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    Mr Eazi’s Anthem of Gratitude, and 12 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Silvana Estrada, Old Dominion, Nadine Shah and others.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.​​Mr Eazi featuring Soweto Gospel Choir, ‘Exit’Mr Eazi — born in Nigeria and long based in Ghana — has been releasing singles and mixtapes for a decade, becoming one of Africa’s major hitmakers. But he considers his new album, “The Evil Genius,” his official studio debut, tracing a narrative that reaches its finale with “Exit.” The track, produced by the Nigerian studio mastermind Kel-P, merges Nigerian Afrobeats and South African gospel, as Mr Eazi sings about how the paranoia of success — “I’ve seen things go bad/When my family turns to demons around me” — gets overcome by gratitude and faith. The Soweto Gospel Choir harmonizes with worshipful, call-and-response thank yous. JON PARELESNadine Shah, ‘Topless Mother’Loud guitars over a pounding Bo Diddley beat propel Nadine Shah’s vocals through “Topless Mother,” a burst of determined, free-associative, syllabically perfect semi-sequiturs. “I told you all/That I have heard,” she sing-chants. “And do you promise not to breathe a word.” She also blurts out three-syllable rhymes: “Sinatra, Viagra, iguana.” Both words and music are all about brusque momentum and a determination to connect. PARELESFlyte featuring Laura Marling, ‘Tough Love’“This could be real — tough love,” the not-exactly folky duo Flyte sings, in a track from its self-titled new album that starts out with typical folk-rock strumming and harmonies and grows into an avalanche. Will Taylor and Nick Hill sing about self-contradictory behavior — “How do we start healing if we can’t keep out the dark” — while the track swells in a giant crescendo. An intimate conflict becomes an existential struggle. PARELESSilvana Estrada, ‘Qué Problema’The problem in “Qué Problema” (“What a Problem”) is a rapturous infatuation, verging on the mystical, that may never be fulfilled. “Your skin has the color of time,” sings the Mexican songwriter Silvana Estrada. “When you smile, the wind stumbles.” A swaying, flickering rhythm, with a six-beat undercurrent that’s sometimes only implied, carries a vocal that radiates affection, no matter how things turn out. PARELESLulu. featuring the Joy, ‘Yesterdays’Lulu. — a Nigerian-British songwriter, Lulu Ayodele, who’s unlikely to be confused with the 1960s Scottish hitmaker Lulu — works her way from self-doubt to cautious optimism in “Yesterdays.” She sings, “I know I’m changing/I know there is beauty where pain is.” Subdued Afrobeats percussion and diffident guitar picking captures her uncertainty, but the Joy — a South African vocal group, singing in English and Zulu — coaxes her to move ahead, insisting, “Now I found a better place.” PARELESSheherazaad, ‘Mashoor’Sheherazaad, an Indian-American songwriter from San Francisco, draws on microtonal South Asian vocal inflections, Minimalism and hints of flamenco in “Mashoor” (“Fame”), which was produced by another South Asian hybridizer, Arooj Aftab. Singing in Hindi, accompanied only by a meditative classical guitar and hand percussion, Sheherazaad interrogates unearned fame, pondering, “Have you climbed too high?/Where is my reflection in the mirror?” PARELESOld Dominion, ‘Beautiful Sky’Smokey Robinson — who co-wrote “The Way You Do the Things You Do” — might appreciate “Beautiful Sky,” which hijacks standard honky-tonk images into self-pitying analogies for a failed romance: “The way you go to my head, you’d make a really good tequila/The way you’re always on, you’d make a damn good neon light.” Fingerpicked acoustic and electric guitars gather behind Old Dominion’s close-harmony vocals, and of course that “Beautiful Sky” feels blue. PARELESThe Third Mind featuring Jesse Sykes, ‘Sally Go Round the Roses’Dave Alvin from the Blasters, Victor Krummenacher and David Immerglück from Camper Van Beethoven and Michael Jerome from Better Than Ezra get together as the Third Mind to enjoy psychedelic jams. They found an ideal vehicle with “Sally Go Round the Roses,” the mysterious one-hit wonder by the Jaynetts, who sang, “The saddest thing in the whole wide world/is to