Writers, scholars, radio hosts and musicians, including the bassist Ron Carter, share songs that shine a light on an instrument that lays the foundation of jazz.There’s a clip circulating on social media where Charles Mingus, arguably the most famous jazz bassist of all time, is asked what he’s saying through his instrument on the bandstand. His answer, profane and hilarious, isn’t fit to print here, but it’s fitting for the so-called “Angry Man of Jazz.” I’ve often wondered if Mingus’s attitude was just his way, or if he felt somewhat underrated compared with others from his era. By and large back then, bassists weren’t bandleaders; Mingus was an anomaly. And that had me thinking about jazz bass overall: While it might be the most unheralded of all the instruments, no composition resonates without it.This month’s feature is all about jazz bass, and cornerstone musicians like Mingus, the “Maestro” Ron Carter and Israel Crosby, whose performance is highlighted twice below. They all made significant contributions to the evolution of jazz. Their work paved the way for newer voices to shine through, including some artists who have chosen a song this month. And because we’re talking about an instrument like the bass, whose trajectory through jazz has been a complicated one, it seemed best to have plenty of the experts — jazz bassists — talking about their favorites.Enjoy listening to these songs highlighting the bass. You can find a playlist at the bottom of the article, and be sure to leave your own picks in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆Luke Stewart, bassist, bandleader and composer“El Haris (Anxious)” by Ahmed Abdul-MalikComing in hard like a Just Blaze track, then settling into a simple but effective melody that takes you on an unexpected journey in itself. Abdul-Malik explored the “East Meets West” concept of fusing jazz and the music of the Middle East over the course of a couple of albums. This one, however, “Jazz Sahara,” is his most successful in my view, and the most potent musically. Johnny Griffin is a standout on this record, letting us know once again that he is the Little Giant, with his saxophone sound towering above the band as he creeps in with his own sample of a previous tune. Jamal Muhammad of WPFW 89.3FM in D.C. first introduced me to both the Johnny Griffin album “Change of Pace” and the Abdul-Malik album in question, blessing me with some insight into the musicians and to the not-so-subtle signifying on the song titles.Ahmed Abdul-Malik, himself a sonic giant, commands the bass and the band with the imagination and the vision to create a truly fused collaboration of a typical U.S. jazz ensemble with an Egyptian one. This configuration, and this track in particular, does the best in my view. One of my favorite bass solos is his here on this track. Recorded a year after the classic “Night at the Village Vanguard” from Sonny Rollins, featuring Wilbur Ware’s bass solo on “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise,” Abdul-Malik’s solo to me has felt like a response. This is where he was able to bring the Vanguard to the Pyramids.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Ron Carter, bassist and bandleader“But Not for Me” by the Ahmad Jamal TrioIsrael Crosby’s bass lines on “At the Pershing,” in Chicago, are important not just because he’s on it, but because he made Ahmad play that way. He made the piano player not play. From then on, every bass player had to learn that bass line for the entire song — every Motel 6 player, every Birdland player, had to know it because it was so popular — including yours truly. And he made Ahmad Jamal even more important to the music community.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

This label founded in 1971 gave Afrocentric and psychedelic jazz a home, and found a breakout hit with Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Take a guided tour through its deep catalog.We’ve been asking writers, musicians and scholars to tell us what songs they’d play to get people into jazz. This month, we decided to highlight a record label: Strata-East Records, founded in 1971 by the trumpeter Charles Tolliver and the pianist Stanley Cowell.An artist-driven label, Strata-East became a hub for the type of Afrocentric and psychedelic jazz that wasn’t accepted by the wider mainstream. With projects like Tolliver’s own Music Inc., alongside experimental acts like Brother Ah, the Descendants of Mike and Phoebe, and Jayne Cortez, the