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    Who Is Troye Sivan Now?

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    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe pop singer Troye Sivan released “Something to Give Each Other,” his third album — and first in five years — earlier this month to largely positive reviews.But while Sivan, 28, may have grown into his musical and visual identity with a string of recent singles and videos that borrow from 1990s dance music, meme culture and international cinema, he has not yet broken through as the mainstream gay male pop star many expected when his career began.A one-time YouTube vlogger who was born in South Africa and raised Orthodox Jewish in Australia, Sivan came out as a young teenager and has been matter-of-fact in songs and interviews about his sexuality. Earlier this year, Sivan appeared ably as an actor in HBO’s much-maligned music industry satire, “The Idol,” about a pop star and her team being sucked into the dangerous web of a cult leader.Yet despite his rising public profile and artistic confidence, Sivan has found less commercial success with “Something to Give Each Other,” which debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard album chart, than his less self-assured previous two albums, “Bloom,” in 2018, and “Blue Neighborhood,” from 2015.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about this new iteration of Sivan’s sound and persona, where he fits into pop’s growing middle class and the ceilings he may still face as an openly gay male performer.Guests:Harry Tafoya, a freelance writer for Pitchfork, NPR and othersShaad D’Souza, a freelance writer and critic for The Guardian, The New York Times and othersConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Zach Bryan’s Melancholy Bon Iver Duet, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Holly Humberstone, Byron Messia, Laurel Halo and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. 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, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Zach Bryan featuring Bon Iver, ‘Boys of Faith’The memorably wistful title track from the new Zach Bryan EP — which arrives just a few weeks after his most recent album — is a collaboration with Bon Iver, which means a couple of very pointed things. First, Bryan is making kin with fellow roots-adjacent cult heroes. Though he has become wildly successful improbably quickly, Bryan still fancies himself outside of the mainstream, stubbornly stomping to his own drum. That parallels the story of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who likely could fill arenas if he was interested. Both singers are vividly emotional, too, building whole houses upon sadness. Where the two acts diverge is in tone — Bryan sings with raspy jabs, and Vernon buries himself behind echo and fog. Bryan is such a force, though, that he pulls Vernon in his direction on this song; when the two sing in harmony, Vernon sounds as if he’s chasing after Bryan ever so slightly, following his bark with moon-aimed howls. A lament followed by a hug. JON CARAMANICAHolly Humberstone, ‘Into Your Room’On her latest single, the warm, synth-pop tune “Into Your Room,” the English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone oscillates between sincere yearning and wry, self-deprecating humor: “You’re the center of this universe, my sorry ass revolves around you,” she sings, begging forgiveness from someone she’s mistreated. There’s a casually tossed-off, conversational appeal to her lyrics and delivery, but when the chorus surges, she’s suddenly leading with her heart. LINDSAY ZOLADZTroye Sivan, ‘Get Me Started’Following the lusty thrill of his summertime single “Rush,” Troye Sivan starts catching feelings on “Get Me Started,” the second song released from his forthcoming album “Something to Give Each Other.” “He’s got the personality, not even gravity could ever hold him down,” Sivan sings atop an insistent, club-ready beat, aglow with the agony and ecstasy of a new crush. ZOLADZLandon Barker, ‘Friends With Your Ex’A disarmingly refined pop-punk debut single from Landon Barker — the son of Travis Barker, who plays drums here, and whose label is putting out the song. That teen-angst pop-punk became the de facto sonic landing place for the first wave of TikTok superstar pretty boys was about finding the safest available package of rebellion (and one that largely skirted issues of race). Barker is perhaps that movement’s third wave, following early adopters like Jaden Hossler and Chase Hudson, and then the mainstream carpetbagging of Machine Gun Kelly. Which is to say there is a lot to emulate — the blueprint is loud and easy to follow. It hardly almost matters who’s coloring in between the lines. CARAMANICAShakira and Fuerza Regida, ‘El Jefe’“Stick it to the man,” Shakira advises, in English, at the beginning of “El Jefe” (“The Man” or “The Boss”), a brisk polka-ska hybrid that teams Shakira — the paragon of Pan-American crossover — with Fuerza Regida, a regional Mexican band from California. Backed by crisply syncopated guitars and horns, the song is a worker’s gripe, in Spanish, about a grueling, underpaid, dead-end job with a lousy boss; “I arrive on foot, him in a Mercedes,” growls Fuerza Regida’s lead singer, Jesús Ortiz Paz. It’s peppy class warfare. JON PARELESByron Messia, ‘Mad Dawgs’Byron Messia’s breakout single, “Talibans,” is one of the year’s defining reggae songs, so saccharine you might miss its tough talk. Messia has a sweet voice that gets feistier the more clipped his singing becomes, and on his boastful new single “Mad Dawgs,” he comes almost all the way around to blustery, trading in much of his considered honeyed singing for a choppier rhythm more in key with the chest-puffing lyrics. CARAMANICAChelsea Wolfe, ‘Dusk’The goth crooner Chelsea Wolfe conjures a thick atmosphere on “Dusk,” her first new solo track since composing the score for Ti West’s 2022 slasher flick “X.” Produced by David Andrew Sitek of TV on the Radio, “Dusk” is centered around a slow, methodical beat, murky guitar chords and Wolfe’s breathy, eerie voice. “I will go through fire to get to you,” she sings with a haunting determination. ZOLADZLaurel Halo, ‘Sick Eros’Laurel Halo has a gift for the hallucinatory. “Atlas,” her first new album in five years, is a submersion into abstract imagination, resembling a head-spinning dream that shifts between epochs, story lines and locations. The Los Angeles-based conceptualist has explored Detroit techno, musique concrète and even left-field pop in the past, and was recently appointed to the faculty of Composition and Experimental Sound Practices at CalArts. But “Atlas” traces a new path, slithering between the textures of jazz, ambient and classical. On the highlight “Sick Eros,” a bass trembles and creaks, beats shiver and gurgle, synths groan and swell. There’s a Hitchcockian foreboding — a sense that someone is about to open a shadowy door and never return, or trip over an edge that will lead to oblivion. Discordant strings ache and decay, stretching over waves of vibration. By the song’s end, you can almost picture yourself at the Dead Marshes in the “Lord of the Rings,” gazing upon the corpses floating in the swamp, their spirits emerging from the water with a ghoulish menace. ISABELIA HERRERAColleen, ‘Be Without Being Seen — Movement I’A sense of peace is immanent to the music of Colleen, but especially the work she’s been making since putting aside her viola da gamba in 2017 and adopting an all-electronics approach, centered on modular synthesizers. Her new double LP, “Le Jour et la Nuit du Réel,” is a time-flattening work of minimalism, created with just a monophonic synth (that is, playing one note at a time) and two delay units. Toward the center of the album, the first of three short movements in “Be Without Being Seen” introduces a quizzical pattern of arpeggiated chords, and simply lets it hang in the air. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMicah Thomas, ‘Eros’Listeners to Immanuel Wilkins will recognize Micah Thomas’s piano playing almost immediately: the elastic-band rhythmic tension and snap, the gloriously spilled-out harmonic delivery, his imaginatively redistributed roles for the left and right hands. Thomas is both the binding agent and the stirrer of chaos in Wilkins’s quartet, which for the past few years has been the most praised young band in jazz. On “Eros,” from Thomas’s new trio album, “Reveal,” the bassist Dean Torrey and the drummer Kayvon Gordon cooperate at cross-purposes, a six-beat flow emerging beneath a web of syncopation. Let the drums guide the rhythm of your body; then see how it changes when you let the bass. Then find Thomas within that combination, absorbing it all. RUSSONELLO More

