UHD Rolling - Stone - India - Jan 2020

> ISSUE 00144 > JANUARY 2020
> rollingstoneindia.com
10 Best Indian
How Singles, EPs,
Coldplay’s Albums & Music
Videos of 2019
Chris
Martin Lucky Ali
Fixed Teams Up
Himself With Eliezer
Botzer
www.t.me/magzsenglish
PRABH DEEPTHE POLITICS IN HIS HIP-HOP

Contents
ISSUE 144
‘ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS’
40
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 12
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.
14 Magnetic Fields
2019: Notes from the
Nonstop Desert Party
The music festival is one of the
country’s must-attend events.
56 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.
’34 Q&A: H.E.R.

The alt-R&B rising star talks
blues, genre stereotypes and
life as a child prodigy.
Departments
71 Playlist PARIZAD D
Arnob Bal
Billie Eilish’s “Everything I
Wanted,” Grimes’ “My Name Is
Dark,” The Weeknd’s “Blinding
Online Exclusive
Lights” and more.
ON THE COVER
72 Music Reviews Photographer: Ashish Sahu
English pop star Harry Styles
makes retro-rock with a Fireball Festival Styled Exclusively: UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON
sensitive touch on his second On January 12th, Greenwood Resort in Guwahati will host Fireball Festival Art Director: Tanvi Shah
LP ‘Fine Line,’ Tinashe’s ‘Songs which will be headlined by San Diego metal giants As I Lay Dying. Also on
For You,’ an R&B treat and the bill are Bengaluru thrash metal band Inner Sanctum, Guwahati metal Fashion Editor: Neelangana Vasudeva
Ozuna’s reggaeton in space. outfit Rectified Spirit, Gangtok arena rock group Arogya and more.
Prabh Deep’s Hair and Makeup: Make Over by Anuj Dogra
January 2020 | Rolling Stone India |3

INDIA USA
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4 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

Correspondence + L O V E L E T T E R S & A DV I C E
> ISSUE 00143 > DECEMBER 2019

> rollingstoneindia.com
Alter Bridge Keep It

Heavy
‘Walk The Sky’ is probably one of my fa-
“To see A.R. vorite albums and the songs that they’ve
put together on the record are truly
Rahman on the amazing. It’s quite an irony since I’m not
a big fan of heavy rock music but some-
cover supporting thing just connected me to Alter Bridge’s
English music and sound. The piece was really fresh and it’s
A.R.RAHMAN musicians in India

great to know that sometime in the future
I might just see them perform live.
THE MENTOR is refreshing..” — Rohit Roy
The maestro is on a nationwide talent hunt for promising
— Abhishek Kapur
young artists he will mentor for Nexa Music
A.R. Rahman: The Mentor

I think every Nineties Indian kid has grown up grateful the artists must be to be supported
listening to A.R. Rahman songs. So to see him and mentored by a legend. Also, “Ahimsa”
on the cover supporting English music and was the perfect collaboration with Irish
musicians in India is refreshing. I, as a listener, rockers U2 that we didn’t know we needed
look up to him and I cannot imagine how until now.
Connecting With
Sarathy Korwar
The sounds on Sarathy Korwar’s album
SPOTLIGHT
are interesting and one of the major
reasons why I got into his music. They
Eric Nam’s Rise 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
I have been a fan of Eric Nam
than the other songs.
for a long time. From his Arirang
days to his own podcast - it’s —Naveen Kamath
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. CONTACT US
With Nam acknowledging and le tte rs : rolling stone india ,
reassuring his fans here that he MW.Com India Private Limited,
will come to India as soon as he 401, 4th Floor, Todi Building, Mathuradas
sees an opportunity is what we Mills Compound, Senapati Bapat Marg,
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to seeing him perform live in e - m ai l: [email protected]
India someday soon. Letters/e-mails will be edited for brevity.
s u b scri b e r se rv i ce s :
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RollingStoneIndia RollingStoneIn
January 2020 | Rolling Stone |5

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
Ethan Russell remembers getting a call from writer Jon-
athan Cott in 1968. “He said, ‘Do you want to photograph
my next interview?’ ” says Russell, who had at that point photo-
graphed 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
turing the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the KQLY PRESS
$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 in-
teresting pictures when the people are not engaged with having
their picture taken. [Because] having your photograph taken —
what the fuck is that?” ANGIE MARTOCCIO
WILD HORSES SCHOOL DAYS ▶
For the cover of 1976’s Hasten Chuck Berry and Mick Jagger
Down the Wind, Russell shot backstage, 1969. “Here we
Linda Ronstadt after sunset at have [rock’s] Generation One
her Malibu home. “The horse,” talking to Generation Two,”
he says, “was a complete Russell says. “It’s a pretty
accident.” historic moment.”
But it all turned out OK. King started taking FAST FACTS how crazy-good his vocals are, how he can go any-
MARCUS KING classes at a local music school to study jazz, lead- where on guitar,” says Auerbach.
TRUCKIN’ King’s
ing him to where he is now: one of the most ex- most surreal mo- King is a big, soft-spoken guy who talks
S
ix years ago, Marcus King felt lost. A citing guitarists to break through in years. With ment? Covering with the battered wisdom of a veteran touring
long-haired, pot-smoking kid going to a gruff, soulful rumble of a voice, a deep love of “In Memory of musician (“I love soul food, but you can’t eat that
school in the small town of Piedmont, Muscle Shoals, and a fluid, rapid-fire guitar style Elizabeth Reed” shit every day”). He comes from a long line of
with Tedeschi
South Carolina, he struggled to fit in — he that recalls both Duane Allman and Mountain’s music lifers in South Carolina; his grandfather
THIS SPREAD: ©ETHAN RUSSELL, 7
Trucks Band on
hated sports and missed enough classes to Leslie West, King has been blowing minds at tour in 2018.
was a country guitarist who played with Char-
nearly be expelled for truancy. “I have nothing events like Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Fes- ley Pride, and his dad was a local blues hero. “His
CLEAN GREEN
good to say about Piedmont, no good memo- tival and headlining big rooms like New York’s King is trying to granddad had a Gibson, his dad had a Gibson,
ries,” says the guitarist. “They were trying to put Beacon Theatre on his own. King is about to re- be healthy: “It’s and now Marcus has a Gibson — it’s all ingrained
me away, trying to put me into a juvenile deten- lease an excellent album, El Dorado, produced been a year of in his brain,” says Auerbach.
tion center, trying to shave my head, put me in a and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auer- sobriety, with King says that music “was medicine for my
jail. And I was like, ‘I didn’t do anything. I just bach, who had been wanting to work with him the exception of family.” It turns out he means this literally: “My
herbs,” he says.
missed a couple days of class.’ ” for a few years. “It’s staggering how good he is, grandfather started having really bad ulcers, so
January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 9

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 GET OFF MY CLOUD
and Roll Circus at Londonderry Hotel in 1968. “It was Charlie Watts and Keith Richards on the Stones’ touring
family entertainment,” Russell says of the concert film. plane in 1972. “We were transitioning at this point into the
“When he came to the door, Keith leapt to his feet, celebrity culture,” Russell says. “They were at the top of
strode over, and gave him a hug. Something I’d never the pyramid. Behind me as I’m taking this picture is Truman
seen Keith do.” Capote.”
the doctor suggested he start playing again. He “It’s erbach heard King, though, he thought his and told him how much he loves his music. “It
never stopped again until he died.” Marcus was staggering sound could translate even beyond the jam- still doesn’t feel real, at all,” King says.
playing as early as three years old, and his instru- how good he band world. He invited King to Nashville, King is touring throughout 2020, including
ment became an important tool as he dealt with is,” says Dan pushed him to record solo, and wrote songs opening some dates for Chris Stapleton. As his
his mental health. “I’ve struggled with it since Auerbach. with him on the acoustic guitar. “I think it was career takes off, one of his goals is to raise aware-
I was a kid: depression, parts of bipolar disor- “How crazy- really nice for him to get into the studio and ness about mental health, especially in music. “I
ders, obsessive-compulsive, chronic anxiety, all let his guard down, mix it up with some differ- guarantee you Otis Redding did not go to a ther-
good his voice
this stuff,” he says. Playing especially helped him ent musicians,” says Auerbach. “We wrote as apist,” King says. “A lot of us tend to use music as
is, how he can
get through the death of one of his close friends many songs as we possibly could and just let our therapist. But sometimes it’s good to talk to
in middle school. “I had no way to get it out,” he
go anywhere the cream rise to the top.” a professional.”
says. “I needed to speak to somebody, even if it on the guitar.” “I feel really proud of it,” King says of the new Still, he acknowledges the strange healing
was [myself ].” album. He talks about other highlights from the effect of his guitar. “Music is kinda like your dog
King started the Marcus King Band at age past year, including rising to the occasion at the sometimes,” King says. “You feel like it’s the only
15. Within just a few years, Warren Haynes Crossroads Festival, where he met Bill Murray, thing that’s never hurt you. The only thing you
released the group’s first album. When Au- Bonnie Raitt, and Clapton, who embraced King 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
recording and jam at Mumbai’s Island eclectic than one might
now we have City Studios. He says, imagine. It won’t be just
a three-song “We said let’s just plug in sticking to the genre
EP coming out and play. There was no that you hear on the EP.”
soon.” planning, there was no, Coutto adds, “I’m playing
Before the ‘Let’s do this [or] I have drums and singing and
yet-to-be-titled an idea’ we just went into Randolph is playing
three-track EP the studio and played guitar – we decided not
drops in a month, and came up with seven to hold ourselves back
Laptop are read- or eight different ideas after making music for 20
ying their debut including vocal ideas. So something years. We’re
single in the form literally the arrangement thinking, ‘How can we
of the glitch rock is exactly the same like we entertain the audience
offering “Grant- did at the jam.” in a one hour or two-
ed,” slated to The musicians tell us hour span, taking it up
be released in a that the way they are 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
Randolph
Correia other. “Randolph has
been my favorite guitar
player since I was 16,” says
T
wo indian and they are playing a Coutto. “We mostly ran
bands that are laptop. But here, there are into each other during
synonymous two guys playing on stage the same gigs also being
with shaping the sound and there is no laptop,” from the same city and
of the country’s rock says Coutto. we were always hanging
scene in the Nineties and A year ago, the two- out and having the same
early 2000s are Mumbai some began conversing laughs and jokes,” the
outfits Pentagram and on starting a project guitarist says. Coutto also
Zero. Now, Pentagram’s together. Those conver- tells us that working with
guitarist Randolph sations eventually led to Correia reminds him of
Correia aka Func and them jamming and writ- his younger self and how
drummer Sidd Coutto ing a bunch of material. he was energized starting
KUNAL SHAH; ROYCIN D’SOUZA
from the erstwhile Zero Coutto says, “We decided Sidd out in his first band. On
have joined forces to form to just do something as a Coutto what the project means
a new pulsating electro- two-piece band with our to Correia, he says, “It’s
rock duo called Laptop. musical talent into one few weeks accompanied going to approach their the selfish desire to get
“It was kind of funny project. Then time flew by a trippy music video. live set is “almost like a back into the same feeling
because normally you see by and a couple of Correia tells us that the DJ.” The guitarist says, we did like back in the
two guys on stage playing months back we started song was born out of a “I think it will be more Nineties.” DAVID BRITTO

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 of film scores, the Ocean’s friend’s request, he knew Canada and she happened
up in St. Eleven soundtrack and he wanted to produce to have an aunt living in
John’s, ambient electronic tracks their music. He says, Bandra. Bal narrates that
Newfoundland in Canada, which opened up my “The energy was just after finding out he was
Indo-Canadian multi- mind.” Bal also began to unbelievable.” Bal adds, “I musically inclined, the aunt
instrumentalist/producer develop an appreciation for have no idea how I’m going gave him a phone number
Arnob Bal managed songwriting while still in to convince these random of a local musician. That
to get his hands on school. dudes that I don’t know musician happened to
American rock band Red After graduating from that I should produce an be Mumbai rockers The
Hot Chili Peppers’ Memorial University album for them.” After Bal’s Koniac Net’s drummer
documentary Funky of Newfoundland, Bal friend got him acquainted Karun Kannampilly. “He
Monks which chronicles traveled for a few years and with the group, they began took ownership of me,
the making of their 1991 lived in Scotland before work on The Lipstick invited me to places and
album Blood Sugar Sex moving to Toronto. “I Junkie’s debut self- made sure that I showed
Magik. “I watched it spent a year in a dead- titled record (2014). The up. If there’s a party or
just over and over again end job working for an producer explains that this something, nine times
religiously because I knew American health insurance was the first album where out of 10 I would just go
how to play that album company.” Once he quit his he came in with a pen and even if I felt like I didn’t
at that time, at least on job, the producer started paper and a proper plan want to go,” says Bal. The
guitar, bass, drums, so I working on making his to execute. He says, “The following year, Bal also
was just fascinated by that.” own music. In 2010, Bal second that I showed up tried his hand at producing
He adds, “As I watched it began collaborating with for this for the first time Bollywood tracks but didn’t
more, I noticed [American artists in Toronto and by to make this album with a fancy it too much. He says,
producer] Rick Rubin more 2013 he recorded musician band, I felt I’ve just been “I found that the feedback
than the Chili Peppers and I DrewLIVE (formerly training my whole life to do was also uniform and
saw what he was doing and known as AndrewLIVE)’s this in my mind [and] I’ve commercialized and in a
kind of how he was guiding album LIVE From The just been going through corporate way.”
them. I was like, ‘Oh that’s 32nd Floor. He says, “That this process and then Bal’s next project
what a record producer was the first full-length finally I have the chance to probably has to go down
does. That should be my album I ever produced. do it.” He adds, “It was such as his most ambitious yet.
career.’” And the title of the album a smooth process.” The producer worked with
Bal tells us that his was because we both lived In 2015, Bal moved to Canadian alternative band
father was a singer and together on the 32nd Mumbai after the passing Roundelay on their 2017
that his mother was always floor of this condominium of his father and he says, album There Just Might Be singer live in my hometown
a patron of the arts. He in Toronto.” He adds, “I dedicated to actually Enough Time. What makes St. John’s Newfoundland.
says, “Music was a big “Looking back it was just living in Bombay, living it ambitious was that all of The drummer was living
thing in my family.” The such a huge deal for me.” in the city, making friends Roundelay’s band members in Toronto which is a two
producer’s musical taste Next, Bal was eager to and actually making were scattered around and a half hour flight at
includes everything from work with a rock band. connections.” different parts of Canada least from St. John’s and
hip-hop and jazz to rock, After watching Toronto During this time, Bal’s at the time. Ask Bal what the bass player was living in
metal and even country rockers The Lipstick then-girlfriend was visiting he did and he says, “Two Whistler, British Columbia,
music. “I was buying CDs Junkies at a gig upon a him in Mumbai from guys, the guitarist and which is on the other end of

the country, five time zones D’Souza’s Frank Gabriel electronica leaning single Round dropped his latest songwriter Mali’s forthcoming
away. I was like, ‘Listen, you Audio studio. “River” which included Bal’s offering Favourite Strangers, record. Ask Bal what the best
guys stay where you are. I 2019 has been quite touch under the moniker with producer credits for part of his job is and he says,
will fly to you.’” And that’s a year for Bal in terms FamLi. By April, The Koniac both records going to Bal. “Every now and then you put
how Bal got the recording of music that’s been Net put out their new Currently, Bal is working on something that you’ve
done for the band. He released by Indian artists record They Finally Herd on voice-overs, his own done and it’s actually good
PARIZAD D
returned to Mumbai to he’s worked with. In Us and in June Mumbai- electronica music under and you’re shocked. You’re
mix the record at The January Mumbai singer- based singer-songwriter the moniker FamLi as like, ‘Wow!’ That’s satisfying.”
Koniac Net’s guitarist Jason songwriter Tejas released his Jishnu Guha aka Short well as Mumbai singer- DAVID BRITTO

Magnetic
Fields 2019:
Notes from the
Nonstop Desert Party
The music
festival is one of
the country’s
must-attend
events
SACHIN SONI
Australian producer HAAi performing

at Magnetic Fields 2019.
E
VEN THOUGH we drummer Jyotin Elangbam of the festival respectively. Over at the JioSaavn Stage,
attended Magnetic – were a refreshing dose away Diggs delighted us with her the likes of Pune producer THE HARP
Fields 2018 and came
away from it quite chuffed,
from all the electronic music
at the festival. The band ran
funk remixes, R&B tunes and
trippy jazz. Diggs' selection
Pulpy Shilpy (day two) and
Chennai’s lo-fi artist JBABE
MEETS
2019’s edition went a notch through songs off their 2018 also included English acid jazz (day three) treated attendees ELECTRONICA
higher and probably cement- debut EP AKA Lo Peninsula band Jamiroquai‘s “Cosmic to wonderful sundowner
ed the event as a must-at- such as the gritty “Another Girl” which went down well sets atop the Alsisar Palace. WITH
tend for any music festival
junkie. Here are some of the
Divine Joke,” the distorted bass
offering “Sleight of Hand,” the
with the crowd. Delhi Sultanate
for his part spun vinyls which
Pulpy Shilpy’s poetic words
accompanied with jazz and
‘ASRAR’
highlights from the three-day wistful “Flashback Kid,” their ranged from reggae, ska, drum soul influences made for quite Day two saw the BUDX
nonstop party extravaganza 2017 melancholic single “Tidal and bass and more which got a moving set. JBABE – who South Stage filled with
which took place between De- Waves” and more. everyone grooving. also performed on day two attendees eager to check out
cember 13th and 15th at the with his band, alt-rockers The the collaborative project
Alsisar Palace in Rajasthan. Natasha Diggs F16s – sported a sequined be- ‘ASRAR’ comprising Mumbai
dazzled jacket and performed harpist-vocalist Nush Lewis
tracks off his recently released and producer Riatsu. The
SPRYK’S debut album Play the Piano

Drunk Like a Percussion
performance was specially
curated for Magnetic Fields
DREAMY Instrument Until the Fingers 2019 and it didn’t disap-
AUDIO-
Begin to Bleed a Bit. JBABE’s point. Riatsu triggered bass
chilled out electronica jux- lines and synths while Lewis
VISUAL SET taposed with rock elements,

synths and lush vocals created
strung together beautifully
arranged harp parts and
Mumbai producer Tejas Nair a fascinating sundowner quaint vocals that sat togeth-
aka Spryk had a treat for our atmosphere. The two artists er superbly. Overall, the set
eyes and ears on day one of sets were perfect for attendees was well put together and
the festival. The electronica to begin with for what was to we hope it makes its way to
artist presented a sublime be long nights ahead. other cities soon.
audio-visual set at the BUDX
South Stage by Budweiser
Magnetic Fields commission ‘ASRAR’
Experiences. Spryk went featuring Nush Lewis (left) and
from triggering samples to Riatsu on the BUDX South Stage.
NATASHA PULPY
playing some sweet snare and
kick drum patterns on an
DIGGS AND SHILPY AND
octopad while pensive visuals
BFR SOUND JBABE’S

were projected on a thin
sheet in front of the produc-
SYSTEM’S ADORING
er. Spryk also engaged the
audience with jazzy electron-
MORNING SUN DOWNER
ica tunes which was a good
DELIGHT SETS
fit at the festival.
LO AT THE
PENINSULA RAY-BAN JBABE
SHOWCASE STUDIOS
SHOEGAZE DESERT
PSYCH OASISSTAGE
ROCK
Imphal shoegaze group Lo New York City-based DJ
FROM TOP: WOLFMAN; MOHIT MUKHI
Peninsula amped things up Natasha Diggs and reggae

with their psychedelic tunes dancehall artist Delhi Sul-
on the first day at the BUDX tanate (BFR Sound System)
South Stage. The group – both put on emphatic “good
comprising guitarist-vocalist morning” sets over at the
Nitin Shamurailatpam, bass- Ray-Ban Studios Desert Oasis
ist Avinash Thokchom and Stage on day two and three

WHEN THE
F16s Maribou State
SERVED
SOME
RIFFS
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 churn-
ing 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.
PACIFIST
TURNED PALMS
MARIBOU Palms Trax
THE TRAX KEPT

STATE’S
PEACOCK THE PARTY
CLUB
UPSIDE
DOWN
ECLECTIC
AND
DIVERSE
GOING ON
THE LAST
DAY AT THE
LIVE SET
Mumbai post-hardcore band U.K. duo Maribou State RAY-BAN
Pacifist’s performance at the
Peacock Club stage, to put it
comprising Chris Davids and
Liam Ivory took electron-
STUDIOS
mildly, was thumping. The ica music to a whole new DESERT
group – comprising vocal-
ist Sidharth Raveendran,
level with a diverse live set.
For their performance, the OASIS STAGE
guitarist-producer Apurv pair was accompanied by
Agrawal, drummer Varun a drummer, an additional If you are attending Mag-
Sood, bassist Utkarsh Jaiswal percussionist who doubled netic Fields, you better be
and guitarist Ashish Dharkar up as a bassist and two sing- ready to party not just over
– ran through material off ers churning out honeyed the weekend but well into
this year’s debut EP Greyscale vocals. The band displayed the final performance of the
Dreams and created quite the moody funk and R&B tunes festival. Palms Trax, who
headbanging atmosphere in- with elements of jazz, soul hit the Ray-Ban Studios
side the Peacock Club, as part and rock thrown into the Desert Oasis Stage, went on
of a showcase put together by mix at times. Definitely to play a pumping last set.
artist and event label REPro- one of the highlights of The Berlin-based electronic
duce Artists. It was intriguing the festival, Maribou State artist’s techno sounds were
to hear a band of Pacifist’s delivered quite a punch that the perfect swan song for the
FROM TOP: ABHISHEK SHUKLA; WOLFMAN
decibel level make their way was perhaps missing from festival as attendees filled
to the Magnetic Fields lineup. last year’s lineup, when U.K. the sand around the stage
Hopefully, the festival contin- jazz/electronic artist Kamaal with their dance moves and
ues to program heavy acts like Williams pulled out of the grooved along like they had
them for future editions. lineup at the last minute. never before. DAVID BRITTO
The Mix
Alt Pop Group Chennai Street
Band Release Debut LP
‘Payanangal’
I
n 2015 when record was mixed by engi-
Tamil Nadu’s neers Pradvay Sivashankar
Chennai Street and Vivek Thomas. Next,
Band formed with just The seven-track album ranges from fusion rock, poignant Chennai Street Band is
composer/producer ballads, sing-along tunes and more working on music videos
Srihari Jagannathan and for “Nadodi,” “Yaaro Aval”
drummer Goutham Healer and “Mayavi.” On the
they were initially playing began working on their title track) and rock songs their stories; it kind of live front, a tour is in the
a lot of commercial own material. Now, (“Mayavi,” “Vaazhkai Oru made me realize we are all pipeline. The band also
gigs. “We played film the group is out with Vattam”). Jagannathan the same. It was liberating has plans to start work
music predominantly,” their debut seven-track tells us that the inspira- and life-changing for me.” on a Hindi EP titled Sa-
says Jagannathan. After album Payanangal. tion for the songs comes He adds, “[The record is] a farnama at the beginning
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
meeting guitarists Akshay The new LP – which the from his time traveling on cycle of life.” of next year. “We want
Yesodharan and Renin band started tracking in solo trips. He says, “I met Payanangal was re- to tour, perform live and
Raphael, bassist Adithya 2017 – includes everything people from all across the corded at Voice and Vision take the music to as many
Gopi and keyboardist from pop offerings (“Nado- globe who were like-mind- Studios in Chennai and music festivals as we can,”
Sebastian Satish at di,” “Yaaro Aval”), ballads ed. I used to journal my predominantly produced says Jagannathan.
a gig was when they “Paravaigal Naam” and the thoughts after hearing by Jagannathan. The DAVID BRITTO

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
By Jann S. Wenner
W hen coldplay first appeared
in our pages, in 2000, Rolling
Stone wondered: Were the new
Brit-pop group “the next Ra-
diohead? Or the next Verve,
or Travis?” Today, it’s clear
they were none of those things. Over the past 20 years, Cold-
play have carved out their own place in the world: as stadium-
filling, genre-defying optimists in an age of irony. They are argu-
ably 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 be-
fore, a meditative double disc that embraces gospel, folk, and even
Afrobeat. Martin addresses such hot-button subjects as gun con-
How
trol, mass incarceration, and racism (“Trouble in Town” features
audio of Philadelphia police officers harassing innocent black sus-
pects), 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 some-
thing Martin has been working toward as long as he’s been writ-
ing. Here’s how he got there.
Chris
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.”
Martin
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 lit-
tle 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.”
Fixed
Himself
MACHETE BANG BANG

