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      The Best and Worst of the 2021 Grammy Awards

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      Megan Thee Stallion owned the stage, struggling indie venues got a much needed spotlight and the event proved a pandemic awards show doesn’t have to look like a video conference.The 63rd annual Grammy Awards promised to be different: There was a new executive producer at the helm for the first time in decades; a new host; and a new challenge — assembling a pandemic awards show that didn’t feel like a video conference. With a small audience of nominees outside in Los Angeles, the show highlighted the contributions of women and the impact of Black Lives Matter protests, offered screen time to workers at independent venues crushed by the pandemic and extended tributes to musicians we lost during this challenging year.Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best M.V.P.: Megan Thee StallionThough she didn’t win the night’s final and biggest category, record of the year, Grammy night belonged to Megan Thee Stallion. She took home the three other awards she was nominated for: best new artist and, for the remix of “Savage” featuring Beyoncé, best rap song and best rap performance. Each speech was a wholesome gift: words of exuberance from an artist experiencing the first flush of truly widespread acclaim. But her self-assured performance was the loudest statement of all. It opened with a bit of “Body,” and pivoted into her part from the “Savage” remix. But the main focus was a performance of “WAP” with Cardi B that was wildly and charmingly salacious, frisky and genuine in a way that the Grammys has rarely if ever made room for. That it took place on CBS, historically the most conservative of all the broadcast networks, was chef’s kiss. JON CARAMANICABest Accessory: Harry Styles’s Boa“Watermelon Sugar” never sounded better than when Harry Styles and his boa performed it on the Grammys stage.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyThe first-time nominee Harry Styles kicked off the show with a groovy, casually charismatic rendition of “Watermelon Sugar,” complete with an excellent backing band (Dev Hynes on bass!) and an instantly iconic feather boa. Styles often gets the knee-jerk Mick Jagger comparisons, but Styles possesses a much more laid-back — if no less magnetic — stage presence. “Watermelon Sugar” never sounded better than it did during this performance, which made its subsequent surprise win for best pop solo performance all the more understandable. Something tells me boa season is approaching. LINDSAY ZOLADZWorst Twist Ending: Billie Eilish’s Record of the Year Win“This is really embarrassing for me,” said Billie Eilish, accepting record of the year with her producer brother Finneas O’Connell.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyAt the very end of a Grammys ceremony that did its best to pretend like the Recording Academy has always supported and centered Black artists, women and especially Black women, Billie Eilish was put in an impossible position that we’ve seen too many times before. Awarded record of the year for “Everything I Wanted,” a mid tempo in-betweener of a track, only a year after sweeping the top four categories with her debut album, Eilish could only gush over Megan Thee Stallion.“This is really embarrassing for me,” Eilish, a white teenager who — like many in her generation and beyond — worships Black culture, said. “You are a queen, I want to cry thinking about how much I love you.” She went on. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of Adele praising Beyoncé when “25” beat “Lemonade” for album of the year in 2017, and also of that infamous Macklemore text to Kendrick Lamar. Some online bristled at the performative white guilt on display, while others applauded Eilish’s apparently sincere fandom. But only a stubbornly old-fashioned voting body that still just honors rap when it’s convenient could be blamed. JOE COSCARELLIBest Reality Check: Presenters From Shuttered VenuesThe Apollo in Harlem, which has been closed for a year during the pandemic.George Etheredge for The New York TimesNeither musicians nor fans can forget that the pandemic has shut down live music. Sprinkled among the awards presenters — instead of the usual actors promoting CBS shows and stray sports figures — were people who work at long-running clubs and theaters: the Station Inn in Nashville, the Troubadour and the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They spoke pretaped from their empty music halls and announced the winners live. Billy Mitchell, who started working at the Apollo in 1965, recalled that James Brown had demanded to see his report card, insisted he improve his grades, and later gave him money that Mitchell put toward business school and a lifelong career at the Apollo, where he eventually became the official historian. Music changes lives offstage, too. JON PARELESBest Disco Fantasy: Dua LipaDua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” has lived its entire life in quarantine, but it begs to be let loose into the night and onto dance floors around the world. At the Grammys, the British pop singer and songwriter gave us a glimpse of the other side — glitter, flashing lights, throbbing bass lines, people dusting off ’70s dance moves, slight awkwardness. Her two-song set started with “Levitating,” a funky roller-rink jam with a charming DaBaby feature, and ended with “Don’t Start Now,” the powerhouse kiss-off that was nominated for both record and song of the year. The track didn’t take home either prize, but Lipa left with a trophy for pop vocal album and the honor of coaxing the most at-home viewers into a few minutes of spirited couch dancing. CARYN GANZBest Confrontational Politics: Lil Baby and DaBabyLil Baby released “The Bigger Picture,” a stream-of-consciousness, autobiographical protest song, less than three weeks after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis last summer, on the very day that Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by police in the rapper’s native Atlanta.With appearances by the actor and activist Kendrick Sampson, who reenacted Brooks’s killing; the organizer Tamika Mallory, who addressed President Joe Biden in a speech; and Killer Mike, who added some Run the Jewels to the mix, Lil Baby’s performance managed to invoke the despair and anger of that moment without it feeling co-opted by the institutions that were playing host.Earlier in the show, DaBaby did the same, adding a new verse to “Rockstar,” his sneakily wrenching ode to firearms, and making eye contact with America as he rapped in front a choir of older white people in judge’s robes: “Right now I’m performing at the Grammys/I’ll probably get profiled before leavin’.” COSCARELLIWorst Queen Worship: The Grammys to BeyoncéBeyoncé won four awards at this year’s Grammys ceremony, bringing her lifetime total to 28.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyDid you know that Beyoncé has now won more Grammys than any other female artist in history (28)? Of course you did; the Grammys could not stop reminding you. To be clear, this is a monumental achievement, and one that goddess among mortals Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter absolutely deserves. But there was a Grammys-doth-protest-too-much quality to the way Trevor Noah and the show’s presenters kept reminding us of this fact over and over, almost as though the Recording Academy was trying to make amends to Beyoncé for its past transgressions on live television. (Those transgressions include, but are not limited to, icing the woman who has basically redesigned the modern pop album over the past decade out of wins in the big four categories since 2010.)It was awkward. Even Beyoncé’s recognition for “Black Parade” — a good song, sure, but hardly among her best or most impactful work — felt strangely conciliatory, a mea culpa for not giving “Lemonade” its proper due several years ago. The always gracious Beyoncé certainly made the most of it, though, and her acceptance speeches were among the night’s highlights — especially her beaming big-sister energy as her “Savage” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion accepted their shared, very deserved award for best rap song. ZOLADZBest Use of Quarantine Time: Taylor Swift’s Album of the Year ‘Folklore’Taylor Swift is now the only female artist in Grammy history to win album of the year three times.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressGoing into Grammy night, album of the year was Taylor Swift’s award to lose. Perhaps no other LP has come to symbolize our pandemic year more thoroughly than “Folklore,” which Swift created entirely during quarantine and embellished with a warm and woolly homebound aesthetic. Her Grammy performance — a medley of the “Folklore” songs “Cardigan” and “August,” along with “Willow” from her second 2020 album, “Evermore” — relied perhaps too literally on that aesthetic.The flickering visual whimsy all around her and her producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner (who both joined her onstage, in a set made up to look like a one-room cottage) detracted a bit from the direct power of her songcraft, which was more easily appreciated in the other awards-show performance she has given in support of “Folklore,” a beautifully bare-bones interpretation of “Betty” at last year’s Country Music Awards. But Swift, a one-time Grammy darling who before tonight had not had a win since 2016, has been out of the show’s spotlight for long enough that her win felt triumphant. In keeping with a night defined by female artists’ achievements it added an impressive feather to her cap, making her the only female artist in Grammy history to win album of the year three times. ZOLADZBest Blasts (and Ballads) from the Past: Silk Sonic and In MemoriamBruno Mars is nothing if not a diligent archivist, digging into the details of vintage styles, and Anderson .Paak joins him on the retro quest in their new project Silk Sonic. They went all in on “Leave the Door Open,” a period-piece homage to smooth 1970s vocal-group R&B. In three-piece mocha suits and shirts with collars that spread almost shoulder-wide, they traded off gritty leads and suave backup harmonies, choreography included. From another time capsule, Mars and Paak returned for the In Memoriam segment, paying raucous tribute to Little Richard with Mars whooping it up into an old-fashioned microphone and Paak slamming a kit of tiger-striped drums. The memorial segment continued with tasteful modesty: Lionel Richie delivering Kenny Rogers’s “Lady” with elegiac melancholy, Brandi Carlile singing John Prine’s last song, “I Remember Everything,” with affectionate respect.The closing tribute probably made more sense in the United Kingdom. With Coldplay’s Chris Martin on piano, Brittany Howard worked up to belting “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel”) over a country shuffle. It was a convoluted memorial to Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and the Pacemakers, who remade the song in 1963 and saw it adopted as the Liverpool Football Club’s anthem. Even odder, the song reappeared moments later, with Howard singing over a better backup track, in a commercial. PARELESBest Juggling Act: Trevor NoahChris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressHosting an awards show during pandemic season is a job without precedent, or sturdy rules. At this year’s Grammys — a mélange of live performances, pretaped segments and award presentations handed out on a downtown Los Angeles rooftop — the remit of the job was deeply confused. And still Trevor Noah proved mostly adept: vibrant energy, a little bit of awe, some topical-humor fluency and a bit of cheek, but not too much. Occasionally he literally inserted himself into the end of a performance, or purposely overlapped with something happening elsewhere onstage, which in moments felt awkward, but actually helped to add glue to a patchwork affair. There were some lumpy spots, and his cringey joke about sharing a bed with Cardi B felt like an attitudinal relic of the 1980s, but on the whole, Noah made something that could have felt like several competing shows feel like one. CARAMANICABest Self-Criticism: Harvey Mason Jr.“We hear the cries for diversity, pleas for representation and demands for transparency,” said Harvey Mason Jr., interim president and chairman of the Recording Academy.Rich Fury/Getty Images for the Recording AcademyThe obligatory Grammy speech by the head of the Recording Academy tends to mingle platitudes about the power of music with mild lobbying. Harvey Mason Jr., who took over as interim president and chairman after the academy fired Deborah Dugan just before last year’s Grammy Awards, offered something different: the closest the Grammys have gotten to a mea culpa. “We hear the cries for diversity, pleas for representation and demands for transparency,” he said, over a soundtrack of earnest piano. “Tonight I’m here to ask that entire music community to join in, work with us not against us, as we build a new Recording Academy that we can all be proud of.” He added, “This is not the vision of tomorrow but the job for today.” Promising sentiments — will they be enough? PARELESBest Overdue Nomination: Mickey GuytonTrevor Noah awkwardly introduced Mickey Guyton as “the first Black female solo artist ever nominated in a country category” — far more a reflection on country music and the Grammys than on her own clear merits. (She lost best country solo performance to Vince Gill in the pre-telecast ceremony.) But Guyton, who will be co-hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards in April, gracefully seized this prime-time moment, singing “Black Like Me,” a blunt indictment — “If you think we live in the land of the free/You should try to be Black like me” — that strives to end on a hopeful note. It’s a hymnlike song that welcomed a backup choir and a big buildup on the way to a climactic, “Someday we’ll all be free.” And it made Guyton a very hard act for Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris to follow. PARELESBest Mixed Emotions: HaimDanielle Haim started “The Steps,” nominated for best rock performance, seated behind the drums, with a pugnacious look on her face and a beat to match. She was singing about being underestimated and misunderstood, and the Grammys simply stuck the three-sister band — Danielle, Este and Alana — in the middle of the floor. But Haim switched instruments as well as moods mid-song; Danielle moved from drums to guitar and back while her voice briefly changed from annoyed to wounded; it can hurt to be misunderstood. By the end she was back on the counterattack, but the song was no longer simple. PARELES More

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      The Grammys Discover Youth

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      A pandemic awards show that seemed poised to disappoint ended up pivoting instead, shifting its focus to women, hip-hop and most crucially, the next generation.The annual postgame bemoaning of the Grammys rarely fails to disappoint. Between its consistently fraught relationship with Black artists, its weighing down of the young with the old, and its stoic resistance to the ways in which pop music is evolving, the ceremony has become as powerful for its symbolic out-of-touchness as for its commemorations.So it would be easy to look at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which aired Sunday night from Los Angeles, and underscore what was broken. Beyoncé won four trophies, giving her a total of 28 for her career, the most of any vocalist, tying her for second-most of all time. But these wins, like almost all of them, came in genre categories, not in the biggest, all-genre categories, despite her undeniable influence across the whole spectrum of pop. After sweeping the big four categories last year, Billie Eilish won record of the year for “Everything I Wanted” — a safe choice — and spent her speech repenting by uncomfortably fawning over Megan Thee Stallion.In most years, those would have been the defining moments — well-intentioned acts gone awry. And yet. The Grammys this year were frisky, energetic, largely well-paced and sometimes surprising. They often met popular music where it actually has been over the past year, with performances by central stars of pop, hip-hop, rock and country. Women dominated all the major categories — in addition to Eilish’s victory, Taylor Swift won album of the year for “Folklore,” H.E.R. won song of the year for “I Can’t Breathe” and Megan Thee Stallion won best new artist.But the most crucial aspect of the show was this: Almost all of the performers were under 40, and plenty were under 30. This may seem like an obvious move, but at the Grammys, youth and current relevance have often been treated as inconveniences to be navigated deftly, lest older generations — of artists and, presumably, viewers — feel left out. (This year, given the coronavirus pandemic, there was also likely an impetus to keep elders as far from harm’s way as possible.)Most vividly, that meant several largely unvarnished performances by hip-hop stars, still a shock on the Grammys stage despite the genre’s role at the center of pop evolution for decades. Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B paired for a clever and buoyantly sexual performance of “WAP” that was more erotically direct than any Grammys moment in memory. (Think Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, and then some.) Lil Baby’s protest anthem “The Bigger Picture” was rendered as full social justice theater, with a building in flames, a square-off between protesters and shield-bearing police officers, and spoken-word calls for policy improvements.When these performances nodded to the Grammy tradition of melding the new with the old — typically an act of suffocation — it was done cheekily. During Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s performance, there was a brief tap dance routine acknowledging the pioneering Black tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers. And DaBaby delivered an intense and fantastically odd performance, in which he was backed by a choir of older women in church robes who appeared to have been given direction to look as comedically shocked as possible.Early in the show, during a Jools Holland-like performance with several acts on adjacent stages, Eilish was theatrically morbid, and Harry Styles was lithe and sinuous. Later, Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez performed wholly in Spanish, a rare acknowledgment of the power of contemporary Spanish-language music. BTS scaled a rooftop to deliver a dizzying rendition of its hit “Dynamite,” a hyperchoreographed taunt at any performer who opted to be bound to, you know, a stage. And Dua Lipa advertised herself as a nu-aerobics queen, with an impressive set of hi-test disco.For a second year in a row, the Grammys put a spotlight on the teen singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, and her producer, Finneas.Kevin Mazur/The Recording Academy, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThrough another lens, Lipa’s performance could be seen as a wink to the music of yesteryear — a classicist with a high-gloss veneer. Typically, those sorts of artists are Grammy stock-in-trade, and there were a handful of them this year, like Silk Sonic, the recently formed union of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, who played pointedly retro, shimmery luxury soul. And despite becoming less central to pop music in general, guitars were not in short supply. Black Pumas scuffed up their typically modest rock-soul ever so slightly. Haim played loose, lovely, harmony-rich rock, and Taylor Swift performed a medley of songs from her quarantine albums, reimagining the Grammy stage as a mystical forest haunt.That said, consider it a victory that the Grammys largely opted in favor of youth, even when the mode of creation was old-fashioned. That reflects a dawning awareness that the show — the performances, at least, if not always the awards — has the power to be prescriptive, not simply hoary. Take, for example, its treatment of country music this year: None of the country performers were men, and given that almost every major star of country radio is a man, this was a meaningful gesture. It provided a huge showcase for Mickey Guyton, the first Black woman solo artist ever to receive a nomination in a country category — her rendition of “Black Like Me” was deeply invested and bracing. (Guyton still lost best country solo performance to Vince Gill, a Grammy perennial.) She was followed by sharp, but less pointed performances by Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris (who was inexplicably saddled with a John Mayer cameo).For a sense of the confusingly evolving and ongoing conundrum the Grammys finds itself in, look no further than this year’s hip-hop awards. Best rap album was won by Nas, one of the defining rappers of the … 1990s. This was his first Grammy, won for a little-heralded late-career album — the sort of years-late-dollars-short gesture that is a frequent Grammy occurrence. But best rap song and best rap performance went to Megan Thee Stallion (with Beyoncé), who is in almost every way, besides popular acclaim, a rookie. That the Grammys have honored her so thoroughly so early in her career must feel baffling to the pioneering rappers of decades past. On the other hand, hip-hop has come far enough to have its elders pull out head-scratching wins, just like rock, country and pop old-timers have for generations.The Grammys remain, at heart, a balancing act — a big tent that aims to satisfy everyone, fully pleasing no one. Even the distribution of this year’s major awards, after last year’s Eilish sweep, felt overly conspicuous. But Swift is 31, Megan Thee Stallion is 26, H.E.R. is 23, Eilish is 19. That no one is making them wait for their acclaim is its own sort of victory. More

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      Taylor Swift Wins Album of the Year, Again

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsGrammys: What HappenedWinners ListBest and Worst MomentsBeyoncé Breaks RecordRed CarpetAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBeyoncé Breaks Grammy Record; Top Prizes for Billie Eilish and Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift takes album of the year, becoming the first woman to win three times.March 14, 2021, 11:37 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 11:37 p.m. ETTaylor Swift broke a record with her album of the year win for “Folklore.”Credit…Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressTaylor Swift’s “Folklore” won album of the year on Sunday, making the singer and songwriter the first woman to win the prize three times, following her victories for “Fearless” in 2010 and “1989” in 2016. Swift tied Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon as the only artists with three career best album trophies. (The mastering engineer Tom Coyne has won four, including one for “1989.”)“You guys met us in this imaginary world that we created,” Swift said during her acceptance speech, flanked by her collaborators Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, Laura Sisk and Jonathan Low. Dessner, who collaborated remotely with Swift on the pandemic album, called her “one the greatest living songwriters, who somehow put trust in me.”[embedded content]A surprise release in July, “Folklore” represented Swift’s foray into more acoustic sounds and indie-rock textures following years of pop bombast. She was nominated six times in all on Sunday, but lost in five other categories before taking home album of the year.“Evermore,” the “sister record” to “Folklore” and Swift’s second secret pandemic release, came out in December, meaning it could be nominated at next year’s Grammys and represents her fourth potential album win.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Taylor Swift Performs Songs From 'Folklore' and 'Evermore' at the Grammys

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsGrammys: What HappenedWinners ListBest and Worst MomentsBeyoncé Breaks RecordRed CarpetAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBeyoncé Breaks Grammy Record; Top Prizes for Billie Eilish and Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift performs a medley from her pandemic albums.March 14, 2021, 9:34 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 9:34 p.m. ETTaylor Swift performs atop a cottage set in a magical forest.Credit…TAS Rights Management, via Getty ImagesTaylor Swift, who was nominated for six Grammys at Sunday’s show, performed a three-song medley from her two pandemic albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore,” atop — and then within — a makeshift cottage set in a magical forest.Swift was joined for the understated renditions by her two chief songwriting and production collaborators on those albums, Aaron Dessner of the National and Jack Antonoff, moving through abbreviated versions of “Cardigan,” “August” and “Willow.”“Folklore,” released as a surprise in July, was responsible for five of Swift’s six nominations tonight — she was also up for a song she wrote for the film “Cats,” but lost to Billie Eilish in the preshow event — and would bring Swift her third career album of the year win, should she end up victorious. “Cardigan,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, is also nominated for song of the year.The song “Willow” came from Swift’s second surprise album of the pandemic, “Evermore,” which was released in December, well after the Grammys deadline on Aug. 31, and would be eligible at next year’s show.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Grammys Lineup 2021: Taylor Swift, BTS, Billie Eilish and More

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTaylor Swift, BTS and Megan Thee Stallion Will Perform at the GrammysThe awards show next Sunday night will feature a mix of live and taped appearances shot in downtown Los Angeles.From left: Taylor Swift, Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa are among the artists announced as performers for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards.Credit…Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images For Iheartmedia, Rich Fury/Getty Images For Visible, Kevin Winter/Getty Images For DcpPublished More

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      5 Songs to Listen to Right Now

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      5 Songs to Listen to Right NowDua Lipa.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesI write about pop music for The New York Times. Here are five new and notable songs, including Taylor Swift’s first rerecorded back-catalog hit and Dua Lipa at her cheekiest → More

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      Taylor Swift’s New Old ‘Love Story,’ and 12 More Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistTaylor Swift’s New Old ‘Love Story,’ and 12 More SongsHear tracks by Dua Lipa, Nicky Jam and Romeo Santos, R+R=Now and others.Taylor Swift has released a new version of her 2008 hit “Love Story” as the first of the songs she is rerecording from her first six albums.Credit…Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Chris Pizzello/Invision/ApJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Feb. 12, 2021Updated 2:22 p.m. ETEvery Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Taylor Swift, ‘Love Story (Taylor’s Version)’[embedded content]As the first official release of her rerecorded back catalog, “Love Story,” from Taylor Swift’s 2008 album, “Fearless,” is a savvy pick. Not only is it one of her most beloved hits, but it also means that the first new-old lyric we hear the 31-year-old Swift sing is, “We were both young when I first saw you” — an immediate invocation of the past that subtly reframes the recording as a kind of tender love song to her 18-year-old self. Swift is more interested in impressive note-for-note simulacrum than revisionism here, though sharp-eared Swifties will delight in noticing the tiniest differences (like the playful staccato hiccup she adds to “Rom-e-oh!” on the second pre-chorus.) When Swift first announced her intentions to rerecord her first six albums, skeptics wondered if the whole project was just an uncomfortably public display of personal animosity toward her former business partners, and the songs’ new owners. But Swift has so far brought a sense of triumph, grace and artistry to the endeavor, and in doing so has begun the process of retelling her story on her own terms. It’s better than revenge. LINDSAY ZOLADZRebecca Black featuring Dorian Electra, Big Freedia and 3OH!3, ‘Friday (Remix)’Let’s say you want to rewrite your past. Write it over, like an old hard drive. Take a thing that made you well known, and reclaim it. Send a message to the people who robbed that thing of the pleasure and satisfaction it brought you. Sure, you could do a note-for-note rerecording that serves primarily as a middle finger to equity investors. Or perhaps you could take the Rebecca Black route. It’s been around a decade since “Friday,” her debut single, made her an early casualty of social media cruelty. But Black has been releasing music steadily, and quietly, for the last few years, and recently she’s been inching back into the spotlight as a reliably charming presence on TikTok. Musically, she’s found her footing as an outré eccentric with sturdy savvy, an ideal approach for — and a natural position for — someone who’s been chewed to pulp by the internet. Hence, the reclaiming of “Friday,” with a chaotic, loopy, joyful, meta-hyperpop remix with Dorian Electra, Big Freedia and 3OH!3, all produced by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs. The original song became an ur-text of outcast misery. How wonderful to hold it tight all these years, and just wait for your band of misfits to come along. JON CARAMANICADua Lipa, ‘We’re Good’Dua Lipa is at her cheekiest on “We’re Good,” a bonus track from the new deluxe “Moonlight Edition” of her 2020 album, “Future Nostalgia”: “We’re not meant to be, like sleeping and cocaine,” she croons. OK then! The video is, similarly, full of irreverent, not-sure-it-all-quite-lands humor, as a tank of imperiled lobsters are saved from becoming dinner by … the Titanic sinking? Thankfully the song itself is pretty straightforward and fun — a sassy, slinky kiss-off that’s more reliably buoyant than that doomed luxury liner. ZOLADZNicky Jam and Romeo Santos, ‘Fan de Tus Fotos’“Fan de Tus Fotos” finds the smooth reggaeton star Nicky Jam and the bachata superstar Romeo Santos both longing for the same woman, crooning one come on after another. Santos, in particular, is vivid, singing (in Spanish), “I’m your fan looking for a ticket/for a concert with your body.” In the video, both are office drones obsessed with the same supervisor, who metes out two punishments for their workplace insubordination — she fires them (bad), then finds more direct ways to boss them around (ummmmm … not bad?). CARAMANICACherry Glazerr, ‘Big Bang’Clementine Creevy, the songwriter who leads Cherry Glazerr, has moved well beyond the lean, guitar-driven rock of her recent past. “Big Bang” is a negotiation with an ex who’s still in the picture: “I still call you when I need escaping,” she admits, only to insist, “I don’t wanna make you my lifeline.” Her mixed feelings play out over a stately march that rises to near-orchestral peaks. Is she arguing with her ex or with herself? JON PARELESDeath From Above 1979, ‘One + One’What happens when post-punks grow up? The guitar-and-drums duo Death From Above 1979 has one answer: a hard-riffing embrace of happy monogamy and proud fatherhood. “One plus one is three — that’s magic!” The drums still pound and skitter, and the guitar still bites, while the nuclear family is reaffirmed. PARELESR+R=Now, ‘How Much a Dollar Cost’The pianist Robert Glasper and the alto saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin played important roles in the making of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and they’re also at the nucleus of R+R=Now, a contemporary-jazz supergroup that works in conversation with hip-hop and R&B. (It also includes Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on trumpet, Derrick Hodge on bass, Taylor McFerrin on synthesizer, and Justin Tyson on drums.) When the group performed at Glasper’s Blue Note residency in New York in 2018, Lamar’s “How Much a Dollar Cost” was part of the set. That show was released today as a live album; on the Lamar cover, without an M.C., the fiery interplay between Adjuah and Martin takes over storytelling duties. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMatt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, ‘Hall of Death’What could have been a country waltz becomes, instead, a hyperactive scramble of distorted Tuareg guitar riffs and three-against-two cross-rhythms. The weary voice and haunted lyrics of Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy) are backed not only by Matt Sweeney but by the unstoppable Mdou Moctar Ensemble — which includes their songwriting collaborator Ahmoudou Madassane on guitar, from Niger. The track winds up, unexpectedly, as something like a love song. PARELESLil Tjay featuring 6lack, ‘Calling My Phone’Lightly resentful sad boy R&B from Lil Tjay and 6lack — Lil Tjay sounds depleted, while 6lack sounds like he never takes his sunglasses off when he looks you in the eye. CARAMANICAKaty Kirby, ‘Portals’Katy Kirby’s voice is modest and breathy, with a few unconcealed cracks, as she muses over a shaky relationship in metaphysical terms: “If we peel apart will we be stronger than before/we had formed ourselves together in a temporary whole?” She’s accompanied by calm, steady, basic piano chords in the foreground, while chamber-pop co-conspirators open up creaky mysteries around her. PARELESLucy Gooch, ‘Ash and Orange’The composer and singer Lucy Gooch layers her keyboards and vocals into enveloping reveries. “Ash and Orange” relies on organ-toned synthesizer chords, distant church bells and countless choirlike overdubbed harmonies for a song that evolves from meditation to an open-ended quasi-confession — despairing? forgiving? — from overlapping voices: “In my heart, in my head, I’ve tried.” PARELESMark Feldman, ‘As We Are’Fluidly spiraling up the violin’s neck, then dashing and plucking and scraping back down in a rough swarm: that’s the sound of Mark Feldman — unflinching and unconstrained as always — in a solo rendition of Sylvie Courvoisier’s “As We Are.” Later he lets the piece’s off-the-grid melody carry him into a stretch of intense improvising. This track opens Feldman’s engrossing new album, “Sounding Point,” his first solo violin LP in over 25 years. RUSSONELLOBrent Faiyaz featuring Purr, ‘Circles’In “Circles,” the producer and singer Brent Faiyaz ponders identity, purpose and eschatology: “Did I forget who I am? Chasing gold?/Only heaven knows if you can truly win in the midst of a world that’s gon’ end.” Nothing is reliable: not the computer-shifted pitch of his voice, not the loop of plinky tones behind him, not the beat that’s sometimes interrupted, not even whether it’s one song or two. For its last 47 seconds, the track changes completely, turning into retro soundtrack rock as, in the video, Faiyaz leaves the studio gloom, climbs into his sports car and drives off. PARELESAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Taylor Swift’s Rerecorded Album Releases Begin With ‘Fearless’ in April

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTaylor Swift’s Rerecorded Album Releases Begin With ‘Fearless’ in AprilAfter her first six albums were sold to investors, Swift said she would record entirely new versions of her old songs that she would own.Taylor Swift onstage during her Fearless Tour at Madison Square Garden in New York. The singer is rereleasing a new version of the album, which first came out in 2008.Credit…Chad Batka for The New York TimesFeb. 11, 2021Following through on a threat that rattled the music business and kick-started industrywide conversations about artistic ownership, Taylor Swift announced on Thursday that she would release a newly recorded version of “Fearless,” her second and most successful album, as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright.“This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me ever more determined to re-record all of my music,” said the singer, 31, in a statement on social media. She added that the rollout of her rerecordings would begin at midnight with the release of a fresh take on the song “Love Story” — now called “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” — her first Billboard Top 10 single, just in time for Valentine’s Day.“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” will be released April 9 and feature 26 songs total, including hits like “You Belong With Me” and “Fifteen,” along with six unreleased tracks written when Swift was a teenager. “‘Fearless’ was an album full of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth,” Swift wrote.I’m thrilled to tell you that my new version of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is done and will be with you soon. It has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) will be out tonight. Pre-order now at https://t.co/NqBDS6cGFl 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/Vjyy2gA72O— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 11, 2021
