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The Future of Rap Is Female As their male counterparts turn depressive and paranoid, it’s the women who are having all the fun. Aug. 9, 2023 Like American men in general, our top male rappers appear to be in crisis: overwhelmed, confused, struggling to embody so many contradictory ideals. As a result, the art is […] More
Hear tracks by Flo Milli, Jessie Ware, Montell Fish 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.Billie Eilish, ‘TV’“TV” — from a pair of modestly strummed but richly produced “guitar songs” Billie Eilish has just released — starts out like one of her hushed, breathy ballads about estrangement, self-doubt and a longing for numbness, this time using TV; she considers putting on “‘Survivor’ just to watch somebody suffer.” But she’s onto something larger — the ways entertainment nurtures distraction, alienation and apathy — and she turns pointedly 2022 topical: “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial/While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade,” she sings. But Eilish hasn’t forgotten she’s an entertainer herself; as she ponders her isolation in a closing refrain — “Maybe I’m the problem” — she dials in an arena audience, singing and clapping along. JON PARELESJessie Ware, ‘Free Yourself’Jessie Ware reaches for time-tested disco tools in “Free Yourself,” abetted by the stalwart producer Stuart Price (Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Dua Lipa). There’s a bouncing-octave piano riff, a solidly thumping beat and eventually the sounds of a swooping, hovering string section, as Ware promises that freedom will feel good: “Keep on moving up that mountaintop,” she urges. “Why don’t you please yourself?” The breakdowns and buildups assemble with a sense of glittery inevitability, strutting toward a big finish that, startlingly, never arrives: “Don’t stop!,” Ware sings, “Baby don’t you …” Suddenly, she’s left hanging. PARELESFlo Milli featuring BabyFace Ray, ‘Hottie’A Flo Milli song is like a Blingee filter: loud, flashy, and confrontationally femme. This week the Alabama rapper put out her major-label debut album, “You Still Here, Ho?,” a kind of spiritual sequel to her irresistible 2020 mixtape “Ho, Why Is You Here?” Following an introductory invocation of the muse, which in this case is the reality TV legend Tiffany “New York” Pollard, the album is a showcase for Flo Milli’s braggadocious humor and the chatty ease of her signature flow. Plenty of other rappers would slow their tempo when given a beat as dreamy as the one on “Hottie,” but Milli is relentless as ever, antically flirty while still taking a breath to set some boundaries (“I don’t text back if I’m cranky”). Here, as on other highlights from the record, she spits like a cartoon character gleefully gliding across a rainbow. LINDSAY ZOLADZTyler ICU featuring Nkosazana Daughter, Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, ‘Inhliziyo’Three notable South African producers — Tyler ICU, Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa — worked on “Inhliziyo” (“Heart”), a spacious amapiano track built from shakers, sustained keyboard chords, sparsely tapping percussion and shadowy, nearly subterranean bass lines. What makes it even more haunting than most amapiano songs are the vocals by its songwriter, Nkosazana Daughter: quiet and nearly private, hinting at non-Western inflections and suffused with the inconsolable heartbreak of her Zulu lyrics. PARELESSun Ra Arkestra, ‘Somebody Else’s Idea’The Sun Ra Arkestra conjures a loose communality, the feeling of mavericks gathering for a shared purpose. When the Arkestra recorded “Somebody Else’s Idea” during Sun Ra’s lifetime, June Tyson sang lyrics like “Somebody else’s idea of things to come/Need not be the only way.” The current Arkestra, led by the saxophonist Marshall Allen, reclaims the song without words, as a leisurely bolero with saxophones or wordless voices carrying the succinct melody over Afro-Caribbean percussion. They’re joined at times by Farid Barron’s floridly dissonant piano, by brass interjections, by flute trills, and by wavery strings, each adding its own contribution until, like a caravan at sunset, the tune settles into a resting place. PARELESJulianna Riolino, ‘You’“You,” from the Canadian singer-songwriter Julianna Riolino’s forthcoming debut album, “All Blue,” is a twangy, deliriously catchy blast of power-pop. Riolino’s impassioned delivery and boot-stomping energy will appeal to fans of the more upbeat songs on Angel Olsen’s “My Woman,” but Riolino also blends the sounds of vintage country and jangly garage rock in a way that’s uniquely her own. “Everyone is fine until they are drowning in someone,” Riolino sings on this ode to devotion, with the intensity of someone hanging on for dear life. ZOLADZMamalarky, ‘Mythical Bonds’The indie-rock band Mamalarky, formed in Austin and now based in Atlanta, celebrates a deep, joyous friendship in “Mythical Bonds,” the first single from an album due in September, “Pocket Fantasy.” With a teasing smile in her voice, the guitarist Livvy Benneett sings, “I don’t care what I do so long as I do it with you.” The complications — and there are plenty of them — are in the music: stop-start meter changes, peculiar chords, gnarled counterpoint, all