CHR I S M ART I N
You didn’t fit in with those guys? What that did was ease a big pressure, and made peace. All we have to do now is follow the muse. I
I did a bit, but I was going through some stuff with me question, “Hey, maybe some of the stuff I’m just wanted to sing about other people and how I
religion and sexuality, getting all confused, like learning about God and everything, I’m not sure if feel about other people, how I feel about the world
most kids at that age. You’re like, “What is happen- I subscribe to.” For me today, God is everything and right now and everything that’s going on. It’s not
ing?” And it can be brutal. But that lit the fire of, everybody, and it’s love, and it’s the miracle in every really a concept beyond: “What does every day
“All right. I’m going to just work.” cell of everything. look like for me and everybody else?”
Who were you listening to? You’ve been making commercial music And then at the end you say, “Got to
I had a very strange dual education. On the one for almost 20 years. You’ve made eight re- keep dancing when the lights go out.” Is
hand, I was listening to a lot of church music, be- cords in that time. Why does it take you so that the message to take from this album?
cause we had to go and sing those hymns every day long to make a record? Yeah. I think, honestly, the thing we’ve done with
— those beautiful, big songs. Then I was into this That’s a great question. I feel we could have made this album is like, “Fuck it. I don’t care what any-
band called James, all the sort of shoegazing stuff 50 records in that time, but they’d be even worse. body thinks. Just let it flood through.” The way I
in England in the early Nineties. The Cure. Then I Is that self-effacing? feel about life right now is, you’ve got to just hold
was into U2 and R.E.M. This guy in the year above It’s not self-effacing at all. But Rolling Stone and us it so preciously and embrace it and embrace ev-
me was obsessed with soul and rhythm & blues. have a checkered history, so I don’t know what you erybody, and do your best to look after other peo-
The new album opens up with this full- might think about it. All journalists and us have ple, ’cause ultimately that’s looking after yourself,
out invocation of church, and a gospel choir. a checkered history, and we embrace that, but I to see us as one. We travel the world so much that
Throughout the album, there’s a lot of ca- don’t want to ever assume, “Yeah, we’ve made eight I really see us as one big family. I don’t believe in
thedral stuff. What was your relationship masterpieces.” I remember when we first landed in tribalism. I don’t believe in nationalism. I believe,
with God and the church grow- America, to do SNL, and I read a Roll- like, we were put here by something way greater
ing up? ing Stone review of our single, and it than us, and I’m in awe of that and so grateful to
I was lucky when I was a kid, because was not good. be here, let alone to be in this job.
my mom is from Zimbabwe. So I’d Which single? You have a couple of kids songs on there,
go there and see a very different side We had to grow Our first, “Yellow.” I was like, “Right. like “Daddy.”
of the world. That made me realize a bit of balls to We’ve got to get better.” “Daddy” is partly about a bunch of people I know
there’s a much bigger story going on It’s interesting that you re- whose dads abandoned them. It’s partly about me
than just me. My relationship with
be able to do member that, other than the 30 feeling like, “Am I with my kids enough?” And it’s
God at that time was to see God as a this one. It’s other good things we said about partly about the mass incarceration problem in
man in the sky with a beard, who was the first time Coldplay. We said you were the America. Because so many dads are forcibly re-
quite nice, but also quite punitive. we really said biggest band of the year [in moved from their families on a systemic and insti-
If you did things wrong, you might 2005]. tutionalized basis, which is wrong. So those kind of
risk burning for possibly a substan-
what we think. Yeah, thank you. Why does it take so emotions all bubble together and then something
tial amount of time, which is terrify- It’s completely long? There’s just something in my like that comes out.
ing for kids. In the midst of the scar- unfiltered, and body which says when something’s It doesn’t even sound like a rock song.
iness of it is also a real warmth that it’s very raw. finished. And it’s only happened eight We’re not a rock band. Let’s get that straight!
comes from a lot of the great proph- times. Actually seven times in the last And then you’ve got “Guns” [“The
ets, Jesus included. So there was a 19 years, because once it didn’t hap- judgment of the court is we need more
lot of beautiful stuff being fed to me. pen, and we still released the album: guns . . .”], which is a really uncharacteristic
So, for a while I was like, “Half of this our third album, called X&Y. kind of Coldplay song. It sounds like a pro-
feels really right and half of it feels re- But that did rather fantastical- test song.
ally scary.” ly, didn’t it? Clearly, because I live in Los Angeles now, I’m
You share that background with U2. That But how it did is not [important]. much more aware of the Second Amendment is-
was very much at the core of who they What’s the moment that says, “We’re sues. I play music all the time, and suddenly a
were and how they started out. Still, today, done now”? song sort of drops from the sky, and those are the
they’re preaching. If this sounds pretentious, forgive me, [but] if the ones that are the good ones. So many songs on this
So, what happened to me was, when I went to album title is there in our heads, it’s like a pic- album happened like that.
boarding school, I walked a bit funny. And I was ture frame. And it’s very clear what fits inside it. It sounds very Paul Simon, in the vocals
also very homophobic, because I was like, “If I’m So even if there’s 15 quite-good songs, if they don’t and the rhythm.
gay, I’m completely fucked for eternity.” And I was fit the picture frame, they don’t come in. So there The honest answer is that it comes from listening
a kid discovering sexuality. “Maybe I’m gay. I can’t are a lot of spare things floating around. Not as to Paul Simon and Rammstein, which is a strange
be.” I was terrified. I was in a boarding school with many as Bruce [Springsteen], who released that marriage. I was asking one of our producers, Bill
a bunch of quite hardcore kids, and for a few years 72-track Tracks . . . [Rahko], who’s a heavy metal-er, to teach me how
they were very much like, “You’re definitely gay,” So how does Everyday Life feel differ- to play those kind of riffs. I thought it would be in-
in quite a full-on manner, quite aggressively tell- ent to you? teresting to try stuff like that on an acoustic folk
ing me that. It was weird for me for a few years. Well, it’s its own world. We had to grow a bit of song.
Did you think you were gay? You must balls to be able to do this one. It’s the first time we When did you find that falsetto voice?
have. really said what we think about some things. And When Radiohead broke through, I was
I don’t know. I was like, “Even if I am, I can’t be, it’s trying to be empathetic. It’s completely unfil- a teenager, and they were from a similar
because it’s wrong.” So that was creating terrible tered. It’s very raw and pure. background to me. So it opened up my whole
turmoil. In a certain way, it feels like a concept al- world in terms of “Maybe this can be done.”
Did they convince you that you were? bum. Why a concept album, or even a dou- That record was The Bends, and Thom Yorke
I started to worry about it, for sure. At about 15 ble album, in a time when people are main- had heard Jeff Buckley singing falsetto. And
and a half, it all just stopped overnight, once I was ly concentrating on singles? then I found out “Oh, wow, I can sing really high
like, “Yeah, so what if I’m gay?” Why are we shooting ourselves in the balls? Be- like that.” I think that at the age of 17 [or] 18,
What stopped? cause that’s what I was told to do. The last thing Jeff Buckley and Radiohead really opened up a
The worry about anyone teasing you. It might have we did was so fun, and we played to a lot of peo- whole new world for me.
been reading about Elton [John], realizing that a ple in a lot of places. And we did the Super Bowl, You worked with Brian Eno for a couple
lot of my heroes are gay; it doesn’t really matter. and it was amazing, so there was a slight sense of of albums. How much did U2 influence you?

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 listen-
ing 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 fuck-
ing 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?
phrase “stadium band” means to me is a collec- I’m North London’s most hardworking pescatarian
tive consciousness, really. Are there going to be who eats turkey. Less of a glamorous title.
points when the whole building is singing the What does being a sex symbol, stadium
same thing, or in the same zone? It’s not them star do to your head?
watching you, or you playing to them — it’s us You’d have to ask someone else. I don’t feel like
creating this one thing together. ’Cause it’s a big that right now, Jann. When I’m doing it, I feel
energy. like that.
What are you thinking about onstage? You’re kind of an anti-rock-star — except
I’m thinking about those moments. We really love that you’re extremely discreet.
when the wristbands light up. They were basical- I don’t know what you mean by that.
ly made by this guy that made sex toys. He was You play your cards close to the vest.
supposed to come to a show 10 years ago and he I do. Yeah.
couldn’t get to the show, and he wrote an email And you stay out of the way of the press.
to Phil, who’s my best friend, our creative direc- I try to.
IN MY PLACE Top: Martin performing in Amman, tor, and Phil said, “We’ll arrange something.” And Why?
Jordan, in November. Coldplay played most in return, this guy said, “By the way, I’ve been in- All our songs are very personal. So it’s all in there,
of their new album, an experience they called
venting this wristband that lights up. Do you guys all of the loves and the losses and everything. It’s
“a dream.” Above: Martin with Beyoncé at the
Super Bowl in 2016. She joined Coldplay for want it?” Phil’s like, “Are you fucking [kidding]? all in there. And I’m more subscribed to the Bob
“Formation.” Yes.” So we invested in it and made it. So I look Dylan thing of don’t explain any song, because
forward to when those switch on, because that’s why ruin someone else’s interpretation of it? All
when I really feel like, “OK, I love [performing of our songs are very personal to me, and must in
for] this many people.” I love it. some way have been poured through the percola-
On our third album, you can definitely hear U2. When you go see Bruce Springsteen, it’s tor of our life.
FROM TOP: MATTHEW MILLER; MATT COWAN/GETTY IMAGES
That’s the only time, if you want the honest an- the same. He’s very consciously trying to You were quoted as saying you want to
swer, that we said, “Let’s step into that space.” I lift you up. be the biggest band in the world.
think that U2 and R.E.M. were an influence in When Bruce Springsteen came into my life, it Yeah.
how they operate: how they treat each other, how was the same as when Rumi the poet came into Have you done that?
they split their money and credit, and their un- my life. It was fucking life-changing. Because I would never say that.
ashamedness in allowing themselves to be big. It’s Bruce made it and then was like, “OK, what am I’ve heard it before. The Beatles said that.
funny to be talking about this when we just made I going to do from this position?” Rather than, U2 famously said that. What’s that about?
a record that’s tiny and small. “I’ve made it, let me retire and have a horse I don’t care about that thing anymore. I feel like
But still, you’re going to be a stadium ranch.” [He says], “What am I going to do with I realize that our job is just to be the best us in
band. this gift I’ve been given?” And he delivers on the world. And exist because we love it, and we
Who knows? Whether anyone comes is [to be it a thousand times over. He pours everything really love it, and reach as many people as want
seen]. And we’re not touring this album. We’re into it. I realized from seeing Bruce, [my job] is to be reached by making records and by traveling
doing some strange little events and some tiny to be totally and unashamedly of service to the around to see people. We are the best Coldplay
shows, because it’s more intimate. What the people that are listening. Just to be 100 percent ever.

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
1
The
Dancing
on My Own
Robyn 2010
Best
“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-gener-
ation status among America’s burned-out
youth. Written and produced with fellow
Songs
Swedish ace Patrik Berger, it’s a relatable hit
of heartbreak at the club with a chaser of em-
powering uplift — exactly the disco anthem
we needed in the long hangover of the finan-
cial 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 mem-
orable 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
of the
or Prince — managed to combine amaz-
ing melodies and honest human emotion,”
Robyn said. “But coming out of the super-su-
per-commercial pop industry in the Nineties,
maybe people forgot about the fact that pop
music can do both of those things.”
Decade
The Best Songs of the Decade
3. Rolling
in the Deep
Adele 2011
5. All Too Well
Taylor Swift 2012
the devastating cen-
Formation
freshly hurt by the end terpiece of Red is about
Beyoncé 2016
of her relationship with a relationship that’s long NONE OF BEYONCÉ’S many hits embodied
an older photographer, over, except in Swift’s her unrivaled cultural power in the 2010s
then-21-year-old Adele memory — and in her ex’s better than “Formation,” a stylish song-of-
walked into producer dresser, where he keeps myself flex that was also a rallying cry for
Paul Epworth’s northwest a borrowed scarf he can’t millions. Celebrating her roots in Alabama,
London studio and made bring himself to return. Louisiana, and Texas, she claimed the black
the greatest breakup song The disappointment in her experience in the Deep South as a source of
of the 2010s. “I never get voice is still fresh as she pride; with a single horny couplet, she forever
angry, but I was ready to thinks about the sweet- changed the meaning of date night at Red
murder,” she later recalled. talking guy who turned out Lobster. The genius of “Formation” — espe-
“It’s me saying, ‘Get the to be “so casually cruel in cially taken in conjunction with the striking
fuck out of my house’ in- the name of being honest.” imagery of its music video and Super Bowl
4
stead of me begging him to (She freestyled that line performance — is in its bold tangling of the
come back.” You can hear while soundchecking for a personal and the political, wrapping the trag-
it in her voice, an all-time concert: “I was just playing edy of Katrina in the glamour of a Givenchy
performance whose roaring these chords over and over gown and daring you to call it a contradic-
fury is downright biblical. onstage, and my band tion. “I’m an artist,” she said, knowing some
“Rolling in the Deep” was joined in and I went on had missed the point, “and I think the most
a global chart-topper that a rant.”) Tabloids quickly powerful art is usually misunderstood.”
made Adele a superstar identified the scarf thief as
and proved that classic Jake Gyllenhaal, but the
soul could still conquer the brilliance of “All Too Well”
world. “Carole King is the is in how it makes you feel
last person [before Adele] like you were right there anthem. Like, ‘Let’s have a into a nine-minute epic at guest rapper Pusha T
who wrote the kind of with her, too. toast with a douchebag!’ ” that’s sad, frightening, and during the song’s record-
lyrics women immediately Speculated to be a mea almost incomprehensible ing. The result is peak Old
could relate to,” marveled 6. Runaway culpa for his dust-up with in its scarred beauty — Kanye.
Aretha Franklin. “I love Kanye West 2010 Taylor Swift at the 2009 from its slasher string intro
to hear a schoolgirl on “it’s like a man’s anthem,” VMAs, “Runaway” mixes to its vocoder-smeared 7. Thank U, Next
the school bus yellin’ ‘We West told Access Holly- self-indictment, self-aware- closing. “I need more Ariana Grande 2019
coulda had it all!’ ” wood, “but it’s a woman’s ness, and self-obsession douchebag,” West screamed when grande split up
with SNL’s Pete David-
son after a very public
whirlwind romance, the
obvious thing to do was to
Alright
drop a celebrity diss track.
Instead, she released one of
the most generous breakup
songs of all time — an ode
to lessons learned and
Kendrick Lamar 2015 self-love set to a fluttery
track that suggests a mind
“AS A KID FROM COMPTON you can get all at peace already moving
the success in the world and still question on to new discovery. “Even
your worth,” Lamar told Rolling Stone almost got married/And for
in 2015. In the most lasting single from his Pete, I’m so thankful,” she
PREVIOUS PAGE: JOE SCARNICI/FILMMAGIC. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: ANDREW WHITE/
era-defining masterpiece To Pimp a But- sings. Grande wrote sev-
terfly, he dramatizes that inner conflict in eral versions of the song,
PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT; SHAMIL TANNA/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

vivid, immediate terms. “Alls my life, I had including one where she
to fight,” he begins, quoting Alice Walker’s and Davidson get married:
The Color Purple to evoke generations of “Then we broke up again,
inherited trauma. By the time so we ended up going with
Pharrell’s buoyant production that verse,” she said.
kicks in, Lamar has found
reason to believe: “If God 9. I Like It
2
got us, then we gon’ be Cardi B feat. Bad Bunny
alright.” In the context and J Balvin 2018
of the album’s complex nobody ever accused
emotional journey, it’s Cardi B of thinking small.
a moment of cautious “I Like It” is her hugely
optimism. Once “Alright” expansive vision of hip-hop
reached the world, it became as a multicultural, world-
something more: an anthem for wide block party. Cardi
a new civil-rights movement, its chorus brings in Puerto Rican
chanted at countless Black Lives Matter rapper Bad Bunny and
protests across America. Colombian reggaeton star

8
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 distract-
edly staring at her phone.
It is a classic dispatch
Follow from teenage wasteland

rendered in a whole new
language of millennial
Your Arrow
malaise.
12. Old Town Road

Lil Nas X 2019
Kacey Musgraves 2013 lil nas x — a 19-year-
old peddler of Twitter
THE TEXAS COWGIRL made her big memes deploying a $30
entrance with “Follow Your Arrow,” and web-sourced beat — made
right from the git-go, she had her own history topping the Hot 100
style. Over guitar twang, the then-25- for a record 19 weeks with
year-old Musgraves serves up some his two-minute country-
homespun advice: “Make lots of noise/ hip-hop masterpiece. “I
Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss lots of girls if got bored one day and
that’s something you’re into.” Originally made this song,” Nas told
written as a poem for a friend who was Rolling Stone of “Old
taking a trip overseas, the song whipped Town Road,” a moment of
up a fair amount of controversy, but pop disruption that cheekily
Musgraves refused to back down. “Even appropriates cowboy tropes,
if they don’t agree with the girls-kissing- samples a Nine Inch Nails
girls thing, or even the drug reference,” track, and features Billy Ray
Musgraves said, “I would hope that they Cyrus, Young Thug, and
would agree that no matter what, we all child country star Mason
should be able to love who we want to Ramsey, among others, on
love and live how we want to live.” She’s various remixes, tapping a
been following her arrow ever since. bottomless well of American
cross-racial conversation.
As Nas said, “Wow, it’s rock,
country, hip-hop, all in the
same room.” Yeehaw!
13. Your Best Ameri-

Balvin to shine on her trap their defense, it’s a pretty can Girl
groove, riding a sample great little jam. Along with Mitski 2016
SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE?
from the 1967 boogaloo being inescapably catchy the indie-rock anthem
classic “I Like It Like That.” (Caribbean in feel but MIRANDA LAMBERT of the decade didn’t
All her guests rise to the powered by a 1970s soul come from a record-geek
occasion — who else but sample), “Hotline Bling” The Country Star on Taylor college-boy band. It was
Balvin would compare was also a marvel of the by a 25-year-old Japanese
himself to Lady Gaga internet, inspiring countless
Swift, Pregnancy, and Spanx American woman singing,
and Jimmy Snuka in the covers and memes of its My favorite album was: Brent “Your mother wouldn’t
Cobb’s Shine On Rainy Day.
same verse? But Cardi runs video to mark a new era in approve of how my mother
FROM TOP: ALYSSE GAFKJEN; MATT BARON/SHUTTERSTOCK
My favorite song was: “Girl

shit like cardio, turning Top 40 democracy. Crush,“ by Little Big Town.
raised me” over My Bloody
“I Like It” into a Number The artist who had the best Valentine guitar swells. “I
One smash. 11. Royals decade was: Taylor Swift. The TV didn’t grow up in the U.S.,”
Lorde 2013 show I couldn’t stop streaming Mitski Miyawaki said of
10. Hotline Bling inspired by a picture of was: Godless and Ozark. the song. “It came from
Drake 2015 The misstep I learned the most
Kansas City Royals slugger wanting to just fit into this
from was: Rushing. Take a breath, and take it in. The best
drake (rightfully) George Brett, and Jay-Z very American person’s life,
new slang term was: “AF.” Something cool I did that
slammed the Grammys for and Kanye West’s Watch nobody noticed was: Getting married. The best outfit and simply not being able
awarding this not-very- the Throne, a 15-year-old I wore this decade was: A yellow dress with pink heels to.” Yet, as the shyly hulking
rappy song Best Rap Song New Zealander, Ella Mar- with a gold pistol attached, to the ACM Awards in Vegas. guitars gain power and her
and Best Rap/Sung Perfor- ija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, The most “2010s” moment of the 2010s was: The inven- voice pushes forward, you
tion of Spanx leggings. The strangest thing someone
mance, wondering if they penned a softly swaggering can feel her power past
said about me in the media was: I was pregnant, again.
picked those categories just ode to her own fantasies of alienation toward an ecstasy
“because I’m black.” But in greatness (and the mixed of her own making.

Shallow ideas. With “Springsteen,”

he ditched fiddles and
pedal steel for the chug-
ging sound of the song’s
Lady Gaga and namesake and unfurled the
Bradley Cooper 2017 memory of a teenage love
affair that had sparked at a
GAGA BEGAN the 2010s as music’s new glam Springsteen show between
queen, but her glitter started to fade a little as “I’m on Fire” and “Born
she detoured into jazz and Lilith Fair country to Run.” It’s all true, up to
rock. “Shallow” reignited the drama she was a point. “It didn’t happen
loved for. Gaga’s duet with actor Bradley Cooper, with Springsteen, ironical-
from the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, built ly, it happened with anoth-
a towering moment of power-ballad glory er artist,” Church said.
with not much more than an acoustic
guitar, their chemistry, and Gaga’s 22. Drunk in Love
sweeping vocals. “We just had Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z 2013
an instant connection,” Gaga “i kind of freestyled the
14
said later of Cooper. “I felt verse,” Beyoncé explained of
comfortable with Bradley.” this ode to morning-
Gaga wrote the song with after memories of an
superproducer Mark Ronson, all-nighter spent riding the
originally thinking it might run “good-good” wood of her
in the closing credits of the film. man’s “surfboard.” Her hus-
Instead, it serves as a pivotal onstage band, Jay-Z, freestyled his
triumph for Ally, the insecure singer Gaga plays part as well, unfortunately
in the film. As Ronson said later, “Everybody’s life referencing Mike Tyson
experience and trials and tribulations are being and Ike Turner. Yet nothing
channeled in that song.” could take away the power
of Beyoncé celebrating her
own desire.
23. Despacito
15. Mi Gente Parquet Courts zoned to the top of the charts. being a woman out after Luis Fonsi and Daddy
J Balvin and out gloriously as Savage Nearly six minutes long dark. She said of the song’s Yankee feat. Justin Bie-
Willy William 2017 turned choosing between and layered with inventive, difficult inspiration, “I was ber 2019
“the beautiful thing roasted peanuts and lico- acrobatic rhymes, it turned assaulted,” adding, “I was puetro rican pop stars
about ‘Mi Gente,’ ” said Bal- rice into a rich existential “raindrop, drop-top” into just so terrified of men for Fonsi and Daddy Yankee
vin in 2018, “is that I wrote riddle. a cultural catchphrase, a while.” already had a hit with
it in Spanish with Willy and made the simple act of their breezy collabora-
William, a producer from 17. Get Lucky spending too much money 21. Springsteen tion “Despacito.” Then
Paris. . . . And it hit Number Daft Punk feat. feel like a bold avant-garde Eric Church 2011 Bieber hopped on the
One [in the charts] around Pharrell Williams and statement. country rebel Church remix and the most
the world.” Colombian Nile Rodgers 2013 specializes in building popular mostly-in-Span-
reggaeton star Balvin the french robots took 19. Hold On small moments into big ish song ever was born.
campaigned for a borderless the edge off a rough decade Alabama Shakes 2012
FROM TOP: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES; EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

pop future, crooning about with this plush disco pas- the new-school South-
musical inclusion over pro- tiche featuring funk wizard ern blues-rock band wrote
ducer William’s infectiously Nile Rodgers on guitar its breakout single the
forlorn synth-horn riff and and Pharrell Williams on old-fashioned way, riffing QUESTLOVE
rattling beat. “Mi Gente” the mic. “I don’t know if during a club show while
was a smash even before it’s a disco track,” Williams frontwoman Brittany How- The Roots Drummer on
Beyoncé swooped in to give
it a remix. As Balvin noted,
later hedged. “It feels a
little bit more, like, post
ard made up lyrics about
“trying to inspire [herself ]
Cancel Culture and LOL’ing
“It wasn’t a strategy to make [disco].” Replacing the to keep working, stay posi- The artist who had the best
decade was: Donald Glover. I
it bigger. . . . It was for the Seventies disco-diva wail tive.” The elusive rawness of
enjoyed watching him make
culture.” with Williams’ light falsetto “Hold On” was a huge part every snarky critic eat their
helped “Get Lucky” rise of its appeal. smug shit. My least favorite
16. Stoned and Starv- like a phoenix while still trend in music this decade was:
ing feeling warm and invitingly 20. Oblivion All the obituaries I had to write
Parquet Courts 2012 human. Grimes 2012 about its participants. The best
new slang term of the decade
cat-sitting for a friend, with sunrise-tinted bangs
was: This can be really corny to answer. Probably the
Andrew Savage of 18. Bad and Boujee and an otherworldly so- most telling is “LOL.” Nine times out of 10 we aren’t
Parquet Courts decid- Migos 2016 prano, Canadian eccentric laughing when we do “LOL.” The best live show I saw in
ed to go on the stoned “we did it the trap way, Claire Boucher ushered in the 2010s was: The Roots/Outkast/Lionel Richie. Lionel
bodega crawl through not the pop way,” Offset a new era of oddball dance Richie took names and kicked ass! The misstep I learned
Ridgewood, Queens, that told Rolling Stone, re- pop with her 2012 LP, the most from in the 2010s was: Cancel culture and all
of its consequences is real. Something cool I did that
became the inspiration flecting on the unlikely rise Visions, and its standout
nobody noticed was: Getting Jay-Z on Twitter.
for the decade’s premier of “Bad and Boujee” from single “Oblivion,” which
indie-guitar banger. the strip clubs of Atlanta contemplates the perils of

