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    U.S. Girls’ Luxuriously Absurd Disco, and 9 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Gracie Abrams, Ashley McBryde and Skrillex.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.U.S. Girls, ‘Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo)’I am willing to bet that this new U.S. Girls song is the first in the history of popular music to be written from the perspective of a tuxedo. (Seriously: “I was born to be worn,” Meg Remy sings in a buttery croon, “custom fit to make you feel legit.”) But the infectious, full-bodied groove helps the track transcend its admittedly ridiculous premise and become a highlight of the latest U.S. Girls album, the upbeat and provocative “Bless This Mess,” which is out on Friday. A thumping beat and elastic bass line give the song a sleek disco sheen, but it’s Remy’s absurdist sense of humor that makes it unique. LINDSAY ZOLADZSkrillex and Bibi Bourelly, ‘Painting Rainbows’Skrillex’s ambitious new pair of albums “Quest for Fire” and “Don’t Get Too Close” overflow with impressive guest appearances (Missy Elliott! Justin Bieber! PinkPantheress!), but perhaps his most simpatico collaborator turns out to be Bibi Bourelly, the German-born musician who is best known as a songwriter for the likes of Rihanna, Demi Lovato and Usher. Bourelly lends her vocals to three tracks, and it feels significant that Skrillex gives her the last word on “Don’t Get Too Close,” shining the spotlight on her expansive personality on its closing track, “Painting Rainbows.” “We still hear when they thought we would die,” Bourelly raps with a growly defiance and unabashed positivity. Her voice is at once cartoonish and deeply sincere, which means it pairs perfectly with Skrillex’s sound. ZOLADZHannah Jadagu, ‘What You Did’The latest single from the 20-year-old indie-pop singer-songwriter Hannah Jadagu is suffused with a dreamy atmosphere, but her lyrics pierce right through the haze: “I know what you did,” she sings, repeatedly, to the object of her disappointment. Taken from her forthcoming debut “Aperture,” which comes out May 19, “What You Did” showcases Jadagu’s easy aptitude with lilting melodies and her love of deliciously crunchy texture. ZOLADZFishbone, ‘All We Have Is Now’The ever-peppy ska-punk-funk-rock band Fishbone has persevered since 1979, and most of its original lineup has regrouped for a coming album produced by an admirer, Fat Mike of the punk band NOFX. “All We Have Is Now” is a philosophical pronouncement — “The universe may only consist of a here and now” — briskly delivered in ska form. One thing to enjoy in the moment is the way organ and horns each play just a few notes, placing them exactly where they’re needed. JON PARELESAshley McBryde, ‘Light on in the Kitchen’Ashley McBryde maintains her position as country’s most down-to-earth songwriter with “Light on in the Kitchen,” a compendium of kindly advice punctuated by a down-home dialogue between mandolin and electric guitar. “Your freckles make you pretty/There’s more to life than being skinny,” she sings, going on to say, “Trust yourself, laugh at yourself/If something tries to hold you back, get up and give it hell.” No one should argue. PARELESGracie Abrams, ‘I Know It Won’t Work’“Part of me wants you back,” Gracie Abrams admits on a song from her pointedly titled debut album, “Good Riddance.” Obviously, she knows better. Her voice is whispery, as it is throughout the album, and her backup puts an acoustic veneer on an electronic foundation; two chords pull her back and forth as she weighs her options. Her best choice is clear, but getting there is more complicated. PARELESBernice, ‘Underneath My Toe’The crystalline “Underneath My Toe,” from the Toronto group Bernice, has the tender, first-name-basis intimacy of a letter to a friend: “So, I really wanna know,” Robin Dann sings, “how did Tim’s birthday go?” The song keeps shifting shape unexpectedly — at one point, a funky, new-age keyboard riff enters without warning and disappears just as quickly — but the gentle melancholy and clarion beauty of Dann’s voice is the glue holding it all together. ZOLADZArooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily, ‘To