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    15 New Christmas Albums for 2022

    New releases from Alicia Keys, Lindsey Stirling, Regina Belle and others revisit songs already entrenched in the Christmas canon and hope to introduce some future contenders.Holiday albums are more than background music played in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. They offer artists a chance to recontextualize themselves, play around in a nostalgic format, reinvent traditions and even strike gold in what’s become a lucrative season for the music business. Here’s a spin through 15 of the latest releases.Louis Armstrong, ‘Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule’Of all the music Louis Armstrong made in his lifetime, none of it was recorded for a Christmas album (despite Armstrong having put out a bunch of Christmas songs). But on “Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule,” we hear his unmistakable voice in all its remastered glory on standards like “Winter Wonderland” and “White Christmas,” and originals like “Christmas Night in Harlem” and “Christmas in New Orleans.” “What a Wonderful World,” Armstrong’s most recognized song, isn’t quite a holiday tune but shows up on this compilation anyway alongside “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” a reading he recorded at home shortly before his death in 1971. What wound up being his last recording ends this album on a wistful note. MARCUS J. MOOREBackstreet Boys, ‘A Very Backstreet Christmas’Backstreet Boys offer up the expected blend of poppy R&B, tight harmonizing and soft-focus romanticism on their first holiday album, “A Very Backstreet Christmas.” The group fares best with competently sung, lightly modernized renditions of classics like “O Holy Night” and “White Christmas”; it sounds out of its depth grappling with the singer-songwriter poeticism of Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.” The album closes out on an upbeat note, though, with the peppy, self-referential (“We’re gonna party like it’s 1999”) new song “Happy Days,” which its members said was partially inspired by “Can’t Stop the Feeling!,” the 2016 hit from — of all people! — Justin Timberlake. Happy Xmas, boy-band war is over (if you want it). LINDSAY ZOLADZRegina Belle, ‘My Colorful Christmas’Christmas has long been associated with snow and warm cider. But Regina Belle’s reggae-centered version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” evokes hot sand and rum punch. She follows this thread throughout her first Christmas album, flipping gospel standards like “The First Noel” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” into bouncy modern soul with cross-generational appeal. MOOREKadhja Bonet, ‘California Holiday’The first holiday EP by the pensive soul singer Kadhja Bonet consists mostly of supple covers of connoisseur Christmas classics — “Keep Christmas With You” from “Sesame Street”; the Jackson 5’s “Little Christmas Tree.” But the title track, an original, is something different: a lightly exhausted digest of a relationship that never seems to break free of cyclical fatigue. “Another holiday,” Bonet sighs. “Another holiday.” JON CARAMANICARay Charles, ‘The Spirit of Christmas’Be it country, R&B or gospel, Ray Charles knew how to put his own spin on well-worn classics, turning them into bluesy ballads with soulful piano at the center. That was evident on “The Spirit of Christmas” from 1985, reissued this year as a set that includes tried-and-true favorites like “Winter Wonderland,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” as well as the cult classic “That Spirit of Christmas,” which was featured in the holiday film “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” But Charles’s brilliance comes barreling through on the down-tempo “The Little Drummer Boy”: Mixing the twang of country and the melodic stomp of gospel-soul, he lands on something that isn’t quite either, but is glorious all the same. MOOREDavis Causey and Jay Smith, ‘Pickin’ on Christmas’In 1998, two guitarists from Georgia, Jay Smith and Davis Causey (who, among many credits, was a member of jazz-tinged Southern rock bands led by Randall Bramblett and Chuck Leavell) gathered a studio band, recorded an instrumental Christmas album and pressed 100 CDs for family and friends. Smith died soon after the album was made. It wasn’t a casual jam session; the tracks are thoughtfully arranged, often with multiple layers of lead and rhythm guitars. Now released publicly, the album radiates companionship, with the guitars — acoustic and electric, picking and sliding — entwined in amiable colloquies. “Silver Bells/Silent Night” turns into a chugging, countryish boogie; “We Three Kings/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” eases toward modal jazz and psychedelia, and “What Child Is This?” moves from a tentative duet to a swinging jazz waltz. The familiar songs become shared confidences. JON PARELESGloria Estefan, Emily Estefan and Sasha Estefan-Coppola, ‘The Estefan Family Christmas’One of Latin pop’s queens shares top billing with her 28-year-old daughter, Emily, and 10-year-old grandson, Sasha, on her second Christmas album (the first came out in 1992). A solo Emily shines — and sounds remarkably like her mother — on a poignant ballad she wrote herself, “When I Miss You Most,” though much of the record relies a bit too much on Sasha’s precocity. Delightfully, the LP finds the family sharing the spotlight and the occasional laugh, and even a surprise: A Spanish-language rendition of the Paul Williams tune “I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus” features the sweetly assured singing debut of Gloria’s husband, Emilio. ZOLADZClockwise from top left: holiday albums by Chris Isaak, Thomas Rhett, Lindsey Stirling and Regina Belle.Debbie Gibson, ‘Winterlicious’Debbie Gibson has been a fixture on Broadway far longer than she was atop the pop charts in the late ’80s, which explains why the songs on “Winterlicious,” her first holiday album, skew toward the sorts of tunes that connect plot points in a musical — fiercely restrained singing with heavy syllabic emphasis, a curious abundance of detail, a saccharine quality that feels like a Christmas cookie overdose. CARAMANICAVivian Green, ‘Spread the Love’Vivian Green and her co-producer, Kwame Holland, wrote four of the five songs on her EP “Spread the Love.” Togetherness (and absence) is on her mind in all of them. She’s eagerly anticipating