best experimental songs

17 Best Experimental Songs Of All Time

When we think of standout experimental songs, most people understandably think of the sixties.

It was a time of tremendous change, and that got reflected in the music. But music is constantly evolving, and experimental songs come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some of the best experimental songs of all time.

Shine a Light and Let it Loose by The Rolling Stones

Song Year: 1972

The Rolling Stones were notorious for musical experimentation. They are best known for inventing the folk-rock sound, but even so, no two songs are the same.

‘Shine a Light’ stands out as one of the best experimental songs ever, because it’s a peculiar blend of Gospel traditions and rock music.

It’s an unlikely combination, but the experiment pays off. The result is an emotive and meaningful song that listeners around the world connected with immediately.

Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles

Song Year: 1967

Another great experimental songs comes from the Liverpudlian rock group The Beatles.

As They grew in popularity, The Beatles increasingly began experimenting with musical convention and pushing the boundaries of harmony. ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is an excellent example.

The band’s producer famously combined two separate takes. One is slightly slower than normal, and the other is sped up. The result was a truly unique listening experience.

A combination of eclectic instruments heightens the song's sense of atypicality. Keep your ears tuned to hear:

• Swarmandal (Indian harp)

Chameleon by Herbie Hancock

Song Year: 1962

Herbie Hancock is a jazz musician who played an instrumental role in developing jazz fusion .

Since jazz is one of those genres perpetually shedding its skin and donning a new one, that claim may not sound as remarkable as it is.

Hancock produced ‘Chameleon’ while struggling to create a new sound for himself. To reinvigorate his creative energy, he took inspiration from funk music.

‘Chameleon’ is immediately recognizable to jazz aficionados because of its idiomatic baseline. The blend of synth and other instruments is unlike anything previously recorded.

To say it’s one of the best experimental jazz songs of all time is to understate its impact on the musical landscape.

Interstellar Overdrive by Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ was very different from other music at the time. It’s an instrumental composition that helped bring Pink Floyd into the popular consciousness.

The song’s genesis occurred when the band manager tried and failed to hum a popular melody. Several of the musicians mucked about with their instruments to help him out, and the unlikely episode laid the foundation of ‘Interstellar Overdrive.’

Like other experimental songs on this list, there’s a heavy emphasis on chromaticism and atypical chord progressions that contribute to the music’s unusual sound.

Five Years by Bjork

Song Year: 1997

Icelandic singer Bjork has an astonishingly versatile voice. In ‘Five Years,’ she combines it with distorted drums to fascinating effect.

The result is one of the best experimental songs ever. Bjork’s voice dips ever-lower down the scale, and the drums become increasingly distorted. The result is an undeniably fascinating study in effective editing and composition.

V-2 Schneider by David Bowie

Song Year: 1977

 ‘V-2 Schneider’ is one of the pieces Bowie composed while in Berlin. It’s an artistic period many Bowie fans view as one ongoing experiment, and that’s evident in ‘V-2 Schneider.’

It features the unlikely combination of Bowie’s imperfect saxophone artistry, a janty bassline, and disco-style drums. It’s a combination that shouldn’t work but does.

Arguably, Bowie has done more overtly experimental work. But one of the reasons ‘V-2 Schneider’ ranks as one of the best experimental songs of all time is because it sounds like the kind of musical accident but succeeded against tremendous odds.

Torches by Youth Choir of Great Briain

Song Year: 2001

So far, our discussion of the best experimental songs of all time explores overtly experimental genres like rock or jazz.

But no genre is static. Sir Karl Jenkins' ‘The Armed Man’ is a spectacular and moving example of how even classical music can be experimental. It takes the conventional movements of a Mass setting and blends them with:

• Medieval folk songs
• Muslim call to prayer
• Sanskrit mythology

The ninth movement of ‘The Armed Man’ shows Jenkins at his experimental best. It’s a violent indictment of wartime violence that uses spikey chromaticism, percussion, and vocal sliding to evoke the devastation of war.

It segues immediately into the much gentler Agnus Dei, which, atypically, precedes the Benedictus. But while the mass might be experimental, its effect on audiences is undeniable. It’s powerful, evocative, and designed to make you weep.

