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    Chubby Checker, Outkast and the White Stripes Will Join the Rock & Hall of Fame

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    Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company and Soundgarden — but not Oasis or Phish — are also part of the 40th anniversary class.Chubby Checker is finally joining the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 65 years after “The Twist” became a No. 1 hit and an international dance craze.Checker, 83, who has campaigned for decades to be admitted to the pantheon — at one point taking out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine that said “I want my flowers while I’m alive” — is part of the 40th annual crop of performer inductees. He is joined by Joe Cocker, the White Stripes, Outkast, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company and Soundgarden, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced on Sunday evening, after a Rock Hall-themed segment on ABC’s “American Idol.”Those artists — a lineup that mixes classic rock, hip-hop, 1990s-vintage alternative rock and a female pop icon — will formally join the hall on Nov. 8 in a ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles that will stream live in Disney+.Checker, Cocker, Outkast and Bad Company were all accepted on their first nomination.The induction of the White Stripes, the stylish garage-rock minimalists whose “Seven Nation Army” has become a stadium-rousing standard, could lend some anticipatory drama to this year’s ceremony. Since the band broke up in 2011, Meg White, its drummer, has become one the great recluses of 21st-century pop, rarely seen in public and declining all interview requests — which would make any possible appearance by her a major coup for the Rock Hall.Among the other honors this year, Salt-N-Pepa, the pioneering female rap group, and the singer-songwriter Warren Zevon will receive the musical influence award. The musical excellence citation will go to the keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, the studio bassist Carol Kaye and the producer Thom Bell, a key figure in Philadelphia soul. Lenny Waronker, a producer and longtime executive at Warner Bros. Records, will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.Among the nominees who failed to make the final cut this year are Oasis, the Britpop standard-bearers who have reunited for perhaps this year’s most in-demand world tour, and Phish, the veteran Vermont jam band. Phish won the hall’s fan ballot — a single vote, entered alongside those submitted from the hall’s voting body of more than 1,000 music historians, industry professionals and previously inducted artists.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

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      An Ode to the Blues’ Many Guises, Inspired by ‘Sinners’

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      Listen to an imagined set list for a supernatural juke joint featuring Albert King, Outkast, Cécile McLorin Salvant and more.D’AngeloZackary Canepari for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m James, a software engineer with The New York Times’s interactive news desk and an occasional contributor to Culture. I cajoled my way into this space this week after being captivated by the musical ideas pulsing through “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending vampire flick that’s also a tone poem about Black love and pain, and the power and cost of Black creativity.In an arresting scene, a transcendent blues musician plays so fiercely, he summons ancestors and progeny to a Mississippi juke joint in 1932. Suddenly and seamlessly, Jim Crow-era sharecroppers, B-boys from the ’90s, Chinese folk dancers, African griots and funk musicians from the ’70s are all together, reveling to the same kinetic sound. It’s a visual expression of Black music’s shared DNA.My girlfriend and I spent all weekend analyzing that scene, pondering the blues’ connections to what came before and since. Here are 11 songs I could imagine on the set list at a supernatural juke joint unbounded by technology, geography or time.If he don’t dig this, he got a hole in his soul,JamesListen along while you read.1. Albert King: “Cold Feet”This infectious stomper from 1967 would set a warm vibe early in the interdimensional party, satisfying fans of the Mississippi-born blues luminary and the ’90s hip-hop heads who’d recognize it as the foundation of Chubb Rock’s “Just the Two of Us.”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

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      Chubby Checker, Phish and Outkast Among Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

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      Billy Idol, the Black Crowes and Maná will also appear on the ballot for the first time, alongside Oasis, Joe Cocker, Mariah Carey and others.Outkast, Phish, Chubby Checker, Billy Idol, the Black Crowes and the Mexican band Maná are among the first-time nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.This year’s ballot, announced by the hall on Wednesday, will also include Oasis, Joe Cocker, Mariah Carey, Cyndi Lauper, the White Stripes, Bad Company and Soundgarden, as well as Joy Division and New Order, the band that members of Joy Division formed after the death of its lead singer, Ian Curtis.As in recent years, the latest nominees represent a mix of eras and subgenres. Those include boldface rock ’n’ roll names from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s (Cocker, Idol), punk and alternative heroes (Joy Division, Soundgarden, the White Stripes), arena-filling giants (Oasis, Phish), a hip-hop act (Outkast) and a nod to the world outside mainstream Anglo-American pop (Maná).Given the intense pressure the Rock Hall has faced in recent years to correct its poor record of admitting women to the pantheon, the inclusion of just two female performers — Carey and Lauper, neither of them new to the ballot — may bring yet more scrutiny to the institution despite its promises to reform.For longtime Rock Hall watchers, the biggest news this year may be Checker. His song “The Twist” — a cover of a B-side originally released by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters — was a global phenomenon in the early 1960s, and it stands as one of the biggest hits in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. But until now, Checker, 83, has been ignored by the Rock Hall, despite years — decades, even — of complaints from his fans and protests by Checker himself. (Ballard, who died in 2003, was inducted into the hall in 1990.)In 2001, Checker took out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine calling on the Rock Hall — along with nominators of the Nobel Prizes — to recognize him for the song that, he said, became “the biggest dance of the century.”“I want my flowers while I’m alive,” he wrote. “I can’t smell them when I’m dead.”In 2018, the Rock Hall included “The Twist” in a new honor, a list of singles that shaped rock ’n’ roll.Artists become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first recording. The nominations are voted on by more than 1,000 music historians, industry professionals and inducted artists.The winning nominees are to be announced in April, and this year’s induction ceremony will be held in Los Angeles in the fall. More

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      André 3000 on 3 Grammy Nods for ‘New Blue Sun’: ‘Super Duper Cool’

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      He was half of Outkast, the last rap act to win album of the year — 20 years ago. His latest nominations are for “New Blue Sun,” an expression of ultimate freedom.An album of the year nomination at the Grammys? André 3000 has been here before.Two decades ago, he and his Outkast partner Big Boi won the prize for “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” their multifaceted hip-hop opus that became a crossover pop breakout. This year, though, André has been recognized for something quite different: “New Blue Sun,” the improvisational flute-led album he released last November, which on Friday was honored with nods in three categories: best alternative jazz album, best instrumental composition and, perhaps most shocking, album of the year, competing against Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and pop’s heaviest hitters.The album is a thoughtful musical excursion and also a statement of creative purpose — a demonstration that even one of the most storied figures in pop music can rewrite their own script in real time. André 3000 has spent the bulk of this year touring with the band who recorded the album, putting jazz-influenced experimental music on grand stages around the world. But he’s still working far from the pop and hip-hop forms that formed the foundation for his success. Relative anonymity is a trade-off he was willing to make for creative freedom, but the reception to the album has also shown that fans — and now Grammy voters — are interested in welcoming him back to the spotlight.After gathering his thoughts early Friday afternoon, André 3000 spoke about how the seed for his current adventure was planted back in the Outkast era, using the audience as an instrument, and what it’s like to make it all up as you go. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Big day. Where were you when you heard?I’m in Virginia today, we’re playing tonight. I was just waking up and I heard that the nominations came in. We were trying to be nominated in some type of way for alternative jazz or ambient, possibly. But I was totally surprised by this. So yeah, it was super, super, super duper cool.We’re 20 years past “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” winning album of the year, and it’s the last rap album to take that top prize. Do you think that’s still on voters’ minds? That they’re seeing your creative evolution?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

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      13 Scary Good Halloween Songs