it in the Motown-meets-reggae “Spread the Love (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza)” and in the hand-clapping, pointillistic “Everybody’s Gathered.” And she bemoans being separated — even by her own choices — in the torchy “Around the Tree” and in the tinkling march “No Holiday.” Whether she’s convivial or lonely, she’s always got eager backing vocals for company. PARELESChris Isaak, ‘Everybody Knows It’s Christmas’The holidays arrive with plenty of twang and reverb on Chris Isaak’s suavely retro “Everybody Knows It’s Christmas.” Isaak wrote most of the songs, offering a little comedy (“Almost Christmas,” about last-minute shopping, and “Help Me Baby Jesus,” about a plastic yard display) and some convincing lonely-guy melancholy (“Holiday Blues,” “Wrapping Presents for Myself” and “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”). The sound harks back to 1950s country and rockabilly, with Isaak’s voice echoing Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and, in a big-finish “O Holy Night,” Elvis Presley, completing a slyly poised period piece of an album. PARELESAlicia Keys, ‘Santa Baby’Alicia Keys brings her coziest voice to the largely secular songs on “Santa Baby.” Her delivery is high, breathy and playful, and she allows herself to show scratches and imperfections. The productions often tuck elaborate arrangements under a low-fi veneer, like her version of “The Christmas Song,” which begins as a piano-and-voice, mistakes-and-all version and suddenly sprouts strings and voices. The album touches on old-school soul — her gospelly, tear-spattered versions of “Please Be Home for Christmas” — as well as the willful eccentricity of “My Favorite Things,” which has modal-jazz piano chords, a wordless version of the Rodgers melody and spoken words about favorite things like “feeling so good, we drama-free.” Four songs of her own — including a reprise of “Not Even the King” from “Girl on Fire” — are about longing and affection, and she radiates fondness in “December Back 2 June” and “You Don’t Have to Be Alone.” Throughout the album, she invites loved ones closer. PARELESNelson, ‘A Nelson Family Christmas’The brothers Nelson approach “O Come All Ye Faithful” with a pair of billy clubs, beating upon each syllable as if playing a mirthless game of Whac-a-Mole. Not all of this holiday collection is so violent — it includes a handful of shimmery tracks from their elders, father Ricky and grandfather Ozzie; and also a soothing “This Christmas,” sung with Carnie and Wendy Wilson, Brian’s daughters. The Nelson brothers’ take on “Blue Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” are lightly comforting, but Lord, please protect “Away in a Manger” and “Mele Kelikimaka.” CARAMANICAThomas Rhett, ‘Merry Christmas, Y’all’The gentleman country kingpin Thomas Rhett is Nashville’s MVP of singing within the lines. And he might have gotten away with it on this EP, his first Christmas collection in a decade-plus career. But on “Winter Wonderland,” he’s nudged along by a horn section that’s more curious than he is. And if you detect a touch of ambition on “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” maybe it’s because the band simply will not stop rejoicing, so what’s he got to lose? CARAMANICALindsey Stirling, ‘Snow Waltz’A millennial violinist with spirited energy and a large YouTube following, the 36-year-old Lindsey Stirling builds on the strengths of her 2017 holiday record, “Warmer in the Winter,” with this lively new collection. The thumping electronic beats that accompany her arrangements of classics like “Sleigh Ride” and “Joy to the World” are tasteful enough to resist gimmickry, and originals that feature pop vocalists like Bonnie McKee and the “American Idol” alum David Archuleta are effectively cheery. The title track is also a new composition that turns Stirling’s instrument into an expressive vessel for wintry melodrama and childlike wonder. ZOLADZJoss Stone, ‘Merry Christmas, Love’Joss Stone reaches for old-school Hollywood luster and unblinking sincerity on “Merry Christmas, Love.” She deploys sleigh bell-topped orchestras and choirs in holiday standards (“Winter Wonderland,” “The Christmas Song,” “Away in a Manger”) along with the Motown perennial “What Christmas Means to Me” and a less familiar Irving Berlin Christmas song, “Snow.” Stone sings with clarity and earnest humility. When she does let loose her cutting high register on a new song of her own, “If You Believe,” it’s clear how carefully she was holding herself back. PARELES More

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    Best Songs of 2022

    Seventy-two tracks that identify, grapple with or simply dance away from the anxieties of yet another uncertain year.Jon Pareles’s Top 25Full disclosure: There can’t be a definitive list of best songs — only a sampling of what any one listener, no matter how determined, can find the time to hear in the course of a year. For discovery’s sake, my list rules out the (excellent) songs on my favorite albums of the year, and it’s designed more like a playlist than a countdown or a ranking. Feel free to switch to shuffle.1. Residente featuring Ibeyi, ‘This Is Not America’Backed by implacable Afro-Caribbean drumming and Ibeyi’s vocal harmonies, the Puerto Rican rapper Residente defines America as the entire hemisphere, while he furiously denounces historical and ongoing abuses.2. The Smile, ‘The Opposite’Thom Yorke of Radiohead — in a side project, the Smile — wonders, “What will become of us?” Prodded by a funky beat and pelted by staggered, syncopated guitar and bass notes, he can’t expect good news.3. Wilco, ‘Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull’With Wilco picking and strumming like a string band, Jeff Tweedy spins a free-associative fable about elemental forces of life and death, leading into a brief but probing jam that reunites country and psychedelia.4. Rema featuring Selena Gomez, ‘Calm Down’The crisply flirtatious “Calm Down,” by the Nigerian singer Rema, was already a major African hit when Selena Gomez added her voice for a remix. He’s confident, she’s inviting — at least for the moment — and the Afrobeats syncopation promises a good time.5. Emiliana Torrini and the Colorist Orchestra, ‘Right Here’A plinking Minimalist pulse and a deft chamber-pop arrangement carry the Icelandic songwriter Emiliana Torrini through fond thoughts of hard-won but durable domestic stability.Thom Yorke, left, and Jonny Greenwood of the Smile performing at Usher Hall in Edinburgh in June. The band also includes the drummer Tom Skinner.Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns, via Getty Images6. Lucrecia Dalt, ‘Atemporal’“Atemporal” (“Timeless”) is from “Ay!,” Lucrecia Dalt’s heady concept album about time, physicality and love. It’s a lurching bolero that dovetails lo-fi nostalgia with vaudeville horns and an electronically skewed sense of space.7. Burna Boy, ‘Last Last’The Nigerian superstar Burna Boy juggles regrets, justifications and resentments as he sings about a romance wrecked by career pressures, drawing nervous momentum out of a strumming, fluttering sample from Toni Braxton.8. Aldous Harding, ‘Lawn’The tone is airy: unassuming piano chords; a high, naïve voice; a singsong melody. But in one of Aldous Harding’s least cryptic lyrics, she is trying to put the best face on a confusing breakup.9. Madison Cunningham, ‘Our Rebellion’Madison Cunningham sings, wryly and fondly, about an opposites-attract relationship in a tricky, virtuosic tangle of guitar lines.10. Big Thief, ‘Simulation Swarm’Adrianne Lenker’s wispy voice belies the visionary ambition — and ambiguity — of her lyrics. So does the way the band, not always in tune, cycles through four understated folk-rock chords, swerving occasionally into a bridge. It’s a love song with a backdrop of war and transformation, delivered like a momentary glimpse into something much vaster.11. Margo Price, ‘Lydia’Somewhere between folk-rock plaint and short story, Margo Price sings about a pregnant woman at a clinic, with a hard-luck past and a tough decision to make.12. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’Cool, fast, precise and merciless, the Bronx rapper Ice Spice dispatches a hapless suitor by designating him as a new slang word: “munch.”13. Jamila Woods, ‘Boundaries’Mixing a suave bossa nova with a tapping, stubbornly resistant cross-rhythm, Jamila Woods neatly underlines the ambivalence she sings about, as she ponders just how close she wants someone to get.14. Stromae featuring Camila Cabello, ‘Mon Amour’The cheerful lilt of Stromae’s “Mon Amour” is camouflage for the increasingly threadbare rationalizations of a compulsive cheater; he gets his comeuppance when Camila Cabello asserts her own freedom to fool around.15. Giveon, ‘Lie Again’Giveon floats in a jealous limbo, hoping not to be exposed to hard truths. His voice is a baritone croon with an electronic penumbra, in a track that hints at old soul translated into ghostly electronics.16. Tyler ICU featuring Nkosazana Daughter, Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, ‘Inhliziyo’No fewer than three leading producers of amapiano, the patient, midtempo South African club style, collaborated on “Inhliziyo” (“Heart”), creating haunted open spaces for the South African singer and songwriter Nkosazana Daughter to quietly lament a heartbreak.The Nigerian star Burna Boy addresses the challenges of balancing a relationship with his growing career on “Last Last.”Ferdy Damman/EPA, via Shutterstock17. Tinashe, ‘Something Like a Heartbreak’Nothing feels entirely solid in this song: not Tinashe’s breathy vocals, not the beat that flickers in and out of the mix, not the hovering tones that only sketch the chords. But in the haze, she realizes, “You don’t deserve my love,” and she moves on.18. Jessie Reyez, ‘Mutual Friend’Revenge arrives with cool fury over elegant, vintage-soul strings as Jessie Reyez makes clear that someone is definitely not getting a second chance.19. 070 Shake, ‘Web’Danielle Balbuena — the songwriter and producer who records as 070 Shake — overdubbed herself as a full-scale choir in “Web,” a pandemic-era reaction to the gap between onscreen and physical interaction. She wants carnality in real time, insisting, “Let’s be here in person.”20. Holly Humberstone, ‘Can You Afford to Lose Me?’In an ultimatum carried by a stately crescendo of keyboards, Holly Humberstone reminds a partner who’s threatening to leave just how much she has already put up with.21. Brian Eno, ‘There Were Bells’“There Were Bells” contemplates the slow-motion cataclysm of global warming as an elegy and a warning, with edgeless, tolling sounds and a mournful melody as Brian Eno sings about the destruction no one will escape.22. Caroline Polachek, ‘Billions’Is it love or capitalism? Caroline Polachek sings with awe-struck sweetness — and touches of hyperpop processing — against an otherworldly backdrop that incorporates electronics, tabla drumming and string sections, at once intimate and abstract.23. Stormzy, ‘Firebabe’In a wedding-ready, hymnlike ballad, Stormzy sings modestly and adoringly about a love at first sight that he intends to last forever.24. Hagop Tchaparian, ‘Right to Riot’A blunt four-on-the-floor thump might just be the least aggressive part of “Right to Riot” from the British Armenian musician Hagop Tchaparian, which also brandishes traditional sounds — six-beat drumming and the snarl of the double-reed zurna — and zapping, woofer-rattling electronics as it builds.25. Oren Ambarchi, ‘I’The first section of an album-length piece, “Shebang,” by the composer Oren Ambarchi, is a consonant hailstorm of staccato guitar notes, picked and looped, manipulated and layered, emerging as melodies and rejoining the ever-more-convoluted mesh.Jon Caramanica’s Top 22There are plenty of ways to try out something new — fooling around with your friends, tossing off a casual but not careless experiment, disappearing so deeply into a feeling that you forget form altogether.1. GloRilla featuring Cardi B, ‘Tomorrow 2’Kay Flock featuring Cardi B, Dougie B and Bory300, ‘Shake It’It was a great year for the Cardi B booster plan. Like Drake before her, she is an attentive listener and a seven-figure trend forecaster, as captured in these two cousin-like feature appearances. “Shake It” is as credible a drill song as a non-drill performer has yet made — Cardi’s verse is pugnacious and tart. And “Tomorrow 2,” with its big BFF energy, helps continue construction of a new pathway for female allyship in hip-hop.2. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’Ice Spice is a gleefully patient rapper. On “Munch,” she pulls off a perfectly balanced tug of war between neg-heavy seduction and the affect of being utterly unbothered.3. Bailey Zimmerman, ‘Rock and a Hard Place’The trick of this catalog of a couple’s catastrophic collapse is that the arrangement never lets on that the circumstances are dire, but atop it, Bailey Zimmerman sings like he’s narrating a boxing match.4. Lil Yachty, ‘Poland’A non-song. A koan. A cry from beneath the ravenous eddies. A memory bubbling up from repression. A tractor beam. A stunt. A hopeful warble. A promise of infinite tomorrows.5. The Dare, ‘Girls’Epically silly and epically debauched, “Girls” marks a return(?) of quasi(?)