albums released on Strata-East spoke to the Civil Rights struggles of Black Americans at the time. In 1974, the label enjoyed a breakout hit with “Winter in America,” a collaborative album from Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson powered by the lead single “The Bottle.” But while that’s the most notable album in the catalog, Strata-East is full of excellent records that are widely celebrated, if not always easy to hear; original copies of some trade hands for hundreds of dollars, and none of the selections below are available on Spotify. The lack of a streaming playlist just makes this guided tour of the label from 10 writers and musicians more essential.As you’ll see (and hear) below, Strata-East released some of the best jazz heard on any label, and shouldn’t be discounted because it wasn’t one of the majors. More than 50 years on, the work of Strata-East prevails. Be sure to leave your own favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆Nabil Ayers, author and record executive“Alkebu-Lan” by Mtume Umoja EnsembleThe second LP of the 1972 Mtume Umoja Ensemble album, “Alkebu-Lan,” opens with an epic 16-minute journey into its title, which translates to “Land of the Blacks.” Over a patient backdrop of horns, voices and Stanley Cowell’s piano, James Mtume emphatically states the ensemble’s goals: Organizing and unifying! Unifying and organizing! Going back, back, back … to Africa!As “Alkebu-Lan” builds, horns blast, cymbals crash, voices shout, and at times, everything hits the tape just a bit too hard. But the resulting distortion is where the energy lives on this album recorded live at The East, gaining momentum, until 12 minutes in, when a restless chorus of saxophones devolves into Ndugu Chancler’s drum solo. The excitement in the room is palpable, and the collision of celebration and conviction causes the band and the audience — it’s sometimes hard to differentiate between the two — to sound like they might mutually erupt.Some might consider this music challenging or niche, but it’s actually a distant and seminal precursor to some of the most popular music of a generation: Ten years later, its drummer played the first sounds we hear on Michael Jackson’s megahit “Billie Jean.” I like to think that Chancler brought some of the energy with him from that night at The East.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆MidnightRoba, vocalist and producer“On the Nile” by Music Inc.The Strata-East label’s debut recording, Music Inc., features the co-founders Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell with Cecil McBee, Jimmy Hopps and a supporting orchestra of brass, reeds and flutes. Although initially recorded by Tolliver’s quartet on Polydor’s “The Ringer,” the Strata-East version of “On the Nile” is the ultimate contemporary sonic celebration of the grandeur of ancient Nubia. Brass opens, drawing us in, in sequence, to bear witness; the flutes are the heka, or magic and mysticism of ancient Egypt; Cowell’s piano is at times a firm salute to the power of the ancient civilization and at others reflective of the deity-worshiping arched harp. Tolliver’s own solo is the falcon, Horus, the spirit of the Nile itself; McBee’s bass solo, the milk and honey of the land. This recording is a truly visual sonic experience. A sensorial and transportive joy.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Alisa L. Brock, writer“First Impressions” by Shamek FarrahSteady bass in the intro, then the keys take the lead, sticks make their way swiftly behind, and the horn drags in like a somber cry. What is a first impression, if not rhythms meeting with a willingness to be heard and felt? It’s almost impossible not to feel Shamek Farrah’s “First Impressions.” It’s the kind of sound that pulls you in, and invites you on a beautiful and exciting ride with the unfamiliar.It’s effortless to soak in the comfort of the bass strings that play the bottom. The consistency grounds me as the introduction of each instrument pulls us deeper into this encounter with sacred noise. Feel it. Let it make its way through you. Get well acquainted with the shifts in mood that offer up a demonstration of the impermanence of everything and the joy of difference. Surrender to the sounds of a first impression. It’s a vibe.