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    An Exclamatory Playlist!

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    Wham! Neu! “Oh! Darling” and more artists and songs that make a statement.George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in “Wham!”NetflixDear listeners,If you’re looking for something light, fun and full of ridiculous ’80s fashion, I can’t recommend the new Netflix documentary about the pop group Wham! enough — it’s basically the documentary equivalent of a beach read.As someone who wasn’t around for Wham!’s heyday, the movie allowed me to live vicariously through its rise and appreciate things about Wham! I’d never considered before. Like how confident a producer and songwriter George Michael was from a young age. And also that Michael and his immaculately coifed bandmate Andrew Ridgeley really knew how and when to break up a band. They announced their imminent demise in 1986, and then played one epic final show at Wembley Stadium. “Wham! was never going to be middle-aged,” Ridgeley says in the movie, “or be anything other than an essential and pure representation of us as youths.”That sentiment made me realize how uncommonly perfect a band name Wham! was for this group. Goofy, youthful, monosyllabic, here-for-a-good-time-but-not-a-long-time and above all things — exclamatory! Adults, “serious musicians,” newspaper style guidelines: All of them tell you that exclamation points should be used sparingly. Wham! was having none of that. The duo said, “We’re going to make you write or speak an exclamation mark every time you use our name.”It got me thinking about the art of using exclamation marks in band names and song titles. Which, of course, calls for a playlist.Sometimes the musical exclamation point almost mimics percussion: “Turn! Turn! Turn!” or “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” Sometimes it helps you hear the voice of a particularly emotive singer, as I can only hear the phrase “Everybody Wants Some!!” in David Lee Roth’s wail. But more often than not, the musical exclamation point is simply a way to raise the stakes, to indicate (at the risk of overcompensating) that there is something ecstatic about the sound that accompanies it.Like Wham!, I’ll now make my graceful exit. All that’s left to say: Listen up!Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Wham!: “Everything She Wants”This is one of my favorite Wham! songs, perhaps because it sounds, uncharacteristically, a little sinister. As my colleague Wesley Morris put it in his great review of “Wham!,” “there is a kind of desperation in the average Wham! song, a crisis about either being trapped in lovelessness or excluded from love — a crisis audible, even to my young ears, as a wail from the closet.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Abba: “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”Famously sampled in Madonna’s 2005 dance-floor reinvention “Hung Up,” this lusty 1979 Abba classic also boasts some excellent parentheses use. (Listen on YouTube)3. Van Halen: “Everybody Wants Some!!”A double exclamation point? That’s bold. Then again, Eddie Van Halen’s solo in the middle of this 1980 track is, like any Eddie Van Halen solo, basically the sonic equivalent of a double exclamation mark. When Richard Linklater paid homage to this song by naming his (hilarious) 2016 movie “Everybody Wants Some!!,” he knew enough to honor the band’s punctuation. (Listen on YouTube)4. The Beatles: “Oh! Darling”The Beatles certainly knew how to employ the exclamation point: “Help!,” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!,” and, if you expand the framework to their solo careers, John Lennon’s “Instant Karma!” I love the first-syllable exclamation in “Oh! Darling,” though: Its clipped agony contrasts with the way Paul McCartney stretches out that “daaaarling” and effectively captures the raw-throated desperation of his vocal. (Listen on YouTube)5. The Byrds: “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)”I confess that this song — and the Byrds’ lush, fluid delivery of that titular phrase — never really screamed “exclamation” to me. But given that it was written by Pete Seeger and known as a quiet folk ballad before the Byrds made it a No. 1 hit in 1965, those three typographical lightning strikes, though present in Seeger’s original title, now convey the excitement of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” gone electric. (Listen on YouTube)6. Sly and the Family Stone: “Stand!”Also the name of Sly and the Family Stone’s great 1969 album, “Stand!” is a command, an invitation and a call to action, bringing the listener right into the reality of the song. Its punctuation also effectively communicates the energy of the track’s ever-ascending chorus and frenzied, gospel-influenced final section. (Listen on YouTube)7. Los Campesinos!: “You! Me! Dancing!”There was a coy, sometimes run-on exuberance about