Why this Phoenix musician made the ultimate Spotify playlist of Arizona artists

The late Jerry Garcia famously said records hold the power to reveal music’s full history to anyone willing to listen.

Phoenix vocalist Brandon Kellum shares a similar mindset, albeit when it comes to the local scene. Last month, the American Standards frontman dropped a Spotify playlist highlighting Arizona’s most influential bands from 2000 to 2025. And it’s both massive and expansive.

Titled “Arizona Music History: 2000-2025,” the 132-song playlist is a sprawling snapshot of a quarter-century of local music. It spans genres, eras and scenes, capturing the state’s sonic diversity.

Kellum’s playlist is a who’s who of Arizona music.

It features bands who hit big, like The Format, Jimmy Eat World and Gin Blossoms, alongside acts who stayed local. Also included: MySpace favorites such as Scary Kids Scaring Kids, The Medic Droid and Eyes Set to Kill. Plus, artists from The Shizz messageboard era, like The Necronauts. And viral local sensations like Okilly Dokilly, Mega Ran and Psychostick.

And that barely scratches the surface. Dozens more artists populate the playlist, which Kellum says captures the story of Arizona music since the new millennium.

“When I was putting it together, I started realizing there’s a cool story to be told here,” he says. “It not only is this idea of how music has evolved, but also the ways that people have heard and connected with it.”

‘A passion project to find Arizona bands that did something significant’

Kellum, a longtime Valley resident, began building the playlist of influential Arizona artists in September. He says it tied into how his own band, Phoenix hardcore act American Standards, folded a few years ago and made him reflective.

“I played my first local show at The Mason Jar in 2000 and my last show at The Rebel Lounge in 2023. So it was kind of a full circle thing,” Kellum says. “Lately, I’ve been looking back at how I played music for almost 25 years here and started realizing how everybody talks about different eras of Phoenix music. And they say how it’s usually shaped by your life experience. So I started pulling together some bands for this playlist and talking to people.”

Kellum says the playlist evolved into “a passion project to find Arizona bands that did something significant.” Using tools like ChatGPT and the data analysis service Chartmetric, he began compiling a rundown of artists who were successful, had decent followings or made significant impacts on Arizona music.

“So it was just kind of this cool project of going through and looking at it from all these different angles, like streams, social media presence or what people are actually saying on Reddit,” he says,

Kellum also began seeing a larger picture of how local music has evolved.

“I think the beauty of it was seeing how something you’re listening to in a sequential order affected other artists,” Kellum says. “It’s like you can really hear how some of those scenes start to flow into one another, like seeing how Gin Blossoms influenced things to where a band like Jimmy Eat World could come about.”

‘It’s a work-in-progress’

Kellum admits that the list is a “living, breathing thing” that will grow over time as he adds more songs by different Arizona artists. He’s been doing so since first posting the playlist on Reddit and other social media platforms.

“It’s a work-in-progress,” he says. “I don’t think it’s complete by any means, and I think there can be a lot of refinement.”

Kellum doesn’t want to include every Arizona band on the playlist, adopting a less-is-more philosophy. As such, artists are limited to one song each.

“It’s kind of this balance. You could easily put a thousand bands on there, but the story gets lost. It just becomes a playlist that no one’s going to really listen to. And then there’s no purpose for it, to me.”

In addition to updating the playlist, Kellum hopes to eventually launch a website focused on Arizona music history.

“I want to make it something that tells you the story of why that playlist is there,” he says. “Anybody can go create a playlist. But I think the cool thing is telling the story behind the evolution of (Arizona’s) sound and how people discovered all these bands.”