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John Waters, the mastermind filmmaker behind classics like Hairspray and Pink Flamingos, is known for his remarkable balance between the snooty and the trashy. He is dichotomous in his creative works, keeping a well-groomed thin mustache while filming his star, Divine, eating literal dog poop off the street. Walking a tightrope between well-kempt and tawdry, Waters has risen to fame and notoriety for his stories and unique sense of charm. Of late, the artist received a Grammy nomination for the spoken word album adapted from his book, Mr. Know-It-All, and recorded a vinyl single, “Make Trouble,” with Jack White’s label, Third Man Records. In December, Waters will tour his annual Yuletide show, “A John Waters Christmas,” which is always profane and never not entertaining. We caught up with the infamous raconteur to ask his thoughts on a myriad display of semi-random topics, from Donald Trump to Disney+.

This is “Add to Queue,” our attempt to sort through the cacophony of music floating in the algorithmic atmosphere by consulting the experts themselves. Our favorite musicians tell us about their favorite music—the sad, the happy, the dinner party-y, the songs they want played at their funeral. In this edition, we speak with Brittany Howard, the powerfully piped singer who rose to fame with her Grammy-winning band, Alabama Shakes. After releasing her debut solo album, Jaime, recorded during an extended hiatus from the Shakes, she spoke with Interview about growing up with Elvis, getting married to Dylan, and (one day) collaborating with Björk.

The author David Sedaris is known, perhaps above all else, for two things: his thoughtful sense of humor and his eye for surprising details. A bestselling author for books of personal essays like Me Talk Pretty One Day and Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, Sedaris was famously discovered by radio host Ira Glass, who saw the author reading from his diary one evening and later invited him to read his essay, “Santaland Diaries,” on the air. The piece helped rocket Sedaris to fame.