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      35 Pop and Jazz Albums, Shows and Festivals Coming This Fall

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      Buzzy debuts (Chappell Roan, Evian Christ) and anticipated follow-ups (Jorja Smith, yeule) are due this season.After a summer dominated by blockbuster tours by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, this fall the music business gets back to the business of releasing albums. Longstanding acts are returning with new LPs (Dolly Parton, Wilco, Usher), and long-awaited follow-ups are arriving, too (the Streets, Sampha, Nicki Minaj). Dates and lineups are subject to change.SeptemberSAM RIVERS CENTENNIAL Amid the hardscrabble realities of 1970s New York, Studio Rivbea was a crucial crack in the pavement where creative life flourished. A downtown loft run by the esteemed saxophonist Sam Rivers and his wife, Beatrice, Rivbea — and its resident big band — gave musicians young and old a space to rehearse and perform on their own terms. Craig Harris, Joseph Daly and Steve Coleman all spent formative time there in the ’70s, and they’ve come together to organize a big-band performance in recognition of Rivers, who would have turned 100 this month. (Sep. 22; Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church) — Giovanni RussonelloSOUL REBELS One of New Orleans’s best-known exports, the Soul Rebels carry forward the classic brass-band tradition by infusing it with plenty of modern-day flavor across the spectrum of Black American music. Their upcoming four-night stand at the Blue Note includes guest appearances from the golden-age rap eminences Rakim and Big Daddy Kane (Sept. 21); Ja Rule (Sept. 22); G-Eazy (Sept. 23); and a potpourri of contemporary-jazz heavyweights, including James Carter and Elena Pinderhughes (Sept. 24). — RussonelloKYLIE MINOGUE For decades, Kylie Minogue has been making dance floor manna that pingpongs between curiosity and undeniability, This year, she released one of her best — “Padam Padam,” a gay nightclub anthem that spawned slang and memes and, over time, a pop crossover. Minogue’s new album, on its heels, is “Tension.” A Las Vegas residency will follow, starting in November. (Sept. 22; BMG) — Jon CaramanicaKylie Minogue got a boost from another club anthem this year, “Padam Padam.”Don Arnold/Getty ImagesCHAPPELL ROAN Over the past year, the pop singer Chappell Roan has been releasing a string of theatrically intimate singles that touch on relationship awkwardness with uncommon candor. The music on her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” — which touches on wobbly ’80s new wave and ’90s singer-songwriter pop-rock and ’00s dance-pop — suggests a singer less beholden to style than to ensuring she says the exact thing she needs to say. (Sept. 22; Amusement/Island) — CaramanicaYEULE The songwriter, singer and producer yeule embraces extremes on “Softscars,” the follow-up to “Glitch Princess,” from 2022. Nothing is predictable on an album that holds guitar ballads, a piano waltz, bristling rock guitar riffs, gleaming electronics, hyperpop tweaks and bluntly distorted beats. The songs consider pain, love, technology and carnality, the experience of a 21st-century life that’s simultaneously physical and virtual. (Sept. 22; Ninja Tune) — Jon ParelesJOHN ZORN’S NEW MASADA QUARTET Opportunities are few to hear the saxophonist, composer and downtown jazz doyen John Zorn simply throwing down, in the company of improvisers that elevate him. That’s what happens when he gets together with the New Masada Quartet, which plays music from Zorn’s 613-piece “Masada” songbook (composed based on aspects of Jewish folklore and theology) and features the guitarist Julian Lage, the bassist Jorge Roeder and the drummer Kenny Wollesen. (Sept. 26 through Oct. 1; The Village Vanguard) — RussonelloCHERRY GLAZERR On the bluntly titled new album “I Don’t Want You Anymore,” Clementine Creevy, who leads the indie-rock band Cherry Glazerr, wrestles with a clearly toxic relationship. As the songs go style-hopping — explosive grunge, chugging synth-pop, hints of funk and jazz — the obsession persists. (Sept. 29; Secretly Canadian) — ParelesDARIUS JONES The avant-gardist Darius Jones has such a distinctive sound on the alto saxophone — widely dilated, yet so rough it could peel paint — he could make a living off his tone alone. But he also has a fiercely innovative streak as a composer. Now he returns with a wide-ranging new album showing off both sides of his talent, “Fluxkit Vancouver (Its Suite but Sacred),” with a string section in prickly repartee with Jones and the commanding drummer Gerald Cleaver. (Sept. 29; Northern Spy/We Jazz) — RussonelloONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Daniel Lopatin has built a two-lane career: as a producer creating cavernous backdrops for hitmakers like the Weeknd, and recording on his own as Oneohtrix Point Never, exploring changeable, ambiguous soundscapes. His new Oneohtrix Point Never album, “Again,” is largely instrumental, incorporating orchestral arrangements, glitchy electronics, stray vocal samples, artificial intelligence and countless other elements that are subject to change at whim in dynamic, inscrutable tracks. Lopatin has described the music as “crescendo-core.” (Sept. 29; Warp) — ParelesJORJA SMITH “Falling or Flying” is only the second studio album by the English songwriter Jorja Smith, but she has been prolific as a collaborator with Kali Uchis, Burna Boy, Drake, FKA twigs and others. She’s fond of minor chords and lean, moody grooves that hint at soul, jazz and Nigerian Afrobeats; they suit her aching but supple voice, as it projects both sympathy and resilience. (Sept. 29; Famm) — ParelesJorja Smith has become a frequent collaborator in the gap between albums. Her second LP arrives in late September.Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesWILCO To make its 13th studio album, “Cousin,” Wilco brought in an outside producer for the first time since 2007: the Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon, who opens folk-rock into electronica. She encouraged Wilco to extend the sonic experimentation it opened up on its 2002 album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” As Jeff Tweedy sings about desolation, loss and obstinate hope, the music carries roots-rock into disorienting and illuminating territories but still sounds handmade. (Sept. 29; dBpm) — ParelesOctoberUSHER Some of the most viral performance clips of this past summer have belonged not to Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, but to Usher, whose Las Vegas residency has been a celebrity magnet and also a showcase for grown-folks-business R&B. His new music continues to delve into the sticky-situation soul that helped make him a superstar two decades ago. (October; mega/gamma.) — CaramanicaBUTCHER BROWN A spirit of generous communion runs through “Solar Music,” the latest album from the Richmond-based hip-hop-jazz fusion quintet Butcher Brown. The album features guest appearances by the saxophonist Braxton Cook, the M.C.’s Pink Siifu and Nappy Nina and the trumpeter Keyon Harrold, among others. Butcher Brown will toast “Solar Music” at a concert Oct. 18 at Le Poisson Rouge. (Oct. 6; Concord Jazz) — RussonelloSLAUSON MALONE 1 Slauson Malone 1 is the updated name for the recording project of Jasper Marsalis, a musician and artist who plays with myriad genres and styles, denaturing them well beyond their familiar contours. His new album, “Excelsior,” is deeply ambitious, engaging and full of winning eccentricities. (Oct. 6; Warp) — CaramanicaSUFJAN STEVENS Love — physical, divine, longed-for, embattled, cherished — is the subject on Sufjan Stevens’ new album, “Javelin.” Its songs usually start out folky, but they rarely stay that way; they expand and billow. Working alone at his home studio, Stevens orchestrated them all by himself, playing nearly every instrument. (Oct. 6; Asthmatic Kitty) — Pareles“BOSSA NOVA: THE GREATEST NIGHT” The United States was formally introduced to Brazil’s bossa nova, or “new style”— suave, understated, sophisticated — with a concert at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 21, 1962 that included Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Luis Bonfá and others. It’s nearly a year late for a 60th anniversary, but a concert will bring together Brazilian stars including Seu Jorge and Carlinhos Brown along with Daniel Jobim — Antonio’s grandson — to revisit the now-classic bossa nova repertory. (Oct. 8; Carnegie Hall.) — ParelesROY HARGROVE By the time he died in 2018, at 49, Roy Hargrove had become the most impactful trumpeter of his generation. Back in 1993, he was still the new kid on the block when Jazz at Lincoln Center commissioned him to write and perform “Love Suite in Mahogany,” with a septet. That performance is being released on record for the first time and a series of shows at Dizzy’s Club will mark its release: The drummer Willie Jones III and the bassist Gerald Cannon will colead a sextet featuring alumni of Hargrove’s bands Oct. 11-13, and the Roy Hargrove Big Band will appear Oct. 14-16. (Oct. 13; Blue Engine) — RussonelloL’RAIN The songwriter Taja Cheek, who records as L’Rain, dissolves genre boundaries and explores mixed emotions on her third album, “I Killed Your Dog.” The songs are lush and immersive, layered with instrumental patterns and vocal harmonies; they’re also cryptic and open-ended, to be deciphered through repeated listening. (Oct. 13; Mexican Summer) — ParelesOFFSET Offset is the second Migos member to release a solo album in the wake of the killing of Takeoff, the group’s third member and creative heart. The first single from “Set It Off” is “Jealousy,” a collaboration with his wife, Cardi B, that suggests that the couple is willing to play their relationship and fame for laughs, and art. (Oct. 13; Motown) — CaramanicaOffset will release his first album since the death of Migos’s Takeoff in October.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressTROYE SIVAN It’s been five years since Troye Sivan has released an album. His re-emergence in recent months, however, suggests the time away has been emboldening. As an actor, he was one of the standouts on “The Idol,” the besieged HBO drama about the music business, and “Rush,” the lead single from “Something to Give Each Other,” his third album, is a remarkably confident assertion of carnal interest. (Oct. 13; Capitol) — CaramanicaJIHYE LEE ORCHESTRA The composer and bandleader Jihye Lee is becoming well-known for her fluid integration of Western classical and big-band jazz techniques, and for arrangements in which heavily loaded horn parts move with apparent ease. At a Brooklyn show, her 18-piece orchestra will debut “Infinite Connections,” a suite-length meditation on the bond Lee shares with her mother and grandmother. (Oct. 15; National Sawdust) — RussonelloJ.D. ALLEN A tenor saxophonist known for the hefty swing and raw intellect of his improvising, and the back-to-basics approach of his jazz trios, J.D. Allen has never before made an album featuring electronics. That will change this fall, when he releases “This,” with Alex Bonney’s dark and enveloping atmospherics wreathed around Allen’s high-velocity horn playing and the thundering drums of Gwilym Jones. (Oct. 20; Savant) — RussonelloEVIAN CHRIST A long-awaited debut album is finally arriving from the electronic music producer Evian Christ, who has been releasing shiver-inducing music for over a decade. The songs on “Revanchist” are chaotic and blissful, tactile and expansive — all in all, a physical experience as much as an aural one. (Oct. 20; Warp) — CaramanicaSAMPHA In the seven years between his own albums, the English songwriter Sampha has lent his richly melancholy voice to tracks by Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Frank Ocean and Alicia Keys. “Lahai” — named after his grandfather, who was from Sierra Leone — is an exploratory, ambitious album that contemplates time, love and transcendence with otherworldly electronics and thoughtful melodies. (Oct. 20; Young) — ParelesAfter a seven-year gap, Sampha will release “Lahai” in October.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Associated PressTHE STREETS British rap’s great literalist, the Streets (Mike Skinner) returns with “The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the Light,” a new album that nods to various stripes of U.K. club culture while adhering firm to Skinner’s keen-eyed storytelling. In conjunction with the album, the Streets will also release a clubland-themed murder mystery film of the same name. (Oct. 20; 679 Recordings/Warner Music UK Ltd) — CaramanicaTHE MOUNTAIN GOATS “All Hail West Texas,” a sparsely arranged but lyrically vivid 2002 album released when the Mountain Goats was still a moniker for the solo music of John Darnielle, remains one of the most beloved entries in the group’s vast discography. Now the band — featuring the bassist Peter Hughes, the drummer Jon Wurster and the multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas — will release a sequel, “Jenny From Thebes,” updating the fates of its characters and fleshing out its sound. (Oct. 27; Merge) — Lindsay ZoladzMIKE REED “The Separatist Party,” the forthcoming album from the drummer, composer and Chicago jazz instigator Mike Reed, is Part 1 of a forthcoming three-album cycle meditating on solitude, loneliness and the elusiveness of community (surprisingly, he was already working on this project before pandemic lockdowns). The irony, though, is how much fun he seems to be having in the company of the multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay, the poet Marvin Tate and the three members of Bitchin Bajas, his compatriots on this LP, who surge through grimy post-rock or drift into ethereal, odd-metered, electrified airspaces with whiffs of Ethio-jazz. (Oct. 27; Astral Spirits/We Jazz) — RussonelloDOJA CAT: THE SCARLET TOUR Though she’s wowed audiences with ambitious awards show performances, the rambunctious rapper and pop star Doja Cat has not yet embarked upon an arena tour. (Tonsil surgery forced her to pull out of a slot opening for the Weeknd last year.) The Scarlet Tour — which begins at San Francisco’s Chase Center on Oct. 31 and makes