many indie bands in the aughts, though few encapsulated that as expressively as the Welsh group Los Campesinos! Bonus points, of course, for exclamation points in the band name and song title! (Listen on YouTube)8. Neu!: “Hero”The name of the legendary krautrock group Neu! — German for “New!” — was, in a sense, a sendup of the consumer culture pervading the band’s Düsseldorf home in the early 1970s. As the wildly influential drummer Klaus Dinger said in a 2001 interview with The Wire, “‘Neu!’ at that time was the strongest word in advertising.” (Listen on YouTube)9. George Michael: “Freedom! (‘90)”In 1984, Wham! released a bright, buoyant single called “Freedom.” Michael chose to revisit that title — though now with a time-stamp, and an exclamation! — for this hit from his second solo album, “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1.” The lyrics revisit the image he cultivated back in those Wham! days, and reject it in favor of something truer to Michael’s authentic self: “Today the way I play the game is not the same, no way,” he sang. “Think I’m gonna get myself happy.” The exclamation mark sells it: This song was Michael’s liberation. (Listen on YouTube)Gotta have some faith in the sound,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“An Exclamatory Playlist!” track listTrack 1: Wham!, “Everything She Wants”Track 2: Abba, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”Track 3: Van Halen, “Everybody Wants Some!!”Track 4: The Beatles, “Oh! Darling”Track 5: The Byrds, “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)”Track 6: Sly and the Family Stone, “Stand!”Track 7: Los Campesinos!, “You! Me! Dancing!”Track 8: Neu!, “Hero”Track 9: George Michael, “Freedom! (’90)”Bonus tracksRIP Tony Bennett, who was such a musical institution that part of me thought he might actually live forever. Rob Tanenbaum put together a playlist of 10 of his best-known songs, and Jon Pareles wrote a lovely appraisal that begins with quite a musical brainteaser: “Has there ever been a more purely likable pop figure than Tony Bennett?” I’m still mulling it over. More

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      Abba Voyage Review: No Ordinary Abba Night at the Club

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      With a concert spectacle mixing wizardry and technical skill, the band makes a case for its continued relevance.LONDON — I kept turning to my friend, wanting to tell him how young and fresh the two women that put the As in Abba seemed on the giant screens ahead of us. Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were not actually in the room with us, but that’s the kind of stupor Abba Voyage dazzles you into.Though the Swedish pop band has not played London since 1979, holographic “Abbatars” of the band, modeled in their likeness from that year, are currently filling up a custom-built arena for a 90-minute concert of their greatest hits. A combination of motion-captured performance, animated sequences and a live 10-person band make up the spectacle, which makes a floor-thumping case for the music’s continued relevance.Projected on a screen that envelops one side of the spaceshiplike auditorium, the Abbatars play mostly as if it were a real concert. They “enter” from below the stage, make banter with the audience, ask for patience as they switch costumes, and return for an encore.It would feel corny if it weren’t so triumphantly fun, and the Friday night crowd was certainly along for the ride. Largely a mix of couples in their mid 60s and younger, disco-leaning gay men, the attendees sang through every number with the intensity of a therapeutic ritual. Abba Voyage is an exercise in symbol worship that separates itself from an ordinary Abba night at the club through state-of-the-art production values.“To be or not to be — that is no longer the question,” the band member Benny Andersson declares in a prerecorded solo address, and questions about live performance, truth, eternity and transience are frothed up into the sheer giddiness of (almost) being in the same room as one of the biggest acts in pop music history.It’s hard to pin down the reasons that such a strange, 21st century endeavor is a crowd-pleasing success, but Abba’s music has its own strange alchemy. Take “Mamma Mia” (performed here in rhinestone-emblazoned pink velour jumpsuits): Why is the hook an Italian catchphrase? Or “Fernando” (sung against a dramatic lunar eclipse): What could these four Swedes possibly have to say about the Mexican revolution? And yet, something about the earnestness of those songs, reflected in the audience’s full-chested belting, has made them inescapable pop standards.Those two songs are performed straightforwardly, the Abbatars life-size and center stage, with surrounding screens projecting close-ups for those seated in the orchestra level, behind a massive dance floor. Most of the numbers are done this way, recreating a concert