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      Dressed for Success: 7 Bands in Uniform

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      Hear songs by the White Stripes, Destiny’s Child and more.The White Stripes’ Meg and Jack White.Oscar Hidalgo for The New York TimesDear listeners,Today’s Amplifier is based on an idea my colleague Jon Pareles mentioned when he was working on a profile of Devo: How about a playlist of bands that wear uniforms?That prompt got me thinking, of course, of Devo’s fire-engine red “energy dome” hats. But also of doo-wop groups and early rockers in matching duds, of country acts in custom Nudie suits, and of girl groups past and present in coordinated colors. Clearly a playlist was in order.There are plenty of different reasons musicians wear uniforms. Sometimes — especially in the case of Motown groups — matching outfits bring an air of polish and professionalism. They’re also a handy and enduring means of visual branding; if you see a scrawny dude with shaggy hair in ripped jeans and a black leather jacket, a song by the Ramones just might pop into your head. But even when a strict sartorial aesthetic risks becoming a gimmick, it can also keep the focus on the music. As Meg White told The Guardian in a 2005 interview, speaking of the White Stripes’ red-and-white dress code, “like a uniform at school, you can just focus on what you’re doing because everybody’s wearing the same thing.”Today’s playlist is a brief sonic tour through some of music’s most iconic uniforms. It contains quite a few omissions, though. I featured Kraftwerk on Tuesday’s playlist, so I didn’t want to repeat myself — even though their robotic coordinated costumes are totally worth mentioning. I also wish I could have included the proto-punk group the Monks, who often dressed like their namesakes, but the band’s great 1966 album “Black Monk Time” isn’t available on any streaming platforms. (If you haven’t heard it, try to find it in a more old-fashioned way. It rules.)That still left me with plenty of uniformed groups to choose from. Today’s playlist finds the common threads (get it?) shared by the Hives and the Temptations, Devo and Destiny’s Child. Put on your energy dome and press play.Listen on Spotify as you read.1. Devo: “Uncontrollable Urge”The members of Devo often use their extensive collection of matching uniforms — trust me, the “Outfits” section of the Devo Wiki is quite lengthy — as social commentary, poking fun at the mentality of conformism they perceive in modern life. That commentary, though, has always been cut with a absurdist twist, whether they’re clad in electric-yellow jumpsuits, matching silver blazers or, of course, those iconic flowerpot hats. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Ramones: “Cretin Hop”From their adopted last names to their standard-issue outfit of tight jeans, T-shirts, shaggy haircuts and — crucially — black leather jackets, the Ramones were all about simplicity, minimalism and uniformity. Those same virtues also applied to the band’s all-killer, no-filler sound. (Listen on YouTube)3. The Maddox Brothers & Rose: “Empty Mansions”The early country pioneers the Maddox Brothers & Rose were “the best-dressed people in country and western,” according to one of their contemporaries. The Maddox family’s flashy, elaborately embroidered matching suits (plus custom cowgirl skirts for Rose) were the work of Nathan Turk, whose designs echoed the group’s energetic sound. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the group blazed a spangled, sparkling path that plenty of country acts would later follow. (Listen on YouTube)4. The Temptations: “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”Elegant matching outfits lent Motown artists — like the Supremes, the Four Tops and the Temptations — a sheen of professionalism. But they also reflected the strict aesthetic vision of the Motown founder Berry Gordy, who wanted his groups to project a specific type of aspirational glamour that would appeal to white listeners. Like many vocal groups in the doo-wop tradition, the Temptations were at first known for their slick, color-coordinated suits. But in the late 1960s, as their sound began to move in a more psychedelic direction, the Temptations, tellingly, began to embrace more outré sartorial styles. (Listen on YouTube)5. The White Stripes: “The Union Forever”Jack and Meg White’s peppermint-candy color palette gave the duo an us-against-the-world camaraderie — which got a little complicated when people realized that the Whites were not, as they’d initially said, brother and sister, but rather a formerly married couple. Whatever works! (Listen on YouTube)6. The Hives: “Main Offender”The White Stripes weren’t the only stars of the early 2000s garage-rock revival to embrace the uniform. The zany Swedish rockers the Hives — who returned earlier this year with their first album in a decade — made stage-wear fun again with their bold black-and-white suits. (It wasn’t until they made it big, though, that they could afford to launder them properly. Said the drummer Chris Dangerous in a Times profile earlier this year, their earliest suits “smelled so bad, when we walked onstage at the end of the tour, the audience stepped back.”) (Listen on YouTube)7. Destiny’s Child: “So Good”Destiny’s Child updated the sound — and, of course, the look — of the girl group during its reign in the late ’90s and early 2000s. In coordinated outfits designed by Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, the girls glittered in green at the Grammys and, in the “Survivor” video, projected strength in matching camo prints. As the group’s lineup went through some notorious changes, the matching outfits perhaps served the more practical purpose of reminding people who, at any given time, was actually in Destiny’s Child. (Listen on YouTube)Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, y-y-y-y-y-y-y-yeah!,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Bands in Uniform” track listTrack 1: Devo, “Uncontrollable Urge”Track 2: The Ramones, “Cretin Hop”Track 3: The Maddox Brothers & Rose, “Empty Mansions”Track 4: The Temptations, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”Track 5: The White Stripes, “The Union Forever”Track 6: The Hives, “Main Offender”Track 7: Destiny’s Child, “So Good”Bonus TracksFirst, a quick correction from Tuesday’s newsletter, in which I mistakenly implied that Coldplay did not have permission to use the riff from Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” for the 2005 hit “Talk.” They did, in fact, get the OK from Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter.Also, the aforementioned Jon Pareles took over our Friday Playlist this week, choosing new songs from the Rolling Stones, Kali Uchis, Caroline Polachek and more. Listen here. More

