25 Essential Soul Records

What's all this, then? Find out here.

These are the records every complete record collection should have, even if you aren't necessarily a soul fan. These records define soul to some degree, but represent the core qualities of what soul has to offer to an even more significant one. These aren't my favorite records in soul - and really anyone who gave you this list as their top 25 is either lying to save face or works for Rolling Stone - but they are all five-star classics that will forever be cited as the fundamental works of the genre. And, of course, many if not most of them are my favorite soul albums, most notably Live at the Whiskey, the record I often cite as my favorite album ever.


Perhaps more than any other genre, soul was defined by the single. Motown, the most popular and culturally significant record label in the genre, used a common business model of the 1960s to create their long players: opening sides with big singles and then padding the back ends with various lesser cuts. Most of the top Motown artists - the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, even the Jackson 5 - could make even the weakest song work, but none of these artists made a true through-and-through classic. I've decided to omit greatest hits records on this set, which means none of these incredibly important if not seminal artists are represented. That makes this less representative of soul as a whole, but makes for a stronger group of cohesive listens - not to mention that the three most significant Motown artists, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye, are represented here, just in the form of 70s masterpieces rather than 60s pop singles.

A note on "soul": this is essentially intended to be an early R&B list, which makes for some political choices (even calling early R&B soul and vice-versa is bound to make some 45-clutching nerds cringe). I've decided to mark the beginning of modern R&B at the rise of solo Michael Jackson and disco's break-through into the mainstream - basically the late 70s into the early 80s - so if you are wondering where Prince and D'Angelo are, don't worry. Also, I've omitted funk from this category - there's a real dividing line where artists moved away from the basic structure of R&B and began to create another genre altogether, and while James Brown's The Payback might not be out of place on this list, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain would stick out as the (totally awesome) ugly duckling. Anyway, let's get on to it.

Note: Instead of spending way too much time writing on each of these records, I've decided to insert a youtube video of a key song (or the whole album where applicable). If you don't understand an inclusion, ask me about it in the comments. Stop reading, start listening!

These are the 25 records in soul music that deserve to be canonized.

25 Essential Folk Records

What's all this, then? Find out here.

These are the records every complete record collection should have, even if you aren't necessarily a folk fan. These records define folk to some degree, but represent the core qualities of what folk has to offer to an even more significant one. These aren't my favorite records in folk - and really anyone who gave you this list as their top 25 is either lying to save face or works for Rolling Stone - but they are all five-star classics that will forever be cited as the fundamental works of the genre. And, of course, many if not most of them are my favorite folk albums, most notably Astral Weeks.

Maybe the hardest part of narrowing Folk down to 25 core records is the Dylan dilemma. Bob Dylan towers over everyone else in the genre (and quite nearly pop music in general), and from 1963 to 1966 he put out five inarguable classics - each of which could easily rank as the greatest work of any artist. How do you reconcile the importance of these records with the need to include a broader range of music in the overall group? Including all five seems ludicrous considering the purpose of this set. Consequently, I've only included one of these records, along with Blood on the Tracks, a later Dylan album that is sufficiently different enough to warrant inclusion - I also happen to think it's the easiest way into Dylan's catalog for the uninitiated.

One last note on "folk": this is a much more amorphous genre than hip hop. While the latter genre might have some bleed-over into R&B and electronic music, folk overlaps with rock, country, bluegrass, the blues, jazz, soul music, and even electronic. (And technically isn't hip hop folk music anyway?) To get around this, I've instituted an "I know it when I see it" policy that I hope we can all agree on. I've included the blues in this category because its history is intertwined with folk traditions and exposure (Lomax, etc.), and many of these blues artists were really folk musicians who had their music racialized. This leaves a lot of blues out (and knocks out a little space for more "folk" records), but I think this current set is the right mix of the two barely divided genres. On the other hand, I've excluded bluegrass simply because I think it fits better in the country list. This list also comes with the caveat that many of the most influential artists in folk's early years never really put out a great LP and their comps are more significant historically than as recognized classics (Leadbelly and Bessie Smith come immediately to mind). There is a TON of blues and folk missing here that requires a deeper dig (or even a not-so-deep dig, like Taj Mahal or Howlin' Wolf), but that's not the purpose of this core selection. If you don't like it (or better yet if you do like it) let me know in the comment section.

These are the 25 records in folk music that deserve to be canonized.

5 Ways to Deal with the Cold This Winter

Temperatures are expected to drop to around -240˚F in New England this week - nearly as cold as Chicago in October. With such intense cold outside, it's important to know what to do to avoid getting seriously injured or sick. Here are the 5 best tips for staying warm when doing your favorite winter activities.

