Rodrigo, Olivia (2003- )

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      At the White House, Olivia Rodrigo Says Vaccines Are ‘Good 4 U’

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      The pop star with the No. 1 album in the country joined the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage the young and unvaccinated to get their shots.WASHINGTON — Nixon and Elvis. Trump and Kanye. Biden and Olivia.On Wednesday, Olivia Rodrigo, the 18-year-old pop star with the No. 1 album in the country, visited the White House and joined the Biden administration’s efforts to use the young and influential to reach the young and unvaccinated.“It’s important to have conversations with friends and family members,” Ms. Rodrigo said, reading from prepared remarks during a short appearance in the White House briefing room, “and actually get to a vaccination site, which you can do more easily than ever before.”The White House could not have scripted it better. (In fact, White House officials helped her craft her remarks, according to an administration official.) The “Good 4 U” singer has millions of followers on social media who hang on her every word, and she is part of a growing list of creators, celebrities and influential people who are interested in working with the White House to deliver a pro-vaccine message directly to their respective communities.Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy, has been organizing an effort to reach out to people like Ms. Rodrigo and invite them to Washington to create content. The plans for bringing her to the White House, Mr. Flaherty said in an interview, began in June. After she arrived, Ms. Rodrigo wandered the halls of the West Wing with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, stopping by desks and chatting with officials before it was time to film a series of educational videos with President Biden.“Not every 18-year-old uses their time to come do this,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said from the lectern.Administration officials are hoping the time investment pays off. In recent weeks, as the federal strategy has shifted to more personalized efforts to reach unvaccinated people, the White House has recruited YouTube stars, social media influencers and celebrities who can send the messaging to their own channels. It has also highlighted efforts by popular dating apps to encourage young singles to promote their vaccination status.Ms. Rodrigo has millions of followers on social media who hang on her every word.Evan Vucci/Associated PressHealthy young adults are historically hard to reach, and the White House has been upfront about the difficulties that officials have faced in persuading those groups to receive a vaccine. Hesitancy can result from a mix of inertia, fear, busy schedules and misinformation.At times, the young stars who have met with Mr. Biden have gone on to directly address those concerns with their followers. In a video titled “I COLLABED WITH PRESIDENT BIDEN! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” after he interviewed the president in May, Manny MUA, a YouTube star and makeup artist, told his four million followers that he had enjoyed the experience but that getting vaccinated was still a personal choice.“You can do whatever you guys want,” he said in the video, “but I am pro-vaccine.”Mr. Biden’s aides say he is open to taking questions from YouTubers and welcoming celebrities to the White House if it might help sway the unconvinced.“There’s only so much we as a White House can do to stop misinformation,” Mr. Flaherty said. “What we can do is go on offense. That underscores exactly why this work is so important.”Young people under the age of 27 are vaccinated at a lower rate than older people, according to the White House, and they were part of the reason the administration said it fell short of Mr. Biden’s goal of partly vaccinating 70 percent of adults by July 4. Younger people became eligible for immunization later in the vaccine rollout, after other high-priority risk groups, and children aged 12 to 15 became eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine only in mid-May.Across the country overall, providers were administering about 0.55 million doses per day on average, as of Wednesday, about an 84 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported on April 13.The White House still faces significant challenges in reaching reluctant Americans, particularly in states where officials say they face pressure against evangelizing for a vaccine.After Ms. Rodrigo left the podium, Ms. Psaki was asked about Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and Tennessee’s top vaccination official, who said she was fired from her job after distributing a memo that suggested that some teenagers might be eligible for vaccinations without their parents’ consent. The memo repeated information that has been publicly available on the state Health Department’s website for years.“We continue to see young people hit by the virus,” Ms. Psaki said, “and we’ve been crystal clear that we stand against any effort that would politicize our country’s pandemic response and recovery from Covid-19.” More

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      Olivia Rodrigo Holds at No. 1 With ‘Sour’

