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    Bad Bunny and Karol G Are Most Nominated Artists for Latin Grammys

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    These streaming titans earned eight nods apiece for the 25th annual awards, although the Mexican American songwriter and producer Edgar Barrera received the most nominations overall, with nine.When the first Latin Grammy Awards were held in 2000, they celebrated the diversity of sounds from throughout Latin America, and arrived with the hype — and hope — that a new generation of stars would cross over into the American pop mainstream. Among the big names that year were Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony and a rising young singer-songwriter named Shakira.Now, for the show’s 25th annual iteration, the indefinably broad category of Latin music represents a sprawling segment of the industry that, thanks largely to streaming, has become a truly global phenomenon. The latest nominations, announced on Tuesday by the Latin Recording Academy, are dominated by Bad Bunny and Karol G, who sell out arenas, draw clicks by the billions and have eight nods apiece.Juan Luis Guerra, a veteran Dominican songwriter, has five nominations. Coming in with four each are Kany García, a Puerto Rican singer; Feid, from Colombia; Carin León, from Mexico; and Kali Uchis, a Colombian American singer-songwriter. For the second year in a row, however, the top nominee overall is a behind-the-scenes figure: Edgar Barrera, a Mexican American songwriter and producer, who has a total of nine nods.Another songwriter, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz, known as Keityn, who often works with Barrera, has six nominations.A mere list of the nominees gives a sense of the geographic diversity of the Latin field, and of the cross-pollination among genres and regions that has become increasingly common (and popular).Barrera — also known as Edge — has worked closely with Karol G, the neon-maned Colombian singer who has quickly become an A-list pop star. (At the MTV Video Music Awards last week, she danced in the audience with Taylor Swift and Camila Cabello while performing a recent track, “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido.”) Among the nominations that Barrera and Karol G share are song and record of the year for her track “Mi Ex Tenía Razón” (“My Ex Was Right”).We 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      7 Grammy Winners Worth Another Spin

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      Hear songs by Laufey, Jason Isbell, Samara Joy and more.Laufey performing on the Grammys preshow on Sunday.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but this year’s Grammys were … really good?The performances were almost uniformly excellent. Tracy Chapman, radiating joy and in fine voice, sang “Fast Car” publicly for the first time in ages, alongside a visibly reverent Luke Combs. (I wrote more about that moment here.) A regal Joni Mitchell sang “Both Sides Now” and made everybody cry. Billie Eilish and her collaborator brother, Finneas, absolutely nailed their performance of “What Was I Made For?” and showed everyone watching why their subsequent win in the song of the year category was so deserved.The wins were also pretty evenly spread. Yes, the universe’s current main character Taylor Swift took home the night’s top honor, album of the year, an award that she’s now won a record four times. But the person who took home the most Grammys this year (four) was someone who didn’t make it to the podium during the televised ceremony: Phoebe Bridgers, who during the preshow picked up three awards with her trio boygenius and one for a collaboration with SZA. The telecast also allowed some rising stars like Karol G, Lainey Wilson and Victoria Monét (who faithful Amplifier readers learned about in Friday’s rundown of the best new artist nominees) to make themselves known.For today’s playlist, we’re going to hear from some more of those slightly-less-than-household-name artists who took home Grammys this year. I chose two selections of my own, and I also asked my fellow Times pop critics Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica to send me a few of their picks — a mix of jazz, folk, pop, gospel and more. Listen below to tracks from Laufey, Peso Pluma and Samara Joy, and check out the Bonus Tracks for more of our Grammy coverage.Don’t wash the cast iron skillet,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Laufey: “From the Start”The Icelandic singer and songwriter Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay) won the traditional pop vocal album category with songs like “From the Start,” which she also performed on the preshow. It’s a bossa nova that confesses to “unrequited, terrifying love” with absolute poise. 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Karol G, Shakira and Natalia Lafourcade Win Big at Latin Grammys

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      Karol G, Shakira and Natalia Lafourcade took the top prizes at the awards’ first ceremony outside the United States.Spain tried to share the cultural clout of its former colonies at the 24th annual Latin Grammy Awards, which were broadcast worldwide on Thursday night from the Fibes convention center in Seville. It was the first Latin Grammy ceremony to take place outside the United States.Even with the trans-Atlantic move, the top awards went to women from Latin America. Karol G, from Colombia, won album of the year for “Mañana Será Bonito.” Shakira, from Colombia, shared song of the year, a songwriting award, for her collaboration with the Argentine producer Bizarrap, “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.” They performed it on the show, with Shakira dancing sinuously and defiantly.Karol G became the first woman to win a Latin Grammy for música urbana album; “How cool is it for a woman to win this?” she exulted. And “TQG,” her duet with Shakira from that album, was named best urban/fusion performance.Record of the year, an award for a single, was by Natalia Lafourcade from Mexico: “De Todas las Flores,” the title track of a richly retro album that was named best singer-songwriter album. “This is the most personal album I made at a time when I felt completely broken,” she said while accepting an award at the preshow. “I didn’t even know where to start, and music once again taught me its power, its medicinal power.”Joaquina, an introspective 19-year-old songwriter from