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    Everything But the Girl’s Long-Awaited Return, and 12 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Miley Cyrus, Vagabon, Lonnie Holley featuring Michael Stipe 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.Everything But the Girl, ‘Nothing Left to Lose’Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt released their last album as Everything But the Girl in 1999. They announce a new one with “Nothing Left to Lose,” a song that shows its danceable desolation from its initial bass note and twitchy, echoey drumbeat, even before Thorn arrives to sing, “I need a thicker skin/This pain keeps getting in.” The production opens up a hollow void between throbbing bass tones and just enough single notes to sketch the rhythm and harmony; Thorn’s voice fills it with melancholy longing. JON PARELESSkrillex, Fred again.. and Flowdan, ‘Rumble’Skrillex, PinkPantheress and Trippie Redd, ‘Way Back’On his first singles as a lead artist since 2021, Skrillex explores two different sides of the jungle family tree. On “Way Back,” he takes a pop approach, partnering with the dreamlike vocalist PinkPantheress on a bubbly, quick-stepping flirtation anchored by some anguished pleas from Trippie Redd. On “Rumble,” though, he leans in to a harsher sound more in keeping with the thundering dubstep he first made his name with, but refracted though a jagged lens, with Fred again.. manipulating samples and the grime veteran Flowdan declaiming with cool detachment. JON CARAMANICABizarrap and Shakira, ‘Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53’Shakira’s revenge on her ex-boyfriend of 11 years, the soccer player Gerard Piqué, is as much a canny social media beef as a song. “I was out of your league,” she sings, going on to rap, “So much time at the gym/But maybe work out your brain a bit too.” Dozens of rappers and singers have collaborated with the Argentine producer Bizarrap, but unlike most of his sessions, “Vol. 53” isn’t a beat and a rap; it’s a fully produced electro-pop song with multitracked vocals and a contemptuous, self-branded hook: “A she-wolf like me isn’t for guys like you.” PARELESMiley Cyrus, ‘Flowers’Miley Cyrus exudes a cool confidence on “Flowers,” the breezy leadoff single from “Endless Summer Vacation,” due March 10. At first, the song seems like a brooding breakup post-mortem, but that turns out to be a ruse: “Started to cry, but then remembered I can buy myself flowers,” Cyrus sings, and the mood suddenly lifts. The relatively subdued chorus melody may not demand much of Cyrus, but her vocals are imbued with a laid-back maturity and convincing self-assurance. “I can take myself dancing, and I can hold my own hand,” she sings with her signature huskiness. “Yeah, I can love me better than you can.” LINDSAY ZOLADZParamore, ‘C’est Comme Ça’Latching on to the deadpan, spoken-word sarcasm of post-punk groups like Dry Cleaning, in “C’est Comme Ça” Hayley Williams takes on the isolation and enforced introspection of the pandemic era. “Sit still long enough to listen to yourself/Or maybe just long enough for you to atrophy to hell,” she deadpans over a disco thump with scrubbing guitars. The nonsense-syllable chorus — “Na na na na!” — is where Paramore’s pop-punk reflexes kick in. PARELESVagabon, ‘Carpenter’On her buoyant new single “Carpenter,” Laetitia Tamko, who records as Vagabon, opts for a sound that’s sleeker, lighter and more playful than her previous material. Rostam Batmanglij’s coproduction provides a reset, but the sweet melancholy of Tamko’s vocals gives the song an added emotional weight. “I wasn’t ready for what you were saying,” she sings on this tale of gradual maturity. “But I’m more ready now.” ZOLADZGracie Abrams, ‘Where Do We Go Now?’Here is pop’s verbal compression at its most distilled, to single syllables: “When I kissed you back I lied/you don’t know how long I tried.” Gracie Abrams, the definitive online sad girl, breathily sings, continuing a question — “Where do we go now?” — that has an open-ended answer. PARELESYo La Tengo, ‘Aselestine’The word “Aselestine” sounds like a cross between a crystal and an over-the-counter medication, but in Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo’s mouth, it becomes a conduit for mellifluous, vowel-y beauty. “Aselestine, where are you?” she sings with numb serenity. “The drugs don’t do what you said they do.” Like “Fallout,” the previous single from the indie legends’ 16th album “This Stupid World,” “Aselestine” is vintage Yo La Tengo, a timeless, quietly poignant distillation of the band’s singular essence. ZOLADZYahritza y Su Esencia, ‘Cambiaste’The teenage singer Yahritza Martinez of the family band Yahritza y Su Esencia is powerful and peculiar. She sings with preternatural theatricality and emotional heft, yet somehow maintains a youthful casualness. On “Cambiaste,” she yearns in stops and starts, lamenting someone who’s cast her aside. The song moves slowly, almost erratically, as if she’s staggering through sludge in search of refuge. It’s the latest in a slew of Yahritza songs that might be heard as unerringly odd if they weren’t so instinctually pop. CARAMANICAMoneybagg Yo featuring GloRilla, ‘On Wat U On’A tug of war of toxicity between two of Memphis’s finest rappers, “On Wat U On” is unsentimental and testy. Moneybagg Yo is the cad, rapping about needing freedom (“Tryna see me every weekend, damn/I need space to miss you”). And GloRilla is aggrieved, constitutionally fed up — she’s had enough: “I be busting out the windows/got him switching up his cars.” After two minutes of back and forth, there is, notably, no resolution — just recrimination and resentment. CARAMANICAIggy Pop, ‘New Atlantis’Most of Iggy Pop’s new album, “Every Loser,” circles back to the bone-crushing riffs and surly bluntness of his glory days in the Stooges — sometimes pointedly (in “Frenzy” and “Neo Punk”), and sometimes approaching self-parody. But there are glimmers of Iggy’s other eras in songs like “New Atlantis,” a cowbell-thumping, mock-admiring tribute to his current home, Miami. Being Iggy, he appreciates the city for its seaminess and its vulnerability to climate change: “New Atlantis, lying low/New Atlantis, sinking slow,” he sings. PARELESLonnie Holley featuring Michael Stipe, ‘Oh Me, Oh My’The songwriter and outsider visual artist Lonnie Holley previews a new album, “Oh Me, Oh My,” with its elegiac title track: two slowly alternating piano chords underpinned by a bass fiddle and surrounded by echoes and, later, electric guitars and more mysterious sounds. Holley merges preaching and singing, as he declaims “I believe that the deeper we go, the more chances there are for us to understand.” He invokes family and faith, joined by Michael Stipe from R.E.M. intoning, “Oh me, oh my”; it’s thick with atmosphere and memory, offering no conclusions. PARELES More

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      A Trip Home With Moneybagg Yo, Trap’s New Ambassador

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      MEMPHIS — Moneybagg Yo — Bagg to his friends — doesn’t get back to his Memphis hometown as much as he’d like anymore, so when he returned one Friday in July, he was primed for the occasion. His top, shorts and sneakers: Louis Vuitton. His chains and earrings: weighty and bright. His nails: freshly buffed to a shine. His Cadillac Escalade: bulletproof.He had arrived for an appearance at the eighth annual Birthday Bash, a concert organized by the Memphis rap stalwart Yo Gotti. “I feel like Michael Jackson at home,” Bagg said of the performance at FedExForum, home of the Memphis Grizzlies. “This is who created you.”Over the past few years, Bagg — born DeMario DeWayne White Jr. — has been steadily reaching audiences well beyond his home city. His last album, “A Gangsta’s Pain” from 2021, opened at the top of the Billboard album chart, his first No. 1, following two debuts in the Top 5. He placed five consecutive singles in the Top 20 of the Billboard rap chart, two of which, “Said Sum” and “Wockesha,” became pop hits, reaching the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.He’s a sneakily lyrical rapper — bursting with pugnacious talk but also wry. His flow is syrupy, often swallowing syllables but not the vérité imagery and frisky, conversational tone that make some of his best lyrics sound like direct, mettle-testing addresses. “Wockesha,” a 2021 track that samples DeBarge’s “Stay With Me” (à la the Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance”), showed that Bagg could record songs that leaned more melodic and tender, broadening his appeal.“I’m glad ‘Wockesha’ took off and did what it did ’cause now people accept me in that melodic vibe,” he said. “Bagg can do that now, we don’t look at him crazy.”Moneybagg Yo has been releasing music for a decade. With “Federal” in 2015, his mixtapes started garnering wider attention.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesThis fall, he’ll release his fifth studio album. Even though he primarily lives in Atlanta now, the day’s itinerary encapsulated how deep his hometown roots still run. “I’m still most definitely connected around here,” he said. “When I’m not at home, I’m at home.” His first stop was the nail salon, the next an overgrown 28.8-acre plot of land bought for him last year as a 30th birthday gift by his girlfriend, Ari Fletcher, a social media influencer. Driving alongside the property, he laughed as he pointed out the property’s boundaries: “Still going. Still going. Still going! Still going!”Eventually, he wants to host a community center, dirt bike paths, a paintball course and more there: “This for my neighborhood,” he said. After a brief meeting with a contractor to discuss the costs for the first wave of beautification, he headed to the nearby Walker Homes neighborhood in South Memphis, where he grew up, to pick up his 4-year-old son, Mari — one of his eight children — who was dressed for a day with dad in an all-white Polo outfit.“I just started being able to make my kids’ birthdays,” Bagg said of the long, unforgiving road he faced early in his career. “Until three years ago, I sacrificed me some birthdays, holidays, football games, doughnuts with dad. Now the world know me and the money gonna come, but I was trying to get the money and provide for them the whole time. There’s no excuse now.”Bagg has been releasing music for a decade — first, mixtapes that gained him renown locally, then beginning with “Federal” in 2015, ones that garnered much wider attention. His first major label album came in 2018. (His music is released by Interscope in partnership with Yo Gotti’s CMG Records and N-Less Entertainment.)“Every time I ever dropped a project, something always happen before I ever elevate, like a hardship,” Moneybagg Yo said.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWhen he began having broader success, Bagg said he was surprised to learn that many established stars, like Future, were longtime fans: “A lot of people was really riding, listening to my music, that you wouldn’t expect.” Pharrell produced a track on “A Gangsta’s Pain.” Bagg formed a strong bond with the rapper Kevin Gates, who facilitated his conversion to Islam in 2018; he travels with an $8,000 prayer mat, a gift from Gates.Now more than ever, regionally specific rap can make it to the top of the charts in relatively unvarnished form, and Bagg’s wins have largely been on his own terms. Even though he’s beginning to collaborate more widely, he still prefers working with his own set of producers rather than those who are better-known.Since Bagg has grown into the biggest rap star to emerge from Memphis in a generation, he needs to be mindful, even at home. Throughout the day, he was accompanied by two oversized security guards with evident military training.“They had to get me to understand it, like, bruh, you need that, that’s what make you a superstar,” Bagg said. “It don’t just come with you being scared, it comes with you moving smart.”He’d just arrived at the Crystal Palace, a skating rink where a teenage Bagg and friends would while away weekend nights. The rink has been closed for years, but Bagg has been in contact with city officials about the possibility of revitalizing it. In the parking lot, Bagg asked his driver to turn the SUV so he could keep an eye on the street.