rising alt-R&B star on the blues, defying industry stereotypes, and meeting a fan who got pregnant to her music

By BRIA N HIATT You’re a blues fan — what artists do you like?

Albert King. B.B. King. I went to a Buddy Guy concert when I was, like, seven years old. B.B. King, with literally one note on the guitar, does something to everyone in the room — and that’s what I’ve been inspired by as far as playing: feeling instead of technique.

Even Donny Hathaway, how emotional his voice is, his tone is very bluesy, very gospel-y.

That type of music gives you a feeling you can’t necessarily

describe. Music is healing. It’s something you can’t explain, you just feel. And to me, blues does that.

You have a real mix of modern and vintage influences. How did all that come together for you?

When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament,

Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown. As I got older, my uncle played a lot of Nineties R&B — Jodeci, Boyz II Men. He’d pick me up from school, and he was playing Drake, the Weeknd, and Jhené Aiko.

A few years later, Bryson Tiller came out, and all those influences went into Volume One. With my music, it’s always me, because I am all these influences, but you never necessarily know what sound you’re going to get.

How’d you get the idea for your transparent Stratocaster?

My stylist and I were talking, because the outfit that I wanted was really sparkly and we didn’t want to cover it up.

And we thought, “Oh, instead of making a glitter guitar, why not make it transparent?” It looks so much cooler.

And it matches whatever I’m wearing. Playing guitar is part of who I am, since I was a kid.

I remember watching a video of Lenny Kravitz and Prince [from the Rave Un2 the Year 2000 concert] when I was a kid. That video changed my life — it made me want to play guitar just because of how rock star it is.

On your new song “Anti,” you sing about “scrutiny on a tiny screen,” which whole generations can relate to.

It wasn’t a song for anybody else so much as it was for me.

I sometimes have to remind myself not to feed into the pressure of what a female artist should be. People are saying, you know, “Why do you wear baggy clothes? You’re pretty, you should show your face.” I had to remind myself that I’m anti all those things.

On your great single “Slide,” YG raps about wanting a woman “in an apron/Booty all out cookin’ bacon,” which is amusingly contrary to the messages in the rest of your music.

I mean, that wasn’t my message. That was YG’s message!

I just put him on the song.

I’m not complaining, because I would never say that on a record, but he definitely was just being himself. I asked for YG and I got YG! It’s just a fun song — people hadn’t heard a H.E.R. song like that, where I was just chillin’.

Your sultrier songs appear on a lot of bedroom playlists. How do you feel about that?

I did a meet-and-greet in France, and a woman came who was pregnant. And she said, “This is your responsibility” [laughs]. I’m like, “Oh, boy, I’m so sorry. But congratulations!” I think it’s cool. Like, you know, I make music for every occasion!

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OPPOSITE PAGE: CHRISTOPHER LEE/”THE NEW YORK T IMES”/REDUX

The Mix

USTAD AMJAD ALI KHAN LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY AS PART OF HCL CONCERTS.

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REPORT:

TECH X INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC:

HOW HCL IS PUSHING THE GENRE GLOBALLY SAROD MAESTRO AMJAD ALI KHAN AND HIS SONS PERFORMED SEPARATELY AND TOGETHER IN THE U.S. AT WHAT IS LIKELY THE FIRST OF MANY INTERNATIONAL SHOWS HOSTED BY THE INDIAN TECH GIANT

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EVENTIQUE

B y Anurag Tagat

week after the performance in frigid (but welcoming) New York City (at the hallowed Carnegie Hall, no less) sarod and Indian classical music legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan found himself in San Francisco performing at a much smaller United Club, playing to about 300 people.

It was the third international edition of HCL Concerts, which have been a mainstay in different parts of India since 1998, as a means to bring music lovers together, plus as a treat to their employees, clients and customers. Over at San Francisco, they were testing the waters at a small club housed within the massive Levi’s Stadium, which usually hosts National Football League matches.

Dressed in suitably formal (and Indian formal) attire, the technolog y company’s clients were treated to Khan and his sons performing for over two hours. Whether it was jugalbandis or Rabindranath Tagore compositions or arrangements in raag desh, malkauns and rageshri, the trio’s separate and collective performances were picked out to showcase perhaps the more globally accessible

sides of Indian classical music. As Amaan Ali Bangash mentioned at the start of an interview held a few hours before the performance, they only consider themselves as messengers and vessels of music. If that means changing their own form “so that it goes through to the audience,” he’s more than happy to do it.

Ayaan adds, “When you’re on stage, you have to be a performer, you’re not there to educate people.

You’re there at the end of the day to owe them something, because they’ve bought a ticket.”

Even as HCL Concerts has just announced a debut Bengaluru edition, the executive team mentioned that they are looking at more global capitals to bring fusion, Indian classical and folk performances. Perhaps, they may even aim for New York’s Madison Square Garden, depending on how they scale-up. As for Khan and Amaan and Ayaan, they spoke about traveling and performing together, their upcoming collaboration with the likes of Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and Grammywinning artist Sharon Isbin. Excerpts: How was your New York concert?

Ustad Amjad Ali Khan: Carnegie Hall was the first one. Thanks to HCL, it’s the first corporate house that’s professionally, with conviction and steadfastness presented a classical concert like that. Everything depends on how you present and where you perform. First, there were kings who would patronize classical music, now there’s corporate houses.

Amaan Ali Bangash: It was a good concert and it’s presented in such a nice way, Indian classical music. We had a warm house and a lot of people there. It was received very well. You feel very blessed that you get to play in Carnegie Hall, one of the world’s best venues.

Ayaan Ali Bangash: There’s a joke that when someone asked, ‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’ the reply was, ‘Practice, practice, practice.’

(Laughs) But we’re very fortunate that because of my father we get to perform at all these beautiful venues around the world. Amaan bhai and I have played there a few times.

Khan: The venue for music matters a lot in the western world. In our country, they seat us down and ask us to play anywhere. One organizer had asked us to perform by a water bank and we didn’t ask about it beforehand and just knew all our requirements were in place and took the gig.

There was so much sound of the water hitting the shore, that you can’t hear the sarod only.

Is it a very 21st Century concern for Indian classical artists to think about engaging with their audience?

Amaan: In the 1920s, when there were Rajas, you had to think about the Raja not beheading you for playing bad music. Today you have to think about the audience not getting up and walking out. We as musicians are a tool – we don’t produce music, it comes through us and goes through to the audience. You have to keep changing yourself so that it goes through the audience.

Ayaan: When you’re on stage, you have to be a performer, you’re not there to educate people.

You’re there at the end of the day to owe them something, because they’ve bought a ticket.

Khan: I tell many younger classical musicians, we’re born in this world to provide happiness,

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LEFT AMAAN ALI BANGASH, AMJAD ALI KHAN AND AYAAN ALI KHAN AT HCL CONCERTS’ SAN FRANCISCO EDITION ON DECEMBER 9TH, 2019.

not worries. There are worries when you never finish your raags – that’s a national tragedy, that someone is just looking at their watch and wondering when you’ll finish your performance.