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      CMAT Makes Country Music Sad, Smart and Strange

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      In April 2020, a new force in Irish music announced herself with a song about love, loss and fried chicken.The video for “Another Day (KFC),” CMAT’s debut single, opens with the singer dancing cheerfully in front of a blue screen. “Baby give me something else to do,” she sings, in a style pitched between country twang and ‘60s pop, “I cried in KFC again over you.” Then, suddenly, the camera swerves to a dark room where the man this song is addressed to sits gagged and tied to a chair. CMAT, still grinning, dances over and slaps him in the face, then eats a bucket of chicken while sitting on his lap.Since the video came out, CMAT — an acronym for the 27-year-old artist’s name, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson — has become a huge star in Ireland and won fans further afield with country-pop songs that are irreverent, vulnerable, sad, smart — and decidedly strange.Her 2022 debut album, “If My Wife New I’d Be Dead,” went straight to No. 1 in Ireland, and was awarded the RTE Choice Music Prize, Ireland’s equivalent to the Grammys. A follow-up, with another grammatically wayward name, “Crazymad, For Me,” arrives Friday, and she has tour dates scheduled in Ireland, Britain and the United States.The connection between Ireland and country music is longstanding: The “singing cowboy” Gene Autry toured the country in the ’30s, and the genre was further popularized in the ’60s by groups known as showbands that played in rural dance halls. In the ’90s, Garth Brooks’s stadium gigs in Dublin triggered a nationwide craze for line dancing. CMAT brings this tradition up-to-date, combining the enduring country themes of heartbreak and self-destruction with camp humor and a distinctly Irish sense of the absurd.“I think the structure of everything I do is probably always going to come from country music,” Thompson said in a recent interview. “I’m always going to sing like a country singer.”CMAT’s country-pop songs are irreverent, vulnerable, sad, smart — and militantly strange.Ellius Grace for The New York Times“Crazymad, For Me,” however, also branches into psychedelia, anthemic pop and rock ‘n’ roll. For this album, Thompson said, she “wanted to make something that sounded very theatrical,” like Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell.”The Meatloaf influence is clear in the slow-burning, claustrophobic ballad “Rent” which builds to a rock ‘n’ roll chorus with a spiraling piano line and howling vocals — but there is also “Have Fun,” a pop anthem showcasing an Irish fiddle.Mattias Tellez, the album’s producer, said Thompson’s voice was “timeless, and powerful, and so distinct,” displaying “qualities I hear in the likes of Billie Holiday, or Ella Fitzgerald — that power, and control, and spontaneous humor.”The new album draws on Thompson’s life, looking back on a tumultuous relationship the singer began with an older man when she was in her late teens. It follows her from her lowest and messiest point, before she reckons with the past and decides to move on.Along the way, she weaves in references to St. Anthony (the finder of lost things — a favorite of Irish mothers), Miranda from “Sex and the City” and the “Wagatha Christie” trial that recently gripped Britain’s tabloids.The single “Where Are Your Kids Tonight?” sees CMAT collaborate with the singer-songwriter John Grant. The two appeared onstage together in September, at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, where Grant was performing a concert of Patsy Cline covers. CMAT was the guest star, singing “Walkin’ After Midnight” and “She’s Got You.”In an email, Grant said working with Thompson was “a blast.”