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      12 Key Music Collections, From Future to the Who

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      Whitney Houston’s gospel music, Future’s prolific mixtape run, a chunk of Joni Mitchell’s archives and a soundtrack of Brooklyn’s early discos arrived in new packages this year.Artists were eager to revisit the past in 2023 — some tweaking recent albums (like Taylor Swift), others revisiting long-dormant work in the vaults (like the two surviving Beatles). Boxed sets and reissue collections serve a different purpose, helping put catalogs and musicians into context, and bringing fresh revelations to light. Here are a dozen of the best our critics encountered this year.Julee Cruise, ‘Floating Into the Night’(Sacred Bones; one LP, $22)The absorbing, unconventional debut album from the deep-exhale vocalist Julee Cruise, who died in 2022, was produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch; the three had previously collaborated on music for Lynch’s 1986 alt-noir film “Blue Velvet.” This batch of songs, released in 1989, plays as an extension of that fun-house mirror, lightly terrifying universe, with twisted 1950s melodies meeting destabilizing, plangent guitars meeting Dali-esque shimmers. “Falling” became the theme song for “Twin Peaks” in instrumental form, but its full vocal version is the essential one. Songs like that, “The Nightingale” and “Into the Night” feel, even now, sui generis — not exactly dream-pop or new age, but something utterly amniotic. And lightly harrowing, too. JON CARAMANICADeYarmond Edison, ‘Epoch’(Jagjaguwar; five LPs, four CDs, 120-page book, $130)Anna Powell Denton/JagjaguwarBon Iver didn’t come out of nowhere. Before he started that project, Justin Vernon was in DeYarmond Edison, a pensive, folky but exploratory band that made two albums before splitting up; other members formed Megafaun. DeYarmond Edison — Vernon’s middle names — delved into folk, rock, Minimalism and bluegrass, learning traditional songs but also experimenting with phase patterns. It made two studio albums and left behind other songs, including “Epoch.” This extensively annotated boxed set includes songs from Mount Vernon, DeYarmond Edison’s jammy predecessor, along with DeYarmond Edison’s full second studio album (though only part of its first), unreleased demos, intimate concerts, collaborations outside the band and Vernon’s 2006 solo recordings. It’s a chronicle that opens up the sources of a style getting forged. JON PARELESWe 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?  More

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      Chatting About the Best Songs of 2023

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe New York Times’s pop music critics have some overlap in their taste, but in their annual songs-of-the-year roundup, the differences truly reveal themselves. There are songs from across genres, of course. And naturally, across generations. But sometimes, a song isn’t a “song,” per se — it can come from a movie, or a TikTok, or a commercial, or anywhere else music is deployed. Everyone’s personal soundtrack is unique.That means tracks with pop sheen from Olivia Rodrigo and Central Cee, heartache from PinkPantheress and YoungBoy Never Broke Again, wind-instrument wildness from André 3000, and songs from “The Idol” and “Barbie.” Also featured: Noname, Yo La Tengo, Byron Messia, Kylie Minogue, Lankum and dozens more.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the most impressive songs of the year, the difference between a musical event and a song, and whether a best-songs list that excludes music from a critic’s best albums can be considered valid.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York Times who writes The Amplifier newsletterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      The Albums That Defined 2023? Let’s Discuss.

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe albums that made The New York Times pop music critics’ year-end lists cover a wide range of music: hip-hop, industrial rock, amapiano, country, pop-punk, R&B, corridos tumbados. Hyper-polished and spare; chaotic and highly composed.There was some overlap — enthusiasm for the second albums from artists as diverse as Olivia Rodrigo, SZA and 100 gecs. But what’s more fascinating are the points of divergence, the albums that spoke loudly to one critic while passing the others by.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the multiplicity of great styles of albums released this year (as well as EPs, which are having a renaissance in the streaming era), and how much longer artists will continue to make albums their signature statements.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York Times who also writes The Amplifier newsletterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      They’re Great Songs. Are They Christmas Songs?

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      Nine tracks from Barbra Streisand, the 1975, Fleet Foxes and more get put to the Lindsay Test.Barbra Streisand, another (unlikely) queen of Christmas.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressDear listeners,What makes a Christmas song … a Christmas song? Sleigh bells? Yuletide imagery? A certain indefinable, know-it-when-you-hear-it sense of reverence and good cheer?My personal standard might sound a bit humbuggy: To me, a true Christmas song is one that I would not want to hear any month other than December. Even a song as brilliant and beloved as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” loses some of its power in March or August. With all due respect to Mariah Carey, please wait until all the Thanksgiving leftovers have been consumed.But what about those cuspy, sort-of-Christmas songs? Well, at least they’re fun to argue about. “River” by Joni Mitchell — which begins with a melancholic piano interpolation of “Jingle Bells” — might be the quintessential example, and I believe with all my heart that it’s not a Christmas song, not only because it’s about feeling unable to get into the holiday mood, but also because it passes my test: I can, and do, listen to it during any and all months of the year. (Plus, it’s perfectly sequenced on “Blue,” which is definitely not a seasonal album.) The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping,” on the other hand? Also a song I love, but one that I am only in the mood for one-twelfth of the year.Some songs really do have it both ways, though: Christmas-appropriate, but also perennially listenable. For today’s playlist, I’ve picked nine tracks that I’m calling Questionable Christmas Songs.Some tell stories that happen to take place around the holidays (“If We Make It Through December,” “’Tis the Damn Season”) and others have simply experienced a gradual shift in public perception so that, for some reason, people now consider them seasonally appropriate (“Holiday Road,” “Hallelujah,” “My Favorite Things”). All of them might be Christmas songs, depending on whom you ask, but they also might not be because I will not get mad if I hear any of them in April. Consider it my early gift to you: something to apolitically argue about at the holiday dinner table.Also, speaking of Christmas songs: Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” officially hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100! If you read Friday’s Amplifier, you will understand how exciting this is — and you’ll be able to impress your friends by name-dropping a bunch of other great Brenda Lee songs. Congrats to Little Miss Dynamite!Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Merle Haggard & the Strangers: “If We Make It Through December”OK, this one might be a Christmas song because it appears on a Christmas album (“Merle Haggard’s Christmas Present”; please note the cover art), but Merle Haggard only decided to cut that album after the success of this stand-alone single — the biggest pop crossover hit of his entire career. There’s mention of gifts under the tree (or rather, a lack thereof), but the true subject of this melancholy tune is the plight of the down-and-out working man, meaning it is, first and foremost, a Merle Haggard song. (Listen on YouTube)2. Lindsey Buckingham: “Holiday Road”This delightful ditty was written for the 1983 film “National Lampoon’s Vacation” — not “Christmas Vacation.” But thanks to some version of the Mandela Effect, plus the fact that the word “holiday” is right there in the title, some confused people have started to insist that “Holiday Road” is a Christmas song. The country singer Chris Janson is vocal among them; he performed his cover of Lindsey Buckingham’s track on last year’s “Opry Country Christmas” broadcast, and he’s since released that cover with an extra festive lyric video. (Listen on YouTube)3. Fleet Foxes: “White Winter Hymnal”When a non-holiday song is suddenly reclassified in the cultural imagination as a holiday song, often, one must blame Pentatonix. On its popular holiday albums, the a cappella group has Christmas-ified such classics as “God Only Knows,” “Hallelujah” and, most recently and most puzzlingly, “Kiss From a Rose.” (We must resist this with all our might. We are not going to let Pentatonix convince us that “Kiss From a Rose” is a Christmas song.) The group’s version of this admittedly wintry 2008 Fleet Foxes tune appeared on “That’s Christmas to Me,” a 2014 Pentatonix album with an appropriately subjective title, but (can you tell?) I prefer the original. (Listen on YouTube)4. The Handsome Family: “So Much Wine”I have Phoebe Bridgers to thank for this one: It was her pick last year in her annual Christmas covers series. I’d never heard the original, and when I went back to check it out, I found that I actually preferred it to Bridgers’s more mournful rendition. Her version of this ballad of seasonal alcoholism is an out-and-out tear-jerker, but the Handsome Family manage to tell the same story with some dark comic relief. (Listen on YouTube)5. Taylor Swift: “’Tis the Damn Season”I believe