see your baby with another girl.” The song has also been picked up by Grace Slick, Tim Buckley and the English folk-jazz group Pentangle. It’s a modal, Celtic-flavored tune, mostly a drone, and the Third Mind’s guitar colloquies connect it to Appalachia, the Byrds and John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Jesse Sykes’s vocals sound frayed and knowing; the guitars tease, probe, tangle and palpitate. PARELESHauschka, ‘Altruism’Volker Bertelmann, the composer who performs as Hauschka — and who won an Academy Award for the score of “All Quiet on the Western Front” — plays piano both on the keyboard and inside on the strings directly. He also uses a prepared piano, with damping and resonating objects on the strings, along with other acoustic and electronic sounds. In “Altruism,” from his new album “Philanthropy,” Hauschka layers terse little riffs and plinking, clanking, rattling tones into something like funk, with a marchlike melody emerging briefly before the track calmly disassembles itself. PARELESRoy Nathanson featuring Nick Hakim, ‘All the Bones Had Names’During the pandemic, the saxophonist, poet, educator and activist Roy Nathanson, 72, convened jam sessions in front of his Brooklyn home for 82 straight days with whichever musicians assembled on the sidewalk that evening. He has funneled the experience into “82 Days,” a scruffy and enchanting new record. “All the Bones Had Names” began with a poem, written when he was getting a somber drumbeat of news about death: of family members, close friends and essential workers living in the neighborhood. Over a droning electric bass and splatters from an un-fancy keyboard, Nathanson reads the poem while the vocalist Nick Hakim, his frequent musical partner, adds a smokescreen of ad-libs. “All the bones had names/no one claimed,” the poem begins. But by the end, Nathanson is refusing to see death as an endpoint. “The bones were stars,” he says, “that had yet/to be discovered.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJ.D. Allen, ‘The Knight of Swords’Since 2011, the tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen has released an album a year, typically with a trio. But don’t confuse habit with stillness. His most recent LP, “This,” is Allen’s first full-on encounter with electronics, and it is the sound of a burly toned, bop-steeped saxophonist pushing beyond the familiar. On “The Knight of Swords,” two independent histories seem to circle each other, seeking common ground, as Allen’s spiraling, bittersweet blues meets the ghostly swell of Alex Bonney’s electronics. RUSSONELLOKevin Sun, ‘After Depths’The saxophonist Kevin Sun has been making his mark on the New York scene of late by way of studiousness and subtlety. Sun is not shy about his appreciation for Mark Turner, a shadow-dwelling tenor great one generation his senior, and one way to hear his double LP “The Depths of Memory” is as a callback to the sort of bendable postmodernism that Turner was playing with his Fly Trio back in the early 2000s (and that he’s continued making for ECM Records, in other formats). But Sun has something original going on, too: his own feeling of loose coil and terse freedom, and a personal approach to disrupting time. Leading a quintet here, Sun concludes the album with “After Depths,” a slow-motion action painting with a melody that could almost pass for spontaneous — if it weren’t being doubled with such precise imperfection by the trumpeter Adam O’Farrill. RUSSONELLO More

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      35 Pop and Jazz Albums, Shows and Festivals Coming This Fall