This sense of proportion is so important in every

“I tell many younger classical musicians, we’re born in this world to provide happiness.”

- Amjad Ali Khan

field. Otherwise why would we talk about it? It’s all about conciseness, preciseness, that lacks in our system.

Amaan: The packaging has to change as per the audiences’ likes and dislikes.

Tell me about the all-night concerts you’ve performed. Does it still happen even now?

Amaan: That still happens – when he (Khan) plays in Calcutta or Poona – my father will play for three hours also, because he’s been asked to play for three hours. In those three hours, his presentation will be different, as is the case for any of us. But when you’re given a slot of one hour, the presentation has to be different. Playing in a college is different than playing at Sawai Gandharva in Poona. It’s different music. When that 10 o’ clock ban came in, I think that changed some things for Indian classical music performances.

Khan: The time was different and the era was different too. I was called to a festival by a zamindar, and it was 11 pm and I was offered

Ayaan: We finished the recording in two sessions. He’s been a great admirer of the sarod and when he was in Bombay he reached out to us and now owns a sarod. Amaan and I sat with him through the day and he kind of picked it up, whatever little bit we did. The first session of the recording happened when we reached L.A. from Vancouver, from a festival. Our sarods didn’t arrive in time.

Khan: All three sarods didn’t turn up!

Amaan: It went off somewhere else.

Ayaan: So the sarod we’d given him in Bombay came to the rescue, which was actually made by the same maker who does ours.

Khan: We recorded at this studio in Beverly Hills. The second time we went, though, we had our own sarods.

Amaan: It should come out by February. He’s a great musician, his whole team as well. They’re not show-offs. The problem with our musicians sometimes is, when they see you in the green room, they’re looking at you and performing, they’re trying to prove a point. Over there, they’re so subtle, you don’t know if he’s going to play or if he’s even a musician until he holds an instrument. They respect each other so much and that’s something we need to learn from them.

Khan: We even met the famous drummer of the Beatles, Ringo Starr. He was also there. He’s 79! I couldn’t tell. The way he plays drums, it feels like a god-given gift. I was singing something and he gave a beat, I was shocked. He was just playing on the table, that’s it.

Ayaan: Ringo is Joe Walsh’s brother-in-law. We just met after one of the sessions.

Amaan: Ringo has got the energy of a 25-yearold.

Your father performed “Journeyman” on your album Infinity, which you worked on with Karsh Kale. What was that like?

Ayaan: I think it was the first time people were hearing my father in that light. I don’t think he’s ever played in this electronic space. The sarod’s tone is extremely different. We thought it was something interesting that we could get our father to do and he was very sporting.

Khan: It’s about communication through music. Our trio show, in Russia with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Nirmala Sitharaman was in the audience too. Russia might be viewed as one whose government rules with an iron fist, but in their music tradition, they’re so different.

They’re such gifted artists. If you look at the good in everything, then you can communicate more easily. People say so much about our music and things like ‘Fusion is confusion.’ Some fusion is not good and appealing, not everyone can do it.

Amaan: It’s not an easy thing to do.

What else is coming up through 2020?

Ayaan: There’s this album with Sharon, Strings for Peace, coming up as well. She’s one of the finest classical musicians. She’s got an American music honor that’s come to a guitarist after 57 years or so. We’re playing with the Chicago Philharmonic in April. Whole lot of things lined up. Every day is a new day.

Khan: That’s a new kind of fusion too – when you write for and with an orchestra. They’re so brilliant.

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COURTESY OF HCL CONCERTS

tea. I thought it was time to go to sleep but I was told he’s only awoken now, and he sleeps in the day.

The all-night concerts that happened today, I’m not in favor of those. I’ve played all alone through the night, I was 25 years old at the time and I played from 9 pm to 7 am once, in Calcutta. It was a ticketed show, house full.

There’s one instance where all three of us have performed through the night. Bengal could absorb, they have so much capacity. It happened, but it happened once in a while. The first time an audience sees and hears us, we want them to come back a second time too. That’s a challenge right now.

When you perform with your sons, is it in the capacity of a guru, a parent and as a fellow musician. Which one are you first? And do they surprise you enough on stage?

Khan: We’re all solo musicians, we all get called for solo performances, and these two get called for duet performances too.

Amaan: Quite often we get called for duet performances only (laughs).

Khan: Then there’s times when all three of us perform, which happens especially for international concerts. To show the public the connect – the bonds seem to be breaking these days. The children are detached from parents, or parents are detached from their children. I don’t travel without these two, actually. I don’t travel alone because I’m afraid. It’s a great joy when we play together.

Amaan: So do you play as a guru, father or fellow musician? The last one definitely not I’m sure (laughs).

Khan: Basically, we’re friends.

Amaan: They (points to Ayaan) have more conflicts Ayaan: We all have our share of conflicts, but he (Amaan) is someone who makes peace very quickly.

Amaan: I’ve learned one thing from him (Amjad) – that everyone is here for a very short period of time, so let’s have fun, let’s love everybody but why have anything as anyone? I always feel I’m a very average student – because of that feeling, it keeps me going with my riyaaz.

Khan: Our gurus teach us to look at our weaknesses first.

Our human nature, however, often leads us to look at the bad in others. Gharane ke upar ladayi hota hai, there’s a lot of rivalry. I always admire Tagore because he made his songs and poetry based on classical raags, but always added an additional note in the raag. I didn’t like it at all first, Rabindra Sangeet, then when I performed with a great Bengali singer named Suchitra Mitra – we have an album called Tribute to Tagore – it became very appealing. His music and literature was outstanding. Only a genius can take liberties. Mediocre people just follow in line.

What can you tell me about your collaboration with Joe Walsh?

Amaan: We just recorded a whole album with Joe Walsh.

Khan: And also with Sharon Isbin, we all played one piece each on her new album. It’s called Strings for Peace. The interesting thing is that God has made the seven notes that we call Sa Re Ga Ma, while the West calls it Do Re Mi Fa. The sound is the same. It’s like a flower, which can be used for all occasions, whether it’s death or celebration or whatever else. People fight over whether to call something a devotional song or not, but it’s using the same seven notes.

Australian singer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Murphy fka Chet Faker at his India debut at Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Pune.

10 Years of Happy?

The Pune edition of the three-day music festival banked on more Indian artists than ever before and made some efforts to move past parent company Only Much Louder’s dented reputation

By A NUR AG TAGAT

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t the start of the decade, Mumbai event/artist management company Only Much Louder teamed up with beverage brand Bacardi to start NH7 Weekender, initiating a music festival culture for fans of independent and alternative artists – both Indian and international – where there was barely any before.

10 years, many memories and a few important #MeToo-related exposés later, one would have perhaps expected the biggest blowout yet for their Pune edition, which took place between November 29th and December 1st at Ma-

halakshmi Lawns (which was expectedly mixed up with Laxmi Lawns). But given the recent public image beating that Only Much Louder’s personalities have taken for accusations of sexual misconduct and sometimes enabling a sexist work environment, maybe the music festival was happy just rolling on. Were they indifferent to the past (even as more news of OML founder and former Weekender festival director Vijay Nair’s work with New Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party came up)?

Or were they all right to slap on a band-aid over what was at the least a stab wound?

At the festival, these were clearly questions that a very

small minority perhaps grappled with. Artists, stand-up comics, management agencies, promoters, influencers and fans made their way on to the three-day festival. By the end of day one, tickets for the entire festival edition were announced to be sold out. We’d estimate the numbers anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 coming in to catch acts across six stages for six hours of music and comedy.

While the 5 Star Ke Lolstars comedy stage was a separate area that drew a full crowd most times, the other visible installment was a booth that simply said, “Wanna Talk?” in a bid

to encourage safe spaces and support for any and all festival-goers, with a bent towards the LGBTQIA+ community. Weekender also included a separate gender-fluid security check queue. In terms of advancing as an eco-sustainable music festival, reusable bottles were sold with plenty more water filling stations, in a bid to reduce waste generation, something they already partner with waste management company Skrap to enforce. As far as safety goes, security remained tight, with CCTV cameras placed at the left and right of the stage, to regularly scan the crowd.

VIKRAM CHANDRASHEKHAR

Bacardi NH7 Weekender Remains Uninterrupted

DAY 1:

AN EVEN FLOW OF GENRES

FROM TOP: JISHNU CHAKRABORTY; AGNIPRAVA NATH

A total capital takeover at the Casa Bacardi and Bacardi Arena stages took place in the first half of day one – featuring wavy yet meandering dream-pop from Dee En, while prog/jazz band Shorthand ( joined by prolific drummer Suyash Gabriel) amped up proceedings with songs like “Midnight Traffic.” Over at The Doers Club stage, seasoned rockers Faridkot brought out dark prog vibes as well, while also dipping into favorites like “Laila” and “Subah.” Back at the Bacardi Arena, instrumental band Submarine In Space were delivering a stand-out performance that shifted moods and sounds with ace dexterity.

The easygoing vibes were also supplied by Mum-

bai’s Azamaan Hoyvoy at the Gaana stage and a perfect sundowner set by Bengaluru alternative act Black Letters, who had just released their sparkling, electronic-leaning album Still As You a few days prior. While Swarathma entertained at the Doers Club, their Bengaluru counterparts in psychedelic rock band Parvaaz also promoted their recently released album Kun, although they did have a few live mix issues to clear up before they got on their way through songs like “Marika” at the Casa Bacardi stage.

Their performance was preceded by Chennai/Los Angeles artist Sid Sriram, while not in the best form vocally, was certainly hellbent on raging through

one of the most unconventional live sets we’ve seen – jumping from film songs like “Adiye” to lo-fi R&B/hip-hop from his album Entropy and earlier heart-wrenching compositions like “Brother.” While the Gaana stage closed with feel-good rock

from Kerala band Cut A Vibe, electronic music fave and Pune artist Ritviz closed the Breezer Vivid stage, that blasted bass and low-end to a seismic amount.

Irish rock band Kodaline were competing for space with Ritviz, although

they had no issues drawing a crowd with pop-informed rock songs like “Love Will Set You Free,” their cover of Kygo’s “Raging” and staples that set plenty of phone cameras in the air, including “High Hopes,” “ All I Want” and “Follow Your Fire.”

Irish rock band Kodaline live at Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Pune.

Chennai/Los Angeles artist Sid Sriram live at Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Pune.

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DAY 2:

ALL THINGS HEAVY

Swedish prog band Opeth live at Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Pune.

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brutal death metallers Gutslit) and Sunneith Revankar (from Undying Inc. and The Silent Offensive), Devoid launched a great comeback, mobilizing the moshpits for the rest of the day. Nepal’s Underside proved they were one of the most important bands in South East Asia right now by performing unflinchingly modern metal at the Bacardi Arena, including songs like “Disconnect,” “Sky Burial” and a cover of Slipknot’s “Surfacing.”

Gutslit were about to level up as well, even though their lineup had changed once again. With Venkatraman taking over from Prateek Rajagopal, the band became the most extreme band in

recent years to raise hell at Weekender, their brand of brutal death metal heightened by not just Kaushal L.S. on vocals, but also a cameo from Barve on songs like “Eviscerating The Stillborn,” amidst party poppers, snow spray and toilet paper rolls flying around.

Also following a new iteration of sorts were Mumbai metallers Bhayanak Maut, debuting live with vocalist Aman Virdi (from Pune metallers Noiseware). It was business as usual for BM, who ran through songs like “All Glory to the Beard,” “Ranti Nasha,” “Pindakaas” and “Ungentle” with total intensity. London grime/punk trio Pengshui

brought forth a barrage of bass and electro-punk for their international debut, which was something of a transitory slot before headliners, Swedish prog band Opeth closed day two.

Besides the heavy stuff, hip-hop titan J. Cole’s label Dreamville showcased rap acts like Cozz and Earthgang at the Breezer Vivid stage, which had a sizable number of people in disbelief, perhaps thinking that J. Cole himself was going to show up. Appear he did not, but Dreamville’s buoyant set perhaps sets the bar for a future performance.

Afrobeat band Kokoroko brought the feel-good vibes at the Doers Club, but the big

draw remained Opeth, arriving in India on the back of their latest album In Cauda Venenum. While it wasn’t the best sequenced setlist, fans were clearly overjoyed for the Swedish songs on their new record as well as can’t-fail early hits like the ballad “Hope Leaves” and the prog death-exploring “Deliverance.” Frontman Mikael Akerfeldt was at his comedic best between songs, playing up banter about Indian food and his bowel moments, completing 30 years as a band and how he doesn’t like hip-hop much, but he did have a rap project with fellow Swedes Katatonia frontman Jonas Renkse.

JISHNU CHAKRABORTY

It was after at least four years that Bacardi NH7 Weekender was putting its faith back in metal in a big way, programming the most number of heavy acts in a day. While pop crooner Arunaja warmed up the Casa Bacardi stage with ballads and The Koniac Net more or less played it safe with easygoing indie material from their 2019 album They Finally Herd Us (only bringing the heavy for the last two songs) at the Bacardi Arena, things picked up around 4:30 pm when Mumbai thrash/ death metallers Devoid played their first show in nearly four years.

Aided by guest spots from Aditya Barve (formerly of

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Bengaluru hip-hop artist HanuMankind at Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Pune.