“I’m so comfortable, I could be in house shoes right now,” he said, almost giggling.Minutes later, he headed to “the red store,” a bare-bones convenience store that’s the only retail establishment for blocks in the middle of streets dotted with rundown homes. “We gambled right there,” he said, pointing to a house up the block, then leaned in and whispered with a quick laugh, “I was selling dope right here.” He has a picture of the store tattooed on him.The rapper said his new album would be a turn back toward the energy of his “Federal” era. Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesHe stepped into the building, greeting employees and fans and telling an associate to buy out all the Rap Snacks chips in his signature flavors (Heat vs. Hot and Dill Pickle Jalapeño), then peeled off a few $100 bills to give to the store’s owner.Bagg’s next stop was intensely personal: visiting, for the first time, the grave of a longtime friend, Nuskie, who was killed in January at age 24. “I really ain’t snapped back,” Bagg said of wrestling with the tragedy. “I’m just dealing with it better now.”He sat down to roll a blunt from a pouch of weed, and thought about his trajectory. “Every time I ever dropped a project, something always happen before I ever elevate, like a hardship,” he said, adding that he planned to name his plot of land after Nuskie. Then, for the only time all day, he was silent.The show beckoned, though. By now, he was traveling with a full caravan of cars filled with old friends. They stopped at the Superior Shop, a clothing store where Bagg dropped off some Louis Vuitton pants to be tailored, and met up with the rapper EST Gee, a label mate and friend also in town for the concert.Once the store became claustrophobically crowded, with well over 100 people filling the room, he headed to Straight Drop, a seafood restaurant in North Memphis. The building’s lobby was filled with pallets of bottles of Vior, an alkaline water Bagg is an investor in. (“It’s every day, it’s clean.”) While waiting for the catering-size platters of fish and shrimp to come out, he and EST Gee filmed some footage for a video for a new song, “Strong,” in the parking lot.Earlier in July, he had performed to tens of thousands of people at London’s Wireless Festival, his first international show, but here he was, a platinum rapper back on his home turf, continuing to do things the old-fashioned way. He said his recent string of successes only emboldened him to double down on the specificity of his sound. The new album, he said, would be a turn back toward the energy of his “Federal” era. He recently put his permanent flawless diamond teeth back in.“Trap taking over the world now,” he said. “It ain’t limited no more.” More

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      My Favorite Rap Songs Are All Fight and No Flight

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      Mitski moved to Nashville. She’s not quite sure why, because she didn’t really know anyone there, but she liked how specifically weird it was — a town with stories. A local businessman had recently died and left his substantial estate to his Border collie. Bachelorette parties were a surreal and ever-present cottage industry: “There’s always a woman crying on the street and five other women in matching T-shirts comforting her,” as Mitski put it to me. “It feels like such a good place to observe the human condition.” More

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      The Best Albums of 2021? Let’s Discuss.

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherOlivia Rodrigo and Tyler, the Creator released the only albums that appeared on the 2021 year-end lists of all three pop music critics for The New York Times. Beyond that, there was a diverse bounty: Memphis rap, Colombian electronic folk, British spazz-rock, Atlanta soul, Georgia country-rap, Chicago jazz abstraction, California Technicolor rock and Adele.On this week’s Popcast, a critic round table about the year in albums, with conversation about Rodrigo and Tyler, and also Lana Del Rey, Playboi Carti, Adele, Mdou Moctar, Snail Mail, Remi Wolf, Moneybagg Yo, Bomba Estéreo, Black Midi, PinkPantheress and much more.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, who writes about pop music for The New York Times and othersConnect 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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      Best Albums of 2021

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      Less isolation didn’t mean a return to normalcy. Albums with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Olivia Rodrigo, Moneybagg Yo and Allison Russell stood out in 2021.From left: Grant Spanier; Noam Galai/Getty Images; Bethany Mollenkof for the New York TimesJon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesSongs of Trauma, Fear and TriumphThe past year was awash in recorded music — not only the stuck-at-home recordings that musicians occupied themselves with when touring evaporated during the pandemic, but also many albums that had been made before the lockdowns but had been shelved in hopes of some return to normalcy. The albums that resonated most with me during 2021 were songs of reflection and revelation, often dealing with traumas and crises, transfigured through music.1. Bomba Estéreo, ‘Deja’The Colombian duo Bomba Estéreo released “Deja” as a series of EPs tied to the ancient elements: water, air, fire, earth. Each new one broadened an album that entwines folklore and electronics, personal yearning and planetary concerns. With Liliana Saumet’s tartly endearing singing and rapping and Simón Mejía’s meticulously kinetic productions, the songs dance through their fears. (Read our interview with Bomba Estéreo.)Simón Mejía and Liliana Saumet of Bomba Estéreo released “Deja” as a series of EPs.Valerie Amor C2. Allison Russell, ‘Outside Child’Allison Russell, the longtime frontwoman of Birds of Chicago, transforms a horrific childhood — she was abused by her stepfather — into songs of joyful survival. “I’m still rising, stronger for my pain and suffering,” she sings. Drawing on soul, country, folk and deep blues, she connects her own story to myth and metaphor, remembering the trauma yet decisively rising above it. (Read our interview with Allison Russell.)3. Mon Laferte, ‘Seis’Sometimes visitors can see what residents take for granted. Mon Laferte is from Chile, but she has been living for more than a decade in Mexico and has immersed herself in its music. On “Seis,” she wrote songs that draw deeply on regional Mexican traditions — mariachi, banda, ranchera, corrido, norteño — to sing, in a voice that can be teasing or furiously incendiary, about deep passions and equally deep betrayals. (Read our interview with Mon Laferte.)Mon Laferte drew on Mexican traditions for one of two albums she released this year, “Seis.