stops at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 29 and Newark’s Prudential Center on Nov. 30 — will give her a chance to command her largest stages yet and showcase music from her latest album, “Scarlet,” due Sept. 22. The rising rapper Doechii and of-the-moment it-girl Ice Spice will open. (Oct. 31 through Dec. 13) — ZoladzNovemberCAT POWER Last November, Cat Power (the stage name of the smoky-voiced crooner Chan Marshall) played a song-for-song reimagining of her hero Bob Dylan’s May 1966 Manchester concert — the one at which an audience member, disgruntled by Dylan’s departure from acoustic folk, infamously yelled out “Judas!” Now it is arriving as an album titled “Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Marshall, a gifted interpreter of other musicians’ material, structured the set to be half acoustic and half electric, just like Dylan’s; a muted “She Belongs to Me” contrasts with a rollicking, full-band “Ballad of a Thin Man.” (November; Domino) — ZoladzChan Marshall (a.k.a. Cat Power) will release her live concert covering Bob Dylan.Alberto Pezzali/Invision, via Alberto Pezzali, via Invision, via Associated PressCODY JOHNSON “The Painter,” the new song from Cody Johnson, one of mainstream country’s sturdiest performers, extends his streak of music that’s deeply earnest, unflashily produced, and a blend of emotionally stoic and trembling. It’s the lead single from “Leather,” his third studio album on a major label after a long and robust independent career. (Nov. 3; COJO Music/Warner Music Nashville) — CaramanicaMYRA MELFORD’S FIRE & WATER QUINTET The pianist and composer Myra Melford’s five-piece band of all-star creative improvisers is aptly named: There is something volatile and elemental about the music she makes with Ingrid Laubrock, the saxophonist; Mary Halvorson, the guitarist; Tomeka Reid, the cellist; and Lesley Mok, the percussionist. On “Hear the Light Singing,” the group’s second LP, Halvorson’s effects-laden guitar comes in splashes and jolts, and Reid’s cello moves in hurrying steps or generous waves. (Nov. 3; RogueArt) — RussonelloLIZ PHAIR: ‘EXILE IN GUYVILLE’ 30th ANNIVERSARY TOUR Liz Phair’s 1993 debut “Exile in Guyville” captured young adulthood in a wry, vivid voice and brought a refreshing female perspective to indie rock’s boys club. Thirty years later, it continues to inspire younger musicians, including Kate Bollinger and Sabrina Teitelbaum (who records searingly honest music under the name Blondshell), both openers for Phair when she plays “Guyville” in its glorious entirety on an anniversary tour. The show comes to Brooklyn’s Kings Theater on Nov. 24. (Nov. 3 through Dec. 9) — ZoladzCAMP FLOG GNAW CARNIVAL The annual festival helmed by Tyler, the Creator continues to be one of the most innovatively programmed, in any genre. He is a headliner this year, along with SZA and the Hillbillies (Kendrick Lamar and Baby Keem). The deep lineup includes the corridos tumbados stars Fuerza Regida, various generations of dream-pop from Willow, Toro y Moi and d4vd, accessibly tough rapping from Clipse and Ice Spice and much more. (Nov. 11-12; Dodger Stadium Grounds in Los Angeles) — CaramanicaNICKI MINAJ Reportedly, when Lil Uzi Vert was planning the release of his most recent album, “Pink Tape,” Nicki Minaj reached out to him to ask, in essence, how he could release a pink-themed album and not include her. (He obliged.) Now, Minaj returns with “Pink Friday 2,” her own album, on the heels of a pair of collaborations with Ice Spice, “Princess Diana” and “Barbie World,” that have given her new spark. (Nov. 17; Republic) — CaramanicaDOLLY PARTON Last year, when she was nominated for induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Dolly Parton initially declined because she did not consider herself a rock artist. (She was eventually inducted anyway.) “This has, however, inspired me to put out a hopefully great rock ’n’ roll album at some point in the future,” she said in a statement. That future has now arrived: Dolly Parton’s “Rockstar” is a sprawling, star-studded 30-track album that features originals (the stomping “World on Fire”), covers of rock classics (“Stairway to Heaven,” “Let It Be”), and an impressive list of guests that include Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Debbie Harry and more. (Nov. 17; Butterfly Records/Big Machine Records) — Zoladz More

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      9 Songs From Pop’s ‘Middle Class’ That Deserve to Be Hits

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      Hear songs by Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, Troye Sivan and more.Carly Rae Jepsen, likely cutting to a feeling.Jason Cairnduff/ReutersDear listeners,On Monday, The Times published a piece by the critic Shaad D’Souza that asked a question I’ve been pondering a lot over the past decade: “What happens when a pop star isn’t that popular?”D’Souza created a taxonomy of a relatively varied assortment of musicians — among them Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, Kim Petras, Troye Sivan and Rita Ora — who embrace pop musical sounds and command devoted, internet-savvy fan bases but still operate below the visibility of “major” pop stars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. “For these artists,” D’Souza writes, “pop stardom isn’t a commercial category, but a sound, an aesthetic and an attitude.”“Pop,” though, is of course short for “popular,” and some purists might dismiss D’Souza’s question as a futile thought experiment: If a tree in a forest releases a single that fails to crack the Hot 100, does it even make a sound? And with detractors quick to label any perceived misstep as evidence that a pop star has entered her flop era, success and failure can now feel like an irreversible binary.But there are plenty of gray areas, too, and I appreciate the optimism of D’Souza’s conclusion: Hey, it’s a living. “It may be miles away from the spectacle and flash usually associated with pop music,” he writes of this broad career trajectory, “but it does provide a path toward something that, for decades, has proved elusive for a lot of aspirant pop stars: career sustainability.”The article made me think of something I mentioned in last Friday’s newsletter: Jepsen’s recent sets at Rockwood Music Hall (save it, please!), a tiny venue into which she crammed 150 fans at a time after her outdoor concert at the larger Pier 17 was cut short because of weather. Jepsen seemed to be having a ball leading direct-to-fan singalongs with her frenzied devotees, who may not fill Swift-sized arenas, but who nevertheless adore her. With Eras Tour tickets either impossible to come by or prohibitively expensive anyway, maybe pledging allegiance to a pop star with a more modestly sized fan base is, these days, the more sustainable way to stan.Though D’Souza makes the argument that the majority of these performers operate in a relatively safe pop playground, adjusted commercial ambitions also free up many of these artists to stop chasing fickle chart trends and make bolder, stranger and more sonically adventurous pop music. I want to celebrate that freedom on today’s playlist, which culls some of my favorite songs from a few of the artists D’Souza affectionately called “pop’s middle class.”My personal favorites of these are-they-actually-pop stars are generally the more outré ones: the eternal club kid Charli XCX, the vocally dexterous former Chairlift frontwoman Caroline Polachek and the genre-omnivorous British-Japanese musician Rina Sawayama. But, as you’ll hear, I appreciate a solid Jepsen banger as much as the next Jepfriend.