This week Maxwell is releasing his 5th album blackSUMMERS'night, and he recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut album, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite. A quick bit of simple math would tell you that that means he's not a very prolific guy -- the 7 years since his last album are only the 2nd-longest gap between albums in his career. But that pace seems to work for him, and to be honest I feel like he's only gotten better over time, I'd be willing to argue that each of these albums has been better than the last, which is why I'm so excited about the new one.

Maxwell Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. Welcome
2. Love You
3. Everwanting: To Want You To Want
4. For Lovers Only
5. Help Somebody
6. Whenever Wherever Whatever
7. Drowndeep: Hula
8. NoOne
9. Dancewitme
10. Know These Things: Shouldn't You
11. W/As My Girl
12. Cold
13. No One Else In The Room (with Nas)
14. The Suite Urban Theme (Hush)
15. Mello: Sumthin (Hush)
16. Now/At The Party
17. Stop The World

Tracks 1, 6, and 9 from Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite (1996)
Tracks 14 and 15 from MTV Unplugged EP (1997)
Tracks 3, 7 and 10 from Embrya (1998)
Tracks 4, 8, 11 and 16 from Now (2001)
Track 13 from Nas's Street's Disciple (2004)
Tracks 2, 5, 12 and 17 from BLACKsummers'night (2009)

"Whenever Wherever Whatever" has long been one of my favorite Maxwell songs, it surprised me that it was never a charting single because it's a song I've heard a lot on late night slow jam blocks on R&B stations. And the medley from his very excellent episode of "MTV Unplugged" includes a bit of the hit "Sumthin' Sumthin'" but it's more less transformed into a new piece. "No One Else In The Room" appeared on a Nas album, but it was pretty much the only new Maxwell music in the 8 years he was taking between albums, and is a really excellent track dominated by Maxwell, really one of my favorite things he's done.

Maxwell's often grouped in with D'Angelo and Erykah Badu as part of the 'neo soul' marketing trend, and Maxwell has been frank about the fact that Brown Sugar's success actually did help the long delayed Urban Hang Suite get a release date. But I think it speaks well of those artists that they've all gone in their own unique directions that make grouping them together into kind of a fool's game. Stuart Matthewman's role in Maxwell's albums helps place Sade as a reference point for his polished yet arty take on soul music. But the unusual instrumentation and song structures, the moody song cycles, he's really created his own world, Now is a pretty remarkable album.

Sometimes he gets a little pretentious -- Embrya has some of the most unwieldy song titles ever, but I appreciate that he's made a lot of left turns when he could've just been an old-fashioned R&B heartthrob. He's a great singles artist, but there are songs here that could've been as big as "Ascension" or "Fortunate" or "Pretty Wings," but he just chose to make them a little longer or throw in some odd arrangement choices to make a song like "For Lovers Only" more of a classic deep cut. There are a number of pretty cool instrumentals on his albums, and unfortunately I just ended up cutting them all from this playlist because I wanted to focus on Maxwell's tender, raspy voice and lush harmonies.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers

a) "BrainDead"
I love that the creators of "The Good Wife" took their clout and put it behind a weird sci-fi political satire where extra terrestrial bugs start taking over the brains of U.S. senators and controlling the government. And they even got CBS, the network least likely to put something like this on the air, to take it. Even if it airs in the summer, even if it gets quickly canceled, it's such a strange gamble and really more entertaining than it has a right to be. I mean, as a political drama it's sharper and closer to real life than the average network show about Washington politics, but it's also not afraid to have fun with the premise. And it goes without saying that Mary Elizabeth Winstead is charming and adorable, although there's something about her hair in this show, she's really never looked better. When the second episode opened with a jaunty song recapping the pilot, that was the moment I fell in love with this show. I hope every future episode has a recap song.

