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    8 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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    A dive into tracks by Tyler, the Creator, Feist, Bully and more recent highlights.Tyler, the Creator released a new track as part of an expanded edition of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”Luis “Panch” PerezDear listeners,I have a constantly replenishing playlist on my phone called “Thursday Nights and Friday Mornings.” It’s named for the time I do some of my most focused new-music listening, in preparation for the publication of the Playlist, a weekly feature that I compile with my colleagues Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica.* Each Friday, we recommend a handful of songs released in the past week, a task that helps me stay on top of all (well, most) of the new music that comes out in a given week, and often the Jons’ picks point me toward what I missed.Every few weeks, I’ll be sending out an Amplifier digest of recent Playlist highlights. Today, we’ve got a mix of some possibly familiar names (Lucinda Williams; Feist; Tyler, the Creator) and hopefully some new ones, too.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Jess Williamson: “Hunter”This is one of my favorite new songs right now. It’s from the Texas-born singer-songwriter Jess Williamson, whose music I’ve been following since her haunting 2014 debut, “Native State.” Last year, she teamed up with a fellow musician from the South, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, and formed a country duo called Plains. Williamson’s contributions to Plains’ excellent record “I Walked With You a Ways” felt like a step forward for her as a songwriter, and I hear that growth on “Hunter,” the first single from her next solo album, “Time Ain’t Accidental,” out in June. It’s a bittersweet song about the spiritually exhausting process of looking for love, but on the chorus Williamson sounds hopeful and replenished, reminding herself, “I want a mirror, not a piece of glass.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Bully: “Days Move Slow”My former colleague at Vulture Jesse David Fox once compared an early song from Alicia Bognanno’s grungy power-pop band Bully to “Sugarhigh,” the fictional alt-rock hit that Renée Zellweger’s character sings at the end of “Empire Records” — and now I will never un-hear that similarity as long as I live. (It’s definitely a compliment.) I interviewed Bognanno over video chat in August 2020, and I remember a very sweet dog named Mezzi dozing behind her. (A dog lover myself, I always ask my interview subjects about their pups. Always.) Sadly, Mezzi has since passed on, but “Days Move Slow,” from the forthcoming Bully album “Lucky for You,” is both an ode to her memory and a chronicle of Bognanno trying to propel herself out of the muck of grief. That probably makes it sound like a downer, but the song has a resilient, upbeat energy about it — sort of like an excitable canine. Rest in power, Mezzi! (Listen on YouTube)3. Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro: “Beso”Some couples announce their engagement with a ring pic on Instagram. Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro, two of the brightest Spanish-language stars in the current pop firmament, hinted at theirs in a music video. Their sweet and sultry duet “Beso” is a highlight from their recently released collaborative EP, “RR” — and proof of their musical chemistry. (Listen on YouTube)4. Tyler, the Creator: “Sorry Not Sorry”Fun fact: In 2021, only two albums made appearances on all three of our critics’ Top 10 lists — Olivia Rodrigo’s head-turning debut “Sour” and Tyler, the Creator’s sprawling rap odyssey “Call Me if You Get Lost.” Last week, Tyler released an expanded edition featuring a few new tracks, including this one, the gregarious “Sorry Not Sorry.” I really like this song’s Jekyll-and-Hyde energy, as a repentant Tyler apologizes for a number of personal and professional slights and then, occasionally, a brasher version of himself takes it right back: “Sorry to the fans who say I changed — ’cause I did.” (Listen on YouTube)5. Mahalia: “Terms and Conditions”I’m a total mark for any song that mines and cleverly updates the sounds of Y2K pop or “TRL”-era R&B. (See also: The entire output of the young British girl group Flo.) “Terms and Conditions,” from the 24-year-old singer Mahalia, does just that. It’s giving me hints of Mya, Destiny’s Child and a whole lot of J. Lo’s glimmering millennial time capsule “If You Had My Love.” But it’s also got a contemporary twist, as Mahalia tells a potential suitor what she won’t tolerate (“If you look at her, consider bridges burned”), flipping the dry language of contractual agreements into something confident, fun and flirty. (Listen on YouTube)6. Lucinda Chua featuring yeule: “Something Other Than Years”Like the Mahalia song, I have my colleague Jon Pareles to thank for this next Playlist pick, from the London-based songwriter Lucinda Chua. “Something Other Than Years” is a sparse, hypnotic duet with the Singaporean musician yeule, which finds Chua pleading in a glassy voice, “Show me how to live this life,” a request that seems to be answered by yeule’s celestial melody. Jon describes the rest of Chua’s new album “Yian” as a collection of “meditations seeking serenity — often just two alternating chords, set out slowly on keyboard and sustained by orchestral strings.