My latest playlists for The Dowsers are a collection of Don Cannon's greatest productions and Rihjects, based on my Fader piece about songs that Rihanna passed on.

a) "The Good Place"
This was one of my most anticipated new shows of the fall ever since I heard the premise and that it involved Ted Danson and Kristen Bell (and someday we need to talk about the injustice of one of the best comedic actresses of her generation wasting five years of her prime on "House Of Lies"). And the first three episodes have lived up to the potential pretty well. The weird afterlife concept seems more suited to a one off movie or sketch than an ongoing series, but I feel like they've already done a good job of showing how the concept could have legs. It reminds me a bit of something like Hitchhiker's Guide or "Futurama," in that the fictional world operates by its own weird rules, which can be bent at a moment's notice for the sake of a joke, and in fact the joke is often funnier when the world arbitrarily bends one way or another just to service it. 

b) "Insecure"
This doesn't start airing for a couple more weeks but HBO put the first episode on demand and I'm looking forward to more now. I haven't seen any of Issa Rae's YouTube work that got her this show, but this whole pilot is so well put together as a showcase of her comedic style and as a statement of intent. A lot of scenes feel like they're gonna be played seriously and then there's some line from out of nowhere that made me laugh out loud. 

c) "This Is Us"
NBC has been selling this show hard as the next touchy feely family drama that will make you emotional, and I enjoyed the last show they worked like that, "Parenthood," well enough to give this one a try. It's pretty damn emotionally manipulative, though, my wife sat there at the end of the episode, both of us with our eyes watering, kind of going "goddammit, they got us." It didn't help that the best part of the pilot, Gerald McRaney, isn't a member of the show's cast, and that aspects of the story felt like a more somber mashup of the "Modern Family" pilot and the "Mike & Molly" pilot. I didn't hate it, it was well done, but it was definitely as offputting as it was charming. 

d) "Speechless"
The first episode of this show did several potentially difficult things well: they introduced a family with a teenage son who has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak, they made him a character with a distinct personality and perspective rather than just a prop or a problem for the other characters to solve, and they made the show more funny than sappy. And I liked the cast. That said, it didn't bowl me over, I hope this is a show that rapidly improves as they find their groove. 

e) "Lethal Weapon"
A Lethal Weapon TV reboot with Damon Wayans is some Shane Black Inception shit, and the first 10 minutes of the pilot were some of the most unintentionally funny horseshit I've seen out of this whole slate of fall shows. Overall, the first episode wasn't bad, the casting was decent enough as far as trying to recreate a couple of iconic roles, and Lethal Weapon is fairly well suited for episodic television. But it was still incredibly dumb and forgettable and lacking in that Shane Black spark that animated the original movies. 

f) "Kevin Can Wait"
Now that, I guess, the Blart bubble has burst, Kevin James is ready to return to CBS sitcom domesticity, now with a wife who's even younger and further out of his league. I find James charming enough and the show is competent, but it's not like I ever made time for "King Of Queens" so I doubt I'll make time for this. 

g) "Fleabag" 
This British show is really singular and exhilarating, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is just a revelation. When the show opened with the main character speaking to the camera, I was wary of it having the Ferris Bueller/Zack Morris vibe that that usually produces in American shows, but the weird way Waller-Bridge will break the fourth wall in the middle of a scene and then go back into the scene works really well. And in the middle of these very manic, very funny scenes and monologues, you'll suddenly get these sad flashbacks of a dead friend she's mourning. I've gotten through 4 of the 6 episodes but I'm really impressed with it so far.  

h) "High Maintenance" 
This show is based on a web series, and HBO put the web shorts on demand before the series debuted, so I watched a bunch of those, more because they're short than because they're all good. But I did enjoy the better web shorts, and I kinda feel like the first two episodes of the HBO show strained a bit to flesh out the concept to 30-minute installments, and used less of Ben Sinclair's character as a framing device to draw it all together. The first one in particular just kind of took two characters from the shorts and fleshed them out into this narrative spanning many months that was kind of interesting but not remotely as funny as the original short, but the second episode kinda tied two stories together well enough.