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Carly Rae Jepsen: “Surrender My Heart”One of my favorite songs from Jepsen’s 2022 album, “The Loneliest Time,” “Surrender My Heart” — a surging synth-pop tune about how difficult it can be to open up to the possibility of new love — has one of Jepsen’s signature anthemic choruses and even some of her wry humor: “I paid to toughen up in therapy/She said to me, ‘soften up.’” (Listen on YouTube)2. Troye Sivan, “Rush”The lusty, effervescent “Rush” is the first single from the Australian musician Sivan’s upcoming album “Something to Give Each Other.” Sivan was one of the few cast members not to embarrass himself on HBO’s recent narratively challenged series “The Idol”; it remains to be seen if that increased visibility will push him closer to pop’s A-list. (Listen on YouTube)3. Caroline Polachek: “Welcome to My Island”Maybe one of my favorite pop choruses in years? Every time I hear it, I want to shout it off the top of the mountain like the guy from that Ricola commercial: “DESIIIIIIIIIIRE! I want to turn into you!” That lyric from “Welcome to My Island” also gives Polachek’s latest album — easily one of my most-played of 2023 — its charmingly ridiculous title. (Listen on YouTube)4. Charli XCX: “Constant Repeat”“I’m cute and I’m rude with kind of rare attitude,” Charli XCX sings, summing up her own unruly musical personality on this highlight from her sleek 2022 album “Crash,” which lets a flighty would-be lover know exactly what they missed out on. (Listen on YouTube)5. Ava Max: “Million Dollar Baby”At her best, Ava Max sounds like Lady Gaga would if she were still making “Fame Monster” B-sides in 2023. I mean this as a compliment; in my opinion, most pop songs should sound like they could have been included on “The Fame Monster.” Ava Max’s biggest hit, “Sweet but Psycho” from 2019, certainly fits this description, but I’m also a fan of this driving 2022 single, which cleverly employs an interpolation of LeAnn Rimes’s 2000 “Coyote Ugly” smash “Can’t Fight the Moonlight.” (Listen on YouTube)6. Troye Sivan, “Rager Teenager!”This wistful track, from the 2020 EP “In a Dream,” shows off the softer, sparser side of Sivan’s dreamy pop. It also would have worked as an entry on last month’s exclamatory playlist! (Listen on YouTube)7. Rina Sawayama: “Bad Friend”Man, I love this one. File it under “incredibly common life experiences that no one really writes pop songs about”; Sawayama’s wrenching “Bad Friend” chronicles, to the tune of a beautifully melancholy melody, the gradual erosion of a once-close friendship. “So don’t ask me where I’ve been, been avoiding everything,” Sawayama sings, before finding solace in a chorus of people confessing that they can relate: “Put your hands up if you’re not good at this stuff.” (Listen on YouTube)8. Carly Rae Jepsen: “Cut to the Feeling”Jepsen — bless her — has an unfortunate tendency to bury some of her best work, and it’s possible that has hampered her ability to achieve another pop radio smash. Consider that the single she released after “Call Me Maybe” was a painfully twee duet with the guy from Owl City (if you don’t remember Owl City, I’m jealous of your brain), or that she kicked off her “Emotion” era by releasing as a leadoff single that excellent album’s very worst song, “I Really Like You.” (At least she got Tom Hanks in the video.) “Cut to the Feeling,” from 2015, is an absolutely perfect, ecstatic, 10-out-of-10 pop song, and if you have never heard of it before that’s because it was released on the soundtrack of a Canadian-French animated film called “Ballerina.” At least you get to hear it now! (Listen on YouTube)9. Charli XCX: “Track 10”Many of Charli’s Angels — this one included — consider the gleefully forward-thinking 2017 mixtape “Pop 2” to be Charli’s magnum opus (so far) and this epic finale to be one of her most successful experiments. D’Souza highlights Charli as a musician who has straddled the worlds of mainstream pop and its more risk-taking underground, and a clear distillation of that contrast can be heard in the two different versions she’d recorded of one particular song. “Blame It on Your Love,” from her 2019 album “Charli,” is a glossy, radio-friendly tropical house jam, complete with a by-the-numbers guest verse from Lizzo. “Track 10,” though, is something else: A wildly weird deconstruction of a pop song, culminating in an escalating bridge that sounds like it’s being sung by a malfunctioning laser printer. Some songs are so special that something would be lost by even giving them a title. So this one, fittingly, is just “Track 10.” (Listen on YouTube)Desiiiiiiiiiiire,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Best of Pop’s ‘Middle Class’” track listTrack 1: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Surrender My Heart”Track 2: Troye Sivan, “Rush”Track 3: Caroline Polachek, “Welcome to My Island”Track 4: Charli XCX, “Constant Repeat”Track 5: Ava Max, “Million Dollar Baby”Track 6: Troye Sivan, “Rager Teenager!”Track 7: Rina Sawayama, “Bad Friend”Track 8: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Cut to the Feeling”Track 9: Charli XCX, “Track 10” More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): Fans Misbehaving at Concerts, and Pinkydoll’s NPC TikTok

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The recent scourge of concertgoers throwing things at pop stars onstage and how Adele, Harry Styles, Bebe Rexha, Drake and others have responded; plus the ways in which the stage/crowd barrier has become more porous in recent years, in both directionsThe TikTok streamer Pinkydoll, who has honed an NPC-style of performance that has been earning her thousands of viewers, and thousands of dollarsNew songs from Troye Sivan and Militarie Gun (as performed by Post Malone)Whether there’s still a Mason-Dixon line divide in pop music consumption, especially as it relates to hip-hop and countrySnack of the weekConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. More

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      Billie Eilish’s ‘Barbie’ Ballad, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Troye Sivan, Jamila Woods, C. Tangana and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. 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, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Billie Eilish, ‘What Was I Made For?’Billie Eilish draws a connection between the public’s consumption of pop stars and plastic dolls on “What Was I Made For?,” a sparse, forlorn piano ballad from the “Barbie” soundtrack: “Looked so alive, turns out I’m not real,” she sings in a quivering whisper. “Just something you paid for.” The song hews closer to the more traditional, crooner-inspired fare on Eilish’s album “Happier Than Ever” than to the rest of “Barbie the Album,” which features upbeat tunes from Dua Lipa and Charli XCX. Still, Eilish knows how to tease out the pathos and a subtle sense of macabre from a particular kind of feminine malaise. “I’m used to float, now I just fall down,” she sings, making life in plastic sound less than fantastic. LINDSAY ZOLADZMargaret Glaspy, ‘Memories’Margaret Glaspy sings as if every word is a struggle in “Memories,” a song of sheer grief and loss: “I’m lonesome without you/but I’m a wreck thinking about you.” Her voice arrives behind the beat and then leaps onto the note; the vocal quivers, cracks and sometimes breaks, conjuring emotions that are still raw. JON PARELESJamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods sings about incremental, ordinary but genuine feelings of love in “Tiny Garden”: “It’s not gonna be a big production/It’s not butterflies and fireworks,” she sings. “It’s gonna be a tiny garden/But I feed it every day.” As she describes a real but undemonstrative