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
24
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.
www.t.me/magzsenglish “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
27. Chandelier
Sia 2014
an author of hits by
Rihanna, Beyoncé, Flo
Rida, and many others, Sia
had her own huge smash
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
28. Archie,
Marry Me
Alvvays 2014
“a lot of people ‘grow up’
and get mortgages and
have big dumb weddings,
out of that,” Alvvays’
Molly Rankin explained.
By soaking the satire in
sweet distortion and an
achingly pretty melody, the
Canadian band wound up
when it comes to inter- rewriting party-girl clichés give away.” and this song takes the piss with one of the decade’s
pretation.” most romantic songs at the
same time.
25. Adorn
Miguel 2012 30. We Found Love
Sorry
in the early 2010s, as Rihanna feat.
R&B artists chased the hip- Calvin Harris 2011
hop and EDM zeitgeist, this calvin harris’ rave-y
California upstart showed demo of this song floated
up out of nowhere sounding Justin Bieber 2015 around for months (it
like a singer from another was rejected by Nicole
era; Miguel exuded the “SORRY” MARKED a new maturity for the Scherzinger of the Pussycat
style and grace of a Motown then-21-year-old Bieber, who was looking Dolls). Then Rihanna got a
FROM TOP: ERIKA GOLDRING/WIREIMAGE; GABRIEL OLSEN/GETTY IMAGES
romantic on his plush debut to move past his unfortunate bad-boy hold of it and turned it into
slow jam, a song that felt phase into new musical and personal an uplifting modern stan-
sweetly old-school right territory. “Sorry” was co-written by Justin dard that’s been crushing
down to its anachronis- Tranter, who took pride in creating songs wedding receptions ever
tic-sounding title. that “let men be allowed to be vulnerable,” since. “I want each track to
and produced by Skrillex, who strove to be as good as it can possibly
26. Mask Off “keep it simple” with an almost elegiac be,” Harris said, “and that
Future 2017 beat. “It was about a girl,” Bieber usually means me not sing-
the atlanta rap later said. And like so many great ing on it.”
spaceman was one of the songs that are simply about a
29
decade’s most prolific, girl, it’s coy and tender and just 31. Sign of
unpredictable artists. delicately cocky enough to give the Times
“Mask Off ” was Future the tune a shot of big-boy ener- Harry Styles 2017
at his far-out best, over gy. Bieber worried it might be a it sure wasn’t the
Metro Boomin’s flute-loop little too safe. But as Skrillex later traditional way to start a
sample. As his collaborator put it, “When you listen to his post-boy-band solo career.
Kendrick Lamar put it, lyrics, you can tell he’s becoming Styles could’ve begun life
“He’s his own genius.” an adult.” after One Direction with a

sugary pop tune. Instead,
he wrote a song connecting
the Seventies-glam balladry
35. Night Shift
Lucy Dacus 2017
“the first time I tasted
Teenage
of Bowie and Queen to our
own worried moment. As
Styles explained to Rolling
Stone, “ ‘Sign of the Times’
somebody else’s spit/I had a
coughing fit,” Virginia sing-
er-songwriter Dacus sings
to kick off this six-minute
Dream
came from ‘This isn’t the indie-rock ballad, one of Katy Perry 2010
first time we’ve been in a the decade’s truly bracing
hard time, and it’s not going breakup songs. “I dated this “WHEN I PUT THAT SONG ON,” Lorde told
to be the last time.’ ” person for like five years,” The New York Times, “I’m as moved as I am
she said. “To kiss anybody by anything by David Bowie, by Fleetwood
32. Bodak Yellow else — it felt really weird.” Mac, by Neil Young. It lets you feel something
Cardi B 2017 you didn’t know you needed to feel. There’s
the flow was borrowed 36. Sicko Mode something holy about it.” Slick California pop
from Kodak Black’s “No Travis Scott feat. Drake tinged with just the right aftertaste of
Flockin,” but the trans- 2018 romantic nostalgia, “Teenage Dream”
formation of stress-mode it unfurled was one of five Number One hits
40
fury into feminine glam- more like a from Perry’s album of the same
or was pure Cardi. She playlist than a name. No one had done that since
wrote her rhymes on a single: three Michael Jackson’s Bad. Perry con-
plane, listening to a beat distinct sections cocted the song with producers
her producer J. White had and three guests Max Martin and Dr. Luke during
sent her. “Every bitch that in just over five sessions in Santa Monica, Califor-
I don’t like came to my minutes. A verse nia, building around what she called “a
head,” she said. “And I pic- from Drake — recorded Chaka Khan-fierce little beat.” Considering
tured me slapping it to the day before Scott’s LP the song’s almost scientifically pop precision,
them.” When she knocked Astroworld was set to be it’s no surprise its recording involved rework-
Taylor Swift’s “Look What released — contributed to ing the song “four or five” times to nail “that
You Made Me Do” from the chopped-up format. As euphoric feeling of having a teenage love, all
the Number One spot, Scott put it, “Something so over again.”
Swift sent her flowers to crazy for the kids.”
celebrate.
37. My Church
33. Hold On, Maren Morris 2015
We’re Going Home morris didn’t have a aspiring Texas songwriter with a dead buddy’s sister ble future-blues that an-
Drake 2013 record deal when she had her debut country hit. that becomes a road trip, nounced the arrival of a
if the drum pattern on recorded “My Church,” and then a heartbreaking major talent. Packing a nov-
top sounds like “Billie a gospel-tinged stomper 38. God in Chicago hookup that may turn out el’s worth of narrative into
Jean,” there’s a reason: about flipping through Craig Finn 2017 redemptive. Or not. “I a five-minute slow jam,
Drake and producer Noah the car radio and finding a hybrid of deadpan piano attempted to turn it into it name-checked Stanley
“40” Shebib’s humble salvation in Hank Williams dirge and spoken- a more traditional song,” Kubrick and dissected a
attempt to channel their and Johnny Cash. A couple word short fiction, the the Hold Steady frontman drug-buddy hookup with an
power as a “Quincy of million streams later, the decade’s best story song said. When the chorus aspiring dental student at
Jones-Michael Jackson wearily details a drug run finally lands, its like the sun Coachella, outing a genera-
production duo” and create bursting through a dank tion’s numbness.
a timeless track that could Midwestern sky.
42. High for This
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“be played at weddings
SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? 39. Bad Liar The Weeknd 2011
in 10 years.” R&B with a
hip-hop mindset, “Hold MARGO PRICE Selena Gomez 2017 a creepy song in which a
On, We’re Going Home” gomez ditched the man tries to talk a woman
cemented Drake’s place as The Country Singer on Disney-princess pop of into doing drugs before
the central hitmaker of the her teens for the grown- they have sex, “High for
decade.
Sturgill, Dolly, and Her DMs up grooves of Revival in This” was the ideal intro
The best album of the de- 2015, telling Rolling to the Weeknd’s narcotic
34. Bad Guy cade was: Sturgill Simpson’s Stone, “I felt confident and sound. The opening track
Billie Eilish 2019 Metamodern Sounds in Country
comfortable in who I am. I on his debut LP, House of
Music. That album changed the
“i don’t want to be in the game. My favorite song of the felt sexy. I was aching to do Balloons — a chronicle of
pop world,” Eilish said. “I 2010s was: Brittany Howard’s stuff like that.” She nailed “whatever thoughts I was
want it to be, ‘What kind “Stay High.” It’s a song I wish I it two years later with this having when I was under
of music do you listen to?’ wrote. The artist who had the spare confession hooked to the influence at the time”
‘Billie Eilish music.’ ” In best decade was: Dolly Parton. the bass line of the Talking — forecast R&B’s brooding
There’s not a lot of things that people see eye to eye
that spirit, her signature Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” An future.
on anymore, but Dolly is this cultural icon. The craziest
goth-pop banger refuses to thing that happened to me in the 2010s was: I went from art-pop adventurer was
be pinned down, musically being a waitress to playing SNL. The show I couldn’t stop born. 43. Call Me Maybe
or emotionally; Eilish is watching was: Breaking Bad. I’ve watched it twice all Carly Rae Jepsen 2011
on her knees one moment, the way through. The misstep I learned the most from: 41. Novocane “we liked how it turned
a dominating bad guy the Checking my DMs. You open a couple of dick pics and Frank Ocean 2011 out, but I can’t say I ex-
you’re like, “OK, I’m not going in there again.”
next, swerving through an ocean’s debut single was pected this,” said Jepsen of
underworld all her own. a sexy, unnerving, indeli- “Call Me Maybe,” one of the

most dominant Songs of the 47. 212
Summer of all time. Every- Azealia Banks 2011
one from Katy Perry to the
Cookie Monster covered it,
and it inspired countless
Sounds of the Decade after falling into “a bit
of a depression and shit”
when her first attempts to
Think all music sounded the same during the 2010s? Well, you’re sort
song-as-meme videos. Not of right. Here are five sonic trends that defined the times. break through in the music
a bad debut for a third- business proved unsuccess-
place in the 2007 season of ful, Banks made it work
Canadian Idol. by going back to New York
Saxual Healing rap basics, jump-cutting
44. Beez in WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE The sassy spawn of “Careless Whisper” from street queen to prep-
the Trap WHERE WE HEARD IT After two decades of total exile, the sax- school mean-girl thespian
Nicki Minaj 2011 ophone made its big, blustery return in 2011 as the scream- to R&B diva. Before the
following a directive, ing partygoer on Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” and the ascendancy of Nicki Minaj
“Nicki needs some rap hype man of Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory.” By mid- and Cardi B, “212” crowned
shit,” from her record label decade, it was practically inescapable, showing up in songs Banks the fiercest female
by Fifth Harmony, Jason Derulo, and even Taylor Swift.
Cash Money/Young Money, MC alive.
WHO USED IT BEST Carly Rae Jepsen, on “Run Away With Me”
producer Kenoe delivered
a track with a spartan, 48. Girl Crush
slow-rolling boom that Little Big Town 2014
gave the fiery rapper tons The Millennial Whoop some radio programmers
of space to rock out and de- in Nashville might have
liver a master class in old- WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE Over-the-top melisma, Gen Y-style worried about its homo-
school playground swagger. WHERE WE HEARD IT Early in the decade, singers inexplicably erotic undercurrent. But
started yelling “Wa-oh-wa-oh” in their songs — Katy Perry
“I am,” Minaj noted, “always “Girl Crush” was immedi-
on “California Gurls,” Kesha on “Tik Tok,” Frank Ocean on
in the trap.” “Ivy.” Sometimes it sounded happy, sometimes it sounded ately recognized as one of
sad, but it always seemed awesomely unnecessary. the most indelible jealousy
45. Mariners Apart- WHO USED IT BEST Comedy pop trio the Lonely Island, who songs in country music
ment parodied it on “F**k Off” history. “I knew as soon
Complex as I heard the hook of the
Lana Del Rey 2018 first chorus that we had to
the first taste of Del have this song,” Little Big
Trap Hi-Hat Snaps
Rey’s revelatory Norman Town’s Karen Fairchild told
Fucking Rockwell! was this WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE The skittering soul of Atlanta Rolling Stone.
psychedelic-folk gem, a me- WHERE WE HEARD IT Drum-machine hi-hats programmed at
ta-pop collaboration with a speed and complexity no human could ever play fluttered 49. Every
Jack Antonoff that shuf- out of the South via hits by Migos, Future, and others, Breaking Wave
fles classic-rock allusions and became a go-to beat — from Beyoncé’s “Drunk in U2 2014
Love” to Ariana Grande’s “Break Up With Your Girlfriend,
(“kiss the sky,” “candle in the with production assists
I’m Bored” and Halsey’s “Without Me.”
wind”) and emotions, piv- from Danger Mouse and
WHO USED IT BEST Migos, on the diamond-bright “Stir Fry”
oting on the linchpin title One Republic’s Ryan
verse of Leonard Cohen’s Tedder, Bono and team
abjectly needy “I’m Your delivered a soaring anthem
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Man.” But Del Rey owns Whisper Pop exploring his sense of “how
JENNINGS/FILMMAGIC; DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES; AMY HARRIS/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK
every word, carving out a hard it is to give yourself

complex sad-girl perso- WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE “Wait, what? Speak up, damn it.” completely to another
na rooted in Laurel Canyon WHERE WE HEARD IT In olden times, you couldn’t be a pop star person.” If the song conjures
if you couldn’t belt out your lyrics. But in the 2010s, a new
singer-songwriter tradition. Coldplay, it’s a testament
wave of singers started whispering their way into our hearts
— Lana Del Rey evoked entitled California malaise with her to how fundamental U2
46. N**as in Paris bored, breathy sighs, while moody teens Lorde and Billie remains to the sound of
Jay-Z and Kanye West Eilish went for more of a mumbling-into-their-sleeves vibe. mainstream rock. And the
2011 WHO USED IT BEST Eilish, on “Bad Guy” acoustic version is just as
appearing as their one-off good.
duo, Watch the Throne, in
Paris on June 18th, 2012, 50. Turn Down
Kanye West and Jay-Z ‘Glitch-core’ Vocals for What
performed their dazzling WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE The emo A.I. apocalypse DJ Snake and Lil Jon 2013
victory lap “N**as in Paris” WHERE WE HEARD IT Twenty years after Auto-Tune made its a french producer and
12 times before a rapturous debut on Cher’s “Believe,” vocals are chopped, pitch-shift- an Atlanta hollerer team up
crowd. That excess was the ed, and digitally messed with to a hilarious degree. Justin for a defiant party anthem
point; inspired by West’s Bieber got turned into a sad dolphin on “Sorry,” and so over-the-top you can’t
Selena Gomez became a yodeling Cylon on “It Ain’t Me.”
fashion-world exploits at help but laugh out loud
WHO USED IT BEST Kanye West, who made his voice an
the time, the song was the every time you hear it. The
anguished bass guitar on “Runaway”
highest high on Watch the song showed up every-
Throne, featuring a dubstep where, including Michelle
breakdown and a Will Fer- Obama’s social media feed,
rell cameo. It’s also the most where she rocked out to it
purely cathartic moment of CONTRI BUTORS Jonathan Bernstein, Emily Blake, Jonathan Blistein, David Browne, Nick Catucci, Jon in a Vine clip promoting
Dolan, Brenna Ehrlich, Suzy Exposito, Jon Freeman, Andy Greene, Kory Grow, Will Hermes, Christian Hoard,
either rapper’s epic career Charles Holmes, Joseph Hudak, Brendan Klinkenberg, Elias Leight, Joe Levy, Angie Martoccio, Danny good nutrition: “Turnip for
so far. Schwartz, Claire Shaffer, Rob Sheffield, Hank Shteamer, Brittany Spanos, and Simon Vozick-Levinson what!”

In the 2010s, genres merged and
melded, pop felt more global
and more intimate, and the
biggest superstars were the
most ambitious rule breakers
1
My Beautiful Dark
The
Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West 2010
Best
FORGET, IF YOU CAN, THE RED HAT, THE OUTRA-
GEOUS tweets, the overpriced sweatpants. (You’ve
maybe already forgotten the gospel record he put out
two months ago.) Remember, instead, the gravity-de-
fying 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 —
Albums
he hid out in Hawaii and emerged with the ultimate
of the
Decade
ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES
The Best Albums of the Decade
case for his genius/jerk- And while he memora- marital collapse, personal 3. To Pimp alright” into a #blacklives-
off duality. The secret bly heaped contempt on triumph, radical blackness, a Butterfly matter slogan and “how
sessions at Avex Honolulu racist laws and the South Southern roots, Kendrick Lamar 2015 much a dollar cost” into a
Studios saw Nicki Minaj, Park writers’ room, Kanye and boundless musical lamar defined hip-hop’s riddle for the ages.
Rick Ross, Justin Vernon, saved the most bitter vision. She rocks out with state of the art with a
and others turning in shots on My Beautiful Jack White on “Don’t Hurt sprawling 78-minute epic 5. Blackstar
career-best performanc- Dark Twisted Fantasy for Yourself,” kicks gun-tot- as influenced by Ralph David Bowie 2016
es under the guidance himself (“Blame Game,” ing country on “Daddy Ellison and John Coltrane bowie spent his whole
of Kanye’s absurd yet “Runaway”). Under all the Lessons,” and links her as it is by Biggie and Tupac. career as rock’s cracked
effective house rules (“No bluster, this is a concept story to a deeper sense of The groundbreaking rap- actor — but he saved
hipster hats” . . . “Just shut album about his own African American roots on per embraced cutting-edge one of his most stunning
the fuck up sometimes”). inability to stop breaking “Formation.” Lemonade was beat architecture while performances for the final
Presiding over it all was America’s heart. Nearly a the only place in pop where knighting new-school jazz curtain. After years on the
the greatest producer of decade later, it still hurts. Father John Misty and masters like Kamasi Wash- down-low, Bowie dropped
his generation, pulling Kendrick Lamar felt equally ington and Robert Glasper, Blackstar on his 69th birth-
from 40-plus years of 2. Lemonade at home, part of swerving from the free day — but just two days
popular music to spin his Beyoncé 2016 a collaborative conver- jazz of “For Free?” to the later, the world was shocked
symphony of wounded “who the fucks do you sion helmed by the queen G-funk of “King Kunta.” to learn the Starman was
pride, from the lush falset- think I is?” Beyoncé asked herself, reigning supreme as At the center of it all was gone. As his producer Tony
to soul of “Devil in a New on her monumental sixth the rare pop goddess who Lamar’s chaotic ambition Visconti said, “He made
Dress” to the heavy-metal LP, proceeding to deliver a inspires as much love and and smoldering confusion, Blackstar for us, his parting
thunder of “Hell of a Life.” thunderclap statement of empathy as shock and awe. as he turned “we gon’ be gift.” It’s the testament of a
man who knows he’s got no
time to waste — he stretch-
es out into sci-fi space
Red
jazz, drawing inspiration
from Kendrick Lamar and
D’Angelo, still experiment-
ing up to the end. Visconti
summed it up: “His death
was no different from his
Taylor Swift 2012 life — a work of art.”
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
6. Take Care
Drake 2011
drake has never been
more magnetically, con-
foundingly Drake than he
was on this primal sigh of
Rolling Stone, “Different a second official album.
phases of your life have differ- The deliciously dark self-
ent levels of deep, traumatizing own “Marvins Room” finds
heartbreak.” Swift effortlessly him duetting with the re-
went outside her Nashville cording of a woman, while
safety zone for the album, the title track pairs him
collaborating with Swedish pop with Rihanna, his verses
scientist Max Martin, Kanye gliding past her elegant
West collaborator Jeff Bhasker, choruses. Throughout, he
and alt-rock songwriter Butch makes his newly found
Walker; after Swift and Martin high life seem like a luxe
finished Red’s electro-stomping cocoon; “I’m rich,” he
first single, “We Are Never Get- said at the time. “I can do
ting Back Together,” she called whatever I want.” What
it “a breakup song in the form he managed, somehow,
of a parade.” But everything she was to reinvent poor-me
tried made sense. Swift hit all longing as rich-boy swag-
the levels on Red, showing off ger, christening a new era
her mastery of Nashville twang, of male vulnerability in
EMMA MCINTYRE AMA 2019/GETTY IMAGES FOR DCP
disco flash, guitar-hero swagger, hip-hop.

even a dubstep drop. She set
out to top Prince (“Red”), U2 7. Melodrama
(“State of Grace”), and Britney Lorde 2016
4
(the Martin-produced “22”) lorde’s debut, Pure
— yet every moment sounds Heroine, injected breathy
unmistakably like her. “All candor into pop music,
Too Well” remains her most making her a teen star.
majestic rock ballad: like the With its follow-up, she
young Bruce Springsteen, if took her sound to the
somebody dared him to sing next level. Working with
about a scarf instead of a car. producer Jack Antonoff,

21 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
8 “Rolling in the Deep” and

the soaring old-school/new-
school 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.
This Is and drawing equal influ-
ence from Kate Bush and
Presley said. “We’re doing
dishes and writing songs
about it.” Drawing from
Happening
Katy Perry, she dove into
the deep end of her own bluegrass, honky tonk, and
heartbreak, sadness, and rootsy rock, Pistol Annies
loneliness on wrenching delivered a modern country
ballads like “Liability” and classic.
“Writer in the Dark,” and LCD Soundsystem 2010
the dance-floor explosion 11. Golden Hour
FROM TOP: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR NARAS; PIETER M. VAN HATTEM/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
“Green Light.” “You need JAMES MURPHY’S New York Kacey Musgraves 2018
to be awe-struck,” she said crew, LCD Soundsystem, defined musgraves changed what
of her approach to music, the dance-rock boom of the country singers could
summing up the sense 2000s. With their third LP they talk about with her live-
of wonder amid turmoil poignantly evoked the feeling and-let-live hit “Follow
that makes Melodrama so of weary hipsters searching for Your Arrow.” But it was
uniquely arresting. meaning after the party. “Every- her 2018 LP that fully
body’s getting younger/It’s the reimagined the genre.
9. Interstate end of an era — it’s true,” Murphy There is a celebration of
Gospel mourns on the opener, “Dance psychoactive plants set
Pistol Annies 2018 Yrself Clean.” The hooks are sharp, to vocoder and banjo
the best nashville the beats kinetic, and the lyrics to (“Oh, What a World”),
supergroup of the century songs like “Drunk Girls” and “All a love letter to the
— comprising ace song- I Want” are droll, sarcastic, and LGBTQ community
writers Ashley Monroe, heartbroken. This Is Happening (“Rainbow”), a yeehaw
Angaleena Presley, and made the Top 10 and helped LCD filter-disco diss track
Miranda Lambert — fill Madison Square Garden for a (“High Horse”). Golden
created a set of bone-deep legendary farewell gig. Hour took home a
reflections on midlife that Grammy for Album of
could be hilarious (the the Year, and even led
post-divorce shuffle “Got to a gig opening for
My Name Changed Back”) pop heartthrob Harry
10
or heart-scarring (the gru- Styles, who said of
eling image of depression Musgraves, “It’s impos-
of “Best Years of My Life”). sible to listen to [her]
“We’re not on a soapbox,” too much.”
Rolling Stone | 33
Blonde harder. It inaugurated a

new retro-Nineties golden
age. “Stoned and Starv-
ing” became a millennial
Frank Ocean 2016 anti-anthem, a five-minute
power drone about the
BEFORE HIS SECOND ALBUM, Ocean was a prisoner search for junk food: “I was
— to the strictures of R&B, to the success of his stun- debating Swedish Fish/
ning 2012 debut, Channel Orange, and to misconcep- Roasted peanuts, or lico-
tions about his sexuality. So he doubled down on his rice.” Pure poetry.
experimental ambitions with an enigmatic opus that
pushed his art into wide-open new territory — interpo- 17. Acid Rap
lating the Beatles, referencing indie-folk artist Elliott Chance the Rapper 2013
Smith, and name-checking David Bowie and Brian chicago upstart Chance-
Eno in the LP’s extensive liner notes. Blonde was pre- lor Bennett’s second release
ceded by a series of blown release dates in the summer — a free mixtape that
of 2016; when it finally arrived, it came with a zine has been downloaded 1.7
full of sensual, summery imagery that million times — introduced
proved a nice complement to songs a turbulently psychedelic
like the gorgeously swooning “Pink new sound and voice that
12
+ White,” the bleary guitarscape seemed hopeful even when
“Ivy,” and the tensely drifting he was rapping, “I know
chipmunk-soul lament “Nikes.” you scared/You should ask
Ocean’s lyrics reference Trayvon us if we scared too.” At a
Martin and Hurricane Katrina, time when Chicago was
grounding his escapist sound in the being cast in the media
politics and pain of as an endless war zone,
real life, and making Blonde feel like a Chance’s frenetic ebullience
trick mirror for our times. inspired against-the-odds
optimism.
18. So Beautiful
or So What
13. Yeezus It” and his own hit “Mi queen Anitta together with in 2013: a nonstop manic Paul Simon 2011
Kanye West 2013 Gente,” which kicks off Aruban singer Jeon. “My guitar rave, from a band simon’s most satisfying
just when it looked like Vibras, the most universal music doesn’t discriminate,” of merry Texas pranksters set in decades was made
Kanye the celebrity was Spanish-language LP of the Balvin sings. It was running wild in Brooklyn. by going back to basics,
finally threatening to de- 2010s. Balvin’s internation- a well-timed message. Parquet Courts crammed instead of building songs
vour Kanye the musician, alist ease comes through their breakthrough album, around beats as he had on
he bounced back with on “Brillo,” a duet with 16. Light Up Gold Light Up Gold, full of recent LPs. “The stimuli
his most intense, con- new-school flamenco singer Parquet Courts 2013 relentless guitars and was a guitar in my lap,”
frontational album ever. Rosalía, while “Machi- just what you least shroom poetry, daring all he said. But his 12th solo
Yeezus was a surprise blast ka” brings Brazilian pop expected from indie rock other bands to try a little album also engaged the
of industrial avant-rap,
constructed with the help
of producer Rick Rubin,
who was brought in late
Brothers
FROM TOP: ANDREW CHIN/FILMMAGIC; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/GETTY IMAGES FOR IHEART RADIO
in the process. As Rubin
told Rolling Stone, “I
was thinking like Alan
Vega and Suicide, that kind The Black Keys 2010
of noise-synth minimal
vibe.” Kanye amped the BEFORE THEY RECORDED their sixth
aggression, from “Black album, the Black Keys were hardly in the
Skinhead” to “New Slaves” safest creative space: The Ohio garage
to the Nina Simone-Billie duo had drifted apart personally, and
Holiday tribute “Blood on drummer Patrick Carney had just gone
the Leaves.” But he saved through a crippling divorce. “Pat was fried
his best trick for last, with from his divorce,” said singer-guitarist
the vintage soul of “Bound Dan Auerbach. “When he heard the lyrics
2” — his most obscenely to ‘Next Girl,’ he was just so stoked. The
tender love song. rest of the session, it was smooth sailing.”
Brothers went on to become their most
15. Vibras cathartic record, with lyrics touching on
J Balvin 2018 marital discord and hope for the future,
colombian reggaeton set to beautifully smudgy R&B, soul, and
smoothie Balvin was all
over the radio in 2018,
thanks to his appearanc-
14 low-fi funk. “Tighten Up,” the Danger
Mouse-produced slice of staccato bump
and grind, even became the band’s pop-
es on Cardi B’s “I Like radio breakthrough.