it was my colleague Joe Coscarelli who, on an episode of Popcast, came up with one of my favorite Taylor Swift conspiracy theories: That “Evermore,” her second and decidedly more wintry 2020 album, was originally supposed to be a Christmas-themed release. This finely wrought ode to hometown what-ifs and temporarily rekindled romance is probably the strongest argument for that case. (Listen on YouTube)6. The 1975: “Wintering”Here’s another song about regressing at one’s parents’ house for a long weekend, a curiously season-specific track on the 1975’s excellent 2022 album “Being Funny in a Foreign Language.” I often appreciate the details in Matty Healy’s writing, and there are some particularly vivid ones here: a precocious, vegan sister; a fleece that doesn’t warm as well as advertised; a mother with a sore back who objects to being mentioned in the song. “I just came for the stuffing, not to argue about nothing,” Healy sings. “But mark my words, I’ll be home on the 23rd.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Barbra Streisand: “My Favorite Things”Written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein for the 1959 Broadway production “The Sound of Music,” “My Favorite Things” didn’t begin life as a holiday song. Julie Andrews performed it on a 1961 Christmas special, though, and since then its mentions of mittens, snowflakes and brown paper packages tied up with strings have made it sound at home on many a Christmas album — including Barbra Streisand’s. (Listen on YouTube)8. Leonard Cohen: “Hallelujah”Speaking of famous Jews singing are-they-really-Christmas songs, the endlessly over-covered, richly poetic, mordantly hilarious “Hallelujah” is in so many ways one of the most misunderstood songs in popular culture — so of course some people have turned it into a holiday standard. But as Stereogum’s Chris DeVille wrote in a 2019 essay, vehemently and correctly, “Whatever context it belongs in, Christmas ain’t it.” (Listen on YouTube)9. The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl: “Fairytale of New York”This is probably the only true Christmas song on the list, but it’s certainly an unconventional one — and of course I had to include it in honor of the Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, who died last week. Over the weekend, Rob Tannenbaum (a journalist with a very appropriate name for this purpose) published a fascinating piece about the making of the song, and the push to send it to the top of the charts in the United Kingdom. Might “Fairytale” be the next Christmas song to belatedly hit No. 1? (Listen on YouTube)I get home on the 23rd,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“I’ll Have a Questionable Christmas” track listTrack 1: Merle Haggard & the Strangers, “If We Make It Through December”Track 2: Lindsey Buckingham, “Holiday Road”Track 3: Fleet Foxes, “White Winter Hymnal”Track 4: The Handsome Family, “So Much Wine”Track 5: Taylor Swift, “‘Tis the Damn Season”Track 6: The 1975, “Wintering”Track 7: Barbra Streisand, “My Favorite Things”Track 8: Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”Track 9: The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York” More

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      Bob Dylan Has Been Playing City-Specific Covers

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      On the road the past few weeks, the 82-year-old singer-songwriter has been peppering sets with surprising crowd-pleasers.Bob Dylan famously does not do fan service. As a folkie, he went electric. As a mainstream artist, he had a Jesus phase. The Christmas albums: Not for everyone.And in his live act, Dylan is also not a crowd-pleaser, at least in the conventional sense. He has played more than 2,500 concerts since beginning his so-called Never Ending Tour nearly 40 years ago, according to Bloomberg, and often performs his songs with new arrangements. In recent decades, though, Dylan, 82, has largely sat at the piano stone-faced and offered no more than a few words of banter to the crowd. As he once sang, “The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen.”Which is why Dylanologists have been so surprised and charmed by a feature of his current Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour, which is named for his 2020 album: geographically appropriate covers.It started on Oct. 1, when Dylan, playing Kansas City, Mo., for his first American date in more than a year, opened with “Kansas City,” the Leiber and Stoller standard first made famous by Wilbert Harrison and then the Beatles. A few days later, Dylan opened his St. Louis show with “Johnny B. Goode,” in presumed tribute to the city’s native son Chuck Berry. Next up was Chicago, where Dylan opened with … “Born in Chicago.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Set the Table With This Thanksgiving Playlist