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times4. The Weather Station, ‘Ignorance’Tamara Lindeman, who writes songs and records as the Weather Station, surrounded herself with a jazzy, intuitive backup group for “Ignorance,” clearly aware of Joni Mitchell’s folk-jazz precedent. The rhythms are brisk and precise; winds, keyboards and guitars ricochet respectfully off her breathy vocal lines. She sings about impending disasters, romantic and environmental, and the widespread disregard for what’s clearly about to happen. (Read our interview with the Weather Station.)5. Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’Mdou Moctar is a Tuareg guitarist born in Niger. Like Tinariwen, his band plugs North African rhythms and modal vamps into rock amplifiers and drums. But “Afrique Victime” further expands the sonic possibilities for Tuareg rock, from ambient meditation to psychedelic onslaught. Six-beat rhythms and skeins of guitar lines carry Moctar’s voice in songs that can be modest and introspective or unstoppably frenetic.6. Julien Baker, ‘Little Oblivions’“Beat myself until I’m bloody/And I’ll give you a ringside seat,” Julien Baker sings in one of the brave, ruthlessly self-indicting songs that fill “Little Oblivions,” an album about the toll of one person’s addictions on everyone around her. She played all the instruments herself, scaling her sound up to arena size and chiming like U2, even as she refuses herself any excuses or forgiveness. (Read our review of “Little Oblivions.”)7. Black Midi, ‘Cavalcade’The virtuosic British band Black Midi bristles in every direction: with jagged, skewed funk riffs; with pointed dissonances; with passages of Minimalistic, ominous suspense; with lyrics full of bitter disillusion. And then, just to keep things unsettled, come passages filled with tenderness and wonderment, only to plunge back into the fray. (Read our interview with Black Midi.)8. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’Olivia Rodrigo, now 18, fixates on a breakup with an adolescent’s obsessiveness on “Sour,” building on the audience she found as a cast member in Disney’s “High School Musical.” With Taylor Swift as a role model for craftsmanship, her songs are as neatly detailed as they are wounded, and the production whipsaws through styles — calm piano ballad, ethereal choir harmonies, fierce distorted guitars — to match every mood swing. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)Olivia Rodrigo’s songs are neatly detailed.Erica Hernandez9. Esperanza Spalding, ‘Songwrights Apothecary Lab’“Songwrights Apothecary Lab” was the bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding’s pandemic project; she consulted neuroscientists, music therapists and ethnomusicologists to devise music for healing, and an online user’s guide prescribes the purpose of each song. But the songs are equally effective off-label; they encompass meditations, serpentine jazz compositions, calm or turbulent improvisations, open-ended questions and sly bits of advice, the work of a graceful, perpetually questing mind. (Read our interview with Esperanza Spalding.)10. Tyler, the Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’A life of luxury can’t mollify Tyler, the Creator. He’s no longer the trolling provocateur he was a decade ago when he emerged with Odd Future, but he’s still intransigent and high-concept. After singing through most of his 2019 album, “Igor,” he’s back to rapping, now simulating a mixtape with DJ Drama as hypeman. In his deep voice, he raps about all he owns and all he can’t control — mostly romance — over his own dense, detailed productions, at once lush and abrasive. The album peaks with an eight-minute love-triangle saga, “Wichita”: a raw confession, cannily orchestrated. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)Tyler, the Creator swings back to mostly rapping on his 2021 album.Luis “Panch” PerezAnd here are another 15 deserving albums, alphabetically:Adele, “30”Arooj Aftab, “Vulture Prince”Khaira Arby, “New York Live”Billie Eilish, “Happier Than Ever”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, “Promises”Flock of Dimes, “Head of Roses”Rhiannon Giddens with Franceso Turrisi, “They’re Calling Me Home”Idles, “Crawler”Ka, “A Martyr’s Reward”Valerie June, “The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers”L’Rain, “Fatigue”Arlo Parks, “Collapsed in Sunbeams”Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raise the Roof”Omar Sosa, “An East African Journey”Jazmine Sullivan, “Heaux Tales”Jon CaramanicaProcessing Pain, Blurring BoundariesIn the second year of global quasi-paralysis, what made the most sense were, once again, albums that felt like wombs and albums that felt like eruptions. When there was nowhere to go, literally or metaphorically, there were still places to retreat — to the gut, to history, to memory, to forgetting.1. Mustafa, ‘When Smoke Rises’Did you mourn this year? Were you broken in some way that was beyond words? Mustafa’s debut album was there with you, a startling, primal chronicle of relentless loss and the relentless grace required to navigate it. In moments when the ground buckled, this album was a cradle. (Read our interview with Mustafa.)Mustafa’s debut album is a profound meditation on loss.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times2. EST Gee, ‘Bigger Than Life or Death’The latest in a string of excellent releases from the Louisville, Ky., rapper EST Gee, whose verses are refreshingly burly and brusque, and who tells stories sprinkled with surprisingly vivid left-field details. A bold back-to-basics statement, utterly free of filigree.3. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’The most important new pop star of the year delivered a debut album of poppy punk and punky pop that’s sometimes musically blistering and always emotionally blistered. A reminder that a failed relationship might leave you icy or bruised or drained, but in truth, it frees you to be emboldened. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)4. Moneybagg Yo, ‘A Gangsta’s Pain’Moneybagg Yo is a casually sassy rapper — a don of tsk-tsking, fluent in arched eyebrows, dispositionally blunt. This is his fourth major-label album, and it’s punchy and robustly musical. À la peak 2 Chainz, Moneybagg Yo boasts so long and so intently that he sounds fatigued, and in turn, uproarious.5. PinkPantheress, ‘To Hell With It’This is music about listening to music, about the secret places we burrow into in order to make sure our favorite songs can wash over us unimpeded. The singing is sweet and melancholic, and the production flirts with memory and time — stories of right now and back then, all told as one. (Read our review of “To Hell With It.”)6. Summer Walker, ‘Still Over It’The most emotionally direct vocalist working in R&B today, Summer Walker is a bracing listen. And this album, her third full-length release, is rawly vindictive and unconcerned with polish, the equivalent of a public-facing Instagram account that feels like a finsta. (Read our notebook on Summer Walker.)Summer Walker’s third album is appealingly unpolished and intimate.Theo Wargo/Getty Images7. Lana Del Rey, ‘Chemtrails Over the Country Club’Lana Del Rey albums have become pop music’s most compelling ongoing saga about American loneliness and sadness. This, the better of her two albums this year, is alluringly arid and dreamlike. (Read our review of “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.”)8. Tyler, the Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’In which the rapper who introduced himself a decade ago as the genre’s great anarchist reveals something that was long clear to close observers: He reveres tradition. Brick-hard rhyme structures. Ostentatious taunts. Mixtape grit. All of it. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)9. Playboi Carti, ‘Whole Lotta Red’Just an unyieldingly odd record. Notionally a cousin of mid-2010s SoundCloud rap, it also has echoes of 1980s industrial rock and also the glitchcore of the 2000s. It’s buoyant and psychedelic and totally destabilizing.10. Kanye West, ‘Donda (Deluxe)’“Donda” lives at the intersection of Kanye’s “Yeezus” era and his Jesus era. On the one hand, there’s scabrous, churning production that sets a chaotic mood. On the other, there are moments of intense searching, gasps for air amid the unrest. (Read our notebook on “Donda.”)11. Rauw Alejandro, ‘Vice Versa’Rauw Alejandro, the most imaginative meta-reggaeton Latin pop star, dabbles in drum ’n’ bass and baile funk on his second major-label album. But the star is his hypertreated voice, which is synthetically sweet and appealingly lush, almost to the point of delightful suffocation. (Read our review of “Vice Versa.”)Rauw Alejandro’s latest album puts a spotlight on his vocals.Thais Llorca/EPA, via Shutterstock12. Doja Cat, ‘Planet Her’Outlandish, eccentric, lustrous, mercenarily maximalist pop from the sing-rapper with the richest and keenest pop ear not named Drake.13. Chloe Moriondo, ‘Blood Bunny’Openhearted and effortlessly catchy indie punk-pop about lovelorn confusion and beginning to figure out you’re too cool for that. (Read our notebook on Chloe Moriondo.)14. Kidd G, ‘Down Home Boy’Why yes, those are Juice WRLD cadences in the singing on the year’s best country debut album. (Read our interview with Kidd G.)15. The Armed, ‘Ultrapop’Shrieking sheets of nervy noise — a battering ram.16. Carly Pearce, ’29: Written in Stone’A brief marriage, a messy divorce, a helluva album.17. Yeat, ‘4L’If “Whole Lotta Red” is too coherent for you, try Yeat.18. Conway the Machine, ‘La Maquina’A cold, cold, cold growl of a classic-minded hip-hop album.19. Farruko, ‘La 167’“Pepas” is here, along with a confidently expansive range of reggaeton styles.Farruko’s “La 167” is a showcase for reggaeton styles.Rich Polk/Getty Images20. Mickey Guyton, ‘Remember Her Name’A pop-country winner that feels both universal and singular. (Read our interview with Mickey Guyton.)… and 20 more albums for a more well-rounded year.42 Dugg, “Free Dem Boyz”Gracie Abrams, “This Is What It Feels Like”Aespa, “Savage”Jay Bahd, “Return of Okomfo Anokye”Benny the Butcher and Harry Fraud, “The Plugs I Met 2”Ivan Cornejo, “Alma Vacía”Jhay Cortez, “Timelezz”Dave, “We’re All Alone in This Together”Drake, “Certified Lover Boy”Halsey, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”Cody Johnson, “Human the Double Album”NCT 127, “Sticker”RXK Nephew, “Crack Dreams”serpentwithfeet, “Deacon”Spirit of the Beehive, “Entertainment, Death”Don Toliver, “Life of a Don”Rod Wave, “SoulFly”Tion Wayne, “Green With Envy”Wiki, “Half God”Young Thug, “Punk”Lindsay ZoladzOpening Up Hearts and MindsIn an emotionally hung over year when so many people were trying to process loss — of loved ones, of charred or flooded homes, of the world as we once knew it — some of the best music offered an opportunity to slow down and reconnect with feelings we may have rushed right by before truly acknowledging. Sometimes we just needed a voice to capture and echo the absurdity all around us, but other times records gave us a way of experiencing nothing less than mass catharsis.1. Adele, ‘30’It takes a certain kind of record to make me want to quote Rumi, but Adele really killed this, so let me say: “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”Adele has been our mass-cultural bard of heartbreak for the past decade, but in her music — save for the handful of instant-classic ballads scattered across her discography — I did not really get the sense that she was truly open in all the terror and glory that implies. Then she turned 30. “I’m so afraid but I’m open wide,” she sings on the divine “To Be Loved,” her imperial voice trembling but assured. Most breakup albums are full of