Dear listeners,
Last night marked the start of the 2023-2024 N.B.A. Finals, a best-of-seven matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks. As a long-suffering and perpetually annoying fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, I do not really have a horse in this race*, but I also have an excess of energy I would normally reserve for rooting for one of these two teams. I have decided to put that energy to productive use by making a playlist of music by artists from both Boston and Dallas.
Consider these musicians my starting five from each city. Both Boston and Dallas have rich and varied musical histories, as you’ll hear in this playlist’s blend of rock, pop, country, R&B, blues and hip-hop. It features bona fide superstars (the Texan Kelly Clarkson; the Dorchesterite Donna Summer) and influential legends (Dallas’s own Stevie Ray Vaughan; the Beantown art-rockers the Pixies). Sure, there are some omissions, but these are just my personal starting fives — and given how many times the ABC broadcast played “Sweet Emotion” when throwing to commercial last night, you’ve probably already hit your Aerosmith quota for the week.
Game 1 was quite anticlimactic, with Boston blowing out Dallas 107-89, so hopefully the human Golden Retriever that is Luka Dončić will be able to galvanize his Mavericks into giving us a more competitive series. And if not, well, there’s always this playlist.
She knows the highest stakes,
Lindsay
*Beyond an inborn and semi-irrational distaste for all Boston sports teams, of course.
Listen along while you read.
1. Boston: “Rock & Roll Band”
This one was a no-brainer. “We were just another band out of Boston,” begins this self-mythologizing (if lightly fictionalized) anthem from Boston’s hit-filled 1976 debut. Though the band’s founder and multi-instrumentalist Tom Scholz is originally from Ohio, he began writing some of the songs that would appear on that self-titled album while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. The Chicks: “Wide Open Spaces”
Formed in Dallas in 1989 — six years before Natalie Maines of Lubbock joined as the group’s lead singer — the Chicks made their commercial breakthrough in 1998, when they released the spirited album “Wide Open Spaces.” This plucky title track remains one of their signature hits.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Mission of Burma: “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate”
The great post-punk band Mission of Burma was a local Boston legend in the early 1980s before the rest of the underground caught on. Enjoy the taut fury of this closing track from the group’s influential 1982 album “Vs.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Erykah Badu: “Window Seat”
Dallas’s own Erykah Badu shot the controversial music video for this slow jam, the first single from her 2010 album “New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh),” in Dealey Plaza.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Donna Summer: “I Feel Love”
The city of Boston hosts an annual Donna Summer Disco Party in honor of Dorchester’s favorite dance music legend. This year’s celebration is on June 27 — and according to its website coincides with “the highly anticipated return of roller skating on City Plaza.” As Donna would have wanted!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Post Malone featuring Quavo: “Congratulations”
Though born in Syracuse, N.Y., the rapper and aspiring country star Post Malone moved to a Dallas suburb when he was 9 and his father took a job managing concessions at Cowboys games. In 2018 and 2019, he hosted his own festival, Posty Fest, in his adopted hometown.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Pixies: “Break My Body”
In the 1980s and ’90s in particular, Boston had a thriving underground scene full of groups destined to influence the future of indie rock. Perhaps the most notable band was Pixies, who employed Steve Albini (who died last month) to produce their raw and tuneful debut full-length, “Surfer Rosa,” including this song. May no player break his body during the N.B.A. Finals — sounds painful.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: “Texas Flood”
The Dallas-born guitar hero Stevie Ray Vaughan titled the 1983 debut album by his blues band Double Trouble “Texas Flood,” after a 1958 Larry Davis blues lament. Vaughan’s own deeply felt and unhurried interpretation of the song would remain a staple in his live performances until his untimely death in 1990.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Dropkick Murphys: “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”
Few bands capture the spirit of Boston — for better and worse! — like the long-running Celtic punk group Dropkick Murphys. With lyrics drawn from a scrap of paper in Woody Guthrie’s archives, this 2006 track reached new levels of Boston-ness when Martin Scorsese used it in “The Departed.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
10. Kelly Clarkson: “Walk Away”
The original “American Idol” and current daytime TV karaoke queen Kelly Clarkson is technically from Fort Worth, but we’ll count it. Also, the night the Mavericks took a commanding 3-0 lead over the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, which they would go on to win, the Jumbotron cam caught Shaquille O’Neal passionately singing along to Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.” Coincidence? You decide.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“My Starting Five Songs From Boston and Dallas” track list
Track 1: Boston, “Rock & Roll Band”
Track 2: The Chicks, “Wide Open Spaces”
Track 3: Mission of Burma, “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate”
Track 4: Erykah Badu, “Window Seat”
Track 5: Donna Summer, “I Feel Love”
Track 6: Post Malone featuring Quavo, “Congratulations”
Track 7: Pixies, “Break My Body”
Track 8: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, “Texas Flood”
Track 9: Dropkick Murphys, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”
Track 10: Kelly Clarkson, “Walk Away”
Bonus Tracks
Now that it’s out I can officially say it: I love Charli XCX’s new album “Brat”! Check it out for yourself, or revisit Tuesday’s Charli XCX primer to prepare yourself.
I also added one of my favorite tracks from “Brat” to this week’s Friday Playlist, alongside Jon Pareles’s picks of new music from Halsey, Raye, Soccer Mommy and more. Listen here.
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