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      Billy Walsh Designs Sneakers for Rihanna and Writes Songs for the Weeknd

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      The Footwear News Achievement Awards, sometimes called the Oscars of shoes, shines a spotlight on the industry’s top designers. But when the singer Dua Lipa won for a Puma collection last November, her frequent collaborator Billy Walsh bolted at the sight of flashing cameras.“Billy Walsh’s five-seconds limit on the red carpet,” Ms. Lipa said, as photographers shouted her name at Cipriani Wall Street.“More like two seconds,” Mr. Walsh, 40, added safely from the sidelines.Avoiding attention is a peculiar trait for a man who collaborates with some of the biggest names in pop, including Ms. Lipa, Post Malone and the Weeknd, straddling the upper echelons of fashion and music.He has collaborated with Rihanna on a Fenty collection with Puma, and consulted Kanye West on video directors. As a fashion stylist, he dressed the Weeknd in Givenchy for the Met gala and James Blake in Yohji Yamamoto for awards shows.But his biggest achievements are in songwriting. His co-writing credits include “Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee, and six tracks on Mr. West’s “Donda” album — and those are just counting his Grammy nominations.“Billy is part of a small group of people in this industry that I consider to be like family,” Mr. Malone said by email. Their shared writing catalog also includes the hits “I Fall Apart,” “Better Now,” “Wow” and “Circles.” “Not only is he one of the best songwriters, but he is a brilliant creative and fashion designer.”Dua Lipa and Mr. Walsh won collection of the year award at the Footwear News Achievement Awards last November.Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressMr. Walsh has written numerous songs for Post Malone, seen here at a Spotify concert in 2022.Antony Jones/Getty ImagesOn a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Walsh went shopping at Dover Street Market, the retail temple in Manhattan where he often goes for inspiration. “I would come here to do massive pulls for the Weeknd,” he said. “I used to start on the top floor and work my way down.”He still does. As he flipped through racks of Raf Simons and Junya Watanabe on the seventh floor, Mr. Walsh recounted this unorthodox rise in the recording and street wear industries. “Fashion and music are definitely interrelated, but I guess I don’t know too many people who have succeeded in both,” he said. “I stay in the back and don’t need credit.”Dressed in an all-black “uniform” (T-shirt, Prada nylon shorts, Alyx socks and Nike Air Tuned Max sneakers), with his signature shaved head and chrome-metal grills, he has the tough-guy appearance of a post-apocalyptic British rude boy.Mr. Walsh credits his dexterity to his rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. His father, William Walsh, a folk musician who performed at local Irish pubs, encouraged him to write poetry and dance. He was also an obsessive sneaker head. “I drove my mom crazy looking all over the city for the Adidas Equipment Basketball shoes with the interchangeable, different-colored socks,” he said.Other addictions followed. He started drinking at 11, often getting into after-school brawls until he sobered up a decade later.Mr. Walsh at his home in Los Angeles.Jack Bool for The New York TimesAt 18, he headed to Los Angeles to study dance at Loyola Marymount University, and signed with an agent. But dance gigs were few and far between, so he spent most of his 20s as a nightclub promoter, working alongside his brother at Hollywood hot spots like Emerson Theater and Hyde, where he would party with a young Post Malone and future designers like Matthew M. Williams of Givenchy.In 2011, the choreographer Fatima Robinson, who he met at Eden, a Hollywood nightclub, encouraged him to stop dancing and focus on poetry and design instead. “This woman literally saved my life,” he said.He quit auditioning and busied himself with writing poetry and daydreaming about street wear. He looked inside his sneaker closet and began experimenting with Frankenstein combinations. One of the first designs cobbled together was a white Nike Air Force One with a black rubber creeper sole. “I always wondered what a creeper would look like with certain old sneakers from my childhood,” he said.He wore his custom sneakers to the clubs, which would get noticed by emerging V.I.P.s like Virgil Abloh and Travis Scott. In 2014, with seed money from fellow party promoters, he and a friend started a street wear label called Mr. Completely, which reimagined classic sneakers including Adidas Sambas and Stan Smiths.Mr. Walsh added a creeper