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    Alicia Keys’s Hypnotic Love Jam, and 12 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Anaïs Mitchell, Hurray for the Riff Raff, ASAP Rocky and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.Alicia Keys, ‘Best of Me’The steady, diligent beat is from Sade’s “Cherish the Day” by way of Raphael Saadiq; the promises of loyalty, honesty and absolute devotion are from Alicia Keys as she channels Sade’s utterly self-sacrificing love. “We could build a castle from tears,” Keys vows. The track is hypnotic and open-ended, fading rather than resolving, as if it could go on and on. It’s from a double album coming Dec. 10 featuring two versions of the songs: “Originals,” produced by Keys, and “Unlocked,” produced by Keys and Mike Will Made-It. JON PARELESHurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Rhododendron’The first single from Hurray for the Riff Raff’s forthcoming album “Life on Earth” is frisky and poetic, contrasting the wisdom of the natural world with the chaos of humanity. The New Orleans singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra (who uses they/she pronouns) is so enthralled with the wonders of plant life that they are able to extract lyricism from simply listing off some famous flora (“night blooming jasmine, deadly nightshade”) in a wonderfully Dylan-esque growl. The chorus, though, comes as a warning in the face of ecological destruction: “Don’t turn your back on the mainland.” LINDSAY ZOLADZKylie Minogue and Jessie Ware, ‘Kiss of Life’Following her excellent 2020 disco-revival record “What’s Your Pleasure?” (and this year’s Platinum Pleasure Edition, which contained enough top-tier bonus material to make an equally excellent EP) Jessie Ware gets the ultimate co-sign from the dancing queen herself, Kylie Minogue, on this playful duet. Their breathy vocals echo throughout the lush arrangement, as they trade whispered innuendo (“Cherry syrup on my tongue/how about a little fun?”) and eventually join together in sumptuous harmony. ZOLADZBaba Harare featuring Kae Chaps and Joseph Tivafire, ‘Vaccine’Baba Harare, from Zimbabwe, is a master of the genre called jiti: a speedy four-against-six beat that carries stuttering, syncopated guitars and deep gospel-tinged harmony vocals. In “Vaccine,” he’s joined by fellow Zimbabweans Kae Chaps and Joseph Tivafire, and between the hurtling beat and the call-and-response vocals, the song is pure joy. PARELESBitchin Bajas, ‘Outer Spaceways Incorporated’The latest project from the freewheeling ambient drone group Bitchin Bajas is boldly conceptual: a homage to one of the Chicago trio’s formative heroes, Sun Ra. As daunting as it may sound to reinterpret some of the cosmic jazz god’s most innovative compositions, Bitchin Bajas approach the challenge with a playful ingenuity. Take their cover of “Outer Spaceways Incorporated,” which in its original form is a loose, interstellar groove. Bitchin Bajas refract it instead through the lens of one of their other major influences, Wendy Carlos (hence the title “Switched on Ra”) and turn it into a kind of retro-futuristic waltz. The guest vocalist Jayve Montgomery uses an Electronic Wind Instrument to great effect, enlivening the song with an energy that’s both eerie and moving. ZOLADZASAP Rocky, ‘Sandman’ASAP Rocky has been featured on plenty of other artists’ tracks over the past few years, but “Sandman” — released to commemorate his breakthrough 2011 mixtape “Live.Love.ASAP” finally coming to streaming services — is his first new solo song since 2018. Produced by Kelvin Krash and ASAP fave Clams Casino, “Sandman” toggles between hazy atmospherics and sudden gearshifts into the more exacting side of Rocky’s flow. Plus, it gives him an opportunity to practice his French: “Merci beaucoup, just like Moulin Rouge/And I know I can, can.” Quelle surprise! ZOLADZCollectif Mali Kura, ‘L’Appel du Mali Kura’The project Collectif Mali Kura gathered 20 singers and rappers to share a call for hard work, civic responsibility (including paying taxes) and national unity in Mali. Sung in many languages, with bits of melody and instrumental flourishes that hint at multiple traditions, the song starts as a plaint and turns into an affirmation of possibility. PARELESJorge Drexler and C. Tangana, ‘Tocarte’“Tocarte” (“To Touch You”) is the second deceptively skeletal collaboration released by Jorge Drexler, from Uruguay, and C. Tangana, from Spain; the first, a tale of a showbiz has-been titled “Nominao,” has been nominated for a Latin Grammy as best alternative song. “Tocarte” is a pandemic-era track about longing for physical contact: It constructs a taut, ingenious phantom gallop of a beat out of plucked acoustic guitar notes, hand percussion and sampled voices, and neither Drexler nor Tangana raises his voice as they envision long-awaited embraces. PARELESHayes Carll, ‘Nice Things’In the twangy, foot-stomping, gravel-voiced, fiddle-topped country-rocker “Nice Things,” which opens his new album, “You Get It All,” the Texan songwriter Hayes Carll imagines a visit from God. She (yes, she) runs into pollution, over-policing and close-minded religion. “This is why I blessed you with compassion/This is why I said to love your neighbor,” she notes, before realizing, “This is why y’all can’t have nice things.” PARELESAnaïs Mitchell, ‘Bright Star’Before she wrote the beloved Tony-winning musical “Hadestown,” Anaïs Mitchell was best known as a gifted if perpetually underrated folk singer-songwriter with a knack for traditional storytelling. The stage success of “Hadestown” (which itself began life as a 2010 Mitchell album) forced her to put her career as a solo artist on hold, but early next year she’ll return with a self-titled album, her first solo release in a decade. Its leadoff single “Bright Star” is a worthy reintroduction to the openhearted luminosity of Mitchell’s voice and lyricism: “I have sailed in all directions, have followed your reflection to the farthest foreign shore,” she sings atop gently strummed acoustic chords, with all the contented warmth of someone who, after a long time away, has at last returned home. ZOLADZAoife O’Donovan featuring Allison Russell, ‘Prodigal Daughter’Aoife O’Donovan sings delicately about a reunion that could hardly