-electroclash(?), but, more pointedly, is a reminder of the perennial power of lust, sweat and arch eroticism.Cardi B didn’t put out a lot of her own music in 2022, but she showed up in a savvy selection of features.Mario Anzuoni/Reuters6. Sadie Jean, ‘WYD Now? (10 Minute Version) [Open Verse Mashup]’The logical endpoint of the TikTok duet trend: one extended posse-cut version aggregating everyone’s labor into a lofi-beats-to-study-to forever loop. The wooden spoon provides.7. Lil Kee, ‘Catch a Murder’From his arresting debut mixtape “Letter 2 My Brother,” a caustic and bleak pledge of revenge from the Lil Baby affiliate Lil Kee, who sing-raps as if in a trance of menace.8. Cam’ron, Funk Flex #Freestyle171Another year, another casual calisthenics lesson from Cam’ron, the last avatar of the intricately economical style that dominated Harlem rap in the ’90s and remains staggering to observe.9. Yahritza y Su Esencia, ‘Soy El Unico’The first song Yahritza Martinez wrote — at age 13 — was “Soy El Unico,” a defiantly sad retort from a discarded partner to the discarder that pairs the groundedness of Mexican folk music with a vocal delivery inflected with hip-hop and R&B.10. Kate Gregson-MacLeod, ‘Complex (Demo)’This song began life as viral melancholy on TikTok, a brief portrait of someone stuck in the gravitational pull of a person who doesn’t deserve their care. The finished song is desolate but resilient, a hell of a plaint.11. NewJeans, ‘Cookie’Most striking about “Cookie,” the best song from the debut EP by the impressive young K-pop girl group NewJeans, is its ease — no maximalism, no theater. Simply a cheerful extended metaphor over an updated take on the club-oriented R&B of a couple of decades ago, finished off with a tasteful Jersey club breakdown.12. Jack Harlow featuring Drake, ‘Churchill Downs’The student befriends the teacher. Both drop out for a life of partying, followed by self-reflection, followed by more partying.13. Ethel Cain, ‘American Teenager’Midwest emo as refracted through Southeastern parchedness under a filter of radio pop-rock, delivering devastating sentiment about the emptiness of the American dream and the hopelessness of those subject to its whims.Ethel Cain turns a critical eye on the American dream with her debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter.”Irina Rozovsky for The New York Times14. Joji, ‘Glimpse of Us’You OK, bro?15. Delaney Bailey, ‘J’s Lullaby (Darlin’ I’d Wait for You)’One long ache about the one who’s slipping away: “Darlin’, I wish that you could give me some more time/To herd the whole sky in my arms/And release it when you’re mine.”16. Muni Long, ‘Another’Luscious, indignant, scolding.17. Romeo Santos featuring Rosalía, ‘El Pañuelo’Two traditionalists at heart, each feeling out the outer boundaries of their appetite for risk while still honoring what the other can’t quite do.18. Hitkidd featuring Aleza, Gloss Up, Slimeroni and K Carbon, ‘Shabooya’Roll-call rap that bridges the early ’80s to the early ’20s, with a cadre of Memphis women reveling in filth and sass.19. Kidd G featuring YNW BSlime, ‘Left Me’Lil Durk featuring Morgan Wallen, ‘Broadway Girls’What is hip-hop to country music these days? A source of vocal inspiration? A place for experimentation? Close kin? Safe harbor?20. Fireboy DML and Ed Sheeran, ‘Peru’The globe-dominating update of the Fireboy DML solo hit features bright seduction delivered with jaunty rhythm from Ed Sheeran.Lindsay Zoladz’s Top 25Anxiety abounds in this modern world, and music is one surefire way to process it — or maybe, for a few minutes at a time, to escape from it. The songs on this list consider both options.1. Hurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Life on Earth’Conventional wisdom tells us that life is short, time flies and there are never enough hours in the day. But Alynda Segarra takes the long view on this elegiac, piano-driven hymn: “Rivers and lakes/And floods and earthquakes/Life on Earth is long.” As it progresses at its own unhurried tempo, the song, remarkably, seems to slow down time, or at least zoom out until it becomes something geological rather than selfishly human-centric. The thick haze of climate grief certainly hangs over the track (“And though I might not meet you there, leaving it beyond repair”) but its lingering effect is one of generosity and spaciousness, inspiring a fresh appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things.2. The 1975, ‘Happiness’Matty Healy, the gregarious leader of the British pop group the 1975, is rarely at a loss for words, but on the supremely catchy “Happiness,” infatuation leaves him tongue-tied: “My, my, my, oh/My, my, my, you.” Ultimately, though, the song becomes an ode to giving oneself over to forces beyond control: like love, the unknown or maybe just the groove — particularly the loose, sparkling atmosphere the band taps into here.3. Beyoncé, ‘Alien Superstar’The moon is a disco ball and it orbits around Beyoncé on this commanding dance-floor banger, a studied but lived-in ode to ball culture and Afrofuturism. Like the rest of the remarkable “Renaissance,” the song’s focus flickers constantly from the individual to the collective, as Beyoncé’s braggadocious boasts of being No. 1, the only one, share space with her exhortations to find that unicorn energy within: “Unique, that’s what you are,” she intones regally, before a transcendent finale in which the song takes flight on a Funkadelic spaceship of its own making.4. Amanda Shires, ‘Take It Like a Man’The melody keeps ascending to nervy, dangerous heights, like a high-wire walk without a net: “I know the cost of flight is landing,” Amanda Shires sings on this imagistic torch song, trilling like some newly discovered species of bird. The title is playfully provocative, but it takes a twist in the song’s final lyric, when Shires proclaims, “I know I can take it like … Amanda” — a fitting finale for such a singular song of self.Amanda Shires makes a strong statement on “Take It Like a Man,” also the name of her latest album.Eric Ryan Anderson for The New York Times5. Taylor