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      ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ to Compete at Venice Film Festival

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      Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature and new movies from Luca Guadagnino and Pablo Larraín will also debut at this year’s event.“Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’s comic-book sequel starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, will compete for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.The movie’s participation, which festival organizers announced during a news conference on Tuesday to reveal the lineup, comes five years after Phillips’s “Joker” — which told the Batman villain’s origin story — won the same prize at Venice’s 76th edition, paving the way for its two Oscar wins.Phillips’s movie will face starry competition for the Golden Lion, including from Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, and Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” a biopic of the opera singer Maria Callas with Angelina Jolie in the lead.Also in competition will be Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” an adaptation of a short novel by William S. Burroughs that follows a drug addict (Daniel Craig) as he undergoes withdrawal in Mexico City and becomes infatuated with an American drifter (Drew Starkey); Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” starring Nicole Kidman as a manager who starts an affair; and Justin Kurzel’s “The Order,” with Jude Law as an F.B.I. agent investigating a white supremacist terrorist organization.Altogether, 21 movies will compete for the top prize at Venice’s 81st edition, which is scheduled to run Aug. 28 through Sep. 7. A nine-person jury led by Isabelle Huppert, the French actor, will choose the Golden Lion winner, which is announced on the festival’s final day.This year’s competition will include, from top left, “The Room Next Door,” “Maria,” “The Order,” and “Queer.”Iglesias Más; Michelle Faye; Yannis DrakoulidisThis year’s star-studded lineup suggests the impact of last year’s Hollywood strikes on the movie industry’s schedules is waning. Those strikes wrought havoc at last year’s festival, with the MGM studio pulling Guadagnino’s tennis drama “Challengers” from the lineup, and many actors and directors staying away to avoid breaking strike terms.At Tuesday’s news conference, Alberto Barbera, the festival’s artistic director, said that “Joker: Folie à Deux” showed Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s characters stuck in an asylum awaiting trial.“Nobody can imagine what Todd and his screenwriters have imagined,” Barbera said, adding that Phoenix’s performance was “incredible.”Venice’s organizers had announced some of this year’s lineup before Tuesday’s news conference, including this year’s opening movie, which won’t compete for the Golden Lion: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 comedy horror. The new movie has Michael Keaton return to play the title role, and also stars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.Another high-profile movie appearing out of competition is Jon Watts’s comedic thriller “Wolfs,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as professional fixers who are hired to cover up the same crime. There are also movies by directors less familiar to Western audiences, including the Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with “Cloud,” and the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who is showing “April.”In recent years, the Venice Film Festival has gained a reputation for debuting Oscar contenders. Last year, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” starring Emma Stone, won the Golden Lion for best film and Stone went on to win best actress at this year’s Academy Awards. More

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      The Animosity Tour and Other Promotional Movie Campaigns We Love

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      For Jennifer Lopez, Sterling K. Brown, Dakota Johnson and others, the standard publicity push isn’t so standard anymore.In the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill,” the sheepish bookseller played by Hugh Grant goes to a hotel expecting a date with the megawatt star played by Julia Roberts. He is surprised to find he has arrived at a press junket and looks adorably flustered as he’s shuffled from room to room, pretending to be a reporter from Horse & Hound to interview the stars of her space movie.The sequence is a handy introduction to this strange custom of film publicity: actors sitting in sterile suites for a parade of brief interviews. But these days that almost seems quaint. The press tour has taken on a life of its own, with stars like Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya making news for the tour itself with quippy sound bites, inscrutable looks and fashion moments.It can be grueling for celebrities. Lupita Nyong’o recently described junkets as a “torture technique” in an interview with Glamour. But these cycles can be more entertaining than the movies themselves. Grant’s bookseller would be baffled to learn that you can categorize the tours as follows:The Animosity TourFlorence Pugh was pointedly not at the Venice Film Festival news conference for “Don’t Worry Darling” in 2022.Jacopo Raule/Getty ImagesThe promotion stops for nothing, not even cast members who appear to hate being in one another’s company. This seemed to be the case during the cycle for “Atlas,” Netflix’s new sci-fi flick starring Jennifer Lopez and Sterling K. Brown.During joint interviews, Brown seemed unable to help himself from making fun of Lopez. In one viral moment, he feigned surprise when she said she was Puerto Rican, before repeating her comfort meal of “rice and beans and like, you know, chicken” in overemphasized Spanish. In another moment, he jumped in and helped her out when her own Spanish failed her. After supplying the right word, he did a little dance. That clip prompted social-media users to wonder what J. Lo did to Brown. During these interactions Lopez looked perturbed, leaving plenty of room for observers to jump to conclusions.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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      Best Songs of 2023

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      Seventy-one tracks that asked big questions, found new kinship between genres and helped us see the good in Ken.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesFumbling Toward EcstasyThe album may be imperiled; people have been saying so for decades, even though the form has resisted extinction. Meanwhile, songs flourish, whether or not they’re destined for albums, and are ever more flexible. Some maintain the pop conventions of verse-chorus-verse; others distill themselves down to TikTok-ready hooks or sprawl across digital time frames. Here are 30 of my favorite songs from 2023 — less a ranking than a playlist, a tribute to creative abundance.1. Allison Russell, ‘Eve Was Black’The tune could be a toe-tapping Appalachian hoedown. But the title’s blunt, irrefutable statement carries Allison Russell toward harsh thoughts about racism, slavery, exploitation, lynching and sin — and then to an unexpected coda.2. Peter Gabriel, ‘Road to Joy (Bright-Side Mix)’Like many Peter Gabriel songs, this one has a scenario. The narrator is waking from a coma into an overload of sensory experiences, getting “back in the world”; the music is a funk carnival that keeps adding euphoric layers.3. 