DAY 3:

With most of the heavy music out of the way, the final day of Weekender opened with carefree and laidback sets from Mumbai band Water and Rum at the Gaana stage, plus New Delhi artist Ditty at the Doers Club and Chennai artist JBabe at the Casa Bacardi stage.

Singer-producer duo Kavya x Chaz picked up the tempo over at the Bacardi Arena, but it was Bengaluru artist HanuMankind and his live band who impressed most with his indefatigable flow and songs off his upcoming EP Kalari. Mumbai crew Swadesi took over from thereon, also performing a live set of material from their upcoming album Chetavani.

It was a mood-changer of sorts with their brand of socially-conscious, take-no-prisoners style of hip-hop, while New Delhi act Fopchu were joined by vocalist-guitarist Sanchal Malhar (from rock band Superfuzz) to bring the dance-y mood back at the Doers Club.

Between Israeli trio Garden City Movement, New Delhi’s hypnotic producer-singer Lifafa and seasoned DJ-producer BLOT!,

there was nearly a club-vibe cutting through the festival, heavy on four-on-the-floor beats, sparkling synth and high energy buildups. This was juxtaposed with the well-crafted, somewhat low-key set from producer, pianist and keyboardist Sandunes, who performed her piano-centric set Hand of Thought, that leaned on electronic, classical and everything in between to a patient audience.

Attendees were certainly more hyped to catch fusion-leaning rock artists like Anand Bhaskar Collective and Job Kurian at the Gaana stage. It was a fitting segue for the veteran voice of A. Hariharan to take over at the Doers Club with his sublime repertoire of pop, film music playback and even devotional songs.

Over at the Breezer Vivid stage, live bands were the staple for rappers like Kaam Bhaari and Brodha V, who had everyone moving, followed by a more arena-size presentation of choreographed movements and confetti shots during hip-hop artist Raja Kumari’s closing set.

It was a one-man show for Nick Murphy fka Chet Faker at the Bacardi Arena, who came out with little announcement, clad in a yellow kurta, tikka on his forehead and a garland around his neck. It’s one of those things you might see with an airport greeting, but the platinum selling Aussie singer-songwriter was clearly in the process of becoming an Indophile.

Running through a concise set of songs like “Gold,” “1998” and “Talk Is Cheap,” the one-man show only briefly broke into a duo thanks to tabla artist Dr. Aneesh Pradhan stepping in for an impromptu jam of sorts, one that cemented Murphy’s newfound love for India.

While there are several music festivals up and running successful, few have the legacy status that Bacardi NH7 Weekender has attained. A go-to destination of good times despite all the murkiness that has reportedly transpired behind the scenes, the popularity of the festival remains largely unhindered.

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THE CLIQUE PHOTOGRAPHY

THE PARTY ROLLS ON

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They bicker. They record without ever being in the same room. But the Who can still conjure that old magic

BY STEPHEN RODRICK

Who By Fire

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oger daltrey and pete townshend have known each other for 60 years. They love each other.

“I used to say

that I love him, but with my fingers crossed,” says Townshend of Daltrey. Townshend, gangly and hunched, his

angular face having grown into his long nose, sits in a Dallas Ritz-Carlton suite wearing gray clothes on a white-hot day. “Now, I like him too.

I like all his eccentricities, his foibles, his self-obsession, and his singer thing. Everything about him.”

Daltrey feels the same. He sits in a

comfy chair later the same afternoon. “I’ve always kind of known Pete cares for me,” says Daltrey, crossing his legs in blue cargo shorts. He’s a little impatient because my time with Townshend ran long. “I hope he realizes I care about him. I think my actions through our career have shown that.”

Townshend and Daltrey in September

Roger

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WHO BY FIRE

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Daltrey and Townshend grew up in the same West London area, but Daltrey claims he’s hardscrabble while Townshend is a poseur. “Well, I’m Shepherd’s Bush, and he’s Ealing middle class,” says Daltrey. (Their homes were about 300 yards apart.) Sure, but what about Townshend’s solo song “White City Fighting,” talking about all the scrapes and bloodshed he got into as a kid? Daltrey smiles. “Well, he likes to think he did.”

On it goes.

“We ended up living parallel lives,” says Townshend. It’s true. Today, Roger Daltrey, for reasons unknown, has checked out of the Ritz-Carlton and moved to another five-star place 100 yards away.

Now, a traffic light and a Shake Shack separate the two men.

I

traveled to london, Dallas, and the Hollywood Bowl to see and talk with the Who. It gave me plenty of time to think about Townshend and Daltrey. One concept kept coming back to me in Economy Plus: They give zero fucks. This should not be mistaken for not giving a shit. They still share a devotion to their music and a caring for their careers that some rock-veterans-turned-Vegas-acts long ago abandoned.

But you have to be realistic. If you view their new album and tour as Daltrey & Townshend Play the Hits & a Couple of New Ones, their shows can be seen as a fuck-you to musical fashion and Father Time. If you see this as a continuation of the Who the way your teen self or your father knew them, you’re going to be disappointed.

Keith Moon, the band’s original drummer, died in 1978, and in the succeeding years the Who became less a creative enterprise and more a carnival of commerce, only accentuated after bassist John Entwistle’s death in a Vegas hotel room in 2002. There have been more farewell tours than new records.

Townshend says it best: “We’re not a band anymore. There’s a lot of people who don’t like it when I say it, but we’re just not a fucking band.

Even when we were, I used to sit there thinking, ‘This is a fucking waste of time. Take 26 because Keith Moon has had one glass of brandy too many.’ ” You shouldn’t be sentimental. God knows Townshend is not.

Well, sometimes he is. Over the years, Townshend has lamented the long-gone Moon, and after Entwistle’s death, Townshend said, “Without him, I wouldn’t be here. . . . When I did look over and he wasn’t there, I wanted to die.”

Today, he’s feeling less charitable. The Who’s current shows feature two video screens full of vintage shots of mad, mad Moon and Entwistle in his bemused and haunting solitude. I asked Townshend if he ever got nostalgic looking up at the pictures of his fallen bandmates. He snorted like an old horse.

“It’s not going to make Who fans very happy, but thank God they’re gone.”

Because?

“Because they were fucking difficult to play with. They never, ever managed to create bands for themselves. I think my musical discipline, my musical efficiency as a rhythm player, held the band together.”