Swift, ‘Anti-Hero’Rejoice, you who have suffered through “Look What You Made Me Do,”“Me!” and even “Cardigan”: For the first time in nearly a decade, Taylor Swift has picked the correct lead single. “Anti-Hero” is one of the high points of Swift’s ongoing collaboration with the producer Jack Antonoff: The phrasing is chatty but not overstuffed, the synthesizers underline Swift’s emotions rather than obscuring them and the insecurities feel like genuine transmissions from Swift’s somnambulant psyche. Prospective daughters-in-law, you’ve been warned.6. Rosalía, ‘Despechá’Rosalía, smacking her gum, eyebrows raised, one hand on an exaggeratedly cocked hip: That’s the attitude, and this is its soundtrack. “Despechá” — abbreviated slang for spiteful — is a lighter-than-air, mambo-nodding dance-floor anthem, and an invitation to join the ranks of the Motomamis. As always, she makes pop perfection sound as easy as A-B-C.7. Pusha T, ‘Diet Coke’Pusha T, is, as ever, part rap-poet and part insult comic on the razor-sharp “Diet Coke,” bending language to his will and laughing his enemies right out of the V.I.P. room: “You ordered Diet Coke — that’s a joke, right?”8. Chloe Moriondo, ‘Fruity’“Fruity,” like the best hyperpop, is an anarchic affront to refinement and restraint, an ever-escalating blast of melodic delirium and warped excess. It’s a sugar rush, it’s brain-freeze-inducing, it’s recommended by zero out of 10 dentists. Turn it up loud.9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs featuring Perfume Genius, ‘Spitting off the Edge of the World’Yeah Yeah Yeahs grow elegantly into their role as art-rock elders here, not just by slowing to a tempo as confidently glacial as the Cure’s “Plainsong,” but by placing a spotlight on the existential dread of the next generation. “Mama, what have you done?” Karen O sings, channeling the voice of a frightened child. “I trace your steps in the darkness of one/Am I what’s left?”10. Grace Ives, ‘Lullaby’Grace Ives makes music of interiority, chronicling the liminal moments of her day when she’s by herself, daydreaming: “I hear the neighbors sing ‘Love Galore,’ I do a split on the kitchen floor,” goes the charming “Lullaby,” a passionately sung, welcoming invitation into her world.11. Weyes Blood, ‘It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody’The pandemic left many people isolated in their own heads, questioning their perceptions, feeling disconnected from a larger whole. The clarion-voiced Natalie Mering has written a soothing anthem for all those lost souls in the emotionally generous “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”; its title alone is an offering of solace and sanity.12. Florence + the Machine, ‘Free’A bass line buzzes like a live wire, snaking continuously through this exorcism of anxiety. “The feeling comes so fast, and I cannot control it,” Florence Welch wails as if possessed, but she eventually finds her catharsis in the music itself: “For a moment, when I’m dancing, I am free.”13. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’“I’m walking past him, he sniffing my breeze,” the rising star Ice Spice spits expeditiously on this unbothered anthem; before he can even process the insult, she’s gone.14. Drake, ‘Down Hill’A sparse palette from 40 — finger snaps, moody synth washes, light Afrobeats vibes — gives Drake plenty of room to explore his melancholy on this standout from the welcome left turn “Honestly, Nevermind.”15. Alex G, ‘Miracles’An aching, bittersweet meditation on the holiness of the everyday, and an expression of intimacy from one of indie rock’s most mysterious, and best, songwriters.16. Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Western Wind’The one-time “Call Me Maybe” ingénue shows off a breezier and more mature side, as impressionistic production from Rostam Batmanglij helps her conjure California sunshine.17. Mitski, ‘Stay Soft’“You stay soft, get eaten — only natural to harden up,” Mitski sings on this sleek but deceptively vulnerable pop song, as her voice, fittingly, oscillates between icy cool and wrenching ardor.Drake takes a refreshing swerve into dance music with the songs on “Honestly, Nevermind.”Prince Williams/Wireimage, via Getty Images18. Miranda Lambert, ‘Strange’Down is up and wrong is right in this topsy-turvy, tumbleweed-blown country rocker, on which a wizened Miranda Lambert sings like a woman who’s seen it all: “Pick a string, sing the blues, dance a hole in your shoes, do anything to keep you sane.”19. Plains, ‘Problem With It’Katie Crutchfield, better known as Waxahatchee, embraces her twang and her Alabama upbringing on this collaboration with the Texas-born singer-songwriter Jess Williamson; the result is a feisty, ’90s-nodding country-pop gem.20. Charli XCX, ‘Constant Repeat’“I’m cute and I’m rude with kinda rare attitude,” she boasts on the best song from her aerodynamic “Crash” — a top-tier lyric befitting some next-level Charli.21. Alvvays, ‘Belinda Says’As in Belinda Carlisle, whom the Alvvays frontwoman Molly Rankin addresses at the climactic moment of this blissfully moody song: “Heaven is a place on Earth, well so is hell.” Towering waves of shoegaze-y guitars accentuate her melancholy and give the song an emotional pull as elemental as a tide.22. Jessie Ware, ‘Free Yourself’A thumping, glittery one-off single from the British musician finds her continuing in the vein of her 2020 disco reinvention “What’s Your Pleasure?” and proving that she’s still finding fresh inspiration from that sound.23. Koffee, ‘Pull Up’The Jamaican upstart Koffee has a contagious positivity about her, and this reggae-pop earworm is an effortless encapsulation of her spirit.24. Anaïs Mitchell, ‘Little Big Girl’“No one ever told you it would be like this: You keep on getting older, but you feel just like a little kid,” the folk musician Anaïs Mitchell sings on this moving standout from her first solo album in a decade, which poignantly chronicles the emotions of a demographic drastically underexplored in popular music: women at midlife.25. The Weather Station, ‘Endless Time’“It’s only the end of an endless time,” Tamara Lindeman sings in a mirror-fogging exhale, eulogizing a whole host of things taken for granted — love, happiness, the inhabitability of Earth — expressing a fragile, and very human, disbelief that they won’t last forever. More

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    Joe Tarsia, an Architect of the Sound of Philadelphia, Dies at 88