connection and the testing phase of a romance — “You want to be sure that I want you/Not just someone fun to do” — the track pulses with keyboard chords and rises with gospelly backup vocals, promising that there’s a true spiritual link. The artist duendita joins her near the end, more than willing to “watch all the purpose we place multiply slowly over time.” PARELESTroye Sivan, ‘Rush’Troye Sivan — the Australian pop musician, ex-YouTuber and rare musician who actually proved to be a watchable screen presence on “The Idol” (ahem!) — returns triumphantly with “Rush,” a sweaty, kinetic, gloriously hedonistic summer dance-floor anthem with a lightly NSFW video to match. Sivan’s breathy vocals dance atop an insistent beat and house-inspired piano riff, while a chorus of deep male voices chant the song’s infectious hook: “I feel the rush, addicted to your touch.” At last, Xander is free! ZOLADZSid Sriram, ‘The Hard Way’Born in India, Sid Sriham grew up in California, studying Carnatic (South Indian) music with his parents while soaking up American R&B and jazz. He built a career in India, singing Bollywood hits along with Carnatic ragas. For his American debut album, “Sidharth,” due Aug. 25, Sriham veered toward the experimental, working with the producer Ryan Olson (from Poliça) and musicians including Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). “The Hard Way” is a lovelorn ballad — “I would do anything, anything, anything to make you smile,” he insists — that’s chopped up and placed within a jittery electronic exoskeleton: racing double-time beats, pitch-shifted vocals, bursts of multitracked harmony. It’s bold; he could easily have chosen a more commercial, less thorny approach. PARELESYard Act, ‘The Trench Coat Museum’It is a law of nature that there is never too much cowbell. Yard Act, the post-punk band that could almost be LCD Soundsystem with a British accent and a social-media update, has re-emerged after its debut album. That means post-punk nostalgia folded in on itself like origami. “The Trench Coat Museum” imagines that there might be such an institution — celebrating a garment that’s assertive, concealing, protective, too long and too evocative — in a spoke-sung eight-minute track that easily gives way to its early 1980s groove: beat, bass riff, turntable scratching, clawing rhythm guitar, synthesizers and Latin percussion that definitely includes cowbell. The open secret of post-punk is that no matter how cynical the vocal gets, the song is always about the groove. PARELESC. Tangana, ‘Oliveira Dos Cen Anos’C. Tangana, the Spanish songwriter who started as a rapper and has delved ever deeper into the musical past, stays out of the foreground of his latest project, a hundredth-anniversary song for a soccer team from Galicia, Real Club Celta de Vigo; his father is from the town of Vigo. “Oliveira Dos Cen Anos” (“Hundred-Year-Old Olive Tree”) is rooted in Galician folk tradition but underpinned by electronics. C. Tangana is one of the songwriters and co-producers and the director of a sweeping, scenic video; Galician musicians sing lead vocals. An ardent choral anthem, with folk-song lyrics vowing love and loyalty, gives way to a traditionalist six-beat stomp, with a fierce cameo from the drumming, singing women of As Lagharteiras, along with a glimmering harp interlude and a stadium-sized singalong. “I will always be here,” men shout. “Celta forever! PARELESLoraine James featuring RiTchie, ‘Déjà Vu’“Not everything is quite audible,” the rapper and singer RiTchie calmly observes in “Déjà Vu.” The producer Loraine James constructed a perpetually disorienting mix of jolting electronic glitches, soothing piano and furtive snippets of percussion and synthesizer. RiTchie, from the group Injury Reserve, layers on multiple vocals, sung and spoken, and sounds completely unfazed by his surroundings: “You just gotta soak it all in,” he advises. PARELESOxlade featuring Dave, ‘Intoxycated’Oxlade, a singer and songwriter from Nigeria, and Dave, a rapper from England with Nigerian roots, commiserate about straying lovers and social media in “Intoxycated.” Oxlade decides “love is overrated” after seeing his girlfriend with another guy on Instagram; Dave reflects, “Love’s easy to find, harder to hold/Most stories end and start with a phone.” A minor-key Afrobeats groove with little guitar curlicues sums up the mood: sleek and resigned. PARELESJlin, ‘Fourth Perspective’The composer and producer Jlin — Jerrilynn Patton — built head-spinning electronic music out of percussive sounds, so it made perfect sense for her to write music for live acoustic performance by the ensemble Third Coast Percussion, which appeared on the group’s 2022 album, “Perspectives.” Now, Jlin has reworked those compositions for her own mini-album “Perspective,” due in September. Her new version of “Fourth Perspective” brings back electronic sounds, moving a ghostly, plinking, minimalistic waltz toward the ratchety, foreboding terrain of trap. PARELESmaJa, ‘A Vivir en Desacuerdo’MaJa — the Dominican songwriter Maria-José Gonell — sings about contentedly being a fish out of water in “A Vivir en Desacuerdo” (“To Live in Disagreement”). Her airy voice makes her seem tentative at first, but the production — by her songwriting collaborator Gian Rojas — radiates growing confidence, as a beat slips in and electronics sparkle ever more brightly. She’s not diffident; she’s above it all. PARELES More

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      Spring Forward: Songs for a New Season

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      Hear a playlist tuned to rebirth, as well as the risk to bloom. Plus: a selection of tracks that explain our readers.The cover of Waxahatchee’s “Saint Cloud.”Merge RecordsDear listeners,A few days ago, I was buried up to my neck in volcanic sand.Literally, and by choice! My sister and I spent a very restorative weekend at a spa, to celebrate her upcoming wedding and to shake off a winter that had been a challenge for each of us. This particular spa has imported natural volcanic sand from Ibusuki, a city in southwest Japan, and for a cool $30 they will have someone rake a hot, heaping quantity of it atop your body until you cannot move. Then you lay there for 15 minutes, letting the mineral-rich sand work its supposedly detoxifying magic and, if you are like me, expelling such an ungodly amount of perspiration from your face that an attendant who sees maybe a hundred people through this process each day remarks with slightly concerned awe, “Wow, you’re really sweating.”For the first few minutes, I felt like a corpse. By the end, though, as I wriggled out of the earth and once again stood upright, I have never felt more like a freshly sprouting flower in springtime. (Albeit an exceptionally sweaty one who had to sit on the bench for five extra minutes of observation because she’d been deemed a fainting risk.)The earliest weeks of springtime have such a distinct feeling that I decided to make a playlist to soundtrack them. Late March/early April is a time of rebirth but also of the friction and occasional struggle of transition — the lime-green shoot emerging from the dirt; the chrysalis stage before the butterfly. It’s the April-is-the-cruelest-month part of “The Wasteland.” It’s the “little darling, it’s been a long, cold lonely winter” part of “Here Comes the Sun.” It’s this perfect little 24-word poem by Anaïs Nin that I always find myself thinking of this time of year:And then the day came,when the riskto remain tightin a budwas more painfulthan the riskit tookto Blossom.Flowers are a recurring motif on this playlist: Waxahatchee’s blooming and then withering lilacs “marking the