Townshend took on his bass player first. “John’s bass sound was like a Messiaen organ,” he says, waving his angular limbs. “Every note, every harmonic in the sky. When he passed away and I did the first few shows without him, with Pino [Palladino] on bass, he was playing without all that stuff. . . . I said, ‘Wow, I have a job.’ ” He was not finished. Moon is an easier target; he once passed out during a 1970s show in San Francisco, forcing the band to pull a drummer out of the crowd. “With Keith, my job was keeping time, because he didn’t do that,” says Townshend. “So when he passed away, it was like, ‘Oh, I don’t have to keep time anymore.’ ” The word “happy” doesn’t really apply to someone as complex as Townshend. Yet there seems to be a sense of contentment brought on by his 20-year relationship with the composer Rachel Fuller. Still, he is fragile, and the death in July of his guitar tech of 40 years, Alan Rogan, left him in a bad place. (He described Rogan as “my guitar tech, friend, savior, and good buddy.”) “I was a fucking mess,” says Townshend. “Usually, I’m so unaffected by death. My mother, father, Keith Moon. Maybe because he was in a hospital bed and fighting back so hard. When he finally passed, I just thought, ‘Fuck.’ ” He is alternately defiant and cheeky. I ask if he had left instructions on how to handle his voluminous archives and unfinished projects after he is gone. He leaned in close and quipped, “I’d really like to finish them.”

Townshend is a man who has suffered and has turned that suffering into great art. He was left by his mum to live with a mentally deteriorating grandma for two years.

As a young boy, and then at around age 11, he was sexually abused. Seventy years later, he is still staring at the scars. His awakening has been incremental. During a rambling intro for the 1970 Live at Leeds version of “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” a song about a young girl molested by a train engineer, Townshend said, “John Entwistle plays the engine driver, and I play the Girl Guide.” It wasn’t a joke. Years later, Townshend admitted similar activities happened to him while in his grandmother’s care. “I’m not angry about it,” he says.

“But I can’t process it. I did three years of serious therapy, and I’ve done loads of counseling and therapeutic work since.” It has helped, but not enough.

That ache has been processed through heartbreaking songs about maladjusted characters; namely the title character in Tommy and the Mod boy Jimmy in Quadrophenia. Still, Townshend’s ability to turn horror into magic doesn’t change his reality. He tells me about a friend who was kidnapped and sexually abused as a boy. A few years ago, the Who were doing a Tommy fundraiser show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Townshend could see his friend in the front rows.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t like it when I say it,” Townshend says, “but the Who are just not a band anymore.”

PREVIOUS SPREAD: GROOMING BY TODD HARRIS FOR SALLY HARLOR

Daltrey and Pete Townshend have known each other for 60 years. They tolerate each other.

Daltrey and Townshend have a new album, simply called Who. It’s only the second album from the band in 37 years. Through the magic of modern technology, Daltrey and Townshend recorded it earlier this year in London and Los Angeles without ever being in the same room. (Townshend says they were once in the same building. Daltrey isn’t so sure.) Townshend wrote and recorded demos and sent them to the singer. During recording, they communicated through their individual personal producers, both with the first name David, which must have been confusing.

Separately, Daltrey and Townshend express excitement for the new songs. (Daltrey told me it’s the Who’s best work since Quadrophenia.) They’re back on the road, playing with a 48-piece orchestra. The refrain I heard from multiple learned attendants of the tour was “Wow, that show was way better than it had any right to be.”

The same can be said for the record. Daltrey’s weary vocals, particularly on the back half, are marvelous, and Townshend’s ability to write an anthemic earworm remains intact. It’s enough to make you regret all the music the two have not made together over the past 30 years.

But there is a reason for the long breaks. The two remain detached, if not estranged, from each other. Townshend, 74, is engaged in modern music and still capable of jackjawing a listener into submission about any subject from climate crisis to the shelf life of teen idols. Daltrey? At 75, he’s happy to churn out low-key solo albums and live offline on his country estate.

At a show in L.A., Daltrey chatted with a sound guy about his vocals while Townshend joked with bassist Jon Button. Whenever one of them hit the other’s magnetic field, they bounced away. They never made eye contact. It reminded me of when an ex-girlfriend and I worked together and made ostentatious attempts to avoid each other at holiday parties.

Things don’t change that much when the lights go up. “If you watch Roger onstage, he goes through a lot of visual phases,” says Townshend.

“Sometimes, he can’t stop himself looking over at me. It’s irritation.” He arches his eyebrows. “It’s irritation that I’m even there.”

Daltrey is also unsatisfied. He wants to change the set list, maybe add some lesser-known songs, but says it is a no-go. “Pete doesn’t remember words much,” says Daltrey, “and he doesn’t remember chord shapes, and he finds it hard to change the show on the road.”

Later, Daltrey talks about the role he has played in Townshend’s songwriting. Since 1964, Townshend has been the band’s primary songwriter, and his creative dominance has tended to overshadow Daltrey’s contributions. Townshend might have been an editor at Faber & Faber, but Daltrey has been his editor. Well, according to Daltrey. On the new record, Daltrey toned down what he saw as irresponsible political rhetoric, deleted a rap, and changed pronouns. Now, I ask if he thinks he should have gotten more songwriting credits over the band’s half-century history. “I wrote all the ad-libs,” says Daltrey with a smile. “I should have, but I can’t be bothered to make a fuss about it now. It’s fucking bollocks.” Daltrey trails off. “If he needs the money...”

worrying too much about things that we can’t control.”

The endless whirring of Townshend’s brain has only gotten louder in the 25 years since he got sober. “What I know is that when I drank, I won’t say I was happy, but I certainly was unaware of the darkness that I was carrying,” he says.

Now he’s fully aware of the things that made him reach for the bottle. They could be incidents of abuse. They could be slights from his adolescence. “Living stone-cold sober, there’s no escape,” says Townshend.

Today, Townshend looks for nonalcoholic escapes. “It could be shopping. It could be time with my wife. We work together and have lots of fun.” Townshend pauses, and it seems like he worries that his “escapes” sound banal. He mentions an escape might happen when a beautiful woman mentions she liked a show.

“There’s that moment when you just think you’re young again,” he says. “That fantasy.” He becomes more animated, and his blue eyes light up. “Or embracing darkness. Thinking, ‘God, it would be such fun if I just fucking killed myself now. We’ve got Wembley Stadium tomorrow — God, it would just be so fucking great.’ ” He pauses for a moment as if startled he said that last thought aloud. He wondered later, “I find sometimes I’ll be saying things and I think, ‘Do I really feel that, or is my mouth just fucking with me?’ ”

DEVIN YALKIN

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Onstage, was troubled: “I worry that little Greta When it came time for him to sing TomSeptember. The — I don’t want to patronize her, bemy’s “The Acid Queen,” told from the Who’s current tour cause she’s so fucking great — will be viewpoint of a female abuser, he lost it. includes a 48-piece pretty pissed off.”

“I just blew the whole show,” remembers orchestra.

Townshend relates her work to his Townshend. “It’s on TV, you can see it. I involvement in the 1960s Ban the look like I’m in pain.”

Bomb movement and how the Cuban missile criHe’s hardly sung “Acid Queen” since. The linsis came and went and London was still there. gering wounds have left Townshend a volatile It left Townshend wondering what the point mixture of empathy and cynicism. “Won’t Get was. “She says, ‘You stole my childhood.’ ActualFooled Again” is an anthem against idealism that ly, she’s stealing her childhood. That’s the thing, still drives him. Teen activist Greta Thunberg had whether or not we steal our own childhoods by been making the rounds when we talked, and he

oger daltrey doesn’t dwell in the darkness. Well, except if you bring up Brexit. He then will rhapsodize about the gangsters in Europe ruining merrie olde England and how the Germans have an ironclad grip on the Euro.