Passacaglia by Herbert Kegel, Theo Adam and Konrad Rupf

Song Year: 2013

Another of the best examples of experimental classical music comes from ‘Wozzeck,’ by Alban Berg.

Berg wrote his opera based on the 12-tone system. The result is an almost entirely atonal composition that plays with classical conventions. Singers sing symphonies, sonatas, and rhapsodies.

Here, the singers sing a passacaglia. Like other forms mentioned, this would typically be performed by an orchestra. It’s also distinctive for its dissonance and atonality.

For that reason, many find Berg hard to listen to. But that’s no reason to overlook genius.

Jim Dean of Indiana by Phil Ochs

Song Year: 1969

Folk artist Phil Ochs was all about experimenting with music and pushing its boundaries. His songs are famous for their biting satire.

But in ‘Jim Dean of Indiana,’ Ochs also pushes the boundaries of folk music convention.

The imagery is unrelentingly grim, and even the title of the album ‘Greatest Hits’ is a tongue-in-cheek experiment. Ochs had no hits to speak of, and he knew it. But his determination to expose the grey underbelly of the much-mythologized Americana gives his songs a staying power their composer never anticipated.

Sister Ray by The Velvet Underground

Song Year: 1968

The Velvet Underground was always unconventional and never more so than in ‘Sister Ray.’

Among other things, it features:

The result is one of the best experimental songs of all time. It redefined garage jazz and earned the Velvet Underground their reputation as unapologetically confrontational.

It’s a busy track that stands out for being almost entirely improvisational.

Only A Northern Song by The Beatles

‘Only A Northern Song’ was so unusual, even by Beatles standards, that it didn’t debut until two years after the band recorded it.

‘Only a Northern Song’ begins slowly but soon picks up speed. It’s helped by the harsh percussion and looping trumpets that give it a distinctive tonality. It’s a sound meant to sound as abrasive as the accent the title playfully mocks.

2000 Lightyears from Home by The Rolling Stones

As experimentations go, The Rolling Stones' ‘2000 Lightyears from Home’ is an exercise in the nightmarish. That’s not to deride it. Instead, it’s a creative exploration of a dystopian soundscape.

Listen carefully to the instrumentation. A mellotron creates a futuristic sound, while some of the instrumentation anticipates R2D2 ten years before Lucas conceived his epic space opera.

Milestones by Miles Davis

Song Year: 1958

In ‘Milestones,’ Miles Davis experimented with the concept of modal jazz. He eschewed conventional harmony in favor of the modal system.

That may not sound experimental, but before Davis did it, modal jazz didn’t exist. For that reason alone, ‘Miles,’ later renamed ‘Milestones,’ ranks as one of the best experimental songs of all time.

Reptile Smile by Th’ Faith Healers

Song Year: 1992

Th’ Faith Healers didn’t have a long career but the work they produced was incontrovertibly experimental. ‘Reptile Smile’ is a textbook example.

Part of ‘Reptile Smile’s’ appeal is that it's danceable. Whatever else is going on, it maintains a steady, almost monotonous baseline. But it’s combined with creative vocal lines and innovative lyrics, producing one of the best experimental songs of the decade.

Geiger Counter by Kraftwerk

Song Year: 1975

‘Geiger Counter’ takes its name from the sound it creates.

Part of the experiment on display with this piece is Kraftwerk’s efforts to mimic a Geiger counter.

But there’s more than experimentation at play here. The song flows naturally into ‘Radioactivity.’ It’s not hard to see that they are more than musically innovative. They're making a statement about nuclear armament.

Effective and to the point, it’s an excellent example of one of the best experimental songs of all time.

Malo by Tim Gasiorek

Song Year: 2020

These days we don’t always think of Benjamin Britten and experimental music in the same sentence. That’s a testament to how music has evolved since Britten started composing.

At the time, though, Britten broke many of the conventional rules. His operas, ‘Albert Herring’ and ‘Turn of the Screw’ are particularly striking examples.

‘Malo’ is sung by the boy tenor playing young Miles in ‘Turn of the Screw,’ and it’s an excellent example of how Britten was reshaping musical convention.

As you listen, pay attention to how raw and exposed it is. It’s also prominently chromatic and often harmonically dissonant.