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Jeff Parker, guitarist, composer and producer“Hopscotch” by Charles RouseBack in 2001, Tortoise was performing at one of the early iterations of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. The festival was packed with folks — supposedly about a million people were in attendance throughout the course of the weekend. We were hanging after our show and I heard this insane music come over the gigantic P.A.: a hypnotic groove with an angular melody atop, and unconventional instrumentation of tenor saxophone, electric guitar, acoustic bass and drums. Someone made their way to the D.J. booth and found out that the track was “Hopscotch” by Charles (a.k.a. Charlie) Rouse from his album “Two Is One” on Strata-East Records. Serendipity found me in Peoples Records the following day, and lo and behold, there the album was in the jazz bins (the only time I’ve ever seen it in the wild). I discovered that the composition was written by one of my favorites — the drummer and composer Joe Chambers — and features Rouse on tenor, Paul Metzke on guitar, Stanley Clarke on bass, Airto Moreira on percussion, and the great New Orleans drummer David Lee. This album introduced me to Strata-East Records, and I’ve been performing this tune, following the label and collecting the records ever since.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Greg Bryant, musician and broadcaster“Wilpan’s” by Music Inc.Inspired by the saunter of a former love interest, the bassist Cecil McBee’s composition “Wilpan’s” spotlights the post-bop quartet Music Inc. live at the legendary New York City nightclub Slugs’ Saloon. As few recordings of the music made in Slugs’ survive, “Wilpan’s” provides essential documentation of an ethos and an era that has inspired subsequent generations of forward-thinking improvisers grounded in swing.From the beginning, McBee’s catchy ostinato bass figure ignites the ensemble immediately. The trumpeter Charles Tolliver takes the first solo and navigates McBee’s tune with the confidence and cunning of a prizefighter. Listen for that same zeal in the pianist Stanley Cowell’s improvisation that emphasizes the tune’s harmony alongside powerful right-hand declarations. Next, McBee takes a solo that is one of his most explosive on record. He taps into the vocabulary of a shredding guitarist at times, and somehow, he never overplays. After the band states the final melody, they ride the lock-step groove set by the drummer Jimmy Hopps and McBee. As the tune’s pinnacle, it is an infectious, bouncy swing that will make you want to get involved.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Cosmo Baker, D.J.“Prince of Peace” by Pharoah SandersWhen I was 16 years old, while going through a crate of used records in the back of an old pet-supply store in Philly, I pulled out a well-worn (well loved) copy of Pharoah Sanders’s “Izipho Zam (My Gifts)” — a copy I still own to this day, and my world was never the same.This record was my introduction to Pharoah, setting off a personal journey that is still going. It was an intro to many of his collaborators — Sonny Sharrock! Cecil McBee! Leon Thomas! Mostly it was an intro to both the Strata-East label and the philosophy, ethos and sound that it exemplifies: the intersection of spiritual jazz, Black consciousness and identity, avant-garde pioneering, among so many more intangibles, and that’s for both this album and Strata-East in general. As for Pharoah, the album is a glimpse into his soul-baring relinquishment to something larger than all of us. Written words don’t do this masterpiece any justice, but “Prince of Peace” is a universal mantra the world could use right now, and always.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆V.C.R, recording artist, violinist and composer“Winter in America” by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian JacksonGrowing up, gospel, classical, jazz and folk music was the soundtrack to my life. This soundtrack has shaped how I dissect, digest and compose music. But no seed that was sown grew stronger roots than when my mother introduced me to Gil Scott-Heron. She would always tell me stories about her time at Harvard during her undergraduate years where she would follow his work, hoping to catch one of his live shows. For a lover of poetry and jazz, you didn’t get any more authentic than Boston in the late ’70s.