Month: November 2021

“That’s why we have all these reboots of teen shows from the ’90s. Get a new idea, Hollywood.” – A wise cheerleader.

You gotta respect the Saved By The Bell Season 2 trailer for calling itself out as part of the non-stoppable trend of reboots, revivals, revamps, and re-everything on TV. The first season proved to be surprisingly appealing and accessible to a younger, more culturally diverse audience, all while delivering some drama for the messed-up adults, who are all somehow still hanging out around or working at Bayside High School (yes, that’s odd). Zack “Attack” Morris returned as the terrible Governor of California, and Jessie and Slater and Kelly are all back. On a more somber note, expect this season to feature a tribute to the late Dustin Diamond (as reported by Variety and according to executive producer Franco Bario), who thanklessly portrayed Screech, back in the day.

The trailer, though, sticks with its usual peppy tone while including pointed mention of how much Slater and Zack think their lives suck, and of course, they turn it into a competition. And Jessie is going through a divorce, which means that Slater is way too excited. Yeah, don’t do that again, guys. They’re totally gonna do it again, right? Here’s what’s going on with the students, via the synopisis:

Bayside High gears up to compete in the Southern California School Spirit Competition. Daisy is determined not to get sidetracked by “Bayside nonsense,” but when a cute new student is elected student council VP, she finds herself in way over her head. Mac sees the competition as a way to finally step out from his father’s shadow. Jamie leans on Lexi in the wake of his parents’ divorce while Lexi struggles to be a more understanding girlfriend; Aisha seeks a new outlet after football is canceled; DeVante finds love with a rich Bayside girl, and Slater and a newly single Jessie grow closer despite their tumultuous romantic past.

Saved By The Bell returns to Peacock on November 24.

Black women in music have long been considered R&B and hip-hop to fit the music industry’s expectations of ‘urban’ marketing, but current acts are pushing back against the standard and broadening pop music through inclusivity. For artists like Victoria Monet, Chlöe Bailey, Normani, and others, Black female singers are redefining pop music through sheer confidence in their songwriting capabilities, production, and visual aesthetics — proving that there’s room for more than one woman at the top.

As history tells it, Black female artists who play fair weren’t always the norm. For women in the music industry, there’s pressure to stay relevant amidst newers acts in the face of ageism, sexism, body dysmorphia, and aggressive online targeting. Prior to her untimely death in 2001 — and before the social media era — Aaliyah was arguably the standard for R&B-turned-pop experimentation, trading baggy jeans for hypnotic maturation on her final, eponymous album. 2001’s Aaliyah was a masterclass in Y2K futurism and dulcet, self-assured vocals that would influence fellow millennial pop artists and the next generation of progressive Black female artists.

Molded by Aaliyah’s impact are a slew of Black female vocalists including Kehlani, Normani, and Tinashe — the latter who’s been outspoken about genre barriers for Black women. In a 2017 article in the LA Times, the singer Tinashe leaned into unfair comparisons amongst each other:

“It creates this competitiveness, even among fan bases,” Tinashe added. “People feel they can’t be a fan of Kehlani and me. It’s confusing, like why not be fans of whatever you like? Why does there need to be this rivalry approach? We don’t do that with male artists.”

Defeating critiques that Black women belong on rhythmic and urban charts, Tinashe made a grand return to the pop sphere on her sultry 2019 effort Songs For You, released shortly after her leave from RCA Records. As her first album as an independent artist, Songs For You reached #1 on the iTunes Albums chart upon its release, the second independent artist to do so since Frank Ocean released Blonde in 2016. Helmed with critical acclaim for its pop experimentation and largely considered her best album to date, Tinashe took Songs For You into the virtual world on VR platform Wave in livestream concerts at the beginning of the pandemic last year.

In August arrived Tinashe’s fifth studio album 333, where the singer further explored VR, alternate realities, and spirituality in music and visuals for singles “Pasadena” and “Bouncin’.” Through a streak of daring eclecticism and a history of collaborations with electronic producers Kaytranada, Wax Motif, and MAKJ, Tinashe eschews naysayers who limit her to R&B, pushing boundaries of the pop genre.

Dispelling recent allegations of a rivalry with Tinashe over a seductive photoset is one-half of vocalist sister duo Chloe x Halle, Chlöe Bailey. Adding an umlaut to her forename and blonde highlights to her already-signature locs, Bailey dismissed skeptics with her long-awaited debut solo single “Have Mercy,” which was released in September. Lauded for its upbeat production and being a curve-embracing anthem, fans drew comparisons between Chlöe and mentor Beyoncé, who signed Chloe x Halle to her company Parkwood Entertainment in 2015. As fans await Chlöe’s next single, “Have Mercy” has already made rounds on televised performances from last month’s 2021 MTV Video Music Awards to The Tonight Show, making Chlöe pop’s next breakout star.

