On a scale of one to 10, how crazy was 2023 for the rock band Alvvays?

“I would say an eight, probably,” frontwoman Molly Rankin deadpans to GRAMMY.com. If that's true, she doesn't show it. “I'm pretty sedate as a person,” she explains during an on-camera portion of the interview, “So, if you want anything with more energy, I can certainly try.”

This belies that Alvvays poured a lot of energy into Blue Rev, their imagination and melody packed third album, which put them on the map for many back in 2022.

Blue Rev's third single, “Belinda Says,” was an instant favorite among the indie set — and now, it's netted a nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance at the 2024 GRAMMYs.). (They're up against Arctic Monkeys (“Body Paint”), boygenius (“Cool About It”, Lana Del Rey (“A&W”), and Paramore (“This Is Why.”)

Sure, Rankin might have a stoic air. But she's clearly also thoughtful, intent on cannily navigating these unfamiliar waters, shoulder-to-shoulder with her bandmates: keyboardist Kerri MacLellan, guitarist Alec O'Hanley, bassist Abbey Blackwell, and drummer Sheridan Riley.

“Just being included or mentioned has been exciting, because when we started, we couldn't even get a show. I just want to have that same mentality,” Rankin says. “I just don't ever want to feel entitled to an award or a review or a piece.”

Whatever happens at the 2024 GRAMMYs, Rankin's holistic attitude will ease the way forward — and we'll always have Blue Rev as an exemplar of lush, witty indie rock, with more hooks than a tackle box.

Read on for an interview with Rankin about Alvvays' [pronounced always] whirlwind 2023, and their road to Music's Biggest Night — along with a bonus, exclusive clip of her in conversation with GRAMMY.com.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

You've said you “didn't want to get swept up” in the GRAMMYs thing. What do you mean by that?

Well, the truth is that you apply for GRAMMYs. So, for anyone to say that they're not intrigued by that, after applying or having someone apply on your behalf, it's a little bit strange.

What do the GRAMMYs mean? We've always watched them as kids. I don't know, in recent years if I've been so up to date, but [there have been] a lot of big performances.

When we were recording Blue Rev, we were sitting on [engineer/producer] Shawn Everett's couch and he had probably four or something GRAMMYs just sitting on his console. It is a large presence.

Where do you personally place the GRAMMYs in your musical universe?

I think that it's cool to see lesser known artists crack into that world, whatever that ends up meaning. But awards as a concept have had such a low bar for expectation, and I've always just thought that every development with us has been this really rare bonus. Expecting anything, for me, has not been the right approach.

What do you remember about guiding the band out of the bar circuit — aiming your arrow a little higher?

We generally tried to play in the United States as much as we could, because staying in Canada and becoming a Canadian band can be limiting. I don't really know why, but it can be.

We always just wanted to crack into other regions and see if we could sustain ourselves. But I have so many friends who are so much more talented than I am that haven't gotten to do things like that with their music. So, again, it's all just exciting to us.

What do you remember about the biz 10 years ago as opposed to now?

It did seem like there were more venues. Maybe it was easier, in a way, to blow up.

Like, if you were mentioned on a blog, that would just be kind of like a platform for you to just take off and tour and be everywhere. But it's not so much that anymore. I think just with the cost of everything, and people [not being] so reliant on reviews, they can pick and choose what they like.

Things have changed. I don't know where things are going to go. We're all just hanging onto the bumper.

As streaming continued its grip on everything and touring became even more of an insane, expensive ordeal, what do you remember about keeping the band ballasted?

We didn't have an overnight success type thing. Our album was out for probably a year before we really felt like we were touring in a really big way. And everything felt so gradual that we did have time to have those growing pains, but we also had jobs.

So, I don't know. Everything has been so incremental for us, even though maybe it doesn't seem like that to some people. But Alec's been in so many other bands and paid a lot of his dues — worked at various poutine restaurants. I'm trying to think of how to extrapolate on that.

What were you aiming to do with Blue Rev, as per your creative and professional trajectories?

Well, first, the goal was to write more songs, and that seems like a mountain to climb sometimes.