“Winter in America,” like all of Scott-Heron’s repertoire, was timely and prophetic. The lyrics describe the ice-cold state of the nation in 1974, eerily echoing the cold front we are experiencing presently. Over a haunting, repetitive piano riff in C minor, Gil preached, “We have been taken over by the season of ice. Very few people recognize it for what it is. Although they feel uncomfortable very few people recognize the fact that somehow the seasons don’t change.” (A live performance of the song was released on the CD version of the “Winter in America” album in 1998.)Right now people are still so overwhelmed by the reality of how dark the state of the world is. My favorite line of the song is when he sang, “The truth is there ain’t nobody fighting because, well, nobody knows what to save. Brother, save your soul.” That statement alone hits home for me as I look around wondering how can I truly make a difference. I wish I could share this song with everyone in this country, especially now. Thank God my mother shared Gil with me.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Richard Scheinin, music writer“Cry of Hunger!” by Billy HarperNo one composes like Billy Harper. His tunes are noble, soulful, and questing. This epic track — from his debut album, “Capra Black” — begins with a call to attention. Wake up! We are instantly spun into some mysterious dimension by the sextet, which seems to move in slow motion as Harper makes one of his patented, monolithic entrances on tenor saxophone. He moans. He ascends. You hear the blues. You hear the ecstatic power of the Black church. We are held in suspense; there are moments of literal silence that take your breath away. Then the chorus enters, singing one of Harper’s most memorable themes: “There’ll be e-nough some day!” Over and over. A soprano sings an ethereal line in counterpoint to Harper’s next solo. With each beseeching note, he imparts a message: of joy, sorrow, yearning, beauty. He is singing; he is praying. The band (featuring the likes of George Cables, Reggie Workman and Jimmy Owens) moves at a majestic lope, cycling back to the wake-up call before the chorus (which includes the great Gene McDaniels) returns for the finale. Taken in another direction, this song of hope might have been a hit for someone like Curtis Mayfield. I’ve been listening to it for 50 years and it still brings me to my knees.Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Angel Bat Dawid, musician“Baba Hengates” by Mtume Umoja EnsembleMtume’s “Alkebu-Lan” is my favorite Strata-East album. It’s hard to say which one song hits me with “Alkebu-Lan,” because it is in my opinion not an album to be compartmentalized in that way; it is a living, breathing creature, and one must commit to the sonic instructions of invocation to the end of this powerful incantation. But for reference purposes, the “Invocation” going into “Baba Hengates” resonates to my core. “Alkebu-Lan” is one of those holy grail albums I’m still searching for, waiting for my bank account to have the funds to afford an original, as most Strata-East O.G.s are pretty pricey. So if anyone out there wanna give a creative musician a present, holla at ya girl!Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Marcus J. Moore, jazz writer“Malika” by the Ensemble Al-SalaamOne day about 10 years ago, I was listening to the producer Madlib’s “Medicine Show #8: Advanced Jazz” when this piercing soprano came barreling through the speakers. I had just finished laughing at the album’s fake 1970s Blaxploitation film promo when the singer Beatrice Parker snapped me back into place. The song was “Malika” from the Ensemble Al-Salaam, a New York-based spiritual jazz septet who counted Bill Lee (a fellow Strata-East artist and the film director Spike Lee’s father) as inspiration. Between Parker’s rolling vocals and the band’s frenetic arrangement, “Malika” sounded like a car-chase scene in a crime saga. I liked free and spiritual jazz anyway, so I already had a palate for avant-garde music. But I’d never heard that. The song was something else, something I didn’t know I needed. To that end, I also give credit to Madlib for shaping my taste in jazz. I knew the classics, but albums like “Advanced Jazz” and “Shades of Blue” introduced me to psychedelic underground jazz, and labels like Strata-East Records.Listen on YouTube More

