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      35 Pop and Jazz Albums, Shows and Festivals Coming This Fall

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      Buzzy debuts (Chappell Roan, Evian Christ) and anticipated follow-ups (Jorja Smith, yeule) are due this season.After a summer dominated by blockbuster tours by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, this fall the music business gets back to the business of releasing albums. Longstanding acts are returning with new LPs (Dolly Parton, Wilco, Usher), and long-awaited follow-ups are arriving, too (the Streets, Sampha, Nicki Minaj). Dates and lineups are subject to change.SeptemberSAM RIVERS CENTENNIAL Amid the hardscrabble realities of 1970s New York, Studio Rivbea was a crucial crack in the pavement where creative life flourished. A downtown loft run by the esteemed saxophonist Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice, Rivbea — and its resident big band — gave musicians young and old a space to rehearse and perform on their own terms. Craig Harris, Joseph Daly and Steve Coleman all spent formative time there in the ’70s, and they’ve come together to organize a big-band performance in recognition of Rivers, who would have turned 100 this month. (Sep. 22; Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church) — Giovanni RussonelloSOUL REBELS One of New Orleans’s best-known exports, the Soul Rebels carry forward the classic brass-band tradition by infusing it with plenty of modern-day flavor across the spectrum of Black American music. Their upcoming four-night stand at the Blue Note includes guest appearances from the golden-age rap eminences Rakim and Big Daddy Kane (Sept. 21); Ja Rule (Sept. 22); G-Eazy (Sept. 23); and a potpourri of contemporary-jazz heavyweights, including James Carter and Elena Pinderhughes (Sept. 24). — RussonelloKYLIE MINOGUE For decades, Kylie Minogue has been making dance floor manna that pingpongs between curiosity and undeniability, This year, she released one of her best — “Padam Padam,” a gay nightclub anthem that spawned slang and memes and, over time, a pop crossover. Minogue’s new album, on its heels, is “Tension.” A Las Vegas residency will follow, starting in November. (Sept. 22; BMG) — Jon CaramanicaKylie Minogue got a boost from another club anthem this year, “Padam Padam.”Don Arnold/Getty ImagesCHAPPELL ROAN Over the past year, the pop singer Chappell Roan has been releasing a string of theatrically intimate singles that touch on relationship awkwardness with uncommon candor. The music on her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” — which touches on wobbly ’80s new wave and ’90s singer-songwriter pop-rock and ’00s dance-pop — suggests a singer less beholden to style than to ensuring she says the exact thing she needs to say. (Sept. 22; Amusement/Island) — CaramanicaYEULE The songwriter, singer and producer yeule embraces extremes on “Softscars,” the follow-up to “Glitch Princess,” from 2022. Nothing is predictable on an album that holds guitar ballads, a piano waltz, bristling rock guitar riffs, gleaming electronics, hyperpop tweaks and bluntly distorted beats. The songs consider pain, love, technology and carnality, the experience of a 21st-century life that’s simultaneously physical and virtual. (Sept. 22; Ninja Tune) — Jon ParelesJOHN ZORN’S NEW MASADA QUARTET Opportunities are few to hear the saxophonist, composer and downtown jazz doyen John Zorn simply throwing down, in the company of improvisers that elevate him. That’s what happens when he gets together with the New Masada Quartet, which plays music from Zorn’s 613-piece “Masada” songbook (composed based on aspects of Jewish folklore and theology) and features the guitarist Julian Lage, the bassist Jorge Roeder and the drummer Kenny Wollesen. (Sept. 26 through Oct. 1; The Village Vanguard) — RussonelloCHERRY GLAZERR On the bluntly titled new album “I Don’t Want You Anymore,” Clementine Creevy, who leads the indie-rock band Cherry Glazerr, wrestles with a clearly toxic relationship. As the songs go style-hopping — explosive grunge, chugging synth-pop, hints of funk and jazz — the obsession persists. (Sept. 29; Secretly Canadian) — ParelesDARIUS JONES The avant-gardist Darius Jones has such a distinctive sound on the alto saxophone — widely dilated, yet so rough it could peel paint — he could make a living off his tone alone. But he also has a fiercely innovative streak as a composer. Now he returns with a wide-ranging new album showing off both sides of his talent, “Fluxkit Vancouver (Its Suite but Sacred),” with a string section in prickly repartee with Jones and the commanding drummer Gerald Cleaver. (Sept. 29; Northern Spy/We Jazz) — RussonelloONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Daniel Lopatin has built a two-lane career: as a producer creating cavernous backdrops for hitmakers like the Weeknd, and recording on his own as Oneohtrix Point Never, exploring changeable, ambiguous soundscapes. His new Oneohtrix Point Never album, “Again,” is largely instrumental, incorporating orchestral arrangements, glitchy electronics, stray vocal samples, artificial intelligence and countless other elements that are subject to change at whim in dynamic, inscrutable tracks. Lopatin has described the music as “crescendo-core.” (Sept. 29; Warp) — ParelesJORJA SMITH “Falling or Flying” is only the second studio album by the English songwriter Jorja Smith, but she has been prolific as a collaborator with Kali Uchis, Burna Boy, Drake, FKA twigs and others. She’s fond of minor chords and lean, moody grooves that hint at soul, jazz and Nigerian Afrobeats; they suit her aching but supple voice, as it projects both sympathy and resilience. (Sept. 29; Famm) — ParelesJorja Smith has become a frequent collaborator in the gap between albums. Her second LP arrives in late September.Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesWILCO To make its 13th studio album, “Cousin,” Wilco brought in an outside producer for the first time since 2007: the Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon, who opens folk-rock into electronica. She encouraged Wilco to extend the sonic experimentation it opened up on its 2002 album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” As Jeff Tweedy sings about desolation, loss and obstinate hope, the music carries roots-rock into disorienting and illuminating territories but still sounds handmade. (Sept. 29; dBpm) — ParelesOctoberUSHER Some of the most viral performance clips of this past summer have belonged not to Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, but to Usher, whose Las Vegas residency has been a celebrity magnet and also a showcase for grown-folks-business R&B. His new music continues to delve into the sticky-situation soul that helped make him a superstar two decades ago. (October; mega/gamma.) — CaramanicaBUTCHER BROWN A spirit of generous communion runs through “Solar Music,” the latest album from the Richmond-based hip-hop-jazz fusion quintet Butcher Brown. The album features guest appearances by the saxophonist Braxton Cook, the M.C.’s Pink Siifu and Nappy Nina and the trumpeter Keyon Harrold, among others. Butcher Brown will toast “Solar Music” at a concert Oct. 18 at Le Poisson Rouge. (Oct. 6; Concord Jazz) — RussonelloSLAUSON MALONE 1 Slauson Malone 1 is the updated name for the recording project of Jasper Marsalis, a musician and artist who plays with myriad genres and styles, denaturing them well beyond their familiar contours. His new album, “Excelsior,” is deeply ambitious, engaging and full of winning eccentricities. (Oct. 6; Warp) — CaramanicaSUFJAN STEVENS Love — physical, divine, longed-for, embattled, cherished — is the subject on Sufjan Stevens’ new album, “Javelin.” Its songs usually start out folky, but they rarely stay that way; they expand and billow. Working alone at his home studio, Stevens orchestrated them all by himself, playing nearly every instrument. (Oct. 6; Asthmatic Kitty) — Pareles“BOSSA NOVA: THE GREATEST NIGHT” The United States was formally introduced to Brazil’s bossa nova, or “new style”— suave, understated, sophisticated — with a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 21, 1962 that included Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Luis Bonfá and others. It’s nearly a year late for a 60th anniversary, but a concert will bring together Brazilian stars including Seu Jorge and Carlinhos Brown along with Daniel Jobim — Antonio’s grandson — to revisit the now-classic bossa nova repertory. (Oct. 8; Carnegie Hall.) — ParelesROY HARGROVE By the time he died in 2018, at 49, Roy Hargrove had become the most impactful trumpeter of his generation. Back in 1993, he was still the new kid on the block when Jazz at Lincoln Center commissioned him to write and perform “Love Suite in Mahogany,” with a septet. That performance is being released on record for the first time and a series of shows at Dizzy’s Club will mark its release: The drummer Willie Jones III and the bassist Gerald Cannon will colead a sextet featuring alumni of Hargrove’s bands Oct. 11-13, and the Roy Hargrove Big Band will appear Oct. 14-16. (Oct. 13; Blue Engine) — RussonelloL’RAIN The songwriter Taja Cheek, who records as L’Rain, dissolves genre boundaries and explores mixed emotions on her third album, “I Killed Your Dog.” The songs are lush and immersive, layered with instrumental patterns and vocal harmonies; they’re also cryptic and open-ended, to be deciphered through repeated listening. (Oct. 13; Mexican Summer) — ParelesOFFSET Offset is the second Migos member to release a solo album in the wake of the killing of Takeoff, the group’s third member and creative heart. The first single from “Set It Off” is “Jealousy,” a collaboration with his wife, Cardi B, that suggests that the couple is willing to play their relationship and fame for laughs, and art. (Oct. 13; Motown) — CaramanicaOffset will release his first album since the death of Migos’s Takeoff in October.