Playlist: Artists Who Broke Away

A record release is always a gamble—and in cases like Schoolboy Q’s major-label debut “Oxymoron,” released this month, the game is even more complicated. The Los Angeles rapper’s mixtapes and digital albums have likely done less for his solo career than his membership in the Black Hippy posse with Kendrick Lamar, hip-hop’s Grammy-nominated (ouch) phenomenon of 2013. With “Oxymoron,” Q is out to establish himself as a star independent of his associate’s fame.

He’s in good company. This week’s Playlist celebrates four other musicians who came out from behind the shadows of imposing contemporaries:

Casey Veggies

The youngest founding member of radical hip-hop collective Odd Future, Veggies released his first mixtape at 14. He left Odd Future shortly thereafter, but is still close with the group, contributing verses to Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, The Creator’s albums while featuring them and other OF members on his mixtapes. In the meantime, tours with Mac Miller and others led him to a management deal with Roc Nation and record deal with Epic, with his first solo album due this year.

“PNCINTLOFWGTKA,” and “Hive,” collaborations with other Odd Future members, showcase Veggies’ harder side:

Veggies’ debut album is likely to include more introspective cuts like 2013’s “Baby Don’t Cry”:

Alan Parsons

Parsons was a recording engineer for several of rock’s greatest albums—“Abbey Road” was his first assistant engineer credit, followed by “Let It Be,” and his first Grammy nomination was for “The Dark Side of The Moon.” He and manager Eric Woolfson formed the Alan Parsons Project to flip the studio dynamic, with a free-floating collection of musicians under the producers’ purview. With contributions from Parsons-produced bands like Pilot and Ambrosia, the Project’s first album, the Edgar Allen Poe concept record “Tales of Mystery & Imagination,” charted well—with nine subsequent releases for the prog-rock masterminds.

Clare Torrey’s legendary vocals in Pink Floyd’s  “The Great Gig in the Sky,” were included at Parson’s behest:

“The Raven,” a reworking of the Poe poem, is a chilling track from the Project’s debut album:

The Kills

The duo’s first three albums made them indie favorites, leading to a tour with the Jack White-fronted Raconteurs. When White lost his voice, singer Alison Mosshart stepped in; they formed supergroup The Dead Weather with Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age members and released two successful albums, while Kills multi-instrumentalist Jamie Hince married Kate Moss. The Kills returned in 2011 with “Blood Presures,” their best record to date and their first to chart in the Top 40. A festival circuit and TV credits followed. This year, they’ll release a new album and tour festivals including Governor’s Ball.

Mosshart buoys Dead Weather’s layered and kinetic rock:

The first single from “Blood Pressures” is stripped down but just as energized:

The Band

Levon and the Hawks—that was the band Bob Dylan hired for his first “electric” tour in 1965-6. The well-regarded backing group developed into a creative force under Dylan, and their 1967 debut “Music From Big Pink” secured drummer-vocalist Levon Helm and his ensemble’s place in rock history. Dylan co-wrote three of it’s songs (and painted the indelible cover art), and the record received adoring reviews; The Band’s self-titled follow-up was better than “Abbey Road.”

“The Basement Tapes,” a 1975 release of sessions from seven years earlier, is the best aural document of the interplay between Dylan and The Band:

“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” from The Band’s eponymous album, and the first without Dylan’s explicit involvement, exemplifies the group’s fascination with the intersection between Americana and rock: