Dlamini, Amala Zandile (Doja Cat)

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    Chappell Roan’s Eye-Roll Kiss-Off, and 11 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Prince, Young Miko, the Black Keys 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.Chappell Roan, ‘Good Luck, Babe!’The rising pop star Chappell Roan sends an ex-lover off with an eye roll on the wrenching “Good Luck, Babe!,” a synth-driven tune that allows the dynamic vocalist to do her best Kate Bush. The subject of the song is noncommittal and perhaps in denial of her sexuality: Roan imagines her former flame kissing “a hundred boys in bars” and eventually becoming a man’s dissatisfied wife in the aftermath of their affair. But ultimately, Roan chooses herself, singing with all her heart, “I just wanna love someone who calls me baby.” LINDSAY ZOLADZPrince, ‘United States of Division’“Everybody stop fighting/everybody make love,” Prince urged in “United States of Division,” a song previously released only as a British single B-side in 2004, alongside Prince’s album “Musicology.” It’s six minutes of deep-bottomed polytonal funk — topped with synthesizer jabs and horn lines, goaded by a hard-rock guitar riff — that veers between disenchanted verses and a conditionally optimistic chorus. Prince was hoping for the best but seeing stubborn obstacles, pondering tribalism, inequality and faith all at once and wondering, “Why must I sing ‘God Bless America’ and not the rest of the world?” JON PARELESCharli XCX, ‘B2b’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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      Best Songs of 2023

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      Seventy-one tracks that asked big questions, found new kinship between genres and helped us see the good in Ken.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesFumbling Toward EcstasyThe album may be imperiled; people have been saying so for decades, even though the form has resisted extinction. Meanwhile, songs flourish, whether or not they’re destined for albums, and are ever more flexible. Some maintain the pop conventions of verse-chorus-verse; others distill themselves down to TikTok-ready hooks or sprawl across digital time frames. Here are 30 of my favorite songs from 2023 — less a ranking than a playlist, a tribute to creative abundance.1. Allison Russell, ‘Eve Was Black’The tune could be a toe-tapping Appalachian hoedown. But the title’s blunt, irrefutable statement carries Allison Russell toward harsh thoughts about racism, slavery, exploitation, lynching and sin — and then to an unexpected coda.2. Peter Gabriel, ‘Road to Joy (Bright-Side Mix)’Like many Peter Gabriel songs, this one has a scenario. The narrator is waking from a coma into an overload of sensory experiences, getting “back in the world”; the music is a funk carnival that keeps adding euphoric layers.3. 100 gecs, ‘Dumbest Girl Alive’No band walks Spinal Tap’s “fine line between clever and stupid” like the duo 100 gecs. “Dumbest Girl Alive” has a primal stomp for a beat, an up-and-down guitar riff that whimsically hops around instruments, and filtered hyperpop vocals with 21st-century lines like “put emojis on my grave” — just the thing for an utterly knowing, utterly meta bash.4. Sampha, ‘Suspended’Sampha’s “Lahai” was brighter and more expansive than his previous LPs.Ayesha Kazim for The New York TimesSampha gathers ideas from R&B, classical Minimalism, twitchy hyperpop and more around the androgynous melancholy of his voice. He conjures a rapturous infatuation and the need it leaves behind in “Suspended,” three minutes of vertigo from his album “Lahai.”5. The Rolling Stones featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder, ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’The peak of the Rolling Stones’ resurgent album “Hackney Diamonds” is an all-star concoction that sounds like a raw studio jam. Mick Jagger extols the glories of music and the song climbs to a big, gospelly finish, with Jagger and Lady Gaga goading each other to belt more. When it winds up, they catch their breath but they don’t want to quit — and the song builds even higher.6. Yahritza y Su Esencia and Grupo Frontera, ‘Frágil’Two Mexican American groups — from Washington state and Texas — unite for “Frágil,” a cumbia complaint about a heartless partner. While the men in Grupo Frontera sound mildly apologetic, Yahritza Martinez sings as if her heart might burst at any moment.7. Baby Rose, ‘Stop the Bleeding’With her low, tremulous, gripping voice, Baby Rose sings about love as self-sabotage, trying to break free while an orchestra underlines her despair.8. Shakira, ‘BZRP Music Sessions #53’In one of Shakira’s canny 2023 collaborations — others were with Karol G and the regional Mexican band Fuerza Regida — she enlisted the hitmaking Argentine electro producer Bizarrap to take revenge on her ex, with pointed wordplay and an airborne hook denouncing “guys like you.”9. Killer Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’In a track that roves from electro to guitar ballad to bursts of gospel, Killer Mike convenes fellow Atlanta rappers — the prolific Future and the elusive André 3000 — to address art, ambition, luxury, tenacity and paying dues, culminating in a marathon verse from Killer Mike himself.10. Brittany Howard, ‘What Now’Choppy, distorted, splintered hard funk pulses around Brittany Howard as she sorts through all the conflicting impulses of a breakup: taking blame and lashing out, feeling regret and relief, wanting to stay and knowing she needs to go.11. Jorja Smith, ‘Try Me’Jorja Smith used vocal nuance instead of volume to stir things up on her second studio album.Jose Sena Goulao/EPA, via ShutterstockA wounded, defensive Jorja Smith confronts someone who had put her down, in a track that evolves from pinging, percussive defiance to orchestral contemplation.12. Caroline Polachek, ‘Dang’One percussive syllable — “dang” — inspires an entire brittle production apparatus around Caroline Polachek’s deadpan voice. She sings about irreversible events, like shipwrecks and spilled milk, amid plinks, clangs, crashes, swooping strings and sampled screams, nonchalant amid the non sequiturs.13. aespa, ‘Better Things’Cowbells, handclaps and piano chords drive “Better Things,” a K-pop kiss-off with ingeniously cascading vocal harmonies and absolutely no regrets.14. Janelle Monáe featuring Doechii, ‘Phenomenal’Janelle Monáe’s 2023 album, “The Age of Pleasure,” exults in carnality while segueing through