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressTROYE SIVAN It’s been five years since Troye Sivan has released an album. His re-emergence in recent months, however, suggests the time away has been emboldening. As an actor, he was one of the standouts on “The Idol,” the besieged HBO drama about the music business, and “Rush,” the lead single from “Something to Give Each Other,” his third album, is a remarkably confident assertion of carnal interest. (Oct. 13; Capitol) — CaramanicaJIHYE LEE ORCHESTRA The composer and bandleader Jihye Lee is becoming well-known for her fluid integration of Western classical and big-band jazz techniques, and for arrangements in which heavily loaded horn parts move with apparent ease. At a Brooklyn show, her 18-piece orchestra will debut “Infinite Connections,” a suite-length meditation on the bond Lee shares with her mother and grandmother. (Oct. 15; National Sawdust) — RussonelloJ.D. ALLEN A tenor saxophonist known for the hefty swing and raw intellect of his improvising, and the back-to-basics approach of his jazz trios, J.D. Allen has never before made an album featuring electronics. That will change this fall, when he releases “This,” with Alex Bonney’s dark and enveloping atmospherics wreathed around Allen’s high-velocity horn playing and the thundering drums of Gwilym Jones. (Oct. 20; Savant) — RussonelloEVIAN CHRIST A long-awaited debut album is finally arriving from the electronic music producer Evian Christ, who has been releasing shiver-inducing music for over a decade. The songs on “Revanchist” are chaotic and blissful, tactile and expansive — all in all, a physical experience as much as an aural one. (Oct. 20; Warp) — CaramanicaSAMPHA In the seven years between his own albums, the English songwriter Sampha has lent his richly melancholy voice to tracks by Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Frank Ocean and Alicia Keys. “Lahai” — named after his grandfather, who was from Sierra Leone — is an exploratory, ambitious album that contemplates time, love and transcendence with otherworldly electronics and thoughtful melodies. (Oct. 20; Young) — ParelesAfter a seven-year gap, Sampha will release “Lahai” in October.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Associated PressTHE STREETS British rap’s great literalist, the Streets (Mike Skinner) returns with “The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light,” a new album that nods to various stripes of U.K. club culture while adhering firm to Skinner’s keen-eyed storytelling. In conjunction with the album, the Streets will also release a clubland-themed murder mystery film of the same name. (Oct. 20; 679 Recordings/Warner Music UK Ltd) — CaramanicaTHE MOUNTAIN GOATS “All Hail West Texas,” a sparsely arranged but lyrically vivid 2002 album released when the Mountain Goats was still a moniker for the solo music of John Darnielle, remains one of the most beloved entries in the group’s vast discography. Now the band — featuring the bassist Peter Hughes, the drummer Jon Wurster and the multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas — will release a sequel, “Jenny From Thebes,” updating the fates of its characters and fleshing out its sound. (Oct. 27; Merge) — Lindsay ZoladzMIKE REED “The Separatist Party,” the forthcoming album from the drummer, composer and Chicago jazz instigator Mike Reed, is Part 1 of a forthcoming three-album cycle meditating on solitude, loneliness and the elusiveness of community (surprisingly, he was already working on this project before pandemic lockdowns). The irony, though, is how much fun he seems to be having in the company of the multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay, the poet Marvin Tate and the three members of Bitchin Bajas, his compatriots on this LP, who surge through grimy post-rock or drift into ethereal, odd-metered, electrified airspaces with whiffs of Ethio-jazz. (Oct. 27; Astral Spirits/We Jazz) — RussonelloDOJA CAT: THE SCARLET TOUR Though she’s wowed audiences with ambitious awards show performances, the rambunctious rapper and pop star Doja Cat has not yet embarked upon an arena tour. (Tonsil surgery forced her to pull out of a slot opening for the Weeknd last year.) The Scarlet Tour — which begins at San Francisco’s Chase Center on Oct. 31 and makes stops at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 29 and Newark’s Prudential Center on Nov. 30 — will give her a chance to command her largest stages yet and showcase music from her latest album, “Scarlet,” due Sept. 22. The rising rapper Doechii and of-the-moment it-girl Ice Spice will open. (Oct. 31 through Dec. 13) — ZoladzNovemberCAT POWER Last November, Cat Power (the stage name of the smoky-voiced crooner Chan Marshall) played a song-for-song reimagining of her hero Bob Dylan’s May 1966 Manchester concert — the one at which an audience member, disgruntled by Dylan’s departure from acoustic folk, infamously yelled out “Judas!” Now it is arriving as an album titled “Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Marshall, a gifted interpreter of other musicians’ material, structured the set to be half acoustic and half electric, just like Dylan’s; a muted “She Belongs to Me” contrasts with a rollicking, full-band “Ballad of a Thin Man.” (November; Domino) — ZoladzChan Marshall (a.k.a. Cat Power) will release her live concert covering Bob Dylan.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Alberto Pezzali, via Invision, via Associated PressCODY JOHNSON “The Painter,” the new song from Cody Johnson, one of mainstream country’s sturdiest performers, extends his streak of music that’s deeply earnest, unflashily produced, and a blend of emotionally stoic and trembling. It’s the lead single from “Leather,” his third studio album on a major label after a long and robust independent career. (Nov. 3; COJO Music/Warner Music Nashville) — CaramanicaMYRA MELFORD’S FIRE & WATER QUINTET The pianist and composer Myra Melford’s five-piece band of all-star creative improvisers is aptly named: There is something volatile and elemental about the music she makes with Ingrid Laubrock, the saxophonist; Mary Halvorson, the guitarist; Tomeka Reid, the cellist; and Lesley Mok, the percussionist. On “Hear the Light Singing,” the group’s second LP, Halvorson’s effects-laden guitar comes in splashes and jolts, and Reid’s cello moves in hurrying steps or generous waves. (Nov. 3; RogueArt) — RussonelloLIZ PHAIR: ‘EXILE IN GUYVILLE’ 30th ANNIVERSARY TOUR Liz Phair’s 1993 debut “Exile in Guyville” captured young adulthood in a wry, vivid voice and brought a refreshing female perspective to indie rock’s boys club. Thirty years later, it continues to inspire younger musicians, including Kate Bollinger and Sabrina Teitelbaum (who records searingly honest music under the name Blondshell), both openers for Phair when she plays “Guyville” in its glorious entirety on an anniversary tour. The show comes to Brooklyn’s Kings Theater on Nov. 24. (Nov. 3 through Dec. 9) — ZoladzCAMP FLOG GNAW CARNIVAL The annual festival helmed by Tyler, the Creator continues to be one of the most innovatively programmed, in any genre. He is a headliner this year, along with SZA and the Hillbillies (Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem). The deep lineup includes the corridos tumbados stars Fuerza Regida, various generations of dream-pop from Willow, Toro y Moi and d4vd, accessibly tough rapping from Clipse and Ice Spice and much more. (Nov. 11-12; Dodger Stadium Grounds in Los Angeles) — CaramanicaNICKI MINAJ Reportedly, when Lil Uzi Vert was planning the release of his most recent album, “Pink Tape,” Nicki Minaj reached out to him to ask, in essence, how he could release a pink-themed album and not include her. (He obliged.) Now, Minaj returns with “Pink Friday 2,” her own album, on the heels of a pair of collaborations with Ice Spice, “Princess Diana” and “Barbie World,” that have given her new spark. (Nov. 17; Republic) — CaramanicaDOLLY PARTON Last year, when she was nominated for induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Dolly Parton initially declined because she did not consider herself a rock artist. (She was eventually inducted anyway.) “This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great rock ’n’ roll album at some point in the future,” she said in a statement. That future has now arrived: Dolly Parton’s “Rockstar” is a sprawling, star-studded 30-track album that features originals (the stomping “World on Fire”), covers of rock classics (“Stairway to Heaven,” “Let It Be”), and an impressive list of guests that include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Debbie Harry and more. (Nov. 17; Butterfly Records/Big Machine Records) — Zoladz More