i) "Easy"
Netflix's "Easy" feels very similar to "High Maintenance," except it's about Chicago hipsters instead of New York hipsters, and there's no semblance of a framing device, it's just a bunch of discrete stories about different people with occasional actors showing up as the same character in different episodes. The first four episodes I've watched were alright, but I kinda feel like these are just half hour Joe Swanberg movies that are mildly more bearable than 90-minute Joe Swanberg movies.

j) "Wonderland"
Every few years, MTV seems to make a go of having a concert series, which I generally applaud, but they never seem to figure out a format that sticks. And this one is really strained and hokey, in the first two minutes of the show they cut between two hosts, who kept saying things like "wavy" and "Harambe," and you'd keep having to wait around through tedious interview segments and shit for a couple songs. I appreciate what they're trying to do with kind of packaging a variety show that's entirely about music and the artists they have on, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. 

k) "Legends Of Chamberlain Heights"
This show is basically a spiritual heir to "South Park," if the animation was so crude it made "South Park" look beautiful, and if the kids were black and said the N word about a hundred times more than I thought was possible on Comedy Central. There are a few bold lines here or there that make the show feel a bit like a dimestore "Boondocks" but mostly I find it brazenly awful and unwatchable. 

l) "Quarry" 
I was weary about another period piece cable drama, but the fact that this show, about a '70s Vietnam vet who comes home and becomes a contract killer, is based on a series of novels that actually started in the '70s at least gives me some confidence in the show's grasp of the setting. In fact the main thing that strained my credulity was that this guy comes home to Memphis in 1972 and is immediately up on Big Star's just-released cult classic #1 Record, but I guess someone just couldn't resist that touch. But mostly the show is pretty bleak and violent -- I think Jamie Hector's best friend character would've been a good part of the show had he not been killed off in the first episode. 

m) "Geeking Out"
This show on SyFy features Kevin Smith and Greg Grunberg being loud enthusiastic nerds about the usual comics and movies. But really the show is pretty enjoyable, these guys have the kind of connections where every episode has an interview with a Matt Damon or a J.J. Abrams but they have that geeky enthusiasm to really ask good questions and have fun with it.

n) "Superstore" 
I'm amused at how NBC seems to put Mark McKinney from "The Kids In The Hall" on the air once every decade or so -- a season on "SNL," then the short-lived "Studio 60," and now "Superstore," which has actually survived to a second season. The first season ended with kind of a cliffhanger with the staff of the store on strike, but before the proper season premiere picked up the story, they ran an episode a month ago during the Olympics that kind of jumped back chronologically into the middle of the first season. It's a strong little ensemble show, glad it's back. 

o) "Adam Ruins Everything"
This was one of my favorite new shows last year and it's continued to be a lot of fun in the second season. I feel like it would appeal to people who watch John Oliver pedantically dig into a different topic every week, even if the sketch-y format is not too similar.

p) "The Strain"
The craziest thing about this show's third season is it only takes place about 3-4 weeks after the show's pilot. It makes sense that they've slowed the timeline down to get the day-to-day story of the outbreak, but it's just insane to think of everything that's happened in that time period. It's not a great show but I enjoy it, and at this point I'm kind of rooting for Kevin Durand and/or Ruta Gedmintas to become the de facto heroes of the show over Corey Stoll.

q) "American Horror Story"
Earlier this year, "The People v. O.J. Simpson" became the first Ryan Murphy show that I finished an entire season of, and I'd started 3 previous seasons of "American Horror Story" before kind of throwing my hands up in exasperation at its general misunderstanding or disregard of everything I like about horror movies. But "American Horror Story: Roanoke" hooked me pretty quickly with the first two episodes and it's had a more convincing sense of dread and suspense than any of the previous seasons I've seen. I'm still a little unsure about the weird faux documentary device that has one set of actors telling the story in talking head segments and a different set of actors playing those same characters in 'reenactments,' but maybe it will pay off somehow in the end? The Roanoke Colony was always such a fascinating creepy mystery in history class, it was a great idea to use it for a horror story. 

r) "The Voice"
I like this show enough to kinda pop in once or twice a year but not enough to actually keep up with it. The first episode with Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys as coaches was about what you'd expect from them, I guess. A guy did an absurd smoothed out falsetto cover of "Sex & Candy" and Adam Levine was predictably the first chair to turn around, it was hilarious. I feel bad for everyone on this show who has to pretend that there are any real stakes in winning, it's such a sham. I mean, Cassadee Pope was on a #1 country single this year, so I guess it's not all bad, but even the weakest season of "American Idol" delivered better career prospects, and now that "Idol" is over "The Voice" still isn't any better at making stars. 