Controversy surrounded Chlöe’s debut performance at the 2021 MTV VMAs after Normani voiced her disappointment with the telecast for allegedly choosing Chlöe to be the only Black woman to perform that night. In 2019, Normani graced the VMAs with a high-energy performance of “Motivation,” and sought to return to the awards show following the release of her latest single “Wild Side.” After fans petitioned for Normani’s appearance at the show, the singer delivered with a cameo by Teyana Taylor in a sultry homage to Janet Jackson’s 2001 concert performance of All For You track “Would You Mind.”

Once a member of girl group Fifth Harmony before they disbanded in 2018, Normani is on her second act. Poised to release her upcoming solo debut with multifaceted potential, the singer spoke with Allure about being an all-encompassing artist:

“My purpose in this work that I do is for other people that feel like they have Black women figured out. There’s so many layers to us, there’s so many textures, there’s so much that we’re capable of doing,” Normani says. “Yes, I can throw ass. But I can also give you a proper eight-count, and I can do ballet, and I can do contemporary dance. If I want to sing this pop ballad, then you’re going to love it! While you see my Black face!” Period.

Like Normani, Victoria Monét was once in a girl group, but later carved her own lane as singer-songwriter for a decade prior to releasing her 2020 debut album Jaguar. A longtime collaborator and songwriter for Ariana Grande, Victoria Monét entices listeners through her unapologetic soundscapes of femininity, self-love, and sensuality. While Jaguar was largely an homage to 1970s funk and disco, Monét reintroduced the throwback era to Gen-Z fans, especially in her Jaguar live session that premiered in March.

Becoming a DIY internet sensation for her 2018 meme-inspired visual “Mooo!,” pop act Doja Cat has led the crusade of oddball artistry since her humble SoundCloud beginnings. Landing a joint deal with RCA Records and Kemosabe Records in 2014, Doja Cat’s rise to stardom wasn’t instantaneous, instead having to refine her rap-fueled spunk to craft a mainstream sound. By 2020, her sophomore album Hot Pink shot to No. 9 on the Billboard 200 despite being released a year prior, thanks to her viral dance-worthy smash “Say So.”

As host of the 2021 MTV VMAs — and even taking three Moon Person trophies home — Doja Cat’s third album Planet Her exemplifies celestial pop, celebrating womanhood and diverse instrumentation from urbano to dancehall. Still embracing her online antics, Doja Cat hasn’t had to compromise her personality for stardom, recently becoming the new face of PepsiCo for its 50th anniversary.

Through charisma and sleek full-packed quality, the new generation of Black female acts continue to uphold pop by changing the tides of the genre with determination. The future couldn’t be more exciting.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If there are two things we know that Drake loves, it’s basketball and women. So it makes sense that he’d like to combine the two in his hometown with a franchise of the WNBA. Drake, who already has a role as ambassador for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, made his case on Instagram in the wee hours of the night, posting a single-frame Instagram Story reading, simply, “@WNBA, I need a Toronto team.”

This poses all kinds of fascinating possibilities. Would Drake be the owner? Would he want an ambassador role like the one he has with the Raptors? What would the team’s name be? You have to hope it wouldn’t be dinosaur-themed, as the Raptors’ entire concept came from the popularity of the original Jurassic Park the year of the team’s inception.

Furthermore, how would this affect the league as a whole? You’d think adding just one team would unbalance the season schedule quite a lot, so how many teams would be created in an expansion? Would there be an expansion draft? How would the talent in the W, which just went through a dramatic upheaval after solidifying a new CBA, be redistributed to provide parity?

For now, this is all just speculation and spitballing, but it would sure be fun to find out that the (much-needed) expansion is actually in the works. It’d probably be even more fun to see the self-declared Certified Lover Boy sitting courtside, cheering on favorites like Candace Parker, Chiney Ogwumike, and Aja Wilson, bringing some well-deserved publicity to the WNBA.

While promoting the release of Red Notice, his latest action comedy for Netflix, The Rock opened up about the fate of Hobbs & Shaw 2 and reassured fans that the film is still happening. According to the actor turned wrestler, the film isn’t being delayed because Universal has cold feet or anything like that. It’s simply a matter of “timing” thanks to The Rock’s obviously jam-packed schedule. In fact, he’s extremely interested in the sequel, and he recently revealed to SiriusXM that he pitched a story to Universal that everyone loved because it gives the spinoff franchise its own identity that’s uniquely different from the main Fast & Furious films, which The Rock will not be rejoining thanks to his notorious feud with Vin Diesel. (Or at least that’s the story for now.) Via Collider:

It would be the antithesis of what Fast and Furious movies generally are in that they continue to go on and go on and go on. In this case, I still want to do the quintessential Hobbs movie. That, without giving it away, you watch a man walk off into the sunset. Donna loved it and they’ve been wonderful partners at Universal, but I said, ’You know, we have an opportunity here, I think to go against the grain and let’s disrupt things a little bit, and let’s create a movie within the Fast and Furious world that is unexpected, that I think people will go, ‘Oh man, like, wow, thank you for that.’”