sole to an Adidas Stand Smith for his streetwear brand, Mr. Completely.via Billy WalshTo promote the brand, he held a party at Fourtwofour on Fairfax and invited everyone he knew. Among them was the stylist Jahleel Weaver, who ordered several pairs for his client Rihanna. That turned out to be a propitious sale. A few months later, Rihanna invited Mr. Walsh to design her debut collection with Puma (which went on to win the Footwear News “Shoe of the Year” two years later).Sneakers opened other doors. One of them led to Illangelo, a veteran Canadian producer, who became a confidant and his unexpected entree into music writing. Once again, it started at a nightclub. The two were clubbing on the Sunset Strip in 2014 when Illangelo mentioned that he needed a new songwriter. Seizing the moment, Mr. Walsh shared a short poem from his iPhone Notes app.Illangelo was so impressed that he brought Mr. Walsh into studio sessions with Alicia Keys and he ended up getting his first mainstream writing credit on the song, “In Common.” Illangelo also introduced Mr. Walsh to the Weeknd, who at first was only interested in working with him as a stylist. (The two shared an appreciation for military bomber jackets.) But as Mr. Walsh’s reputation as a songwriter began to rise, the Weeknd began bringing him into the studio.Mr. Walsh dressed the Weeknd for the Met Gala in 2016.George Pimentel/WireImageMr. Walsh dressed James Blake in Yohji Yamamoto for the Grammy Awards in 2020.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesThose sessions resulted in three tracks from the 2016 album‌‌ “Starboy,” including “True Colors” and “Die ‌for You,” which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 this month, seven years after it was first released, thanks to going viral on TikTok.Mr. Walsh has since gone on to write more than 100 songs for artists as varied as the Kid Laroi (“Without You”), pop powerhouses like Mr. Malone and Ms. Lipa, and rock royalty like Ozzy Osbourne (“Ordinary Man”). His publishing catalog has racked up a combined 20 billion streams. Last November, “Sunflower” went 17 times platinum, becoming the highest-certified single of all time.His soaring music career hasn’t stopped him from other creative pursuits. In 2016, he started Donavan’s Yard, a nightlife collective in Los Angeles with the D.J.s Drew Byrd and Sean G that hosts parties in Tokyo and a streaming concert series on Amazon Music Live. Branded merch is sold at Dover Street Market,In October, he started a conceptual street wear label called Iswas with Keith Richardson, his creative partner at Mr. Completely. The label currently sells one item: a pair of painter’s pants made from Japanese selvage denim that costs $450.Despite his many accolades, Mr. Walsh prefers being behind the scenes. “I am never the main focus, just as it should be,” he said. Jack Bool for The New York TimesWearing many hats, Mr. Walsh said, affords him creative freedom. “If Abel knows I am winning an award with Dua and doing my own clothing line, he respects that I’m doing OK for myself,” he said, referring to the Weeknd by his given name. “No one feels like you’re too dependent.”Back at Dover Street, Mr. Walsh went from floor to floor, examining the clothing racks like an archaeologist at a fresh dig. On the shoe floor, he picked up a pair of cloven-toed “tabi” boots by Martin Margiela. “I appreciate what this guy does,” he said of the designer, who, like himself, shuns the limelight in favor of letting his work speak for itself.After about two hours, he reached the Rose Bakery on the ground floor, took a seat and ordered an Earl Grey tea. As ambient music played overhead, he reflected on his unusual journey. “My success comes from artists recognizing that I see the creative process as sacred, somewhat secret,” he said. “I am never the main focus, just as it should be.” More

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      The Weeknd’s ‘Avatar’ Anthem, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Rosalía and Cardi B, Saint Levant & Playyard, Little Simz and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.The Weeknd, ‘Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)’The mournful-yet-heroic tone of so many blockbuster soundtrack themes perfectly suits the Weeknd, who has made it his signature to merge pride, weakness, repentance and persistence. “I thought I could protect you from paying for my sins,” he sings, with quivering sincerity, in this song from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” He’s buttressed by a galloping, crashing, trance-adjacent beat and pulsing synthesizers from Swedish House Mafia, along with urgent strings and Balkan-tinged choral harmonies that are probably from the