A new band I'm playing drums for, Woodfir, with Reda and Tim formerly of Blood Horses, put up a preview of its upcoming debut EP, the song "Anxious," on Bandcamp. I should have new music and shows from 3 different bands coming this fall, this is just the first taste. 

Bruce Springsteen is in the midst of a publicity blitz for his autobiography Born To Run, out tomorrow, and its companion album Chapter And Verse, which came out on Friday. I'm probably not going to read the book anytime soon, since I read another 500-page Springsteen bio, Peter Ames Carlin's excellent Bruce, only two years ago, but I definitely would like to get to it eventually. And I'm enjoying Chapter And Verse, which spans 46 years in one disc and has 5 previously unreleased early tracks, including a chance to finally hear Springsteen's storied early bands The Castiles and Steel Mill. But I always wanted to do a deep cuts playlist focusing on just his prime, those first 8 albums from the '70s and '80s, picking the gems from one of the richest catalogs in rock music.

Bruce Springsteen Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. Growin' Up
2. The E Street Shuffle
3. Kitty's Back
4. Backstreets
5. Meeting Across The River
6. Jungleland
7. Candy's Room
8. Adam Raised A Cain
9. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
10. Out In The Street
11. Stolen Car
12. Two Hearts
13. State Trooper
14. Johnny 99
15. Bobby Jean
16. Downbound Train
17. No Surrender
18. All That Heaven Will Allow

Track 1 from Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
Tracks 2 and 3 from The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (1973)
Tracks, 4, 5 and 6 from Born To Run (1975)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from The River (1980)
Tracks 13 and 14 from Nebraska (1982)
Tracks 15, 16 and 17 from Born In The U.S.A. (1984)
Track 18 from Tunnel Of Love (1987)

I went through much of the same process with Springsteen and his music that I went through with Prince; they were such ubiquitous icons during my '80s childhood that by the time I was a music lover in the '90s, they were kind of taken for granted as these tacky familiar figures that faded into the background. But by the end of the decade and into the next one, as I started to delve more into pop music's past, I developed a renewed appreciation along with a lot of other people of my generation.

The Live In New York City HBO special was what really got me more into Bruce and the E Street Band, hearing unfamiliar songs like "Out In The Street" and "Two Hearts" for the first time in those exhilarating live performances. And then I started checking out the albums and falling in love with deep cuts like "Bobby Jean" and "Backstreets." Springsteen is an artist whose signature sound is immediately identifiable, and easily simplified or parodied, but there are songs I adore like "Candy's Room" and "Meeting Across The Water" that feel totally unique within his catalog, successful one off experiments he had no need to repeat. Some of the songs that weren't singles, like "Thunder Road" and "Rosalita," are such radio staples that it felt wrong to include them. "Jungleland" was a little borderline but I decided it belonged.

Darkness is really my shit, but I also love Born To Run. I'm still kinda working my way into The River, which is one of those albums I feel like I never enjoy as much as I should. I mentally class it with Exile On Main Street and Physical Graffiti: double albums that have a wealth of good and great songs but never work for me as well as the more concise single albums that directly preceded them.

Caryn Rose recently ranked all 300+ Sprinsteen songs for Vulture, and I really recommend it as a very opinionated and informative overview of his catalog. I have my own favorites that fall out of step with some of her rankings, but it definitely gave me some food for thought as I put together this playlist. His entire career is fascinating, but the arc of these first 8 studio albums has a certain poetry to it that his best later songs can never recapture.The shaggy and verbose early albums giving way to the polish and theatricality of his peak, and then the same set of demos getting birthing both the dark, minimal Nebraska and the bittersweet blockbuster Born In The U.S.A., and then meeting somewhere in the glossy, moody of Tunnel Of Love.

