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      Jeremy Tepper, Alt-Country Impressario, Dies at 60

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      As a journalist, singer, label owner and radio producer, he fostered a community of musicians on the outskirts of Americana.Jeremy Tepper, who over a long and varied career as a journalist, singer, label owner and radio producer championed the anarchic, high-energy music that straddled the lines separating country, rock, punk and plain old Americana, died on June 14 in Queens. He was 60.His wife, the musician Laura Cantrell, said the cause of death, at Elmhurst Hospital, was a heart attack.Born in upstate New York and educated in Manhattan, Mr. Tepper was perhaps an unlikely apostle for a style of music variously called alt- or outlaw country, but which he preferred to call “rig rock” — the sort of sounds favored by long-haul truck drivers. Far from the big hats and ostrich-skin boots of Nashville’s Lower Broadway, it is the music one might hear coming from honky-tonks, jukeboxes, truck stops and big-rig radios, the corners of Americana that Mr. Tepper celebrated with unironic joy.“It is taking all that truck-driving music — streamlined, guitar-based country rock — and dragging it onto the modern interstate,” he told Newsday in 1990.Mr. Tepper was rig-rock’s greatest fan and biggest booster. He wrote about it for publications like Pulse and The Journal of Country Music, and for his own magazine, Street Beat, which was dedicated to jukeboxes and the music one found in them. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The 40 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)

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      Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat. (Note: It’s not a ranking, it’s a playlist.) Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Espresso’Atop a mid-tempo beat that recalls the muffled retro-funk of Doja Cat’s smash “Say So,” Sabrina Carpenter plays the unbothered temptress with winking humor: “Say you can’t sleep, baby I know, that’s that me, espresso.” Make it a double — you’ve surely heard this one everywhere. LINDSAY ZOLADZTyla, ‘Safer’Following her worldwide 2023 hit “Water,” Tyla pulls away from temptation in “Safer,” harnessing the log-drum beat and sparse, subterranean bass lines of amapiano. Her choral call-and-response vocals carry South African tradition into the electronic wilderness of 21st-century romance. JON PARELESOne We MissedAriana Grande, ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)’At once strobe-lit and silky, Ariana Grande appropriately channels Robyn — the patron saint of crying in the club — on this nimbly sung, melancholic pop hit, a highlight from her bittersweet seventh album, “Eternal Sunshine.” ZOLADZOne We MissedBillie Eilish, ‘The Greatest’Billie Eilish extols her own composure and skill at dissembling — holding back her unrequited love — in “The Greatest” from “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” Delicate picking accompanies her as she sings about how she “made it all look painless.” Then she shatters that composure, opening her voice from breathy to belting while the production goes widescreen with drums and choir. When the music quiets again, her furious restraint is as palpable as her regret. PARELESMdou MoctarKadar Small for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jelly Roll’s Anthem of Perseverance, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Zsela, the Decemberists, Khalid and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Jelly Roll, ‘I Am Not Okay’The title of “I Am Not Okay” — a song Jelly Roll unveiled last month on “The Voice” — only tells half the story. It’s the kind of bruised, long-suffering, self-doubting, painfully open and high-drama testimonial that has turned Jelly Roll into a country star. He sings about sleepless nights and “voices in my head,” with production that rises from acoustic picking into stolid Southern rock behind his grainy voice. But soon Jelly Roll invokes a community — “I know I can’t be the only one who’s holding on for dear life” — and the promise of salvation: “The pain’ll wash away in a holy water tide.” Whether it’s in this life or beyond it, he declares, “It’s not OK, but we’re all gonna be all right.” It’s an arena-scale homily.NxWorries featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Rae Khalil, ‘WalkOnBy’NxWorries — the partnership of the producer Knxwledge and the rapper and singer Anderson .Paak — ponders the deeply mixed emotions of enjoying success while knowing how hard former peers are still striving. “When you walk on by, you’ve got shades to hide your eyes,” the chorus chides. The track is a relaxed, quiet-storm groove with tickling lead-guitar lines, but it provides contrast, not comfort. “No one has a clue what we had to do to survive,” Anderson .Paak raps, and adds, “When they ask me how I’m doing, I feel guilty inside.” Earl Sweatshirt admits he’s “lived too many lives removed from the strife.” But before the song ends, Rae Khalil sings for those left behind: “I feel like ain’t nobody caring/Everybody’s scared,” she laments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Dolly Parton Says a Musical About Her Life Is Broadway Bound