    His work as an engineer at Sigma Sound Studios left a sonic stamp on R&B hits by the O’Jays, the Delfonics, the Stylistics and many others.Joe Tarsia, the recording engineer and studio operator who was among the architects of the lush, fervent blend of soul, disco and funk known as the Sound of Philadelphia, died on Nov. 1 in Lancaster, Pa. He was 88.His death, at a retirement community, was confirmed by a friend, the video producer Steve Garrin, who did not cite a cause.At Sigma Sound Studios, the recording hub he established in 1968, Mr. Tarsia worked with the producers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell on blockbuster hits by Philadelphia soul luminaries like the O’Jays and the Delfonics. Known for his precision at the mixing board and his imaginative use of echo and other ambient effects, Mr. Tarsia was the engineer on scores of gold and platinum recordings.“We were lucky to be recording at Sigma Sound with Joe Tarsia,” Mr. Gamble said in a 2008 interview with Crawdaddy magazine. “He was a great engineer and got a clean, clear sound from every instrument.“If you record the music right, it’s easier to mix, and, as an engineer he was the best,” Mr. Gamble added. “He knew what he wanted and kept us moving at the speed of thought.”In the early 1970s alone Mr. Tarsia captured the sound of dozens of acknowledged Philadelphia soul classics, including the Stylistics’ “Betcha by Golly, Wow,” the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.”“TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” a proto-disco workout by MFSB, the Sigma Sound house band (the initials stood for Mother Father Sister Brother), became the theme song for the long-running television show “Soul Train.” “TSOP” was among Mr. Tarsia’s collaborations with Gamble and Huff that topped both the R&B and pop charts, as were the O’Jays’ “Love Train” and Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones.”Mr. Tarsia was known to refer to the sumptuous strings, syncopated rhythms and gospel-bred call and response of the Philadelphia sound as “Black music in a tuxedo” — an aesthetic he in no small way shaped through the richness and clarity he lent to so many recordings.“If I made a contribution, it was that Philadelphia had a unique sound,” Mr. Tarsia told The Philadelphia Inquirer in an interview commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sigma Sound in 2018. “You could tell a record that came from Philly if you heard it on the radio.”Several years before opening Sigma Sound, Mr. Tarsia established himself as an audio engineer at Cameo-Parkway, one of the leading independent record companies of the early 1960s.The Cameo and Parkway labels were important sources of music and talent for “American Bandstand,” Dick Clark’s nationally televised dance show. “Bandstand” was based in Philadelphia, and local artists like Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker, who recorded for Cameo-Parkway, received exposure they might not have gotten had the show been produced elsewhere.Mr. Tarsia, who became the chief engineer at Cameo-Parkway in 1962, attributed his early success there to Mr. Clark’s support.“He’s the reason I’m in the business,” he was quoted as saying of Mr. Clark in the book “Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios” (2003), by Jim Cogan and William Clark.“He was an approachable guy. If you went up to him and said, ‘I have a record,’ and he played it, it was worth a thousand promotion guys, because it was heard all over the country.”Mr. Tarsia in 1980. He was known to refer to the sumptuous strings, syncopated rhythms and gospel-bred call and response of the Philadelphia sound as “Black music in a tuxedo.” — an aesthetic he in no small way shaped.Arthur StoppeJoseph Dominick Tarsia was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 23, 1934. He was the younger of two sons of Joseph and Rose (Gallo) Tarsia. His father was a tailor, his mother a homemaker.After graduating from Edward W. Bok Technical High School in South Philadelphia, Mr. Tarsia took technical courses elsewhere before being hired at the electronics company Philco. He was later a service technician for local recording studios, work that led to his decision to pursue a career in music.“I was always moonlighting at something,” he was quoted as saying in “Temples of Sound.” “I was fixing TV sets, and one day this guy says, ‘Can you fix a tape recorder?’ and I said, ‘Sure!’ It turned out that tape recorder was in a recording studio, and I never left.”Mr. Tarsia had been at Cameo-Parkway for just a few years when “American Bandstand” moved to Los Angeles in early 1964, effectively ending the company’s tenure as a pipeline for the show’s music.The Beatles’ first tour of the United States that year only compounded matters, as Cameo-Parkway’s teenage-oriented pop gave way to British invasion rock ’n’ roll and eventually the psychedelia of the counterculture.Meanwhile, Mr. Tarsia met and befriended Mr. Gamble, who as an aspiring songwriter would drop by Cameo-Parkway to shop his songs. He was eventually the engineer for several early recordings produced by the Gamble-Huff team, most notably “Expressway to Your Heart, a Top 10 R&B and pop hit for the blue-eyed soul group the Soul Survivors in 1967.Later that year, convinced that his future lay with the soul music of emerging vocal groups like the Intruders and the Delfonics, Mr. Tarsia borrowed against his home and used his savings to lease studio space in Philadelphia’s Center City. Naming it after the Greek letter he saw on a place mat in a Greek restaurant, he opened Sigma Sound the next August. Success quickly followed with hits produced by Mr. Gamble and Mr. Huff like Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive.”Established artists like Wilson Pickett and Dusty Springfield soon began traveling to Mr. Tarsia’s studios to record. In 1971, CBS Records offered Mr. Gamble and Mr. Huff, by then regular clients at Sigma Sound, a major distribution deal. That led to the founding of Philadelphia International Records, which became home to many of the acts associated with the Sound of Philadelphia.By the mid-1970s the likes of Stevie Wonder, David Bowie and the Jacksons were booking sessions at Sigma Sound as well. Seizing the moment, Mr. Tarsia opened Sigma Sound of New York, a trio of studios that, in the late ’70s and ’80s, hosted sessions by Madonna, Whitney Houston, Steely Dan and others.In 1990, Mr. Tarsia’s son, Michael, who died last year, became the president of Sigma Sound. Mr. Tarsia eased into retirement, increasingly spending his time lecturing and supporting educational programs like Grammy in the Schools. In 2003, 15 years after Sigma Sound of New York was closed, he and his son sold their original Philadelphia studios.Mr. Tarsia was a founder of the Society of Professional Audio Recording Services and a trustee of the Recording Academy. He was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2016.He is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Cecelia (Giarrizzo) Tarsia; a daughter, Lorraine Rawle; and three grandchildren.Mr. Tarsia was proud of the stamp he put on music in the 1960s and ’70s.“In those days, before the computer,” ” he recalled to The Philadelphia Inquirer, “records had personalities. There was the Motown sound. The Memphis sound. The Muscle Shoals sound. And there was the Sigma sound.” More

