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      9 New Songs From Rosé, Bad Bunny and More

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      Hear tracks by Sky Ferreira, Bad Bunny, Sakura Tsuruta 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.Rosé, ‘Toxic Till the End’Born in New Zealand, and skillful and disciplined enough to join the K-pop group Blackpink, Rosé is the epitome of an international pop strategist. “Toxic Till the End,” sung entirely in English, is from her solo debut album, “Rosie,” and it’s an indictment of an ex who was “jealous and possessive, so manipulatin’ / Honestly impressive, you had me participatin’.” It uses every device at her disposal, drawing directly from the Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff synth-pop playbook. Keyboard arpeggios lead to an arena-ready march, a breathy reconsideration, a shout that “You wasted my prettiest years!,” an acoustic moment and a big angry finish. Women’s rage at bad boyfriends is real — and commercial, too.Sky Ferreira, ‘Leash’A tsunami of grungy distortion opens “Leash,” a song Sky Ferreira wrote for the thriller “Babygirl.” It’s her first release since leaving Capitol Records, which released her lone album, “Night Time, My Time,” in 2013; she has said her long-in-the-making second album, “Masochism,” will arrive in 2025. “Leash” could easily segue out of Ferreira’s debut, as she fortifies her pop melodies with armadas of guitars, keyboards, drums and backup vocals. She sings about submission and surrender — “Wanna be caught, go down in flames” — but the heft and crunch of the music insist on her power.Bruses, ‘Coma Party’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 Year in Pop: Hits Without Stars, Stars Without Hits

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      This past spring, Tommy Richman got famous off a TikTok.Well, not famous exactly. Popular. Let’s say popular. Tommy Richman got popular off a TikTok.Or maybe that’s not quite right either. How about: This past spring, a snippet of a song used in a video on TikTok catapulted Richman, a young soul singer with some promising earlier releases, onto the path to fame.The snippet was of “Million Dollar Baby,” a deliciously saccharine pop-funk thumper, and the TikTok it soundtracked was a loose clip of Richman and his friends having a fantastic time in the studio one night — a warm little bolt of you-shoulda-been-there fun. This was in April, and before long, the clip had millions of views, and the audio was inescapable. Eventually, it appeared in over nine million videos on the app. Radio play followed quickly, leading to a No. 2 debut for the song on the Billboard Hot 100, followed by a few months in the Top 10.Stardom secured, right? Not quite. While “Million Dollar Baby” is one of this year’s defining singles, Richman remains largely a cipher. He hasn’t done many interviews; he had a needless social-media kerfuffle over how people taxonomize his sound; and his debut studio album, “Coyote” — which pointedly and stubbornly did not include “Million Dollar Baby” or its follow-up cousin, “Devil Is a Lie” — arrived with a whisper in September, and disappeared even more quietly.Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” blew up on TikTok and hit the Hot 100, but didn’t appear on his debut studio album.Craig Barritt/Getty ImagesThis isn’t to consign Richman to pop’s deep bin of one-hit wonders. If anything, the current pathway for breakout successes, especially via TikTok, is more insidious than that. Viral smashes like “Million Dollar Baby” often feel like hits without stars — potent for soundtracking and sticking to content made by others rather than attached to the artist who actually created it.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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      Debbie Nelson, Eminem’s Mother, Dies at 69

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      The two had a fraught relationship that was immortalized in many of Eminem’s earliest hits.Debbie Nelson, a single mother from Missouri whose tumultuous relationship with her eldest son, the rapper Eminem, provided fodder for some of his early hits, died on Monday. She was 69.The death was confirmed by Dennis Dennehy, a longtime representative for Eminem. He did not say where she died or cite a cause.Ms. Nelson was known for her fraught relationship with Eminem, who through his talent went from being a bullied little boy named Marshall Mathers to a hugely successful rapper. He wrote about their struggles in several songs, including one of his biggest hits.In his rage-fueled, freewheeling 2002 single “Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” Eminem has a reckoning with his mother over his upbringing, accusing her of neglect, abuse and prescription-pill abuse.In the chorus, he sarcastically apologizes for making her cry, only to add, “How dare you try to take what you didn’t help me to get?”Ms. Nelson, who sued her son for defamation in 1999 over another unflattering representation of her in his song “My Name Is,” shared her account of their relationship in a no-holds-barred memoir, “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,” which was published in 2008.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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      Best Albums of 2024: Charli XCX, Mk.gee, MJ Lenderman and More