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      Fill up your holiday playlist with spooky and satisfying tracks from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Sonics, Geto Boys and more.Karen O and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (being watched … closely).Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,Hello from your guest playlister for the day — I’m Dave Renard, an editor on the Culture desk who writes about music occasionally and tries to keep his record collection from outgrowing its allotted shelf space (currently failing).Let’s just get this out of the way first: Halloween has the best music of any holiday and it’s not even close. Christmas may be the sales leader, but its canon is too tied to a tight list of classics and standards, and if you have the bad fortune to encounter a repetitive earworm like “The Little Drummer Boy” or (shudder) “The 12 Days of Christmas,” there goes your whole day. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to throw on some soul music while you mash potatoes, but like most other holidays, it doesn’t have much of a musical tradition of its own. Fourth of July, we’ve got Galaxie 500 and what, Katy Perry? (My editor offers a star-spangled dissent, but I think the point stands.)Halloween, on the other hand, has a huge range of spooky sounds to draw from. (If you know the old joke about hell having all the good bands, it’s kind of like that.) My playlist strategy is to surround the typical novelty favorites like “Monster Mash” or “Ghostbusters” with a critical mass of songs that are, you know, actually good. I can only listen to DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince do “A Nightmare on My Street” so many times before I start to lose it. If you think “Saw” is terrifying, try revealing to your teen daughter which songs drive you nuts and then — jump scare! — remembering she can control the sound system from her phone.A bigger pool of shared Halloween favorites makes that prospect less hair-raising. I lean heavily on black-clad ’80s punks, goths and post-punks, like the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, along with ’60s garage rockers and their descendants. But really any song with a creepy edge to it, or lyrics name-checking a wide range of October signifiers, will do the trick. Here are an unholy 13 selections to soundtrack All Hallows’ Eve.I’m a human fly and I don’t know why,DaveListen along while you read.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

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      Is It Too Late Now to Say Sorry? 8 Songs for the High Holy Days.

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      Apology, forgiveness, moving on: These are some of humanity’s richest themes, and they have rich songs to match.Bob DylanFiona Adams/Redferns, via Getty ImagesDear listeners,As Lindsay mentioned on Friday, she’s out on book leave for the rest of the month. Starting next week, a series of knowledgeable Times staffers will sub in to provide thoughtfully curated playlists each Tuesday. This week, however, you are stuck with me: a reporter on the Culture desk who has written about Dylan and the Dead, and whose current Spotify rotation includes CoComelon’s “Wheels on the Bus” and the “Encanto” soundtrack (possibly Lin-Manuel Miranda’s finest work).For some of us, this is a week of reflection, repentance and weaning ourselves off caffeine: It’s the Days of Awe, the 10 days between Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which was last Thursday and Friday, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which begins this Friday night. There are more superficially appealing holidays; Yom Kippur in particular is a fast day and is not supposed to be “fun.” But I earnestly don’t know what I would do without this time of year and the space it provides to pause and take stock. You don’t need to belong to any particular faith to find that a useful exercise.A High Holiday playlist might appear a tricky proposition. Popular music is not typically a space for solemnity and self-denial. On Yom Kippur itself, sex and nonessential drugs, to say nothing of rock ’n’ roll, are prohibited. But apology, forgiveness, moving on: These are some of humanity’s richest themes, and they have rich songs to match. While we cannot skimp on some of the most obvious artists — hello, Barbra; nice to see you, Leonard — we are also including Stevie Wonder and Outkast.I hope you reflect and enjoy. And, if you celebrate, have a sweet new year and a meaningful fast.Gut yontif,MarcListen along while you read.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

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      A Bouquet of Songs for May Flowers

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      Tom Petty, Patrice Rushen, Billie Eilish and more.Tom Petty.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,Last month, I sent you a playlist of rainy songs, in honor of April showers. I also promised a sequel. I bet you have spent weeks racking your brain thinking what that playlist’s theme could possibly be. Well, wonder no more. It’s time for a selection of songs about (say it with me) …. um, no, not bell towers. And also not cauliflower, but that’s a fun guess.May flowers, guys! May flowers!Music history is, naturally, scattered with references to flowers — giving them to a lover, or maybe just buying them for oneself. There’s a song for just about every possible type of flora: irises, forget-me-nots, lilacs, you name it. Roses probably get the most mention of any flowers, but hey, even they have their thorns.Today’s playlist is just a smattering of the many songs out there about flowers. It features a few throwbacks from Scott McKenzie and Patrice Rushen, as well as a few freshly bloomed tracks — from Billie Eilish and Cassandra Jenkins — that came out this May. You’ll find a few wildflowers, a rhododendron and even a lotus. Consider this a sonic bouquet from me to you.Buy more stock in roses,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Tom Petty: “Wildflowers”We begin with the tenderhearted title track from Tom Petty’s great 1994 solo album. A few years ago I wrote about the deluxe edition of “Wildflowers” — a treasure trove for Petty fans — and a fact I stumbled upon in my research forever changed the way I hear this song. Written during a turbulent time in his life, the song is not a loving missive to someone else but rather, as Petty eventually realized with some help from a therapist, “me singing to me.”▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe 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