1. Don't use warm water on numb fingers. If you pour warm water on your fingers when they are very cold, they will fall off. A better choice is to use boiling water direct from the tea kettle. Don't worry about pouring it over the sink - all of the water will instantly be absorbed into your fingers. The temperature of the water will average out with the temperature of your fingers to a perfect 98.6˚.


Hit the jump for more tips!

10 Records I Loved in 2013

This was an unusually good year for music in a broad range of genres. Here's an alphabetical list of ten albums with some youtube streams, which is more useful than any writing I would do to convince to give these a shot.

Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety

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Beyoncé - Beyoncé

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Blood Orange - Cupid Deluxe

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Brandy Clark - 12 Stories

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Earl Sweatshirt - Doris

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Kanye West - Yeezus

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MGMT - MGMT

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Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven

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Sturgill Simpson - High Top Mountain

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Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Apple Gets Misunderstood

If you haven't seen Apple's new ad, "Misunderstand," you probably should if you want to be a part of teh internet:

So after the initial crying and "goddammit, Apple, give me a break, I'm sensitive at this time of year!" screaming, your response to this ad is probably one of two things:

1. Wow, they thought he wasn't paying any attention to them, but he was making a video, that's so sweet.
2. What a fucking asshole, no one wants to see your stupid video. Put down the phone and have a normal conversation with your family.

If you thought number 2, you probably think you're pretty great. You're also like half of the internet, mostly the people who hate Apple and forgot what it was like to be 13.

I've read some defenses of the ad, most notably Kottke, which are very good arguments for documenting your life and general reflection on what is happening. But that is not the point of this ad. In fact, even if you thought number 1, you probably assume the ad is about how teenagers are misunderstood and you shouldn't judge them. Also not the point of this ad.

The point of this ad is that Apple products bring people together. That's a pretty stupid, generic marketing point, but like all good marketing it's done in a profound way. See, teenagers hate the world. They don't like to interact with family, they hate to be sentimental, and they try as much as possible to avoid doing stuff with anyone who isn't a teenager. This isn't Apple's fault, because I was a teenager when Apple was basically nothing and it was totally true. It's also not the smartphone's (or the computer's, or even the internet's) fault, because those things either sucked or didn't exist when I was a teenager, and I still went to my room and read comics or listened to punk rock and gangster rap or ate a whole bag of chocolate covered pretzels while watching Mr. Show.

This is why when anyone says Apple is missing the point and kids should put down their phones and live in the moment, they aren't doing anything different than people who told youngsters who used the telegraph machine that they weren't enjoying each other's company. Have you ever seen a shrill parent tell their teenager they should stop what they are doing and spend time with them, whereupon the teenager says "Oh shit, you're right, I should live in the moment, thanks Mom/Dad!" (The parent is dual-gendered in this example.) No. This has never happened.

What happens in "Misunderstood" is the shy teenager that doesn't like spending time with his family is actually in the moment. He's not using technology to hide in his room, he's using it to connect with people in the only way he can, in the way he enjoys. This is a larger-and-cheesier-than-life example of what really does go on in the real world today - where messaging makes friends immediately and casually accessible and any teenager can find his or her niche community to be engaged with.

You can disagree that what smartphones do is worthwhile, and you can certainly be annoyed at everyone constantly glancing down at their phones, but when you decide that they are harming our interactions, that's when they become misunderstood. Like every technology and innovation ever (even coffeehouses), smartphones will continue to be shit on until the people who grew up with them are the only ones left. Don't worry, though, I'm sure there will be plenty for everyone to misunderstand then.

How to Make a Bar

I like liquor, and I like to make drinks at home. A lot. Too much. For people who have been to my house, this is obvious. I have probably around 100 bottles, including far too much whiskey. I also have five or ten rums, all three basic types of tequila (blanco, reposado, and añejo), brandy, applejack, pisco, three or four gins, six or seven amari, and so on and so on.

This doesn't include my fancy whiskey on the
top shelf that you aren't fancy enough to see.

Not everyone needs a collection like this (actually, no one does). But if you drink and, in particular, entertain at least intermittently, having a bar is an important part of being a grown-up. It should be the next step after having "your drink," the thing you order whenever you are at a bar and don't know what you want (mine is whiskey neat, by the way, whatever is the best bottom- or mid-shelf bottle I can see - this doesn't really matter any more, of course, because I have a toddler so the only time I'm in a bar is at my house).

