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      Madonna Kicks Off Celebration Tour in London

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      After a health-related delay, the pop superstar launched her Celebration Tour in London with a performance devoted to her full catalog of hits.They wore pearls with crucifixes, lace gloves, tulle skirts and body-sculpting corsets. Some even crimped their hair and drew on fake beauty moles, while others wore simple white T-shirts with only the letter M on the back. Spanning generations, the concertgoers arriving at the O2 Arena in London used Saturday night as an opportunity to dress in their favorite Madonna era, even if that was decades before they were born.Madonna, 65, is on the road for the first time since 2020 with her global Celebration Tour, a stage spectacle touching on more than 40 of her hits across four decades. The show opened at the O2, a 20,000-capacity arena, three months after its planned first date, following a health scare for the pop icon. In June, Madonna was hospitalized shortly before the tour’s scheduled debut in Canada. At the time, her manager said she had a “serious bacterial infection” that resulted in the singer staying in an intensive care unit for several days.Madonna swore that the tour — her first devoted to her full catalog of hits, rather than to a specific album release — would go on. In recent weeks, she has filled her Instagram account with tantalizing, and very on-brand, images from rehearsals, showing her dressed in a lacy black bustier, practicing onstage steps and resting her fishnet-clad knees.Fans waited out a 30-minute delay before Madonna arrived onstage in London, opening with a medley of hits before acknowledging the challenges that had led to the moment. “How did I make it this far? Because of you,” she said, adding, “But I will take a bit of credit, too.”Fans of the pop star Madonna taking pictures in front of her posters outside the O2 Arena in London.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesIt was clear from the beginning that this concert would be as much a journey through Madonna’s career as it would a bona fide dance party. Set on an elaborate stage that jutted out into the audience, several hanging retractable screens showed images of the singer. At other times, they displayed powerful portraits, as when she launched into “Live to Tell” and the screens displayed images of Freddie Mercury, Arthur Ashe and more people who died from AIDS.For more than two hours, with the help of her dancers and some of her six children, Madonna blazed through her catalog of songs, singing several hits like “Holiday,” “Like a Prayer,” “Hung Up,” “Ray of Light” and “Bad Girl.” Her costumes were sexy, religious and futuristic.Though the show had been in the works for months, it was not without technical difficulties. Early on, Madonna paused the show so the sound could be reset. She entertained the audience during the delay by speaking at length about her rise to stardom while technicians worked behind the scenes. Later in the show, between songs, Madonna expressed concern for those affected by violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip. “It breaks my heart to see children suffering, teenagers suffering, elderly people suffering, all of it is heartbreaking,” she said. “Even though our hearts are broken, our spirits cannot be broken.”When the tour was announced in January, it immediately became one of the year’s big-ticket events. But it appears to be far from sold out.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesMadonna also reflected on her health struggles this year. “I forgot five days of my life, or my death,” she said. “I don’t really know where I was, but the angels were protecting me.“If you want to know my secret, and you want to know how I pull through and how I survive, I thought, ‘I’ve got to be there for my children. I have to survive for them,’” she said. She then led the crowd in a singalong of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”The 24 performers onstage notably did not include a live band: Stuart Price, the tour’s musical director, told the BBC that “the original recordings are our stars.” The stage, which encompasses 4,400 square feet, was designed to echo Manhattan neighborhoods, as well as the wedding cake from Madonna’s 1984 MTV Video Music Awards performance of “Like a Virgin.” During the show, she is swept across the venue in a square-framed box 30 feet off the ground.Carla Nobre, 38, of Nottingham said that seeing Madonna in concert had been on her bucket list, but that she had been disappointed with the performance.“There was too much talking,” she said.Jenni Purple, 54, from the southern coast of England said the concert, which was her first time seeing Madonna live, had been “absolutely incredible.” “I loved all the medleys, I loved the costumes, I loved all the dances,” she said with a broad smile. “Everything was just mind-blowing.”In the past, Madonna’s tours have been news-making events tied as much to her latest music as to her cycle of stylistic reinventions. But Celebration is essentially the pop superstar’s Eras Tour, as Taylor Swift has styled her latest outing: a staged romp through decades of hit songs and signature looks, giving fans a chance to relive her career as a stages-of-life experience. (Seventeen of Madonna’s previous costumes were recreated for the tour, and some of the merchandise for sale includes replicas from past treks.)With her Virgin Tour in 1985, Madonna introduced herself as a punk-glam dance star whose every crucifix pendant or flap of denim was zealously adopted by fans. Who’s That Girl (1987) and Blond Ambition (1990) grew increasingly elaborate as Madonna pushed the fashion envelope with looks like Jean Paul Gaultier’s memorable cone bra and set the bar for bold, imaginative pop megatours. The Girlie Show (1993), in which Madonna appeared as a dominatrix, was the accompaniment to a period of daringly explicit material like her “Sex” book and “Justify My Love” video, which was banned from MTV.After an eight-year absence from the road, Drowned World (2001) reintroduced Madonna as a new mother, an electro-pop heroine and an acolyte of kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism. In more recent years, her Confessions Tour (2006) cast her in late-70s disco style, and Rebel Heart (2015-16) found her playing guitar, in addition to executing the complex choreography for which she is known. Her most recent tour, Madame X, which was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, saw Madonna looking to reinvent her stage performance once again in a more intimate, almost cabaret form, mostly eschewing arenas for spaces like the Brooklyn Academy of Music.For Madonna, the 78-date Celebration Tour is a chance to assert her star power in a year when live music has been dominated by Swift and Beyoncé — women who, like Madonna before them, have used talent and deep media savvy to remake pop stardom in their own image. In July, Beyoncé acknowledged the debt, when Madonna, making one of her first public appearances after her hospitalization, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in New Jersey. “Big shout-out to the queen,” Beyoncé called out during a performance of the “Queens Remix” of her song “Break My Soul,” which blends in Madonna’s 1990 smash “Vogue” — another hit that mined, and honored, gay dance culture of that period.Madonna returned the acknowledgment on Saturday, playing a bit of the same remix during an interstitial moment.