R&B, jazz and Caribbean styles. “Phenomenal” is a raunchy acclamation of lust and self-love, rapped and sung over springy, changeable Latin jazz grooves.15. Noname, ‘Namesake’Noname reels off brisk, matter-of-fact rhymes over a jazzy bass line as she strives to reconcile her personal comfort with all the world’s problems. She worries about complacency, complicity and hypocrisy; she doesn’t spare herself.16. Irreversible Entanglements, ‘Root Branch’Irreversible Entanglements is a fiercely riffing jazz band fronted by the low-voiced spoken-word poet Moor Mother. “We can be free — let’s fly,” she intones over the six-beat vamp of “Root Branch,” demanding something basic and essential.17. Jaimie Branch, ‘Take Over the World’The trumpeter and bandleader Jaimie Branch sets up a pummeling beat behind an environmental battle chant in “Take Over the World,” veers into a swirl of psychedelia, then whoops it up even harder.18. Dolly Parton, ‘World on Fire’Dolly Parton, of all people, delivers a full-fledged power ballad and stadium stomp to consider the dire state of the world. She counsels love, healing and kindness, but at the end she’s still wondering: “Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?”19. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” had a moment — during Pride celebrations and beyond — in 2023.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesFor Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam” is the sound of a heartbeat during a mutual flirtation at a club. The beat — a TikTok favorite — is a cheerful club thump, and a hint of Bollywood perks up the melody for three minutes of computerized bliss20. L’Rain, ‘I Killed Your Dog’L’Rain — the songwriter and performer Taja Cheek — ponders vengeful, destructive impulses in a near-lullaby that wanders through a chromatic chord progression, building ambivalence into the harmonies.21. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods sings about love as an accumulation of small connections and growing trust, a work in progress: “It’s not butterflies or fireworks.” The arc of the music, from isolated percussion and keyboards to multilayered, gospel-tinged vocals, radiates optimism.22. Olivia Dean featuring Leon Bridges, ‘The Hardest Part’With vintage soul chords and modern electronic subtleties, the English songwriter Olivia Dean and her American duet partner, Leon Bridges, sing about growing apart and moving on, grappling with second thoughts.23. Nkosazana Daughter, Master KG and Lowsheen featuring Murumba, ‘Ring Ring Ring’In an amapiano track full of echoey, lonely spaces, the South African singer Nkosazana Daughter and guests lament the uncertainty and sorrow of an unanswered phone call.24. Margo Price, ‘Lydia’Margo Price turned her lens outward to characters other than herself on her album “Strays.”Sara Messinger for The New York TimesIn this unblinking character study, a woman named Lydia, with “an ex-husband and a midlife crisis,” smokes a cigarette outside a clinic, thinking back through a life of hard luck and rough decisions and trying to decide whether to end her pregnancy. Margo Price sets the story to simple guitar chords and an understated string arrangement, pondering the choices.25. Mitski, ‘Bug Like an Angel’A squashed bug on the bottom of a cocktail glass leads Mitski to fragmentary epiphanies about addiction, trust and sex, with a choir bursting in to affirm each cryptic insight.26. Margaret Glaspy, ‘Memories’Over a waltz of simple guitar chords, Margaret Glaspy blurts out unvarnished grief in a torn voice, bereft yet struggling to go on.27. The Smile, ‘Bending Hectic’A guitar meditation melts into an ecstatic death wish during the eight minutes of “Bending Hectic.” Thom Yorke sings about driving along a curvy Italian mountain road with a sheer drop, and “letting go of the wheel”; Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangement envisions the plunge, and then electric guitars careen to a finish.28. Lankum, ‘Go Dig My Grave’The Irish band Lankum connects the fatalistic, death-haunted side of Celtic tradition to something like black metal in this nine-minute dirge about dying for love. It’s an inexorable crescendo from a solo a cappella vocal to a tolling, clanging drone topped by a howling fiddle, haunted and bleak.29. Caroline Rose, ‘Love/Lover/Friend’In a flurry of plucked and orchestral strings, Caroline Rose affirms her love by ruling out other possibilities, then basks in wordless choral ecstasy.30. André 3000, ‘That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild’In a 10-minute instrumental for muffled drums, percussion and prowling parallel flute lines, André 3000 maintains an aura of calm vigilance, contemplative but still on edge.Jon CaramanicaAnything GoesIt was a year in which the best pop music truly made it up as it went along. Off-the-cuff collaborations? Sure. Songs by fictional characters? Why not. A guy filmed singing in a field by a West Virginia public radio outlet? Absolutely. Microscene classics that clock in at 75 seconds and might be forgotten tomorrow? Always. (In the interest of avoiding redundancy, I’ve only included songs that aren’t on albums that made my best of the year list.)1. Central Cee & Dave, ‘Sprinter’This British rap tag team is about improbable wealth, bounteous opportunities, living so fast that what’s slipping by is almost as good as what you manage to grab hold of. As celebrations go, this is a controlled, pensive one — a relaxed ramble for the moments when the money’s so new, it sparkles.2. Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), ‘World Class Sinner/I’m a Freak’A paean to emotional vacancy sung with emotional vacancy from a television show rife with emotional vacancy ends up … positively glistening. A cause for surrender.3. Oliver Anthony Music, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’A great song, sure. More than that, though, a sense of great exasperation. The quick and strong embrace of this song suggests an ocean of frustration that pop music leaves largely untapped and unvoiced, and a grass-roots resistance that it has almost no hope of replicating.4. Mustafa, ‘Name of God’Few artists conjure a richness of sorrow the way the Canadian folk singer Mustafa does. Here, his singing is beautiful and a little distant, as if flinching ever so slightly from a pain that will never be anything but raw.5. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’PinkPantheress took her songs from her bedroom to bigger stages after a viral hit.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesA glimpse at how pop might — should? — sound in the coming few years. Two stars of the internet of 12 to 24 months ago who found themselves at the vanguards of their respective scenes come together for a collaboration in which neither has to concede an inch.6. Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson, ‘Save Me’What makes Jelly Roll so effective is the way the intensity of his howl only amplifies the potency of his scars. It’s perhaps most pointed on this duet with Lainey Wilson, whose crisp and clear tone initially seems like an antidote, but is quickly revealed as equally bruised.7. That Mexican OT featuring Paul Wall and Drodi, ‘Johnny Dang’An effortless blend of Texas rap generations, fusing the tongue-twisting with the slow-rolling.8. Cody Johnson, ‘The Painter’When someone is effusive, it might not mean as much when they gush. But when a stoic drops his guard, it can feel seismic.9. Ken (Ryan Gosling), ‘I’m Just Ken’When this stridently sad song from the “Barbie” movie hits its apogee, it’s channeling Dashboard Confessional, Meat Loaf, the Phantom (of the Opera) and maybe even Scott Stapp. Slash plays guitar, salting the melodrama hard.10. Gunna, ‘Fukumean’The Atlanta rapper Gunna quickly returned to work after accepting a plea deal in a wide-sweeping ongoing case.Craig Barritt/Getty Images For GunnaA year ago, Gunna accepted a plea deal that untethered him from the RICO trial that has ensnared his mentor, Young Thug. Relatively quickly, he returned to his familiar slippery garble with a hit so ubiquitous it felt like a memory of how things once were.11. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘Dirty Thug’The best of another slew of lonely anthems from the most important and least publicly visible hip-hop star of the past few years.12. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’A cool blast of not-quite-exuberance, this club-pop anthem is a continuation of Kylie Minogue’s sometime-diva legacy, a relentless queer anthem, a cheeky flirtation and a thump that just won’t quit.13. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’It has been 11 and a half years since Kitty Pryde released “Okay Cupid,” plenty of time for a re-embrace.14. Chino Pacas, ‘El Gordo Trae el Mando’A meaty, beatifically meandering boast by one of the rising stars of corridos tumbados.15. Lil Uzi Vert, ‘Just Wanna Rock’Grandfathered in from late 2022, this song broke TikTok, broke dancing, broke the Grammys and maybe even broke hip-hop.And 10 More:Corpse, “Disdain”Miley Cyrus, “Used to be Young”Emilia, “GTA.mp3”evvls, “Belikeme?”Jack Harlow, “Lovin on Me”Sam Hunt, “Walmart”Byron Messia, “Talibans”Militarie Gun, “Very High”Nettspend, “Shine N Peace”Odetari, “Good Loyal Thots”Lindsay ZoladzBeautiful DisastersSo many of my favorite tracks of the year flipped scripts, turned tables and reimagined weaknesses as strengths. By no means a complete list of the songs I enjoyed the past 12 months, these are 20 I couldn’t stop listening to — most of them reminders of music’s ability to turn mess into meaning, anxiety into energy and heartache into a great song.1. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Vampire’Olivia Rodrigo confronts a new class of villain on “Vampire,” the incisive first single that heralded her second album, “Guts,” but she also proves she has learned new ways to slay. “Vampire” is wrenching and formally restless, at first masquerading as a piano ballad, only to ramp up into a miniature rock opera complete with a showstopping high note worthy of a tragic heroine. But don’t cry for Rodrigo — she doesn’t need protection. Her words, her observations and her stylistic flair all have plenty of bite.2. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’In a previous millennium, two of pop’s main young girlies joined forces to each assert that “The Boy Is Mine,” but PinkPantheress (b. 2001) and Ice Spice (b. 2000) were not alive when that song was released. On their bubbly and utterly infectious collaboration, they sidestep any hint of rivalry and turn against the guy, deciding he’s not worth the drama. “What’s the point of crying?” they shrug blithely. “It was never even love.”3. Lana Del Rey, ‘A&W’The year’s best song about telling an ex-boyfriend’s mom that her son is a disaster (runner-up: Rodrigo’s “Get Him Back!”), the sprawling, portentous seven-minute “A&W” is an unfiltered look into Lana Del Rey’s stream of consciousness: misremembered movie titles, sexually frank admissions, inside jokes about Californian geography (“I say I live in Rosemead, really, I’m at the Ramada”) and all manner of other oddly juxtaposed American flotsam. “Maybe,” she reasons with a weary sigh, arriving at some self-knowledge, “I’m just kinda like this.”4. boygenius, ‘Not Strong Enough’Everyone’s favorite musical besties — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — riff on pop clichés and gender roles in this highlight from their breakout year, succinctly summing up their individual songwriting personalities and demonstrating the magic that happens when they combine their powers.5. Romy, ‘Enjoy Your Life’Romy Madley Croft was the final member of the xx to release a solo album.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe xx’s Romy Madley Croft finds a solution for anxiety and self-doubt on this thumping, compassionate club banger: What if she looked at her life through the eyes of a benevolent mother? A luminous sample from the synth pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland — “my mother says to me, enjoy your life” — guides the way.6. Mitski, ‘My Love Mine All Mine’TikTok’s reluctant darling Mitski has released her share of songs that sound destined for pop crossover — last year’s sleek, synthy “Laurel Hell” was full of them — but, unexpectedly, she became a fixture on this year’s Hot 100 for the first time ever with this slow, moony ballad that sounds unlike anything else on the charts. Oblique, poetic and sumptuously sung, it’s a welcome moment of Zen.7. Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, ‘I Remember Everything’An old-fashioned he-said/she-said country duet cut through with a chill of bleak finality. Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves are both at their emotive best on this bruised-hearted crossover hit.8. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’An arsenic-laced confection that shows off Doja Cat’s multiple personalities — a romantic and an ironist, an angel and a devil, a singer fluent in dreamy hooks and a rapper with razor-sharp teeth.9. Jess Williamson, ‘Hunter’The indie singer-songwriter Jess Williamson chronicles both the promise and fatigue of looking for love in this bittersweet, poetically rendered reflection, her twangy voice brimming with a weary hope.10. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Bad Idea, Right?’Olivia Rodrigo sings about mistakes in serious and humorous ways on her second album, “Guts.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWith the possession of a driver’s license comes the ability to drive to an ex’s house in the middle of the night for an ill-advised hookup. That’s the trade-off. At least such circumstances gave us one of Rodrigo’s spunkiest, funniest and most irresistible singles yet.11. Palehound, ‘Independence Day’El Kempner has a keen eye for tragicomic detail on this ramshackle rocker about regret, denial and long-simmering incompatibility that results in a July 4 breakup. “I’m living life like writing my first draft,” they sing. Aren’t we all.12. Water From Your Eyes, ‘Barley’All year I have been describing this zany, looping song from the Brooklyn art-rockers Water From Your Eyes as “what it would sound like if Sonic Youth had made an appearance on ‘Sesame Street,’” and I’m not going to stop now.13. Noname, ‘Namesake’The Chicago rapper Noname says the quiet part loud — and oh so dexterously — on this refreshingly honest track, an incisive examination of pop-cultural ethics unafraid to name names, including (in addition to Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar) her own.14. Wednesday, ‘Chosen to Deserve’In her cracked wail, the Southern rock band Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman — “the girl that you’ve chosen to deserve” — paints an achingly vivid portrait of suburban boredom and young adult malaise, finding just the right surface details to express something deep: “I was out late, sneaking into the neighborhood pool,” she sings. “Then I woke up early and taught at the Sunday school.”15. Mandy, Indiana, ‘Pinking Shears’Comment dit-on “hypnotic, endlessly loopable industrial banger”?16. Jenn Champion, ‘Jessica’There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, Jenn Champion reminds us on this icy, arresting piano ballad, as she rages against a friend’s overdose in lacerating detail.17. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods’s album “Water Made Us” achieves the musician’s greatest synthesis yet between her voices as a poet and as a songwriter.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images For Slow FactoryA warm, wise ode to incremental progress and tiny, beautiful things from R&B’s resident poet laureate.18. Yo La Tengo, ‘Fallout’Still knitting aural autumn sweaters, after all these years.19. Sufjan Stevens, ‘So You Are Tired’What state is he on now? Alaska? Disrepair? Grace? Regardless, this song is a quiet doozy that watches a long-term love unravel in slow motion like a spool of ribbon underwater.20. Drake featuring Sexyy Red and SZA, ‘Rich Baby Daddy’Exhibit Z that Drake is at his best not when he tsk-tsks grown women, but when he risks being outshone by inviting them on the track. More

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      Doja Cat Makes the Leap From the Internet to the Arena Stage

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      The extremely online 28-year-old singer and rapper’s Scarlet Tour accentuates her flair for big statements.More than most artists on pop’s current A-list, the 28-year-old rapper and singer Doja Cat is a child of the internet. Born Amala Ratna Zandile Diamini, she spent much of her youth making beats and rabble-rousing social media posts. She first experienced viral fame in 2018 when her goofy but surprisingly well-executed novelty song “Mooo!” blew up, and still — even after racking up bona fide hits, including two that ranked No. 1 on Billboard — retains the glint-eyed, anarchic spirit of an internet troll.Just as screen charisma doesn’t always translate IRL, not every terminally online musician can convincingly make the leap from, say, Instagram Live to the 19,000-capacity Barclays Center, where Doja headlined her first New York City arena show as part of her Scarlet Tour on Wednesday night.She has been a near constant presence on the charts for almost four years, but as a live performer she is still largely unproven. Her dreamy, disco-inflected breakout hit, “Say So,” was released in January 2020 and, during the pandemic, became a TikTok sensation.Doja Cat’s dreamy, disco-inflected breakout hit, “Say So,” became a TikTok sensation during the pandemic. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThere have been hints, though, that she can handle a large stage with flair. Many of her awards show numbers have been showstoppers, announcing her as an electric performer willing to take unexpected risks. During a pretaped appearance at the 2020 MTV Europe Music Awards, she reimagined the bubbly “Say So” as a brooding nü-metal anthem — and actually pulled it off. At this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, she vamped her way through a transfixing medley from her latest album, “Scarlet,” including the brash, rough-edged diss track “Demons.”“Demons” was the second song Doja Cat played during her commanding, confident and occasionally repetitious hour-and-a-half set at Barclays Center, which featured an opening set from the rising star (and Bronx-born hometown hero) Ice Spice. For that track, Doja Cat was joined by an animatronic spider nearly twice her size, a reference to the dark, occasionally nightmarish aesthetics of the uncompromising “Scarlet.”Prowling around a triangular stage that sometimes spurted fire, and flanked by a nimble troupe of dancers dressed as if Kanye West had designed the costumes for “The Warriors,” Doja was at her best when she was free to rap with dexterity and chest-thumping bravado. “Attention,” the sharp, self-assured first single from “Scarlet,” was a highlight, along with a few deeper cuts from the album, including the buoyant, lusty “Gun” and the imperturbably laid-back “Balut,” which has a vintage boom-bap vibe.In an age of fan service and stan armies, Doja Cat’s relationship to her listeners has been unique, even antagonistic. In July, she generated headlines when, on the social media platform Threads, she refused some fans’ requests to tell them she loved them (“i don’t though cuz i don’t even know y’all,” she replied) and criticized those who had chosen to call themselves “Kittenz.” Rude? Honest? You be the judge. But at a time when most pop stars are expected to cater to their most vocal fans to the point of infantilization, a dissenting voice can be refreshing.Doja’s online barbs didn’t seem to diminish the enthusiasm of the adoring fans at Barclays, some sporting Halloween-store devil horns (a reference to her recent hit “Paint the Town Red”), a few wearing cat ear headbands, and several having already changed into the most sardonic offering from the merch table, a white T-shirt that proclaimed its wearer’s “hate” for Doja Cat, emphasized with an expletive.Doja wore a form-fitting, full-body muscle shirt, imprinted with chiseled abs, bare breasts and exposed buttocks.