“They absolutely love her in Ireland, and with good reason,” Grant said. “Looks like the rest of the world is catching on.”CMAT began her career describing herself online, ironically, as “a global pop star” who “lives in Dublin with her grandparents.” Prepandemic, she was working in a cafe: She had no money, and was recovering from a period of depression and disillusionment, after the band she’d formed at 18, Bad Sea, failed to gain traction and split.She reinvented herself as a solo act, self-releasing singles including “I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!” and “Nashville,” a dreamy (and surprisingly exhilarating) song about suicidal ideation. She rapidly gained fans, in particular among young Irish L.G.B.T.Q. people. (Thompson, who is bisexual, once told an interviewer that she’s “making music for the girls and the gays, and that’s it.”)“I think the structure of everything I do is probably always going to come from country music,” Thompson said in a recent interview. “I’m always going to sing like a country singer.”Ellius Grace for The New York TimesHer career took off just in time for Covid-19 to rule out the chance of touring. “Everyone was stuck at home, and had nothing to do, and didn’t know how to exist on the internet,” she said. “But I did, because I’d been there. I’d spent a lot of time in a room by myself.”As a teenager, Thompson was an avid Tumblr user, and wrote fan fiction about Bombay Bicycle Club, an English indie band. She focused on building her own online following, with live streamed events including “CMAT’s Very Nice Christmas,” and the “CMAT Confessional Line,” during which fans called in with life dilemmas for her to solve.Thompson has since swapped Dublin for Brighton, England, and has reached a point of success where the “pop star” line is no longer a joke. She has even won the recognition of her idols: On the track “So Lonely” she asked “Who needs God, when I have Robbie Williams?,” attracting the online attention of the man himself. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Williams called the duet with Grant “majestic.”“Now I am actually kind of living like a pop star,” Thompson said. “And now, trying to keep up the pop star thing, and having a fake life, and a fake personality to go with it, just feels wrong.” Instead, she is steadily cultivating a unique brand of anti-glamour, appearing in videos in clown costumes, elaborate wigs and male drag, or with facial prosthetics, bleached eyebrows and gems stuck to her teeth.The intimacy she has forged with fans has only intensified: Recently, Thompson promised on X that if “Crazymad” reaches the Top 10 in Britain, she would send her wisdom teeth, freshly removed, to a lucky follower.In the same spirit of authenticity, the album shows its creator’s flaws, as well as her triumphs. “When I was making this record, two things happened,” Thompson said. “I got angrier about some things, but then I also realized that I had done some things wrong in my life.” Across its 12 tracks, the album shifts from blaming her ex to forgiving herself for her own mistakes.“I feel like no one is trying to make themselves look bad anymore in their music,” she added, “but we’ve all done things wrong in our lives. I’m an embarrassing person who’s done some very embarrassing things.”The album’s ecstatic final tracks, “Have Fun” and “Stay For Something,” complete this journey from resentment to regret, through self-acceptance to, ultimately, optimism.“There’s no point in suffering,” Thompson said. “You could just have been having a good time. Because life is very short.” More