That’s appropriate because ‘Turn of the Screw’ engages with themes of pedophilia and to some degree, homophobia. But for Britten’s contemporary listener, it made for some uncomfortable listening.

Lifetime by Yves Tumor

Song Year: 2018

Yves Tumor is another artist who never stopped experimenting with music.

‘Lifetime’ is an excellent example. It blends Tumor’s tremendous vocal capability with an eerie piano line and offsets both against a propulsive R&B drum beat.

Tumor wraps the song up with a blast from the horn section, an unlikely but effective choice.

Top Experimental Songs Ever, Final Thoughts

Everyone remembers the 1960s as a time of musical innovation. But when talking about the best experimental songs of all time, it’s important to remember music is never static.

If it was, it would lose its power and efficacy with listeners. Consequently, the best experimental songs of all timespan a variety of genres. They’re jazzy, classical, or even hard rock. What they share is a strong sense of purpose and an ability to move their audience.

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Welcome to the year-end edition of Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, in which we’ve picked 12 of our favorites from 2022. There was so much great experimental music on the site this year that no list could truly represent the breadth and depth of it all, but we are sure that these releases below are worthy of your time. Presented in alphabetical order by artist, our selections include ground-shaking drones, songs sung by artificial intelligence, a moving musical elegy, an homage to the VHS tape, and a 71-minute magnum opus.

Susan Geaney Tape Melt

Irish composer Susan Geaney’s Tape Melt was inspired by her childhood experience of playing and recording over VHS tapes, which she says created a “wonderful cacophony of melting and dripping sounds.” Her single 35-minute piece, performed with the eight-member Kirkos Ensemble, has the warped feel of a worn-out tape (three cassette players are included in the group’s arsenal). Evolving from a haunting drone into a busy chorus of musical voices, Geaney and her comrades eventually fade down to a single high pitch, traveling farther than any VHS tape could.

Valentina Goncharova Ocean – Symphony for Electric Violin and other instruments in 10+ parts

Following two excellent compilations of previously-unreleased material on the Shukai label , Ukraine-born violinist and sound artist Valentina Goncharova gets a welcome reissue of her 1989 Ocean symphony, a 10-part composition filled with sounds both earthly and alien, atmospheric and concrete. Whirring violin strains compete with drones, rhythms, and roars, all making their mark in an intensifying narrative. As a bonus, Goncharova recorded a “Return to the Ocean” in 2021, included here, and its 23 minutes are just as compelling as the original work she’s responding to.

Havadine Stone Old Young

The music of Havadine Stone exists in between spaces, sometimes even behind them. Take “Tree Duet,” the closer on her new album Old Young , which flirts with complete silence. Little bits of wind and rumbling drift in and out, as if she’s lying down in the grass of an empty field, staring at a cloudless sky. Other pieces have more legible sound sources: during “Slow Bath,” she sings a stirring bit of a cappella, and opener “Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Me On Me On Me On Me)” is full of voices echoing like memories. Old Young shows an artist fascinated by space and distance, and bent on expanding the meaning of those words.

Honestly Same Audio Adults

Comprising five of Chicago’s most interesting sound explorers— Zachary Good , Lia Kohl , Mabel Kwan , Zach Moore , and Sam Scranton —Honestly Same makes music that sounds like neurons firing, with small, quick sounds darting around. In places, like the squawking “Creative Activities,” the group’s missives sound like space transmissions or Morse code pointed toward outer galaxies. But during other stretches, Honestly Same’s musical dots (created with synths, woodwinds, strings, percussion, and more) connect into atmospheric tapestries. Take the 13-minute “Hot Big,” a gradual meditation that evokes a long sunrise over an awakening zoo.

MAW A Maneuver Within

New York-based trio MAW (guitarist Jessica Ackerley , pianist Eli Wallace , and bassist Frank Meadows ) clearly know how to exchange musical ideas, and they conduct a fascinating conversation on A Maneuver Within . All three are vital contributors, but Ackerley’s nimble playing is the star, rising and falling with her partners, sometimes both leading and following them. This is especially true on the 22-minute closer “Decay,” in which Ackerley pulls out every guitar trick in the book but never sounds like she’s showing off, always gelling perfectly with what Wallace and Meadows provide her.

