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CAT. STP–011 FSG · 2022

2

Straight Time/Swing Time

Straight time and swing time, from the Maple Leaf Rag to the drum machine

01Maple Leaf RagScott JoplinWith Scott Joplin’s performance at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the publication of his “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899, the genre of ragtime was born.
02Bohemian RhapsodyQueenOne of the greatest examples of the difference between straight and swing time occurs in one of the world’s best-loved and widely known classic rock songs: “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.
03Reet PetiteJackie WilsonGordy’s songs for Jackie Wilson—“Reet Petite,” “Lonely Teardrops,” and “To Be Loved”—made him a hitmaker.
04Lonely TeardropsJackie WilsonGordy’s songs for Jackie Wilson—“Reet Petite,” “Lonely Teardrops,” and “To Be Loved”—made him a hitmaker.
05To Be LovedJackie WilsonGordy’s songs for Jackie Wilson—“Reet Petite,” “Lonely Teardrops,” and “To Be Loved”—made him a hitmaker.
06My GuyMary WellsListen to “My Guy” by Mary Wells from 1964: notice the even back-and-forth between the kick drum on the downbeat and the snare and claps on the backbeat.
07Cold SweatJames BrownNow listen to “Cold Sweat” by James Brown—a song released only three years later, in 1967—which tilted the emphasis toward the first downbeat, or as Brown called it, the “One.”
08Sex MachineJames BrownIn the late 1960s into the 1970s, James Brown solidified and codified funk through a series of songs that built out this aesthetic like “Sex Machine” and “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose.”
09Give It Up or Turnit a LooseJames BrownIn the late 1960s into the 1970s, James Brown solidified and codified funk through a series of songs that built out this aesthetic like “Sex Machine” and “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose.”
10Uptight (Everything’s Alright)Stevie WonderStevie Wonder, for example, had gone from the even-keeled “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” to one-centric rhythms like “For Once in My Life” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”
11For Once in My LifeStevie WonderStevie Wonder, for example, had gone from the even-keeled “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” to one-centric rhythms like “For Once in My Life” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”
12Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m YoursStevie WonderStevie Wonder, for example, had gone from the even-keeled “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” to one-centric rhythms like “For Once in My Life” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”
13(I Wanna) TestifyThe ParliamentsBut Clinton found work as a songwriter, and by 1967 he gave the Parliaments their first hit, “(I Wanna) Testify,” on the small Detroit label Revilot.
14Chocolate CityParliamentIn 1975, Parliament released a song called “Chocolate City,” which celebrated a demographic shift taking place in cities all over the United States, Detroit included.
15Mothership ConnectionParliamentquite like George Clinton’s magnum opus, Mothership Connection, an album that coalesced all the elements of future funk

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dilla time

An unofficial reader’s listening guide to Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).

Every record here is from the book’s own Selected Discography, in its four sections and its order. Years, labels and credits are Charnas’s, uncorrected. Where the chapters discuss a record, the sentence that does is quoted beside it and the chapter named; where they do not, the record is listed without one. That is most of them — the discography reaches every posthumous release and the story stops at his death.

The chapters carry what the book names, in the order it names it. A record is here because Charnas lists it in his own discography, or because MusicBrainz has a release of that name credited to somebody the passage names — that second test is what lets the guide carry the music around J Dilla as well as his own. Years and labels are shown only where Charnas gave them.

Releases are set in italic and tracks in roman, which is the book’s own way of telling them apart. A track that came off a particular record says so underneath.

Links run YouTube searches, so they resolve in any country. Records belong to their artists and labels; the drawings here are original work in the jacket’s idiom.

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