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      Popcast (Deluxe): Fans Misbehaving at Concerts, and Pinkydoll’s NPC TikTok

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The recent scourge of concertgoers throwing things at pop stars onstage and how Adele, Harry Styles, Bebe Rexha, Drake and others have responded; plus the ways in which the stage/crowd barrier has become more porous in recent years, in both directionsThe TikTok streamer Pinkydoll, who has honed an NPC-style of performance that has been earning her thousands of viewers, and thousands of dollarsNew songs from Troye Sivan and Militarie Gun (as performed by Post Malone)Whether there’s still a Mason-Dixon line divide in pop music consumption, especially as it relates to hip-hop and countrySnack of the weekConnect 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. More

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      Las Vegas Police Search Home in Investigation of Tupac Shakur’s Murder

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      Nearly three decades after the rapper was killed in a drive-by shooting after leaving a boxing match, the police said that they had searched a home in Henderson, Nev.The Las Vegas police have executed a search warrant in connection with the fatal drive-by shooting of the rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996, the department said Tuesday, reinvigorating the investigation into the unsolved death of a mythic figure in hip-hop.Shakur, who sold millions of albums and had reached No. 1 on the charts, was shot as he was leaving a Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon prizefight in Las Vegas when a Cadillac pulled up alongside the BMW he was riding in. He died less than a week later at the age of 25.The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that it had served the search warrant in Henderson, Nev., a city outside of Las Vegas, on Monday. It declined to comment further.Shakur’s “All Eyez on Me” was one of the first double albums in hip-hop. He began acting onscreen in the early ’90s, starring as the male lead opposite Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s 1993 romantic drama “Poetic Justice.” When he died, the critic Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that he had “described gangsterism as a vicious cycle, a grimly inevitable response to racism, ghetto poverty and police brutality.”His murder has been the speculation of books, documentaries, television series and films. For some, the failure to charge anyone for Shakur’s killing — as well as for the fatal shooting of the Notorious B.I.G. six months later — became signs of institutional failure, prompting calls for the police to revisit the case.Shakur, who was one of the most popular rappers in the world when he was killed, saw his legend grow after his death, as dozens of posthumous albums, books, documentaries and films were released. There was even a concert featuring a Tupac Shakur hologram. In 2017 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.Part of the investigation over the years has included a brawl involving Shakur and his entourage at the MGM Grand hotel after the boxing match. But in more than 25 years, no arrests have been made. The police department has cited a lack of cooperation from people close to Shakur as a reason for the stalled investigation. More

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      How Do You Tell the Story of 50 Years of Hip-Hop?

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      Hip-hop is a fount of constant innovation woven into nearly every corner of American life. So don’t look for cohesion: Lean into the cacophony.Sean “Puffy” Combs in a celebratory mood. In the mid-1990s, labels like Bad Boy helped bring rap to the center of American culture.Johnny Nunez/GettyHip-hop is a wondrous and centerless tangle, ubiquitous even if not always totally visible.It is a fount of constant innovation, and a historical text ripe for pilfering. It is a continuation of rock, soul and jazz traditions, while also explicitly loosening their cultural grip. It is evolving more rapidly than ever — new styles emerge yearly, or faster, multiplying the genre’s potential. And it has impact far beyond music: Hip-hop is woven into television and film, fashion, advertising, literature, politics and countless other corners of American life. It is lingua franca, impossible to avoid.It is far too vast to be contained under one tent, or limited to one narrative. The genre is gargantuan, nonlinear and unruly. It has its own internal quarrels and misunderstandings, and its stakeholders are sometimes friends and collaborators, and sometimes view each other warily.So when trying to catalog hip-hop in full, it’s only reasonable to lean into the cacophony. The package that accompanies this