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      The show, expected to arrive on Broadway in 2026, will be called “Hello, I’m Dolly.”Dolly Parton’s long-gestating biographical musical is aiming to arrive on Broadway in 2026, the singer-songwriter said Thursday.The musical will be called “Hello, I’m Dolly,” which is both the title of Parton’s first studio album and an allusion to the classic Broadway show “Hello, Dolly!”Parton announced plans for the show in remarks to CMA Fest, a gathering of country music fans in Nashville.“I just wanted to say that I wouldn’t be here, if you hadn’t been there, and I mean that — and that happens to be the name of one of the songs that’s going to be in my new Broadway musical,” she told the crowd. “I’ve written a whole lot of original songs for it, as well as all the hit songs that you know.”She added that, “You’ll get to know all of my life, up to now” and that “It really does have a lot of story, a lot of family.”Parton has been working on the musical for about a decade. In 2016, she told Variety she thought it would hit the stage two years later; at the time, she said the first act would be about her pre-Nashville life, and the second act would be about her Nashville-based career.Parton and Maria S. Schlatter will write the musical’s book; in 2020, the two collaborated on the film “Christmas on the Square.”Parton, who has numerous business ventures in addition to her songwriting and performing career, is planning to produce the musical with Danny Nozell, who is Parton’s longtime manager, and ATG Productions, the British theater company producing this season’s Broadway revival of “Cabaret.”This will not be Parton’s first Broadway venture: She wrote the music and lyrics for the 2009 musical “9 to 5,” which was adapted from a film in which she starred, and in 1993 one of her songs was featured in a Broadway holiday show called “Candles, Snow & Mistletoe.”It’s also not the first Parton-themed musical out there: A show called “Here You Come Again,” about a devoted Parton fan, has had several productions in American regional theaters over the last few years and is now touring Britain. More

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      Carin León Is Bringing Música Mexicana and Country Ever Closer