slow, slow, slow passing of time”; Hurray for the Riff Raff’s bemused cataloging of poetic plant names (“Rhododendron, night blooming jasmine, deadly nightshade…”). So, too, is rebirth and that worthwhile risk to bloom. Perhaps selfishly, I sneaked in one song in about “smoke floating over the volcano,” but that’s from an album I find speaks to a lot of these themes anyway, Caroline Polachek’s excellent, recently released “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You.” My perennial favorites Nina Simone and the Mountain Goats make appearances, but don’t say I didn’t warn you in my introductory “11 Songs That Explain Me.”Speaking of which! Thank you so much for all your wonderful submissions when I asked last week for a song that describes you. I wish I could have included every one of them, but I wanted to share a few of my favorites below. So many of your responses were such vivid reminders of the humanizing power of music and the bone-deep connection we all have to certain songs. It was great to get to know more about who’s out there reading, too. I feel like we’re building something special together.Listen along here on Spotify as you read.1. Waxahatchee: “Lilacs”“And the lilacs drink the water/And the lilacs die,” Katie Crutchfield sings on this bittersweet, gently twangy tune from her most recent album, “Saint Cloud”; that succinct image and the song’s stark arrangement lay bare her increasing confidence as a songwriter. (Listen on YouTube)2. Hurray for the Riff Raff: “Rhododendron”Alynda Segarra has a knack for writing songs that both celebrate the natural world and articulate the dangers of ignoring its glory. “Don’t turn your back on the mainland,” Segarra sings here, on a tuneful but defiantly prickly chorus. (Listen on YouTube)3. Troye Sivan: “Bloom”Here’s an underrated gem from a few years back: smeary, romantic, ’80s-inspired pop as vibrant as a bouquet of roses in every color. (Listen on YouTube)4. Beach House: “Lazuli”And from an album called “Bloom,” this is an atmospheric reverie from the indie-pop duo Beach House, a band that — despite the summertime humidity its name conjures — always sounds to me like the arrival of spring. (Listen on YouTube)5. Jamila Woods: “Sula (Paperback)”Inspired by Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel “Sula,” the ever-inquisitive Chicago R&B singer and poet Jamila Woods crafts an ode to self-discovery and personal growth with a refrain that stretches upward like a verdant stalk: “I’m better, I’m better, I’m better …” (Listen on YouTube)6. The Mountain Goats: “Onions”I love the way this simple, guitar-driven meditation on early spring entwines the personal with the more cosmic cycling of the seasons: “Springtime’s coming, that means you’ll be coming back around/New onions growing underground.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Caroline Polachek: “Smoke”“It’s just smoke floating over the volcano,” the avant-garde pop star Polachek sings, providing a potent reminder that all difficult periods — like, say, being buried up to your neck in a steaming pile of volcanic sand — do pass in time. (Listen on YouTube)8. Nina Simone: “Here Comes the Sun”This is such a deeply felt reading of a song so many of us know by rote: Simone’s particular phrasing cracks it open and makes you feel like you’re hearing George Harrison’s words anew. (Listen on YouTube)9. Dolly Parton: “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”Dolly Parton is, eternally, a human ray of sunshine, though perhaps never more explicitly than she is here, on this inspirational, soul-rattling classic from her first self-produced album from 1977, “New Harvest … First Gathering.” (Listen on YouTube)I feel that ice is slowly melting,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Spring Forward” track listTrack 1: Waxahatchee, “Lilacs” (2020)Track 2: Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Rhododendron” (2022)Track 3: Troye Sivan, “Bloom” (2018)Track 4: Beach House, “Lazuli” (2012)Track 5: Jamila Woods, “Sula (Paperback)” (2020)Track 6: The Mountain Goats, “Onions” (2000)Track 7: Caroline Polachek, “Smoke” (2023)Track 8: Nina Simone, “Here Comes the Sun” (1971)Track 9: Dolly Parton, “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” (1977)The songs that explain youLast week, we asked readers about the songs that explain them. More than 500 of you wrote in. Thanks to everyone who shared their stories.Cameo: “She’s Strange”I’ve always thought of it as my personal theme song in a way … it’s a tribute to a woman committed to being her unique self in the world. When I think about the things I am most proud of in my life, it’s the fact that somehow I did not let the world, society, Groupthink or even my culture of origin diminish my quiet determination to live my truth as best as my circumstances would allow. — Idara E. Bassey, Atlanta (Listen on YouTube)Mitski: “Dan the Dancer”Or perhaps the whole album of “Puberty 2.” I’m 18 years old so I feel as though I am experiencing my own second puberty, not one of first periods and training bras but one of questioning my place in the world, having new experiences, first relationships etc. For me, Dan the Dancer encapsulates my fear and questioning of the future and my life through this metaphor of hanging onto a cliff, while connecting to this experience of new relationships and letting yourself be vulnerable with those around you. — Natalie, Singapore (Listen on YouTube)Sonic Youth: “Teen Age Riot”In high school, I boarded the bus every morning in my rural Louisiana hometown wearing thick black eyeliner and a scowl, always with some flavor of abrasive alternative music blasting in my cheap earbuds. This song carried me through many of those bus rides, away from my mostly conservative, evangelical Christian peers who I couldn’t identify less with to a place where my frustrations could be heard and understood. I’m now a student at a law school where I feel immense pressure to pursue a corporate career and give up the idealism that has served as my enduring motivation. This song inspires me to look to the teenage riot that still persists within me, and remember what’s really worth fighting for. — Amanda Watson, Durham, N.C. (Listen on YouTube)Nina Simone: “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”It encapsulates the world I want to see, coupled with the wistfulness that we’re not there yet. I love the way the song starts with barely any instrumental accompaniment, just Simone’s piano and a gentle drumbeat (or maybe finger snaps?) and then builds and builds until it’s speaking to the whole world. I’ve been some kind of activist most of my life (I’m now 55), and it’s easy to be deeply discouraged by the political and ecological present we’re in and lose hope for what the future might be. This song (re-)energizes me: Nina was singing at a moment when civil rights were a legal reality but mostly a aspiration for those living with the daily indignities and violence of racism, so if she can imagine a better world, so can I. — Sarah Chinn, Brooklyn, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)Brian Eno: “The Big Ship”I discovered this in the mid-80s at a time when I was a closeted gay teenager, longing for some sort of freedom. This ethereal piece of almost-ambience defies easy categorization. It simply builds, like a cloudy nebula descending from space, more and more sounds playing off one another until it envelopes you and reascends, taking you with it. If felt like an escape into another reality — like a peaceful transition to an open world. I’d play it on repeat with headphones to keep spiraling darkness at bay. It worked. It helped me survive. — George B. Singer, Long Beach, Calif. (Listen on YouTube)And a very special bonus track (from the artist)The dB’s: “Amplifier”I wrote this 40 years ago, and it’s probably my best-known song. It’s partially about me and my own life, but it has spoken to other desperate, depressed people, helping defuse some of their emotional distress with a little misplaced humor. Sometimes. People still react to it — this past summer, at the request of the hostess, I played the song with my dB’s rhythm section bandmates at a soundcheck for a book release party in Chapel Hill. An early attendee had a visceral meltdown over the words to the song, begging us not to play it again. So we didn’t. — Peter Holsapple, Durham, N.C. (Listen on YouTube) More

