Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.
Drake featuring Lil Durk, ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’
The Top 4 moments in the new Drake video/Nike commercial that are likely to be in wide use as GIFs this weekend:
When Drake tries a hand-in-the-face guarding of Kevin Durant on the basketball court. (For frantic imminent failures.)
When Drake, in a pink jacket, slowly lifts his head to reveal cheeks damp with tears. (For moments of gut-wrenching disappointment — personal, professional or political.)
When Drake emerges from a body of water, turns his head to the camera and mouths “baby.” (For when you arrive uninvited.)
When Marshawn Lynch drops Drake with an open-field tackle. (For when you get too cocky.)
JON CARAMANICA
Miley Cyrus, ‘Midnight Sky’
Too often lost in the sensationalized chatter about her many controversies and image reboots is the fact that Miley Cyrus has a great rock-star voice. (See: The many highlights of her Backyard Sessions series; the chorus of “Wrecking Ball.”) And despite its sleek, ’80s-pop surface, her new single “Midnight Sky” gives her an excuse to let it rip and go full “Edge of Seventeen.” Gossip-watchers will certainly hear in its lyrics possible allusions to recent breakups and trysts (“See my lips on her mouth, everybody’s talking’ now” — they certainly did!), but Cyrus’s punchy, muscular alto is the true center of this song’s power. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Loyal Lobos, ‘Spring ’17’
Infatuation and desire bloom in “Spring ’17” from “Everlasting,” the new album by Loyal Lobos, a.k.a. the songwriter Andrea Silva, who was born in Colombia and grew up in Los Angeles. The relationship in the song is still tentative: “You and I, maybe for a while/Until we get bored or we die,” Silva sings in a dreamy coo. But the lush, layered production — guitars echoing, simulated orchestral strings and horns, a saxophone hook rising out of the mist — pulses and surges with hope. JON PARELES
Ciara featuring Ester Dean, ‘Rooted’
“I know that life it ain’t easy/Your life it matters, believe me,” Ciara sings in “Rooted,” a chant and anthem of Black pride with a booming beat, a floor-rattling bass line and Ester Dean’s Jamaican-accented exhortations. The video flaunts Ciara’s very pregnant belly and the TikTok-ready dancers listed in the end credits. PARELES
Rico Nasty, ‘iPhone’
Produced by Dylan Brady, “iPhone” cleanly demonstrates that a slightly more controlled version of 100 gecs-esque chaos can be applied beyond the boundaries of the group. That said, Rico Nasty, one of the most promisingly eccentric rappers of the last couple of years, needs little nudging toward the wildly synthetic, rip-roaringly charming style of pop that 100 gecs have been chirping their way through. She’s a vocal chameleon, unburdened by tradition. CARAMANICA
Sufjan Stevens, ‘Video Game’
The latest offering from Sufjan Stevens’ forthcoming album “The Ascension” is, like its sprawling predecessor “America,” driven by prismatic, vaguely ominous synths. But “Video Game” comes in a more condensed format: upbeat tempo, a melodic hook, and lyrics that bob between the sacred and profane: “I don’t wanna be your personal Jesus, I don’t wanna live inside of that flame.” Like any good Stevens song, it’s misted throughout with melancholy, but somewhat surprisingly, “Video Game” sounds less like something Elio would cry to and more like something Oliver would dance to. Is it a video … game? ZOLADZ
Bruce Hornsby featuring Leon Russell, ‘Anything Can Happen’
“I know you been downhearted within a bad dream,” Bruce Hornsby confides in the guardedly optimistic “Anything Can Happen,” from his new album, “Non-Secure Connection.” A mechanical drumbeat backs him; so do a sitar, a small string ensemble and a springy bass line, along with contributions from the down-home piano virtuoso Leon Russell. “I can’t come up with the ending,” Hornsby sings, but he insists on optimism: “Just keep believing.” PARELES
Jónsi with Elizabeth Fraser, ‘Cannibal’
It’s no great shock that the voices of Sigur Rós’s Jónsi and Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser go together like peanut butter and jelly — or whatever the equivalent of those ingredients is in the faraway, yet-undiscovered galaxy in which they both reside. While “Cannibal,” from Jónsi’s forthcoming solo album “Shiver,” is as ethereal as you’d expect a collaboration between these two singers to be, it’s also grounded by the eventual intrusion of a skittering beat and a straightforward, instantly discernible refrain: “You know it’s only out of love.” ZOLADZ
Slow Pulp, ‘Falling Apart’
“Why don’t you go back to falling apart? You were so good at that,” Emily Massey of the Chicago-based band Slow Pulp sings. (The group will release its debut album, “Moveys,” on Oct. 9.) The atmosphere around her — lush acoustic guitar, lightly brushed percussion and the lulling violin of frequent Alex G collaborator Molly Gemer — provides a soft place to land. ZOLADZ
Lucrecia Dalt, ‘Seca’
“Seca,” a brief incantation from the Colombian experimental artist Lucrecia Dalt’s upcoming album “No Era Sólida,” has an unsettling beauty about it. There’s a whiff of Laurie Anderson in Dalt’s interplay between the fog of human breath and the cold steel of machinery, but the video — a collaboration with the Spanish choreographer Candela Capitán and the director Pedro Maia — mirrors the song’s utterly unique atmosphere, somewhere between waking life and an eerie dream. ZOLADZ
Source: Music - nytimes.com
