Kevin Cole

The structure of "Know your Rights" revolves around the rights held by the poor and disenfranchised, in which the speaker of the song, presumably a villainous civil servant (whose identity is assumed in the song by vocalist Joe Strummer), names the three actual rights. At the end, the notion that more rights should be granted is rebuffed by the speaker. The three are: 1. "The right not to be killed. Murder is a crime, unless it is done by a policeman, or an aristocrat" 2. "The right to food money, providing of course, you don't mind a little investigation, humiliation, and, if you cross your fingers, rehabilitation" 3. "The right to free speech (as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it)" This track has also been performed live many times by Pearl Jam, most notably during their Riot Act Tour in 2003, and it also has been recorded on their live albums 7/11/03 – Mansfield, Massachusetts, 7/9/03 – New York, New York, and 3/3/03 – Tokyo, Japan. bit.ly

In 1998 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Eddie Vedder said: "That song is all about someone who's drunk with technology, who thinks they're the controlling living being on this planet. It's another one I'm not singing as myself." bit.ly This was the first video Pearl Jam released since their "Jeremy" clip in 1992. The band felt that videos detracted from the music, but also hated the process of making them. Since they didn't appear in this video, it was much easier for them. Watch the video here: youtu.be

""American Crisis' is a tale of two times," explains Mould. "Past Time and Present Time. The parallels between 1984 and 2020 are a bit scary for me: telegenic, charismatic leaders, praised and propped up by extreme Evangelicals, either ignoring an epidemic (HIV/AIDS) or being outright deceitful about a pandemic (COVID-19)... I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime. This is clearly the worst, but I wrote a lot of protest songs in the ’80s, and I still play those songs, and they still hold true. And I’m cognizant of the power of protest in music. But when it became clear to me that I should write to the light as opposed to the dark… To continue going down that path would not have served me well." bit.ly

The album was largely ignored by critics and the public at the time of its release but has since been recognized as a classic and one of the most influential punk rock records ever made, appearing on a number of "best of" lists by fans and critics alike. The album was ranked number 340 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Fun fact: Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound. bit.ly

This track is featured in "All In: The Fight for Democracy," a new documentary from Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?) and Lisa Cortés (The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion). "All In" traces the history of voter suppression that has continuously targeted black communities across the United States — while also detailing the current activism in the movement led by Stacey Abrams. Abrams ran against Georgia’s then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp in a contentious race to become Georgia’s Governor, an election that Kemp himself oversaw. The film is now available for streaming on Prime Video. bit.ly

Dealing with writer's block and conflicted about her mainstream success, Erykah Badu embarked on her Frustrated Artist Tour in 2003. Her increasing popularity brought upon some backlash towards her public image and expectations of her as "queen of neo soul", an honorific nickname that she found limiting. Her third studio album, Worldwide Underground (2003), was released to mostly positive reviews and was certified gold, although it was underpromoted and sold less than her previous albums. Badu herself was not satisfied with the album and felt she had nothing substantial to express with her music at the time. She took time off from her recording career to deal with her creative block and focus on caring for her children, although she continued to tour in the period between albums. In 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Rose, with her former boyfriend, rapper The D.O.C. Later that year, she received her first computer as a Christmas gift from drummer and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, and began communicating with and receiving music from him and other producers such as Q-Tip and J Dilla. Beginning in 2005, Badu worked from her home in Dallas and used the software application GarageBand as a digital audio workstation, which she was introduced to by her son, Seven. He taught her how to use her laptop as a mini recording studio, and she used it to construct various backing tracks for songs. Using GarageBand, she recorded demos of her vocals by singing into the computer's microphone. bit.ly

This track was written in 1979 on an airplane while The Wailers were experimenting on guitar. In the middle of the song, background singers quote a verse from Bob Marley's first single "Judge Not": "The road of life is rocky, and you may stumble too. So while you point your fingers, someone else is judging you."

The phrase "Na Kozonga" translate to "the return" in the Congolese language of Lingala, and that's what Jupiter & Okwess was looking forward to after the 180-date worldwide tour promoting their 2017 album Kin Sonic: returning home. The song is dedicated to bandleader Jupiter Bokondji's father, who passed away recently, and the accompanying music video, filmed in his hometown of Kinshasa, shows the musician boarding a plane to return to his family in Africa, with a "metaphysical" detour.