100 gecs, ‘Dumbest Girl Alive’No band walks Spinal Tap’s “fine line between clever and stupid” like the duo 100 gecs. “Dumbest Girl Alive” has a primal stomp for a beat, an up-and-down guitar riff that whimsically hops around instruments, and filtered hyperpop vocals with 21st-century lines like “put emojis on my grave” — just the thing for an utterly knowing, utterly meta bash.4. Sampha, ‘Suspended’Sampha’s “Lahai” was brighter and more expansive than his previous LPs.Ayesha Kazim for The New York TimesSampha gathers ideas from R&B, classical Minimalism, twitchy hyperpop and more around the androgynous melancholy of his voice. He conjures a rapturous infatuation and the need it leaves behind in “Suspended,” three minutes of vertigo from his album “Lahai.”5. The Rolling Stones featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder, ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’The peak of the Rolling Stones’ resurgent album “Hackney Diamonds” is an all-star concoction that sounds like a raw studio jam. Mick Jagger extols the glories of music and the song climbs to a big, gospelly finish, with Jagger and Lady Gaga goading each other to belt more. When it winds up, they catch their breath but they don’t want to quit — and the song builds even higher.6. Yahritza y Su Esencia and Grupo Frontera, ‘Frágil’Two Mexican American groups — from Washington state and Texas — unite for “Frágil,” a cumbia complaint about a heartless partner. While the men in Grupo Frontera sound mildly apologetic, Yahritza Martinez sings as if her heart might burst at any moment.7. Baby Rose, ‘Stop the Bleeding’With her low, tremulous, gripping voice, Baby Rose sings about love as self-sabotage, trying to break free while an orchestra underlines her despair.8. Shakira, ‘BZRP Music Sessions #53’In one of Shakira’s canny 2023 collaborations — others were with Karol G and the regional Mexican band Fuerza Regida — she enlisted the hitmaking Argentine electro producer Bizarrap to take revenge on her ex, with pointed wordplay and an airborne hook denouncing “guys like you.”9. Killer Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’In a track that roves from electro to guitar ballad to bursts of gospel, Killer Mike convenes fellow Atlanta rappers — the prolific Future and the elusive André 3000 — to address art, ambition, luxury, tenacity and paying dues, culminating in a marathon verse from Killer Mike himself.10. Brittany Howard, ‘What Now’Choppy, distorted, splintered hard funk pulses around Brittany Howard as she sorts through all the conflicting impulses of a breakup: taking blame and lashing out, feeling regret and relief, wanting to stay and knowing she needs to go.11. Jorja Smith, ‘Try Me’Jorja Smith used vocal nuance instead of volume to stir things up on her second studio album.Jose Sena Goulao/EPA, via ShutterstockA wounded, defensive Jorja Smith confronts someone who had put her down, in a track that evolves from pinging, percussive defiance to orchestral contemplation.12. Caroline Polachek, ‘Dang’One percussive syllable — “dang” — inspires an entire brittle production apparatus around Caroline Polachek’s deadpan voice. She sings about irreversible events, like shipwrecks and spilled milk, amid plinks, clangs, crashes, swooping strings and sampled screams, nonchalant amid the non sequiturs.13. aespa, ‘Better Things’Cowbells, handclaps and piano chords drive “Better Things,” a K-pop kiss-off with ingeniously cascading vocal harmonies and absolutely no regrets.14. Janelle Monáe featuring Doechii, ‘Phenomenal’Janelle Monáe’s 2023 album, “The Age of Pleasure,” exults in carnality while segueing through R&B, jazz and Caribbean styles. “Phenomenal” is a raunchy acclamation of lust and self-love, rapped and sung over springy, changeable Latin jazz grooves.15. Noname, ‘Namesake’Noname reels off brisk, matter-of-fact rhymes over a jazzy bass line as she strives to reconcile her personal comfort with all the world’s problems. She worries about complacency, complicity and hypocrisy; she doesn’t spare herself.16. Irreversible Entanglements, ‘Root Branch’Irreversible Entanglements is a fiercely riffing jazz band fronted by the low-voiced spoken-word poet Moor Mother. “We can be free — let’s fly,” she intones over the six-beat vamp of “Root Branch,” demanding something basic and essential.17. Jaimie Branch, ‘Take Over the World’The trumpeter and bandleader Jaimie Branch sets up a pummeling beat behind an environmental battle chant in “Take Over the World,” veers into a swirl of psychedelia, then whoops it up even harder.18. Dolly Parton, ‘World on Fire’Dolly Parton, of all people, delivers a full-fledged power ballad and stadium stomp to consider the dire state of the world. She counsels love, healing and kindness, but at the end she’s still wondering: “Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?”19. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” had a moment — during Pride celebrations and beyond — in 2023.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesFor Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam” is the sound of a heartbeat during a mutual flirtation at a club. The beat — a TikTok favorite — is a cheerful club thump, and a hint of Bollywood perks up the melody for three minutes of computerized bliss20. L’Rain, ‘I Killed Your Dog’L’Rain — the songwriter and performer Taja Cheek — ponders vengeful, destructive impulses in a near-lullaby that wanders through a chromatic chord progression, building ambivalence into the harmonies.21. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods sings about love as an accumulation of small connections and growing trust, a work in progress: “It’s not butterflies or fireworks.” The arc of the music, from isolated percussion and keyboards to multilayered, gospel-tinged vocals, radiates optimism.22. Olivia Dean featuring Leon Bridges, ‘The Hardest Part’With vintage soul chords and modern electronic subtleties, the English songwriter Olivia Dean and her American duet partner, Leon Bridges, sing about growing apart and moving on, grappling with second thoughts.23. Nkosazana Daughter, Master KG and Lowsheen featuring Murumba, ‘Ring Ring Ring’In an amapiano track full of echoey, lonely spaces, the South African singer Nkosazana Daughter and guests lament the uncertainty and sorrow of an unanswered phone call.24. Margo Price, ‘Lydia’Margo Price turned her lens outward to characters other than herself on her album “Strays.”Sara Messinger for The New York TimesIn this unblinking character study, a woman named Lydia, with “an ex-husband and a midlife crisis,” smokes a cigarette outside a clinic, thinking back through a life of hard luck and rough decisions and trying to decide whether to end her pregnancy. Margo Price sets the story to simple guitar chords and an understated string arrangement, pondering the choices.25. Mitski, ‘Bug Like an Angel’A squashed bug on the bottom of a cocktail glass leads Mitski to fragmentary epiphanies about addiction, trust and sex, with a choir bursting in to affirm each cryptic insight.26. Margaret Glaspy, ‘Memories’Over a waltz of simple guitar chords, Margaret Glaspy blurts out unvarnished grief in a torn voice, bereft yet struggling to go on.27. The Smile, ‘Bending Hectic’A guitar meditation melts into an ecstatic death wish during the eight minutes of “Bending Hectic.” Thom Yorke sings about driving along a curvy Italian mountain road with a sheer drop, and “letting go of the wheel”; Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangement envisions the plunge, and then electric guitars careen to a finish.28. Lankum, ‘Go Dig My Grave’The Irish band Lankum connects the fatalistic, death-haunted side of Celtic tradition to something like black metal in this nine-minute dirge about dying for love. It’s an inexorable crescendo from a solo a cappella vocal to a tolling, clanging drone topped by a howling fiddle, haunted and bleak.29. Caroline Rose, ‘Love/Lover/Friend’In a flurry of plucked and orchestral strings, Caroline Rose affirms her love by ruling out other possibilities, then basks in wordless choral ecstasy.30. André 3000, ‘That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild’In a 10-minute instrumental for muffled drums, percussion and prowling parallel flute lines, André 3000 maintains an aura of calm vigilance, contemplative but still on edge.Jon CaramanicaAnything GoesIt was a year in which the best pop music truly made it up as it went along. Off-the-cuff collaborations? Sure. Songs by fictional characters? Why not. A guy filmed singing in a field by a West Virginia public radio outlet? Absolutely. Microscene classics that clock in at 75 seconds and might be forgotten tomorrow? Always. (In the interest of avoiding redundancy, I’ve only included songs that aren’t on albums that made my best of the year list.)1. Central Cee & Dave, ‘Sprinter’This British rap tag team is about improbable wealth, bounteous opportunities, living so fast that what’s slipping by is almost as good as what you manage to grab hold of. As celebrations go, this is a controlled, pensive one — a relaxed ramble for the moments when the money’s so new, it sparkles.2. Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), ‘World Class Sinner/I’m a Freak’A paean to emotional vacancy sung with emotional vacancy from a television show rife with emotional vacancy ends up … positively glistening. A cause for surrender.3. Oliver Anthony Music, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’A great song, sure. More than that, though, a sense of great exasperation. The quick and strong embrace of this song suggests an ocean of frustration that pop music leaves largely untapped and unvoiced, and a grass-roots resistance that it has almost no hope of replicating.4. Mustafa, ‘Name of God’Few artists conjure a richness of sorrow the way the Canadian folk singer Mustafa does. Here, his singing is beautiful and a little distant, as if flinching ever so slightly from a pain that will never be anything but raw.5. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’PinkPantheress took her songs from her bedroom to bigger stages after a viral hit.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesA glimpse at how pop might — should? — sound in the coming few years. Two stars of the internet of 12 to 24 months ago who found themselves at the vanguards of their respective scenes come together for a collaboration in which neither has to concede an inch.6. Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson, ‘Save Me’What makes Jelly Roll so effective is the way the intensity of his howl only amplifies the potency of his scars. It’s perhaps most pointed on this duet with Lainey Wilson, whose crisp and clear tone initially seems like an antidote, but is quickly revealed as equally bruised.7. That Mexican OT featuring Paul Wall and Drodi, ‘Johnny Dang’An effortless blend of Texas rap generations, fusing the tongue-twisting with the slow-rolling.8. Cody Johnson, ‘The Painter’When someone is effusive, it might not mean as much when they gush. But when a stoic drops his guard, it can feel seismic.9. Ken (Ryan Gosling), ‘I’m Just Ken’When this stridently sad song from the “Barbie” movie hits its apogee, it’s channeling Dashboard Confessional, Meat Loaf, the Phantom (of the Opera) and maybe even Scott Stapp. Slash plays guitar, salting the melodrama hard.10. Gunna, ‘Fukumean’The Atlanta rapper Gunna quickly returned to work after accepting a plea deal in a wide-sweeping ongoing case.Craig Barritt/Getty Images For GunnaA year ago, Gunna accepted a plea deal that untethered him from the RICO trial that has ensnared his mentor, Young Thug. Relatively quickly, he returned to his familiar slippery garble with a hit so ubiquitous it felt like a memory of how things once were.11. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘Dirty Thug’The best of another slew of lonely anthems from the most important and least publicly visible hip-hop star of the past few years.12. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’A cool blast of not-quite-exuberance, this club-pop anthem is a continuation of Kylie Minogue’s sometime-diva legacy, a relentless queer anthem, a cheeky flirtation and a thump that just won’t quit.13. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’It has been 11 and a half years since Kitty Pryde released “Okay Cupid,” plenty of time for a re-embrace.14. Chino Pacas, ‘El Gordo Trae el Mando’A meaty, beatifically meandering boast by one of the rising stars of corridos tumbados.15. Lil Uzi Vert, ‘Just Wanna Rock’Grandfathered in from late 2022, this song broke TikTok, broke dancing, broke the Grammys and maybe even broke hip-hop.And 10 More:Corpse, “Disdain”Miley Cyrus, “Used to be Young”Emilia, “GTA.mp3”evvls, “Belikeme?”Jack Harlow, “Lovin on Me”Sam Hunt, “Walmart”Byron Messia, “Talibans”Militarie Gun, “Very High”Nettspend, “Shine N Peace”Odetari, “Good Loyal Thots”Lindsay ZoladzBeautiful DisastersSo many of my favorite tracks of the year flipped scripts, turned tables and reimagined weaknesses as strengths. By no means a complete list of the songs I enjoyed the past 12 months, these are 20 I couldn’t stop listening to — most of them reminders of music’s ability to turn mess into meaning, anxiety into energy and heartache into a great song.1. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Vampire’Olivia Rodrigo confronts a new class of villain on “Vampire,” the incisive first single that heralded her second album, “Guts,” but she also proves she has learned new ways to slay. “Vampire” is wrenching and formally restless, at first masquerading as a piano ballad, only to ramp up into a miniature rock opera complete with a showstopping high note worthy of a tragic heroine. But don’t cry for Rodrigo — she doesn’t need protection. Her words, her observations and her stylistic flair all have plenty of bite.2. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’In a previous millennium, two of pop’s main young girlies joined forces to each assert that “The Boy Is Mine,” but PinkPantheress (b. 2001) and Ice Spice (b. 2000) were not alive when that song was released. On their bubbly and utterly infectious collaboration, they sidestep any hint of rivalry and turn against the guy, deciding he’s not worth the drama. “What’s the point of crying?” they shrug blithely. “It was never even love.”3. Lana Del Rey, ‘A&W’The year’s best song about telling an ex-boyfriend’s mom that her son is a disaster (runner-up: Rodrigo’s “Get Him Back!”), the sprawling, portentous seven-minute “A&W” is an unfiltered look into Lana Del Rey’s stream of consciousness: misremembered movie titles, sexually frank admissions, inside jokes about Californian geography (“I say I live in Rosemead, really, I’m at the Ramada”) and all manner of other oddly juxtaposed American flotsam. “Maybe,” she reasons with a weary sigh, arriving at some self-knowledge, “I’m just kinda like this.”4. boygenius, ‘Not Strong Enough’Everyone’s favorite musical besties — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — riff on pop clichés and gender roles in this highlight from their breakout year, succinctly summing up their individual songwriting personalities and demonstrating the magic that happens when they combine their powers.5. Romy, ‘Enjoy Your Life’Romy Madley Croft was the final member of the xx to release a solo album.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe xx’s Romy Madley Croft finds a solution for anxiety and self-doubt on this thumping, compassionate club banger: What if she looked at her life through the eyes of a benevolent mother? A luminous sample from the synth pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland — “my mother says to me, enjoy your life” — guides the way.6. Mitski, ‘My Love Mine All Mine’TikTok’s reluctant darling Mitski has released her share of songs that sound destined for pop crossover — last year’s sleek, synthy “Laurel Hell” was full of them — but, unexpectedly, she became a fixture on this year’s Hot 100 for the first time ever with this slow, moony ballad that sounds unlike anything else on the charts. Oblique, poetic and sumptuously sung, it’s a welcome moment of Zen.7. Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, ‘I Remember Everything’An old-fashioned he-said/she-said country duet cut through with a chill of bleak finality. Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves are both at their emotive best on this bruised-hearted crossover hit.8. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’An arsenic-laced confection that shows off Doja Cat’s multiple personalities — a romantic and an ironist, an angel and a devil, a singer fluent in dreamy hooks and a rapper with razor-sharp teeth.9. Jess Williamson, ‘Hunter’The indie singer-songwriter Jess Williamson chronicles both the promise and fatigue of looking for love in this bittersweet, poetically rendered reflection, her twangy voice brimming with a weary hope.10. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Bad Idea, Right?’Olivia Rodrigo sings about mistakes in serious and humorous ways on her second album, “Guts.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWith the possession of a driver’s license comes the ability to drive to an ex’s house in the middle of the night for an ill-advised hookup. That’s the trade-off. At least such circumstances gave us one of Rodrigo’s spunkiest, funniest and most irresistible singles yet.11. Palehound, ‘Independence Day’El Kempner has a keen eye for tragicomic detail on this ramshackle rocker about regret, denial and long-simmering incompatibility that results in a July 4 breakup. “I’m living life like writing my first draft,” they sing. Aren’t we all.12. Water From Your Eyes, ‘Barley’All year I have been describing this zany, looping song from the Brooklyn art-rockers Water From Your Eyes as “what it would sound like if Sonic Youth had made an appearance on ‘Sesame Street,’” and I’m not going to stop now.13. Noname, ‘Namesake’The Chicago rapper Noname says the quiet part loud — and oh so dexterously — on this refreshingly honest track, an incisive examination of pop-cultural ethics unafraid to name names, including (in addition to Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar) her own.14. Wednesday, ‘Chosen to Deserve’In her cracked wail, the Southern rock band Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman — “the girl that you’ve chosen to deserve” — paints an achingly vivid portrait of suburban boredom and young adult malaise, finding just the right surface details to express something deep: “I was out late, sneaking into the neighborhood pool,” she sings. “Then I woke up early and taught at the Sunday school.”15. Mandy, Indiana, ‘Pinking Shears’Comment dit-on “hypnotic, endlessly loopable industrial banger”?16. Jenn Champion, ‘Jessica’There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, Jenn Champion reminds us on this icy, arresting piano ballad, as she rages against a friend’s overdose in lacerating detail.17. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods’s album “Water Made Us” achieves the musician’s greatest synthesis yet between her voices as a poet and as a songwriter.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images For Slow FactoryA warm, wise ode to incremental progress and tiny, beautiful things from R&B’s resident poet laureate.18. Yo La Tengo, ‘Fallout’Still knitting aural autumn sweaters, after all these years.19. Sufjan Stevens, ‘So You Are Tired’What state is he on now? Alaska? Disrepair? Grace? Regardless, this song is a quiet doozy that watches a long-term love unravel in slow motion like a spool of ribbon underwater.20. Drake featuring Sexyy Red and SZA, ‘Rich Baby Daddy’Exhibit Z that Drake is at his best not when he tsk-tsks grown women, but when he risks being outshone by inviting them on the track. More

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      The Rolling Stones Played Old! They Played New!

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      Last week the band played an intimate release show in New York celebrating its latest album, “Hackney Diamonds.” Now hear songs from the new LP in conversation with ones from the past.The Rolling Stones onstage in New York last week: Ronnie Wood, Steve Jordan, Mick Jagger (and yes, Keith Richards is just behind him!).Kevin MazurDear listeners,Last Thursday, I had the absurd good fortune of going to Racket — a 650-capacity club in Manhattan that one recent Google review called an “intimate venue, perfect vibe to see a small concert — to see a seven-song set by … the Rolling Stones.I know. I know. To quote the lead single from the band’s new album “Hackney Diamonds,” don’t get angry with me.The show was technically a release party for “Hackney Diamonds,” the Stones’ first album of original material in nearly two decades. (Jon Pareles spoke to them about it last month.) And though rumor had it the band would be playing, I did not believe it until I was standing several people back from a stage onto which Mick Jagger — 80 years old; unflagging; approximately a women’s size 00 in both jeans and leather jacket — strutted and announced, “We’re going to play old! We’re going to play new!” Even then, I did not quite believe it.They greeted our fair city with “Shattered,” that eternal anthem of New York squalor and survival. (I wish the song sounded more dated 45 years later, but alas there are still rats on the Westside and bedbugs uptown.) Ronnie Wood shredded exuberantly; Keith Richards strummed coolly in purple silk; Jagger shadoobied in fine form. They sounded — miraculously — just like the Rolling Stones.Well, with one obvious absence: Charlie Watts, the band’s longtime, quietly virtuosic drummer, who died in 2021. Steve Jordan, who was Watts’s personal pick to take over, meshed well with the group’s live energy, though. (The bassist Darryl Jones, the keyboardist Matt Clifford and the backing singer Chanel Haynes — who had a particularly impressive turn on “Tumbling Dice,” rounded out the lineup.)The set, as Jagger implied, pulled from the fresh and the classic, which is appropriate for a show introducing “Hackney Diamonds” to the world. There’s a throwback spirit to the album, but it also sounds rooted in the present tense, thanks in part to the production of the 32-year-old Andrew Watt. “Hackney Diamonds” at times also plays like an A-list rock ’n’ roll revue, featuring contributions from Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga — who, at Racket, came out for a transcendent encore of “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” clad in a glittery jumpsuit that matched the smoldering fireworks display of her vocals.I’m still reeling from this show (did it actually happen?), so consider today’s playlist a postscript to it. I wanted to place some of the highlights from “Hackney Diamonds” in conversation with older Stones songs, to chart certain progressions and recurring sensibilities.Also, my dad has had familial Stones bragging rights for my entire life for seeing the “Exile on Main St.” tour in 1972. Please allow me my long-awaited hour of boasting.Listen on Spotify as you read.1. “Start Me Up” (1981)There’s an easy but irresistible simplicity to the leadoff track from “Tattoo You,” a bare-bones Stones classic: two verse chords, that chunky little riff, steady but shuffling percussion. The brilliantly low-concept music video — an early MTV staple — is also a master class in rock star charisma. (The cutaways to a smiling Watts are the best.) (Listen on YouTube)2. “Angry” (2023)Similarly, the Stones don’t overcomplicate things on “Angry,” the first single and opening track on “Hackney Diamonds.” I like the negative space in this song, which puts all of its elements — grumbling guitars, fleet-footed beat, Jagger sass — in stark relief, really making them pop. (Listen on YouTube)3. “Under My Thumb” (1966)A musical highlight of the Brian Jones era (some crucial marimba playing here) marred by some of the more controversial lyrics in the Stones’ catalog, “Under My Thumb” tells the spiteful story of a sexual power struggle — well, one side of it, anyway. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Depending on You” (2023)“I invented the game but I lost like a fool,” a heartbroken Jagger sings on this mid-tempo ballad, sounding uncharacteristically regretful and even repentant. The change has come: He’s under her thumb. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Street Fighting Man” (1968)Though some found the lyrics incendiary when it was first released in the tumultuous year of 1968, “Street Fighting Man” sounds less like a call to revolution than a cheeky, somewhat self-deprecating show of support from the sidelines: “What can a poor boy do ’cept to sing for a rock ’n’ roll band?” Jagger sings atop Richards’s spikily textured rhythm guitar. “’Cause in sleepy London Town there’s just no place for a street fighting man.” (Listen on YouTube)6. “Whole Wide World” (2023)The Stones revisit those London streets on this menacing rocker, though they don’t sound quite so sleepy this time around: “The streets I used to walk on are full of broken glass,” Jagger sings, referencing the image from which the new album gets its name. (“Hackney diamonds” are the shards of debris left over after a robbery.) The members of the Rolling Stones are obviously a long way from the shadier streets of Hackney now, but on this song they sound nostalgic (at least in theory) for a more hardscrabble past. (Listen on YouTube)7. “Gimme Shelter” (1969)An ominous, era-defining anthem that Jagger once called “kind of an end-of-the-world song,” “Gimme Shelter” is all about Richards’s serpentine riffs and the explosive guest vocals of Merry Clayton, the only female singer to be prominently featured on a Stones album for 54 years. At least until … (Listen on YouTube)8. “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” (featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder) (2023)… this gospel-tinged “Hackney Diamonds” highlight, which finds Lady Gaga and Jagger pushing each other ever higher into the stratosphere. (As if that weren’t enough star power, Stevie Wonder also plays keys on the track.) As the album’s producer Andrew Watt said, “She joined the band on that song. She’s almost embodying Merry Clayton.” (Listen on YouTube)9. “Stop Breaking Down” (1972)The influence of blues artists — especially Black American blues artists — looms large over the Stones’ entire discography. That’s explicitly apparent on the ambitious double-album “Exile on Main St.,” particularly on this grimy rework of a 1937 Robert Johnson song. (Listen on YouTube)10. “Rolling Stones Blues” (2023)The finale of “Hackney Diamonds” is this back-to-basics take on the Muddy Waters song that inspired the band’s name all those years ago. As Pareles put it in his profile, “It’s just Jagger’s voice and harmonica and Richards’s guitar, unadorned in real time, circling back to the love of the blues that brought them together as teenagers. It could be a career postscript or a reaffirmation.” (Listen on YouTube)Look at me, I’m in tatters,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Rolling Stones, Past and Present” track listTrack 1: “Start Me Up”Track 2: “Angry”Track 3: “Under My Thumb”Track 4: “Depending on You”Track 5: “Street Fighting Man”Track 6: “Whole Wide World”Track 7: “Gimme Shelter”Track 8: “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” (featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder)Track 9: “Stop Breaking Down”Track 10: “Rolling Stone Blues”Bonus TracksOver the weekend I saw Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” — a great, challenging, heartbreakingly gorgeous American epic that I cannot recommend highly enough. I was especially moved by Robbie Robertson’s score (completed before his death earlier this year), which fuses blues and folk with the music he heard growing up on Canada’s Six Nations Reserve. It’s a fitting coda to a singular career, and luckily much of it appears on the soundtrack released last week. Give it a listen.Also, I avoided reading much about the movie before seeing it, so I had no idea that singer-songwriter Jason Isbell was in it (?!), let alone that he played such a prominent role. He was great! And he’s hilarious in one particular scene with Leonardo DiCaprio — if you’ve seen it, you know the one. More

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      9 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Get caught up on new music from Maren Morris, Earl Sweatshirt and Remi Wolf’s bold Paramore remake.Maren Morris conjures the glorious grit of a fed-up woman on “The Tree.”Natasha Moustache/Getty ImagesDear listeners,It’s good to be back! Last week, I took a little staycation and spent most of my time reading, dog-sitting a very good boy, and seeing a bunch of movies at the New York Film Festival.* But now I’m recharged, caught up on all the new music I missed — and, of course, ready to share it with you.Today’s offering is a compilation of highlights from our last few new music Playlists (from the likes of the Rolling Stones and Maren Morris), plus a few songs I would have put on last week’s Playlist were I not on vacation (one of Earl Sweatshirt’s collaborations with the Alchemist; Remi Wolf’s bold remake of a Paramore song). And while it includes some familiar names, I hope it also opens your ears to some new ones, too.Also! You still have a few more days to send me suggestions for the ultimate fall playlist. What’s a song that feels like autumn to you? Tell me here. We may use your response in an upcoming Amplifier.Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. Atka: “Lenny”If haven’t yet heard of the German-born, London-based musician Atka (also known as Sarah Neumann), that’s perfectly understandable: This propulsive single is only the second she’s ever released. But “Lenny,” which will appear on her forthcoming debut EP “Eye Against the Ashen Sky,” is quite a calling card. Industrial noises clang and suddenly cohere into a driving melody as Neumann deadpans a series of striking lyrics, beginning with a particularly vivid image: “Men like gods throwing rocks around the room.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Maren Morris: “The Tree”“The rot at the roots is the root of the problem,” Maren Morris sings on her smoldering new song, “The Tree.” “But you wanna blame it on me.” She has long been an outspoken critic of the country music establishment — see: her recent appearance on The New York Times’s Popcast (Deluxe) — and in one sense “The Tree” could be read as her breakup song with Nashville. But the song works just as well as a defiant end-of-a-relationship anthem, as Morris’s impressive vocal performance conjures the glorious grit of a fed-up woman. (Listen on YouTube)3. PinkPantheress: “Mosquito”The English pop singer PinkPantheress makes sugary sweet tunes cut through with sudden pangs of sour. Her latest single, “Mosquito,” is a fluttery reverie interrupted by a nightmarish admission: “I just had a dream I was dead, and I only cared ’cause I was taken from you.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Earl Sweatshirt & the Alchemist: “Vin Skully”When the rapper Earl Sweatshirt locks into his signature flow, he has a way of making language sound viscous, as though the words are just dribbling out of his mouth. On this track from “Voir Dire,” a collaborative album made with the producer the Alchemist, he’s effortlessly dexterous; and yes, it features a sample from the late, great Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. (The M.L.B. team could perhaps use his blessing right about now.) (Listen on YouTube)5. Becky G featuring Chiquis: “Cuidadito”The stylistically nimble pop artist Becky G leans into regional Mexican sounds on her latest album, “Esquinas,” and especially on this playful duet with the singer Chiquis (daughter of the venerable Jenni Rivera). The pair trade fiery verses, letting their respective men know exactly what to expect if they dare cheat. (Listen on YouTube)6. Holly Humberstone: “Into Your Room”This one’s been stuck in my head for days. From the British singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone’s debut album, “Paint My Bedroom Black,” which comes out this Friday, “Into Your Room” is a moody, pulsating synth-pop number personalized with Humberstone’s endearingly chatty lyricism. “You’re the center of this universe,” she sings pleadingly to the object of her obsession. “My sorry [expletive] revolves around you.