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      The singer-songwriter’s debut album has now spent three weeks in the Billboard 200’s peak position.This week on the music charts, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” returns as the No. 1 album, while BTS’s song “Butter” closes in on her record for the year’s longest-running top single.“Sour,” which came out in May, rises two spots this week to claim its third time at No. 1, with the equivalent of 88,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. It is only the second LP of 2021 to spend at least three times in the top spot, after a 10-week run by Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album.” (Taylor Swift’s “Evermore,” which came out in December, had three weeks at the top through early January.)For Rodrigo, the chart success comes after news emerged last week that songwriting credits for one of her singles, “Deja Vu,” were quietly changed. In addition to Rodrigo and her co-writer, Dan Nigro, the credits for that song now include Swift and two writers of her 2019 song “Cruel Summer,” Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent. None has commented on the change, but in interviews Rodrigo has mentioned “Cruel Summer” as an influence.The K-pop juggernaut BTS tops Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart this week for a seventh time with “Butter.” So far this year, Rodrigo has the longest run at the peak with “Drivers License,” which was No. 1 for eight weeks.Also on this week’s album chart, Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” holds at No. 2, Lil Baby and Lil Durk’s “The Voice of the Heroes” is No. 3 and Wallen’s “Dangerous” is No. 4. The Chicago rapper G Herbo’s new “25” opens at No. 5 with the equivalent of 46,000 sales, including 61 million streams. 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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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Breakthrough

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      For the past few years, there’s been something of a pop star vacuum — or at least, a pop-music star vacuum. By and large, performers making centrist, big-tent pop music have been relegated to the sidelines as hip-hop — and other genres borrowing heavily from it — took center stage.But Olivia Rodrigo, a Disney child star wielding a bad breakup and a tart voice, has made pop primal, and primary, again. “Sour,” her first album, just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with the biggest sales week of the year.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Rodrigo’s meteoric year so far, the long arc of the mainstreaming of emo and the quickening of the maturing of Disney idols.Guests:Olivia Horn, who writes about music for Pitchfork, The New York Times and othersLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Scores the Biggest Debut of the Year

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      The teen pop phenomenon’s first album opened with the equivalent of 295,000 sales in the United States, including the second-best streaming total of 2021 so far.A year ago, the name Olivia Rodrigo barely registered in the music business. Back then, she was a teenage Disney actress who had moderate success contributing to the soundtrack of her show “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.”What a difference a year makes — or even just five months, since her song “Drivers License” exploded in January.Rodrigo, 18, is now a pop superstar with two No. 1 singles and a blockbuster No. 1 album — a social-media phenomenon following in the footsteps of her idol Taylor Swift, who performs at major awards shows and speaks confidently about her lineage as a songwriter. The Grammy buzz is brewing. (She’s already playing the celebrity-swag-box game.)Rodrigo’s debut album, “Sour,” opens at the top of the latest Billboard chart with the equivalent of 295,000 sales in the United States, the biggest opening so far this year, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That total includes 301 million streams, the second-best streaming number for any album this year, behind J. Cole’s “The Off-Season,” which topped last week’s chart. “Sour” is also No. 1 in Britain, Canada, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere around the world, according to Rodrigo’s label, Geffen.In an era when new albums are typically stuffed with content to maximize their streaming yield, Rodrigo’s and Cole’s albums are unusual: “Sour” has just 11 tracks, and “The Off-Season” 12. By comparison, Morgan Wallen’s country blockbuster “Dangerous: The Double Album” has 30 songs in its standard edition, and it opened with 240 million clicks in January.Among the other chart factoids for “Sour”: Rodrigo is only the second artist named Olivia to score a No. 1 album in the six-decade history of the Billboard 200, after two in the 1970s by Olivia Newton-John — “If You Love Me, Let Me Know” (1974) and “Have You Never Been Mellow” (1975).Cole’s “The Off-Season” falls to No. 2 in its second week out, while “Scaled and Icy,” the new album by the alt-pop duo Twenty One Pilots, opens at No. 3 with the equivalent of 75,000 sales, including 33 million streams. Wallen’s “Dangerous,” still a steady hit after 20 weeks, holds at No. 4, and the Memphis rapper Moneybagg Yo is in fifth place with “A Gangsta’s Pain.” More

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      ‘The Off-Season’ Is J. Cole’s Sixth Straight No. 1 Album