And then, to actually complete an album, for Alec and I to have the same opinion on where a song has ended up versus what the demo sounded like. And just coming to a place where we both feel the same way. That is such a process for us, and a labor of love.

But finishing the record was all that I was really pinning my hopes and dreams on, and everything else has so much more to do with the timing and who is believing you and listening to you and understanding what you're saying. And people put out things all the time that don't land, and a lot of it is not really in their hands.

I guess with this album, I did want everything to be a little bit more reflective of our live show, too, because I think that we can be a pretty aggressive band, guitar-wise, and can be an energetic band. But I'm not sure that was necessarily reflected in our previous recordings.

What do you remember about bringing Blue Rev to the finish line?

I think that there were so many different nights where me, Kerri, Alec, and Sean just never slept. And that can bring out the best in you and the worst in you.

But we did have a lot of fun doing it. And we did it in person, we did it on computers, like this [remote video interview], and Sean was there with us the whole way to help us through it.

Just going back at the end of mastering and listening to all the demos that I had lived with for years, and felt so unhealthily attached to, and realizing that every finished song was vastly better than those artifacts — that was really gratifying.

I recently interviewed Adrian from the Black Pumas about working with Shawn Everett; he remembers Shawn cranking up a minor detail until it became the soul of the song. Were there any particular instances like that?

He [Shawn] has such a great sense of moments of impact, and he just understands when something needs to feel moving and when something needs to shift.

I really think that we connected on that in a big way. And he has such a grasp of expansive sound. But yeah, he also hears things. He hears hooks, and is a musician in his own regard. So there were so many things that I feel like we've learned from him.

There's a bridge in this song called “Very Online Guy,” where he created this whole other experimental portion melodically in the chunk of the bridge because he will just take a random thing you say and copy and paste it into a song just as an experiment.

So that was basically what he did, and it ended up working with some editing. But he is a very unpredictable person and not afraid to be rejected, which is so important.

How are you preparing for the GRAMMYs? And what are you looking forward to in 2024 and beyond?

I think just us showing up and going there is really surreal for us. So we're excited to just put on an outfit and sit in a seat for six hours and watch the crazy production that is the GRAMMYs.

But I want to just keep making music that I like and that I feel good about putting out into the world. And hopefully that'll continue to be in the form of albums and pop songs that I like to write and mess around with.

I'm so lucky to have also the people that are in the band with us. And Alec has always been such a fruitful collaborator, and that collaboration is something that I really feel passionately about — and editing each other and bouncing ideas off of one another It's this really intangible element that I really appreciate, and just to continue to do that would be ideal.

Are you planning to go for the full monty on the red carpet? Are you guys going to serve looks or stay out of that racket?

I don't know if we're capable of being polished to that degree, but we'll see what's in store for us. I know that we have a lot of people that care about us. They might come through for us and get us some new pants. God knows we need them.

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In the midst of an unseasonably chilly August — a San Francisco trademark — Outside Lands raged once again.

Some 75,000 attendees flocked to the Bay Area to enjoy delicious food and an eclectic array of entertainment — among them Janelle Monáe, Foo Fighters, Kendrick Lamar, and other leading lights of today's music.

GRAMMY.com was there to soak up the tunes and the atmosphere — and film some truly inspired sets. Below, revisit Outside Lands — or, if you weren't there, experience it from afar — with some top-tier performances.

aespa

Lovejoy

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Blond:ish

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Power pop may not necessarily be a genre en vogue, but there is something admirable about an artist who devotes their energy to crafting the perfect pop song with nothing but a guitar and a story to tell.

Like many things in music, its origins start with the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the Kinks. While the likes of Led Zeppelin, Cream and Jimi Hendrix were pushing the limits (and volume) of the delta blues, power pop upstarts like the Raspberries and Badfinger were trying their best to recapture the sound of Beatlemania. Cheap Trick, whose shows received Beatle-like hysteria abroad, brought power pop to the masses with songs like "Dream Police," "Surrender," and of course their effervescent jam "I Want You to Want Me."