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      Gwen Stefani’s Ska-Pop Flashback, and 10 More New Songs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistGwen Stefani’s Ska-Pop Flashback, and 10 More New SongsHear tracks by Sturgill Simpson, John Carpenter, Elle King and others.Gwen Stefani returns to the familiar sounds of her band, No Doubt, on a new single, “Let Me Reintroduce Myself.”Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty Images For IheartmediaJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Dec. 11, 2020Every 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.Gwen Stefani, ‘Let Me Reintroduce Myself’[embedded content]When the brash, sneering No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani emerged in the mid-90s to break up the boys-club monopoly of alternative rock, it would have been hard to predict where she’d be now, at 51. She is arguably even more of a household name than in the “Tragic Kingdom” days, but occupies a space at the deadest center of centrist pop — a fixture on a broadcast TV singing competition that is (somehow) in its 20th season, and an occasional (if sonically ill-suited) duet partner with her country-star fiancé. Her new single, the not-so-subtly-titled “Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” gestures back to Stefani’s middle period of, roughly, “Rock Steady” through “Hollaback Girl,” assuring the skeptical listener that she’s still “the original, original old” Gwen. A few clunky verse lyrics protest a bit too much (“It’s not a comeback, I’m recycling me”), but when her brassy voice rises to match the ska instrumentation of the chorus, there’s a fleeting rush of that old No Doubt magic. LINDSAY ZOLADZTroye Sivan, Kacey Musgraves and Mark Ronson, ‘Easy’The neon-kissed “Easy” was already a highlight off the Australian pop sweetheart Troye Sivan’s recent EP, “In a Dream,” but a new mix by Mark Ronson and guest vocals from Kacey Musgraves kick it into another gear. Ronson’s production expands the song’s spacious atmosphere, accentuating an echoing New Order bass line, starry synth flourishes and cavernous percussion. For all her disco flirtations on “High Horse,” Musgraves has never lent her benevolent croon to a song so straightforwardly poppy before — but she sounds so at home that it’s worth wondering if this hints at a potential post-“Golden Hour” direction. ZOLADZJohn Carpenter, ‘The Dead Walk’The director John Carpenter is a full-fledged musician who has also composed the scores for many of his films. “The Dead Walk” is from an album due in 2021, “Lost Themes III,” of music without movies. It’s a martial, suspenseful, pumping, minor-key synthesizer melody, with a guitar overlay, that has its beat drop out midway through, for blurred piano arpeggios, only to resume with even more ominous intent. JON PARELESGeorge Coleman Quintet, ‘Sandu’In 1971, seven years after his tenure with Miles Davis’s famed quintet, the saxophonist George Coleman was revving up his career as a bandleader in his own right. On this newly discovered live recording, “The George Coleman Quintet in Baltimore,” Coleman — an inveterate weight lifter — drives the band like a personal trainer, while syncing up with the colorful trumpet phrasing of Danny Moore and the brawny Midwestern swing of Larry Ridley’s bass. On “Sandu,” a classic Clifford Brown blues, Moore nods to its author with a few upturned, pretty lines, but he’s working out his own shapes. On Coleman’s solo, his fits of circular breathing seem to call back to the old R&B saxophone hollerers of generations before. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOFunkmaster Flex featuring King Von, ‘Lurkin’The first single from the forthcoming Funkmaster Flex compilation — 1990s back! — is a taut example of the storytelling rap that made the Chicago rapper King Von, who was killed last month, such a compelling talent. JON CARAMANICABenny the Butcher, ‘3:30 in Houston’Benny the Butcher raps “3:30 in Houston” from a wheelchair — the result of getting shot last month in an attempted robbery. At first, he’s laughing a little — after all, he notes, he’s been on the other side of a robbery in his day. But midsong, as he relives the moment of the attack, the mood sours:Rolls-Royce truck basically stood outOnly one mistake, I ain’t have a lookoutQuarter in jewels, shopping at WalmartTake me out the hood but can’t take the hood outSoon, it’s a deadpan revenge tale, including the suggestion that someone’s “pinkie finger’s getting sent to me.” CARAMANICAKing Princess, ‘Pain’“Cheap Queen,” Mikaela Straus’s 2019 full-length debut as King Princess, was a relatively subdued affair, full of mid-tempo tunes that telegraphed laid-back cool. So the in-your-face energy of her latest single “Pain” is certainly a departure, but it works: The kinetic maximalism of the song’s early 90s touchstones — a “Freedom! ’90” keyboard riff; some “Tom’s Diner” do-do-dos — keep the song from wallowing in the muck of its moody subject matter. “I can’t help turning my love into pain,” Straus croons. The playful music video, directed by Quinn Wilson, conjures some cartoonishly masochistic imagery, with that titular word suddenly appearing like the bam and pows in an old “Batman” episode. ZOLADZSturgill Simpson, ‘Oh Sarah’“Oh Sarah” is a desolate Southern soul ballad on Sturgill Simpson’s 2016 album, “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” losing itself in the loneliness and transience of the road: “Too old now to learn how to let you in/so I run away just like I always do.” On “Cuttin’ Grass — Vol. 2 (Cowboy Arms Sessions),” his second album of bluegrass remakes from his catalog, it’s far more reassuring, rooted in string-band picking. It’s a vow of enduring love despite the separations: “Don’t worry baby, I’ll come home.” PARELESElle King, ‘Another You’Bitterness seethes and crests as the string section swells in Elle King’s “Another You,” a knife-twisting response to a message from a despised ex. In the verses she details his failings, almost singing through clenched teeth; in the chorus, she belts with vindictive joy about a new romance, proclaiming, “It wasn’t hard to fill your shoes.” PARELESEl Perro del Mar featuring Blood Orange, ‘Alone in Halls’“I’m going through changes,” El Perro del Mar — the Swedish composer and singer Sarah Assbring — sings and speaks, again and again, in “Alone in Halls,” over two organlike chords that feel like inhales and exhales. She’s joined, now and then, by the voice of Blood Orange (Dev Hynes). Aren’t we all going through changes? PARELESMoontype, ‘Ferry’“I wanna take the ferry to Michigan,” Margaret McCarthy sings, buoyed by oceanic guitar distortion on the chorus of “Ferry,” the first single from the Chicago indie-rock trio Moontype’s upcoming debut album. “Ferry” marries the woozy swoon of Beach House with the rising sweep of a Galaxie 500 song, though McCarthy’s voice cuts through the haze with direct emotional lucidity. 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