He was a force in Elvis Presley’s TCB band and accompanied other big names like Jerry Garcia, Billy Joel and Elvis Costello.NASHVILLE — Ronnie Tutt, the prolific and versatile drummer who accompanied both Elvises, Presley and Costello, as well as other major figures in rock and pop like Jerry Garcia and Neil Diamond, died on Oct. 16 at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 83.His death was confirmed by his wife, Donna, who said he had lived with chronic heart problems.Mr. Tutt was singing jingles and drumming in local bands in Dallas when, in his early 30s, he was hired to play drums in Presley’s TCB (Taking Care of Business) band for a series of historic engagements at the International Hotel outside Las Vegas in 1969.Presley’s four-week residency there marked his triumphant return to the stage after an eight-year hiatus, reviving a career hampered by uninspired movie roles and an image that had lost relevance in the face of the ’60s counterculture.The comeback — a transformation that also invigorated Las Vegas’s nightclub scene — was due in no small part to the strength of Presley’s rhythm section, a dozen of whose performances were documented on the live portion of the 1969 album “From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis.” Foremost among them was a racing take, nearly eight minutes long, of “Suspicious Minds” featuring Mr. Tutt’s hyperkinetic, barely controlled drumming.Mr. Tutt’s powerful yet nuanced style enlivened many of Presley’s studio recordings from this period as well, including “Burning Love,” a Top 10 pop hit in 1972 that lives up to its incendiary title. Admired for his use of cymbals, Mr. Tutt was known for his ability to anticipate Presley’s moves onstage and accentuate them on the drums.“Elvis always bragged how you intuitively could keep up with his stage moves, even when he tried to trick you,” Presley’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, wrote in a tribute addressed to Mr. Tutt on Instagram.Mr. Tutt did studio work for other artists while in Presley’s employ. He provided empathetic support to Billy Joel’s 1974 Top 40 hit “Piano Man.” He contributed propulsive cymbal and snare rhythms to Gram Parsons’s “Ooh Las Vegas,” a 1974 recording that featured Emmylou Harris on vocals. In the 1970s, Mr. Tutt played in both Ms. Harris’s Hot Band and the Jerry Garcia Band.Working concurrently with Presley and Garcia, the Grateful Dead founder and lead guitarist, proved a study in contrasts, Mr. Tutt said: His work with Presley was meticulously rehearsed, his sessions with Garcia more impromptu and improvisational, akin to jazz.“Elvis’s music was a lot more in your face; you could never play enough,” he recalled in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone. “With Jerry we never talked about it, but I just knew that my role with that band, no matter what configuration it was, was to help keep it together. We weren’t there to do flashy solos.”Ronald Ellis Tutt was born on March 12, 1938, in Dallas, the only child of Frank and Gladys Tutt. His father owned a dry-cleaning business; his mother was a homemaker.Young Ronnie took dance lessons at an early age. His first instrument was ukulele, followed by guitar, violin and trumpet. He did not begin playing the drums until his senior year in high school.“When I was 3, I started dancing, so the rhythm of everything was more important to me than the melodic,” Mr. Tutt said, discussing his affinity for the drums in a 2016 interview with the website Elvis Australia. “I was frustrated with playing trumpet and guitar because I wanted to express myself rhythmically. It was a very easy transition.”He worked as a drummer with Presley until Presley’s death in 1977. He then played on recordings by the Carpenters, Mink DeVille and others before joining Mr. Diamond’s band, as a drummer and background singer, in 1981. Onstage, Mr. Tutt routinely drew ovations for his drum crescendos during performances of Mr. Diamond’s 1969 pop hit “Holly Holy.”He remained with Mr. Diamond until 2018, while continuing to do studio work on projects like Mr. Costello’s “King of America” (1986) and Los Lobos’ “By the Light of the Moon” (1987). From 1997 to the mid-2010s he also appeared in “Elvis: The Concert,” a touring extravaganza that featured video footage of Presley performing, with new live backing by members of the TCB band and other musicians.In addition to his wife, Mr. Tutt is survived by seven daughters, Cindy Rutter, Tina Dempsey, Christine Edson, Terie Tutt, Rhonda Henderson, Elisia Notermann and Rachael Dodson; two sons, Ron Jr. and Jared; 16 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. Another son, Nathan, died 10 years ago.Though he was not known as a producer, Mr. Tutt served in that role, albeit uncredited, on “Burning Love” while Felton Jarvis, Presley’s regular producer, was recovering from a kidney transplant.“He was lying on his back in the control room at RCA,” Mr. Tutt said of Mr. Jarvis in his interview with Elvis Australia. “Emery Gordy came up with the bass line, and I produced the record for Felton — you know, the whole session.”“It more described the kind of music that we were trying to get Elvis to do at the time,” he said of “Burning Love” and the aspirations that he and other members of Presley’s Nashville rhythm section had for the session. “So I take a little pride in that.” More

