Dear listeners,
This Sunday is Father’s Day, and I would like to celebrate the only way I know how — with a playlist of dad rock.
What is dad rock? You know it when you hear it, but it’s difficult to define exactly, as I learned when I considered the supposed genre in an essay I wrote four Father’s Days ago*. One thing I want to make clear is that, while it’s an easy concept to poke fun at, I don’t consider the term “dad rock” to be an insult, per se. A lot of great music falls into the category, and you certainly don’t have to be a dad to enjoy it. Much of what I was grappling with in that essay was the fact that, in my 30s, I have come around to loving a lot of what I once dismissed as “dad music.” Perhaps, spiritually speaking at least, I am a dad.
I associate dad rock with a certain laid-back, lived-in proficiency — an age and comfort level at which you no longer feel you have to prove your virtuosity but can just sit back and let it speak for itself. Accordingly, quite a few of the songs I’ve chosen here represent bands (Wilco, the Who and Pink Floyd, to name a few) in the middle years of their careers, polishing the rougher edges of their sounds while remaining indelibly themselves. Quite a few — from artists like Steely Dan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen — are straight from my own dad’s record collection, and, as you’ll see below, he even makes a cameo, offering a corrective to his only complaint about this newsletter.
Last week, a website I had never heard of called Merchoid conducted a questionably scientific poll that asked 3,000 Americans, “Which band truly epitomizes dad rock today?” The names that appeared in the Top 10 responses were horrifying: Nickelback, Blink-182, Red Hot Chili Peppers … Limp Bizkit?! Sure, I get that time marches on and that the pop-punk and nü-metal fans of yesteryear are aging into fatherhood. But something about the antic scatting of the Chili Peppers or the teenage-boy humor of Blink-182 does not square with the easygoing cool I associate with dad rock.
So consider this playlist a rejoinder to that list, or maybe just an argument starter. But whatever you do, make sure you consider it The Amplifier’s way of saying happy Father’s Day.
Turn it up! That’s enough,
Lindsay
*My own father really enjoyed the article, except the part where I told the entire readership of The New York Times that he used to drive a Ford Taurus. Sorry, Dad.
Listen along while you read.
1. Wilco: “Either Way”
In a sense, this is where it all began: The critic Rob Mitchum is widely credited with popularizing the term “dad rock” in his Pitchfork pan of Wilco’s 2007 album “Sky Blue Sky,” writing that the band’s relatively tranquil sixth album “exposes the dad-rock gene the band has always carried but attempted to disguise.” For what it’s worth, in a 2019 essay, Mitchum (now a dad) admitted that over time he has softened on the album, and the genre itself.
2. The Who: “Baba O’Riley”
At once rockin’ and wistfully nostalgic, “Baba O’Riley” — like much of the 1971 album it kicks off, “Who’s Next” — belongs squarely in the fatherly canon. In the words of the comedian Joe Pera, in his wonderful sketch celebrating the glory of this track, “Maybe I just don’t get it, but it seems like they realized they’d written the perfect song and then panicked, so then they added a violin solo.”
3. Steely Dan: “Barrytown”
I could have chosen just about any Steely Dan song, so why not go with one of my favorites, this tuneful ditty from the group’s great 1974 album “Pretzel Logic.”
4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
Just about any Tom Petty song qualifies as dad rock, too, but I’ve picked this 1993 hit for personal reasons: My dad played this song in the car a lot when it came out, and my sister and I would always giggle when Petty sings “underwear.”
5. Bruce Springsteen: “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
Dads don’t cry, of course, but they do get a little choked up at the line “when the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band,” because they’re thinking about the beautiful friendship between Bruce Springsteen and his late saxophonist Clarence Clemons.
6. The National: “Fake Empire”
Mitchum identified the National in 2019 as “purified dad-rock in band form.” Its members are some of the younger, second-generation practitioners of the genre, now in their late 40s to mid-50s. (Just don’t tell Dad they’ve worked with Taylor Swift.)
7. Pink Floyd: “Us and Them”
Dads will not be able to truly assess the quality of a set of speakers or headphones until they’ve conducted the most important test: “How does ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ sound on them?”
8. The Band featuring Van Morrison: “Caravan (Concert Version)”
The studio version of Van Morrison’s “Caravan” is dad rock, sure. But any dad worth his salt will tell you that the definitive version is the one from “The Last Waltz” — when Morrison does those frenzied high-kicks in his rhinestone-encrusted purple suit.
9. Led Zeppelin: “Ramble On”
Dads know that sometimes, you’ve just gotta get the Led out. And what better way than with this classic from “Led Zeppelin II”?
10. Grateful Dead: “Stella Blue”
Finally, my own dad is an Amplifier subscriber who has only ever brought up one criticism of this newsletter: “You never put any Grateful Dead songs on your playlists.” So as a Father’s Day gift to him, I told him he could pick any Grateful Dead song to close out today’s installment. After some careful deliberation, he chose this one, from the 1973 album “Wake of the Flood,” which he said represents what he considers to be the band’s pinnacle. (Bob Dylan, who covered the song at a concert in Spain last year, seems to agree.) It feels appropriate to close out with a dad joke, so let me say that after putting “Stella Blue” on this playlist, I bet I’ve got one grateful dad!
The Amplifier Playlist
“The Ultimate Dad Rock Playlist” track list
Track 1: Wilco, “Either Way”
Track 2: The Who, “Baba O’Riley”
Track 3: Steely Dan, “Barrytown”
Track 4: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
Track 5: Bruce Springsteen, “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
Track 6: The National, “Fake Empire”
Track 7: Pink Floyd, “Us and Them”
Track 8: The Band featuring Van Morrison, “Caravan (Concert Version)”
Track 9: Led Zeppelin, “Ramble On”
Track 10: Grateful Dead, “Stella Blue”
Bonus Tracks
Elisabeth Vincentelli put together this playlist in honor of the French pop star Françoise Hardy, who died on Tuesday at 80. Écoute!
And Jon Pareles handled the entire Friday Playlist this week, featuring new music from Jelly Roll, Khalid, Tanner Adell and more. Listen here.
The post The Ultimate Dad Rock Playlist appeared first on New York Times.