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      9 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Get caught up on new music from Maren Morris, Earl Sweatshirt and Remi Wolf’s bold Paramore remake.Maren Morris conjures the glorious grit of a fed-up woman on “The Tree.”Natasha Moustache/Getty ImagesDear listeners,It’s good to be back! Last week, I took a little staycation and spent most of my time reading, dog-sitting a very good boy, and seeing a bunch of movies at the New York Film Festival.* But now I’m recharged, caught up on all the new music I missed — and, of course, ready to share it with you.Today’s offering is a compilation of highlights from our last few new music Playlists (from the likes of the Rolling Stones and Maren Morris), plus a few songs I would have put on last week’s Playlist were I not on vacation (one of Earl Sweatshirt’s collaborations with the Alchemist; Remi Wolf’s bold remake of a Paramore song). And while it includes some familiar names, I hope it also opens your ears to some new ones, too.Also! You still have a few more days to send me suggestions for the ultimate fall playlist. What’s a song that feels like autumn to you? Tell me here. We may use your response in an upcoming Amplifier.Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. Atka: “Lenny”If haven’t yet heard of the German-born, London-based musician Atka (also known as Sarah Neumann), that’s perfectly understandable: This propulsive single is only the second she’s ever released. But “Lenny,” which will appear on her forthcoming debut EP “Eye Against the Ashen Sky,” is quite a calling card. Industrial noises clang and suddenly cohere into a driving melody as Neumann deadpans a series of striking lyrics, beginning with a particularly vivid image: “Men like gods throwing rocks around the room.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Maren Morris: “The Tree”“The rot at the roots is the root of the problem,” Maren Morris sings on her smoldering new song, “The Tree.” “But you wanna blame it on me.” She has long been an outspoken critic of the country music establishment — see: her recent appearance on The New York Times’s Popcast (Deluxe) — and in one sense “The Tree” could be read as her breakup song with Nashville. But the song works just as well as a defiant end-of-a-relationship anthem, as Morris’s impressive vocal performance conjures the glorious grit of a fed-up woman. (Listen on YouTube)3. PinkPantheress: “Mosquito”The English pop singer PinkPantheress makes sugary sweet tunes cut through with sudden pangs of sour. Her latest single, “Mosquito,” is a fluttery reverie interrupted by a nightmarish admission: “I just had a dream I was dead, and I only cared ’cause I was taken from you.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Earl Sweatshirt & the Alchemist: “Vin Skully”When the rapper Earl Sweatshirt locks into his signature flow, he has a way of making language sound viscous, as though the words are just dribbling out of his mouth. On this track from “Voir Dire,” a collaborative album made with the producer the Alchemist, he’s effortlessly dexterous; and yes, it features a sample from the late, great Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. (The M.L.B. team could perhaps use his blessing right about now.) (Listen on YouTube)5. Becky G featuring Chiquis: “Cuidadito”The stylistically nimble pop artist Becky G leans into regional Mexican sounds on her latest album, “Esquinas,” and especially on this playful duet with the singer Chiquis (daughter of the venerable Jenni Rivera). The pair trade fiery verses, letting their respective men know exactly what to expect if they dare cheat. (Listen on YouTube)6. Holly Humberstone: “Into Your Room”This one’s been stuck in my head for days. From the British singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone’s debut album, “Paint My Bedroom Black,” which comes out this Friday, “Into Your Room” is a moody, pulsating synth-pop number personalized with Humberstone’s endearingly chatty lyricism. “You’re the center of this universe,” she sings pleadingly to the object of her obsession. “My sorry [expletive] revolves around you.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Paramore & Remi Wolf: “You First (Re: Remi Wolf)”Earlier this year, the rock band Paramore put out its angsty, knotty sixth album, “This Is Why.” On the recently released remix album, “Re: This Is Why,” Paramore asked an eclectic group of artists — including Wet Leg, Julien Baker and Panda Bear — to rework the album, track by track. For the most part, it’s a compelling and successful experiment, though this galvanizing reimagining of “You First,” helmed by the avant-pop provocateur Remi Wolf, is a clear highlight. (Listen on YouTube)8. The Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga: “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”In 2012, Lady Gaga appeared onstage with the Rolling Stones to lend her vocals to a live rendition of “Gimme Shelter.” “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” the bluesy, fireworks-display climax of the Stones’ upcoming album, “Hackney Diamonds,” seems to pick up right where that performance left off. A soulful and unhurried Mick Jagger leads his band — which on this track includes Stevie Wonder (!) on keyboards — from the ground right to the great beyond, while Gaga accompanies him in an airy, angelic voice, showing off yet another facet of her impressive register. (Listen on YouTube)9. Jenn Champion: “Jessica”A tough listen, but also a cathartic one. Jenn Champion — a former member of the indie band Carissa’s Wierd, who used to record under the name S — pours all the feelings that sprang up in the wake of an old friend’s overdose into this sparse, haunting piano ballad. “I still love you,” she sings in a trembling voice. “But it hurts now.” This song stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it, and I still can’t shake its unsettling power. (Listen on YouTube)I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,Lindsay* The best thing I saw so far at the N.Y.F.F.? “Poor Things,” the latest wild ride from the cinematic Greek Freak, Yorgos Lanthimos. Emma Stone is on another level.The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“9 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track listTrack 1: Atka, “Lenny”Track 2: Maren Morris, “The Tree”Track 3: PinkPantheress, “Mosquito”Track 4: Earl Sweatshirt & the Alchemist, “Vin Skully”Track 5: Becky G featuring Chiquis, “Cuidadito”Track 6: Holly Humberstone, “Into Your Room”Track 7: Paramore & Remi Wolf, “You First (Re: Remi Wolf)”Track 8: The Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”Track 9: Jenn Champion, “Jessica” More