But it was singer/songwriter Alex Chilton and his band Big Star who have remained power pop’s heroes. The band’s first two albums — #1 Record and Radio City — are considered cult classics in the genre. Chilton had a knack for writing catchy, danceable rock songs like  "September Gurls," "When My Baby’s Beside Me," and "In the Street," while at the same time delivering gentler ballads like "I’m In Love With A Girl" or "Thirteen" with the lovesick sincerity of a teenager with a crush.

Their music would go on to influence countless bands, many of whom had commercial success Big Star could only dream of. From Nick Lowe to the Cars, the Bangles to R.E.M., there is a long history of Chilton disciples who have plied their trade creating jangly and bright rock 'n' roll as sweet as candy-o.

Perhaps no disciple was more devoted than Paul Westerberg of Minnesotan misfits the Replacements. For Westerberg, Chilton was both his mentor and muse as a songwriter. "I never travel far without a little Big Star," he sang on the rollicking ode "Alex Chilton" from the Replacements' classic Pleased to Meet Me. On this track, Westerberg envisioned a world in which "children by the million sing for Alex Chilton." Thirty-five years later since that song was written, Westerberg’s power pop utopia has arrived.

2022 saw an explosion of vital power pop releases from artists who both carried that torch and pushed the genre in exciting new directions — a reminder that power pop isn't just fodder for grocery stores or radio replays, but rather music worthy of dissecting and embracing. The beauty of well-executed power pop is how effortless it can sound, and as this year's releases have proven, even a song that clocks in under 2 minutes can make a long-lasting impact. Here are five essential power pop albums from 2022 that you need to check out.

Young Guv – III & IV

For 15 years, Ben Cook was a guitarist for Canadian hardcore punk heroes F***ed Up, a band known for pummeling its listeners with loud guitar riffs and barking vocals. It’s about as far from power pop as you can get, which is why it’s surprising that since leaving that band, Cook has made a name for himself making gentler, catchy power pop under the moniker Young Guv.

In 2022, the band released not one but two albums: GUV III & GUV IV, each of which were recorded in the spring of 2020, when Young Guv’s tour was halted in Texas due to COVID. Cook and his bandmates spent the next nine months living at the foot of the Taos Mountains in New Mexico in an "earthship" made from Adobe clay, tires, and bottles. They spent their days writing music, swimming in the Rio Grande, and listening to a lot of Miles Davis, and emerged on the other side with two album’s worth of new music.

While the album covers may look similar, the two records have different feels. Songs on III like "It’s Only Dancing" and "Couldn’t Leave U If I Tried" offer a more immediate rush of danceable, jangle rock, while IV feels a bit more meditative and lived in — like the wilting "Change Your Mind" or minimalistic "Cry 2 Sleep." To put it in a different perspective, III is made for the days out swimming under the sun, while IV sounds like a night best spent gazing at the bright stars in the middle of the desert.

2nd Grade – Easy Listening

For more than a decade, Philadelphia has become the  hotspot for indie rock. Artists like The War on Drugs, Japanese Breakfast, Kurt Vile, and countless others have made a name for themselves in the City of Brotherly Love before becoming embraced by fans far beyond Broad Street. Peter Gill, frontman of Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade, may not be a household name just yet, but after releasing his band’s excellent new album Easy Listening in September, perhaps album opener "Cover of Rolling Stone" won’t be a work of fiction for very long.

The best power pop doesn’t take itself too seriously, and on Easy Listening, Gill writes with a childlike playfulness about Keith Richards’ guitar and the episode of "Seinfeld" when Kramer moves to L.A. Then there are songs like "Me & My Blue Angles" and "Teenage Overpopulation'' that feel as if they have been around forever — like old friends back in town for a beer. "Strung Out On You," in particular, sounds like a classic left off of one of Big Star’s first two records. Easy Listening is exactly as the album title advertises: a breezy and fun power pop gem that makes power pop sound easy.

DAZY – OUTOFBODY

James Goodson is a music publicist living in Richmond, Virginia who, on a whim during the pandemic, recorded and released songs as DAZY, a solo-project of loud, fuzzy power pop. Following a collection of demos MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD: The First 24 Songs and 2022’s "Pressure Cooker," the one-off hookfest of a collab single with Militarie Gun, DAZY unleashed a debut full-length.