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Feist: “Borrow Trouble”I love it when Feist — an artist often associated with calm and quietude — lets loose and makes a ruckus, as she does on this stomping tune from her upcoming album, “Multitudes.” Wait for her primal screams at the very end! (Listen on YouTube)Two Lucindas in a single playlist? Better believe it. The country-rock legend Lucinda Williams’s voice has sounded defiant since at least the 1980s, but since recovering from a 2020 stroke, her survivor’s rasp has taken on a whole new gravitas. “New York Comeback” — from the upcoming album “Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart” — has Williams’s characteristic grit and lack of sentiment (“No one’s brought the curtain down,” she sings wrly, “maybe you should stick around”) but there’s something poignant about hearing Amplifier fave Bruce Springsteen (along with his wife and bandmate Patti Scialfa) singing backing vocals to support her as if he’s just one more rock ’n’ roll lifer nodding to another. (Listen on YouTube)These are my terms and conditions,Lindsay*If the grammatically correct plural of “attorney general” is indeed “attorneys general,” maybe I should say “Jons Pareles and Caramanica.”The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“8 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track listTrack 1: Jess Williamson, “Hunter”Track 2: Bully, “Days Move Slow”Track 3: Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro, “Beso”Track 4: Tyler, the Creator, “Sorry Not Sorry”Track 5: Mahalia, “Terms and Conditions”Track 6: Lucinda Chua featuring yeule, “Something Other Than Years”Track 7: Feist, “Borrow Trouble”Track 8: Lucinda Williams, “New York Comeback”Bonus TracksA few of you have written in to ask if we archive previous Amplifier playlists on Spotify. We do! The easiest way to find them is through our account page, where we also archive all the weekly Friday Playlists, too.And speaking of reader emails: Special thanks to Sharon Smith for — after I mentioned that Bob Dylan won his first Grammy nearly two decades into his career, for his 1979 song “Gotta Serve Somebody” — directing me to this blistering performance of Dylan playing the song live at the 1980 Grammys. (Kris Kristofferson, as you’ll see, was loving it.) Apparently the producers asked him to cut the song down to three or four minutes; he played for six and a half. Classic Bob! More

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      Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’ Outtake, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear songs from Alison Goldfrapp, 100 gecs, Luke Combs and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Starting next week, Lindsay Zoladz will be writing a new newsletter devoted to music discovery. Sign up below!Taylor Swift, ‘All of the Girls You Loved Before’Here’s Taylor Swift at her most forgiving. Of course her guy has a past, and so does she, but she’s willing to consider that a learning experience. “Every woman you know brought you here,” she reasons. “All the Girls You Loved Before” — no relation to a similarly titled Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias hit — have just “made you the one I’ve fallen for.” The previously unreleased track from her “Lover” era is one of four songs, the rest re-recordings, Swift put out on Friday ahead of the start of her Eras Tour. Its easy-rolling beat and doo-wop chord progression underline the eternal cycle of falling in and out of love before finding The One. JON PARELESFeist, ‘Borrowed Trouble’Leslie Feist makes boisterous, joyful noise on “Borrow Trouble,” the latest single from her upcoming album, “Multitudes.” Atop a bed of echoing, droning strings that recall, unexpectedly, the John Cale era of the Velvet Underground, the Canadian singer-songwriter bemoans the entrenched anxiety that follows from day to day: “Even before your eyes are open,” she sings, “the plot has thickened ’round your fear.” In the song’s final minute she finds potent catharsis, flinging her cares to the wind as she lets loose some primal screams: “Trouble!” LINDSAY ZOLADZAlison Goldfrapp, ‘So Hard So Hot’On May 12, Alison Goldfrapp — the