experience; the audience was overjoyed to dance along and applaud each step of the way. Choreography, based on the band member’s real movements, but captured from younger body doubles, hit its peak during “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!,” with the digital Lyngstad doing high-kicks and twirls that I’m not sure the real one was capable of in her heyday.Abba Voyage is playing at a specially constructed “Abba Arena” in East London through December.Johan PerssonA couple of songs, however, played more like immersive music videos, with the full size of the screens used to tell more thorough visual stories. The band famously sang and performed through its own breakup, and “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” a 1977 anthem mirroring the dissolution of romantic and professional relations in the group, is here performed as an Ingmar Bergman-esque study in missed connections. Its members’ fractured faces sing across a hall of mirrors before ultimately embracing in reconciliation.Less successful than those episodes were two fully-animated numbers, set to “Eagle” and “Voulez Vous,” following a young traveler’s journey through forests and pyramids, and culminating in their discovery of giant sculptures of the band member’s heads.Those songs recreate the interstitial bits of a “real” concert, as do speeches from each Abbatar about their success and artistry. The best of these interludes saw the band present the footage from their Eurovision Song Contest-winning performance of “Waterloo,” the song that catapulted them to fame in 1974.Abba’s music is deceptively complex. What sounds like a simple little song reveals itself to be an intricately layered web of harmonies, melodies, real and digital instruments and angelic English vocals, ever-so-slightly outside the band’s Scandinavian comfort zone.It’s a mix of wizardry and technical skill that, decades later, after movies and musicals and greatest hits compilations, is still at the pinnacle of pop maximalism. To hear the closing piano riffs on “Chiquitita” in a crowded arena is an exalting experience, and despite its eyebrow-raising premise, Abba Voyage miraculously takes flight. More

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      Abba Returns to the Stage in London. Sort Of.

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      The Swedish superstars — or digital versions of them, at least — performed on Thursday to 3,000 enthusiastic fans with the help of 140 animators, four body doubles and $175 million.LONDON — Ecstatic cheers bounced around a specially built 3,000-capacity hexagonal arena Thursday night as the members of Abba — one of pop music’s behemoths — slowly emerged from beneath the stage, their classic ’70s hairstyles leading the way, to play their first concert in over 40 years.As a synthesizer blared and lights pulsed, the singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad twirled her arms skyward, unveiling a huge cape decorated with gold and fire red feathers, while she sang the slow-burn disco of “The Visitors.” Benny Andersson, poised at his synth, grinned like he couldn’t believe he was onstage again. Bjorn Ulvaeus, the band’s guitarist, focused on his instrument. Agnetha Faltskog swirled her arms as if in a hippie trance, adding her voice to the chorus.Soon, Andersson took the mic. “I’m really Benny,” he said. “I just look very good for my age.”The specially built Abba Arena holds the technology required to bring the Abbatars to life.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesThe audience — some already out of their seats dancing, glasses of rosé prosecco in hand — laughed because the comment went straight to the heart of the event. The members of Abba onstage weren’t real; they were meticulous digital re-creations made to look like the group in its 1979 heyday. The real Abba — whose members are all at least 72 years old — was watching from the stands.Thursday’s concert was the world premiere of Abba Voyage, a 90-minute spectacular that runs in London seven times a week until at least December, with potential to extend until April 2026, when the permission for the Abba Arena expires, with the land being designated for housing.During the show, the digital avatars — known as Abbatars — performed a set of hits with the help of a 10-piece live band and an array of lights, lasers and special effects. For the Spanish-tinged “Chiquitita,” the group sang in front of a solar eclipse. For the stadium disco of “Summer Night City,” it appeared in pyramids made of dazzling light, with the rings of Saturn twirling in the background. The avatars also appeared as 30-foot-tall figures on huge screens at the sides of the stage, as if being filmed at a real concert. At points, they started appearing in dozens of places onstage as if in a manic music video.Baillie Walsh, the show’s director, said the event was meant to be “a sensory overload.”The project, which