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
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC

I made a playlist for The Dowsers of George Jones's greatest songs about beer, wine and moonshine. I also made one of the best of Lil Wayne, post-Carter III.

1. Kehlani - "CRZY"
Kehlani has been kind of a semi-famous critical darling for a minute and was even nominated for a Grammy, but never really got to the point of having any songs on the radio until recently. In fact, there was an ugly little moment where R&B stations that had never played her music were suddenly dedicating gossip segments to discussion of her relationship status and reported suicide attempt, which really made me feel bad for someone whose music I didn't really know well. She has a song on the Suicide Squad soundtrack that's doing well on the charts now, "Gangsta," but I'm a lot more impressed with "CRZY," which seems to kind of grab ahold of this odd unpleasant moment in the spotlight and turn it into a bold, catchy, life-affirming song. I add my 10 favorite songs every month to my running favorite 2016 singles Spotify playlist.

2. Bastille - "Good Grief"
I had a kneejerk negative reaction to Bastille's big breakthrough hit "Pompeii" and the way the vocals sounded to me like Prince Valiant with some Gregorian chanting monks singing backup. But I warmed up to the follow up single "Bad Blood" and now I outright love their current single. The intro and bridge of the song sample Kelly Le Brock's voice in Weird Science, which is one of the most arousing sounds I've ever heard, so maybe I'm being swayed by that somewhat, but I really love the bassline.

3. Chance The Rapper f/ 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne - "No Problem"
It's been fascinating and exciting to watch Chance The Rapper's rise over the past 3-4 years as he's managed to become seriously successful while circumventing a lot of the traditional paths to stardom and metrics of success. Aside from the no label stuff and the free streaming record and all that, he just got really far without courting radio outside Chicago at all, which makes sense, because he's out of step with radio rap enough that he kinda needed the right song, and as much as I love, say, "Sunday Candy," that was never gonna be what crossed him over. His first collaboration with Lil Wayne, Dedication 5's "You Song," was one of the first tracks that made that crossover sound tangible, although the first time I actually heard Chance on the radio, on Action Bronson's "Baby Blue," felt like an event in and of itself. But now "No Problem" is Chance's first real legit radio hit, and even with 2 Chainz and Wayne making it sound more commercial, it really retains the right amount of Chance's sound and kinda shows how he can integrate that buoyant gospel rap vibe into the existing mainstream.

4. 5 Seconds Of Summer - "Girls Talk Boys"
Last year the second 5 Seconds Of Summer arrived with magazine covers and first week sales that seemed to promise that they were ready to become a really huge U.S. phenomenon, but then none of the singles hit and the album just kinda vanished from view so much quicker than their first. I don't know if this song from the Ghostbusters soundtrack will actually change their trajectory at all, but it's about ten times better than any previous 5SOS song I've heard, so I'm rooting for it. And it's written by Teddy "Love Monkey" Geiger, who's recently transitioned from fleeting mid-'00s teen idol success to working on hits by current teen idols like Shawn Mendes.

5. Khalid - "Location"
I just heard this on the radio recently and don't know anything about the artist and don't even know if I really like his voice, but the song just felt immediately like a hit, would be surprised if it doesn't blow up.

6. Hailee Steinfeld and Grey f/ Zedd - "Starving"
"Love Myself" was a pretty unique song for Hailee Steinfeld to kick off her pop career with, but "Starving manages to retain the same odd vibe of being sweet and earnest but also horny. "Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo" is an absolutely awful lyric, but otherwise it's a pretty catchy little song, kind of beats the Chainsmokers at their own game.

7. Sevyn Streeter f/ Gucci Mane - "Prolly"
Sevyn Streeter is perhaps my favorite of the many undervalued female R&B singers kicking around the major labels right now, she's had a few hits and written some for other artists but just keeps getting stuck in that gear of releasing singles and EPs with no album release in sight. This song has potential, though, it kinda sounds like she wrote it for someone else or kind of emulating a popular style she doesn't usually do, but she pulls it off well, and it has one of Gucci's best recent guest verses.