Venezuela, won as best new artist. “They told me I wouldn’t make it if I recorded my own songs, but here I am,” she said in a tearful speech. “Music is always worth the pain.”For the Latin Recording Academy, which gives the awards, Latin music isn’t defined by geography or history. It’s simply a matter of what language the lyrics are in: Spanish, Portuguese or Indigenous languages of the Americas. This year’s award for person of the year, a lifetime achievement award, went to Laura Pausini, an Italian singer who has spent much of her three-decade career performing in Spanish.The Latin Grammys’ venture to Spain was supported by a $24 million grant, for this year’s Latin Grammys and other musical events in Andalusia, from the European Union and the government of the region of Andalusia, the cradle of flamenco.The awards took place on the annual International Day of Flamenco, commemorating UNESCO’s 2010 recognition of flamenco as an “intangible cultural heritage.” While Caribbean reggaeton and regional Mexican music are the styles that have spearheaded Latin music’s new worldwide popularity, the awards show played up the influence of Spain and flamenco.The preshow awards webcast began with the clang of a martillo — an anvil, harking back to a flamenco tradition of using rhythms from Roma blacksmiths — and a medley from the nominees in the flamenco category including Niña Pastori, the winner. She called flamenco “music of purity” and congratulated her fellow nominees, urging them to “keep fighting for this flamenco, which is the most beautiful music there is.”The main awards ceremony began with the Spanish songwriter Rosalía, whose “Motomami” was named album of the year in 2022. She sang “Se Nos Rompió el Amor” (“We Destroyed Our Love)” — a dramatic hit by Rocío Jurado, a Spanish singer who died in 2006 — in a stark crescendo surrounded by flamenco guitarists and hand-clappers. The raspy-voiced Spanish songwriter Alejandro Sanz performed amid 30 flamenco dancers. With orchestral backing, the popera tenor Andrea Bocelli sang a vibrato-charged “Granada,” the Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara’s tribute to the Spanish city.Where Latin American songwriters had collaborated with Spaniards, those songs were featured. Pablo Alborán, from Spain — who has had 24 Latin Grammy nominations without a win — was joined by the Argentine songwriter Maria Becerra for their duet, “Amigos,” before she went on to sing a fierce solo version of her bitter, wrathful post-breakup song “Ojalá” (“I Hope”). The Spanish songwriter Manuel Carrasco sang with the Colombian songwriter Camilo before they were also joined by the Brazilian singer Iza and by Camilo’s longtime collaborator Edgar Barrera, who was named producer of the year and songwriter of the year. Barrera also shared the songwriting award for regional Mexican song, the hit “Un x100to” (“One Percent”) by Bad Bunny and Grupo Frontera.The show offered a little recognition for the regional Mexican music that has been a growing international force in recent years. “Ella Baila Sola” (“She Dances Alone”) — a speedy, horn-pumped waltz about winning over a beautiful woman — became a blockbuster international single this year, and it got its first onstage performance in Seville from its studio and video collaborators, Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado.The Mexican songwriter Christian Nodal, who won awards for both norteño album and ranchero/mariachi album, shared a vehement lovers’-quarrel duet, “La Siguiente” (“The Next One”), with Kany García from Puerto Rico. The Mexican songwriter Carín Leon got two performing slots, on his own and with the Colombian singer Maluma.Cross-genre, cross-border collaborations increasingly define pop both within and beyond the United States, and no music awards show can quite keep up. But the Latin Grammys’ excursion to Spain came across as a field trip, not an advance. More

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      Grammy Surprises: boygenius Thrives, Country and Rap Wither

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      A look at the Grammys’ most unexpected and interesting story lines, including Olivia Rodrigo’s intergenerational rock battle with the Rolling Stones.Young women from across genres — along with the Recording Academy’s favorite polymath spoiler Jon Batiste — reigned atop the nominations on Friday for the 66th annual Grammy Awards, to be held Feb. 4 in Los Angeles.But beyond familiar names like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish, this year’s class of nominees reveals a strong surge for R&B (SZA, Victoria Monét, Coco Jones, Janelle Monáe); a tough showing for country, rap and Latin music, especially in the top categories; and the enduring love for soundtracks historically felt in Grammyland.But who got left out, who represents a welcome surprise and what, as ever, are the Grammys thinking? The New York Times’s pop music team — editor Caryn Ganz, reporter Joe Coscarelli, chief pop music critic Jon Pareles and pop music critic Jon Caramanica — pored over the complete list, including some deeper, oft-ignored categories, to break down the most interesting story lines, snubs and surprises.Boygenius makes the big leagues.The indie-rock supergroup made up of the singers and songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus was once a side project, an inside joke, a fun way to promote a tour of solo acts. Not anymore. Having released its debut album, “The Record,” earlier this year on the major label Interscope — and having sold 67,000 albums in its first week, landing in the Billboard Top 5 — boygenius may very well be the biggest new rock band working, with all the arena shows, promotional savvy and celebrity worship that entails. Recognized in best rock performance, best rock song, best alternative performance, best alternative album, best engineered album and — most notably — album of the year, boygenius is among the most nominated acts with six overall, the same number as Taylor Swift. Not bad company in 2023. JOE COSCARELLIWhere’s country music?By any measure, it has been a banner 12 months for country music on the pop charts — Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” has spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200, and in August, for the first time in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, the top three positions were occupied by country songs. And yet none of the artists behind those songs — Wallen, Luke