Sound Audits

Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti debuted with a repetitive and catchy flow like contemporaries Lil Uzi Vert and Young Thug, gaining recognition in the mid-2010s as an affiliate of A$AP Mob. A steady succession of viral singles helped Carti's first proper album, 2018's Die Lit, debut at number three on the Billboard charts, and he moved into a new phase of his artistry with the riskier and more aggressive Whole Lotta Red in 2020.

The black metal, blues, and African American fusion of Zeal & Ardor's music is the brainchild of musician Manuel Gagneux. He moved from his native Switzerland to New York, and took up the moniker Zeal & Ardor, having previously released music under the name Bird mask. 

After a tumultuous start to the year 2020, Gagneux could not hold his tongue and released the crushing EP titled 'Wake of a Nation'. 

This EP and episode are the results of atrocities that were committed earlier in the year 2020. Please consider donating to https://www.joincampaignzero.org/ or your charity of choice.

Any and all proceeds from this episode will go directly to this cause. 

Rapper, producer, and poet Aesop Rock has received widespread acclaim and amassed a loyal following for his complex, literate rhymes. Aesop's first solo album in four years, the typically heady Spirit World Field Guide appeared in November.

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Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream. Swift's plans to support Lover with a tour in 2020 were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With some unexpected time on her hands, she wrote and recorded a new set of songs, many in collaboration with Aaron Dessner of the National; Bon Iver and longtime Swift associate Jack Antonoff also contributed. The resulting album, folklore, was released on July 24, 2020, and went straight to the top of the Billboard 200.

 Less than five months later, Swift released a companion album to folklore called Evermore. Featuring many of the same collaborators as its predecessor, Evermore debuted at number one upon its December 11, 2020 release.

Dinosaur Jr. was largely responsible for returning the lead guitar to indie rock and, along with their peers the Pixies, they injected late-'80s alternative rock with monumental levels of pure guitar noise. As the group's career progressed, they broke into three distinctive acts: the indie years of the original trio, the '90s spent on major labels where the band was mostly a solo vehicle for J Mascis' songwriting and guitar wizardry, and a surprisingly strong reunion of the original lineup beginning in 2006.

Early in 1988 they released the seminal single "Freak Scene," a song that captured the feeling and tone of the emerging American post-punk underground. "Freak Scene" became a college radio hit, and it led the way for their acclaimed 1988 album, Bug.

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With an unconventional pairing of technical rap flows and abrasive noise, experimental trio clipping. approached hip-hop production from largely uncharted territory. Though the group would morph into something new with almost every subsequent release, they held on to their core of experimental and often-confrontational energy on independent cassette releases as well as more widely distributed albums like 2020's Sub Pop-issued Visions of Bodies Being Burned.

Japanese musician Joji laces R&B and hip-hop with textured electronics on his atmospheric meditations for the digital age. As part of the 88Rising crew, he experienced a creative rebirth that rebranded him as a serious artist after years as a popular Internet personality. After issuing his first EP, 2017's lo-fi In Tongues, he hit a chart peak with his gold-certified full-length Ballads 1, home to hit single "Slow Dancing in the Dark." Riding the high of that set's international success, he released his 2020 sophomore effort, Nectar.

One of the most prominent bands to emerge during the late-2000s indie folk boom, Seattle's Fleet Foxes fuse earthy, harmony-rich folk-rock with a sense of lush pop sophistication calling to mind the late-'60s work of acts like the Beach Boys, the Zombies, and Fairport Convention. Following a six-year gap and a switch to Nonesuch, Fleet Foxes returned with the expansive Crack-Up, in 2017. In September 2020, with almost no warning, the band issued their fourth album, Shore, along with a short film.

Delivering lyrics with the speed of a bullet train, Cleveland rapper Machine Gun Kelly experienced a meteoric rise in late 2011 when he transitioned from grinding out self-released mixtapes to working with major labels. From there, the rapper skyrocketed to superstar status, with each of his albums charting in the Top Ten. A beef with Eminem, a film career, and even some reality show appearances would follow as the high-powered lyrical rap style of albums like 2019's Hotel Diablo morphed into a driving emo-rock sound on collaborations with Travis Barker and on the Barker-produced 2020 album Tickets to My Downfall, which topped the Billboard 200.

English singer/songwriter and guitarist Lianne La Havas arrived in the early 2010s with a mostly acoustic and hushed hybrid of alternative folk and soul. Influenced by the likes of Lauryn Hill and Nina Simone, she found success with the release of her debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, which reached number five in the U.K. and earned her a nomination for the BBC Sound of 2012 poll. 

Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream.  Swift's plans to support Lover with a tour in 2020 were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With some unexpected time on her hands, she wrote and recorded a new set of songs, many in collaboration with Aaron Dessner of The National; Bon Iver and longtime Swift associate Jack Antonoff also contributed. The resulting album, folklore, was released on July 24, 2020, and went straight to the top of the Billboard 200.

The stylistically dynamic and voluble Logic launched his rap career through uploads and mixtapes prior to signing a Def Jam deal that fostered a sustained mainstream presence throughout the second half of the 2010s. The MC, singer, songwriter, and producer made his recording debut in 2009 and five years later hit the Top Five with his debut album, Under Pressure (2014), the first of several conceptual full-length projects to enter the Billboard 200 and rap charts within the upper reaches. 

In July of 2020, Logic announced that his sixth album, No Pressure, would mark his retirement from music. The album was released a few weeks after this announcement.

Fiona Apple never quite belonged to a specific scene. The closest she came was at the dawn of her career when her debut album Tidal arrived as the alternative rock wave reached its crest in 1996. Upon its release in 1999, When the Pawn drew attention for its emotional intensity, unconventional arrangements, and eccentric flair, elements that were central to her appeal in the next decades when she worked steadily and rigorously. As her output slowed -- it took her six years to deliver her third album, Extraordinary Machine, and another seven for its sequel, The Idler Wheel, to appear -- her reputation as a daring artist grew. The Idler Wheel and its 2020 successor Fetch the Bolt Cutters confirmed Apple took aural risks without abandoning her strengths as a singer/songwriter, a combination that helped her maintain a devoted cult following.

What started as a one-off project and quickly evolved into a Grammy-nominated hip-hop super duo, Run the Jewels features the talents of Brooklyn rapper/producer El-P and Atlanta emcee Killer Mike. Atop hard-hitting beats and ominous production, the pair trade aggressive and often wryly comical rhymes, touching upon social issues, life and death, and a heavy dose of chest-thumping bragging. With a new decade came a new RTJ era. Run the Jewels 4 arrived in June 2020 amid a global pandemic (which postponed a world tour with Rage Against the Machine) and a nationwide movement in the U.S. protesting police brutality. RTJ4 featured guests Greg Nice, DJ Premier, 2 Chainz, Pharrell Williams, Mavis Staples, Josh Homme, and another de la Rocha collaboration.

Nicolas Jaar is one of the least predictable and most experimental dance music producers of the late 2000s and 2010s, composing reflective downtempo numbers indebted to jazz and modern classical as well as minimal techno.

In 2016, Jaar released his second proper solo album, Sirens. 2012-2017, a surprise release of dancefloor-oriented material recorded under Jaar's pseudonym A.A.L. (Against All Logic), appeared in 2018. R&S reissued the Nymphs series as a triple-LP in early 2019. 2020 proved to be a prolific year for Jaar with the releases of 2017-2019 -- under his A.A.L. (Against All Logic) alias -- Cenizas, and Telas.

Los Angeles singer/songwriter Moses Sumney first emerged in 2014, combining rich soul balladry with art-pop, folk, and ambient R&B. The San Bernardino native began playing out in his early twenties, quickly crafting a distinctive style that he augmented in the studio with lush multi-tracked vocal arrangements. In September 2017, he delivered his debut full-length, Aromanticism, an artfully crafted meditation on lovelessness and solitude. The following year, an EP was released featuring different versions of his Aromanticism track "Make Out in My Car," as remixed by Sufjan Stevens and James Blake and covered by Alex Isley. Another EP, Black in Deep Red, 2014, was also released in 2018. The musician returned in May 2020 with his second set, Græ. An experimental, sprawling double-album, Sumney's sophomore set reflected on his multiplicity and complex sense of self.

Canadian rapper and vocalist Drake sustained a high-level commercial presence shortly after he hit the scene in 2006, whether with his own chart-topping releases or a long string of guest appearances on hits by the likes of Lil Wayne, Rihanna, and A$AP Rocky. Drake collected two Grammy nominations for the 2020 ceremonies, one for best rap song with his Rick Ross collaboration "Gold Roses" and another for best R&B song with his Chris Brown-assisted "No Guidance." That same year, he released another mixtape made up of demos and singles titled Dark Lane Demo Tapes. One of the songs was "Toosie Slide," his third song to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making him the first male artist to accomplish that feat.