Walsh said pushed digital concerts beyond the hologram performances that have made headlines in the past, is the result of years of secretive work, protected by hundreds of nondisclosure agreements. That included five weeks filming the real Abba in motion capture suits in Sweden; four body doubles; endless debates over the set list; and 140 animators from Industrial Light & Magic (known as I.L.M.), a visual effects firm founded by George Lucas that normally works on Hollywood blockbusters.Svana Gisla and Andersson’s son Ludvig Andersson, the event’s producers, said in an interview last Friday that they had to deal with a host of problems during the eight years they worked to develop the show, including fund-raising challenges and malfunctioning toilets.“It’s been stressful,” Andersson said, looking exhausted and sucking a mango-flavored vape pen. “But, make no mistake,” he added, “nothing has been more enjoyable than this.”Alex Beers, a member of the band’s fan club, traveled from Amsterdam for the concert.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesCarla Bento flew in from Portugal just to stand outside the show.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesMerchandise for sale inside the arena included shirts, backpacks and a tea tray.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesThe idea started around 2014, Gisla said, when she was brought in to help make music videos for the band involving digital avatars, a process that was “a total nightmare,” she said. Around 2016, Simon Fuller, the producer behind the “Idol” franchise and the Spice Girls, suggested a show starring a 3-D version of the group “singing” while backed by a live band. (Fuller is no longer involved.)The group needed to get creative because Faltskog and Lyngstad had made it clear that they didn’t “want to go on the road,” Andersson told The New York Times in 2021. But the quartet did want to include fresh music in the show, so it reunited in secret to work up a few songs, which became something more: “Voyage,” Abba’s first new album in four decades, released last year.The team quickly realized that holograms were not up to scratch; nor were a host of other technologies. “We kissed a lot of frogs,” Gisla said. It was only when they met representatives of Industrial Light & Magic that she felt they had found a company capable of making “really convincing digital humans,” who could be “running, spinning, performing in floodlights.” The key, Ulvaeus said in a video interview, is “for them to emotionally connect with an audience.”During test shoots in fall 2019, the group’s male members “leapt in with no qualms,” Ben Morris, I.L.M.’s creative director, said. (The musicians’ biggest concern? Shaving off their beards. “I was scared what I would find underneath,” Ulvaeus said.) Lyngstad had just had hip surgery and was using a cane. “But we started playing some songs and she slowly slid off the stool, stood up and said, ‘Take my stick away,’” Morris recalled.The following spring, the band was filmed for five weeks by about 200 cameras in Sweden, as it repeatedly played its hits. The British ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor and four body doubles selected from hundreds of hopefuls looked on, with the intention of learning the band’s every movement, stance and expression so they could mimic its members, then extend their movements to develop the show’s final choreography.Steve Aplin, I.L.M.’s motion director for the event, said they went through “literally hundreds” of iterations of each avatar to get them right, and also modeled clothes designed by the stylist B. Akerlund. The hardest to achieve was Andersson, he added, since “his personality is the twinkle in his eye.”From left: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson in their motion-capture suits.Baillie WalshWhile the Abbatars were being developed, the 10-piece band was being formed and Gisla was fund-raising (the final budget was 140 million pounds, or about $175 million, she said), developing an arena capable of handling all the technology and trying to keep the massive project under wraps. A moment of potential jeopardy came in December 2019, when the team submitted a planning application to the London authorities that had the word “Logo” on technical drawings of the building instead of “Abba,” in the hope no one would investigate further.When the coronavirus pandemic hit, a project that “already seemed ludicrous before Covid” became “doubly ludicrous” Gisla said, since she was asking backers to trust the idea that 3,000 people would want to dance next to each other in the near future. Materials for the arena’s sound insulation almost got stuck outside Britain when a ship jammed in the Suez Canal; the wood for the building’s facade was meant to come from Russia, but was sourced from Germany at increased expense after Russia invaded Ukraine.Asked what he had gone through while making the project, Walsh replied, “A nervous breakdown,” then laughed.Abba Voyage is not the only Abba-themed event in London; the long-running “Mamma Mia!” musical in the West End also regularly attracts boozy bachelorette and birthday parties. Gisla said that like a West End show, Abba Voyage would have to sell about 80 percent of its seats to make a profit. Tickets start at £31, or $38, although few of those cheap seats appear available for the initial run. Attendees pay more — starting at $67 — for a spot on a dance floor in front of the stage.Andersson, the producer, said he obviously hoped Abba Voyage would be a commercial success — as do the members of Abba, who are investors — but he insisted he was happy the team had simply “created something beautiful” after so much toil. Ulvaeus said he wouldn’t be surprised if some of the group’s contemporaries consider a similar undertaking: “If they ask me for advice, of course, I would say, ‘It takes a long time and it’s very expensive.’”The Abba Voyage show features a 10-piece live band and an array of lights, lasers and special effects.Johan PerssonBrenton and Brenda Pfeiffer, from Australia, sharing a kiss after the show.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesElla Vaday and Kitty Scott-Claus, competitors on “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK,” attending the opening-night show.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesAt Thursday’s premiere, the audience was split between invited celebrities in the stands (including Sweden’s king and queen) and members of Abba’s fan club on the dance floor, yet in both sections people hugged in joy at the sound of beloved songs, and danced and sang along. The fact that the band onstage wasn’t the flesh-and-blood originals didn’t seem to matter. For “Waterloo,” the Abbatars simply introduced a huge video of their 1974 Eurovision performance and danced their way offstage as the crowd cheered wildly.Jarvis Cocker of the band Pulp said he had been left in “a state of confusion” by the show. “I felt very emotional at certain times during that performance, which I’m calling a performance but it wasn’t — it was a projection,” he said. He added, “But I don’t know what it means for the future of mankind.” He suggested avatar shows featuring the Beatles and Elvis Presley wouldn’t be far behind.The fans outside were too overwhelmed to worry about the show’s implications for the live music industry. Teresa Harle, 55, a postal worker who attended with a friend and ran to the front of the arena to get the best view, said she found the avatars so convincing, she even waved at Faltskog when the show ended.“It was a once in a lifetime experience,” Harle said, “even though we’re coming again tomorrow, and Saturday.” More

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      Who Will Win the Top Grammy Award? Let’s Discuss.

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      Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry.Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry. More

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      Adele and Abba’s Songs of Experience

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      Mitski moved to Nashville. She’s not quite sure why, because she didn’t really know anyone there, but she liked how specifically weird it was — a town with stories. A local businessman had recently died and left his substantial estate to his Border collie. Bachelorette parties were a surreal and ever-present cottage industry: “There’s always a woman crying on the street and five other women in matching T-shirts comforting her,” as Mitski put it to me. “It feels like such a good place to observe the human condition.” More

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      Grammys Snubs and Surprises: Kacey Musgraves, Jon Batiste and Abba

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      A jazz musician snagged the most nominations, and the Weeknd, an artist who said he’s boycotting the awards, found his name on the ballot.Doja Cat, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo — sure, of course.H.E.R., Brandi Carlile, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga — OK, fine, that makes some sense. These are the Grammys, after all.But Jon Batiste — the most-nominated artist overall? And … Abba? Who knew.The contenders for the 64th annual Grammy Awards in January were announced on Tuesday. The New York Times music team — reporter Joe Coscarelli, chief pop music critic Jon Pareles and pop music critic Jon Caramanica — are here to break them down.JOE COSCARELLI Let’s just start with the real shocker: A jazz pianist leads the field with 11 total nominations.Yes, Batiste is a genre-crossing multihyphenate who works as the bandleader and musical director for CBS’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” He’s already won a Golden Globe and an Oscar (best original score