My Morning Jacket emerged in 1998 from the mind of bandleader Jim James in Louisville, KY. Blending alt-rock with jam-band aesthetics, plus a love of dub, dance grooves, and psychedelic music, the band merged the worlds of hippie culture and indie rock, an aesthetic that would go on to dominate into the 2010s. The group first became legendary in Midwest hubs thanks to its epic live shows. These performances embraced the lure of jam-band giants like Grateful Dead by stretching its songs in surprising ways. The outfit began capturing the magic of its stage shows on projects like 2003’s It Still Moves and 2005’s Z. On the former, the band blends pastoral folk ballads with raucous, one-of-a-kind solo escapades and delirious melodic experiments. It’s a shapeshifting style the band would perfect on later releases like 2021’s self-titled effort, a full-circle moment over two decades into the group’s existence.