Remain/To Return’The somberly immersive “To Remain/To Return” previews “Love in Exile,” an album of collective improvisations due March 24 from three musicians with South Asian roots and jazz and rock experience: Arooj Aftab on vocals, Vijay Iyer on piano and electronics and Shahzad Ismaily on bass and synthesizer. The music is unanimous in its restraint. Iyer gradually forms rising, modal five-note patterns on piano. Ismaily leans into a drone that evolves from slow tolling to a throbbing pulse. And Aftab sings pensive, hovering phrases in Urdu. In the full nine-minute version, the music wafts up out of near-silence and sustained electronics; a three-minute excerpt gets to Aftab’s melodies, and a beat, much sooner. PARELESZoon, ‘Manitou’In “Manitou,” orchestral and electronic blurs envelop the voice of Daniel Monkman, who leads the Canadian band Zoon. “Manitou” is about memories and mortality: “One foot in the dirt, and one foot in the grave,” he reflects. The music arrives in dusty, amorphous gusts of sound — sometimes revealing a strummed acoustic guitar, sometimes swelling with tremolo strings, sometimes surrounding Monkman with high, delayed vocals — that make every perception sound fragile and precious. PARELESIzangoMa, ‘Ngo Ma’IzangoMa, from South Africa, pours everything it has learned from two hemispheres into “Ngo Ma.” This 10-minute track, with most of its lyrics in English, sprints forward with a mixture of electronics and a band. The lyrics detail hard lives, commemorated in long verses; the music rushes ahead, scrambling electronics and hand-played instruments, insisting that a beat can heal everything — but only eventually. PARELES More

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      Beyoncé’s Anthem for the Unique, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Rosalía, Brian Eno, Robert Glasper 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.Beyoncé, ‘Alien Superstar’Beyoncé’s seventh studio album, “Renaissance,” is a dazzling nightclub fantasia, a nimble, freewheeling journey through decades of dance music that feels almost Prince-like in its ambition. Sequenced seamlessly between the humid beats of “Cozy” and the immaculately produced disco throwback “Cuff It,” the Afrofuturistic “Alien Superstar” is a bold pop homage to ballroom culture and an embodiment of the escapist, self-celebratory ethos that courses throughout “Renaissance.” “Unique, that’s what you are,” Beyoncé intones from on high, “Stilettos kicking vintage crystal off the bar.” Grace Jones, who appears later in the album on the charismatic “Move,” certainly feels like a touchstone here, but in the album’s liner notes Beyoncé also shouts out the familial influence of her late Uncle Jonny, a queer Black man who, she writes, was “the first person to expose me to a lot of the music and the culture that serve as inspiration for this album.” The word unique becomes a motif throughout “Alien Superstar,” and in the song’s outro, a sampled speech from Barbara Ann Teer, the founder of Harlem’s National Black Theater, drives the point home, resonantly: “We dress a certain way, we walk a certain way, we talk a certain way, we paint a certain way, we make love a certain way. All of these things we do in a different, unique, specific way that is personally ours.” By the end of this song, it goes without saying: Same for Beyoncé. LINDSAY ZOLADZRosalía, ‘Despechá’Rosalía sounds aggressively unbothered on the studio version of “Despechá,” a fan favorite she’s been playing live on her Motomami World Tour. Influenced by Dominican merengue, “Despechá” is a quintessential summer jam, built around a buoyant piano riff and an insistent beat. There’s a current of defiance driving Rosalía’s vocals, though, as she attempts to shake off the memory of a disappointing lover on the dance floor: “Baby, no me llames,” she begins (“Baby, don’t call me). “Que yo estoy ocupá olvidando tus males” (“I’m busy forgetting your ills”). ZOLADZU.S. Girls, ‘So Typically Now’The music of Meg Remy’s ever-evolving project U.S. Girls has rarely sounded as sleek as it does on the synth-pop “So Typically Now,” which makes the satirical bite of its lyrics that much more surprising. “Brooklyn’s dead, and Kingston is booming,” Remy