b) "Lady Dynamite"
Maria Bamford has been one of my favorite comedians for a long time, but I've never been sure how you translate her talent to something besides standup, since a lot of the appeal is that she can transform into different characters and shift tones with just her voice. So I was pretty thrilled to see a project like this happen, often I think Netflix comedy series can be a bit indulgent in departing from 3 act network sitcom formulas, but in this case I think it worked in Bamford's favor. I'm not in love with the way the storytelling jumps from the past to present, sometimes I think the tangential nature of the show would come across much better without it, but there have still been a lot of brilliant moments. I've only watched about half of the episodes and each one has been pretty different, so I almost don't feel qualified to really speak on it as a whole yet.

c) "Queen of the South"
The first episode of this didn't really hold my interest, I just don't care about these gangland crime dramas as a genre of TV and this is a bit blander on USA than it'd probably be on another network anyway. Not bad, but probably not something I'll stick with.

d) "Wrecked"
This isn't a "Lost" parody per se, but it pretty much is what you expect of a show about a plane wreck on a secluded island done as a comedy. It's broad and ridiculous but pretty funny sometimes, and I have to admit I'm rooting for the show a little bit because the creator's names are Jordan Shipley and Justin Shipley, gotta have some surname solidarity.

e) "Uncle Buck" 
I've watched Uncle Buck more times than I can count, but I think of it less as a great comedy than just an ideal star vehicle for John Candy. So it seems kind of silly to adapt it into a TV show, although refashioning the title role for someone like Mike Epps is more promising than if they just got some fat white guy doing a Candy imitation. Still, the execution is just kinda toothless, and the moments where they tried to do famous scenes from the movie (finding the daughter at the party, the giant pancake) just fell incredibly flat.

f) "Voltron: Legendary Defender"
My son saw this on the Netflix menu the day after Netflix released this new series and so we watched a few episodes. I dunno about him but I didn't like it as much as the other recent-ish Voltron series he's watched, "Voltron Force," although I have no particular reverence for the original show I watched as a kid.

g) "Feed The Beast"
I don't hold AMC up as any untouchable standard for prestige TV, but I'm weirdly disappointed in them for "Feed The Beast," which feels on some gut level like one of those flimsy Showtime series. It's not even bad, I could see it growing on me, but I was put off right away by the hackneyed 'childhood friends grow up to be very different people' premise where Jim Sturgess (his American accent getting worse by the day) is supposed to be a lovable cad but he's actually just terrible and impossible to like, and David Schwimmer is a sadsack with a tragic backstory but he's Schwimmer and I'm sorry I just can't feel too bad for Ross Geller.

h) "Outcast"
A very dour supernatural drama, based on a comic by "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman, with a lot of Exorcist-like depictions of demonic possession. The pilot was pretty gripping but I'm not sure how much I'm into it as a series going forward.

i) "Preacher"
"Preacher" is also based on a comic and mixes religious elements with horror, and it debuting within a week of "Outcast" feels like some kind of Armageddon / Deep Impact thing. I don't know if "Preacher" is the better show, but it is much easier to watch and leans into campy humor and surreal gore, so it feels maybe a little more likely to succeed. And I really like Ruth Negga.

j) "Maya & Marty"
Maya Rudolph is so talented and so funny and it's frustrating that she's never really found a good star vehicle to demonstrate that. NBC had her host a one-off variety show 2 years ago, but it took a while to come back, retooled with Martin Short, another "SNL" alum who's usually more successful in supporting roles. As an old-fashioned variety show, it's kind of fun, I appreciate that they focus on comedy and music, unlike that unfortunate recent Neil Patrick Harris thing that felt more like a game show. But it also just feels like an off season "SNL" side project with Kenan Thompson jumping in to help with a lot of the sketches, and it's only really made me laugh a few times.