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      ‘On Cedar Street’ Meets ‘Here You Come Again’

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      “Here You Come Again” and “On Cedar Street” are very different new musicals about people who are unmoored and seek companionship to make it through.There is little to be gained from getting overly attached to source material. When a story told first in one form is adapted into another, it becomes a different creature — in the details and sometimes the broad outlines, too. So it goes with art; so has it ever gone.And yet I ask for a special dispensation in the case of the new musical, “On Cedar Street,” onstage through Sept. 2 at the Berkshire Theater Group’s Unicorn Theater in Stockbridge, Mass. The show is inspired by Kent Haruf’s slender final novel from 2015, “Our Souls at Night,” about how two widowed, small-town neighbors, Addie and Louis, gingerly find their way into each other’s lives after she proposes a remedy for their loneliness: that they start sleeping together platonically, for conversation and companionship.The book is a quiet, gentle thing, and it takes its time, layering in the details of Addie and Louis’s pasts and presents. Each has been lonely since long before their spouses died: his marriage marred by a scandalous affair, hers numbed by the death of a child. When Addie’s young grandson, Jamie, comes to stay with her, he’s lonely at first, too, and scared of the dark.But the novel’s forlorn heart is nowhere to be found in “On Cedar Street,” which has a book by Emily Mann; music by Lucy Simon (“The Secret Garden”), who died last October, and Carmel Dean; and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. Directed by Susan H. Schulman, who staged “The Secret Garden” on Broadway, the musical presents Addie (Lauren Ward, in excellent form) and Louis (Stephen Bogardus, not quite disappearing into the role) as essentially fine with being alone, despite Addie’s comic difficulty with sleeping solo, which we witness in her toss-and-turn opening number.“I prefer the single life,” Addie and Louis sing early on, and though they’re skittish about getting romantically involved, they recognize that that’s exactly what they’re doing. Addie didn’t pick her one hot widowed neighbor for nothing. Like the middling Netflix film adaptation of the novel, starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, this production is definitely a beautiful-people incarnation of the tale.The ache of aloneness is gone, though, and with it the sense of two people cautiously choosing each other, trying not to unduly disturb their respective ghosts. And despite a physical design that’s all patchwork and wood, evoking a kind of sun-dappled Middle America, “On Cedar Street” has mostly discarded the straitening social pressure that Addie and Louis, in the novel, are rebelling against — taunting the local gossips by choosing happiness. (The set is by Reid Thompson, projections by Shawn Edward Boyle.)“On Cedar Street” skitters along, too busy for depth. At 105 minutes, it feels both scant and overcrowded, with narrative context pared away to make space for inorganic plot lines that seem like bids for timely social resonance: one involving a dangerous drought and another a left-winger-vs.-right-winger battle between Addie’s friend Ruth (Lana Gordon) and her neighbor Lloyd (Lenny Wolpe).Ruth serves one laudable new purpose in the musical, though: urging Addie to stand up to her grown son, Gene (Ben Roseberry), who treats her abominably and gets away with it because he blames himself for the accidental death of his sister when they were children. With his pain approximately one cell beneath the surface of his skin, he is forever ready to burst into emotionally lucid song.But Jamie (Hayden Hoffman), Gene’s 8-year-old son, is missing the tender vulnerability that the story needs from the child. That isn’t the fault of the actor; a high school student, he is simply too old for the role. Jamie’s dog, Charley, is played by a sandy-furred stage veteran named Addison. (Animal direction and training are by William Berloni; Rochelle Scudder is the dog handler.)The score, which includes additional music by Deborah Abramson, is a mixed bag stylistically. Much of the music is lovely, but almost no songs get the affective underpinning from the show that would make them land with any impact. The closest it gets to poignant is “The Girl We Were,” with strings underneath Addie’s remembrance of the passionate soul she used to be. (Music direction is by Kristin Stowell.)It’s Charley, ultimately, who elicits a moment of genuine emotion toward the finish of “On Cedar Street” — an overly neat ending (albeit an improvement on the novel’s) orchestrated by way of the drought plot line. A forest fire is involved, which might seem terribly of the moment, but then again so is loneliness.This spring, the U.S. Surgeon General released a report titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, warning of the need for social connection and the dire harm that its absence can bring. Addie, Louis and Jamie are prime examples — first of the ailment, then of the cure — if only “On Cedar Street” would let them be.Kevin (Matthew Risch) and Dolly (Tricia Paoluccio) in “Here You Come Again” at Goodspeed Musicals’ Terris Theater in Chester, Conn.Diane SobolewskiLoneliness is far more top of mind in the hallucinatory new jukebox comedy “Here You Come Again,” running through Aug. 27 at Goodspeed Musicals’ Terris Theater in Chester, Conn. The mind in question is barely hanging on.Kevin (Matthew Risch), an aspiring comic, has left New York for Texas in the early, planet-on-pause days of the pandemic. In May 2020, he is isolating in the attic of his childhood home. (The set is by Anna Louizos.) Pictures of his idol, Dolly Parton, hang on the wooden walls; downstairs, his parents watch Fox News. On the verge of being officially dumped by his hedge-fund-guy boyfriend back in Manhattan, Kevin is feeling fragile.But when he wakes to find Dolly (Tricia Paoluccio) in the room with him, he is less comforted than confused.“Hey, little buddy,” she says, with the beneficence of a Tennessee guardian angel making a surprise appearance. “I’ve been keeping my eye on everyone during the pandemic, and I could feel your need for some extra help.”This phantasmic Dolly is a charmer, and in her sparkles and stilettos and butterfly sleeves, she makes sense as the hero of a pandemic musical. (Costumes are by Bobby Pearce.) The real Parton spent the spring of 2020 donating to coronavirus research and reading bedtime stories to children online. The Dolly here is similarly generous, singing more than a dozen numbers: “Love Is Like a Butterfly,” “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You” and other hits. (The music director is Eugene Gwozdz.)Paoluccio, who wrote the musical’s book with Bruce Vilanch and the show’s director-choreographer, Gabriel Barre, is a fun, fluid Dolly, bubbly and confiding. Because this Dolly exists in Kevin’s imagination, she doesn’t have to match the real one precisely, but she is close enough. One caveat: Paoluccio goes distractingly hard on Dolly’s sometime tendency to pronounce “s” like “sh.”It is Kevin’s story, though, and its telling needs more balancing and tightening. Unmoored from the life he’d been living and the home he’d made before the world abruptly got small, he is awash in self-pity — an unappealing quality when humor isn’t there to buoy it. The show also needs grounding in a reality outside the attic, to give it the emotional gravity it wants; the offstage voice of Kevin’s mother (Risch) could provide that if she were played straight rather than as a caricature.In its current state, “Here You Come Again” is unpolished, but Parton’s music makes it an easy good time. That, and Dolly’s company — even if we’re imagining her, too.Here You Come AgainThrough Aug. 27 at the Terris Theater, Chester, Conn.; goodspeed.org. Running time: 2 hours.On Cedar StreetThrough Sept. 2 at the Unicorn Theater, Stockbridge, Mass.; berkshiretheatregroup.org. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. More

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      Dolly Parton Reunites Two Beatles, and 12 More New Songs

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

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      Dolly Parton Goes Arena Rock, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Jorja Smith, Rhiannon Giddens, Shakira and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Dolly Parton, ‘World on Fire’Dolly Parton has announced an album due Nov. 17, “Rockstar,” that will be full of remakes of hits, often joined by the original performers. But she also brought some songs of her own including this one, her worried, indignant assessment of a “World on Fire” that’s full of lies and conflict. It’s Dolly gone arena-rock goth, with power-chord blasts and martial drums. A gospelly bridge asks, “Can’t we rise above/Can’t we show some love?,” but then it’s back to minor chords as Parton belts her best intentions — “Let’s heal the hurt/let kindness work” — against a grim, stomping, “We Will Rock You”-style chant: “Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?” Parton concludes by posing that same question. JON PARELESJoni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now (Live at the Newport Folk Festival 2022)’Joni Mitchell’s surprise appearance at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, bolstered and surrounded by dedicated admirers like Brandi Carlile, was a demonstration not only of gumption, support and resilience, but of enduring musicianship and control. “Both Sides Now” previews an official live album, “At Newport,” due July 28. As a piano ripples and strings swell behind her, with Carlile and Lucius adding vocal harmonies, Mitchell makes each phrase purposeful, reflective and improvisatory, and her lowered, roughened but precise voice makes every word a life lesson. PARELESRhiannon Giddens, ‘You’re the One’Fresh off winning the Pulitzer Prize for music for her opera, “Omar,” Rhiannon Giddens releases “You’re the One,” the title song of her first full album of her own songs (though she has written, adapted and collaborated widely). As she sings about finding a love that turns “shades of gray” into “a new Technicolor world,” the song explodes out of her string-band foundations — banjo and fiddle — into full-tilt rock choruses, bursting with euphoria. PARELESJorja Smith, ‘Little Things’A jazzy piano lick and frenetic beat drive the English R&B artist Jorja Smith’s new single “Little Things,” which captures the atmosphere of a vibey, intimate house party with a densely populated dance floor. “Just a little thing for you and I,” Smith intones before shrugging with a cool nonchalance. “And if it’s meant to be than that’s all right.” LINDSAY ZOLADZFatoumata Diawara and Roberto Fonseca, ‘Blues’Fatoumata Diawara, from Mali, rides a galloping six-beat modal groove topped by the Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca in “Blues,” which is by far the rawest song on her new album of international fusions, “London Ko.” She produced it with Damon Albarn of Gorillaz. The lyrics, in Bambara and English, are about gratitude to her family; the spirit is centered and fierce. PARELESShakira, ‘Acróstico’Acróstico means acrostic, and the first letters of the five-line verses for Shakira’s new song spell out the names of her sons, Milan and Sasha. It’s the latest missive following her breakup with the soccer player Gerard Piqué, and it’s a declaration of unswerving maternal devotion through her own pain. “Even if life treats me this way/I will be strong for you alone,” she sings over steadfast piano chords. “All I want is your happiness/And to be with you.” There’s a hint of U2’s “Every Breaking Wave” in the chorus as it climbs to a tremulous peak: wounded but resolutely compassionate. PARELESChristine and the Queens, ‘Tears Can Be So Soft’Hélöise Letissier, a.k.a. Chris, the songwriter and voice of Christine and the Queens, plunges into separation and consolation in “Tears Can Be So Soft.” It’s built on a sample of the string arrangement from Marvin Gaye’s “Feel All My Love Inside”: an octave-leaping, tremulous swoop that changes from major to minor. Chris sings about missing family, friends and a lover and crying while driving on the freeway, with only the warmth and release of tears for comfort; a string section pays witness. PARELESRob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Wasted’Rob Moose’s violin mirrors Phoebe Bridgers’s nocturnal anxiety on “Wasted,” a song from Moose’s upcoming EP, “Inflorescence.” Plucked notes echo her tense nerves while a groaning bed of strings brings an added pathos to the lyrics, which were written by Bridgers’s collaborator Marshall Vore. “I used to have the energy to get mad, used to know how to say sorry,” Bridgers sings with wry self-judgment and an escalating intensity. “But now I’m back with none of that.” ZOLADZNatural Wonder Beauty Concept, ‘Sword’A keyboard loop that hints at harpsichord or koto, pitch-shifted vocals, sporadic drum thuds, bits of static and the sound of a sword being unsheathed run through “Sword,” a stubbornly fragile track by the singer Ana Roxanne and the producer DJ Python. They have collaborated as Natural Wonder Beauty Concept for an album due July 14. “Sword” is at once transparent and elusive, with barely intelligible lyrics — “Everyone passes through,” Roxanne coos — and a willingness to tweak everything; the last section lowers and slows down every element but remains enigmatic. PARELESBen Chasny & Rick Tomlinson, ‘Waking of Insects’Ben Chasny records as Six Organs of Admittance; Rick Tomlinson records as, among other names, Voice of the Seven Woods. Both love minimalist repetition and gradual unfoldings, and in 2017 they made an album of duets. “Waking of Insects” was recorded live, just two acoustic guitars. They share interlocking fingerpicked patterns and, with moments of dissonance, nudge one another toward new ones, very gradually making their way from quick, fluttering interplay to tolling repose. PARELES More

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      Jack Harlow Goes Deep on Race and Rap, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Jessie Ware, Joy Oladokun, Miguel and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Jack Harlow, ‘Common Ground’On his third major label album, “Jackman,” Jack Harlow leans away from the lithe boasts that shaped “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” his 2022 breakthrough LP. Instead, he pivots to issues — specifically, on the opening track “Common Ground,” the issue of whiteness. It’s a fleet, acute look at the ways white participants in hip-hop cloak themselves, to be present but not quite seen (or maybe vice versa): “Reciting rap lyrics about murder and cash profit/Get to feel like a thug but don’t have to act on it.” White rappers rapping about the condition of whiteness in hip-hop isn’t new, and Harlow has addressed these themes on earlier releases; he raps about these topics with self-awareness and skepticism (though not quite self-indictment). But as he is beginning to become a bigger mainstream rap star, he’s not shrugging off the conversation as if it doesn’t apply to him anymore. JON CARAMANICAJessie Ware, ‘Freak Me Now’The British pop singer Jessie Ware pivoted to disco on her excellent 2020 album “What’s Your Pleasure?,” but she shifts n into a higher gear on its ecstatic follow-up, “That! Feels Good!,” out on Friday. The kinetic, house-inflected dance-floor anthem “Freak Me Now” is a highlight, and its vampy attitude and attention to sonic detail finds Ware in complete control of her vision. “That sparkle in my eye, you are a jewel, baby,” she purrs on the verse, as if an entire glittering, sweaty congregation of partygoers is orbiting around her confident stillness. LINDSAY ZOLADZFour Tet, ‘Three Drums’Fresh off a raucous, last-minute gig headlining Coachella with his pals Skrillex and Fred again.., Kieran Hebden has released “Three Drums,” a slow-burning, eight-minute reverie that’s much more subdued than what he played for the festival crowd. But such is the duality of Four Tet. “Three Drums” contrasts the textures of live percussion and otherworldly synth gradients, resulting in a hypnotic composition that ebbs and flows like an ocean. ZOLADZMiguel, ‘Give It to Me’Miguel returns to one of his favorite modes — the flirt — in “Give It to Me,” which is blunt: “I like what you got,” he repeats. He has plenty of blandishments, among them “I’ll be your doctor, let me operate.” But he surrounds them with a production, credited to Scoop DeVille, that keeps melting down and reshaping itself around him: with synthesizers and handclaps, with hard-rock guitars, with echoey backup voices. It’s as if he wants to try every possible seduction strategy, all at once. JON PARELESJoy Oladokun, ‘Somebody Like Me’“I’ve watched even my best intentions turn into disaster/Everything goes backwards,” Joy Oladokun sings in “Somebody Like Me” from a new album, “Proof of Life.” It’s a plea for consolation and support from friends and from God; it’s a confession and a rallying cry. “I’ve never been as honest as I want to be/when I need help through,” she adds. The syncopated beat is steady, yet she knows the sentiment is widely shared. PARELESBebe Rexha & Dolly Parton, ‘Seasons’Aging, loneliness and despair aren’t the