Combs and Jason Aldean — were nominated in any of the Grammys’ big three all-genre categories. Neither was Zach Bryan, the genre’s leading dissident, nor Oliver Anthony, who had the year’s most unlikely No. 1 hit.The shutout of the men of country may be indicative of the political shift, explicit and implicit, shaping the genre’s most prominent figures. Wallen, who remains under the long shadow of the 2021 revelation that he was captured on tape using a racial epithet, is still the most popular performer in the genre; he received no nominations this year (though his song “Last Night” is up for best country song, a prize for songwriters). With Aldean, the politics are more literal. His vigilante-justice hit, “Try That in a Small Town,” made overt a partisan perspective that often resides just beneath the surface in Nashville. As for Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” a workingman lament that baffled both the left and the right, its direct engagement with class politics perhaps made it too hot to the touch for Grammy voters (if, indeed, Anthony even submitted it for consideration).If there were one song with the best chance of bridging contemporary country to the Grammys, it would be Combs’s cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which went to No. 2 on the Hot 100 and earlier this week won song of the year at the CMA Awards, making Chapman the first Black winner in that category. But in part because of Grammy rules — it isn’t eligible for song of the year because Chapman was nominated for her original in 1989 — Combs’s version has been relegated to just a single nomination, in best country solo performance, a snub that feels unexpectedly pointed. JON CARAMANICA‘Barbie’ at the Grammys? Yes, she Ken.If it felt this year that pop music was more slippery than ever, subject to the whims of streaming algorithms and TikTok trends, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the Grammys chose to reward songs that came via a particularly old-fashioned delivery mechanism: the film soundtrack.Songs from the Greta Gerwig film “Barbie” — a canny collection of contemporary pop hitmakers finding creative ways to wrestle with the film’s themes — are everywhere in this year’s nominations. Billie Eilish’s familiarly melancholy “What Was I Made For?” is up for record and song of the year, and Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” is also nominated for song of the year. “Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice will compete for best rap song. Tracks from the soundtrack also hog up four of the five available slots in best song written for visual media. CARAMANICAEmerging Latin stars get left behind.After a year in which Latin music continued to explode on streaming services and forge all sorts of cross-cultural hybrids, this year’s Grammy nominations are, well, puzzling. Edgar Barrera, the Mexican American songwriter who has collaborated on hit after hit for singers across the Americas, is rightfully a nominee for songwriter of the year. But there’s no best new artist nomination for Peso Pluma, the cutting-voiced Mexican songwriter whose career skyrocketed in 2022 and 2023 — he’s touring arenas this year — and who bridges regional Mexican corridos and Latin trap. Peso Pluma’s 2023 album, “Génesis,” is just tucked among the nominees for música mexicana. Other emerging Mexican-rooted acts that had a blockbuster year — among them Eslabon Armado, Grupo Frontera, Grupo Firme, Christian Nodal and Natanael Cano — go unmentioned.Then there’s the oddity of the música urbana category. Its three — only three — nominees are deserving: the reggaeton producer Tainy, the electronics-loving pop experimenter Rauw Alejandro and the Colombian songwriter Karol G, whose 2023 album, “Mañana Será Bonito,” was the first Spanish-language album by a woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200. But música urbana — encompassing reggaeton, Latin hip-hop, dembow, Latin trap and more — is a crowded, competitive, hugely popular format. The Grammys couldn’t find five nominees? All they had to do was turn on the radio. JON PARELESOlivia Rodrigo takes on … the Rolling Stones.The Grammys’ rock categories are reliable head-scratchers, but best rock song provides an unexpected delight this time: Olivia Rodrigo’s “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” goes up against the Rolling Stones’ “Angry,” pitting some of this year’s oldest nominees (average Stones age: 78) against one of the youngest (at 20, Rodrigo is still not old enough to order a celebratory champagne). Rodrigo is the only nominee in the category who isn’t part of a band, but her track has the fewest number of writers: just two, herself and the producer Daniel Nigro. (The other competitors include boygenius, Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age.)“Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl,” with its gleeful pop-punk thrash, is an ode to social awkwardness that draws on ’90s rockers like Veruca Salt; “Angry” is built on a classic Stones riff with plenty of room to breathe — unlike the troubled relationship Mick Jagger describes in its lyrics. Both describe uncomfortable situations; both sound like a load of fun. And it’s nice to see Rodrigo’s latest album, “Guts,” recognized in the rock field, where it belongs. CARYN GANZA powerful Paul Simon LP goes unrewarded.If anyone should have been able to count on respect from the Grammys, it’s Paul Simon. His 2023 album, “Seven Psalms,” plays as a thoughtful, complex, tuneful farewell, anticipating his death. It’s a major statement couched in intimate acoustic arrangements, with the craftsmanship and artistic ambition that awards shows claim to recognize. Simon has won 16 Grammys, dating back to his days with Simon and Garfunkel. But “Seven Psalms” was shut out of high-profile categories like album of the year, and got just one obscure nomination, for best folk album, where Simon competes with the touching comeback (and beloved, familiar songs) of “Joni Mitchell at Newport.” The Grammys used to reward late-career albums by musicians like Steely Dan (“Two Against Nature”), Bob Dylan (“Time Out of Mind”) and Tony Bennett (“MTV Unplugged”). Now, Simon’s knotty confrontation with mortality seems to have gotten stranded between Grammy generations. PARELESRap’s Grammy struggle continues.For the 20th time in a row, a rap release will not win album of the year at the Grammys. That was a safe bet before — only two hip-hop albums have