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      Charli XCX and Lorde End the Rumors on a Refreshing Remix

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      Lorde adds guest vocals to Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing,” a song that muses on the complexities of female friendship, and helps create something revelatory.To a lot of people these days, “ambivalent pop music” is an oxymoron. Catchy hooks tend to streamline complex emotions into universal, legible sentiments, temporarily dividing the world into teams: the heartbreakers vs. the victims, the happy vs. the sad, the boys vs. the girls. Infectious as they are, many of the songs on Charli XCX’s incisive sixth album, “Brat,” refuse to take sides, making them difficult to discuss in the explainer-generating, SEO-baiting grammar of modern pop standom. How refreshing.Charli never mentioned Lorde by name on the album’s knotty ninth track, “Girl, So Confusing,” but all signs pointed to her being the somewhat socially awkward, poetry-loving doppelgänger to whom the song is addressed. (“People say we’re alike, they say we’ve got the same hair,” Charli sings, winking at those of us who remember when an interviewer asked her about writing Lorde’s “Royals.”)It was less clear how we were supposed to understand this song in the limited and polarized language of 2020s musical fandom, which pits female pop stars against one another like pro athletes while still insisting that they “support women” at all times with a benevolent grin. “Sometimes I think you might hate me, sometimes I think I might hate you,” Charli babbles atop a strobe-lit A.G. Cook beat, one of the many “wait, are you even allowed to say that anymore?” moments on “Brat.” The song strains the vocabulary of clickbait. Is this a “diss track” or the start of a “feud”? Are the girlies fighting? And if they are, what could Lorde possibly be doing in the V.I.P. section of Charli’s recent show?It’s complicated, and — blessedly — so is the surprise remix on which Lorde appears, firing off her first new lyrics in three years. After Charli unloads her feelings and projections in that first verse, Lorde responds with the run-on intensity of a late-night voice note: “You’d always say, ‘let’s go out,’ but then I’d cancel last minute,” the New Zealander confesses, “I was so lost in my head and scared to be in your pictures.” She then reveals, devastatingly, that she’s been “at war with my body,” insecure about fluctuations in her weight, and that the enigmatic aura she’s created is actually a stifling defense mechanism. That she does it all so succinctly in a cadence that effortlessly matches Cook’s beat should make everyone excited for her next album, whenever it arrives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift’s Duet, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Mavis Staples, Jamie xx featuring Robyn, Rakim and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Gracie Abrams featuring Taylor Swift, ‘Us.’The title of the singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams’s second album, “The Secret of Us,” comes from this feverish duet with her friend and onetime tour mate Taylor Swift. “If history’s clear, someone always ends up in ruins,” Abrams, 24, sings breathily through a thicket of fingerpicked notes, the signature sound of her and Swift’s mutual collaborator Aaron Dessner, who co-produced the track with Jack Antonoff. (Dessner’s band the National gets a shout out toward the end of the song, when Abrams sings of being “mistaken for strangers.”) Midway through, the wise elder Swift swoops in to put Abrams’s youthful heartbreak in perspective. “If history’s clear, the flames always end up in ashes,” she sings. “And what seemed like fate, give it 10 months and you’ll be past it.” LINDSAY ZOLADZJamie xx featuring Robyn, ‘Life’The latest single from Jamie xx’s long-awaited second album “In Waves” pairs playful and effortlessly cool vocals from Robyn with a thumping, skittish beat intercut with lively horn samples. Her personality shines brightest on the bridge, when she throws out some vampy non-sequiturs and dissolves into giggles at one of them: “You’re giving me strong torso.” Whatever you say, Robyn! ZOLADZMavis Staples, ‘Worthy’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      10 Standout R.E.M. Deep Cuts