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      Rico Wade, an Architect of Atlanta Hip-Hop, Dies at 52

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      As one-third of the production team Organized Noize, Wade nurtured the careers of Outkast, Goodie Mob and Future from the confines of his mother’s basement, known as the Dungeon.Rico Wade, an architect of Southern hip-hop who produced albums for rap acts including Outkast, Goodie Mob and Future, has died. He was 52.The death was announced on social media on Saturday by the artist and activist Killer Mike, a longtime collaborator. No cause of death was provided.His family confirmed the death in a statement. “We are deeply saddened by the sudden and unexpected passing of our son, father, husband and brother Rico Wade,” the statement said. “Our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of a talented individual who touched the lives of so many. We ask that you respect the legacy of our loved one and our privacy at this time.”Wade, Ray Murray and Patrick Brown, known as Sleepy, formed the Atlanta-based production crew Organized Noize in the early 1990s, coalescing during an era when offerings from the East and West Coasts dominated radio and major label releases. Their work propelled the region from the fringes of the genre to a mainstay at its center.Barely out of their teens, the production crew welcomed aspiring musicians and artists into the basement of Wade’s mother’s home in East Point, Georgia, in the early 1990s. The cellar became known as the Dungeon with the artists who performed there, including the groups Parental Advisory and Goodie Mob, who emerged from it as part of the collective colloquially called the Dungeon Family.“I don’t know if you can imagine how weed and must and dirt would smell together, but that’s what it smelled like,” Dee Dee Hibbler, Outkast’s former manager, said of the Dungeon in the 2016 documentary “The Art of Organized Noize.”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

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      André 3000 Brings His Solo Album ‘New Blue Sun’ to the Stage

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      Performing live for the first time with musicians from his solo LP, the onetime Outkast rapper played various flutes, said little and tried to change perceptions.Toward the end of his late set Wednesday night at the Blue Note in Manhattan, André 3000 said he and members of his band had gone to an instrument shop earlier in the day and picked up some new toys. He showed off his haul: something he’d thought was a flute, but turned out to be part of a bagpipe.Nevertheless, he persisted. He blew through it, and what came out was sonorous and weird. A kind of sexy skronk. He looked at the long, thin tube with a nod of admiration. “This got something serious in it,” he remarked, before chuckling just a bit, and blowing even harder.This is how André 3000 — one of the most gifted rappers of all time, and one of the true pop pathbreakers of the 2000s — communicates now. In November, he released “New Blue Sun,” an improvised album of experimental music on which he plays a variety of flutes. It reached No. 34 on the Billboard album chart, demonstrating what happens when decades of pent-up curiosity about a reluctant star meets art that demands curiosity, close attention and perhaps the benefit of the doubt. For fans, it reinforced the idea of André as a mystic beyond the pull of ego.“I think I’m blessed with being oblivious,” he said Monday night at Crown Hill Theater in Brooklyn, performing his first show under his name alone. “It kind of keeps you pure.”“New Blue Sun” is sometimes entrancing, sometimes frustrating. It is perhaps less a purely musical project than a philosophical or emotional proposition expressed through music. In many sections, you hardly hear André or his flute at all. Its arrival was greeted with awe and relief, and also conversations about the virtues of amateurism, and the right of a celebrity to recalibrate the terms of his fame.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