Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. This week, it’s Amber Bravo on Azealia Banks and the radio hits that delighted the year she was born.
This past weekend Azealia Banks released a video for the title track off her 1991 EP, and it was a real ’90s affair that placed a premium on her dancing and looking generally fabulous in a a crop top and wide-legged pants. Banks' abs are as toned as "Love Will Never Do (Without You)"-era Janet, and she looks equally powerful and glamorous. I was 10 years old in 1991, which means that the radio wormed its way into my sponge-like preadolescent brain in the way that I can never be rid of. Even though Banks was just a glimmer in her momma's eye when I was religiously reciting every lyric to "Tom's Diner," seriously digging my mom's Enya CD and making up dance routines to "O.P.P," she somehow fits soundly into this abbreviated Top 100 of 1991 mix.
New Playlist: Azealia Banks and Other Jams Born in 1991
Tracklist:
1. Azealia Banks, "1991"
2. Deee-Lite, "Groove Is In The Heart
3. Naughty By Nature, "O.P.P"
4. The Orb, "Little Fluffy Clouds (Demo Version)"
5. Suzanne Vega/DNA, "Tom's Diner"
6. Siouxsie and The Banshees, "Kiss Them For Me"
7. Enya, "Caribbean Blue"
8. Nine Inch Nails, "Down In It"
9. Heavy D & The Boyz. "Now That We Found Love"
10. Azealia Banks, "212"
11. Saint Etienne, "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
12. Mariah Carey, "Emotions"
13. George Michaels, "Freedom ’90"
14. Azealia Banks, "Van Vogue"