anger, scorn, and blame, but this one is remarkably self-directed, a grown woman making a deeply considered choice to leap into the void and break her own heart wide apart. “I took some bad turns that I am owning,” she sings, audibly italicizing that last phrase, as if the preceding 10 tracks in all their startling honesty hadn’t already made that clear.On “19,” “21,” and “25,” Adele acted wise beyond her years: “We both know we ain’t kids no more,” she chided an ex on an album about being in her mid-20s, which also included a world-wearied number called “When We Were Young.” “30” refreshingly winds back the clock and finds her admitting that all along she was “just a child, didn’t get the chance to feel the world around” her. But now she sings like a mature woman who knows there’s still plenty of time to get wine-drunk on the everyday wonders of her own freedom, to break her heart open again and again in her newly omnivorous and sonically eclectic songs. This, at last, is Adele living up to her promise, pop majesty at the highest count. (Read our review of “30.”)Adele breaks her own heart open on “30.”Cliff Lipson/CBS2. Tyler, The Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’He’s still on the boat! Tyler has never sounded this breezy yet in control, but for all the luxurious braggadocio, there’s a darker undercurrent at work, too. “I remembered I was rich so I bought me some new emotions,” he raps at the beginning of the album; by the stunning penultimate track, the heart-tugging epic “Wilshire,” he’ll have to admit that’s impossible. Full of playful reflections on his past (“I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers”) and auspicious blessings for his future, “Call Me” finds Tyler dropping a stone into that murky blue and discovering unexplored new depths. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)3. Snail Mail, ‘Valentine’Lindsey Jordan begs, bargains and finally accepts the pain of heartache in this searing song cycle that further establishes her as one of indie rock’s brightest young stars. There’s a raw immediacy to these 10 songs that make them almost feel hot to the touch — the thrashing title track, the keening acoustic ballad “Light Blue,” even the slinky, synth-driven vamp “Ben Franklin.” Her nimble guitar work highlights a sharp ear for off-kilter melody, but at the core of “Valentine” is Jordan’s passionately hoarse voice, lungs filled to the brim with sound and fury. (Read our review of “Valentine.”)4. Jazmine Sullivan, ‘Heaux Tales’The chatty, candid interstitials woven through this wonderful album play out like an adult reunion of those young girls in the classroom from “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” — now grown women swapping secrets, recollections and hard-earned wisdom. “Heaux Tales” is a prismatic, multiperspective snapshot of female desire in the 21st century, enlivened by the testimonies of friends like Ari Lennox and H.E.R. but made cohesive by the soulfully versatile voice of Jazmine Sullivan. She breathes life into a spectrum of emotions, from the sassy assertion of “Pick Up Your Feelings” to the naked yearning of “The Other Side,” proving that it would be too limiting to choose between being a hard rock or a gem. Aren’t we all a little bit of both? (Read our review of “Heaux Tales.”)Jazmine Sullivan explores the multiple dimensions of female desire in the 21st century on “Heaux Tales.”NAACP, via Reuters5. Illuminati Hotties, ‘Let Me Do One More’The indie producer turned surprisingly ebullient frontperson Sarah Tudzin is a personable and occasionally hilarious guide through the surreal ruins of late capitalism. “You think I wanna be a part of every self-appointed start-up?” she seethes in a punky, cartoonish voice, but a few songs later she’s exhausted enough to sound resigned to inevitable compromise: “The corner store is selling spit, bottled up for profit,” she sighs, “can’t believe I’m buying it.” Still, Tudzin’s songs glow with the possibility of human intimacy amid all the rubble, and they show off her mastery of so many different genres that by the end of the record, it seems like there’s no ceiling to her talent as both a producer and a finger-on-the-pulse songwriter. (Read our interview with Illuminati Hotties.)6. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’Hell hath no fury like a young woman out to prove she’s no one-hit wonder. From the opening guitar-crunch of the Zoomer primal scream that is “Brutal,” Olivia Rodrigo proves there’s so much more to her than could be expressed even in a song as exquisitely expressive as her seismic smash “Drivers License.” Rodrigo fashions teen-girl sarcasm into a lethal weapon on the dream-pop “Deja Vu,” rails against the Instagram industrial complex on the barbed social critique “Jealousy, Jealousy” and transforms a sample of one of her idol Taylor Swift’s sweetest love songs into a tear-streaked heartbreaker on “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” If it feels comparatively weak on the back end, that’s only because the first half of this album is probably the most impressive six-song run anybody put together this year. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)7. The Weather Station, ‘Ignorance’How do you make music about climate change without it sounding too didactic and abstract? Tamara Lindeman, the Canadian musician who records as the Weather Station, came up with a winning solution on her stirring album “Ignorance,” which finds her singing elegiac love songs to a dying planet. The graceful melancholy of “Tried to Tell You” surveys the natural beauty we’ve been too numb to mourn, while the sparse, jazzy “Robber” is a kind of musical tone-poem about large-scale corporate destruction. With her nimble voice — sometimes high and fluttery, other times earthy and low — and evocative lyricism, the songs of “Ignorance” animate, as one of her bandmates puts it, “the emotional side of climate change,” employing music’s depth of feeling to ignite political consciousness. (Read our interview with the Weather Station.)Tamara Lindeman of the Weather Station finds artful ways to sing about the climate crisis.Angela Lewis for The New York Times8. Low, ‘Hey What’If