The 85-year-old Motown star performed for an adoring crowd and made no mention of the claims against him at his first concert since being named in a lawsuit.By the time Smokey Robinson performed “Cruisin’” near the end of his concert at the Beau Rivage Theater on Friday night, the mutual admiration was in full display between the Motown icon and a revering audience of nearly 1,600 people, with no mention made of the sexual assault allegations levied against him this week.Mr. Robinson had long discarded the jacket from the sparkling green suit and the tie he had begun the night with.“Do you know what you volunteered for?” he asked one woman he invited onstage.“We’ll be right back,” Mr. Robinson said when she answered that she had freely agreed to join him in front of the audience, and he took a few steps pretending to accompany her backstage. He then implored her to get the audience to sing “Cruisin’” lyrics with them.Mr. Robinson, 85, smiled widely throughout a festive set, dancing suggestively while performing many of his landmark songs as part of a tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of his album “A Quiet Storm” and the release of a new album, “What the World Needs Now.”He proceeded with the concert just days after four women who worked as housekeepers for Mr. Robinson claimed in a lawsuit that he had repeatedly sexually abused them for years at his homes in California and Nevada. Three of the women did not report the allegations sooner over fear of their immigration status, the lawsuit states.The suit argues that Mr. Robinson created a hostile work environment and demanded they work long hours without receiving minimum wage. It also claims that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, knew of the assaults but did not to stop them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Introducing a new newsletter dedicated to music discovery, and your host, Lindsay Zoladz.Illustration by The New York Times; Bob Berg/Getty Images (Fiona Apple)Dear listeners,Welcome to the first installment of The Amplifier — a twice-weekly note about songs (new and old) worth hearing. I want The Amplifier to bring that mixtape-from-your-friend feeling back to musical discovery. Too often, in the streaming era, our choices are at the mercy of a shadowy, impersonal algorithm. The Amplifier will be a return to something more intimate and human.Of course, that requires you knowing at least a little bit about me and my particular musical perspective.But the easiest way to fill a music critic with crippling panic is to pose that seemingly simple question: “What’s your favorite song?” Most of us are likely to get defensive and philosophical, asking whether you mean “favorite” or “best,” and how you personally would define those terms — all as a stalling tactic while we spin through the bulging Rolodex of all the songs we’ve ever loved, trying and probably failing to arrive at a sufficiently revealing choice.So rather than make a monolithic list of My Favorite Songs of All Time — one that I’d immediately be adding tracks to in my head as soon as I hit send — I thought I’d opt for the more inviting language of a popular social media prompt: “10 Songs That Explain Me.”Except that I just. Could. Not. Do it. No matter how many times I tried, I always ended up with an extra song. So consider this to be a 10-song playlist with a bonus track — or perhaps an early indication that the knobs on this Amplifier go to 11.