Naujawanan Baidar Khedmat Be Khalq

Naujawanan Baidar began when N.R. Safi, erstwhile guitarist for Arizonan band The Myrrors , dug through Afghani music tapes left to him by his grandfather. This spurred him to make his own sounds, mixing traditional song structures, outward-bound psych guitar, and tape-degraded noise. On Khedmat Be Khalq he expands Najawanana Baidar into a full-fledged group, furthering his “gnarled and sunbaked tracks cut up and collated into a blown out collage of sound,” per the album notes. Old and new ideas create a dizzying swirl of melody and distortion, like a busted radio with no off switch. The grit and texture of these righteous jams is palpable, creating the aura of a dusty archaeological dig.

Posset Elvis Died and Everyone Is…

UK-based soundmaker Posset includes in his bio the phrase “all goof, all the time.” That’s an exaggeration, but you can pretty much count on humor sparking through everything he does. On Elvis Died and Everyone Is… , the comedy comes in a growling, croaky package, as if Posset is conducting a pond full of frogs. Mixing blurry speech, distant noises, and odd ambiences, Posset creates something both silly and creepy. Eeriest is closer “The Short Rest You Take Between Domestic Jobs,” which evokes voices slowly seeping out of a cemetery ground like smoke.

Vanessa Rossetto The Actress

The work of Vanessa Rossetto has an eternal quality, as if her pieces are windows into phenomena that have been going on forever. The effect is most obvious on her lengthier pieces, such as the 25-minute “Katie Cruel,” which mixes granular field recordings with gently melodic music, and the 16-minute “Instagram Famous Cat,” which rides dramatic highs and lows before resolving into a repetitive chime. But even on the shorter songs, such as the two-minute tracks that open and close The Actress , there’s a sense that entire universes live inside the small sounds that Rossetto arranges into subconscious narratives.

Gavilán Rayna Russom Trans Feminist Symphonic Music

Gavilán Rayna Russom ’s Trans Feminist Symphonic Music , a 71-minute magnum opus, travels a globe-sized path of sounds, sights, and emotions. Russom explores minimalism, drone, and ambience, all in service of an abstract narrative that compels at every turn. In the first 20 minutes alone, a pulsing space-bound synth pattern is masterful in its own right. But Russom only goes deeper from there, evoking everything from the vastness of an orchestra to the isolation of a single note. Trans Feminist Symphonic Music takes many listens to absorb but only one to appreciate.

Water Damage Repeater

A seven-piece band of Austin, Texas musicians drawn from groups such as Spray Paint , Black Eyes , and Swans , Water Damage sound even bigger than they are. Generating huge drones with ground-shaking beats, the group uses three drummers, two bassists, a bowed guitar, and a synthesizer to forge an amalgam of Tony Conrad ’s violin sawing and Earth ’s gravity-creating marches. Repeater jumps right into the thunder with 22-minute opener “Reel 2,” a dense grind that melts ripping sounds into one big slab of tectonic rage. Grooves this heavy and primal could easily run out of gas, but Water Damage smartly take cues from masters of eternal drone, realizing that stamina itself can be a musical instrument.

Weston Olencki Old Time Music

On Old Time Music , Weston Olencki samples from over 300 albums of tenor sax music and teaches artificial intelligence to sing a Carter Family song. But those are just some of the methods Olencki uses: “Tenor Madness” is a cascading wall of horn sounds that feels three dimensional; “Cripple Creek” is a bumping banjo loop that’s instantly hypnotic; “Charon guiding the weary ‘cross the Long River (or, how to care for a dying instrument)” alternates between frighteningly loud waves and meditative tones. Throughout, Olencki conveys how musical history moves in crooked lines, creating new forms that reflect its ongoing mutation.

Whettman Chelmets Joan

Joan is a musical elegy in which Whettman Chelmets focuses on the last few days of his grandmother’s life, when he played some of her favorite gospel music for her. He then used that music as material for a meditation on her final journey, sampling and reworking it into stirring atmospheres that fit such track titles as “This Realization of Impermanence is Terrifying” and “A Lifetime Condensed into a Small Stone and Considered.” You can feel loss and despair in these 13 reverential tracks, but hopefulness too. With Joan , Chelmets transforms the finality of death into something regenerative.