packed into two playful minutes. Mamalarky makes math-rock sound like fun. PARELESBlondshell, ‘Kiss City’“Mama, I’m adjacent to a lot of love,” the Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum sings, in one of several highly quotable lines from her second single as Blondshell. (Also: “I think my kink is when you tell me that you think I’m pretty.”) During the first half of “Kiss City,” Teitelbaum delivers these lines in an arch, somewhat self-deprecating croon, accompanied by an understated arrangement of piano and guitar. But around the midway point, “Kiss City” rips open and becomes a towering rock song, giving Teitelbaum the space to shout those same lines with all of her heart, as if she’s suddenly in a dream, confessing the sorts of things she’d be terrified to admit in waking life. ZOLADZKelsey Waldon, ‘Simple as Love’Sometimes, amazingly, romances actually work out. With a pedal steel guitar sighing affirmations behind her, the plain-spoken country singer Kelsey Waldon rolls out images and similes — “like a monarch to a mimosa tree,” “simple as a cotton dress,” “patient as the moon” — to marvel at a reliable, nurturing love: no drama, just comfort and gratitude. PARELESMontell Fish, ‘Darling’Recorded in Montell Fish’s bedroom in Brooklyn, “Darling” — from his new album, “Jamie” — is a love song infused with fragility, delivered as a serenely undulating waltz. “Did you fall out of love, my darling?” he wonders in an otherworldly falsetto, over acoustic guitar picking and low-fi string squeaks. A big, bedroom-grunge chorus arises as he begs, “Please don’t run away,” but the beat falls away and ghostly piano chords are his only accompaniment as he resigns himself: “I’m finally letting you go,” he decides. PARELESObjekt, ‘Bad Apples’TJ Hertz, the electronic musician who records as Objekt, uses the proudly unnatural tones of techno to generate constantly escalating tension in “Bad Apples.” He undermines the methodical predictability of most dance music. Even as the beat stays foursquare and danceable, sounds and silences keep arriving, accreting, suddenly vanishing or fracturing themselves. Buzzes, chimes, nagging nasal tones, deep bass cross-rhythms, slides and crackles, blips that turn into swarms: in the next two bars, anything might appear, from any direction. PARELES More
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#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Playlist14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday SongsHear tracks by U.S. Girls, 100 gecs, Big Freedia and more.Meghan Remy of U.S. Girls sings about consumerism and the climate crisis on “Santa Stay Home.”Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Dec. 18, 2020Updated 4:41 p.m. ETEvery 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.U.S. Girls featuring Rich Morel, ‘Santa Stay Home’[embedded content]If you’ve been searching for a Christmas carol that addresses rampant consumerism, the climate crisis, and even the strange mass-tradition of cutting down oxygen-giving pine trees only to throw them in the trash after a few weeks — have U.S. Girls got a song for you! “With both poles melting and the seasons blending,” the frontwoman Meghan Remy sings, “hurry up, slow down.” What saves the song from being too grinchy, though, is its toe-tapping beat and catchy melody, carrying on the U.S. Girls tradition of writing sweet-sounding songs about bitter truths. LINDSAY ZOLADZTayla Parx, ‘Ain’t a Lonely Christmas Song’“Ain’t A Lonely Christmas Song,” a festive offering from the hit songwriter and frequent Ariana Grande collaborator Tayla Parx, begins with humorous anti-sentimentality and Parx crooning, “I’m used to being at the family function showing up with liquor and myself.” But this year is different: “Since you came along, this ain’t a lonely Christmas song,” she sings on the chorus, the whole arrangement suddenly becoming merry and bright. ZOLADZTony Trischka, ‘Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)’The bluegrass banjo player Tony Trischka wrote “Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)” years ago for a song cycle about the Civil War, with lyrics envisioning soldiers during a holiday cease-fire: “Let us still our guns and dry our tears, friends and foe alike.” This quarantine year gives new resonance to its chorus: “Christmas cheer this weary year, not like the last you know/Hopefully by the next we’ll be united with our families back home.” The guitarist Michael Daves sings the lead vocal accompanied by virtuosic picking, with a coda of elegant string-band counterpoint. JON PARELESSam Smith, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’Sam Smith promises comfort, safety and happiness in “The Lighthouse Keeper,” a modern hymn that summons a cappella harmonies, a string section and subdued timpani. As Smith vows, “Don’t resist the rain and storm/I’ll never leave you lost at sea,” the cadence hints at “Good King Wenceslas”; perhaps that’s why they included the lines about “Hoping you’ll be home for Christmas time” for a song that offers far more than a seasonal visit. PARELESFinneas, ‘Another Year’Finneas’s Christmas song is decidedly secular: “I don’t believe that Jesus Christ was born to save me/That’s an awful lot of pressure for a baby,” he croons over cozy parlor-piano