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      The rapper’s latest LP opens with the year’s biggest streaming total, and Olivia Rodrigo, projected to top the album chart next week, has the No. 1 song.Two big new hits top the Billboard charts this week: J. Cole’s “The Off-Season” is the No. 1 album, with the year’s most robust streaming number so far, while Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U” is the top single.“The Off-Season” had the equivalent of 282,000 sales in the United States last week, according to MRC Data. That is the second-best opening of the year, after Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” which had 291,000 a month ago. But “The Off-Season” — a nod to Cole’s second career as a basketball player with the Rwanda-based Patriots, part of the new Basketball Africa League —  had by far the biggest streaming number of the year, with 325 million clicks. That beat the 240 million opening for Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” in January, and was the highest for any album since Juice WRLD’s posthumous “Legends Never Die,” which had 423 million in July 2020.In addition to its streams, “The Off-Season” sold 37,000 copies as a complete package. It is J. Cole’s sixth studio album, each of which has gone to No. 1.Also this week, a reissue of Nicki Minaj’s 12-year-old mixtape “Beam Me Up Scotty” — she has not released a new album in three years — opens at No. 2 with the equivalent of 80,000 sales, including 86 million streams.Moneybagg Yo’s “A Gangsta’s Pain,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 3, and Wallen’s “Dangerous” is No. 4. Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” is No. 5. The Black Keys’ new “Delta Kream” opens at No. 6.Rodrigo’s song “Good 4 U” reaches the top of the singles chart just as her debut album, “Sour,” looks like a safe bet for the peak position on next week’s chart. Her debut single, “Drivers License,” held No. 1 for eight weeks earlier this year. More

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      Review: Olivia Rodrigo's 'Sour' Album Is a Critic's Pick