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      Buzzy debuts (Chappell Roan, Evian Christ) and anticipated follow-ups (Jorja Smith, yeule) are due this season.After a summer dominated by blockbuster tours by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, this fall the music business gets back to the business of releasing albums. Longstanding acts are returning with new LPs (Dolly Parton, Wilco, Usher), and long-awaited follow-ups are arriving, too (the Streets, Sampha, Nicki Minaj). Dates and lineups are subject to change.SeptemberSAM RIVERS CENTENNIAL Amid the hardscrabble realities of 1970s New York, Studio Rivbea was a crucial crack in the pavement where creative life flourished. A downtown loft run by the esteemed saxophonist Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice, Rivbea — and its resident big band — gave musicians young and old a space to rehearse and perform on their own terms. Craig Harris, Joseph Daly and Steve Coleman all spent formative time there in the ’70s, and they’ve come together to organize a big-band performance in recognition of Rivers, who would have turned 100 this month. (Sep. 22; Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church) — Giovanni RussonelloSOUL REBELS One of New Orleans’s best-known exports, the Soul Rebels carry forward the classic brass-band tradition by infusing it with plenty of modern-day flavor across the spectrum of Black American music. Their upcoming four-night stand at the Blue Note includes guest appearances from the golden-age rap eminences Rakim and Big Daddy Kane (Sept. 21); Ja Rule (Sept. 22); G-Eazy (Sept. 23); and a potpourri of contemporary-jazz heavyweights, including James Carter and Elena Pinderhughes (Sept. 24). — RussonelloKYLIE MINOGUE For decades, Kylie Minogue has been making dance floor manna that pingpongs between curiosity and undeniability, This year, she released one of her best — “Padam Padam,” a gay nightclub anthem that spawned slang and memes and, over time, a pop crossover. Minogue’s new album, on its heels, is “Tension.” A Las Vegas residency will follow, starting in November. (Sept. 22; BMG) — Jon CaramanicaKylie Minogue got a boost from another club anthem this year, “Padam Padam.”Don Arnold/Getty ImagesCHAPPELL ROAN Over the past year, the pop singer Chappell Roan has been releasing a string of theatrically intimate singles that touch on relationship awkwardness with uncommon candor. The music on her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” — which touches on wobbly ’80s new wave and ’90s singer-songwriter pop-rock and ’00s dance-pop — suggests a singer less beholden to style than to ensuring she says the exact thing she needs to say. (Sept. 22; Amusement/Island) — CaramanicaYEULE The songwriter, singer and producer yeule embraces extremes on “Softscars,” the follow-up to “Glitch Princess,” from 2022. Nothing is predictable on an album that holds guitar ballads, a piano waltz, bristling rock guitar riffs, gleaming electronics, hyperpop tweaks and bluntly distorted beats. The songs consider pain, love, technology and carnality, the experience of a 21st-century life that’s simultaneously physical and virtual. (Sept. 22; Ninja Tune) — Jon ParelesJOHN ZORN’S NEW MASADA QUARTET Opportunities are few to hear the saxophonist, composer and downtown jazz doyen John Zorn simply throwing down, in the company of improvisers that elevate him. That’s what happens when he gets together with the New Masada Quartet, which plays music from Zorn’s 613-piece “Masada” songbook (composed based on aspects of Jewish folklore and theology) and features the guitarist Julian Lage, the bassist Jorge Roeder and the drummer Kenny Wollesen. (Sept. 26 through Oct. 1; The Village Vanguard) — RussonelloCHERRY GLAZERR On the bluntly titled new album “I Don’t Want You Anymore,” Clementine Creevy, who leads the indie-rock band Cherry Glazerr, wrestles with a clearly toxic relationship. As the songs go style-hopping — explosive grunge, chugging synth-pop, hints of funk and jazz — the obsession persists. (Sept. 29; Secretly Canadian) — ParelesDARIUS JONES The avant-gardist Darius Jones has such a distinctive sound on the alto saxophone — widely dilated, yet so rough it could peel paint — he could make a living off his tone alone. But he also has a fiercely innovative streak as a composer. Now he returns with a wide-ranging new album showing off both sides of his talent, “Fluxkit Vancouver (Its Suite but Sacred),” with a string section in prickly repartee with Jones and the commanding drummer Gerald Cleaver. (Sept. 29; Northern Spy/We Jazz) — RussonelloONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Daniel Lopatin has built a two-lane career: as a producer creating cavernous backdrops for hitmakers like the Weeknd, and recording on his own as Oneohtrix Point Never, exploring changeable, ambiguous soundscapes. His new