While The Rock may be hesitant about working with Diesel again, he hasn’t been shy about making jokes about their on-and-off feud because they “play great” with the audience. There’s reportedly a gag about the action stars’ larger-than-life beef in Red Notice, which is now streaming on Netflix.

(Via SiriusXM)

The highly-anticipated showdown between Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes will once again have to wait until the next time their two teams play. According to multiple media reports, Rodgers is slated to miss the game after testing positive for COVID-19. Further reporting indicated that Rodgers has not been vaccinated against the virus, although he had said earlier this year that he was “immunized.”

As a result, Green Bay will turn its offense over to backup signal caller Jordan Love, who the team drafted with the No. 26 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft out of Utah State. An interesting prospect who was viewed as the kind of player who needed to sit, learn, and follow the sort of roadmap that Rodgers and Mahomes did during their first years in the NFL, Love has appeared in two games in his NFL career, both of which came this season, and he only threw a pass in one of them.

This is not the first time that a matchup between two of the greatest quarterbacks of their respective eras failed to come to fruition — Mahomes and Rodgers were slated to square off in 2019, but an injury to the Chiefs’ signal caller meant Matt Moore started that game. Green Bay would go on to win, 31-24. This Sunday’s game will take place at Arrowhead Field, and is scheduled to kick off at 4:25 p.m. EST.

US Congress isn’t usually able to agree on much of anything but it looks like the legislative branch has found one thing that Democrats and Republicans won’t fight about: Hip-hop is universal. This November has been declared the inaugural Hip-Hop History Month thanks to a resolution (331) co-sponsored by New York Congressman Jamal Brown and California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. The language of the resolution was reviewed by the Universal Hip-Hop Museum Founder and President Rocky Bucano. UHHM is launching its “Know Ya Hop” campaign to commemorate the occasion.

In a statement from UHHM, Bucano explained his involvement, saying, “Back in July, I was asked by Congressman Jamaal Bowman to help review the language being used to create the Resolution designating August 11th as Hip-Hop Recognition Day and November as Hip-Hop History Month. Little did we know it would pass!”

Congressman Bowman also elaborated on his commitment to the resolution, recalling, “Hip Hop is my life. Hip-Hop saved my life. Hip-Hop gave me knowledge of self. Hip-Hop is who I am. The celebration of Hip-Hop history and the study of it is essential to our democracy, our innovation, our voice, and who we are as human beings. Hip Hop is an honest story of communities around the world and provides the opportunity to increase understanding and create a pathway forward for all of us.”

Ed Sheeran recently dropped = (aka Equals), the latest in his series of albums names after mathematical symbols. Sheeran is starting to run out of math symbols after which to name his albums, and it turns out he doesn’t have many more planned, but that doesn’t mean the end of the symbols series.

In an interview with the Armchair Expert podcast (as NME notes), Sheeran said, “I’m going to make ten symbol records, but the next five won’t be maths.” He also indicated that he has plans for a follow-up to 2019’s No. 6 Collaborations Project, saying, “Between the next one, I’ll do ‘No. 7.’”

As for his next album title, he hasn’t said anything on that front yet, but – (aka Subtract) seems like a strong candidate, mainly because he’s discussed the possibility before. In a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said, “My idea for Subtract was to not have anything on it, just be an acoustic record. So not necessarily say, ‘Oh, I’m going to take away from my fan base,’ but rather take away from the production.”

Meanwhile, Sheeran is set to perform on Saturday Night Live this weekend following concerns he would be able to after a positive COVID test.

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Every Killing Eve fan knows that Jodie Comer is a star — Hollywood is catching up.

The Emmy winner was the best reason to see Ryan Reynolds’ video game movie Free Guy, and she excelled alongside Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Adam Driver in The Last Duel. After the final season of Killing Eve wraps, Comer will re-team with Duel director Ridley Scott for Kitbag, where she plays Joséphine Bonaparte to Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoléon. “I want to make sure that she’s fully fleshed out and has her own sense of agency. Once Killing Eve’s done I can really step into that,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.

Every director in Hollywood, I imagine, wants to work with Comer, but there’s one filmmaker in particular that she’d be excited to make a movie with. “I’d love to do some very grounded sci-fi and I really, really want to work with Julia Ducournau,” she said about the Raw and Titane (one of 2021’s best movies) director. “What I love about her is that she clearly has such a distinct voice and her films are so unexpected.”