When I first set out to put together a bar, I found it very intimidating, basically because I didn't know anything about liquor and had no money. Don't let that last thing be an impediment for you. Do you go to bars? Then you have enough money not to go to one more bar, or order that extra drink a couple times, and pick a bottle of something every month or so. If you don't drink a lot, it will last you more than a year, and it will keep for at least five times that before you notice a difference in taste. See that picture up there? That's six years of doing what I just said and there is absolutely no reason to go these lengths. Once you have 10-15 bottles, all you really need to do is restock every few months and not lose your shit like I did. There's even a blog dedicated to how this is all you need.

So what if you don't know anything about liquor? What do you think I'm doing here? If you know something about liquor, go read something else. For everyone else, there are two schools of thought on this. The first is pretty good, which is to go out, have a drink you like, find out what's in it, and buy the things to make that drink. Then repeat the process and before you know it you've built a speakeasy in your basement where you handcraft your own Moscow Mule mugs. Not bad, right?

The problem with this process is that it's actually kind of a chore. Who wants to go out and try drinks until you find one you want, make sure it has ingredients you don't have but aren't too expensive or difficult to acquire and repeat every few months? You end up spending a lot of money on cocktails out - something you were avoiding in the first place. And if you pick the wrong drink, you might buy an ingredient you find you don't really like in any other drink. Then you end up with a whole bottle of St. Germain when you only need .25 ounces of it for each drink you make, which means you need to make like 200 of those drinks you thought you liked the first 25 times to even tap out the first bottle.

The second school of thought is for people who have a steady flow of just enough cash and the right vision to achieve their goal. I like this for any aspiring adult, because it gets you settled into your life steadily and with minimal fuss. For people who agree, the following is what I think the basic bar should have. Note that I have far more than this, and you probably will too once you find out which liquor you like. But I am silly, and maybe you can control yourself.

For mixing:

Rye (Rittenhouse if you are lucky to find it, Redemption if not)
Gin (Beefeater if you like juniper, Plymouth if not)
Light Rum (Matusalem is a good starting point)
Demarara Rum (El Dorado 12)
Reposado Tequila (Siete Leguas is good, El Jimador is cheap)
ONLY Smirnoff Vodka (if you buy expensive vodka, I will be sad for you)

For sipping:

A nice Bourbon/Rye/Rum depending on your preference
Scotch (maybe one Islay and one Highland or Speyside if you want to be fancy)
An amaro (Nonino is pricey, Ramazzotti is cheap, either is a good place to start)

Mixers:

Vermouth (Sweet and Dry - start with Cinzano sweet and Noilly Prat dry)
Campari
Cointreau
Wild Card!

Bitters:

Angostura
Peychaud's
Fee's Orange
Bittermen's Mole

This is all you need ever. Really, ever. Use the wild card in mixers to spice up your life or throw a party. Replace your sippers with nicer or cheaper stuff depending on how you did at bonus time. Don't get fancy with the mixers - you don't want to end up with a whole bottle of a trendy gin it turns out you hate in every drink you used to love. And of course if you don't entertain enough to warrant having a mixer you hate, like say tequila, then by all means skip it - although you should remember this stuff keeps really well, I like a good margarita when the weather's nice, and I'm not afraid to give you a bad review on Yelp.

Buy some glasses that aren't 25 ounces (you really don't even need martini glasses or coupes - just get cheap tumblers), invest in nice ice cube trays, buy some citrus, avoid Guinness posters, and boom. You're done.

Now go forth and be an adult.

25 Essential Hip Hop Records

What's all this, then?

These are the records every complete record collection should have, even if you aren't necessarily a hip hop fan. These records define hip hop to some degree, but represent the core qualities of what hip hop has to offer to an even more significant one. These aren't my favorite records in hip hop - and really anyone who gave you this list as their top 25 is either lying to save face or works for Rolling Stone - but they are all five-star classics that will forever be cited as the fundamental works of the genre. And, of course, many if not most of them are my favorite hip hop albums, most notably duh Illmatic.

I may have taken a bit of artistic license with some of this set - some people may argue that it needs more 80s records and maybe my 00s records trend too closely to my own personal likes. But as much as I love them, I don't think Run DMC, Criminal Minded, or Radio is as significant as a work of art as many of the 90s choices I absolutely had to include, and I happen to think even if Madvillain and Hell Hath No Fury didn't sell millions of copies, they represent what has been best about hip hop over the past ten years in significantly different ways. (By the way, I placed the cut-off at January 1, 2010, so no Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy).

Anyway, we could argue this all day (and I'm happy to do so in the comments - that's what they're for) but at some point I need to lock this in, so let's get on with it. These are the 25 records in hip hop that deserve to be canonized, in chronological order.