usual makings of Bebe Rexha’s songs, so the folky “Seasons” is unexpected — even more so with the appearance of Rexha’s duet partner, Dolly Parton. They sing in close harmony through the song, and Rexha adapts her voice to share Parton’s feathery vibrato, but Parton is upfront in the bridge. “How come nobody warns us about what’s coming for us?” she sings. “That you live and die alone.” PARELESThe 3 Clubmen, ‘Aviatrix’Andy Partridge, the often elusive co-founder of XTC, has re-emerged with two longtime collaborators, Jen Olive and Stu Rowe, as the 3 Clubmen. “Aviatrix” is a warped, meter-shifting, proudly eccentric pop extravaganza. The lyrics touch on historical and modern aviation, from “made like a bird out of canvas and sticks” to “your seat is a flotation device,” while the music just keeps piling things on — percussion, flute, saxophones, vocal harmonies, lead guitar — all wrapped around a bouncy acoustic guitar lick that loops all the way through. PARELESBill Orcutt, ‘The Life of Jesus’The guitarist Bill Orcutt has recorded in all sorts of configurations, from raucous punk to acoustic ruminations to tautly composed minimalistic electric ensembles. His new album, “Jump on It,” returns to solo acoustic guitar, a format in which he can be pristinely meditative or wildly eruptive at any moment. “The Life of Jesus” promises stability at first, steadily tolling a major chord. But midway through, breakneck dissonant lines burst out; when consonance returns, it seems far more fragile. PARELESRob Moose featuring Brittany Howard, ‘I Bend But Never Break’The violinist Rob Moose, a founder of the chamber group yMusic, has been a ubiquitous studio musician and string arranger for — among hundreds of credits — Miley Cyrus, Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, John Legend, Phoebe Bridgers and Alabama Shakes. Brittany Howard, Alabama Shakes’ leader, returns the favor with her song “I Bend But Never Break,” which will appear on Moose’s EP due in August, “Inflorescence.” Howard sings about seeking, and claiming, the strength to rise above obstacles and tribulation: “I am not fearless but fear will stop me,” she vows. She’s backed by a lush, cello-rich, harmonically convoluted string ensemble, as her solo testimony gives way to a choral affirmation. PARELES More

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      Spring Forward: Songs for a New Season

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      Hear a playlist tuned to rebirth, as well as the risk to bloom. Plus: a selection of tracks that explain our readers.The cover of Waxahatchee’s “Saint Cloud.”Merge RecordsDear listeners,A few days ago, I was buried up to my neck in volcanic sand.Literally, and by choice! My sister and I spent a very restorative weekend at a spa, to celebrate her upcoming wedding and to shake off a winter that had been a challenge for each of us. This particular spa has imported natural volcanic sand from Ibusuki, a city in southwest Japan, and for a cool $30 they will have someone rake a hot, heaping quantity of it atop your body until you cannot move. Then you lay there for 15 minutes, letting the mineral-rich sand work its supposedly detoxifying magic and, if you are like me, expelling such an ungodly amount of perspiration from your face that an attendant who sees maybe a hundred people through this process each day remarks with slightly concerned awe, “Wow, you’re really sweating.”For the first few minutes, I felt like a corpse. By the end, though, as I wriggled out of the earth and once again stood upright, I have never felt more like a freshly sprouting flower in springtime. (Albeit an exceptionally sweaty one who had to sit on the bench for five extra minutes of observation because she’d been deemed a fainting risk.)The earliest weeks of springtime have such a distinct feeling that I decided to make a playlist to soundtrack them. Late March/early April is a time of rebirth but also of the friction and occasional struggle of transition — the lime-green shoot emerging from the dirt; the chrysalis stage before the butterfly. It’s the April-is-the-cruelest-month part of “The Wasteland.” It’s the “little darling, it’s been a long, cold lonely winter” part of “Here Comes the Sun.” It’s this perfect little 24-word poem by Anaïs Nin that I always find myself thinking of this time of year:And then the day came,when the riskto remain tightin a budwas more painfulthan the riskit tookto Blossom.Flowers are a recurring motif on this playlist: Waxahatchee’s blooming and then withering lilacs “marking the slow, slow, slow passing of time”; Hurray for the Riff Raff’s bemused cataloging of poetic plant names (“Rhododendron, night blooming jasmine, deadly nightshade…”). So, too, is rebirth and that worthwhile risk to bloom. Perhaps selfishly, I sneaked in one song in about “smoke floating over the volcano,” but that’s from an album I find speaks to a lot of these themes anyway, Caroline Polachek’s excellent, recently released “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You.” My perennial favorites Nina Simone and the Mountain Goats make appearances, but don’t say I didn’t warn you in my introductory “11 Songs That Explain Me.”Speaking of which! Thank you so much for all your wonderful submissions when I asked last week for a song that describes you. I wish I could have included every one of them, but I wanted to share a few of my favorites below. So many of your responses were such vivid reminders of the humanizing power of music and the bone-deep connection we all have to certain songs. It was great to get to know more about who’s out there reading, too. I feel like we’re building something special together.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Waxahatchee: “Lilacs”“And the lilacs drink the water/And the lilacs die,” Katie Crutchfield sings on this bittersweet, gently twangy tune from her most recent album, “Saint Cloud”; that succinct image and the song’s stark arrangement lay bare her increasing confidence as a songwriter. (Listen on YouTube)2. Hurray for the Riff Raff: “Rhododendron”Alynda Segarra has a knack for writing songs that both celebrate the natural world and articulate the dangers of ignoring its glory. “Don’t turn your back on the mainland,” Segarra sings here, on a tuneful but defiantly prickly chorus. (Listen on YouTube)3. Troye Sivan: “Bloom”Here’s an underrated gem from a few years back: smeary, romantic, ’80s-inspired pop as vibrant as a bouquet of roses in every color. (Listen on YouTube)4. Beach House: “Lazuli”And from an album called “Bloom,” this is an atmospheric reverie from the indie-pop duo Beach House, a band that — despite the summertime humidity its name conjures — always sounds to me like the arrival of spring. (Listen on YouTube)5. Jamila Woods: “Sula (Paperback)”Inspired by Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel “Sula,” the ever-inquisitive Chicago R&B singer and poet Jamila Woods crafts an ode to self-discovery and personal growth with a refrain that stretches upward like a verdant stalk: “I’m better, I’m better, I’m better …” (Listen on YouTube)6. The Mountain Goats: “Onions”I love the way this simple, guitar-driven meditation on early spring entwines the personal with the more cosmic cycling of the seasons: “Springtime’s coming, that means you’ll be coming back around/New onions growing underground.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Caroline Polachek: “Smoke”“It’s just smoke floating over the volcano,” the avant-garde pop star Polachek sings, providing a potent reminder that all difficult periods — like, say, being buried up to your neck in a steaming pile of volcanic sand — do pass in time. (Listen on YouTube)8. Nina Simone: “Here Comes the Sun”This is such a deeply felt reading of a song so many of us know by rote: Simone’s particular phrasing cracks it open and makes you feel like you’re hearing George Harrison’s words anew. (Listen on YouTube)9. Dolly Parton: “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”Dolly Parton is, eternally, a human ray of sunshine, though perhaps never more explicitly than she is here, on this inspirational, soul-rattling classic from her first self-produced album from 1977, “New Harvest … First Gathering.” (Listen on YouTube)I feel that ice is slowly melting,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Spring Forward” track listTrack 1: Waxahatchee, “Lilacs” (2020)Track 2: Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Rhododendron” (2022)Track 3: Troye Sivan, “Bloom” (2018)Track 4: Beach House, “Lazuli” (2012)Track 5: Jamila Woods, “Sula (Paperback)” (2020)Track 6: The Mountain Goats, “Onions” (2000)Track 7: Caroline Polachek, “Smoke” (2023)Track 8: Nina Simone, “Here Comes the Sun” (1971)Track 9: Dolly Parton, “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (1977)The songs that explain youLast week, we asked readers about the songs that explain them. More than 500 of you wrote in. Thanks to everyone who shared their stories.Cameo: “She’s Strange”I’ve always thought of it as my personal theme song