As for Killing Eve, Comer, who plays stylish assassin Villanelle, said one of her only requests for the final season “was that I wanted Villanelle’s fire reignited, as I felt it had fizzled out a bit. There is a particular moment that’s like nothing we’ve ever done in Killing Eve.” Killing Eve is set to return in 2022.

(Via Harper’s Bazaar)

Never one to miss a chance join in the culture wars, Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert criticized Pete Buttigieg and basically the entire concept of parental leave by bragging that she once gave birth in the front seat of her pickup truck. The alleged January 6 co-conspirator made the disparaging remarks on her YouTube show (after the 6:00 mark above) that’s naturally titled “Bullet Points.” She also couldn’t resist repeating Tucker Carlson’s tired, homophobic gag that Buttigieg spent his parental leave trying to learn how to “chest feed.” Via Business Insider:

“I delivered one of my children in the front seat of my truck. Because as a mom of four, we got things to do,” said Boebert in a video bulletin posted Monday by her YouTube account.

“Ain’t nobody got time for two and a half months of maternity leave. We have a world to save here,” she added.

As for how exactly Boebert has been “saving the world” is anyone’s guess. After being elected to Congress this year, her personal history has been unearthed, and it mostly consists of owning lots of guns, using campaign dollars to pay her rent, falling for QAnon conspiracy theories, and reportedly giving customers at her restaurant explosive diarrhea.

(Via Business Insider)

Last week, The War On Drugs released their fifth album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore. It arrives as the band appears to be at the height of their career — they’re now a Grammy-winning, chart-topping act that will headline Madison Square Garden next year. Which means that they’re also due for an assessment of the catalog.

If I wanted to be efficient, I would simply declare that they have now passed The Five Albums Test and move on. But I feel like they’re worthy of more effort than that. Therefore, I have delved deep into the canon in order to discuss my 30 favorite tracks by one of the most popular and acclaimed rock groups in modern indie, and explore how they have evolved over the course of nearly 15 years.

Are we talking here about a creature void of form? Of course not. It’s just a list. Let’s dive in!

30. “A Pile Of Tires” (2010)

As far as many War On Drugs fans are concerned, the band’s career begins with 2014’s Lost In The Dream, their third album and commercial breakthrough. If they go way back, these fans might know 2011’s Slave Ambient, the capstone of their “early” period and a critical scene-setter for Dream. But as Granduciel himself admitted in a 2017 interview with CBS This Morning, the most inspiring time of his life occurred right before that, when he was collaborating with Kurt Vile in the aughts. It was then that both men hit upon an aesthetic that aspired simultaneously to the grand emotionalism of classic rock and the handmade, lo-fi intimacy of indie.

These guys loved the old bards of FM rock but knew they would never be one of those bards, because by the early 21st century that world was long gone. They came up in a post-apocalyptic era (for rock music anyway), and their approach was informed by this. So they set out to make music that sounded as though it was covered in the ashes of AOR — a faded, scuffed-up, heavily processed, and impenetrable mess of guitars, synthesizers and drum machines that might still, theoretically, coalesce into the kind of music that you hear at the gas station or between innings at a baseball game.

Bassist Dave Hartley was another critical player during this woodshedding period. He once described to me what it was like to hear Granduciel and Vile — who were both equally obsessed with Born In The U.S.A. and the first Suicide album — jamming together at the time.

“I think they both just really were tweaking these little things, taking a fucking drum machine and some delay pedals and a guitar and a couple other elements,” Hartley said, “and just tweaking them endlessly until their hearts felt the same thing that they felt when they listened to fucking ‘My Hometown’ or something.”

This song from 2010’s transitional Future Weather EP hints at the experimental nature of early Drugs – it doesn’t sound like the polished FM rock of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, but it conjures the outsized payoffs their records deliver on a more human, approachable level. The first time you hear “A Pile Of Tires,” it feels like a song you’ve heard a hundred times before, but it’s not slavishly re-creating the past. It occupies its own sonic and emotional terrain. That’s The War On Drugs at their best.

29. “Disappearing” (2014)

After TWOD’s 2008 debut Wagonwheel Blues, Vile decided to focus on his own career, though his solo work and The War On Drugs resided in the same lane for a while. (Just compare the early Vile standout “Freeway” to the early War On Drugs highlight “Arms Like Boulders.” It sounds like two halves of the same coin.) But by the time of Lost In The Dream, there was real daylight between the two Philly indie legends. At the risk of being reductive, Vile opted to veer deeper into eccentric indie rock — even his sharpest and catchiest numbers have a loopy, noisy edge. Granduciel, meanwhile, was edging away from a deconstructionist version of arena rock to a modern update of the form. This was the period when critics started comparing The War On Drugs to Dire Straits, and meaning it as a compliment.

