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    Britney Spears and Elton John’s Mash-up, and 8 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Margo Price, Julia Jacklin and Michael Kiwanuka.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.Elton John & Britney Spears, ‘Hold Me Closer’By presenting Britney Spears’s first new music since the end of her conservatorship, Elton John adds newsiness to his already canny late-career playbook. As he did last year with Dua Lipa in “Cold Heart,” he has reclaimed hooks from his old songs over a plush disco track, then enlisted a headlining duet partner. “Hold Me Closer” — with choruses from “Tiny Dancer” and verses from “The One” — is produced by Andrew Watt with an echoey, nostalgic haze, floating into earshot and eventually dissolving like a mirage. In between, Spears and John mostly sing in unison, but she grabs just enough melismatic flourishes — and a distinctive “baby” — to make her presence known. JON PARELESRema & Selena Gomez, ‘Calm Down’Exposure to new audiences, or colonialism? Let’s hope the lawyers worked it out. “Calm Down,” by the Nigerian singer Rema, has been an international hit — more than 100 million plays on Spotify — since February. It’s carried by a cunningly syncopated track that uses acoustic guitar and a synthesizer blip alongside Afrobeats drum programming. Now, Selena Gomez has wisely latched on to it, and she coos boasts — “My hips make you cry when I’m moving around you” — to Rema’s own seductions. The rhythm leads; the voices affirm. PARELESMargo Price, ‘Been to the Mountain’Margo Price contains multitudes on her rollicking new single “Been to the Mountain”: “I’ve been a dancer, a saint, an assassin,” she sings with a hard-living swagger atop a chugging guitar riff. Perhaps representing a new sonic chapter for the Nashville singer-songwriter, “Mountain” hews closer to straight-ahead rock than her usual alt-country sound — there’s even a punky freakout in the middle of the song that allows her to show off the more guttural side of her voice. The striking, desert-hued music video finds Price exploring and embodying the many different aspects of her identity during a particularly potent ayahuasca trip. Embracing psychedelia may have allowed Kacey Musgraves to get spacier than ever, but here, Price sees it as an invitation to unleash her wildest side yet. LINDSAY ZOLADZJulia Jacklin, ‘Be Careful With Yourself’The Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin implores a loved one to take care on the sweetly cautious “Be Careful With Yourself,” the latest single from her third album, “Pre Pleasure,” which comes out Friday. In her conversational delivery, Jacklin offers a font of healthy and practical advice: Quit smoking, drive the speed limit and put away some money in case of an emergency because, as she admits, “I’m making plans for my future and I plan on you being in it.” It’s a tender sentiment, but the song crackles with an undercurrent of jangly, distorted guitar and palpable anxiety, as Jacklin frets that a love so pure is doomed to be lost. ZOLADZThe National featuring Bon Iver, ‘Weird Goodbyes’The National and Bon Iver — a.k.a. Justin Vernon — have long been close. Aaron Dessner has worked with both as songwriter, musician and producer. Their overlap is in stately songs with hymnlike chords, and that’s what “Weird Goodbyes” is: Matt Berninger of the National and Vernon sharing harmonies in lyrics about self-doubt. It’s glum and thoughtful and neatly crafted for both; it’s not particularly new, but it is substantial. PARELESMichael Kiwanuka, ‘Beautiful Life’A love song could hardly sound more desperate than “Beautiful Life,” a song Michael Kiwanuka first released in 2021 for the Covid documentary “Convergence: Courage in a Crisis.” With mournful vocals over descending chords, eventually joined by full orchestra and choir Kiwanuka sings about how love “rescued me from a nightmare.” Now he has re-upped the song with a grim video by Phillip Youmans that envisions a game of Russian roulette and makes life seem even more precious. PARELESNoah Cyrus and Benjamin Gibbard, ‘Every Beginning Ends’Here’s an unexpected collaboration that works: Noah Cyrus with, of all people, Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. “Every Beginning Ends” is a bleak folk-rock waltz about lovers growing estranged: “I can’t remember the last time you touched me,” he sings, in his plaintive high tenor, and she answers, “I can’t recall