(From left to right) Iien McNeil, Susie Petersen, Maria Belova and Suzy Burroughs posing in front of the venue before the show.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesWhen Madonna’s latest tour was announced in January, it immediately became one of the year’s big-ticket events — and yielded a micro-flood of hot takes about the singer’s age. But the tour appears to be far from sold out; Ticketmaster still shows many seats available at some major venues like Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where Madonna will start the North American leg of the tour with three shows in December.Back in 2009, Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour set box-office records when it sold more than $400 million in tickets. Since then, the economics of live music have exploded; Beyoncé has already well exceeded that amount with her Renaissance shows, and Swift may well sell close to $2 billion in tickets by the time her Eras Tour is completed.Legacy has clearly been on Madonna’s mind lately. Last month, the 1989 Pepsi commercial that introduced her song “Like a Prayer” — before it was pulled amid outrage over its music video, which featured an interracial kiss and the singer dancing in front of burning crosses — was finally aired again during the MTV Video Music Awards.Maia and Aisha Letamendia Moore, 17-year-old twin sisters, wore looks that drew from the Like a Virgin and Vogue eras.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesMadonna, who had been paid $5 million for the promotion — and kept the money — said on social media: “So began my illustrious career as an artist refusing to compromise my artistic integrity.” She added, “Thank you @pepsi for finally realizing the genius of our collaboration. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”It was clearly on fans’ minds as well. Aisha and Maia Letamendia Moore, 17-year-old twins from southern England, near Brighton, wore looks that drew on the Vogue and Like a Virgin eras. “I think she’s such an influence,” Maia said. “She did so many things that were so controversial. She wasn’t scared to do it, she wasn’t scared what people would say.”Others mentioned rumors that Celebration could be Madonna’s last tour. Helen Dawson, 47, who said she first saw Madonna during the Who’s That Girl Tour in 1987, would abide no such thought. “Never, she won’t give up,” Ms. Dawson said. “This is just a new celebration, a new era.” More

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      Drake Streams His Way to No. 1 Again With ‘For All the Dogs’

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      The rapper’s latest album is his 13th LP to top the Billboard 200 chart. But he’s no longer music’s only streaming giant.Way back in 2016, Drake’s album “Views” shot to No. 1 on the Billboard chart with 245 million streams: a gigantic number for the time, more than double the previous record, which marked Drake as the champion of a new(ish) digital format that would transform the music industry.The rapper held that position as further boffo openings followed: “More Life” (385 million streams in 2017), “Scorpion” (746 million, 2018), “Certified Lover Boy” (744 million, 2021), the 21 Savage collaboration “Her Loss” (514 million, 2022). Now Drake has done it again with “For All the Dogs,” which opens with the equivalent of 402,000 sales in the United States, including 514 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. It is his 13th LP to hit No. 1.Drake remains one of the kings of streaming, a symbol of the format’s success. As Billboard notes, of the five biggest streaming weeks in history, four are held by Drake, for “Scorpion” (No. 1), “Certified Lover Boy” (No. 2), “For All the Dogs” (No. 4) and “Her Loss” (No. 5). In third place is Taylor Swift’s “Midnights,” which opened with 549 million a year ago.But as other artists have caught up, Drake’s lead may be slipping. The 514 million streams of “For All the Dogs” is the biggest weekly number this year, but only barely; Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” started with 498 million in March, and it has since logged well over five billion clicks in the United States alone. On Friday, Bad Bunny, who catapulted to chart-topping global fame via streaming, released a surprise album, “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (“Nobody Knows What’s Going to Happen Tomorrow”), and it has already posted huge numbers, challenging Drake for the lead position on next week’s chart.Also this week, Wallen’s “One Thing” is No. 2 after notching its 16th week at the top. Rod Wave’s “Nostalgia” is No. 3, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts” is No. 4 and Zach Bryan’s self-titled LP is in fifth place. More

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      In an Opera About Civil War Spies, Dancers Help Drive the Drama

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      Houston Grand Opera, known for innovation, unveils Jake Heggie’s “Intelligence,” directed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and featuring Urban Bush Women.In a theater at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan one recent afternoon, a rehearsal for the coming opera “Intelligence,” about Civil War-era spies, was about to begin.But as the stage lights came on and the music blared, there were no singers in sight. Instead, six dancers from Urban Bush Women, a dance troupe in Brooklyn, were front and center, locking arms, jumping into the air and improvising movements inspired by African traditions.“I want to see if we can find that physical charge,” Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the founder of Urban Bush Women, who is directing and choreographing the opera, told the dancers. “Let it breathe. Let it flow.”“Intelligence,” which opens the season at Houston Grand Opera on Friday, tells the story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a member of an elite Confederate family, who operates a pro-Union spy ring with the help of Mary Jane Bowser, an enslaved woman in her household. The opera, with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Gene Scheer, offers a meditation on the legacy of slavery and the overlooked role of women in the war.“Intelligence,” more than eight years in the making, stands out for another reason. While dance is an afterthought or an embellishment in many operas, it drives this drama, with eight performers from Urban Bush Women sharing the stage with seven singers, including the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Van Lew and the soprano Janai Brugger as Bowser. The dancers serve as a Greek chorus, falling like soldiers on a battlefield or passing secrets along a chain.