for Pixar’s “Soul,” alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and is liable to pop up anywhere music is played — even alongside Madonna, as she promoted her “Madame X” concert movie in Harlem.Yet seeing him not only in the R&B, jazz, classical and American roots categories but also in the general field — record and album of the year — alongside those I considered shoo-ins (Rodrigo, Eilish, Taylor Swift, Doja Cat) was the sort of surprise that only the Grammys can consistently provide.Which is to say, was this actually a twist or was this the most Grammys thing that could have possibly happened? I’m torn, because on one hand, it felt like we were moving away from this. On the other, Jacob Collier got an album of the year nod last time around.JON CARAMANICA Last year, when talking about the ubiquity of the retro rock-soul band Black Pumas, we underscored a now-familiar Grammy sleight of hand: Rather than nominate older musicians well past their prime popularity, the show instead nominates younger musicians who make music in an old-fashioned way. That can mean Black Pumas, and it can mean Billie Eilish.This year, it means Jon Batiste, who is 35, but pointedly carries on the long tradition of New Orleans music, and who in recent years has become an institutionalist, a slightly less progressive version of his bandleader competitor, Questlove of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”The Grammys are, naturally, the ultimate institution — I would not be surprised if, a decade or two from now, Batiste becomes the show’s musical director. That he is also the bandleader on the marquee late-night show on CBS, the network that also broadcasts the Grammys, isn’t evidence of a fix, but it’s a reminder that the presumed and actual audiences for the awards show and the network both skew old — and that in this echo chamber, and perhaps only in this echo chamber, Batiste qualifies as a pop star..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}JON PARELES Batiste is an impressive musician and performer — pianist, singer, dancer — and his album, “We Are,” is a trove of good intentions and good playing, including New Orleans connections with appearances by Trombone Shorty and the Hot 8 Brass Band. Like Black Pumas (also nominated this year!), Batiste’s album harks back to vintage soul and R&B, clearly a sweet spot for Grammy voters, although it also ventures toward hip-hop. The album is a serious, thoughtful statement, celebrating New Orleans roots — Batiste is a member of a longstanding musical family — and his own memories of growing up. It also has positive-thinking message songs like “Freedom” and “We Are.” But Batiste’s nightly broadcast exposure clearly has a lot to do with all his nominations; someone’s still watching network TV.You get a lot of Grammy nominations by qualifying for multiple categories — and a lot of nominations does not guarantee a lot of wins. Batiste is in R&B, jazz, American roots, soundtrack (for “Soul”), music video and even contemporary classical for one of the album tracks, “Movement 11” — which is a stretch, since it shares far more similarity to a two-minute jazz improvisation with added strings than it does to its fellow nominees, like the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s knotty orchestral song cycle, “The Only One.”COSCARELLI Rounding out album of the year, in addition to Batiste’s “We Are,” you have “Love for Sale” by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, “Justice (Triple Chucks Deluxe)” by Justin Bieber, “Planet Her (Deluxe)” by Doja Cat, “Back of My Mind” by H.E.R., “Happier Than Ever” by Billie Eilish, “Montero” by Lil Nas X, “Sour” by Olivia Rodrigo, “Evermore” by Taylor Swift and “Donda” by Kanye West.Many of those artists are also represented in song and record of the year, where you also get a mix of Brandi Carlile, Ed Sheeran, Silk Sonic and Abba’s “I Still Have Faith in You,” which is apparently a record that moved people? That means no Halsey, Ariana Grande, BTS, Megan Thee Stallion, Chris Stapleton or Tyler, the Creator in the major categories, which plenty will see as galling.The 2019 best album winner, Kacey Musgraves, was also eligible again, for her latest LP, “Star-Crossed,” which wasn’t nominated as a body of work. Instead, she landed only two nods overall: best country song and best country solo performance for “Camera Roll,” despite the album being reportedly removed from the country categories by the Recording Academy’s genre police.PARELES One thing that struck me, as a writer for a sometime print publication, was the sheer typographical burden of this year’s Grammy nominations. The list simply has not looked like this before. The album of the year category goes on for three full pages to name all the songwriters, producers and engineers credited on albums by Batiste, Bieber, Doja Cat, H.E.R., Lil Nas X, Swift and West.It’s a reflection of how albums are made