      First released in 2008 by the Nashville label Big Machine, “Fearless” represented Swift’s mainstream breakthrough outside of country music and won four Grammy Awards, including album of the year, on its way to selling more than 10 million copies in the United States. Like most artists, Swift did not then control the rights to her recordings, which belonged to the label, though she held some ownership, along with her songwriting collaborators, of the separate rights for her songs’ compositions, known as publishing.In 2019, not long after Swift signed a different contract with Universal Music Group that gave her the rights to her masters moving forward, the powerful music executive Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine — and with it, the master recordings to Swift’s first six multiplatinum albums — in a $300 million deal that included an investment from the private-equity firm Carlyle Group.At the time, Swift said that the deal “stripped me of my life’s work,” and put her catalog “in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” (Braun, who represents artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, previously worked with Kanye West, a longtime rival of Swift’s; she accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying,” which he denied.) Her fans reacted with a public pressure campaign on social media.Swift’s back catalog has since changed hands again: Braun’s company Ithaca Holdings sold the rights to Swift’s music — the albums “Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989” and “Reputation” — to Shamrock Capital, an investment firm founded by Roy E. Disney, a nephew of Walt Disney, for more than $300 million. Swift said she declined an offer to partner with Shamrock, citing Braun’s continued financial involvement.But before the second sale, Swift had already indicated that she planned to create a new set of master recordings that closely matched the ones she did not own, thus potentially devaluing the original assets.The owner of a master recording controls its use, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies, television, advertisements or video games. While an artist may still earn royalties on those recordings, record companies have historically retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in supporting and promoting an artist.By creating new master recordings of her older songs, Swift, one of the most powerful celebrities in music and beyond, cannot only urge her loyal legions of fans to stream and buy the versions she owns, but may also encourage brands, filmmakers and other potential corporate partners to avoid using the originals. In December, Swift previewed the new “Love Story” in an ad for the dating service Match.Swift is not the first artist to try such a maneuver, though she may be the highest profile and most dedicated to the project. Standard recording contracts typically include terms that bar artists from releasing rerecorded work for three to five years, or more, from its initial release — restrictions that became common after the Everly Brothers put out fresh versions of past hits on a new label in the early 1960s.Since then, the band Def Leppard released what it called “forgeries” of its biggest hits during a dispute with its label, while the pop singer Jojo put out newly recorded versions of her first two albums, which were not available on streaming services, in 2018, after her rerecording clauses ran out.Swift said on “Good Morning America” in 2019 that her contracts allowed for her to rerecord her first five albums beginning in November 2020. “I think that artists deserve to own their work,” she said. “I just feel very passionately about that.”Artists including Prince, Janet Jackson and Jay-Z had previously emphasized the importance of musicians owning their own masters; Swift’s public missives on the issue seemed to revitalize the conversation for a new generation. In 2018, upon leaving Big Machine, where she first signed at age 15, Swift announced a multi-album agreement with Universal Music Group and its subsidiary, Republic Records, where she would own her recordings.That deal covered “Lover,” from 2019, and Swift’s two pandemic albums from last year, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” The singer has six nominations at the Grammys next month, including album of the year for “Folklore” — her fourth career nod in that category and possibly her third win.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More