present, sampling blues gnettes that leverage small it’s bookended by two lost
and gospel as Simon’s lyrics moments and vague mal- gems from the Nineties (the
invoked a CAT scan, a kid aise into big revelations. SO, HOW WAS YOUR DECADE? twitchy “Burn the Witch”
on triple deployment in “The album is . . . a year of LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA and the gentle “True Love
Iraq, Jay-Z on a billboard, emotions,” she said. “Twelve Waits”), the real triumph
and a Vietnam vet working
in a carwash while trying
months of fucking every
day, up, down, up, down.”
The ‘Hamilton’ Creator on of A Moon Shaped Pool
is everything in between,
to write a film script. Even The highlight is “Depres- Musical Surprises with Jonny Greenwood’s
when his subject matter is ton,” in which a failed My favorite album of the 2010s gorgeous orchestration and
otherworldly (the Afri- house-hunting trip leads to was: Beyoncé’s 4, just because Thom Yorke’s vulnerable
can-flavored “The After- heartbreaking observations it has one of my favorite songs songwriting pushing the
of all time, “Countdown.” I
life”), the storytelling feels on aging, loss, and alone- band to new heights of
think the surprise drop for her
unmistakably real. ness. self-titled album was the most emotional realness.
innovative thing about the
19. 1989 22. A Moon 2010s — it changed the way 23. Body Talk
Taylor Swift 2014 Shaped Pool we exist. My favorite song of Robyn 2010
on the cusp of turning Radiohead 2016 the 2010s was: I will refer you to “Countdown.” The robyn was an internation-
artist who had the best decade was: Donald Glover. He
25, Swift took the biggest radiohead kept a low al star at 15, but it took 15
was being recognized for different talents in different
risk of her career, aban- profile for much of the things, all at the same time. The craziest thing that more years to make her first
doning country to follow decade — all the better happened to me in the 2010s was: Honestly, it’s the full-length masterpiece.
the “blatant pop music” to floor us when they Hamilton wave that keeps cresting. I thought we’d do Body Talk proved there may
she’d tried on Red into returned after a five-year well with school groups [and] maybe run one or two be no artist better at mar-
a full-scale dance-floor gap with this deep, dark years. Everything else has been gravy. rying modern pop science
rebirth. 1989 channeled the dream of an album. While with soulful club jams, har-
music of her birth decade nessing precisely calibrat-
and created a synth-pop ed hook fests to ego-dissolv-
fantasia, experimenting ing dance-floor bliss. The
Anti
musically and lyrically heart-on-sleeve scenario of
on songs like the cheeky “Dancing on My Own” is
“Blank Space” and the the paradigm, while “Hang
atmospheric romance of With Me” is Euro-disco
“Wildest Dreams,” indulg- with achingly real emotions,
ing an electro introspection and the robo-rap show-
that influenced Lorde and Rihanna 2017 case “Fembot” brings out
Carly Rae Jepsen, among a feminist subtext in her
many others. RIHANNA BEGAN this century music that parallels Janelle
as the queen Monáe’s cyber soul.
20. A Seat at of bangers, unloosing a string
the Table of unstoppable hits like “Um- 24. Modern
Solange 2016 brella,” “S&M,” and “We Found Vampires of
solange knowles spent Love,” while making compact the City
years fitting herself into R&B albums at an equally Vampire Weekend 2013
different musical boxes. impressive clip. With Anti, after forming at
But with A Seat at the one of pop’s most success- Columbia University,
Table, she found the right ful singles artists mastered the boat-shoe-wearing
mix of modern R&B and album-oriented expression blog-loved indie-pop crew
Seventies-steeped soul, and made the best music toned down the sunny
and emerged as a poet of her career. “I was deter- globe-trotting guitars
FROM TOP: PATRICK LEWIS/STARPIX FOR HBO/SHUTTERSTOCK; SAMIR HUSSEIN/WIREIMAGE
laureate of the 21st-century mined not to settle for what of their 2008 debut and
black-female experience, everybody thought this should stared down quarter-life
articulating frustrations be, or when they thought it crisis with a broodingly
with racial stereotypes should come, or how,” she lovely album of reflec-
(“Mad”) and fetishes said. “I stuck to it until I felt tions on morality, God,
(“Don’t Touch My Hair”), something again!” The process uncertainty, and roman-
while honoring her roots took nearly three years, and tic decay; fittingly, they
by writing the album in included contributions from debuted Modern Vampire’s
her family’s Louisiana Timbaland, DJ Mustard, The first single, “Unbelievers,”
hometown. “I wanted to re- Weeknd, and many others. dressed as skeletons on
claim that space,” she said. Rihanna got psychedelic with late-night TV just days
Mission accomplished. a cover of a song by Aussie after Hurricane Sandy
25
space-pop band Tame Impala, shut down New York,
21. Sometimes and referenced Florence + the Machine. More impressive was and on songs like “Diane
I Sit and Think, and the way she made her sonic wanderlust feel urgent, sculpt- Young” and “Hannah
Sometimes ing some of her most immediate songs, like the vulnerable, Hunt,” Ezra Koenig turns
I Just Sit shimmering “Kiss It Better” and the Drake duet “Work,” and the search for faint glints
Courtney Barnett 2015 how she capped off the album with a smoldering run of modern of redemption in his own
the sharpest indie-rock torch ballads. On “James Joint,” she tells us that she’d “rather emotional wreckage into
singer-songwriter of her be/Smoking weed/Whenever we breathe/Every time you kiss a drama of Dylan-esque
generation, Barnett packed me.” On Anti, freeing her mind opened up a window to a new grandeur.
her debut with vivid vi- kind of soul. 26. Beyoncé

Beyoncé 2013 watching a loved one die of

recorded in a secrecy cancer, singing “One thing
that made the Manhattan that’s real clear to me/
Project look like a chill No one dies with dignity,”
hang, Beyoncé’s self-titled taking on tragedy with
fifth album was the mother plain-spoken truth.
of all surprise releases
when it hit in 2013 — an 29. Teens of Denial
especially insane feat Car Seat Headrest 2016
since Beyoncé came with a indie-rock prodigy Will
blockbuster visual album Toledo got his start just
as well. The music inside out of high school, writing
was her most ambitious up songs in his parents’ house
to that point, especially on or, sometimes, alone in
mountainous sex sagas like their car, and putting the
“Drunk in Love,” an epic results on the internet. By
duet with Jay-Z, and the his 10th LP, Teens of Denial,
sumptuous, string-bathed he had a real band and total
“Rocket,” which opens with mastery of chaotic guitar
the queen intoning, “Let me poetry à la Pavement, hay-
31
sit this ass on you.” It was maker hooks à la Guided
the sound of the glossiest by Voices, and gut-check
star in the world chasing unburdening à la Liz Phair.
her musical and physical “I’m so sick of/Fill in the
urges in any direction that blank,” he sings on the al-
felt true. bum’s opening anthem, but
there is as much empathy
27. Damn. as apathy on highlights like
Kendrick Lamar 2017 the crushing six-minute
after the sprawl of To centerpiece “Drunk Driv-
Pimp a Butterfly, with ers/Killer Whales.”
its widescreen jazz-rap
portrait of the nation, 30. Thank U, Next
Lamar changed gears Ariana Grande 2019
completely. Damn. was his after dealing with a se-
most unabashed rap banger ries of personal traumas —
to date, rocking hard from a terrorist attack at her
start to finish, scoring his Manchester concert, the
first Number One hit with death of ex-boyfriend Mac
“Humble.” Despite guests Miller, and her breakup
from Bono to Rihanna, with Pete Davidson —
Lamar kept the flow fast Grande channeled her
and furious as he raged feelings into the stellar
When We All Fall

about “the feelin’ of an Thank U, Next. “NASA”
apocalypse happenin’.” swirled into space, while
As he explained, “The best “Ghostin” stared tragedy in
entertainers have to have the face, and the title track
Asleep, Where
the most wickedest sense was a graceful break-up
of humor, to be able to take ballad for the ages. The
pain and change it into LP was part of a creative
Do We Go?
laughter.” surge for Grande, her
second album in less than
28. Southeastern six months. “I just want to
Jason Isbell 2013 fucking talk to my fans, and
after then-girlfriend, sing, and write music and
fiddle-player-songwriter Billie Eilish 2019 drop it,” she said.
Amanda Shires, helped get
him to quit drinking and EVERYONE KNOWS that pop was big business in the 2010s, but that didn’t stop 18-year-old Eilish 32. Norman
go into rehab, alt-country from making her insanely catchy blockbuster debut the DIY way. Writing and recording with Fucking Rockwell!
singer-songwriter Isbell her brother at their childhood home in L.A.’s Highland Park (sometimes singing her vocals while Lana Del Rey 2019
made this focused album, slouched in bed), Eilish reinvented punk rebellion for the extremely online generation, from the del rey made captivating
a stripped-down, often gleeful button-pushing of “Bad Guy” to the goth drama of “My Strange Addiction,” to the straight- noir pop throughout the
AMANDA EDWARDS/FILMMAGIC
reflectively quiet collection edge eye roll of “Xanny.” As her dad explained to Rolling Stone, Eilish “has no tolerance for 2010s. For Norman Fucking
of unsparing honesty and people she’s not interested in and doesn’t give a shit whether you like her or not.” That uncompro- Rockwell!, she immersed
vivid detail. With Shires mising spirit came through in her distractedly mumbled vocals, sinister delivery, and a lyrical sen- herself in L.A. singer-song-
adding harmonies, he sibility inspired by horror movies like Alien and The Babadook. Despite (or perhaps because of ) its writers, from classic Laurel
addressed his demons on total disinterest in mainstream pop formula, the LP touched a nerve no one could have expected; Canyon albums to recent
“Cover Me Up,” and with the week When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? came out, Eilish had 14 songs in the Top 100, work by her friend Father
“Elephant,” he authored and when it debuted at the top of the charts in the spring of 2019, she became the first artist born John Misty. “I just feel
a penetrating song about in the 21st century to have a Number One album. such a connection to that

Be the
singer-songwriter world,”
she said. The result was
a modern masterpiece of
Cowboy
doomily romantic California
ache. Her torpid Seventies
majesty seemed to stretch
out endlessly, whether Del
Rey was offering a passing
Mitski 2018 prayer for the late Dennis
Wilson, singing about danc-
“I MISS SEEING that swaggering cowboy on- ing to the Eagles in Malibu,
stage,” Mitski Miyawaki told Rolling Stone, or losing herself in the
explaining the title of her stellar fifth album. “I fading-sunset glow of “Ven-
miss being mesmerized by that, and I thought, ice Bitch” and “Mariners
‘Well, I should just be that cowboy that I want Apartment Complex.”
to see onstage.’ I’m just going to be the thing
that mesmerizes me.” On Be the Cowboy, the 35. Black Messiah
then-27-year-old singer-guitarist was a new D’Angelo 2014
kind of indie-rock hero — a self-determined neo-soul architect
young woman crafting perfectly sculpted, D’Angelo’s first album in
powerhouse songs that fuse goth romanticism, 14 years was an immacu-
noisy guitar tumult, folk earnestness, and arty lately layered, relentlessly
pop savvy, while channeling her twentysome- funky, and politically ur-
thing ennui into indelible lyrics like “Nobody gent statement, reflecting
fucks me like . . . me.” Miyawaki, who lived in 13 a concern for detail that
different countries before her family settled in often seemed missing in
the United States, played in a metal band after the straight-to-streaming
college, but eventually found her musical voice era. You can hear echoes
writing songs like the elegantly sludgy, starkly of ragtime and jazz,
unburdening “Your Best American Girl,” a Parliament, and Prince as
breakout indie hit from her 2016 LP, Puberty D’Angelo fills each song
2. Massive media buzz helped lead to a spot with his beguiling, twist-
33
opening arena dates on Lorde’s Melodrama ingly intricate multipart
tour. With Be the Cowboy, Mitski made harmonies. Released in
her inner turmoil feel universal, from the part as a response to a
cathedral-size swoon of “Pink in the Night” jury’s failure to indict a
to “Me and My Husband,” a trenchant mar- Ferguson, Missouri, cop
riage parody set to Beatlesque piano chords. for the shooting death
“I don’t really see the point in putting togeth- of Michael Brown, Black
er a bunch of words for the sake of my own Messiah was a comeback
expression,” she said. “I’m interested in having no one expected that felt
someone understand me.” right on time — and one of
the most welcome returns
of the decade.
36. Dark Matter

Invasion Randy Newman 2017
american music’s
34 of Privacy greatest comic ironist

released only one album
in the 2010s, but it was a
Cardi B 2018 gem, perhaps Newman’s
most mordant assessment
CARDI B DIDN’T NEED to make music to become a yet of his fellow man.
star. She was already a huge social media presence Dark Matter catalogs
FROM TOP: LEANN MUELLER; TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES
and a hilarious reality-TV personality. But she re- historical calamities:

corded one of the most entertaining hip-hop albums science on trial in “The
of our era anyway, radiating brash old-school Bronx Great Debate,” the Cuban
charisma as she spit unforgettable lines like “I started Missile Crisis on the brink
speaking my mind and tripled my views/Real bitch, in “Brothers,” and fascism
only thing fake is the boobs.” Cardi did a bloody- on Broadway in the sar-
shoed stomp up the charts with the dragon-breathed donically smiley “Putin.”
“Bodak Yellow,” declared herself “like Big Pop mixed And when he pares back
with Tupac” on the Chance the Rapper-assisted “Best his sweeping classic-
Life,” and convened a cross-cultural convo with Latin Americana sound for
pop stars Bad Bunny and J Balvin on the surprise somber family tragedies
summer smash “I Like It.” As she told Rolling like “Wandering Boy” and
. Stone, “I used to tell myself that I will always be
myself.” On Invasion of Privacy, she’s the only Cardi
“Lost Without You,” the
darkness really hits home.
. the world will ever need.
. January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 37

37. Channel
Orange
Frank Ocean 2012 Ctrl 40
and jealousy over the
subtle dance-floor
shudder of
when ocean brags about
his “great gray matter”
SZA 2017 “Pienso en Tu Mirá,”
guided along by a
on Channel Orange, it is R&B SINGERS IN the 2010s festival-ready electronic
truth in advertising. Lush often seemed to hide their bass, and “Bagdad,”
and mysterious, evoking voices behind walls of reverb which riffs beautifully
the downcast smolder of and booming trap beats. SZA on Justin Timberlake’s
Seventies Sly Stone and broke that mold on her self- 2000s touchstone “Cry
the inner visions of Stevie assured debut. “I had to just Me a River.”
Wonder, the moody soul say what was on my mind,” she
romantic’s first official told Rolling Stone. “I de- 41. Coloring Book
release is a gorgeously cided to take down the reverb Chance the Rapper 2016
bleary midnight ride into and be in the forefront.” She after kids told him
an L.A. where unemployed created Ctrl with a small team they were inspired by his
dudes live off their stripper of producers, who holed up in popular mixtape, Acid
girlfriends and cab drivers an L.A. studio listening to Bra- Rap, to drop LSD, Chance
double as shrinks for love- zilian jazz, Nineties hip-hop, reflected on “the respon-
lorn back-seat confessors. and Nirvana for inspiration. sibility of being a popular
Ocean’s bold vision helped The result is a winningly can- artist,” and grounded his
transform R&B into a more did breakthrough (“Let me tell next release in gospel as he
wide-open place for the rest you a secret: I’ve been secretly opened up about life issues
of the decade. banging your homeboy,” she like clean living and raising
sings on “Supermodel”), with a family (aptly seconded
38. A Sailor’s clean hooks that are easy to by the Chicago Children’s
Guide to Earth shout along to and several Choir on “All We Got”). The
Sturgill Simpson 2016 undeniable hits. “I think mood shifts from jubilant
hailed a savior of “real” [musical] clutter comes from (“No Problem”) to defiantly
country music after his nerves,” SZA explained. “It woozy (“Mixtape”). Millions
second album, 2014’s doesn’t come from choice.” took heart, and Coloring
Metamodern Sounds in Book became the first
Country Music, Simpson streaming-only album to
did everything he could both chart on the Billboard
to defy that notion on A 200 and win a Grammy
Platinum
Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Award.
creating a love letter to his
son influenced by Marvin 43. Tempest
Gaye that was more like a Bob Dylan 2012
Miranda Lambert 2014
psychedelic-soul song cycle dylan told “Rolling
than a Nashville outlier. LAMBERT HAD as good a decade as almost Stone” his 35th studio
The album is full of sur- any other artist alive, and this nearly immacu- album had been “worked
prises, including Simpson’s late set is so catchy, confident, and wide-rang- out in rehearsals . . . during
endearing reimagining of ing that it’s almost unfair to other Nashville soundchecks.” Yet there is
Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” And stars. Lambert had just turned 30, and gone nothing casual about his
just to prove he hadn’t left were the gun-toting revenge songs that only collection of original
his roots totally behind, he had partly defined her work. “I’m not just material this decade. Songs
included “Call to Arms,” an burning houses down anymore,” like “Pay in Blood” and “Tin
anti-war anthem worthy she told Rolling Stone. “I Angel” are killer displays
FROM TOP: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR COACHELLA; JOHN SHEARER/WIREIMAGE

of the deepest outlaw have more to sing about.” of late-career firepower,
tradition. She veers from tender while the music summons
42
meditations on fame jump blues, Western swing,
39. El Mal to cheeky celebrations and British folk ballads.
Querer of her hair color (the And seven years later, lines
Rosalía 2018 title track, which turns like “This is hard country
no artist in the “What doesn’t kill you, to stay alive in/Blades are
2010s brought only makes you blonder” everywhere, and they’re
together the ancient into an extremely sticky breaking my skin” cut even
and the modern as melody) to faux-vaudeville deeper than when he first
seamlessly as Spanish and Western swing. Every sang them.
singer Rosalía did song is perfectly constructed
on her magic trick of but feels like it is broadcast 44. Days Are Gone
a second LP, which from her soul — none more Haim 2013
uses centuries-old so than “Bathroom Sink,” a “when we started
Andalusian flamenco portrait of self-doubt, written playing . . . we didn’t know
as a taking-off point by Lambert alone, that grows people in any scene,” Alana
for a modern pop from acoustic sketch to Haim told Rolling Stone.
adventure. Rosalía raging rocker, the sound of a That sense of freshness and
delivers smoldering world-beater willing to show pure pop innocence came
lyrics about rapture her vulnerabilities. through in the L.A. trio’s

unshakably catchy songs. more concentration and
The three sisters of Haim
retro-fit fluttery Nineties
R&B, synth-y Eighties pop
45 continuity,” Cohen noted.
Equally droll — and never
morbid — the songs ad-
rock, and breezy Southern dress loss and relationship
California soft rock, leav- travails over beautifully
ening tunes like “Falling” minimal waltzes, with Co-
and “Don’t Save Me” with hen’s coal-mine-deep voice
a seemingly innate sense Hamilton seeming to rumble into
of melodic craft. Every (Original the eternal. His words are
song on Days Are Gone Broadway as powerful as his vocals.
bristles with bright hooks “My lost was saying found/
and skittery percussive
Cast My don’t was saying do,”
energy; the peak moment Recording) he offers, chasing the dark
of cocaine-crisp L.A. 2015 truth right up to the end.
gold is “The Wire,” which
reimagines the Eagles’ THE RECORDING OF 49. Watch
“Heartache Tonight” as if an absurdly unlikely the Throne
Fleetwood Mac had been hip-hop musical about Jay-Z and Kanye West
in the studio to help out on Founding Father 2011
harmonies. Alexander Hamilton a decade after Kanye
transformed how Amer- proved himself as an
46. Wrecking Ball ica thinks about musical elite producer on Jay-Z’s
Bruce Springsteen 2012 theater, Broadway, and The Blueprint, modern
america was crawling out itself. Creator Lin-Man- rap’s greatest frenemies
of the Great Recession in uel Miranda combines reunited for this gold-plated
2012, but Springsteen still rap, R&B, and show monument to their own
had business to settle: “The tunes with absolute au- imperious cool. “If we were
blood on our hands will thority, quoting Biggie, gonna do it, we were gonna
come back on us twice,” Eminem, and Rodgers do it together,” Jay said, ex-
he sings, running out the and Hammerstein, en- plaining their insistence on
money changers over a tering its most indelible in-person sessions in New
hip-hop/gospel beat on lines (“I’m not throwing York, Paris, Los Angeles, and
“Rocky Ground.” Wrecking away my shot!” “Who Bath, England. “No mailing
Ball was his most savagely tells your story?”) into it in.” Their tag-team act on
despondent LP in years, the national vernacular, “Otis” and “N----s in Paris”
surveying our democracy while inspiring en- is as purely delightful as rap
in chains on the ballad dorsement from Obama got in the 2010s, but what
“Shackled and Drawn,” and the dumb fury of makes Watch the Throne a
while still praying for a Trump. highlight of both their cata-
shared language of love logs are the glimpses of spir-
and support on “We Take itual and political turmoil
Care of Our Own.” “I’ve on “Murder to Excellence,”
written about this stuff “New Day,” and “No Church
for . . . 30 years,” he told in the Wild.”
Jon Stewart in a Rolling
Stone interview. Wrecking Fleet Foxes, and Iron and 50. Emotion
Ball shows how vital his Wine had crystallized at Carly Rae Jepsen 2015
voice remains. the dawn of the decade. hungry to prove she was
FROM TOP: BRUCE GLIKAS/BRUCEGLIKAS/FILMMAGIC; OVIDIU HRUBARU/SHUTTERSTOCK
“Say nothing of my fable, LINDSEY JORDAN OF SNAIL MAIL more than the one-hit
47. 22, a Million no,” Vernon sings. “What wonder of “Call Me Maybe,”
Bon Iver 2016 on Earth is left to come.” The 20-Year-Old Indie-Rock the Canadian singer worked
“it used to be just a G
chord on a guitar for many 48. You Want Prodigy on Bon Iver and Boof with indie co-producers
like ex-Vampire Weekend
years,” Justin Vernon said It Darker My favorite album of the 2010s member Rostam Batman-
Leonard Cohen 2016 was: The self-titled 1975 album.
about the dramatic sonic glij and Blood Orange’s
The artist who had the best
evolution on Bon Iver’s confined to his Los decade was: Frank Ocean.
Devonté Hynes, as well as
gorgeously glitchy third Angeles home for health He just did. The craziest thing old hands like Swedish song
album. “This time we went reasons, Cohen recorded that happened to you in the doctor Max Martin, to make
looking for different kinds lyrics his son, Adam, later past 10 years was: Touring in her own flavor of Madon-
of sparks.” With its dense produced into finished Asia and having fans in Jakarta. na-steeped synth-pop. “[I’m]
Selling out shows in places
layers of synths, processed tracks to create the a woman who is very fasci-
where I just, like, would never have been able to travel
samples, Auto-Tuned vo- 82-year-old torch poet’s to before, and having people sing the words back. The
nated by the subject of love,”
cals, and fluttering horns, rumbling prayer of a final TV show I couldn’t stop watching was: Euphoria. The she said, “who loves nothing
22, a Million was both album. “This particular best slang term of the decade was: Calling some- more than creating music
a myth-busting creative predicament is filled with thing that’s ugly or bad “boof.” My most surprising about it.” The hook overload
rebirth for Vernon and a many fewer distractions encounter with a fellow artist was: Justin Vernon. I’ve is intoxicating, and Jepsen’s
been listening to Bon Iver since I was, like, 13. The most
firm farewell to the wave of than other times in my emo passion feels sweet and
“2010s” thing of the 2010s was: Kanye and Donald
sad-sack folk-strumming life, and actually enables Trump. That shit was crazy.
self-aware in a way you can’t
that acts like Bon Iver, me to work with a little help but get behind.

Prabh
Deep:
India’s Most
Fearless
Rapper New Delhi’s moshpit-
starting, 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
40 | Rolling Stone India | January 2020

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
January 2020 | Rolling Stone India | 41

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 section-
aided track in which he’s actually talking
about preparing for his death, his
soul’s journey to immortality and even
beats and words. With help from synth-
bass 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
a fleeting reference to the 1984 anti- why he’s one of the country’s most fearless
Sikh riots. rappers with his verse. He questions,
He outlines the most important things “Apne aap kolo puch/Twaade dil
to him in life on the song: “Iss duniya ch vich paida kitti kinne nafrat?”
pehla pariwar mera/Duji meri neend mainu (Ask yourself, who created such
pyaari/Teeja mera kamm naale/Chauthi hatred in your heart?) KING was If you change
meri maut jiddi kara mai tyaari.” Family, mellower than this, but it didn’t
sleep, work and a death he’s preparing for – stop Prabh Deep from pulling no someone’s
that’s perhaps where the New Delhi-based punches on the closing title track,
firebrand hip-hop artist and producer’s in which he mixes references to mentality
priorities lie at this juncture. Despite Pokémon as well as Indian prime
the reference to ’84, there’s a separate minister Narendra Modi and U.S. with your
album (tentatively called 84-18) that he’s president Donald Trump. He says
working on, whereas his latest EP KING with a laugh when he’s asked about songs, just on
is “very personal.” He adds, “I got bored of it: “I love to mix and match and
rap, man. I wanted to try some soul and bringing two different cultures a personal
I suck at it, but I’m still trying. I’m not toge ther and see how people
scared of experimenting and changing my react to it.” level, then
sound. Some artists they’re really scared
of changing their sound, because they fear Excerpts from the exclus ive there can
they’ ll lose their audience. With me, it’s interview:
different. Whenever I change my sound, I When you’re producing and be a bigger
gain a new audience.” rapping and in control of it all,
Recently turned 26, Prabh Deep was how much self-doubt is involved change
heralded as the next big thing in 2017 in that process?
itself, when he and producer Sez On The There is no such thing as self- in society
Beat worked together on the former’s debut doubt for me, particularly. I know
album Class-Sikh, the first big release on when a song is not finished yet, so as well.
New Delhi/Mumbai-headquartered label I’m not going to put it out. That’s
Azadi Records. He might be a total braggart the only thing... the next album is thinking
and ready to throw down on songs like “G a solo project and I’m mixing and
Maane” and “Suno” off Class-Sikh – which mastering it. I learned how to play differently.
even won him the Toto Funds the Arts keys, synth-bass and all that stuff.
Music Award in 2018 – but Prabh’s socially Self-doubt toh nahi hota, so I keep .
conscious verses and stance taken on issues working on songs until I know
like drug abuse and the world’s increasingly it’s finished.
right-wing bent has been a much-needed The title track off KING opens with
elbow to the face of mainstream (and largely Pokemon references and Modi-Trump
superficial) Punjabi music. references. What is your thought flow in
He leveled up in 2019, from start to finish. terms of pop culture references and tying
With the One Eight Project at Bira91’s April them together?
Fools Fest in New Delhi early last year, a (Laughs) I love to mix and match and
live band featuring saxophone, drums and bringing two different cultures together and
singers made the rapper think beyond just see how people react to it. People reacted

Bomber
jacket, T-shirt
and denims by
United Colors
of Benetton
P R A B H DE E P
to it pretty crazily. The same people who There could be an extended version of drop more music. Maybe when we get really
like Pokémon are the same people who the song, with more from me and Ahmer. famous, we’ll come back to this and then
don’t like Modi (laughs). I thought, ‘These everything will be smoother.
two things are my favorite!’ That was my Do you sit down and write every day? People asked ‘Why are you making fun of
whole point. You see what’s happening in Nah, man, I don’t follow that process other rappers?’
the country right now and it’s pretty fucked at all. I don’t have any rapper processes People aren’t open to ideas here. Like the
up. I’ve said it, like, six months ago, what’s and I don’t even consider myself as a Beebay thing, for example, it’s everywhere
happening now. rapper anymore because I just… I’m in in the States – hip-hop runs on that funny
a zone where I just sit down with my shit. There is a comedy aspect to hip-
There’s a soul music influence on KING mic, hit record and spit. The thoughts hop as well, which is what people don’t
and I think that goes well with how come naturally to me and I sit down and understand in India. That’s what we tried
philosophical you get on this record. write, but otherwise I don’t force myself to do but kaafi hate bhi mila usse [we got
What’s the objective? to sit and say, ‘I have to finish this song hate for it].
I feel like when people change today.’ If it’s coming from the inside and
from within, there’ ll be a bigger I really want to, then I’ll do it. People were really hurt?
change in society as well. If you Yeah man, really butthurt. These guys
change someone’s mentality with Amidst this constant cycle of were like, ‘Give me your address, I’ll come to
your songs, just on a personal level,
then there can be a bigger change in
I’ve had the touring, writing and recording,
where do you feel most comfortable
your house.’ I’d say, ‘Here’s my address, come
to my house and I’ll beat you up’ (laughs).
society as well. People start thinking
differently.
opportunity when you want to write something,
whether it’s angry and even soul-
People acted really funny, man.
Have you seen that with people

to sit in searching?
I think it’s in my bedroom. I’ve
You were trying to promote good rap too.
You have this sub-label coming up soon.
who come up to you after shows?
For sure, man. People come up
a big-ass had the opportunity to sit in a big-
ass studio in different countries but
What was the starting point?
I always wanted to start my own thing.
studio in
and say things like, ‘We used to when I come back home, this is my I was just waiting for the right time and
support BJP’ and ‘We had fucked-up zone where I can just create. It just for someone to sign. I was waiting for the
opinions.’ But after understanding
somebody else’s perspective, they
different comes out naturally, I don’t have to
think about any concepts or anything.
opportunity. I had heard a lot of demos from
a lot of artists, but I never clicked with any
have a clearer mind about what’s
right and wrong. Shit really changes.
countries but The words just fit perfectly. I don’t
have to worry about how people are
of it. But then I met this crazy soul/jazz
singer Arshia Saxena from Bombay just last
In addition to your own stuff, you

when I come going to react to it or how much
money I’m going to make from it. The
week. She blew my mind in the booth, I fell
in love with her voice. She’s a reflection of
featured on “Elaan” by Ahmer.
What was it like contributing to
back home, whole KING EP had songs close to my
heart. It’s still very close to my heart,
me, in a sense, like how fast I work and how
I am. I just go on the beat and kill it in one
that song?
“Elaan” is a very close to my heart.
this is my because everything I wrote, every
word is straight from the heart, it’s
hour. That’s what she did in front of me and
I was like, ‘Damn, this is crazy.’ I had to sign
I remember writing this verse in
different locations – I was in Bombay
zone where coming from a real place. her. I signed her as soon as we finished the
song. I told her the deal of sub-label and
one time with Uday [Kapur, Azadi
Records co-founder] in a hotel. I
I can just Earlier this year, you had Beebay
TV with [singer] Lit Happu and
told her the plans I had and she was on-
board. It’s really exciting for me.
wrote half of the verse there, I wrote
another half in a metro when I
create. Sez, which was a riot in terms of
taking down terrible desi hip-
I’ve been talking to this girl and heard her
stuff but wanted to see what she could do
saw uncles talking about politics and hop but also encouraging people under pressure in the studio, because that’s
thought about how fucked-up their to check out the good ones. What where the main game is. She’s killed it there
ideology is. I wrote some of it at happened to it? and that’s when I thought about signing
home and at the studio. That’s why We stopped, we’re not doing it any her. There’s also Harjas Preet aka HRJS,
it came out so hard-hitting and powerful. more. Sez is going in a different direction, who’s a rapper, I like him so much and I’d
When Sez played the beat and I heard Happu is going in a different direction love to sign him. This is not a political, hip-
Ahmer’s verse, I was like, ‘Fuck, I need to and so am I. We’re just focusing on our hop space [with my label]. It’s a very soul,
add this verse to this song. This was meant own stuff. jazz scene. We’re taking it in a different
for this song’. It fit perfectly. Ahmer and Sez It was fun while it was on. But you have direction.
had to stop me because I was writing too to understand, we haven’t even tapped
much. The original verse was much longer. into 1% of the population right now [with You’re putting out material constantly.
So there could be a part two of the song? our music]. We have to work hard and What side do you stand on? Rappers being

Crew neck knit,

denims and
sneakers by
United Colors
of Benetton
Blazer and knit by

United Colors of
Benetton
prolific because people are following them, From now on, we made the decision that
or taking time with a record? from Delhi only, we’re traveling with our own
I believe in both things. I believe in party, with a full crew. Otherwise, we’re not
consistency. I’m really fast, I can make doing a show.
three songs in a day. I’ve done it and I can People might say you should be more
do it again. What I do is, I see the kind of accommodating.
projects that aren’t fitting into the record Yeah man, but they don’t understand. I
and put them out as singles. On top of that, don’t want to do six shows a week. I want
I’m working on another record. The new one to do one show in a month and give people
should be out in February or March. I’m still an experience. A good 90-minute set that
finishing a couple of songs. people can go crazy and feel, ‘Oh shit, we saw
You have to keep making something crazy today’. Good production,
music. Some artists just put good visuals and ambience, all these things
out two singles and make matter to me, because people pay good
I don’t want their fans wait, which is a

cool thing to do and then
money to see me and I don’t want that
experience to go to waste.
to do six drop an album. It could

go wrong as well, though,
I have material for like two hours and
30 minutes. Name one rapper who has that
shows a week. when people wait for too

long and then the album…
much material.
I want to do (laughs) it’s a very tricky

thing. People wait years
And you’re ready to perform it?
Yeah of course, I’ll do it. I don’t like to sit
one show in for your album and then

it’s just 30 minutes of
on it. I have a third album coming out and a
couple of singles, a few more collaborations.
a month and the same shit you’ve been There’s lots of material that’s already out and
putting out before. What’s the strangest part is people know the new
give people an the point? songs too.
experience. What has changed in

terms of your live shows
You also have a fashion line that’s about
to start, called FLY. What can you tell me
A good in the past year?

2019 has been a
about that?
It’s not a clothing line or a merch kind
90-minute set rollercoaster ride for me

in terms of shows. The
of thing. It’s more of an artist thing, where
there’s a designer on board and I’m getting
that people KING EP tour was perfect

because that was our own
into fashion now, competing with (brands
like) Off-White, Supreme. My designer
can go crazy. production and everything

was in our own control.
Shaurya Vir Singh and I, we manifested it for
so long, we talk so often and knew we didn’t
crazy today’. When we got other shows,

though, I realized there’s
want to do it on a smaller scale.
That’s the ideology we follow with music
no structure in India when too – let’s go big and make it huge. That’s the
it comes to gigs. Nobody is reason when you check the analytics and the
solving any shit, everyone graph between October 2017 and December
is going on with their own 2019 – from when Class-Sikh released to now
drama. There are certain – it blew my mind, to see the craziest growth
rules to this, basic necessities for artists. in two years and it’s all organic. We didn’t
Sometimes when it’s not fulfilled, it just spend a single penny on promotions.
pisses you off. Very little things, like when It’s going to be a proper brand. Kind of
you’re on stage sound-checking for 40 how you hear about Beats By Dre used by
minutes and you’re on the last five minutes every artist in the West, we want to give out
of it and suddenly there’s feedback. It just clothing to every artist in this country, release
pisses you off, because you’re like ‘Yo, I’ve their music videos and support the system
been soundchecking for 45 minutes and and make an economy out of it. Indian
this is the first thing you should do, cut economy’s shit right now (laughs), so we
the feedback.’ want to bring this in.
January 2020 | Rolling Stone India | 47

10 BEST INDIAN on their debut eight- 6. Lifafa
track album Babelfish, Jaago
Mumbai indie-pop
ALBUMS OF 2019
outfit Shubhangi Joshi
Collective packs a stellar
bunch of songs together
that flow seamlessly. The
band’s record – featur-
This year brought hotly anticipated hip-hop, faith- ing vocalist-guitarist
restoring indie tunes and evocative rock that ensured Shubhangi Joshi, bassist
the relevance of full-length records Titus Pinto, keyboard-
ist Nishant Nair and
drummer Aamir Ismail
– opens with “Last Ticket
1. Peter Cat Record- Singh deliver yet anoth- Herd Us encapsulates the Journey” which includes in a fashion that recalls
ing Co. er winner. By no means sound of that era extraordi- a pacing drum pattern ghazals and even bhajans,
Bismillah is Ocean easy to follow narily well, juxtaposed with and embellished key- Suryakant Sawhney sits
up, but Science City was modern pop motifs (and board parts. The band with a harmonium and a
readied years ago and then sci-fi lyrical allusions) and charms with “Curious mic to make a melancholic
released in chronology clever arrangements even as Cat” and presents funk- proclamation that’s turned
via U.K. label Peacefrog. we move into the 2020s. If groove on “Surfing With many club venues and
There’s a sense of affection some say that rock is dead, The Times.” Joshi puts festival grounds upside
and wonderment on songs then They Finally Herd forward cheeky lyrics down this past year. It
like “Monkey,” “Hello” and Us is a resurrection. – DAVID like “Spare me your last goes: “Doob raha hai
“Be Something,” but vocal- BRITTO minute, crying.” The desh yahaan (this land is
ist, guitarist and producer acoustic pop tune “Why drowning.)” In his sedate,
Nischay Parekh perhaps 4. Shubhangi Joshi Stay Away” is a slow yet jaded voice through the
grasps on to the most Collective flowing song that pulls course of eight kalei-
in 2019, New Delhi’s Peter heartfelt epiphanies on Babelfish you in one note at a time doscopic dance tracks,
Cat Recording Co. weren’t songs like “Summer Skin” while “Help Me Lifafa hits just the right
just about gypsy, jazz, (“Time’s a waste of life,” he Remember” is a bossa nerves about 21st century
psychedelic rock and waltz sings) and the duo space nova jazz-inspired existence. Over other-
like their previous releases. out on “Forward Slash” and number. The album also worldly layers of synth and
Much more rooted in jazz “One Hundred Shadows” features Joshi’s 2017 also house patterns, the
with hints of electron- while introducing serious single “Foolish,” the singer-producer oscillates
ic (“Where The Money grooves on “Crystalline.” flavorful “Cynic On The between youthfulness
Flows”), Bismillah present- — A.T. List” and the relaxing (“Chaku Chidiya”,) love
ed a celebration sound in record closer and live (“Nikamma,” “Din Raat”)
many ways (“Floated By,” staple “Ode To The and disillusionment
“Memory Box”). Tropical Moon.” – D.B . (“MJRH”). — A.T.
vibes permeate on “Soulless
Friends,” while there’s lush
nostalgic rock on “Heera,”
which tells us there’s delib-
eration but also acceptance
Blackstratblues
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,” show- 3. The Koniac Net When It’s Time
ing us yet another warped They Finally Herd Us
chapter in the history of mumbai rockers The ONE COULD ARGUE that
Peter Cat. — ANURAG TAGAT
2. Parekh & Singh

Science City
Koniac Net comprising
vocalist-guitarist David
Abraham, guitarists Jason
D’Souza and Aaron Dmello,
Mumbai instrumental rock
group Blackstratblues’ fifth
album, the eight-track When
It’s Time, is nothing short of a
5
bassist Adil Kurwa, vocalist stellar piece of art. The group’s
Mallika Barot and drum- talisman Warren Mendonsa shines
mer Karun Kannampilly on almost every track with his larger-
have crafted a remarkably than-life guitar solos and intricate
resounding album with the chord progressions. Drummer Jai Row
11-track They Finally Herd Kavi is at his thumping best when he is
Us. The record brings forth beating the daylights out of his kit on
catchy melodies (“Crawl- “Black Hole X3” with solid drum parts
ing,” “Here We’ll Be”), gritty and dynamic fills. Bassist Adi Mistry’s
guitars (“All Hail Backslid- ability to play to the mood and hold just
er,” “Cobra Avalanche,” “In the right groove sits perfectly with the
in pondering the bigger Vein”) and killer drum fills rest of the band as keyboardist Beven
picture, Kolkata-bred on “Alison.” For any Nine- Fonseca lays a canvas for Mendonsa to
dream pop duo Parekh & ties rock lover, They Finally go berserk on. – D.B .

“Anti Indian” to a beat bridges (“Hugulo”) and
that can set clubs aflame. punk-rock declarations
He’s almost holding back (“Keeping Me From Sleep
tears in his voice for In- Tonight.”) He mingles the
dia’s daughters (“Snowl- airy with the edgy, taking
in”) but remembers the to the ukelele on the vul-
power of irony (“Ok nerable “My Other Side,”
Sir,” “Middle Class”). introducing ambient
There’s club bangers drops and delving into the
and then there’s the romantic and adventurous
heartfelt EDM turn with on “Walk With Me” and
“Thamizhachi,” in which “Aao Chalein,” crooning
he and OfRO encourage and rocking in his husky
women to be as fearless bay Dreams is a record voice. Bombay Dreams is
and badass as possible in that’s not hard to listen to. an album that is authen-
their pursuits. — A.T. Chake’s guitaring is exper- tic, raw and intrepid,
imentative, mercurial and letting you into a space
9. Taba Chake intuitive as he flits from that feels like home
Bombay Dreams serene folk pop/rock bal- with Chake employing
arunachalese sing- lads (“In Waadiyon Mein,” Hindi, English and his
er-songwriter Taba “Meri Dastaan”) to Nyishi native Nyishi to take you
Chake’s folk/rock LP Bom- folk songs with electric there. — J.X.
Divine 7
Kohinoor
THE DROP OF Divine’s debut LP was something of a land-

Winit Tikoo
mark event in the Indian hip-hop scene with the anticipa- Tamasha
tion building over months, spanning the launch of his own
label and entertainment conglomerate Gully Gang Enter-
tainment, a semi-autobiographical film (Gully Boy), a docu-
10
mentary (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 Bom-
bay” 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-Ameri-
can singer-songwriter Sid Sriram and Bangladeshi-Ameri-
can DJ/Producer Sanjoy, Divine truly gets his squad out to
deliver. – JESSICA XALXO
8. Arivu x OfRO
Therukural
after being the sharp-
tongued rapper of Tamil
group The Casteless KASHMIRI MUSICIAN Winit the powerful “Zindagi” and flows straight into a delight-
Collective in 2018, rap- Tikoo’s long-awaited debut the bluesy “Ajnabi.” Tikoo fully arranged section by
per Arivu and producer nine-track album Tamasha channels melodic rock on sarangi player Shahrukhh
OfRO arguably became includes all of the artist’s in- “GDS” and shakes things Khan. The record simmers
the voice of South Indian fluences from rock, grunge, up with ghazals on “Faiz.” down with the melancholic
hip-hop with Theruku- Hindustani classical music The album comes together “Chanab” before we hear
ral. Within seven tracks, ness (“Kalla Mouni,”) and more. There’s plenty beautifully midway through the aggression on the title
Arivu is acerbic in his but also squares up with for everyone on this record the rousing “Pagal,” punc- track which is a total head-
takedown of two-faced- so-called nationalists on from soaring guitar solos on tuated by a guitar solo that banger. – D.B.

10 BEST INDIAN EPS
OF 2019
From experimental debuts to fusion offerings, this year was filled with
eclectic and promising releases
the sonic palette. Tran-
sitioning from the dark
trap and bass blends of
his first album to smooth
The F16s
1. MOSKO jazz hooks, melodic vocals,
Teeth eclectic basslines, guitar
riffs and groovy synth
with KING, the rapper
WKND FRNDS reinvented his sound with
the self-produced record.
Bringing bassist Harshit
Misra aka Hashbass and
3
keyboardist Archit Anand
on for the semi-autobi-
ographical “Maya,” the first
single from the EP, Prabh
Deep surprised listeners
if you’re looking for a with just how experimental
sonic delight, look no he could get. The rapper
further than New Delhi wasn’t a lone wolf either
dance-rock act MOSKO’s on KING, getting fellow
debut four-track EP Teeth. Punjabi rapper HRJS to
Helmed by vocalist Kavya CHENNAI lend vocals on the groovy
Trehan and guitarist Moses ALT-ROCKERS “Khat” and harmonization
Koul and accentuated by The F16s hit all by Tansolo on the melodic
bassists Abhinav Chaud- the right spots on “King.” The one thing that
hury and Amar Pandey as their beautifully didn’t change? The rappers
well as drummers Karan arranged new evocative socio-political
Malik and Suyash Gabriel, four-track EP commentary, proving once
the record includes a WKND FRNDS. again that Prabh Deep’s
belting opening track in A labor of love voice wouldn’t be lost in a
“Smooth” and moves to the that was in the sea of trends. — J.X.
jumpy breakdown-friendly works for a few
“Mosey Pants.” The EP also years, the record 5. Vaisakh Somanath
delivers a mellifluous listen is packed with Thevai
with “YDEK” and ends diversity, harmo-
with the euphoric glitch nies, synth-driv-
leaning “Drance 109.” en effervescence and dance-y elements up the entire EP well with a range of
Throughout Teeth, Trehan’s that sit well with slow-paced burners. musicality featured in it — from guitar
hooky vocals stand out Opening up with the moody “My Baby’s licks, groovy drum parts and claps, plus
while Koul’s intricate Beak,” the band space out on “Boudoir” a memorable vocal harmony when front-
guitar work creates quite before going all synth and melodic with man Josh Fernandez pleads “Why don’t
a treat for the ears. — DAVID “Amber.” The closing title track sums you stay.” – D.B .
BRITTO
2. Pacifist
Greyscale Dreams
sary introspection into (the simmering “Double section, but ultimately kochi-based Tamil
modern existence, Mumbai Down”) and lived up to settling down amongst the singer-songwriter Vaisakh
post-hardcore band Paci- the moshpit-provoking shards. — ANURAG TAGAT Somanath brought his
fist breathed into the music dissonance legacy of the much needed wide-eyed
circuit some much-needed subgenre. “Pedigreed” is 4. Prabh Deep worldview, measuring it
substance. Piecing together suitably wiry and peppered KING out in spoonfuls of groovy,
the best parts of American with calls for “jump!” but a follow-up to his 2017 saxophone-leaning soul
artists like At The Drive- the title track changes breakout debut LP Class- and R&B on his four-track
In, Fugazi and Converge, everything. Pacifist reach Sikh (produced by Sez debut. Somanath talks
Pacifist’s debut EP took on into a shattered part of On The Beat), New Delhi about changing society
keyboard warriors (on the 21st-century urban living, rapper Prabh Deep’s EP and oneself in his calming
Firing an opening salvo chaotic “Reactionary”), so- occasionally swinging and KING is a record that isn’t lilt, delving on alterna-
to seek the ever-neces- cietal and political apathy kicking with a punk bridge afraid to keep switching up tive living as though it’s

an option long ignored.
You’re rarely going to
hear songs about homes-
book of greats like John
McLaughlin, but also carve
out their own voice in the
Swadesi x Bandish Projekt
chooling (“Pattampoochi”) process. Anchoring the Khulle Naagde
and sustainable living sound on their five-track
(“Neelavaanam”) delivered EP Chango Tales are col- FOLLOWING UP their 2016 collab Katal Kalaa,
as succinctly and cinemat- laborations with seasoned bass music don Bandish Projekt and hip-hop
ically as Somanath has. German violinist Holger crew Swadesi returned with something even more
Environmental conserva- Jetter and Swiss instru- hard-hitting on Khulle Naagde. With Swadesi
tion might be the need of mental group Krond-Flast. now including MCs Maharya and the mercurial
the hour, but Somanath With wonderment and a 100RBH, the EP opens with a silver-tongued
isn’t going to shout about soul-seeking mind, Jatayu turn from MC Mawali on the seismic opener
it, rather offering a sweet go from flittering Carnatic “Antariksh.” To the call of “Aamhi Kon?” (Who are
song about living within guitar riffs (“Shringa- we?), “Khaari Baat” blends ethnotronica with
one’s needs and looking ra”) and dexterous jazz an acerbic takedown of the class divide.
9
at the world through the rhythms (“May I?”) to seri- Whether it’s Tod Fod calling out truths
eyes of love (“Thevai”). It’s ously sinister psychedelic (the bass-break heavy “Kathore Satya”)
layered, intelligent pop at jams (“Pazhi”) to emerge or 100RBH throwing down one of his
times, although Somanath out of a shell with euphoria most incendiary verses on “Jhand,”
does allow himself one (“Chango”), choosing tropi- Khulle Naagde proves just how unstop-
escape route on the upbeat, cal (read: South Indian) pable a pairing like this can be. – A.T.
jazz-leaning love song hues. — A.T.
“Mayapenne.” — A.T.
8. No Honey
7. Jatayu Future Like
Chango Tales new delhi alt/electronic
trio No Honey’s debut EP It’s followed by the bass 10. SkyEyes
Future Like is almost hyp- leaning, pop induced love SkyEyes
notic in its sonic potency. track “No Honey.” Percus- new delhi psychedelic/
Diving deep into synth sionist Suyash Gabriel re- blues outfit SkyEyes chan-
with its haunting opener ally comes into his element
about toxic relationships, on the EP closer “Courage,”
“Sit Back”, No Honey gets layering the drums to build
it right with immersive lyr- an uptempo, groovy dance
icism amidst melodic keys track with emotion. As
and the swell of vocalist electronic as Future Like is,
Abhilasha Sinha’s boomy it experiments with rock,
vocals. “Alone Tonight” Skyharbor) to talk about pop, ambient and more to
on their debut EP, Chen- leans on producer and gui- the pace of love, bringing in deliver a sound that makes
nai jazz-fusion band Jatayu tarist Keshav Dhar’s back- elements of prog rock and you anticipate the trio’s next
take a page from the ground (guitarist of rockers an emotive guitar bridge. offering. — J.X.
nel a mixture of American

rock bands Creedence
Clearwater Revival and
Meera
Lynyrd Skynyrd on their
debut four-track epon-
ymous EP. The record
features strong vocal
sections by Diyatom Deb
I’ve Never Been Happier To Be and emotion-soaked instru-
Lost mentation from drummer
Akhil Kumar, bassist Barun
6
AHMEDABAD-BASED musician Meera Desai’s Sinha and guitarist Sushant
debut EP I’ve Never Been Happier To Be Lost Thakur. The guitarist shines
is a saccharine, sonic probe into the questions across the EP with his
of life. The airy, upbeat opener “Divine” is an raging riffs and sweet solos.
inquiry into faith and feels as liberating as the The EP opens with the easy
stripped notion of belief itself. Featuring the listening and breezy “Mad
sound of waves, “Salt” comes next with its emotive Man’s Tale” before we hear
string section during the bridge, exploring the story of the emotional power ballad
the Indian-Tamil boy Pi from Yann Martel’s bestsell- “Betrayal” while “Last
ing book Life of Pi. The folksy “Homes” has elements Train” is a total jam song.
of jazz and the EP closer, “Distance,” dances on a bed The closing track, “Letter To
of pulled guitar strings, the melody rippling beneath My Father,” pairs the mel-
Meera’s vibrant, evocative vocals. There’s a haunting, ancholic lyrics with bashing
almost airy and crystalline sound to I’ve Never Been rock. SkyEyes have packed
Happier To Be Lost, strengthened by the gravity of a punch on their debut EP,
Meera’s lyricism which in its simplicity, is infinitely we await to see what they
profound. – JESSICA XALXO have in store next. — D.B.

10 BEST INDIAN
SINGLES OF 2019
Protest, subversion and experimentation reigned strong this year
1. Three Oscillators hop, showcasing Prabh’s 5. Dopeadelicz

(feat. Karshni) skills in the producer’s “Aai Shapath Saheb Me
“Drowning” chair. The addition of Navtho” think about rapper Stony
bassist Harshit Misra aka when the beat kicks Psyko’s Snoop Dogg-in-
Hashbass and keyboard- in for Mumbai rap crew spired look. On this
ist Archit Anand on the Dopeadelicz’s track tell-all song, Stony Psyko
song along with Prabh “Aai Shapath Saheb Me spills the beans of being
Deep’s heavy delivery Navtho” you immediately caught by the Mumbai
makes for a fine listen. think of Nineties gangsta police and getting through
— DAVID BRITTO rap, much like how you’d to them with his dope
rhymes. While Stony
Tod Fod – along with Psyko spits bars about his
Warli tribal chieftain and real name, his religion
Adivasi activist Prakash and address, the track is
Bhoir – raise their fist on led by a smooth beat un-
Thermal and
mumbai electronica “The Warli Revolt.” To the derlined with slick treble
artists Three Oscillators sample of a Maharashtri- piano notes. — D. B.
and Pune/Mumbai sing- an horn section that ush-
a Quarter
er-songwriter Karshni’s ers in the song, Swadesi 6. Aarlon
“Drowning” was the early announce a revolution to “Vidroh”
summer track we did not fight not just for forests,
see coming. Accentuated but for human rights.
by warping and granular The rappers take turns “Leaders of Men”
glitches that flow with in condemning corrup-
the synth-bed of the song, tion and false promises,
going with the current, me- while highlighting the
lodically disrupting but not importance of roots and
fighting against it, “Drown- the strength of those very
ing” is meditative and an bonds. — ANURAG TAGAT
absolutely experimentative
winner. Earlier this year, 3. Prabh Deep
the artists told Rolling “Maya”
Stone India that the song with the right dashes
was about vulnerability and of Linkin Park, Archi-
navigating one’s way out of tects and Bring Me The
a horrible place, and both Horizon, Hindi metal
the lyrics and production band Aarlon perfect a
lend a palpable buoyancy verbose, emotive sound
to the desolation. Karsh- on their single “Vidroh.”
ni’s balmy vocals trickle Addressing the need to
4
seamlessly into the Three break away from India’s
Oscillators stream of fluid heavy-handed middle
samples, and “Drowning” class expectations, Aarlon
emerges — tranquil, organ- eschew all the tired and
ic and clean. – JESSICA XALXO a track that featured BENGALURU’S ROCK worn-out tropes and dig
as one of our Editor’s veterans Thermal And A deeper into metaphors
2. Swadesi (feat. Pick of the month earlier Quarter’s second single and their lyrical arsenal.
Prakash Bhoir) this year is New Delhi “Leaders of Men” off their in our country but across The battering rhythm
“The Warli Revolt” rapper Prabh Deep’s upcoming album A World the globe. Sonically, the matches up just as well,
if Indian hip-hop truly “Maya.” Many months on Gone Mad is a well-pack- song gives you everything providing a precisive
came of age and became (and a few new singles aged blues offering that you want from a blues modern metal-edged
fully authentic in 2019, a later), we still can’t get you can listen to on loop. number; a booming bass riffs from Piyush Rana
lot of credit goes to Mum- enough of it. The mellow Vocalist-guitarist Bruce Lee line, a groove that hits all and Ritwik Shivam over
bai’s multilingual, socially and emotive song leans Mani’s coolly takes down the right spots and a spell- vocalist Pritam Goswa-
conscious crew Swadesi. almost towards experi- politicians and leaders in binding guitar solo. mi Adhikary’s unhinged
MC Mawali, 100 RBH, mental jazz meets hip- powerful positions not just – D.B . growls. — A. T.

Ahmer x
7. Arogya
“Dark World”
Sez On
The Beat
(feat.
Prabh
Gangtok rockers Arog-
ya’s sublime track “Dark
World” was their first
English language track
Deep) 9
after years of finding a “ELAAN”
base in the Nepali rock
circuit. Singer Rainjong 24-YEAR-OLD BREAKOUT Kashmi-
Lepcha’s vocal prowess ri rapper Ahmer Javed aka Ahmer
shines throughout the delivered one of the most hard-hit-
song as he goes from high ting debuts of the year. The fiery,
octane notes to chilling confrontational and resolute LP Little
screams that resonate Kid, Big Dreams (produced by Sez On
with the pumping riffs The Beat) fused dissent with a dark
and grooves across the soundscape to scream resistance. Set
shimmering synth-rock to an old school beat looped around
offering. The hooky chorus a detuned guitar line, Ahmer belts in
when Lepcha sings “You Koshur, Hindi and Urdu on “Elaan,”
turned my world/Dark and speaking out on his experience of the
bare” might just channel militarization of Kashmir, the identity
your inner goth to join in of its people and the complicity of In-
and belt out with the band. dian politics, citizens and the media.
— D. B. Joined by New Delhi rapper Prabh
Deep, the two addressed the country
8. Mood Station through their lenses on “Elaan,” de-
“Rawn Sapatal Rawh” livering a jolting call of awareness to
the masses with intuitive production
by Sez. – J.X.
a single bit that you may hai (You’re no gangster/

not understand the lyrics, Your ideology is flawed/
because “Rawn Sapatal I’m tomorrow’s truth/ My
Rawh” is a maniacal, ears are hooked on [the]
arena-rock sized stomper. Wu-Tang [Clan],)” the
Mizo rock/metal band — A. T. rapper spoke of his origins
Mood Station come across and neighborhood pride.
as a revelation of sorts for 10. MC Altaf (feat. Mumbai DJ/Producer DRJ
anyone following heavy DRJ Sohail) Sohail mirrored the style
music, possibly signaling “Code Mumbai 17” of Nineties hip-hop footed
that the North East has a Mumbai rapper MC with a glitchy groove,
sort of self-sufficient cir- Altaf ’s old school hip-hop giving Altaf a beat to drop
cuit at times. On the lead track “Code Mumbai 17” some really incendiary
single off their self-titled is a dynamite ode to his verses that confront the
album, which went out neighborhood of Dharavi stereotypes the residents of
on streaming platforms (pincode 400017). Altaf Dharavi face. The 20-year-
midway through this year, really came through with old may have audiences
Mood Station show us the impeccable lyrical delivery, fooled with his swagger
power of just one riff that’s his bars hitting the nail but through his Hindi/
overdriven to frenzied with every line. Belting, Urdu free-flow on “Code
levels. Mixing electronic “Na tu gangster/ Teri Mumbai 17,” MC Altaf
elements with stretchy soch hi napak hai/ Main proved just how powerful
synth work and intricate hoon kal ka sach/ Kyunki and disruptive experiential
drum fills, it doesn’t matter kaanon mein Wu-Tang artistry can be. — J. X.

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
quil meditation on the
makings of love and life
itself. With science serv-
ing as a metaphor for
the thrill and discovery
of the everyday and the
passing of seasons, the
duo deliver a distinct vi-
sual experience that not
only makes you question
the purpose of time but
the strictures of it too.
It’s hard to look away
retro nostalgia through from the layered frames
a cult-classic couple and even though it takes
reunion. Directed by a while to catch on to a
Mumbai-based filmmak- reasonable conclusion,
1
er Pranav Bhasin, the you’ll definitely walk
cinematic five-minute cut away with one. – J. X.
The Local Train

begins with what seems
like an abduction. Black 5. Smalltalk
Letters vocalist Sharath “Tired”
Narayan sings as he lays
“Gustaakh” in the backseat, pierced
through the abdomen
IT UNDERSTANDABLY took a while for The Krish Makhija (with an able assist from with an arrow, while a
Local Train to release another music video associate producer Harshvir Oberai). A woman (Pranjal Asha)
off their 2018 album Vaaqif. The animat- fully digital age that’s also Orwellian, resembling yesteryears
ed, stop-motion incorporating clip for the there’s references to megalomaniac lead- Bollywood icon Madhub-
arena-rock staple “Gustaakh” comes across ers, building statues, new currency and a ala in her role as courte-
as a labor of love directed by Mumbai’s giant teddy bear gone rogue that makes for san Anarkali glances back
Vijesh Rajan and his team at Plexus and an action-packed, allegory-heavy viewing from the shotgun seat,
produced by Mosambi Juice Production’s experience. – ANURAG TAGAT torn. It’s only at the end
of the music video that
viewers realize the band mumbai alternative
is reuniting Anarkali with band Smalltalk’s accom-
her lover Salim (Satyajit panying music video for
Ravindra Varma) as she their single “Tired” is as
2. Vasu Dixit Poem’) by Bengaluru poet the in-between, even turn- gets out of the car and laidback as the song itself.
“Nadiyolage” Mamta Sagar, the video ing psychedelic at times. Akbar’s (Vishaal Ram) In the almost zen-like
bengaluru musician is a spiritual glimpse into In the music video direct- cold body is laid on the clip directed by Mum-
Vasu Dixit released the the universe through the ed by Bengaluru-based grass. The band’s late bai-based filmmaker and
music video for “Nadiy- eyes of a lone grasshop- filmmaker Rita Dhankani, night drive leads to a musician Jishnu Guha,
olage” under his epony- per. The acoustic-folk Dixit transitions in and historic, futuristic and the band is seen in a
mous folk project earlier track pairs well with the out of the frames, his bittersweet reunion range of relaxed activi-
this year on World Music immersive visuals which aura flickering to life and for the once separated ties from playing cards,
Day. Based on a Kannada traverse the celestial and dissipating to a world that historic lovers from Hindi doing a bit of meditating,
poem of the same name the earthly, exploring how has no end in the cycle of cinema while acting as a competing in a game of
(translating to ‘A River souls see the surreal and life. – JESSICA XALXO commentary on the trap- noughts and crosses, try-
pings (no pun intended) ing their hand at Jenga,
3.Black Letters of love. – J. X. plonked on a couch
“In My Senses” watching a movie,
kerala-bred, Benga- 4. Parekh & Singh sipping on illuminated
luru-based alternative “Summer Skin” drinks and more. If you’re
rock outfit Black Letters’ kolkata dream pop duo looking for something
music video for their Parekh & Singh’s music stress-free to watch,
song “In My Senses” video for “Summer Skin,” Smalltalk’s “Tired” cer-
(from their 2019 album off their 2019 album tainly ticks all the boxes.
Still As You) features Science City, is a tran- – DAVID BRITTO

is trying to fit in with the
6. Parikrama 8. The F16s “hip” crowd but is not able
“Tears of the Wizard” “Amber” to and ends up struggling
for their first video chennai alt-rockers The to find her true self. Come
in 20 years, New Delhi F16s‘ first single, the dreamy for the animated versions of
rockers Parikrama have “Amber,” off their new EP the band (plus Indian indie
created quite a stir with WKND FRNDS came with a scene regulars like their
“Tears Of The Wizard.” In charmingly crafted animat- former managers Tej Brar 10. Aabha Hanjura Kochi-based produc-
the video directed by Sujit ed video by Deepti Sharma. and Kalidas Shenoy), stay “Roshewalla” Part 1 and tion house MadGenius
K. Jha, the band travels The filter-heavy imagery for the band’s signature dose Part 2 and directed by Vishak
in a van (their song “Am follows a young girl who of melancholic rock. – D. B. bengaluru-based Nair, there’s puppetry
I Dreaming” plays in the Kashmiri folk-fusion and visual effects
background as an Easter artist Aabha Hanjura blended together to
Egg of sorts). Soon after, has her own way of create gripping story-
the van breaks down and saying “sab kuch theek telling, much like the
Parikrama – dressed in an ho jayega (everything kiddie audience in the
all-black attire – step out will be alright in the two-part video. – A. T.
into the tranquil nature end)” about her home’s
of Mechuka in Arunachal ever-changing volatile 11. Uday Benegal
Pradesh. The band is then condition on the two- “Antigravity”
seen performing the track part “Roshewalla.”
against lush backdrops At a time when the
of mountains, rivers and 9. Your Chin with help from director M.G. territory of Kashmir
fields, even as subtle visual “Luv Important” Bopanna and actor Sautrik continues to be on
cues point towards an when you hear lyrics like “You Mukherji, the electro-synth lockdown for over
entirely different storyline. cannot leave me/I won’t walk offering “Luv Important” meets four months, the song
At the end of the video, out/I wiped your snot,” one its visual match.The video is and video perhaps
drummer Srijan Mahajan would probably think it’s tough trippy and mesmerizing at provide some hope to
is woken up from a dream to match up to Mumbai-based times with plenty of abstract optimists about how
and we see the rest of producer Your Chin aka Raxit imagery, including some which love will prevail, even
the band still in the van Tewari’s quirky, open-ended, could cause you to do a dou- through the harshest
traveling. – D. B. often outlandish lyricism. But ble-take. – D. B. 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 as part of a release by
footage from vocalist and Nexa Music, Mumbai
guitarist Suryakant Sawhney’s musician Uday Benegal
marriage to video journalist stars in the video for
and filmmaker Surabhi Tandon. the pulsating rock rager
When he’s not on groom duty, “Antigravity.” Direct-
Sawhney got behind the camera ed by Dubai-based
himself, along with filmmaker- filmmaker Tejal Patni,
friends Sachin Pillai and Nitish we’re treated to a visual
Kanjilal. If the horn section- delight that ranges
aided “Floated By” gave everyone from abstract imagery
7
fuzzy feelings, it’s because it to people breaking
Peter Cat almost comes across as the

perfect Indian wedding song
with Sawhney’s affectionate
free and expressing
themselves through art.
Benegal is seen as a sort
Recording Co. lyrics set to somewhat surreal

camera work. A video bonus:
drunk uncles dancing their
of museum installa-
tion held inside a glass
structure filled with
“Floated By” troubles away. – A.T. water. – D. B.

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’
O
N THE FOLKSY, musician, Ali was the best fit. three years, Lemalla began Botzer meeting and singing. musicians, there was already
cinematic song “On The Israeli artist adds over taking shape between Tel Botzer says of the track, “It’s a an understanding of the
My Way,” Indian an email interview, “Meeting Aviv and Bengaluru, aided traveler’s song, a song of dialog emotion behind the words.
singer and pop artist Lucky Lucky surpassed all my by supporting musicians and among friends and prayer “Even without knowing the
Ali and Israeli artist Eliezer expectations. I was amazed recording engineers in both within the journey. Distance text. It felt like an intuition
Cohen Botzer take on the by Lucky’s personality. He is countries. Ali recalls how makes me miss home, and becoming fruitful and true,”
idea of confluence and fusion. a rare artist, a teacher and Botzer’s team landed at his traveling with an open heart the artist says.
It was in 2017 that the two a true inspiration. Lucky farm in Bengaluru, “And then makes everywhere we go, With “On My Way”
artists met, introduced by has a wise perspective of life we became friends, that was home.” already chalking up
Botzer’s producer and friend that is expressed in his care the natural course of things. Through behind the scenes over 450,000 views on
Bob Stark. The EliAli project, of humanity. His beautiful And that’s how music happens, footage, listeners can get a YouTube, Lemalla will receive
who are now set to release an personality spreads simple you can only make music if glimpse of Lemalla, with a release in the coming
album called Lemalla, was love…” you’re friends and there is love tracks like “Amaraya, “In My months song by song with
born out of “trying to build A veteran voice in India and understanding… Angry Life” and “Virtuality.” They more videos. Botzer answers
the bridge of understanding,” for Bollywood as well as his people can’t be making music.” range from rock to fusion an obvious question about
as Ali puts it in a behind the own material, Lucky Ali says In the video directed by and folk, featuring lyrics in taking his collaboration with
scenes video. he “didn’t think too much” filmmakers Dvir Keren and English, Hindi and Hebrew. Ali to the stage, “Performing
revital topiol
Botzer says while he about accepting Botzer’s Chinkx Bug, “On My Way” Botzer adds that when lyrics together is on the cards. We
was actively seeking out a invitation to collaborate. features footage of Bengaluru were being discussed and are all very excited by this new
collaboration with an Indian Over the course of nearly and Tel Aviv and both Ali and translated amongst the joint adventure.” ANURAG TAGAT

The Mix
L
ong before she started How’d you get the idea
calling herself H.E.R., for your transparent Stra-
Gabi Wilson was on tocaster?
an almost preordained path My stylist and I were talking,
to stardom. She appeared on because the outfit that I
the Today Show as a 10-year- wanted was really sparkly and
old prodigy, performing an we didn’t want to cover it up.
eerily accomplished cover of And we thought, “Oh, instead
Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got of making a glitter guitar,
You,” before signing a record why not make it transpar-
deal at age 14. She grew up ent?” It looks so much cooler.
to be a multi-instrumentalist And it matches whatever I’m
(lead-guitar chops very much wearing. Playing guitar is part
included) alt-R&B auteur of who I am, since I was a kid.
in the tradition of Keys and I remember watching a video
Prince, with exquisite control of Lenny Kravitz and Prince
of her powerhouse voice. With [from the Rave Un2 the Year
five Grammy nominations 2000 concert] when I was a
for 2019 and a new album kid. That video changed my
due early this year, H.E.R. is life — it made me want to play
well on the way to fulfilling guitar just because of how rock
her considerable potential at star it is.
age 22. “I’ve really put in the On your new song
time and work,” she says. “I’m “Anti,” you sing about
so happy that everything has “scrutiny on a tiny screen,”
been, you know, manifesting.” which whole generations
can relate to.
What was your journey It wasn’t a song for anybody
like from child prodigy to else so much as it was for me.
the fully formed artist we I sometimes have to remind
heard on the first H.E.R. myself not to feed into the
recordings, in 2016? pressure of what a female
It’s one thing to be able to artist should be. People are
sing well, but another to be saying, you know, “Why do you
an artist and find your own wear baggy clothes? You’re
voice within music. And that’s pretty, you should show your
what the goal was for me in face.” I had to remind myself
my teenage years. I had to find that I’m anti all those things.
myself. As a young woman, I On your great single
experienced high school and “Slide,” YG raps about
heartbreak, and the music I wanting a woman “in
started to write was a little
bit more poetic, and more
Q&A an apron/Booty all out
cookin’ bacon,” which is
inspired by spoken word. The amusingly contrary to the
H.E.R.
real raw emotional things messages in the rest of
that sit in the back of our your music.
minds, that you were afraid I mean, that wasn’t my mes-
to say? That’s how I started sage. That was YG’s message!
to write my music. And that’s I just put him on the song.
how H.E.R. Volume One came The rising alt-R&B star on the blues, defying industry I’m not complaining, because
about. stereotypes, and meeting a fan who got pregnant to her music I would never say that on a
So you went to regular record, but he definitely was
high school as you were By BRIA N HIATT just being himself. I asked for
pursuing a musical career? YG and I got YG! It’s just a fun
OPPOSITE PAGE: CHRISTOPHER LEE/”THE NEW YORK T IMES”/REDUX

Was it basically like Han- You’re a blues fan — describe. Music is healing. It’s Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and song — people hadn’t heard a
nah Montana? what artists do you like? something you can’t explain, Eric Clapton, the blues, James H.E.R. song like that, where I
Exactly! Yeah, some people Albert King. B.B. King. I went you just feel. And to me, blues Brown. As I got older, my was just chillin’.
would be like, “When are to a Buddy Guy concert when I does that. uncle played a lot of Nineties Your sultrier songs ap-
you gonna be famous?” Or, was, like, seven years old. B.B. You have a real mix of R&B — Jodeci, Boyz II Men. pear on a lot of bedroom
“Weren’t you on TV? Like, why King, with literally one note modern and vintage in- He’d pick me up from school, playlists. How do you feel
do you go here?” And some on the guitar, does something fluences. How did all that and he was playing Drake, about that?
adults would be like, “Your to everyone in the room — come together for you? the Weeknd, and Jhené Aiko. I did a meet-and-greet in
music’s never gonna come out.” and that’s what I’ve been When I was a little bitty kid, A few years later, Bryson France, and a woman came
I hated a routine life — I want- inspired by as far as playing: I was listening to the stuff my Tiller came out, and all those who was pregnant. And she
ed to be on tour. I was in class feeling instead of technique. parents were listening to. My influences went into Volume said, “This is your responsibili-
thinking, “I can’t wait to get Even Donny Hathaway, how mom was a huge Whitney One. With my music, it’s ty” [laughs]. I’m like, “Oh, boy,
in the studio.” I really prayed emotional his voice is, his tone Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary always me, because I am all I’m so sorry. But congratula-
for everything I have now, but is very bluesy, very gospel-y. J. Blige fan. My dad had a these influences, but you never tions!” I think it’s cool. Like,
I’m thankful I was able to be a That type of music gives you cover band that I sang with, necessarily know what sound you know, I make music for
regular kid. a feeling you can’t necessarily and he loved Parliament, you’re going to get. every occasion!