chords. Instead, it’s a seasonal love song, oddly tinged with uncertainty and pessimism; he proclaims his love, but adds, “I hope it lasts another year.” PARELESgirl in red, ‘Two Queens in a King Sized Bed’The holiday offering from Marie Ulven — who records as girl in red — sprinkles the dusty reverb of indie rock with enough saccharine chords to make you mindful it’s December without distracting from the song’s true purpose. That would be love, which she gently sings about with lyrics that merge the damp desperation of intense attraction with the wry lingo of holiday capitalism:I don’t have a lot to giveBut I would give you everythingAll my time is yours to spendLet me wrap you in with my skinJON CARAMANICAAlessia Cara, ‘Make It to Christmas (Stripped)’Alessia Cara released “Make It to Christmas” last year as a Phil Spector-style buildup, with drums kicking in for the chorus. Her “stripped” remake brings out the song’s underlying despair. She knows her romance is falling apart, but she just can’t bear the thought of being single during the holiday: “Don’t have me spending it alone/This time of year is precious,” she begs. The arrangement isn’t that stripped — she still has massed strings, chimes and choirlike backup vocals — but without the drums to propel her, hope fades. PARELESJulia Jacklin, ‘Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now’“Last Christmas at my auntie’s house, I tried so hard to make my uncle shut his mouth,” sings the wryly observant Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin. But her holiday single “Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now” is something much more affecting than a collection of Yuletide punch lines about family dysfunction: It’s a musical short story as vivid and specific as any on her excellent 2019 album “Crushing.” Out of materials as simple as a quietly strummed chord progression and her hushed but evocative voice, Jacklin weaves something as unique and haunting as a spider web. ZOLADZMandy Moore, ‘How Could This Be Christmas?’Slowly swaying, wistful and sweet, “How Could This Be Christmas?” is a vintage-style missing-someone-at-Christmas song. Written by Mandy Moore with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and Mike Viola from the Candy Butchers, it has piano triplets for a 1950s feel, and a vocal leap up to the word “Christmas” that sounds daring and forlorn each time she makes it. PARELESVíctor Manuelle, ‘Ya Se Ven Las Bombillitas’“Ya Se Ven las Bombillitas” (“The Lights Can Already Be Seen”) is the latest single released from Victor Manuelle’s 2019 Christmas album, “Memorias de Navidad,” which was just nominated for a Grammy. In upbeat salsa, punctuated by horns and laced by runs on the guitar-like cuatro, Manuelle sings about maintaining traditions through generations: both Christmas decorations and the vintage salsa style he upholds. PARELESCorey Porche & Paul ‘Bird’ Edwards, ‘Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj’[embedded content]The guitarist Chas Justus gathered top musicians from Louisiana bayou country to make “Joyeux Noël, Bon Chrismeusse,” an EP of Cajun and zydeco arrangements of familiar Christmas songs translated into Cajun and Louisiana Creole. “Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj” turns “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” into a genial zydeco shuffle, with accordion tootling and rub board ratcheting away. PARELESBig Freedia featuring Flo Milli, ‘Better Be’Call it sitcom bounce music: Big Freedia takes a bawdy spin on gift receiving on this song from a new seasonal EP, “Big Freedia’s Smokin’ Santa Christmas,” joined by the tart-talking rapper Flo Milli. CARAMANICA100 gecs, ‘Sympathy 4 the Grinch’When your music sounds like a bunch of addled tweens’ playtime, making holiday music likely comes naturally. The chirpy kitchensinkcore maximalists 100 gecs’s seasonal entry, “Sympathy 4 the Grinch,” is all about what Santa failed to bring, and the price he must pay for that transgression. It is the highest compliment to say it sounds like a foulmouthed outtake from an Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas album. CARAMANICAPup and Charly Bliss, ‘It’s Christmas and I ___ Miss You’This wickedly catchy, obscenity-laced collaboration from the indie-rock bands Charly Bliss and Pup certainly captures the feeling of late-2020 exasperation: The Charly Bliss frontwoman Eva Hendricks is “crying on the couch to ‘Elf’ alone,” while Pup’s Stefan Babcock suggests, “We should call it, because this whole year’s been [expletive] anyway.” The video, though, is unexpectedly poignant: Amid clips of the band members recording their parts of the song remotely is archival footage from tours gone by and taken for granted, in much less socially distanced times. It’s a stirring holiday ode to missing your bandmates, or maybe just your friends. ZOLADZAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyPopcastSubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSaweetie, City Girls and the Female Rapper RenaissanceStreaming, social media and the tireless work of trailblazers have helped change the hip-hop landscape.Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.More episodes ofPopcastNovember 29, 2020Saweetie, City Girls and the Female Rapper RenaissanceNovember 18, 2020 • More