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    Shakira and Ozuna’s ‘Monotonía,’ and 7 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Caroline Polachek, John Cale featuring Weyes Blood, iLe 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.Shakira and Ozuna, ‘Monotonía’Here’s a rarity: a no-fault breakup song. Well, not entirely. “It wasn’t your fault, nor was it mine,” Shakira offers at the start. “It was the fault of the monotony.” Shakira, from Colombia, meets Ozuna, who was born in Puerto Rico to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother, closer to his musical territory: a Dominican bachata, with staccato guitar arpeggios and flurries of bongos. As they trade verses, accusations emerge: he was a narcissist, she was distant, what was incredible turned routine. Bachata puts heartbreak at a distance by placing it within a neatly syncopated grid; both Shakira and Ozuna sing like they’ll get over it. JON PARELESCaroline Polachek, ‘Sunset’Flamenco might seem an odd sound for the avant-garde pop star Caroline Polachek to embrace — Rosalía’s influence, perhaps? — but her ever-gleaming vocals dance nimbly enough across “Sunset” to make the whole thing work. “These days I wear my body like an uninvited guest,” she sings on the verse, her fleet-footed verbosity conveying a sense of itchy anxiety. But that’s all resolved by the chorus, when Polachek’s vocal pacing suddenly slows, comforted by a romantic embrace: “He said, no regrets, ’cause you’re my sunset.” LINDSAY ZOLADZJohn Cale featuring Weyes Blood, ‘Story of Blood’The legendary John Cale — whose crucial contributions to the development of the Velvet Underground’s sound Todd Haynes refreshingly reasserted last year in his documentary about the band — has long been a generous collaborator with younger artists at this later stage in his career. His forthcoming album “Mercy,” his first collection of new songs in a decade, continues that pattern, featuring contributions from Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso and Laurel Halo. The haunting “Story of Blood,” the first offering from “Mercy,” features bewitching vocals from the indie luminary Natalie Mering, who records as Weyes Blood. Across a patiently paced seven-minute reverie of synth chords and skittish electronic beats, their voices entwine balletically, as if locked in some kind of otherworldly dance. ZOLADZNxWorries featuring H.E.R., ‘Where I Go’Anderson .Paak brings the plush nostalgia of Silk Sonic, his Grammy-winning alliance with Bruno Mars, back to an earlier collaboration: Nxworries, his project with the producer Knxledge, which released an album in 2016. In “Where I Go,” Anderson .Paak professes love, generosity and regrets for past affairs. But H.E.R. sings about lingering suspicions and, in the video, finds solid evidence; neither his blandishments nor the purr of an electric sitar can smooth things over. PARELESKelela, ‘Happy Ending’After a long absence, Kelela wafted back into public earshot with the abstract “Washed Away.” Now, she embraces the beat with telling ambivalence in “Happy Ending.” A double time breakbeat churns far below a vocal that starts out barely paying attention to the underlying propulsion. But as Kelela finds herself in a club and spots her ex, she latches onto the beat: “I won’t chase you but it’s not over,” she sings. “If you don’t run away, could be a happy ending after all.” Then they’re dancing together, and intertwined in a kiss. But the beat falls away, and the song leaves the situation entirely in suspense. PARELESiLe, ‘(Escapándome) de Mí’Romance is often toxic in the songs on “Nacarile,” the new album by the Puerto Rican songwriter iLe. “Everything beautiful about you scares me,” she sings in “(Escapándome) de Mí” (“Escaping Myself”). “It scares me because I like it.” As the track builds around her, from a lone plucked guitar to an electronic citadel, she recognizes her own vulnerability, ponders it and takes the leap anyway. PARELESOkay Kaya, ‘Inside of a Plum’The serene drift of “Inside of a Plum,” from Norwegian American indie artist Okay Kaya’s forthcoming album “SAP,” was inspired by doctor-administered ketamine therapy, which is sometimes used to treat depression. That might sound heavy, but Kaya Wilkins’s characteristically wry approach gives the song an alluring weightlessness and even a sense of humor. There’s an amusing mundanity to the way she describes the procedure (“in a building. in an office, in a chair under a weighted blanket”) and then a vivid psychedelia once her trip begins. Amid floating strings, Wilkins murmurs the song’s indelibly descriptive hook: “Now I’m scuba diving in space.” ZOLADZHagop Tchaparian, ‘Right to Riot’Hagop Tchaparian is a British-Armenian musician whose tastes have led him from playing guitar in the grungy 1990s band Symposium to the electronic music on his new album, “Bolts.” Through the years, Tchaparian has also gathered recordings of performances — live and in video clips — of Armenian and Middle Eastern music and gatherings. The first sounds that leap out of “Right to Riot” are traditional: an aggressive six-beat drum pattern and the nasal, biting snarl of what Armenians call the zurna, a double-reed instrument used under various names across the Balkans, the Middle East, northern Africa and western Asia. Programmed beats, synthesizer swoops, bass drones and layers of percussion only make the track bristle more intensely. PARELES More

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    Did Crush Snub Black Fans at a Concert in South Korea?