Clocking in at just over 25 minutes, OUTOFBODY is a quick and dizzying hit of electric dopamine, delivered solely via computer and a guitar. These songs rip with huge refrains, thumping drum machines, and buzzy guitars.

Goodson was a child of punk rock, and grew up listening to the likes of Nirvana, Green Day and Rancid. "I wanted to tap into the music that I’ve always loved and will always love so it will never get old to me," Goodson told Stereogum.  Throughout the record, Goodson uses these  influences as a sort of cathartic expression of the existential dread he maps out on OUTOFBODY. You can hear that early pop-punk, college rock, and grunge on "Split" and "On My Way," as well as Oasis and Britpop within the hooks on "Ladder" and "Choose Yr Ramone."

Within all the noise, however, is the comfort in knowing that music you love will never leave your side.

The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

It’s easy to take what the Beths do so well for granted. Since they first arrived on the scene with 2018’s Future Me Hates Me, the New Zealand quartet has done nothing but write sincere, lasting power pop. In 2022 the Beths released their best album yet, Expert in a Dying Field, a collection of songs that dive into the anxieties and heartbreak of everyday life.

On "Silence Is Golden," the album's loudest song, frontwoman Liz Stokes propels into the unending noise.  Elsewhere, on "Your Side," "Knees Deep," and the excellent title track, Stokes’ lovelorn characters toggle between relationship autopsies and dreams about what’s next, "mixing drinks and messages." "When You Know You Know" wouldn’t sound out of place next to Avril Lavigne on the radio, and features some of Stokes’ best turn of phrases ("Running down the road to jog the memory"). Whether or not the album title is a bit self-deprecating remains to be seen, but the Beths are the heroes that power pop needs.

Alvvays – Blue Rev

Toronto indie darlings Alvvays first arrived on the scene in 2014 with their self-titled debut that included the indie-pop anthem "Archie, Marry Me." They leveled up on their next record, 2017’s Antisocialites, and then… well… the band went silent. For a little while, it felt like Alvvays would never return, but it turns out that the band had to overcome roadblocks of biblical proportions to record their fantastic new record. Not a pandemic, a studio flood, and stolen demos could derail Blue Rev.

On Blue Rev, Alvvays teamed up with GRAMMY-winning producer Shawn Everett to turn power pop on its head and send it in new directions. Blue Rev is awash in shoegaze-y guitars and lush synths, and songs such as "After the Earthquake," "Many Mirrors," and "Easy On Your Own?" sound like if R.E.M.’s Murmur and Monster were put into a blender.

Meanwhile, singer/guitarist Molly Rankin has a unique talent for making life’s mundanities feel high stakes; she writes about running into an ex-lover’s sibling on "Pharmacist," a tale that lands with a gut-punch, singing "You know it happens all the time, it’s alright. I know I never crossed your mind." It’s endlessly captivating and inviting, and with Blue Rev, Alvvays have established themselves as power pop’s new pioneers.

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Since Mike Piacentini’s switch from computer science to audio engineering in college, his family has been his biggest champions. So, when he received his nomination for Best Immersive Album for Madison Beer's pop album Silence Between Songs, at the 2024 GRAMMYs, it was a no-brainer to invite his parents and wife.

“He’s always been into music. He had his own band, so [the shift] wasn’t surprising at all,” Piacentini’s mother says in the newest episode of Family Matters. “He’s very talented. I knew one day he would be here. It’s great to see it actually happen.”

In homage to his parents’ support, Piacentini offered to let his father write a short but simple acceptance in case he won: “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” he jokes.

Alongside his blood relatives, Piacentini also had support from his colleague Sean Brennan. "It's a tremendous honor, especially to be here with [Piacentini]. We work day in and day out in the studio," Brennan explains. "He's someone who's always there."

Press play on the video above to learn more about Mike Piacentini's support system, and remember to check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of Family Matters.

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It's fair to say that the 1980s hadn't been particularly kind to country legend Johnny Cash. Once considered the Don of the Nashville scene, the singer/songwriter suddenly found himself dropped by Columbia Records, recording terrible parody songs (remember "The Chicken in Black"?), and addicted to painkillers after a bizarre accident in which he was kicked by an ostrich.