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThroughout her set, Doja wore an outfit that was provocatively unprovocative: a form-fitting, full-body muscle shirt, imprinted with chiseled abs, bare breasts and exposed buttocks, which she paired with tall suede boots that extended up to her hips like chaps. In her own absurdist way, it was a Doja Cat power suit, lending her an exaggerated physicality and a playful androgyny that she controlled depending on how she moved her body. She could pantomime sexualized femininity one minute — while, say, twerking with her back to the audience — and conjure masculine swagger the next, strutting around the stage in a wide stance. At times, it felt like Doja (ever a student of ’90s hip-hop) was playing both characters in the video for Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson’s 1998 collaboration, “What’s It Gonna Be?!”The softer side of Doja Cat, though, is something she hasn’t yet learned how to communicate on an arena stage; a brief interlude when she sat on a stool and indulged in some R&B crooning was less than captivating. The performance of the pop hits from her previous era, “Say So” and “Kiss Me More,” felt rote, even if “Kiss Me More” featured a crowd-pleasing kiss cam.Doja often suggests on “Scarlet” that she is more at home making razor-edged rap songs than surefire pop hits, and her stage presence backed that up. Still, at an arena show, a musician must find a balance between challenging audiences and keeping them in their seats. The show could have used more visual variety, and its structure — superfluously divided into Acts I through V, though devoid of a narrative arc — was puzzling. When Doja finished the last of her biggest hits, her recent No. 1 “Paint the Town Red,” she still had seven more songs to go.Before a sultry, downbeat cover of “Red Room,” by the Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote, Doja, from her stool, briefly addressed the audience. New York, she said, “is where my mother’s side of the family is from, so I know this place a little bit.” The crowd cheered; modern concert rhythms had primed us to expect that this was the scripted part where the pop star would drop the armor and let us in on something personal, vulnerable, maybe even tear inducing. But she didn’t.Instead, ever the trickster, Doja Cat just thanked the opener and — enrobed in that costume that gave the cheeky illusion of nakedness — introduced the next song.Doja Cat’s Scarlet Tour, which comes to the Prudential Center in Newark on Thursday, runs through Dec. 13 in Chicago; dojacat.com/tour. More

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      Doja Cat Looks to the Past to Make Her Own Moment on ‘Scarlet’

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      On her new LP, the rapper turns out tracks about her musical prowess and lust that show she’s not interested in making music the way today’s biggest stars do.It is an age of true flourishing for women in rap. A pair of peak-personality superstars, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, are tussling for primacy. A second wave of rising stars is firmly established, including Megan Thee Stallion, Latto and Ice Spice. A seemingly endless supply of future fixtures is emerging from TikTok, which has done for women in hip-hop something that record labels and radio stations simply haven’t: allow them to be themselves, and allow them to be found.Too often, though, Doja Cat is left out of this conversation — perhaps because she’s too nimble. A frisky performer comfortable with both rapping and singing, she’s broken through most prominently on songs that show but don’t emphasize just how detailed a rapper she can be. Her two best-known hits, “Say So” and “Kiss Me More,” have been quasi-disco-revival pop, and even though her rhymes are pointed and tart, they’re almost suffocated by the gloss of the production.So it’s notable that “Paint the Town Red,” the lead single from her fourth album, “Scarlet” — and the second No. 1 song of her career — is something different: a light, airy, almost disarmingly casual hip-hop song, woven through with a mottled sample of Dionne Warwick’s version of “Walk on By.” Doja Cat raps slickly and dexterously, while peppy horns interject politely and austerely.But even as a hip-hop song, it’s an outlier in the current climate. All throughout the cheeky, idiosyncratic and sometimes great “Scarlet,” Doja Cat has a disarmingly precise ear for hip-hop, showing she’s far less interested in making songs in the manner of today’s biggest stars than looking back to earlier eras, whether the early 1990s or the early 2010s.She does so not in an especially nostalgic or imitative fashion, but more as a decoration. “Can’t Wait” is both the umpteenth hip-hop song to sample the signature drums from the Honey Drippers’ “Impeach the President,” and the first one to be about intense romantic affection, with clever imagery like “I wanna be the stubborn crust of barnacles upon you.” There’s a wooziness to the production that marks the song as contemporary, but most of the component parts would have been at home three decades ago.This recurs on the snappy “____ the Girls (FTG),” which sounds like it could have been produced by a ’90s New York rap stalwart like Diamond D or Lord Finesse; and on “Ouchies,” which has the chaotic, quick-tempo energy of the late 1980s.Doja Cat also varies her rapping technique in ways that recall these bygone eras. “Love Life” nods to the mid-90s proto neo-soul of Groove Theory, and Doja Cat matches it with a percussive flow that recalls Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets. And “Balut,” a muscular, boom-bap track near the album’s end, full of swaggering punchlines — “Glass houses I don’t really like to keep my stones there/Oh well, I’ll buy another property for $4 mil” — sounds like it could have appeared on Rawkus’s “Soundbombing” series.Lyrically, “Scarlet” has two primary topics: Doja Cat’s dominance and her lust. On “Skull and Bones,” she encapsulates the former:Looking like I got some things you hate I haveAnd trust me baby, God don’t play with hate like thatSo you gon’ be real upset when he pick CatTo be the one up on them charts all over the mapIt’s archetypical Doja Cat: She’s not generally a teller of extended stories, but a rapper who thrills to returning to a rhyme again and again, from different angles, working over a specific sound until it becomes almost tantric. Sometimes she raps about tussles with fans, or observers (“That’s a ratin’, that’s some hating/that’s engagement I could use”), and sometimes about tussles with peers (“Who dare ride my new Versace coattails?”). And her songs about sex, like “Agora Hills” and “Often,” are bawdy and lighthearted.