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Nina Simone: “Ain’t Got No — I Got Life”Only Nina Simone could transform two relatively kitschy numbers from the musical “Hair” into a song of self that rivals Walt Whitman. Simone is a lodestar to me: The excellence that she demanded from herself, the attention she demanded from her audiences and the classical virtuosity she brought to popular music all make her one of the greats. This rousing song can lift me out of just about any funk, and with such efficiency! Simone only needs less than three minutes to remind you exactly what it means to be alive. (Listen on YouTube)2. Fiona Apple: “Shameika”I grew up in suburban New Jersey and came of age in the late ’90s: a place and a time when conformity was currency. I wasn’t very good at fitting in, and like many an angsty youth, I found a kindred spirit in Fiona Apple. I first heard (and became obsessed with) her poetic and moody debut album, “Tidal,” when I was on the precipice of middle school, which is about the age Apple imagines herself to be in this elegantly unruly song from her 2020 album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.” I see a lot of myself in it — both in the young, dissatisfied girl Apple remembers herself to be, and in the adult writer who made it out of that environment intact enough to tell the story. In my headphones, at least, Fiona said I had potential. (Listen on YouTube)3. The Dismemberment Plan: “Superpowers”When I was 18, I moved to Washington, D.C., for college and lived there until I was 25. My friend Drew put this song on a mix for me a few years into that stretch, and for a time it became my anthem: The Dismemberment Plan — an arty, verbose four-piece from D.C. that had broken up shortly before I got there — was a perfect bridge between the introspective emo I liked in high school and the more experimental strains of indie-rock I got into in college. Nothing brings me back to the ennui of early adulthood like the band’s 1999 classic “Emergency & I,” but my favorite of its records is the one that has “Superpowers” on it, “Change.” Luckily I got to catch a couple of amazing D-Plan reunion shows before I left town. (Listen on YouTube)4. Grimes: “Genesis”I have this theory that moving to New York knocks at least five years off your behavioral age. I made it here at 25, but for the first few years it felt like a second adolescence: catching shows every night at a bunch of now-defunct Williamsburg venues, making new friends, vying for the car stereo’s aux cord. Very often, the iPod was playing Grimes’s light and blissful album “Visions,” or sometimes just “Genesis” on repeat. It’s a song that can still make me feel, for a fleeting four minutes, like I’m the main character in my own video game and I’ve figured out the cheat code that makes me invincible. (Listen on YouTube)5. Frank Ocean: “Self Control”And here is the B-side of my roaring 20s: Frank Ocean’s tender voice was and remains a balm for whatever failure, loneliness and disappointment life decided to throw my way. (Consider “Self Control” a way to sneak another one of my favorite artists, and homes-away-from-home, onto this list, too, since the eclectic Philadelphia indie-rocker Alex G plays guitar on the track.) (Listen on YouTube)6. The Flying Burrito Brothers: “Wild Horses”Let’s continue wallowing while turning back the clock a bit to hear from another one of my all-time favorite singers, Gram Parsons. (I recently went on a Nashville vacation that was at least partially a spiritual pilgrimage to see his infamously sinful Nudie suit in the Country Music Hall of Fame.) A lot of the older music I love most has a kind of “near miss” quality about it — history’s beautiful losers, the artists who didn’t break through but deserved to, the ones who gesture toward all sorts of alternative presents and what-ifs. Maybe that’s why I prefer Parsons’s vocal take of “Wild Horses” to Mick Jagger’s more familiar one. (The Sundays’ version is great, too.) There’s a wobbly brokenness to it that I find incredibly moving, especially the way he emphasizes “a dull aching pain.” The origins of the song are notoriously disputed, but some insist that its titular line was inspired by something that Marianne Faithfull croaked when she came out of a six-day coma in 1969 — “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” — and that is one of those rock ’n’ roll stories that, even if it’s apocryphal, I have chosen to believe. (Listen on YouTube)7. Big Star: “Daisy Glaze”Speaking of music history’s beautiful losers: Big Star, one of my favorite rock bands ever. Like many a teenage millennial, I first came to the band through one of the numerous covers of the acoustic ballad “Thirteen” (“one of my almost-good songs,” the ever-humble Alex Chilton once said). Once I’d immersed myself in the band’s back catalog, I became belatedly furious that it had never been as famous as Led Zeppelin. I will always be exhilarated by the moment in the middle of “Daisy Glaze” when Jody Stephens’s three kick-drum thumps