Daltrey insists he’s been misunderstood all these years. This is sort of his fault for projecting an image of a West London bantam tough who once knocked Townshend out in the early 1970s with a single punch (Townshend started it). “I come across as kind of a hard nut,” says Daltrey, near a whisper. “But people got it backwards.

I’m not. I’m a softy. I’m the softest person in the world.”

Daltrey was the only member of the Who to not abuse drugs, and that left him the grown-up in the band, drawing up set lists and making sure the trains ran on time. I ask if he ever grew tired of being chaperone to three very naughty boys. “I still am!” he says. “It always has been ‘Pete does the album, but don’t expect him to put the tour together,’ right? That’s always on my lap. It has all worked out very well. So I’m happy to shoulder that. I’m good at it.”

Daltrey has also had something that either eluded or did not appeal to the other Who members: a domestic life. (Townshend didn’t settle down until he approached 60.) Daltrey has been with his wife, Heather, for 50 years, pledging fidelity, when the band was off the road, at least.

It’s worked for them while providing more heirs.

(Daltrey has three children with Heather; one with his first wife, Jackie; and four out of wedlock, three of whom he fathered in the Sixties but didn’t learn about until middle age.) Almost 50 years ago, they bought Holmhurst Manor, a 400-year-old Jacobean mansion in East Sussex.

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THE WHO

the internet coming. I knew music was going down the tubes, and they didn’t.”

Daltrey has done a lot of work on the house, and it has kept him sane.

“It saved me,” says Daltrey. While he enjoyed the rock lifestyle for a while, he was ready to get out before he was 30. “When you’re young, it was part of a movement. It felt really good, but I couldn’t wait to get out of it.”

Daltrey got into film. (He starred in Tommy and some other less-notable movies.) But he found that to be just a different type of nightmare. “I felt like a drowning penguin. I didn’t like being fawned over.

I didn’t like being pulled at. We’d been pulled at all our lives.”

He tries to set a good example for the young folks.

A few years ago, he did a charity gig with Babyshambles’ Pete Doherty, a puckish songwriter in the Townshend tradition and a longtime heroin addict. Daltrey tried to share a few stories of friends lost and lives ruined by hard drugs. Doherty was not receptive.

“You might as well talk to the wall,” says Daltrey with a shrug. And then he thought again. Doherty is still with us. “You only need a few words to go in that get thought about later on. You just start the key in the lock.”

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hile daltrey is happily living the undiscovered life, Townshend continues to pick over the bones of his past. And it no longer is only in verse. He has just published an operatic novel, called The Age of Anxiety, after years of delays.

(Like Townshend’s never-completed and now middle-aged Lifehouse project, the book is intended to be part of a larger multimedia project.)

There’s a character in the novel named Louis. He is an art dealer who happens to be the exact age as Townshend. He is accused of a ghastly sex crime on a drugged-out teenager that he may or may not have committed. It’s a stark echo of a deeply painful moment. In 2003, Townshend was arrested for paying to access a child-pornography site. He has always claimed that he was compiling evidence to go after child-sex-ring runners and the banks that processed their transactions. Daltrey valiantly came to his defense, and eventually Townshend wasn’t charged with any crime. Rather than leave that alone, Townshend has published a novel in which he dares readers to connect the dots.

“It made it feel real to me,” says Townshend in a quiet voice. He then re-enters his prideful zone: “But the interesting thing about that was I anticipated the MeToo movement. Louis is not based really on me, but there will be me in there somewhere.”

The novel also features a rock star who sells his catalog to a truck company, allowing him to retire and regroup his life. This one is easy: Townshend has taken crap for years for licensing Who songs to CSI, truck manufacturers, and other companies.

(Baseball is playing in the background while we talk, and the synth opening of “Baba O’Riley” is pushing T-Mobile between innings.) He points out how the band was ripped off for its first 20 years and he had to make up for lost time. Today, he can’t be bothered.

“I never gave a shit,” says Townshend. “I’ve always said the composer is king. It’s my music, not yours.”

He doesn’t care if some musicians think he’s a sellout. “I knew that in the end they would be doing the same thing,” says Townshend. “One other difference between me and the Lou Reed and Iggy Pop smartalecks of the New York art scene is that I fucking saw

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he typical combination of hope and disgust is present in Daltrey and Townshend’s new work. There was a period when Townshend wondered if the record would happen at all; after he sent Daltrey the demos, it was months before Daltrey relayed his thoughts. Daltrey says there was a good reason for the radio silence: “These are really great songs, but what do I tell him? It sounds to me like a really great Pete Townshend solo album. What can I do in these to make them better?”

Townshend rolls his eyes about this. Apparently, Daltrey had told a version of the story from the stage earlier in the tour. “He hadn’t actually really listened to it, I don’t think,” says Townshend with a chuckle.

The album dares you to push “stop” in the first 10 seconds. “All This Music Must Fade” begins with Daltrey growling, “I don’t care/I know you’re gonna hate this song.” “I hated it at first,” says Daltrey. “But it’s such a catchy song.” He’s clearly proud of his editing job. “On the demo, he had some rapping on it. Well, no fucking way I’m going to rap. No way.

Let the youngsters wear those clothes.” When I mention to Townshend that the song was a tough entry into the album, he tartly replies, “It’s not a song for the listener, it’s a song for another songwriter.” He mentions a current song goddess’s battles to copyright words and album titles. “Watching Taylor Swift go through what she’s putting herself through at the moment is heartbreaking. She doesn’t own the fucking music. She doesn’t own the words. I think she has a financial right to it, but she shouldn’t screw herself up about this stuff. It’s just songs, for fuck’s sake.”

The best track is “Street Song,” about the Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 72 people in 2017.

Daltrey wouldn’t sing the original words: “It had a lot of political lyrics that kind of pointed fingers, and I thought, ‘This is not the time to point fingers until the inquiry is over and you can make a judgment along what really, really happened.’ ” Townshend conceded, and Daltrey’s anguished vocal is among the more moving performances of his career.

“I was thinking, ‘Well, this is great, because I’m singing this,’ ” says Townshend with a hint of envy.

“And suddenly he delivered this killer vocal for it.”

Townshend offers a historical anecdote as explanation for why he and Daltrey have been such a magnificent if excruciating pairing. “When we recorded Quadrophenia . . . this is brutal, but I didn’t care what Roger thought,” says Townshend. “And he did a version of ‘Love Reign O’er Me,’ which was like a wailing banshee scream. I turned to my engineer Ron Nevison and said, ‘This is a kid on a rock. He’s wet, he’s cold. He’s had the most awful day of his life. Everything’s gone. The last thing he’s going to do is scream out. He’s going to whimper.’ ” Nevison urged him to give it another listen.