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      “There are no limits for music,” the Mexican singer-songwriter said.“There’s just good music and bad music.”In January 2023, the música Mexicana star Carin León was preparing for a concert at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena when he decided he needed to do something special for an encore.León grew up in Hermosillo, the capital city of Sonora, Mexico, about 250 miles from Tucson, Ariz. Music was always playing around his home, often from border radio stations that piped in a wide variety of American hits, and his father was known to listen to David Allen Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on cassette over and over.“Me and my brother would sing the song as kids, but we would make up different lyrics because we didn’t know English back then,” León said. The country giant Chris Stapleton turned his R&B-slow-dance cover of “Tennessee Whiskey” into a career breakthrough, and León, a Stapleton superfan, worked up his own powerfully soulful version for the largely Latino audience in Nashville.“The next day, the performance went viral,” León said. “People were saying, he can sing country music, he can sing in English. So that gave me a little spark.”León, 34, was already a Latin Grammy-winning artist with billions of streams on Spotify before he covered “Tennessee Whiskey” — and before he released bilingual collaborations with the country star Kane Brown and the soul singer Leon Bridges; wrote with the Nashville veterans Jon Pardi, Cody Johnson and Natalie Hemby; earned a standing ovation at the Grand Ole Opry with a set entirely in Spanish; became the first Latin artist to perform at both the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals; and opened for the Rolling Stones in early May.“My comfort zone is being outside of my comfort zone,” León said from his shopping-bag-strewn suite at a swank Beverly Hills hotel in California, his girlfriend and team at his side. “There are no limits for music. There’s just good music and bad music.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Post Malone Goes Country With Morgan Wallen, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Raveena, Willow, John Cale and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, ‘I Had Some Help’The ever-adaptable Post Malone moves into country with this duet with Morgan Wallen. It’s jovial on the surface, with cheerful steel-guitar hooks. But it’s deeply surly at heart, as Malone and Wallen take turns lashing out at an ex who blames them after a relationship crumbles. “It ain’t like I can make this kind of mess all by myself,” they insist. “Don’t act like you ain’t helped me pull that bottle off the shelf.” Personal responsibility? Nah.Willow, ‘Big Feelings’Willow embraces her outsize emotions in the full-tilt finale of her new album, “Empathogen,” which veers from her old pop-punk into jazz and prog-rock. Her voice sails over choppy piano chords as she announces her “big feelings,” and when she sings, “Yes, I have problems, problems,” she turns “problems” into a six-syllable arpeggio. In the bridge she tells herself, “Acceptance is the key,” and eventually it sounds like she’ll make peace with those problems, or even flaunt them.Raveena, ‘Pluto’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Unearthed Johnny Cash Recording, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Normani, Nilüfer Yanya, Thom Yorke and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Johnny Cash, ‘Well Alright’Johnny Cash wasn’t always the stoic Man in Black. He also had a droll side, as revealed in this song reconstituted from demos he recorded in 1993; a latter-day band, including Marty Stuart on guitar, now fills out the original tracks. In “Well Alright,” previewing “Songwriter,” an album due June 28, Cash is deadpan and droll, singing about a liaison that starts at a laundromat. Even the Man in Black had clothes to wash. JON PARELESNilüfer Yanya, ‘Like I Say (I Runaway)’“I run away, ’cause I’m on precious time,” the British musician Nilüfer Yanya sings on the first single she’s released since her excellent 2022 album “Painless.” In classic Yanya fashion, “Like I Say (I Runaway)” has an almost collagelike feel, reveling in contrasting textures and suddenly erupting into a blaze of guitar distortion on the chorus. “The minute I’m not in control, I’m tearing up inside,” Yanya sings, as her own sonic universe bends to her will. LINDSAY ZOLADZNormani featuring Gunna, ‘1:59’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Spends a Second Week at No. 1

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      “Cowboy Carter” tops the Billboard 200 for a second week, boosted by physical sales of her album on CD and vinyl.Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” holds at No. 1 for a second week on the Billboard album chart, fending off new releases from J. Cole and the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together.“Cowboy Carter” stays at the top of the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 125,500 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That total includes 133 million streams and 20,500 copies sold as a complete package. It is the first time Beyoncé has repeated at No. 1 since her self-titled “visual album” in 2013, which notched three consecutive times at the top and was initially available only as a download from iTunes.As in its opening week, Beyoncé’s total was helped by sales of physical copies of her album on CD and vinyl, which for the album’s first two weeks were available only through her website. Since then, retailers have started stocking “Cowboy Carter,” and — as she did with “Renaissance,” her last album, in 2022 — Beyoncé herself showed up for an in-store promo in Los Angeles, where fans could buy autographed LPs. (They quickly appeared on eBay for $2,000 and up.)“Might Delete Later,” a surprise release by the rapper J. Cole, comes in at second place with the equivalent of 115,000 sales, largely from streaming. The album got some attention for a diss track, “7 Minute Drill,” targeting Kendrick Lamar, which J. Cole promptly apologized for and removed from streaming versions of the album.Tomorrow X Together, a five-man South Korean group, opens at No. 3 with “Minisode 3: Tomorrow,” a seven-track mini album, which had 107,500 sales and was offered in 17 collectible CD editions. Also this week, Future and Metro Boomin’s joint album “We Don’t Trust You,” released three weeks ago, falls to No. 4 (a sequel, “We Still Don’t Trust You,” came out on Friday), and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 5. More