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      An Essential Mitski Primer

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      The singer-songwriter’s seventh album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” is out Friday.Ebru YildizDear listeners,The singer-songwriter Mitski first caught my ear in 2014, when she released the sharply penned and tunefully guitar-driven album “Bury Me at Makeout Creek.” (It’s a “Simpsons” reference.)I clocked her then as a smart chronicler of millennial malaise and a punk-adjacent indie-rocker working in the D.I.Y. tradition, figuring she’d subsequently release a few more albums that fit that description. I could not have predicted where she’d go in the next decade: an Oscar nomination for a song she wrote with Son Lux and David Byrne, an accidental and somewhat reluctant foray into TikTok stardom, and a creatively adventurous, consistently challenging discography that includes her seventh studio album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” which is out today.“A Mitski song lasts about as long as it takes to poach an egg,” E. Alex Jung wrote in a profile of Mitski last year. “They are small and will knock you out, like pearls slipped inside the left ventricle of your heart.” I like thinking of Mitski songs in these terms, polished and self-contained, but sneakily potent. She perfected that method of songwriting on her 2018 album “Be the Cowboy,” which contained a song that, appropriately enough, likened the creative process to having “a pearl in my head” that the singer would “roll around every night just to watch it glow.”“The Land Is Inhospitable” is a veritable string of such pearls. Its songs sound labored over, yes, but they also have a looseness and an airiness, which are not qualities I usually associate with Mitski. With tracks like the lilting ballad “Heaven” or the country-tinged “The Frost,” listening to this album feels like stumbling upon the welcome glow of a crowded saloon in the middle of a desolate night, beckoned by the inviting sounds of someone casually playing music inside.It also feels like a notable departure, maybe even a course correction, from the more pop-oriented direction Mitski seemed to be on with her previous album, the new wave-y “Laurel Hell.” I spent some time with Mitski right before the release of that album, when I was profiling her for The New York Times Magazine, and found her to be a thoughtful and refreshing voice of skepticism in this musical era of algorithmic optimization. Mitski had stumbled into virality — through no effort of her own, her songs “Washing Machine Heart” and “Nobody” became TikTok hits in 2021 — and found the experience strange and disorienting. Rather than try to replicate that success, she’s followed a muse that has led to more mature sounds. “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” is not one of her most immediate albums, but over repeated listens, I think it reveals itself to be one of her best.I also think it’s best appreciated in the context of Mitski’s larger discography, which I’m going to spotlight on today’s playlist. If you’re unfamiliar with her music, it serves as a comprehensive introduction to her sound. And if you’re already a Mitski fan, I hope it will provide connections between her new and old songs and give you an entry point into her latest album.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. “Bug Like an Angel” (2023)The leadoff track and first single from “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” showcases two of Mitski’s signature songwriting skills: her knack for succinct, imagistic lyrics (“There’s a bug like an angel stuck to the bottom of my glass”) and her affinity for unexpected contrasts between quiet and loud. Here, that dynamism comes from the tension between Mitski’s flat, lonely vocal during the verses and the resounding, earnest backing choir that bursts forth from the void without warning, tearing the roof right off what seemed to be a muted, acoustic lament. (Listen on YouTube)2. “Your Best American Girl” (2016)And here, that dynamism comes from a quick stomp on the distortion pedal. “You’re an all-American boy,” Mitski hollers on this sky-scraping chorus, “I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl.” A standout from what is still my favorite Mitski album, the impeccably named “Puberty 2,” “Your Best American Girl” is also on my long list of best songs of the millennium so far. (Listen on YouTube)3. “Townie” (2014)Sometimes — especially on her earlier, more rock-oriented albums — Mitski will kick a song into a high gear immediately and continue escalating the intensity until the track sounds like it’s ready to burst into flames. That approach works well on the blazing “Townie,” a cathartic exorcism of 20-something anxiety from her 2014 album, “Bury Me at Makeout Creek.” “I want a love that falls as fast as a body from a balcony,” she sings, translating the song’s frantic momentum into another memorable image. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Heaven” (2023)Mitski’s music occasionally contains a faint country influence, albeit filtered through her own distinct sensibility. I hear some of that on this lovely ballad from the new album, but I also hear Mitski experimenting with sounds she hasn’t before explored on her records, like chamber-pop grandiosity and soaring orchestral accompaniments. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Lonesome Love” (2018)The country influence is more pronounced here, on this galloping ditty from the aptly named 2018 album “Be the Cowboy.” So is Mitski’s wry sense of humor: “In the morning, in a taxi I am so very paying for.” (Listen on YouTube)6. “Stay Soft” (2022)Here is my favorite song from Mitski’s previous album, “Laurel Hell,” which has the slightly misleading reputation as her happiest, poppiest release. (The opening track, “Valentine, Texas,” is one of many brooding songs that complicate that understanding.) On this song Mitski demonstrates how much depth she can mine from a seemingly simple lyric and a satisfying chord progression. “Open up your heart, like the gates of hell,” she sings, a perfect encapsulation of her macabre take on romance. (Listen on YouTube)7. “Nobody” (2018)This glistening, disco-kissed confession of loneliness is perhaps Mitski’s best-known song, thanks to its unexpected popularity on TikTok. “I don’t get it, but it’s nice!” Mitski told me last year, when asked about her fame on the app, which she is not on, herself. “All of the businesspeople are like, ‘This is so great!’ And I’m like, ‘Please stop texting me these TikToks.’” (Listen on YouTube)8. “Francis Forever” (2014)An early example, from “Bury Me at Makeout Creek,” of Mitski’s command of pop melody, “Francis Forever” charts the emotional and physical restlessness that comes from missing someone: “I don’t know what to do without you,” Mitski croons, “I don’t know where to put my hands.” (Listen on YouTube)9. “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars” (2016)I love the rough-hewed texture and unrelenting fury of this highlight from “Puberty 2,” which plays out like a stream-of-consciousness airing of quarter-life grievances: “I wanna see the whole world!/I don’t know how I’m gonna pay rent!” Each line is delivered with the urgency of an inebriated epiphany shouted at a close friend during the waning hours of a house party. (Listen on YouTube)10. “Class of 2013” (2013)Mitski released her first two albums, “Lush” (2012) and “Retired From Sad, New Career in Business” (2013), in relative obscurity when she was a student at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Music. Although these albums have belatedly become popular with some of her fans, for their uninhibited expressions of young-adult angst, they mostly still feel like rough drafts of what was to come. An exception is this brief, raw, piano-driven song, which culminates in Mitski letting out a blistering howl and foreshadows the clear, concise songwriting style of her best later work. (Listen on YouTube)11. “My Love Mine All Mine” (2023)“Nothing in the world belongs to me but my love,” Mitski sings on her latest single, a warm, lushly atmospheric ballad that exemplifies the easy confidence and sonic spaciousness of her seventh album. (Listen on YouTube)I work better under a deadline,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“An Essential Mitski Primer” track listTrack 1: “Bug Like an Angel”Track 2: “Your Best American Girl”Track 3: “Townie”Track 4: “Heaven”Track 5: “Lonesome Love”Track 6: “Stay Soft”Track 7: “Nobody”Track 8: “Francis Forever”Track 9: “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars”Track 10: “Class of 2013”Track 11: “My Love Mine All Mine”Bonus TracksJon Pareles profiled the Rolling Stones (!) ahead of the band’s forthcoming album, “Hackney Diamonds,” and, among other impressive things, made Keith Richards cry: “Thanks for bringing me to tears.” I know you want to find out why.Speaking of the Stones, this David Marchese interview with the Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner is … really something.And if it’s new music you’re looking for, as ever, we’ve got a Playlist for that. This week’s selections feature Maren Morris, Chris Stapleton and Cat Power. Listen here. More

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      Maren Morris Revels in a Fresh Start, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Cat Power, Chris Stapleton, Loraine James 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.Maren Morris, ‘The Tree’Maren Morris forcefully pulls free of a bad relationship in “The Tree,” an arena-scale waltz full of botanical imagery: “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem/But you wanna blame it on me.” Buttressed by a massive drumbeat, power chords and a choir, Morris has clearly made up her mind: “I’ll never stop growing.” JON PARELESMitski, ‘My Love Mine All Mine’Mitski’s seventh album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” — out Friday — is suffused with a luminous warmth and an easy confidence that are both on ample display on the single “My