This track, and Winter’s EP in general, is centered around the idea that music always provides much-needed catharsis, through both the good times and the bad. She explains this concept further: "Music helps me realise that you are not alone, that every one of us is capable of the best and worst feelings and actions in this world. 'Sad Music' was born out of a particularly bad day, and how music was a saviour at that time." Determined to deal with the negative emotions that "pour out of her head," Winter enlisted the help of The Cure’s drummer Jason Cooper, and the saxophone skills of Alex White (Fat White Family) on her debut EP. bit.ly

“I think we’ve all found ourselves in fucked up relationships that make us feel sad and helpless, frontman Dave Bayley said of this track. "Not necessarily something romantic – maybe it’s with a family member or a friend A relationship that we know on some level is going to keep breaking our hearts. We let that person back into their lives over and over again, even though it always ends the same. Maybe you don’t confront it because you hope it’ll change with time. Or because it’s easier to let it slide and never set boundaries. Maybe you think you deserve that unhappiness. Or maybe you find some strange comfort in the chaos. “This song is about that…about being addicted to chaos. About doing or allowing something self-destructive because on some level you get off on the sadness that comes of it. It’s about wanting to float around and exist inside of that feeling because it has always been familiar to you. It’s something that a lot of people know from growing up in a tense household…so it can feel right to create that dynamic, even if you don’t realise you’re doing it.”

"'Never Come Back' was the first track from Suddenly that I finished," Dan Snaith said. "It came together very quickly and was one of those tracks that is a lot fun to make. As soon as I landed on the main synthesizer chords and the repeated refrain the rest came together very quickly and naturally. I felt like it was my job to get out of the way and not over complicate or over think it. Sometimes the best pleasures are the simple ones." bit.ly

The music video for this song has acquired widespread notice. Directed by Alex Theurer and Charles Scott from Kelvin Optical, Inc., a division of J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions, it features science fiction costumes and was filmed in Bryce Canyon National Park and the redwoods of California. Check it out here: bit.ly

“For Sure” arrives with a music video directed by Sam Mason. The clip follows two driver-less cars as they journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where the eeriness of the crumbled landscape is balanced by darkly funny moments, like a flock of flamingos gathered on a pile of tires, or a lone inflatable air dancer still whipping in the wind on the side of the highway. Watch it here: bit.ly

“'Handsome Wife' begins with a glimpse into an emotional homecoming, one that intensifies and romanticises the seemingly insignificant,” shares Dublin's Pillow Queens. “Throughout, the mundane but tender moments are held up and deified, paying reverence to the ease in which a love can thrive outside the realms of tradition. The song continuously references structures and rituals that were once out of reach, but are now within our grasp. In spite of this ‘Handsome Wife’ affirms that they pale in comparison to the communities we’ve built ourselves.”

"In the past, I've always tried to cloak stuff and dance around the meanings in the lyrics," Gibbard reveals. "I'm starting to come around to more straightforward lyric writing; I've been trying to do more of a Raymond Chandler thing, just keep it really simple.... I'd hope that I'm starting to move into some lyrical direction that's not a single subject over and over again." Keeping pace with Gibbard's evolving songcraft, the band's playing is purposeful and accomplished, pitting angular rhythms against warm and jangling textures—such as when the neon glow of an electric piano is perfectly balanced by frenetic guitar stabs on "Blacking Out the Friction." Gibbard claims that the band's incessant touring is at least partially responsible for the record's tight sound. "We've played a lot of [these songs] live for so long that we were able to work out a lot of the bugs in the arrangements early on," he says. "Touring with a lot of those songs [made] it a lot easier to hop in the studio, bang it right out and have it sound a lot more confident." bit.ly

Lo Tom is comprised of Seattle's David Bazan, Jason Martin, TW Walsh & Trey Many. When asked for a description, the band simply replied with, "This next one is the third song on our new album… it’s about not being able to hear yourself. Please enjoy."