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      The Highwomen, James Brown and yes, the Cranberries.The Highwomen.Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesDear listeners,Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, so today’s playlist is all about gratitude, family, and … food. Heaps and heaps of steaming, delicious food.Maybe you’re hosting your own feast and need some mood music while you prep. Maybe you’re traveling somewhere and need a seasonal soundtrack to help pass the time. Or maybe your Thanksgiving looks a little unconventional this year and you’re looking for songs to get you into the holiday spirit. Regardless, this playlist has you covered.This mix contains old favorites (Little Eva; Big Star) and new classics (the country collaborators the Highwomen; the underground pop icon Rina Sawayama), a few rockers and a whole lot of soul, plus not one but two songs in tribute to that glorious Thanksgiving side, the mashed potato. (I am biased; it’s my favorite part of the meal.)And since it’s that time of year to share what we’re grateful for, I’d like to say a heartfelt thanks to all of you for reading and subscribing to this newsletter. It means the world to me to see how the Amplifier community has grown over this past year. An extra helping of mashed potatoes for each and every one of you.Also, if you need more music to last you through your Thanksgiving dinner or holiday drive, our reader-submitted Fall Playlist should do the trick. We’ll be taking the holiday off on Friday, but will be back on Tuesday with a fresh Amplifier.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Highwomen: “Crowded Table”“I want a house with a crowded table,” proclaim the Highwomen — the country supergroup featuring Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby — on this warm, rousing anthem from the band’s 2019 self-titled debut. Sounds like a lively Thanksgiving to me. (Listen on YouTube)2. Jay & the Techniques: “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie”Skipping right ahead to dessert, this upbeat 1967 hit from the Pennsylvania soul-pop group Jay & the Techniques celebrates the sweeter things in life — and on one’s plate. (Listen on YouTube)3. Little Eva: “Let’s Turkey Trot”Released not long after Little Eva scored a smash with her 1962 debut single, “Locomotion,” this ode to an old ragtime dance craze was another irresistible Brill Building confection, co-written and produced by the couple Little Eva used to babysit for, Gerry Goffin and Carole King. (Listen on YouTube)4. Big Star: “Thank You Friends”Alex Chilton doffs his cap to “all the ladies and gentlemen who made this all so probable” on this melodious highlight from Big Star’s third and final album — one of many should-have-been hits in the star-crossed 1970s band’s career. (Listen on YouTube)5. James Brown: “(Do the) Mashed Potatoes”In that rapturous moment when someone finally puts the fluffy bowl of them down on the table, my brain exclaims, in James Brown’s voice, “Mashed potatoes!” (Listen on YouTube)6. Dee Dee Sharp: “Mashed Potato Time”I know, I know: Both of these mashed potato songs are technically about that famous dance step. But like Brown’s kinetic ditty, the Philadelphia soul singer Dee Dee Sharp’s 1962 hit is also Thanksgiving appropriate. (Listen on YouTube)7. Bob Marley & the Wailers: “Give Thanks & Praises”Bob Marley shows some appreciation for the most high on this gently buoyant, horn-kissed track from the 1983 album “Confrontation,” released two years after the reggae legend’s death. (Listen on YouTube)8. Otis Redding: “I Want to Thank You”Another gone-too-soon icon, Otis Redding, expresses his romantic devotion and gratitude on this soulful ballad. (Listen on YouTube)9. Rina Sawayama: “Chosen Family”“We don’t need to be related to relate,” the Japanese-British artist Rina Sawayama sings, ready to soundtrack your Friendsgiving. (Elton John — with whom she later recorded a duet version of this song — seems to be a member of her own chosen family.) (Listen on YouTube)10. Sly & the Family Stone: “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”This funky salute to individuality and acceptance — which hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1970 — inspired the title of Sly Stone’s recently released, miraculously existing memoir. (Listen on YouTube)11. Natalie Merchant, “Kind & Generous”Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of belated Lilith Fair nostalgia — I highly recommend this 2019 Vanity Fair oral history — and yet Natalie Merchant still seems curiously underappreciated. When the Merchaissance finally comes, and it must, I will be ready. (Listen on YouTube)12. The Cranberries, “Dreams”For some mysterious reason, whether you like them or not, it’s just not Thanksgiving without the cranberries. (Listen on YouTube)Let’s get it while it’s hot,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Set the Table With This Thanksgiving Playlist” track listTrack 1: The Highwomen, “Crowded Table”Track 2: Jay & the Techniques, “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie”Track 3: Little Eva, “Let’s Turkey Trot”Track 4: Big Star, “Thank You Friends”Track 5: James Brown, “(Do the) Mashed Potatoes”Track 6: Dee Dee Sharp, “Mashed Potato Time”Track 7: Bob Marley & the Wailers, “Give Thanks & Praises”Track 8: Otis Redding, “I Want to Thank You”Track 9: Rina Sawayama, “Chosen Family”Track 10: Sly & the Family Stone, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”Track 11: Natalie Merchant, “Kind & Generous”Track 12: The Cranberries, “Dreams” More