essay does just that, collecting oral histories from 50 genre titans of the past five-plus decades. The number matters. It’s an acknowledgment that at 50 years old — a mild fiction, but more on that later — hip-hop is broad and fruitful, enthralling and polyglot, the source of an endless fount of narratives. Its fullness cannot be captured without sprawl and ambition. Many voices need to be heard, and they won’t always agree.Side by side, there are stylistic innovators, crossover superstars, regional heroes, micromarket celebrities. There are those who insist on their primacy and see themselves as a center of gravity, and those who are proud students of the game and understand their place in hip-hop’s broader artistic arc. There are those who are universally recognized, and those known mainly by connoisseurs. There are agitators and accommodationists. The revered and the maligned. Some even play with the boundaries of what rapping is ordinarily considered to be.All taken together, these artists form a family tree of the genre, one that highlights bridges between groups that are typically discussed separately, and that underscores the ways in which rappers — no matter the city they hail from, or the era in which they found their success — have been grappling with similar circumstances, creative questions and obstacles.The Cold Crush Brothers in the Bronx, 1979. Joe Conzo, via Easy A.D.These 50 histories detail hip-hop from countless vantage points: the past forward, and vice versa; the underground upward; the less populated regions outward; the big cities out into the suburbs. They tell the story of a makeshift musical movement that laid the foundation for the defining cultural shift of the past few decades.Fifty years ago, though, that outcome seemed fanciful at best. In the 1970s, Bronx block parties gave way to nightclubs, and talking D.J.s laid the foundation for dedicated M.C.s to begin taking over. Soon, the intrusion of capitalism removed and packaged the part of these live events that was the easiest to transmit: rapping.Then it was off to the races. By the mid-1980s, the hip-hop industry was a small club but big business, as audiences around the country were primed by the commercial release of recordings from countless New York artists. A wave of soon-to-be-global stars arrived: Run-DMC, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys. Hip-hop became worldwide counterculture.Run-DMC in 1985, onstage in Providence, R.I.John Nordell/Getty ImagesBy the dawn of the 1990s, it flowered everywhere in this country — the South, the West, the Midwest — and seeped into the global mainstream. In the mid-90s, thanks to the work of Biggie Smalls and Puffy, Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre, Bad Boy and Death Row, it became the center of American pop music, despite resistance from those convinced rock was destined to forever reign supreme.Into the 2000s, the genre’s power center shifted from the coasts to the South, where the genre was flourishing (largely away from the scrutiny of the major labels) in Miami, Houston, Virginia, Atlanta and Memphis. 2 Live Crew, the Geto Boys, Missy Elliott, Outkast, Three 6 Mafia — each had absorbed what was being imported from the rest of the country and created new lingo and sonic frameworks around it. Hip-hop was becoming a widely shared language with numerous dialects.T.I. onstage in his hometown, Atlanta, in 2005.Ray Tamarra/Getty ImagesAll the while, the genre was expanding, becoming more commercially successful and inescapable with each year. It became centrist pop, which in turn spun off its own dissidents: the New York and Los Angeles undergrounds of the 1990s; the progressive indie scenes of the 2000s; and the SoundCloud rap of the 2010s. In the past 20 years, hip-hop has been responsible not only for some of the biggest pop music of the era — Drake, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Cardi B — but its templates have become open source for performers in other genres to borrow from, which they did, and do, widely. Hip-hop became a crucial touch point for country music, for reggaeton, for hard rock, for K-pop and much more.What’s striking in the histories collected in this package is how no part of that ascent has been taken for granted. In every era, there were stumbling blocks. For each artist, there was a promise of a scene just out of reach. And for all of these rappers, that meant leaning in to a new idea of what their version of hip-hop could be, and hoping ears would meet them in this untested place.Missy Elliott performing in New York in 2012.Jerritt Clark/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesThere is also the matter of untold history — to read these recollections is to be continually reminded of those who are no longer here to share their tales. There is a punishing