Justin Bieber became a global pop phenomenon with his debut, My World (2009), a multi-platinum smash in the singer's native Canada and several other territories. Only 15 years old at the time of its release, Bieber was fast-tracked to sustained commercial presence with a remix compilation, an acoustic set, a concert film, and additional studio recordings, including the Grammy-nominated My World 2.0 (2010) and similarly chart-topping Believe (2012), all hitting the market within a three-year period. Also preceded by the first installments of his Seasons documentary and the headlining singles "Yummy" and "Intentions" (eventual Top Ten hits in Canada and the U.S.), Changes arrived in February 2020 and entered the Billboard 200 at number one. During the next couple of months, material from Changes was divided into a series of loosely themed five-track EPs (such as R&Bieber and Biebs and Chill).

The Weeknd is the alias of alternative R&B enigma-turned-pop star Abel Tesfaye, whose aching accounts of emotionally and physically toxic indulgences have translated to multi-platinum sales and Grammy recognition. Toward the end of 2019, after a handful of intermediary collaborations and soundtrack contributions, Tesfaye issued the first two singles off his fourth proper album. "Heartless," co-produced by Illangelo and Metro Boomin, topped the Hot 100, and "Blinding Lights," another Max Martin collaboration, went Top Ten before After Hours arrived in March 2020. The heartache-filled set, which also featured a handful of collaborations with Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never), became Tesfaye's fourth straight number one release on the U.S. and Canadian album charts.

By bringing style, fun, and catchy songwriting back to rock music, the Strokes became one of the most influential bands of the early 21st century. Their direct, hooky sound -- equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and the brash attitude of fellow New Yorkers the Velvet Underground and Ramones -- set trends even as it looked back on rock history. With their acclaimed 2001 debut, Is This It, the Strokes reinvigorated a rock scene that had spent years focused on post-grunge and nu-metal. Along with the White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, they helped shape the sound and look of alternative rock in the 2000s, with Kings of Leon and the Killers and the Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, and Arctic Monkeys reflecting their impact in the U.S. and the U.K., respectively.

Preceded by shows including a 2019 New Year's Eve concert in Brooklyn and a February 2020 rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, The New Abnormal arrived in 2020 and introduced a more thoughtful and confessional level to the Strokes' sound and songwriting.

Combining dream pop, R&B, electronic, and hip-hop influences into futuristic yet familiar-sounding songs, Grimes' Claire Boucher became one of the most distinctive artists of the 2010s. An ethereal yet hard-hitting concept album that explored climate change and human extinction, Miss Anthropocene appeared in February 2020. She is carrying Elon's baby too. That seems important. 

Coming on the scene with a throwback style that betrayed his years, Pittsburgh-based rapper and producer Mac Miller combined languid vocals, playful rhymes, and hypnotic production influenced by OutKast, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and Lauryn Hill. A pair of non-album singles ("Buttons" and "Programs") kept Miller busy into 2018, when he issued his fifth album, Swimming. Debuting at number three on both the Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop charts, the set included the songs "Small Worlds," "Self-Care," and "What's the Use?" A month after the release of the effort, Miller died from a suspected drug overdose in his San Fernando Valley home. He was 26 years old. Following his death, seven of his albums posthumously charted on the Billboard 200, including the debut appearances of Best Day Ever and Macadelic. In early 2020, his first posthumous set was released. Intended as a companion to Swimming, Circles featured vocals recorded for this eventual project, which was completed by producer Jon Brion.

Childish Gambino is the alter ego of multi-hyphenate American entertainer Donald Glover, who is also known for acting roles on television shows like Community and the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Atlanta, as well as the film Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Glover spent two years working on 3.15.20, a head-spinning collection of tracks influenced by funk, soul, psychedelia, and the cosmos that's underpinned by a strong message of social justice and Glover's flexible vocal style. After being leaked on the Internet for one night only on March 15th, it was issued for real a week later.

In January of 2020, he repeated this surprise-release approach with 11th studio album Music to Be Murdered By. The album featured production from Dr. Dre and cameos from the now-usual host of special guests, this time featuring Q-Tip, Ed Sheeran, Anderson .Paak, and the late Juice Wrld, among many others. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard charts.

In the summer of 2019, months after the release of his critically acclaimed album Zuu, Florida emcee Denzel Curry joined producer Kenny Beats on his online freestyle show, The Cave. The fruits of that meeting arrived in early 2020 as the Unlocked EP. Packing a brisk eight songs into less than 18 minutes, the set is a thrill to experience and begs for further collaboration from this pair. Twisting his own Miami-bred style with the hardcore aggression of New York predecessors like Wu-Tang Clan and DMX, Curry fires off a brisk flurry of rhymes that showcases his quick wit, pop-culture prowess, and head-spinning wordplay. As Curry pushes himself to the creative edge on standouts "Diet_" and "Lay_Up.m4a," Kenny Beats delivers menacing production that blends throwback sampling techniques and addictive, head-nodding beats. Although Unlocked concludes almost as soon as it starts, Curry and Kenny pack so much into this short release that repeat listens are a must and, indeed, a pleasure.