k) "Inside The Label"
I really dig what BET has done with this show, it's like "Behind The Music" for famous rap and R&B labels. Sometimes it's the vanity labels of big stars, like Grand Hustle or Disturbing The Peace, sometimes it's more traditional labels like Uptown or Loud Records, but they've really uncovered a lot of interesting stories. I really learned a lot in the Ruff Ryders episode, even if they couldn't get DMX to do an interview. The production values are just okay, the voiceover narration often says goofy shit like "The album catches a fade from music buyers," but they usually talk to enough of the people that were there at the time to make it worthwhile.

l) "First Impressions with Dana Carvey"
Every week, three comics come on this show and show off their various celebrity impressions, which is really kind of a flimsy premise for a competitive reality show, but they have a lot of fun with it. Occasionally you get some kind of brilliant impression you've never seen before, or you get wildly varying Christopher Walkens in almost every episode. Carvey will usually bring someone in good as a guest judge, or they'll just have Jay Leno suddenly show up and make people do Jay Leno impressions to his face, which is hilariously uncomfortable.

m) "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee"
This show has really been a gem lately, Sam Bee is not approaching her show too much like John Oliver in terms of tone but they're both totally making the most of have a weekly show instead of a nightly show. I worked on a show recently and the script supervisor I sat next to for the week works on "Full Frontal," it was cool to hear a bit about how that show is made.

n) "UnREAL"
This was my favorite show of 2015, so obviously I was pretty excited for the second season. The first 3 episodes have been off to a strong start, mixing the camp and the tense backstage drama, but it kinda feels like everything's been set in motion for all the really interesting stuff to happen in later episodes.

o) "Wayward Pines"
This was one of my least favorite shows of 2015, but I was curious to see where they would go with a second season, since it was kind of initially designed as a 'limited series' that they scrambled to renew and keep going after the ratings were good. With the big twist of the first season having been played out, they can't put the genie back in the bottle, so now it's just this ungainly sci-fi thing instead of a small town mystery, and it's even worse than before. I'm surprised Terrence Howard is back, but I guess FOX just wants as much of him on the air as they can manage. Jason Patric being the big new addition to the cast seems to say it all, though, has Jason Patric ever been in anything good ever?

p) "500 Questions"
My wife has been watching this game show a bit lately. It's as watchable as any quiz show but it kind of amuses me how they stripped away any kind of gimmick or new format so that it's just question after question after question, kinda feels like someone gave up.

q) "Inside Amy Schumer"
There hasn't been any single tour de force episode like "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer," but this season was otherwise up to the high bar set by the 3rd season. The gun-themed episode in particular had some pretty sharp moments.

r) "Silicon Valley"
I've never been as big on this show as some other people, and I've heard a lot of gripes from those people this season. It kinda grew on me over the course of the season, though, and one of the recent episodes had a great payoff to one of the show's best scenes ("this guy fucks"). I still get very frustrated by Martin Starr on this show, though, he's like his character on "Party Down" but not funny at all.

s) "Veep"
Another fine HBO show that I sometimes struggle to actually watch for some reason. I think this season I've been bitter because they moved production to California and I always thought it was so cool that they filmed in Maryland like 20 minutes away from where I live. Jonah is still one of the funniest characters on TV, though.

1. Bishop Briggs - "River"
I was watching TV last September and heard music in an Acura commercial that I liked. After searching around a little, all I was able to find was that the song, "Wild Horses," was by some artist named Bishop whose accounts on Twitter, YouTube and Soundclound were all about a week old and only contained that song and no real biographical information. I kind of chuckled about it at the time, that a very polished and marketable-sounding new artist just turned up out of nowhere in a major ad campaign, and speculated that there was already big money behind this mysterious Bishop. Then 8 months later, I heard another song called "River," on my local alt-rock station, that set me googling around only to realize that it was the same Brit singer, now going by the full name Bishop Briggs and now charting on Billboard and openly signed to Island Records and opening for Coldplay in arenas this fall (she also now has a third song on Spotify called "The Way I Do" that's very good). Cynicism aside, though, this is promising stuff, she has a great voice, and "River" kind of combines a lurching EDM track with a really raw vocal in a way that reminds me of one of the best songs of the decade, AWOLNATION's "Sail." Here's my running playlist of favorite 2016 singles that I update every month.