Oneohtrix Point Never album, “Again,” is largely instrumental, incorporating orchestral arrangements, glitchy electronics, stray vocal samples, artificial intelligence and countless other elements that are subject to change at whim in dynamic, inscrutable tracks. Lopatin has described the music as “crescendo-core.” (Sept. 29; Warp) — ParelesJORJA SMITH “Falling or Flying” is only the second studio album by the English songwriter Jorja Smith, but she has been prolific as a collaborator with Kali Uchis, Burna Boy, Drake, FKA twigs and others. She’s fond of minor chords and lean, moody grooves that hint at soul, jazz and Nigerian Afrobeats; they suit her aching but supple voice, as it projects both sympathy and resilience. (Sept. 29; Famm) — ParelesJorja Smith has become a frequent collaborator in the gap between albums. Her second LP arrives in late September.Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesWILCO To make its 13th studio album, “Cousin,” Wilco brought in an outside producer for the first time since 2007: the Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon, who opens folk-rock into electronica. She encouraged Wilco to extend the sonic experimentation it opened up on its 2002 album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” As Jeff Tweedy sings about desolation, loss and obstinate hope, the music carries roots-rock into disorienting and illuminating territories but still sounds handmade. (Sept. 29; dBpm) — ParelesOctoberUSHER Some of the most viral performance clips of this past summer have belonged not to Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, but to Usher, whose Las Vegas residency has been a celebrity magnet and also a showcase for grown-folks-business R&B. His new music continues to delve into the sticky-situation soul that helped make him a superstar two decades ago. (October; mega/gamma.) — CaramanicaBUTCHER BROWN A spirit of generous communion runs through “Solar Music,” the latest album from the Richmond-based hip-hop-jazz fusion quintet Butcher Brown. The album features guest appearances by the saxophonist Braxton Cook, the M.C.’s Pink Siifu and Nappy Nina and the trumpeter Keyon Harrold, among others. Butcher Brown will toast “Solar Music” at a concert Oct. 18 at Le Poisson Rouge. (Oct. 6; Concord Jazz) — RussonelloSLAUSON MALONE 1 Slauson Malone 1 is the updated name for the recording project of Jasper Marsalis, a musician and artist who plays with myriad genres and styles, denaturing them well beyond their familiar contours. His new album, “Excelsior,” is deeply ambitious, engaging and full of winning eccentricities. (Oct. 6; Warp) — CaramanicaSUFJAN STEVENS Love — physical, divine, longed-for, embattled, cherished — is the subject on Sufjan Stevens’ new album, “Javelin.” Its songs usually start out folky, but they rarely stay that way; they expand and billow. Working alone at his home studio, Stevens orchestrated them all by himself, playing nearly every instrument. (Oct. 6; Asthmatic Kitty) — Pareles“BOSSA NOVA: THE GREATEST NIGHT” The United States was formally introduced to Brazil’s bossa nova, or “new style”— suave, understated, sophisticated — with a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 21, 1962 that included Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Luis Bonfá and others. It’s nearly a year late for a 60th anniversary, but a concert will bring together Brazilian stars including Seu Jorge and Carlinhos Brown along with Daniel Jobim — Antonio’s grandson — to revisit the now-classic bossa nova repertory. (Oct. 8; Carnegie Hall.) — ParelesROY HARGROVE By the time he died in 2018, at 49, Roy Hargrove had become the most impactful trumpeter of his generation. Back in 1993, he was still the new kid on the block when Jazz at Lincoln Center commissioned him to write and perform “Love Suite in Mahogany,” with a septet. That performance is being released on record for the first time and a series of shows at Dizzy’s Club will mark its release: The drummer Willie Jones III and the bassist Gerald Cannon will colead a sextet featuring alumni of Hargrove’s bands Oct. 11-13, and the Roy Hargrove Big Band will appear Oct. 14-16. (Oct. 13; Blue Engine) — RussonelloL’RAIN The songwriter Taja Cheek, who records as