George, Kazemde

Hear tracks by Miranda Lambert, Summer Walker, My Morning Jacket 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.Lana Del Rey, ‘Blue Banisters’“Blue Banisters,” out Friday, is the ever-prolific Lana Del Rey’s second album released this year, and its melodically roving title track feels like a kind of spiritual sequel to “Dance Till We Die” from her previous record, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Del Rey’s music has recently become populated with a kind of coterie of female first names, giving many of her songs an insular yet invitingly chummy atmosphere. If “Dance Till We Die” was a kind of matriarchal communion with some of her musical heroes (“I’m covering Joni and dancing with Joan/Stevie’s calling on the telephone”), “Blue Banisters” finds her getting by with a little help from her less famous friends. This vaporous, searching piano ballad ponders a choice between settling down into conventional, wifely femininity and living a more restless and solitary artist’s life: “Most men don’t want a woman with a legacy,” Del Rey sings, quoting her friend Jenny’s poolside musings. By the end of the song, though, she’s eked out a third option, neither in love nor alone, surrounded by “all my sisters” who come together to paint her banisters a different hue than the one her ex once preferred. For all the criticism Del Rey bore early in her career for conjuring the loneliness of embodying a male fantasy, it’s been fascinating to watch her music gradually turn into a space warmed by romantic friendship and female solidarity. LINDSAY ZOLADZMiranda Lambert, ‘If I Was a Cowboy’Beyoncé famously mused “If I Were a Boy”; Miranda Lambert is now giving a similar song-length thought exercise a countrified twist. “If I Was a Cowboy” — Lambert’s first solo single since her eclectic, Grammy-winning 2019 album “Wildcard” — finds her in a breezy, laid-back register, as opposed to her more fiery fare. But the song’s outlaw attitude and clever gender commentary give “If I Was a Cowboy” a casually rebellious spirit. “So mamas, if your daughters grow up to be cowboys,” Lambert sings on the smirking bridge, “ … so what?” ZOLADZMy Morning Jacket, ‘Lucky to Be Alive’The seventh track on My Morning Jacket’s new album — its first in six years, and ninth overall — is an especially succinct encapsulation of two things the Louisville band has always been able to do well. The first half of the song is all effortlessly playful, carnivalesque pop (with the frontman Jim James hamming up his growly delivery of the word “aliiiiive”). Halfway through, though, “Lucky to Be Alive” transforms into the sort of psychedelic, Laser-Floyd jam session that suggests why MMJ has built a reputation as a stellar live band. Put the two sides together and you get the song’s — and perhaps the band’s — overall mantra: Always look on the bright side of the moon. ZOLADZAlex Lahey, ‘Spike the Punch’Here’s a potent blast of sweetly spring-wound power-pop, courtesy of the underrated Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey. If you’ve ever thrown a party at which the guests have lingered a little too long, this one’s for you and your beloved: “Spike the punch and get everyone sent home, so in the end it’s you and me dancing all alone.” ZOLADZSnail Mail, ‘Ben Franklin’The enticing second single from Snail Mail’s upcoming album, “Valentine,” finds Lindsey Jordan growling and vamping atop a slinky bass line. “I never should have hurt you,” she sings in a low register, “I’ve got the devil in me.” Jordan’s just as winningly charismatic in the music video: Come to see her channel VMA-snake-era Britney Spears as a yellow python slithers across her shoulders; stay to watch her share an ice cream cone with a puppy. ZOLADZSummer Walker featuring JT from City Girls, ‘Ex for a Reason’If the title suggests a kiss-off directed at a past boyfriend, think again: “Ex for a Reason” turns out to be a sharp-tongued warning to a current man’s stubbornly lingering former flame — consider it a kind of R-rated “The Boy Is Mine.” Summer Walker spits venom in a deliciously incongruous, laid-back croon (“Tonight I’ll end it all/spin the block two, three times, make sure all the cancer’s gone”), before JT from City Girls steps in to land the fatal blow, with gusto. ZOLADZÁlvaro Díaz featuring Rauw Alejandro, ‘Problemón’There are plenty of entanglement anthems in reggaeton, but the Puerto Rican singers Álvaro Díaz and Rauw Alejandro are masters of perreo desire. For their latest collaboration, “Problemón,” the pair tackle a tricky situation: a partner lied about being single, and now a romance has to be kept under wraps. Díaz and Alejandro put melody front and center on a track that spotlights the contours of their addictive pop. It’s an easy addition to sad girl reggaeton playlists. ISABELIA HERRERASam Wilkes, ‘One Theme’The bassist and producer Sam Wilkes has been gaining popularity among both jazz fans and beat-heads thanks to a series of woozy analog-tape recordings with the saxophonist Sam Gendel. On Friday, Wilkes released an album of his own, “One Theme and Subsequent Improvisation,” which flows from an equally viscid vein. He went into the studio with two drummer friends to record a lengthy improvisation, then picked apart and edited that recording, and had two keyboardists subsequently lay their own improvisations over it. The end product is a magnetic album that revolves around, and often spins out far away from, the harmonized bass figure that opens the album’s opening track, “One Theme.” Across 33 minutes, Wilkes can sometimes call up minimalist voyagers like William Basinski or even Éliane Radigue, or he can wind up in post-rock territory — especially when the twin drummers take the wheel. (Gendel also released a single this week, a wholesale reworking of Laurie Anderson’s “Sweaters,” from her hit experimental album from 1982, “Big Science.”) GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJlin, ‘Embryo’“Embryo,” from the producer Jlin, is pure electronic calisthenics. A buzzing synth flutters through the track like a nettlesome fly in your ear as a high-intensity workout session commences with overblown bass, thumping drums and four-on-the-floor rhythms that flicker in and out of focus. Before you know it, the whole thing is over, and your heart will need some recovery time. HERRERAAnimal Collective, ‘Prester John’The first offering from Animal Collective’s forthcoming album “Time Skiffs” (which will be out in February 2022) is surprisingly bass-heavy, a gently hypnotic groove that unfolds across a pleasantly unhurried six-and-a-half minutes. As far as Animal Collective songs go, it’s relatively tame — devoid of its signature freak-out shrieks and sounding more like a cross between the Beach Boys and Grizzly Bear, as the quartet’s voices join in stirring harmony. Still, it feels like a natural step in the indie stalwarts’ gradual evolution, the sound of a band once so fascinated with childlike awe acquiescing to their own version of maturity. ZOLADZKazemde George, ‘This Spring’For the young, Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist Kazemde George, to insist doesn’t necessarily mean raising the volume or pushing idiosyncrasy. His debut album — titled “I Insist” in a reference to jazz’s protest tradition, and to Max Roach specifically — is mostly about laying a claim to the straight-ahead jazz mantle. With a brisk swing feel and a set of suspenseful chord changes that only half-resolve, “This Spring” is one of 10 original compositions on the record, but it also would’ve been at home on an album from a young saxophonist 30 years ago, during jazz’s Neo-Classicist revival. Throughout, what George insists upon most — from himself and his bandmates — is clarity: Melody is never sacrificed to flair or crossfire, even as the momentum builds. RUSSONELLO More