Billboard staff picked the 50 greatest producers of this century: the most innovative, impactful and important knob-twiddlers since 2000. The top 5 are:

5. Mike Will Made-It because he loves twisting the familiar into something far weirder and more rewarding

4. The-Dream & Tricky Stewart thanks to their zooming keys, gentle-but-insistent percussion, expansive soundscapes and the era's most lethal toplines.

3. Timbaland - fourth-dimension funk, with rattling drums, squelching bass, unrecognizable and disembodied vocal hooks

2. Pharrell Williams / The Neptunes - Liquid guitars, clanging percussion, and the most intoxicating synth tones you've ever heard

1. Max Martin -  the hooks we crave, the choruses we want to belt out, from the stars that have defined the mainstream over the past two decades

Centuries of Sound is making mixes for every year of recorded sound, and this time around it's the year 1937. The artist that marked the year was - Django Reinhardt, a self-taught, illiterate guitarist with only 8 fingers who would change the face of jazz, and music as well. That year also had Stephane Grappeli, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Robert Johnson and so many more.

YouTuber Rocked counts down 10 albums music critics have hated at first, only to get lauded later. It's exclusively rock albums, by AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, Queen, Radiohead and some other big rock bands.

There's Madonna, Beyonce and Britney Spears on Rolling Stone's list of 30 sexiest videos of all times, yet the number 1 spot is being taken by Chris Isaac's 'Wicked Game' because "the smoldering passion exhibited by Isaak and Christensen had a vulnerability about it that still makes the video’s simple concept eye-popping decades later".

Pitchfork recommends eight recent releases that "show the guitar’s boundless potential". Among the selected ones there are: new album by Brooklyn’s Rachika Nayar who "uses her electric guitar to make quiet, visionary ambient music"; Rob Noyes is a 12-string guitarist based in Japan. whos music "enters the room like a strong gust of wind and resonates long after"; Chris Schlarb & Chad Taylor offer "droning 12-string ragas, gentle folk melodies, and quietly psychedelic mood pieces that transport listeners to a higher plane of thinking" on their collaborative album.

An interesting selection by the Stereogum of 50 best albums of the five months of 2021 that are behind us. The top 10 (not so expectedly) are:

10. The Armed - 'ULTRAPOP'

9. Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - 'Superwolves'

8. Home Is Where - 'i became birds'

7. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - 'Haram'

6. Spirit Of The Beehive - 'ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH'

5. Cassandra Jenkins - 'An Overview On Phenomenal Nature'

4. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, & The London Symphony Orchestra - 'Promises'

3. serpentwithfeet - 'Deacon'

2. The Weather Station - 'Ignorance'

1. Fiddlehead - 'Between The Richness'

'Afrique Victime' is the new, awesome album by the Touareg guitarist Mdou Moctar who made a list of albums, artists, songs and styles that made him the musician he is now. The Quietus assembled the list, which includes Van Halen, Abdallah Oumbadogou ("the founder, the source of my music"), Khaira Arby ("a golden voice"), Malam Maman Barka ("insanely good, totally insane"), Bob Marley ("a revolutionary and he’s someone who loved peace"), Tinariwen ("you have to write things to encourage people").

Spinal Tap were a fake band constructed for a movie ('This Is Spinal Tap'), yet not being real didn't prevent them from recording two albums and going on a tour. Others followed, like Stillwater from Cameron Crowe's 'Almost Famous', 'That Thing You Do!’s the Wonders, 'Under the Silver Lake’s Jesus and the Brides of Dracula, and MTV's 2gether. The Ringer discusses the nature of fake bands with the people behind some of them - including Crowe, Zooey Deschanel, Andy Samberg, and Emily Haines.

Author Oli Freke released his news book 'Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (and Back)', a written celebration of the impact of synths on music and culture. Freke offers a comprehensive and meticulously researched directory of every major synthesizer, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995. For Mix Mag, he chose the 10 most influential synthesizers.

Cinephiles Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney, who recently released a collaborative album 'Superwolves', made a selection of the best music films for Vice. The boys chose 'Gene Vincent: The Rock And Roll Singer' (1970) - "a tough watch, but a revealing study of a rare talent", 'Cisco Pike' (1972) - "music-infused crime film has earned a sizeable cult following", 'Oulaya’s Wedding' (2017)  - "astonishingly familiar feelings and ripping tunes", 'Payday' (1973) - "down and dirty character study of a country star indulging every vice under the sun as he hurtles towards annihilation", 'The Decline Of Western Civilization' (1981) - "a documentary about energy that's so loaded with power that it will never die", and other films.