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      Carly Rae Jepsen’s Brand-New Boy Problems, and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by DJ Khaled featuring Drake and Lil Baby, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, the 1975 and others.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.Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Beach House’Boy problems? Carly Rae Jepsen’s got them in spades on “Beach House,” a cheeky earworm from her forthcoming album “The Loneliest Time.” Jepsen employs her deadpan sense of humor as she lists off the red flags and deal-breakers that marred relationships with “Boy No. 1” to “Boy No. I Can’t Keep Count Anymore.” Amid all the silliness, though (“I got a beach house in Malibu,” one prospect tells her, “and I’m probably gonna hurt your feelings”), the song effectively taps into the romantic frustration of endless, “Groundhog Day”-esque first dates and long-term singledom: “I’ve been on this ride, this roller coaster’s a carousel,” Jepsen sings on the anguished pre-chorus, “And I’m getting nowhere.” LINDSAY ZOLADZDJ Khaled featuring Drake and Lil Baby, ‘Staying Alive’A quizzically melancholic opening salvo from the upcoming DJ Khaled album “God Did,” “Staying Alive” nods casually to the Bee Gees on the way to somewhere far less ecstatic. In this construction, staying alive is an act of defiance, not exuberance. Drake bemoans “This life that allow me to take what I want/it’s not like I know what I want,” while in the video, he plays a doctor smoking hookah in the hospital and absently signing off on charts of patients who might need some help achieving the song’s title. JON CARAMANICABenny Blanco, BTS and Snoop Dogg, ‘Bad Decisions’Equally unimaginative as the BTS English-language breakthrough hit “Dynamite” but somehow less cloying, this collaboration benefits from the grandfatherly presence of Snoop Dogg, who at this stage of his career always raps as if his eyebrow is arched, and he can’t quite believe what he’s called upon to do either. CARAMANICAThe 1975, ‘Happiness’“Happiness,” the latest single from the eclectic British pop group the 1975, manages to sound both sleek and a little spontaneous; the dense, ’80s-inspired production gleams but there’s always enough air circulating to keep the atmosphere well ventilated. The frontman Matty Healy sounds uncharacteristically laid back here, trading in his usual arch, hyper-referential lyrics for simpler sentiments: “Show me your love, why don’t you?” he croons on an ecstatic chorus that’s catchy without feeling overdetermined. The video, directed by Samuel Bradley, is a hoot, finding the group mugging in all variety of louche, gorgeously lit environments — basically the visual equivalent of the lush saxophone solo that drops in the middle of the song. ZOLADZBandmanrill, ‘Real Hips’A surprisingly luscious and nimble offering from the Newark rapper Bandmanrill that makes plain the through lines that connect drill music, Jersey club and bass music. CARAMANICAPanda Bear & Sonic Boom, ‘Edge of the Edge’Fans of Panda Bear’s beloved 2007 album “Person Pitch” will likely enjoy the sunny, collagelike “Edge of the Edge,” which will appear on “Reset,” the Animal Collective member’s collaborative album with Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, out next week. “Edge of the Edge” pairs a playful sample of the doo-wop group Randy & the Rainbows’ 1963 hit “Denise” with Panda’s serenely melodic vocals, which cut through the carefree, pop-psychedelic vibe with some light social critique: “Can’t say it’s what you bargained for,” he sings, wagging a finger at the frenzied escalation of technology, “It’s forever at the push of a button.” The song, in opposition, sounds contentedly off the grid. ZOLADZBonny Light Horseman, ‘Exile’The voices of Eric D. Johnson and Anaïs Mitchell entwine beautifully on “Exile,” the opening track from the folk trio Bonny Light Horseman’s upcoming second album “Rolling Golden Holy.” The song is a duet in the truest emotional sense, as Mitchell swoops in to finish some of Johnson’s lines and, on the chorus, provides a warm, glowing harmony that meets his lonely plea, “I don’t wanna live in exile.” ZOLADZYoungBoy Never Broke Again featuring Rod Wave, ‘Home Ain’t Home’The two loneliest howlers in hip-hop unite for a meditation on the joylessness of fame. CARAMANICA More

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      A Gothic Rock Cottage Fit for a Bat Out of Hell

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      Jim Steinman spent years transforming his Connecticut house into a kind of rock ‘n’ roll museum. Now his friends are trying to sell it — with his belongings intact.Jim Steinman, who died last year at 73, left behind one of the most distinctive catalogs of music in history, filled with chart-topping hits written for the likes of Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler and Celine Dion. With songs ranging from the restless (“All Revved Up With No Place To Go”) to the wrenching (“For Crying Out Loud”), Mr. Steinman spent decades establishing himself as a sophisticated songwriter with the spirit of a teenager.“As far as Jim was concerned, life was about being forever young, and lusting after this and yearning after that,” said David Sonenberg, Mr. Steinman’s longtime friend, manager and now the executor of his estate. “He was going to be 17 forever, and in some ways he was.”But perhaps nothing evokes Mr. Steinman’s legacy like the Connecticut house where he lived alone for some 20 years — a majestic museum of the self, attached to a quaint cottage in the woods of Ridgefield. He spent years expanding and reimagining the house, transforming it into an embodiment of his own eccentric, complicated personality.Jim Steinman, left, and Meat Loaf together in New York in 1978. A year earlier, their collaborative album “Bat Out of Hell,” with songs by Mr. Steinman and vocals by Meat Loaf, sold millions of copies and made them both stars.Michael Putland/Getty Images“The house — it’s a trip, it’s extraordinary, it’s one of a kind,” Mr. Sonenberg said. “People would walk in and their heads would spin.”Mr. Steinman, a lifelong bachelor who had been in declining health for years, left no instructions about what he wanted done with the house after his death. Now his longtime friends are putting the property up for sale — with a provision: It is being sold “as-is,” which in real estate lingo normally means “in terrible condition.” In this case, it means that the sale includes nearly all of Mr. Steinman’s personal belongings, which remain in the house: the gothic furniture, spooky artwork, wall-mounted records, grand piano, even closets full of clothing.“We are going to try to keep Jim’s vision and legacy intact,” said Jacqueline Dillon, Mr. Steinman’s longtime creative assistant and close friend. “Jim has been a pop-culture fixture for 50 years.”Their hope is to sell the house — which, despite its 6,000-odd square feet, has just two bedrooms — to a musician, artist or writer, or someone seeking a creative retreat or performance space. The asking price is $5,555,569 — the $69 is a tribute to Mr. Steinman’s beloved Amherst College, where he graduated with the class of 1969 — and the annual property taxes are around $32,000.The house, with more than 6,000 square feet and two bedrooms, sits on a wooded 1.5-acre lot in Ridgefield, Conn. Mr. Steinman, a reclusive lifelong bachelor, lived there alone.Andy Ryan for The New York TimesMs. Dillon described Mr. Steinman — by all accounts a reclusive, nocturnal introvert — as “super-shy, but always so kind, and with a lightning-quick wit.” She met him three decades ago at a concert, she said, and was soon recruited to launch his website, jimsteinman.com, to connect with fans and to monitor press mentions.She is now helping to oversee the house sale. “This is not a sale where there is a comparable,” she said.As with many of Mr. Steinman’s grandest achievements, the house almost never happened. It was Mr. Sonenberg who found it nearly 30 years ago. Driving through Ridgefield, he spotted the home on a secluded lot of about 1.5 acres and thought it would be perfect for his friend.“The house was so charming,” said Mr. Sonenberg, whose own artistic dreams were dashed after he met Mr. Steinman in the 1970s. “I wrote a song called ‘Pear Tree in the Shade,’” he said. “Jim wrote a song called ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.’”Mr. Steinman, who started writing musicals for Joseph Papp at the Public Theater before conquering the pop charts with songs for Meat Loaf’s 1977 smash album “Bat Out of Hell,” was seeking a place to hide away and work. After years of delays, he and Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) were completing production on “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell,” which (to no one’s expectation but their own) would become one of the best-selling albums of the 1990s.A floor plan of Mr. Steinman’s house in Ridgefield, Conn. William Pitt Sotheby’s International RealtyMr. Sonenberg suggested that Mr. Steinman buy the Ridgefield house: “I said, ‘It’s perfect — you’re by yourself, you never have any guests.’ And he said no, it was too small.”Around that time, while Mr. Steinman was working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical “Whistle Down the Wind,” he visited Lloyd Webber’s manor house, Sydmonton Court, in Hampshire, England, and “was just blown away,” Mr. Sonenberg said.So Mr. Steinman decided to buy the Ridgefield cottage, paying about $425,000, and convert it into a soaring sanctuary, a creation as epic as his music.“It is really special, almost otherworldly,” said Laura Freed Ancona, the listing agent, of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. “Yes, it was a roof over Jim’s head. But it was also a creative space for him.”Ms. Ancona said the plan now is to start with private and group showings, and to reach out to various arts and cultural organizations, looking for a potential buyer. “We want to cast as wide a net as possible,” she said.The house, Mr. Sonenberg said, could be sold to a school or institution and used for a combination of living, office and performance space.The bedroom includes a desk, sitting area and aquarium. The art on one wall, “Inferno” by Joseph Grazi, shows taxidermic bats flying into the maw of an alligator skull.Andy Ryan for The New York TimesMr. Steinman, who grew up primarily in Hewlett Harbor, on Long Island, moved to Manhattan after graduating from Amherst and was hired by Mr. Papp, who was captivated by songs Mr. Steinman had written for his senior project, a rock musical called “The Dream Engine.” It later morphed into “Neverland,” inspired by Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. (A few years after getting the Public Theater gig, Mr. Steinman, always pitching, wrote a letter to Mr. Papp asserting that “writing and conceiving serious strong musical dramatic works” was something “I really think I can do better than anyone I’ve ever come across or heard about.”)Back then, “his taste in décor was zero,” said Frederick Baron, a college friend, who remembered visiting Mr. Steinman in a spartan apartment with bare walls and a refrigerator holding only leftover pizza and spaghetti.“He lived the life of the mind,” Mr. Baron said. “He had this extraordinary level of creativity. He was truly brilliant. All of his life energy was in that keyboard.”After Mr. Steinman started making serious money, he bought a two-bedroom apartment in a postwar co-op overlooking Central Park. That’s where he met Bonnie Tyler, who would top the charts in 1983 with the Steinman-penned “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” She and her manager were welcomed with a trail of M&Ms leading to his door.Mr. Steinman later used that home mostly as an office and for wine storage, and moved into a rented house in the woods of Putnam County, N.Y., with a bunch of cats.“Jim was a homebody, and being in the city was quite busy for him,” Ms. Dillon said. “He was always being asked to go to people’s shows. Leaving the city removed him from having to do a lot of things. He didn’t go to big events. He let his art do the talking.”He called the Ridgefield cottage “the house that ‘Bat II’ built,” Ms. Dillon said. “Jim used the expression ‘cottage to compound.’” The album opened with the hit “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” with an accompanying video depicting Meat Loaf as a “Beauty and the Beast”-like recluse living alone in a gothic mansion.To expand the house, Mr. Steinman hired Rob Bramhall, a Boston-based architect, eventually spending about $6 million. Mr. Bramhall worked on the project for the better part of a decade, more than doubling the house’s size. After their initial meeting, Mr. Bramhall sent Mr. Steinman a book by the influential California architect Bernard Maybeck, he said, and “Jim knew I got his sensibility.”The style was English Cotswolds. “Jim wanted the gables, from left to right, to become slightly larger,” he said. “I remember doing skull-and-crossbones for the faucets in the powder room off the great room. Some of the wall light fixtures were made from aircraft parts.”Mr. Steinman, who composed primarily using a keyboard and a tape recorder, was living in a postwar co-op near Central Park West when he borrowed this boom box from his friends, the actors Larry Dilg and Mimi Kennedy.Mimi KennedyAlthough Mr. Bramhall met with Mr. Steinman in Manhattan and helped him select and place the artwork, “Jim never saw the house until it was done,” he said. “It was a fun and interesting project. I haven’t done anything like it since.”The original part of the house — bright and sunny — includes a large living room with Mr. Steinman’s many gold and platinum albums on the wall, open to an equally large kitchen with a dining nook. There’s a laundry room and a sunroom, although Mr. Steinman preferred the dark.“That end of the house represented normalcy to him,” Ms. Dillon said.In the dining room, the table is set with Mr. Steinman’s china, in the Royal Copenhagen Fairy Tale pattern — not that he ever used it. He preferred to eat off disposable tableware, specifically blue Solo cups and Chinet plates.In the den, or “viewing room,” he enjoyed watching singing competitions like “American Idol,” and critiquing the judges. He also watched cooking shows, Yankees games and “Jeopardy!”“He could listen to music, watch a TV show and type a letter” all at once, Ms. Dillon said. “His mind never stopped working.”The “Ring Room,” unadorned but for four statues on the walls, marks the transition from the original building to the addition.Andy Ryan for The New York TimesThe “good room” — not to be confused with the great room — holds one of his wheelchairs, which he needed after suffering a series of strokes. Of course, “it was a crazy wheelchair, like a Batmobile,” Mr. Sonenberg said.Mr. Steinman referred to the unused guest room as the “Wendy Bedroom,” after the heroine of “Peter Pan.” The plush bear on the bed hails from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London, which owns the intellectual property rights to “Peter Pan” and denied Mr. Steinman’s request to stage a rock musical based on the story, deeming the script — which opened with killer nuns — unsuitable for children.The addition, all custom made and filled with elaborate and peculiar art and artifacts, starts with the Ring Room, a small, oval space unfurnished save for sculptures on the walls, which are a color Mr. Steinman called obsidian blue. (Obsidian was the name he gave to Neverland’s city.) The ceiling is dotted with LED stars.“And that leads you from this sweet cottage into this other universe, which is modeled after Steinman’s vision,” Mr. Sonenberg said. “Jim was the most bizarre guy, but he was the sweetest and funniest and most generous. He was the only genius I ever met.”The primary suite is at the end of a wardrobe hallway, where the vast closets still hold Mr. Steinman’s many clothes, few of which he wore, although candy wrappers remain in some of the pockets. So many garments are crammed on the racks that “you would think you were in Bonwit Teller,” Mr. Sonenberg said.Jim Steinman in Manhattan in 1981. He became a star after writing the songs for Meat Loaf’s smash 1977 album “Bat Out of Hell,” and hit it big again with the 1993 sequel, “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell.”Gary Gershoff/Getty ImagesParallel to the wardrobe hallway is a long corridor leading to the great room, lined with patent leather panels and used by visitors — most recently, those working on “Bat Out of Hell: The Musical,” which is touring in Britain and is slated to open in Las Vegas in September.The enormous bedroom includes a desk, sitting area and aquarium. The art on one wall, “Inferno” by Joseph Grazi, depicts taxidermic bats flying into the maw of an alligator skull. Much of the idiosyncratic art Mr. Steinman collected was by artists from Bayreuth, Germany, the longtime home and final resting place of his idol, the composer Richard Wagner, whose operas enthralled him from childhood. The room is also adorned with items collected from fans and, on the bed, a heart pillow in tribute to the surgeon who extended Mr. Steinman’s life.Beyond the bedroom is the house’s focal point, the great room, centered around a stainless steel sculpture resembling a cluster of giant quartz crystals — an allusion to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Mr. Steinman’s 2013 honorary doctorate from Amherst is on display. A bust of Wagner sits atop a Yamaha piano, although Mr. Steinman composed mostly on keyboards. “He had this uncanny ability to play all the parts on the piano,” Ms. Dillon said. “It almost sounded like a full band.”Stairs ascend to a gallery overlooking the room. One chair is occupied by a skeleton mid-shriek. Another flight leads to the room at the top, with a skylight and reading chair.Mr. Steinman often used the tiny kitchenette off the great room, stocked with fresh fruit and cans of Progresso soup. He was a fan of hot sauce, sweet soda and chewy candy. “When I visited him for the first time in his home, he had these containers of gummy bears from the pick-n-mix selection at Dean & DeLuca for $12.99 a pound,” Ms. Dillon said. “Every month, we would get a bill.”The custom-designed wheelchair, which Mr. Steinman required as his health declined, was his version of a Batmobile.Andy Ryan for The New York TimesThe detached two-story garage has plumbing and electricity, and could possibly be an accessory dwelling unit. Mr. Steinman used it for storage — he didn’t drive or have a license. Despite his love of motorcycles (and songs about them), he likely never rode one. Instead, he filled the garage with copies of his programs and Playbills. “He liked stuff,” Ms. Dillon said.The question is: Will anyone want Jim Steinman’s stuff? Ms. Ancona is hoping that the property, like Mr. Steinman’s music, will inspire someone looking for something beautiful and a little strange.“Every house needs its own approach, whether it’s a $500,000 home or a $5 million home,” she said. “You really have to find your audience.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. More

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      Kylie Minogue Mixes Her Signature Cocktail

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      The pop star returned to the Carlyle Hotel after celebrating her wine collection there.Kylie Minogue’s early experiences of alcohol were not especially glamorous — canned drinks with teenage friends, boxed wine at family barbecues. But Ms. Minogue, 54, the only female artist to have topped music charts in five consecutive decades, has refined her relationship to liquor since.On a recent Wednesday morning, she stood behind the venerable Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle Hotel, a cocktail shaker in hand. She shook it and shook it and shook it, mixing the drink to her own internal beat.“Hey! Hey! Hey! How am I doing?” she asked the Bemelmans barman, Abdul Rashid, resplendent in a poppy-red jacket.“Oh fantastic,” Mr. Rashid said. “I am jealous.”A couple of nights earlier, Ms. Minogue had come into this same bar to celebrate her wine collection — two still rosés, one sparkling — by singing a selection of hits at the grand piano. She had returned this morning to demonstrate her mixology chops.But those chops were a matter of some debate. A publicist had described Ms. Minogue as a practiced bartender with a specialty drink. Yet the cocktail on offer, the Pink Pearl, had been newly created by Mr. Rashid. And Ms. Minogue questioned her ability to mix it.“I’m going to make such a pig’s ear of this,” she said brightly as she walked behind the granite and leather bar.The ingredients for the Pink Pearl included gin, apricot brandy, bitters and Ms. Minogue’s brand of prosecco rosé.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesShe had dressed for the occasion in a mauve pantsuit trimmed in marabou — “Feathers, I didn’t think this through,” she said — and white stiletto heels. She hadn’t thought the shoes through, either. After a brief tussle with the bar’s floor mats, she switched them out for a pair of black platforms, singing a snatch of “You Raise Me Up” as she slipped them on.“We need jazz music,” she called out. “A bit of a vibe.” Jazz, one of the very many genres that Ms. Minogue has attempted, was summoned.Mr. Rashid had already assembled the ingredients and the materials: gin, apricot brandy, lime, simple syrup, bitters, a bottle of Ms. Minogue’s prosecco rosé, various shakers and coupes. (He had also set out an array of snacks — salted nuts, cheese straws, potato chips — that she politely ignored.)She got an assist from Abdul Rashid, right, a barman at Bemelmans.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesMs. Minogue had passed along a few stipulations regarding the cocktail. “It has to be pink,” she had told him. “It has to be fun. It has to be a bit cheeky.” She had borrowed the name, Pink Pearl, from a different drink, invented in her honor at Le Bar in Paris. Perhaps it hadn’t been trademarked.Under her benevolent, lash-extended gaze, Mr. Rashid demonstrated the drink, embellishing it with a float of Ms. Minogue’s prosecco rosé, which her website says has notes “of fresh strawberries, raspberries and blossom.” The garnish was a sprig of fresh mint.“I offer you to do this,” Mr. Rashid told her, chivalrously. “The finishing touch you do.”“I didn’t even do that very well,” Ms. Minogue said, having added the herb.Ms. Minogue, whom the BBC once called “pop’s most underestimated icon” and whom Rufus Wainwright, an occasional collaborator, has designated “the gay shorthand for joy,” first introduced her wines in Britain in 2020, where they have sold briskly. She is not herself a vintner, but she told her partners at Benchmark Wine Group that the wines had to be “elegant, refreshing, not boring, not too challenging,” she said. Put that way, her wines sounded a lot like her music.The finishing touch.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesA taste test.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesHaving begun her career as an actress on the Australian soap “Neighbours,” she sidestepped into pop music while still in her 20s. An early review referred to her as a “singing budgie,” but Ms. Minogue, who is recording a 16th studio album, has rarely let bad press deter her. She worked at her music. She improved.“I just learned on the job,” she said. Then she surveyed the ingredients arrayed before her on the bar. “It’s kind of like this,” she said, turning to the task at hand. “I learn on the job.”So with the occasional assist from Mr. Rashid, Ms. Minogue added a dash of simple syrup (well, more than a dash: “Whoops!” she said), half an ounce of apricot brandy and three-quarters of an ounce of lime juice. He showed her how to turn the jigger over to add the gin. She had a heavy hand with the bitters, which lend the drink its pink tones.“That one got a bit of extra love,” she said, as a few more drops of bitters fell in. “I’ve got to work on my cocktail skills, that’s all.”At Mr. Rashid’s urging, she fitted a metal shaker over the glass’s top and she shook it with verve. “Whoooo!” she shouted, as her whole body swung, in a manner reminiscent of the Locomotion.With some slight fumbling, she then strained the mixture into an ice-filled glass, adding the prosecco, a sprig of mint, and then another spring of mint when the first one slipped under the surface.Cheers.Gabby Jones for The New York Times“And voilà!” she said. She didn’t dare bestow the drink on an assistant. “I’m going to have to taste it myself,” she said of the erratically mixed drink. “I’ll say it’s amazing.”So even though it was only 11 a.m., Ms. Minogue took the straw between her perfect mauve lips and sipped. Was it amazing?“Very refreshing, very nice,” she said with a conspiratorial smile. “Dangerously so.” More

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      Raja Kumari Brings West Coast Rap to India

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      After writing songs for Gwen Stefani and Iggy Azalea, she is now producing singles under her own label, Godmother Records.Name: Raja KumariAge: 36Hometown: Claremont, Calif.Now Lives: In a three-bedroom apartment in the Juhu section of Mumbai, India.Claim to Fame: Ms. Kumari is a songwriter, singer and rapper whose work straddles both Western and Indian music, in a reflection of her dual identities as a South-Asian American. She blends English and Hindi lyrics, and classical Indian riffs over rap beats. Last year, she performed her single, “N.R.I.” (it stands for nonresident Indian) at an Asian-American inaugural ball for President Biden. Sample lyric: “Dot head eating samosas. Too brown for the label. Too privileged for the co-sign.”Big Break: Ms. Kumari started dancing and singing at 6 and, by 10, was performing traditional Indian dance forms across India. She began writing and recording her own songs in her early 20s and eventually signed on with Pulse, a music producer and publisher in Los Angeles, where she wrote songs for Gwen Stefani, Fall Out Boy and Iggy Azalea. Her work with Ms. Azalea on “Bounce” (the video was shot in India) was a spark for Ms. Kumari to get back into the studio herself. “It woke me up,” she said. “I was, like, people want to add my voice, but they don’t want to have a South Asian woman do it? Why am I not taking that leap?”Latest Project: In May, Ms. Kumari released her latest single — “Made in India” — that remixed a ’90s Indian pop hit, featuring the iconic Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit Nene. A 2020 single that Ms. Kumari’s worked on was featured in the new Disney+ series, “Ms. Marvel.”Raja Kumari’s single “Made in India”Godmother Records/Raja Kumari; Album Art Design by Kirti NarainNext Thing: After years of working with Western labels, Ms. Kumari has started Godmother Records, with “Made In India” being the first single produced under that label. “I owe it to myself to now stand on my own two feet,” she said. Her goal is also to use the label to discover and sign up-and-coming talent in India. “I have this dream of discovering a girl in India, and she wins a Grammy,” she said. “That would mean a lot.”Manifesting: Ms. Kumari, whose real name is Svetha Yellapragada Rao, created her stage name when she was 14 to project a fearless version of herself and to build a visual identity around female Hindu goddesses. “It’s the character I needed,” she said. “I thought about the concept in my room and made it a reality to the point that I was on a billboard in Times Square. I don’t know anything more powerful than that.” More

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      Rzewski for Lovers? A Pianist Mines a Prickly Modernist’s Gentler Side

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      When Lisa Moore turned 60 her husband commissioned a Rzewski score for her. Now, she has recorded a Rzewski album, showcasing a wide range of emotion.The renowned composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski, who died last year, was celebrated for the committed nature of his leftist politics as well as his music.On the political front, he tended to walk the walk — whether writing a series of variations based on a Chilean workers’ anthem (in “The People United Will Never Be Defeated”), or undermining the high-toned trappings of contemporary classical culture by playing at a fish market. He also distributed his scores online, free for any player to peruse.He could also be harsh and exacting in his artistic judgments. But one thing Rzewski wasn’t known for were capital-R Romantic gestures. So when the pianist Lisa Moore introduced one of Rzewski’s final pieces at a Bang on the Can festival at Mass MoCA last year, murmurs of surprise were audible in the crowd as she related that the work was a 60th birthday gift — one commissioned from Rzewski by Moore’s husband, the composer and educator Martin Bresnick. (Bresnick has also mentored multiple artists in the Bang on a Can universe.)Asking this artist to write something for your wife’s birthday? Risky (if inspired). Yet as Moore proceeded to play the 15-minute “Amoramaro,” it all started to make sense. There were prickly, modernist shards familiar from other Rzewski pieces, though also darts of disarming warmth. Reviewing that premiere, I wrote that the composition deserved an official recording from Moore.Now we have it. “Amoramaro” is one of five items on Moore’s new album, titled “Frederic Rzewski: No Place to Go but Around,” released on the Cantaloupe label in June.“It’s like an old man looking back over his musical life,” Moore said of “Amoramaro,” in a phone interview from her home in New Haven, Conn. That musical range of reference includes backward glances at motifs from earlier efforts, as well as what Moore calls “sort of Beethovian quotes.” Also present, to my ear, in the aesthetic mixing bowl: Rzewski’s youthful experience as an early interpreter of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s experimental piano music.The lushness of some of its chords, though, is what strikes me most forcefully on repeat listens. And that’s thanks in part to Moore’s overall approach to Rzewski, which often allows for a greater range of emotion than other interpreters permit, including the composer.Moore, however, said Rzewski’s instructions at the top of his handwritten score were frank about the degree of freedom others could bring to the music: “Love has no laws; therefore dynamics, rhythms, anything can be changed at will!”“He had a very free attitude in that way,” Moore said in the interview. (She knows from experience, having played Rzewski’s music in front of him, as a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, in the early 1990s.)Moore’s approach to Rzewski allows for a greater range of emotion than other interpreters permit (including Rzewski). Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesIn an interview, Bresnick described an extensive and enjoyable back-and-forth with Rzewski during the drafting process, including about what kind of ending the piece should have. “I’m a composer too — and I was surprised that he wanted such a thing,” Bresnick said. “I wanted to say something but I didn’t want to overdetermine it, so I finally said to him: There are endings in Chekhov and other great writers where it’s the end of the story but we know that the story goes on.”For Bresnick, the composer’s solution is particularly pleasing. “It is an ending, but it is not ‘the end.’” When playing her 60th birthday present, Moore found herself luxuriating in Rzewski’s invitation to change dynamics and rhythms “at will.” “If you let things resolve, if you let the harmonies really sit, the next harmony that comes in so often is something that changes like a kaleidoscope,” she said. “It’s just shifting and changing the mode. It’s really, really clever.”There’s something similarly clever about the balance of Moore’s new album. The title track, “No Place to Go but Around,” is an expansive, early Rzewski effort, from 1974 (right before “The People United”). The only other official recording is Rzewski’s — available on an obscure vinyl release from the late-70s.On that LP, Rzewski’s composition shared space with his interpretations of piano works by Hanns Eisler and Anthony Braxton. While the composer’s version of “No Place to Go” offered some stark interpolations of the Italian labor movement song “Bandiera Rossa” — another political reference — Moore’s rendition truly lets that borrowed tune spill forth, toward the end of the 12th minute.Moore said that her take was a considered attempt to underline the composition’s beauty, adding: “I also want people to be invited in and not pushed away.”That inviting quality of Moore’s album extends to her latest performance of “Coming Together,” one of Rzewski’s most well-known contributions to the modern repertoire. Its text comes from a letter by the Attica prison uprising leader Sam Melville. But unlike some ceaselessly galvanic performances of this Minimalist-tinged composition, Moore’s solo voice-and-piano approach takes dramatic notice of references to lovers’ “emotions in times of crisis” that are present in the literary source material. (Moore is a practiced hand at Rzewski’s work for singing — or speaking — pianists, having recorded his setting of Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis.”)Just as striking is her take on the rarely heard “To His Coy Mistress,” a setting of Andrew Marvell’s poem from the 17th century. Moore’s playing is meticulous when it comes to the compact three-act structure of the music (and its text); she hits the gas with a controlled force, just before singing the line “But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” Later on, the word “embrace” triggers a newly reflective mode.So is this a covert “Rzewski for Lovers” album? In an email, Moore wrote: “I did, in fact, consciously think about bringing the more romantic side of Rzewski’s music out, a sort of gentler approach — because it’s there, in the material and often just beneath the surface. (Like him — he was a mensch — behind all his bluster.)”And though the composer was famous for his political stands, Moore’s interpretations help emphasize these works’ elusiveness. “In his music he often disguises and veils the politics in a way I quite admire,” she said. “It’s not hitting you over the head with the obvious. It’s woven in to a song or a letter and it’s up to you to kind of grasp what the meaning is.” More

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      The Pedal Steel Gets Its Resurrection

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      As the sound of country music has shifted, the emotive whir of its classic instrument has often been sidelined. The complicated antique has found new life in surprising forms.When DaShawn Hickman was 4 years old, living just 32 steps from the tiny granite House of God church in Mount Airy, N.C., he picked up a lap steel his uncle had built for his mother. Stretching the electric guitar across his tiny knees for the first time, using a D-cell battery as his slide, he traced the hymns his mother sang.Hickman soon graduated to the pedal steel, the lap steel’s byzantine successor, with as many as 24 strings controlled not only with two hands but also with both feet and knees. A quick study, Hickman was 13 when he began leading services at House of God with his steel/strings, the centerpiece of a century-old style of Black gospel called Sacred Steel.“This instrument is a ministry, a tool to help someone overcome,” Hickman, now 40, said by phone from Mount Airy. “Where the human voice can’t fully reach, the pedal steel can.”In June, Hickman released “Drums, Roots & Steel.” More restrained than many of its Sacred Steel predecessors, his solo debut is a showcase for the instrument’s emotional breadth, equally capable of prayers for the wounded and paeans for the joyous.It is one of several recent recordings that suggest that the pedal steel — familiar mostly for the lachrymal textures it has long lent to country music — is finding renewal in unexpected places. As the sound of slick modern country shifts from this large and esoteric accessory, ambient and experimental musicians have tapped it for much the same reason as Hickman’s Sacred Steel lineage: its ability to harness and even rival the expressiveness of the voice itself.