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      Ana Tijoux’s ‘Vida’ Fights Sorrows With Joy

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      On “Vida,” the Chilean songwriter celebrates the life force.The finale of “Vida,” the new album by the Chilean songwriter Ana Tijoux, is “Fin del Mundo” (“The End of the World”). She sings and raps, in Spanish, about dire expectations: war, pollution, drought, a collision with a comet. But as a techno-tinged disco beat rises around her, she cheerfully declares, “If the end of the world is coming, let’s dance naked together.”“Vida” (“Life”) is Tijoux’s fifth studio album and her first since 2014. She chose its title pointedly.“I have a very good friend who talks to me about how life is the best vengeance against death,” she said in a video interview from her apartment in Barcelona, where she relocated during the pandemic and recorded the album. “That makes so much sense, to have vitality and energy. I insist that it doesn’t mean that we live in a superficial place. It doesn’t mean that it’s not political. We are living in a bizarre moment. And there is nothing more political than defending life and defending humanity.”In the album’s first single, “Niñx” (“Little Girlx”), Tijoux urges her daughter, and all young women, to find strength in joy: “Life scares them,” she sings. “Do not lose the laughter.”Tijoux, 46, found an international audience with her second solo album, “1977,” which was released in 2010. It was named after the year she was born, in France, to Chilean parents who had gone into exile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Living in Paris, Tijoux was drawn to the hip-hop she heard while visiting immigrant families from Africa with her mother, a social worker; she, too, felt like an outsider.“Even if I couldn’t understand the lyrics,” she said, “that kind of music, that culture, changed our life.”On “Vida,” Tijoux salutes 50 years of hip-hop in “Tú Sae’” (“Y’know”), joined by Plug 1 from De La Soul and Talib Kweli, who observes, “The root of community is unity.”Soon after the Pinochet regime ended in 1990, Tijoux returned to Chile with her parents. In the late 1990s, she established herself as a performer, rapping with the Chilean hip-hop group Makiza before going solo.The single “1977” multiplied her audience worldwide. It’s a quick-tongued, matter-of-factly autobiographical rap, backed by a vintage-sounding bolero, about growing up and finding her voice in hip-hop; it has been streamed tens of millions of times. In the United States, it was boosted by prominent placement in a 2011 episode of “Breaking Bad.”On “1977” and the albums that followed, Tijoux glided easily between rapping and singing. With her 2011 album, “La Bala” (“The Bullet”), she began collaborating with the producer and multi-instrumentalist Andrés Celis. He helped broaden her music across eras and regions, drawing on R&B, reggae, rock, electronica and multiple folk traditions along with far-reaching hip-hop samples.“We’re not super experts on any style of music,” Celis said in a video interview from his studio in Santiago, Chile. “So we’re used to blending everything in a genuine, almost naïve way.”They build all of her songs together. “She’s a very intuitive artist,” Celis said. “The style of working that we have is like, I bring something very simple — some chords, maybe a little melody, sometimes a bass line, whatever goes with the vibe, you know? And then she’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s what we have to talk about.’”Tijoux has often written about politics, feminism, resistance, solidarity and the predations of capitalism: songs like “Somos Sur” (“We Are the South”), a modal stomp about the silencing, strength and fearlessness of Africa and Latin America, which features the Palestinian rapper Shadia Mansour; and “Antipatriarca” (“Anti-Patriarch”), a feminist manifesto set to Andean flutes, guitars and drums.But after the release of her 2014 album, “Vengo,” Tijoux’s songwriting slowed. While she continued touring, she was also raising two children — Luciano, now 18, and Emiliana, 10 — and working on assorted collaborations. One was “Lightning Over Mexico” with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and the Bloody Beetroots, which had Tijoux rapping angrily about murdered Mexican student activists. Another was “Almacén de Datos” (“Data Warehouse”), a reggaeton song with the Argentine songwriter Sara Hebe that pushes back on treating music as a commodity in the attention economy: “For a businessman, everything is a market,” Tijoux taunts.Between albums, events spurred Tijoux to write singles. They included “Pa’ Qué” (“Why”), a brisk salsa song, with the Puerto Rican rapper PJ Sin Suela, that mocked politicians downplaying Covid-19; “Rebelión de Octubre” (“October Rebellion”), a ballad that crescendos into an anthem praising protests in Chile and worldwide; and the hard-nosed rap “Antifa Dance.”In a statement with “Antifa Dance,” Tijoux wrote: “In the face of authoritarianism, imposition, discrimination, the implacable hatred of the other, we return to the word Art with all its force. That art onslaught with music, colors, that art that dances in response, as an organized movement of beautiful rebellion.”Some of the songs on “Vida” directly extend Tijoux’s sociopolitical concerns. “Oyeme” (“Hear Me”) is a stark, percussive rap and chanted melody that Tijoux wrote after seeing reports that Britain was housing migrant asylum seekers on a barge. “I always have news on in the morning,” Tijoux said. “And it was terrible and absurd once again. I was thinking about the parallel between that and the slave ships.”Another song, the somber “Busco Mi Nombre” (“I Search for My Name”), is about people who were arrested and “disappeared” by dictatorships in Argentina and Chile; it’s prefaced by spoken words from the grandmother of one Argentine victim. Tijoux wrote and sings it with iLe, the Puerto Rican songwriter who got her start with the activist hip-hop group Calle 13. They met more than a decade ago, sharing the stage at a concert in Brooklyn.“Years ago there weren’t so many female political figures,” iLe said via video from Puerto Rico. “It’s a difficult challenge to speak through songs, about things that you might be afraid to say. And it’s nice to feel that there are women who are transcending their own fears and just writing and making songs about what they feel they need to talk about. It’s risky, but it comes from an honest place. And I think Ana has done that from the beginning.”Much of “Vida” is purposefully upbeat — recognizing struggles and losses but looking beyond them. Tijoux wrote “Tania” in memory of her sister, who died of cancer in 2019; it starts as an elegy but turns into a celebration. “She was super funny, she had a lot of vitality,” Tijoux said. “So to make just a sad song would not be fair.”And in “Bailando Sola Aquí” (“Dancing Alone Here”), an Afrobeats track topped with Latin percussion, Tijoux sings, “I’m tired of this sadness, crying a river for you,” then declares, “I decided to be happy.”The album is filled with dance beats: funk, trap, cumbia, disco. “I’m a terrible dancer, but I love to dance,” Tijoux said with a smile. “I think the terrible dancers are the best dancers because everyone’s laughing at us on the dance floor. Professional dancers are not funny — you need a bad dancer to make the party interesting.“We can dance and fight at the same time,” she added. “They’re not opposites.” More

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      On ‘Orquídeas,’ Kali Uchis Gets All She Wants

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      The fourth album by the Colombian American songwriter makes bliss triumphant.Kali Uchis basks in pleasure on her fourth studio album, “Orquídeas.” Make that pleasures: carnal, material, romantic, sonic, competitive and, if necessary, vengeful, all with a girlish nonchalance. The album begins with loops of laughter and ethereal oohs and ahs; it ends with Uchis thanking listeners with a “mwah” kiss. It’s an album of breezy confidence and sly ingenuity, easily moving among futuristic electronics, 1990s nostalgia and Latin roots.“Orquídeas” are orchids: the national flower of Colombia, where Uchis’s parents were born. Uchis — Karly-Marina Loaiza — was born and grew up in Virginia, but she made long visits to Colombia while growing up. Orchids are colorful, alluring, fleshy, delicate, demanding and coveted, just as Uchis has presented herself throughout her recording career. In her new songs, she’s an irresistible, knowing object of desire. “I make ’em beg for it,” she announces in the album’s opening song, “¿Cómo Así?” (“How So?”), singing, “If you come around here, you’ll never wanna leave.”Uchis, 29, has deliberately alternated between albums with lyrics primarily in English or Spanish, and “Orquídeas” is nominally her latest Spanish-language album. But now that she has built a worldwide audience, her new songs are fluidly bilingual; they casually switch between English and Spanish, sometimes in mid-phrase. “I get a lil bit crazy pero es no mi culpa,” she sings in “Me Ponga Loca” (“I Get Crazy”), adding “Es que soy apasionada.” (“It’s not my fault — it’s that I’m passionate.”)Uchis and her many songwriting and production collaborators draw on expertly seductive pop and R&B from past generations, often using 21st-century technology to extrapolate from the plush, whispery fantasies of 1990s R&B hitmakers like Janet Jackson and Aaliyah. Lavishly layered vocals nestle among glimmering electronic sounds and programmed beats, and on “Orquídeas,” her voice sounds completely untethered by gravity.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?  More

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      12 Key Music Collections, From Future to the Who

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

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      Carlos Lyra, Composer Who Brought Finesse to Bossa Nova, Dies at 90

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      When Brazilian musicians fused samba with jazz and classical influences in the 1950s and ’60s, he was among the first, and the best.Carlos Lyra, a Brazilian composer, singer and guitarist whose cool, meticulous melodies helped give structure and power to bossa nova, the samba-inflected jazz style that became a worldwide phenomenon in the early 1960s, died on Dec. 16 in Rio de Janeiro. He was 90.His daughter, the singer Kay Lyra, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was sepsis.Alongside Antônio Carlos Jobim, Mr. Lyra was widely considered among the greatest composers of bossa nova. Mr. Jobim once called him “a great melodist, harmonist, king of rhythm, of syncopation, of swing” and “singular, without equal.”Mr. Lyra was part of a loose circle of musicians who in the 1950s began looking for ways to blend the traditional samba sounds of Brazil with American jazz and European classical influences. They often gathered at the Plaza Hotel in Rio, not far from the Copacabana beach, to discuss music and hash out ideas.One of those musicians, the singer and guitarist João Gilberto, included three of Mr. Lyra’s compositions — “Maria Ninguém” (“Maria Nobody”), “Lobo Bobo” (“Foolish Wolf”) and “Saudade Fêz um Samba” (“Saudade Made a Samba”) — on his “Chega de Saudade” (1959), which has often been called the first bossa nova album. Mr. Lyra released his own first album a year later, titled simply “Carlos Lyra: Bossa Nova.”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?  More

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      Chatting About the Best Songs of 2023

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

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      Sara Tavares, Portuguese Singer Who Prized Her African Roots, Dies at 45

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      She drew on rhythms from across the African diaspora and sang in Portuguese, English, Cape Verdean Criolo and Angolan slang.Sara Tavares, a Portuguese songwriter, singer and guitarist with a gentle voice and an ear for global pop, died on Nov. 19 in Lisbon. She was 45.Her label, Sony Portugal, announced the death, in a hospital, on social media. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2009.Ms. Tavares began her career in the pop mainstream, singing R&B-influenced songs in Portuguese and English. But as she found her own style, she came to embrace her African roots.Her parents were from Cape Verde, a nation of islands off the coast of Senegal, and Ms. Tavares increasingly drew on rhythms from across the African diaspora: Cape Verdean morna, funaná and coladeira, Brazilian samba and bossa nova, and Angolan semba, as well as funk and salsa.She often defined rhythmic fusions with her own intricate guitar picking, and she sang in Portuguese, English, Cape Verdean Creole (known as Criolo) and Angolan slang. In “Balancê,” the title song of her 2005 album and one of her biggest hits, she sang in Portuguese about wanting to share “A new dance/A mix of semba with samba, mambo with rumba.”Sara Alexandra Lima Tavares was born on Feb. 1, 1978, in Lisbon; her parents had moved to Portugal from Cape Verde earlier in the decade. She grew up admiring American singers like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway; learned English; and delved into gospel music.At 16, she won a nationally televised contest, “Chuva de Estrelas,” singing the Whitney Houston hit “One Moment in Time.” She went on to represent Portugal at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.Her debut EP, “Sara Tavares & Shout,” released in 1996, emulated American pop-R&B and featured a gospel choir called Shout. Her 1999 album, “Mi Ma Bo” (“You and Me”), was produced by the Paris-based Congolese songwriter Lokua Kanza and dipped into an international assortment of styles. It was certified gold in Portugal.Ms. Tavares fully came into her own with the albums she released in the 2000s, which she produced or co-produced herself: “Balancê” in 2005, “Xinti” (“Feel It”) in 2009 and — after a hiatus following her diagnosis with a brain tumor — “Fitxadu” in 2017, which was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. (“Fixtadu” is Criolo for the Portuguese “fechado,” which means closed.) Intricate, transparent and seemingly effortless, carried by acoustic guitars and percussion, her songs offered yearning introspection, thoughts about love and socially conscious admonitions.Ms. Tavares in performance in Lisbon in 2018 with the Brazilian hip-hop artists Emicida, left, and Rael.Jose Sena Goulao/Epa-Efe/Rex, via Shutterstock In an interview promoting the release of “Balancê,” she said: “When I walk around with my friends, it’s a very, very interesting community. We speak Portuguese slang, Angolan slang, some words in Cape Verdean Criolo, and of course some English. In Criolo there are already English and French words. This is because slaves from all over the world had to communicate and didn’t speak the same languages.”She added: “I want to be a part of a movement like the African Americans were, like the African Brazilians were. Instead of doing the music of their ancestors, they have created this musical identity of their own. And it is now respected. It is considered whole and authentic and genuine. It will be a long time before the people from my generation do not have to choose between being African or European. I think you shouldn’t have to choose.”Between her own albums, Ms. Tavares collaborated widely, recording with the Angolan electronic group Buraka Som Sistema and the Portuguese rapper and singer Slow J, among others. Her last release, in September, was “Kurtidu,” a single that used electric guitars and programmed beats. Her voice stayed friendly and airborne on every track she sang, sailing above borders.Information on survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Tavares received online tributes from the presidents of both Portugal and Cape Verde, where she had won Cabo Verde Music Awards for best female voice in 2011 and for “Fitxadu” in 2018.President José Maria Neves of Cape Verde said on Facebook:“Sara Tavares, through her voice, her smile, her glance, was able to plant peace, friendship and brotherhood among Cape Verdeans, and also between Cape Verdeans and the world.” He added, “Your light will illuminate the path that still lies with us, in this land that temporarily welcomes us.” More

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      Ricardo Arjona, Prolific Latin Pop Star, Says He Will Stop Touring

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      The Guatemalan singer-songwriter said that his latest performance in Chile would be his last after struggling with back issues that made it difficult to stand and perform.Ricardo Arjona, the Guatemalan singer and songwriter known for dozens of Latin pop ballads that became international hits over a career that spanned more than 30 years, said he would stop touring, citing back problems and an imminent surgery.Arjona, 59, wrote in social media posts on Sunday that he would stop performing on his “Blanco y Negro” tour after a show in Santiago, Chile, though his statement fell short of announcing a retirement.“I’ll have to disappear to invent a reason that’s bigger than this,” he wrote in Spanish. “If I can’t find it, I prefer not to return.”Arjona said he had received “six spinal infiltrations,” also known as epidural injections, over the past two months to be able to stand during his concerts, and to delay surgery. Before he performed on Saturday, Arjona said he wasn’t sure if he would be able to take a step. His “Blanco y Negro” tour, which began last year in Buenos Aires, included dozens of shows, with several stops in Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala. The North American leg of the tour this year included stops at Madison Square Garden in New York, as well as dozens of other cities across the United States.“I came from dear Argentina, which gave me songs in the street and gave me a glory that I did not deserve,” he said. “I say goodbye in this Chile of so many stories and affections.”The tour highlighted two of his albums: “Blanco,” which was released in 2020, and “Negro,” which came out in 2021. Over the course of a career that has spanned more than 30 years, Arjona has produced more than a dozen studio albums, which have earned him several awards and accolades, including the Billboard Latin music lifetime achievement award in 2017.In 2006, Arjona won a Grammy Award for best Latin pop album and the Latin Grammy Award for best male pop vocal album for his album “Adentro.” As of December, Arjona’s music was drawing more than 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify.Arjona began his musical career in the 1980s, and after his music didn’t initially attract many listeners, he briefly taught at a public school, he said in an interview in 2011. He returned to music, and his career took off in the 1990s, when he released songs like “Historia de Taxi,” the tale of a taxi driver’s love affair. The song remains one of his most popular hits to date, having been played more than 158 million times on Spotify. Multiple other hits followed and ranked him on the top Latin music charts for his signature songs of romantic lyrics and inventive storytelling.“Life and people have been immensely generous to this Guatemalan,” he wrote on social media, adding, “a public-school teacher, who by playing the guitar, adding some words and trying a melody, achieved a miracle that I never suspected.” 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