Influences Playlist: Wild Pink

We are inviting our favorite musicians to compile playlists of the songs and artists who have impacted their latest projects the most. The latest Influences guest is Wild Pink, who have returned today with their awaited ILYSM follow-up, Dulling the Horns. I believe John Ross is one of our greatest living songwriters, but Paste contributor Eric R. Danton sums everything up best:

“Dulling the Horns is the band’s most distinctive release so far. It is beholden neither to the hushed piano arrangements and whispery vocals of 2022’s ILYSM, which Ross finished writing after he was diagnosed with cancer (he has since recovered), nor to the lush, indie-adult alternative sound of 2021’s A Billion Little Lights. If there’s an antecedent in the band’s catalog, it’s Wild Pink’s self-titled first album, from 2017—but more visceral and direct this time around. Dulling the Horns is a guitar record, though it’s not one that relies on riffs. Rather, the group’s fifth full-length is brimming with immense growling textures that ebb and flow, creating space in the songs as often as they fill it. That approach seems to have emboldened Ross to let his lyrical idiosyncrasies loose. He’s droll here, and sometimes offhandedly profound as he comes at the stories and sentiments in his lyrics from unexpected vantages.”

Check out John Ross’s Influences playlist, which includes tracks from English Beat, Arthur Russell and Warren Zevon, below:

The Magnetic Fields: “When You Were My Baby”

I’m a huge Magnetic Fields fan and love this record especially. I love the way these songs were recorded too. They sound timeless.

John Cale: “Ship of Fools

Probably my favorite John Cale song. I love how unhinged the playing is. The drummer sounds like he’s just in a different room, or something. The arrangement is really cool, he made it sound very dreamy without a bunch of reverb, etc.

Nick Lowe: “The Rose of England”

I play this song for my baby every morning.