The state of my soul moves to the rhythm of this playlist for the most part (if that makes any sesnse at all ) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2EfP68L8CcZUGw9BLfot8A?si=70b73f5b96964439

Eighteen tracks from a Chicago rapper who once held a world record for speed and spent the rest of his career proving that was the least interesting thing about him. Twista Carl Terrell Mitchell came out of Chicago's West Side in the early nineties as Tung Twista , and got his first real attention by being certified as the fastest rapper in the world — a novelty that could easily have ended him. What saved the career was that the speed turned out to be musical rather than athletic. He does not simply rap quickly; he subdivides the beat into patterns that most rappers never attempt, and he does it while maintaining diction clear enough that the words land. That style — later called chopper — became a whole subgenre, and Chicago and the Midwest are still full of its descendants. The other thing that saved him was taste. His best records are built on soul samples and real singing, and he has always been more interested in warmth than menace. What to listen f...

Twenty tracks from a New Jersey band who started as a jazz group, became one of the great funk outfits, and then wrote the song every wedding on earth plays. Kool & The Gang The story of Kool & The Gang has two almost incompatible halves, and this playlist covers both. They formed in Jersey City in the sixties as a jazz outfit built around the brothers Robert "Kool" Bell and Ronald Bell , and spent the first half of the seventies making some of the hardest instrumental funk anyone recorded. Then, at the end of that decade, they brought in the singer James "J.T." Taylor and the producer Eumir Deodato , and turned into one of the most successful pop groups in the world. Purists tend to prefer the first half. The honest position is that both are excellent, and that very few bands have managed either — let alone both. What to listen for "Summer Madness" is the single best thing here: a 1974 instrumental built around a Moog solo, ...

Forty-nine tracks from a Jamaican singer whose speciality is taking someone else's song and making it permanently his.   Sanchez Sanchez — born Kevin Anthony Jackson — has one of the most recognisable voices in Jamaican music: high, pure, and with a quality of yearning that has made him the island's definitive lovers-rock singer for four decades. His career is built substantially on interpretation. A large part of this playlist consists of readings of American soul and pop songs, recast over Jamaican rhythms, and the reason it works is that he treats each one as a song rather than as a novelty. He is not doing reggae versions; he is singing the song, and the rhythm happens to be Jamaican. He also came from the church and has returned to gospel repeatedly, which explains the particular kind of intensity in the upper part of his range. What to listen for "Brown Eye Girl" and "I Can't Wait" are the dancehall-era records that made him a sta...

Five pieces recorded in two sessions in 1959 by a band that had barely rehearsed them. It remains the best-selling jazz album ever made. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (1959) Kind of Blue is the record that gets bought by people who own no other jazz albums, which has slightly obscured how radical it was. Its innovation was modal playing: rather than improvising over a fast-moving sequence of chords, the musicians were given scales and long stretches of harmonic stillness, and told to find something to say inside them. Davis brought in sketches rather than finished compositions, and most of what is on the record was played by musicians seeing the material for the first time. Nearly everything was a first or second take. The band is the other reason. John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on saxophones, Bill Evans on piano — whose harmonic sensibility shaped the record as much as Davis's — with Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb , and Wynton Kelly playing on one track....

Twenty tracks from the group who gave Philadelphia International its voice and proved that a dance record could be an indictment. The O'Jays The O'Jays formed in Canton, Ohio in the late fifties and spent more than a decade going nowhere before Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff signed them to Philadelphia International in 1972. What followed was one of the great runs in soul music. The line-up that mattered was Eddie Levert , Walter Williams and William Powell , who died in 1977. Levert's voice is the engine — a hard, gospel-derived tenor that can sound like an accusation — and it is what makes the political records work. Because that is the group's real distinction. Gamble and Huff gave them material about corruption, greed, betrayal and Black solidarity, and dressed it in lush orchestration and a dance rhythm, so that records people played at parties were also making arguments. What to listen for "For the Love of Money" is the most famous bass...

Twelve tracks from a group whose drummer stepped out from behind the kit and turned into one of the greatest voices in soul music. Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes The group was named after Harold Melvin , who led it, but the reason anyone remembers it is Teddy Pendergrass — who joined as the drummer, was moved to lead vocals when Melvin heard him singing, and proceeded to deliver a run of performances that reset what a male soul singer could do. Signed to Philadelphia International , they became the vehicle for some of Gamble and Huff's most ambitious writing. Pendergrass left in 1976 for a solo career that made him one of the biggest stars in American music until a car accident in 1982 left him paralysed; he continued recording and died in 2010. The twelve tracks here are essentially the complete case for the group, and there is not a weak one among them. What to listen for "If You Don't Know Me by Now" is the most famous and the most restrained ...