L’Rain, dissolves genre boundaries and explores mixed emotions on her third album, “I Killed Your Dog.” The songs are lush and immersive, layered with instrumental patterns and vocal harmonies; they’re also cryptic and open-ended, to be deciphered through repeated listening. (Oct. 13; Mexican Summer) — ParelesOFFSET Offset is the second Migos member to release a solo album in the wake of the killing of Takeoff, the group’s third member and creative heart. The first single from “Set It Off” is “Jealousy,” a collaboration with his wife, Cardi B, that suggests that the couple is willing to play their relationship and fame for laughs, and art. (Oct. 13; Motown) — CaramanicaOffset will release his first album since the death of Migos’s Takeoff in October.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressTROYE SIVAN It’s been five years since Troye Sivan has released an album. His re-emergence in recent months, however, suggests the time away has been emboldening. As an actor, he was one of the standouts on “The Idol,” the besieged HBO drama about the music business, and “Rush,” the lead single from “Something to Give Each Other,” his third album, is a remarkably confident assertion of carnal interest. (Oct. 13; Capitol) — CaramanicaJIHYE LEE ORCHESTRA The composer and bandleader Jihye Lee is becoming well-known for her fluid integration of Western classical and big-band jazz techniques, and for arrangements in which heavily loaded horn parts move with apparent ease. At a Brooklyn show, her 18-piece orchestra will debut “Infinite Connections,” a suite-length meditation on the bond Lee shares with her mother and grandmother. (Oct. 15; National Sawdust) — RussonelloJ.D. ALLEN A tenor saxophonist known for the hefty swing and raw intellect of his improvising, and the back-to-basics approach of his jazz trios, J.D. Allen has never before made an album featuring electronics. That will change this fall, when he releases “This,” with Alex Bonney’s dark and enveloping atmospherics wreathed around Allen’s high-velocity horn playing and the thundering drums of Gwilym Jones. (Oct. 20; Savant) — RussonelloEVIAN CHRIST A long-awaited debut album is finally arriving from the electronic music producer Evian Christ, who has been releasing shiver-inducing music for over a decade. The songs on “Revanchist” are chaotic and blissful, tactile and expansive — all in all, a physical experience as much as an aural one. (Oct. 20; Warp) — CaramanicaSAMPHA In the seven years between his own albums, the English songwriter Sampha has lent his richly melancholy voice to tracks by Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Frank Ocean and Alicia Keys. “Lahai” — named after his grandfather, who was from Sierra Leone — is an exploratory, ambitious album that contemplates time, love and transcendence with otherworldly electronics and thoughtful melodies. (Oct. 20; Young) — ParelesAfter a seven-year gap, Sampha will release “Lahai” in October.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Associated PressTHE STREETS British rap’s great literalist, the Streets (Mike Skinner) returns with “The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light,” a new album that nods to various stripes of U.K. club culture while adhering firm to Skinner’s keen-eyed storytelling. In conjunction with the album, the Streets will also release a clubland-themed murder mystery film of the same name. (Oct. 20; 679 Recordings/Warner Music UK Ltd) — CaramanicaTHE MOUNTAIN GOATS “All Hail West Texas,” a sparsely arranged but lyrically vivid 2002 album released when the Mountain Goats was still a moniker for the solo music of John Darnielle, remains one of the most beloved entries in the group’s vast discography. Now the band — featuring the bassist Peter Hughes, the drummer Jon Wurster and the multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas — will release a sequel, “Jenny From Thebes,” updating the fates of its characters and fleshing out its sound. (Oct. 27; Merge) — Lindsay ZoladzMIKE REED “The Separatist Party,” the forthcoming album from the drummer, composer and Chicago jazz instigator Mike Reed, is Part 1 of a forthcoming three-album cycle meditating on solitude, loneliness and the elusiveness of community (surprisingly, he