vamps on this cheeky critique of pandemic-era exodus, gentrification and rising housing costs. A thumping beat and a glossy sheen that’s somewhere between Robyn and Kylie Minogue provides the foundation for Remy’s social commentary, while sky-high backing vocals from Kyle Kidd take the track to the next level. “Gotta sell all my best,” Remy sings archly, “to buy more, not less.” ZOLADZRina Sawayama, ‘Hold the Girl’Orchestral anthem? Dance-floor thumper? Fingerpicked folk-pop ditty? Hyperpop twitcher? Choral affirmation? Rina Sawayama chooses all of the above on “Hold the Girl,” a vow to reconnect with her younger self — “Reach inside and hold her close/I won’t leave you on your own” — that flits from style to style, cheerfully claiming every one. JON PARELESRobert Glasper featuring Masego, ‘All Masks’Pandemic malaise and endurance are the foundation of “All Masks,” which looks back on years of “all masks, no smiles.” Over a murky, oozy track with synthesizer chords that climb patiently only to fall back to where they started, Masego sings about “Looking like you’re in disguise every day/Breathing my own breath.” “All Masks” comes from an expanded version of “Black Radio III” due this fall, continuing the keyboardist Robert Glasper’s decade-long series of “Black Radio” albums that merge R&B, hip-hop and jazz. A pensive, darting piano improvisation near the end of the song is a whiff of possibility amid the constraints. PARELESBrian Eno, ‘There Were Bells’“There Were Bells” is a threnody for planetary extinction from Brian Eno’s coming album, “Foreverandevernomore.” The LP, he has said, is about “our narrowing, precarious future,” and it returns to songs with lyrics and vocals after more than a decade of primarily instrumental and ambient works. “There Were Bells” begins with birdsong and floating, glimmering sustained tones. Eno croons, in what could be a lullaby or a dirge, about natural beauty, but then human destruction ensues; as the track deepens, darkens and thunders, he observes “storms and floods of blood,” until no one can escape: “In the end they all went the same way,” he sings, leaving an echoey void. PARELESRat Tally, ‘Prettier’Addy Harris, who records as Rat Tally, faces chronic depression in the elegantly heartsick “Prettier”: “Sorry, I’ve just been down for the past decade,” she sings, over fingerpicked guitar. “I always did think I’m prettier when I’m unhappy/So do you,” she adds, as synthesizers bubble up behind her. “When I drop, I plummet,” she sings — examining herself with cool compassion, wondering what could change. PARELESPlains, ‘Problem With It’Plains is a new group formed by Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and the underrated singer-songwriter Jess Williamson — two Southern-born musicians who began their careers in the indie-rock world but whose more recent albums have reconnected with their country roots. Crutchfield and Williamson’s voices blend gorgeously on Plains’ hard-driving debut single “Problem With It,” which will appear on the forthcoming album “I Walked With You a Ways.” Crutchfield’s smoky twang takes center stage on the verses, but Williamson’s harmonies flesh out the chorus so that the lines land like bold, self-assured mantras: “If you can’t do better than that, babe, I got a problem with it.” ZOLADZAmaarae, ‘A Body, a Coffin’Amaarae, from Ghana, has an airborne, Auto-Tuned soprano in “A Body, a Coffin,” from an EP called “Wakanda Forever Prologue” that starts the rollout for the movie “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” A crisp, staccato Afrobeats rhythm track, a little flute lick and a swarm of now-you-hear-them, now-you-don’t computer-manipulated voices back her as she sings about facing deadly odds: “You was in danger/I needed a savior.” The track ends, in Marvel Cinematic Universe fashion, as a cliffhanger. PARELESPalm, ‘Feathers’Palm — formerly an indie-rock band that brandished jittery, asymmetrical, tangled guitars — has used its four years between albums to learn electronic instruments. “Feathers,” from an album due in October, reveals the band’s new mastery with a clanging, lurching, meter-shifting song that enjoys programmed, multitracked precision even as Eve Alpert sings about spontaneity. “Imma make it up as I go,” she lilts, and for all its premeditation, the song swings. PARELESBobby Krlic, ‘KJ’s Discovery’Bobby Krlic, who usually records as the Haxan Cloak, has composed the score for a new Amazon series, “Paper Girls,” and “KJ’s Discovery” is from its soundtrack album. It’s one-and-a-half minutes of aggressive six-beat and four-beat propulsion: drums and gongs interwoven with electronic blips and throbs, like an ominous, time-warped gamelan. PARELES More