you making the move.” It’s matter-of-factly heartsick. PARELESNosaj Thing featuring Julianna Barwick, ‘Blue Hour’Nosaj Thing — the electronic musician Jason Chung — conjures nothing less than rapture with the multilayered “Blue Hour.” Julianna Barwick sings forgiveness and “flying into bliss” in a track that swathes a brisk, double-time beat in edgeless, reverberating synthesizer chords, her voice answered by the raw tone of a viola, balancing the ethereal and the earthy. PARELESBitchin Bajas, ‘Amorpha’Bitchin Bajas is the jokey name of a serious instrumental trio from Chicago that explores the possibilities of repetition where minimalism, psychedelia, jazz, dub and electronica overlap. “Amorpha” starts with plinking mallet percussion patterns that recall Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians,” but the 10-minute piece soon takes its own dizzying path, with undulating synthesizers, flickers of hyperspeed and slyly shifting meters behind its steady pulse. PARELES More

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      Drake Looks for Love, Repeatedly, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by beabadoobee, Perfume Genius, the Beths 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.Drake, ‘Falling Back’Less than 10 months after “Certified Lover Boy,” Drake has returned to monopolize summer. His surprise-released seventh album, “Honestly, Nevermind,” is a balmy mood piece —somewhere between a D.J. mix and one very long song — and after a series of weighty, overstuffed albums, it’s refreshing to hear him return to a lighter register, à la the 2017 mixtape “More Life.” (As I type this, “Passionfruit” is trending on Twitter.) Drake showcases his softer side on highlights like the club-ready, house-influenced “Massive,” and the pensive, tuneful “Overdrive,” one of several tracks partly produced by the South African D.J. Black Coffee. And though “Honestly, Nevermind” finds Drake singing more often than not, those who prefer his rapping will appreciate the relentless flow of “Sticky” and the cheeky closing track “Jimmy Cooks,” which features a sharp verse from 21 Savage.But it’s the kinetic “Falling Back,” the album’s first proper track and single, that best sets the scene: A throbbing electronic beat (produced by the D.J.s Rampa, &Me, Alex Lustig and Beau Nox) allows Drake the space for some Auto-Tuned crooning about — what else — a once-promising relationship turned sour. “How do you say to my face, ‘Time heals?’” he sings in a reedy, vulnerable falsetto, “Then go and leave me again, unreal.” The track’s video, though, is more of a lark, playfully sending up Drake’s heartbreaker reputation and imagining a time when he finally settles down and gets married — to 23 different women. Quips his mother, Sandi Graham, “I think he’s really taking these ones seriously!” LINDSAY ZOLADZRhys Langston featuring Fatboi Sharif, ‘Progressive House, Conservative Ligature’The polysyllables fly fast, then go on to accelerate wildly in “Progressive House, Conservative Ligature” by the Los Angeles rapper Rhys Langston, from a coming album called “Grapefruit Radio.” The producer Opal-Kenobi supplies loops of blurry, undulating piano chords and synthesizer swoops, shifting pitch every so often. Langston syncopates his verbal abstractions in double time and then triple time, delivering conundrums like: “Creative manners to skip and erase from moment to moment/abstract, realist, most problematic version of futurism.” It’s both virtuosic and defiantly nonchalant. JON PARELESbeabadoobee, ‘10:36’“I didn’t think you’d fall in love — you’re just a warm body to hold,” Bea Kristi sings on “10:36,” a tale of an emotionally lopsided relationship that will appear on her upcoming second album, “Beatopia.” Her feelings may be indifferent, but the song itself is exuberant — a bright, hooky blast of lo-fi pop propelled by punchy percussion and a bouncy chorus. ZOLADZThe Beths, ‘Silence Is Golden’Elizabeth Stokes is desperate for some peace and quiet on “Silence Is Golden,” the latest track from the New Zealand rockers the Beths and the first single from their forthcoming third album, “Expert in a Dying Field.” Antic percussion and squalling guitars mimic the anxiety induced by an avalanche of urban distractions, like sirens, jet planes and “6 a.m. construction”: Sighs Stokes, “It’s building and building and building until I can’t function at all.” She finally gets what she’s after in the final moments of the song, when the