ever won in the biggest category: Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1999 and Outkast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” in 2004 — but it’s assured now because none were even nominated. No rap appears among the nominees in record or song of the year, either. (Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” remains the only rap song to ever win in those categories.) But while past Grammys have brought recriminations about how hip-hop is recognized, this shutout up top comes amid a year of intra-genre soul-searching about a lack of chart impact and a dearth of new stars, especially those invested in the album format.The genre-specific nominations include a mix of familiar names (Drake — despite his history of boycotting submissions — with 21 Savage, plus Nicki Minaj and Nas) and a few artists with something to prove (Killer Mike, Doja Cat, Coi Leray). Yet this may be the first year in some time where a lack of major recognition is met with a resigned sigh. Outside of SZA’s rap-flavored singing, Ice Spice’s nomination for best new artist is the lone bright spot in the biggest categories, driving home another common talking point in rap industry circles of late: Women are the present, and likely the future. COSCARELLIGreetings from traditional pop.Oh, the categories! Who knew that Bruce Springsteen, a lifelong rocker, would someday find himself among the “traditional pop vocal” nominees? I think of it as the slot that was created for singers, like Tony Bennett, who kept reaching back to what was known as the Great American Songbook: pop standards written for vintage Broadway and Hollywood musicals, the sophisticated idiom that was overturned by the simplicity of rock ’n’ roll. But Springsteen’s nominated album, “Only the Strong Survive,” isn’t a standards album. It’s a collection of vintage 1960s soul songs, which somehow do not qualify in the Grammy category of “traditional R&B.” Are the Grammys expanding the Great American Songbook, or just consigning Springsteen to the past? PARELES More

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      Shakira, Karol G, Édgar Barrera Lead Latin Grammy Nominations

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      Barrera, the Mexican American producer, has the most nods with 13 ahead of this year’s ceremony, which will be held on Nov. 16 in Seville, Spain.At a moment of artistic vibrancy, widespread collaboration and commercial dominance for music sung in Spanish and Portuguese, international stars including Shakira, Karol G, Camilo and Bad Bunny are among the most nominated acts for the 24th annual Latin Grammy Awards. Leading all of the headliners, however, is the behind-the-scenes Mexican American hitmaker Edgar Barrera — a songwriter, producer and engineer also known as Edge — who earned 13 total nominations, according to an announcement on Tuesday by the Latin Recording Academy.Barrera, who has worked with Camilo, Maluma and Karol G, is nominated in the three top categories: record, album and song of the year, where he is nominated twice — once for “NASA” by Camilo and Alejandro Sanz and also for “Un X100to” by Grupo Frontera featuring Bad Bunny. In best tropical song and best regional song, Barrera is nominated three separate times in each category.The singers Camilo, Karol G and Shakira are tied with the reggaeton songwriter Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno for the second-most nominations, with seven. All four will compete with Barrera for song of year, where the nominees also include: Shakira’s “Acróstico”; “Amigos,” as performed by Pablo Alborán and María Becerra; Natalia Lafourcade’s “De Todas Las Flores”; “Ella Baila Sola” by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma; Lasso’s “Ojos Marrones”; “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” by Bizarrap featuring Shakira; “Si Tú Me Quieres” by Fonseca and Juan Luis Guerra; and “TQG” by Karol G featuring Shakira.Shakira, in addition to her three appearances in the song category, is also nominated for record of the year and best pop song for “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” plus best urban fusion/performance for “TQG.”Also up for record of the year are “No Es Que Te Extrañe” by Christina Aguilera; “Carretera y Manta” by Alborán; “Déjame Llorarte” by Paula Arenas and Jesús Navarro; “Si Tú Me Quieres”; “Mientras Me Curo Del Cora” by Karol G; “De Todas Las Flores”; “Ojos Marrones”; “La Fórmula” by Maluma and Marc Anthony; “Despechá” by Rosalía; and “Correcaminos” by Sanz featuring Danny Ocean.Album of the year includes releases by Alborán, Arenas, Camilo, Andrés Cepeda, Juanes, Karol G, Lafourcade, Ricky Martin, Fito Páez and Carlos Vives. The nominees for best new artist are Borja, Conexión Divina, Ana Del Castillo, Natascha Falcão, Gale, Paola Guanche, Joaquina, León Leiden, Maréh and Timø.For the first time since the Latin Grammys started in 2000, the academy will present awards for songwriter of the year, best singer-songwriter song and best Portuguese-language urban performance. The first nominees for songwriter of the year include Barrera, Cruz, Felipe González Abad, Manuel Lorente Freire, Horacio Palencia and Elena Rose.The awards cover music released during the eligibility period of June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023. The nominated music must contain a majority of its lyrics in Spanish, Portuguese or any native regional dialect. Winners are voted on by members of the Latin Recording Academy, which include artists, songwriters, producers and other music creators in all genres.The ceremony will be held on Nov. 16 in Seville, Spain, and air on Univision in the United States. More