was already working on this project before pandemic lockdowns). The irony, though, is how much fun he seems to be having in the company of the multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay, the poet Marvin Tate and the three members of Bitchin Bajas, his compatriots on this LP, who surge through grimy post-rock or drift into ethereal, odd-metered, electrified airspaces with whiffs of Ethio-jazz. (Oct. 27; Astral Spirits/We Jazz) — RussonelloDOJA CAT: THE SCARLET TOUR Though she’s wowed audiences with ambitious awards show performances, the rambunctious rapper and pop star Doja Cat has not yet embarked upon an arena tour. (Tonsil surgery forced her to pull out of a slot opening for the Weeknd last year.) The Scarlet Tour — which begins at San Francisco’s Chase Center on Oct. 31 and makes stops at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 29 and Newark’s Prudential Center on Nov. 30 — will give her a chance to command her largest stages yet and showcase music from her latest album, “Scarlet,” due Sept. 22. The rising rapper Doechii and of-the-moment it-girl Ice Spice will open. (Oct. 31 through Dec. 13) — ZoladzNovemberCAT POWER Last November, Cat Power (the stage name of the smoky-voiced crooner Chan Marshall) played a song-for-song reimagining of her hero Bob Dylan’s May 1966 Manchester concert — the one at which an audience member, disgruntled by Dylan’s departure from acoustic folk, infamously yelled out “Judas!” Now it is arriving as an album titled “Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Marshall, a gifted interpreter of other musicians’ material, structured the set to be half acoustic and half electric, just like Dylan’s; a muted “She Belongs to Me” contrasts with a rollicking, full-band “Ballad of a Thin Man.” (November; Domino) — ZoladzChan Marshall (a.k.a. Cat Power) will release her live concert covering Bob Dylan.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Alberto Pezzali, via Invision, via Associated PressCODY JOHNSON “The Painter,” the new song from Cody Johnson, one of mainstream country’s sturdiest performers, extends his streak of music that’s deeply earnest, unflashily produced, and a blend of emotionally stoic and trembling. It’s the lead single from “Leather,” his third studio album on a major label after a long and robust independent career. (Nov. 3; COJO Music/Warner Music Nashville) — CaramanicaMYRA MELFORD’S FIRE & WATER QUINTET The pianist and composer Myra Melford’s five-piece band of all-star creative improvisers is aptly named: There is something volatile and elemental about the music she makes with Ingrid Laubrock, the saxophonist; Mary Halvorson, the guitarist; Tomeka Reid, the cellist; and Lesley Mok, the percussionist. On “Hear the Light Singing,” the group’s second LP, Halvorson’s effects-laden guitar comes in splashes and jolts, and Reid’s cello moves in hurrying steps or generous waves. (Nov. 3; RogueArt) — RussonelloLIZ PHAIR: ‘EXILE IN GUYVILLE’ 30th ANNIVERSARY TOUR Liz Phair’s 1993 debut “Exile in Guyville” captured young adulthood in a wry, vivid voice and brought a refreshing female perspective to indie rock’s boys club. Thirty years later, it continues to inspire younger musicians, including Kate Bollinger and Sabrina Teitelbaum (who records searingly honest music under the name Blondshell), both openers for Phair when she plays “Guyville” in its glorious entirety on an anniversary tour. The show comes to Brooklyn’s Kings Theater on Nov. 24. (Nov. 3 through Dec. 9) — ZoladzCAMP FLOG GNAW CARNIVAL The annual festival helmed by Tyler, the Creator continues to be one of the most innovatively programmed, in any genre. He is a headliner this year, along with SZA and the Hillbillies (Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem). The deep lineup includes the corridos tumbados stars Fuerza Regida, various generations of dream-pop from Willow, Toro y Moi and d4vd, accessibly tough rapping from Clipse and Ice Spice and much more. (Nov. 11-12; Dodger Stadium Grounds in Los Angeles) — CaramanicaNICKI MINAJ Reportedly, when Lil Uzi Vert was planning the release of his most recent album, “Pink Tape,” Nicki Minaj reached out to him to ask, in essence, how he could release a pink-themed album and