2. Jeremih - "Pass Dat"
This was instantly my favorite song on Late Nights when it was released in December, but given Def Jam's all around terrible handling of that album, I had my doubts that it would get a 4th single. But since "Oui" was the album's third #1 single, this is finally getting a chance and I'm just delighted to hear it on the radio. The Weeknd and Young Thug did freestyles to it pretty quickly after the album was released, which made me think an all-star remix could happen, but I'm kinda glad just the original version is a single. It's funny how Jeremih already has a pretty unusually high voice but it sounds so crazy being slightly pitched up on the hook (nevermind, apparently that's an uncredited Starrah?).

3. Dae Dae - "Wat U Mean (Aye, Aye, Aye)"
When I saw the title of this song I expected some kind of goofy dance rap song, but this is really a pretty classic Atlanta street rap song. I feel like we've been told over and over that this kind of stuff isn't relatable if you're not in the trap or a famous rapper, but a song like this that is really just about working hard and feeding your family, the shit that I get up to do every morning, I dunno, this is just a song I really take to heart.

4. 2 Chainz - "MFN Right"
This was a highlight of both Felt Like Cappin and ColleGrove but it still feels kind of unlikely as a radio song, just because it sounds like this delightfully low key freestyle that just coheres into a real song by accident. Zaytoven and Mike Will Made It co-produced it, and while Mike Will gets all the shout outs on the song, it really just sounds like a classic Zaytoven track, and I've really been in the mood for his stuff lately, love his recent tape with Young Dro.

5. Future - "Wicked"
The popular narrative about Future's career was that he kind of lost his way relying on superstar features on Honest, and got his buzz back with mixtapes that had very few guests. So it seems notable that following his big solo comeback hit ("Fuck Up Some Commas"), all of his big radio hits have been the result of riding the Canadian waves of Drake ("Where Ya At," "Jumpman") and The Weeknd ("Lowlife"). I mean, it's working for him, I guess, but it's kind of depressing that solo songs like "March Madness" kind of lost their shot at radio rotation because they were competing with Drake collabs. So with that in mind, "Wicked" feels essential as the biggest solo Future song in a minute, and it's really my favorite Metro Boomin beat in a while. And as I mentioned in my Complex song of the summer piece, "Wicked" kind of took off from the Purple Reign mixtape to the point that they've appended it to the EVOL album.

6. Guourdon Banks - "Keep You In Mind"
A nice low key slow jam that's been on R&B radio a bit lately, kind of has that cool lo-fi electro vibe of Miguel's "Adorn" without sounding like a rewrite of "Adorn" (looking at you, Chris Brown's "Back To Sleep").

7. Elle King - "America's Sweetheart"
I always feel like I'm doing something right, as a critic or just as a fan of popular music, when I make up my mind that I dislike an artist and then end up loving a song by them anyway. And man, I really hated "Ex's & Oh's" and made Rob Schneider jokes at every opportunity, but this song is pretty much perfect, all this momentum building up to a massive belted chorus, I don't know why this wasn't as successful as her other singles.

8. Beyonce - "Sorry"
Lemonade is a record that I kind of think of more in terms of moments I enjoy more than songs -- for instance the bridge in "6 Inch" is one of my favorite parts of the whole album but I doin't really care for the rest of the song. And I love the last minute of "Sorry" was more than the rest of the song (also I'm obsessed with this tweet that suggested that it ends like a chapter of "Trapped In The Closet"). But mostly I'm grateful to "Sorry" that it stopped "Hold Up" from being the breakout hit from the album, I really dislike that song. Hit-Boy really makes some awesome tracks, I kind of get annoyed with him that he seemed to sell his production career short by aspiring to a Kanye-like transition into rapping that was never gonna pan out.