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      On her excellent debut album, “Sour,” the 18-year-old singer and actress expresses just how challenging it is to arrive at who you are.For the last few months, Olivia Rodrigo has been chiseling out a story about young love turned sour. Between the undulating ballad “Drivers License” — her huge debut single, which opened at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for eight weeks — and the wistfully aggrieved (and perhaps even better) “Deja Vu,” she’s nailed the agony of collapse, and the anxiety of watching your old partner rebuild. It’s a phenomenon as awful as it is familiar.Like those songs, “Enough for You” — from her nuanced and often exceptional debut album, “Sour” — seems like it’s about the contest between the narrator and the woman who replaced her in her ex’s eyes and arms. But really it’s about a different sort of competition: the one between the versions of the self we cycle through, depending on who’s around.Rodrigo starts off with a rearview confession: “I wore makeup when we dated ’cause I thought you’d like me more/if I looked like the other prom queens I know that you loved before.” From there, the song plays like an elegy for a persona that no longer fits, Rodrigo singing with a quaver over a steady but reluctant acoustic guitar. “I don’t want your sympathy,” she concludes. “I just want myself back.”On “Sour,” which deploys sweet pop and tart punk equally well, Rodrigo’s real study is of the unsteady self, the way in which people — young people, especially, but by no means exclusively — contort themselves into the shapes laid out before them. It is about the wages of being clay, not the mold.For Rodrigo, 18, who’s been playing alternate versions of herself in public at least as far back as the first season of the Disney Channel’s “Bizaardvark,” in 2016, it is a natural subject. She is an optimal pop star for the era of personalities, subpersonalities and metapersonalities; of finstas and spams; of trying on new identities and discarding as you go. “Sour” is an album about accepting alternate endings, and embracing who you become when you have to hot swap one idea about yourself for another all while keeping up a smile, or a career, or several.Rodrigo has had to do all of this under an unusually sudden and intense spotlight. Even though she’s been a Disney mainstay for years, most recently as Nini Salazar-Roberts, the coming-into-herself female lead on “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” the success of “Drivers License” has occasioned exponential growth, and a juggling of Rodrigo’s many selves. In addition to the true and immutable inner personality, there is Rodrigo the musical performer, and Rodrigo the public spectacle, a subject of increasing tabloid interest. Then there is Rodrigo as Nini, and Rodrigo as Nini as Gabriella (the “High School Musical” character she plays in the musical within the show). Each of these has a distinct narrative. Each comprises a part of how Rodrigo navigates — and is seen by — the world.This is now the stuff of everyone, though — on social media, teenagers often have multiple accounts, playing different versions of themselves for different sets of people. To constantly modulate one’s identity is the norm; the idea of the fully-centered and fixed self might be done for good.On “Sour,” Rodrigo is working through this evolution in real time. On “Drivers License,” she’s still unsteady about who she might become. “Today I drove through the suburbs/and pictured I was driving home to you,” she sings, not quite able to let go. On “Deja Vu” — and especially in its video, which features Rodrigo spying on her doppelgänger replacement — Rodrigo is frantic with stress about how her ex’s new relationship parallels their own: “When you gonna tell her that we did that too?” And by the end of the song, she begins to succumb to the idea that perhaps her experience wasn’t so original to begin with: “I hate to think that I was just your type.”Her paramours are playing these sorts of games, too. “Which lover will I get today?/Will you walk me to the door or send me home crying?” she sighs over the dampened piano of “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” And it’s on “Drivers License” where that realization fully crystallizes: “Guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me,” she gasps. There are few colder jolts than learning someone you loved was simply playing a role.Rodrigo’s juggle is also embedded in her musical choices on “Sour,” which is written almost wholly by Rodrigo and produced almost wholly by Dan Nigro, formerly of the band As Tall as Lions (who also contributed songwriting). She plants a flag for the divided self right at the top of the album, on the spectacular “Brutal,” which begins with a few seconds of sober strings before she declares, “I want it to be, like, messy,” which it then becomes. That tug of war persists throughout the album: more polished songs like the singles and the rousing, Paramore-esque “Good 4 U” jostling with rawer ones like “Enough for You” and “Jealousy, Jealousy.”“Traitor,” one of the album’s highlights, is a stark song masquerading as a bombastic one. “I kept quiet so I could keep you,” Rodrigo confesses, before arriving at an elegant way of understanding, if not quite accepting, how someone who loved you has moved on: “Guess you didn’t cheat/but you’re still a traitor.”That songwriting flourish is emblematic of what Rodrigo has learned from Taylor Swift on this album (which, in shorthand, is Swift’s debut refracted through “Red”): nailing the precise language for an imprecise, complex emotional situation; and working through private stories in public fashion. There is residue of Swift throughout “Sour” — whether the way that “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” interpolates “New Year’s Day,” or the “Cruel Summer”-esque chants on “Deja Vu.”But really, Swift persists in the lens, which is relentlessly internal — Rodrigo only breaks out of it in a couple of places on the album, like on “Jealousy, Jealousy,” where she pulls back to assess the self-image damage that social media inflicts (“I wanna be you so bad, and I don’t even know you/All I see is what I should be”) and on the final track, “Hope Ur OK,” a melancholy turn that’s thoughtfully compassionate, but thematically out of step with the rest of the album.On the first season of “HSMTMTS,” Rodrigo had a safe platform to play out her creative development as Nini. (Nini’s lament “All I Want” could have been a trial balloon for a solo Rodrigo career.) At the end of those episodes, which aired in late 2019 and early 2020, Nini aced the role in the school musical and finally settled into a relationship with her longtime friend Ricky (Joshua Bassett). (Rodrigo’s early singles were dissected for signs pointing to her rumored real-life relationship with Bassett, another conflation of selves.)“HSMTMTS,” which is partly framed as a mockumentary, is a charmingly winking exploration of teenage metamorphosis. Like “Hannah Montana” before it, it is knowing about the ways in which teenagers are constantly improvising, both for better and worse. But during the prime Disney Channel era, the “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus had far less direct access to her fan base, and therefore far less of a public self than Rodrigo, who has been able to commune directly on TikTok and Instagram.That’s meant that Rodrigo’s public and performing life are beginning to outpace her old television life. (Also, Rodrigo curses on her songs, speeding up the Disney molting process.) Last season, when Nini was struggling with confidence, her best friend Kourtney (Dara Renee) told her, “Ever since you discovered boys, you’ve spent way too much time trying to see yourself through their eyes.” But Rodrigo herself is balancing several lives at once now — new celebrity, new pop superstar, holdover child actress, and more. And “Sour” is the first step toward insisting that the gaze that matters most is the one in the mirror, no matter who else is looking.Olivia Rodrigo“Sour”(Geffen) More