Love Mine All Mine.” “Nothing in the world belongs to me but my love,” Mitski sings in a clarion croon, as a chorus of backing singers fill out the atmosphere around her. Tinkling barroom piano and the occasional whine of pedal steel give the song a nocturnal country flair, while Mitski leads the way at an unhurried tempo that seems to slow time itself. LINDSAY ZOLADZCat Power, ‘She Belongs to Me (Live at the Royal Albert Hall)’Last year, Chan Marshall, who records as Cat Power, played a full performance recreating Bob Dylan’s fabled 1966 “Royal Albert Hall” concert (which actually took place at the Manchester Free Trade Hall). On Nov. 10, she’ll release a live album of the full 15-song set, including this stirring rendition of “She Belongs to Me.” A prolific and intuitive interpreter of other people’s songs, Marshall brings the right balance of reverence and invention to this 1965 Dylan classic, slowing the original’s tempo and conveying a coziness through the crackling, bonfire warmth of her voice. ZOLADZChris Stapleton, ‘Think I’m in Love With You’The stolid backbeat, laconic guitar hooks, stealthy organ chords and hovering string arrangement of “Think I’m in Love With You” come straight out of 1970s Memphis soul. So do Chris Stapleton’s vocal choices; his leaps, quavers and evasions of the beat can be traced to Al Green. But Stapleton brings his own drama and grit to the style; his homage carries an emotional charge. PARELESParchman Prison Prayer, ‘Break Every Chain’Inmates at Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Farm prison sing at weekly church services. Like the folklorist Alan Lomax in the 1940s, earlier this year the producer Ian Brennan visited Parchman to record. In one Sunday session, he gathered fervent gospel performances, most of them solo and unaccompanied, from prisoners, collectively billed as Parchman Prison Prayer. Proceeds from the album, “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning,” will benefit the Mississippi Department of Corrections Chaplain Services. One is from M. Kyles, a prisoner in his 50s, whose voice sails aloft as he extols the power of Jesus’s name to “Break Every Chain.” PARELESNas, ‘Fever’Nas, like hip-hop itself, turns 50 this year, and in “Fever” he’s “celebrating years of flows and crazy wordplay/Seasoned, I’m leaving my 40s, I’m a griot.” Backed by minor-chord loops of guitars, strings and distant voices, his raspy voice is both proud and generous: “I wish at least 50 on all my good people,” he declares. PARELESLoraine James featuring Morgan Simpson, ‘I DM U’The electronic producer Loraine James teams up with the indefatigable muscle power of Morgan Simpson — Black Midi’s drummer — in “I DM U” from her album out next week, “Gentle Confrontation.” She dispenses sustained chords and sporadic bass lines at a stately tempo; he’s all over his kit, barreling ahead at quadruple speed, impulsive where she’s measured. But they’re working in tandem, moving forward together. PARELESJenn Champion, ‘Jessica’Grief and anger roil in “Jessica,” a quietly devastated ballad about a friend’s fatal overdose. Jenn Champion, who has been making music since she was a member of Carissa’s Wierd in the 1990s, double tracks her voice over a cycle of three basic, echoey piano chords as she mourns “stupid dead Jessica,” a friend she loved, who couldn’t overcome her addiction: “Honestly, who OD’s in their [expletive] 40s,” she sings, even as she recognizes, “Our friends die but we keep getting older.” PARELESSnail Mail, ‘Easy Thing (Demo)’Lindsey Jordan’s recordings as Snail Mail have increasingly reveled in the possibilities of studio production. But songs have to start somewhere, and “Easy Thing” — an unreleased song that will be included on an EP of demos from the 2021 album “Valentine” — harks back to Jordan’s sparse early recordings. It’s a waltz backed by just a few home-recorded tracks — guitars, flutelike synthesizer and an occasional harmony vocal — as Jordan sings about still longing for an ex who moved on. “Forget about that girl,” she urges, though not exactly confidently. “We’ll always have that easy thing.” PARELESKavita Shah and Bau, ‘Flor de Lis’On her quietly riveting new album, “Cape Verdean Blues,” the vocalist and folklorist Kavita Shah teams up with Bau, a guitarist and one of Cape Verde’s best-known musicians, to explore the island nation’s repertoire of traditional ballads and dance songs. But on “Flor de Lis,” Shah and Bau take a detour to Brazil, playing this popular samba by the MPB musician Djavan. Shah’s vocals maintain pitch-perfect clarity even as she arcs a high melody over the chorus. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOSteve Lehman, ‘Chimera’How Steve Lehman gets music to sound the way he does is both an object of fascination and, to some degree, a mystery we must accept. To unpack it, you’d have to understand how he uses spectral harmony — a computer-assisted approach that treats the shapes and contours of sound waves as the basis for harmony — and that’s before you even begin to decode his densely scribbled, tone-smearing saxophone lines. Indeed, “Chimera” is an apt name for a piece of his. This version of the tune (which has been in his repertoire for years) begins with two minutes of Chris Dingman’s vibraphone mixing with other mallets and chimes, thickening the air before Lehman’s alto saxophone enters, joined by a full horn section, playing in pulses and stabs. Drums and bass put their weight into a tensile, halting rhythm. The tune comes from Lehman’s new album, “Ex Machina,” which he recorded with the Orchestre National de Jazz in France (the birthplace of spectral composition, by the way). Lehman’s music, always flooded with ideas, has rarely felt so fully fleshed out and exposed. RUSSONELLO More

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      ‘Mr. Jimmy’ Review: Trying for That Perfect Page Re-Creation

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      Akio Sakurai is obsessed with sounding exactly like the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. This documentary plumbs the depths of his devotion.The Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page is the envy of guitar players, and nonplayers, the world over. Mike D of the Beastie Boys expressed the wishful thinking of many when he boasted in a rap, “If I played guitar I’d be Jimmy Page.”No one understands this better, it happens, than Akio Sakurai, a Japanese musician who has devoted decades to playing guitar in the varying modes that Page applied in his years as Led Zeppelin’s lead instrumentalist. He recalls one day off from his job as a kimono salesman, seeing the Zep concert film “The Song Remains The Same,” and being mesmerized by the power of Page’s playing. He became obsessed with recreating it.The first hour of the movie contains lots of guitar wonkiness as Sakurai, nicknamed “Mr. Jimmy,” consults with technicians, working on getting his own axes and amps as close to Page’s gear as he can. After Mr. Jimmy elaborates on the idiosyncrasies of Les Paul guitar pickup guards, one of the artisans he works with comments, “We understand Jimmy’s obsession. It’s very Japanese.”The film, directed by Peter Michael Dowd, centers on Sakurai’s upending his life to move to Los Angeles and install himself in a Zep tribute band; he lasts a couple of years, leaving because the other members didn’t share his single-mindedness in reproducing Page’s onstage work.“That is the meaning of tribute. Not showing myself at all. There is no ‘me’ to begin with,” Sakurai, who is now 59, says at one point. This is a terrifying notion, but the movie doesn’t choose to run with it, instead sticking to Mr. Jimmy’s career travails in the States before landing with a “Spinal Tap”-redolent happy ending.Mr. JimmyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Larry Chance, Who Helped Keep Doo-Wop Alive for Decades, Dies at 82

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      His career began in 1957, when he and some friends from the Bronx formed the vocal group that would become the Earls. He recorded his last song 65 years later.Larry Chance, whose Bronx vocal group the Earls was one of the most enduring acts of the doo-wop era, helping to keep alive the vocal harmonies, rhythmic syllables and onomatopoeic lyrics that had once been improvised on city street corners and in subway stations, died on Sept. 6 in a hospital in Orlando, Fla. He was 82.His daughter, Nicole Chance, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Larry Chance and the Earls were distinguished as much for their longevity — the group began in 1957 as the High Hatters, and Mr. Chance was still performing in its latest incarnation this year — as for their hits, some of which became doo-wop anthems.The first doo-wop groups were Black, but there were white artists in the mix almost from the beginning. The Earls were among the first.“The Earls unknowingly became the forerunners of white doo-wop groups who took standards done by rhythm and blues balladeers and brought them to the attention of a new generation,” the music historian Jay Warner wrote in “American Singing Groups: A History From 1940 to Today” (1992).Among the group’s most popular records were “Life Is But A Dream,” (1961), a song first recorded by the Harptones, a Black doo-wop group, in 1955; “Never” (1963), an up-tempo torch song; and, most notably, “Remember Then” (1962), which, with its distinctive chant of “Re-mem-mem, re-mem-ma-mem-ber,” reached No. 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and became a staple of oldies radio.“Life Is But a Dream” was a hit on New York radio and prompted invitations for the group to appear with the disc jockey Murray the K at the Fox Theater in Brooklyn and on Dick Clark’s popular television show “American Bandstand.”The Earls’ signature song later became the ballad “I Believe,” whose inspiriting lyrics begin, “I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows/I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows.”The Earls’ 1965 recording of “I Believe” was far from the first; it had earlier been recorded by, among others, Mahalia Jackson, Elvis Presley and Frankie Laine, who had a hit with it in 1952. But it became a regular crowd-pleasing finale at the Earls’ live shows. The group dedicated its recording to Larry Palumbo, an early member who died in 1959 in an accident when he was in the Army.