“Scarlet” is lumpier than Doja Cat’s last two albums, both more inventive and more unsteady. But it is also her most promising and encouraging album yet. There are now countless templates for women in hip-hop, and she’s not interested in sticking to any of them. Her path to, and through, the genre is without contemporary peer. If she’s overlooked in the current hip-hop conversation, that may be just how she wants it.Doja Cat“Scarlet”(Kemosabe Records/RCA) 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

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      MTV Video Music Awards Recap: Taylor Swift, Doja Cat and More

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      Nicki Minaj hosted and helped close out a nearly four-hour show heavy on performances and reaction shots of Taylor Swift in the audience.The MTV Video Music Awards returned to the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday night, as Nicki Minaj hosted a nearly four-hour show that included the members of ’N Sync coming together to present a Moon Person trophy to Taylor Swift (who gushed directly to the boy band, “I had your dolls”) and Sean Combs receiving a global icon honor (and telling the crowd his career had humble beginnings, as a paperboy). The Brazilian pop star Anitta delivered one of the event’s most solid one-liners — “I want to thank myself because I worked so hard,” she said in an acceptance speech — which she also proved onstage, performing both a solo medley and a collaboration with the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together. At the end of the night, the following five moments stood out.Most Memorable Performance: Doja CatOne of pop-rap’s most unpredictable voices turned out the night’s most polished and high-concept performance, capturing the anxiety of return to office in a look perhaps best described as “business sexual” while surrounded by dancers doused in ghoulish red paint. The audience looked confused and a little terrified as Doja Cat glided around the stage nailing her marks, the calm in an increasingly hectic storm.Most Memorable Fake-Out: Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” video dramatizes an awards show performance gone wrong, and though it has 54 million YouTube views, none of those evidently came from V.M.A.s audience members like Selena Gomez, who looked stricken when Rodrigo partly recreated the clip Tuesday night. After the song’s first section, lights seemingly burst onstage and a curtain fell as a “stagehand” ushered the singer away — only to return seconds later grinning and performing another song from her new album, “Guts,” the bouncy “Get Him Back!”Most Memorable Return That (Likely) Didn’t Attract F.C.C. Attention: Cardi B and Megan Thee StallionCardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s first televised performance of their hit “WAP” came at the 2021 Grammys, and their salacious choreography caught the attention of over 1,000 viewers who complained to the Federal Communications Commission, Rolling Stone reported. The duo reunited last week with a fresh collaboration called “Bongos,” and played it relatively safer on the V.M.A.s stage. The censors caught most of the profanities and the audience camera caught one of the night’s many shots of Swift dancing along.Most Memorable 10-Minute Performance Involving Knives: ShakiraPerforming a mega medley to celebrate receiving the video vanguard award, the Colombian pop star didn’t appear to be doing much live singing, but her lengthy number included plenty of choreography, hair flipping, microphone stand tossing, guitar playing, a quick wardrobe adjustment, crowd surfing and a lift bringing her high above the crowd. But a truly eye-grabbing moment came halfway through, when she wielded two knives, dramatically running one across her torso before tossing them aside.Most Memorable Flashback to MTV’s Past: Hip-Hop Anniversary MedleyThe Grammys went big with a tribute to 50 years of hip-hop earlier this year, but MTV’s celebration of rap’s anniversary had some highlights, too: After Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh gave the crowd a lesson on the genre’s beginnings, Minaj emerged with “Itty Bitty Piggy,” one of her beloved early mixtape tracks, then reunited with her mentor Lil Wayne for “A Milli.” LL Cool J commanded the stage for two of his own songs, then went (shell) toe to toe with Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels on “Walk This Way.” (The performance mostly elided the 1990s, but Diddy’s eight-minute performance earlier in the night covered that era.) It was a reminder that MTV was once the home of “Yo! MTV Raps,” and used to spend a lot more time on music. 