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      Nicki Minaj Reunites With Lil Wayne and Drake, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Olivia Rodrigo, Tony Allen, L’Rain 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.Nicki Minaj with Drake and Lil Wayne, ‘Seeing Green’In honor of Nicki Minaj’s still-incendiary 2009 debut mixtape “Beam Me Up Scotty” finally arriving on streaming services, she’s organized a little YMCMB family reunion. “Seeing Green” is more of a status update than a club banger à la the trio’s classic “Truffle Butter,” but everyone is still in fine form. Wayne, as usual, plays the gonzo court jester, and he seizes the opportunity to unload all of those pandemic-related rhymes he’s been holding onto for the last year (“I put you six feet deep, I’m being socially distant”). Nicki locks back into her standard eviscerate-the-haters flow, and Drake continues to rap with a precision and bite that suggests, as did the recent “Scary Hours 2,” that whenever his promised “Certified Lover Boy” arrives, it might actually be worth the wait. “I played 48 minutes on a torn meniscus,” he boasts, “who’s subbing?” (But maybe see a doctor about that, Drake — it’s serious!) LINDSAY ZOLADZOlivia Rodrigo, ‘Good 4 U’The third single from Olivia Rodrigo’s forthcoming debut album, “Sour,” tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard her first single, “Driver’s License”: A former flame moves on too quickly after a breakup, leaving Rodrigo alone with all her feelings. But this time the 18-year-old Disney actress refracts it through a different lens and a whole new sonic palette. Though it starts off quiet, by the chorus “Good 4 U” explodes into a kind of “You Oughta Know” for the TikTok era, all righteous anger and pop-punky, primal-scream rage: “Good for you, you’re doing great out there without me — like a damn sociopath!” ZOLADZTorres, ‘Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head’The new song from Mackenzie Scott — who makes brooding, searching indie-rock under the name Torres — might be the most accessible thing she’s ever released. And she knows it: She’s wryly described “Don’t Go Putting Wishes in My Head,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Thirstier,” as “my relentless arena country star moment.” More than anything, though, with its buzzing synths and soaring chorus, “Wishes” recalls the Killers at their most fist-clenchingly anthemic. “Just when I thought that it was over, it was only just beginning,” Scott sings, her voice trembling with intensity. She seems to understand that accepting joy can sometimes be an even more vulnerable act than confessing pain, but by the end of the song she sounds fearless, and ready to move toward the light. ZOLADZTony Allen, ‘Mau Mau’The drummer Tony Allen supplied the rhythmic foundation for Fela Kuti’s Nigerian Afrobeat in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on West African traditions, jazz and funk, he built an architecture of unpredictable offbeats, unhurried but kinetic. Before his death in 2020, he had started a hip-hop project, creating beats and synthesizer bass lines and lining up vocalists. Allen’s new album, “There Is No End,” was completed posthumously by the producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle. “Mau Mau” features Nah Eeto, a rapper from Kenya, with multitracked vocals that calmly bounce around the syllables of her lyrics — some in English, some not — to highlight all the ways Allen could dodge the downbeat while constantly flicking the music onward. JON PARELESMaría Grand, ‘Now, Take, Your, Day’The rising tenor saxophonist María Grand wrote the tunes that appear on “Reciprocity,” her new LP, in the middle of a pregnancy, while reading spiritual texts and paying close attention to the bond she was building with her not-yet-born child. (The album’s liner notes include her written reflections on becoming a mother, and how this found its way into the music.) The album, featuring Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Savannah Harris on drums, is also a testament to the constant regeneration that becomes possible within a close musical partnership; on track after track, Grand dances nimbly over Harris’s subtly shifting patterns, and Mendenhall stubbornly insists on never repeating herself. “Now, Take, Your, Day” begins with all three members singing the song’s title in harmony, before the rhythm section lays down a loosely funky beat and Grand introduces the song’s downward-slanting melody on saxophone. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBella Poarch, ‘Build a Bitch’Like many TikTok stars, Bella Poarch is making a move into her own music. “Build a Bitch” comes across cute and furious. Tinkly toy-piano sounds and perky la-las accompany her as she points out that women aren’t consumer products. “You don’t get to pick and choose/Different ass and bigger boobs,” she coos. “If you need perfect, I’m not built for you.” A post-“Westworld” video set in an android factory ends, inevitably, in mayhem. PARELESSleater-Kinney, ‘Worry With You’The forthcoming, self-produced Sleater-Kinney album “Path of Wellness” will be the first the Portland band releases as a duo, since its longtime power-drummer Janet Weiss departed in 2019, and her absence certainly makes the song feel a bit muted and minor. But there’s still a familiar pleasure in hearing Carrie Brownstein’s snaking guitar riffs and staccato vocals intertwine with Corin Tucker’s, as they sing of a long-term togetherness that’s provided comfort in good times and bad: “If I’m gonna mess up,” they avow, “I’m gonna mess up with you.” ZOLADZMartin Garrix featuring Bono & The Edge, ‘We Are the People’The official 2020 UEFA European Football Championship song is exactly what you’d expect from a soccer anthem by a big-room EDM D.J. collaborating with half of U2: a grand, thumping march with pinging guitars, vast synthesizer swells and determinedly inspirational lyrics. “You’ve faith and no fear for the fight,” Bono sings, “You pull hope from defeat in the night.” The song uses familiar tools for stadium-scale uplift, but they can still work. PARELESHolly Macve, ‘You Can Do Better’Regrets and reverb both loom large on Holly Macve’s second album, “Not the Girl,” a set of country-rooted ballads that place her reedy voice — determinedly sustained through countless breaks and quavers — in wide-screen, retro arrangements. “You Can Do Better” is a stately, swaying waltz, a breakup-and-makeup scenario that builds up to dramatic questions, swirling across voices and strings: “Is it so wrong to love you?/Is it so wrong to care?” PARELESL’Rain, ‘Blame Me’L’Rain — the songwriter, musician and producer Taja Cheek — opens an ever-widening, ever more disorienting sonic vortex in “Blame Me,” from her second album, “Fatigue,” due June 25. Sparse guitars pick fragments of chords that fall, then rise, as L’Rain muses cryptically on mortality and remorse. Soon, they’re enveloped by a ghostly orchestra and distant voices intoning, “Waste away now, make my way down”; as the track ends, she’s still in a lush harmonic and emotional limbo. PARELESElaine, ‘Right Now’Elaine is from South Africa, where she already has a large audience. But her sound bespeaks international R&B ambitions, with programmed trap drum sounds and an American accent. In “Right Now,” she tries to juggle a damaged relationship against a burgeoning career. “I cannot continue carrying all your insecurities/I got more priorities,” she sings, quietly but adamantly. Her alto is low, intimate and flexible; with her priorities, she’s not about to indulge a cheating ex, even if she’s tempted. PARELESAlan Jackson, ‘Where Have You Gone’“Where Have You Gone,” the title song of Alan Jackson’s new, 21-song album, starts off like a lonely lament for someone who’s left him: “It’s been way too long since you slipped away.” But it turns out he’s lamenting the way “sweet country music” used to sound: steel guitar, fiddle, “words from the heart.” It’s the style Jackson has upheld through his career, looking back to Merle Haggard and George Jones, only to see it supplanted lately by arena-country and infiltrations of hip-hop. “The airwaves are waiting,” he insists; current country radio says otherwise. PARELESSons of Kemet featuring Moor Mother and Angel Bat Dawid, ‘Pick Up Your Burning Cross’Over the rough rhythmic onrush of this United Kingdom-based quartet — featuring Theon Cross’s pulsing tuba, Shabaka Hutchings’s roof-raising saxophone and the interlocked drumming of Edward Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner — a voice hovers, singing and speaking and laughing. It belongs to Angel Bat Dawid, and it’s soon joined by that of Moor Mother, another revolutionary poet and musician from this side of the Atlantic. “I don’t think you remember me/I was in last place,” Moor Mother begins, serving notice as the band presses ahead. The piece is on “Black to the Future,” Sons of Kemet’s fourth album. RUSSONELLOErika Dohi, ‘Particle Of …’Erika Dohi, a Japanese keyboardist and composer now based in New York City, is one of the musicians affiliated with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver’s label 37d03d (“people” upside-down). “Particle Of …” comes from her new album “I, Castorpollux,” and while it was composed by Andy Akiho (who also directed her music video), it fits the album’s aesthetic of Minimalistic repetitions and startling fractures. It uses percussive, single-note patterns on piano and prepared piano, played live and then computer manipulated, equally virtuosic and digitally skewed. Chords arrive at the end, like a surprise visit from 20th-century modernism. PARELES More