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The 15 Best Experimental Albums of 2020

To overcome our collective dis-ease and ideological polarization, we must practice pluralism. We must continue to experiment, to oscillate between and beyond poles to find solutions.

2020 was a year for the history books. Fortunately for us, the music world did not take nearly the hit in quality that its film and TV counterparts did.

Before we say any more about 2020, let’s review what we had to say about the state of experimental music in past lists. In 2015 , we acknowledged the name of the game to be hyper-connectivity in late capitalism. In 2016 , that experimentation never means total abandonment of tradition—that pop is immortal. In 2017 , we stated the reverse to be equally true: that the avant-garde has thoroughly permeated the mainstream and that experimental music is as wide open and indefinable as ever ( 2018 ). In 2019 , we pointed out a pattern in the music: that the personal is political, experimentation by no means necessitates alienation of the self or of society.

In 2020, the message is this: all of the above. To overcome this dis-ease, this ideological polarization, we must practice pluralism. We must continue to experiment, to oscillate between and beyond poles to find solutions. Ultimately, we dedicate this list to our creatives out there for dutifully exploring these disparate corners in pursuit of a happier and healthier tomorrow.

As always, we followed our heart with the choices we made. The list includes a broad range of sounds from a diversity of artists, some near-unknown and others highly acclaimed. We know we cannot satisfy all. The important thing is that you walk away both excited and challenged to dive into something new.

15. DJ Cactuar – Bolsonaro Obaluaê [Independent]

We naturally take comfort in the familiar. Likewise, we often turn away from forms and concepts we cannot easily identify. But for some, these curiosities just as well may draw us in. It’s why Bolsonaro Obaluaê makes for such an enticing package for us global Northerners: familiar sonic landmarks wrapped in a foreign mythos.

Let’s parse out what we can. Bolsonaro is Brazil’s tyrannical president, while Obaluaê is the spirit of healing for the West African Yoruba people (who have a prominent Brazilian community). The cover depicts an animated figure, sporting a straw costume and other Yoruban ceremonial items, making it rain with a flurry of Ben Franklins. From all this and the spoken word samples—a quarrel on the Brazilian legislative floor and later, a blessing for Obaluaê—we can at best infer some clash of the political and spiritual.

As we listen, we find that Bolsonaro Obaluaê crystallizes its musical influences as much as it shrouds its ideological ones. The album comprises a single, 22-minute suite that unfolds through subtle psychedelic transformation. It cycles through spaced-out synth music of the ’70s, pastoral Japanese ambient of the ’80s, and grandiose post-rock of the aughts. The product makes for some mellow and wondrous sightseeing.

DJ Cactuar has but a shadow of an online record. But Diego Alves from Recife, Brazil is by no means hiding. The artist posted Bolsonaro Obaluaê to several Reddit communities with the heading: “Favelas artists aren’t aprreciated [sic] on favelas [Brazilian slums], maybe they can be appreciated here.” So, curious listeners, why not prove Alves right? — A Noa Harrison

14. Tashi Dorji – Stateless [Drag City]

If there’s any record label that can come through with some major under-the-radar releases, it’s Drag City. Best known as the label for legends like Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Bill Callahan, and Joanna Newsom, they have a track record of highlighting the guitar music happening at the margins. In 2020, they struck gold twice with Bill Nace’s Both and Stateless by the Bhutan-born, North Carolina-based Tashi Dorji.

Stateless is barebones guitar improvisation: no drums, no planned melodies—just messages sent from Dorji’s mind to his strumming fingers. It can come across as off , like an untrained kid going to town at Guitar Center for 54 minutes. Even if confounded, give it a proper listen, and you’ll soon see that Dorji’s got an ear . Take the impactful “End of State – Pt. III”, with its steady rhythm, sudden shifts, and unwieldy note-playing that just keeps piling up. It’s Ginsberg’s “first thought, best thought” theory in practice, the notion that spontaneity yields truth.