9. Joywave - "Destruction"
My friend Robbie really loves Joywave, last time I saw him I noticed he actually has a Joywave license plate. I never really got the appeal with their previous singles, but this one has really grown on me.

10. Brothers Osborne - "21 Summer"
Although the whole 'summer jam' concept has kind of transcended genre, country is really the one radio format where a huge chunk of playlists in the summer is dedicated to songs explicitly about summer that labels all start pushing in the spring, it's kind of ridiculous. I'm glad that Pawn Shop finally has a second single creeping up the charts, it seemed like they waited a while to follow up "Stay A Little Longer" simply because they had a summer-themed song that wasn't going to peak until the summer hit.

The Worst Single of the Month: Zac Brown Band - "Castaway"
A popular subset of the country summer song phenomenon is songs specifically about getting drunk on the beach, which have been reliably ubiquitous for the 13 years since Alan Jackson met Jimmy Buffett. I find "Castaway" especially irritating, though, because it opens with an interpolation of "Don't Bogart Me" a.k.a. "Don't Bogart That Joint" by The Fraternity Of Man, most famous for appearing in Easy Rider and being covered by Little Feat. Ordinarily I might say it's pretty cool of Zac Brown to pay homage to that song, but it's pretty lame that he changes the lyrics of a pot anthem to be about booze, and the authors of "Bogart" didn't get a writing credit on "Castaway," which is outrageous.

This week the Red Hot Chili Peppers are releasing their 11th album, The Getaway (and it's not a prank like the new RHCP record I wrote about in 2014). I've always had a love/hate relationship with this band, where my enjoyment of some of their hits is always dwarfed by how ubiquitous they've been for the last 25 years. But their weird punk/funk gobbledygook always stood apart from most of the other alt-rock bands that became huge multi-platinum stars in the solemn grungey '90s, and I've come to really enjoy their music in small doses. So here's a little collection of songs from outside of their overplayed singles discography. That's much better. Everyone can enjoy that!

Red Hot Chili Peppers Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. Out In L.A.
2. Police Helicopter
3. You Always Sing The Same
4. The Brothers Cup
5. Sex Rap
6. Lovin' And Touchin'
7. Backwoods
8. Walkin' Down The Road
9. Party On Your Pussy
10. Johnny, Kick A Hole In The Sky
11. Punk Rock Classic
12. Magic Johnson
13. The Power Of Equality
14. Funky Monks
15. Mellowship Slinky In B Major
16, Blood Sugar Sex Majik
17. One Hot Minute
18. Pea
19. Walkabout
20. Easily
21. I Like Dirt
22. Minor Thing
23. Make You Feel Better
24. Goodbye Hooray

Tracks 1, 2, and 3 from Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984)
Tracks 4, 5 and 6 from Freaky Styley (1985)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987)
Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from Mother's Milk (1989)
Tracks 13, 14, 15 and 16 from Blood Sugar Sex Majik (1991)
Tracks 17, 18 and 19 from One Hot Minute (1995)
Tracks 20 and 21 from Californication (1999)
Track 22 from By The Way (2002)
Track 23 from Stadium Arcadium (2006)
Track 24 from I'm With You (2011)

Obviously, the band was plugging along for a number of years without any real commercial success before they became a household name, but those early records are pretty interesting to me, just how awkward and ungainly they were before they formed their sound into something similar but far more polished. Back in the '90s, the only RHCP records my brother and I owned were Blood Sugar Sex Majik and the early years compilation released soon after, What Hits!?, and I have some fondness for the songs from that, including the album cuts included here like "Backwoods" and "Johnny, Kick A Hole In The Sky." I wish they'd gotten to make more than one album with the Hillel Slovak/Jack Irons line up, I would've like to hear some of the albums after The Uplift Mofo Party Plan with those guys as part of the more big budget mainstream iteration of the band. Blood Sugar is obviously the classic, though -- I have fond memories of the one time I saw the band live, at the 1998 Tibetan Freedom Concert. RHCP's set was cancelled by lightning, so the next day Pearl Jam ended their set early so RHCP could do a quick 3-song set, including "The Power Of Equality."

Much is made of the band's many lineup changes -- they're probably the biggest rock band in history where the guitarist's role was such a revolving door, where the bassist was a more consistent lynchpin of the band's sound. But I have to say, while the John Frusciante lineup has become associated with the band's commercial and creative peaks, I think that there's a lot to be said about how they've been able to swap other guitarists in and out and more or less be the same band. The Dave Navarro era generally doesn't get a lot of love but I think the band sounded fine with him, not as an odd a fit as some might say. If there's anything wrong with One Hot Minute it's more the self-serious bloat that a lot of other big bands were falling victim to in the mid-'90s.

The Getaway is the band's shortest album since Mother's Milk, which is encouraging in a way. This is a band that left behind 40-minute albums with the end of the vinyl era and has only barely gotten one other album in under an hour in the last two decades. Blood Sugar Sex Magik is good enough to more or less justify its 70 minutes but would pack a bigger punch with some of the redundant songs trimmed. Stadium Arcadium is the rare CD-era double album by a major rock band, an appalling 122 minutes (even Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, an album that makes a tremendous effort to justify its length, is a minute shorter). I usually listen to entire albums or all the available deep cuts to make these mixes, but I must admit I skimmed and skipped around the later albums a lot, just because it's so hard to pick a good song out of the 28 tracks on Stadium Arcadium.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes

The self-titled debut album by the Violent Femmes is one of those perfect weird records that's been passed down over generations and retains its unique appeal. It was nearly a decade old when it was finally certified platinum in 1991. I started listening to alt-rock around then, and although the band had a couple new singles that got played on the radio in the '90s the regular rotation of songs from that first album on WHFS that got me into them more ("Add It Up," "Gone Daddy Gone," "Kiss Off," and of course "Blister In The Sun" each got plenty of burn, although not all of them were ever really released as singles). I remember finding Violent Femmes in the cheap casseette bin in The Sound Garden as a middle schooler, and my best friend Cody was as excited to listen to it as I was. And the six songs that I didn't hear on HFS were all great too, so I've always meant to dive into the band's less heralded records and hear their other deep cuts.

Violent Femmes Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Please Do Not Go
2. Good Feelings
3. Prove My Love
4. Confessions
5. Promise
6. Country Death Song
7. I Know It's True But I'm Sorry To Say
8...8...I forget what 8 was for...Hallowed Ground
9. Sweet Misery Blues
10. Black Girls
11. Old Mother Reagan
12. Love & Me Make Three
13. Special
14. Candlelight Song
15. Two People
16. Dating Days
17. Nothing Worth Living For
18. Telephone Book
19. Out The Window
20. Look Like That
21. More Money Tonight
22. This Island Life
23. When Everybody's Happy

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 from Violent Femmes (1983)
Tracks 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 from Hallowed Ground (1984)
Tracks 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 from The Blind Leading The Naked (1986)
Tracks 16, 17 and 18 from 3 (1989)
Tracks 19, 20 and 21 from Why Do Birds Sing? (1991)
Tracks 22 and 23 from New Times (1994)

"Country Death Song" and "Please Do Not Go" among other tracks probably got enough college radio airplay to not seem like deep cuts to some, but as usual I went with my gut about what counts and what doesn't. I cut things off after their 6th album, which contained their last radio hit, "Breakin' Up," although they've recorded three more albums since then, including We Can Do Anything, released earlier this year.

