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      An Introduction to the Mountain Goats

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      How do you start listening to a band with 22 albums? We’re here to help.The Mountain Goats just released their 22nd album. Wondering how to dig into a catalog this deep? We have a guide.Jackie Lee YoungDear listeners,When an artist you’re curious about but unfamiliar with has an extensive back catalog, it can be difficult to know where to start. Sometimes a trusted guide is needed. And when people learn I’m a fan of the Mountain Goats — the wildly prolific, verbose and cult-beloved group led by the singer-songwriter-novelist John Darnielle — I am sometimes called upon to be that guide. I’ve made multiple “introduction to the Mountain Goats” mixes and playlists for friends over the years, and today I’ve made one for you.The occasion is the band’s new album — its 22nd! — “Jenny From Thebes,” which is a kind of sequel to the great 2002 Mountain Goats album “All Hail West Texas.” “Jenny From Thebes” is a rich and rewarding listen, but for the uninitiated it would be a strange place to start. Which is why I am here to initiate you into the world of one of the greatest American songwriters currently working.Darnielle started the Mountain Goats in the early 1990s as a solo project; he would record most songs (often directly onto a Panasonic boombox) right after he’d written them, which gave early Mountain Goats albums a sense of rough-hewed urgency. Beginning with the 2002 release “Tallahassee” — a song cycle about a doomed married couple — he began making more polished studio recordings with other producers and filled the Goats out into a full band. The current lineup includes the longtime bassist Peter Hughes, the drummer and frequent “Best Show With Tom Scharpling” guest Jon Wurster and the multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas.Darnielle’s writing strikes a difficult balance between weightiness and levity. Some of his songs are about incredibly heavy topics — abuse, addiction, spirituality — but there’s a wit, a precision and a humanity to his voice that makes his music cathartic rather than depressing. That sensibility has translated into a particularly fervent and still expanding base of fans, who do things like make elaborate podcasts called “I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.”The Mountain Goats are something of an acquired taste: They’re earnest and wordy, and Darnielle’s vocals strike some people as too … well, goatlike*. There are people in my life who have given them a fair chance and decided they’re just not for them. Fine. But I also have several decades-long friendships in which a mutual love of the Mountain Goats is a major component. My dear pal Matt first introduced the band to me almost 20 years ago (!) when he played me “Going to Georgia” while we were driving aimlessly around the New Jersey suburbs, and the world seemed to stand still. All these years later, we’re still going to shows, trading rarities and debating the merits of each new release. They’re just that kind of band.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. “Jenny”Some of the best Mountain Goats songs — like this one, from “All Hail West Texas” — seem like they’re trying to slow time and preserve an ecstatic moment as precisely as possible (“Our house faced west,” Darnielle specifies here, “so the big orange sun positioned at your back lit up your magnificent silhouette”). This song introduces the motorcyclist Jenny, for whom the Mountain Goats’ new album is named. (Listen on YouTube)2. “This Year”Perhaps the best-known Mountain Goats song (for good reason; it’s fantastic), “This Year” is also the most anthemic track from “The Sunset Tree,” the wrenching, straightforwardly autobiographical 2005 album on which Darnielle grappled with his relationship to his abusive stepfather, who had recently died. Though grounded in his own teenage experience, which he vividly reanimates here, the chorus features a rousing, universal survivor’s battle cry: “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.” (Listen on YouTube)3. “Cubs in Five”From one of the earliest Mountain Goats releases, the 1995 EP “Nine Black Poppies,” this passionately sung fan favorite lists a number of highly improbable events: “The Canterbury Tales” returning to the best-seller list, the narrator loving an old flame like he used to and, perhaps most improbably of all, the long-cursed Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. Twenty-one years after this song was released, they actually did it — though, contrary to Darnielle’s prophecy, it took the Cubs seven games. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Harlem Roulette”One of the finest Mountain Goats songs in the last decade or so, this full-band standout from the 2012 album “Transcendental Youth” is an impressionistic snapshot of the last day in the life of Frankie Lymon, the precocious soprano who sang “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and died of a heroin overdose at age 25. The hook to this song is at once simple and devastating: “The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you’re never going to see again.” (Listen on YouTube)5. “Damn These Vampires”If the rough edges of the early Mountain Goats recordings aren’t to your liking, try this gentler and more polished piano-driven song, from the 2011 album “All Eternals Deck.” The beautiful chorus melody in particular shows the gradual refinement of Darnielle’s songwriting. (Listen on YouTube)6. “Golden Boy”And now, the sillier — and yet, somehow, more spiritual — side of the Mountain Goats: an ode to a specific brand of Singaporean peanuts that Darnielle hopes to enjoy in the afterlife. “There are no pan-Asian supermarkets down in hell,” he sings on this recording from the 2002 compilation “Ghana,” “so you can’t buy Golden Boy peanuts there.” Troublingly, in a 2020 performance of this song released as a part of the “Jordan Lake Sessions” series, Darnielle noted, “I’d just like to point out, that for God knows how long, we have in fact been living in a world in which the company that once made these peanuts no longer makes them. You do the math.” (Listen on YouTube)7. “No Children”A (very) darkly funny song that became an incredibly unlikely TikTok sensation in 2021 (I have read the explainers and I still don’t fully understand why), “No Children” is the centerpiece of the Mountain Goats’ 2002 album “Tallahassee.” This song has also been a longtime staple in live Mountain Goats sets, perhaps because of how fun it is to scream, “I hope you die! I hope we both die!” in a crowded room at the top of one’s lungs. (Listen on YouTube)8. “Choked Out”Many of the Mountain Goats’ recent LPs have been concept albums, digging into some of Darnielle’s enthusiasms like vintage action films (last year’s “Bleed Out”), the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (“In the League of Dragons,” from 2019) and, on the inspired 2015 release “Beat the Champ,” professional wrestling. The frenzied rocker “Choked Out” is a highlight from that one. (Listen on YouTube)9. “Woke Up New”On this single from the devastating 2006 album “Get Lonely,” Darnielle paints almost too vivid a picture of the first day after a breakup, when a lover has moved out and their absence makes the familiar suddenly strange: “The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it/But I drank it all just ’cause you hated when I let things go to waste.” (Listen on YouTube)10. “Up the Wolves”Quite possibly my personal favorite Mountain Goats song ever — though don’t actually make me choose! — here’s another galvanic standout from “The Sunset Tree.” (Listen on YouTube)11. “Going to Georgia”Though it’s one of the Mountain Goats’ most beloved early songs (and the first one I ever heard), Darnielle mostly stopped playing this song live around 2012, because he worried that it romanticized gun violence and toxic relationships. (He once added when discussing the matter onstage, “I’m not ashamed of the song, the song has a vibe, I can’t deny it, and I listen to Cannibal Corpse, you know.”) Regardless, it’s an important entry in the Mountain Goats’ catalog, and the recorded version from the 1994 album “Zopilote Machine” contains some of Darnielle’s most urgent and impassioned bleating. (Listen on YouTube)12. “Against Pollution”Released in 2004, “We Shall All Be Healed,” one of the first Mountain Goats albums recorded with a full band, is a powerful collection of songs inspired by Darnielle’s and his friends’ adolescent struggles with drug addiction. Though some listeners were put off by the cleaner production sound when it first came out, I’ve come to appreciate it as one of the band’s best and most unappreciated albums. There’s a quiet power to this penultimate track, which toggles between the banal and the monumental, the sacred and the profane. (Listen on YouTube)13. “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”A parable about the importance of keeping youthful dreams alive, told through the bittersweet story of West Texas metal-heads Jeff and Cyrus, this lo-fi gem is another of the best-loved Mountain Goats songs — and the reason you’re likely to hear people yelling “Hail Satan!” at their live shows. Listen and you’ll understand. (Listen on YouTube)Forty miles from Atlanta, this is nowhere,Lindsay* The band’s name is not actually a reference to Darnielle’s singing style, but rather to the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins song “Yellow Coat.”The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“An Introduction to the Mountain Goats” track listTrack 1: “Jenny”Track 2: “This Year”Track 3: “Cubs in Five”Track 4: “Harlem Roulette”Track 5: “Damn These Vampires”Track 6: “Golden Boy”Track 7: “No Children”Track 8: “Choked Out”Track 9: “Woke Up New”Track 10: “Up the Wolves”Track 11: “Going to Georgia”Track 12: “Against Pollution”Track 13: “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”Bonus TracksEarlier this week, Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork published a great Q. and A. with Darnielle that dug into his process. “When I talk I get more and more animated, and my brain kind of boils,” Darnielle said at one point. “I can sustain that boil for a long time — but it also makes you do things like leave bags on subways.”Also, back in my own Pitchfork days, I spoke with Darnielle for a new interview format we were trying out, where we asked musicians what songs they would listen to in certain life situations. Let’s just say that Darnielle came prepared. With a lot of Danzig. More

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      Aaron Spears, Drummer for Usher and Ariana Grande, Dies at 47

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      He received a Grammy nomination for Usher’s 2004 album “Confessions” and played on tracks by Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and many other major pop musicians.Aaron Spears, a Grammy-nominated drummer who played with Usher, Ariana Grande and many other major pop stars, has died. He was 47.His death was confirmed on Monday in a statement on his official Instagram account by his wife Jessica that was co-signed by the couple’s son August. The statement did not provide details about other survivors or specify a time, place or cause of death. Representatives for Spears could not immediately be reached for comment late Monday night.In 2004, he earned a Grammy nomination as a producer for Usher’s album “Confessions,” which sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. The next year, Spears drummed during the Grammys for a medley of Usher’s “Caught Up” and James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” a performance that made the drumming community take notice.Over the years, Spears would play with Grande, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne, among many other artists.“You’ve seen Aaron drum prolly 5-10 times in your life if you attend concerts & sometimes without knowing,” Questlove, the D.J., drummer and producer, said in an Instagram post on Monday. “That’s how much in demand his services were.”Aaron Spears was born on Oct. 26, 1976, according to a profile published by Remo, a drumming equipment manufacturer that sponsored him.He was from Washington D.C., grew up in the Pentecostal faith and developed an interest in drumming through his involvement with the church. As a child, he later said in an interview with the German show drumtalk, he would sit on someone’s lap in church playing “the stuff up top” while they played the pedals.One of his first professional gigs was drumming in Gideon Band, a group with a style spanning jazz, rock and R&B. He demonstrated his musical prowess by never repeating a “chop,” or rhythmic phrase, the band said in a statement.Moving from the local scene in Washington to the national one was intimidating, Spears said.“The level of musicianship had me questioning if I belonged there,” he told drumtalk in 2018. “I just didn’t know if I was ready to make the jump.”He clearly did belong. For nearly two decades after his breakthrough performance at the Grammys, Spears played with a long list of major artists, including Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. He also performed on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and was the music coordinator and drummer for a season of the television show “The Masked Singer.”Offstage, Spears held drum clinics and master classes around the world. During one such educational visit this year to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., he sat in for a performance with the school’s marching band, the Human Jukebox.But even after a long career, Spears expressed humility about his success, saying that he was careful to “stay relatable” and avoid developing a false sense of entitlement.“The success that I’ve had is not necessarily because of me,” he said in a video published in May on the website of Ludwig Drums, one of his sponsors. “It’s really the connection that I’ve had with other musicians has helped to make me better.” More

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      Blink-182 and the Rolling Stones Return Rock to the Top 10

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      The pop-punk heroes’ latest LP debuts at No. 1, and the Stones’ first collection of original songs in 18 years opens at No. 3.New releases by Blink-182 and the Rolling Stones score high on the Billboard album chart this week, while the music industry waits to see just how gigantic Taylor Swift’s latest rerecording will turn out to be.Blink-182, the pop-punk heroes that first made a splash in 1999 with bratty-slash-catchy hits like “All the Small Things” and “What’s My Age Again?,” land at No. 1 with “One More Time…,” the group’s first release in over a decade to feature its classic lineup of Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker. The band last topped the Billboard 200 chart in 2016 with “California,” with Matt Skiba standing in for DeLonge — whose non-Blink-182 work at the time included playing with his other group, Angels & Airwaves, and being a U.F.O. researcher.“One More Time…” had the equivalent of 125,000 sales in the United States, including 30 million streams and 101,000 copies sold as a traditional album, according to the tracking service Luminate. Those albums were sold in various packages, like nearly a dozen vinyl variants and a deluxe version containing a CD, band shirt and “custom, full-color box.”Drake’s “For All the Dogs” holds at No. 2, and the Rolling Stones’ “Hackney Diamonds,” the group’s first album of new material in 18 years, and first studio LP since the death of its drummer Charlie Watts in 2021, opens at No. 3 with 8.4 million streams and 94,000 copies sold as a complete album. It is the Stones’ 38th LP to reach the Top 10. (In Britain, “Hackney Diamonds” went to No. 1.)Bad Bunny’s “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (“Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”), last week’s top seller, falls to fourth place, and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 5.Next week should be all about Swift. “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” the fourth installment in her rerecording project, was released last Friday and is set for a blockbuster debut, though it is still too soon to know just how big. On its first day alone, the new “1989” racked up 110 million streams and sold more than 250,000 copies in the United States, according to early data from Luminate that was reported by Billboard.This week, Swift’s “Cruel Summer” is the No. 1 single for a second time in a row, with 21 million streams, 7,000 downloads and a radio audience of 80 million. More

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      ‘The War on Disco’ Explores the Racial Backlash Against the Music

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      “The War on Disco,” a new PBS documentary, explores the backlash against the genre and the issues of race, gender and sexuality that informed it.The plan was simple enough: Gather a bunch of disco records, put them in a crate and blow them to smithereens in between games of a doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park. What could possibly go wrong?This was the thinking, such as it was, behind Disco Demolition Night, a July 1979 radio promotion that went predictably and horribly awry. The televised spectacle of rioters, mostly young white men, storming the field in Chicago, sent shock waves through the music industry and accelerated the demise of disco as a massive commercial force. But the fiasco didn’t unfold in a vacuum, a fact the new “American Experience” documentary “The War on Disco” makes clearer than a twirling mirror ball.Premiering Monday on PBS, “The War on Disco” traces the rise, commodification, demise and rebirth of a dance music genre that burned hot through the ’70s, and the backlash against a culture that provided a safe and festive place for Black, Latino, gay and feminist expression. Originating in gay dance clubs in the early ’70s and converted into a mainstream sensation largely through the 1977 movie “Saturday Night Fever,” disco engendered simmering resentment from white, blue-collar kids who weren’t cool enough to make it past the rope at Studio 54 and other clubs. The film details disco’s role as a flashpoint for issues of race, class, gender and sexuality that still resonate in the culture wars of today.“Saturday Night Fever” helped turn disco from a club phenomenon into a mainstream sensation.Alamy, via PBS“These liberation movements that started in the ’60s and early ’70s are really gaining momentum in the late ’70s,” Lisa Q. Wolfinger, who produced the film with Rushmore DeNooyer, said in a video call from her home in Maine. “So the backlash against disco feels like a backlash against the gay liberation movement and feminism, because that’s all wrapped up in disco.”When the Gay Activist Alliance began hosting feverish disco dances at an abandoned SoHo firehouse in 1971, routinely packing 1,500 people onto the dance floor, the atmosphere was sweaty and cathartic. As Alice Echols writes in her disco history book “Hot Stuff,” gay bars, most of them run by the mob, traditionally hadn’t allowed dancing of any kind. But change was in the air largely because of the ripple effect of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, when regulars at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against the latest in a series of police raids. Soon discos were popping up throughout American cities, drawing throngs of revelers integrated across lines of race, gender and sexual orientation.Some of disco’s hottest artists were Black women, including Gloria Gaynor and Linda Clifford (who is a commentator in the film). Many of the in-demand DJs, including Barry Lederer and Richie Rivera, were gay. In its heyday disco was the ultimate pop melting pot, open to anyone who wanted to move through the night to a pulsating, seemingly endless groove, and a source of liberation.