“It’s a big story, and dancers are an integral part of the storytelling force,” Zollar said. “They’re not just coming in for their number or routine.”The dance-centered approach may be unusual, but it is a natural fit at Houston Grand Opera. For decades the company has been known for innovation, helping birth important 20th-century works like Leonard Bernstein’s “A Quiet Place” (1983) and John Adams’s “Nixon in China” (1987).Jawole Willa Jo Zollar is directing and choreographing “Intelligence” for Houston Grand Opera. “It’s a big story, and dancers are an integral part of the storytelling force,” she said.Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesUnder David Gockley, Houston Grand Opera’s general director from 1972 to 2005, the company embarked on an ambitious effort to commission dozens of new works and garnered an international reputation for risk-taking. “Intelligence” is the company’s 75th premiere — and the fourth opera by Heggie to debut in Houston.Khori Dastoor, Houston’s general director and chief executive since 2021, said the company aimed to build on its legacy.“We can be an important opera company, but also maintain our nimbleness and spirit of innovation,” she said. “We aren’t having debates about whether change is good. We’re always thinking about what’s next.”Houston Grand Opera’s agility served it well during the pandemic. While many cultural organizations are still struggling to win back audiences, Houston is in a relatively strong position, with a budget this fiscal year of about $33 million, compared with about $24 million before the pandemic. Ticket sales were up about 8 percent last season, compared with the 2018-19 season, even as subscriptions fell. Donations have been robust; earlier this year, the company secured a $22 million gift, the largest in its history.And audiences remain enthusiastic. The company has been working to draw more Black, Latino and Asian residents by venturing outside the opera house more often. Last season, it partnered with 140 community groups and presented operas at 32 locations across Houston. On a night in late October, “Intelligence” will be performed before an audience of nearly 2,000 primarily low-income high school students.“Most of our audience at Houston Grand Opera does not experience us in the opera house; they experience us in their neighborhood or at a school,” said Patrick Summers, the company’s artistic and music director. “We let people in our own community tell us their stories.”The artistic focus is also shifting, even as classics like Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” remain staples of the repertoire.Last season the company premiered “Another City,” a chamber opera about homelessness in Houston that is based on interviews with residents, inside a nondenominational Christian church and service organization. And in 2021, the company staged the premiere of “The Snowy Day,” an opera based on the 1962 children’s book known as one of the first to prominently feature a Black protagonist.“Every opera company is really a reflection and expression of their city,” said Dastoor, the first woman to serve as general director. “I want our operas to look and feel and sound like Houston.”“Intelligence,” which was originally scheduled to premiere in 2021 but was delayed by the pandemic, highlights neglected voices, with themes that connect to modern-day social issues.Zollar rehearsing with Vincent Thomas, left, Johnson and Medina.Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesHeggie got the idea from a docent who approached him during an event at the Smithsonian in Washington and suggested that he look into Van Lew and Bowser for his next opera.“I started Googling their names, and my jaw was just on the floor,” he said. “I had been looking for what the next story would be, and I knew it was right because I felt this fire and this shiver.”Heggie turned to Scheer, a frequent collaborator, for the libretto, and he approached Houston Grand Opera about commissioning the work, encouraged by its history of championing new music.“You can’t guarantee success with a new piece,” he said. “But Houston is willing to give it a chance.”Heggie said he was given a choice early on, based on budget considerations, to feature a dance company or a chorus. He had already written operas with prominent choruses and said he thought that the seven singers of “Intelligence” could together sound like a chorus.He thought dance would be a better fit, he said, a way to fill in some of the “question marks in the storytelling” arising from the limited records of Van Lew and Bowser’s intelligence-gathering operation.“Dancers can explore the emotional world of this — really where there aren’t words but there can be movement that might give us clues,” he said. He wrote a percussive score to match.Heggie reached out to Zollar, the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021, who founded Urban Bush Women in 1984 as a way to elevate the stories of women in the African diaspora. She was hesitant at first — she had never directed an opera — but started to see connections between opera and dance. It helped that she was a fan of Heggie’s first opera, “Dead Man Walking,” which premiered at San Francisco Opera in 2000 and opened the Metropolitan Opera season this fall.Heggie and Scheer visited Zollar in Tallahassee, Fla., where she teaches at Florida State University.“They were really interested in the points of view that I would bring to the story, not just as a name attached,” she said. “And the dance. They definitely wanted the dance.”The creative team for “Intelligence” includes the conductor Kwamé Ryan, the set designer Mimi Lien and the costume designer Carlos Soto.In preparation for the opera, Zollar and other members of the team visited the South for research. They toured the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., visited the former site of the Van Lew mansion and walked the Richmond Slave Trail.Zollar said those visits offered a “spiritual grounding” for the opera and a reminder that the country was still grappling with the legacy of slavery. “It’s still vibrating,” she said. “It’s still with us in the air.”In choreographing the opera, she drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including the African writing system called Nsibidi, as well as the Kongo cosmogram, a symbol from the BaKongo belief system in West Central Africa.Zollar said she wanted her dancers to be a spiritual force in the opera: “They are what’s whispering in your ear, what’s around us that we cannot see.” From left, Cook, Gaskins, Medina, Johnson, Ware and Earle.Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesZollar said she wanted the dancers of Urban Bush Women to be a spiritual force in the opera; she calls them the “is, was and will,” referring to their ability to speak to the present, past and future. They play with notions of entanglement and secrecy, echoing the themes of the opera.“They are what’s whispering in your ear,” she said, “what’s around us that we cannot see.”At the Guggenheim rehearsal, she encouraged the dancers to draw on their own influences — club dancing, jazz, Cuban music. She worked with Mikaila Ware, a member of Urban Bush Women, to refine a sequence of jumps and falls.“It’s so beautiful,” Zollar said. “Can you give me a little bit more suspension? Can you give me a little bit more air?”A central challenge for Zollar was adjusting to the scale of opera. She has been fine-tuning the dancers’ movements so they resonate at the Brown Theater in Houston, which has more than 2,400 seats.Having the backing of a prominent opera company, she said, allowed her to spend the time necessary to immerse herself in the work. She added she was feeling a mix of “sheer terror and excitement” ahead of the premiere.“Usually, I operate on prayers, spit and gaffer’s tape,” she said. “Now we can fully realize our vision. Now we can create something new.” More