But making this kind of rock music — in which success can only be achieved if the finished product makes you feel like “fucking ‘My Hometown” — is extremely difficult, as Granduciel learned during the torturous sessions for Dream. I remember talking to Granduciel in early 2014, about three months before the album dropped and not long after it was completed. Dream nearly broke him, he said. He would spend months reworking tracks in pursuit of that elusive “My Hometown” feeling, only to return to a demo he made one year prior. Inevitably, this desperation filtered into the songwriting.

“I like to make music that is pretty musically uplifting,” he told me. “I don’t know if I know how to make dark music.”

And yet depression — or the feeling of numbness that chronic mental illness can instill — permeates Dream, especially this song, in which the warm guitar and synth tones that Granduciel normally favors are replaced by icy six-string stabs that spiral deeper and deeper into a bottomless abyss.

28. “Holding On” (2017)

Granduciel’s problem during the Lost In The Dream sessions is that he spent a lot of time working on the record on his own at his house in Philadelphia. As anyone who works from home will tell you, it’s awfully hard to gain any perspective on your work when you live inside your office. You literally can’t escape. On A Deeper Understanding, however, he had the budget and the connections that a record deal with Atlantic affords. For an unrepentant gearhead like Granduciel, that meant access to some of the most famous and prestigious studios in New York and Los Angeles. While promoting the record, he talked excitedly about working at places like Boulevard in L.A., where parts of The Wall and Aja were recorded. As for this song, an early version was laid down at another iconic L.A. studio, EastWest, at the same time that the Foo Fighters were in the studio.

“One of the assistants was like, ‘Oh yeah, Grohl’s outside having a smoke. He said it sounds sweet,’” Granduciel later related. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s why you come here. So that you can turn it up to 200 db and then you hear that some dude you love and respect says it sounds sweet.’”

27. “It’s Your Destiny” (2011)

The War On Drugs were a discernible influence on other rock bands by the time A Deeper Understanding was released. “Holding On” specifically sounds like so many of the groups that have aped TWOD’s sound, whether it’s the incisive indie band Wild Pink, the fresh-faced British rocker Sam Fender, or the rejuvenated comeback albums cranked out in recent years by The Killers. But it took a while for Granduciel to perfect this synth-rock mix. This track from Slave Ambient is an early example of him hitting the mark, with some alluring rough edges left intact.

26. “Your Love Is Calling My Name” (2011)

Lost In The Dream is the start of The War On Drugs 2.0 era — their current lineup solidified during the support tour as the general interest rock audience embraced them. As for 1.0 TWOD, the story of the band’s early days was about finding a live unit that could interpret on stage what Granduciel was mostly making on his own on record. When I first interviewed him in 2011, he expressed worry about whether this song specifically would translate in a concert setting. A galloping rocker that melds the murky aggression of a psychedelic garage band with the arms-outstretched grandeur of ’80s U2, “Your Love Is Calling My Name” could’ve easily fallen flat live if The War On Drugs failed to earn (or fake) the confidence to pull it off. But from the beginning of their hard-touring days this has been one of their most reliable show-stoppers, as this excellent live version from 2019 attests.

25. “Harmonia’s Dream” (2021)

Here’s something I should have pointed out at the start: The War On Drugs is my favorite band of the last 10 years. It goes deeper than just liking their music. And it even goes deeper than the fact that I loved them when they played in clubs for audiences of 20 people, and I still love them as they prepare to headline Madison Square Garden next year. What I have with The War On Drugs is a total mind meld. I don’t think there has ever been a band whose aesthetic preferences have lined up so perfectly with my own. They are special to me because this is the band I would want to be in if I had any musical talent whatsoever. That was true of Wagonwheel Blues, and it’s true of I Don’t Live Here Anymore. This song sounds like Bob Dylan playing with Mark Knopfler and The E Street Band in Robert Pollard’s basement. Nothing could possibly be more my shit.

24. “I Was There” (2011)

This song really sounds like Bob Dylan playing with Mark Knopfler and The E Street Band in Robert Pollard’s basement.

23. “Taking The Farm” (2008)

Since Lost In The Dream, Granduciel has been refining his formula, stripping away the instrumental fragments and atmospheric clutter of the early records in favor of increasingly straight-forward pop-rock hooks. (To be clear: I mean “instrumental fragments and atmospheric clutter” in the best possible sense.) But the evolution that’s occurred during the 2.0 era can’t match the pronounced album-to-album changes that occurred in the midst of 1.0. The most significant development during this time, clearly, is the departure of Vile, who co-wrote this track from Wagonwheel Blues. Like any severed partnership in a rock band, it will always be fascinating for fans to imagine what would’ve happened had Granduciel and Vile remained together. As it is, they never really developed the yin-and-yang dynamic that Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy had in Uncle Tupelo, or Bob Mould and Grant Hart had in Hüsker Dü, at least not publicly. Then again, Granduciel and Vile also didn’t wind up hating each other.