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Paramore & Remi Wolf: “You First (Re: Remi Wolf)”Earlier this year, the rock band Paramore put out its angsty, knotty sixth album, “This Is Why.” On the recently released remix album, “Re: This Is Why,” Paramore asked an eclectic group of artists — including Wet Leg, Julien Baker and Panda Bear — to rework the album, track by track. For the most part, it’s a compelling and successful experiment, though this galvanizing reimagining of “You First,” helmed by the avant-pop provocateur Remi Wolf, is a clear highlight. (Listen on YouTube)8. The Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga: “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”In 2012, Lady Gaga appeared onstage with the Rolling Stones to lend her vocals to a live rendition of “Gimme Shelter.” “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” the bluesy, fireworks-display climax of the Stones’ upcoming album, “Hackney Diamonds,” seems to pick up right where that performance left off. A soulful and unhurried Mick Jagger leads his band — which on this track includes Stevie Wonder (!) on keyboards — from the ground right to the great beyond, while Gaga accompanies him in an airy, angelic voice, showing off yet another facet of her impressive register. (Listen on YouTube)9. Jenn Champion: “Jessica”A tough listen, but also a cathartic one. Jenn Champion — a former member of the indie band Carissa’s Wierd, who used to record under the name S — pours all the feelings that sprang up in the wake of an old friend’s overdose into this sparse, haunting piano ballad. “I still love you,” she sings in a trembling voice. “But it hurts now.” This song stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it, and I still can’t shake its unsettling power. (Listen on YouTube)I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom,Lindsay* The best thing I saw so far at the N.Y.F.F.? “Poor Things,” the latest wild ride from the cinematic Greek Freak, Yorgos Lanthimos. Emma Stone is on another level.The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“9 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track listTrack 1: Atka, “Lenny”Track 2: Maren Morris, “The Tree”Track 3: PinkPantheress, “Mosquito”Track 4: Earl Sweatshirt & the Alchemist, “Vin Skully”Track 5: Becky G featuring Chiquis, “Cuidadito”Track 6: Holly Humberstone, “Into Your Room”Track 7: Paramore & Remi Wolf, “You First (Re: Remi Wolf)”Track 8: The Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”Track 9: Jenn Champion, “Jessica” More

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      Becky G’s Revenge Fantasy, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by PinkPantheress, the Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, 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.Becky G featuring Chiquis, ‘Cuidadito’Becky G, an American singer with Mexican roots, has racked up millions of streams with hits in pop styles from across the Americas. On most of her new album, “Esquinas,” she latches onto the rising popularity of regional Mexican music, reviving ballads by Vicente Fernández, the revered Mexican ranchera songwriter, and collaborating with current regional Mexican hitmakers including Peso Pluma, Yahritza y Su Esencia and, on “Cuidadito” (“Be Careful”), the Mexican singer Chiquis. In a bouncy duet, they detail the kind of revenge they’re ready to take on a husband seen with another woman the night before: no breakfast, slashed tires, eviction. Spoiler: It was just a dream, but he’s been warned. JON PARELESDebby Friday, ‘Let U In’The Canadian electronic-pop songwriter Debby Friday, who just won Canada’s Polaris Prize, collaborated with the Australian producer Darcy Baylis on this new single. Over a double-time break beat and calmly pulsing synthesizers, Friday sings about an obsession that keeps her awake, even if the devotion may not be entirely mutual. She wonders, “Is the big heart my only sin?” PARELESPinkPantheress, ‘Mosquito’The latest single from the British pop star PinkPantheress is a sugary confection with a gothic edge. “I just had a dream I was dead, and I only cared ’cause I was taken from you,” she sings in her signature lilt, hopscotching across a skittish beat. Produced with Greg Kurstin, the track retains the dreamy charm of PinkPantheress’s homespun bedroom-pop but adds a glittery sheen. LINDSAY ZOLADZJaja Tresch featuring Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, ‘Nonji Chom’Here’s a burst of sheer jubilation. Jaja Tresch and two fellow Cameroonian singers, Coco Argentée and Denis Dino, trade verses on a track that hurtles along on six-beat rhythms, drawing on bikutsi and other styles original to their country. The lyrics, in the Meta’ language, tell young people to heed their parents and to persevere. As guitars, drums, balafons (marimbas), flutes and whistles all pile into the track, the music soars. PARELESThe Rolling Stones featuring Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga, “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”The absolute high point of “Hackney Diamonds,” the first album of new Rolling Stones songs since 2005, is “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.” It starts as a loose, gospelly song that just happens to have Stevie Wonder on keyboards; soon, Lady Gaga arrives to trade vocals with — and spur on — Mick Jagger. Horns come in to push the song to a grand finale, but apparently no one wants to let it end, and what sounds like a spontaneous studio jam lifts the song to another peak. Even in this digital era, it feels analog. PARELESH31R, ‘Right Here’H31R — the duo of the Brooklyn rapper maassai and the New Jersey producer JWords — conjures a sound for when lust conquers rationality on “Right Here.” The rap goes, “I know better/but if you wanna take me I could let ya,” over squishy electric piano chords, sporadic bass-drum hits and some tiny thing that’s just rattling and clanking around the mix. The mood is a tossup: eager but nonchalant, defensive but reckless. PARELESFaye Webster, ‘Lifetime’Turbulent love songs are everywhere; serene ones are much rarer. Faye Webster’s “Lifetime” savors a sense of permanence. The tempo is a very relaxed sway, piano and guitar trade little trickling phrases, and a chamber orchestra offers discreet support as Webster sings in a voice of bemused contentment, envisioning a lifelong connection. PARELESOneohtrix Point Never, ‘Again’There’s an eerie beauty in “Again,” the title track from the latest album by the electronic experimentalist Oneohtrix Point Never. The glitchy, wordless composition progresses through cycles of malfunction and decay — melodies seem to break apart, revealing the ghosts in the machines. If HAL 9000’s death scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey” makes you cry, this one’s for you. ZOLADZMatana Roberts, ‘How Prophetic’Reeds and violin explode in star bursts, over and again. A pair of drummers push ahead with a square-shouldered beat that could easily be lifted from a punk record, or from one of Junior Kimbrough’s electric blues. Alongside them, the alto saxophonist, multimedia artist and self-described “sound quilter” Matana Roberts speaks from the perspective of an ancestor (or maybe many), putting words to the critical consciousness that the women of Robert’s line have carried. “How Prophetic” arrives early on “Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden,” the latest in a series of albums exploring Roberts’s ancestry and inheritance, drawing from a mix of archival material, interviews with relatives and the artist’s imagination. At the end of “How Prophetic,” Roberts recites a refrain which recurs across the album: “My name is your name, our name is their name, we are named, we remember, they forget.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOThe National, ‘Smoke Detector’The National ends “Laugh Track,” its surprise-release second album of 2023, with “Smoke Detector,” an eight-minute live recording that’s a spiral of desperation. The lyrics work through free associations, promises and pleas — “Why don’t you lay here and listen to distant sirens with me?” — while the band circles obsessively through four chords, falling and rising, with its guitars tangling and seething, gnashing and wailing. “You don’t know how much I love you, do you?” Matt Berninger eventually asks, already knowing the sad answer. PARELESAtka, ‘Lenny’Atka is the singer and songwriter Sarah Neumann, who was born in Germany but is now based in London. In “Lenny,” she sings about trying to save a troubled man she still loves: “I need you, I always will,” she insists. She and her producer, Jung Kim from Gang of Youths, use frantically clattering percussion and an occasional sample of church bells to transform what could have been a basic two-chord rocker into an emotional siege. PARELESDarius Jones, ‘Zubot’It takes over two minutes for any prescribed melody to kick in on “Zubot,” as you can see clearly in the accompanying video, which animates Darius Jones’s written score. But by the time his alto saxophone syncs up with James Meger’s bass, playing a zigzagging, key-jumping melody while cellos and violins scrub and scrape around them, each instrument in the group has found a way to define itself. “Zubot” is the second of four movements in Jones’s new album-length suite, “Fluxkit Vancouver (It’s Suite but Sacred),” connected equally to 12-tone modernism and free jazz and the Southern soul saxophone tradition. RUSSONELLO More

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      Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: How an Unlikely Pair Soared Together

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      The crooner and the pop star seemed like unlikely collaborators when they joined up in 2014. But the two masters of reinvention inspired and bolstered each other’s careers.It’s still one of the most impressive flexes I’ve ever seen a musician pull off live — and at the age of 88, no less.In 2015, during the third of four sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga were sharing a bill, promoting their chart-topping, cross-generational 2014 duets album, “Cheek to Cheek.” They had a light, snappy chemistry on the songs they sang together, but the best parts of the night were their solo sets, each inviting their respective fan bases — Bennett’s tasteful traditionalists and Gaga’s sartorially zany but spiritually sincere Little Monsters — into the other’s world.For most of the concert, they’d been playing with a full band and orchestra, but for one number during his own set, Bennett summoned a single guitarist to join him in the snug radius of a spotlight. He told us the song was dedicated to his “best friend, Frank Sinatra,” and launched into a velvety rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” holding the microphone down at his side rather than bringing it to his lips. A few lines in, he set the mic down atop a piano and sang the rest without any amplification at all. The entire venue was suspended in a hush stillness, and Bennett’s voice was so strong and clear that you could hear every crystalline note, every enunciated lyric, even in the cheap seats.It was spellbinding, and so quintessentially Tony Bennett: the unshowy elegance, the inevitable name-dropping and, above all, the ease with which he suddenly transformed from the rat-a-tat every-crooner into a phenomenally gifted belter who could project like an opera singer.In August 2021, while battling Alzheimer’s disease, Bennett, who died on Friday at 96, made his final public appearance on that very same stage, again with Lady Gaga. He once again demonstrated strength and resilience, this time by simply performing at all. A poignant “60 Minutes” segment captured Bennett’s struggles in rehearsals but his ultimate triumph when he took the stage. In run-throughs, Gaga said, “He called me ‘sweetheart.’ But I wasn’t sure he knew who I was.” She witnessed a startling transformation, though, anytime the band struck the opening notes of another song and Bennett began to sing.“When the music comes on, something happens to him,” she said. “He knows exactly what he’s doing.”Here was the final act of an unlikely collaboration that had changed the trajectory of each musician’s career. When Gaga first linked up with Bennett for “Cheek to Cheek,” some skeptics saw it as nothing more than a savvy distraction, a way for a wild pop instigator to rebrand as a throwback jazz singer in the wake of her first major flop, the overblown (if, in hindsight, somewhat underrated) 2013 album “Artpop.” But the gusto, reverence and musical intelligence she brought to her work with Bennett undoubtedly won her fans and respect from an older generation of listeners. As I was filing out of Radio City that night in 2015, I couldn’t keep track of how many people I’d heard muttering versions of, “I had no idea that Lady Gaga could actually sing!”Bennett was no stranger to cannily timed reinvention, either. He stormed MTV when he was in his late 60s, recording an “Unplugged” album that featured collaborations with Elvis Costello and K.D. Lang, and that eventually won him a Grammy for album of the year. He sang with more eclectic and, in some cases, even younger musicians on his series of “Duets” albums, from 2006 to 2012. He found a kindred spirit in Amy Winehouse, but their connection was short-lived. Their great rendition of “Body and Soul,” for “Duets II,” was the last thing she ever recorded. It was released as a single posthumously, on what would have been Winehouse’s 28th birthday.Gaga satisfied Bennett’s desire to stay active and involved with a younger generation of musicians, and her professional stability made her into the most committed of his duet partners. But Gaga has also said that Bennett’s mentorship “saved” her life. The then-octogenarian’s example allowed her to think beyond the successes or failures of the present moment, and to value a musical career’s longevity. “I was so sad. I couldn’t sleep. I felt dead,” Gaga said of the time before “Cheek to Cheek.” “And then I spent a lot of time with Tony. He wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice.”It’s not that their voices or energies always blended particularly well — Gaga brought an antsy theatricality to their collaborations, while Bennett’s voice seemed to get even more laid-back and free of artifice as he aged — but the mutual admiration they shared was genuine enough to open the minds of their respective audiences and generational cohorts. With their Grammy-winning 2021 album of Cole Porter covers, “Love for Sale,” Bennett seemed to be passing the baton to Gaga, deeming her capable of continuing his lifelong task of keeping the Great American Songbook alive. And Gaga, in turn, was telling her Little Monsters to do their homework and appreciate American popular music’s rich history.One of their last, and most bittersweet, moments of mutual respect came during that 2021 Radio City show, forever immortalized in a “60 Minutes” clip that has been making the rounds on social media on Friday. After weeks of calling her “sweetheart,” the name finally came back to him when they were — where else? — onstage. “Whoa!” Bennett cried, to his duet partner’s obvious delight. “Lady Gaga!” More

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      Best Oscars Red Carpet Looks: Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett and More

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      Color was already a buzzword by the time the first stars showed up at the 95th Academy Awards, thanks to the new champagne rug that replaced the traditional red carpet.And as nominees and guests started to appear, so, too, did most every color of the rainbow: Angela Bassett arrived in purple and Dwayne Johnson in pink. Cate Blanchett went with blue; Sandra Oh with orange; and Fan Bing Bing with green. Rounding out the spectrum were gowns in yellow, worn by the costume designer Ruth E. Carter, and red, worn by the model Cara Delevingne.But it was white that might have emerged as the most popular shade of the night: Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Williams, Andrea Riseborough, Harry Shum Jr., Paul Mescal, Emily Blunt and Mindy Kaling all wore it. Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana DeBose, Zoe Saldana and Eva Longoria also wore white-leaning outfits, some of which sparkled because of liberal bedazzling.At an event that is basically the Olympics of dressing up, to ask who looked the best is something of a trick question because everyone looked glamorous. (One scroll through our full list of outfits from the carpet makes that clear.) The 21 looks that follow, though, had a little something extra — more polish or personality or panache (or all three) — that made them stand out more than most.Finishing this awards season strong and elegant.