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      Morgan Wallen Returns to No. 1 in a Slow Chart Week

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      With Drake’s “For All the Dogs” and Taylor Swift’s rerecording of “1989” waiting in the wings, Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” has its 16th time at the peak.In a relatively slow week of music sales before the arrival of blockbusters by Drake and Taylor Swift, the country star Morgan Wallen returns to the top of the Billboard album chart, notching a 16th time at No. 1 for his newest album, “One Thing at a Time.”Wallen’s album returns with the equivalent of 74,500 sales in the United States, including nearly 98 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate.“One Thing at a Time,” stuffed with 36 tracks, has been a steady streaming hit since March; only in the last month has it dipped below 100 million streams a week, a benchmark that relatively few albums reach even in their debut week, let alone their 40th. Wallen’s 16 reps at No. 1 are the most for any album since Adele’s “21,” which logged 24 weeks at the top in 2011 and 2012.Still, Wallen’s 74,500 “equivalent album units” — a composite number that represents an album’s popularity on streaming platforms and in purchases of downloads and physical copies — is notably low. That is the least units to top the charts in almost a year and a half, since Pusha T’s “It’s Almost Dry” opened with 55,000 in April 2022.The music industry is bracing for boffo numbers from Drake, whose long-awaited “For All the Dogs” came out Friday and is already a smash online, and for Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” which comes out Oct. 27 and is all but certain to be huge on streaming services and in sales of both CDs and vinyl LPs. (“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” her concert film, is set to open on Friday and has already surpassed $100 million in worldwide advance ticket sales.)Ed Sheeran’s surprise “Autumn Variations” opens at No. 4, his second Top 10 new LP this year. His “-” (a.k.a. “Subtract”) opened at No. 2 in May, though it quickly plunged from there, falling out of the Top 20 after two weeks and the Top 100 after nine — a rare flop for Sheeran, one of the giants of pop’s streaming age.Also this week, Rod Wave’s “Nostalgia” falls to No. 2 after two weeks at the top, with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts” at No. 3 and Zach Bryan’s self-titled album No. 5. More