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      Hear a pick from each of the band’s first 10 albums.R.E.M., from left: Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck.Paul Natkin/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Last week R.E.M. was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an event that sparked a lot of FOMO from me, your guest newsletter writer (the band briefly reunited in New York; I was out of town) and text conversations with my fellow R.E.M. devotees. (Does this fandom have a name? The Sleepyheads?)My friend Kris Chen sent over this query from a fan account: “Imagine that R.E.M. were going to reunite but only to play in your kitchen and only one song. Which song?” He selected “Fall on Me” from “Lifes Rich Pageant,” the band’s 1986 album, which is my favorite despite its lack of an apostrophe. I gave it some real thought and came back with “These Days.” I was amused when I realized those two songs are neighbors on the LP. And then I was struck by my own consistency: I quoted from it in my high school yearbook in 1995.So: R.E.M. One of the greatest bands of all time (this is not debatable). But I am willing to argue over the group’s best deep cuts. It has 15 studio albums, so let’s set some rules: I am going to limit myself only to records recorded with the band’s original lineup (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe), before Berry’s departure from the group after a brain aneurysm. That’s 10 LPs, “Murmur” from 1983 up through “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” in 1996. And I didn’t let myself look at the band’s own picks for its members’ 40 favorites until I finished!The only thing to fear is fearlessness,CarynListen along while you read.1. “Pilgrimage”Chiming guitars, cheery Beach Boys-y backing vocals, lyrics I could never quite decipher: This is the R.E.M. I would have first fallen for, had I heard its 1983 debut, “Murmur,” when it arrived.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      James Chance, No Wave and Punk-Funk Pioneer, Dies at 71

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      With the Contortions and James White and the Blacks, the songwriter and saxophonist set out to challenge musicians and stir up audiences.James Chance, the singer, saxophonist and composer who melded punk, funk and free jazz into bristling dance music as the leader of the Contortions, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 71.His brother, David Siegfried, said Mr. Chance had been in declining health for years and succumbed to complications of gastrointestinal disease at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in East Harlem.During the late 1970s explosion of punk culture in New York City, the Contortions were at the forefront of a style called no wave — music that set out to be as confrontational and radical in sound and performance as punk’s fashion and attitude were visually.Contortions songs like “I Can’t Stand Myself” and “Throw Me Away” filled the rhythmic structures of James Brown’s funk with angular, dissonant riffs, to be topped by Mr. Chance’s yelping, blurting, screaming vocals and his trilling, squawking alto saxophone. He was a live wire onstage, with his own twitchy versions of moves adapted from Brown, Mick Jagger and his punk contemporaries.Although the Contortions often performed in suits and ties, their music and stage presence were proudly abrasive. In the band’s early days, Mr. Chance was so determined to get a reaction from arty, detached spectators that he would jump into the audience and slap or kiss someone. Audience members often fought back.“I got a big kick out of provoking people, I don’t deny that,” Mr. Chance said in a 2003 interview with Pitchfork.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Travis Scott Arrested in Miami Beach for Intoxication and Trespassing

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      The rapper, who was charged with trespassing and disorderly intoxication, later admitted he had been drinking alcohol and stated, “It’s Miami.”The star rapper Travis Scott was arrested early Thursday in Miami Beach, Fla., after causing a disturbance on a yacht docked at a marina, according to a police report. He was later released on bond after paying a total of $650 on both charges, local news reported.Mr. Scott, 33, whose real name is Jacques Bermon Webster II, was arrested at 1:44 a.m. on charges of trespassing and disorderly intoxication after the police were called to the marina and told that “people were fighting on the vessel,” according to the report.Once there, officers found Mr. Scott yelling at passengers on the ship. The officers “could sense a strong smell of alcohol coming from the defendant’s breath,” the report said; they led him down a dock and toward a boardwalk, with Mr. Scott walking backward and yelling obscenities along the way.Mr. Scott got into a vehicle that was waiting for him but soon began walking back to the yacht, the report said, in defiance of the officers’ warning to leave the premises. He was then taken into custody.According to the report, Mr. Scott later admitted he had been drinking alcohol “and stated, ‘It’s Miami.’”On Thursday, Mr. Scott posted on social media what appeared to be a doctored image of his mug shot, with sunglasses and earphones added. In a statement, Bradford Cohen, a lawyer for the rapper, said: “Mr. Scott was briefly detained due to a misunderstanding. There was absolutely no physical altercation involved, and we thank the authorities for working with us towards a swift and amicable resolution.”Mr. Scott is one of the most popular rappers in music today, with three No. 1 albums and a recent arena tour. His shows have a reputation for an extremely high-energy response from crowds, and in late 2021, 10 fans died as a result of a crowd crush at Mr. Scott’s Astroworld festival in Houston, his hometown.Last year, a grand jury declined to criminally indict Mr. Scott and others involved in putting on the festival. But he and others, including Live Nation, the festival’s promoter, and Apple, which livestreamed the show, have faced civil suits over those deaths. Of those 10 civil suits, all but one have been settled.Kitty Bennett More