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      Meet the Next Generation of Black Folk Singers

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      Hear songs by Amythyst Kiah, Kara Jackson, Tray Wellington and more.Amythyst Kiah.Liam Woods for The New York TimesDear listeners,“Today Black folk performers have reached a critical mass and level of exposure not seen since the early decades of the 20th century,” writes the author Adam Bradley in a fascinating article published last week in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Bradley’s piece is densely populated with a number of modern musicians who are pushing the limits of folk and reclaiming a style of music that has come to be associated — ahistorically, Bradley points out — with whiteness.What is folk music, though? It’s a slippery term that seems to mean something different to every generation. Is it strictly music rooted in the past and played with acoustic instruments, or can it include more forward-thinking artists like the Americana experimentalist Jake Blount and the blues rocker Amythyst Kiah? I like the expansive non-definition proposed by the singer-songwriter and guitarist Big Bill Broonzy, as quoted by Bradley: “Some people call these ‘folk songs,’” he said onstage once. “Well, all the songs that I’ve heard in my life was folk songs. I’ve never heard horses sing none of them yet!”Today’s playlist provides an introduction to some of the musicians Bradley mentions in his article, like the folk-poet Kara Jackson and the lightning-fingered banjo player Tray Wellington. It also features some Black folk pioneers who inspired future generations, like Odetta and Tracy Chapman. May it open your ears and expand your conception of what folk is, and what it can be.Also: A very special thank you to Jon Pareles for filling in for me for Friday’s newsletter while I was on vacation! It was the first time someone else has taken the reins of The Amplifier, but I knew it was in the best of hands.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Our Native Daughters: “Black Myself”Named in reference to James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son,” Our Native Daughters is a formidable collective featuring four artists at the heart of the Black folk revival: Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell. Kiah wrote the powerful opening track of the group’s 2019 debut “Songs of Our Native Daughters,” and later rerecorded it on her 2021 solo album “Wary + Strange.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Kara Jackson: “Pawnshop”In April, Kara Jackson — the former National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States — released her debut album “Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?” The slinky “Pawnshop” shows off the 23-year-old’s lyricism, as she asserts in a sly voice, “I’m not a liquidated asset, I’m sharper than a jewel/What kind of miner does that make you?” (Listen on YouTube)3. Odetta: “Hit or Miss”A central figure in the 1960s folk revival, the Alabama-born singer and guitarist Odetta inspired Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and countless others with her impassioned take on traditional Americana and her unmistakable voice. “Hit or Miss,” from her 1970 album “Odetta Sings,” is one of her greatest originals. “Ain’t nobody just like this,” she sings on this soulful song of self. “I gotta be me, baby, hit or miss.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Tray Wellington: “Crooked Mind”“Tray Wellington knows that many will take the title of his 2022 album, ‘Black Banjo,’ as an oxymoron,” Bradley writes in his article. But on that album — and its lively, dexterously picked opening track — Wellington reclaims the instrument’s African origins while adding his own modern flair. (Listen on YouTube)5. Rhiannon Giddens: “You’re the One”Earlier this year, Giddens — a founding member of both the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters, as well as a prolific and ever-evolving solo artist — won a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing her first opera, “Omar,” which tells the true story of a Muslim African man enslaved in America in the early 19th century. This August, Giddens also released her third solo album (and first full LP of her own tracks), the eclectic “You’re the One,” which features this sunny, banjo-driven track. (Listen on YouTube)6. Amythyst Kiah: “Hangover Blues”“Woke up this morning, feeling bad,” the mighty Kiah wails on “Hangover Blues,” accompanied by a beat that stomps like a throbbing headache. That’s not to say, on this standout from her 2021 album “Wary + Strange,” that she regrets anything: “And if I did it all over again,” she sings, “you know I’d do the same damn thing anyhow.