8. Tinashe - "Superlove"
It's only been 2 years since Tinashe's first album and the success of "2 On" but she's been kind of stalling with her recent singles too, it's a shame. The-Dream and Tricky Stewart channeling the sound of "My Boo" so soon after its viral revival seemed like a recipe for a hit, but this song hasn't done too well either, feels like it'll get left behind like that other "Superlove" that was abandoned in between Charli XCX's first and second albums.

9. French Montana f/ Kodak Black - "Lockjaw"
This song seemed to be poised to be huge, but then Kodak Black got locked up without any indication of when he'll be free again, and French Montana's album was both delayed and accidentally leaked in such a disastrous fashion that I actually felt sorry for one of my least favorite rappers.

10. Snoop Dogg f/ Lil Duval - "Kill 'Em Wit The Shoulders"
I like the idea that Lil Duval, a C-list comedian who's always popping up in rap videos, came up with a goofy dance move and then convinced one of the world's most famous rappers to make a theme song for it. But what actually makes "Kill 'Em Wit The Shoulders" an enjoyable song is how low rent it is, like some amateur producer threw together a placeholder track for Snoop to rap over and they just ran with it, and it ended up capturing the right dorky uncle vibe that the entire thing called for.

Worst Single of the Month: Lady Gaga - "Perfect Illusion" 
As someone who thought Lady Gaga retained a fair share of her peak greatness on Born This Way and even Artpop, I was rooting for her to actually justify her long break from proper pop stardom and come back with something amazing. And I'm still holding out hope that Joanne will be a good album, but man, after a couple listens of "Perfect Illusion" I just never want to hear it again. I usually like her classic rock vibes, but here it just all sounds wrong.

Tonight, AC/DC is playing Philadelphia, and it's the last of their U.S. shows with Axl Rose, who decided to front a second huge band in between tours with some of the original lineup of Guns N/ Roses. But I'm also wondering if it'll be the last AC/DC concert for a long time, if not ever. In the last two years, AC/DC have wound up shedding 3 longtime members in the course of releasing 2014's Rock Or Bust and touring in support of it. Guitarist Malcolm Young retired from the band due to health problems, drummer Phil Rudd dropped out of the band due to a bizarre arrest for a murder plot, and singer Brian Johnson was unable to complete the tour due to hearing loss. He wanted to postpone the dates, but Angus Young and Cliff Williams plugged ahead, doing the last two of the tour's seven legs with Axl. Maybe it was greed that made them drop Johnson like a bad habit (the tour grossed over 200 million dollars) or maybe cancelling dates on a tour of this scale just has huge financial or legal consequences they were trying to avoid. Either way, tonight marks the end of a pretty rough chapter for the band, and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear little or nothing from these guys in the future. So here's a look back.

AC/DC Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. The Jack
2. Rocker
3. Ride On
4. Bad Boy Boogie
5. Riff Raff
6. What's Next To The Moon
7. Love Hungry Man
8. If You Want Blood (You've Got It)
9. Night Prowler
10. Shoot To Thrill
11. Let Me Put My Love Into You
12. Have A Drink On Me
13. Night Of The Long Knives
14. Landslide
15. Playing With Girls
16. Nick Of Time
17. Mistress For Christmas
18. Goodbye And Good Riddance To Bad Luck

Track 1 from High Voltage (1976)
Tracks 2 and 3 from Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976)
Track 4 from Let There Be Rock (1977)
Tracks 5 and 6 from Powerage (1978)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Highway To Hell (1979)
Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from Back In Black (1980)
Track 13 from For Those About To Rock We Salute You (1981)
Track 14 from Flick Of The Switch (1983)
Track 15 from Fly On The Wall (1985)
Track 16 from Blow Up Your Video (1988)
Tracks 17 and 18 from The Razors Edge (1990)

I went by the international editions of the band's early albums, which were originally released in different forms in Australia (for instance, "The Jack" is not on the Australian version of High Voltage, but it is on the album T.N.T. which was never released outside Australia). And of course, I divided the mix pretty cleanly into the two eras: the first 9 tracks feature the band's amazing original frontman Bon Scott, and the last 9 tracks feature Brian Johnson, who may not be his predecessor's equal, but has presided over too many fantastic definitive AC/DC songs to be dismissed as easily as a Sammy Hagar.