Violent Femmes have an interesting niche in the alt-rock canon. They released their debut the same year as R.E.M. and graduated to major labels around the same time, reaping the rewards of the general commercial ascendance of college rock, but obviously never got quite that big. Gordon Gano's odd nervous voice and neurotic on-record persona made him an unlikely rock star in that lineage of other weirdos like Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, or David Byrne. And while the most famous Violent Femmes songs are catchy, simple punk songs bashed out on acoustic strings and brushed drums, bassist Brian Ritchie's avant garde leanings lead the band into some pretty varied sounds (and collaborators like John Zorn, who appears on "Black Girls"). Ritchie also took a rare lead vocal on the deep cut "Love & Me Make Three."

On-again-off-again founding drummer Victor DeLorenzo has been out of the band, seemingly for good this time, since 2013, and at one point Ritchie sued Gano over letting "Blister In The Sun" be used in a Wendy's commercial. So even though I tend not to clutch pearls about "selling out," there's something kind of depressing about this intriguing, weird band whose cult classic went platinum eventually becoming this embarrassing old band that tours with Barenaked Ladies (maybe because they're both dude bands with feminine names?). But they've got some songs that really feel like they'll last forever, including the deep cuts.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane

1. Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book
Acid Rap is one of those records that I didn't know what to make of at first, but then it slowly got really deep under my skin. So it feels impossible to have that kind of relationship with Coloring Book, which I expected to be great, and is, or even Surf, which had its own unpredictable element but ended up being a pretty great star vehicle for Chance despite its intentions. But Chance is operating with such a different palette of sounds and emotions than most of the rest of rap right now that whatever he does just feels so essential. Right now "All Night" and "Same Drugs" are the ones that really stand out and give me that feeling that only Chance does so well now, that giddy rush of big-hearted exalted gratitude for life, the thing that had me playing "Sunday Candy" with a newborn on my lap so many times last year. Here's my running Spotify playlist of 2016 albums I've been listening to, although only like 4 of the albums in this post are on Spotify.

2. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
I've always regarded Radiohead as mere mortals with a highly fallible catalog, so I'm not reaching for the moon and stars by saying that this is their best album in a long time and certainly way better than In Rainbows. But really, it just feels present and lively in a way that their later albums rarely have, like they have a lot fewer "no ______" aesthetic rules posted on the walls of the studio than they usually do. The "Desert Island Disk" and "Ful Stop" section in particular just sound gorgeous, Phil Selway is as always a bore and Thom Yorke continues to shrink away from doing anything interesting or unexpected with his once fascinating voice, but the guitars and strings and atmospherics are beautiful.

3. The Posies - Solid States
I adore The Posies, I worship them like other people worship Radiohead, I really do, and it was fun to dive into their deep cuts recently. Their later albums always take a while to grow on me, I think because they're still really stretching their legs and trying new things, and there's a lot of lyrical and musical territory on this record that there was no hint of in their '90s records. While the verbose, social commentary Elvis Costello vibe of some of their lyrics now can sometimes feel like an odd fit, it's resulted in some really surprising and great songs like "Squirrel vs Snake." And while the move away from guitar/bass/drums into piano, synths and drum machines that dominate the second half of Solid States doesn't always work, there's a high level of songcraft carrying it. Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow are one of my favorite songwriting partnerships, and it's really gratifying to hear them still challenging each other after nearly 30 years of collaborating.

4. Corinne Bailey Rae - The Heart Speaks In Whispers
It's been about a decade since Corinne Bailey Rae's initial big splash of love from the Grammys and VH1, and 6 years since her underperforming sophomore album. And I don't know if she just finally started to make interesting music or if I unfairly dismissed her as boring before, but this record is pretty nice. A few tracks were made with members of KING, but a lot of the best tracks weren't, and it really just has this lovely languid bittersweet aesthetic that works well with her strange little voice.