22. “Show Me The Coast” (2008)

Let’s say Vile stays in The War On Drugs. It seems likely that this epic becomes the cornerstone of every set, the “Dark Star”/”Sister Ray”-style jam vehicle that sends every show into outer space, with Adam and Kurt fighting to see who is Jerry/Lou and who is Bob/Sterling in this scenario.

21. “Comin’ Through” (2010)

That timeline seems awfully enticing, but it probably doesn’t lead to Atlantic Records and Madison Square Garden. That timeline, the actual timeline, begins with the Future Weather EP, which includes early versions of two core tracks that later appeared on Slave Ambient, “Baby Missiles” and “Brothers.” This song meanwhile didn’t evolve beyond Future Weather, but it’s the sort of mid-tempo, vibe-y Americana number that Granduciel would eventually perfect by the middle of the decade.

20. “Lost In The Dream” (2014)

If you listen to enough War On Drugs songs, you will notice certain recurring images and phrases. There will be dreams. There will be rain. There will be oceans. The protagonist will be a wanderer whose inner pain is signified by all of those dreams, rain, and oceans. The point of these lyrics is not to stand alone; standing alone is in fact the opposite of the point. In War On Drugs songs, the lyrics are there to nudge the listener toward what really matter: the guitars, the synths, the drums (or drum machine), Adam’s vocals, and the overall sonic landscape that is designed to level you emotionally. This track is a good example. What does it mean when Granduciel sings, “When we were the same / We stroked our arms and we wore them thin / Ah the sadness it was in”? I’ve played “Lost In The Dream” at least 1,000 times and I’m not entirely sure. But I know it makes my heart hurt when Adam sings it while running his guitar through a Leslie speaker.

19. “Best Night” (2011)

More dreams! (The word appears in this song six times.) Also an example of how The War On Drugs always start albums with precisely the right tone-setter. Their side 1, track 1’s selections are always impeccable. Spoiler alert: The No. 1 song on this list is a side 1, track 1!

18. “Come To The City” (2011)

Here’s an excellent track 6 in The War On Drugs’ discography. It shouldn’t be confused with “Come For It” or “City Reprise #12” from the same album, Slave Ambient, though those songs are clearly derivations of “Come To The City.” This aspect of their albums — the demo-like instrumental segues between proper tracks — has been excised from their post-Lost In The Dream work. This is kind of a shame, because it’s like hearing the outtakes simultaneously with the actual album, a fascinating duality the band’s slicker later work has missed.

“I just like to show where songs originated from, or the process of trying a lot of different things out,” Granduciel explained to me in 2011. “Sometimes things would get spliced together, or they would exist on their own. I put a lot of those on because it gives it a flow, it kind of shows you where things originated from. I can show people without necessarily ever really making them into a song of their own.”

17. “Buenos Aires Beach” (2008)

Process is foregrounded on those early War On Drugs records. Before Granduciel came into his own as a craftsman of highly effective “simple” rock songwriting, he was all about the how of making records. He would go through his routine of playing with sounds, and songs would eventually emerge from all of the jockeying between instruments and various forms of recording technology. As he put it to me in 2011, this involved “starting with a lot of experimenting, taking the tape machines home, recording sessions with friends, and then sampling a lot of stuff off the tape machine and then re-sampling it and coming up with a backdrop. I wasn’t really sure where the song would go; then just, over time, you add stuff and write the song as you go, and keep arranging stuff.”

You can hear that process in this song, which sounds like guitars and drum machines taken from various Maxell tapes that have been Scotch-taped together into a surprisingly spritely melody. It’s also helpful to compare the recording from Wagonwheel Blues to the Live Drugs version, in which “Buenos Aires Beach” is reborn in shiny and crystal-clear fidelity.

16. “Arms Like Boulders” (2008)

The first War On Drugs song I ever heard, and their inaugural “hit,” as it were. At the time, I thought it sounded like Wilco, only the singer was aping “Rolling Thunder” era Dylan. In retrospect, the Wilco parallel has held true. Both bands are centered on an obvious figurehead. That figurehead’s strongest collaborator departed relatively early on. The bassist is the other senior member, and a kind of vice president of the band. The rest of the lineup settled in several years later, and has remained intact ever since.

15. “Burning” (2014)

The moment when the clouds part on Lost In The Dream. Outside of the album, this is one of the most purely joyful songs in the band’s catalog. For all of the Springsteen comparisons The War On Drugs’ garner, this is the only tune I can actually imagine The Boss performing: “Like a stranded kid in a doorway / Just burning / Yeah, we turn the light on.”