not include her. (He obliged.) Now, Minaj returns with “Pink Friday 2,” her own album, on the heels of a pair of collaborations with Ice Spice, “Princess Diana” and “Barbie World,” that have given her new spark. (Nov. 17; Republic) — CaramanicaDOLLY PARTON Last year, when she was nominated for induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Dolly Parton initially declined because she did not consider herself a rock artist. (She was eventually inducted anyway.) “This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great rock ’n’ roll album at some point in the future,” she said in a statement. That future has now arrived: Dolly Parton’s “Rockstar” is a sprawling, star-studded 30-track album that features originals (the stomping “World on Fire”), covers of rock classics (“Stairway to Heaven,” “Let It Be”), and an impressive list of guests that include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Debbie Harry and more. (Nov. 17; Butterfly Records/Big Machine Records) — Zoladz More

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      The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s Bouncy Plea, and 14 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Little Simz, Nathy Peluso, Courtney Barnett,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.The Kid Laroi featuring Justin Bieber, ‘Stay’Bracingly effective, hyper-slick new wave/pop-punk hybridization from the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, “Stay” is about expecting more from a partner than you’re capable of giving. They both sound aptly desperate and defensive, a familiar approach from Laroi and a sneaky stretch from Bieber, who still injects some falsetto tenderness into his icy pleas. “Stay” is a more effective pairing than the two had on “Unstable,” from Bieber’s most recent album, on which he sounded as if he was jogging while Laroi sprinted. JON CARAMANICAThe Kondi Band featuring Mariama, ‘She Doesn’t Love You’Kondi Band is an electronic concoction rooted in Sierra Leone. The kondi is a 15-pronged thumb piano played by the Sierra Leonean musician Sorie Kondi, with production by DJ Chief Boima (an American whose family is from Sierra Leone), the English producer Will LV (a.k.a. Will Horrocks) and, on this song, the voice of a songwriter from Sierra Leone, Mariama Jalloh. The song is propelled by multiple layers of Sorie Kondi’s plinking thumb-piano riffs and grainy call-and-response vocals in Krio (Sierra Leonean Creole); midway through, Mariama airily delivers a reminder about consent: “It’s her mind, her body, her rules/If she doesn’t love you there’s nothing you can do.” JON PARELESLittle Simz, ‘I Love You, I Hate You’The Nigerian-English rapper Lil Simz keeps her voice calm and steely as she grapples with her relationship with her biological father, who’s “in my DNA” — she’s seen Polaroid photos — but whom she barely knows: “Is you a sperm donor or a dad to me?” The emotions that buffet her are in the track, produced by Inflo, with orchestral and choral swells, a sputtering funk beat and a male voice singing the title. She’s wrestling with her own feelings, trying to empathize and reaching for forgiveness; it’s complicated. PARELESBLK presents Juvenile, Mannie Fresh and Mia X, ‘Vax That Thang Up’Ah yes, you remember this classic, from the album “400 Degreez (Is What Your Temperature Will Be if You Get Covid-19 So Please Get Vaccinated).” CARAMANICAZuchu, ‘Nyumba Ndogo’What will happen when African musicians latch onto hyperpop? “Nyumba Ndogo,” from the Tanzanian singer and songwriter Zuchu, hints at the possibilities. It’s thin, speedy, synthetic, Auto-Tuned — and irresistible. PARELESmazie, ‘Dumb Dumb’The songwriter who lowercases herself as mazie folds multiple levels of ironic self-consciousness into her songs. She sings in a little-girl voice, and she starts “Dumb Dumb” with the sounds of kiddie instruments — ukulele, toy piano — before surreally stacking up keyboards, voices and harps and declaring, “Everyone is dumb, la la la la la la la.” It’s a song about misinformation, gullibility and incredulity; she wrote it the day after the insurrection at the Capitol. PARELESCourtney Barnett, ‘Rae Street’Courtney Barnett previews an album due in November — “Things Take