The way his guitar is miked captures the natural texture of fingers lifting off strings to produce something warm and wholesome. The choice of acoustic guitar sometimes seems played-out (think, the infamous “guy that kills the party”), but Tashi Dorji’s music will rekindle your love for the instrument. In this way, “ Stateless ” builds wonderfully on traditions forged Robert Johnson and John Fahey. — Andrew Cox

13. A. G. Cook – 7G [PC Music]

• in 49 subtitles
• the listening party for a cultural movement
• a true testament to the power of the avant-garde to lead the charge
• a moratorium on the album format
• the 11th hour for A. G. is the dawn of a new sound
• And just like that, a net label birthed a revolution.
• The man behind the curtain emerges, to say exactly what his music has said all long.
• “a 49-song extravaganza of sketches, covers, and fully realized pop songs that purports to reveal the inner workings of his creative method.” — Pitchfork
• “ambitious” — Stereogum
• “an opus of pop, covers and electronic experimentation” — Resident Advisor
• “featuring covers of Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, the Strokes, Charli XCX and more” — NME
• “a gateway into the mad hatter’s mind” — The Line of Best Fit
• “7G peels back even more layers to unveil the workings of that process…. [of] deconstructing pop music’s formula.” — Our Culture
• “It’s a lot.” — The Needle Drop
• “funny” —Cook, Vice
• “ridiculous” —Cook, Vice
• “The ambiguous and the uncanny is almost the most real space.” —Cook, The Fader
• “a slightly more utopian version of digital culture because there’s no real turning back” —Cook, The Fader
• “It actually feels ideal for me to have two debut albums.”—Cook, Vulture
• “blurriness between whether it’s a slick production or if it’s a bedroom thing” —Cook, The New York Times
• “On a musical level, that binary is completely dissolved” —Cook, The New York Times
• Montana’s most unexpected release of 2020
• the logical endpoint of the PC Music sound
• A. G. Cook revealed to be just A thoughtful, hard-working Guy
• 40% more dangerous than 4G
• a cis-boy’s-dream-turned-queer-world’s-reality
• Self-made popstar actually has a lot of cool friends
• the appetizer to Cook’s real debut, Apple , released a month later
• a complete break from and continuation of the post-ironic framework Cook has built
• Sound design extraordinaire plays campfire songs in a closet
• pop music and the avant-garde cozy up during the pandemic
• The producer who never misplaced a note wastes our time for three-and-a-half hours.
• the annihilation and reification of the cult of the popstar
• a perfectionist’s slap in the face of perfectionism
• a satisfying subversion of the subversion that PC Music stands for
• an exercise in self-indulgence
• a record that, in saying everything, manages to say nothing
• the reason PC Music has always been a singles genre
• Cook sucks all the fun from a genre that should be nothing but.
• the sketchbook of a Charli XCX collaborator
• a leak from the posthumous vaults of Alexander Guy Cook
• really hard to talk about
• nothing short of unbridled genius
• a vibrant mural from popular music’s greatest innovator of the new millennium
• the product of a lockdown collaboration done right
• the opus we never knew we needed
• definitive proof that A. G. is anything but a one-trick pony
• the brochure for a cautiously optimistic, interconnected community of young creators
• a gift to the world from the father of hyperpop — A Noa Harrison

12. Lauren Bousfield – Palimpsest [Deathbomb Arc]

A palimpsest is a piece of writing material, like a parchment or tablet, reused after the previous text has been erased. In the art world, it’s evocation suggests the idea of reinvention. Bousfield underwent a most brutal form of forced reinvention, one that inevitably informs her artistic approach.

Bousfield’s previous album, 2017’s Fire Songs , was inspired by the deadly Ghost Ship art collective fire of 2016 and her own serious injuries from an apartment fire the same year. After devastating fires, people excavate what remains, physically and emotionally. With Palimpsest , these remains, still remaining despite their erasure, to become the objects of her primary study.