longtime voice of the beloved electro-pop duo Goldfrapp — will release her first solo album, “The Love Invention.” Its debut single, “So Hard So Hot,” is a blissed-out dance floor reverie, as shimmery synths and Goldfrapp’s breathy vocals drift over a thumping beat. “Don’t know why, don’t know why, don’t know why we love this way,” she sings, before deciding the best course is not to ask too many questions but simply lose herself in the rapture of the groove. ZOLADZTiwa Savage, Ayra Starr and Young Jonn, ‘Stamina’Here’s a friendly challenge to men: “You gonna need more stamina,” the Nigerian songwriters Tiwa Savage and Ayra Starr declare. In the programmed, crisply percussive track, shared with the male voice of Young Jonn, they sing about ecstasy enabled by permission: deeply carnal but ethical. PARELES100 gecs, ‘Dumbest Girl Alive’“10,000 gecs,” the long-awaited major-label debut from the hyperpop hellions 100 gecs, opens with a pretty hilarious sonic joke: a sample of the nostalgic and evocative THX Deep Note, as if to say, 100 gecs: Now in Glistening Hi-Fi. Even with a bigger budget, though, a scrappy, anarchic spirit and the duo’s unpredictable sense of humor course throughout the exhilarating album, which features a dark, snaking ditty sung from the perspective of a serial killer and a song that sounds like Less Than Jake covering Crazy Frog. The crunching, Godzilla-sized riffs and absurdist one-liners (“put emojis on my grave”) of the first track, “Dumbest Girl Alive,” set the scene for the album’s loving embrace of alternative rock while slyly shooting a confetti cannon at the haters: “I’m smarter than I look,” Laura Les sings, in a cadence that’s almost cartoonishly melodic. “I’m the dumbest girl alive.” ZOLADZMatthew Herbert featuring Theon Cross, ‘The Horse Has a Voice’The composer and producer Matthew Herbert often constructs his music around a set of found sounds — industrial, animal, human, urban. His album due in May, “The Horse,” uses instruments made from a horse’s skeleton and hair, along with the London Contemporary Orchestra, jazz musicians and sampled horse sounds. “The Horse Has a Voice” features Herbert playing a flute made from a thigh bone, the orchestra and the tuba player Theon Cross. It’s a fast (around 151 beats per minute), steady-thumping stomp, with handclaps, a huffing thighbone-flute riff, gusts and flurries from the orchestra and leaping, scurrying tuba improvisations — frantic and relentless, high-tech and primitive. PARELESPieta Brown and JT Bates, ‘Thing or 2’“Thing or 2” drifts in and out of formlessness. Pieta Brown — the daughter of the longtime Iowan folk songwriter Greg Brown — sings about love and trust over the producer JT Bates’s edgeless electronic chords and sputtering 6/4 beats. “In my heart you sing clear and bright/It makes me feel like things will be all right,” she intones, convincing both herself and anyone listening. PARELESLuke Combs, ‘5 Leaf Clover’The country star Luke Combs perfects the humblebrag in “5 Leaf Clover.” It’s a sturdy waltz that exults in a good life: hometown, partner, friends, a truck in the driveway, healthy parents and “a fridge full of cold beer,” not to mention a tail-wagging dog. The track is grounded in country, complete with fiddle fills, but it’s also pointed toward a wide pop audience. PARELESEsther Rose featuring Hurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Safe to Run’“How does it feel to blow a kiss to the wind?” the singer-songwriter Esther Rose wonders on “Safe to Run,” a poignant country-folk song with a wandering spirit. Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff harmonizes with Rose on the chorus, on which the pair dispense some bittersweet wisdom: “You know there’s no place safe to run/Angels surround everyone.” ZOLADZ More

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      Feist’s Electrifying Return, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Lana Del Rey, Pink, Janelle Monáe and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Feist, ‘In Lightning’Leslie Feist’s first album since 2017, “Multitudes,” is due April 14, and “In Lightning” is the noisiest and most changeable of the three songs she has released in advance. She sings about lightning as illumination, as power and as revelation; is it “in lightning” or “enlightening”? The track begins with clattering drums and banshee vocal harmonies, then veers between hushed contemplation and a brawny, Celtic-flavored stomp. At the end, the vocal harmonies that were so cutting when the song began return as tentative queries. JON PARELESLana Del Rey, ‘A&W’Lana Del Rey works in liminal spaces: between breath and melody, between confession and persona, between image and experience, between commerce and art. The pretty but utterly bleak “A&W” has nothing to do with root beer or fast food; the initials