now. It’s not a band and a producer sequestered in the studio. It’s about beat-shopping, samples, songwriting camps, remote collaborations, multiple tweaks and iterations — and all the participants want those credits and publishing points. The nominees alone are going to be a sizable voting bloc for each album, especially in a category split 10 ways.COSCARELLI But then there’s Gaga and Bennett, Eilish and Rodrigo, whose credits are minuscule by comparison. That could potentially give them an edge with more conservative voters who remain concerned with the bespoke quality of the music.Along with expanding the Big Four categories to 10 nominees each — and lowering the bar for how much any one collaborator has to contribute to be among those recognized in the best album field (hello, Zadie Smith!) — this year also marked the end of the so-called Nominations Review Committees. (These were the source of the Weeknd’s frustration last year, after he was snubbed and eventually decided to boycott.)Rather than some shadowy cabal taking the members’ top vote-getters, considering them and then making their own final decision on the nominees anyway, the Recording Academy says these picks are pure: Whoever got the most votes from their music industry peers is who is appearing on the final ballot.Do you see that reflected here? My sense is that it benefits those with wide name recognition and enduring industry connections and respect — Bieber, Abba, maybe even Carlile, who has a record of the year nomination and two for song, including an Alicia Keys duet. At the same time, you could imagine the secret committees keeping out something like Lady Gaga and Bennett’s “Love for Sale,” because it’s so stereotypically Old and Stuffy Grammys — the kind of thing it felt like they were distancing themselves from in recent history.CARAMANICA I will not lie: my heart palpitated a little erratically (and worryingly) when I read the first name in the first category, record of the year: Abba. Now look, I exult at weddings just like the next sap, and I honor anyone whose albums were in my parents’ vinyl collection. But this new Abba music is thin, thin, thin. It exists primarily as an advertisement for the old Abba music, and the group’s avatar-led stage show that’s debuting next year.PARELES That’s obviously one of the Grammys’ better-late-than-never nominations. Abba never got a Grammy in its prime; this nomination is the apology.Meanwhile, count me surprised that Arooj Aftab turns up in the best new artist category. She is a Pakistani musician who studied at the Berklee School of Music and is based in Brooklyn, mingling South Asian music, jazz and chamber music; some of the songs on her (third) album, “Vulture Prince,” presumably the one that caught the Grammys’ attention, have lyrics by the 13th-century Persian mystical poet Rumi. It’s a lovely album, but I hardly expected to see her name alongside Rodrigo and Saweetie. Persian aside, there’s also still a language barrier for Grammy voters in this category; where are streaming blockbusters like Rauw Alejandro, whose debut album came out last November?COSCARELLI Best new artist is confusing, especially with the removal of the nomination committees taken into account. Enough people knew Aftab, Baby Keem and Japanese Breakfast to put them ahead of, say, Polo G, Tems, Jack Harlow and Maneskin (shudder)?I do miss the secret committees when it comes to rock. Last year, they seemed to make a point to shake up typically staid categories like best rock song, album and performance, the latter of which was all women for the first time, including Fiona Apple, Phoebe Bridgers and Haim. This year it’s back to basics: AC/DC, Black Pumas (for a live release), Chris Cornell, Deftones and Foo Fighters. Kings of Leon, Weezer and Paul McCartney also turn up in the rock field.That can’t help but feel like regression, even if it’s what the voters wanted.Kanye West’s “Donda” is up for album of the year.Randall Hill/ReutersCARAMANICA Joe, you see that shift also in the best rap album nominations. Last year, they consisted of purist-oriented artisanal albums at the intersection of process and aesthetic that the Grammys has long valorized in other genres. This year, the nominees are … reasonably popular and generally respected rap albums.That includes “Donda,” which is also nominated for album of the year. West received five total nominations this year, representing something of a coming in from the cold for someone who, in Grammy terms, now qualifies as a legacy artist. He has been nominated over 70 times in his career, but apart from last year’s win for best contemporary Christian music album, hasn’t taken home a trophy since 2013. He also hasn’t been nominated for album of the year for an album of his own since his 2007 album “Graduation.” (He has been nominated as a producer on others’ albums.)The nominations of “Donda” and “Hurricane” (best melodic rap performance) also