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      Shakira’s Former Nanny Spotlights Domestic Work in Music Video Cameo

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      Liliana Melgar made a cameo appearance in Shakira’s latest music video, putting a spotlight on domestic workers and their struggles.The story of Liliana Melgar, a Bolivian migrant who left for Spain 15 years ago, mirrors the trajectory of millions of domestic workers like her who clean, wash, cook and take care of children in households around the world.Except that Ms. Melgar happens to work in the home of Shakira, the Colombian superstar.Shakira’s latest music video, “El Jefe” (“The Boss”), featuring the Mexican band Fuerza Regida, portrays the life of poor immigrants with big dreams, who are stuck working for bad employers who make lots of money that never trickles down. Toward the end of the three-minute clip, Ms. Melgar makes a cameo appearance as Shakira sings, “Lili Melgar, this song is for you because you were never paid severance.”The video has thrust Ms. Melgar — who was reportedly fired by Shakira’s former partner Gerard Pique, a Spanish soccer player, before being rehired by Shakira — into an unexpected spotlight and raised the profile of the roughly 76 million domestic workers around the world.The New York Times tried to reach Shakira, who now lives in South Florida, and Ms. Melgar, but received no response. An agent who represents Mr. Pique did not respond to a request for a comment.Liliana Melgar, who works as a nanny for Shakira, makes a brief appearance in the singer’s most recent music video.Domestic workers play a particularly crucial role in households across Latin America and the Caribbean, where about 1 in 5 employed women are domestic workers, according to the International Labor Organization, the second highest rate in the world after the Middle East.Ms. Melgar’s cameo in the video, which has been streamed more than 57 million times on YouTube, is a sort of vindication following the loss of her job — lifted up by a famous and wealthy female boss. But her case is an exception to how domestic worker have fared in recent years.Before the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, domestic workers in most Latin American and Caribbean countries had gained new rights that set caps on weekly work hours, established minimum wages, created incentives for employers to sign labor contracts and imposed age limits.But the pandemic, which cratered economies across the region, pummeled domestic workers, causing many of them to lose their jobs. The industry has not fully recovered.“To us, it feels like we’re still living through Covid-19,” said Ernestina Ochoa, 53, a domestic worker in Lima, Peru, who helped found the National Union for Domestic Workers, an advocacy group. “If you had your salary reduced, you never had it increased again.”Ernestina Ochoa, who helped found a group in Peru that advocates for domestic workers, at her home in Lima.Angela Ponce for The New York TimesMany of the rights that domestic workers had won before the pandemic were rooted in an early wave of legislation in Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay and Colombia that was spearheaded by workers who organized labor unions.“​​Fundamentally, paid domestic work is a job that exists in societies with high economic inequality,” said Merike Blofield, a political science professor at the University of Hamburg, in Germany, and an expert on domestic workers in Latin America.Access to domestic work is a given “if you’re born into a better-off class,” she added.While most governments in the region have ratified international agreements ensuring labor rights for domestic workers, advocates say the pandemic weakened accountability for employers who violated laws. In some cases, housekeepers were prevented from leaving homes they worked in over fears that they would catch Covid and spread it to their employers’ families.The rates of employees who work under a signed contract and are eligible for government benefits and protection — a process known as formalization — is uneven across the region.A 2020 study by the International Labor Organization found that while Uruguay had a 70 percent formalization rate among domestic workers, the rate in many Central American and Caribbean countries was less than 10 percent.Ms. Ochoa, who has worked as a nanny, an adult caretaker and a housekeeper, has been a domestic worker in Lima, the Peruvian capital, since she was 11. Ms. Ochoa’s mother, following a familiar path for many domestic workers, moved to Lima from a rural area to work as a wet nurse for a wealthy white family, as well as to clean other homes.“To us, it feels like we’re still living through Covid-19,” Ms. Ochoa said.Angela Ponce for The New York Times“Back then, we were young girls,” Ms. Ochoa said, “but we would do the work of adults.”In 2020, a law passed in Peru that requires domestic workers to be at least 18, but Ms. Ochoa said the government had shown little interest in enforcing the statute.“Right now, we still have girls working, we still have teens working,” she said. “The government doesn’t see what’s happening. There’s no alternative for parents to say, ‘OK, my daughters won’t have to work because the government will help them.’”The complicated relationship between Latin American families and the workers they depend on has become more openly discussed in recent years, in part because depictions in popular culture, including in music and films, have helped focus attention on a largely invisible work force.The Oscar-winning movie “Roma,” set in Mexico in the 1970s, featured an Indigenous nanny who took care of a white family in Mexico City and became enmeshed in their daily dramas. The movie, which was released in late 2018, spurred conversations about how Latin Americans consider domestic workers part of their families, even as they are underpaid, exploited or abused.And in 2011, a photograph was published in a Colombian magazine that featured a wealthy white family sitting on an opulent terrace while two Black maids held silver trays in the background, setting off an uproar and highlighting the racial divisions that exist among many domestic workers and their employers.Still, history was made last year in Colombia when the country elected its first Black vice president, Francia Márquez, who had worked as a housekeeper.Santiago Canevaro, an Argentine sociologist who has written about the relationships between domestic workers and their employers, said domestic work was so common in Latin America because there was less access to private or government-funded services, like child care centers or nursing homes, than in more developed regions.As more women have entered the work force, families have become more dependent on nannies and housekeepers, many of whom are not necessarily aware of their legal rights.“The employee is treated as a sort of object,” Dr. Canevaro said. “In fact, when marriages fall apart, one of the decisions they make is what to do with the domestic employee.”And because discrimination against marginalized groups is still prevalent in Latin America, many Indigenous and Black women turn to domestic work as the only viable way to support themselves and their families and are often abused, advocates said.“It’s a constant battle to advocate for yourself in your workplace,” Ms. Ochoa said, “and say things like: ‘No, ma’am. My ethnicity and my skin color are Black, but I have a name. My name is Ernestina.’” More