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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      Doja Cat Goes Horror Rap on ‘Demons,’ and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Peter Gabriel, Lauren Mayberry, Oneohtrix Point Never 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.Doja Cat, ‘Demons’A brash, blown-speaker quality animates “Demons,” the latest single from Doja Cat’s upcoming album, “Scarlet.” “How my demons look now that my pockets full?” she shouts with a defiant rasp, before switching to a lighter and more viciously humorous register on the verses. (“Who are you, and what are those? You are gross!”) “Demons” also features a horror movie-inspired video, which stars Christina Ricci and features a very creepy Doja slithering around like a red-eyed monster. Other pop stars merely tune out their haters; Doja exorcises them. LINDSAY ZOLADZNicki Minaj, ‘Last Time I Saw You’Nicki Minaj doesn’t usually admit to any regrets or second thoughts. But she does in “Last Time I Saw You,” a song that seesaws between guitar-flecked ballad and rueful rapping. “I wish I remembered to say I’d do anything for you/Maybe I pushed you away because I thought that I’d bore you,” she sings, confessing that she was the one in the wrong. JON PARELESTeezo Touchdown featuring Janelle Monáe, ‘You Thought’Misjudgments pile up in “You Thought,” which transforms from percussive, triplet-driven rock to ballad with brisk hip-hop wordplay. Teezo Touchdown moves between rapping and singing; Monáe is melodic, singing, “I thought we were better.” The song details a breakup from both sides: missed opportunities, misunderstandings, unfulfilled needs, all compressed into pop. PARELESBlankfor.ms, Jason Moran and Marcus Gilmore, ‘Eighth Pose’Tyler Gilmore — the New York-based composer and musician known as Blankfor.ms — makes music using degraded tape loops, analog synthesizers and an old spinet piano. He was approached recently by the producer Sun Chung about doing an album with jazz improvisers, and his first call was to the pianist and composer Jason Moran, his former teacher at the New England Conservatory. His second was to the drummer Marcus Gilmore. Those two are among the finest improvisers alive: It is an impressive team for a first foray. On “Refract,” their new album, the trio works across medium and style, with composed elements and prepared loops by Blankfor.ms sparking improvisations from his collaborators. “Eighth Pose” turns on a twitchy, coiled synth phrase, like a keyed-up Aphex Twin track; Moran picks it up on the piano, toying with it, while Gilmore adds a nervy drumbeat, passed through compressed effects. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOKenya Grace, ‘Strangers’Speedy breakbeats equate with dating jitters in “Strangers,” Kenya Grace’s whispery complaint about how 21st-century romance too often ends in ghosting. She’s the singer, songwriter and producer on the track. “One random night when everything changes/you won’t reply and we’ll go back to strangers.” Synthesizers hum as the percussion races ahead, while she sings about feeling like “Everyone’s disposable.” PARELESJeff Rosenstock, ‘Will U Still U’The Long Island-born punk lifer Jeff Rosenstock tests the limits of love on “Will U Still U,” the jet-propelled opening track off his new album “Hellmode.” “Will you still love me” after I’ve messed up, he asks (with an expletive) in a catchy, incongruously cheery melody, before unleashing a rapid-fire rundown of his relationship worries. In the song’s cathartic finale he’s joined by a chorus of voices shouting that refrain at the top of their lungs and fist-pumping in anxious solidarity. ZOLADZOneohtrix Point Never, ‘A Barely Lit Path’Oneohtrix Point Never is the composer and mastermind Daniel Lopatin, who has been the Weeknd’s producer and created the nervy soundtrack for “Uncut Gems,” along with making his own albums. “A Barely Lit Path” begins as a reverent, electronics-edged dirge with processed vocals imagining “a barely lit path from your house to mine.” Then it goes through a multiverse of wordless transformations: pulsing synthesizers, a stately quasi-Baroque string orchestra, a choir accompanied by synthesizer arpeggios and a gradual, virtual decrescendo. Absolutely anything can happen as long as it’s in the same key. PARELESPeter Gabriel, ‘Love Can Heal (Bright-Side Mix)’An expansive sound design — with bell-toned ostinatos, throaty cellos and multidirectional echoes — underlines Peter Gabriel’s troubled but determined optimism in “Love Can Heal,” a new track from his gradually accruing album “I/O.” His vocal sets aside his usual grizzled hoarseness for a modest tenor; a choir joins him, yet the song stays fragile. PARELESJason Hawk Harris, ‘Jordan and the Nile’There’s an Appalachian feeling to the melody of Jason Hawk Harris’s rootsy incantation “Jordan and the Nile,” a leisurely, mystical song about rivers and generations. An organ and a string section provide droning chords as he sings about determined optimism informed by biblical imagery: “I’m feeling heavy but I see the light/A world is dark but my abyss is bright,” he promises. PARELESLauren Mayberry, ‘Are You Awake?’The debut solo single from Lauren Mayberry — the lead singer of the Scottish electro-pop group Chvrches — is a sparse, plaintive piano ballad written with Tobias Jesso Jr., chronicling nocturnal anxieties and open-ended questions. “Are you awake? I feel a sadness in my skin,” Mayberry sings, her voice melancholy but chiming with the faintest hint of hope that her message will be answered. ZOLADZMaria BC, ‘Amber’ and ‘Watcher’Glimmering electronics, tolling guitars and hovering vocal harmonies gather in “Amber” and “Watcher,” two segued songs that meditate on closeness: “Your scent is on me now/Your senses draw me out,” Maria BC sings. “There is no place to hide and no wrong.” It’s blissfully enveloping and humbly awe-struck. PARELESKris Davis, ‘Dolores’ (Take 1)“Dolores” is easily one of the most infectious melodies Wayne Shorter wrote during his stint as musical director for the Miles Davis Quintet. But it’s not one of the (many) Shorter tunes you’re likely to hear called at a jam session or covered at a straight-ahead gig. Maybe there is something intimidating about the balled up, stop-and-start melody; the centerlessness of its structure; or how perfectly the quintet plays it on the classic 1966 recording. Well, none of this scares the pianist and composer Kris Davis. Strong-but-bendable rhythm, splintered melodic lines and rough-and-tumble interplay are par for the course for (this) Davis, especially with her Diatom Ribbons project. On a new album, recorded live at the Village Vanguard with a five-member version of that ensemble, the group takes its time getting to the theme: The bassist Trevor Dunn makes some references to it, the drummer Terri Lyne Carrington establishes a heavy groove, and finally Julian Lage’s guitar comes together with Davis’s piano to grapple with the melody. When Lage departs from it on his solo, he travels far — and the band comes with him. 