“Since its existence, you had to learn how to play one way to get a backing role in some country band,” said Robert Randolph, the son of a New Jersey House of God deacon and minister who came to prominence more than two decades ago when he dared to take his 13-string purple behemoth out of the church. He was soon opening for the Dave Matthews Band at Madison Square Garden. “So it’s an instrument that’s never been fully explored.”With his boisterous Family Band, Randolph expanded Sacred Steel’s reach by turbocharging its sound, strings screaming for three hours over soulful marches and Allman-sized jams. His sound and style have since mellowed, and he has collaborated with Carlos Santana and Ozzy Osbourne. “Guitar, trumpet, piano, keyboard — they’ve all had nine million babies,” he continued. “But the pedal steel is so new to so many people they don’t even know what it is. There are so many ways to evolve this instrument.”Robert Randolph helped expand pedal steel’s reach, collaborating with musicians including Carlos Santana and Ozzy Osbourne.Michael Nagle for The New York TimesThat evolution is accelerating: The modern steel icon Greg Leisz played on half of Daft Punk’s final album, while the funk band Vulfpeck recently commissioned the Los Angeles whiz Rich Hinman to interpret a Bach chorale. The Texan Will Van Horn went viral in 2016 for covering Aphex Twin with pedal steel, while Dave Harrington, half of the haute electronic duo Darkside, used it as his compositional tool for Alanis Morissette’s recent meditation album. A new fleet of stirring steel players has emerged, and an 11th volume of the long-running guitar compilation “Imaginational Anthem,” out Friday, offers a snapshot of the evocative instrument’s intrigue.“One reason it has taken so long to grow out of the genre it’s been pigeonholed in is because it’s so technically complex, and that complexity has kept a lot of people in the country world,” said Luke Schneider, the Nashville player who curated the new collection, by phone. He detailed how the knees push levers that bend strings, how the feet trigger pedals that stretch them, how the hands work in constant harmony. “It might be the most difficult instrument in the Western world to learn,” he concluded.Schneider, 42, once thought he might have to stay in the country world, too. A longtime devotee of ambient music who knew of other Nashville players flirting with experimental sounds, he instead backed the singer-songwriter Margo Price in her early country years and later joined the masked musician Orville Peck’s band. Nashville sounds, Nashville paychecks.But he then encountered Susan Alcorn, one of the instrument’s rare iconoclasts alongside the tinkerer Chas Smith and the famed producer Daniel Lanois. Her 2006 album, “And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar,” felt like a pioneer’s sketchbook of exotic places a young player might take the antique. Schneider followed her lead, trying to use the pedal steel’s stature to his advantage.“You’re literally playing this instrument with your whole body. You have to conjure your feelings, then connect them to your toes, your knees, your fingers, your eyes, and your ears,” Schneider said. “All of that combined can express the voice of a musician in a way few other instruments can.”Schneider recorded his solo debut, “Altar of Harmony,” which arrived early in 2020 lockdown, using only pedal steel, shaping sighing strings into hypnotic drones. “By its very nature, the sound the instrument produces is ethereal, so it’s calming for the player and listener,” he said. “That still comes through at the edges of modern music.”Likewise, before he began collaborating with Morissette during the pandemic, Harrington discovered a postmodern poignancy inside the pedal steel’s mechanics. For years, he’d played a solo guitar rendition of “Pure Imagination” from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” often as a soundcheck warm-up. When he added steel, he spotted the song’s bittersweet heart and cut it as an album finale.“You’re literally playing this instrument with your whole body,” Luke Schneider said. “You have to conjure your feelings, then connect them to your toes, your knees, your fingers, your eyes, and your ears.”Morgan Hornsby for The New York Times“It unlocked a little trap door into the feeling of one of my favorite songs of all time, like the camera had been turned 45 degrees,” Harrington, 36, said via video chat. “It’s a happy song that’s just so sad.”Despite the pedal steel’s manual demands, this rush of applications and ideas is a result, in many ways, of digital accessibility. The Danish guitarist Maggie Björklund, 57, stowed her pedal steel in a closet for two years when she first tried to learn around 2000 because its mechanics proved too difficult and she knew maybe three men in Denmark who played it. She ultimately flew to Nashville to study with Jeff Newman, a beloved instructor who informed her she’d been doing it all wrong.“I thought I knew a little bit about pedal steel, but he said, ‘You sound like a German hausfrau,’” she recalled by phone from north of Copenhagen, laughing. “He ripped all that away from me and gave me the basis I still play.”Just five years later, the New York guitarist Jonny Lam decided to pursue pedal steel as a way to differentiate himself in a city with a glut of guitarists. He stumbled upon The Steel Guitar Forum, where amateurs building instruments in garages argued with the likes of Buddy Emmons, who had revolutionized the instrument’s design, tuning and sound.Those cranky older denizens (“No one ever knows how to post a picture,” Lam, 42, joked) became his gateway, offering a low-stakes way for a Chinese American neophyte to learn the lessons of Nashville. He devoured classic instructional texts and records, but the forums (and, now especially, YouTube) remain founts of inspiration for Lam and younger players, reducing barriers to entry for an expensive and isolating instrument.