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      Readers Pick the Ultimate Fall Playlist

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      Listen to reader-submitted songs that capture the moodiness of fall.Charlie Brown and the gang set the tone.via Everett CollectionDear listeners,Last week, I asked you to submit a song that feels like fall. So many of you responded with such evocatively autumnal suggestions that it became quite a daunting task to whittle them down to a relatively compact and cohesive listening experience — but I somehow managed, and I have that playlist for you today.Autumn, according to many of you, seems like a time of coexisting opposites. It’s about the warmth sought during the season’s first chill. It’s about endings and beginnings, deaths and rebirths, longtime traditions enlivened by new circumstances. Autumn’s signature cocktail is a strange brew of anticipation and nostalgia, like the new-school-year stress dreams that visit so many of us even when we’ve long (long) since graduated.In a word — and one that aptly serves as the title of one of the songs on this playlist — it’s a season that signals change.Your song submissions ranged across genres, generations and moods. But there were also quite a few consensus picks: the Kinks’ “Autumn Almanac,” Tom Rush’s version of “Urge for Going,” and Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” were among the most popular suggestions, and they all make appearances here. (What is it about fall and mandolin solos?) There were plenty of surprising selections too, from the likes of Slowdive, Sade and Warren Zevon.Many thanks to anyone who submitted a song! It’s always such a joy to read your comments and to hear directly from the Amplifier community. As I said, it was difficult to choose from so many great selections, but I think this particular playlist captures something fundamental about the spirit of the season.So throw on some flannel, grab a steaming mug of something and press play.Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. Vince Guaraldi: “The Great Pumpkin Waltz”It doesn’t truly feel like autumn until my family watches Charlie Brown together. Now that I’m in high school it’s a bit harder to find a time where everyone is available, but we’ll make it work! — Caroline Didizian, Pennsylvania (Listen on YouTube)2. Rod Stewart: “Maggie May”Fall makes me think of change, melancholy, approaching the end. All encapsulated in Rod Stewart’s most famous song as his summer fling comes to an end and he has to “get on back to school.” The reflection in the song feels sad but not spiteful, final but fair. — Matt Zacek, Minnesota (Listen on YouTube)3. The Kinks: “Autumn Almanac”This one covers all the bases — brisk weather, falling leaves and fall colors, cozy times with your people, and the exacerbation of rheumatism. I mean, I’m guessing that the Brits weren’t doing the pumpkin-spice thing in the ’60s, but barring that, it’s pretty darned autumnal. — Sarah Engeler-Young, Location withheld (Listen on YouTube)4. Lucinda Williams: “Fruits of My Labor”Nature plays a game of roulette every fall. After months of growth, some trees turn crimson, some fade to muddy brown. Williams reveals that relationships face a similar moment of reckoning. “Lemon trees don’t make a sound, ’til branches bend and fruit falls to the ground,” she sings, alongside a drawling harmonica that is both warm and heartbreaking. — Alex Skidmore, San Francisco (Listen on YouTube)5. Sade: “The Sweetest Gift”I always remember how the writer Alan Hollinghurst called autumn “the time of year when the atmosphere streamed with unexpected hints and memories, and a paradoxical sense of renewal.” This is a song that feels wrapped in that same tug between acceptance of the past and a sense of protection over a quieter future. — Tiernan Bertrand-Essington, Los Angeles (Listen on YouTube)6. Warren Zevon: “Tenderness on the Block”I have three daughters and the youngest is still in college — but I associate fall with them going off to school and not needing my wife and I as much as they used to. Zevon captures how melancholy their leaving makes me feel. — John Peebles, Morris Township, N.J. (Listen on YouTube)7. Big Thief: “Change”Fall is a time of transition: the hectic energy of the summer slows, the weather cools, the school year begins. On “Change,” Adrianne Lenker mourns the end of a relationship and recognizes how challenging it can be to adapt to changing circumstances. But she ultimately asks the listener — and herself — to move forward and search for meaning in their new reality: “Would you walk forever in the light to never learn the secret of the quiet night?” — Trammell Saltzgaber, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)8. Slowdive: “When the Sun Hits”Most of their songs feel like fall to me, but this especially. This is evening walk music. — Zac Crain, Dallas (Listen on YouTube)9. Led Zeppelin: “Ramble On”I have a memory of driving back to Florida for the fall semester after spending a delightful summer working on Cape Hatteras, N.C. This song came on and the leaves were actually falling all around. It’s a specific moment from decades ago, and a vivid visual memory every time I hear this song. — Allison McCarthy, St. Petersburg, Fla. (Listen on YouTube)10. Tom Rush: “Urge for Going”Whenever the sky grows a chilly gray, I have to listen (repeatedly) to Tom Rush’s exquisite version of Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going.” The guitar alone sends chills creeping up the spine. Hunker up against the wind and enjoy. — Mick Carlon, Barnstable, Mass. (Listen on YouTube)11. Nick Drake: “Time Has Told Me”Of course, being Nick Drake, it is redolent of loss and fallen leaves and short days with rain and wind. Like all his work, it has a pastoral scent and a sense of English melancholy and peat fire. Devastatingly beautiful, as is the fall. — Paul Cameron Opperman, Location withheld (Listen on YouTube)12. Eva Cassidy: “Autumn Leaves”The ache in her voice as she evokes the melancholy that summer’s end brings never fails to make my breath catch. You can picture the leaves falling like tears. — Bonnie Holliday, Arrington, Va. (Listen on YouTube)13. Billie Holiday: “Autumn in New York”The warmth of Billie Holiday’s voice and the cool notes of Oscar Peterson’s piano put me in a smoky jazz club, away from the chill of