But as the new decade approached, Cash's reputation gradually started to recover. A 1988 tribute album, 'Til Things Are Brighter, alerted a much younger indie generation of his catalog of classics. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. And then arguably the biggest band in the world at the time, U2, invited him to take lead vocals on Zooropa's post-apocalyptic closer "The Wanderer." The scene was set for a triumphant comeback, and on 1994's American Recordings, the Man in Black duly obliged.

The Rick Rubin-produced album was far from a one-off. Cash delivered three American follow-ups in his lifetime (1996's Unchained, 2000's Solitary Man, and 2002's The Man Comes Around). And two posthumous volumes (2006's A Hundred Highways, 2010's Ain't No Grave)  further bridged the gap between his statuses as country outlaw and elder statesman — and helped further his legacy as one of country's all-time greats.

As the first American Recordings installment celebrates its 30th anniversary, here's a look at how the series deservedly rejuvenated the career of an American recording legend.

It United Him With A New Muse 

Best known for his pioneering work with Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy, Rick Rubin seemed an unusual fit for a sixty-something country singer whose glory days were considered decades behind him. But left spellbound by Cash's performance at a Bob Dylan anniversary gig in 1992, the superproducer offered to make the Nashville legend a superstar once more.

Cash took some persuading, but eventually agreed to join forces on the assurance he'd be in the creative driving seat, and a new unlikely dream team was born. Rubin lent his talents to all six volumes of American Recordings — co-producing the middle two with Cash's son John Carter Cash – and won the first GRAMMY of his career for his efforts. The Def Jam co-founder would also later work his magic with several other '60s heroes including Neil Diamond, Yusuf and Neil Young.

It Saw Cash Lean Into Contemporary Music More Than Ever

Cash had never been averse to tackling contemporary material. He covered Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman" in 1983, just a year after it appeared on The Boss' Nebraska. But the American Recordings series saw the Man in Black embrace the sounds du jour like never before, whether the grunge of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage," electro-blues of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," or most famously, industrial rock of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt."

On paper, this could have been nothing short of a disaster, the sign of an aging artist desperately latching onto a much younger musical generation in a transparent bid for relevancy. But instead, Cash elevates the Gen X classics into modern hymns, his sonorous voice injecting a sense of gravitas and Rubin's production stripping things back to their bare but compelling essentials. Far from an embarrassing grandad act, this was the sound of a man respectfully making the source material his own.

It Returned Cash To The Charts 

Cash had reached the lower end of the Billboard 200 in the '80s as part of supergroups The Highwaymen and Class of '55. But you had to go all the way back to 1976's One Piece at a Time to find his last entry as a solo artist. The American Recordings series, however, slowly but surely restored the Man in Black to his former chart glories.

Indeed, while its first two volumes charted at numbers 110 and 170 respectively, the third peaked at a slightly more impressive 88 and the fourth at 22, his highest position since 1970's Hello, I'm Johnny Cash. The posthumous fifth entry, meanwhile, went all the way to No. 1, remarkably the first time ever the country legend had achieved such a feat with a studio effort (live album At San Quentin had previously topped the charts in 1971).

"Hurt" also became Cash's first solo US country hit in 14 years in 2003. And while it only landed at No. 56 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, it remains Cash's most-streamed song to date with over 600 million streams on Spotify alone.

It Included Masterful Collaborators 

As well as handing over the producer reins to Rubin, Cash also surrounded himself with some of the rock world's finest musicians. Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood all lent their considerable talents to Unchained. Sheryl Crow and Will Oldham did the same on Solitary Man, while Nick Cave, Fiona Apple and Don Henley joined him in the studio on The Man Comes Around.

But Cash also kept things more traditional by recruiting fellow country legend Merle Haggard, 'fifth Beatle'Billy Preston, and "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" songwriter Jack Clement, while the presence of wifeJune Carter Cash and son John made the third American Recordings something of a family affair.

It Went Back To Basics 

While American Recordings was, in many respects, Cash's most forward-thinking album, it wasn't afraid to keep one foot in the past, either. For one, the star recorded most of its first volume in his Tennessee cabin armed with only a guitar, a throwback to his 1950s beginnings with first producer Sam Phillips.