only every band could sound this adventurous 30 years into existence. As their eerily heartfelt harmonies cut through with rhythmic blurts of electronic noise, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk sound, quite literally, like ghosts in the machine, imbuing vast, steely soundscapes with a disarming beauty. Following the sonic reinvention of the stunning 2018 album “Double Negative,” the Duluth band have continued to frame human yearning amid a churning and apocalyptic backdrop, with career-best songs like “Disappearing” and “Days Like These” capturing both the difficulty and the necessity of finding light in a dark age.9. Lucy Dacus, ‘Home Video’Lucy Dacus’s wrenching third studio album is as much an achievement of memoir as it is of songwriting, a vividly conjured coming-of-age story so personal that she used her own teenage diaries for research. “In the summer of ’07, I was sure I’d go to heaven,” she sings on “VBS” (as in, Vacation Bible School), before a gradual and all-consuming doubt begins to creep in. By the final song, when a friend tells her she’s afraid that their desires have rendered them “cursed,” Dacus responds, “So what?” As thoughtfully crafted as a collection of short stories, “Home Video” achingly chronicles the tale of a young person who loses her religion but in the process gains autonomy, a sense of identity and the glorious strength to tell her own truths in song. (Read T magazine’s interview with Lucy Dacus.)10. Dry Cleaning, ‘New Long Leg’“Are there some kind of reverse platform shoes that make you go into the ground more?” the ever-droll Florence Shaw asks, one of many absurdist yet somehow relatable philosophical questions she poses on the English post-punk band Dry Cleaning’s singular debut album. The instrumentation around Shaw swells like a sudden squall, but her deadpan, spoken-word musings — a mixture of found text, overheard chitchat and offbeat poetry — are the eye of the storm, remaining steady and strangely unperturbed in all kinds of weather.11. Billie Eilish, ‘Happier Than Ever’No record grew on me more this year than Billie Eilish’s patient and personal sophomore effort, which shuns repeat-the-formula predictability and unfolds at its own unhurried pace. It’s somehow even quieter than her sumptuously ASMR-triggering debut, until those sudden moments when it isn’t — as on the corrosive conclusion to the Nine-Inch-Nails-like “NDA,” or the fireworks display of pent-up frustration that rips open the title track. Exquisitely sequenced, this is a rare pop album that doesn’t show all its cards right away, but instead saves its strongest material for the end, building toward a satisfying finale and a hint at the potential versatility of her future. (Read our review of “Happier Than Ever.”)Billie Eilish’s second album, “Happier Than Ever,” reveals itself at its own pace.Rich Fury/Getty Images12. Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’The fluid and incandescent playing of the Tuareg guitar hero Mdou Moctar transcends borders, seamlessly fusing Western psychedelia with North African desert blues. “Afrique Victime,” his strongest and most focused record to date, showcases not only his quicksilver fingerwork but his innate gift for melody and songcraft, proving in every one of these nine blazing tracks that shredding is a universal language.13. Bitchin Bajas, ‘Switched on Ra’This shouldn’t work, or at least not nearly as well as it does: A drone synth outfit tackling the otherworldly compositions and complex harmonies of cosmic jazz pioneer Sun Ra? But Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas approach the task with equal parts reverence and playfulness, assembling an Arkestra of 19 different analog synths and in the process creating a prolonged musical meditation on time, space and the meaning of retrofuturism. The vibes are exquisite, and the whole thing sounds like the Muzak that would play in an intergalactic portal’s waiting room.14. Remi Wolf, ‘Juno’Here’s to anyone who takes a technically skilled voice and chooses to do something delectably weird with it. The Palo Alto native Remi Wolf’s pipes are strong enough to have propelled her to Hollywood on the 2014 season of “American Idol,” but she’s since carved out a much less conventional path, making bold, psychedelic pop that bursts at the seams with ideas, melodies and truly wild wordplay (“I love my family intrinsically, like Anthony Kiedis,” she sings, which — sure!). On “Juno,” one of the most promising debut albums of the year, Wolf throws everything she’s got at the wall — and a surprisingly high percentage of it actually sticks. (Read our interview with Remi Wolf.)Remi Wolf makes bold, psychedelic pop that bursts at the seams with ideas.Amy Sussman/Getty ImagesSome runners-up worth mentioning:L’Rain, “Fatigue”Rostam, “Changephobia”Flock of Dimes, “Head of Roses”Lana Del Rey, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club”/“Blue Banisters”Halsey, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”Palberta, “Palberta 5000”/Lily Konigsberg, “Lily We Need to Talk Now” More

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      Silk Sonic or J. Cole Has the No. 1 Song, Depending on the Chart

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      In a rare but not unheard-of discrepancy, Billboard and Rolling Stone named two different singles as the week’s biggest.What is the No. 1 song in the country? These days, it depends on the chart.On Wednesday, Billboard announced, after a two-day delay, that “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic, the new retro-soul project of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, reached the top spot on the Hot 100, the magazine’s singles chart and the industry standard since 1958.But days earlier, the competing Rolling Stone 100 crowned J. Cole’s new “Interlude” as its No. 1, with “Leave the Door Open” just No. 10. On Billboard’s latest chart, “Interlude” reached only as high as No. 8.Even more strange, both charts are now owned by the same company. When Rolling Stone introduced its rankings in 2019, they were positioned as competitors to Billboard’s, with different data sources and methodologies. Rolling Stone chart