“Roger was in a booth, I couldn’t see him,” says Townshend. “I was hearing it from the mixing desk.

And I listened back, and I thought, ‘Fuck. He’s nailed it. He’s nailed it, because this is an internal voice.’ ” Townshend smiles and throws up his hands.

“He becomes an actor. It’s almost like he’s a late-Fifties, early-Sixties Method actor, who when you say, ‘Here’s the script,’ he goes, ‘Oh, uh . . .’ and the directors go, ‘For fuck’s sake, just say the words.’ ”

And then Townshend laughs.

I

go to say hello to Daltrey at the end of the Hollywood Bowl rehearsal where the two of them avoided acknowledging each other’s existence. He’s wearing the same blue cargo shorts as in Dallas. The band had recently canceled some gigs after Daltrey’s voice gave out in Houston. I ask how his voice was holding up. He stops short.

“It wasn’t my voice,” Daltrey says coldly. “It was allergies.” After I apologize for the misunderstanding, he smiles. He points at the orchestra, which includes a golden harp and a cymbals guy. He gestures with his hands: “You can have all this.” He then touches his throat. “But without this, you have nothing.” He then disappears stage-right with a cup of tea.

The show that night was a blast if you took to heart Townshend’s words that they were no longer a band. Middle-aged couples ate picnic baskets full of carb-free meals and drank champagne that retailed for nearly $200 in the Hollywood Bowl concession stand. We were half a century and a few tax brackets removed from 1970 and the Leeds University Refectory. The set flowed beautifully, with Townshend’s brother Simon on guitar and drummer Zak Starkey maintaining a controlled-frenzy version of the Moon style. Still, there was never any chance that your ears would bleed.

Some decisions were questionable: Did “Eminence Front” really need a giant harp? Liam Gallagher, the ex-Oasis frontman and the show’s opening act, watched from the side of the stage. He had his arm around his son Gene, a young musician. They both wore parkas despite the October heat. Gallagher was coaching his boy, pointing out things he could learn from his dad’s idols. They shook their heads in unison like Wayne and Garth and grinned like kids on Christmas Day as Daltrey pulled off his millionth mic toss.

And our two friends? It was as advertised.

To w n s h e n d b a r k e d a t s o m e o v e r z e a l o u s security guards manhandling fans who had already qualified for their AARP cards. “Usually, I’m the one Pete is mad at,” joked Daltrey. Townshend shot him a look. “Uh-oh,” said Daltrey. “I’m in the doghouse.”

At times, Townshend’s duck walk and windmilling threatened to collide with Daltrey’s theatrics, but at the end of each song they returned to their own corners. Finally, the orchestra left the stage, as did the rest of the band. It was just Daltrey and Townshend to perform “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” still the best argument against idealism in the annals of Western civilization. As the only two humans on the stage, they had to actually look at each other.

Townshend had his doubts about the acoustic approach. “It feels like we’re throwing away one of the great, great pinions of anthemic rock,” he told me before the show. “It’s a song that, on its own, if we both just stood there like vegetables, would fill the room and do the job.”

Daltrey started it stomping out a beat. Townshend chimed in with some sublime strumming.

The song still rose to a crescendo even if it was one that the crowd had heard a thousand times already.

Then Daltrey growled.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

At that moment, no one cared who loved who.

The Mix

PLAYLIST OUR FAVORITE SONGS AND VIDEOS RIGHT NOW

ASK

CROZ

4

Real-life advice from a guy who’s seen, done, and survived just about everything

1

I’ll cut right to the point: I’m curious to try heroin. The government says it’s evil, but why should I believe them?

And I won’t become an addict. I just want to try it once and see what it’s like. Is that so wrong?

—Stewart Baker, OH

3

1. Grimes “My Name Is Dark” Every Grimes song is its own mystery. On her latest, she follows a jagged guitar into an electro-pop hall of mirrors, as her helium vocals evoke death, drugs, and a girl who plays with fire. Somehow, it comes out hum-along catchy — her own flavor of black bubblegum.

2. The Weeknd “Blinding Lights” Abel Tesfaye emerges from his sepulchral R&B pain cave for some sleek, sinewy New Wave kicks, like he topped off a recent late night zoning out to Human League and Berlin in the Uber home.

3. Ozuna feat. Willy “Temporal” Puerto Rican crooner Ozuna specializes in Latin trap and reggaeton. So this genre-stretching collab with singer Willy is a real treat — a sunny detour into Jamaican lovers rock, perfect for nicing up winter nights.

4. Billie Eilish “Everything I Wanted” Music’s biggest breakthrough pop artist caps off her massive year with one of her most somberly lovely songs, a soft-goth piano ballad that creeps along at an elegant slink, hungering for love and connection amid the gilded aloneness of fame.

5. Khruangbin and Leon Bridges “Texas Sun” Texas retro-soulman Leon Bridges got together with funky Houston trio Khruangbin for a great new EP titled Texas Sun; its title track is this dusty, meditative jam. Bridges’ singing suggests Sam Cooke wandering into a spaghetti Western as his guitar shimmers like a mirage on a desert road.

6. Koffee feat. Gunna “W” Koffee, a Jamaican singer who is nominated for a Best Reggae Album Grammy, rides a modern digital beat on the bubbly “W,” while radiating a positivity that recalls the Bob Marley-esque optimism of reggae’s golden age.

7. Cornershop “No Rock: Save in Roll” In the Nineties, Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh linked Brit pop to his South Asian roots. He’s back for the age of Brexit, laying claim to English identity over a stanky Stones riff.

8. Hinds “Riding Solo” Spanish garage band Hinds spiked low-fi naiveté with a shot of sassy girl- gang toughness on their first two LPs. “Riding Solo” goes hard on their sad-bored side, making for a delicious

8 bit of sunburned stonerpsych.

9. PartyNextDoor feat. Drake “Loyal” Mumbly Canadian crooner PartyNextDoor is like Drake, if he was 50 times more Drake.

Usually his stuff is darkly horny, but PND’s new one is friendly and fun, swimming in tropical vibes, elegiac Auto-Tune, and a crush he doesn’t want to end.

10. Emily Yacina “Arcades & Highways” A sweet secret-spilling bedroom-pop tune about a brand-new love. It’s the cute details (like the way Yacina stops midsong just to call her dad) that make this such a wonderful couple of minutes to live in.

I’ve been in a number of Bay Area bands, but I don’t know how to manage the relationships with other band members. I know you’ve had experiences along those lines. Any advice?

—Curt Olsen, CA You’re asking the wrong guy! But the key is to be careful to pick who you play with. There’s two kinds of relationships: competitive and collaborative. I’ve been in both. CSNY was very competitive, and collaborative is what I have now with my band.

Either way, you have to work at it. You can’t let your ego get in the way.