“Twenty years ago, I didn’t know what a pedal steel was. There was this monoculture of white males,” Lam said. “But now people are doing quirky things with it online, and different kinds of people are being exposed. That representation matters.”Still, for both Björklund and Lam, pushing past the pedal steel’s conventional territory took time. Lam played pristine honky-tonk fare with his band Honeyfingers and supplied old-school textures for Norah Jones and Miranda Lambert. Björklund cut two elegant folk-rock albums as a steel-wielding songwriter, then played in Jack White’s backing band.Their tracks on “Imaginational Anthem XI,” however, feel like coming-out parties. During “Rainbows Across the Valley,” Lam’s high and low tones slowly curl around chattering birds. Björklund’s “Lysglimt” backs a sinister Spaghetti Western theme with unsettling noise and electronic throbs, like a storm cloud commandeering the horizon. Lam has composed a modern Chinese opera for the pedal steel, and Björklund is now finishing a series of solo pedal-steel abstractions. These are new starts for their old instrument.“Traditional pedal steel is beautiful, but the notes have already been played. It would be such a shame for it to be a dusty instrument in country music,” Björklund said, sighing. “It is much more interesting to explore the outer edges, where it comes into contact with the modern world.” More

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      Theater at Geffen Hall to Be Named for Two Key Donors

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      The Wu Tsai Theater will honor a $50 million gift from Joseph Tsai, a founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Clara Wu Tsai, a philanthropist.In late 2020, as coronavirus infections surged and cultural institutions shuttered, the fate of the long-delayed renovation of David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, was uncertain.Then came a $50 million gift from Joseph Tsai, a Taiwanese-born billionaire co-founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and his wife, Clara Wu Tsai, a philanthropist. The donation moved the project forward, accelerating construction so the hall could reopen in October, a year and a half ahead of schedule.In a nod to role of the Tsai family, Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic announced on Wednesday that the main auditorium in the hall would be named the Wu Tsai Theater.“It really took courage,” Katherine Farley, the chairwoman of Lincoln Center’s board, said of the gift in an interview. “And that courage inspired other people, and it made a big, big difference.”The gift represents one of the Tsai family’s biggest ventures so far into the performing arts. Joseph Tsai, who trained as a lawyer and serves as vice chairman of Alibaba, is more frequently associated with athletics. He is the primary owner of the Brooklyn Nets and has played an important role in helping the N.B.A. expand in China. The couple has previously contributed to universities, hospitals and social justice projects, among other gifts.Clara Wu Tsai, who is also a member of Lincoln Center’s board, said in an interview that she and her husband were moved by the opportunity to create jobs for New Yorkers and help make the performing arts more accessible. Also being named for the Tsais: a concert series aimed at increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the arts and bringing together performers of different genres.“My dream is that we have a full hall of diverse audiences and that we get programming in there that really showcases the versatility and flexibility that the hall was created to offer,” she said.Geffen Hall’s $550 million renovation will bring both aesthetic and acoustic improvements, with wavy beech wood walls and seats that wrap around the stage. Other additions meant to draw people in include a 50-foot digital screen in the lobby that can broadcast concerts to the public and a studio looking out onto Broadway.The hall is set to reopen on Oct. 7, with a concert featuring Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” among other pieces, before an audience of emergency medical workers and construction workers who took part in the hall’s renovation. Two galas and an open house weekend will follow later in the month.Clara Wu Tsai said she was confident that audiences would turn out, despite lingering concerns about the coronavirus and changing habits around going to live performances.“Everybody’s waiting to hear what will be one of the best concert halls in the world,” she said. “The timing is going to be good.” More

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      The Robust Return of Beyoncé

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherBeyoncé’s seventh solo album, “Renaissance,” is a rich tribute to the long history of Black dance music, from disco up through ballroom house. It functions both as collage and history lesson, and also captures an evolution in her songwriting and personal presentation toward more modern directions.For Beyoncé, who is 40, it is a strong midcareer pivot that asserts her singular place in pop music, capable of essentially disappearing for several years then re-emerging on her own terms, and still finding her audience.On this week’s Popcast, a deep dive on Beyoncé’s new album, her push-and-pull between tradition and futurism, her relationship to queer music communities and the ways in which she reframes understanding of authorship and ownership.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterWesley Morris, a critic at large at The New York TimesJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticSalamishah Tillet, a contributing critic at large at The New York TimesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More