    The singer Crush apologized for a “misunderstanding” after the exchange, which highlights what experts call K-pop’s uneasy relationship with Black culture.It happens so fast in the videos that you need to rewatch them to notice: As Crush, a South Korean R&B singer, high-fives fans during a recent performance, he avoids an area where some Black concertgoers have extended their hands.A fan on Twitter called the episode, at a music festival in Seoul this month, an act of discrimination. When others piled on, some of Crush’s supporters pushed back, saying that videos showed him skipping other parts of the packed audience and warning fans about overcrowding.Crush apologized last week for what he called a “misunderstanding,” telling his 2.7 million Instagram followers that he had avoided high-fiving some fans out of concern for their safety. He also told The New York Times that he loved and respected Black culture and had not meant to offend anyone.“I would never intentionally act in a way that would disrespect nor offend any individual,” he said.The debate over the episode has called attention to what experts call an old problem: the K-pop industry’s struggle to develop the level of cultural sensitivity that fans in the United States and elsewhere expect.The criticism also highlights resentment that has built up for years among many Black fans who feel that K-pop acts adopt their culture but do not respect them, just as earlier generations of white musicians appropriated Black music and reaped the riches.“There are Black fans who love K-pop so much,” said CedarBough T. Saeji, an expert on the K-pop industry at Pusan National University in South Korea. “But they also do have a bone to pick with the way that their fandom has been ignored, and the way that their concerns about things like cultural appropriation have also been ignored.”The Big PictureCrush, 30, whose real name is Shin Hyo-seob, is an A-list K-pop star at a time when South Korea’s cultural exports are winning legions of new fans abroad. As the K-pop industry becomes increasingly international, more of its lyrics are being written in English, and agencies that promote K-pop acts are opening offices abroad.Crush’s record label, P Nation, was founded in 2018 by the singer Psy, whose breakout 2012 hit, “Gangnam Style,” helped K-pop carve out an international profile.The label’s chief executive, Lionel Kim, said it had always tried aggressively to scrutinize its artists’ content for cultural sensitivity.“We want to reach as many fans as we can around the world,” Kim said in an interview. “We’re extremely cautious to ensure that our artists and music videos do not disrespect any ethnicity or culture.”The K-pop group Exo performing at the Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018.Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto AgencyBut gaps in awareness have been frequent in South Korea, an ethnically homogeneous society that has generally been slow to welcome other cultures at home.“Some people don’t even know what counts as racist or not — and that includes artists,” said Gyu Tag Lee, a professor of cultural studies at George Mason University’s South Korea campus.Members of Exo, a boy band in Seoul, have been accused of making racist remarks during a live broadcast in which they applied makeup that resembled blackface. And last year, the Korean American rapper Jay Park removed the music video for his song “DNA Remix” after fans noted that some of the performers, who were not Black, wore hairstyles that included Afros, braids and dreadlocks.A Rising StarCrush has explored R&B, hip-hop, soul, jazz and other genres in his decade-long career. He began writing rap lyrics in middle school and listened to Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, James Ingram and other Black musicians in high school, he has told the South Korean news media. In 2018, he released a song that paid homage to Stevie Wonder.Last month, Crush released “Rush Hour,” a hit single with the rapper J-Hope of BTS. The lyrics are a mix of English and Korean, the style riffs on funk and hip-hop, and the music video was filmed on a New York City-inspired set.But frustration toward Crush has been building among Black K-pop fans since 2016, when he performed on a Korean television show wearing a mask with dark skin, big lips and frizzy hair — and did not apologize after the backlash that followed.Some fans were also disappointed when Crush removed an Instagram post two years ago about his donation to a George Floyd memorial fund in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Crush’s label, P Nation, told The Times last week that Crush had archived that post, along with dozens of others that were not related to music, later that year. The FalloutAfter the high-fiving episode at the 2022 Someday Pleroma festival this month, some Crush allies seemed to backtrack on their initial support.J-Hope “liked” Crush’s apology on Instagram. Devin Morrison, a Black singer in Los Angeles who has also collaborated with Crush, wrote on Twitter that he had been astounded to see criticism of “an artist who has treated me and my (Black) friends with nothing but respect and kindness.”But J-Hope’s like and Morrison’s tweet later disappeared. Neither artist responded to requests for comment.Some Black fans took a nuanced view of the episode, saying that they were frustrated less with Crush than with the culture of racial bias that they feel pervades the K-pop industry.Videos of Crush “skipping over the Black fans seemed unlike him, but it didn’t seem like it was unlike K-pop,” said Akeyla Vincent, 32, an African American public-school teacher in South Korea. Melissa Limenyande, 29, a Black South African who also teaches in South Korea, said she believed Crush’s explanation that he had acted out of concern for fans’ safety.At the same time, she said, she has struggled to reconcile her enjoyment of K-pop with what she sees as its creators’ insensitivity toward other cultures.“I like these artists so much and I love their music and their personalities,” she said. “But if I can take my time to learn about their culture or where they come from, why can’t they do the same?” More

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    Bad Bunny and Steve Lacy Spend Another Week Atop the Charts

    “Un Verano Sin Ti” and “Bad Habit” remain Billboard’s No. 1 album and song in the United States.The champions on Billboard magazine’s two most important music charts remain unchanged this week, with Bad Bunny holding the No. 1 album position and Steve Lacy the No. 1 single.“Un Verano Sin Ti,” the streaming juggernaut by the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny — a.k.a. Benito Martínez — logs its 13th time as the top album, with the equivalent of 84,000 sales in the United States, including 116 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since it came out 22 weeks ago, Bad Bunny’s album, an international blockbuster, has racked up 3.6 billion streams in the United States alone and bounced in and out of Billboard’s top spot, never dipping lower than No. 2.“Un Verano” now ties Drake’s “Views” (2016) and Disney’s “Frozen” soundtrack (2013) for the longest stays in the chart’s penthouse in a decade, since Adele’s “21” (remember “Someone Like You”?) notched 24 weeks at No. 1 back in 2011 and 2012.Lacy’s song “Bad Habit,” which since midsummer has been inescapable on streaming services — and in TikTok memes — is No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart for a second week, with 20.6 million streams and 41.5 million “audience impressions” from radio play, according to Luminate.Back on the album chart, Slipknot, the Iowa metal band that has been dressing up in Halloween-like masks — and selling millions of records — for more than two decades, reaches No. 2 with “The End, So Far,” the group’s seventh studio LP. It had the equivalent of 59,000 sales, including 11 million streams and 50,500 copies sold as a complete package.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” holds at No. 3, the Weeknd’s hits compilation “The Highlights” is No. 4 and Harry Styles’s “Harry’s House” is No. 5.“Dangerous,” released at the beginning of 2021, has now spent 90 weeks in the Top 10, matching “South Pacific” — the soundtrack to a 1958 film whose songs go back to a 1949 Broadway production. In the 66-year history of the Billboard 200, the magazine’s flagship album chart, only five other releases have logged more weeks in the Top 10, all soundtracks and cast albums from the 1950s and ’60s. More