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      Dolly Parton Reunites Two Beatles, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by aespa, Guns N’ Roses, Cautious Clay and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. 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, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Dolly Parton featuring Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, ‘Let It Be’Leave it to Dolly Parton to reunite the Beatles — or at least the surviving members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr — for a rousing rendition of “Let It Be,” which will appear on her star-studded November album “Rockstar.” Accompanied by Peter Frampton on guitar and Mick Fleetwood on drums, Parton dives headfirst into the song’s reverent spiritualism, as she did on her great 2001 cover of Collective Soul’s “Shine.” Her “Let It Be” hews closer to the original arrangement, as McCartney leads the way with his memorable piano progression and Frampton lets a mid-song solo rip. Were it done with anything less than absolute conviction, the whole thing would feel like a superfluous rock star indulgence. But the earnest, serene warmth of Parton’s voice makes it work, as she enlivens one of the most familiar songs in rock history with her own particular glow. LINDSAY ZOLADZJoni Mitchell, ‘Help Me (Demo)’“Help Me” from the sleek 1974 Los Angeles pop album “Court and Spark” was Joni Mitchell’s commercial pop pinnacle — not that making hit records was ever her priority. Now, a demo from her new collection, “Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)” proves that the song’s wildly leaping, sliding, syncopated melody and insistent emotional argument were already clear even when her only accompaniment was her guitar. A few lyric changes, a studio band and a horn arrangement were only embellishments. JON PARELESGuns N’ Roses, ‘Perhaps’Now that Slash and Duff McKagan have rejoined Guns N’ Roses (who are currently on a North American stadium tour), fans are hoping that a new album will arrive faster than “Chinese Democracy” did. At the very least, they have a new single: the mid-tempo, piano-driven rocker “Perhaps.” “Perhaps I was wrong,” Axl Rose growls with uncharacteristic contrition, later adding, “My sense of rejection is no excuse for my behavior.” Is it about the band members themselves mending fences? Perhaps. But the song transcends such earthbound concerns as lyrical content once it finds its footing and crescendos into the stratosphere with a vintage Slash solo. ZOLADZKyle Gordon featuring DJ Crazy Times and Ms. Biljana Electronica, ‘Planet of the Bass’Big beats and fractured English helped 1990s Eurodance songs scale the charts. A savvy parody, “Planet of the Bass,” by the comedian Kyle Gordon (a.k.a. DJ Crazy Times) with many collaborators, is now a full-length song after conquering TikTok. Who could argue with — or even rationally process — thoughts like, “When the rhythm is glad/there is nothing to be sad” or “Women are my favorite guy”? It’s all about momentum, so put on those sunglasses and pump up the synthesizers. Is every hit now just a joke on mass culture nostalgia? PARELESaespa, ‘Better Things’The K-pop group aespa has an elaborate marketing mythos involving A.I. avatars in the metaverse — none of which matters to the computer-tooled, syncopated pleasures of “Better Things.” It’s a kiss-off that demotes an ex back to being a “No. 1 fan/now you can only see me at a sold-out show.” The track runs on two chords, brisk Caribbean-tinged percussion and ever-changing top-line strategies: cooing melodies, stacked-up harmonies, a smidgen of rap, a little a cappella, all pushing forward. PARELESKarol G, ‘Mi Ex Tenía Razón’The Colombian songwriter Karol G released “Mañana Será Bonito” (“Tomorrow Will Be Pretty”), an album filled with songs about breaking up and healing, in February. Her follow-up is a sassier 10-song mixtape, “Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season),” that includes “Mi Ex Tenía Razón”: “My Ex Was Right.” Not exactly. She sings that he was right that she’d never find someone like him — instead, she found somebody better. She delivers her taunt sweetly, in a breezy, unhurried cumbia; clearly, she has moved on. PARELESCherry Glazerr, ‘Ready for You’In “Ready for You,” a desperate introvert testifies to how her shyness and xenophobia battle her longing for company. “Wish I could meet you with my eyes/I’m sick inside my twisted mind,” Clementine Creevy sings, in a track that uses the distorted guitars and soft-loud dynamics of grunge to capture the stress of a simple encounter. PARELESGuillermo Klein Quinteto, ‘Criolla’The Argentine-born, New York-based composer and pianist Guillermo Klein is best known for the rhythmically propulsive, richly woven compositions that he writes for Los Guachos, his 11-piece big band. On his newest album, “Telmo’s Tune,” Klein applies his tool kit to a series of compositions for a smaller band, working with just the saxophonist Chris Cheek, the bassist Matt Pavolka, the drummer Alan Mednard and the pianist Leo Genovese, who doubles with Klein on keyboards. Cheek’s soprano sax soars on the opening track, “Criolla,” as the rest of the band plays around with a polyrhythmic foundation that’s never more dicey than it is satisfying. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOQuavo, ‘Hold Me’“Hold Me” is a plea for comfort that’s rapped and sung by Quavo from Migos, whose nephew and Migos member, Takeoff, was shot dead in 2022. With phantom voices harmonizing over minor chords, it calls for divine and earthly solace, never sure if they will materialize. PARELESCautious Clay, ‘Moments Stolen’On “Karpeh,” the Blue Note Records debut of Cautious Clay, the Cleveland-born singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist uses a jazz musician’s tools in service of self-interrogating pop balladry, singing restless songs of half-exposed emotions and frustrated romance that land somewhere in the vicinity of Steve Lacy’s recent work. On “Moments Stolen” (its title a winking jazz reference), Cautious Clay — nee Joshua Karpeh — admits that he has lost faith in a relationship that he might not have ever wanted to work out in the first place. RUSSONELLOK.D. Lang, ‘Because of You’In a Guardian article published on Thursday, K.D. Lang celebrates Tony Bennett, her friend and collaborator, who died last month at 96. “He loved to sing for everybody,” Lang said, marveling at his well-documented blend of character, humility and devotion to the democratic power of song. Bennett and Lang recorded and performed together at various times over the past three decades, starting after she had recently come out as queer, and she remembered feeling “aware that our duet was radical.” This week she released a new version of “Because of You,” the ballad that gave Bennett his first No. 1 hit in 1951, which they reprised on his Grammy-winning 2006 album, “Duets: An American Classic.” Lang sings here with the casual, unrefined grace that she and Bennett have in common, over pillowy piano chords and an upright bass. Proceeds will go toward Exploring the Arts, the nonprofit that Bennett founded with his wife, Susan Benedetto. RUSSONELLOSufjan Stevens, ‘So You Are Tired’Sufjan Stevens returns to his folky side in “So You Are Tired,” a gentle, doleful, quietly resentful parting song from an album due this fall. “I was the man still in love with you/when I already knew it was done,” he sings, in a waltz carried by rippling, fragmented patterns of piano and guitar, joined by voices harmonizing oohs and ahs, seeking serenity after the bitterness. PARELESEmber, ‘Snake Tune’A feeling of momentum develops gradually and a bit unstably on “Snake Tune,” which slowly coalesces around the pulpy, thrummed harmonies of Noah Garabedian’s bass and the lazy precision of Vinnie Sperrazza’s cymbal strokes. Caleb Wheeler Curtis alternates between alto saxophone and trumpet, sounding neither in a hurry nor willing to be held back in any way. The track comes from “August in March,” the newest album from the improvising trio known as Ember. RUSSONELLO More