Nine tracks from a band assembled in Germany by American servicemen, fronted by two brothers from Ohio, with songs by an Englishman who would later write for Michael Jackson.   Heatwave Heatwave have one of the most unlikely origin stories in soul music. Johnnie Wilder Jr. was a serviceman from Dayton, Ohio stationed in Germany; he formed a band there, brought in his brother Keith , and recruited members from Britain, Jamaica, Czechoslovakia, Spain and Switzerland. Among them was a keyboard player from Lincolnshire named Rod Temperton , who turned out to be one of the great songwriters of the era. He wrote most of what made Heatwave famous, then left to write "Rock With You" , "Off the Wall" and "Thriller" for Michael Jackson. The band's story turned tragic in 1979 when Johnnie Wilder Jr. was left paralysed by a car accident. He continued to sing and produce from a wheelchair, and died in 2006; Keith Wilder died in 2017. What to liste...

Seventeen tracks from the sweetest-sounding group Philadelphia produced — and a lesson in how much sophistication can hide inside a love song. The Stylistics The Stylistics were built around Russell Thompkins Jr. , whose extraordinarily high, pure falsetto is one of the most identifiable sounds in soul music. What made the group great, though, was the partnership with the producer and arranger Thom Bell . Bell, working with the lyricist Linda Creed , wrote them a run of songs that are considerably more complex than their surfaces suggest. The chord movement is jazz-derived, the orchestrations use French horn, oboe and harpsichord — instruments soul records did not use — and the arrangements are meticulous. The result is music that can be dismissed as sentimental on a casual listen and reveals itself as some of the most carefully constructed popular music of the seventies on a closer one. What to listen for "You Make Me Feel Brand New" is the g...

Ten tracks from a New Jersey vocal group who specialised in a very specific thing: the song that opens with a man talking. The Manhattans The Manhattans formed in Jersey City in the early sixties and worked for more than a decade before their commercial breakthrough. The classic line-up paired the smooth lead of Gerald Alston with the deep spoken introductions of Winfred "Blue" Lovett , and that contrast became their signature. The spoken intro was not an affectation. It is a device from gospel and from the doo-wop era, and in their hands it does something specific: it establishes a situation before the singing begins, so that the song arrives as a response rather than a performance. A remarkable number of their records are effectively short plays. They also had one of the smoothest group blends of the seventies, which is why they thrived on the quiet-storm format that emerged just as they peaked. What to listen for "Kiss and Say Goodbye" is the eno...

Marvin Gaye’s timeless, soul-stirring, intuitively brilliant opus, “What’s Going On?” is what’s happening now . From the tragically beautiful  “Mercy Mercy Me” to the dark & brooding, “Save the Children” (which includes the penetrating lines, “ Who really cares to save a world in despair? There’ll come a time, when the world won’t be singin’..Flowers won’t grow, bells won’t be ringin’…”), you have to agree that this classic recording is still relevant for the simple fact that we still have not learned from our mistakes. Listening to it now can be quite chilling, like an eerie warning from some soul-powered time machine. In 2003, the album was ranked # 6 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of all time. Personally, I would rank it #2 after Bob Marley’s, “ Rastaman Vibration “ .

Ninety-eight tracks across three decades — the longest single-artist collection on this blog, and one of the few catalogues that can sustain it. Common: the long view A ninety-eight track career survey is a serious commitment, and the reason it works for Common is that he has had at least four distinct artistic lives: the nineties Chicago battle rapper, the Soulquarian experimentalist, the mainstream Kanye-era star, and the elder statesman making jazz records and winning Oscars. What connects them is an unusual willingness to be wrong in public and revise. He has written songs recanting positions from earlier songs, and the catalogue reads as an argument with himself conducted over thirty years. This set is best approached as a biography rather than a playlist, and the sequencing rewards that. What to listen for "The Light" is the record that made him famous outside hip-hop — a J Dilla production built on Bobby Caldwell, and one of the great love s...