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      14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday Songs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Playlist14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday SongsHear tracks by U.S. Girls, 100 gecs, Big Freedia and more.Meghan Remy of U.S. Girls sings about consumerism and the climate crisis on “Santa Stay Home.”Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Dec. 18, 2020Updated 4:41 p.m. ETEvery 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.U.S. Girls featuring Rich Morel, ‘Santa Stay Home’[embedded content]If you’ve been searching for a Christmas carol that addresses rampant consumerism, the climate crisis, and even the strange mass-tradition of cutting down oxygen-giving pine trees only to throw them in the trash after a few weeks — have U.S. Girls got a song for you! “With both poles melting and the seasons blending,” the frontwoman Meghan Remy sings, “hurry up, slow down.” What saves the song from being too grinchy, though, is its toe-tapping beat and catchy melody, carrying on the U.S. Girls tradition of writing sweet-sounding songs about bitter truths. LINDSAY ZOLADZTayla Parx, ‘Ain’t a Lonely Christmas Song’“Ain’t A Lonely Christmas Song,” a festive offering from the hit songwriter and frequent Ariana Grande collaborator Tayla Parx, begins with humorous anti-sentimentality and Parx crooning, “I’m used to being at the family function showing up with liquor and myself.” But this year is different: “Since you came along, this ain’t a lonely Christmas song,” she sings on the chorus, the whole arrangement suddenly becoming merry and bright. ZOLADZTony Trischka, ‘Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)’The bluegrass banjo player Tony Trischka wrote “Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)” years ago for a song cycle about the Civil War, with lyrics envisioning soldiers during a holiday cease-fire: “Let us still our guns and dry our tears, friends and foe alike.” This quarantine year gives new resonance to its chorus: “Christmas cheer this weary year, not like the last you know/Hopefully by the next we’ll be united with our families back home.” The guitarist Michael Daves sings the lead vocal accompanied by virtuosic picking, with a coda of elegant string-band counterpoint. JON PARELESSam Smith, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’Sam Smith promises comfort, safety and happiness in “The Lighthouse Keeper,” a modern hymn that summons a cappella harmonies, a string section and subdued timpani. As Smith vows, “Don’t resist the rain and storm/I’ll never leave you lost at sea,” the cadence hints at “Good King Wenceslas”; perhaps that’s why they included the lines about “Hoping you’ll be home for Christmas time” for a song that offers far more than a seasonal visit. PARELESFinneas, ‘Another Year’Finneas’s Christmas song is decidedly secular: “I don’t believe that Jesus Christ was born to save me/That’s an awful lot of pressure for a baby,” he croons over cozy parlor-piano chords. Instead, it’s a seasonal love song, oddly tinged with uncertainty and pessimism; he proclaims his love, but adds, “I hope it lasts another year.” PARELESgirl in red, ‘Two Queens in a King Sized Bed’The holiday offering from Marie Ulven — who records as girl in red — sprinkles the dusty reverb of indie rock with enough saccharine chords to make you mindful it’s December without distracting from the song’s true purpose. That would be love, which she gently sings about with lyrics that merge the damp desperation of intense attraction with the wry lingo of holiday capitalism:I don’t have a lot to giveBut I would give you everythingAll my time is yours to spendLet me wrap you in