Songs for mutable minds, from Marvin Gaye, Seu Jorge, Frank Ocean, the Kinks, and more

By Michael Hainey

These long winter days, staring out windows, across empty rooftops or barren fields, when your mind, restless as a sparrow, flits from thought to thought, memory to memory, mood to mood, and song to song. All of it so seemingly random, but all of it, we know, connected.

Michael Hainey is a Deputy Editor for AIR MAIL

Phil Spector, the thorny mastermind behind the Wall of Sound, died last week. Herewith, a collection of songs—from the Ronettes, the Ramones, and more—that demonstrate the power of his hidden hand

By Alex Oliveira

When I was who knows how old, my mind caught fire as I watched Chris Parker twist through her bedroom and into her clothes during the opening scene of Adventures in Babysitting. Now, it wasn’t Elisabeth Shue that was sending this new, strange, and wonderful sensation coursing through my body but the song she was blasting through her bedroom stereo. Jiminy Christmas!, I recall thinking. What is this? It was “Then He Kissed Me,” by the Crystals, and the vision of the violent virtuoso Phil Spector.

Here’s how another story goes: Phil Spector and a passenger are driving down READ ON

Music for the weary but hopeful, from Billy Preston, Lucinda Williams, Justin Townes Earle, Henry Thomas, and more

By Randall Poster

What a long year it’s been this week. My goodness. Present, past, and future seem like the strangest bedfellows. We move on, we reflect, we embrace common humanity in song. Dear listeners, hang on, hold on, and in a matter of days you-know-who will be gone.

Randall Poster is the Music Supervisor for AIR MAIL

Tracks to change form to, from John Fahey, Volta Jazz, Alice Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, and more

By Alex Oliveira

I spent last summer living in a six-floor walk-up down a sweaty side street in the East Village. It was an odd little corner of town, a rare Manhattan cul-de-sac flanked on both sides by low-rise city housing and culminating in a public elementary school and my building—a tall, gray tenement-looking thing that rose out of the city-issue brick like the last remaining arch in an ancient aqueduct. There I sat all summer, two south-facing windows broiling the apartment into a Saharan greenhouse, waiting for the sun to fade into the city stars of the downtown skyline. It was hot and lovely and strange and lonely, and when all the windows were open in the place, the indoors felt like outdoors and the outdoors felt like indoors. READ ON

Dance into the New Year with Dua Lipa, the Ronettes, Yvonne Elliman, the Rolling Stones, and more

By Randall Poster

Well, it seems like we made it out of 2020. Bruised, perhaps, but more resilient than we might have imagined. Mary McCarthy once wrote on a different matter some years ago (and I paraphrase), “We will laugh again but we will never be young again.” I feel she may be right. But maybe—maybe, please—a few songs in the right combination can spark an old feeling, a sweet spirit, the scent of invincibility, and a turn on the dance floor … I nominate Charli XCX to lead us.

Randall Poster is the Music Supervisor for AIR MAIL