That’s what I did over and over again. Treat the relationship like it’s precious.

FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: KENNETH CAPPELLO; MEDIAPUNCH/SHUTTERSTOCK; MATT BARON/ SHUTTERSTOCK; POONEH GHANA; ALBERTO VAN STOKKUM

5

Nobody ever managed to try it just once. If you try it once, you’ll want to do it again. Don’t experiment with it. It’s like experimenting with a nightmare. The feeling you get from heroin isn’t worth it. You get a momentary cessation of pain. That’s why I did it.

It stopped the pain. The pain was in my heart, and it slowed it down for a minute and then brought its own pain, which was even bigger.

GOT A QUESTION FOR CROZ? Email AskCroz@ Rollingstone.com

Rolling Stone

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January 2020

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71

Music

HARRY’S BIG BREAKUP ADVENTURE The English pop star makes retrorock with a sensitive touch on his second LP

BY NICK CATUCCI

Harry Styles Fine Line COLUMBIA

★★★★★

I

f you’re listening for evidence of the many psychedelic mushrooms Harry Styles says he ate while making his outstanding second album, you will have to wait until Fine Line’s second-to-last song. But when “Treat People With Kindness” arrives, it trips balls. Musing about “floating up and dreaming, dropping into the deep end” over a feverish groove of congas, hand claps, and Mellotron, Styles calls upon a gospel chorus to take him even higher: “Maaaaybe, we can find a place to feeeel good,” they thunder. “To feel good!”

On his 2017 debut, Harry Styles, the breakout One Direction heartthrob believably staked his claim to Seventies rock-star tradition. But Fine Line is not exactly the ILLUSTRATION BY

Bijou Karman

Reviews Music

magical mystery tour one might have assumed he’d set his sights on this time out. Like his brilliant uniform of flowing, high-waisted trousers and shagadelic chest-baring shirts, it’s a streamlined, party-ready, primary-colors take on the enduring concept of the rock & roll starman. With short-story lyrics about a family man’s life of quiet desperation and a six-minute build to wailingguitar drama, “She” might be the closest thing here to a “Sign of the Times”-style homage to Bowie and the Beatles. Usually, the Sixties and Seventies signifiers sprinkled throughout the album — a little organ, some clav, and even George Harrison specials like electric sitar and sarangi — are Vitamixed into pop-rock smoothies you can dance to, like the strutting “Adore You” and soulful “Lights Up.” Aided by genre-fluid songwriters like Jeff Bhasker, Amy Allen, and Greg Kurstin, Styles is also now mining some rich millennial veins as well.

Busy and beachy, “Sunflower, Vol. 6” could sit next to Vampire Weekend on any playlist.

The title track emerges from a darkly beautiful, Bon Iver-like haze into a big, semi-hopeful, brass-and-martial-drums finish; with a measure of uncertainty fitting the close of this chaotic decade, Styles promises “We’ll be all right.”

That “we,” as his fans will surely speculate, may be Styles and his ex, the French model Camille Rowe. On “Cherry,” he sings, “I just miss your accent and your friends.” But Styles sets himself apart from earlier rock gods with the gentlemanly way he delivers his brokenhearted blues. “I’m just an arrogant son of a bitch who can’t admit when he’s sorry,” he confesses in the syncopated slow burner “To Be So Lonely.”

In the otherwise forgettable ballad “Falling,” he channels every woman hounded by a needy guy (or worse), asking, “What if I’m someone I don’t want around?” If there’s a nontoxic masculinity, Styles just might’ve found it. And that’s the kind of magic mushrooms can’t buy.

Quick Hits Ten new albums you need to know about now

Beach Slang

The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City Bridge 9

Tinashe

Songs for You Tinashe Music

Marcus King

El Dorado Fantasy

★★★★★

R&B TREAT Whether she’s singing like a soulful thrush, rapping in a Migos flow, or chanting over a house beat, the risktaking singer masterfully draws you into her romantic pleasures and anxieties.

★★★ ★

SUBTLE JAMS This breakout South Caro-

linian is a guitar firebrand and an able soul shouter who cares about rhythmic intricacy more than big solos, at times suggesting an Allmans session at Hi Records.

★★★ ★

DOWN-HOME EMO Evan Stephens Hall

Pinegrove

Marigold Rough Trade

writes poetic, diary-ish lyrics, and the rest of the band burnishes them in a sound that’s like the Promise Ring gone country, and heartwarmingly so.

★★★ ★

BASEMENT SOUL The Atlanta band’s

Algiers

There Is No Year Matador

Harry Nilsson

Losst and Founnd Omnivore

Ozuna

Nibiru Aura Music

Little Big Town

Nightfall Capitol

. . . And You Will Know Us

By Our Trail of Dead

X: The Godless Void and Other Stories Dine Alone

Blake Shelton

Fully Loaded: God’s Country Warner Bros.

PUNK FUN Beach Slang’s James Alex reups the Replacements’ underdog thrash for a new generation, and he’s so on point, the ‘Mats’ Tommy Stinson plays bass on “Tommy in the 80’s.”

retro R&B can feel a little murky, submerging singer Franklin James Fisher in sonic shadow — but when Algiers crank it up, their third album can be a blast.

★★★ ★

TALKIN’ AGAIN A posthumous LP from the brilliant Seventies pop oddball, recorded in the Eighties, and before his death in 1994; his once-golden voice is gravelly and weathered, but the genius still flashes.

★★★★★

REGGAETON IN SPACE Puerto Rican star Ozuna’s latest has a so-so sci-fi concept and cameos from Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee and Diddy. Its best moments see him deliver emotional dancer-floor thrills.

★★★★★

SERIOUS COUNTRY The closest thing Nashville has to a Fleetwood Mac tango through a dark night of the soul on a sophisticated, personal set. Highlight: “The Daughters,” about sexist double standards.

★★★★★

NINETIES NOISE Trail of Dead formed in

1994; their 10th album sounds as though they had been sitting on it since then, showing off a total mastery of their big Texan fusion of grunge and emo.

SAME OL’ VOICE The brooding title track on this mix of recent hits and new material is one of Shelton’s best. But a lot of the set (including the Trace Adkins collab “Hell Right”) is by-the-numbers party country.

★★★★★ ★★ ★★

CONTRIBUTORS: JON DOLAN, JON FREEMAN, KORY GROW, WILL HERMES, ANGIE MARTOCCIO, GARY SUAREZ

★★★★★ Classic | ★★★★ Excellent | ★★★ Good | ★★ Fair | ★ Poor

RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE.

January 2020

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Rolling Stone

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FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: ADRIÁN MONROY/MEDIOS Y MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES; JOHN SHEARER/ACMA2019/GETTY IMAGES; R. DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES; EARL GIBSON III/GETTY IMAGES; MELANIE LEMAHIEU/SHUTTERSTOCK

HARRY ST YLES