By the time Where You Been surfaced, Seattle had completely exploded, and given that Dinosaur Jr.'s sound, attitude, and more were as proto-slacker as could be, the temptation must have been great to cash in. But J Mascis stuck to his guns, and there's little about Where You Been that would have seemed out of place on Green Mind or even some earlier records. "Out There" is one of the most mournful things Mascis has recorded, with an especially yearning chorus, but his fiery solo still makes it classic Dinosaur Jr. bit.ly

Here's the Manchester bands' highly trippy video by Mia Lust and Laura Orlova: bit.ly

Seattle post-rock Gibraltar is the band for all your “driving fast and feeling the impossible feels” needs. Exploring the harmonic vision of bands like Television and Built To Spill (but with more coffee), and using the aural, gender, and emotional situations of Lou Reed’s “Transformer” as inspiration, founding member Aaron Starkey created Gibraltar to seek out what he didn’t know about himself and found the kind of catharsis that cracks you all the way open. Along with Starkey, pianist Holly Houser, drummer Nick Biscardi, and horns (Sari Breznau on trumpet and Nate Henry on tenor sax) fill rooms of all sizes with sound. bit.ly

A Record Store Day release in 2015. Natalie Prass is a songwriter's songwriter and performer's performer blessed with a golden voice and universal appeal a singer who understands the vision and brings an undeniable talent to the process. Born in Cleveland, in the 1980s, Prass entered the teenage slipstream back on the east coast in Virginia Beach. She took intensive music and visual art courses all through high school, and then headed to Boston and the Berklee College of Music. bit.ly

Born in Los Angeles to two creative parents (her father, Dan Finnerty, is a musician; her mother, Kathy Najimy, is an actor known best for Hocus Pocus and Sister Act) she’s been writing these songs since her teenage years, but didn’t have the driver’s license to drop by open mic nights to perform them the way she wanted to. Her family upped sticks to New York City when she was 15, and that changed. “I’ve never felt more supported by a community than I did here,” Samia says. “I just begged everyone to let me be in their band. Any experience I could get, I took.” In college she started her own band, which developed into the solo project that she’s creating now. Her strange breakout moment came with a song she’d like to “re-frame”: a bold punk-rock number called “Someone Tell the Boys” that was, upon release, instantly added to a Spotify playlist titled “Badass Women”. She was 20 years old, and had been raised a feminist by her parents from a young age. “Those ideals were deeply embedded in my identity, for sure,” she recalls. “I learned about politics and social activism from a really early age.” That period of rebellion most young women go through was a struggle for her, because the politics she wanted to align herself with had already shaped who she was. But that framing of being seen as an empowering female songwriter is conflicting to many young women who wind up on these playlists, Samia included. "A lot of the time, everything [women write] is categorised or reframed as empowerment, and I don’t often write from a place of empowerment. Usually, when I’m writing it’s from a place of desperation and pain.” bit.ly

Bridgers wrote this song about her complicated, evolving relationship with her father. Her parents divorced when she was 20, leaving Bridgers angry. The song is named for the city in Japan; Bridgers wrote the song on her first trip to the country in February 2019: "This song is about impostor syndrome. About being in Japan for the first time, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, and playing my music to people who want to hear it, feeling like I’m living someone else's life. I dissociate when bad things happen to me, but also when good things happen. It can feel like I’m performing what I think I’m supposed to be like." Producer Tony Berg suggested she speed up the song's tempo, creating a brighter, more upbeat tone. Bridgers agreed, growing "sick" of recording slower ballads. "Kyoto" is instrumentally dense, incorporating twelve-string guitar, synthesizers, Autoharp, and mellotron. Bright Eyes' Nathaniel Walcott also contributes horns, while Jenny Lee Lindberg of Warpaint adds vocals. bit.ly

White Fang's Mish Way shares a story about this song: "My band was on tour somewhere in America. I can’t remember where because that’s what touring does to you. Our guitarist had ripped the latest Kurt Vile album from some website designated for hackers and nerds who need everything first. As we pulled out of the lot of a McDonald’s and onto the highway, we put on Wakin on a Pretty Daze and turned up the volume. "I was fuzzed-out, sitting in the back right seat in our tour van. After eight minutes of Vile pumping through the stereo I realized that we were still on the first track. Then 'KV Crimes' came on. This song. This fucking song! “I should have known/My heart is overcome/Do you risk it exploding all over?” "I was listening. "Vile is all about syllables, not lyrics. He has this way of drawing out his words like a slacker trying to prolong summer vacation. The sentences fall out of his mouth inaudible and bleed together. In 'KV Crimes' it works in conjunction with the jarring rhythm guitar and country-picked overtones that play along against the grain of the song. But it’s really hard to overanalyze the sonics of one verse and why they resonate with your brain. 'KV Crimes' just makes me happy. It’s pure drone-pop genius. It’s sugary sadness. It’s everything I want in a song: simplicity and solid rhythm. I sighed long and hard." bit.ly