instruments suddenly cut out and she’s left to repeat the chorus contentedly a cappella. ZOLADZJulia Jacklin, ‘I Was Neon’The Australian songwriter Julia Jacklin doesn’t get very specific about the relationship she’s apparently left behind in “I Was Neon.” All she offers are hints like, “I was steady, I was soft to the touch/Cut wide open, did I let in too much?” Midway through the song, she arrives at the more important question: “Am I gonna lose myself again?” She repeats it more than a dozen times over an unswerving drumbeat and a language of rock obsession that dates back to the Velvet Underground — two drone-strummed electric guitar chords — with more guitars and voices arriving to wrangle over whether she’ll stay trapped in past habits. PARELESPerfume Genius, ‘Photograph’Mike Hadreas’s sixth and most abstract album as Perfume Genius, “Ugly Season,” is a work that entwines sound and movement, as he began composing it as an accompaniment to the choreographer Kate Wallich’s 2019 piece “The Sun Still Burns Here.” The beautifully spooky “Photograph” has the feel of a ghostly waltz: Drifting synthesizer riffs and groaning ambience provide the backdrop for Hadreas’s darkly romantic croon — “no fantasy, you were meant for me,” he sings — that adds yet another layer to the song’s lush, beguiling atmosphere. ZOLADZFKA twigs, ‘Killer’Even if FKA twigs weren’t suing Shia LaBeouf for sexual battery, “Killer” would be chilling. “I don’t want to die for love,” she sings in her highest, most fragile register. The track is starkly transparent — keyboard chords, electronic blips and drums, sustained bass lines, multitracked vocals, dub echoes — with a terse pop structure of short phrases and repeated intervals; she sings about attraction, intuition, self-doubt, denial and gaslighting. It’s an elegant crystallization of pain. PARELESRöyksopp featuring Jamie Irrepressible, ‘Sorry’The Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp periodically sets aside dance beats for ballads. That’s what it does on “Sorry,” an abject apology that arrives as a preview of its next album, “Profound Mysteries II.” It begins with melancholy piano chords reminiscent of Erik Satie, then opens up a bassy abyss as Jamie Irrepressible — the British singer Jamie McDermott — thoroughly indicts himself for abandoning a lover: “I hate myself for running scared,” he croons. “No heroics, I know, will bring you back.” For the last half of the song, all he can do is repeat, “I’m sorry.” PARELESAlanis Morissette, ‘Heart — Power of a Soft Heart’Alanis Morissette arrived in the 1990s as a voice of righteous wrath and determined self-rescue. Her pandemic project has been “The Storm Before the Calm,” an album of wordless meditation tracks striving for serenity. It’s a collaboration with Dave Harrington, who has worked with Nicolas Jaar in the psychedelic rock project Darkside. “Heart — Power of a Soft Heart” has uplift built into its foundation — three slow, ascending piano notes that are repeated throughout the track and enfolded in other tones: chimes, cymbals, hovering guitar notes and Morissette singing “ah,” sustaining a magnificent hush. PARELESVadim Neselovskyi, ‘Waltz of Odesa Conservatory’Vadim Neselovskyi’s third-stream pianism shares the qualities of a sculpture carved in ice: finely wrought detail, sharply traced; glinting elegance; coolness to the touch; refractions of light. His right and left hands converse with each other in eager, enchanted dialogue. Since moving to the United States two decades ago, Neselovskyi has collaborated with leading elders in jazz, like Gary Burton and John Zorn, but on his new album, “Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City,” he sits alone at the piano. The record is a tribute to the Ukrainian seaport where he was raised, and although he composed the suite in 2020 based on personal inspirations — remembering his childhood there, as his father, a Ukrainian Jew, fought cancer — the album inevitably takes on a different cast now that this Russian-speaking, cosmopolitan city is in the throes of war. Before he joined the New York jazz world, Neselovskyi was a classical prodigy; “Waltz of Odesa Conservatory” calls back to the 1990s, by way of some Baroque piano turns, when he was the youngest student ever admitted to the school. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO More