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      ‘Saturday Night Live’: Ana de Armas and the First Warm Day of the Year

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      The “Blonde” star was the host and Karol G was the musical guest on an episode that was light on topical moments.Well, you can’t open “Saturday Night Live” every time with a sketch about the indictment of former President Donald Trump. Following a week with few significant news developments in that case, and rather than pivoting to, say, President Biden’s trip to Ireland, “S.N.L.” took a break from topical satire to instead seek comedy in the weather.This installment of “S.N.L.,” hosted by Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and featuring the musical guest Karol G, kicked off with a would-be red-carpet segment called “The First Warm Day of the Year Arrivals Show.” As a co-host played by Heidi Gardner explained, high temperatures hit New York several weeks ahead of schedule. “And while that may be terrifying on a climate level,” she said, “the warm weather can only mean one thing: all the freaks, crazies and weirdos are headed to Central Park.”Enter a progression of cast members playing single-serving characters, including Mikey Day as Older Man Doing an Aggressive Power Walk, Michael Longfellow and James Austin Johnson as Two Perverts Who Came to the Park to Pleasure Themselves, and Devon Walker and Punkie Johnson as a pair of Park Employees Who Do Not Care About Their Jobs. Asked how she would handle people who aren’t obeying the rules, Johnson bestowed the park with an unofficial motto: “You do you,” she said.Opening Monologue of the WeekDe Armas, who was born and raised in Cuba, became the latest “S.N.L.” host to perform a portion of her monologue in Spanish. After stepping onto the stage of Studio 8H, she told the audience, in Spanish, that she’d had an incredible year and was happy to be on the show, adding: “Just kidding. I speak English.” (She also explained that she’d learned English “the way everyone who comes to this country does, by watching ‘Friends.’”)De Armas follows other recent “S.N.L.” hosts whose monologues included brief bilingual portions, including Anya Taylor-Joy (who concluded her opening remarks and welcomed her musical guest, Lil Nas X, in Spanish) and Pedro Pascal (who offered love to his family members in Chile and asked them to stop giving out his phone number). Later on Weekend Update, Sarah Sherman referenced de Armas’s remarks, playing a meditation guru who joked that the anchor Colin Jost would end up in his dressing room after the show, “still fuming about the bilingual monologue.”De Armas’s linguistic skills were also put to use in a sketch where she, Marcello Hernández and Karol G ran rings around a mediocre high-school Spanish teacher, played by Day. (If you’re unclear why Karol G wore a T-shirt opposing Photoshop, it was probably a reference to the singer’s dispute with GQ magazine, whose Mexican edition published a cover photo of her that she said had been heavily edited and did not represent her.)Fake Movie Trailer of the WeekIf a brightly colored “Barbie” movie, co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig and stocked with an all-star cast, can become one of the summer’s hottest box-office prospects and an endless source of internet memes, well, why not a film that brings the world of American Girl dolls to life? This segment quickly makes clear why: it would be depressing as hell. While cheerful pop music plays in the background, we meet eerily chipper dolls like Samantha (Chloe Fineman), an orphan whose parents died in a boating accident, and Addy (Ego Nwodim), a runaway slave. Don’t get too attached to Kirsten (Gardner), who says she wants to end cholera and then coughs blood into a handkerchief.Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Jost and Michael Che riffed on the leak of American intelligence documents by a 21-year-old National Guard airman.Jost began:The person who allegedly leaked classified Pentagon documents on social media has been identified as Jack Teixeira, who is a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, I assume in a school play. Teixeira shared the document in a private social media group that members say started as a place where young men could play war-themed video games, bond over their love of guns and post racist memes. And now it’s ruined. It was revealed that just before his arrest, Teixeira contacted the members of his group and said, “Guys, it’s been good — I love you all.” And of course, his friends all replied, “Gay.”Che continued:The online group Teixeira started was named Thug Shaker Central. Thug Shaker Central is also what Colin calls Atlanta. President Biden is trying to downplay the recent leak of classified U.S. documents that were posted on social media. Because when you’re over 80, a couple of leaks is nothing to be embarrassed about.Weekend Update Desk Segment of the WeekMolly Kearney, the first openly nonbinary cast member on “S.N.L.,” used a desk appearance on Weekend Update to comment on a recent wave of anti-transgender bills — as well as the harness that uncomfortably delivered Kearney to the stage, providing a useful metaphor throughout this commentary. “I tried to call down but no one could hear me,” Kearney said. “At one point I heard a crew guy say, ‘Is she going to die up there?’ And then another guy was like, ‘You mean, are they going to die up there?’ And then they walked away and didn’t help — which feels a lot like how trans people are being treated right now.” More

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      Karol G’s ‘Mañana Será Bonito’ Is No. 1, Making Chart History

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      The latest release by the Colombian pop star is the first Spanish-language LP by a woman to open at the top of the Billboard 200.In December 2020, Bad Bunny made history on the Billboard charts with the first No. 1 album performed entirely in Spanish (“El Último Tour del Mundo”). Now the Colombian pop star Karol G has set another record with the first Spanish-language LP by a woman to take the top spot.“Mañana Será Bonito” (“Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful”), the fourth studio album by Karol G — the 32-year-old singer born Carolina Giraldo Navarro, instantly recognizable for her bold hair colorings — displaces SZA’s “SOS” on the Billboard 200 after a nearly consecutive 10-week run at the top. “Mañana Será Bonito” opens with the equivalent of 94,000 sales in the United States, including 119 million streams and 10,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to data from the tracking service Luminate.It is the latest sign of the growing commercial power of Latin music. Last year, Bad Bunny, from Puerto Rico, had the most popular album (“Un Verano Sin Ti”) and the biggest global tour. Karol G sold $70 million in tickets to her own tour, which Billboard said made it the highest-grossing tour of the United States by any Latin female artist in history.Karol G’s arrival pushes SZA to second place in her 12th week out, while Gorillaz — the “virtual band” created by the musician Damon Albarn and the visual artist Jamie Hewlett — opens at No. 3 with “Cracker Island,” the group’s eighth studio album. Yeat, a Portland, Ore., rapper at the top of the semi-underground “rage” heap, debuts at No. 4 with “AfterLyfe,” and Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is in fifth place.Next week’s chart will undoubtedly be dominated by the country star Morgan Wallen, whose latest album, “One Thing at a Time,” came out on Friday. Like his last release, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” it is stuffed with catchy tunes about drinking, breakups and pickup trucks — “One Thing” has 36 tracks, “Dangerous” 30 — and it is already dominating streaming services.The only real questions facing “One Thing” are how big it will open and how long it will last on the chart. “Dangerous,” which came out at the very beginning of 2021, spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1 and is now in sixth place, its 109th time in the Top 10. More

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      Karol G’s Songs Conquered the World. On a New LP, She Reveals Herself.

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      Karol G, a global pop star from Colombia, said she wrote 60 songs, maybe more, for her new album, “Mañana Será Bonito” (“Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful”); eventually she winnowed them down to 17.The first ones, she recalled in a video chat from Medellín, Colombia, were full of “anger, sadness, bad love, toxic relationships.” They reflected the fallout of her 2021 breakup with the Puerto Rican rapper and singer Anuel AA, after the end of a romance they had made public with a 2019 duet, “Secreto,” that has since been streamed more than a billion times.Karol G, 32, wrote about feeling betrayed, about temptations and doubts, about partying away the pain, about no-strings sex with an ex. But eventually, she found herself writing wary love songs and counting her blessings. Just a few weeks before the album’s Feb. 24 release, she was wondering if she had been too candid.“I’m being really open with this album, and that gets me a little bit scared, because I’m not a perfect human,” she said from her office in her hometown, where she had just returned to meet her sister’s newborn.Karol G, born Carolina Giraldo Navarro, was wearing an oversized white hoodie, one of 100 that she has decorated by hand for a limited-edition merch sale. Her hair, which has changed color for each album and tour cycle — with her fans attending concerts in matching wigs — was the bold red she unveiled in recent videos.“The album is more Carolina than Karol G,” she said. “Personal things that I had inside me, I was just letting them go in my lyrics. People are going to know about a lot of my personal life with my songs. But I don’t want to have the songs inside me anymore, because I know people can heal a lot of things with music. Writing songs for me is a really good way to heal things that I can’t explain.”Instead of reggaeton’s machismo, Karol G offers cheerful, forthrightly sex-positive femininity.Jingyu Lin for The New York TimesShe admitted to prerelease jitters. “Right now, I notice that artists are trying very hard to find a concept, to be very experimental,” she said. “I love that. And that’s a good way to do art. But the concept of this album is just me being me. I really didn’t want people to feel it was like very simple, or just normal. But then we put up the announcement of my album, and there’s already more than 80 million views on Instagram. Now I’m stressed because I think that expectations are very high.”“Mañana Será Bonito” is primed to be a blockbuster in the wake of Karol G’s 2021 album, “KG0516.” That LP included her billion-streaming 2019 collaboration with Nicki Minaj, “Tusa,” and her self-mythologizing 2020 “Bichota,” a word Karol G coined to turn “bichote” — Puerto Rican slang for a drug kingpin — into a feminine noun for, as she says, “a boss bitch,” a sexy and powerful woman.Her new slang caught on. “‘Bichota’ became a movement,” she said. “Las bichotas don’t cry, las bichotas work for themselves, las bichotas are big, las bichotas are strong, las bichotas can do everything. Everybody can have good songs, everybody can have a moment. But to have a movement, it’s a different thing to find. And I think it’s something that you don’t find if you’re looking for it.”Karol G played the main stage of Coachella in 2022, pointedly including a medley of worldwide hits in Spanish from acts who had never performed at the festival, including Selena, Ricky Martin, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Shakira. “It was special for me to say with my show, I’m here now and I feel really proud,” she said. “But I have to say that I’m here because of this music that opened those doors for us to be here.”The core of Karol G’s music is the loping beat of reggaeton. But her songs replace the genre’s usual rapping with inviting pop