Best Stoner Rock Playlist, and Thoughts on Playlists vs. Albums

Of course it's by John Garcia

Stoner Rock Classics

I’ve been on nothing less than a MANIACAL Stoner Rock binge!

I never thought I’d enjoy stoner rock. I used to hate Queens of the Stone Age when everybody loved them back in the 2000’s, but now I play their albums on repeat while asking myself - “Do I really want to hear this song for the twentieth time this week?” - for every song on “Songs for the Dead”, or “Rated R”, or Kyuss’s “Welcome to Sky Valley” (A masterpiece!).

Speaking of Kyuss! Have you heard of John Garcia? He was their frontman, and he is awesome, and he curated a playlist:

And it’s the perfect playlist to get familiar with Stoner Rock!

I love how the genre grew on me. It’s not for everyone, it took me years to grow into it, but damn, does it taste good now!

Playlists vs. Albums

Having pointed you to possibly the best Stoner Rock collection on Spotify made by the legendary John Garcia - the lead singer of the epitome band of stoner rock - I want to explain precisely why it is a good playlist.

Because every song on it is good! Well, almost. Just put it on already…..

I use and create Spotify playlists with the following in mind - have no more than one song from an album. Then, if the song is good, I leave the playlist and put on the entire album.

I create my playlists with the same principle in mind. What the Hell are playlists for if not for mood hunting when you don’t know which album you want to listen to? I mean, albums are the best. Nothing beats listening to a good album from front to back.

The only time I’ll listen to a playlist is when I’m looking for an album to listen to. I am an album listener, it is the only way to listen to rock and progressive music (don’t you think so??), but even more broadly, I look at an album as I look at a book - the artist sat down and worked on this piece of art for a while, and they saw it as one piece of art, whether it’s “In the Court of the Crimson King” or “The Wall”, or any Billy Eilish and Miley Cyrus album. The album does not have to be a concept album for it to convey a specific artistic vision or feeling that the artist was going for at the time.

Note - I’m working on a guide to Stoner Rock, and I can’t wait to release it here! Stay tuned!