Being able to collect songs from different AC/DC albums in one place, or even buy a collection of them, is a relatively recent development. They were always famous holdouts from iTunes, which they finally put their catalog on in 2012, and streaming services like Spotify, which they finally got on just last year. But AC/DC has also never released a proper 'greatest hits' album among their various live records and box sets and whatnot. It's funny to think of such a goofy band with so many great singles being kind of snobby about the sanctity of the album. But it worked out well from a business standpoint: Back In Black sold a staggering 22 million copies in the U.S. alone, and they have 8 other multi-platinum studio albums.

AC/DC has, on two occasions, released compilations of studio tracks as soundtracks for movies -- 1986's Who Made Who for the Stephen King film Maximum Overdrive, and 2010's Iron Man 2. But those weren't proper hits collections, and in fact highlighted some really good deep cuts, including the uncharacteristically slow groove of "Ride On" (on Who Made Who) and "Shoot To Thrill" and "Have A Drink On Me" (on Iron Man 2).

Obviously, AC/DC found their signature sound, the choppy riffs and solid 4/4 beats and wild solos and sleazy wordplay, very early in their run and stuck to their trademark as faithfully and as successfully as any band in history. But I'd like to think that this playlist demonstrates how many different directions they stretched that sound in, with some tracks that are slower and bluesier, or faster and punkier, than about anything you hear in their radio staples.

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
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf

I made a clappers playlist for The Dowsers, inspired by my 2012 Village Voice piece about 8th note handclaps in popular music.

Meat Loaf's 13th solo album, Braver Than We Are, is out today, so I thought I'd look back at his weird spotty catalog and find the highlights.

Meat Loaf Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. All Revved Up With No Place To Go
2. Heaven Can Wait
3. For Crying Out Loud
4. I'll Kill You If You Don't Come Back
5. Nocturnal Pleasure [Monologue by Jim Steinman]
6. You Can Never Be Too Sure About The Girl
7. One More Kiss (Night Of The Soft Parade)
8. Burning Down
9. Lost Boys And Golden Girls
10. Wasted Youth [Monologue by Jim Steinman]
11. Everything Louder Than Everything Else
12. Where The Rubber Meets The Road
13. Testify
14. Bad For Good [featuring Brian May]
15. Peace On Earth

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from Bat Out Of Hell (1977)
Tracks 4 and 5 from Dead Ringer (1981)
Track 6 from Midnight At The Lost And Found (1983)
Tracks 7 and 8 from Blind Before I Stop (1986)
Tracks 9, 10 and 11 from Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell (1993)
Track 12 from Welcome To The Neighbourhood (1995)
Track 13 from Couldn't Have Said It Better (2003)
Track 14 from Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose (2006)
Track 15 from Hang Cool Teddy Bear (2010)


I should note that as a result of the ups and downs and label changes throughout Meat Loaf's career, a couple of his studio albums that aren't available on streaming services are not represented here -- 1985's Bad Attitude and 2011's Hell In A Handbasket. But it's OK that was limited in my selection, because I still had his two big blockbuster albums -- the first two Bat Out Of Hell albums. And his songs tend to be so long that I was only able to fit 15 tracks into 80 minutes, tying Madonna for the lowest number of tracks in a deep cuts playlist. And even then, two of the tracks are weird creepy spoken interludes by songwriter Jim Steinman.

The story of Meat Loaf's career is the story of a unique vocal talent hitching his wagon to a unique songwriting talent with such chemistry that their fates were basically intertwined for life. Jim Steinman can write pretty straightforward hits -- including "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" and a few other non-Meat smashes -- but it's hard to imagine that all the goofy overblown eccentric glory of his songs would've been realized on the scale they were without Meat Loaf singing them. And it's hard to imagine Bitch Tits, not a songwriter by trade, would've become a star without the right writer backing him.

But after Bat Out Of Hell's success, Meat Loaf had his first struggles with losing his voice, and wasn't able to record the first set of songs Steinman wrote as a follow-up. So Steinman sang the songs on his only solo album, Bad For Good, and wrote some more for Meat's album Dead Ringer, both of which were released in 1981 with a fraction of the success they'd enjoyed in the '70s. Meat Loaf's '80s are one of the more famous lost decades in pop music, as he lobbed four albums into an increasingly indifferent marketplace. I've always been curious about those fallow period albums, and to be honest there are some gems -- "You Can Never Be Too Sure About The Girl" is the best song actually co-written by Meat Loaf, and the glossy synth sound of Blind Before I Stop suits him better than I expected it to. And of course, Meat and Steinman would reunite and squabble a few times after that, including the massive comeback Bat Out Of Hell II. And two of the best songs from Meat's later albums, "Bad For Good" and "Lost Boys And Golden Girls," are re-recordings from the Steinman album.

Meat Loaf will never be especially respectable, but "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" is one of the greatest songs ever as far as I'm concerned, and really that whole first album is a delight. I remember my mom and stepdad having the first two Bat Out Of Hell albums and Welcome To The Neighbourhood on in the house a lot, and a few years ago my brother-in-law and I discovered a shared love of Bat Out Of Hell, just a couple of millenials bonding over Meat Loaf. And if you've ever been amused by the fact that Meat Loaf released an album called Hang Cool Teddy Bear, you can hear him actually sing that phrase on the last track of the playlist.

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
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly

Early this week, Nelly made headlines with the news that he's the latest rap star to get hit with a large tax lien from the IRS. But what really got people talking about the story was a Spin post that asserted that with a few hundred million streams of "Hot In Herre," Nelly could pay off that $2 million bill. I don't know if that's actually true. Nelly sold over 20 million albums back when people were actually paying $10 a CD. If he's in money trouble now, I kind of doubt that a trickle of pennies from Spotify, which Universal still gets a cut of, would save him, even if we are in the business of saving rich entertainers who screwed up. But hey, it's a fun idea, I get why people are talking about it. But why just loop "Hot In Herre"? Nelly has a lot of songs. Here are some other ones to listen to.

Nelly Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. Tho Dem Wraps
2. St. Louie
3. For My featuring Lil Wayne
4. Luven Me
5. Let Me In Now with St. Lunatics
6. Nellyville
7. Splurge
8. Oh Nelly featuring Murphy Lee
9. The Gank
10. Kings Highway
11. Playa featuring Mobb Deep and Missy Elliott
12. Grand Hang Out featuring Fat Joe, Young Tru and Remy Ma
13. Pretty Toes featuring Jazze Pha and T.I.
14. UCUD GETIT featuring Gucci Mane and R. Kelly
15. Self Esteem featuring Chuck D
16. 1000 Stacks
17. k.I.s.s. featuring Dirty Money and Murphy Lee
18. Maryland, Massachusetts

Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Country Grammar (2000)
Track 5 from St. Lunatics' Free City (2001)
Tracks 6, 7, 8 and 9 from Nellyville (2002)
Track 10 from Da Derrty Versions: The Reinvention (2003)
Tracks 11 and 12 from Sweat (2004)
Track 13 from Suit (2004)
Tracks 14 and 15 from Brass Knuckles (2008)
Tracks 16 and 17 from 5.0 (2010)
Track 18 from M.O. (2013)

Producer Jason "Jay E" Epperson was such a big part of Nelly's phenomenal Country Grammar success that it's surprising he hasn't had a very impressive career since then. He produced a few deep cuts and minor singles on Nellyville and Sweat but basically never was heard from outside of Nelly records. It was kind of cool how an unknown rapper and producer from St. Louis just landed on this buoyant unique pop rap sound that became a cottage industry for a few years.

Even with Nelly seeming fairly disconnected from the established rap mainstream at first (aside from a pretty great early Lil Wayne feature on Country Grammar), he eventually became more collaborative, and I've really liked a lot of his later collaborations. I'm still kind of mystified with his friendship with T.I. though -- they've guested on each other's albums 6 times now, and none of those songs were hits or especially great, and you wouldn't think those guys have a lot in common. But I get the impression they actually hang out. Go figure.

Nelly is the kind of artist who started his career with such huge success that it was basically impossible to stay at that level forever. But he's carved out a niche that nobody can really take from him. There are a lot of singer-rappers now but nobody sounds like Nelly. And it was fun to skim through these records that never got any real critical examination and find some jams. I didn't realize he did a song with Dirty Money but no Diddy, it's pretty great.

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
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac