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    Lil Nas X Runs New York Half Marathon in Coach Sneakers

    The rapper and singer, clad in bulky designer sneakers and the official race T-shirt, was a last-minute addition at the NYC Half.Ahead of one of its signature events, New York Road Runners fielded an unusual email request on Friday night.The rapper and singer Lil Nas X, who was visiting New York from Los Angeles, had seen some advertisements for the United Airlines NYC Half, a 13.1-mile race that was set to be staged on Sunday morning. And one of his representatives was curious: Did the race have room for one more runner?“It kind of came out of the blue,” Rob Simmelkjaer, the chief executive of New York Road Runners, said in a telephone interview on Monday.The nonprofit, which puts on about 60 races each year, including the New York City Marathon, was happy to oblige. It hardly mattered that Lil Nas X, who will turn 25 next month, had seldom run more than three miles consecutively, let alone a half-marathon. Or that he showed up for the race in a pair of Coach high-top sneakers, which are more boot than high-end racing flat.Accompanied by Roberto Mandje, New York Road Runners’ senior adviser for running engagement and coaching, Lil Nas X was among more than 27,000 finishers, completing the race in 2 hours 32 minutes 53 seconds.“We would be running and you’d hear someone shout, ‘Wait, was that Lil Nas X?’” Mr. Mandje said in an interview. “So he’d turn around and wave, and they’d freak out.”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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    ‘Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero’ Review: A Hip-Hop Trailblazer

    The documentary, streaming on Max, follows the queer singer-rapper on the road and at home, but the best scenes by far are when he is onstage.To watch the singer-rapper Lil Nas X in the documentary “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero” is to witness a Black queer man embody a power that still feels very new.Directed by Carlos López Estrada (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) and Zac Manuel, this film, streaming on Max, is historically important given its subject’s place in hip-hop, a genre dominated by heterosexuality and hypermasculinity. New interview footage with Montero Lamar Hill, a.k.a. Lil Nas X, from both on the road and in his home, is juxtaposed with performances from the artist’s recent “Long Live Montero Tour,” a celebration of queer eroticism and joy.But the scenes are assembled like the wall collage of pop stars that we see in his otherwise empty bedroom, resulting in frustrating interview segments that are both broad and cursory. Lil Nas X is forthcoming in the documentary about his preshow bowel movements, for example, but is less open about more meaningful thoughts, such as how his religious journey is connected to his work.When the musician Little Richard, known for his flashy attire and complicated past, comes up in a 1972 interview clip that Lil Nas X briefly comments on, the film makes a quick point about Black queer artists who have struggled to be out. It then falters by generalizing a history that, with some added details, could have better emphasized Lil Nas X’s current impact on culture.“Saying actual words — it’s really hard to do,” Lil Nas X eventually admits. Still, the best parts of this documentary are onstage, where his freedom to be himself tells its own thrilling story.Lil Nas X: Long Live MonteroNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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    How Did Melanie’s ’Brand New Key” Hit No. 1?

    Melanie’s “Brand New Key” is just one of many weird songs that somehow topped the Billboard charts.When Melanie’s “Brand New Key” debuted in 1971, some people were confused. What did the singer, who died on Tuesday at 76, mean when she sang about having a brand-new pair of roller skates and someone else having a brand-new key?Melanie told interviewers that she wrote the song in 15 minutes, after ending a 27-day fast, and that it was intended to be cute. The folk singer said that it did not have a deeper meaning, though many thought its playful lyrics about biking and roller skating were really about sex (“Don’t go too fast but I go pretty far”). It sounded strange, like a song out of time — Melanie said she intended it to hearken to the 1930s — sung with what could now be called a warbling “indie girl voice.” And it somehow hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.The song has lingered in pop culture, from a lip sync battle between Jimmy Fallon and Melissa McCarthy to a post-apocalyptic DJ playing it endlessly on “Kids in the Hall.”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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    Lil Nas X, Ariana Grande and 21 Savage Kick Off 2024

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:Lil Nas X’s comeback single “J Christ,” a continuation of his trollcore pop narrative, with its ostentatious video and punchline-heavy media rolloutThe new 21 Savage album “American Dream,” the first blockbuster hip-hop album of the year, with many high-profile features and some reckoning with the immigration case that nearly derailed his careerThe sonic shift in Ariana Grande’s new song, “Yes, And?,” her first solo single in three yearsNew tracks from Bizarrap featuring Young Miko, and Jastin MartinSnack of the weekConnect 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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    Is ‘J Christ’ Lil Nas X’s Final Troll?

    The rapper and singer has always been a master of the internet, not of music. But with his latest release, “J Christ,” he’s lost his grip on virality, too.More than any working pop star, Lil Nas X understands how music is consumed in the contemporary landscape: in pieces, in memes, in reaction videos, in snippets of audio used to soundtrack get-ready-with-me clips on social media. In intimations and nudges. In discourse that may or may not have much to do with said music at all.And so for Lil Nas X, a song is a pretense. He is less a rapper or a singer than a meme maker with a seven-figure budget. Music is the fourth or fifth most important part of his presentation, the foundation for missives on X (formerly Twitter), TikToks and Instagram posts that matter as much, and probably more.Or, as the hook of his new single “J Christ” muses: “Is he ’bout to give ’em something viral?”That would be the goal, of course, but the best viral content bubbles up unpolished from the ether, slightly awkward and just novel enough to astound. That’s what Lil Nas X made his name with. It is the story of “Old Town Road,” his breakout song, which went from TikTok curiosity to bar mitzvah anthem in just a few months in early 2019.The vexatious “J Christ” tries to reverse engineer that kind of success. It is planned virality, mood-boarded and line-itemed. First, it is a concept — Lil Nas X is returning — and only then, a visual narrative and a song to animate it. The result is stylish but not artistic, glossy but without shine, hyperstylized but lazy. Being the most clever pop star is much easier than being the most clever online comedian, and his tropes are wearing thin.In the video, which vividly and sometimes beautifully riffs on cheap shock, he is a Christ-ish figure — another comeback king! — dancing his way through various fields of evil in a lumpy sequel to a beloved original: “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” Lil Nas X’s comically baroque single and video from 2021. In that playful and bizarre clip, he theatrically tussles with the temptations of new fame, culminating in giving a lap dance to Satan. It was refreshing, winking bacchanal — a whole idea.“J Christ,” to the extent that it functions at all, works in bits. The video is merely a string of micro-shock vignettes, many of them a callback to his greatest hits (of two years ago): the Satan Shoes containing a drop of blood, the stripper pole to hell from the “Montero” video. He remakes the “Jesus crossing up Satan on a basketball court” meme. He ushers a flock of animals to a big boat. (That was Noah, but whatever.) In a promotional clip, he pounds his staff onto the ground and parts a huge body of water. (Moses, but who’s counting.)The video opens, for unclear reasons, with celebrity impersonators of Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ed Sheeran, Kanye West and more lined up at heaven’s gate. This conceit, too, is recycled — either from the nearest Madame Tussauds, or from West’s 2016 “Famous” video, a far more titillating and genuine transgression.Each of these micro jokes functions like a jump scare — just unexpected enough to elicit a tiny gasp. But underneath, there’s little scaffolding. They’re punchlines designed to be clipped and denatured of meaning. The lyrics are empty, too — only the grating, nasal, syllable-extending assonance rhyming “vi-i-i-ral”/“hi-i-i-gh” has any stickiness. (It should be said that the video is a small triumph of wardrobe: striped sweat socks under cowboy boots paired with a sheer wrap, a pink cheerleader outfit, a bejeweled headpiece that bisects the face vertically. The haute-camp styling is the most conceptually rigorous thing here.)Record labels are increasingly in the content business, and by that metric, Lil Nas X is the platonic ideal of a star. Imagine the meetings involving artists who are less comfortable with the camera, less self-aware, less fluent with algorithmic distribution. Imagine musicians who simply wish to play music.Lil Nas X cannot. “yall mind if i enter my christian era?” he asked on Instagram a few weeks ago, in a caption to a video in which he sang a folk-gospel song more elegant than anything he’s thus far released.On TikTok, he wolfed down communion crackers. He posted a mock acceptance letter from Liberty University, the evangelical institution, signed by Jerry Falwell (who died in 2007).Lil Nas X even weaponized, meekly, the media outlets that would have given him breathless coverage regardless. The @PopCrave X account shared staged red carpet footage of the celebrity doppelgängers from his video shouting his praises as if it were real. Official Spotify accounts posted “LNX is back with more mid-music 🤷‍♂️” — he’s trolling the critics in advance.Call it what you want: a statement of fact, a statement of defiance, a statement of indifference. But really it’s just a cheap LOL, and a place for Lil Nas X defenders to aggregate.But all this attention farming must be tiring. During his last rollout, Lil Nas X spent loads of time on Twitter dunking on adversaries. Now, he’s doing much less of that, while sprinkling in the exasperation of the misunderstood: “since i’m a troll y’all discount my art as just ‘pissing ppl off,’” he wrote before “J Christ” was released.In a self-filmed four-minute video posted across all his social media on Monday, he paced and spoke seemingly extemporaneously about some of the backlash he’s received for his playful manipulation of religious imagery and themes. The Grammy-winning Christian rapper Lecrae said on X, “if God can transform King Neb, murders, slave masters, sex workers, etc. he can add another Blasphemer to the list.” And the antic Twitch streamer Kai Cenat fumed, “God gonna handle you, bro.”These are deep-sigh, predictable responses to deep-sigh, predictable jokes. But in his response video, it would seem Lil Nas X is taking critiques like these seriously. At one point, he apologizes for some of his specific bits, even while confessing that he doesn’t fully understand the imagery he was referencing.That said, the most powerful aspect of the clip is the anticipation that he might break character at any moment. Is this simply part of the bit, a setup for the next meme? Is he going to end up sitting down with Cenat for a debate about God, or do a saint-sinner duet with Lecrae?As he’s walking, Lil Nas X’s selfie camera returns again and again to a shelf with a pair of goofy yellow boots, a collaboration between Crocs and the unbearable meme brand MSCHF (his partner on last cycle’s Satan Shoes). Even in what’s meant to be his most earnest moment, the jester is just around the corner — it’s almost impossible to convey gravity when your sincerest form of expression is mockery. More

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    Ariana Grande’s House-Groove Kiss-Off, and 9 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Lil Nas X, Waxahatchee, serpentwithfeet and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes), and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Ariana Grande, ‘Yes, And?’Ariana Grande returns with a thumping, crimson-lipped kiss-off on “Yes, And?,” a feather-light confection safely — but still enjoyably — in her comfort zone. Grande has been filming the movie version of the smash musical “Wicked” since her 2020 album “Positions,” so this comeback single lets her have some fun with the house-music revival (à la Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul”) that has become popular in her absence. The most obvious sonic reference that Grande and her fellow writers and producers Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh are conjuring here is Madonna’s “Vogue,” and though the song does its best to seem like a communal rallying cry (“Boy come on, put your lipstick on/Come on and walk this way through the fire”), its most pointed lyrics are about the particular and seemingly vexing experience of being Ariana Grande. “Don’t comment on my body, do not reply,” she intones on a suddenly serious spoken-word bridge. “Your business is yours and mine is mine.” It’s a relief when the beat returns and she once again ascends, blithely resuming her dance on air. LINDSAY ZOLADZLil Nas X, ‘J Christ’Lil Nas X has returned using what’s worked for him before: an evangelical-baiting song title and a video that twists biblical imagery, with the rapper and singer being crucified and then reappearing as Noah. (He also goes one-on-one with the devil on a basketball court and shimmies as a cheerleader with a skirt and pompoms.) The underlying song is solid but secondary: a piano lick, a percussive melody and a blunt attempt at notoriety. The hook is “Bitch, I’m bad like J. Christ,” but another line is the point: “Is he ’bout to give ’em something viral?” Let the algorithms decide. JON PARELESJeymes Samuel, D’Angelo and Jay-Z, ‘I Want You Forever’Jeymes Samuel, Jay-Z and the elusive D’Angelo are in no particular hurry on “I Want You Forever,” a loose, sprawling nine-and-a-half-minute reverie from the soundtrack of Samuel’s new film “The Book of Clarence.” “All I want to say is that I love you so much, I don’t want to be without you,” D’Angelo croons repeatedly, until his language seems to liquefy. Under such hypnosis, even Jay sounds uncharacteristically chill, but his laid-back flow can’t hide the heartbreak in his words: “Slept on the couch, ’cause the bed ain’t a bed without you.” ZOLADZserpentwithfeet, ‘Safe Word’Trust is an aphrodisiac in “Safe Word.” Josiah Wise, who records as serpentwithfeet, promises that “The safe word is me” and “I’m your shelter,” while adding that he’s “insatiable,” in “Safe Word.” Plucked guitar notes, sparse percussion and whistling accompany the high croon of his voice, which insists on intimacy even when it gets some Auto-Tuned flourishes. PARELESWaxahatchee featuring MJ Lenderman, ‘Right Back to It’Katie Crutchfield, Waxahatchee’s singer and songwriter, marvels at long-term love by admitting how much she tests it. “I let my mind run wild/Don’t know why I do it,” she sings, “But you just settle in like a song with no end.” The track is easygoing and countryish, complete with homey banjo picking, and MJ Lenderman provides supportive harmony vocals and electric guitar. But the scratchy tension in Crutchfield’s voice betrays her continuing self-doubts. PARELESFaye Webster featuring Lil Yachty, ‘Lego Ring’The indie-folk crooner Faye Webster and the iconoclastic rapper Lil Yachty have been friends since middle school, and their easy chemistry makes “Lego Ring,” a single from Webster’s upcoming album “Underdressed at the Symphony,” sound more cohesive than expected. Amid crunchy guitars and percussive hits of piano, Yachty’s Auto-Tuned warbles provide textured backing vocals for Webster, singing an ode to one of the cheaper pieces of jewelry ever coveted in a pop song. “Me and you, the dream team,” Yachty sings, playfully, when he takes the lead, “always together like string beans.” ZOLADZSheryl Crow, ‘Evolution’Sheryl Crow ponders artificial intelligence in “Evolution.” She hears her music deep-faked on the radio; she wonders, “Where are we headed in this paradise?/We are passengers and there’s no one at the wheel.” The song is a broad-shouldered rock anthem, bolstered by strings and a squealing lead-guitar solo. It posits the superiority of human feelings and hopes for a “grand solution,” but the best odds Crow can offer are “maybe.” PARELESJhené Aiko, ‘Sun/Son’Can love be renewable energy? “You charge me up,” Jhené Aiko coos in “Sun/Son,” as she connects the warmth of an embrace to “solar power.” She’s surrounded with cascading vocal harmonies over a purring, melodic bass line, luxuriating in the romance; an alternate piano-centered version turns the same sentiments into a hymn. PARELESBrhyM, ‘Deep Blue’Bruce Hornsby collaborated with the contemporary chamber group yMusic on the coming album “Deep Sea Vents,” billing their merger as BrhyM. “Deep Blue” touches on Minimalism, psychedelia and traditional jazz, with a steady backbeat, a polytonal piano lick, electric sitar and back-talk from trumpet, clarinet and violin. It’s casually philosophical. “I said to the universe, ‘Sir, I exist,’” Hornsby sings. “The universe replied, “The fact does not create in me a sense of obligation.’” PARELESBen Frost, ‘The River of Light and Radiation’The composer Ben Frost chops up brutally distorted electric guitars and programmed kick drums to propel “The River of Light and Radiation,” which starts as ominous pummeling and grows ever more dire, adding jolt after jolt. PARELES More

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    Red Hot Chili Peppers Honor Eddie Van Halen, and 10 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Margo Price, Jamie xx, the Comet Is Coming and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Red Hot Chili Peppers, ‘Eddie’Red Hot Chili Peppers memorialize Eddie Van Halen and 1980s Los Angeles with what sounds like an old-fashioned, real-time studio jam in “Eddie.” Anthony Kiedis sings biographical snippets — “My brother’s a keeper/I married a TV wife” — while Flea’s bass and John Frusciante’s guitar chase each other all the way through the song, in an ever-changing counterpoint of hopping bass lines and teasing, wailing, shredding, overdriven guitar — the sound of a band in a room, still pushing one another. PARELESKelsea Ballerini, ‘Muscle Memory’In “Muscle Memory,” Kelsea Ballerini orchestrates an instinctive reunion with an old flame — “my body won’t forget our history” — with classic tools: two chords, a backbeat, a lead guitar with wordless caresses. “How long will you be back in town?” she asks, concealing her eagerness. PARELESMargo Price, ‘Change of Heart’Margo Price reaches toward the 1960s and the confrontational side of psychedelia with “Change of Heart.” A wiry blues guitar riff and jabs of organ hint at the Doors as Price delivers a breaking-away song that toys with paradoxes: “You run from danger/straight into trouble,” she sings, adding, “Way down deep you’re as shallow as me.” Just to keep things off- balance, every now and then the band adds an extra beat, while a long, gradual fade-out suggests she’s still a little reluctant to move on. PARELESJamie xx, ‘Kill Dem’It’s now been seven long years since the D.J., producer, and longtime xx member Jamie xx released his beloved solo album “In Colour,” but this year he’s put out two rousing new singles: first the ecstatic “Let’s Do It Again” and now the elastic “Kill Dem.” Built around a sample of the dancehall great Cutty Ranks’ “Limb by Limb,” Jamie minces his source material into barely discernible syllables and launches it into hyperspace, leaving its component parts to ping off one another with a bouncy, exuberant energy. ZOLADZThe Comet Is Coming, ‘Pyramids’The British jazz saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who lived in Barbados from ages 6 to 16, is at the core of multiple groups with different lineups. In the Comet Is Coming, he works with the synthesizer player Dan Leavers, or Danalogue, and the drummer Maxwell Hallett, a.k.a. Betamax, in a zone where electronic dance music and jazz collide. “Pyramids” is from the trio’s new album, “Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam”; the title of this track might allude to “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead, which shares some of the same ascending yet foreboding chords. Danalogue uses 1980s synthesizers for plump bass tones and upward swoops; Betamax mixes drums and drum machines, constantly accenting different offbeats. And with his meaty tone on tenor saxophone, Hutchings plays a jumpy, dissonant line that’s equally mocking and party-hearty, a bent Carnival shout. PARELESWitch, ‘Waile’In the 1970s, the Zambian rock band Witch — an acronym for We Intend to Cause Havoc — fused garage-rock, psychedelia and funk with African rhythms, spurring a movement called Zamrock. The wider world discovered them with the release of a 2011 collection, and surviving members of the band — the singer Emmanuel (Jagari) Chanda and the keyboardist Patrick Mwondela — returned to the studio in 2021 backed by international musicians, including the Dutch neo-psychedelic songwriter Jacco Gardner. “Waile,” written in 1978 but not previously recorded, addresses “sorrow and suffering” and the separation of a family. It moves through a percolating xylophone-and-guitar riff, blasts of fuzztone, some brisk African funk and, midway through, a slower lament carried by women’s voices before the beat picks up again and hard-nosed guitar riffs push ahead — undaunted. PARELESFlo, ‘Not My Job’On “Not My Job,” the British girl group Flo update the glittering sound of Y2K pop-R&B with a little modern-day therapy-speak: “It’s not my job to make you feel comfortable,” the trio asserts on the chorus. “If you ain’t being vulnerable, that says it all.” The blingy sheen, skittering beat and synthesized strings all conjure an aesthetic you may have not even realized you were nostalgic for — it’s giving “Case of the X”; it’s giving “The Writing’s on the Wall” — albeit enlivened with a fresh, contemporary twist. ZOLADZLil Nas X, ‘Star Walkin’If Lil Nas X continues to play jester, expertly, on social media — this week, he posted impishly hilarious videos of himself sending pizzas to protesters outside of one of his concerts, and of his newly minted wax figure FaceTiming his confused friends — his new single “Star Walkin’” suggests that he is still interested in using his music as an outlet for feelings that complicate that persona, like anxiety, light melancholy and self-doubt. “They said I wouldn’t make it out alive,” he sings defiantly on this gleaming, synth-driven track, which serves as the theme song for this year’s League of Legends World Championship. The one-off certainly doesn’t rank among his most memorable singles, but it’s further proof that he’s figured out a reliable sonic formula to turn personal apprehension into steely braggadocio; by the end of the song, he asks, “Why worship legends when you know that you can join them?” ZOLADZEmiliana Torrini & the Colorist Orchestra, ‘Right Here’Emiliana Torrini attests to the reassurance of a lasting relationship in “Right Here”: “Here’s to all the roads that we’ve been down,” she sings with a smile. “I’m right here by your side.” She’s backed by the Colorist Orchestra, a happily quirky Belgian chamber-pop ensemble that mixes standard instruments with homemade ones — including, for this song, the sound of stone scraping stone. Torrini and the Colorist Orchestra rearranged some of her older songs on an album they shared in 2018, while “Right Here” previews an LP of new collaborations due early next year. There’s pointillistic syncopation from marimba, glockenspiel and pizzicato strings, with a backdrop of sustained chords: the ticktock of everyday minutiae held together by the promise of constancy. PARELESShannen Moser, ‘Oh My God’Shannen Moser recreates a community sing and a hometown band concert in “Oh My God,” from an album arriving next week. In “The Sun Still Seems to Move,” Moser offers theological and existential musings — “I know that life’s not one linear seamless destination” — over fingerpicking and woodwinds, muscles and hands and breath. The music is thoughtful but determinedly physical. PARELESAnna B Savage, ‘The Ghost’The London-based artist Anna B Savage’s devastating new single, “The Ghost,” derives its power from a gradual accumulation of small, intimate details. “We used to notice the same things: His toenails, that little bug,” she sings to an old flame in a trembling low register. “But that changed, you couldn’t see the grave we dug.” Long after the breakup, though, the memory of her ex still lingers. “Stop haunting me, please,” she begs on the chorus, as the austere, piano-driven arrangement suddenly fills up with an eerie atmosphere. It sounds like an exorcism — or at least a yearning, last-ditch attempt at one, in desperate hope that it works. ZOLADZ More

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    Beyoncé’s ‘Break My Soul,’ and 12 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Taylor Swift, the Mars Volta, Gorillaz featuring Thundercat and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Beyoncé, ‘Break My Soul’The first song from Beyoncé’s album due July 29, “Renaissance,” has a clubby house beat and an attitude that equates defiant self-determination with salvation. She and her co-producers, Tricky Stewart and The-Dream, work two chords and a four-on-the-floor thump into a constantly changing track. They sampled shouted advice — “Release your anger! Release your mind! Release your job! Release the time!” — from “Explode” by the New Orleans bounce rapper Big Freedia. Beyoncé extrapolates from there: joining the Great Resignation, building “my own foundation,” insisting on love and self-love, facing every obstacle with the pledge that “You won’t break my soul.” When she invokes the soul, a gospel choir arrives to affirm her inner strength, as if anyone could doubt it. JON PARELESGorillaz featuring Thundercat, ‘Cracker Island’A kind of living cartoon character in his own right, the charismatic bassist Thundercat is a natural fit in the Gorillaz universe — so much so that it’s almost surprising he’s never collaborated with them before. Thundercat’s insistent bass line and backing vocals add a funky jolt to the group’s “Cracker Island,” a sleek and summery jam that happens to be about … a made-up cult? Thankfully the tune doesn’t get bogged down by anything too conceptual, though, and invites the listener to simply lock into its blissed-out groove. LINDSAY ZOLADZElizabeth King, ‘I Got a Love’The Memphis-based vocalist Elizabeth King once seemed headed toward gospel stardom. In the early 1970s, she and a group of all-male backing singers, the Gospel Souls, scored a radio hit and won the Gospel Gold Cup award, presented by the city’s gospel D.J.s. But then King stepped back, spending decades raising 15 children; her public performances were limited to singing on a weekly gospel radio program. It wasn’t until last year that King, now in her 70s, released her first full album, the impressive “Living in the Last Days.” She returns this week with “I Got a Love.” On the title track, King reprises the sultry style of praise-singing that she had perfected in the 1970s, telling us about her rock-sturdy romance with God over a slow and savory tempo. Behind her, a tube-amplified guitar slices out riffs, an organ alternates between full chords and long rests, and a heavy, pushing bass keeps the band’s muscles flexed. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOAmanda Shires, ‘Take It Like a Man’The title track from Amanda Shires’s upcoming album is a poetic and provocative torch song enlivened by an electrifying vocal performance. Featuring her husband Jason Isbell on guitar, “Take It Like a Man” is a sweeping ballad that continuously builds in blistering intensity — sort of like something Shires’s Highwomen bandmate Brandi Carlile might release. But the song is a showcase for the unique power of Shires’s voice, which is both nervy and tremblingly vulnerable at the same time. “I know the cost of flight is landing,” she sings as the melody ascends ever higher, “and I know I can take it like a man.” ZOLADZThe Cultural Impact of Taylor Swift’s MusicWith two quarantine albums and new recordings of her older albums, the pandemic has been a time of renewal and reinvention for Taylor Swift. A Fight for Her Masters: Revisit the origin story of Swift’s rerecordings: a feud with the powerful manager Scooter Braun. Pandemic Records: In 2020, Ms. Swift released two new albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” In debuting a new sound, she turned to indie music. Fearless: For the release of “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” the first of the rerecordings, Times critics and reporters dissected its sound and purpose. Reshifting the Power: The new 10-minute version of a bitter breakup song from 2012 can be seen as a woman’s attempt to fix an unbalanced relationship by weaponizing memories.Taylor Swift, ‘Carolina’“Carolina,” from the soundtrack to the forthcoming movie “Where the Crawdads Sing,” holds the distinction of being one of the spookiest songs in the Taylor Swift catalog; save for “No Body, No Crime,” it’s the closest she’s come to writing an outright murder ballad. Co-produced with Aaron Dessner, “Carolina” sounds of a piece with Swift’s folky pair of 2020 releases: The arrangement begins with just a sparsely strummed acoustic guitar that eventually swells into a misty atmosphere with the addition of strings and banjo. As on her 2015 single “Wildest Dreams,” there’s a hint of Lana Del Rey’s influence as Swift digs into her breathy lower register to intone ominously, “There are places I will never go, and things that only Carolina will ever know.” ZOLADZSessa, ‘Canção da Cura’“Canção da Cura” (“Song of Healing”) from the Brazilian songwriter Sessa’s new album, “Estrela Acesa” (“Burning Star”), hints at some clandestine ritual. In his gentle tenor, Sessa sings, “To the sound of the drums I’ll consume you.” Acoustic guitars and percussion set up an intricate mesh of syncopation, and in his gentle tenor, with hushed backup vocals overhead, Sessa sings, “To the sound of the drums I’ll consume you.” It’s a brief glimpse of a mystery. PARELESThe Mars Volta, ‘Blacklight Shine’After a decade of other projects, the wildly virtuosic, conundrum-slinging guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and the singer and lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala have reunited as the Mars Volta, with a tour to start in September and a new song: “Blacklight Shine.” It’s a six-beat, bilingual rocker, full of complex percussion and scurrying guitar lines, with lyrics like, “the high control hex he obsessively pets with his thumbs/thinking no one’s watching but I got the copy that he can never erase.” But unlike many of Mars Volta’s past efforts, this one strives for catchiness, and its rolling rhythm and harmony vocals hint, unexpectedly, at Steely Dan, another band that tucked musical and verbal feats behind pop hooks. An extended “short film” connects the song’s underlying beat to the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Puerto Rican bomba. PARELESCKay featuring Davido, Focalistic and Abidoza, ‘Watawi’Commitment is an iffy thing; in “Watawi,” the Nigerian singers CKay and Davido and the South African rapper Focalistic stay evasive when girlfriends ask “What are we?” CKay suavely croons a non-answer: “We are what we are.” Keeping things up in the air is the production by Abidoza from South Africa, which hovers around a syncopated one-note pulse as it fuses the cool keyboard chords of South African amapiano with crisp Afrobeats percussion. In its final minute, the track introduces a fiddle that could easily lead to a whole new phase of the relationship. PARELESAlex G, ‘Runner’There’s something wonderfully uncanny about the music of Philadelphia’s Alex G. His songs often gesture toward familiar sounds and textures — “Runner,” from his forthcoming album “God Save the Animals” bears a melodic resemblance to, of all things, Soul Asylum’s early ’90s anthem “Runaway Train”— but their gradual accumulation of small, idiosyncratic sonic details produce an overall sense of strangeness. “Runner” initially sounds like warm, pleasant alt-rock pastiche, but before it can lull the listener into nostalgia, the song suddenly erupts with unruly emotion: “I have done a couple bad things,” Alex sings a few times with increasing desperation, before letting out a thrillingly unexpected scream. ZOLADZLil Nas X featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘Late to da Party’Exile comes in many forms — sometimes it’s spiritual, sometimes it’s literal. The pop-rap phenom Lil Nas X recently took umbrage — seriously or not, who can tell — at not being nominated for a BET Award at this year’s ceremony. YoungBoy Never Broke Again remains on house arrest, one of rap’s most popular figures but one who’s achieved that success without the participation of traditional tastemakers. Together, they share the kinship of outsiders, even if they never quite align on this song, which is notionally aimed at BET; the video features a clip of someone urinating on a BET Award trophy. They are radically different artists — two different rapping styles, two different subject matter obsessions, two different levels of seriousness. By the end it feels as if they’re seeking exile from each other. JON CARAMANICATove Lo, ‘True Romance’“What does a girl like me want with you?” the Swedish songwriter Tove Lo asks in “True Romance,” a four-minute catharsis. The track uses only two synthesized chords and a slow pulse, but the vocal is pained, aching and constantly escalating the drama: a desperate human voice trying to escape an electronic grid. PARELESRachika Nayar, ‘Heaven Come Crashing’The composer Rachika Nayar explores the textural and orchestral possibilities of electric guitar and digital processing: effects, loops, layering. Much of her work has been meditative, and so is the beginning of “Heaven Come Crashing,” with shimmering, sustained washes of guitar and abstract vocals from Maria BC. But there’s a surprise midway through: a hurtling drumbeat kicks in, and what had been a weightless drift is suddenly a warp-speed surge forward. PARELESAbraham Burton and Eric McPherson, ‘Will Never Be Forgotten’In an alternate universe, the release of new music from the tenor saxophonist Abraham Burton and the drummer Eric McPherson would be a major event. Both are Gen X jazz eminences, and across decades playing together, their styles have grown in complement to one another. Burton holds long notes in a strong but wavery yowl or shoots out notes in string-like bursts, conveying a wounded tenderness in spite of all that volume and power. McPherson has a relatively gentle touch on the drums, but still channels the earth-moving polyrhythmic force of Elvin Jones. Last summer, these longtime musical partners gave a concert, joined by the bassist Dezron Douglas, as part of Giant Step Arts’ outdoor series at the old Seneca Village site in Central Park. The performance closed with “Will Never Be Forgotten,” a lament with a descending bass line and a melody that winds downward like a teardrop. A full recording of the concert was released on Juneteenth, as “The Summit Rock Session at Seneca Village.” RUSSONELLO More