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

REPORT:
TECH X INDIAN
CLASSICAL MUSIC:
HOW HCL
IS PUSHING
THE GENRE
GLOBALLY
A
week after the performance in frigid
(but welcoming) New York City (at the
B y Anurag Tagat 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
SAROD MAESTRO AMJAD ALI KHAN Concerts, which have been a mainstay in different
parts of India since 1998, as a means to bring
AND HIS SONS PERFORMED music lovers together, plus as a treat to their
employees, clients and customers. Over at San
SEPARATELY AND TOGETHER IN Francisco, they were testing the waters at a small
club housed within the massive Levi’s Stadium,
THE U.S. AT WHAT IS LIKELY THE which usually hosts National Football League
matches.
FIRST OF MANY INTERNATIONAL Dressed in suitably formal (and Indian
formal) attire, the technolog y company’s
SHOWS HOSTED BY THE INDIAN clients were treated to Khan and his sons
performing for over two hours. Whether it
TECH GIANT was jugalbandis or Rabindranath Tagore
compositions or arrangements in raag desh,
EVENTIQUE
malkauns and rageshri, the trio’s separate and

collective performances were picked out to
showcase perhaps the more globally accessible
Rolling
Rolling Stone
Stone | January
October2020
2019 | 59
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 Grammy-
winning 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 LEFT AMAAN ALI BANGASH,
my father we get to perform at all these beautiful AMJAD ALI KHAN AND AYAAN
venues around the world. Amaan bhai and I have ALI KHAN AT HCL CONCERTS’
SAN FRANCISCO EDITION ON
played there a few times.
DECEMBER 9TH, 2019.
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 not worries. There are worries when you never field. Otherwise why would we talk about it? It’s
our requirements were in place and took the gig. finish your raags – that’s a national tragedy, all about conciseness, preciseness, that lacks in
There was so much sound of the water hitting the that someone is just looking at their watch and our system.
shore, that you can’t hear the sarod only. wondering when you’ll finish your performance. Amaan: The packaging has to change as per the
Is it a very 21st Century concern for Indian This sense of proportion is so important in every audiences’ likes and dislikes.
classical artists to think about engaging with Tell me about the all-night concerts you’ve
their audience? performed. Does it still happen even now?
Amaan: In the 1920s, when there were Rajas, Amaan: That still happens – when he (Khan)
you had to think about the Raja not beheading plays in Calcutta or Poona – my father will play
you for playing bad music. Today you have to think “I tell many younger for three hours also, because he’s been asked to
about the audience not getting up and walking play for three hours. In those three hours, his
out. We as musicians are a tool – we don’t produce
music, it comes through us and goes through to
classical musicians, presentation will be different, as is the case for any
of us. But when you’re given a slot of one hour, the
the audience. You have to keep changing yourself
so that it goes through the audience.
we’re born in this presentation has to be different. Playing in a college
is different than playing at Sawai Gandharva in
Ayaan: When you’re on stage, you have to be
a performer, you’re not there to educate people. world to provide Poona. It’s different music. When that 10 o’ clock
ban came in, I think that changed some things for
You’re there at the end of the day to owe them Indian classical music performances.
something, because they’ve bought a ticket. happiness.” Khan: The time was different and the era
Khan: I tell many younger classical musicians, was different too. I was called to a festival by
we’re born in this world to provide happiness, - Amjad Ali Khan a zamindar, and it was 11 pm and I was offered

Amaan: Quite often we get Ayaan: We finished the recording in two
called for duet performances sessions. He’s been a great admirer of the sarod
only (laughs). and when he was in Bombay he reached out to
Khan: Then there’s times us and now owns a sarod. Amaan and I sat with
when all three of us perform, him through the day and he kind of picked it up,
which happens especially for whatever little bit we did. The first session of the
international concerts. To recording happened when we reached L.A. from
show the public the connect – Vancouver, from a festival. Our sarods didn’t arrive
the bonds seem to be breaking in time.
these days. The children are Khan: All three sarods didn’t turn up!
detached from parents, or Amaan: It went off somewhere else.
parents are detached from Ayaan: So the sarod we’d given him in Bombay
their children. I don’t travel came to the rescue, which was actually made by the
without these two, actually. I same maker who does ours.
don’t travel alone because I’m Khan: We recorded at this studio in Beverly
afraid. It’s a great joy when we Hills. The second time we went, though, we had
play together. our own sarods.
Amaan: So do you play Amaan: It should come out by February. He’s
as a guru, father or fellow a great musician, his whole team as well. They’re
musician? The last one not show-offs. The problem with our musicians
definitely not I’m sure (laughs). sometimes is, when they see you in the green room,
Khan: Basically, we’re friends. they’re looking at you and performing, they’re
Amaan: They (points to trying to prove a point. Over there, they’re so
Ayaan) have more conflicts subtle, you don’t know if he’s going to play or if he’s
Ayaan: We all have our even a musician until he holds an instrument. They
share of conflicts, but he respect each other so much and that’s something
(Amaan) is someone who we need to learn from them.
makes peace very quickly. Khan: We even met the famous drummer of the
Amaan: I’ve learned one Beatles, Ringo Starr. He was also there. He’s 79! I
thing from him (Amjad) – couldn’t tell. The way he plays drums, it feels like
that everyone is here for a very a god-given gift. I was singing something and he
short period of time, so let’s gave a beat, I was shocked. He was just playing on
have fun, let’s love everybody the table, that’s it.
but why have anything as Ayaan: Ringo is Joe Walsh’s brother-in-law. We
anyone? I always feel I’m a just met after one of the sessions.
very average student – because Amaan: Ringo has got the energy of a 25-year-
of that feeling, it keeps me old.
going with my riyaaz. Your father performed “Journeyman” on
Khan: Our gurus teach us your album Infinity, which you worked on with
to look at our weaknesses first. Karsh Kale. What was that like?
Our human nature, however, Ayaan: I think it was the first time people were
often leads us to look at the hearing my father in that light. I don’t think he’s
bad in others. Gharane ke ever played in this electronic space. The sarod’s
upar ladayi hota hai, there’s a tone is extremely different. We thought it was
lot of rivalry. I always admire something interesting that we could get our father
Tagore because he made his to do and he was very sporting.
songs and poetry based on Khan: It’s about communication through
classical raags, but always music. Our trio show, in Russia with the Moscow
tea. I thought it was time to go to sleep but I was added an additional note in the raag. I didn’t Symphony Orchestra. Nirmala Sitharaman was
told he’s only awoken now, and he sleeps in the day. like it at all first, Rabindra Sangeet, then when in the audience too. Russia might be viewed as
The all-night concerts that happened today, I’m I performed with a great Bengali singer named one whose government rules with an iron fist,
not in favor of those. I’ve played all alone through Suchitra Mitra – we have an album called Tribute but in their music tradition, they’re so different.
the night, I was 25 years old at the time and I to Tagore – it became very appealing. His music They’re such gifted artists. If you look at the good
played from 9 pm to 7 am once, in Calcutta. It was and literature was outstanding. Only a genius can in everything, then you can communicate more
a ticketed show, house full. take liberties. Mediocre people just follow in line. easily. People say so much about our music and
There’s one instance where all three of us What can you tell me about your collaboration things like ‘Fusion is confusion.’ Some fusion is not
have performed through the night. Bengal could with Joe Walsh? good and appealing, not everyone can do it.
absorb, they have so much capacity. It happened, Amaan: We just recorded a whole album with Amaan: It’s not an easy thing to do.
but it happened once in a while. The first time Joe Walsh. What else is coming up through 2020?
an audience sees and hears us, we want them to Khan: And also with Sharon Isbin, we all Ayaan: There’s this album with Sharon, Strings
come back a second time too. That’s a challenge played one piece each on her new album. It’s for Peace, coming up as well. She’s one of the finest
right now. called Strings for Peace. The interesting thing is classical musicians. She’s got an American music
COURTESY OF HCL CONCERTS
When you perform with your sons, is it in that God has made the seven notes that we call honor that’s come to a guitarist after 57 years or
the capacity of a guru, a parent and as a fellow Sa Re Ga Ma, while the West calls it Do Re Mi so. We’re playing with the Chicago Philharmonic
musician. Which one are you first? And do they Fa. The sound is the same. It’s like a flower, which in April. Whole lot of things lined up. Every day
surprise you enough on stage? can be used for all occasions, whether it’s death is a new day.
Khan: We’re all solo musicians, we all get called or celebration or whatever else. People fight over Khan: That’s a new kind of fusion too – when
for solo performances, and these two get called for whether to call something a devotional song or you write for and with an orchestra. They’re so
duet performances too. not, but it’s using the same seven notes. brilliant.
Rolling Stone | January 2020 | 61

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?
Bacardi NH7 Weekender
Remains Uninterrupted
A
The Pune edition t the start of the halakshmi Lawns (which was small minority perhaps grap- to encourage safe spaces
of the three-day decade, Mum- expectedly mixed up with pled with. Artists, stand-up and support for any and all
bai event/artist Laxmi Lawns). But given the comics, management agen- festival-goers, with a bent
music festival
management company Only recent public image beating cies, promoters, influencers towards the LGBTQIA+
banked on more Much Louder teamed up that Only Much Louder’s and fans made their way on community. Weekender
Indian artists with beverage brand Bacardi personalities have taken for to the three-day festival. By also included a separate
than ever before to start NH7 Weekender, accusations of sexual miscon- the end of day one, tickets gender-fluid security check
and made some initiating a music festival duct and sometimes enabling for the entire festival edition queue. In terms of advanc-
culture for fans of independ- a sexist work environment, were announced to be sold ing as an eco-sustainable
efforts to move
ent and alternative artists maybe the music festival was out. We’d estimate the music festival, reusable
past parent – both Indian and interna- happy just rolling on. Were numbers anywhere between bottles were sold with plenty
company Only tional – where there was they indifferent to the past 20,000 to 30,000 coming in more water filling stations,
Much Louder’s barely any before. (even as more news of OML to catch acts across six stages in a bid to reduce waste
dented reputation 10 years, many mem- founder and former Week- for six hours of music and generation, something they
ories and a few impor- ender festival director Vijay comedy. already partner with waste
By A NUR AG TAGAT
tant #MeToo-related Nair’s work with New Delhi’s While the 5 Star Ke management company
exposés later, one would have Aam Aadmi Party came up)? Lolstars comedy stage was Skrap to enforce. As far
VIKRAM CHANDRASHEKHAR
perhaps expected the biggest Or were they all right to slap a separate area that drew a as safety goes, security
blowout yet for their Pune on a band-aid over what was full crowd most times, the remained tight, with CCTV
edition, which took place at the least a stab wound? other visible installment cameras placed at the left
between November 29th At the festival, these were was a booth that simply and right of the stage, to
and December 1st at Ma- clearly questions that a very said, “Wanna Talk?” in a bid regularly scan the crowd.

DAY 1: one of the most unconven- from Kerala band Cut A they had no issues drawing
AN EVEN FLOW
tional live sets we’ve seen – Vibe, electronic music fave a crowd with pop-informed
jumping from film songs like and Pune artist Ritviz closed rock songs like “Love Will
OF GENRES “Adiye” to lo-fi R&B/hip-hop

from his album Entropy and
the Breezer Vivid stage, that
blasted bass and low-end to
Set You Free,” their cover of
Kygo’s “Raging” and staples
A total capital takeover bai’s Azamaan Hoyvoy at the earlier heart-wrenching a seismic amount. that set plenty of phone
at the Casa Bacardi and Gaana stage and a perfect compositions like “Broth- Irish rock band Kod- cameras in the air, including
Bacardi Arena stages took sundowner set by Bengaluru er.” While the Gaana stage aline were competing for “High Hopes,” “ All I Want”
place in the first half of day alternative act Black Letters, closed with feel-good rock space with Ritviz, although and “Follow Your Fire.”
one – featuring wavy yet who had just released their
meandering dream-pop from sparkling, electronic-leaning Irish rock band
Dee En, while prog/jazz band album Still As You a few Kodaline live
at Bacardi NH7
Shorthand ( joined by prolific days prior. While Swarath- Weekender, Pune.
drummer Suyash Gabri- ma entertained at the Doers
el) amped up proceedings Club, their Bengaluru coun-
with songs like “Midnight terparts in psychedelic rock
Traffic.” Over at The Doers band Parvaaz also promot-
Club stage, seasoned rockers ed their recently released
Faridkot brought out dark album Kun, although they
prog vibes as well, while also did have a few live mix
dipping into favorites like issues to clear up before they
“Laila” and “Subah.” Back at got on their way through
the Bacardi Arena, instru- songs like “Marika” at the
mental band Submarine Casa Bacardi stage.
In Space were delivering a Their performance was
stand-out performance that preceded by Chennai/Los
shifted moods and sounds Angeles artist Sid Sriram,
with ace dexterity. while not in the best form
The easygoing vibes vocally, was certainly
were also supplied by Mum- hellbent on raging through
FROM TOP: JISHNU CHAKRABORTY; AGNIPRAVA NATH
Chennai/Los Angeles artist

Sid Sriram live at Bacardi
NH7 Weekender, Pune.

DAY 2:
ALL THINGS HEAVY

It was after at least four years brutal death metallers Gutslit) recent years to raise hell at brought forth a barrage of draw remained Opeth, arriv-
that Bacardi NH7 Weekender and Sunneith Revankar (from Weekender, their brand of bass and electro-punk for ing in India on the back of
was putting its faith back in Undying Inc. and The Silent brutal death metal heightened their international debut, their latest album In Cauda
metal in a big way, program- Offensive), Devoid launched by not just Kaushal L.S. on which was something of a Venenum. While it wasn’t
ming the most number of a great comeback, mobilizing vocals, but also a cameo from transitory slot before headlin- the best sequenced setlist,
heavy acts in a day. While pop the moshpits for the rest of the Barve on songs like “Eviscer- ers, Swedish prog band Opeth fans were clearly overjoyed
crooner Arunaja warmed up day. Nepal’s Underside proved ating The Stillborn,” amidst closed day two. for the Swedish songs on
the Casa Bacardi stage with they were one of the most party poppers, snow spray Besides the heavy stuff, their new record as well as
ballads and The Koniac Net important bands in South East and toilet paper rolls flying hip-hop titan J. Cole’s label can’t-fail early hits like the
more or less played it safe Asia right now by performing around. Dreamville showcased rap ballad “Hope Leaves” and the
with easygoing indie material unflinchingly modern metal at Also following a new it- acts like Cozz and Earthgang prog death-exploring “De-
from their 2019 album They the Bacardi Arena, including eration of sorts were Mumbai at the Breezer Vivid stage, liverance.” Frontman Mikael
Finally Herd Us (only bring- songs like “Disconnect,” “Sky metallers Bhayanak Maut, de- which had a sizable number Akerfeldt was at his comedic
ing the heavy for the last two Burial” and a cover of Slip- buting live with vocalist Aman of people in disbelief, perhaps best between songs, playing
songs) at the Bacardi Arena, knot’s “Surfacing.” Virdi (from Pune metallers thinking that J. Cole himself up banter about Indian food
things picked up around 4:30 Gutslit were about to Noiseware). It was business was going to show up. Appear and his bowel moments,
pm when Mumbai thrash/ level up as well, even though as usual for BM, who ran he did not, but Dreamville’s completing 30 years as a
death metallers Devoid played their lineup had changed once through songs like “All Glory buoyant set perhaps sets the band and how he doesn’t like
their first show in nearly four again. With Venkatraman to the Beard,” “Ranti Nasha,” bar for a future performance. hip-hop much, but he did
years. taking over from Prateek “Pindakaas” and “Ungentle” Afrobeat band Kokoroko have a rap project with fellow
Aided by guest spots from Rajagopal, the band became with total intensity. London brought the feel-good vibes Swedes Katatonia frontman
Aditya Barve (formerly of the most extreme band in grime/punk trio Pengshui at the Doers Club, but the big Jonas Renkse.
JISHNU CHAKRABORTY
Swedish prog
band Opeth live
at Bacardi NH7
Weekender, Pune.

Bengaluru hip-hop artist
HanuMankind at Bacardi
NH7 Weekender, Pune.
DAY 3:
THE PARTY ROLLS ON

With most of the heavy there was nearly a club-vibe It was a one-man show
music out of the way, the cutting through the festival, for Nick Murphy fka Chet
final day of Weekender heavy on four-on-the-floor Faker at the Bacardi Arena,
opened with carefree and beats, sparkling synth and who came out with little
laidback sets from Mumbai high energy buildups. This announcement, clad in a
band Water and Rum at the was juxtaposed with the yellow kurta, tikka on his
Gaana stage, plus New Delhi well-crafted, somewhat forehead and a garland
artist Ditty at the Doers Club low-key set from producer, around his neck. It’s one of
and Chennai artist JBabe pianist and keyboardist those things you might see
at the Casa Bacardi stage. Sandunes, who performed with an airport greeting,
Singer-producer duo Kavya her piano-centric set Hand but the platinum selling
x Chaz picked up the tempo of Thought, that leaned on Aussie singer-songwriter
over at the Bacardi Arena, electronic, classical and was clearly in the process
but it was Bengaluru artist everything in between to a of becoming an Indophile.
HanuMankind and his live patient audience. Running through a concise
band who impressed most Attendees were certainly set of songs like “Gold,”
with his indefatigable flow more hyped to catch fu- “1998” and “Talk Is Cheap,”
and songs off his upcoming sion-leaning rock artists like the one-man show only
EP Kalari. Mumbai crew Anand Bhaskar Collective briefly broke into a duo
Swadesi took over from and Job Kurian at the Gaana thanks to tabla artist Dr.
thereon, also performing a stage. It was a fitting segue Aneesh Pradhan stepping
live set of material from their for the veteran voice of A. in for an impromptu jam
upcoming album Chetavani. Hariharan to take over at the of sorts, one that cemented
It was a mood-changer Doers Club with his sublime Murphy’s newfound love
of sorts with their brand repertoire of pop, film music for India.
of socially-conscious, playback and even devotion- While there are several
take-no-prisoners style of al songs. music festivals up and
hip-hop, while New Delhi act Over at the Breezer running successful, few
Fopchu were joined by vocal- Vivid stage, live bands were have the legacy status that
ist-guitarist Sanchal Malhar the staple for rappers like Bacardi NH7 Weekender
(from rock band Superfuzz) Kaam Bhaari and Brodha V, has attained. A go-to
to bring the dance-y mood who had everyone mov- destination of good times
back at the Doers Club. ing, followed by a more despite all the murkiness
THE CLIQUE PHOTOGRAPHY
Between Israeli trio arena-size presentation of that has reportedly

Garden City Movement, New choreographed movements transpired behind the
Delhi’s hypnotic produc- and confetti shots during scenes, the popularity of
er-singer Lifafa and sea- hip-hop artist Raja Kumari’s the festival remains largely
soned DJ-producer BLOT!, closing set. unhindered.


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
R
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 Town-
shend of Daltrey. Townshend, gangly and hunched, his
angular face having grown into his long nose, sits in a Dallas Ritz-Carl-
ton 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 sing-
er 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.” Roger
Townshend
and Daltrey in
September
PHOTOGR A PHS BY DEV IN YA LKIN
WHO BY FIRE
Daltrey and Pete Townshend have known each Daltrey and Townshend grew up in the same Townshend took on his bass player first. “John’s
other for 60 years. They tolerate each other. West London area, but Daltrey claims he’s hard- bass sound was like a Messiaen organ,” he says,
Daltrey and Townshend have a new album, sim- scrabble while Townshend is a poseur. “Well, I’m waving his angular limbs. “Every note, every har-
ply called Who. It’s only the second album from the Shepherd’s Bush, and he’s Ealing middle class,” monic in the sky. When he passed away and I did
band in 37 years. Through the magic of modern says Daltrey. (Their homes were about 300 yards the first few shows without him, with Pino [Pal-
technology, Daltrey and Townshend recorded it apart.) Sure, but what about Townshend’s solo ladino] on bass, he was playing without all that
earlier this year in London and Los Angeles with- song “White City Fighting,” talking about all the stuff. . . . I said, ‘Wow, I have a job.’ ”
out ever being in the same room. (Townshend says scrapes and bloodshed he got into as a kid? Dal- He was not finished. Moon is an easier target;
they were once in the same building. Daltrey isn’t trey smiles. “Well, he likes to think he did.” he once passed out during a 1970s show in San
so sure.) Townshend wrote and recorded demos On it goes. Francisco, forcing the band to pull a drummer
and sent them to the singer. During recording, “We ended up living parallel lives,” says Town- out of the crowd. “With Keith, my job was keep-
they communicated through their individual per- shend. It’s true. Today, Roger Daltrey, for reasons ing time, because he didn’t do that,” says Town-
sonal producers, both with the first name David, unknown, has checked out of the Ritz-Carlton and shend. “So when he passed away, it was like, ‘Oh,
which must have been confusing. moved to another five-star place 100 yards away. I don’t have to keep time anymore.’ ”
Separately, Daltrey and Townshend express ex- Now, a traffic light and a Shake Shack separate the The word “happy” doesn’t really apply to some-
citement for the new songs. (Daltrey told me it’s two men. one as complex as Townshend. Yet there seems
the Who’s best work since Quadrophenia.) They’re to be a sense of contentment brought on by his
I
back on the road, playing with a 48-piece orches- traveled to london, Dallas, and the Hol- 20-year relationship with the composer Rachel
tra. The refrain I heard from multiple learned at- lywood Bowl to see and talk with the Who. Fuller. Still, he is fragile, and the death in July
tendants of the tour was “Wow, that show was way It gave me plenty of time to think about of his guitar tech of 40 years, Alan Rogan, left
better than it had any right to be.” Townshend and Daltrey. One concept kept him in a bad place. (He described Rogan as “my
The same can be said for the record. Daltrey’s coming back to me in Economy Plus: They give guitar tech, friend, savior, and good buddy.”) “I
weary vocals, particularly on the back half, are zero fucks. This should not be mistaken for not was a fucking mess,” says Townshend. “Usually,
marvelous, and Townshend’s ability to write an giving a shit. They still share a devotion to their I’m so unaffected by death. My mother, father,
anthemic earworm remains intact. It’s enough to music and a caring for their careers that some Keith Moon. Maybe because he was in a hospi-
make you regret all the music the two have not rock-veterans-turned-Vegas-acts long ago aban- tal bed and fighting back so hard. When he final-
made together over the past 30 years. doned. ly passed, I just thought, ‘Fuck.’ ”
But there is a reason for the long breaks. The But you have to be realistic. If you view He is alternately defiant and cheeky. I ask if he
two remain detached, if not estranged, from each their new album and tour as Daltrey & Town- had left instructions on how to handle his volu-
other. Townshend, 74, is engaged in modern music shend Play the Hits & a Couple of New Ones, minous archives and unfinished projects after he
and still capable of jackjawing a listener into sub- their shows can be seen as a fuck-you to musi- is gone. He leaned in close and quipped, “I’d real-
mission about any subject from climate crisis to cal fashion and Father Time. If you see this as a ly like to finish them.”
the shelf life of teen idols. Daltrey? At 75, he’s continuation of the Who the way your teen self Townshend is a man
happy to churn out low-key solo albums and live or your father knew them, you’re going to be dis- who has suffered and has
offline on his country estate. appointed. “There’s turned that suffering into
At a show in L.A., Daltrey chatted with a sound Keith Moon, the band’s original drummer, died a lot of great art. He was left by
guy about his vocals while Townshend joked with in 1978, and in the succeeding years the Who be- his mum to live with a
bassist Jon Button. Whenever one of them hit the came less a creative enterprise and more a carni-
people who mentally deteriorating
other’s magnetic field, they bounced away. They val of commerce, only accentuated after bassist don’t like grandma for two years.
never made eye contact. It reminded me of when John Entwistle’s death in a Vegas hotel room in it when As a young boy, and then
an ex-girlfriend and I worked together and made 2002. There have been more farewell tours than at around age 11, he was
ostentatious attempts to avoid each other at holi- new records.
I say it,” sexually abused. Seventy
day parties. Townshend says it best: “We’re not a band Townshend years later, he is still star-
Things don’t change that much when the anymore. There’s a lot of people who don’t like it says, “but ing at the scars. His awak-
lights go up. “If you watch Roger onstage, he goes when I say it, but we’re just not a fucking band. ening has been incremen-
through a lot of visual phases,” says Townshend. Even when we were, I used to sit there think-
the Who tal. During a rambling
“Sometimes, he can’t stop himself looking over at ing, ‘This is a fucking waste of time. Take 26 be- are just intro for the 1970 Live at
me. It’s irritation.” He arches his eyebrows. “It’s ir- cause Keith Moon has had one glass of brandy too not a band Leeds version of “A Quick
ritation that I’m even there.” many.’ ” You shouldn’t be sentimental. God knows One, While He’s Away,” a
Daltrey is also unsatisfied. He wants to change Townshend is not.
anymore.” song about a young girl
the set list, maybe add some lesser-known songs, Well, sometimes he is. Over the years, Town- molested by a train engi-
but says it is a no-go. “Pete doesn’t remember shend has lamented the long-gone Moon, and neer, Townshend said, “John Entwistle plays the
words much,” says Daltrey, “and he doesn’t remem- after Entwistle’s death, Townshend said, “With- engine driver, and I play the Girl Guide.” It wasn’t
PREVIOUS SPREAD: GROOMING BY TODD HARRIS FOR SALLY HARLOR

ber chord shapes, and he finds it hard to change out him, I wouldn’t be here. . . . When I did look a joke. Years later, Townshend admitted similar
the show on the road.” over and he wasn’t there, I wanted to die.” activities happened to him while in his grand-
Later, Daltrey talks about the role he has played Today, he’s feeling less charitable. The Who’s mother’s care. “I’m not angry about it,” he says.
in Townshend’s songwriting. Since 1964, Townshend current shows feature two video screens full of “But I can’t process it. I did three years of serious
has been the band’s primary songwriter, and his cre- vintage shots of mad, mad Moon and Entwistle therapy, and I’ve done loads of counseling and
ative dominance has tended to overshadow Daltrey’s in his bemused and haunting solitude. I asked therapeutic work since.” It has helped, but not
contributions. Townshend might have been an edi- Townshend if he ever got nostalgic looking up at enough.
tor at Faber & Faber, but Daltrey has been his edi- the pictures of his fallen bandmates. He snorted That ache has been processed through heart-
tor. Well, according to Daltrey. On the new record, like an old horse. breaking songs about maladjusted characters;
Daltrey toned down what he saw as irresponsible “It’s not going to make Who fans very happy, namely the title character in Tommy and the
political rhetoric, deleted a rap, and changed pro- but thank God they’re gone.” Mod boy Jimmy in Quadrophenia. Still, Town-
nouns. Now, I ask if he thinks he should have gotten Because? shend’s ability to turn horror into magic doesn’t
more songwriting credits over the band’s half-centu- “Because they were fucking difficult to play change his reality. He tells me about a friend who
ry history. “I wrote all the ad-libs,” says Daltrey with with. They never, ever managed to create bands was kidnapped and sexually abused as a boy. A
a smile. “I should have, but I can’t be bothered to for themselves. I think my musical discipline, my few years ago, the Who were doing a Tommy
make a fuss about it now. It’s fucking bollocks.” Dal- musical efficiency as a rhythm player, held the fundraiser show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
trey trails off. “If he needs the money...” band together.” Townshend could see his friend in the front rows.