in a way … it’s a tribute to a woman committed to being her unique self in the world. When I think about the things I am most proud of in my life, it’s the fact that somehow I did not let the world, society, Groupthink or even my culture of origin diminish my quiet determination to live my truth as best as my circumstances would allow. — Idara E. Bassey, Atlanta (Listen on YouTube)Mitski: “Dan the Dancer”Or perhaps the whole album of “Puberty 2.” I’m 18 years old so I feel as though I am experiencing my own second puberty, not one of first periods and training bras but one of questioning my place in the world, having new experiences, first relationships etc. For me, Dan the Dancer encapsulates my fear and questioning of the future and my life through this metaphor of hanging onto a cliff, while connecting to this experience of new relationships and letting yourself be vulnerable with those around you. — Natalie, Singapore (Listen on YouTube)Sonic Youth: “Teen Age Riot”In high school, I boarded the bus every morning in my rural Louisiana hometown wearing thick black eyeliner and a scowl, always with some flavor of abrasive alternative music blasting in my cheap earbuds. This song carried me through many of those bus rides, away from my mostly conservative, evangelical Christian peers who I couldn’t identify less with to a place where my frustrations could be heard and understood. I’m now a student at a law school where I feel immense pressure to pursue a corporate career and give up the idealism that has served as my enduring motivation. This song inspires me to look to the teenage riot that still persists within me, and remember what’s really worth fighting for. — Amanda Watson, Durham, N.C. (Listen on YouTube)Nina Simone: “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”It encapsulates the world I want to see, coupled with the wistfulness that we’re not there yet. I love the way the song starts with barely any instrumental accompaniment, just Simone’s piano and a gentle drumbeat (or maybe finger snaps?) and then builds and builds until it’s speaking to the whole world. I’ve been some kind of activist most of my life (I’m now 55), and it’s easy to be deeply discouraged by the political and ecological present we’re in and lose hope for what the future might be. This song (re-)energizes me: Nina was singing at a moment when civil rights were a legal reality but mostly a aspiration for those living with the daily indignities and violence of racism, so if she can imagine a better world, so can I. — Sarah Chinn, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)Brian Eno: “The Big Ship”I discovered this in the mid-80s at a time when I was a closeted gay teenager, longing for some sort of freedom. This ethereal piece of almost-ambience defies easy categorization. It simply builds, like a cloudy nebula descending from space, more and more sounds playing off one another until it envelopes you and reascends, taking you with it. If felt like an escape into another reality — like a peaceful transition to an open world. I’d play it on repeat with headphones to keep spiraling darkness at bay. It worked. It helped me survive. — George B. Singer, Long Beach, Calif. (Listen on YouTube)And a very special bonus track (from the artist)The dB’s: “Amplifier”I wrote this 40 years ago, and it’s probably my best-known song. It’s partially about me and my own life, but it has spoken to other desperate, depressed people, helping defuse some of their emotional distress with a little misplaced humor. Sometimes. People still react to it — this past summer, at the request of the hostess, I played the song with my dB’s rhythm section bandmates at a soundcheck for a book release party in Chapel Hill. An early attendee had a visceral meltdown over the words to the song, begging us not to play it again. So we didn’t. — Peter Holsapple, Durham, N.C. (Listen on YouTube) More

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      Christmas at Dollywood, With Streetmosphere and a Chicken Lady

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      Dolly Parton’s theme park gets into the holiday spirit in a way that rivals Radio City’s Rockettes — with fewer kicklines but far more fingerpicking.Parker Collins, 15, does a version of “Jingle Bells” on his banjo. “Usually I get excited, and I start playing fast,” he said.A family poses in front of the Dollywood Smoky Mountain Christmas sign at the entrance of the park.PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. — In June or July, Dollywood employees begin stringing more than six million twinkle lights across Dolly Parton’s namesake theme park, here in the Smoky Mountains.In a mad sprint just after Halloween, they add more than 650 evergreens, including a 50-footer that serves as a canvas for a light show about a polar bear. The steam train that whistles through the park is topped with a giant wreath; Santa stuffies appear as balloon pop prizes.By early November, Heidi Lou Parton, Dolly’s niece, is onstage, surrounded by glistening firs, harmonizing on “You Are My Christmas,” a song written for her father, Randy Parton. She was all of 4 when she made her debut at Dollywood, singing background vocals for Randy, one of Dolly Parton’s 11 siblings. Now 37, Heidi Lou has been performing at Dollywood ever since, including nearly a decade of Christmas shows, most of them alongside her father, aunts and cousins.All of her earliest memories are at Dollywood, she said one afternoon between gigs. “It’s an oasis for me.”Nearly 3 million people a year come to the theme park.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“Christmas in the Smokies” is Dollywood’s signature holiday show and has been running since 1990.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesYou don’t have to be a Parton to hold Dollywood close, especially during the holidays. Generations of families have made it an annual tradition to visit this 160-acre entertainment complex, 35 miles from Knoxville, which has transformed, over three decades, into a Christmas attraction to rival Radio City’s Rockettes — with fewer kicklines, but far more fingerpicking.“Christmas in the Smokies,” its signature show, has been running since 1990, with a live orchestra and Appalachian storytelling, a flatfoot dancer and a fiddler. The park serves as the setting for “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas,” the star’s latest NBC special, now streaming on Peacock, which gives a glimpse of several Dollywood musicians, like Addie Levy, a 20-year-old mandolin, guitar, fiddle and upright bass player.“There is something for everybody during all the four seasons,” Dolly Parton said in a video interview in September, already offset by candy-pink pines that matched her manicure. “And of course, Christmas is the highlight of it all.”“We make almost as much money now, from Thanksgiving to the first of the year, as we do the whole rest of the year,” she added (a bit of showbiz hyperbole, but the park does have some of its busiest days in that period).Parton, 76, has been a cultural force for decades, an empire-builder whose business ventures include baked goods and dog T-shirts (Doggywood, y’all!), and a rare social unifier whose philanthropic reach has markedly increased. Last month, Jeff Bezos gave her $100 million to add to her already robust charitable giving; among other endeavors, she founded the Imagination Library, which distributes free books to children. Early this year, Dollywood announced a new program in which the 4,000 employees across all its attractions — including part-time and seasonal workers; even a temporary Santa — could have 100 percent of their college tuition paid for by the company. They are eligible on their first day of work.While Dollywood is open most of the year, “Christmas is the highlight of it all,” Dolly Parton said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesEach morning the national anthem plays just before Dollywood visitors enter.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesDollywood, which was founded in 1986, when Parton went into business with Herschend Family Entertainment to rebrand and then expand their existing amusement park, is the largest employer in its rural county. “We want people to have opportunities,” said Parton, whose title at the park is dreamer in chief. “The employees to feel proud to be working there. You don’t want them to feel like they’re just there to serve you. You also, in turn, want to be able to do some things to help make their lives better, and to serve them.”That’s in part why she wanted to do her Christmas special there — “to just show off who we are and what we have there at the park,” she said.