Time, Take Time” — with another of her deadpan, steady-strummed songs that find large lessons in mundane observations. In “Rae Street” she chronicles her neighbors: parents, children, repair people and dogs, having an ordinary day. Behind the normalcy, there’s a wary undercurrent: “Time is money, and money is no man’s friend,” she sings, and, later, “You seem so stable, but you’re just hanging on.” Calm doesn’t mean contentment. PARELESAngel Olsen, ‘Gloria’There’s no point in a cover version that doesn’t transform the original song. Angel Olsen does just that with her version of the Laura Branigan hit “Gloria,” the first track from her coming album of 1980s songs, “Aisles.” While Branigan’s 1982 “Gloria” had pumping synthesizers and a perky vocal, Olsen paid attention to the lyrics. It’s a song about a desolate, lonely woman on the verge of a breakdown, or perhaps already having one: “Are the voices in your head calling, Gloria?” Olsen’s version is blearily slow, thickened with distorted keyboard chords and grunting cellos; this “Gloria” is mired, not triumphal. PARELESgglum. ‘Glad Ur Gone’Clouds of vocal harmonies float prettily; a beat bustles; keyboards throb in warm major chords. None of it quite conceals the rancor of “Glad Ur Gone,” as gglum — the songwriter Ella Smoker — sings about how clingy and manipulative an ex can be. PARELESJ.D. Allen, ‘Mother’Jon Irabagon, ‘KC Blues’J.D. Allen and Jon Irabagon, two standard-bearing tenor saxophonists, have new solo-sax albums that were forged in the solitude of lockdown. Irabagon, 41, spent much of 2020 living with extended family in South Dakota, and he often slipped off to the outskirts of Black Hills National Forest, where he spent hours revisiting the Charlie Parker songbook en plein-air with a recorder on. He’s released those recordings as “Bird With Streams” (yes, it’s a pun). Playful as ever but also luxuriously patient, his take on “K.C. Blues” is a feast of smeared tones and little open spaces. Allen, 48, went into a Cincinnati studio to capture the 13 tracks on “Queen City,” but he kept things spare, treating the process as an extension of the soul-searching he’d done in the early days of lockdown. “Mother,” an Allen original, starts with a three-note pattern that spins almost into a drone before he leaps off into free improvisation, zagging and curling and, later, painfully scraping his notes, as if to pry them open. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLONathy Peluso, ‘Mafiosa’The Argentine songwriter Nathy Peluso is ready to seize power as a woman in “Mafiosa,” vowing (in Spanish), “May bad men fear me.” She’s backed by a sinewy, old-school salsa groove with horn-section muscle: playful and teasing, but not to be crossed. PARELESMaluma, ‘Sobrio’A gentle song befitting Maluma’s gentle voice, “Sobrio” is an unhurried and lovely tale of a man only able to declare his heart after a few drinks. There’s nothing anguished about Maluma’s meanderings, though — rather, the slackness of the rhythm, and of his lightly slurry anguish, makes for a compellingly smooth confessional. CARAMANICASufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, ‘Reach Out’Sufjan Stevens has been mightily productive during the pandemic year, with songs, instrumentals and now a collaboration. Acoustic picking defines “Reach Out,” from the album “A Beginner’s Mind” by Stevens and the songwriter Angelo De Augustine, which is due in September — and based, they say, on watching movies. Fans of Stevens’s largely acoustic album “Carrie and Lowell” will appreciate “Reach Out,” which doesn’t hide the squeaks of hands moving up strings. In close harmony, they sing about memory and healing, insisting, “the pain restores you.” PARELESSamara Joy, ‘It Only Happens Once’At 21, the vocalist Samara Joy has been approaching the jazz spotlight since she won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. The close precision and frothy power of her voice stand out immediately, and on her self-titled debut album, so does the depth of her comfort within the jazz tradition. “It Only Happens Once” is a rarely played tune, best known for Nat King Cole’s dreamy 1943 version, but she tucks right into it, as if she’s been singing the song her whole life. RUSSONELLO More