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      Charli XCX, Mk.gee and MJ Lenderman top our pop music critics’ lists this year.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesConcepts, Craftsmanship, Sensuality and Tidings of ApocalypseThe agendas for 21st-century musicians keep getting more complicated. They can try to out-game streaming and social media algorithms, stoking the celebrity-industrial complex or steadfastly ignoring it. They can lean into idiosyncratic artistic instincts and intuitions. They can channel the zeitgeist or defy it. Of course, listeners have choices as well. For me, there was no definitive musical statement for 2024, no obvious pathbreaker. But there were plenty of purposeful, heartfelt, exacting and inspired individual statements. I gave the top slot to a project that strove mightily to unite a glossy sonic (and online) presence with surprising confessions. But song for song, the rest of the list can easily stand alongside it. And if there’s more than a little apocalyptic gloom in these choices, well, that’s 2024.1. Charli XCX, ‘Brat’ and ‘Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat’The year’s conceptual coup belonged to Charli XCX. “Brat,” the album she released in June, used dance-floor beats, blippy synthetic hooks and meme-ready graphics as she assessed just where she stood as a pop striver in her 30s, more than a decade into her career: pushing, partying, wondering whether to set it all aside to have a baby. Somehow, “Brat” landed as a full-fledged hit — and by September, Charli XCX had rewritten all the tracks and added star collaborators, dispensing hooks while trying to keep a level head about success. Amid all the hyperpop gloss and online chatter, she still sounded honest.2. Brittany Howard, ‘What Now’Brittany Howard’s second solo album tackles the contours of a relationship that is fizzling out.Ariel Fisher for The New York TimesBrittany Howard lays out the ragged emotions of a crumbling relationship on “What Now”: numbness, mourning, second-guessing, guilt and furtive glimmers of relief. While the tracks are rooted in soul, rock, R&B, funk and disco, they turn familiar styles inside-out with targeted distortion and surreal, displaced mixes. The songs capture all the disorientation that comes with a life-changing decision.3. Vampire Weekend, ‘Only God Was Above Us’Vampire Weekend’s once-meticulous musical universe gets punctured by noise on “Only God Was Above Us.” Its fifth album grapples with how what used to be called indie-rock can face a new pop landscape, and how determined innovators can keep pushing themselves. The answers include history lessons, quasi-sequitur lyrics and constantly morphing studio arrangements — a running, enlightening battle between strict song structure and an unruly world.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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      YSL Trial Ends With Final Defendants Acquitted of Murder and Gang Charges

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      The winding, yearslong case against the star Atlanta rapper Young Thug, who recently pleaded guilty to gang charges, and five others concluded on Tuesday.Shannon Stillwell, left, and Deamonte Kendrick were found not guilty of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressMiguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressThe two remaining defendants in the gang conspiracy and racketeering case against YSL, the Atlanta rap label that prosecutors said doubled as a violent street crew led by Young Thug, were found not guilty on Tuesday of murder and conspiracy to violate the RICO act.The verdict ended a winding trial that became the longest in Georgia history. It arrived nearly two years after jury selection began and followed a year of testimony from close to 200 witnesses and nearly 16 hours of deliberations spread across four days.Young Thug, the platinum-selling rapper born Jeffery Williams, accepted a guilty plea on Oct. 31 and was released from jail after being sentenced to time served and 15 years of strict probation. As the case limped toward its conclusion in recent weeks, three other defendants also negotiated plea deals amid chaotic proceedings.Yet two of the original six men on trial — Deamonte Kendrick, known as the rapper Yak Gotti, and Shannon Stillwell, also known as Shannon Jackson — said they rejected similar deals with prosecutors, opting to leave their fate to jurors in Fulton County, Ga.On Tuesday, Mr. Kendrick and Mr. Stillwell were acquitted of the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas Jr., an alleged gang rival, and also found not guilty of participating in criminal street gang activity and conspiracy to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, or RICO. Mr. Stillwell was also acquitted of a second murder, but he was found guilty of a single count: possessing a firearm as a felon.The judge in the case, Paige Reese Whitaker, was required to sentence Mr. Stillwell to the maximum sentence for the gun charge — 10 years in prison — because of recidivism guidelines. But she opted to convert all but two of those years to probation while also crediting Mr. Stillwell with time served.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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      Kendrick Lamar’s ‘GNX’ Rockets to No. 1 on the Charts

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      The rapper’s surprise LP tops Billboard’s album and singles charts, where “Squabble Up” blocked Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” from a historic 20th week of dominance.You never know when Kendrick Lamar will put out a new album, but when he does, it’s big news. His latest, “GNX,” is no exception, dominating rap’s fandom discourse and immediately taking over Billboard’s album and singles charts.Lamar’s sixth studio LP, “GNX” was a surprise release, on Nov. 22, and has sailed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming his fifth album to top the chart. It opened with the equivalent of 319,000 sales in the United States, including 380 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. That makes it one of the splashiest debuts of 2024, though it had lower overall numbers than albums by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter.Still, “GNX” has become yet another headline maker for Lamar, who earlier this year bested Drake in a rapid-fire volley of diss tracks. Fans have picked apart references to Lil Wayne’s complaints about Lamar taking the next Super Bowl halftime show, and Snoop Dogg commented on social media about the track “Wacced Out Murals,” whose lyrics cite a post by Snoop Dogg about a Drake song, “Taylor Made.”Tracks from “GNX” quickly took over the lists of top songs on streaming services, and they occupy the entire Top 5 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, with “Squabble Up” at No. 1. It has blocked what would have been a historic week for Shaboozey’s country hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” — last week, Shaboozey’s song notched its 19th week at the top, tying the record set in 2019 by Lil Nas X with “Old Town Road” for the longest run on Billboard’s flagship singles chart, which dates to 1958.“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” falls to No. 6 on the singles chart, and the rest of the Top 5 all belongs to Lamar: “TV Off” (No. 2), “Luther” (No. 3), “Wacced Out Murals” (No. 4) and “Hey Now” (No. 5). According to Billboard, that feat has previously been accomplished only by the Beatles, Taylor Swift and … Drake, who claimed nine of the Top 10 in 2021, with songs from his album “Certified Lover Boy.” That week, Drake had every slot in the Top 10 except for No. 6. (Streaming has made such blanketing of the charts much easier than ever before, when chart positions were determined by sales and airplay.)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 Juice WRLD Arrived in Fortnite

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      An avatar for the singing rapper, who died in 2019, appeared at a special event in the video game to debut a new song alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice.Carmela Wallace, the mother of Juice WRLD, the Chicago sing-rapper who died five years ago as a rising star at age 21, still sometimes refers to her son in the present tense. Especially when it comes to his love of video games.“He’s always loved video games,” Wallace said in a recent interview. “It was his way of having a moment to himself, where he could escape. Because he dealt with anxiety and depression and stress. You know, he left his mom’s house to become famous.”“So that was his way of just having something normal,” she added. “He had a console wherever he went.”One of his favorites was Fortnite, the immersive adventure-slash-fighting game, with millions of players at a time and, on special occasions, in-game concerts. Those can be big enough to make a real-world splash, like Travis Scott’s animated performance in April 2020, at the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, which drew nearly 28 million players across five showings.Since then, there have been more shows by stars including Metallica, Ariana Grande, J Balvin and Eminem, whose appearance a year ago was such a draw that fans had difficulty logging in. Wallace, who oversees her son’s estate, approved his appearance in Fortnite’s latest musical event, the November-long “Chapter 2 Remix” — a nostalgic throwback to the game’s design circa 2020 — that also included Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice, and culminated in a brief but elaborate virtual performance on Saturday afternoon.That event, called “Remix: The Finale,” inside Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, lasted less than 15 minutes, but by one measurement it surpassed the previous record held by Scott. “Remix: The Finale” drew more than 14 million concurrent players for its first showing, according to Epic Games, the company behind the title, compared with about 12 million for Scott’s debut.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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      Kendrick Lamar’s Never-Ending Battles

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast week, Kendrick Lamar released his sixth album, “GNX,” with no advance notice, unless you count the heavy anticipation that has been hovering around him since the apex of his battle with Drake earlier this year. A squabble over hip-hop ethics became a cultural touchstone, leaving Lamar with a No. 1 hit and Drake with spiritual and professional bruises.“GNX” extends the tension but doesn’t necessarily deepen it. Mostly, Lamar wants to get back to business as usual: making concept songs and albums that are musically complex and lyrically dense. The beef elevated him even higher into the stratosphere, but he doesn’t want it to define him or his career.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Lamar’s long wrestle with saviorhood, how his new album showcases both his loosest and stiffest tendencies, and the ways in which Drake is still grappling with the fallout of their battle.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect 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.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More