Nine tracks from a 1988 debut that helped invent a sound and made its teenage maker one of the defining voices of new jack swing.   Al B. Sure!: In Effect Mode (1988) Al B. Sure! arrived at nineteen with an unusual combination: a light, breathy tenor that sounded almost fragile, set against production that was among the hardest in R&B at the time. In Effect Mode was the result, and it was one of the records that established what came to be called new jack swing . The production, largely with Kyle West , is the key. Where earlier R&B had smoothed its drums, this record leaves them exposed and swung — hip-hop rhythm under a singer who was doing something closer to Smokey Robinson than to anything contemporary. The album was enormous, won him the Soul Train Best New Artist award, and he went on to write and produce for others while remaining, oddly, a somewhat underrated figure in the history of the genre. What to listen for "Nite and Day" is the r...

Sixteen tracks from a singer who spent years as a session musician before anyone heard his name, and then won Grammys with almost every record he made. James Ingram died in January 2019, aged sixty-six. James Ingram (1952–2019) James Ingram had one of the great male voices of his era and one of the more unusual routes into using it. He worked for years as a session keyboard player and demo singer in Los Angeles, and it was a demo recording that reached Quincy Jones — who put him on The Dude in 1981 and effectively launched him at the age of twenty-nine. What he had was a combination almost nobody else managed: a gospel-derived rasp with genuine grit in it, and the technical control to sing extremely quietly. That range made him the ideal duet partner, which is why so much of his catalogue is shared. He was also a songwriter, and co-wrote "P.Y.T." for Michael Jackson with Quincy Jones, which is not a bad line to have on a biography. What to listen f...

Sixty-two records from the decade that perfected the slow jam — and a demonstration of how much sophistication went into music dismissed as easy listening. The 80’s had so many killer ballads that will stand the test of time! These cuts took me back to some fond memories….ah yes…fun times. Old School Soul: The 80s Eighties slow jams get patronised more than any other category in this music, usually by people who have only heard the biggest four or five. What a set like this shows is that the decade produced an enormous body of carefully made records — unusual chord voicings, real bass players, arrangements with actual dynamics — that happened to be built for a specific purpose. The other thing it shows is how quickly the technology changed. Records made three years apart here sound like different eras, because the drum machines, the synthesisers and the recording formats were all being replaced continuously. What to listen for Zapp's ...

“Drone Bomb Me” is disarmingly beautiful yet devastating at the same time. It captures the emotional weight of terror from the skies and the death wish of self-annihilation. Having to see your loved ones explode to pieces via a drone attack must be inexpressible. Naomi Campbell does a masterful job in this video in capturing the agony. Anohni’s woeful delivery brings the geopolitical to a deeply felt personal level igniting our empathy & righteous indignation. “4 Degrees” is anothe disturbingly beautiful track from this artist. In case some of you are unaware, if the Earth’s climate hits the four degree tipping point, we’re pretty much done as a species. Anohni is sending a signal of our impending doom. . I wanna see this world, I wanna see it boil It’s only 4 degrees, it’s only 4 degrees I wanna hear the dogs crying for water I wanna see fish go belly-up in the sea All those lemurs and all those tiny c...

Twenty tracks from the man Bob Dylan reportedly called America's greatest living poet — and the person who gave a whole radio format its name. Smokey was the man back in the day! If he wasn’t crooning and making the ladies go wild, he was writing/producing for others that had the same effect. No late-night Quietstorm playlist would be complete without a Smokey classic… Smokey Robinson William "Smokey" Robinson is one of the few figures in popular music whose importance is genuinely difficult to overstate. He was the first artist Berry Gordy signed, became a vice-president of Motown, wrote or co-wrote an enormous share of the label's catalogue for other artists, and had a career as a performer that ran from 1959 into the present. As a writer his signature is the extended conceit — a single image turned over and examined for three minutes — and the willingness to put genuine sadness inside a pop song without flagging it. As a...

Taj Weekes & Adowa are back with another Roots Rock classic! Entitled Love, Herb & Reggae – a positive spin on Sex, Drugs & Rock’n’Roll-Taj& his group, Adowa, continue on their mystic journey to enliven & enlighten us in these troubled times. Staying true to the very foundation of Roots Reggae music, Taj Weekes and Adowa flavor their infectious one drop & rocker beats with wicked choral harmonies & Taj’s compelling vocals that draw the meaning & emotion out of each word. We each form a link in the chain of our shared existence and at once feel the plight of the downtrodden everywhere through the unifying spell of one of the best Roots reggae bands on the scene right now. Each song on this album is a shining gem which much to learn from and vibe to so here is my breakdown: 1 -Let Your Voice – be as loud as your silence..”IN CONFIRMATION OR DISSENT ,YOUR VIEW AND THOUGHT DO REPRESENT CONFIRMATION OR DISSENT...