Tweedy said the album came about at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown when he began “writing country songs to console myself. Folk and country type forms being the shapes that come most easily to me in a comforting way.” He recorded Love Is the King in April at the Loft in Chicago, working with his sons Spencer and Sammy, and will also publish his new book, How to Write One Song, on October 13th via Dutton. bit.ly

The band sought to be more direct with this record than the previous two, resulting in a more mellow album. Tweedy attributes the lyrical directness to his listening to material by The Byrds and Fairport Convention while recording the album; he disliked the reliance on studio effects on previous albums: "I got nervous about the technology on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. If you need a certain amp or pedal to make a song what it is, it isn't a song." Many of the album's songs were recorded in a single day, with the band reaching a consensus on how each song should sound. Eighteen songs were recorded for the album and twelve were selected for the album's track listing. bit.ly

Written and produced by Jeff Tweedy, this was Staples' 13th studio album. Staples said she hoped the album will "bring us all together as a people. That's what I hope to do. You can't stop me. You can't break me. I'm too loving. These songs are going to change the world." Tweedy described the message of the album, saying, "I’ve always thought of art as a political statement in and of itself—that it was enough to be on the side of creation and not destruction. But there is something that feels complicit at this moment in time about not facing what is happening in this country head on." bit.ly

The first voice on “Level Up” isn’t Burna Boy’s, but a tinny sample of 1950s hitmaker Pat Boone singing a song from the 1959 film Journey to the Center of the Earth. “Oh, I’d have to be twice as tall, at least, to view better than I do,” he sings. It gives way to Burna Boy’s own anxieties. “Start feeling like I had enough, then I contemplate giving up,” says the performer who’s always projected a rapper’s swagger. Where the one white voice on “Level Up” projected some of Burna Boy’s self-doubt, the two Black icons who join him only offer encouragement. Senegalese legend Youssou N’Dour is far and away the most exciting part of the track, stopping the show with a simple, inspiring chorus in Woluf and English. After the first chorus, the Boone sample returns, but you can barely make out the words as it’s pummeled by drum and bass — Burna Boy now demands to be listened to on his own. bit.ly

Charlie Wilder, aka Captain Planet, shared the context behind the album's name: "There are different layers to it. I wanted to address the idea that, while certain people are constantly trying to build walls and secure borders, separating and dividing humans, music itself cannot be contained. It always crosses those boundaries and carries culture and change with it. A visa gives you permission to travel. Music doesn’t need permission, it will travel whether you like it or not. I have always wanted to create an imagined world with my music, where different cultures and languages intermingle and mix, where diversity is celebrated and not feared. It’s idealistic, sure, but we have to envision the world we want in order to call it into existence. "On another level, there is something to be said about the fact that I am a white man from the United States and benefit from serious privilege around the world. For me, getting a visa to go almost anywhere is possible⁠—relatively easily. I’ve had my entire world view change from having the opportunity to travel globally. I believe it’s the greatest education a person can have if they are open to receiving it. But that was possible partly because of my privilege. I’m constantly aware that there is a thin line between celebrating and promoting cultures and people from around the world that I revere, and exploiting them for my own benefit, particularly as a white man. It’s not easy, but I believe that’s the way the world will change for the better." bit.ly

This one's for listener Dane in Bellingham, who just sold his first novel. Congratulations! Using a chord progression written by Earth, Wind & Fire guitarist Al McKay, vocalist Maurice White and songwriter Allee Willis wrote the song over one month. Willis was initially bothered by the gibberish "ba-dee-ya" lyric White used through the song, and begged him to rewrite it: "I just said, 'What the fuck does 'ba-dee-ya' mean?' And he essentially said, 'Who the fuck cares?' I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove." bit.ly

Born in 1981, Protoje is a contemporary reggae singer and songwriter from Jamaica. His mother is Jamaican singer Lorna Bennett, best known for her 1972 rendition of "Breakfast in Bed," and his father is a former calypso king from the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Mikayla Simpson, better known as Koffee, is a Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter, rapper, deejay and guitarist from Spanish Town, Jamaica. She released her debut single "Burning" in 2017, and in 2019 signed with Columbia Records. Her 2019 EP Rapture won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, making Koffee the youngest person and only woman to be awarded in the Best Reggae Album category. Currently, she is said to be working with Nick Ballis and Rihanna. bit.ly You can enjoy the music video here: bit.ly