“They’re good-looking people!” she added with a hoot.A few days spent there last month, darting among the topiaries of butterflies (Parton’s signature creature), revealed a crosscurrent of her fan base: retirees looking for a homey glimpse of yesteryear; church groups who appreciate the park’s roots in Christian culture; overstretched families looking for a more affordable theme park adventure; mother-daughter bonding outings, gay couples and girlfriend crews with spangly earrings and coordinating T-shirts. Add in reindeer antlers and kids in tinsel and pajamas, and it’s the holidays.Watching the string band, Linda Lay, 60, who runs a family farm business and sings bluegrass with her husband David Lay, leaped off her feet in a jig. “When the music’s good, I just get up and dance,” she said. “To us, there’s two kinds of music,” added David, 64, a mustachioed, overall-ed fourth-generation farmer, who harmonizes and plays guitar. “It’s either good, or it’s bad.”Dollywood’s business was long built on repeat visitors — season-pass holders that came from the region, screaming through the rides in the summer (there is also an adjacent water park), pumpkin-spotting at the harvest festival in the fall. But since the pandemic, Dollywood’s leaders found an uptick, sometimes even a majority, of single-ticket buyers in their nearly 3 million annual attendees. Now on pace for a record-breaking season, they have been working to sell the park to people like Carrie Shea, 23, from Satellite Beach, Fla., who was decked out in full Dolly regalia — fringed white boots, a pink-rimmed cowgirl hat — from the apparel shop Dolly’s Closet (tagline: “her style, your size”).Children gather for story time at DreamMore, a resort hotel affiliated with Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“I’ve loved Dolly since I was a little girl,” said Shea, who works in retail. “Just being around everyone else who loves Dolly — Dolly has such a great moral code, she’s such a woman of empowerment. There’s just pure love walking through.”While you can get a flick of glitz by stepping onto her old tour bus, don’t expect over-the-top camp; there are no rhinestone-encrusted Dolly statues here. The star’s aura is represented more subtly, with a working chapel named for the doctor who delivered her, say, or a small plaque commemorating her uncle Bill’s work as a conservator of chestnut trees.Her music and influences, though, are easy to find. Dollywood entertainers are devoted practitioners of bluegrass, folk and other Americana musical styles not often heard in theme parks. Even if you don’t seek them out, you encounter them at the park, in outdoor trios and roaming banjo players like Parker Collins, a 15-year-old with a deep Southern twang and a virtuosic pluck.Come Christmas time, he does his own speeding rendition of “Jingle Bells,” dueling banjo-style. “Usually I get excited, and I start playing fast,” he explained.Betty Disney cradles her baby, Brooklyn, while sitting next to her daughter Blake in front of a nativity display at Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesAs an institution, Dollywood stands alone in showcasing these heritage mountain sounds to vast audiences, said Roy Andrade, director of old-time music and a professor at East Tennessee State University, which operates the first Appalachian studies program in the country. “In providing a venue and supporting and encouraging young budding musicians, they are contributing to the health and survival of this music,” he said.Some of his students gig at Dollywood. “Our students like playing there because it pays well,” he said, “and it’s a bit grueling — you’re playing all day. You really get to work on your chops. After two or three hours of playing, you’re warmed up, anything can happen — it’s a nice creative space.”The community it offers, in and around artists, is also vital. “This music has always been learned knee to knee,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 way it’s transferred between people.”Addie Levy, the young musician, felt it, when she visited Dollywood as a child. “I used to tell my parents I would sell Dippin’ Dots if I could work here,” she said. She started performing there at age 12 in a bluegrass duo; now she plays at Dollywood and its affiliated resort hotel, DreamMore. Her debut solo album is out next year, including songs she wrote in the break room at the hotel, where a corridor is lined with images of Parton’s 50-plus studio albums.“I’ll walk through her album hallway and think wow, maybe one day I’ll have three of these,” Levy said. “You just get inspired when you see her looking over you. You’re like, look Dolly, I’m writing this song — I think you’d like it.”Members of the Jolly family at DreamMore.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesBirthday guests are given a special button to wear during their visit.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times‘If someone doesn’t have a smile, give them yours’Dollywood emphasizes what’s called “streetmosphere,” especially the one-on-one interactions guests have as they meander through areas like Rivertown Junction, with a replica of the log cabin Parton grew up in, and Craftsman’s Valley, where they can buy a hand-tooled belt from a magnificently bearded artisan, or blow their own glass ornaments. Disney’s streetmosphere is more about a hug from a branded character, often hidden in a plush suit. But Dollywood prides itself on making its employees accessible to visitors — conversationally, temperamentally — whether they are costumed singers and dancers, or cashiers slinging cinnamon bread. (I was persuaded to buy a loaf and a roll, plus supplementary icing.)Those points of connection, whether with a person or a song, are what keep visitors coming back. “We call them ‘moments of truth,’” said Roger White, a longtime entertainment manager.Parton’s magic is that — beneath the wigs and plastic surgery, and the unshakable boob-joke persona she has honed over more than a half-century in show business — she still exudes authenticity. An average person might go mildly batty listening to piped-in Christmas tunes for 10 hours a day, five days a week, for two months, but among the theme park staff are genuine believers. “I put up 30 Christmas trees at my house,” said Chance Smith, a performer turned entertainment manager.Dollywood prides itself on making its employees accessible to visitors. Those points of connection, whether with a person or a song, are what keep visitors coming back.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesHe’s outshone by Parton herself, whose home in suburban Nashville features a Christmas tree in nearly every corner, according to Steve Summers, her longtime creative director. “It’s like a theme park inside,” he said, with colors and ornaments to match each room’s décor. (Think parakeets and vintage cars; the kitchen tree is hot pink.)Summers is a graduate of Dollywood, too: a tall Ken doll of man, he started there as a singer and dancer, duetting with Parton regularly, before she plucked him out to oversee her costumes (300 looks a year) and aesthetics. “If you do know Dolly, you know that behind the scenes, she is a force. And I appreciated that,” he said in an interview in Parton’s Nashville production offices, where the lyrics for her hit “9 to 5,” handwritten in her neat cursive on a yellow legal pad, hang framed by the door.“He’s just been the best thing that ever happened to me,” Parton said.The Dollywood Express train, which is coal-powered, travels through the park.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesOver the years, Dollywood acts have gone on to “American Idol” and Broadway. The country star Carly Pearce debuted there as a teenager. But some artists are content to stay at the park.Take the Chicken Lady.In rainbow glasses and a headset mic, some rubber poultry — “my emotional support chicken” — in her apron pocket, Miss Lillian, as her character is formally known, is a local favorite. With a sprig of holly in her hat, she improvises songs on her ukulele. (“What’s your name?” she asked a tween who sought her out one rainy day. “Grace? Oh, we have Grace in this place!”)“I’ve been here almost 20 years,” said the Chicken Lady, whose civilian name is Connie Freeman Prince. “I’ve seen a lot of children grow up.”“I’m in a point in my life when I say, ‘Dear God, just put me where I can be a light,’” Connie Freeman Prince, also known as the Chicken Lady, said.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesMariam Ali, a game attendant at Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesCaleb Brown, one of the park’s performers, won a Brass Ring award in 2021.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times“If you do a show 200 times in two months, every now and then you might trip on your own mouse tail,” Kelsey Lane Dies said. “You just have to let it go, because you have to get back onstage so quickly.”Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesLike many Dollywood performers, Freeman Prince has serious credentials — a B.F.A. in theater; TV, movie and voice-over roles. She does a mean Judy Garland impression and once worked as a Dolly impersonator. She met her husband, a sound designer, and got engaged “on park,” as employees call the grounds. “A lot of people get engaged here,” she said. “A lot of people have different parts of their lives shared here. And I’m in a point in my life when I say, ‘Dear God, just put me where I can be a light.’”In more than a dozen interviews at the park, there was one mantra from the boss that I heard repeated over and over: “Dolly always says, ‘If someone doesn’t have a smile, give them yours.’”“The littlest thing you do can change someone’s day,” said Nathan Forshey, a performer for 17 years, whose latest role is the town crier. “What you do matters. That’s what this place has taught me.”The Dollywood Emporium sells, among other things, Parton’s perfume.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesScenes from the all-you-can-eat dinner at Aunt Granny’s Restaurant inside Dollywood.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesA replica of Dolly Parton’s childhood home is furnished with some of her family’s heirlooms.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times‘If she’s still asleep at 3 a.m., it’s a miracle’For all its good-heartedness, Dollywood can be notably lacking in diversity, especially onstage.When Caleb Brown started in 2018, he noticed he was one of only two performers of color, among dozens of cast members. Though he felt supported himself, it was something he brought up immediately, first with the other actor — who said “that it was also a concern for him” — and then with management, he said, in an effort to dispel any sense that Dollywood’s appeal was limited to white country fans.“I think there’s a lot of people like me who would benefit from this place so much,” Brown, 27, said. In 2021 he won a Brass Ring award — the Oscars of the international attractions industry — for best performer.Some visitors felt alienated by the park’s traditionalist choices: the holiday shows center on straight family stories, with mostly white actors. “When people celebrate Christmas, they can celebrate in different ways, and families can look very different,” said Zaki Baker, a mother who came often with her young children. “It seems like they have a narrow perspective.”Park leadership said they make tweaks every season, including to popular shows; they recently added a new song to “Christmas in the Smokies.” In a statement, Tim Berry, Dollywood’s vice president of human resources, said the company believes that “a diverse work force makes us more creative, flexible, productive and competitive,” adding that “our diversity encompasses differences in ethnicity, gender, language, age, religion, socioeconomic status, physical and mental ability, thinking styles, experience and education.”For years, Parton’s brand has been about inclusivity and acceptance; lately she has come out more forcefully in support of the gay community and movements like Black Lives Matter; in 2018, she changed a separate attraction known as the “Dixie Stampede” to the Dolly Parton Stampede.To stans like Shea, the Florida visitor, every section of the park seemed imbued with Parton’s spirit, including an aviary showcase for birds of prey, created by the American Eagle Foundation. (“I was like, oh my God, Dolly cares about the eagles!”) But behind the scenes, John Owens Dietrich, a former choreographer and director for the Rockettes, who teaches at N.Y.U., has also had an outsize influence in creating movement and songs for the park, and coaching performers through a grueling schedule of as many as six shows a day.Generations of families have made it a tradition to visit this 160-acre entertainment complex.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesDreamMore workers keep the guests entertained.Stacy Kranitz for The New York TimesIt was intimidating at first. “If you do a show 200 times in two months, every now and then you might trip on your own mouse tail,” said Kelsey Lane Dies, who plays a mischievous rodent in a child-oriented Christmas production. “You just have to let it go, because you have to get back onstage so quickly.”Dies, 28, who trained at a theater conservatory in New York, was one of the first employees to take advantage of the college tuition program. She’s studying organizational leadership, with an eye toward eventually moving off the stage. “Had this program not existed, I very likely would never have gone back to college, unless I won the lottery,” she said.The industriousness and quality control at the park comes from Parton herself. She’s sat in on auditions; she wrote the material for the autobiographical shows her family members long performed; she’s there on opening day every year, and at the introduction of new rides (though she doesn’t partake herself — she gets motion sickness). The park is now building another resort: she’s in the meetings to select the drapery.“You can’t outwork Dolly Parton,” Summers said. “Nobody can. If she’s still asleep at 3 a.m., it’s a miracle.”Perhaps as a counterpoint to all the evident busyness — and to the sensory onslaught of most theme parks — Dollywood invites visitors to pause and listen: to the strum of an instrument, and a sweet Christmas bell. To the squawk in the bird sanctuary and the burbling creek by the old mill. To each other, and to their surroundings.“That’s why I love this place,” Heidi Lou Parton said. “There are secret places you can go to, and you can hear the mountains.”Dolly’s voice lingers, too. A cursive-print sign at the park’s exit bears her all-embracing message: “I will always love you.”Some of the millions of Christmas lights around Dollywood this time of year.Stacy Kranitz for The New York Times More

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      Dolly Parton Voted Into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

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      The country singer had objected to being included, but will join a class that includes Carly Simon, Duran Duran and others from across genres.Despite a last-minute plea to “respectfully bow out” of consideration for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the country singer Dolly Parton made it in anyway, joining a musically diverse array of inductees for 2022 that also includes Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Pat Benatar.The honorees — voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals — “each had a profound impact on the sound of youth culture and helped change the course of rock ’n’ roll,” said John Sykes, the chairman of the Rock Hall, in a statement.Parton, 76, had said in March that she was “extremely flattered and grateful to be nominated” but didn’t feel that she had “earned that right” to be recognized as a rock artist at the expense of others. Ballots, however, had already been sent to voters, and the hall said they would remain unchanged, noting that the organization was “not defined by any one genre” and had deep roots in country and rhythm and blues.In an interview with NPR last week, Parton said she would accept her induction after all, should it come to pass. “It was always my belief that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was for the people in rock music, and I have found out lately that it’s not necessarily that,” she said.But she added, “if they can’t go there to be recognized, where do they go? So I just felt like I would be taking away from someone that maybe deserved it, certainly more than me, because I never considered myself a rock artist.”Following years of criticism regarding diversity — less than 8 percent of inductees were women as of 2019 — the Rock Hall has made a point in recent years to expand its purview. Artists like Jay-Z, Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson have been welcomed in from the worlds of rap, R&B and pop, alongside prominent women across genres like the Go-Go’s, Carole King and Tina Turner.This year, Eminem becomes just the 10th hip-hop act to be inducted, making the cut on his first ballot. (Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording.)Parton, Richie, Simon and Duran Duran were also selected on their first go-round, while fresh nominees like Beck and A Tribe Called Quest, who had been eligible for more than a decade, were passed over. Simon, known for her folk-inflected pop hits like “You’re So Vain,” was a first-time nominee more than 25 years after she qualified. Benatar and Eurythmics, long eligible, had each been considered once before.Those passed over this year also included Kate Bush, Devo, Fela Kuti, MC5, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine and Dionne Warwick.Judas Priest was on the ballot, but will instead be inducted in the non-performer category for musical excellence, alongside the songwriting and production duo Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten will be recognized with the Early Influence Award, while the executives Allen Grubman, Jimmy Iovine and Sylvia Robinson are set to receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award, named for the longtime Atlantic Records honcho and one of the founders of the Rock Hall.The 37th annual induction ceremony will be held on Nov. 5, at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, and will air at a later date on HBO and SiriusXM. More