with my skinJON CARAMANICAAlessia Cara, ‘Make It to Christmas (Stripped)’Alessia Cara released “Make It to Christmas” last year as a Phil Spector-style buildup, with drums kicking in for the chorus. Her “stripped” remake brings out the song’s underlying despair. She knows her romance is falling apart, but she just can’t bear the thought of being single during the holiday: “Don’t have me spending it alone/This time of year is precious,” she begs. The arrangement isn’t that stripped — she still has massed strings, chimes and choirlike backup vocals — but without the drums to propel her, hope fades. PARELESJulia Jacklin, ‘Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now’“Last Christmas at my auntie’s house, I tried so hard to make my uncle shut his mouth,” sings the wryly observant Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin. But her holiday single “Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now” is something much more affecting than a collection of Yuletide punch lines about family dysfunction: It’s a musical short story as vivid and specific as any on her excellent 2019 album “Crushing.” Out of materials as simple as a quietly strummed chord progression and her hushed but evocative voice, Jacklin weaves something as unique and haunting as a spider web. ZOLADZMandy Moore, ‘How Could This Be Christmas?’Slowly swaying, wistful and sweet, “How Could This Be Christmas?” is a vintage-style missing-someone-at-Christmas song. Written by Mandy Moore with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and Mike Viola from the Candy Butchers, it has piano triplets for a 1950s feel, and a vocal leap up to the word “Christmas” that sounds daring and forlorn each time she makes it. PARELESVíctor Manuelle, ‘Ya Se Ven Las Bombillitas’“Ya Se Ven las Bombillitas” (“The Lights Can Already Be Seen”) is the latest single released from Victor Manuelle’s 2019 Christmas album, “Memorias de Navidad,” which was just nominated for a Grammy. In upbeat salsa, punctuated by horns and laced by runs on the guitar-like cuatro, Manuelle sings about maintaining traditions through generations: both Christmas decorations and the vintage salsa style he upholds. PARELESCorey Porche & Paul ‘Bird’ Edwards, ‘Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj’[embedded content]The guitarist Chas Justus gathered top musicians from Louisiana bayou country to make “Joyeux Noël, Bon Chrismeusse,” an EP of Cajun and zydeco arrangements of familiar Christmas songs translated into Cajun and Louisiana Creole. “Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj” turns “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” into a genial zydeco shuffle, with accordion tootling and rub board ratcheting away. PARELESBig Freedia featuring Flo Milli, ‘Better Be’Call it sitcom bounce music: Big Freedia takes a bawdy spin on gift receiving on this song from a new seasonal EP, “Big Freedia’s Smokin’ Santa Christmas,” joined by the tart-talking rapper Flo Milli. CARAMANICA100 gecs, ‘Sympathy 4 the Grinch’When your music sounds like a bunch of addled tweens’ playtime, making holiday music likely comes naturally. The chirpy kitchensinkcore maximalists 100 gecs’s seasonal entry, “Sympathy 4 the Grinch,” is all about what Santa failed to bring, and the price he must pay for that transgression. It is the highest compliment to say it sounds like a foulmouthed outtake from an Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas album. CARAMANICAPup and Charly Bliss, ‘It’s Christmas and I ___ Miss You’This wickedly catchy, obscenity-laced collaboration from the indie-rock bands Charly Bliss and Pup certainly captures the feeling of late-2020 exasperation: The Charly Bliss frontwoman Eva Hendricks is “crying on the couch to ‘Elf’ alone,” while Pup’s Stefan Babcock suggests, “We should call it, because this whole year’s been [expletive] anyway.” The video, though, is unexpectedly poignant: Amid clips of the band members recording their parts of the song remotely is archival footage from tours gone by and taken for granted, in much less socially distanced times. It’s a stirring holiday ode to missing your bandmates, or maybe just your friends. ZOLADZAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More