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      The 40 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)

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      Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat. (Note: It’s not a ranking, it’s a playlist.) Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Espresso’Atop a mid-tempo beat that recalls the muffled retro-funk of Doja Cat’s smash “Say So,” Sabrina Carpenter plays the unbothered temptress with winking humor: “Say you can’t sleep, baby I know, that’s that me, espresso.” Make it a double — you’ve surely heard this one everywhere. LINDSAY ZOLADZTyla, ‘Safer’Following her worldwide 2023 hit “Water,” Tyla pulls away from temptation in “Safer,” harnessing the log-drum beat and sparse, subterranean bass lines of amapiano. Her choral call-and-response vocals carry South African tradition into the electronic wilderness of 21st-century romance. JON PARELESOne We MissedAriana Grande, ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)’At once strobe-lit and silky, Ariana Grande appropriately channels Robyn — the patron saint of crying in the club — on this nimbly sung, melancholic pop hit, a highlight from her bittersweet seventh album, “Eternal Sunshine.” ZOLADZOne We MissedBillie Eilish, ‘The Greatest’Billie Eilish extols her own composure and skill at dissembling — holding back her unrequited love — in “The Greatest” from “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” Delicate picking accompanies her as she sings about how she “made it all look painless.” Then she shatters that composure, opening her voice from breathy to belting while the production goes widescreen with drums and choir. When the music quiets again, her furious restraint is as palpable as her regret. PARELESMdou MoctarKadar Small for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kendrick Lamar’s Drake Victory Lap Unites Los Angeles

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      Kendrick Lamar’s sold-out homecoming at the Kia Forum, an arena just outside Los Angeles, promised pyrotechnics with its name alone: “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends.”The “Pop Out” ensured drama — it’s from a line in Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” his recent No. 1 song, and a scathing salvo in his war of words with Drake.The “& Friends” guaranteed surprise appearances from high-profile names: ultimately Dr. Dre, YG, Tyler, the Creator, Roddy Rich, Schoolboy Q and Steve Lacy, among many others. The whole thing would go down on Juneteenth, the annual celebration of Black emancipation in America, after a battle in which Lamar questioned Drake’s status within the Black community.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Linda Thompson Can’t Sing Her New Songs. Her Solution? ‘Proxy Music.’

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      The singer and songwriter who rose from the ’60s British folk-rock scene lost her vocals to a neurological disorder. So she wrote a batch of tracks for others to voice.For years, the singer Linda Thompson faced a problem that, for someone in her line of work, seemed insurmountable.Slowly over time, and then suddenly all at once, she lost the ability to hold a note surely enough to sustain even the simplest tune. “I first noticed something wrong back in 1972 when I got pregnant for the first time,” she recalled recently. “My voice became precarious — in and out.”Consultations with doctors eventually brought a brutal diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder in which the muscles in the larynx tighten or lapse into spasms, strangulating speech while making singing a significant challenge. (It’s an entirely different diagnosis from stiff person syndrome, which Celine Dion announced she has in 2022.) “It’s a progressive disease,” Thompson said of her condition. “So, for the first 20 years or so I could live with it. Up until my 60s, I could still sing in the studio, at least on good days.”Now, at 76, that ability has withered entirely for Thompson, one of the most vaunted artists to rise from the British folk-rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s that brought the world Sandy Denny, John Martyn and Nick Drake. Between 1974 and ’82, she released six albums in tandem with her ex-husband, the master guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, culminating in “Shoot Out the Lights,” a work consecrated by critics, in part because of its forensic dissection of the couple’s own crumbling marriage. Thompson’s advancing dysphonia made her subsequent solo career fraught and sporadic, though she did manage to release four LPs before falling silent 11 years ago.Even so, losing her voice didn’t mean forsaking her songwriting, a talent that led to a resourceful strategy for a comeback. Because almost everyone in Thompson’s extended circle of family and friends is a gifted vocalist, she thought, why not engage them to perform the songs and make an album from that? “It wasn’t exactly a brilliant idea,” Thompson said. “It was the only idea.”What clinched it for her was the pun-y name she devised for the result: “Proxy Music.”Richard and Linda Thompson onstage in 1975. The two married three years earlier.Brian Cooke/Redferns, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More