5. Young Dro & Zaytoven - Boot Me Up
It's cool to hear these guys link up for an entire mixtape, because Young Dro's recent Zaytoven-produced single "Ugh" was great, and they're both kind of these Atlanta journeyman figures who've been around for over a decade but have been building new momentum lately. Dro just had "We In Da City," his biggest song in a long time, and Zay had Future's Beast Mode last year, and did the current 2 Chainz hit and Gucci is back and in the studio with him. Dro dropped another mixtape a week after this one, Phoenix, that's also pretty good, but Boot Me Up is entirely produced by Zaytoven and is just a lot more consistent and more fun, they have a real chemistry, Dro's word drunk punchlines are a good match for Zay's bright trebly synths.

6. Ro James - El Dorado
Ro James co-wrote one of my favorite Miguel songs, "Use Me," and the languid guitar-driven grooves of Miguel's last couple albums is a better indicator of what El Dorado sounds like than his Willie Hutch-sampling single "Permission." I don't love the guy's voice and some songs explore his sound better than others, but "Already Knew That" and "New Religion" are killer and I think this album could really grow on me.

7. Jumbled - Wish It Was Longer
In my years of covering Baltimore's rap underground and Baltimore's rock underground, there's not a lot of people with a foot in both scenes, but John is a good guy I've gotten to know a little who plays drums in bands (I've played a few shows with his band Soft Peaks) and produces and DJs hip hop as Jumbled and with the group Napalm Def. Wish It Was Longer is, true to its title, a brief little record where the tracks run an average of 2 minutes, with occasional guest vocals by local people like Height, UllNevaNo, and Berko Lover from So Nice Yesterday, along with a whole library of odd little samples taking the lead on the instrumental tracks, really a fun listen.

8. The Mercury Program - New Myths EP
About 15 years ago, my friend Stephen from Florida got into this instrumental band that he was friends with, The Mercury Program, and I have fond memories of seeing them at the old Ottobar, and am happy to see that they're still occasionally making music today. New Myths, their first record in a while, is an EP, which is kinda fitting since their best record, 2001's All The Suits Began To Fall Off, was also an EP. Their sound is pretty much the same as it ever way, with vibraphones and knotty polyrhythmic grooves, but I really love the texture of the drums on here, "Dance Pact" is one of the best tracks they've ever done.

9. Boosie Badazz - Bleek Mode (Thug In Peace Lil Bleek)
We're now five months into Boosie's run of releasing an album every month of 2016, and other than April's interesting but hardly essential C-Murder collab album, he's generally been at the top of his game and plumbing new emotional depths with each release. This isn't an entire album about his dead friend, but that definitely permeates the overall vibe of the record, which is one of the darker ones out of a run that included an album recorded directly after a cancer diagnosis. Even recording high volumes of music has never driven Boosie to experiment much with his sound, but "Long Road" is the kind of odd outlier that I wouldn't mind hearing him indulge in more often. Webbie also released Savage Life V in May and there's 3 good Boosie features on there.

10. Brooks Long & The Mad Dog No Good - Mannish Boys
Brooks Long is a soul singer who's been gigging around Baltimore and releasing singles and EPs for a few years now, we included him on a compilation I helped assemble in 2013. And Mannish Boys is his long-awaited full-length debut, featuring new songs and re-recordings of stuff from the old records and guest appearances from other local guys like Bosley and Lafayette Gilchrist. Brooks and his band mine a gritty old school R&B sound but there's a lot of funny, creative layers to the lyrics and it kinda feels like they're remaking that aesthetic into something of their own instead of just being stuck in a retro niche.

Worst Album of the Month: Post Malone - August 26th
If Post Malone was just another mediocre white crossover rapper in the now familiar tradition, he'd be easy enough to ignore. But the fact that this guy's career continues to thrive after he got caught saying the N-word, and he basically just rap-sings cliches in a terrible "turn around and die" voice, has made me absolutely loathe this piece of shit. I guess it was nice that at least he released this tape the same day as Coloring Book and it basically flew under the radar, though. I found myself at least enjoying the Jeremih and 2 Chainz features and finding parts of this tape passable until I got to the horrific track where he sings over a karaoke version of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."