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      My Chemical Romance’s Prog-Emo Surprise, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by the Smile, Julia Jacklin, black midi 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.My Chemical Romance, ‘The Foundations of Decay’My Chemical Romance — the New Jersey band that fused the momentum of pop-punk, the crunch of hard rock and the opulent productions of glam — announced its breakup in 2013 and released its last new song in 2014. Although the band reunited to tour in 2019, “The Foundations of Decay” is its first new material since then. There’s no punk sarcasm for now; as the music builds from measured dirge to pummeling anthem, the lyrics both recognize and rail against the ravages of time, even on the verge of a new tour. JON PARELESThe Smile, ‘The Opposite’On its debut album, “A Light for Attracting Attention,” the Smile is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead joined by a different drummer: Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet. The new band’s ingredients add up largely as expected: a leaner take on Radiohead’s longstanding thoughts of alienation and malaise, pushing rhythm into the foreground. Skinner starts “The Opposite” by himself, with a sputtering, shifty funk beat that’s soon topped by an accumulation of overlapping, stop-start guitar riffs, each one adding a new bit of disorientation. Yorke might be describing the track itself when he sings, “It goes back and forth followed by a question mark.” PARELESblack midi, ‘Welcome to Hell’“Welcome to Hell” announces the third album by black midi, “Hellfire,” due July 15. It’s a jagged, funky, speed-shifting mini-suite, by turns brutal and sardonic, with lyrics about the dehumanization of a soldier. “To die for your country does not win a war/To kill for your country is what wins a war,” Geordie Greep sings. The music is exhilarating; the aftertaste is bleak. PARELESKendrick Lamar, ‘The Heart Part 5’Kendrick Lamar has made a series of songs called “The Heart” to preface his albums. “The Heart Part 5” arrived a few days before his new one, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.” As always, Lamar’s work is multilayered, self-questioning, thoughtful, rhythmic and bold. The track’s jumpy, insistent conga drums, bass line and backup vocals come from Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You,” a title that Lamar repurposes to address his fans. On the sonic level, Lamar’s fast-talking vocals challenge the congas for syllable-by-syllable momentum. His mission is to “Sacrifice personal gain over everything/Just to see the next generation better than ours.” The song’s video clip uses deep-fake technology to make Lamar look like charged cultural figures including O.J. Simpson, Kanye West and Nipsey Hussle. This is hip-hop working through its own implications, contradictions and repercussions. PARELESFlores, ‘Brown’Flores’s voice has luster, but she can also envelop messages of pain and pride into moments of gentle acuity. On “Brown,” from her debut EP “The Lives They Left,” she meditates on her upbringing on the El Paso-Juárez border: the violence of government agencies like ICE and C.B.P., as well as the small joys of quotidian life, what she calls “brown trust” and “brown love.” A lonely saxophone resounds under the production, as Flores reflects on the resilience of the Indigenous ancestors that preceded her: “When they ask you where you people come from/16,000 years we here/Valleys stained of blood and tears/Mexica let ’em know/ This the land we’ve sown/Laid the seeds that grow.” ISABELIA HERRERARemi Wolf, ‘Michael’“Michael” is a relatively subdued song for an artist as antic and kaleidoscopic as Remi Wolf, but she puts her stamp on it nonetheless. Written with the Porches mastermind Aaron Maine — their first time working together — and Wolf’s touring guitarist Jack DeMeo, the track is a sing-songy depiction of romantic desperation, with Wolf singing from the perspective of someone clinging to an obsessive relationship she knows is doomed. “Michael, hold my hand and spin me round until I’m dizzy,” she begs atop a murky electric guitar progression. “Loosen up my chemicals.” LINDSAY ZOLADZJulia Jacklin, ‘Lydia Wears a Cross’The Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin’s music is a gradual accumulation of small, sharp lyrical details, and “Lydia Wears a Cross,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Pre Pleasure,” is full of them: Two young girls “listening to ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ soundtrack”; a child “singing every single word wrong” on a parade float; a catechism teacher instructing her pupils to pray for Princess Diana. Such snapshots create a larger atmosphere of religious indoctrination and Jacklin’s youthful questioning: “I felt pretty in the shoes and the dress/Confused by the rest, could he hear me?” The arrangement is sparse — drum machine, echoing stabs of piano — to spotlight Jacklin’s storytelling, but a subtle unease creeps in when she gets to the haunting chorus: “I’d be a believer, if it was all just song and dance/I’d be a believer, if I thought we had a chance.” ZOLADZDeath Cab for Cutie, ‘Roman Candles’Ben Gibbard sings about numbness and detachment, claiming “I am learning to let go/of everything I tried to hold,” in “Roman Candles,” the preview of an album due in September. But the music belies any claim to serenity. Drums, bass and guitars all overload and distort, pounding away in a relentless two-minute surge. PARELESThe Black Keys, ‘How Long’There’s usually some angst tucked between the brawny classic-rock riffs on a Black Keys album. The duo’s new one, “Dropout Boogie,” includes “How Long,” a betrayed lover’s confession of desperate devotion. Just two descending chords, a cycle of disappointment, carry most of the song, with layers of guitar piling on like heartaches. “Even in our final hour/See the beauty in the dying flower,” Dan Auerbach sings in the bridge, but the obsession isn’t over; the song ends with the narrator still wondering, “How long?” PARELESJoy Oladokun, ‘Purple Haze’It’s not the Jimi Hendrix song. “You and I know that love is all we need to survive,” Joy Oladokun insists in her own “Purple Haze,” preaching togetherness in the face of dire possibilities. A syncopated acoustic guitar and Oladokun’s determined voice hint at Tracy Chapman as the song begins; more vocals and guitars join her, insisting on optimism even if “maybe we’re running out of time.” PARELESAmbar Lucid, ‘Girl Ur So Pretty’Ambar Lucid may be known for her brassy, arena-sized voice, but on her new single, she ventures into new territory. “Girl Ur So Pretty” glitters like pixie dust: in an airy, gossamer falsetto, the 21-year-old artist serenades her crush over sparkling synths and ’00s girl group handclaps. It’s a welcome spin on the bubble gum pop of a bygone era, and she brings her tongue-in-cheek humor along, too: “Can’t tell if I’m in love or high,” she sings. “I’m not usually into Earth signs.” HERRERAChes Smith, ‘Interpret It Well’There’s a nervy, bated-breath feeling about the music that the drummer and vibraphonist Ches Smith is making with his new quartet featuring Mat Maneri on violin, Craig Taborn on piano and Bill Frisell on guitar. It’s not fully dread, but not simple anticipation either. For an LP led by a drummer, “Interpret It Well” is full of extended passages with no drumming; latent tension hangs where the percussion might have been. On the title track, Smith taps the vibraphone in a pattern of resonant octaves, and the rest of the quartet grows restless behind him. A bluesy aside from Frisell sends the band into silence, and Taborn plays a long cadenza. By the end of the nearly 14-minute track, the four are charging ahead together. This is the peak, but the stench of expectation still lingers, as if something else even louder — or completely peaceful — waits just ahead. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJacob Garchik, ‘Fanfare’The trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik treated his new album, “Assembly,” as a canvas for some impressive formal experiments, and there’s rarely a dull moment. Its tracks include spontaneous improvisations reframed via overdubs; complex compositions mixing two different tempos; and dissections of pieces of the jazz canon. On the fast-charging “Fanfare,” as Garchik and the soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome harmonize on a series of descending and ascending patterns, the rhythm section’s off-track backing gives the illusion that things are speeding up. Then suddenly a long, cooled-out passage begins, just trombone and piano, with Garchik sounding as buttery as Tricky Sam Nanton over changes borrowed from Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood.” RUSSONELLO More

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      14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday Songs

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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