Zouk originated in the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Growing up in an island just south of Martinique (St Lucia), I was exposed to the early beginnings of Zouk which the radio stations heavily promoted & was a crowd favorite at parties & festivals. Zouk  means “party” or “festival” in the local French Caribbean dialect, and it’s a type of music one does not listen to without moving something . Leading the way of this new sound was a band named Kassav. It was Kassav who put Zouk on the international music map so all respect due! Rest in peace to the Guadeloupean vocalist & original member of Kassav, Patrick Saint-Eloi, who passed away a few of years ago.

Thirty-two tracks from a Californian songwriter who has spent fifty years making the same record, extremely well, and never once raised his voice. Michael Franks Michael Franks is a genuinely unusual figure: an American songwriter with a background in literature who has built a five-decade career on a very quiet, very dry singing voice and lyrics full of wordplay, puns and literary reference. The music sits in a category of its own — jazz-inflected pop with Brazilian rhythms underneath, played by first-rate session musicians, arranged with real care. He has worked with an extraordinary cast over the years, including Michael Brecker, Larry Carlton and the Crusaders, and the playing on his records is consistently better than the easy-listening shelf they get filed on. His voice is the entry barrier. It is small, conversational and entirely without projection, which some listeners find unbearable and others find the whole point — it is the voice of someone telling ...

Ten tracks from the album where a former child star turned twenty-one and made the best dance-pop record anyone has produced. This is the best Michael Jackson album, in my humble opinion. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979) Off the Wall is frequently treated as the warm-up for Thriller . It is better than that, and in some respects better than Thriller : looser, warmer, less concerned with conquering every market simultaneously, and played by a band rather than assembled. It was the first full collaboration between Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones , who met while working on The Wiz , and it is the record where Jackson stopped being a former Motown child act and became an adult artist. He was twenty-one and wrote three of the songs himself. The other key figure is Rod Temperton , the Heatwave keyboard player, who wrote three tracks including the title song and "Rock With You" . What to listen for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" is Jackson...

Forty-six tracks from the most commercially successful songwriter-producer of the nineties — heard here mostly as a singer, which is the half people forget. Babyface Kenneth Edmonds has written or produced an almost absurd number of hit records — for Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, TLC, Toni Braxton, Madonna, Mariah Carey and many others — and co-founded LaFace Records with L.A. Reid , which gave the world Outkast, TLC and Usher. What this playlist emphasises instead is his own singing, and it is a useful correction. He has a light, high, slightly frail tenor that he uses with unusual intelligence: he writes songs for his own voice that would not suit anyone else, keeping the melodies conversational and leaving space for the lyric to work. His subject, consistently, is the ordinary business of relationships — not seduction or heartbreak at their peaks, but the negotiation in between. That is a harder thing to write about and a much less glamorous one....

What more can be said of the living legend, Stevie Wonder? I found this site to be one of the best in chronicling the life & music of one of the greatest pop/soul singers of all time. What an impressive body of work!

Sixty-one records by artists who were, at the time this was assembled, doing excellent work that almost nobody was hearing. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind . OneLove Under The Radar This is the earliest of the several playlists on this blog devoted to the under-promoted, and in some ways the most ambitious. Sixty-one tracks, mostly from the first half of the 2010s, drawn from soul, rock, gospel, electronic and singer-songwriter territory, with almost no famous names. Reading it now is instructive. Several of these artists went on to considerable careers, several did not, and the quality distinction between the two groups is not obvious from the music — which is more or less the point the playlist is making. What to listen for Alabama Shakes' "Don't Wanna Fight" is the biggest thing here, and Brittany Howard's vocal is one of the great rock performances o...

Thirty-three tracks from the producer who rebuilt rhythm in popular music and made a decade of radio sound like nothing that came before it.   Timbaland Timothy Mosley is the most rhythmically inventive producer popular music has produced in the last thirty years, and the argument is not close. Working out of Virginia Beach with Missy Elliott and Magoo , he arrived in the mid-nineties with a drum programming style that owed almost nothing to what American radio was doing. The specifics: stuttering, syncopated patterns with beats deliberately left empty; percussion sourced from Indian, Middle Eastern and East Asian recordings; enormous amounts of space; and a habit of using his own breathing, grunts and mouth noises as instruments. He then did the whole thing twice — once in the late nineties with Missy, Aaliyah and Ginuwine, and again in the mid-2000s with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, when he essentially reorganised global pop. What to listen for Ginuwine'...