“The club became this source of public intimacy, of sexual freedom, and disco was a genre that was deeply tied to the next set of freedom struggles that were concatenate with civil rights,” said Daphne Brooks, a professor of African American studies at Yale University who is featured in the film, in a video interview. “It was both a sound and a sight that enabled those who were not recognized in the dominant culture to be able to see themselves and to derive pleasure, which is a huge trope in disco.”Studio 54 in 1978, as seen in “The War on Disco.” The club was famous for its glamorous clientele and restrictive door policy.Alamy, via PBSAll subcultures have their tipping points, and disco’s began in earnest in 1977. The year brought “Saturday Night Fever,” the smash hit movie about a blue-collar Brooklynite (a star-making performance from John Travolta) who escapes his rough reality by cutting loose on the dance floor. Inspired by the movie, middle-aged thrill seekers began dressing up in white polyester and hitting the scene. The same year saw the opening of Studio 54 in Manhattan, which became famous for its beautiful-people clientele and forbidding door policy.“There was this image of the crowd outside the door on the news, with people being divided into winners and losers,” said DeNooyer, the “War on Disco” producer. “And the majority were losers because they didn’t get by the rope. It was an image that spoke powerfully, and it certainly encouraged a view of exclusivity.”At least one man had reason to take it all personally. Steve Dahl was a radio personality for Chicago’s WDAI, spinning album rock and speaking to and for the white macho culture synonymous with that music. On Christmas Eve in 1978 Dahl lost his job when the station switched to a disco format, a popular move in those days. He didn’t take the news well. Jumping to WLUP, Dahl launched a “Disco Sucks” campaign and, together with the White Sox promotions director Mike Veeck, spearheaded Disco Demolition Night.Organizers expected around 20,000 fans on July 12, 1979. Instead, they got around 50,000, some of whom sneaked in for free. Admission was 98 cents (WLUP’s frequency was 97.9), leaving attendees plenty of leftover cash for beer. Located in the mostly white, working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport, Comiskey Park had a built-in anti-disco clientele.During the first game of the doubleheader, fans threw records, firecrackers and liquor bottles onto the field. By the time the crate of records was blown up, the place was going nuts, with patrons storming the field and rendering it unplayable. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game.The Disco Demolition Night promotion at Chicago’s Comiskey Park quickly spun out of control, with thousands of people storming the field.Chicago History Museum, via PBSThere were other anti-disco protests around the country in the late ’70s, but none so visible or of greater consequence. As the film recounts, reaction was swift; radio consultants soon began steering toward nondisco formats. “Disco Demolition Night was a real factor, and it did happen very quickly,” DeNooyer said. “And we hear from artists in the film who experienced that.” Gigs started drying up almost immediately.Commercial oversaturation didn’t help. Disco parodies were becoming rampant, including a memorable one in the 1980 comedy “Airplane!,” and novelty songs had been around since Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” in 1976 (followed up by the lesser-known “Dis-Gorilla” in 1977). But the film makes clear that the Disco Demolition fiasco and resultant coverage was a major factor in the death of disco’s mainstream appeal.“The War on Disco” also features a 2016 interview with Dahl, who insists racism and homophobia had nothing to do with that particular display of anti-disco fervor. Demolition Night attendees who were interviewed for the film echo this sentiment.“I would not dispute that is their truth,” Brooks said. “But I think one of the insidious ways that white supremacy has done a number on this country is that it permeates every aspect of our cultural lives. People don’t want to be told that they’re entangled in something that’s not entirely of their control.”It’s also important to note that disco didn’t die so much as its more mainstream forms ceased to be relevant. The music and the culture morphed into other dance-ready genres including house music, which ironically emerged in Chicago. When you go out and cut loose to electronic dance music, or EDM, you are paying homage to disco, whether you know it or not. The beat is still pulsating. The sexual and racial identities remain eclectic. The Who may have bid “Sister Disco” goodbye in their 1978 song, but the original spirit lives on. As Brooks put it, “Its vibrancy and its innovations just continued to gain momentum once the spotlight moved away from it.”The culture, and its devotees, outlived the clichés. Disco is dead. Long live disco. More

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      Who Is Troye Sivan Now?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe pop singer Troye Sivan released “Something to Give Each Other,” his third album — and first in five years — earlier this month to largely positive reviews.But while Sivan, 28, may have grown into his musical and visual identity with a string of recent singles and videos that borrow from 1990s dance music, meme culture and international cinema, he has not yet broken through as the mainstream gay male pop star many expected when his career began.A one-time YouTube vlogger who was born in South Africa and raised Orthodox Jewish in Australia, Sivan came out as a young teenager and has been matter-of-fact in songs and interviews about his sexuality. Earlier this year, Sivan appeared ably as an actor in HBO’s much-maligned music industry satire, “The Idol,” about a pop star and her team being sucked into the dangerous web of a cult leader.Yet despite his rising public profile and artistic confidence, Sivan has found less commercial success with “Something to Give Each Other,” which debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard album chart, than his less self-assured previous two albums, “Bloom,” in 2018, and “Blue Neighborhood,” from 2015.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about this new iteration of Sivan’s sound and persona, where he fits into pop’s growing middle class and the ceilings he may still face as an openly gay male performer.Guests:Harry Tafoya, a freelance writer for Pitchfork, NPR and othersShaad D’Souza, a freelance writer and critic for The Guardian, 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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      15 Great Songs From 1989 (the Year, Not the Album)

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      A playlist celebrating a staggeringly great year in music: Pixies, Janet Jackson, De La Soul, Madonna, Indigo Girls and more.Pixies want you to know that 1989 was really a stunning year in popular music. Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Today’s playlist is a homage to the music of 1989. Yes, the year. Why, you ask? Does it have anything to do with … you know … a certain musician rereleasing one of her most popular albums, with a title referencing the year she was born? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I simply wanted to celebrate a staggeringly great year in music.Consider just some of the albums released during this annus mirabilis: “Like a Prayer.” “3 Feet High and Rising.” “Paul’s Boutique.” “Doolittle.” “Rhythm Nation 1814.” “Pretty Hate Machine.” “Disintegration.” “Full Moon Fever.” “The Stone Roses.” “Bleach.” I could go on, but I have a playlist to get to.For brevity’s sake, I limited myself to 15 songs. I left off some artists who have made appearances on previous playlists; I adore “Disintegration,” for example, but I also did an entire Cure playlist a few months ago. Some 1989 hits, too, are so ubiquitous — “Love Shack,” “Free Fallin’,” “Like a Prayer” — that I don’t need to put them on the playlist: You will probably hear them in the next few days as a result of simply going about your life. And some omissions are just personal. As a small child, I was so terrified of Jack Nicholson’s “Joker” in the Tim Burton-directed “Batman” that Prince’s No. 1 hit “Batdance” still kind of creeps me out.That still left plenty of great songs to choose from, though. On this playlist, 1989 reveals itself to be a year when inventive, imaginative sampling had reached the mainstream in the music of Beastie Boys, De La Soul and Public Enemy; a generation of female pop stars like Madonna and Janet Jackson were coming into their power; and the alt-rock wave was beginning to form underground thanks to artists like Pixies and Nirvana.This one will leave you with a new appreciation for a year in which so many great songs were released. Reach out, touch faith, and enjoy the enduring bounty of music from 1989.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Janet Jackson: “Miss You Much”Let’s kick things off with the first single from Janet Jackson’s pop opus “Rhythm Nation 1814,” released in September 1989. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s unparalleled production really makes this one sound gigantic. (Listen on YouTube)2. De La Soul: “Me Myself and I”Built around a sample of Funkadelic’s “(Not Just) Knee Deep” (among a few other songs), De La Soul’s crossover hit is a playful ode to self-acceptance. (As the group’s Posdnuos put it, “The press was referring to us as the hippies of hip-hop. This song became a way to express that this wasn’t a gimmick, and that we were being ourselves.”) “3 Feet High and Rising,” the debut album featuring this single, ranked No. 1 on the Pazz & Jop Poll, the Village Voice’s (former) annual barometer of critical consensus. (Listen on YouTube)3. The Stone Roses: “She Bangs the Drums”In May 1989, the Manchester pop-rockers the Stone Roses released their beloved, ambitious, and impossible-to-top self-titled debut album. Dreamy, singalong hooks abound, as on this exuberant single. (Listen on YouTube)4. R.E.M.: “Pop Song 89”Though R.E.M.’s sixth album, “Green,” came out in late 1988, I couldn’t resist including this cheekily titled leadoff track, which was — true to its prophecy — released as a single in 1989. (Listen on YouTube)5. Depeche Mode: “Personal Jesus”In a 1990 Spin interview, Martin Gore of Depeche Mode said that the band’s hit from the year before was inspired by Priscilla Presley’s memoir, “Elvis & Me”: “It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way,” he said. “We play these godlike parts for people but no one is perfect, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?” Something tells me he’ll be interested in Sofia Coppola’s upcoming movie “Priscilla,” based on the same source material. (Listen on YouTube)6. Beastie Boys: “Egg Man”Many people still consider “Paul’s Boutique,” Beastie Boys’ ambitious 1989 celebration of the art of sampling, to be the group’s masterpiece. “Egg Man” may be one of the sillier songs on the album — it is, quite literally, about how the mischievous Boys liked to egg people — but the craft that went into its construction is still clear. (Listen on YouTube)7. Love and Rockets: “So Alive”Goth rock was steadily seeping into the mainstream by 1989, as evidenced by the success of the Cure’s ”Disintegration” and this darkly glittering surprise hit from the British alt-rockers Love and Rockets, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Listen on YouTube)8. Madonna: “Cherish”I do not need to remind you that “Like a Prayer” is a great song, so how about this slightly-less-overplayed hit from Madonna’s triumphant fourth album? If there were a Drug Store Music Hall of Fame (and there should be), I would nominate this song. (Listen on YouTube)9. Pixies: “Debaser”Not to get all “High Fidelity,” but “Debaser” — that ecstatically bizarre welcome into the wonderful world of “Doolittle” — has got to be one of the greatest Side 1, Track 1’s ever. (Listen on YouTube)10. Elvis Costello: “Veronica”“Is it all in that pretty little head of yours?” Elvis Costello sings on this bittersweet midcareer hit, inspired by his grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. “What goes on in that place in the dark?” Co-written with Paul McCartney (which makes sense, given the faint echoes of “Eleanor Rigby”), “Veronica,” which peaked at No. 19 on the Hot 100, became Costello’s highest-charting single in the States. (Listen on YouTube)11. Public Enemy: “Fight the Power”“1989, the number of another summer,” Chuck D begins on this incendiary call to consciousness, written for “Do the Right Thing,” Spike Lee’s film of the same year. “Fight the Power” was a lightning rod upon release, and 34 years later it remains a potent indictment of racism and a richly textured tribute to Black art. (Listen on YouTube)12. Nirvana: “About a Girl”In the summer of 1989, a little-known rock band from Seattle released its debut album, “Bleach,” on the indie label Sub Pop. It would have been hard to predict then that Nirvana’s next studio album would have a seismic effect on the music industry, but the craft of “Bleach” tracks like “About a Girl” certainly displays the nascent songwriting talent of the band’s leader, Kurt Cobain. (Listen on YouTube)13. Galaxie 500: “Strange”Elsewhere beneath the mainstream, the indie trio Galaxie 500 released its great second album, “On Fire,” in October 1989. Though sometimes associated with shoegaze and dream-pop, there’s a sky-scraping boldness and a stirring emotion animating the LP’s fourth track, “Strange.” (Listen on YouTube)14. Kate Bush: “This Woman’s Work”One of the more wrenching songs ever written about childbirth, Kate Bush initially composed “This Woman’s Work” for the 1988 John Hughes movie “She’s Having a Baby.” The following year, she released this slightly different version as the closing track on her album “The Sensual World.” (Don’t sleep on Maxwell’s cover, either.) (Listen on YouTube)15. Indigo Girls: “Closer to Fine”And finally, it’s Barbie’s favorite track on the Indigo Girls’ 1989 self-titled album. Thanks to its inclusion in this summer’s hot-pink blockbuster, “Closer to Fine” is experiencing a well-deserved resurgence, but plenty of soul-searchers have been belting along to it in their cars since ’89. (Listen on YouTube)Don’t know about you, but I am un chien Andalusia,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“15 Great Songs from 1989 (The Year, Not the Album)” track listTrack 1: Janet Jackson, “Miss You Much”Track 2: De La Soul, “Me Myself and I”Track 3: The Stone Roses, “She Bangs the Drums”Track 4: R.E.M., “Pop Song 89”Track 5: Depeche Mode, “Personal Jesus”Track 6: Beastie Boys, “Egg Man”Track 7: Love and Rockets, “So Alive”Track 8: Madonna, “Cherish”Track 9: Pixies, “Debaser”Track 10: Elvis Costello, “Veronica”Track 11: Public Enemy, “Fight the Power”Track 12: Nirvana, “About a Girl”Track 13: Galaxie 500, “Strange”Track 14: Kate Bush, “This Woman’s Work”Track 15: Indigo Girls, “Closer to Fine”Bonus TracksIf you’re looking to read something about that other 1989 thing, well … I wrote about its most provocatively titled “From the Vault” track.I also — busy week — published a profile of the independent-minded Gen Z pop star PinkPantheress, who graciously did not make fun of me for not going on as many roller coasters as she did while I was reporting this story. Bless her for that.Plus, if you’re looking for some new music as an alternative to that big release that shall not be named, let Jon Pareles and Giovanni Russonello provide you with some recommendations, from artists like Mr Eazi, Kevin Sun, Silvana Estrada and more. More

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      Mr Eazi’s Anthem of Gratitude, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Silvana Estrada, Old Dominion, Nadine Shah 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.​​Mr Eazi featuring Soweto Gospel Choir, ‘Exit’Mr Eazi — born in Nigeria and long based in Ghana — has been releasing singles and mixtapes for a decade, becoming one of Africa’s major hitmakers. But he considers his new album, “The Evil Genius,” his official studio debut, tracing a narrative that reaches its finale with “Exit.” The track, produced by the Nigerian studio mastermind Kel-P, merges Nigerian Afrobeats and South African gospel, as Mr Eazi sings about how the paranoia of success — “I’ve seen things go bad/When my family turns to demons around me” — gets overcome by gratitude and faith. The Soweto Gospel Choir harmonizes with worshipful, call-and-response thank yous. JON PARELESNadine Shah, ‘Topless Mother’Loud guitars over a pounding Bo Diddley beat propel Nadine Shah’s vocals through “Topless Mother,” a burst of determined, free-associative, syllabically perfect semi-sequiturs. “I told you all/That I have heard,” she sing-chants. “And do you promise not to breathe a word.” She also blurts out three-syllable rhymes: “Sinatra, Viagra, iguana.” Both words and music are all about brusque momentum and a determination to connect. PARELESFlyte featuring Laura Marling, ‘Tough Love’“This could be real — tough love,” the not-exactly folky duo Flyte sings, in a track from its self-titled new album that starts out with typical folk-rock strumming and harmonies and grows into an avalanche. Will Taylor and Nick Hill sing about self-contradictory behavior — “How do we start healing if we can’t keep out the dark” — while the track swells in a giant crescendo. An intimate conflict becomes an existential struggle. PARELESSilvana Estrada, ‘Qué Problema’The problem in “Qué Problema” (“What a Problem”) is a rapturous infatuation, verging on the mystical, that may never be fulfilled. “Your skin has the color of time,” sings the Mexican songwriter Silvana Estrada. “When you smile, the wind stumbles.” A swaying, flickering rhythm, with a six-beat undercurrent that’s sometimes only implied, carries a vocal that radiates affection, no matter how things turn out. PARELESLulu. featuring the Joy, ‘Yesterdays’Lulu. — a Nigerian-British songwriter, Lulu Ayodele, who’s unlikely to be confused with the 1960s Scottish hitmaker Lulu — works her way from self-doubt to cautious optimism in “Yesterdays.” She sings, “I know I’m changing/I know there is beauty where pain is.” Subdued Afrobeats percussion and diffident guitar picking captures her uncertainty, but the Joy — a South African vocal group, singing in English and Zulu — coaxes her to move ahead, insisting, “Now I found a better place.” PARELESSheherazaad, ‘Mashoor’Sheherazaad, an Indian-American songwriter from San Francisco, draws on microtonal South Asian vocal inflections, Minimalism and hints of flamenco in “Mashoor” (“Fame”), which was produced by another South Asian hybridizer, Arooj Aftab. Singing in Hindi, accompanied only by a meditative classical guitar and hand percussion, Sheherazaad interrogates unearned fame, pondering, “Have you climbed too high?/Where is my reflection in the mirror?” PARELESOld Dominion, ‘Beautiful Sky’Smokey Robinson — who co-wrote “The Way You Do the Things You Do” — might appreciate “Beautiful Sky,” which hijacks standard honky-tonk images into self-pitying analogies for a failed romance: “The way you go to my head, you’d make a really good tequila/The way you’re always on, you’d make a damn good neon light.” Fingerpicked acoustic and electric guitars gather behind Old Dominion’s close-harmony vocals, and of course that “Beautiful Sky” feels blue. PARELESThe Third Mind featuring Jesse Sykes, ‘Sally Go Round the Roses’Dave Alvin from the Blasters, Victor Krummenacher and David Immerglück from Camper Van Beethoven and Michael Jerome from Better Than Ezra get together as the Third Mind to enjoy psychedelic jams. They found an ideal vehicle with “Sally Go Round the Roses,” the mysterious one-hit wonder by the Jaynetts, who sang, “The saddest thing in the whole wide world/is to see your baby with another girl.” The song has also been picked up by Grace Slick, Tim Buckley and the English folk-jazz group Pentangle. It’s a modal, Celtic-flavored tune, mostly a drone, and the Third Mind’s guitar colloquies connect it to Appalachia, the Byrds and John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Jesse Sykes’s vocals sound frayed and knowing; the guitars tease, probe, tangle and palpitate. PARELESHauschka, ‘Altruism’Volker Bertelmann, the composer who performs as Hauschka — and who won an Academy Award for the score of “All Quiet on the Western Front” — plays piano both on the keyboard and inside on the strings directly. He also uses a prepared piano, with damping and resonating objects on the strings, along with other acoustic and electronic sounds. In “Altruism,” from his new album “Philanthropy,” Hauschka layers terse little riffs and plinking, clanking, rattling tones into something like funk, with a marchlike melody emerging briefly before the track calmly disassembles itself. PARELESRoy Nathanson featuring Nick Hakim, ‘All the Bones Had Names’During the pandemic, the saxophonist, poet, educator and activist Roy Nathanson, 72, convened jam sessions in front of his Brooklyn home for 82 straight days with whichever musicians assembled on the sidewalk that evening. He has funneled the experience into “82 Days,” a scruffy and enchanting new record. “All the Bones Had Names” began with a poem, written when he was getting a somber drumbeat of news about death: of family members, close friends and essential workers living in the neighborhood. Over a droning electric bass and splatters from an un-fancy keyboard, Nathanson reads the poem while the vocalist Nick Hakim, his frequent musical partner, adds a smokescreen of ad-libs. “All the bones had names/no one claimed,” the poem begins. But by the end, Nathanson is refusing to see death as an endpoint. “The bones were stars,” he says, “that had yet/to be discovered.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJ.D. Allen, ‘The Knight of Swords’Since 2011, the tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen has released an album a year, typically with a trio. But don’t confuse habit with stillness. His most recent LP, “This,” is Allen’s first full-on encounter with electronics, and it is the sound of a burly toned, bop-steeped saxophonist pushing beyond the familiar. On “The Knight of Swords,” two independent histories seem to circle each other, seeking common ground, as Allen’s spiraling, bittersweet blues meets the ghostly swell of Alex Bonney’s electronics. RUSSONELLOKevin Sun, ‘After Depths’The saxophonist Kevin Sun has been making his mark on the New York scene of late by way of studiousness and subtlety. Sun is not shy about his appreciation for Mark Turner, a shadow-dwelling tenor great one generation his senior, and one way to hear his double LP “The Depths of Memory” is as a callback to the sort of bendable postmodernism that Turner was playing with his Fly Trio back in the early 2000s (and that he’s continued making for ECM Records, in other formats). But Sun has something original going on, too: his own feeling of loose coil and terse freedom, and a personal approach to disrupting time. Leading a quintet here, Sun concludes the album with “After Depths,” a slow-motion action painting with a melody that could almost pass for spontaneous — if it weren’t being doubled with such precise imperfection by the trumpeter Adam O’Farrill. RUSSONELLO More

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      A Britney Spears Book Tour: No TV, No Podcasts, Lots of Instagram

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      The singer, who has not given a face-to-face interview since 2018, has avoided traditional public appearances for “The Woman in Me,” which is still finding audiences.In the run-up to the release of his blockbuster autobiography earlier this year, Prince Harry sat down with “60 Minutes” — and “CBS Mornings,” “ABC News Live,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and others. Paris Hilton did “The View” and spoke with the BBC. Kerry Washington appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “Good Morning America.” Arnold Schwarzenegger opted for Kelly Clarkson and Howard Stern.But for Britney Spears, the endlessly sought after and speculated about pop star who released her memoir, “The Woman in Me,” this week, there was mostly Instagram.To gin up excitement about one of the most anticipated celebrity memoirs of the year, there were prerelease excerpts in People magazine, but no face-to-face interviews, which Spears has avoided since 2018, when she was still in the conservatorship that strictly controlled her life and career. (In the book, Spears writes of mentioning the arrangement in a 2016 interview, only to have it edited out.)Now legally cleared to do and say what she pleases, however, Spears has held back, essentially throwing out the playbook for promoting a celebrity tell-all. The singer and her team are instead letting the book do the talking, with its gossipy nuggets and condemnations of the 13-year conservatorship feeding a steady churn of press coverage and social media chatter.Her reluctance to be interviewed, stemming in part from a distrust sowed by decades of insensitive coverage, does not seem to have affected early sales: The book reached No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list; complete sales data will not be available until next week. But the lack of any significant promotional or public appearances by Spears, 41, has been obvious to professionals in the worlds of publishing and public relations.In seeking a less public life, Spears has spoken about the constant attention of the paparazzi. Bauer-Griffin/GC Images, via Getty Images“This is completely out of the ordinary,” said Eleanor McManus, a former booking producer for CNN’s “Larry King Live” who now works as a crisis manager. McManus said she was watching TV on Monday morning to find out which shows would be teasing a conversation with Spears. “I was thinking, ‘Who got the first interview?’” she said, before realizing that the answer was “no one.”“The only time you recommend not doing interviews is if you can’t control what the subject would say, or if what he or she would say would damage their brand,” she added.But some experts suggest Spears’s robust social media following may be all she needs for a successful book launch. At a time when celebrity memoirs are booming, subjects may not need to engage with traditional media as they once did if they have a substantial audience of their own, said Madeleine Morel, an independent literary agent who represents ghostwriters.“The whole thing is about the size of your platform,” Morel said. “Can you bring an audience to a book?”Spears is indeed known for communicating these days almost exclusively through her free-associative and often cryptic social media posts. Her most significant commentary on “The Woman in Me” has come not in Vogue, with Oprah or even a cheeky appearance on “Saturday Night Live” but via social media, where she has shared messages about the book that were alternately grateful, scarred and conflicted to her more than 100 million followers across platforms.It’s not like the traditional media was not interested. Spears said in a since-deleted voice message posted to Instagram last year that after her conservatorship was terminated in late 2021, she had been approached by all manner of outlets.“I have offers to interviews with Oprah and so many people, lots and lots of money, but it’s insane,” she said. “I don’t want any of it.”A representative for Spears declined to comment and the memoir’s publisher, Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, did not respond to requests for comment about their nontraditional strategy to secure promotion.So far, Spears’s traditional media engagement has been limited to the excerpts in People magazine — including the bombshell that Spears had an abortion during her relationship with Justin Timberlake — accompanied by emailed quotes attributed to the singer and a cover photo, which captured Spears smiling on a beach in Tahiti, sourced to “Britney Brands” rather than a photographer for the magazine.The publisher also helped to organize an international rerelease of the 2002 movie “Crossroads,” starring Spears. That rollout has featured interviews by its director, Tamra Davis, who has generated her own wave of news tidbits about Spears.A scene from the 2002 movie “Crossroads,” starring Spears.In Spears’s own recent comments on the book, she has chided the media for focusing on her past, though the memoir is essentially a retelling of her life story.“I don’t like the headlines I am reading … that’s exactly why I quit the business 4 years ago !!!,” she wrote on Instagram. “My motive for this book was not to harp on my past experiences which is what the press is doing and it’s dumb and silly !!! I have moved on since then !!!”She went on to briefly deactivate her account, only to return soon after with a picture of a cake that said “See you in hell.” On the book’s release day, she shared a single promotional post reading: “My story. On my terms. At last.” (She later deleted the post from Instagram.)Most celebrities with books to sell still combine more old-fashioned media appearances, like the “Today” show and the late-night circuit, with a dedicated social media strategy and newer, friendly outlets like the podcasts Armchair Expert and On Purpose With Jay Shetty, the lifecoach and influencer.The actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who released a memoir this month, did all of the above, plus more. Her deluge of media appearances even became the subject of a joke on “S.N.L.”“Sorry if I seem a little tired,” said the comedian Ego Nwodim, who played Pinkett Smith. “I’ve been on the ‘Today’ show 14 times in three days.”The writer Neil Strauss, who has worked on books with Mötley Crüe, Marilyn Manson and Jenna Jameson, said that celebrities could run the risk of making themselves bigger than the book with overexposure. “Sometimes by talking about it, you can only hurt it,” he said, adding that Spears “seems like she has a lot of trauma around the media.”In her memoir, Spears describes the press as having been unfairly focused on her body as a rising pop sensation and on her fitness as a mother during a series of public struggles in 2007 and 2008 that ultimately led to her father, James P. Spears, being granted control of her personal life and finances.She wrote that she felt exploited in 2003, when her father and her management organized an interview with Diane Sawyer following her breakup with Timberlake. “It was completely humiliating,” Spears writes. “I wasn’t told what the questions would be ahead of time, and it turned out they were 100 percent embarrassing.”Spears, left, in an interview with Diane Sawyer. The singer writes in her memoir that the conversation, which focused on her breakup with Justin Timberlake, was “humiliating.”ABCStrauss, the celebrity collaborator, said, “She’s just analyzed and scrutinized beyond the level that any human should have to be.” Still, he acknowledged, echoing others in the industry, it was “highly unusual” for someone of Spears’s stature to do no interviews. Even Bob Dylan, a notorious media antagonist for most of his career, promoted his memoir in 2004.Paul Bogaards, a veteran book publicist who has led campaigns for best-selling memoirs by Bill Clinton and Andre Agassi, said that the power of a celebrity speaking publicly about their book tends to be greater than the media mining it for a news story.“Once they’re out there in the world talking about their book, it becomes a 24-7 coverage-palooza,” Bogaards said, adding that most publishers required contractual agreements about promotion. “You want them to be visible in a significant way,” he added. “It’s hard to defend taking on a multimillion dollar advance in the absence of those kinds of agreements.” (Published figures put the price tag for Spears’s memoir, which was announced last year, between $12.5 million and $15 million.)Another major selling point for celebrity memoirs tends to be the subject’s own voice on the audiobook edition, but in this case, Spears has largely opted out as well. In a short introduction to the audiobook version of “The Woman in Me,” Spears said she had chosen to read only a short snippet of her 275-page book because the process of reliving its contents had been “heart-wrenching.” Apart from a minute and a half, the rest of the book’s five-plus hours is read by the actress Michelle Williams.Spears’s most loyal fans see no issue in her letting the work speak for itself. For years, the mantra for many supporters has been “leave Britney alone,” especially after the singer upbraided fans earlier this year for calling the police with concerns about her well-being when she temporarily deactivated her Instagram account. She voiced her objections again last month when another emergency call was made in response to a video of her dancing with what appeared to be kitchen knives. (Spears said they were props.)“A lot of the sentiment in the book are these instances where she was forced to do things against her will,” said Jordan Miller, the founder of the Spears fan site BreatheHeavy.com, which helped start the “Free Britney” campaign that brought more public attention to conservatorship.“It’s cool that she’s going in the opposite direction of what the status quo is in terms of conventional promotion,” he added. “It’s like, ‘Here are my words, you can read these. Here are the photos that I want you to see. I’m going to have approval of all of this.’ In the context of everything that’s gone on, that is super refreshing.”But a celebrity memoir with an eye-popping purchase price may need to reach more than just superfans in order to be seen as a phenomenon worth its investment, experts said.“It’s going to be a major release, but I think that they could be doing more to make it a real moment that sticks around,” said Anthony Bozza, an author who has written books with Slash, Tracy Morgan and Artie Lange.If not, he added, “You’re just going to be a blip in the cycle.” More