melodies, delivered in her clear, teasing voice. Instead of reggaeton’s machismo, she offers cheerful, forthrightly sex-positive femininity.With each album, Karol G has also reached beyond reggaeton to collaborate with an international array of guests — a sign of Latin pop’s ever-expanding, border-crossing possibilities. “Right now is a really special moment with Latin music,” she said, “because everybody in the world is like, ‘I don’t care if I know the words or not,’ but they connect with our sounds.”Karol G grew up surrounded by music. Her father — who was her protector and manager in her early career — sang with a band and brought home all sorts of music: “Rock ’n’ roll, salsa, ballads, reggaeton, vallenatos, everything,” she recalled.From an early age, she knew she wanted to sing. As a teenager, she auditioned unsuccessfully for the Colombian edition of the music reality competition “The X Factor,” but soon afterward signed to record with the Puerto Rican label Diamond Music — a contract her father bought her out of two years later. By 2012, she had grown so discouraged that she decided to give up on music and study marketing in New York City.Karol G onstage at an Illinois arena in September 2022. In Latin America, she headlines stadiums.Rob Grabowski/Invision, via Associated Press“My father stopped talking to me for three months,” she recalled. “He was like, ‘No, you can’t do that. You are throwing away seven years of our hard work. I know who you are. I know we can get it. It’s hard, but when we get it, it’s going to be bigger than the rest.’”An advertisement for a music-business conference in Boston caught her eye as she was riding buses in New York. On an impulse, she attended, and it was a turning point. “I know I love music and I do this for passion,” she said. “But the teaching at that conference was how the music can be a really big business, and how you can work like that.”She returned to Colombia, enrolled to study music at the University of Antioquia, released songs independently and performed at every opportunity, eventually singing duets with established reggaeton stars like Nicky Jam. Her 2017 debut album, “Unstoppable,” included duets with Bad Bunny and Quavo (from Migos), and it brought her a 2018 Latin Grammy Award as best new artist. Her popularity has only grown since then, stoked by lusty songs like “Mi Cama” (“My Bed”) and “Punto G” (“G-Spot”). In Latin America, she headlines stadiums.Her constant collaborator has been Daniel Oviedo, who records as Ovy on the Drums and has produced the vast majority of her songs. He tailors and refines reggaeton and other beats to suit her voice; he also strives to match her ambitions. “Karol’s mind is always going,” he said in a video chat from Los Angeles. “She always has an objective as to where the direction of the song should be, where the lyrics should go. She’s always thinking what’s the next move, the next step, the next accomplishment?”On “Mañana Será Bonito,” Karol G worked with Finneas (Billie Eilish’s brother and collaborator), the Jamaican dancehall singer Sean Paul, the Bronx-born bachata singer Romeo Santos, the Dominican dembowsero Angel Dior, and her forerunner as a Colombian superstar, Shakira. She also embraces an elder generation of reggaeton with “Gatúbela” (“Catwoman”), a racy duet with Maldy, a Puerto Rican rapper from the duo Plan B, which released its first album in 2002.“I had never done anything with a woman before,” Maldy said in a phone interview via a translator. “But it was very natural. Being with a woman that brings that sensuality made the right combination for the song to have such an impact. She has the charisma to bring reggaeton to another genre. And international collaborations expand reggaeton, to maximize it culturally.”“For me to go to different styles of music, different genres is not hard, because I have music from everywhere that I really love,” Karol G said. Jingyu Lin for The New York TimesKarol G insists that her hybrids and connections are a matter of instinct, not crossover marketing. “For me to go to different styles of music, different genres is not hard, because I have music from everywhere that I really love,” she said. “I’m trying to show the world more what I do, instead of just doing things to open that door. I want to do it with my real identity. If I feel in my mind that a song has that feeling I go that way: ‘This is a rock, this is a salsa, this is a corrido mexicano.’”She had a hit with the Mexican-style waltz “200 Copas” (“200 Drinks”) from “KG0516,” in which she advises a friend to dump a terrible boyfriend and go out drinking. The new album has another one, “Gucci Los Paños,” (“Gucci Towels”) which furiously and profanely rejects an ex-boyfriend’s attempts to get back together. “If we’re going to do a really heartbroken song that needs to sound really angry, for me you have to use Mexican sounds,” she said.Another of the album’s good-riddance songs is “TGQ,” the duet with Shakira — a pairing Karol G had long hoped for. They had sent each other songs in recent years, but none had seemed exactly right. Now, with Shakira singing openly about her own breakup, Karol G thought they might share another song in which she was “letting a lot of anger go.” When Shakira heard it, Karol G said, “She was, like ‘Oh my God, thank you. Those lyrics are perfectly the way I feel right now.’” They completed the song together, and the finished track, a reggaeton-tinged minor-key ballad, seethes in sisterhood.The album doesn’t offer a narrative. Framed by two songs calling for hope — “Mientras Me Cura del Cora” (“While My Heart Heals”), which is built on Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “Mañana Será Bonito” — the track list wanders amid hookups and kiss-offs, heedless excess and cautious infatuation. In “Cairo,” she chides herself that the one-night stand she planned on has led to real affection: “I’m not in love but I’m almost there,” she sings.“That really happened!” she said. “I was really, like, I’m not going to get in love again. I’m not going to try to build my personal life with anybody. But life just brought somebody to my life that is like making me feel happy again, so that I wanted to share moments with somebody else again.”“That was a new thing that I learned with this album,” she continued. “I was going to be really mad about love and everything. And at the end of the album, now I’m feeling it again. I used to hate it and now I’m loving it again. So let’s be open to that.” More