be more fraught; after seven years, a daughter returns to her mother with a new baby, needing a home and knowing full well that “forgiveness won’t come easy.” O’Donovan reverses what would be a singer’s typical reflexes; as drama and tension rise, her voice grows quieter and clearer, while Allison Russell joins her with ghostly harmonies. As a tiptoeing string band backs O’Donovan’s pleas, Tim O’Brien plays echoes of Irish folk tunes on mandola, a musical hint at multigenerational bonds. PARELESMarissa Nadler, ‘Bessie, Did You Make It?’How about a chillingly beautiful modern murder ballad to cap off spooky season? The folk singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler’s new album “The Path of the Clouds,” (out Friday on, appropriately enough, Sacred Bones) was partially inspired by her quarantine binge-watch of choice: “Unsolved Mysteries.” The opening track “Bessie, Did You Make It?” creates a misty atmosphere of reverb-heavy piano and arpeggiated guitar, as Nadler tells a tale of a nearly century-old boat accident that was never quite explained. “Did you make it?” she asks her elusive subject, who seems to have perished that day along with her husband. Or: “Did you fake it, leave someone else’s bones?” ZOLADZArtifacts, ‘Song for Joseph Jarman’Artifacts features three of the leading creative improvisers on the Chicago scene: the flutist Nicole Mitchell, the cellist Tomeka Reid and the drummer Mike Reed. All are deeply entwined in the lineage of their home city, and on “Song for Joseph Jarman” — from Artifacts’ sophomore release, “ … and Then There’s This” — the trio pays homage to an influential ancestor with this slow, hushed, deeply attentive group improvisation. It’s not unlike something Jarman himself might have played. Reid and Mitchell hold long tones more than they move around, sounding as if they’re listening for a response from within each note. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO More

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    ‘Different Way of Fighting’: Lyrics Are the Weapons of All-Women Roma Band

    Many Roma women face pressures to marry young and take on traditional gender roles. Pretty Loud, a hip-hop group from Serbia, wants girls to decide for themselves.Laetitia Vancon and BELGRADE, Serbia — The members of Pretty Loud, possibly the world’s first all-Roma female hip-hop group, don’t write saccharine love songs.Their lyrics focus instead on the pains Roma women experience: marrying and having children too young, feeling like second-class citizens and not finishing high school.“Don’t force me, Dad, I’m too young for marriage,” the six members, who hail from Serbia and are in their midteens to late 20s, sing in one song. “Please understand me, or should I be quiet?” they rap in another. “No one hears when I use my Roma girl’s voice.”Persecuted for centuries, many Roma people in Europe — the continent’s largest ethnic minority — live in segregated communities with limited access to amenities and health care. Women and girls also face gender expectations like being wives and mothers at a young age, which some say cause stress and isolation.The six members of Pretty Loud are in their midteens to late-20s.The group’s youngest members, Elma Dalipi and Selma Dalipi, 15, who are twins, are still finishing high school.“They are taught when they grow up that they will get married, cook and raise kids, but we want to change this,” Silvia Sinani, 24, said of Roma girls, adding that such expectations made it hard for women and girls to finish their educations.One of the band’s goals is to show there is another way. “We want every girl to decide for herself,” Ms. Sinani said.The women of Pretty Loud are hoping their music, authenticity and visibility as performers — already rewriting social conventions in their community in Belgrade, the Serbian capital — can help women and girls elsewhere find their own voices. Formed in 2014, Pretty Loud has danced, sung and rapped on stages across Europe.“It is a different way of fighting,” said Zivka Ferhatovic, 20. “We fight through the music and songs.” Zivka Ferhatovic, left, and Dijana Ferhatovic, members of Pretty Loud, in their house in the Belgrade neighborhood of Zemun.“It is a different way of fighting,” Zivka Ferhatovic, 20, a band member, said of her activism. “We fight through the music and songs.”She added that the group wanted its fusion of traditional Roma music and Balkan hip-hop to confront the everyday realities of many Roma women — be it domestic abuse, sexism or racial discrimination. In one song, they warned that marrying someone abusive would not bring happiness. In another, they addressed their experiences of discrimination. Music was an obvious medium for the band’s members to express themselves and to continue celebrating the signature sound of Roma music.“We grow up with music for when we feel bad and when we feel happy,” said Zlata Ristic, 28. “I sleep with music. I can’t live my life without music.”When she’s performing, Ms. Ristic, said, “I feel like the strongest woman in the world.”Pretty Loud began as a project of GRUBB, an organization running educational and artistic programs for Roma youth in Serbia. On a summer afternoon, they rehearsed for a performance in front of the distorted mirrors at GRUBB’s center in Zemun, a neighborhood in Belgrade where many of the city’s Roma people reside.Pretty Loud began as a project of GRUBB, a center in Zemun, a neighborhood in Belgrade where many of the city’s Roma people live.“We grow up with music for when we feel bad and when we feel happy,” said Zlata Ristic, 28, “I sleep with music. I can’t live my life without music.”Fearing social stigma, the band’s members were initially reluctant to write songs and perform. But others involved with GRUBB helped them to focus their writing and performance on personal experiences.Over time, they grew more comfortable with the idea of melding the personal with the artistic. One performance used a silk sheet with a red spot to theatrically recreate the ritual of inspecting sheets after a wedding as a way of “proving” the bride’s virginity.“It became very poetic,” said Serge Denoncourt, a professional artistic director and longtime volunteer who said he encouraged them to explore the power of art. “They understand there you can talk about anything if you have a way to talk about it.”Now, Pretty Loud’s songs signal a unified hope: to represent Roma women in a modern world free of racism and sexism.A tourist in the Zemun area of Belgrade asking a group of Roma musicians to play for him. Raising her son was like having a “baby doll,” Ms. Ristic said. “We grew up together.” “The whole point of the music is to help them use their voice, not to speak for them,” said Caroline Roboh, a founder of GRUBB. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Pretty Loud’s own community, where members have become role models, a point of pride for them.“Little girls, they come to me and say: ‘Bravo, I want to be like you one day,’” Ms. Sinani said.Even outside their circles, they are amassing supporters who say the group is sending a modern message that Serbia needs to get behind.“Their energy breaks through the walls and spreads love,” said Joana Knezevic, a Serbian actress who watched a recent Pretty Loud performance. “They are women who have something to say.”It is a message that Ms. Ristic, who brings a cheerful energy to the group’s dynamic, learned early on. At 16, she got married and, soon after, pregnant. When the union broke down and she confronted being a single mother, Ms. Ristic became depressed. Raising her son, who is now 11, was like having a “baby doll,” she said. “We grew up together.”Zivka Fahratovic on a youth program on TV Pink in Belgrade. Outside their circles, members of Pretty Loud are amassing supporters who say the group is sending a modern message that Serbia needs to get behind.When Zivka is not studying or helping her grandmother at home, she is a teacher at GRUBB. The organization runs education and artistic programs, working predominantly in Serbia with Roma children and young people.Now, she wants to set an example for women who are unhappy in their marriages, even if they fear raising children alone.“I know when they are divorced, they think their lives stop,” Ms. Ristic said of women. “But I want to show they can continue with their dreams.”It is sometimes a difficult balancing act for members of Pretty Loud, who are trying to live the messages they preach. Some work at Grubb while holding other jobs; others, like the group’s youngest members, Elma Dalipi and Selma Dalipi, 15, are still finishing high school.“We’ve had numerous offers for marriage, but we never accepted any,” said Zivka Ferhatovic of her and her sister, Dijana Ferhatovic, 19. Their determination to finish school is supported by their grandparents and has a personal motivation — they believe their mother, who had her children young, ultimately left the family, in part, because she married too early.“We know the pain,” Zivka Ferhatovic said.After one of Pretty Loud’s most recent performance, the cheers made Dijana Ferhatovic’s chest tighten, she said. “We’re really doing something,” she added, though she called it a small step.Her sister disagreed. “How can you say it’s small?” Zivka Ferhatovic said.The coronavirus pandemic has slowed the band’s activity, and existing inequalities left Roma people in Europe particularly vulnerable to it. (Many of Pretty Loud’s members contracted Covid-19.)Over the summer, as borders reopened in Europe, Pretty Loud again took to stages: to cheers at a United Nations event celebrating refugees, under blue lights in Slovenia, at an audition for a Croatian talent show. And the bandmates have more dreams: of making a real demo for an album, performing in Times Square, writing a book about their lives — perhaps even entering politics.Though not yet household names or able to make a living solely from their music, the band is beginning to attract wider European attention. Earlier this month, a video of their successful audition for that Croatian talent show drew 120,000 views.Ms. Ristic, now a dance teacher at GRUBB, wants to grow her followings on TikTok and Instagram, where she posts Pretty Loud performances. Though it has exposed her to racist and sexist comments, she won’t stop posting, she said.“I don’t delete them because it’s not my shame,” she said, adding: “This is how people treat us. I want to show why we fight.”Pretty Loud members watching a recording of their performance after a show in June in Belgrade. Their songs signal a unified hope: to represent Roma women in a modern world free of racism and sexism.Most of the members of Pretty Loud said there was still room for romantic love, children and marriage in the future — so long as they get to choose when.In the future, Ms. Ristic wants to try just about everything: getting her license and then driving a truck while smoking a cigarette, making music with Serbian artists and raising her son, she said, with strong Roma role models so he grows up respecting women.Most of the members of Pretty Loud say there is still room for romantic love, children and marriage in the future — so long as they get to choose when. But after one marriage, Ms. Ristic has seen enough.“I make my own way forward for me, alone. It’s very hard, but I will try,” she said. “I don’t need husband. I want only fun.”Formed in 2014, the group has danced, sung and rapped its way from rookie status to being featured at events across Europe.Laetitia Vancon More

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    El Alfa, the King of Dembow, Dazzles at Madison Square Garden

    The sold-out show by the Dominican artist was a watershed moment for the dembow movement.“Who said the Dominican Republic couldn’t go global?” El Alfa announced in Spanish from the stage halfway through his first concert at Madison Square Garden, as red and blue Dominican flags fluttered across the crowd of thousands. The 30-year-old performer, born Emanuel Herrera Batista, had good reason to celebrate: On Friday night, the global ambassador of dembow became the genre’s first artist to sell out the storied venue.It wasn’t just a personal success, but a watershed moment for the dembow scene he has spearheaded for over a decade — a street sound that contains the spiraling histories of the Caribbean. Dominican dembow is an Afro-diasporic music genre born in the Black and working-class neighborhoods outside of Santo Domingo in the late ’90s and early ’00s, reimagined from Jamaican dancehall riddims (from the Patois for “rhythm”), which form its foundation. But rather than lingering in a slow liquid haze, dembow producers crank the tempo up to lightning speed, stitching and alternating different riddims while rappers deliver breakneck, electric bars. Then, beatmakers chop up and duplicate hooks in the chorus, yielding supreme quotability and catchiness.Lyrically, dembow is a creative playground where artists are constantly inventing their own slang and vocabularies of becoming. The genre embraces the euphoria of everyday pleasures, like sex, dancing and partying. Unsurprisingly, it is often used as a scapegoat for Dominican social problems, a critique informed by racism and classism. Elites malign dembow as a breeding ground for crime, drugs and “sexual deviance,” characterizing it as pure vulgar expression — like the history of most music genres born out of struggle. The Dominican government regularly censors dembow songs it deems “explicit” and “obscene.” Also like many genres, dembow must contend with its patriarchal past and present, but it’s too simple, too narrow-minded to reduce it to plain raunch or misogyny. Dembow is also a gesture of defiance — a refusal to submit to colonial, “proper” ways of being, speaking and living.And honestly, it’s also just a lot of fun. El Alfa is a maximally charismatic performer, a comedian whose charm can transcend the stage and saturate an arena. Over the course of the night, he repeatedly demanded audience members scream if they were proud to be Dominican, conducted thousands of concertgoers sitting on different sides of the venue in a competition of volume and jokingly dedicated a song to parents who buy Louis Vuitton and Gucci for their children. When he brought out the merengue icon Fernandito Villalona, who strolled onstage in a shimmering silver jacket encrusted with red and blue rhinestones in the shape of the Dominican flag, El Alfa got on his knees in a gesture of deference and referred to Villalona as his father.The show was filled with wisecracking banter and playful antics, but it was above all a showcase of El Alfa’s artistry.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesUnder El Alfa’s command, the Garden, an already carnivalesque venue, became bacchanalian. At every turn, the artist reveled in excess and humor. He performed his laugh-out-loud summer hit “La Mamá de la Mamá” not once, but twice, a cabal of dancers in matching costumes gyrating behind him. Featured artists El Cherry Scom and CJ joined him onstage, a spectacle that ended in El Alfa climbing a monitor and the lime-haired Cherry taking his pants and shirt off, twerking passionately in his boxers in front of thousands. Before the show’s end, El Alfa claimed that he and his team had been fined for having too much fun and letting the show run over time.But focus too much on the wisecracking banter or the playful antics onstage, and you’ll miss the artistry. El Alfa has staggering control of his voice. On “Mueve La Cadera,” he sculpted it into percussive babbling; on “Tarzan,” it was ululating yells; on “Suave,” high-pitched baby talk. During his rendition of “Acuetate,” El Alfa had his D.J. cut out the track so he could spit the lyrics a cappella in double-time, effortlessly showing off his dexterity as a rapper. On “Sientate en Ese Deo,” his D.J. slowed the tempo so the lyrics could land with decelerated precision. It was a sublime display of El Alfa’s ability to stretch the boundaries of speech and language. For some, his voice might call to mind the falsettos of the Bee Gees; for others, the yelps of Atlanta rapper Young Thug. But let it be known: This is a distinctly Dominican way of speaking and manipulating language.Detractors often dismiss dembow for being repetitive, but that critique fails to recognize the creativity embedded in iteration. Repetition is part of why El Alfa can turn anything into a hook, and make listeners cackle in the process; quotable, recurring punch lines are an essential part of his brand. “La Mamá de la Mamá” is a song rooted in double entendre about oral sex, a gag that fully reveals itself once the chorus hits. When El Alfa performed it on Friday, the lyrics flashed onscreen in neon colors: “Dale cuchupla-pla-pla, cuchupla-pla-pla.” To an unsuspecting ear, this sounds like gibberish. I paused briefly and giggled to myself, wondering how I would translate the cleverness of this addictive, onomatopoeic hook into English. I realized it was futile, and that was precisely where the ingenuity bloomed.While the concert was a display of El Alfa’s agility and showmanship, it will go down as a celebration of a movement. A few minutes into the show, he set the tone for the evening, declaring, “This isn’t my success; it’s my country’s success.” He pointedly shared the spotlight, bringing out a parade of other Dominican artists (the pink-haired Kiko el Crazy, the playboy vocalist Mark B, the tough talking dembowsero Shelow Shaq) and a crew of non-Dominican collaborators who’ve helped him along the way (the Colombian pop star J Balvin, the New York radio personality Alex Sensation, the Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Farruko). Notably, none of the women who have helped push dembow forward were present. But the gesture still felt like a gleeful jab to those who said dembow would never travel beyond the borders of its birthplace. More

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    Lana Del Rey’s Sisterly Solidarity, and 10 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Miranda Lambert, Summer Walker, My Morning Jacket and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.Lana Del Rey, ‘Blue Banisters’“Blue Banisters,” out Friday, is the ever-prolific Lana Del Rey’s second album released this year, and its melodically roving title track feels like a kind of spiritual sequel to “Dance Till We Die” from her previous record, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Del Rey’s music has recently become populated with a kind of coterie of female first names, giving many of her songs an insular yet invitingly chummy atmosphere. If “Dance Till We Die” was a kind of matriarchal communion with some of her musical heroes (“I’m covering Joni and dancing with Joan/Stevie’s calling on the telephone”), “Blue Banisters” finds her getting by with a little help from her less famous friends. This vaporous, searching piano ballad ponders a choice between settling down into conventional, wifely femininity and living a more restless and solitary artist’s life: “Most men don’t want a woman with a legacy,” Del Rey sings, quoting her friend Jenny’s poolside musings. By the end of the song, though, she’s eked out a third option, neither in love nor alone, surrounded by “all my sisters” who come together to paint her banisters a different hue than the one her ex once preferred. For all the criticism Del Rey bore early in her career for conjuring the loneliness of embodying a male fantasy, it’s been fascinating to watch her music gradually turn into a space warmed by romantic friendship and female solidarity. LINDSAY ZOLADZMiranda Lambert, ‘If I Was a Cowboy’Beyoncé famously mused “If I Were a Boy”; Miranda Lambert is now giving a similar song-length thought exercise a countrified twist. “If I Was a Cowboy” — Lambert’s first solo single since her eclectic, Grammy-winning 2019 album “Wildcard” — finds her in a breezy, laid-back register, as opposed to her more fiery fare. But the song’s outlaw attitude and clever gender commentary give “If I Was a Cowboy” a casually rebellious spirit. “So mamas, if your daughters grow up to be cowboys,” Lambert sings on the smirking bridge, “ … so what?” ZOLADZMy Morning Jacket, ‘Lucky to Be Alive’The seventh track on My Morning Jacket’s new album — its first in six years, and ninth overall — is an especially succinct encapsulation of two things the Louisville band has always been able to do well. The first half of the song is all effortlessly playful, carnivalesque pop (with the frontman Jim James hamming up his growly delivery of the word “aliiiiive”). Halfway through, though, “Lucky to Be Alive” transforms into the sort of psychedelic, Laser-Floyd jam session that suggests why MMJ has built a reputation as a stellar live band. Put the two sides together and you get the song’s — and perhaps the band’s — overall mantra: Always look on the bright side of the moon. ZOLADZAlex Lahey, ‘Spike the Punch’Here’s a potent blast of sweetly spring-wound power-pop, courtesy of the underrated Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey. If you’ve ever thrown a party at which the guests have lingered a little too long, this one’s for you and your beloved: “Spike the punch and get everyone sent home, so in the end it’s you and me dancing all alone.” ZOLADZSnail Mail, ‘Ben Franklin’The enticing second single from Snail Mail’s upcoming album, “Valentine,” finds Lindsey Jordan growling and vamping atop a slinky bass line. “I never should have hurt you,” she sings in a low register, “I’ve got the devil in me.” Jordan’s just as winningly charismatic in the music video: Come to see her channel VMA-snake-era Britney Spears as a yellow python slithers across her shoulders; stay to watch her share an ice cream cone with a puppy. ZOLADZSummer Walker featuring JT from City Girls, ‘Ex for a Reason’If the title suggests a kiss-off directed at a past boyfriend, think again: “Ex for a Reason” turns out to be a sharp-tongued warning to a current man’s stubbornly lingering former flame — consider it a kind of R-rated “The Boy Is Mine.” Summer Walker spits venom in a deliciously incongruous, laid-back croon (“Tonight I’ll end it all/spin the block two, three times, make sure all the cancer’s gone”), before JT from City Girls steps in to land the fatal blow, with gusto. ZOLADZÁlvaro Díaz featuring Rauw Alejandro, ‘Problemón’There are plenty of entanglement anthems in reggaeton, but the Puerto Rican singers Álvaro Díaz and Rauw Alejandro are masters of perreo desire. For their latest collaboration, “Problemón,” the pair tackle a tricky situation: a partner lied about being single, and now a romance has to be kept under wraps. Díaz and Alejandro put melody front and center on a track that spotlights the contours of their addictive pop. It’s an easy addition to sad girl reggaeton playlists. ISABELIA HERRERASam Wilkes, ‘One Theme’The bassist and producer Sam Wilkes has been gaining popularity among both jazz fans and beat-heads thanks to a series of woozy analog-tape recordings with the saxophonist Sam Gendel. On Friday, Wilkes released an album of his own, “One Theme and Subsequent Improvisation,” which flows from an equally viscid vein. He went into the studio with two drummer friends to record a lengthy improvisation, then picked apart and edited that recording, and had two keyboardists subsequently lay their own improvisations over it. The end product is a magnetic album that revolves around, and often spins out far away from, the harmonized bass figure that opens the album’s opening track, “One Theme.” Across 33 minutes, Wilkes can sometimes call up minimalist voyagers like William Basinski or even Éliane Radigue, or he can wind up in post-rock territory — especially when the twin drummers take the wheel. (Gendel also released a single this week, a wholesale reworking of Laurie Anderson’s “Sweaters,” from her hit experimental album from 1982, “Big Science.”) GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJlin, ‘Embryo’“Embryo,” from the producer Jlin, is pure electronic calisthenics. A buzzing synth flutters through the track like a nettlesome fly in your ear as a high-intensity workout session commences with overblown bass, thumping drums and four-on-the-floor rhythms that flicker in and out of focus. Before you know it, the whole thing is over, and your heart will need some recovery time. HERRERAAnimal Collective, ‘Prester John’The first offering from Animal Collective’s forthcoming album “Time Skiffs” (which will be out in February 2022) is surprisingly bass-heavy, a gently hypnotic groove that unfolds across a pleasantly unhurried six-and-a-half minutes. As far as Animal Collective songs go, it’s relatively tame — devoid of its signature freak-out shrieks and sounding more like a cross between the Beach Boys and Grizzly Bear, as the quartet’s voices join in stirring harmony. Still, it feels like a natural step in the indie stalwarts’ gradual evolution, the sound of a band once so fascinated with childlike awe acquiescing to their own version of maturity. ZOLADZKazemde George, ‘This Spring’For the young, Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist Kazemde George, to insist doesn’t necessarily mean raising the volume or pushing idiosyncrasy. His debut album — titled “I Insist” in a reference to jazz’s protest tradition, and to Max Roach specifically — is mostly about laying a claim to the straight-ahead jazz mantle. With a brisk swing feel and a set of suspenseful chord changes that only half-resolve, “This Spring” is one of 10 original compositions on the record, but it also would’ve been at home on an album from a young saxophonist 30 years ago, during jazz’s Neo-Classicist revival. Throughout, what George insists upon most — from himself and his bandmates — is clarity: Melody is never sacrificed to flair or crossfire, even as the momentum builds. RUSSONELLO More

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    Drake’s ‘Certified Lover Boy’ Spends a Fourth Week at No. 1

    The Houston rapper Don Toliver opens at No. 2, while the music industry turns its attention to the numbers for Adele’s comeback single.Drake returns to No. 1 on this week’s Billboard album chart, while the Houston rapper Don Toliver opens at No. 2 and the music industry keeps a close eye on the numbers for a song that will impact next week’s chart: Adele’s comeback single.Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” which arrived at No. 1 last month with blockbuster streaming numbers after nearly a year of teases and false starts, notched its fourth week at the top. In its sixth week out, “Certified” had the equivalent of 94,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Virtually all of that number is attributed to streaming, with nearly 126 million clicks online.After six weeks out, Drake’s album has racked up nearly 1.4 million equivalent sales, including 1.7 billion streams — a huge showing, but cooler than the release of the rapper’s last studio album, “Scorpion,” in 2018, which in its first six weeks had 1.8 million sales and 1.9 billion streams.Toliver, a protégé of Travis Scott, opened in second place with “Life of a Don,” his second studio album. It had the equivalent of 68,000 sales, including 64 million streams.YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “Sincerely, Kentrell” is in third place, Meek Mill’s “Expensive Pain” is No. 4 and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 5. Last week’s No. 1, Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” fell to No. 35.Attention is now shifting to the data rolling in for next week’s singles chart, with Adele’s song “Easy on Me” expected to arrive with huge numbers. Released late last week — in an unusual move, Adele tied its worldwide arrival to midnight British time, making it available in the United States on Thursday — it quickly attracted big streaming numbers. Spotify announced that the song had broken its record for the most-streamed track in a single day, and Amazon Music said it had gotten “the most first-day Alexa song requests” in that service’s history.On Monday, CBS announced “Adele One Night Only,” a two-hour special featuring a concert performance and an interview with Oprah Winfrey, coming on Nov. 14, five days before the release of “30,” Adele’s first album in six years. More

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    Adele Returns With Power and Restraint, and 11 More New Songs

    Hear new tracks by serpentwithfeet, Blackstarkids, Stromae and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. 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.Adele, ‘Easy on Me’Six years have passed since Adele released “25,” her diamond-certified third studio album. In that time, just about everything in the music business has changed: Streaming is firmly the default distribution option, sing-rapping and pop-punk are the most popular stylistic frameworks and TikTok has essentially stripped down songcraft for parts.But no one’s told Adele, who was a nuclear-class warhead vocalist then, and remains one now, and whose approach to making music hasn’t changed at all. “Easy on Me” is the first single from “30,” her fourth studio album, which will be released next month. It was shaped, she’s said, by the tumult in her personal life. Adele is a singer whose most joyous songs are laden with the same damp melancholy as her most wounded ones.Her true gift, though, is restraint — knowing just how patiently to dole out her voice, hovering over each syllable as if slowly laying cinder blocks, methodically robbing her targets of air. That’s captured in the song’s opening lines: “There ain’t no gold in this river/That I’ve been washing my hands in forever,” a straightforward record of a baptism that turns to drowning. Abetted by a piano, she continues apace, detailing a relationship to which she gave all, until she didn’t. It is a deft and almost soothing dismissal, made even more tense by the feeling that even at her most pointed, she’s holding a little something back. JON CARAMANICAFinneas, ‘Love Is Pain’For once, Finneas matches the glum, whispery insights of his sister, Billie Eilish, in a song that recognizes where real life falls short of romantic fantasy. It’s from his debut album, “Optimist,” released on Friday. Over plain piano chords, he sings about moments like “That hollow feeling in your chest/as you both wordlessly undress after a fight,” without any easy consolation. JON PARELESserpentwithfeet, ‘Down Nuh River’“Down Nuh River” is equal parts down-home and cryptic. It’s rooted in the task-oriented rhythms of work song and playground chant: “Go go go go on swim on down nuh river now/oh you tryna get me in trouble now.” The beat syncopates an octave-hopping bass line against a muffled thump and one-handed piano chords. But it’s not so simple: serpentwithfeet — Josiah Wise — keeps shifting and multiplying his layers of vocals and effects, hinting at hallucinations and revelations if someone will “swim to the deepest part/that’s where all the wishes are.” PARELESStromae, ‘Santé’Breaking an uncharacteristically long public silence, the Belgian songwriter, singer, rapper and producer Stromae (Paul van Haver) has reappeared with “Santé,” which celebrates everyday people — Rosa, Albert, Celine, Arlette — doing their jobs. The track feels electro-Andean, matching the strumming of a small guitar to one of Stromae’s irresistible whistling synthesizer hooks. PARELESJuls featuring Fireboy DML, ‘Intentionally’Juls’s beats possess a textured softness, like a satin slip dress. And frankly, that’s probably what you should be wearing when listening to “Intentionally,” a new track from the British-Ghanian producer and Fireboy DML. “Just love me intentionally/I don’t want no temporary,” purrs the Nigerian vocalist. The song, from Juls’s first studio album, is sweet, simple desire, a lilting promise of mutuality and tenderness. ISABELIA HERRERANikara Warren, ‘Run Ricky’“Run Ricky” is the lead single from “Black Wall Street,” the debut album from the young vibraphonist Nikara Warren. The track shows off her skills as an instrumentalist, bandleader and rapper, starting with an insinuating bass line from Parker McAllister and some light boom-bap from David Frazier Jr. on drums. Horns, keyboards, guitar and Warren’s vibraphone fill in around them, and she rattles off a rap about Ricky, a young Black artist felled by violence. “Damn Ricky, you should’ve done the impossible,” she says as the verse closes. But this doesn’t bring the tune to its climax; the group continues for another three minutes, Hailey Niswanger’s tenor saxophone and Stephen Fowler’s trumpet stay melded as the groove shifts, inflected with funk and then rock and then Afro-Cuban clave. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLODos Santos, ‘Alma Cósmica’Like a spaghetti western from the ’60s, Dos Santos’s “Alma Cósmica” is a burst of narrative mystery. “¿Adónde voy? ¿De dónde soy?” wonders bandleader Alex Chavez. We may not know where he’s going or where he’s from, but the production keeps us going: a twanging guitar and an insistent shaker curl together, twisting into mutant chicha. HERRERAWalker Hayes, ‘U Gurl’Walker Hayes’s country hit “Fancy Like” is an advertisement masquerading as a song that has been now fully repurposed as an advertisement. It is a happenstance smash, and also lightly craven — lightly because Hayes never fully commits to the bit; at times he seems to be singing a parody of advertising jingles. He’s a little wry, but not so much that it derails the pitch. That tenor is deployed, too, on Hayes’s new single, “U Gurl,” a kind of faint caricature of hypermasculine country talk-singing: “So the way you walk is suggestive/strip-mall-town impressive/Girl, I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you exit.” It’s familiar text, delivered with a mildly arched eyebrow. And it’s effective — a “can you believe I’m doing this?” scorcher to follow the “can you believe we got away with that?” smash. CARAMANICABlackstarkids, ‘Piss Drunk Kids’#dreampop #hiphop #Y2K #Tumblr #skaterat #shoegaze #kawaii #emo. CARAMANICAEels, ‘Good Night on Earth’A fuzz-toned guitar riff and a snappy beat carry “Good Night on Earth,” a quintessential Eels song: hoarse, succinct, dry-eyed and well aware of life’s ironies. PARELESCamilo and Evaluna Montaner, ‘Índigo’The cheerfully, even relentlessly wholesome Colombian songwriter Camilo and his wife (as of 2020), Evaluna Montaner, have copiously documented their romance on social media as well as in songs. “Índigo” continues to merge those content streams in a breezy, hand-clapping, yacht-rock duet, all strumming guitars and close harmonies, that exults in amorous bliss — “I won without playing the lottery,” they sing — as the video flaunts a positive pregnancy test and a baby bump. PARELESEdward Simon, ‘Country’Not a note goes to waste in the translucent playing of Edward Simon, a Venezuelan pianist who is now the longest-serving member of the esteemed SFJAZZ Collective. He recorded “Solo Live” in Oakland, during a 2019 concert at the Piedmont Piano Company, on his 50th birthday. On “Country,” the album’s lone original, a rolling melody over a repeated pattern of farseeing chords gives way to a long, looping improvisation that culminates in chunky, rhythmic cross-talk between Simon’s left and right hands. RUSSONELLO More

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    The Music Lost to Coronavirus, Part 3

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis past summer, it briefly seemed as if the worst of the coronavirus might be behind us. But despite some encouraging signs — like the concert business amping up again — the pandemic’s landscape continued to shift; the Delta variant spread widely, and deaths rose again. Many musicians and people integral to the music business have been lost to Covid-19.On this week’s Popcast, the third in a recurring series, a handful of remembrances of musicians who died during the pandemic:Jacob Desvarieux, one of the founders and the core arranger of Kassav’, the band that pioneered zouk music, who died at 65.John Davis, one of the actual singing voices behind the façade-pop supernova act Milli Vanilli, who died at 66.Chucky Thompson, a hip-hop and R&B producer responsible for hits by Mary J. Blige, the Notorious B.I.G. and others, who died at 53.Guests:Doreen St. Felix, television critic at The New YorkerGil Kaufman, senior writer and editor at BillboardJeff Mao, longtime music journalist and D.J.Connect 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 Polish Rapper Goes From Scandal to Superstar

    Michal Matczak, better known as Mata, has been called the voice of Polish youth for songs about teen struggles that have grabbed the attention of his politically divided country.WARSAW — The vast fields of Warsaw’s Bemowo airport have hosted concerts by some of the world’s biggest stars. Michael Jackson played there. So did Madonna. Metallica, too.But last Saturday more than 30,000 people — many young teenagers, with their parents acting as chaperones — crowded together next to the runway waiting for a new star to get onstage: Michal Matczak, a 21-year-old rapper with bleached-blond hair and a constant grin, better known as Mata.“He’s like the representative of our generation,” said Joseph Altass, 20, a student who’d traveled from Gdynia, more than 200 miles north of Warsaw, for the concert.Zuzia Waskiewicz, 19, sharing a bottle of flavored vodka with a friend, agreed: “He’s the first person talking about real things about us.”More than 30,000 people wait for Mata to take the stage at Warsaw’s Bemowo airport. Anna Liminowicz for The New York TimesMata staged the show with the help of a theater director. Anna Liminowicz for The New York TimesWhen Mata appeared at 8 p.m., it was clear he was speaking to the younger generation in the audience: One of the night’s first tracks, “Blok,” was about moving out from his parents’ home and annoying his new neighbors by partying. Then Mata played an ode to marijuana, followed by a tune about drinking on the concrete steps that line the Vistula River in Warsaw. The crowd rapped along to every word.Mata’s impact in Poland has been inescapable. Earlier this year, one of his tracks, “Kiss Cam,” was streamed so frequently, it appeared on one of Billboard’s global charts — a first for a Polish act. When last Friday he released “Mlody Matczak” (“Young Matczak”), his second album focused on his early adulthood, it instantly topped the country’s Spotify chart. Several of his songs have over 50 million views on YouTube.But one specific track marked Mata’s explosive entrance into Polish cultural life two years ago: “Patointeligencja” (an amalgam of the Polish words for pathology, and intelligentsia). Over spare production, Mata paints a picture of life as a student at Batory, an elite high school in Warsaw where many students are expected to push for admission to the world’s best universities. In his telling, few of the students are quietly studying for their final exams. Instead, they’re using drugs, alcohol and sex to deal with the pressure. “My friend wanted to spend his father’s whole salary on drugs,” Mata raps, “but his old man was making so much he would have killed himself trying.”“Patointeligencja” was a sensation almost as soon as it appeared on YouTube in December 2019. Cyryl Rozwadowski, an editor at Newonce, a popular Polish-language culture website, said “it was such a groundbreaking event, I hardly think of it as a song anymore.”Newspapers and TV shows started using the track to debate both the pressures on Polish youth and issues of privilege, like whether an apparently rich kid like Mata should be rapping at all. Their takes often reflected political divides in the country. Poland has for years been in a culture war, with liberals on one side and the ruling populist Law and Justice Party and its conservative supporters on the other, facing off over issues like gay rights, abortion and even the rule of law.Some conservative sections of the media, including the country’s main government-run TV station, presented Mata’s track as showing the dysfunctions of the liberal elite. They regularly pointed out that Mata’s father is Marcin Matczak, a lawyer and academic known for his fierce opposition to the ruling party’s policies.On his new album, Mata has a tribute to him called “Papuga,” or “Parrot,” slang for lawyer in Poland. His father has welcomed the association, this year releasing a book called “How to Raise a Rapper.”Mata said he was enjoying fame in Poland, but hoped to find success outside the country, too.Anna Liminowicz for The New York TimesA few hours before the airport concert, Mata said in an interview at his record label’s plush office that he liked causing scandal. “I’m a bit addicted to adrenaline,” he said, adding that as an only child he craved attention. Sometimes, he feels “like an internet troll more than a rapper,” he said.But he insisted he hadn’t written “Patointeligencja” when he was 18 to cause a stir. He typed it on his phone during his final year at Batory when he’d “just had a big breakdown.” A three-year relationship had ended, he said, and he was overwhelmed with stress about exams and his teachers saying he was heading for failure.One day, he skipped class and went to a Caffe Nero, where he poured alcohol into a coffee while searching for a beat on YouTube. When he found the music for “Patointeligencja,” the lyrics angrily spilled out of him. “It was just stream of consciousness, all these bad emotions coming out of me,” he said. “Even now, I’m excited when I think about that moment. I felt alive.”When his father picked him up later, Mata rapped the tune to him. He said the song was like “the cure” for his breakdown. Soon he was writing his debut album, “100 Dni Do Matury” (“100 Days to Finals”), which reviewers later called a farewell to his childhood. He managed to graduate.“Mlody Matczak” — released last Friday — is mainly about his new life as an adult, he said, but it also includes a track cursing Polish political figures who’d criticized him and his father. There’s a song about his grandfathers, who both died this year, one of complications from Covid-19. At one of their funerals, Mata got up to sing, and the piano player asked for his autograph, he said.The crowd — many of whom were teenagers with their parents as chaperones — rapped along to Mata’s songs. Anna Liminowicz for The New York Times“I want to go global,” Mata said, “but I believe it’s easier to do this by getting inspirations from my own culture than trying to fit into global pop.”Anna Liminowicz for The New York TimesCritics in Poland are talking about his new album as being far more than scandal mongering. Bart Strowski, the co-author of a series of books on Polish rap, said he liked Mata’s duality. On one hand, he “is an angry young rapper filled with booze and weed.” On the other, Strowski said, he’s “a soulful and sensitive kid” writing unusual songs filled with “incredible sociological detail.”Mata said he was enjoying fame in Poland, but hoped to find success outside the country, too. He’d been thinking about whether to try rapping in English, he said, but if he did, would keep a “hard Polish accent” to stand out.At the concert on Saturday, Mata’s ambition was clear, with the show staged with the help of a theater director. During one song, he was joined by about 20 dancers in Polish folk costumes and red balaclavas. For another about submissive sex, he stood in the middle of a huge block of lights while a group of dancers took his top off and sprayed him with cream.After almost two hours, it seemed there was little spectacle left, and the only hit left to play was “Patointeligencja.” But instead of performing the song, Mata ran offstage, jumped into a blue helicopter and flew away. The crowd waited around for 10 minutes, asking whether he’d really gone, but Mata had left to find his next controversy. More