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      Charli XCX and Lorde End the Rumors on a Refreshing Remix

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      Lorde adds guest vocals to Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing,” a song that muses on the complexities of female friendship, and helps create something revelatory.To a lot of people these days, “ambivalent pop music” is an oxymoron. Catchy hooks tend to streamline complex emotions into universal, legible sentiments, temporarily dividing the world into teams: the heartbreakers vs. the victims, the happy vs. the sad, the boys vs. the girls. Infectious as they are, many of the songs on Charli XCX’s incisive sixth album, “Brat,” refuse to take sides, making them difficult to discuss in the explainer-generating, SEO-baiting grammar of modern pop standom. How refreshing.Charli never mentioned Lorde by name on the album’s knotty ninth track, “Girl, So Confusing,” but all signs pointed to her being the somewhat socially awkward, poetry-loving doppelgänger to whom the song is addressed. (“People say we’re alike, they say we’ve got the same hair,” Charli sings, winking at those of us who remember when an interviewer asked her about writing Lorde’s “Royals.”)It was less clear how we were supposed to understand this song in the limited and polarized language of 2020s musical fandom, which pits female pop stars against one another like pro athletes while still insisting that they “support women” at all times with a benevolent grin. “Sometimes I think you might hate me, sometimes I think I might hate you,” Charli babbles atop a strobe-lit A.G. Cook beat, one of the many “wait, are you even allowed to say that anymore?” moments on “Brat.” The song strains the vocabulary of clickbait. Is this a “diss track” or the start of a “feud”? Are the girlies fighting? And if they are, what could Lorde possibly be doing in the V.I.P. section of Charli’s recent show?It’s complicated, and — blessedly — so is the surprise remix on which Lorde appears, firing off her first new lyrics in three years. After Charli unloads her feelings and projections in that first verse, Lorde responds with the run-on intensity of a late-night voice note: “You’d always say, ‘let’s go out,’ but then I’d cancel last minute,” the New Zealander confesses, “I was so lost in my head and scared to be in your pictures.” She then reveals, devastatingly, that she’s been “at war with my body,” insecure about fluctuations in her weight, and that the enigmatic aura she’s created is actually a stifling defense mechanism. That she does it all so succinctly in a cadence that effortlessly matches Cook’s beat should make everyone excited for her next album, whenever it arrives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift’s Duet, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Mavis Staples, Jamie xx featuring Robyn, Rakim and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Gracie Abrams featuring Taylor Swift, ‘Us.’The title of the singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams’s second album, “The Secret of Us,” comes from this feverish duet with her friend and onetime tour mate Taylor Swift. “If history’s clear, someone always ends up in ruins,” Abrams, 24, sings breathily through a thicket of fingerpicked notes, the signature sound of her and Swift’s mutual collaborator Aaron Dessner, who co-produced the track with Jack Antonoff. (Dessner’s band the National gets a shout out toward the end of the song, when Abrams sings of being “mistaken for strangers.”) Midway through, the wise elder Swift swoops in to put Abrams’s youthful heartbreak in perspective. “If history’s clear, the flames always end up in ashes,” she sings. “And what seemed like fate, give it 10 months and you’ll be past it.” LINDSAY ZOLADZJamie xx featuring Robyn, ‘Life’The latest single from Jamie xx’s long-awaited second album “In Waves” pairs playful and effortlessly cool vocals from Robyn with a thumping, skittish beat intercut with lively horn samples. Her personality shines brightest on the bridge, when she throws out some vampy non-sequiturs and dissolves into giggles at one of them: “You’re giving me strong torso.” Whatever you say, Robyn! ZOLADZMavis Staples, ‘Worthy’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      10 Standout R.E.M. Deep Cuts

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      Hear a pick from each of the band’s first 10 albums.R.E.M., from left: Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck.Paul Natkin/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Last week R.E.M. was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an event that sparked a lot of FOMO from me, your guest newsletter writer (the band briefly reunited in New York; I was out of town) and text conversations with my fellow R.E.M. devotees. (Does this fandom have a name? The Sleepyheads?)My friend Kris Chen sent over this query from a fan account: “Imagine that R.E.M. were going to reunite but only to play in your kitchen and only one song. Which song?” He selected “Fall on Me” from “Lifes Rich Pageant,” the band’s 1986 album, which is my favorite despite its lack of an apostrophe. I gave it some real thought and came back with “These Days.” I was amused when I realized those two songs are neighbors on the LP. And then I was struck by my own consistency: I quoted from it in my high school yearbook in 1995.So: R.E.M. One of the greatest bands of all time (this is not debatable). But I am willing to argue over the group’s best deep cuts. It has 15 studio albums, so let’s set some rules: I am going to limit myself only to records recorded with the band’s original lineup (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe), before Berry’s departure from the group after a brain aneurysm. That’s 10 LPs, “Murmur” from 1983 up through “New Adventures in Hi-Fi” in 1996. And I didn’t let myself look at the band’s own picks for its members’ 40 favorites until I finished!The only thing to fear is fearlessness,CarynListen along while you read.1. “Pilgrimage”Chiming guitars, cheery Beach Boys-y backing vocals, lyrics I could never quite decipher: This is the R.E.M. I would have first fallen for, had I heard its 1983 debut, “Murmur,” when it arrived.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      James Chance, No Wave and Punk-Funk Pioneer, Dies at 71

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      With the Contortions and James White and the Blacks, the songwriter and saxophonist set out to challenge musicians and stir up audiences.James Chance, the singer, saxophonist and composer who melded punk, funk and free jazz into bristling dance music as the leader of the Contortions, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 71.His brother, David Siegfried, said Mr. Chance had been in declining health for years and succumbed to complications of gastrointestinal disease at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in East Harlem.During the late 1970s explosion of punk culture in New York City, the Contortions were at the forefront of a style called no wave — music that set out to be as confrontational and radical in sound and performance as punk’s fashion and attitude were visually.Contortions songs like “I Can’t Stand Myself” and “Throw Me Away” filled the rhythmic structures of James Brown’s funk with angular, dissonant riffs, to be topped by Mr. Chance’s yelping, blurting, screaming vocals and his trilling, squawking alto saxophone. He was a live wire onstage, with his own twitchy versions of moves adapted from Brown, Mick Jagger and his punk contemporaries.Although the Contortions often performed in suits and ties, their music and stage presence were proudly abrasive. In the band’s early days, Mr. Chance was so determined to get a reaction from arty, detached spectators that he would jump into the audience and slap or kiss someone. Audience members often fought back.“I got a big kick out of provoking people, I don’t deny that,” Mr. Chance said in a 2003 interview with Pitchfork.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The 40 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)

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      Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat. (Note: It’s not a ranking, it’s a playlist.) Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Espresso’Atop a mid-tempo beat that recalls the muffled retro-funk of Doja Cat’s smash “Say So,” Sabrina Carpenter plays the unbothered temptress with winking humor: “Say you can’t sleep, baby I know, that’s that me, espresso.” Make it a double — you’ve surely heard this one everywhere. LINDSAY ZOLADZTyla, ‘Safer’Following her worldwide 2023 hit “Water,” Tyla pulls away from temptation in “Safer,” harnessing the log-drum beat and sparse, subterranean bass lines of amapiano. Her choral call-and-response vocals carry South African tradition into the electronic wilderness of 21st-century romance. JON PARELESOne We MissedAriana Grande, ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)’At once strobe-lit and silky, Ariana Grande appropriately channels Robyn — the patron saint of crying in the club — on this nimbly sung, melancholic pop hit, a highlight from her bittersweet seventh album, “Eternal Sunshine.” ZOLADZOne We MissedBillie Eilish, ‘The Greatest’Billie Eilish extols her own composure and skill at dissembling — holding back her unrequited love — in “The Greatest” from “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” Delicate picking accompanies her as she sings about how she “made it all look painless.” Then she shatters that composure, opening her voice from breathy to belting while the production goes widescreen with drums and choir. When the music quiets again, her furious restraint is as palpable as her regret. PARELESMdou MoctarKadar Small for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Linda Thompson Can’t Sing Her New Songs. Her Solution? ‘Proxy Music.’

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      The singer and songwriter who rose from the ’60s British folk-rock scene lost her vocals to a neurological disorder. So she wrote a batch of tracks for others to voice.For years, the singer Linda Thompson faced a problem that, for someone in her line of work, seemed insurmountable.Slowly over time, and then suddenly all at once, she lost the ability to hold a note surely enough to sustain even the simplest tune. “I first noticed something wrong back in 1972 when I got pregnant for the first time,” she recalled recently. “My voice became precarious — in and out.”Consultations with doctors eventually brought a brutal diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder in which the muscles in the larynx tighten or lapse into spasms, strangulating speech while making singing a significant challenge. (It’s an entirely different diagnosis from stiff person syndrome, which Celine Dion announced she has in 2022.) “It’s a progressive disease,” Thompson said of her condition. “So, for the first 20 years or so I could live with it. Up until my 60s, I could still sing in the studio, at least on good days.”Now, at 76, that ability has withered entirely for Thompson, one of the most vaunted artists to rise from the British folk-rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s that brought the world Sandy Denny, John Martyn and Nick Drake. Between 1974 and ’82, she released six albums in tandem with her ex-husband, the master guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, culminating in “Shoot Out the Lights,” a work consecrated by critics, in part because of its forensic dissection of the couple’s own crumbling marriage. Thompson’s advancing dysphonia made her subsequent solo career fraught and sporadic, though she did manage to release four LPs before falling silent 11 years ago.Even so, losing her voice didn’t mean forsaking her songwriting, a talent that led to a resourceful strategy for a comeback. Because almost everyone in Thompson’s extended circle of family and friends is a gifted vocalist, she thought, why not engage them to perform the songs and make an album from that? “It wasn’t exactly a brilliant idea,” Thompson said. “It was the only idea.”What clinched it for her was the pun-y name she devised for the result: “Proxy Music.”Richard and Linda Thompson onstage in 1975. The two married three years earlier.Brian Cooke/Redferns, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justin Timberlake Arrest Causes a Stir in the Hamptons

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      As the serene Hamptons village is overrun with news vans, the locals eat oysters and engage in some light media criticism.On Tuesday afternoon in Sag Harbor, Janice Yu of WABC-TV was sitting in the passenger seat of a Nissan news van, eating from a bag of Smart Food popcorn. It was as close as she would come to getting to a kernel of news.“We don’t even know who he was with,” she said, referring to the singer and actor Justin Timberlake, who had been arrested by a Sag Harbor police officer shortly after midnight on Tuesday and charged with driving while intoxicated.Ms. Yu, a reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News in New York, was one of many journalists parked along Main Street near the American Hotel, a 19th-century inn where waiters serve Gardiner’s Bay littleneck clams and Long Island duckling confit to boomer stock sultans. It was also where Mr. Timberlake had been partying with friends the night before.Now it was a muggy and sunny day on the leafy street of this quaint-by-Hamptons-standards onetime whaling village, lined by shops that sell everything from $30 Havaianas flip-flops to $4,600 swivel chairs by Charlotte Perriand. People in Lululemon activewear strolled by, clutching açaí bowls and iced drinks.Ms. Yu, who joined the local news team in 2022 after a stint at Fox5 in Atlanta, had on a turquoise and green J. Crew dress. John Sprei, her field producer, was seated behind her in the van, wearing shorts and a T-shirt.They had scored a copy of the arrest report that was filed in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court earlier that day — but so had the journalists in other vehicles lining the block, a convoy that included news trucks and vans from CBS, NBC, PIX11, Entertainment Tonight, The Associated Press and CNN.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Cage the Elephant’s Frontman Nearly Lost It All

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      Matt Shultz is a rock ’n’ roll ringmaster known for pushing himself to the brink. After a period of psychosis and an arrest, he had to put his reality back together again.In the spring of 2020 as the pandemic cut a terrifying path across the globe, touring bands packed up and went home, unsure how they’d survive. At the same time, Matt Shultz, the frontman of Cage the Elephant — the rare arena-scale rock act to emerge within the past two decades — was facing a different crisis in his own head.After releasing five hard-edged yet hook-filled albums with Cage the Elephant since 2008, Shultz, a frontman known for stripping down to underwear and fishnet tights and walking the length of venues atop his audience’s outstretched hands, was not himself.Suffering an extreme reaction to medication he was prescribed to treat A.D.H.D., he fell into psychosis. Consumed by paranoia and convinced he was being hounded by malicious actors who would routinely break into his home, the singer began carting around his belongings — photographs, journals, books and more — in bulky suitcases.His brother, Brad Shultz, who plays guitar in the band, recalled their mother describing Matt’s ever-present haul as “a physical representation of his emotional baggage.”Matt’s struggles came to a dramatic and very public head in January 2023, when he was arrested on weapons charges at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan after police found two loaded handguns in his room. He has since regained his grip on reality through extensive treatment — and avoided jail time thanks to a plea deal — but his season in hell is immortalized on “Neon Pill,” the band’s sixth studio album, which it will support with a North American tour of arenas and amphitheaters starting this week.“I lost control of the wheel,” Matt, 40, sings on the deceptively breezy-sounding title track in his hoarse croon. “Double-crossed by a neon pill.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More