means nominations for the Weeknd, even after his boycott. (He is also nominated for his contributions to Doja Cat’s album.)COSCARELLI The inclusion of “Donda” in album of the year can’t help but highlight the lack of Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” which earned a rap album and a rap performance nod (for “Way 2 Sexy”) but nothing in the top categories. Both are among the year’s biggest albums commercially.Also on that best-seller list? Morgan Wallen, who has outperformed both rappers but came away with absolutely no nominations amid his soft industry banishment for drunkenly shouting a racial slur in a video captured by a neighbor. Does that count as a snub, or just a cultural land mine avoided?CARAMANICA It’s also worth mentioning Taylor Swift here — a lonely nomination for album of the year, for “Evermore,” perhaps the least commercially impactful album of her career, and also another nomination in the same category by dint of her writing “contributions” to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour.”PARELES In a way, Swift’s album nomination is the appropriate one: “Evermore” is an old-fashioned full-length album, made to be heard as a whole. Also on the absentee list: Lana Del Rey and Lorde, even though their (and Swift’s) producer Jack Antonoff is nominated as producer of the year, in part for his work with them.COSCARELLI I see neither of you want to touch the subject of Wallen right now — just like the Grammys.CARAMANICA On the other hand, there are a handful of TikTok hits that have now led to Grammy nominations: Giveon’s slow and aching “Heartbreak Anniversary” is nominated for best R&B song, and the British rock band Glass Animals had a huge TikTok hit this year with “Heat Waves,” and now the band, which has been releasing music for several years, is nominated for best new artist. Walker Hayes’s goofy country stomper “Fancy Like” started its ascent on TikTok and now is nominated in best country song.PARELES Well, at least they’re trying. You have to sympathize, a little, with how difficult it is for the Grammys to try to sum up all of music when there are so many niche audiences that barely intersect. But we’re lucky that hardly anyone who cares about music takes the Grammys as the ultimate judgment. More

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      Summer Walker Beats Abba’s First Album in Decades to No. 1

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      The Atlanta R&B singer’s “Still Over It” becomes her first LP to top the Billboard 200, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States.When Abba, whose classic songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” are the epitome of Europop ear candy, announced in September that it would be returning this fall with its first studio album in 40 years, it was assumed that the new release would be an immediate blockbuster.The album, “Voyage,” came out on Nov. 5, and it has indeed reached higher on Billboard’s chart than any previous Abba release — but it did not quite go to No. 1.“Voyage” opens at No. 2 with solid album sales but low streaming numbers, edged out by the latest from Summer Walker, a 25-year-old R&B singer from Atlanta.Walker’s “Still Over It” becomes her first No. 1 album, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Fans mostly consumed “Still Over It,” Walker’s second album, on streaming services. It had 201 million clicks online and sold 12,000 copies as a complete package.Abba’s “Voyage” had the equivalent of 82,000 sales; of those, 78,000 were attributed to copies sold as a complete package, including 42,000 CDs and 17,500 vinyl LPs. (It was available in eight vinyl configurations, including two picture discs and five color variants, in addition to standard black.) Songs from “Voyage” were streamed 4.9 million times — or about as many clicks as Walker got in four hours during her debut week.“Voyage” is also the title of Abba’s virtual comeback concert, in which computer-generated “Abbatars” of its four members will perform with a live band in a custom-built venue in London, starting in May.“What interested us was the idea that we could send them out while we can be at home cooking or walking the dog,” Benny Andersson, one of the group’s members, told The New York Times in a recent interview.Despite the enduring popularity of Abba’s singles, its original albums were only moderate chart hits in the United States. According to Billboard, the group’s highest-charting title before “Voyage” was “Abba: The Album,” which went to No. 14 in 1978. (Two Abba-related soundtracks did better: “Mamma Mia!” went to No. 1 in 2008, and “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” landed at No. 3 a decade later.)Ed Sheeran’s “=,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 4, while Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” is No. 3 and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 5. More