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      Maren Morris: The (Deluxe) Interview

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify |Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, features an interview with the country star Maren Morris, discussing:What it took to begin her career in country musicArriving in Nashville at the peak of “bro country,” with few women on the chartsReceiving backlash from her earliest singles for not being faithful to the genreChoosing to now step back from participating in country music institutions such as award shows and radio promotionSpeaking out against Nashville’s poor track record of providing opportunities for female and non-white performers, and also against peers like Morgan Wallen and Jason AldeanHow the rightward politicization of country music has changed the tenor of working in Nashville, and the breakthrough of Oliver AnthonyHer recent EP, “The Bridge,” and working on new music with Jack AntonoffA Texas-themed snack of the weekConnect 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

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      Zach Bryan Begins Building His Village

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicA few weeks ago, Zach Bryan released his self-titled second major label album, which went to the top of the Billboard album chart — his first time doing so. It contained a duet with Kacey Musgraves that also topped the Hot 100. Then, not long after, he released a new EP, “Boys of Faith,” that includes collaborations with Bon Iver and Noah Kahan.Bryan is working hard, and on his own terms — he releases music seemingly at will, and is finding a path to collaborators that hews tightly to his own taste profile. Even his recent arrest, for interfering with a traffic stop in Oklahoma, felt signature, with footage from the arrest showing him to be both stubborn and apologetic, following his own moral code more closely than the law.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Bryan’s post-politics approach to stardom, his dogged work ethic, and how he’s partnering up with fellow dissidents to build a coalition of artists who are ordinarily resistant to coalitions.Guests:Elamin Abdelmahmoud, host of the CBC’s “Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud”Tom Breihan, senior editor at StereogumConnect 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

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      Enough About Gram Parsons’s Death. It’s Time to Celebrate His Music.

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      The country-rock pioneer died 50 years ago at age 26 with two influential solo albums to his name, leaving a legion of “what if”s behind.More than almost any other musician, the country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons’s legacy is entwined with the story of his tragic death, 50 years ago this month.The details are sad, macabre and sordid enough to have inspired a movie titled “Grand Theft Parsons.” Let’s dispense with them here and be done with it: Parsons, a 26-year-old former member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers who dreamed of creating a utopian genre that he called “cosmic American music,” was preparing for the release of his second solo album when he made a trip to his adopted sanctuary of Joshua Tree National Park.On his second day there, Parsons — a prodigious drinker and drug user who once attempted to kick heroin cold turkey while locked in a room with an also-detoxing Keith Richards — overdosed on morphine and could not be revived. His stepfather immediately arranged to have Parsons’s body flown to Louisiana, perhaps so he would stand a better chance of inheriting a chunk of Gram’s family fortune. More

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      Doja Cat’s Hit and 7 More Ways of Seeing Red