positions are often hyped by fans and press agents, but have not proved a major challenge to Billboard’s authority.Last year, a deal between the publishers of Rolling Stone and Billboard brought both companies under a new joint venture, P-MRC. Jay Penske, the young media entrepreneur who represents half that deal, controls those publications as part of a portfolio that now also includes The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline, WWD and Vibe. P-MRC also has a 50 percent stake in the South by Southwest festivals.A spokeswoman for MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm, said the delay in the magazine’s Hot 100 was a result of data anomalies that were being investigated by its chart experts, and was not related to Rolling Stone having a conflicting song at No. 1. It is also not the first discrepancy: Early this year, Olivia Rodrigo’s blockbuster “Drivers License” topped the Billboard chart for eight weeks, but Rolling Stone’s for only five.Rolling Stone looks at songs’ sales and popularity on audio streaming services, but not radio; for the Hot 100, Billboard considers sales, audio and video streams, along with radio spins. Still a persistent head-scratcher in the music world is why the same company maintains two separate and competing charts.In a slow week for albums, the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo reclaims the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart with “A Gangsta’s Pain.” It had the equivalent of 61,000 sales in the United States, mostly from streaming, according to MRC Data. “A Gangsta’s Pain,” which had opened at the top two weeks ago, then dipped to No. 2, had the lowest sales number for a No. 1 album since early January, when Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” notched its third time at the top with 56,000 sales in the post-holiday doldrums.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is in second place, while last week’s top seller, DJ Khaled’s “Khaled Khaled,” falls to No. 3 in its second week out. Justin Bieber’s “Justice” is No. 4.Dua Lipa is in fifth place with her album “Future Nostalgia.” Lipa’s song “Levitating,” featuring the rapper DaBaby, is No. 2 on Billboard’s singles chart thanks in part to its popularity on TikTok. More

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      DJ Khaled Reaches No. 1 With ‘Khaled Khaled’

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      The album, titled after the star’s full name, has guest appearances by Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, Justin Bieber and more than a dozen others.Two years ago, a pair of hip-hop luminaries, DJ Khaled and Tyler, the Creator, faced off on the Billboard album chart, hawking not just music but also T-shirts, lawn signs and energy drinks.The contest between them — Tyler won, Khaled came in second — stirred up long-simmering frustrations in the industry over the use of retail bundles to increase music sales and goose artists’ chart positions. The fallout from that chart battle, and others like it, led to Billboard tightening its rules late last year.This week, with bundling largely banished to the dustbin of industry sales gimmicks — a very crowded dustbin — DJ Khaled took No. 1 with his latest release, “Khaled Khaled,” which had the equivalent of 93,000 sales in the United States, including 107 million streams and 14,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data. It is DJ Khaled’s third time at No. 1.The album, titled after the star’s full name, is a textbook example of DJ Khaled’s style: hyper-pumped affirmations of glory and humility (“Thankful” is the first track, not to be confused with “Grateful” a couple albums ago), delivered with a deep bench of guest stars — this one features Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Wayne, Nas, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Post Malone, Jay-Z and more than a dozen others. In addition to DJ Khaled, the album’s credited executive producers include his two young sons, Asahd and Aalam.Also this week, “A Gangsta’s Pain” by the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo fell to No. 2 in its second week out. Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” holds at No. 3; Bieber’s “Justice” is in fourth place; and “Slime Language 2,” the project led by the rapper Young Thug, is No. 5. More

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      Moneybagg Yo Reaches No. 1 With ‘A Gangsta’s Pain’

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      The Memphis rapper’s fourth studio album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, and Eric Church landed a new LP at No. 4.Hip-hop and country music lead this week’s Billboard album chart, with the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo notching his first No. 1 album and Eric Church opening in the Top 5.Moneybagg Yo, who has released four studio albums and a slew of mixtapes going back nearly a decade — with many of them reaching the Top 10 — has finally cracked the peak position with “A Gangsta’s Pain,” which features guest spots from Pharrell Williams, Future, Lil Durk and others. “A Gangsta’s Pain” opened with the equivalent of 110,000 sales in the United States, most of which were attributed to 147 million clicks on streaming services, according to MRC Data. (The album also sold 4,000 copies as a full package.) Moneybagg Yo reacted to the news of his achievement on Instagram, saying it “Feel Crazy, I’m Forever Grateful Tho!”“Slime Language 2,” the new project from the Atlanta rapper Young Thug and his label Young Stoner Life, which topped the chart last week, fell to No. 2. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” by the country singer and songwriter Morgan Wallen, which had a 10-week run at No. 1 earlier this year, remains a steady hit, holding at third place in its 16th week out.At No. 4 is the debut of “Soul” by the country star Church — the companion album to “Heart,” which opened at No. 5 last week. According to Billboard, it is the first time an artist has had back-to-back Top 10 debuts since Future’s albums “Future” and “HNDRXX” four years ago. Justin Bieber’s “Justice” dropped one spot to No. 5. More