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      Meshell Ndegeocello’s Magnificent Mix, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Peggy Gou, Killer Mike, Sparklehorse 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.Meshell Ndegeocello featuring Jeff Parker, ‘ASR’The songs on Meshell Ndegeocello’s magnificent new album, “The Omnichord Real Book,” are always in flux. In its seven-and-half minutes, “ASR” hints at fusion jazz, Funkadelic, Ethiopian pop, reggae and psychedelia; the guitarist Jeff Parker, from Tortoise, teases the music forward. As the song accelerates, Ndegeocello sings about pain, heartbreak, healing and perseverance, and she vows, “We’re here to set the clock to here and now.” JON PARELESPeggy Gou, ‘(It Goes Like) Nanana’Peggy Gou is a South Korean-born, Berlin-based D.J. and producer with a penchant for dreamy house beats and a velvety touch. Her latest single “(It Goes Like) Nanana” plays out a bit like her own personal reworking of ATC’s ubiquitous 2000 hit “All Around the World,” but with a kinetic energy that’s distinctly her own. “I can’t explain,” Gou sings over a thumping beat and light piano riff, before deciding she can best express the feeling she wants to describe in nonsense words: “I guess it goes like na na na na na na.” LINDSAY ZOLADZDoja Cat, ‘Attention’Doja Cat returns with a vengeance on the menacing “Attention,” a statement record that puts her pop sensibility aside (at least for now) and leans into her ample skills as an M.C. “Look at me, look at me — you lookin’?” she begins, and for the next few minutes commands the floor with charismatic grit. “Baby, if you like it, just reach out and pet it,” she sings on a hook that recalls ’90s R&B, albeit filtered through Doja’s alien sensibility. The verses, though, are pure venom: “Y’all fall into beef, but that’s another conversation,” she spits with that signature fire in her throat. “I’m sorry, but we all find it really entertaining.” ZOLADZKiller Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’Ambition and achievement, electronics and exaltation all figure in “Scientists & Engineers” from “Michael,” Killer Mike’s first solo album since he formed Run the Jewels with El-P. “Scientists & Engineers” has five producers including James Blake and No I.D. The track pulsates with keyboard chords under the elusive André 3000 (from Outkast), who insists, “Rebelling is like an itch.” The music switches to silky guitar chords for Future, who sings, “It’s better to be an outcast in a world of envious.” And a beat kicks in with trap drums and blipping synthesizers behind Killer Mike, who boasts in quick triplets: “I’m never chillin’, I gotta make millions.” A multitracked Eryn Allen Kane wafts choirlike harmonies — and gospel-tinged sentiments like “I’mma live forever” — while the rappers redefine themselves. PARELESFlesh Eater featuring Fiona Apple, ‘Komfortzone’None other than Fiona Apple decided to collaborate with Flesh Eater, a Nashville avant-pop group, on the mercurial seven-minute excursion “Komfortzone.” Over a low, sputtering programmed beat and outbursts of noise and electronics, Flesh Eater’s lead singer, Zwil AR, sings hopscotching melodies reminiscent of Dirty Projectors. Apple sprinkles in some piano and eventually adds vocal harmonies on refrains like “A field of sunflowers with their backs toward me/I’m on the train.” It’s as willful as it is arty. PARELESSparklehorse, ‘Evening Star Supercharger’Mark Linkous was making his fifth album as Sparklehorse when he died by suicide in 2010. Now his family and a handful of collaborators have completed it, due for a September release as “Bird Machine.” A preview single, “Evening Star Supercharger,” tops unhurried folk-rock with the tinkle of a toy piano, as Linkous cryptically but matter-of-factly considers mortality and depression: “Peace without pill, gun or needle or prayer appear/Never found sometimes near but too fleet to be clear.” In the sky, he calmly watches a star going nova: “Even though she’s dying, getting larger.” PARELESOmah Lay, ‘Reason’The Nigerian singer Omah Lay has split his songs between partying and self-doubt; he has also been featured by Justin Bieber. “Reason,” from the newly expanded version of his 2022 album, “Boy Alone,” has minor chords and grim scenarios: “I don’t know who to run to right now/Army is opening heavy fire.” The beat is buoyant, but the tone is fraught. PARELESDavid Virelles, ‘Uncommon Sense’A low-riding shuffle beat isn’t the Cuban-born pianist, composer and folklorist David Virelles’s most common environment. But “Carta,” Virelles’s new LP, puts him and his longtime first-call bassist, Ben Street, together with Eric McPherson, an innovator and tradition-bearer in today’s jazz drumming. This is the closest Virelles has come to making a standard-format jazz trio album, though it’s still not exactly that. On the opener, “Uncommon Sense,” McPherson’s shuffle kicks in after 25 seconds of solo piano, and Virelles has already led things down a tense path, changing keys capriciously while building up a foundation for the Cubist phrase at the center of the tune. McPherson’s elegantly splattered drum style, using traditional grip to roll his rhythms out as close to the ground as possible, gives solid support to Virelles while he toys with contemporary-side influences: the bodily elocution of Don Pullen’s piano playing, the harmonic splintering and superimpositions of Craig Taborn, the rhythmic restraint of a Gonzalo Rubalcaba. You wouldn’t need to be told this album was recorded at Van Gelder Studio to realize it’s speaking with jazz history — the antique, the modern and what’s barely come into shape. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBen van Gelder, ‘Spectrum’“Manifold,” a new album from the rising bandleader Ben van Gelder, celebrates the voice. The voice of his saxophone, the voice of the pipe organ, the human voice, the collective voice of an eight-piece band. Each has its own grain. The organ has its own prominent side-narrative in jazz history, but the Amsterdam-based van Gelder is culling from a different stream, closer to contemporary classical composers like Arvo Pärt and György Ligeti, using dissonance and space. The Veracruz-born vocalist Fuensanta sings no words on “Spectrum,” the album’s rangy centerpiece track; she joins the horns, sounding almost like another reed instrument. Beneath them, Kit Downes toggles between minimalism and high-rising waves on the pipe organ. RUSSONELLOElliott Sharp, ‘Rosette’The composer Elliott Sharp has been devising systems of pitch and structure since the 1970s. His latest album, “Steppe,” is inspired by geography. It’s music for six overdubbed vintage electric steel guitars, microtonally tuned and arrayed in stereo, exploring texture and resonance. “Rosette” is built from quick, cascading, staggered, overlapping little runs. It’s bell-toned and spiky, crumbling and reassembling. PARELES More