the sunset. It’s a sense of transformation. Summer is ending, but what is beginning? — Janet Hartwell, Key West, Fla. (Listen on YouTube)14. Nanci Griffith: “October Reasons”The song begins, “I’m gonna open up the window and let in October,” as if October is a friend waiting to be greeted. It’s how I feel about fall: the cooler temperatures, the changing color of the leaves. It’s a friend I want to let in, and Nanci’s song encompasses this feeling. — David Sponheim, Minnetonka, Minn. (Listen on YouTube)It’s late September and I really should be back at school,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Readers Pick the Ultimate Fall Playlist” track listTrack 1: Vince Guaraldi, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz”Track 2: Rod Stewart, “Maggie May”Track 3: The Kinks, “Autumn Almanac”Track 4: Lucinda Williams, “Fruits of My Labor”Track 5: Sade, “The Sweetest Gift”Track 6: Warren Zevon, “Tenderness on the Block”Track 7: Big Thief, “Change”Track 8: Slowdive, “When the Sun Hits”Track 9: Led Zeppelin, “Ramble On”Track 10: Tom Rush, “Urge for Going”Track 11: Nick Drake, “Time Has Told Me”Track 12: Eva Cassidy, “Autumn Leaves”Track 13: Billie Holiday, “Autumn in New York”Track 14: Nanci Griffith, “October Reasons”Bonus TracksMy own personal fall song is a pretty obvious choice: Neil Young’s “Harvest.” It’s right there in the title, sure, but there’s also something so oblique and stirring about the melody of this song and the imagery of its lyrics that continues to haunt me each time I listen. “Harvest” has, to me, that mixture of chill and warmth, of familiarity and strangeness, that make a great fall song. (Plus, you know, it’s literally called “Harvest.” From the album “Harvest.” What more can I say?)Also, on this week’s Playlist, you can hear new music from Bad Bunny, boygenius, Sleater-Kinney, and more. Check it out here. More

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      Bad Bunny’s Surprising Return and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Ice Spice, Sleater-Kinney, Roy Hargrove and more.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. 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, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Bad Bunny, ‘Mr. October’Bad Bunny surprise-released a new album, “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (“Nobody Knows what’s Going to Happen Tomorrow”). Many of its 22 songs circle back toward the programmed trap beats that helped start Bad Bunny’s career, but now they’re just part of the sonic domain of a world-conquering star. In “Mr. October” he sings and raps about wealth, clothes, fame, sex and celebrity, comparing himself to Michael Jackson and Reggie Jackson and rightfully claiming, “Yo cambié el juego”: “I changed the game.” But the track is far from triumphal; with tolling piano notes, filmy minor chords and skittering electronic tones, the music laces every boast with anxiety. JON PARELESIce Spice and Rema, ‘Pretty Girl’The utterly unflappable Bronx rapper Ice Spice cannily connects with Afrobeats — and with the gentle-voiced, hook-making Nigerian songwriter Rema, who offers slick, robotic blandishments in what sounds like one repeating cut-and-pasted chorus. Ice Spice responds with encouraging, human-sounding specifics: “Think about my future, got you all in it.” But the track ends with Rema’s looped doubts — “Give me promise you ain’t gonna bail on me” — rather than her wholehearted welcome. Why give him the last word? PARELESDesire Marea, ‘The Only Way’The style-melting South African songwriter Desire Marea turns to funk and Afrobeat in “The Only Way.” His voice lofts a sustained melody and layered backup vocals over an arrangement that feels hand-played and organic: all staccato cross-rhythms — drums, bass, guitar, electric piano, horns — with a nervy, constantly shifting beat and one melodic peak topping another. The only lyrics in English are “It’s the only way” — and with such urgent music, there’s no need for more. PARELESEsperanza Spalding, ‘Não Ao Marco Temporal’If Esperanza Spalding has been in feeds this week for precisely the wrong reasons, consider this your cue to close that tab. Spalding’s mind has been elsewhere: specifically in Brazil, where the battle over the fate of the world’s largest rainforest is reaching a decisive point. On “Não Ao Marco Temporal,” recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Spalding and a small crew of musicians protest the Temporal Framework, a recent attempt to roll back Indigenous Brazilians’ land sovereignty that would have left the Amazon increasingly vulnerable to deforestation. (The Brazilian Supreme Court recently rejected the framework, but industry’s attempts to undermine that decision have continued.) Over strums on the cavaco and violão, the resounding of drums and the squeals of a cuica, Spalding sings of the “grabbing hands” that seek to violate the rainforest. “There are some men who stop at nothing to have their way with the body of a woman or a girl,” she and a small chorus of voices declare. “Right now they’re calling her Brazil.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBrittany Howard, ‘What Now’Brittany Howard, who led the Alabama Shakes, grapples with a disintegrating relationship in “What Now,” singing “If you want someone to hate, then blame it on me.” Over a fierce, choppy funk groove, Howard restrains her far-ranging voice to make her point about “learning lessons I don’t want to.” She is not happy about the breakup; she sings like she has no choice. PARELESMadi Diaz, ‘Same Risk’Madi Diaz sings about a high-stakes infatuation in “Same Risk,” spelling out both her physical passion and her misgivings. “Do you think this could ruin your life?/’Cause I could see it ruining mine,” she asks, then wonders, “Are you gonna throw me under the bus?” What starts with modest acoustic guitar strumming rises with an orchestral crescendo to match the urgency of her questions. PARELESSleater-Kinney, ‘Hell’“Hell” will be the opening track on “Little Rope,” the album Sleater-Kinney will release in January and which was made in the wake of the sudden deaths of Carrie Brownstein’s mother and stepfather. The song breaks wide open with anguish and inconsolable fury, as tolling, elegiac verses erupt into bitter power-chorded choruses. Corin Tucker unleashes her scream on the word “why.” PARELESJamila Woods featuring Saba, ‘Practice’Jamila Woods takes the pressure off a new relationship in “Practice,” the latest single from her excellent album “Water Made Us.” “We don’t gotta hurry up, you ain’t gotta be the one,” she sings in an airy, unburdened voice, carried along by an insistent beat. The Chicago rapper Saba sounds similarly breezy and wise on his verse — “learned from her, moved on, learned more” — and Woods’s lyrics extend the song’s playful basketball metaphor. After all, in the immortal words of Allen Iverson, we’re talking about practice. LINDSAY ZOLADZSen Morimoto, ‘Deeper’“I lost my senses like I’ve lost so many times/Why do the answers seem impossible to find?” sings Sen Morimoto, who plays most of the instruments on his tracks himself, in “Deeper.” A lurching beat, meandering chromatic harmonies and keyboard and guitar incursions