catalog of before-their-time deaths just below these stories, a reminder that canons can’t include songs that never got to be made.As for the 50th anniversary, well, it is a framing of convenience. The date refers to Aug. 11, 1973, when DJ Kool Herc — in the rec room of the apartment building at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx — reportedly first mixed two copies of the same album into one seamless breakbeat. That is, of course, one way to think about hip-hop’s big-bang moment, but by no means the only one. If you think of rapping as toasting, or talking over prerecorded music, or speaking in rhythmic form, then hip-hop has been around longer than 50 years. Just ask the Last Poets, or DJ Hollywood, who would improvise rhymes on the microphone as he was spinning disco records. There are also, depending upon whom you ask, others who had previously mixed two of the same record.Kanye West’s Saint Pablo tour opener in Indianapolis in 2016.AJ Mast for The New York TimesBut the canniness and the cynicism of attempting to enshrine a date that everyone can stand behind reflects a darker and more worrisome truth, which is that, for decades, hip-hop was perceived as disposable, a nuisance, an aberration. Commemoration and enshrinement seemed far-fetched. For a long time, hip-hop had to argue for its rightful place in pop music, and pop culture, facing hostilities that were racial, legal, musical and beyond.Insisting that the genre has an origin point, therefore, is really just another way of insisting on its importance, its stability and its future. You can quarrel with the specific details — and many do — but not with the intent, which is to ensure that no one again overlooks the genre’s power and influence.That said, hip-hop was never going anywhere, because no style of pop music has been as adaptive and as sly. Hip-hop directly answers its critics, and it voraciously consumes and reframes its antecedents. It is restless and immediate, sometimes changing so quickly that it doesn’t stop to document itself. So here is a landing place to reflect, and a jumping off point for the next 50 or so years. More

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      Billie Eilish’s ‘Barbie’ Ballad, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Troye Sivan, Jamila Woods, C. Tangana 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.Billie Eilish, ‘What Was I Made For?’Billie Eilish draws a connection between the public’s consumption of pop stars and plastic dolls on “What Was I Made For?,” a sparse, forlorn piano ballad from the “Barbie” soundtrack: “Looked so alive, turns out I’m not real,” she sings in a quivering whisper. “Just something you paid for.” The song hews closer to the more traditional, crooner-inspired fare on Eilish’s album “Happier Than Ever” than to the rest of “Barbie the Album,” which features upbeat tunes from Dua Lipa and Charli XCX. Still, Eilish knows how to tease out the pathos and a subtle sense of macabre from a particular kind of feminine malaise. “I’m used to float, now I just fall down,” she sings, making life in plastic sound less than fantastic. LINDSAY ZOLADZMargaret Glaspy, ‘Memories’Margaret Glaspy sings as if every word is a struggle in “Memories,” a song of sheer grief and loss: “I’m lonesome without you/but I’m a wreck thinking about you.” Her voice arrives behind the beat and then leaps onto the note; the vocal quivers, cracks and sometimes breaks, conjuring emotions that are still raw. JON PARELESJamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods sings about incremental, ordinary but genuine feelings of love in “Tiny Garden”: “It’s not gonna be a big production/It’s not butterflies and fireworks,” she sings. “It’s gonna be a tiny garden/But I feed it every day.” As she describes a real but undemonstrative connection and the testing phase of a romance — “You want to be sure that I want you/Not just someone fun to do” — the track pulses with keyboard chords and rises with gospelly backup vocals, promising that there’s a true spiritual link. The artist duendita joins her near the end, more than willing to “watch all the purpose we place multiply slowly over time.” PARELESTroye Sivan, ‘Rush’Troye Sivan — the Australian pop musician, ex-YouTuber and rare musician who actually proved to be a watchable screen presence on “The Idol” (ahem!) — returns triumphantly with “Rush,” a sweaty, kinetic, gloriously hedonistic summer dance-floor anthem with a lightly NSFW video to match. Sivan’s breathy vocals dance atop an insistent beat and house-inspired piano riff, while a chorus of deep male voices chant the song’s infectious hook: “I feel the rush, addicted to your touch.” At last, Xander is free! ZOLADZSid Sriram, ‘The Hard Way’Born in India, Sid Sriham grew up in California, studying Carnatic (South Indian) music with his parents while soaking up American R&B and jazz. He built a career in India, singing Bollywood hits along with Carnatic ragas. For his American debut album, “Sidharth,” due Aug. 25, Sriham veered toward the experimental, working with the producer Ryan Olson (from Poliça) and musicians including Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). “The Hard Way” is a lovelorn ballad — “I would do anything, anything, anything to make you smile,” he insists — that’s chopped up and placed within a jittery electronic exoskeleton: racing double-time beats, pitch-shifted vocals, bursts of multitracked harmony. It’s bold; he could easily have chosen a more commercial, less thorny approach. PARELESYard Act, ‘The Trench Coat Museum’It is a law of nature that there is never too much cowbell. Yard Act, the post-punk band that could almost be LCD Soundsystem with a British accent and a social-media update, has re-emerged after its debut album. That means post-punk nostalgia folded in on itself like origami. “The Trench Coat Museum” imagines that there might be such an institution — celebrating a garment that’s assertive, concealing, protective, too long and too evocative — in a spoke-sung eight-minute track that easily gives way to its early 1980s groove: beat, bass riff, turntable scratching, clawing rhythm guitar, synthesizers and Latin percussion that definitely includes cowbell. The open secret of post-punk is that no matter how cynical the vocal gets, the song is always about the groove. PARELESC. Tangana, ‘Oliveira Dos Cen Anos’C. Tangana, the Spanish songwriter who started as a rapper and has delved ever deeper into the musical past, stays out of the foreground of his latest project, a hundredth-anniversary song for a soccer team from Galicia, Real Club Celta de Vigo; his father is from the town of Vigo. “Oliveira Dos Cen Anos” (“Hundred-Year-Old Olive Tree”) is rooted in Galician folk tradition but underpinned by electronics. C. Tangana is one of the songwriters and co-producers and the director of a sweeping, scenic video; Galician musicians sing lead vocals. An ardent choral anthem, with folk-song lyrics vowing love and loyalty, gives way to a traditionalist six-beat stomp, with a fierce cameo from the drumming, singing women of As Lagharteiras, along with a glimmering harp interlude and a stadium-sized singalong. “I will always be here,” men shout. “Celta forever! PARELESLoraine James featuring RiTchie, ‘Déjà Vu’“Not everything is quite audible,” the rapper and singer RiTchie calmly observes in “Déjà Vu.” The producer Loraine James constructed a perpetually disorienting mix of jolting electronic glitches, soothing piano and furtive snippets of percussion and synthesizer. RiTchie, from the group Injury Reserve, layers on multiple vocals, sung and spoken, and sounds completely unfazed by his surroundings: “You just gotta soak it all in,” he advises. PARELESOxlade featuring Dave, ‘Intoxycated’Oxlade, a singer and songwriter from Nigeria, and Dave, a rapper from England with Nigerian roots, commiserate about straying lovers and social media in “Intoxycated.” Oxlade decides “love is overrated” after seeing his girlfriend with another guy on Instagram; Dave reflects, “Love’s easy to find, harder to hold/Most stories end and start with a phone.” A minor-key Afrobeats groove with little guitar curlicues sums up the mood: sleek and resigned. PARELESJlin, ‘Fourth Perspective’The composer and producer Jlin — Jerrilynn Patton — built head-spinning electronic music out of percussive sounds, so it made perfect sense for her to write music for live acoustic performance by the ensemble Third Coast Percussion, which appeared on the group’s 2022 album, “Perspectives.” Now, Jlin has reworked those compositions for her own mini-album “Perspective,” due in September. Her new version of “Fourth Perspective” brings back electronic sounds, moving a ghostly, plinking, minimalistic waltz toward the ratchety, foreboding terrain of trap. PARELESmaJa, ‘A Vivir en Desacuerdo’MaJa — the Dominican songwriter Maria-José Gonell — sings about contentedly being a fish out of water in “A Vivir en Desacuerdo” (“To Live in Disagreement”). Her airy voice makes her seem tentative at first, but the production — by her songwriting collaborator Gian Rojas — radiates growing confidence, as a beat slips in and electronics sparkle ever more brightly. She’s not diffident; she’s above it all. PARELES More

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      How a Jay-Z Exhibit Took Over the Brooklyn Public Library