Palimpsest feels more emotionally-available than her earlier work, much released under her moniker Nero’s Day at Disneyland, which was a frenzy of glitchy breakcore. Bousfield still channels this sound but closer approaches art pop, with a heavier melodic presence, as with standouts like “Adraft” and “Crawling into a Fireplace Crackling”. With Palimpsest , Bousfield speaks to how we are all palimpsests. We cannot fully erase the scars and traces of our past, but still we write because we are the only parchment we have. — Andrew Cox

11. Loke Rahbek and Frederik Valentin – Elephant [Posh Isolation]

Two minutes into “Solina”, the opener to Elephant , the synths marbleize into a lush soundscape that just soothes the mind. Moments like these happen in every track of Loke Rahbek & Frederik Valentin’s second collaborative album. Maybe the prettiest album on our list, it skips across pleasant and melodic pastures, compared to the harsh, forsaken terrains of other albums here. Elephant still has plenty of character and raw emotion, delivered in a gentler manner. Not that the artists hold your hand all the way through; “Call Me by My True Names” features a distant and unsettling alien voice, while “The Heart of Things” foregrounds somber piano with the sounds of children playing. The song titles reflect the songs themselves: grand mood pieces played out in small, subtle gestures.

“Scarlett” is the standout track here. It builds an infectious microhouse intro with vocal loops, and really finds its groove once the steady drums kick in. The synths continuously rise and fall, leaving the listener in an unbroken state of bliss. In its last minute, the vocal loops return, creating a comforting full circle. Elephant succeeds in its most tranquil moments, inspiring us to sprinkle memories like autumn leaves and watch them float downstream. — Andrew Cox

• The 10 Best Experimental "Albums" of 2010 - PopMatters
• The 10 Best Experimental Albums of 2015 - PopMatters
• The 20 Best Avant-Garde and Experimental Albums of 2018 ...
• The 15 Best Experimental Albums of 2019 - PopMatters

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Experimental Music Guide: 4 Notable Experimental Artists

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Jun 7, 2021 • 5 min read

Experimental music has pushed the boundaries of how we understand music for the past half-century.

Best of Experimental Pop

Music with big pop hooks and catchy melodies can often harbor more forward-looking concepts as well. From the homemade madness of '60s cult heroes Joe Meek and The United States of America through the post-punk energy of Talking Heads and Oingo Boingo to today's most fearless indie artists, listen for the point where the mainstream and the underground converge.

24 Songs, 1 hour, 36 minutes

Featured Artists

Joe meek & the blue men, perrey & kingsley, united states of america, animal collective, sonic youth, africa, middle east, and india.

• Côte d’Ivoire
• Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The
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The Best Experimental Rock Albums of All Time

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1 . The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

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Listen to the Best Tracks From 8 Tony-Nominated Shows

“Hell’s Kitchen,” “Stereophonic” and others are up for top prizes at Sunday’s ceremony. Our critic takes stock of their cast albums, all available now.

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By Jesse Green

Cast albums are both keepsakes and fantasies, preserving a show for those who have seen it and implying it for those who have not. At their best, they are also stand-alone works of musical-theater art. Listening to the recordings of the eight shows nominated for Tony Awards in the best musical and best score categories — all of which are now available — I was impressed by how often and how variously they reached that standard. Below, in chronological order by opening date on Broadway, a guide to the latest batch of future treasures.

‘Here Lies Love’

The first of the season’s best score nominees, this sung-through biography of Imelda Marcos was the only one not to release a cast recording. That’s a shame, but die-hards can seek out the 2014 Off Broadway version or the 2010 concept album, with its whacka-whacka disco-beat ditties by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. Remastered in 2023, and with a very different collection of songs from the Broadway show, the concept album is naturally less theatrical; with each track featuring a different singer in a totally distinctive style — Tori Amos, Florence Welch, Natalie Merchant, Sia — character development is impossible. Instead, it offers hypnotic dance-floor euphoria, as in Cyndi Lauper’s take on Imelda’s “Eleven Days” of courtship.

“Eleven Days”

‘days of wine and roses’.

A story of husband-and-wife alcoholics on diverging paths toward recovery and disaster is bound to be harrowing, but Adam Guettel’s score carefully balances the inevitable lows with the sometimes wild highs. The cast album brilliantly captures that full-spectrum range, especially in the edge-of-danger singing by Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James at their finest. Their quasi-operatic cries for relief and forgiveness effectively contrast (but do not contradict) the jazzy mania of songs like “Evanesce,” in which the snockered characters sound like xylophones and leap like dolphins, making you ache if not for drink then for these desperate drinkers.