that seem to have wafted in from other songs just add to the sense of disorientation. Morimoto’s saxophone solo sounds more sure of itself than he does, but he’s clearly not too perturbed. PARELESRoy Hargrove, ‘Young Daydreams (Beauteous Visions)’The trumpeter Roy Hargrove was just 23, but already near the top of New York’s jazz scene, when his friend and mentor Wynton Marsalis commissioned him to write “Love Suite in Mahogany.” The suite, which he performed with a septet at Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, in fall 1993, begins in a downward slide of moonlit harmony, gesturing toward Gil Evans and Billy Strayhorn (this was the Young Lions era; a direct address to the masters was encouraged). It finds its way gradually into a slowly creeping groove before a false ending gives way to a coda of driving post-bop. The track cuts off as he cues the band into the suite’s next movement. You can hear the rest of the suite’s debut performance, which has just been released as an LP on J.A.L.C.’s Blue Engine Records. RUSSONELLOMendoza Hoff Revels, ‘New Ghosts’There’s gristle and bone in every last satisfying bite of “Echolocation,” the debut album from Mendoza Hoff Revels, a four-piece band co-led by the guitarist Ava Mendoza and the bassist Devin Hoff. There is also a delightfully wide range of musical shapes at play. One moment, they’re descending straight from the slow drag of doom metal and stoner-rock; later, Mendoza’s wily, spiral-bound melodies have more to do with the tactics of John Zorn (both she and Hoff have played on Zorn projects). Her acid-soaked electric guitar rarely leaves center stage here. On “New Ghosts,” Mendoza, Hoff and the saxophonist James Brandon Lewis hover around a heavy minor chord, occasionally repainting it in an uncanny major. Then Hoff and the drummer Ches Smith join, and the improvisation ascends into a gray cloud of swirling saxophone and bludgeoning guitar. RUSSONELLOboygenius, ‘Afraid of Heights’Lucy Dacus regrets confessing her fear of heights on this wry highlight from boygenius’s new four-song EP, “The Rest”: “It made you want to test my courage, you made me climb a cliff at night.” Though, like all boygenius songs, it’s a collaboration with her singer-songwriter peers Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker, here Dacus takes the lead, bringing complexity to a simple chord progression through the specificity of her lyricism. “I never rode a motorcycle, I never smoked a cigarette,” she sings, balancing poignancy with dry humor. “I wanna live a vibrant life, but I wanna die a boring death.” ZOLADZAllegra Krieger, ‘Impasse’The folky, deceptively understated songwriter Allegra Krieger released her album “I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane” in July; now she extends it with “Fragile Plane — B-Sides.” In “Impasse,” she calmly confronts someone who’s been “building quite a big brand,” touting “family values, patriot song” in a culture where “Everyone here is trying to win/Power or paper or recognition.” Over an unhurried modal guitar line, she warns how it could suddenly come crashing down, and she sings like she won’t mind if it does. PARELESNdox Électrique, ‘Lëk Ndau Mbay’Gianna Greco and François R. Cambuzat, who have worked with post-punk artists including Lydia Lunch, have spent recent years traveling the world, documenting and collaborating with musicians who play traditional trance rituals. For their latest project, Ndox Électrique, they collaborated with Senegalese drummers and singers who perform spirit-possession healing rituals called n’doep, layering drones and assaultive noise-rock guitars atop the fiercely propulsive beat, translating and transmuting the music’s incantatory power. PARELES More

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      Jimmy Buffett’s Will Appoints His Wife as Executor of His Estate

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      The document, filed in Florida, did not reveal much about the musician and businessman’s final wishes, but it directed that a majority of his assets be held in a trust.Jimmy Buffett, the singer-songwriter and entrepreneur of an island-themed business empire who died last month at 76, left his wife in charge of his estate, according to a copy of his will, which contains few specifics about the scope of his assets or other beneficiaries.Mr. Buffett, whose blockbuster hit “Margaritaville” rocketed him to fame in 1977 and now serves as branding for his restaurant franchise, hotel chain and more, used the will to funnel a majority of his assets to a revocable trust that he created in 1990. But in keeping with Florida law, the will, filed last month in Palm Beach County, Fla., does not contain a public inventory of his assets nor does it reveal any of the holdings of the James W. Buffett 1990 Trust.His wife of more than 40 years, Jane S. Buffett, has been tasked with carrying out his wishes after being named personal representative, or executor, of the estate. The will appoints his business partner, John L. Cohlan, chief executive of Margaritaville Holdings, to step in if needed.In addition to his fan base of so-called Parrot Heads who became devoted to his carefree ethos and songs populated by pirates and beach bums, Mr. Buffett built a sprawling business over his career that has grown to include about 150 restaurants, casinos and cruises. Forbes reported this year that Mr. Buffett had become a billionaire, noting that he holds shares in the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, who is a friend, but not a relative, of the musician. (“Tell Jimmy to keep me in his will!” the Forbes report quoted Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, as saying.) The magazine reported Jimmy Buffett as owning several homes and planes, as well as a yacht.Mr. Buffett died at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., on Long Island, but his estate filed the will in Palm Beach County, where he was long a resident. He signed the will in 2017.It is yet to be seen how Mr. Buffett’s business is affected by his death: whether its success was dependent on its living founder, who was still performing up until this year, or if it can continue at the same level based on his legacy and its own entrenched brand.Mr. Buffett’s will assigns his intellectual property, including the rights to his music, to his trust as well. It suggests that he may have a separate list doling out his belongings, including clothing and furniture, assigning his residential real estate explicitly to his wife. The singer, who died of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer, is survived by two daughters, a son, two grandsons and two sisters.“Funneling everything to your trust affords you a ton of privacy,” said Sarah Butters, a Florida estate lawyer. “There are a million celebrity wills gone wrong, but this isn’t one of them.”Joe Capozzi contributed reporting. More

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      Review: Kate Soper’s ‘The Hunt’ Makes the Medieval Modern