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCate Blanchett: The Most Restrained!The actress, who took on the role of an imperious orchestra conductor in the film “Tár,” reminded audiences that she is also a maestro of the (red) carpet when she arrived in a strong-shouldered velvet top from Louis Vuitton’s archives tucked gracefully into a trim silk skirt.Distinctive and daring.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDanai Gurira: The Most Updo!The square neckline on the actress’s gown projected strength. So did her gravity-defying hair — styled by Larry Sims — which Ms. Gurira said made her feel her most “African self.”Why wear an ordinary tuxedo?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarry Shum Jr.: The Most Asymmetrical!“East meets West” is how the actor described his custom tuxedo by Adeam, a label that traditionally makes women’s wear. The looser fit, asymmetrical lapel, navy piping and sash belt were all elements that made it more fun than your average penguin suit.Taking the shirtless trend to a new place.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesRiz Ahmed: The Most Subtle Pink!The actor’s Prada look, a black suit with a pink wool cardigan peeking out (and a bare chest peeking out beneath that), was perhaps best described as Batman meets Harry Styles.The only way to capture this dress properly was from the side.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHong Chau: The Most Party in the Back!A mandarin collar was a detail specifically requested by the Vietnamese actress for her satin Prada gown, which was adorned with a shimmering black train. The look, according to Ms. Chau, paid homage to her roots and to the brand’s 1997 show.More on the 95th Academy AwardsA24’s Triumphant Night: The art-house studio behind “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” became the first studio in the history of the Oscars to capture the top six awards in the same year.Normalcy Reigns: After breathing a sigh of relief that the night went smoothly, our co-chief film critics discussed the academy’s carefully staged return to (fingers crossed?) a new normal.Oscar Fashion: Rihanna’s belly, Florence Pugh’s shorts and Cate Blanchett’s archival velvet brought new relevance to awards show dressing, our fashion critic says.After-Parties: Take a look inside the Governor’s Ball and Vanity Fair’s Oscar party, where the stars and filmmakers celebrated with moguls, musicians and models.Making it look easy.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesNicole Kidman: The Most Flowers!She might not have not been up for any Oscars this year, but that did not stop the actress from dressing (and posing) like a winner in a shiny black Armani Privé gown with giant flowers at the shoulder and the hip and a leg-revealing front slit.Sharper than a stealth bomber.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJennifer Connelly: The Most Mach 10!The actress’s black Louis Vuitton gown had a gem-studded trapezoidal neckline that soared upward toward her jaw, like a runway lit up at night.A dress that is also a balancing act.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesJanelle Monáe: The Most Statuesque!Orange is reportedly among the least worn colors on awards-show carpets. Fitting, then, that the singer and actress known for taking style risks chose a tangerine-colored skirt to complete her custom Vera Wang ensemble.She always goes for it.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesFlorence Pugh: The Most Doing It!Shorts? At the Oscars? If anyone could make them work it would be the English actress, who sported a black pair beneath a voluminous gray-white Valentino couture gown made more edgy by her mini bangs and septum ring.Can we have this dance?Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesPaul Mescal: The Most Flared (Pants)!The internet’s boyfriend looked refreshingly retro and ready for prom in his white Gucci dinner jacket, complete with a rose on the lapel, and flared black trousers.A shape shifter, Lady Gaga always surprises.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLady Gaga: The Most Poker Faced!The singer and actress kept it relatively simple in a sheer black Versace gown straight off the runway. (Days before the Oscars, Gigi Hadid modeled the dress at the brand’s show in Los Angeles.) And instead of incorporating red meat into the look, she went with a red lip.Getting better and better every year.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAngela Bassett: The Most Purple!The actress’s snake-shaped necklace and soft wavy hair were two elements of a regal look that was anchored by a flowing Moschino gown in a purple shade that Ms. Bassett described as “the color of royalty.”Don’t let the sweetness fool you.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAllison Williams: The Most Killer!Like the A.I. humanoid robot she shares the screen with in “M3GAN,” the actress slayed the Oscars carpet in her sheer crystal-encrusted dress by Giambattista Valli, which she topped with a billowing pink satin coat.A winning shade.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDwayne Johnson: The Most Ballet!“Ballet pink” was how the actor described the color of his double-breasted Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket, which he said had a wool base that brought out the piece’s “masculinity.”She went all out with one leg and one arm out.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCara Delevingne: The Most Rosey!No red carpet, no problem. Thanks to the model and actress, who wore a scarlet one-shoulder Elie Saab dress with a high slit, the color was not totally absent from this year’s awards ceremony.Calm after the storm of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesStephanie Hsu: The Most Spacious!“I am wearing Valentino Haute Couture and it is giving ‘taking up space,’” the actress said of her strapless ball gown, which she paired with simple — if not sparkly — jewelry and side-swept hair in loose waves.A look that says: Go your own way.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSarah Polley: The Most Comfortable!Though the screenwriter and director of “Women Talking” may prioritize dressing practically — “I don’t ever like to be cold, and I don’t like my feet to hurt,” she said of her outfit on the carpet — her ruffle-trimmed shirt suggested that she appreciates playfulness as well.No risk of this dress blowing up over a subway grate.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAna de Armas: The Most Marilyn!It reportedly took 1,000 hours to make the petals that formed the skirt of Ms. de Armas’s silvery Louis Vuitton gown. In it, the actress looked as much like Marilyn Monroe, whom she portrayed in the film “Blonde,” as any others who have recently tried to channel the Old Hollywood icon.Oceanic.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHalle Bailey: The Most Disney Princess!Of the many princess dresses on the carpet, the singer’s poufy aquamarine Dolce & Gabbana gown arguably stood out the most. Why? Because of the buzz surrounding her role playing a Disney princess, Ariel, in the forthcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”Schwing!Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesHarvey Guillen: The Most Twirl!The shape of the actor’s brocade Christian Siriano suit jacket was matched only by his beautifully swirled hair shellacked into shiny waves.No matter where he goes, there he is.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesLenny Kravitz: The Most Lenny!The rock star showed up to perform at the Oscars looking as fine as ever in a low-cut satin Saint Laurent top with lots of necklaces layered over his exposed chest. When you have a working formula, as he does, stick with it.Stella Bugbee, Sadiba Hasan, Callie Holtermann, Madison Malone Kircher, Anthony Rotunno and Wilson Wong contributed reporting. More