Dan DeLuca’s 18 picks for your very Philly springtime playlist

Here’s a pop music playlist to close out April with a dozen and a half entries from rock and rappers, folk and country singers, and musical genre splicers.

Recommended viewing includes music documentaries on David Johansen and Jason Isbell, and suggested reading material includes Lucinda Williams’ captivating memoir.

These 18 what-I’ve-been-listening-to selections are arranged as an unranked playlist of spring season highlights, many by local artists or acts soon hitting the road and playing Philly venues in the coming weeks.

Art Dealers, South Philly band Low Cut Connie’s new album is due in September. It draws inspiration from years that piano man Adam Weiner spent in New York. The first single is a soul plea that finds Weiner in fine form. The busy band plays the Non-Commvention at World Cafe Live on May 2, is doing Downstage at the Mann with Philly rapper Chill Moody June 29, and will play the new Elkton Music Hall and the XPoNential Music Festival in September.

“These songs are like scenes from a film that is my life,” says Roots rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of Glorious Game, his collaboration with producer Leon Michels that follows last May’s Cheat Codes. “The Weather” is the most cinematic track, with imagistic lyrics that take you with him to Point Breeze in the 1980s. Hopefully we’ll hear it when the Roots Picnic comes to the Mann Center on June 2 and 3.

Philly songwriter, producer, guitarist, and poet Sadie Dupuis — she’s been on tour this spring for her book Cry Perfume — has been busy with her solo project Sad13. Dupuis hadn’t put out music with her band Speedy Ortiz since 2018, but “Scabs” is an auspicious return with jittery guitars, pointing a finger at picket-line crossers whom she has four words for: “Don’t talk to me.”

Martin Scorsese’s luxurious concert film details the career of David Johansen, the 1970s New York Dolls founder and solo artist who hit pop pay dirt in the 1990s as pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter. The Showtime movie is built around a January 2020 performance and gives time to Johansen’s many guises, including his eclectic Mansion of Fun show on Sirius/XM Radio.

Chicago folk songwriter Kara Jackson’s debut album is called Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? The former National Youth Poet Laureate writes bluntly emotional songs that don’t make any concessions to pop fashion but grab your attention with their unvarnished honesty.

It’s Lucinda Williams season. The justly revered Americana songwriter is out with her new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, which tells of a childhood that inspired her searing, inimitable songs. She has more of those coming with Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart, her album due June 30. This single gets an assist from Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, who join her on vocals.

Sam Jones, who directed the Wilco movie I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, helmed this unflinching doc about the making of Americana star Isbell’s 2020 album, Reunions. It’s a tense, rewarding look at the relationship between Isbell and his wife and bandmate Amanda Shires. “Death Wish,” the first single from Isbell’s new album, Weathervanes, is due June 9.

West Philly rapper Armani White has had his music business hustle on for years, and is now hitting his stride. Last year, he went viral with his smartly titled “Billie Eilish.” Now signed to Def Jam, White’s pulsating single features A$AP Ferg and teases his EP, Road To Casablanco, due May 5.

Last weekend at the Coachella Festival, Muna debuted “One That Got Away.” The queer indie pop band that broke out big time with their self-titled third album last year described this song as being about “rubbing your hot a— in the face of someone who messed up their chance of being with you. It’s a bit vengeful and mean, but also fun.” Muna comes to the Met Philly on May 5.

This closing track on The Record, the debut full length by the trio of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus also has a touch of vengeance, though not joyfully so. Bridgers is an opening act for the first two Taylor Swift shows at Lincoln Financial Field on May 12 and 13.

The unsettling centerpiece of Del Rey’s richly involving Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. “A&W” stands not for root beer but “American whore,” and the song has its say about slut shaming and corrosive capitalism before shape-shifting into a trap ballad that interpolates Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop.”

A choogling ode to country giant George Jones, sung by Dean Schlabowske of the great Chicago country-punk bar band the Waco Brothers. The Wacos are due at MilkBoy Philly on June 18.

The first new music in 39 years from the Zambian psych-rock pioneers of the musical genre known as Zamrock. A winning combination of ‘70s riff-rock and Afro-funk from the band who live up to their acronym — We Intend To Cause Havoc.

Karly Hartzman of the North Carolina band Wednesday has said that she wrote “Chosen To Deserve” in part as a coming of age homage to “Let There Be Rock,” by the Drive-By Truckers (who play the Sing Us Home festival in Philadelphia May 6). The love song with a satisfying power chord crunch is a standout on Rat Saw God, one of the strongest releases of the young year. Wednesday is due at Union Transfer on June 17.

British songwriter Arlo Parks won the prestigious Mercury Prize for 2020′s Collapsed in Sunbeams, a spirit lifting debut well-suited for the dark days of lockdown. The singer, who will be at NonComm on May 4, is back with more positive vibes on this single from the forthcoming My Soft Machine, due May 26.

South Jersey native Brian Christinzio — a.k.a. BC Camplight — was a fixture on the Fishtown music scene, known for the graceful melodicism of his music. He moved to Manchester, England, in 2011 and has continued to produce sumptuous singer-songwriter music. “Kicking Up A Fuss” is from the The Last Rotation of Earth, his new album due May 12.

I’m sorry, I can’t resist a song that grieves over a dog, particularly since my pal Peanut passed last summer. “Days Move Slow,” by Alicia Bognanno’s rock band Bully, memorializes her late pup Mezzi, avoiding mawkishness thanks to the song’s abundant energy. “I’m no help lately, I know,” Bognanno sings, seeking to regain her bearings. Lucky for You is due June 2 and the band plays the Met Philly June 9, opening for the Pixies and Franz Ferdinand.

Scottish songwriter Dean Owens doesn’t waste words on “The Rain That Never Lands.” It’s an instrumental recorded with a member of veteran desert rock band Calexico that evokes the Ennio Morricone scores of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns.