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      Esther Bejarano, 96, Dies; Auschwitz Survivor Fought Hate With Hip-Hop

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      She played the accordion in the camp’s orchestra. Decades later, she spoke out against fascism and racism, using music as well as words.When Esther Bejarano was 18, she played accordion in the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz, which played marches as prisoners left the concentration camp for hard labor and upbeat music as train loads of Jews and others arrived.“They must have thought, ‘Where music is playing, things can’t be that bad,’” she told The New York Times in 2014, recalling how some detainees smiled and waved at the musicians. “They didn’t know where they were going. But we knew. We played with tears in our eyes.”Mrs. Bejarano died on Saturday at a hospital in Hamburg, Germany. She was 96. With her death, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a cellist, is believed to be the only member of the orchestra still alive.Mrs. Bejarano’s death was announced by the International Auschwitz Committee, which was founded by survivors of the death camp and to which she belonged, serving as a powerful voice against intolerance in her later years.She would also form a band with her children to sing antiwar and Jewish resistance songs and, in her 80s, joined a hip-hop group that spread an antifascist message.Being in an orchestra at a concentration camp was often an escape from forced labor, and possibly from death. For Mrs. Bejarano, playing music for her captors relieved her of having to carry heavy rocks and earned her decent medical treatment during two illnesses.Women deemed fit for work at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, in a photograph taken in May 1944.Vashem Archives/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen Mrs. Bejarano learned that a women’s orchestra was being formed at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, she approached its conductor, Zofia Czajkowska, a Polish music teacher.She played the piano, but there wasn’t one at the camp at the time. When Ms. Czajkowska asked if she could play the accordion, she said she could, although she never had. Yet she passed her audition, playing a German song, “Du hast Glück bei den Frauen, Bel Ami” (“You’re Lucky With Women, Bel Ami”).“At the time it was a very well-known hit,” Mrs. Bejarano said in an interview cited in “Auschwitz Studies No. 27,” published in 2014 by the Auschwitz Memorial State Museum. “I didn’t have any problems with my right hand, because I knew how to play the piano and immediately found the keyboard, but the bass is on the left, and only thanks to the fact that I have a good ear could I find the right tones. I managed.”Orchestras were formed in many concentration camps — to entertain the Nazis, but also to serve other purposes.“They were for the benefit of the administration and staff,” said Bret Werb, the musicologist and recorded sound curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. “They believed that quick march music would get the prisoners to march in time, and quickly, to hard labor.”Mrs. Bejarano, who arrived at Auschwitz in April 1943, performed at the camp for several months until being moved later that year to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in northern Germany. On a death march from the camp near the end of the war, she and several other prisoners escaped.She celebrated the Allied victory over the Nazis in a market square in Lubz, Germany. A picture of Hitler was set on fire by American soldiers. A G.I. handed her an accordion, which she played as soldiers and other camp survivors danced.“That was my liberation, an incredibly great liberation,” she told Der Spiegel last year. “The American and Russian soldiers embraced and shouted, ‘Hitler is dead.’”She found her way to a displaced persons camp at Bergen-Belsen, near a former concentration camp, where she learned that the Nazis had killed her parents in Riga, Latvia. Her sister Ruth, who had fled to Switzerland, was deported and sent to Auschwitz before Esther’s arrival.“That is so fateful,” Mrs. Bejarano told the British newspaper The Telegraph in an interview. “I came to Auschwitz in April 1943, and if she had lived, I would have met her there.”From Bergen-Belsen, Mrs. Bejarano hitchhiked to Frankfurt and took a train to Marseille, France, where in August 1945 she boarded a boat to what was then British Palestine and was reunited with her sister Tosca. Their brother, Gerhard, had immigrated to the United States some years earlier.Mrs. Bejarano in 2015, with Efim Kofman on accordion. She formed a band late in life to sing antiwar and Jewish resistance songs.Daniel Reinhardt/picture-alliance dpa, via Associated PressEsther Loewy was born on Dec. 15, 1924, in Saarlouis, in southwestern Germany, near the French border. Her father, Rudolf, was a teacher and cantor. He met her mother, Margarethe, in Berlin when they were teenagers; he was her piano teacher, and the two fell in love.Ms. Bejarano described her childhood as “lighthearted,” but that part of her life ended when she was sent at 16 to a Nazi work camp near Berlin, from which she would be sent to Auschwitz.After the war, she restarted her life in what would become Israel. She studied singing, joined a choir, gave music lessons and in 1950 married Nissim Bejarano, a truck driver, with whom she had two children, Joram, a son, and Edna, a daughter. In 1960, she returned to Germany, settling in Hamburg, and ran a laundry service with her husband.She is survived by her children, two grandsons and four great-grandchildren.She found it difficult to discuss the Holocaust with anyone until the 1970s, when she watched German police officers shield right-wing extremists against protesters. The incident turned her into an activist, and she joined the Association of the Persecutees of the Nazi Regime. She began to tell her story in schools, delivered protest speeches and sang with Coincidence, the band that she formed with her children in 1989.“I use music to act against fascism,” she told The Times. “Music is everything to me.”Around 2009, when she was in her 80s, Mrs. Bejarano’s musical career took an unexpected turn. She was asked to join Microphone Mafia, a German hip-hop group, with whom she continued to spread her message against fascism and intolerance to young audiences in Germany and abroad, from Istanbul to Vancouver.Onstage with the group’s Kutlu Yurtseven and Rossi Pennino, Mrs. Bejarano was an unusual figure: a tiny woman with a snow-white pixie haircut, singing in Yiddish, Hebrew and Italian.Hip-hop was not her preferred musical genre. She joked that she persuaded her bandmates to lower their volume and stop jumping around onstage so much. She believed that hip-hop’s influence on young people could help her counter a rise in intolerance.“Twelve years together and almost 900 concerts together, and all this thanks to your strength,” Microphone Mafia wrote on its website after Mrs. Bejarano’s death. “Your laughter, your courage, your determination, your loving manner, your understanding, your fighting heart.”Mrs. Bejarano, a recipient of Germany’s Order of Merit, issued a statement this year through the International Auschwitz Committee calling for Germany to declare May 8 a federal holiday to commemorate the end of World War II in Europe.“And if you are concerned about whether Germans should celebrate this day solemnly,” she wrote, “imagine: What would the world look like if the Nazis had won?” More

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      The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s Bouncy Plea, and 14 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Little Simz, Nathy Peluso, Courtney Barnett,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.The Kid Laroi featuring Justin Bieber, ‘Stay’Bracingly effective, hyper-slick new wave/pop-punk hybridization from the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, “Stay” is about expecting more from a partner than you’re capable of giving. They both sound aptly desperate and defensive, a familiar approach from Laroi and a sneaky stretch from Bieber, who still injects some falsetto tenderness into his icy pleas. “Stay” is a more effective pairing than the two had on “Unstable,” from Bieber’s most recent album, on which he sounded as if he was jogging while Laroi sprinted. JON CARAMANICAThe Kondi Band featuring Mariama, ‘She Doesn’t Love You’Kondi Band is an electronic concoction rooted in Sierra Leone. The kondi is a 15-pronged thumb piano played by the Sierra Leonean musician Sorie Kondi, with production by DJ Chief Boima (an American whose family is from Sierra Leone), the English producer Will LV (a.k.a. Will Horrocks) and, on this song, the voice of a songwriter from Sierra Leone, Mariama Jalloh. The song is propelled by multiple layers of Sorie Kondi’s plinking thumb-piano riffs and grainy call-and-response vocals in Krio (Sierra Leonean Creole); midway through, Mariama airily delivers a reminder about consent: “It’s her mind, her body, her rules/If she doesn’t love you there’s nothing you can do.” JON PARELESLittle Simz, ‘I Love You, I Hate You’The Nigerian-English rapper Lil Simz keeps her voice calm and steely as she grapples with her relationship with her biological father, who’s “in my DNA” — she’s seen Polaroid photos — but whom she barely knows: “Is you a sperm donor or a dad to me?” The emotions that buffet her are in the track, produced by Inflo, with orchestral and choral swells, a sputtering funk beat and a male voice singing the title. She’s wrestling with her own feelings, trying to empathize and reaching for forgiveness; it’s complicated. PARELESBLK presents Juvenile, Mannie Fresh and Mia X, ‘Vax That Thang Up’Ah yes, you remember this classic, from the album “400 Degreez (Is What Your Temperature Will Be if You Get Covid-19 So Please Get Vaccinated).” CARAMANICAZuchu, ‘Nyumba Ndogo’What will happen when African musicians latch onto hyperpop? “Nyumba Ndogo,” from the Tanzanian singer and songwriter Zuchu, hints at the possibilities. It’s thin, speedy, synthetic, Auto-Tuned — and irresistible. PARELESmazie, ‘Dumb Dumb’The songwriter who lowercases herself as mazie folds multiple levels of ironic self-consciousness into her songs. She sings in a little-girl voice, and she starts “Dumb Dumb” with the sounds of kiddie instruments — ukulele, toy piano — before surreally stacking up keyboards, voices and harps and declaring, “Everyone is dumb, la la la la la la la.” It’s a song about misinformation, gullibility and incredulity; she wrote it the day after the insurrection at the Capitol. PARELESCourtney Barnett, ‘Rae Street’Courtney Barnett previews an album due in November — “Things Take Time, Take Time” — with another of her deadpan, steady-strummed songs that find large lessons in mundane observations. In “Rae Street” she chronicles her neighbors: parents, children, repair people and dogs, having an ordinary day. Behind the normalcy, there’s a wary undercurrent: “Time is money, and money is no man’s friend,” she sings, and, later, “You seem so stable, but you’re just hanging on.” Calm doesn’t mean contentment. PARELESAngel Olsen, ‘Gloria’There’s no point in a cover version that doesn’t transform the original song. Angel Olsen does just that with her version of the Laura Branigan hit “Gloria,” the first track from her coming album of 1980s songs, “Aisles.” While Branigan’s 1982 “Gloria” had pumping synthesizers and a perky vocal, Olsen paid attention to the lyrics. It’s a song about a desolate, lonely woman on the verge of a breakdown, or perhaps already having one: “Are the voices in your head calling, Gloria?” Olsen’s version is blearily slow, thickened with distorted keyboard chords and grunting cellos; this “Gloria” is mired, not triumphal. PARELESgglum. ‘Glad Ur Gone’Clouds of vocal harmonies float prettily; a beat bustles; keyboards throb in warm major chords. None of it quite conceals the rancor of “Glad Ur Gone,” as gglum — the songwriter Ella Smoker — sings about how clingy and manipulative an ex can be. PARELESJ.D. Allen, ‘Mother’Jon Irabagon, ‘KC Blues’J.D. Allen and Jon Irabagon, two standard-bearing tenor saxophonists, have new solo-sax albums that were forged in the solitude of lockdown. Irabagon, 41, spent much of 2020 living with extended family in South Dakota, and he often slipped off to the outskirts of Black Hills National Forest, where he spent hours revisiting the Charlie Parker songbook en plein-air with a recorder on. He’s released those recordings as “Bird With Streams” (yes, it’s a pun). Playful as ever but also luxuriously patient, his take on “K.C. Blues” is a feast of smeared tones and little open spaces. Allen, 48, went into a Cincinnati studio to capture the 13 tracks on “Queen City,” but he kept things spare, treating the process as an extension of the soul-searching he’d done in the early days of lockdown. “Mother,” an Allen original, starts with a three-note pattern that spins almost into a drone before he leaps off into free improvisation, zagging and curling and, later, painfully scraping his notes, as if to pry them open. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLONathy Peluso, ‘Mafiosa’The Argentine songwriter Nathy Peluso is ready to seize power as a woman in “Mafiosa,” vowing (in Spanish), “May bad men fear me.” She’s backed by a sinewy, old-school salsa groove with horn-section muscle: playful and teasing, but not to be crossed. PARELESMaluma, ‘Sobrio’A gentle song befitting Maluma’s gentle voice, “Sobrio” is an unhurried and lovely tale of a man only able to declare his heart after a few drinks. There’s nothing anguished about Maluma’s meanderings, though — rather, the slackness of the rhythm, and of his lightly slurry anguish, makes for a compellingly smooth confessional. CARAMANICASufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, ‘Reach Out’Sufjan Stevens has been mightily productive during the pandemic year, with songs, instrumentals and now a collaboration. Acoustic picking defines “Reach Out,” from the album “A Beginner’s Mind” by Stevens and the songwriter Angelo De Augustine, which is due in September — and based, they say, on watching movies. Fans of Stevens’s largely acoustic album “Carrie and Lowell” will appreciate “Reach Out,” which doesn’t hide the squeaks of hands moving up strings. In close harmony, they sing about memory and healing, insisting, “the pain restores you.” PARELESSamara Joy, ‘It Only Happens Once’At 21, the vocalist Samara Joy has been approaching the jazz spotlight since she won the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. The close precision and frothy power of her voice stand out immediately, and on her self-titled debut album, so does the depth of her comfort within the jazz tradition. “It Only Happens Once” is a rarely played tune, best known for Nat King Cole’s dreamy 1943 version, but she tucks right into it, as if she’s been singing the song her whole life. RUSSONELLO More

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      Tyler, the Creator, an Insider Forever on the Outside

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      His new album, “Call Me if You Get Lost,” is both an embrace of hip-hop tradition and a swerve into new emotional terrain.In January of last year, Tyler, the Creator’s “Igor” won the Grammy Award for best rap album. Speaking to the press backstage, he expressed frustration at the narrow ways in which Black artists are celebrated at the Grammys, calling his nomination in the rap category, for a deeply musically diverse album, “a backhanded compliment.”But the attention focused on that comment overshadowed what he’d said onstage when he received the award, which was that he was grateful for his fans’ support, because, he confessed, “I never fully felt accepted in rap.”Blockaded on both sides, Tyler nevertheless emerged victorious, an acknowledgment of the sheer force of the vision he’d built for a decade as the de facto macher of the Odd Future crew. It was also a testament to the way he harnessed the power of the internet and built a vision from whole cloth, selling it to millions without much intersecting with the systems constructed to do that.Still, the exclusions sting a little. And the boisterous, sometimes scabrous, and persistently energetic “Call Me if You Get Lost” — currently the No. 1 album in the country — is the logical rejoinder to both of those obstacles. It’s as thoroughgoing a rap album as Tyler has released — rarely has he been this keen to flaunt his bona fides. But it also demonstrates the pop potential of Tyler’s now-signature approach to hip-hop, the way his post-Pharrell embrace of chords and melody is in fact in conversation with 1960s pop, French chanson, and acoustic soul and funk. A tauntingly good hip-hop album, or a rewiring of pop DNA: “Call Me if You Get Lost” has it both ways.First, the bars. Part of the chasm separating Tyler from the rest of the genre (in perception, at least) is how he has in the past sometimes downplayed his lyrical skill in favor of musical experimentation. When he leans in to rapping, as he does on this album, it’s still a refreshing jolt.“Call Me if You Get Lost” is Tyler’s sixth album.Mostly, he’s preoccupied with the lifestyle that success has afforded him, but even though the subject matter can be repetitive — there’s lots of Rolls-Royce mentions, lots of discussions of passports — he delivers them with the shock of the new. “Y’all don’t understand, fish so fresh that you could taste the sand,” he boasts on the lush “Hot Wind Blows.” On the gloomy and stomping “Lumberjack,” he emphasizes the depth of his independence: “I own my companies full, told ’em to keep the loan.”The album is structured in the manner of one of DJ Drama’s essential mid-2000s Gangsta Grillz mixtapes, with Drama himself barking over each track, weaving in between Tyler boasts. Tyler’s resuscitation of an aesthetic that was likely formative to him is both a calculated nod to the hip-hop community that couldn’t quite place him early in his career, and also a tweak to the puffed-chest energy of that era. The frictive juxtaposition of Drama shrieking “Gangsta Grizzzzillzzzz” while Tyler is speaking about keeping picnic blankets in the car — it’s both homage and disruption.That’s how Tyler approaches his production here, too. “Lumberjack” is built on an ominous sample from the horrorcore pioneers Gravediggaz, and “Wusyaname” flirts with 1990s R&B with a sample from H-Town’s “Back Seat (Wit No Sheets).” Tyler is also eager to display how seamlessly he can integrate some of contemporary hip-hop’s signature vocalists, whether it’s the unrelentingly grimy 42 Dugg (“Lemonhead”) or the sweetly tragic YoungBoy Never Broke Again (“Wusyaname”). And he extracts startlingly good guest verses from his elders: Pharrell Williams (“Juggernaut”) and Lil Wayne (“Hot Wind Blows”).A tauntingly good hip-hop album, or a rewiring of pop DNA: “Call Me if You Get Lost” has it both ways.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThere’s a second, parallel narrative at play, too, on “Call Me if You Get Lost,” which in places reads like two separate albums born of the same circumstances tugging at each other — one about how carefree and privileged Tyler’s success has made him, and the other about how all of those spoils don’t add up to much without love.The eight-and-a-half minute long “Wilshire” is where the two collide. It’s a startling narrative about coveting a person who you can’t have (because they’re in a relationship with one of your friends) that reads as many things: an elegantly drawn story, a gut-kick emotional excavation, a track with boom-bap urgency tempered by wandering-in-space effects. Tyler lingers over feeling here, and it’s affecting and surprising: “They say, ‘Bros over hoes,’ I’m like, ‘Mm, nah, hey’/I would rather hold your hand than have a cool handshake.”He picks up the theme on the far tougher and more frenetic “Corso”: “My heart broken/Remembered I was rich so I bought me some new emotions/And a new boat ’cause I’d rather cry in the ocean.”These intersections of cocksureness and anxiety are this album at its best. (Fittingly, the title “Call Me if You Get Lost” reads either as a statement of generosity or a plea, depending on your lens.) Songs like the less emotionally ambiguous “Sweet / I Thought You Wanted to Dance” are generally less impactful — Tyler thrives on discord.A decade ago, discord was the fullness of his message. He was, by turns, a troll, an antagonist and at points outright offensive. He revisits that era on the raucous “Manifesto,” the most unexpected turn on this album: “I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers/Protesting outside my shows, I gave them the middle finger.”But Tyler is older now (30, to be precise). On the back of those controversies, he built an idiosyncratic empire that belonged to no scene (maybe because no scene would have him). “Manifesto” is the rare moment in his catalog where Tyler expresses anxiety or regret about how he once presented to the world. But he also remains obstinate. Rapping about how the expectations of speaking out politically leave him vexed, he reverts to his old perspective.“I feel like anything I say, dog, I’m screwing [expletive] up,” he says, “So I just tell these Black babies, they should do what they want.” The lesson is that there was no lesson.Tyler, the Creator“Call Me if You Get Lost”(Columbia) More

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      Taylor Swift Rejoins Her ‘Folklore’ Crew, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Brent Faiyaz featuring Drake, J. Balvin and Skrillex, Chicano Batman 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.Big Red Machine featuring Taylor Swift, ‘Renegade’Big Red Machine is the project of Aaron Dessner — the guitarist in the National who was a producer on Taylor Swift’s “Folklore,” “Evermore” and her remake of “Fearless” — and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), who wrote and sang “Exile,” a high-angst duet with Swift on “Folklore.” Swift sings two songs on the Big Red Machine album due Aug. 27, and regardless of the billing, she dominates “Renegade” with her melodic sense and personality: terse, symmetrical phrases carrying a coolheaded assessment of a failing partner, as she fends off attempts to “let all your damage damage me/and carry your baggage up my street.” The Big Red Machine aspect is in the production details — multilayered drones, tendrils of electric and acoustic guitar, Vernon’s distant backing vocals — but “Renegade” would fit easily on a Swift album. JON PARELESBrent Faiyaz featuring Drake, ‘Wasting Time’The way Brent Faiyaz approaches his verses over the lush, vintage-minded Neptunes production of “Wasting Time” is airy and a little fleeting, as if he’s so absorbed in his pitch to a potential lover that he can’t quite bring himself to stick close to the beat. “If you got time to waste, waste it with me,” Faiyaz pleads, almost pulling back from the request, casting his line while averting his heart. But there’s surety in the layered chorus — a Neptunes standard — and the thumping bass line, and then in the guest verse from Drake, which strikes a sour note about what it means to give of yourself and get crickets back: “Fluent in passive aggression, that’s why you actin’ dismissive/Hearing me out for once would require you actually listen.” JON CARAMANICAJ. Balvin and Skrillex, ‘In da Getto’Credit where credit is due: The lion’s share of the block-party spirit in this song, which is perfectly designed to be blasted all summer, comes from the beat, organ hook and female vocals that the producers Skrillex and Tainy got by sampling “In De Ghetto” by David Morales and the Bad Yard Club featuring Crystal Waters and Delta, from 1994. They built on their acknowledged source, grabbing and crisping up the best moments and tossing in some sirens, while Balvin’s gruff rapping stokes the festivities. But the foundation was already there. PARELESDe Schuurman, ‘Nu Ga Je Dansen’In the late ’80s, DJ Moortje, a selector from the Dutch Antillean island of Curaçao, mistakenly played a dancehall track at the wrong speed during his set at a club in The Hague. The result was a breakneck, squeaky-voiced sound called “bubbling,” a style that would veer into a thousand new directions over the next couple of decades. A new release from the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege Tapes is a reminder of the movement’s innovation. “Bubbling Inside” compiles previously unreleased tracks from De Schuurman, a staple of the scene a decade ago. Its standout, “Nu Ga Je Dansen” (“Now You’re Gonna Dance”), is a two-and-a-half minute club rampage. The first 30 seconds recall a late ’90s rave — all sirens and unhinged ferocity. But before long, a flood of kick drums arrives, beckoning everyone to the dance floor. ISABELIA HERRERAChicano Batman, ‘Dark Star’The musical DNA of Chicano Batman is rich with references to bygone eras: the trippy deliria of psych soul, the political ambitions of Brazilian tropicália and the concept-driven idiosyncrasies of prog-rock, among others. But the Los Angeles band has never been interested in mere nostalgia, as it reminds us on “Dark Star.” The song is arranged like a puzzle: a jagged, layered bass line (à la Madlib) clashes with serrated guitar lines, while laid-back vocals glide over the production. In the chorus, the lead singer Bardo Martinez’s voice blooms into what feels like sunny psychedelia. But blink for a second and you’ll miss the ominous undercurrent of the track: The “Dark Star” at hand is not a celestial being, but America — a somber place contending with the legacies of racial violence that still drive its everyday reality. HERRERATi Gonzi, ‘Kudzana Dzana’Tinashe Gonzara, the 28-year-old Zimbabwean rapper and singer who performs as Ti Gonzi, has been recording prolifically since 2009 and winning music awards in Zimbabwe. He has already put out an album this year, “Sendiri Two.” But his newer singles have concentrated on melody as much rapping. “Kudzana Dzana” (“Hundreds and Hundreds”) stacks up vocal harmonies over a teasing, flexible three-against-two groove of percussion and guitar picking that hints at Shona mbira (thumb-piano) traditions but also lets an electric guitar wail. “Life is a journey,” announces one of the few lyrics in English. PARELESTarrus Riley, ‘Heartbreak Anniversary’Giveon’s “Heartbreak Anniversary” is almost incomparably inconsolable. That it’s become the soundtrack for a TikTok dance trend borders on the lunatic. But perhaps that unlikely juxtaposition set the table for this cover, by the reggae star Tarrus Riley, which neatly leavens its angst. Over undulating, swinging production by Kareem Burrell and Dean Fraser, Riley sings not like a man mopping himself up off the floor, but rather one smoothly sauntering to safety. CARAMANICASarah Proctor, ‘Worse’“I know that it hurts/I know I’m going to make it a little bit worse,” Sarah Proctor tells the lover she betrayed. Piano chords toll and vocal harmonies swirl around her, making her sound reverent and contrite — except that she’s not apologizing. She’s breaking up. PARELESSquirrel Flower, ‘Iowa 146’Ella Williams, the songwriter behind the indie-rock of Squirrel Flower, doesn’t shy away from whisper-to-shout full-band crescendos on her band’s new album, “Planet (i).” But “Iowa 146” sticks with the whisper, accompanied by folky picking and all sorts of sustained near-phantom sounds, as she sings about the romance of sharing a guitar. PARELES More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Returns to No. 1, Four Weeks Later

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      The Disney star’s debut album circles back to the top of the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 105,000 sales in the United States.Three weeks ago, a vinyl bonanza from Taylor Swift blocked Olivia Rodrigo from enjoying a second run at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, but now the teenage newcomer is back on top.“Sour,” the debut album by Rodrigo, the 18-year-old pop phenomenon and Disney actress, returns to No. 1 with the equivalent of 105,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Five weeks into its release, “Sour” has now notched two weeks at the top of the album chart, and two songs from it, “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U,” have topped the Hot 100 singles chart.On the latest Hot 100, BTS’s “Butter” rules for a fifth straight week.Also on this week’s album chart, “Hall of Fame,” the latest from the Chicago rapper Polo G, drops one spot to No. 2. “The Voice of the Heroes,” a joint album by the rappers Lil Baby and Lil Durk that led the chart two weeks ago, is in third place. Migos’s “Culture III” is No. 4, and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 5 in its 24th week out.Opening at sixth place is H.E.R.’s “Back of My Mind.” Although it is her first official studio album, “Back of My Mind” follows five EPs and two compilations by H.E.R., the singer-songwriter Gabriella Wilson. She has also already won four Grammy Awards, including song of the year (“I Can’t Breathe”), and an Oscar, for best original song (“Fight for You,” from “Judas and the Black Messiah”). More

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      Polo G Earns His First No. 1 Album With ‘Hall of Fame’

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      The Chicago rapper and singer opened with the equivalent of 143,000 in sales, and Migos’s “Culture III” debuted at No. 2.This spring, the Chicago rapper and singer Polo G had his first No. 1 single with “Rapstar,” and now he has completed his victory lap with his first No. 1 album.“Hall of Fame,” Polo G’s third album, opens at No. 1 with the equivalent of 143,000 sales in the United States. That total includes 182 million streams and 18,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data. The album features guest spots by Lil Durk, Young Thug, Roddy Ricch, Lil Wayne and Pop Smoke — whose part, according to Polo G, was recorded the night before his death in February 2020.The victory is bittersweet, though. Early on June 12, after an album release party in Miami, Polo G, whose real name is Taurus Bartlett, was arrested on charges including battery on a police officer, after a car the 22-year-old rapper was riding in was pulled over and a struggle took place.His mother has said the car was “professionally licensed” and that her son was “moving smart and correctly.” And Polo G’s arrest has revived longstanding complaints about whether the Miami police target rappers.Also this week, the Atlanta rap trio Migos opens at No. 2 with “Culture III,” falling short of the chart-topping status of its last two albums (those would be “Culture” and “Culture II”). The latest album had the equivalent of 130,500 sales, including 145 million streams.Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” falls one spot to No. 3 in its fourth week out. Lil Durk and Lil Baby’s “The Voice of the Heroes,” last week’s top seller, is No. 4. And Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is in fifth place. More

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      Lil Baby and Lil Durk Share No. 1 With ‘The Voice of the Heroes’

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      The collaborative album by the two Atlanta-based rappers relied on streaming to top the Billboard chart.Last week’s top album may have hit No. 1 thanks to vinyl, but this week it’s back to the future: clicks.“The Voice of the Heroes,” an album pairing the Atlanta rapper Lil Baby with the like-minded Chicago rapper Lil Durk (now Atlanta-based, as well), was streamed 198 million times in its first week out — enough to open atop the Billboard 200 album chart.Digital plays of the duo’s 18 collaborative tracks made up the great majority of consumption for the release, which sold about 4,000 copies as a complete package and another 1,000 song downloads. All told including streams, “The Voice of the Heroes” earned 150,000 equivalent album units, according to the formulas of MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.That path to the top of the chart represents the inverse of the one used last week by Taylor Swift, whose “Evermore” returned to No. 1 from No. 74 thanks to the sale of 102,000 vinyl LPs, 69,000 CDs and just 12 million streams. (About six months of pre-orders for the vinyl were counted in full once the LP shipped to customers.) This week, “Evermore” falls to No. 8, down 85 percent in equivalent sales.“The Voice of the Heroes” marks Lil Durk’s first No. 1 album, with his last two releases, “Just Cause Y’all Waited 2” and “The Voice,” having topped out at No. 2. According to Billboard, he is the sixth act to reach No. 1 for the first time this year, after Olivia Rodrigo, Moneybagg Yo, Rod Wave, Morgan Wallen and Playboi Carti. Lil Baby earned his first chart-topper last year with “My Turn,” which was No. 1 for five weeks.“Sour” by Rodrigo, which debuted at No. 1 last month, holds steady at No. 2 in its third week out, earning another 143,000 units sold. Two other former No. 1’s follow: Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 3 with 50,000 units, while J. Cole’s “The Off-Season” falls one spot this week to No. 4. “The Chaos Chapter: Freeze,” by the K-pop group Tomorrow x Together, debuts at No. 5 with 43,000 units. More

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      Lorde’s Sunburst, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Ava Max, Clairo, PmBata 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.Lorde, ‘Solar Power’About the last thing to be expected from a songwriter as moody and intense as Lorde was a carefree ditty about fun in the summer sun. “Solar Power,” the title song from an impending album, is just that, riding three chords and brisk acoustic rhythm guitar (and glancing back at George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90”) to celebrate hitting the beach, getting sun-tanned cheeks and tossing away her “cellular device”: “Can you reach me? No! You can’t,” she sings, and giggles. She has an offhand but attention-getting boast — “I’m kind of like a prettier Jesus” — and an invitation completely free of ambivalence: “Come on and let the bliss begin.” JON PARELESAva Max, ‘EveryTime I Cry’Just to be certain, I have Googled and confirmed that no one has yet referred to Ava Max as Una Lipa. There’s still time. (This is a compliment.) JON CARAMANICASaint Jhn and SZA, ‘Just for Me’A beat ticks along behind slow-pulsing synthesizer chords as Saint Jhn appears, claiming lovelorn angst but safely distancing it with Auto-Tune. But when SZA arrives, a minute and a half in, her voice leaps out. Like him, she proclaims a desperate, dangerous infatuation. Unlike him, she sounds like she means it. PARELESPmBata, ‘Favorite Song’Endlessly cheerful lite-pop-soul, “Favorite Song” is a bopping strut from PmBata, toggling between singing and rapping, though less hip-hop-influenced than his earlier singles like “Down for Real.” The come-ons are a little frisky, but the attitude is never less than sweet. CARAMANICAJomoro featuring Sharon Van Etten, ‘Nest’Jomoro is the alliance of two percussionists turned songwriters: Joey Waronker, Beck’s longtime drummer, and Mauro Refosco, a David Byrne mainstay. Of course they need singers, and they have assorted guests on Jomoro’s album, “Blue Marble Sky.” Sharon Van Etten provides sustain and suspense on “Nest,” singing about “the darkest corner, the back of the mind” over a steadfast march of synthesizer tones textured with bells, shakers and hand drums: physical percussion to orchestrate a mental journey inward. PARELESClairo, ‘Blouse’It was inevitable that current bedroom-pop songwriters would discover the hushed intricacies of predecessors like Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. Clairo embraces both, recalling Smith’s whispery vocal harmonies immediately and Drake’s elegant string arrangements soon afterward. She’s singing about a kitchen-table lovers’ quarrel and a situation neither man would think to portray: “Why do I tell you how I feel/When you’re just looking down my blouse?” PARELESEsperanza Spalding featuring Corey King, ‘Formwela 4’Over an eddying sequence of arpeggios plucked by Corey King on acoustic guitar, surrounded by the sounds of springtime, Esperanza Spalding sings in patient and gentle tones about long-term trauma, and about reaching out for support. “Wanna be grown and let it go/really didn’t let it go though,” she begins. When Spalding gets to the chorus, it mostly consists of one repeated line: “Dare to say it.” This track, released Friday, comes as part of Spalding’s Songwrights Apothecary Lab, an evolving project that imagines musical collaboration as a pathway toward healing. (It already yielded a suite of three powerful tracks, created with other prominent musicians and released earlier this year.) She and King wrote “Formwela 4” in response to a simple challenge: “Say what is most difficult to say between loved ones.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOHypnotic Brass Ensemble featuring Perfume Genius: ‘A Fullness of Light in Your Soul’The Minimalism-loving Hypnotic Brass Ensemble has rediscovered “Sapphie,” an EP that was released in 1998 by the prolific English musician Richard Youngs and rereleased in 2006 by the Jagjaguwar label, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary with left-field, interdisciplinary collaborations. Youngs’s original version was a stark acoustic meditation, just quiet fingerpicking behind Youngs’s high, breaking voice, with musings like “Sometimes it’s better never than late/and there’s a spareness of days” and “Happiness leaves everything as it is/and the future isn’t anything.” Hypnotic Brass Ensemble adds inner harmonies and orchestrates them with Philip Glass-like motifs for brass and woodwinds and surreal reverberations as Perfume Genius sings in a rapt falsetto, trading Youngs’s solitude for immersive depths. The video — perhaps taking a hint from the song’s first line, “working around museums,” shows the visual artist Lonnie Holley creating images with spray paint, twigs and wire. PARELESJulian Lage, ‘Squint’The gangly, big-boned drum style on this track might be recognizable — particularly to fans of the Bad Plus — as the sound of Dave King when he’s having fun. The drummer is heard here in a newish trio, led by the virtuoso guitarist Julian Lage, and featuring Jorge Roeder on bass. “Squint,” the title track from Lage’s Blue Note debut, begins with the guitarist alone, causally demonstrating why he’s one of the most dazzling improvisers around; then King comes in and things cohere into that lumbering swing feel, held together by Roeder’s steady gait on the bass. RUSSONELLOPoo Bear, ‘The Day You Left’Poo Bear (Jason Boyd), a songwriter and producer with Justin Bieber, Usher, Jill Scott and many others, shows his own achingly mournful voice in “The Day You Left.” He’s a desperately long-suffering lover who knows he’s been betrayed for years, but still wants his partner back. The production, by a team that includes Skrillex, keeps opening new electronic spaces around him, with celestial keyboards in some, shadowy whispers in others. PARELESNoCap, ‘Time Speed’More glorious yelps from the Alabama sing-rapper NoCap, who, over light blues-country guitar, is enduring some push and pull with a partner. “I might be gone for a while, just write,” he urges, but confesses he’s not in the driver’s seat. If she feels compelled to stray, he says, “just don’t hold him tight.” CARAMANICA More