“I Believe” was an illustration of the music executive Hy Weiss’s faith in the group: Their demo version was released as the completed master.Mr. Weiss, who had offered the group a contract with his imprint Old Town Records shortly after hearing “Remember Then,” also figured in the transformation of Lawrence Figueiredo into Larry Chance. It happened just before “I Believe” was released.“Hy Weiss wanted him to step out front,” Mr. Warner wrote, “and though Figueiredo was reluctant, Weiss and his super salesmanship convinced him to take a chance when he said, ‘I’m gonna call you Larry Chance.’”The drummer Bobby Tribuzio, in a phone interview, characterized Mr. Chance, with whom he performed for six decades, as “a singer’s singer.” He was also a versatile entertainer (his solo shows incorporated comedy) and wrote songs, including “Get On Up and Dance (The Continental),” which he wrote with Jimmy Fracassi and the Earls recorded in 1976.When doo-wop’s popularity declined in the early 1970s, the group adapted by briefly becoming a nine-piece rhythm-and-blues ensemble called Smokestack. They resumed performing as the Earls during the subsequent doo-wop revival.In the 1980s, Mr. Chance also voiced the provocative radio characters Geraldo Santana Banana and Rainbow Johnson on Don Imus’s WNBC radio show.His last public performance was in June at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, N.Y., where he sang “Stand by Me” as a duet with the singer, songwriter and music historian Billy Vera. Mr. Chance’s last recording was a duet of the same song with Mr. Vera in 2022.Mr. Chance, left, in performance with Johnny Petillo of the Duprees in 2008. His last public performance was this year.Bobby Bank/WireImage, via Getty ImagesLawrence Figueiredo was born on Oct. 19, 1940, in the Bronx and raised in South Philadelphia — a neighborhood that also spawned the opera singer Mario Lanza, as well as Larry’s pop-music contemporaries Fabian, Frankie Avalon and Chubby Checker.His father, John, owned a construction company. His mother, Mary (Pedra) Figueiredo, was a homemaker.At the age of 6, Larry was cast in an elementary school production of “The Baker and the Pie Man.”“I was the baker,” Mr. Chance told Gene DiNapoli, an entertainer and podcast host, in 2020. “I got applause. I decided then that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”The family moved back to the Bronx in 1955. Mr. Chance later took some jobs with masonry companies to get by, but he pursued a singing career despite opposition at home.When he told his father he wanted a career in music, Mr. Chance recalled, “he told me, ‘Get a man’s job.’”In 1957, at around the time he graduated from Evander Childs High School in the Bronx, he and four friends — Bob Del Din, Eddie Harder, John Wray and Mr. Palumbo — formed the High Hatters.They performed at local venues and were singing outside the entrance to a subway station when they were discovered by Johnny Powers, who recorded their version of “Life Is But a Dream” for his small Rome Records label.Mr. Chance lived for decades in Sullivan County, N.Y., close to the Catskills, where he performed in hotels. He later relocated to Florida to be near his daughter.In addition to her, he is survived by his wife, Sandra; a son, Christopher; and three grandchildren.As the lead singer of one of the most durable doo-wop groups, Mr. Chance understood from the beginning that talent and luck weren’t enough. “Remember Then” was played on the radio for the first time in 1962 on a program whose listeners were invited to phone in and vote for the best of five songs.“We had every kid in the North Bronx with a pocket full of dimes, and we just flooded that station with calls and won the contest,” he told Anthony P. Musso, the author of “Setting the Record Straight: The Music and Careers of Recording Artists from the 1950s and Early 1960s … in Their Own Words” (2007).He acknowledged, though, that luck might have played a role when the group was deciding on a new name. They couldn’t afford to purchase the tuxedos, canes, spats, toppers and other formal attire they fancied to redeem their original billing as the High Hatters, and they couldn’t agree on what to call themselves.“To make it fair, we stuck our finger in a dictionary and said whatever it falls on, that’s what we’ll be,” Mr. Chance told Mr. Musso. “I always said I was happy that I didn’t put my fingers about a quarter of an inch up, or we would have been called the Ears.”Jeff Roth More

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      in Television

      Singing Competition Again Comes Under Fire After Use of Blackface

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      Contestants on a recent episode of a Polish reality TV show used blackface to imitate Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé. It was not the first time the racist tradition had been featured.A reality TV singing competition in Poland is under fire after two contestants used blackface to imitate Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé during an episode that aired over the weekend.“Your Face Sounds Familiar” (or, in Polish, “Twoja Twarz Brzmi Znajomo”) appears in multiple countries, including the United States, where it ran on ABC for one season in 2014 and was called “Sing Your Face Off.” The show encourages contestants to recreate the appearance and sound of famous singers as accurately as possible.In Saturday’s episode of “Your Face Sounds Familiar,” the singer Kuba Szmajkowski won with his rendition of Mr. Lamar’s “Humble.” Mr. Szmajkowski performed in blackface and wore his hair in cornrows in order to look like Mr. Lamar.Mr. Szmajkowski posted video of his transformation to his 163,000 Instagram followers, with the caption “get ready with Kendrick.” The video showed the singer in front of a mirror getting multiple layers of makeup applied. A representative for Mr. Szmajkowski did not immediately respond to a request for comment.While Mr. Szmajkowski’s post about his transformation received thousands of likes, hundreds of people commented on it, many of them expressing criticism and anger.“This is top racism. Do you not see how inappropriate this is? Not to mention offensive? Wrong,” one user wrote.Another contestant in Saturday’s episode, Pola Gonciarz, performed Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy,” also using blackface in an effort to evoke the look of the superstar.“Your Face Sounds Familiar” is produced by Endemol Shine Poland, which is owned by the French company Banijay. In a statement, the company said, “Banijay condemns Endemol Shine Poland’s local execution of ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar,’ which contradicts our group’s global values.” A spokeswoman declined to provide more details until an investigation is completed.It’s not the first time the program has come under fire for the use of blackface. In 2021, a white contestant wore blackface to portray Kanye West performing “Stronger.”In response to that criticism, the show said the negative comments were surprising. “The Polish edition of the show, seen as exemplary abroad, always tries to show great performances, which strive to be as close to the original as possible,” an Instagram post from the show read at the time.This time around, “Your Face Sounds Familiar,” which is in its 19th season, has not yet publicly responded.The show’s Instagram account indicates that multiple contestants have dressed in blackface to perform as Black singers, including Snoop Dogg, Ray Charles, Bill Withers and Missy Elliott. Mia Moody-Ramirez, a professor at Baylor University in Texas who specializes in how race is portrayed in the media, said Mr. Szmajkowski’s performance was particularly offensive because of the combination of blackface, cornrows and his use of a racial slur, which is among the song’s lyrics.She said the continued use of blackface on the show might be because the stigma surrounding it is smaller in Poland, which has a population that is overwhelmingly white, than it is in the United States. About 97 percent of Poland’s population identifies as ethnically Polish, according to Minority Rights Group International.“We are living in a global society,” Dr. Moody-Ramirez said. “If it is produced in one country, it is going to be seen around the world.”In the United States, blackface dates back to early 19th-century minstrel shows, and the racist tradition — even though widely condemned — has persisted, showing up at bachelor parties, in old photos of politicians and elsewhere. The popularity of blackface was at its height in the early 20th century and has waned sharply since the 1950s, but it has not disappeared around the world.In Europe, too, there has been something of a reckoning. In Britain in 2020, some comedy shows that included blackface or racial slurs were removed from streaming platforms, including BBC’s iPlayer and Netflix. And in the Netherlands, a holiday tradition in which people dress in blackface to portray Black Pete, a servant to St. Nicholas, is slowly changing. More

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      MTV Video Music Awards Recap: Taylor Swift, Doja Cat and More

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      Nicki Minaj hosted and helped close out a nearly four-hour show heavy on performances and reaction shots of Taylor Swift in the audience.The MTV Video Music Awards returned to the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday night, as Nicki Minaj hosted a nearly four-hour show that included the members of ’N Sync coming together to present a Moon Person trophy to Taylor Swift (who gushed directly to the boy band, “I had your dolls”) and Sean Combs receiving a global icon honor (and telling the crowd his career had humble beginnings, as a paperboy). The Brazilian pop star Anitta delivered one of the event’s most solid one-liners — “I want to thank myself because I worked so hard,” she said in an acceptance speech — which she also proved onstage, performing both a solo medley and a collaboration with the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together. At the end of the night, the following five moments stood out.Most Memorable Performance: Doja CatOne of pop-rap’s most unpredictable voices turned out the night’s most polished and high-concept performance, capturing the anxiety of return to office in a look perhaps best described as “business sexual” while surrounded by dancers doused in ghoulish red paint. The audience looked confused and a little terrified as Doja Cat glided around the stage nailing her marks, the calm in an increasingly hectic storm.Most Memorable Fake-Out: Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” video dramatizes an awards show performance gone wrong, and though it has 54 million YouTube views, none of those evidently came from V.M.A.s audience members like Selena Gomez, who looked stricken when Rodrigo partly recreated the clip Tuesday night. After the song’s first section, lights seemingly burst onstage and a curtain fell as a “stagehand” ushered the singer away — only to return seconds later grinning and performing another song from her new album, “Guts,” the bouncy “Get Him Back!”Most Memorable Return That (Likely) Didn’t Attract F.C.C. Attention: Cardi B and Megan Thee StallionCardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s first televised performance of their hit “WAP” came at the 2021 Grammys, and their salacious choreography caught the attention of over 1,000 viewers who complained to the Federal Communications Commission, Rolling Stone reported. The duo reunited last week with a fresh collaboration called “Bongos,” and played it relatively safer on the V.M.A.s stage. The censors caught most of the profanities and the audience camera caught one of the night’s many shots of Swift dancing along.Most Memorable 10-Minute Performance Involving Knives: ShakiraPerforming a mega medley to celebrate receiving the video vanguard award, the Colombian pop star didn’t appear to be doing much live singing, but her lengthy number included plenty of choreography, hair flipping, microphone stand tossing, guitar playing, a quick wardrobe adjustment, crowd surfing and a lift bringing her high above the crowd. But a truly eye-grabbing moment came halfway through, when she wielded two knives, dramatically running one across her torso before tossing them aside.Most Memorable Flashback to MTV’s Past: Hip-Hop Anniversary MedleyThe Grammys went big with a tribute to 50 years of hip-hop earlier this year, but MTV’s celebration of rap’s anniversary had some highlights, too: After Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh gave the crowd a lesson on the genre’s beginnings, Minaj emerged with “Itty Bitty Piggy,” one of her beloved early mixtape tracks, then reunited with her mentor Lil Wayne for “A Milli.” LL Cool J commanded the stage for two of his own songs, then went (shell) toe to toe with Run-DMC’s Darryl McDaniels on “Walk This Way.” (The performance mostly elided the 1990s, but Diddy’s eight-minute performance earlier in the night covered that era.) It was a reminder that MTV was once the home of “Yo! MTV Raps,” and used to spend a lot more time on music. More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s Songs About Growing Pains

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicOlivia Rodrigo just released her second album, “Guts,” which is, at least in some ways, an extension of her 2021 debut album, “Sour.” She plays with similar musical approaches, splitting her time between piano balladry and punkish pop-rock. (She is still working with the same producer, Daniel Nigro.)But in other ways, it’s an evolution. Before, she was a young performer just out of the Disney ecosystem singing about teen heartbreak. Now, she’s got two years of pop stardom under her belt, and she’s experienced all of the lows that come with fame (and presumably some of the highs, too). That exposure has deepened her songwriting, and made her a prominent pop skeptic operating in the heat of the spotlight.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Rodrigo’s rapid rise, and the ways in which she’s chosen to reflect on it in her songs; her playfulness with genre and vocal style; and the potential futures in front of her.Guests:Caryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York Times and writer of The Amplifier newsletterConnect 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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      A 20-Minute Cleaning Playlist

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      Banish dust to the sounds of Outkast, Mitski and more.Outkast onstage in 2014: fresh, clean, etc.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,Over the weekend, I got my first cordless vacuum — a truly game-changing invention — and embarked upon an epic cleaning spree of my entire apartment. Free from the tangle of a cord or tether of an electrical outlet, I crept from room to room, hunting down anything that could be sucked up in this gleaming hand-held machine, feeling a lot like a Ghostbuster wielding a Proton Blaster. Dustin’, for once, made me feel good.I do not usually enjoy cleaning, so I often need some sort of trick or extra motivator to push me to do it: a fun new appliance, an upcoming gathering, an unending sneezing fit that reminds me it’s been way too long since I dusted. Or — I think you see where I’m going with this — a cleaning playlist.Today’s playlist is short by design: just six songs, clocking in at a little over 20 minutes. Most of us don’t always have the time to do a thorough deep cleaning of our living space — hey, I’ve got a newsletter to put out twice a week! — but we probably have a few increments of 20 spare minutes to squeeze in a little tidying up to stay ahead of mess and its accompanying anxiety.Last year, in a post on the website Apartment Therapy, Marlen Komar wrote about a similar rule she’d created for herself to ensure she didn’t spend her entire weekends cleaning: A few times throughout the week, she sets a timer for 20 minutes and cleans as much as she can for that duration. No more, no less. You know what’s even better than a 20-minute timer, though? A 20-minute playlist.A good cleaning playlist should be light, buoyant and — if you really want to have some fun with it — thematically focused on the task at hand. Eminem’s “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”? Technically on topic, yes, but in my opinion way too intense to soundtrack the actual cleanin’ out of one’s closet. I prefer the cool, weightless sheen of Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” or the helpfully instructive groove of Parquet Courts’ “Dust”: “Dust is everywhere/Sweep!”May this playlist inspire you to do just that. And if you play it so much that you get sick of it, that probably means that your space is spotless. Reward yourself by crafting a 20-minute cleaning playlist of your own.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Parquet Courts: “Dust”“It comes through the window, it comes through the floor,” the members of the New York rock band Parquet Courts intone on this ode to those menacing, omnipresent particles of ick, from the 2016 album “Human Performance.” The tune is so upbeat, though, that it plays like a call to action against dust. Warning: This song may cause you to dance with your broom. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Cleaners From Venus: “Time in Vain”Time spent cleaning — or listening to the great, quintessentially jangly English band the Cleaners From Venus — is never time spent in vain. Bonus points for the title of the fantastic 1982 album on which “Time in Vain” appears: “Midnight Cleaners.” (Listen on YouTube)3. The Clean: “Thumbs Off”And here’s another pristinely titled, jangly post-punk group that took off in the early ’80s: New Zealand’s own the Clean. The pogo-ing beat, revving propulsion and catchy chorus melody of the 1983 single “Thumbs Off” prove, once again, that cleanliness is next to tunefulness. (Listen on YouTube)4. Mitski: “Washing Machine Heart”With its clomping, shoes-in-the-washing-machine percussion, this infectious 2018 Mitski single is the perfect soundtrack to unloading the laundry or — if you are a long-suffering New Yorker like me — sweatily lugging a sack of dirty clothes to the laundromat, silently cursing your decision to reside in an otherwise lovely city in which “in-unit washer/dryer” is considered a luxury amenity. Why?! (Listen on YouTube)5. Outkast: “So Fresh, So Clean”By the end of this playlist, no one will be referring to your home as “Stankonia.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Taylor Swift: “Clean”This sleek, serene closing number from Taylor Swift’s “1989” provides an opportunity to step back and appreciate what you’ve accomplished — and to give yourself permission to move on with your day. Vacuums down! I think you are finally clean. (Listen on YouTube)YKK on your zipper,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“A 20-Minute Cleaning Playlist” track listTrack 1: Parquet Courts, “Dust”Track 2: The Cleaners From Venus, “Time in Vain”Track 3: The Clean, “Thumbs Off”Track 4: Mitski, “Washing Machine Heart”Track 5: Outkast, “So Fresh, So Clean”Track 6: Taylor Swift, “Clean”Bonus TracksI’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the albums that the Chicago-based songwriter and poet Jamila Woods has released — and I’ve even included a few of her songs in previous Amplifiers — so it was such a treat to get to profile her ahead of her forthcoming third album, “Water Made Us.” A lot of artists go into turbo-promotional mode before dropping a new album, but it was refreshing to find that Woods was spending six weeks right before her album’s release on a writing retreat in Italy. (Also: I am jealous.) If you’re looking for an introduction to Woods’ personal, poetic take on R&B, I’d highly recommend the first single from “Water Made Us,” “Tiny Garden.” More