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Tracy Chapman: “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”This year, the country musician Luke Combs’s hit cover of “Fast Car” has brought some much-deserved attention to Tracy Chapman and the heartfelt brand of bluesy folk for which she first became known in the late 1980s. This galvanizing opening track from her 1988 self-titled album is just as deserving of a revival. (Listen on YouTube)8. Jake Blount: “Didn’t It Rain”The 28-year-old singer, songwriter and banjo player Jake Blount — who has described his music as “genrequeer” — has one ear oriented to the past, the other to the future. His 2020 album “Spider Tales” established him as a thrilling new voice, and his 2022 follow-up “The New Faith” (which features the portentous “Didn’t It Rain”) took his ambitious vision even further. (Listen on YouTube)9. Carolina Chocolate Drops: “Hit ‘Em Up Style”In 2005, the young folk revivalists Giddens, Dom Flemons and Súle Greg Wilson formed the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an influential, all-Black string band with a 21st century style. As on this playful cover of Blu Cantrell’s 2001 R&B hit “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!),” the Chocolate Drops connected the dots between Black music past and present, inspiring others to do the same. (Listen on YouTube)It sounds like a whisper,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Meet the Next Generation of Black Folk Singers” track listTrack 1: Our Native Daughters, “Black Myself”Track 2: Kara Jackson, “Pawnshop”Track 3: Odetta, “Hit or Miss”Track 4: Tray Wellington, “Crooked Mind”Track 5: Rhiannon Giddens, “You’re the One”Track 6: Amythyst Kiah, “Hangover Blues”Track 7: Tracy Chapman, “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”Track 8: Jake Blount, “Didn’t It Rain”Track 9: Carolina Chocolate Drops, “Hit ‘Em Up Style”Bonus TracksI do not think I fully understood the bluesy pathos of Green Day’s 1997 single “Hitchin’ a Ride” until I heard Amythyst Kiah’s smoldering cover, from her imaginative 2022 EP “Pensive Pop.” Highly recommended. More

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      12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear

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      Some of the best competitions are the under-the-radar ones. Listen to nominated songs by Bettye LaVette, Molly Tuttle, Tainy and more.The soul survivor Bettye LaVette, who’s up for best contemporary blues album.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m Jon Pareles, sitting in for Lindsay this week because while she’s on vacation, we couldn’t let the Grammy Awards nominations go by without a playlist.Like a lot of critics, in and out of music, I’m pretty skeptical about awards shows. That’s not just because they rarely agree with my own taste. Awards shows have conflicted agendas and contradictory incentives. They trumpet artistic integrity but crave star power. They claim accountant-verified objectivity but often appear cliquish and stuck in industry bubbles.The one thing that makes me indulge the Grammys is an aspect that infuriates some other Grammy observers: the chronic sprawl of awards categories. There are 94 this year. That’s a lot, but fine: Let a hundred flowers bloom. The Recording Academy is forever trying to trim and adjust those categories, consolidating or renaming or expanding the list. But music keeps eluding them, changing styles and constituencies, while little Grammy voter pools — hopefully specialists, realistically partisans — battle to boost their candidates.It’s complicated, fluid, arbitrary, far from perfect. What, exactly, is “alternative jazz,” one of this year’s new categories? But down in the trenches of concert bookings, “Grammy-winning” can make a bigger difference for someone on a club or college tour than for an act with radio hits and arena gigs. The Grammys can be good for something.I regularly watch the pre-Grammy, non-network, un-prime-time “Grammy Premiere” livestream — just go to live.grammy.com or YouTube — where the unsung majority of Grammy Awards are given out before the prime-time show. They’re dorky and unpolished; some winners read their thank-yous from their cellphones, and they don’t always have designer outfits. But the pre-Grammys also book niche-category performers who tear the roof off, because that’s what happens beyond the controlled sphere of pop. Music can upend everything we expect.Here are a dozen down-category Grammy nominees, who are unlikely to show up in prime time. They’re not necessarily popular — though some were huge hits — or fashionable. They just made recordings worth noticing.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam” (pop dance recording)Kylie Minogue conquered dance floors, yet again, in 2023 with “Padam Padam,” her breezily confident assertion that “I know you wanna take me home.” The title is a heartbeat rhythm, the production uses reverb to play with space, and Minogue sounds quite amenable to a tryst. (Listen on YouTube)2. Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane: “Scientists & Engineers” (rap performance)Multifaceted ideas about creativity — as a calling, a compulsion and a career — unite Killer Mike and his guests in this ambitious, changeable track. Enfolded in restlessly blipping synthesizers and Eryn Allen Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies, André 3000 and Future muse over past and present before Killer Mike arrives with a closing barrage. (Listen on YouTube)3. Allison Russell: “Eve Was Black” (American roots performance)Racism and misogyny are Allison Russell’s direct targets in “Eve Was Black,” which transforms itself from Appalachian toe-tapper to eerie rocker to jazz excursion to gospel incantation and asks the unflinching question, “Do you hate or do you lust?” (Listen on YouTube)4. Jason Isbell: “Cast Iron Skillet” (American roots song)A tangle of bleak, likely interconnected narratives — murder, death in prison, a family shattered by interracial romance — mingles with homey advice in “Cast Iron Skillet,” a modest-sounding but far-reaching ballad. (Listen on YouTube)5. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “El Dorado” (bluegrass album)The songwriter and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle spins a brisk, minor-key chronicle of the Gold Rush. She sings about desperate characters and wonders, “Was it worth the blood and dirt to dig our lives away?” (Listen on YouTube)6. Bettye LaVette: “Hard to Be a Human” (contemporary blues album)The gritty-voiced, 77-year-old soul survivor Bettye LaVette embraces 1970s-style Nigerian Afrobeat, with its chattering saxophone and curlicued guitars, in “Hard to Be a Human,” as she wonders about humanity’s irredeemable flaws. (Listen on YouTube)7. Blind Boys of Alabama: “Work Until My Days Are Done” (roots gospel album)The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel institution since the 1940s, bring their vintage-style harmonies to a traditional song that’s more about diligence than worship. The arrangement is a two-parter, an easygoing shuffle that revs up midway through to something like sanctified honky-tonk. (Listen on YouTube)8. Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas: “Lo Siento BB:/” (música urbana)Tainy, the Puerto Rican producer who’s an architect of reggaeton, racked up a billion streams across various platforms with “Lo Siento BB:/” (“Sorry Baby”). Julieta Venegas and Bad Bunny sing about her infatuation and his refusal to commit, juxtaposing cushy electronics and a blunt beat. (Listen on YouTube)9. Natalia Lafourcade: “De Todas las Flores” (Latin rock or alternative album)The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade’s album “De Todas las Flores’ isn’t remotely rock. It’s richly retro pop that harks back decades, with acoustic instruments and some orchestral arrangements. The title track is a rueful, elegantly nostalgic lament for lost love. (Listen on YouTube)10. Davido featuring Musa Keys: “Unavailable” (African music performance)Davido is from Nigeria, but he has international aims. In “Unavailable,” he infuses Nigerian Afrobeats with a South African style, amapiano, and he’s joined by the South African singer Musa Keys. They’re both playing hard to get. (Listen on YouTube)11. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: ‘Dymaxion’ (large jazz ensemble album)The composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance, pinpoint timing and an arrangement that gets denser and denser throughout most of “Dymaxion.” Even when it eases back, the piece stays ominous. (Listen on YouTube)12. Ólafur Arnalds: “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)” (new age, ambient or chant album)“Woven Song” originally appeared on Ólafur Arnalds’s 2020 album, “Some Kind of Peace,” with an eerie, sliding, untempered vocal. The Polish pianist and singer Hania Rani makes it cozier and more consonant in her “rework,” but the ghost-waltz spirit of the original persists. (Listen on YouTube)And I’d like to thank the Academy …JonThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear” track listTrack 1: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”Track 2: Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Track 3: Allison Russell, “Eve Was Black”Track 4: Jason Isbell, “Cast Iron Skillet”Track 5: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, “El Dorado”Track 6: Bettye LaVette, “Hard to Be a Human”Track 7: Blind Boys of Alabama, “Work Until My Days Are Done”Track 8: Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, “Lo Siento BB:/”Track 9: Natalia Lafourcade, “De Todas la Flores”Track 10: Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Unavailable”Track 11: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dymaxion”Track 12: Ólafur Arnalds, “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)”Bonus TracksCaryn the editor here flagging the rest of our Grammy coverage that’s gone live so far today:Ben Sisario’s big look at the field, with a spotlight on the top competitions.Our always-entertaining snubs and surprises, examining which genres were conspicuously absent from the biggest categories, and a delightful showdown between Olivia Rodrigo and the Rolling Stones.The full list of nominees: yes, all 94 categories. Yes, I formatted this myself.An interview with Victoria Monét, who has seven nominations (the second-most), and one for her toddler.And an interview with the indie-rock trio boygenius, who picked up six nods. More