This Disclosure track features vocals from Malian artist Fatoumata Diawara. The director of the music video, Mahaneela, said in a statement: “Right now, all over the world, we’re going through an incredibly strange time. I wanted to make something that was visually beautiful, but also felt symbolic of what we’re all going through. People feel more isolated than ever and I wanted to create something joyful that really shows the power music and movement has and the connectivity it brings.” Watch the video here: bit.ly

“Where I grew up, we say you have to get blessings from your parents,” explains Falle Nioke. “It is not something money can buy. One of my friends told me he couldn't understand why he was struggling, why he couldn’t succeed in business and why no opportunities were coming his way. “There was an old man listening to us talking who asked, 'Do you have parents?' My friend said that he did. The man said to go and visit them and when you see them working you must help them. Give them a hand and once you do that you will get a blessing. That is a secret of this life.” Falle Nioke is a singer and percussionist from Guinea Conakry, West Africa. He sings in French and English, Susu, Fulani, Malinke and Coniagui, and plays a range of cultural African instruments to accompany his voice (gongoma, Bolon, Cassi). bit.ly

LCD Soundsystem samples Kraftwerk’s “Home Computer” on this track. Check out an archived James Murphy interview on Lou Reed and The Cure's Robert Smith: bit.ly

Free Love is the first album since Sylvan Esso founders Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn got married. It’s also the first one to feature both members on vocals and the first one recorded in the studio they built in the woods around their Durham home base. The band reveals, "It’s a record about being increasingly terrified of the world around you and looking inward to remember all the times when loving other people seemed so easy, so that you can find your way back to that place." On “Ferris Wheel,” Meath gracefully spins melodies over hiccuping digital production, building to a nimble and extremely catchy chorus punctuated by sampled children’s chants and the occasional beat drop. The duo says it’s "about discovering your power and awkwardly figuring out how to wield it. It’s for the summer, it’s for you, we hope you like it." bit.ly

Breaking down every song, Pecknold revealed that working on "A Long Way Past the Past" allowed him to have some fun with a song that's "a little bit too slow." "I was like, 'This song must be 80 beats per minute, that’s as fast as it could be,'" he says. "It has this slight, easy stroll or strut to it. And then lyrically, it’s reconciling how much of the past to hold on to and how much to leave behind, questioning that conflict." bit.ly

ÖB is partly influenced by the story of a man named Peter Krook, who was supposedly a common ancestor of the band, and who was born in 1685. In the story of the album, Krook is imprisoned in Ostrobothnia, in western Finland, where Joensuu 1685 had also begun recording this album over 10 years ago. “When we returned to record ÖB, we were allowed to re-immerse ourselves in the stream from which we drew and continue to draw,” Risto Joensuu shared. “It is a great celebration of returning home and completely unique to publish something that has been honed in the waves of our minds for so long and finally give it to listeners." Along with the announcement, Joensuu 1685 have shared a song called "Light In The Heart Of Our Town." "It’s about an image of a dying town," Mikko said of the track. "About a person in front of a gas station right at the edge of town, seeing the town and seeing oneself, what was, what is and what will be. It’s an image of the hope that runs deep in our bones." bit.ly

This one's for Brian, in sweltering hot Pilbara! The band entered the studio in January 2009 to begin recording new songs. At this time, vocalist James Graham told The Skinny, "The band had definitely moved on from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, musically and lyrically. One thing that I can promise is that the lyrics are very dark, but you might have to look into them a bit to realise. They are mainly based around things that have happened to me over the past two years, revolving mainly around losing people and being none too proud or happy with myself about my antics and situations I've found myself in. (The lyrics for the album were written during a two-month period after a close family member of Graham's died.) So if you're looking for a record with a lot of hope and happy songs then fuck off, 'cause you won't find it here with us! Maybe on the third album when we all have coke and heroin addictions things will start to look a bit brighter!" bit.ly

"'Prisoners' is about that yearning that Doves have always had," said Jimi Goodwin. "Just over the horizon, there’s always something better. Sometimes we get trapped by our own behaviour. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts. They can take you to some pretty dark and unexpected places if you let them. It’s a song about checking yourself. It’s not to do with lockdown or the pandemic, it’s just the day to day well-being. A lot of Doves lyrics are shot through with that notion of having a word with yourself." bit.ly