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      Kate Soper’s latest stage work freely moves between legend and anachronism for a story about three virgins taking charge of their bodies.“I was delighted to learn from this charming song all about the qualities, habits and foibles of the unicorn, or ‘monoceron,’” a character says near the start of “The Hunt,” Kate Soper’s latest work of music theater.“‘Monoceron,’” another replies, “is used to describe a real one-horned animal, whereas ‘unicornus’ is the term for the mythical creature” — only to nervously add, “I mean, I’m sure you already knew that.”It’s a quintessentially Soper moment: the language ever-so-slightly elevated, the dialogue bookish, droll and self-effacing. But “The Hunt,” which premiered on Thursday at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, is different from her other stage works.That fun fact about the proper name for a unicorn is actually one of just a few brainy asides in this show. Plot-driven and focused, and unambiguously political, “The Hunt” is more conventional — and more easily enjoyable — than Soper’s discursive, essayistic theater pieces that explore lofty questions about art and love, like “Ipsa Dixit” (2016) or “The Romance of the Rose” (remarkably, another major stage premiere of hers from this year).“The Hunt” most resembles Soper’s first music theater work, “Here Be Sirens” (2014), about three mythical sopranos passing time between encounters with doomed sailors, accompanying themselves at a piano. Now, fast-forward a bit to Middle Ages Europe, where three virgins, accompanying themselves on a violin and ukulele, have been hired by a royal court as bait for a unicorn, “whose conquest will bring riches to our kingdom, expansion of our realm, and everlasting power over all our enemies.”Each design element of the production, directed by Ashley Kelly Tata, blends medieval imagery with contemporary interjections.Rob Davidson for Miller Theatre at Columbia UniversityWhat follows is a darkly funny fairy tale — set, according to the score, in “medieval and/or contemporary times” — about their 99 days on the job: playing the part of perfect maidens, singing songs about unicorns and occasionally indulging in a filthy riddle. Think “Waiting for Godot,” but with the female rebelliousness of a Sofia Coppola film.Along the way, the three characters — sopranos, as in “Sirens” — begin to both fear and resent the king’s control over their bodies, with irony (“they said all the reading was disturbing my tranquillity”) that’s wry until it’s indignant. The only way out, to keep the unicorn from ever coming and to make a new life for themselves, is to take charge of their sexuality and, well, not be so pure anymore.In program notes, Soper admits that “The Hunt” is “the least abstract thing I’ve made,” but that it could be pulled back into abstraction — to not be “a little bit too like ‘Sex and the City’ meets Margaret Atwood” — by Ashley Kelly Tata, the director, who also staged “Ipsa Dixit.”Indeed, little of “The Hunt” suggests a literal treatment: neither Camilla Tassi’s projections that blend the aesthetic of illuminated manuscripts with selfie livestreams, nor Terese Wadden’s costumes, which evoke medieval maidenhood while revealing, under the performers’ dresses, white sneakers. Masha Tsimring’s lighting offers Brechtian distinction between dialogue and inner monologue, and Tata’s direction slowly dissolves pristine, satirized virginal presentation into something wilder, and free.Crucial to all this is Aoshuang Zhang’s scenic design. The action of Soper’s libretto unfolds in a forest clearing and a castle; but at the Miller, everything took place within a unit set of wooden panels that made up a large proscenium-filling wall. If you squinted long enough, they could be distant relatives of tree trunks. Mostly, though, the space just looks like a prison.And that’s how it feels over time for Fleur, Briar and Rue — the three virgins, who wanted this job, it emerges, to escape their different pasts, yet find themselves ambivalent about it. The room and board is nice, but after a while, the dumbly hot stable boy (a silent role played by Ian Edlund) begins to look increasingly tempting; so does any other latent desire.The show’s three performers take up folk songs adapted from historical texts by Hildegard von Bingen, Thibaut de Champagne, Christina Rossetti and more.Rob Davidson for Miller Theatre at Columbia UniversityEach performer charts this journey with charisma and persuasiveness, even if the jokes of Soper’s book don’t always land. As Rue, Hirona Amamiya matches sometimes showy, sometimes touching violin playing with petulant horniness and heart. Christiana Cole, as Briar, springs around the stage, often plucking the ukulele, with irrepressible energy and, in the end, more optimism than her fellow maidens.Brett Umlauf, who performed alongside Soper in “Sirens,” has a bright, Kristen Chenoweth-like soprano that lends itself well to Fleur’s desperate respectability and sinister sunniness. On livestreamed updates for the kingdom, she smiles through saying that she has “a good feeling” about Day 17 … and 43 … and 82. But the moment she stops recording, her face slackens into a hilarious but lonely frown familiar to anyone who has ever filmed a selfie.Together, they spin out the melodies of Soper’s score, which takes on a repetitive structure similar to the plot. (Mila Henry is the music director.) Each update from the virgins comes from the same sound world, just as each comment from the king unfurls over an electronic drone. Briar introduces deceptively straightforward folk songs, whose lyrics are pulled and adapted (sometimes even translated by Soper) from historical texts by Hildegard von Bingen, Thibaut de Champagne, Christina Rossetti and more. Entr’acte numbers step out of the action entirely for a solo ballad with a cappella backing.In the end, the work adds up to something that few would qualify as absolutely an opera or a musical, or even a play with music — but, in classic Soper fashion, none of them and all of them at once.Her finest touch in this score may be the occasional overlaying of three blocks of text for the sopranos, in which a small phrase is sung while the rest is babbled. It’s another trademark move, the kind of Soperian gesture that surfaces elsewhere in the singer-songwriter-meets-troubadour aesthetic; the carefree noodling on the instruments; the wit of a virtuosic violin solo gesture being met with the silly strum of the ukulele. Not to mention when, on a bad trip induced by sugar cubes, the virgins devolve into primitive communication, Meredith Monk-like tongue trilling that swirls in its phrasing, free of any traditional pitch or notation.That scene, though, drags on. As is often the case with Soper’s stage works, you feel, near the end, as if the score has overstated itself, that it could have benefited from a quick snip of the garden shears.What I do wish were longer is the run of “The Hunt” itself. Thursday’s premiere was one of just two performances. Not for the first time, Soper has written a show that could feasibly appeal to an Off Broadway crowd somewhere like Ars Nova. There, it could reach more people over more dates. And the more people who know about her, the better.The HuntRepeats on Saturday at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, Manhattan; millertheatre.com. More