14. “I Don’t Wanna Wait” (2021)

I’ve heard more than a few people compare this song to Phil Collins, which I can only interpret as a compliment because Phil is a pop gangster. Though I think that comparison is ultimately a reach — it only works if Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois had somehow produced No Jacket Required. It is true however that I Don’t Live Here Anymore is their “hits” album, in that it has the highest number of songs that can stand outside of the proper record as solitary bangers. If “I Don’t Wanna Wait” had appeared on Slave Ambient or Lost In The Dream, it would have been buffeted with a long intro of droned-out synths and a long outro in which the guitar solo was extended another 30 to 45 seconds. (Actually, I wish the guitar solo was longer, though hopefully that will be rectified when they play the song live.) As it is, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” is the first War On Drugs song ever that demands to be played at your local roller rink.

13. “Thinking Of A Place” (2017)

I wish nearly every Adam Granduciel guitar solo was at least 30 to 45 seconds longer. The exception is the solo in this song, which was recorded live with the intention of eventually being overdubbed. But Adam liked it so much that he kept his knotty, warts-and-all take as is. Which was the right decision, because this guitar solo is precisely the right length.

12. “Red Eyes” (2014)

Along with “Holding On,” this is the track that people who rip off The War On Drugs most often rip off. It has all of their most recognizable sonic hallmarks — a big synth hook, a driving guitar that spirals into a squealing guitar solo, a motorik beat, a keening vocal. But the imitators always forget one crucial element, the thing that sends the music into the stratosphere, the secret sauce of The War On Drugs formula: “Woo!” The pretenders always leave out the “Woo!” But the “Woo!” is so important. If you are, in the parlance of a War On Drugs song, feelin’ pain in the rain and runnin’ through a dream by the ocean, it’s the “Woo!” that delivers transcendence. The “Woo!” is the hope of escape from this luminous hell. The “Woo!” is everything.

11. “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” (2021)

The songs from the latest War On Drugs album are going to suffer from some reverse recency bias on this list. If I re-do it in six months, this song might very well end up in the top 10. It feels like an all-timer, but I can’t quite justify placing it ahead of the songs I know are all-timers. But even at this point, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” sounds like a summation track in the catalog, the kind of tune people will regard as a definitive representation of the band’s overall aesthetic.

10. “Brothers” (2011)

Dave Hartley is the underrated secret weapon of The War On Drugs. As a bassist, he comes from the Adam Clayton/John McVie school of deep-in-the-pocket playing, providing each song with mile-wide, underlying grooves that push the music forward. He’s also been a steadying presence for Granduciel, the rock that’s kept him from drifting too far from the shore, the “brother” in The War On Drugs. After Wagonwheel Blues, Granduciel and Hartley formed the core of the live band, and one day they stopped to record a new track that had been worked out on the road. The original take of “‘Brothers” ended up on the Future Weather EP, though the re-worked version on Slave Ambient really took the song to the next level. It’s no wonder the song was embraced by The National — a band with two pairs of brothers — who used “Brothers” as entrance music during the High Violet tour.

9. “Baby Missiles” Future Weather version (2010)

Actually, Granduciel might disagree with that assessment. “For me, the definitive version is the Future Weather one, because I remember the way it was made and how I was feeling,” he told me about the competing “Brothers” in 2011. While I prefer the one on Slave Ambient, I actually think the version of “Baby Missiles” on Future Weather tops the redone track on the follow-up LP. Before “Red Eyes” or “Holding On,” this was the archetypal “big” War On Drugs anthem, though the jaunty electro-choogle rhythm belies a Suburbs-era Arcade Fire influence they would move away from by the time of Lost In The Dream. By then, Arcade Fire was no longer the go-to reference for nü-arena rock; it was The War On Drugs.

8. “Up All Night” (2017)

Another killer side 1, track 1. (The only side 1, track 1 not on this list is “Living Proof,” a good song that is unfortunately overshadowed by a run of about seven bangers that come immediately afterward on I Don’t Live Here Anymore.) Also an instructive example of Granduciel smuggling electronic elements into what’s ostensibly a heartland rock song, and then slicing and dicing the results with a pure noise guitar solo. Probably the most successful realization of one of Granduciel’s nuttiest (and most genius) ideas: “What if I re-imagined Empire Burlesque as if Bob Dylan actually enjoyed and understood technology?”

7. “Old Skin” (2021)

My favorite song from I Don’t Live Here Anymore. Though it really comes down to one moment for me. I’m sure you know which one. It comes once we’re a few minutes in. Adam is singing about feeling like his father over a circular piano lick. A synth part drifts in. Then Adam starts strumming his guitar. It’s all pretty dour but there’s something exciting going on. You feel it building toward something that can only be described as extremely War On Drugs-y. Then it happens — the drums come in. And all of a sudden you’re listening to side one of Damn The Torpedoes or side two of Born In The U.S.A. on a cassette blaring from a boombox in your bedroom on the most momentous night of your teenaged life.