Cash also trawled through his own back catalog for inspiration, re-recording several tracks he believed had unfairly gone under the radar including 1955 single "Mean Eyed Cat," murder ballad "Delia's Gone" from 1962's The Sound of Johnny Cash, and "I'm Leaving Now" from 1985's Rainbow.

It Proved He Was Still A Masterful Songwriter…

Although Cash's unlikely covers grabbed most of the attention, the American Recordings series showed that his stellar songwriting skills remained intact throughout his later years, too. "Meet Me in Heaven," for example, is a beautifully poignant tribute to the older brother who died at just 15, while the folksy "Let the Train Blow the Whistle" added to Cash's arsenal of railroad anthems.

"Drive On," meanwhile, is worthy of gracing any Best Of compilation, a powerful lament to those who came back from the Vietnam War with both emotional and physical scars ("And even now, every time I dream/ I hear the men and the monkeys in the jungle scream").

…And Still A Master Interpreter 

As well as putting new spins on his own songs and various contemporary rock favorites, Cash further displayed both his interpretive and curatorial skills by covering a variety of spirituals, standards and pop hits first released during his commercial heyday.

The likes of early 19th century gospel "Wayfaring Stranger," wartime favorite "We'll Meet Again," and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" may have been firmly in Cash's wheelhouse. But more leftfield choices such as Loudon Wainwright III's offbeat morality tale "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" proved that even when outside his comfort zone, he could stamp his own identity with aplomb.

It Made Him An Unlikely MTV Star 

Cash was 62 years old when American Recordings hit the shelves — not exactly a prime age for MTV play. Yet thanks to some inspired creative decisions, the career-reviving series spawned two videos that received regular rotation on the network. Firstly, "Delia's Gone" caught attention for two major reasons: it was directed by Anton Corbijn, the man renowned for his long-running creative partnership with Depeche Mode, and it starred Kate Moss, the world's biggest supermodel at the time, as the titular victim.  

Then nine years later, Cash picked up six nominations — winning Best Cinematography — at the MTV Video Music Awards thanks to Mark Romanek's emotionally devastating treatment for "Hurt." Interspersing clips of the clearly fragile country singer at the rundown Museum of Cash with footage from his earlier days and artistic shots of decaying fruits and flowers, the promo perfectly embodied the transient nature of life. And it had the capacity to reduce even the hardest of hearts to tears.

It Added To His GRAMMY Haul 

Cash won almost as many GRAMMYs with his American Recordings series as he had during the previous 40 years of his career. The Man in Black first added to his trophy collection in 1995 when the first volume won Best Contemporary Folk Album. This was the first time he'd been recognized at the ceremony for his musical talents since the June Carter Cash duet "If I Were A Carpenter" won Best Country Performance for a Duo or Group with Vocal back in 1971  

Three years later, Unchained was crowned Best Country Album. And after picking up a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, Cash won 2001's Best Male Country Vocal Performance for "Solitary Man," then again in the same Category for "Give My Love to Rose"in 2003. He posthumously won two more GRAMMYs for Best Short Form Video, in 2004 for "Hurt" and in 2008 for "God's Gonna Cut You Down." In total, the American Recordings series won Cash six more GRAMMYs, bringing his overall count to 13. 

It Was A Powerful Epitaph

In 1997, Cash was told he'd just 18 months to live after being misdiagnosed with neurodegenerative condition Shy-Drager syndrome (later changed to autonomic neuropathy). He ended up outliving this prognosis by a good four years, but during this period, he lost the love of his life and was forced to record his swansong in-between lengthy stints in the hospital.  

Little wonder, therefore, that the American Recordings series is defined by the theme of mortality: see "The Man Comes Around," a biblical ode to the Grim Reaper ("And I looked, and behold a pale horse/ And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him"), Death Row anthem "The Mercy Seat," and funeral favorite "Danny Boy." As with David Bowie's Blackstar, Cash was able to reflect on his impermanence in his own terms in a sobering, yet compelling manner that continues to resonate decades on. 

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