echo “American whore,” something she calls herself in the song. She sings as a woman without illusions or hopes, a celebrity who’s always under scrutiny: “Do you really think I give a damn what I do/After years of just hearing them talking?” In this long, subdued, radio-defying track, she sings about a loveless hotel hookup that may have turned into a rape; “Do you really think anyone would think that I didn’t ask for it?” she wonders. Halfway through, the track turns to synthetic sounds and the lyrics drift into a different obsession: “Jimmy only love me when he want to get high.” In this song, everyone is a user. PARELESJanelle Monáe, ‘Float’Since “Dirty Computer” in 2018, Janelle Monáe has focused more on acting than on music; the few songs the 37-year-old has released in the past five years have been one-off soundtrack recordings. The buoyant “Float,” though, certainly sounds like a harbinger of Monáe’s next era as a recording artist: It’s looser and more conversant with contemporary hip-hop than the musician’s work in the past. The Afrobeat heir Seun Kuti leads his late father’s ensemble Egypt 80 to provide some brassy fanfare while Monáe raps, “I had to protect all my energy, I’m feeling much lighter” in a carefree cadence that backs that assertion up. LINDSAY ZOLADZDesire Marea, ‘Be Free’The South African songwriter Desire Marea stirs up a maelstrom in “Be Free.” With lyrics in English and Zulu, it’s an exhortation and a reproach to someone who won’t accept his sexuality: “Maybe another day you will find courage to love me freely,” he sings, sympathetic but judgmental. Recorded with a 13-member live studio band, the song barrels ahead from the start: first with an insistent bass riff, accelerating with voices, brasses and four-on-the-floor drums, then rumbling and roiling under a solemn, string-laden plaint: “I just want to be free,” Marea insists. PARELESAnna B Savage, ‘Pavlov’s Dog’“Pavlov’s Dog,” from the London-based singer-songwriter Anna B Savage’s new album “In/Flux,” is a wonderfully tactile depiction of lust: panting backing vocals, escalating tension and Savage’s visceral, quivering voice. “Just call me Pavlov’s dog,” she sings against the atmospheric soundscape. “I’m here, I’m waiting, I’m salivating.” ZOLADZKelsea Ballerini, ‘Mountain With a View’With her strikingly candid new EP “Rolling Up the Welcome Mat,” the country star Kelsea Ballerini joins the recent ranks of peers like Kacey Musgraves and Adele in chronicling a young woman’s experience of divorce. “I’m wearing the ring still, but I think I’m lying,” Ballerini sings wrenchingly. “Sometimes you forget yours, I think we’re done trying.” The boldness of her confessionalism is paired with a sparse, airy new sound, full of echoing synthesizer chords, naturalistic sounds and plenty of empty space, evoking the home that Ballerini is suddenly learning to fill on her own. ZOLADZNaima Bock, ‘Lines’Following her lovely and eclectic debut album from last year, “Giant Palm,” the London musician Naima Bock’s new single, “Lines,” is dynamic and unpredictable, a folky rocker that rises and ebbs like the sea. Violin, saxophone and an unruly electric guitar all emerge at points to wrestle with Bock’s bracing vocal, but each one ultimately cedes the spotlight to her flinty presence. ZOLADZNickel Creek, ‘Holding Pattern’“Holding Pattern” is from “Celebrants,” the first album in nine years from the reconvened string trio Nickel Creek, due March 24. It’s a song that evokes the first months of the pandemic — “Washing my hands/Through the night can’t sleep for the sirens,” Chris Thile sings — and tries to draw comfort from companionship, urging, “Don’t forget we’re/Alone in this together.” The siblings Sara and Sean Watkins pick circular guitar patterns and add vocal harmonies, while Thile plays a counterpoint on mandola that rises like mist off a pond. PARELESPink, ‘When I Get There’At first, “When I Get There” sounds like a love song. It has basic piano chords and Pink singing, “When I think of you, I think about forever.” But soon it’s clear that she’s singing about someone who has died, maybe a songwriter: “Is there a song you just can’t wait to share?” It’s a careful crescendo that contemplates eternity. PARELESOval, ‘Touha’Plinking, glimmering, stuttering keyboard tones, somewhere between a piano and a music box, ripple across “Touha,” a track that previews “Romantiq,” the next album by Oval. Markus Popp, who has been recording computerized music since the 1990s as Oval, has long worked with loops, phantom spaces and electronic glitches. “Touha” proceeds in irregular flurries of keyboard activity and overlapping shards of melody, gradually interwoven with distant drones and glissandos and sporadic patterings of percussion. Aiming for neither dance nor meditation, it’s music for nervous introspection. PARELES More