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 adoles-
cence. “Living stone-cold sober, there’s no es-
cape,” says Townshend.
Today, Townshend looks for nonalcoholic es-
capes. “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 wor-
ries 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 fuck-
ing with me?’ ”
R
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 mer-
rie 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 project-
ing 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 Dal-
trey, 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 shoul-
der that. I’m good at it.”
Daltrey has also had something that either
When it came time for him to sing Tom- Onstage, was troubled: “I worry that little Greta eluded or did not appeal to the other Who mem-
my’s “The Acid Queen,” told from the September. The — I don’t want to patronize her, be- bers: a domestic life. (Townshend didn’t settle
viewpoint of a female abuser, he lost it. Who’s current tour cause she’s so fucking great — will be down until he approached 60.) Daltrey has been
includes a 48-piece
“I just blew the whole show,” remembers pretty pissed off.” with his wife, Heather, for 50 years, pledging fi-
orchestra.
Townshend. “It’s on TV, you can see it. I Townshend relates her work to his delity, when the band was off the road, at least.
look like I’m in pain.” involvement in the 1960s Ban the It’s worked for them while providing more heirs.
He’s hardly sung “Acid Queen” since. The lin- Bomb movement and how the Cuban missile cri- (Daltrey has three children with Heather; one
gering wounds have left Townshend a volatile sis came and went and London was still there. with his first wife, Jackie; and four out of wed-
mixture of empathy and cynicism. “Won’t Get It left Townshend wondering what the point lock, three of whom he fathered in the Sixties
DEVIN YALKIN
Fooled Again” is an anthem against idealism that was. “She says, ‘You stole my childhood.’ Actual- but didn’t learn about until middle age.) Almost
still drives him. Teen activist Greta Thunberg had ly, she’s stealing her childhood. That’s the thing, 50 years ago, they bought Holmhurst Manor, a
been making the rounds when we talked, and he whether or not we steal our own childhoods by 400-year-old Jacobean mansion in East Sussex.

THE WHO the internet coming. I knew music was going down And then Townshend laughs.
the tubes, and they didn’t.”
I
Daltrey has done a lot of work on the house, and it go to say hello to Daltrey at the end of the
T
has kept him sane. he typical combination of hope and disgust Hollywood Bowl rehearsal where the two
“It saved me,” says Daltrey. While he enjoyed the is present in Daltrey and Townshend’s new of them avoided acknowledging each other’s
rock lifestyle for a while, he was ready to get out be- work. There was a period when Townshend existence. He’s wearing the same blue cargo shorts
fore he was 30. “When you’re young, it was part of a wondered if the record would happen at all; after he as in Dallas. The band had recently canceled
movement. It felt really good, but I couldn’t wait to sent Daltrey the demos, it was months before Daltrey some gigs after Daltrey’s voice gave out in
get out of it.” relayed his thoughts. Daltrey says there was a good Houston. I ask how his voice was holding up. He
Daltrey got into film. (He starred in Tommy and reason for the radio silence: “These are really great stops short.
some other less-notable movies.) But he found that songs, but what do I tell him? It sounds to me like a “It wasn’t my voice,” Daltrey says coldly. “It was
to be just a different type of nightmare. “I felt like a really great Pete Townshend solo album. What can I allergies.” After I apologize for the misunderstand-
drowning penguin. I didn’t like being fawned over. do in these to make them better?” ing, he smiles. He points at the orchestra, which in-
I didn’t like being pulled at. We’d been pulled at all Townshend rolls his eyes about this. Apparent- cludes a golden harp and a cymbals guy. He gestures
our lives.” ly, Daltrey had told a version of the story from the with his hands: “You can have all this.” He then
He tries to set a good example for the young folks. stage earlier in the tour. “He hadn’t actually real- touches his throat. “But without this, you have
A few years ago, he did a charity gig with Babysham- ly listened to it, I don’t think,” says Townshend with nothing.” He then disappears stage-right with a cup
bles’ Pete Doherty, a puckish songwriter in the Town- a chuckle. of tea.
shend tradition and a longtime heroin addict. Daltrey The album dares you to push “stop” in the first The show that night was a blast if you took to
tried to share a few stories of friends lost and lives ru- 10 seconds. “All This Music Must Fade” begins with heart Townshend’s words that they were no longer a
ined by hard drugs. Doherty was not receptive. Daltrey growling, “I don’t care/I know you’re gonna band. Middle-aged couples ate picnic baskets full of
“You might as well talk to the wall,” says Daltrey hate this song.” “I hated it at first,” says Daltrey. “But carb-free meals and drank champagne that retailed
with a shrug. And then he thought again. Doherty is it’s such a catchy song.” He’s clearly proud of his ed- for nearly $200 in the Hollywood Bowl concession
still with us. “You only need a few words to go in that iting job. “On the demo, he had some rapping on stand. We were half a century and a few tax brack-
get thought about later on. You just start the key in it. Well, no fucking way I’m going to rap. No way. ets removed from 1970 and the Leeds University
the lock.” Let the youngsters wear those clothes.” When I men- Refectory. The set flowed beautifully, with Town-
tion to Townshend that the song was a tough entry shend’s brother Simon on guitar and drummer Zak
W
hile daltrey is happily living the undis- into the album, he tartly replies, “It’s not a song for Starkey maintaining a controlled-frenzy version of
covered life, Townshend continues to pick the listener, it’s a song for another songwriter.” He the Moon style. Still, there was never any chance
over the bones of his past. And it no lon- mentions a current song goddess’s battles to copy- that your ears would bleed.
ger is only in verse. He has just published an operatic right words and album titles. “Watching Taylor Swift Some decisions were questionable: Did “Emi-
novel, called The Age of Anxiety, after years of delays. go through what she’s putting herself through at nence Front” really need a giant harp? Liam Galla-
(Like Townshend’s never-completed and now mid- the moment is heartbreaking. She doesn’t own the gher, the ex-Oasis frontman and the show’s opening
dle-aged Lifehouse project, the book is intended to be fucking music. She doesn’t own the words. I think act, watched from the side of the stage. He had his
part of a larger multimedia project.) she has a financial right to it, but she shouldn’t arm around his son Gene, a young musician. They
There’s a character in the novel named Louis. He screw herself up about this stuff. It’s just songs, for both wore parkas despite the October heat. Galla-
is an art dealer who happens to be the exact age as fuck’s sake.” gher was coaching his boy, pointing out things he
Townshend. He is accused of a ghastly sex crime on The best track is “Street Song,” about the Grenfell could learn from his dad’s idols. They shook their
a drugged-out teenager that he may or may not have Tower fire in London that killed 72 people in 2017. heads in unison like Wayne and Garth and grinned
committed. It’s a stark echo of a deeply painful mo- Daltrey wouldn’t sing the original words: “It had a lot like kids on Christmas Day as Daltrey pulled off his
ment. In 2003, Townshend was arrested for paying of political lyrics that kind of pointed fingers, and I millionth mic toss.
to access a child-pornography site. He has always thought, ‘This is not the time to point fingers until the And our two friends? It was as advertised.
claimed that he was compiling evidence to go after inquiry is over and you can make a judgment along 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
child-sex-ring runners and the banks that processed what really, really happened.’ ” Townshend conced- security guards manhandling fans who had
their transactions. Daltrey valiantly came to his de- ed, and Daltrey’s anguished vocal is among the more already qualified for their AARP cards. “Usually, I’m
fense, and eventually Townshend wasn’t charged with moving performances of his career. the one Pete is mad at,” joked Daltrey. Townshend
any crime. Rather than leave that alone, Townshend “I was thinking, ‘Well, this is great, because I’m shot him a look. “Uh-oh,” said Daltrey. “I’m in the
has published a novel in which he dares readers to singing this,’ ” says Townshend with a hint of envy. doghouse.”
connect the dots. “And suddenly he delivered this killer vocal for it.” At times, Townshend’s duck walk and windmill-
“It made it feel real to me,” says Townshend in a Townshend offers a historical anecdote as explana- ing threatened to collide with Daltrey’s theatrics,
quiet voice. He then re-enters his prideful zone: “But tion for why he and Daltrey have been such a mag- but at the end of each song they returned to their
the interesting thing about that was I anticipated the nificent if excruciating pairing. “When we recorded own corners. Finally, the orchestra left the stage,
MeToo movement. Louis is not based really on me, Quadrophenia . . . this is brutal, but I didn’t care what as did the rest of the band. It was just Daltrey and
but there will be me in there somewhere.” Roger thought,” says Townshend. “And he did a ver- Townshend to perform “Won’t Get Fooled Again,”
The novel also features a rock star who sells his sion of ‘Love Reign O’er Me,’ which was like a wail- still the best argument against idealism in the an-
catalog to a truck company, allowing him to retire ing banshee scream. I turned to my engineer Ron Ne- nals of Western civilization. As the only two hu-
and regroup his life. This one is easy: Townshend vison and said, ‘This is a kid on a rock. He’s wet, he’s mans on the stage, they had to actually look at each
has taken crap for years for licensing Who songs cold. He’s had the most awful day of his life. Every- other.
to CSI, truck manufacturers, and other companies. thing’s gone. The last thing he’s going to do is scream Townshend had his doubts about the acoustic ap-
(Baseball is playing in the background while we talk, out. He’s going to whimper.’ ” proach. “It feels like we’re throwing away one of the
and the synth opening of “Baba O’Riley” is pushing Nevison urged him to give it another listen. great, great pinions of anthemic rock,” he told me
T-Mobile between innings.) He points out how the “Roger was in a booth, I couldn’t see him,” says before the show. “It’s a song that, on its own, if we
band was ripped off for its first 20 years and he had Townshend. “I was hearing it from the mixing desk. both just stood there like vegetables, would fill the
to make up for lost time. Today, he can’t be bothered. And I listened back, and I thought, ‘Fuck. He’s room and do the job.”
“I never gave a shit,” says Townshend. “I’ve always nailed it. He’s nailed it, because this is an inter- Daltrey started it stomping out a beat. Town-
said the composer is king. It’s my music, not yours.” nal voice.’ ” shend chimed in with some sublime strumming.
He doesn’t care if some musicians think he’s a sell- Townshend smiles and throws up his hands. The song still rose to a crescendo even if it was one
out. “I knew that in the end they would be doing the “He becomes an actor. It’s almost like he’s a late-Fif- that the crowd had heard a thousand times already.
same thing,” says Townshend. “One other difference ties, early-Sixties Method actor, who when you say, Then Daltrey growled.
between me and the Lou Reed and Iggy Pop smart- ‘Here’s the script,’ he goes, ‘Oh, uh . . .’ and the directors Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
alecks of the New York art scene is that I fucking saw go, ‘For fuck’s sake, just say the words.’ ” 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
Nobody ever managed

to try it just once. If you
try it once, you’ll want
5
to do it again. Don’t
experiment with it. It’s
like experimenting with
a nightmare. The feeling
3
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,
8
and it slowed it down
for a minute and then
brought its own pain,
1. Grimes which was even bigger.
“My Name Is Dark” I’ve been in a number
Every Grimes song is its of Bay Area bands, but I
own mystery. On her latest, don’t know how to man-
she follows a jagged guitar age the relationships
into an electro-pop hall 6. Koffee
with other band mem-
of mirrors, as her helium feat. Gunna bers. I know you’ve had
vocals evoke death, drugs, 4. Billie Eilish bit of sunburned stoner-
“W” experiences along those
and a girl who plays with psych.
“Everything I Wanted” Koffee, a Jamaican singer lines. Any advice?
fire. Somehow, it comes Music’s biggest break- who is nominated for a Best —Curt Olsen, CA
out hum-along catchy — through pop artist caps off Reggae Album Grammy, 9. PartyNextDoor
You’re asking the wrong
her own flavor of black her massive year with one rides a modern digital beat feat. Drake guy! But the key is to be
bubblegum. of her most somberly lovely on the bubbly “W,” while “Loyal” careful to pick who you
songs, a soft-goth piano radiating a positivity that Mumbly Canadian crooner
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: KENNETH CAPPELLO; MEDIAPUNCH/SHUTTERSTOCK; MATT BARON/

play with. There’s two
2. The Weeknd ballad that creeps along at recalls the Bob Marley-es- PartyNextDoor is like kinds of relationships:
“Blinding Lights” an elegant slink, hungering que optimism of reggae’s Drake, if he was 50 competitive and
Abel Tesfaye emerges from for love and connection golden age. times more Drake. collaborative. I’ve been
his sepulchral R&B pain cave amid the Usually his stuff is darkly in both. CSNY was
for some sleek, sinewy New gilded aloneness of fame. 7. Cornershop horny, but PND’s new very competitive, and
Wave kicks, like he topped “No Rock: Save in Roll” one is friendly and fun, collaborative is what I
off a recent late night zoning 5. Khruangbin In the Nineties, Cornershop’s swimming in tropical have now with my band.
out to Human League and and Leon Tjinder Singh linked Brit pop vibes, elegiac Auto-Tune, Either way, you have to SHUTTERSTOCK; POONEH GHANA; ALBERTO VAN STOKKUM
Berlin in the Uber home. and a crush
Bridges to his South Asian roots. He’s
he doesn’t want to end.
work at it. You can’t let
back for the age of Brexit, your ego get in the way.
“Texas Sun”
3. Ozuna laying claim to English iden- That’s what I did over
Texas retro-soulman Leon
feat. Willy Bridges got together
tity over a stanky Stones riff. 10. Emily Yacina and over again. Treat the
relationship like
“Temporal” with funky Houston trio “Arcades & Highways”
Puerto Rican crooner Ozuna Khruangbin for a great new 8. Hinds A sweet secret-spilling
it’s precious.
specializes in Latin trap EP titled Texas Sun; its title “Riding Solo” bedroom-pop tune about a
and reggaeton. So this track is this dusty, medita- Spanish garage band Hinds brand-new love. It’s GOT A QUESTION
genre-stretching collab with tive jam. Bridges’ singing spiked low-fi naiveté with a the cute details (like the FOR CROZ?
singer Willy is a real treat — suggests Sam Cooke shot of sassy girl- gang way Yacina stops midsong Email AskCroz@
a sunny wandering into a spaghetti toughness on their first two just to call her dad) Rollingstone.com
detour into Jamaican Western as his guitar LPs. “Riding Solo” goes that make this such
lovers rock, perfect for shimmers like a mirage on a hard on their sad-bored a wonderful couple of
nicing up winter nights. desert road. side, making for a delicious minutes to live in.

Music
HARRY’S BIG
BREAKUP
ADVENTURE
The English pop
star makes retro-
rock 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 outstand-
ing 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 dream-
ing, 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 Di-
rection heartthrob believably
staked his claim to Seventies
rock-star tradition. But Fine
Line is not exactly the
ILLUSTRATION BY
Bijou Karman
Reviews Music
HARRY ST YLES
magical mystery tour one
might have assumed he’d set
Quick Hits
Ten new albums you need to know about now
his sights on this time out. Like
his brilliant uniform of flowing,
high-waisted trousers and
shagadelic chest-baring shirts, Beach Slang PUNK FUN Beach Slang’s James Alex re-
ups the Replacements’ underdog thrash
it’s a streamlined, party-ready,
primary-colors take on the
The Deadbeat Bang
of Heartbreak City
for a new generation, and he’s so on
point, the ‘Mats’ Tommy Stinson plays
★★★★★
enduring concept of the rock & Bridge 9 bass on “Tommy in the 80’s.”
roll starman. With short-story
lyrics about a family man’s
life of quiet desperation and R&B TREAT Whether she’s singing like a
Tinashe soulful thrush, rapping in a Migos flow,
a six-minute build to wailing-
guitar drama, “She” might be Songs for You
Tinashe Music
or chanting over a house beat, the risk-
taking singer masterfully draws you into
★★★ ★
the closest thing here to a “Sign her romantic pleasures and anxieties.
of the Times”-style homage to
Bowie and the Beatles. Usually,
the Sixties and Seventies signi- SUBTLE JAMS This breakout South Caro-
Marcus King linian is a guitar firebrand and an able soul
fiers sprinkled throughout the
album — a little organ, some El Dorado shouter who cares about rhythmic intrica-
cy more than big solos, at times suggest-
★★★ ★
clav, and even George Harrison Fantasy
ing an Allmans session at Hi Records.
specials like electric sitar and
sarangi — are Vitamixed into
pop-rock smoothies you can DOWN-HOME EMO Evan Stephens Hall
Pinegrove writes poetic, diary-ish lyrics, and the
dance to, like the strutting
“Adore You” and soulful “Lights Marigold rest of the band burnishes them in a
sound that’s like the Promise Ring gone
★★★ ★
Up.” Rough Trade
country, and heartwarmingly so.
Aided by genre-fluid
songwriters like Jeff Bhasker,
Amy Allen, and Greg Kurstin, BASEMENT SOUL The Atlanta band’s
Algiers
Styles is also now mining some retro R&B can feel a little murky, sub-
rich millennial veins as well.
Busy and beachy, “Sunflower,
There Is No Year
Matador
merging singer Franklin James Fisher in
sonic shadow — but when Algiers crank
★★★ ★
it up, their third album can be a blast.
Vol. 6” could sit next to Vam-
pire Weekend on any playlist.
The title track emerges from TALKIN’ AGAIN A posthumous LP from the
Harry Nilsson brilliant Seventies pop oddball, recorded
a darkly beautiful, Bon Iver-like
haze into a big, semi-hopeful, Losst and Founnd in the Eighties, and before his death in
1994; his once-golden voice is gravelly
★★★★★
brass-and-martial-drums Omnivore
and weathered, but the genius still flashes.
finish; with a measure of un-
certainty fitting the close of this
chaotic decade, Styles promises REGGAETON IN SPACE Puerto Rican star
“We’ll be all right.” Ozuna Ozuna’s latest has a so-so sci-fi concept
That “we,” as his fans will
surely speculate, may be Styles
Nibiru and cameos from Rae Sremmurd’s Swae
Lee and Diddy. Its best moments see him
★★★★★
Aura Music
deliver emotional dancer-floor thrills.
and his ex, the French model
Camille Rowe. On “Cherry,” he
sings, “I just miss your accent SERIOUS COUNTRY The closest thing
and your friends.” But Styles Little Big Town Nashville has to a Fleetwood Mac tango
★★★★★
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: ADRIÁN MONROY/MEDIOS Y MEDIA/GETTY IMAGES;

through a dark night of the soul on a so-
sets himself apart from earlier
rock gods with the gentlemanly
Nightfall phisticated, personal set. Highlight: “The
JOHN SHEARER/ACMA2019/GETTY IMAGES; R. DIAMOND/GETTY IMAGES;

Capitol
Daughters,” about sexist double standards.
EARL GIBSON III/GETTY IMAGES; MELANIE LEMAHIEU/SHUTTERSTOCK

way he delivers his broken-
hearted blues. “I’m just an
arrogant son of a bitch who . . . And You Will Know Us NINETIES NOISE Trail of Dead formed in
can’t admit when he’s sorry,” he By Our Trail of Dead 1994; their 10th album sounds as though
confesses in the syncopated X: The Godless Void they had been sitting on it since then,
showing off a total mastery of their big
★★★★★
slow burner “To Be So Lonely.” and Other Stories Texan fusion of grunge and emo.
In the otherwise forgettable Dine Alone
ballad “Falling,” he channels

every woman hounded by a Blake Shelton SAME OL’ VOICE The brooding title track
needy guy (or worse), asking, on this mix of recent hits and new material
“What if I’m someone I don’t
want around?” If there’s a
Fully Loaded:
God’s Country
is one of Shelton’s best. But a lot of the
set (including the Trace Adkins collab “Hell
★★ ★★
nontoxic masculinity, Styles Warner Bros.
Right”) is by-the-numbers party country.
just might’ve found it. And
that’s the kind of magic CONTRIBUTORS: JON DOLAN, JON FREEMAN, KORY GROW, WILL HERMES, ANGIE MARTOCCIO, GARY SUAREZ
mushrooms can’t buy.
★★★★★ Classic | ★★★★ Excellent | ★★★ Good | ★★ Fair | ★ Poor RATINGS ARE SUPERVISED BY THE EDITORS OF ROLLING STONE. January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 73

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> ISSUE 00144 > JANUARY 2020

PRABH DEEPTHE POLITICS IN HIS HIP-HOP

56 Lucky Ali and Israeli

’34 Q&A: H.E.R.

January 2020 | Rolling Stone India |3

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Nirmika Singh Sean Woods

TRAINEE WRITER Jessica Xalxo

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sunil Sampat,

SENIOR DIGITAL MANAGER Jayesh V. Salvi

ADVERTISING & SALES ROLLING STONE is owned and pub-

Copyright © 2019 by ROLLING STONE LLC.

4 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

> ISSUE 00143 > DECEMBER 2019

Alter Bridge Keep It

A.R.RAHMAN musicians in India

A.R. Rahman: The Mentor

January 2020 | Rolling Stone |5

PHOTOGRAPH BY Cameron Wittig

Rock & Roll

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 9

MILK AND HONEY

ROCK & ROLL CIRCUS

10 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

Mumbai Musicians Randolph

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 11

12 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 13

Australian producer HAAi performing

SPRYK’S debut album Play the Piano

VISUAL SET taposed with rock elements,

BFR SOUND JBABE’S

Peninsula amped things up Natasha Diggs and reggae

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 15

THE TRAX KEPT

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 17

18 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

20 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 21

PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT; SHAMIL TANNA/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

24 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

Follow from teenage wasteland

12. Old Town Road

13. Your Best Ameri-

My favorite song was: “Girl

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 25

Shallow ideas. With “Springsteen,”

FROM TOP: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES; EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION/AP IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

26 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

www.t.me/magzsenglish “What I heard is that

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 27

FROM TOP: RICH FURY/GETTY IMAGES FOR IHEARTMEDIA; STEPHEN LOVEKIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

28 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

every word, carving out a hard it is to give yourself

January 2020 | Rolling Stone | 29

Kanye West 2010

disco flash, guitar-hero swagger, hip-hop.

32 | Rolling Stone | January 2020

“IN ORDER FOR ME to feel confident with

8 “Rolling in the Deep” and