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      Hear songs by Willie Nelson, TLC, King Crimson and more.Doja Cat, painting the MTV Video Music Awards stage red.Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesDear listeners,This Friday, the rapper and singer Doja Cat will release her highly anticipated fourth album “Scarlet,” which features the ubiquitous No. 1 hit “Paint the Town Red.” That is, to quote Playboi Carti, a whole lotta red.Doja Cat’s crimson era got me thinking about all the other musicians who have used that evocative color to conjure all sorts of images — wine, ballet shoes, luftballoons. Red sometimes signifies love, but it also suggests anger, passion and danger. Red is the color of blood and roses. It’s the musical connection between artists as disparate as Taylor Swift and King Crimson. Clearly, it calls for its own playlist.Doja Cat’s vampy hit kicks off this mix, but you hardly need to be familiar with her music to listen. (My boyfriend has admitted that, until recently, he thought Doja Cat was “a cryptocurrency.”) It pulls from a variety of decades and genres, featuring artists including TLC, Willie Nelson and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. I omitted some of the more obvious choices, like “Lady in Red” or “Red Red Wine,” because I assume we’ve all heard those enough for several lifetimes. I couldn’t resist adding a well-known Prince song, though, because, well … it’s Prince!So pour yourself a glass of cabernet or cranberry juice, cue up this playlist, and get ready to paint the town red.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Doja Cat: “Paint the Town Red”Built around a sample of Dionne Warwick’s wistful 1963 hit “Walk on By,” which was co-written and produced by Burt Bacharach, Doja Cat’s first solo No. 1 has a strutting swagger and a puffed-chest confidence. It’s the perfect soundtrack for striding off into the sunset, leaving doubters in the dust — or perhaps performing a viral TikTok dance that has added to the song’s popularity. (Listen on YouTube)2. Prince: “Little Red Corvette”The second single from Prince’s 1983 album “1999,” “Little Red Corvette” hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 — making it his highest charting pop hit up until that point. While red isn’t the color most commonly associated with Prince, here it provides a memorably vivid image, suggesting passion, excitement and even a little danger. (Listen on YouTube)3. Willie Nelson: “Red Headed Stranger”Willie Nelson’s 1975 breakthrough album was more than just a commercial and critical success: It also gave the Red Headed Stranger his enduring nickname. This plaintive, sparsely arranged title track reworks “The Tale of the Red Headed Stranger,” a 1953 story-song written for Perry Como, and imbues it with Nelson’s own inimitable melancholy. (Listen on YouTube)4. Taylor Swift: “Red (Taylor’s Version)”This 2021 reworking of the country-rocking, lightly synesthetic title track from Swift’s 2012 release “Red” — still my favorite of her albums — contrasts the cool, muted hues of heartbreak (“Losing him was blue like I’ve never known/Missing him was dark gray, all alone”) with the bright, Technicolor memories of better times: “Loving him was red.” (Listen on YouTube)5. The Cyrkle: “Red Rubber Ball”Co-written by a not-quite-yet-famous Paul Simon, this bouncy folk-pop hit from 1966 finds optimism — and a memorably colorful simile — at the end of a bad relationship: “The worst is over now/The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball.” (Listen on YouTube)6. TLC: “Red Light Special”If you thought the Prince song was going to be the sultriest moment of this playlist … think again! (Listen on YouTube)7. King Crimson: “Red”“Red”? From the album “Red”? By King Crimson? This six-minute prog-rock epic from 1974, written by Robert Fripp shortly before he disbanded King Crimson, just might be the reddest song of all time. (Listen on YouTube)8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: “Red Right Hand”This slinky, atmospheric single from the Australian art-rockers’ 1994 album “Let Love In” takes its title from a line in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Used prominently in the “Scream” movie franchise and later as the theme song to the TV show “Peaky Blinders,” “Red Right Hand” has a dark, cinematic quality. It also brings this playlist full circle: Like Doja’s “Paint the Town Red,” it’s the perfect soundtrack for slowly sauntering down the street. (Listen on YouTube)I said what I said,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“8 Red Songs” track listTrack 1: Doja Cat, “Paint the Town Red”Track 2: Prince, “Little Red Corvette”Track 3: Willie Nelson, “Red Headed Stranger”Track 4: Taylor Swift, “Red (Taylor’s Version)”Track 5: The Cyrkle, “Red Rubber Ball”Track 6: TLC, “Red Light Special”Track 7: King Crimson, “Red”Track 8: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand” More