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      “The Book of Hov,” an elaborate summer exhibition at the borough’s main branch, was quietly conceived by his team as a surprise tribute that opens Friday.Earlier this week, when passages of Jay-Z lyrics from songs like “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “Justify My Thug” appeared on the Art Deco-style, curved limestone facade of the Brooklyn Public Library’s main branch, fans and passers-by could only speculate on the occasion for the building’s sudden makeover. A surprise concert for the rapper’s home borough? A tribute to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop this summer?The answer, it turned out, was neither — and also a secret even from the man himself.On Thursday evening, when Jay-Z entered the library for a private event surrounded by an inner circle of family, friends and business associates, he was greeted by his live band playing instrumental versions of his hits out front, and a career-spanning archival exhibition that he never asked for inside.Jay-Z learned about the exhibition at a private event held at the library on Thursday night.Simbarashe Cha for The New York Times“I know he wouldn’t let us do this,” said Desiree Perez, the chief executive of Jay-Z’s entertainment empire Roc Nation, about keeping such elaborate plans from the boss. “This could never happen if he was involved.”Featuring artwork, music, memorabilia, ephemera and large-scale recreations of touchstones from a sprawling career, “The Book of Hov,” which will run through the summer, might seem more at home at the Brooklyn Museum down the block. But by installing the showcase across eight zones of a functioning library, its architects are aiming to bring aspirational celebrity extravagance to a free public haven just a few miles from the Marcy Houses where Jay-Z grew up.“Jay belongs to the people,” Perez said. “It’s a place that feels comfortable. It’s not intimidating. A lot of people go to the museum, but a lot of people don’t.”Nicola Yeoman and Dan Tobin Smith’s mash-up of instruments that was photographed for the “Blueprint 3” cover.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA Gucci jacket tied to the release of Jay-Z’s 2010 memoir, “Decoded.”Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA mural by Jazz Grant made of hand-cut and scanned imagery from Jay-Z’s archives.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesOnly the debut on Thursday was meant to be exclusive. Following a private tour through his own memories, Jay-Z made himself scarce when the tightly controlled doors opened, content to leave the V.I.P. guests among representations of his many likenesses, from Mafioso M.C. to boardroom mogul to social justice string-puller.Even his elusive wife, Beyoncé, mingled more, at least momentarily, as crowds gathered outside to catch glimpses of the Jay-Z extended universe — athletes like Jayson Tatum and Robinson Cano; the musicians Lil Uzi Vert, DJ Khaled and Questlove; the director Josh Safdie and the businessman Michael Rubin.By Friday, when the exhibit opens to the masses, the hors d’oeuvres and passed drinks — Jay-Z’s brands, naturally — would be gone. But remaining among the stacks are statues, sneakers, paintings, platinum plaques, trophies and news clippings tied to Jay-Z’s 13 albums and the companies he founded, including Rocawear and Tidal.The library had initially pitched Jay-Z as an honoree for its annual fund-raising gala. But when its chief executive, Linda E. Johnson — the wife of another Jay-Z ally, the developer Bruce Ratner — floated the idea to Perez of Roc Nation, the pair pivoted.One area of the library features playable turntables and vinyl representing the samples used across Jay-Z’s catalog.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“I just asked her, ‘How big is the library?’” Perez recalled. “And when she said 350,000 square feet, I couldn’t believe it.”Throughout the pandemic, Perez and Roc Nation had been plotting to display artifacts that conveyed Jay-Z’s influence across music, business and broader culture, including the pallets’ worth of master recordings he had regained ownership of over the years.“That archive belongs in Brooklyn,” said Johnson, who oversaw the merger of the Brooklyn Public Library and Brooklyn Historical Society.Together, the teams began planning “The Book of Hov” in January, tapping the production designers Bruce and Shelley Rodgers, Emmy-winning veterans of the Super Bowl halftime show, as well as the creative agency General Idea to conceive and execute the elaborate project.It wasn’t just displaying memorabilia. Beyond the library’s main atrium, beneath an enormous Jay-Z collage, now sits a full-scale replica of the main room from Baseline Recording Studios, where Jay-Z created some of his best-known songs. Every detail had to be correct, down to the TV size and the tub of Dum Dums on the counter.A full-scale recreation of the main room from Baseline Recording Studios, where Jay-Z created some of his most famous songs.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA reel-to-reel machine in the replica of Baseline Studios.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA Betacam master tape of the song “99 Problems.”Amir Hamja/The New York Times“They had the wrong couch, the wrong soundboard,” said Juan Perez, a Roc Nation executive and longtime friend of Jay-Z’s, who designed the original studio and gave plenty of notes for the recreation.Another area of the library features playable turntables and vinyl representing the samples used across Jay-Z’s catalog, surrounded by the encased tape reels, floppy disks and CDs containing his original music.Bruce Rodgers, the production designer now working on his 18th Super Bowl halftime show, called the project “probably the most intense installation I’ve ever been involved in,” adding: “We didn’t want to interrupt the normal workings of the library, but we wanted to make a statement.” That included flying in “ninjas” from the West Coast who could rappel up and down the building to install the lyrical facade in time.An area of the exhibition designed for children to make paper planes.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesThe paper plane is a Roc Nation logo attached to an inspirational motto.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesPart of the exhibition is dedicated to Jay-Z’s philanthropy and social justice work, as well as his various businesses.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“People thought I was a little out of my mind,” Johnson, the library executive, said. “I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say that this is the biggest exhibition we’ve ever done.”While the valuables will require additional security, Brooklyn Public Library was not paying for any of the production for the show, she added. “Roc Nation is doing a lot for us financially,” Johnson said, including a substantial donation tied to the gala in October, when Jay-Z and his mother, Gloria Carter, will be honored.In the meantime, Jay-Z will also be helping, perhaps unwittingly, with sign-ups. In addition to the draw of the exhibition itself, the library is producing 13 limited-edition library card variations featuring its homegrown star — one for each album.“I’m concerned about crowds,” Johnson said, conveying equal parts trepidation and excitement. “We’ll run out, I suspect.” More

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      Lil Uzi Vert and Olivia Rodrigo Oust Morgan Wallen From No. 1

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      After weeks of dominance on Billboard’s album and singles charts, the country superstar was bested by the rapper’s LP “Pink Tape” and the singer-songwriter’s track “Vampire.”Olivia Rodrigo and the rapper Lil Uzi Vert have shaken up the Billboard charts after weeks of dominance by the country superstar Morgan Wallen, with Rodrigo taking the top single and Lil Uzi Vert the top album.Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” the first new single in two years from the 20-year-old singer, songwriter and actress who was catapulted to music stardom in early 2021 with “Drivers License,” opens at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart. It had nearly 36 million streams and 26 million “airplay audience impressions,” a measurement of a song’s popularity on the radio, according to data from the tracking service Luminate.Rodrigo’s arrival bumps Wallen’s song “Last Night” to No. 2, after a total of 13 weeks at No. 1, the last 10 of them consecutive. “Vampire” is the first release from Rodrigo’s second studio album, “Guts,” due in September.On the album chart, Lil Uzi Vert scores the first rap No. 1 of the year with “Pink Tape,” a sprawling 26-track release filled with bits of rock and metal. “Pink Tape,” which Lil Uzi Vert — a 27-year-old from Philadelphia who emerged as part of the “SoundCloud rap” generation in the mid-2010s — has teased for more than two years, had the equivalent of 167,000 sales in the United States, including 210 million streams and 11,000 copies sold as a complete package.“One Thing at a Time,” Wallen’s latest album, falls to No. 2 in its 18th week of release. It has been No. 1 a total of 15 times, including the last three weeks. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” Wallen’s last LP, from 2021, is No. 5.Peso Pluma, a songwriter and performer from Mexico, holds at No. 3 for a second week with “Génesis,” the highest position ever for an album of regional Mexican music.Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is No. 4, and Swift is favored to take over next week’s chart with her latest rerecorded album, “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” which was released on Friday and instantly became a major hit on streaming services. More

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      Morgan Wallen Tops the Album Chart for a 15th Time

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      Young Thug opens at No. 2 and Peso Pluma at No. 3 as the country superstar continues to dominate the Billboard 200.A month ago, the country superstar Morgan Wallen seemed sidelined. A vocal cord injury had benched him from his arena and stadium tour, and after a 12-week perch atop the Billboard album chart he had ceded No. 1 to Taylor Swift and the K-pop group Stray Kids.But Wallen didn’t stay down for long.He returned to the stage in late June, and “One Thing at a Time,” Wallen’s latest streaming blockbuster, came back to No. 1 after two weeks in second place, and it has stayed on top. This week, “One Thing” notches its 15th week at No. 1. Watch out, Adele, whose “21” was No. 1 for a total of 24 weeks in 2011 and 2012.In its latest week, “One Thing” had the equivalent of 110,500 sales in the United States, up slightly from the week before. That total includes 140 million streams and 4,500 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since its release in March, Wallen’s album has racked up the equivalent of just under three million sales, and been streamed 3.5 billion times.The list of artists whom Wallen has blocked from No. 1 — among them Metallica, Ed Sheeran, Niall Horan, Lana Del Rey and the K-pop acts Ateez, Seventeen, Agust D and Jimin — now includes Young Thug and Peso Pluma, who released new albums last week.Young Thug, the veteran Atlanta rapper, opens at No. 2 with “Business Is Business,” which had the equivalent of 89,000 sales, including 106 million streams. (He remains incarcerated in Georgia on racketeering charges in a wide-ranging RICO case.)Peso Pluma, a 24-year-old songwriter and performer from Mexico, starts at No. 3 with “Génesis,” which had the equivalent of 73,000 sales, and 101 million streams. According to Billboard, “Génesis” reached the highest-ever chart position for an album of regional Mexican music, which has lately been on a winning streak online and on tour.Also this week, Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 4 and Gunna’s “A Gift & a Curse” falls two spots to No. 5. Kelly Clarkson’s latest, “Chemistry,” arrives at No. 6. More

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      16 Songs to Soundtrack Your Fourth of July Barbecue

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      Listen to a genre-crossing hourlong summer playlist featuring Lana Del Rey, Funkadelic and Tom Petty.Tom Petty says take it easy, baby.Gus Stewart/Getty ImagesDear listeners,At last, the season of late sunsets, languid beach days and endless barbecues is upon us. This calls for a playlist.Today’s genre-crossing collection could definitely work as a soundtrack to your upcoming Fourth of July party, and there are a few references to Independence Day sprinkled here and there. But for the most part, I wanted to avoid the glaringly obvious and create a fun, breezy playlist that can be enjoyed all summer long.Appropriately for a Fourth of July gathering, all of the artists featured here are American. Well, except one: I forgot that the ’90s one-hit wonders Len were actually Canadian, but I wasn’t about to remove “Steal My Sunshine” from a summer playlist.This is a long one, because the best and most characteristic part of a summer day is the feeling of suspended time, the sense of a Saturday that may go on forever. Here’s to an endless-seeming summer, and to no one stealing your sunshine.Also: We won’t be sending out a new Amplifier on the Fourth, because I wouldn’t want to compel you to check your email on a holiday. We’ll resume our regular schedule next Friday. Til then!Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Lana Del Rey: “Doin’ Time”When I first saw this cover on the track list of her 2019 opus “Norman _____ Rockwell,” I had my doubts, but now I must agree with all the people in the dance: Lana Del Rey is indeed well qualified to represent the L.B.C. (Listen on YouTube)2. Sublime: “Badfish”It’s poor form to mention Sublime at a barbecue without then playing one of its songs, so here’s my all-time favorite, the wrenching but always buoyant “Badfish.” (Listen on YouTube)3. Solange: “Binz”Slightly under two minutes of immaculate vibes from Solange’s sonically fluid 2019 album, “When I Get Home.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Mariah Carey: “Honey”A sun-kissed summer jam from the elusive chanteuse. “Honey,” from Carey’s 1997 album “Butterfly,” famously found her embracing a more hip-hop-indebted sound. (Listen on YouTube)5. Len: “Steal My Sunshine”Centered around a clever sample of Andrea True Connection’s “More, More, More,” the ubiquitous “Steal My Sunshine” made Len one of the ’90s’ most memorable one-hit wonders. Warning: May cause spontaneous singalongs. (Listen on YouTube)6. The Breeders: “Saints”Kim Deal conjures the tactile pleasures of a day at the carnival in this blazing little ditty from the Breeders’ classic 1993 album “Last Splash,” before growling that memorable refrain, “Summer is ready when you are.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Eleanor Friedberger: “Roosevelt Island”This ode to a leisurely day on New York City’s most underrated island, by the Fiery Furnaces frontwoman Eleanor Friedberger, would almost sound like a spoken-word poem were it not for that deliciously funky keyboard lick. (Listen on YouTube)8. A Tribe Called Quest: “Can I Kick It?”A pitch-perfect soundtrack to, well … just kicking it. Phife Dawg forever and ever. (Listen on YouTube)9. Erykah Badu: “Cel U Lar Device”Badu reworks Drake’s “Hotline Bling” to fit her own singular personality on this centerpiece from her 2015 mixtape “But You Caint Use My Phone.” The voice mail menu instructions toward the end of the track never fail to crack me up. (Listen on YouTube)10. Funkadelic: “Can You Get to That”One nation, under a groove. (Yes, I know that album came out years after “Maggot Brain.” The sentiment remains!) (Listen on YouTube)11. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “American Girl”Fun fact: Not only was “American Girl” recorded on the Fourth of July, it was recorded on the Bicentennial. Petty manages to imbue this perfect song with enough specificity and antic poignancy that it still, after all these years, feels more personal than anthemic. (Listen on YouTube)12. Bruce Springsteen: “Darlington County”Because the title track of “Born in the U.S.A.” would have been a little too obvious, and anyway, this one’s just as fun to sing along to. Sha la la, sha la la la la-la. (Listen on YouTube)13. Luke Combs: “Fast Car”Speaking of singalongs, this current hit and surprise contender for song of the summer is sure to unite multiple generations of barbecue-goers who know all the words by heart — some to Tracy Chapman’s peerless original, and some to the country star Combs’s reverent homage. (Listen on YouTube)14. Beyoncé: “Plastic Off the Sofa”The most laid-back and sumptuous moment on Beyoncé’s 2022 dance-floor odyssey “Renaissance” is an invitation for a moment of summertime relaxation. (Listen on YouTube)15. De La Soul: “Me, Myself and I”Rejoice: It’s the first Fourth of July when De La Soul’s discography is on streaming services! (Listen on YouTube)16. Miley Cyrus: “Party in the U.S.A.”Just try not to put your hands up. I dare you. (Listen on YouTube)Summer is ready when you are,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Ultimate Fourth of July BBQ Soundtrack” track listTrack 1: Lana Del Rey, “Doin’ Time”Track 2: Sublime, “Badfish”Track 3: Solange, “Binz”Track 4: Mariah Carey, “Honey”Track 5: Len, “Steal My Sunshine”Track 6: The Breeders, “Saints”Track 7: Eleanor Friedberger, “Roosevelt Island”Track 8: A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”Track 9: Erykah Badu, “Cel U Lar Device”Track 10: Funkadelic, “Can You Get to That”Track 11: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “American Girl”Track 12: Bruce Springsteen, “Darlington County”Track 13: Luke Combs, “Fast Car”Track 14: Beyoncé, “Plastic off the Sofa”Track 15: De La Soul, “Me, Myself and I”Track 16: Miley Cyrus, “Party in the U.S.A.”Bonus tracksWhat I learned from writing Tuesday’s newsletter, about musical odes to Ohio is that The Amplifier is blessed with a very strong contingent of readers from the Buckeye State. Quite a few of you wrote in with your own favorite Ohio tunes, but the most requested by far was the Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone.” Akron’s own Chrissy Hynde beautifully and elegiacally captures the feelings of disillusionment that arise when you go home and — no thanks to industrialization and overdevelopment — don’t recognize your old stomping ground. Consider this one added to the Ohio playlist.Also, for a new column called The Answer, the good folks at The New York Times’s Wirecutter came by my apartment to interview me about my turntable, my vinyl setup and my preferred gear for listening to records. As someone used to doing the interviewing, it felt very strange to be the one answering the questions and even stranger to be the subject of a photo shoot in my apartment. (My neighbors had no idea why I was suddenly so important.) But check out the article to see my suggestions for setting up a relatively inexpensive stereo system, along with my (currently quite depressed) collection of New York Mets bobbleheads. Wirecutter has a daily newsletter full of independent product reviews that you can sign up for, too.Plus, it was a big week for new music: The Playlist features the triumphant returns of both Olivia Rodrigo and Sampha, along with 10 other fresh tracks. I also listened to Fall Out Boy’s updated version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” so you don’t have to. (Seriously, don’t.) More