‘Water for Elephants’

Jessica Stone’s thrilling staging is a real eye-catcher in this circus-based musical at the Imperial Theater. But the cast album demonstrates how the songs, by PigPen Theater Co., a seven-man indie folk collective, can grab you by the ears. Avoiding the rut of some Americana scores, PigPen, along with its arrangers and orchestrators, offers a wide variety of sounds and formats that suit the milieu and the action: bravura showstoppers for the ringmaster, soaring anthems for the hero, haunting ballads for the woman caught between them. One of those ballads is “Easy,” a heartbreaker even if you have no idea that it’s sung to a dying horse.

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The top songs of the week take a nostalgia trip, courtesy of Eminem

Anastasia Tsioulcas

TIKTOK 50 CHART

Eminem, performing here during the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show at SoFi Stadium in 2022, returns to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week with "Houdini." Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images hide caption

This week's dive into the pop charts is a reminder that nostalgia is one powerful trip, from a brand-new single that explicitly references both 1982 and 2002 to a viral cover of a 2006 hit. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift still continues to reign supreme on the albums chart.

Post Malone's "I Had Some Help," featuring Morgan Wallen, is holding strong with a fourth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart .

We have a new entrant at No. 2, however: rapper Eminem's "Houdini" — which, I should hasten to note, bears no relation to vampy siren Dua Lipa's song of the same name, released a mere seven months ago . (A whole eon ago in cultural memory, apparently.)

This "Houdini" is stuffed full of old-fashioned musical magic tricks that urge it towards success. Not only does Em reference his 2002 hit "Without Me" — "Guess who's back, back again?" — but he interpolates Steve Miller Band's hit "Abracadabra," which itself went to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in September of 1982. (You know what kind of music lots of people really like? Music that they know they already really like.)

Rounding out the Billboard 100 top five: Tommy Richman's "Million Dollar Baby," Shaboozey's "Tipsy (A Bar Song)" and Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us."

Taylor Swift continues her reign at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart , scoring a seventh week in the top spot. As Billboard notes, however, her equivalent album sales have continued to fall, notching 148,00 units this week.

How long can Taylor Swift dominate the album chart?

It’s still enough to hold off everyone else, at least for now. As on the songs chart, we have newcomers in the second slot on the 200: the eight-member K-Pop band Ateez, with their EP (or, as they like to call it, the "mini-album") Golden Hour: Part.1. Interestingly, Ateez failed to crack the Hot 100, despite the global success of their single " Work ," which pays tribute to the daily grind. (A brief musicological complaint: the “Work” video opens with one character — buried up to his neck in dirt — pretending to play a flute, although the actual track uses the sound of a clarinet. Since we are discussing cycles of nostalgia and history this week, I must note that this is just like the Jason Derulo “Talk Dirty” video, featuring models “playing” the trumpet , all over again — where the actual song used saxophones, courtesy of a sample of the band Balkan Beat Box . Also, the less said about the technique employed by the fake instrumentalists in both videos, the better.)

Ateez is followed by two returners: Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard and Soft , which this week slipped down one spot to No. 3, and Morgan Wallen's One Thing at a Time at No. 4. This week, Shaboozey debuted on the albums chart at No. 5 with his Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going , which was released on May 31 -- an understandable progression given the popularity of his "Tipsy (A Bar Song)," which introduced this album.

WORTH NOTING:

Just in case anyone doubted a particular social media platform's ability to move the cultural needle, Billboard has been charting the TikTok Top 50 every week since last September "based on creations, video views and user engagement."

It's probably no surprise that Tommy Richman's "Million Dollar Baby," which first found its audience on TikTok, has been leading this chart for the past five weeks. But the TikTok chart is packed with more offbeat singles than the Billboard 100, including a rather maudlin cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," courtesy of a Canadian comedian, actor and singer named Stephen Kramer Glickman and featuring cellist Marza Wilks. (Just to drive his point home, Glickman made a Joker -themed video for this song.) This version of “Crazy” entered the TikTok chart this week at No. 6. (Say it with me: You know what kind of music lots of people really like? Music that they know they already really like.)

• Taylor Swift