The way the drums enter “Old Skin” is why I listen to music. That sound is what this band is all about. The meaning is not found in the lyrics; the meaning is that sound.

6. “Pain” (2017)

Granduciel’s ability to engineer small moments that feel big and dramatic in rock songs, like the one in “Old Skin,” remains his greatest talent. Much of the time he achieves those moments with his guitar. He does it with that noise-rock solo in “Up All Night.” And he also does it on the track after “Up All Night” on A Deeper Understanding.

“Pain” is among The War On Drugs’ most popular tracks on streaming platforms, which is kind of a miracle given that it’s one-third guitar solo. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but go back and listen: Adam starts ripping on guitar with about 1:45 left, but it’s so musical and dreamy that by the end you wish it would go on for at least another 1:45.

5. “Strangest Thing” (2017)

You want another showstopping moment from A Deeper Understanding? Look no further than the second guitar solo — not to be confused with the first, also excellent guitar solo — that kicks in around 4:28. I don’t know if there is a piece of music in this band’s canon that I have played more often. “Majestic” doesn’t do it justice; “grandiloquent” seems a touch too grandiloquent for the occasion but it will have to do. This is not the same War On Drugs that used to piece together songs from dozens of different cassette tapes loaded with lo-fi jams. This is the 2.0 War On Drugs that makes songs you can imagine hearing after Bruce Willis saves the world in Armageddon.

4. “Eyes To The Wind” (2014)

While Granduciel is rightly celebrated as the rarest of all phenomena in modern indie — a guitar hero — his value as a vocalist is less heralded. But his surprisingly evocative voice, which alternates between a pained whisper and a more urgent, reedy determination, functions as another essential element in this band’s sonic landscapes. It’s not so much what Granduciel says as how he delivers the songs and makes them land as impressionistic emotional statements.

During the making of Lost In The Dream, this song drove home the importance of Granduciel’s vocals. For months, Granduciel couldn’t land on a proper mix. It was until he stripped away some of the instrumentation and elevated his voice that “Eyes To The Wind” came into focus. This was not obvious on paper. For instance, I’m not sure what exactly “eyes to the wind” means as a literal phrase. (I suppose you could read it as an endorsement of wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day.) But when I hear Granduciel sing it, I know, instinctively, what he’s getting at, which is basically, “Life is hard and will beat you down, but sometimes a gorgeous piano riff and heart-rending guitar solo can ease the hurt.”

3. “Black Water Falls” (2011)

The War On Drugs like to end albums with lonely-ass ballads, and this is the best lonely-ass album-ending ballad in the catalog. It sounds like an attempt to re-write “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” — or, more specifically, a stab at evoking the feeling that Donovan had when he heard Dylan play “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” in that London hotel room for the first time. It’s not that the world has ended, just that your world has ended: “You’ll slowly lose faith in gravity / And give up the urge to sweat, and charm, and love, and breathe.”

2. “An Ocean In Between The Waves” (2014)

People who don’t like The War On Drugs tend to classify them dismissively as “chill” music that, at best, sounds pleasant in the background but doesn’t register emotionally. This song is Exhibit A in my counter-argument to that take. It’s a track where everything this band does really comes together: Granduciel’s insinuating whine, the scene-setting synths, Dave Hartley’s Joshua Tree bassline, the metronomic drum machine that subtly subverts the heartland rock elements with a Suicide twist, and the multiple guitar solos. Oh, there’s also the “Woo!” Let us never underestimate or discount the “Woo!” The “Woo!” delivers big time here. “An Ocean In Between The Waves” is more than seven minutes of rising action that starts in an uncertain, murky place — “chill,” if you will — before gradually escalating into an intensely spiritual maelstrom that feels like being launched into the sun.

1. “Under The Pressure” (2014)

The ultimate War On Drugs track. Though I’m not sure at this point if I prefer the studio cut to any number of live versions I’ve heard on bootlegs, on YouTube, or Live Drugs. As much as I love it on Lost In The Dream I think I need to see Charlie Hall go apeshit now during the breakdown section for “Under The Pressure” to really land for me. (Speaking of great “when the drums come in” moments, you can’t beat Hall’s re-entry out of the breakdown and into the climax of “Under The Pressure.”) But the larger point here is that I’ve heard “Under The Pressure” more than any other War On Drugs song, which means I’ve heard it more than practically any other song by anybody in the past decade. And I still find it rousing, and I’m still endlessly curious to hear whatever live version I can put in my ears. That is the core superpower of this band. They make songs that might seem simple the first time you hear them. But then you play them 200 times and you somehow like them more than you did the first time. That’s what Tom Petty did. And it’s what almost every other rock band right now is unable to do. But these guys have done it time and again over five albums, which is why they’re now one of the modern greats.

The War On Drugs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.