Rising from the streets of Compton but with a distinctly Southern flair, rapper Roddy Ricch lays his introspective rhymes atop melodic trap, resulting in a hybrid form that has captured the ears of both regions. The MC broke through in 2018 with the platinum single "Die Young" and topped the Billboard 200 the next year with Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial.

Starting off their career as psychedelic explorers, the Australian band Tame Impala spent a decade subverting expectations and mutating their sound in fascinating ways, as well as being an inspiration to musicians as diverse as Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Lady Gaga. Guided by the musical prowess of Kevin Parker, the band's 2010 debut album Innerspeaker was a huge, loud guitar rock album dipped in swirling psychedelic colors. The follow-up Lonerism (2012) dialed down the guitars in favor of a more expansive style, after which Parker swerved into a poppier sound that brought in hip-hop (2015's Currents) and disco influences (2020's The Slow Rush) while upping the sugar content of the hooks. It proved to be a winning approach, and by decade's end, Parker was collaborating with some of the biggest artists on Earth (Kanye, Travis Scott) while the band was selling out stadiums and tons of records.

After a long rollout that saw the band debuting new songs on Saturday Night Live in May of 2019, and a steady trickle of singles seeing the light of day as Parker continued to tinker with the album, The Slow Rush was released in early 2020, just before the band launched a worldwide tour.

At some point in the early 21st century, Radiohead became something more than a band: they became a touchstone for everything that is fearless and adventurous in rock, inheriting the throne from David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and the Talking Heads. The latter group gave the band its name -- it's an album track on 1986's True Stories -- but Radiohead never sounded much like the Heads, nor did they take much from Bowie, apart from their willingness to experiment. Instead, they spliced Floyd's spaciness with U2's messianic arena-rock heft, bridging the gap with guitar skronks borrowed from the '80s American underground. Jonny Greenwood's jagged, brutal interjections on "Creep," the band's 1993 breakthrough hit, recalled the ugly noise of the Pixies and Nirvana, a sound that translated over the expanse of an ocean, but in the throes of the alternative rock explosion of the mid-'90s, Radiohead was the odd band out. America remained besotted with their homegrown sensations, so "Creep" was treated as a one-hit-wonder, and at home in England, they were seen as dour art-rock students lacking the glamour of neo-glam sensations Suede, and deliberately dodging the beery singalongs of Oasis.

Despite a sparse digital presence and just one studio-recorded song, elusive math rock quartet Black Midi carved out a cult following in the late 2010s. A handful of video recordings of their live shows and the 2018 single "bmbmbmbm" were strong enough to gather significant buzz around their meticulously constructed yet feral rock sounds.

Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Geordie Greep, lead guitarist Matt Kelvin, bassist Cameron Picton, and drummer Morgan Simpson, the Croydon, England four-piece formed after graduating from the performing arts institution The BRIT School in 2017. In contrast to the more mainstream acts the school has produced -- including Amy Winehouse and the Kooks -- Black Midi produced angular, experimental post-punk. Forming part of a South London scene alongside acts like Shame, Goat Girl, and HMLTD, the newly minted band became a regular at Brixton's favorite new-band haunt The Windmill. Unlike their peers, Black Midi maintained a mysterious air by conducting hardly any interviews and largely shunning social media. Yet they soon earned media notice with their intense live shows, and in 2018 the band performed a live session for radio station NTS at Flesh & Bone Studios in Hackney. Later that year they released their debut single on producer Dan Carey's (Bat for Lashes, Kate Tempest) Speedy Wunderground label. The song "bmbmbmbm" was a jittery and delirious track, built on tight grooves and explosions of noise. The band's debut LP, Schlagenheim, arrived in the summer of 2019.

As a member of the British boy band One Direction, singer, songwriter, and actor Harry Styles topped the charts in impressive fashion, toured the world to play for millions of screaming fans, and sold albums by the bucketload before going solo in 2016 with his chart-topping 2017 debut, Harry Styles, and his similarly successful 2019 follow-up, Fine Line. The music he made under his own name reflected the savvy pop sound of his former band while adding elements of rock, both classic and indie, and always showcasing his elastic, deeply felt vocals.

The finished album, Fine Line, was released in December and found the singer adding influences as varied as Childish Gambino-styled funk and Bon Iver-Esque baroque folk to his repertoire. Soon after the release of the record, a number three U.K. hit and a number one Billboard 200 entry, Styles is set to embark on a world tour.