initiate a sudden tempo change — a perfect encapsulation of the band’s thrilling brilliance. (Listen on YouTube)8. The Mountain Goats: “Up the Wolves”I got into the Mountain Goats toward the end of high school — my friend Matt and I would drive from Jersey diner to diner, listening to their seemingly limitless discography — and John Darnielle is probably my favorite contemporary lyricist. The album “The Sunset Tree,” and this song in particular, have gotten me through many a dark night of the soul. I have now seen the Mountain Goats live more times than I can count — I lost track in the low 20s — and I am not yet numb to the emotional power of these songs. They played “Up the Wolves” a few months ago at Webster Hall, and after all these years, it still made me cry like a big teenage baby. (Listen on YouTube)9. Buffy Sainte-Marie: “The Circle Game”This one’s a total cheat: a sneaky way to mention two artists I adore — Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell, who of course wrote “The Circle Game” — on a single track. Joni is probably my favorite living songwriter, and there are about 100 other songs of hers I could have chosen. But I like the story behind this cover, recorded when Joni was still a fledgling songwriter to whom the then-better-known Buffy was trying to bring some attention. Suffice to say, it worked. (Listen on YouTube)10. The Raincoats: “No Side to Fall In”I’ve identified as a feminist throughout many different cultural and personal phases: in seventh grade when the boys told me girls couldn’t skateboard; in college, when it was a somewhat unfashionable concern that meant I read a lot of literary theory; these days, when a more watered-down version of the word has been co-opted to sell things on Instagram. All throughout, music has given me the strength to keep fighting, dreaming and resisting psychic death. To me, the great post-punk group the Raincoats are emblematic of a kind of utopian feminist freedom: a sonic universe where women can sound like and do anything they want — yes, even skateboarding. (Listen on YouTube)11. Van Morrison: “Ballerina”Oh, Van the (Facebook-hating) Man, my problematic fave. “Astral Weeks” is an album I love deeply, but I’ve always thought “Ballerina” should be the closing track. Since this is my playlist, with my rules, let’s try it out. I love this clip of a very young Leonard Cohen explaining to a confused interviewer on Canadian television what it feels like to be in “a state of grace.” It’s that “kind of balance with which you ride the chaos that you find around you.” I have found no better description of how I feel when I listen to this song. (Listen on YouTube)Thanks for listening,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“10 (or, Actually, 11) Songs That Explain Me” track listTrack 1: Nina Simone, “Ain’t Got No — I Got Life”Track 2: Fiona Apple, “Shameika”Track 3: The Dismemberment Plan, “Superpowers”Track 4: Grimes, “Genesis”Track 5: Frank Ocean, “Self Control”Track 6: The Flying Burrito Brothers, “Wild Horses”Track 7: Big Star, “Daisy Glaze”Track 8: The Mountain Goats, “Up the Wolves”Track 9: Buffy Sainte-Marie, “The Circle Game”Track 10: The Raincoats, “No Side to Fall In”Track 11: Van Morrison, “Ballerina”The song that explains youI’m really excited to go on this musical journey with you. I also want to make this newsletter a place for conversations about the songs and artists that mean something to you, so I’ll occasionally be asking for your thoughts on the topics we cover in this newsletter — and I’d love to hear from all of you.Today, I want to know: What’s a song that explains you? Tell me about it.If you’d like to participate you can fill out this form here. We may use your response in an upcoming edition of The Amplifier.Bonus tracksIf you want to read me going even deeper on my love of Fiona Apple, here’s an essay I wrote a few years back, as part of NPR’s “Turning the Tables” series on female artists. (My dear friend Jenn Pelly also tracked down the real-life Shameika and wrote a wonderful article about her.)And, if you’re a Van Fan, here’s me going incredibly long on “Astral Weeks,” for The Ringer, on the occasion of the album’s 50th anniversary.Finally, if you’re inclined to read my recent profile of the great Buffy Sainte-Marie (I was pinching myself just outside the Zoom frame!), might I suggest following it with this delightful clip of her showing Pete Seeger, on his short-lived TV show “Rainbow Quest,” how to play a mouth bow. More