soundtrack’s composer, Simon Franglen. The song makes war, death, loyalty and love converge: “My love for you is greater than their armies and their powers from above,” the Weeknd vows. JON PARELESRosalía featuring Cardi B, ‘Despechá Rmx’Cardi B closes out her year of exuberant guest appearances with one final victory lap. As she did on GloRilla’s “Tomorrow 2” and Kay Flock’s “Shake It,” Cardi plays chameleon on this remix of Rosalía’s breezy “Despechá,” blending in with her surroundings while at the same time showing off her ample stylistic range. She sounds particularly unfettered on the second verse — “Don’t need your drama, don’t need your stress” — shifting into a weightless, breathy register to meet Rosalía’s soft touch. Cardi B saying “motomamis” does not quite top Cardi B saying “coronavirus,” but it comes close! LINDSAY ZOLADZDecisive Pink, ‘Haffmilch Holiday’Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV — two solo artists with a new collaborative project they call Decisive Pink — create a substantive, thoroughly hypnotic track out of what easily could have been a throwaway concept: an ode to their preferred German coffee shop order, the haffmilch. (“I don’t want a Frappuccino drowning in a caramel swirl,” Deradoorian insists; “Neither do I,” NV agrees.) Built on an insistent drum machine beat and prismatic layers of modular synths, the song gradually becomes something more expansive. “I just want silence, I want to play,” the two sing together on the chorus, as if setting a morning intention to cultivate creative exploration and independence throughout the coming day. “Dancing outside on the grass, my own holiday.” ZOLADZBarrie, ‘Doesn’t Really Matter’Barrie asks, politely but pointedly, “Won’t you take your hand off of my back?” as she begins “Doesn’t Really Matter.” Without a drumbeat — just guitars, bass, keyboards and stacked vocal harmonies that look back to the Beach Boys — Barrie pushes away unwanted advances with far more sweetness than they deserve. PARELESSaint Levant & Playyard, ‘I Guess’It’s one thing to go viral. Another thing to set out to go viral. Another thing to desire to go viral. And a whole other thing to make art predicated upon the very concept of virality, that seems to take the essence of shocking shareability as its raison d’être. Such was the case with Saint Levant’s “Very Few Friends” — or, rather, with the 10 or so seconds of it that became a TikTok sensation last month. Here’s Saint Levant sitting in a chair wearing a tank top, looking rakish and unhurried. Flowers (dead?) next to him. Pants tight, necklace dangling. Black Birkenstocks so you know he’s not pressed. His rapping, such as it is — very much in the mold of the Streets, or after-hours Drake, or Barry White intros — is almost comically erotic: intense eye contact, gratuitous detail, oily and damp. Twelve million TikTok views and counting: It did what it was meant to do. (The whole song, rapped in English, French and Arabic, works, too.)“I Guess” is Saint Levant’s follow-up, and he’s doubling down. Joined by Playyard, who rounds out the song with rangy, lithe R&B, Saint Levant remains committed to the bit. In the video, he stares so hard that the camera blushes. “Said I like the way that you talk to me/I like the way you go far for me,” he raps. “I like the way that you look in my eyes and say you wanna get on top of me.” The very light vocal wah-wahs in the background recall the gentleness of the Boyz II Men parts on LL Cool J’s “Hey Lover.” At every turn, there’s a caress waiting, even if it’s a gambit for affection: “I got a lot on my mind, and I gotta share the pain,” Saint Levant avers. The overall effect is viscous, heart-palpitating, spent. JON CARAMANICAFlorence + the Machine featuring Ethel Cain, ‘Morning Elvis’A live recording of the Florence song featuring Ethel Cain, who underscores and amplifies its gothic underbelly. Florence Welch’s singing is slightly more woozy on this version, but Cain moves the song from the realm of theater to the preserve of dreams. CARAMANICACentral Cee, ‘Let Go’The latest entry in the Year of Very Obvious Samples (or Interpolations) is the latest from Central Cee, already a contestant for his clever flip of “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” on “Doja.” “Let Go” doesn’t try quite as hard — it plays on the melancholy Passenger ballad “Let Her Go.” But the lyrics, about failing to get over a woman, are both vividly raunchy and also uncommonly wounded: “I don’t even take my socks off/And I don’t even know why I did it/As soon as I’m finished, I’m gettin’ them dropped off.” CARAMANICALittle Simz, ‘Gorilla’Words are weapons for the English rapper Little Simz, who has just surprise-released an album, “No Thank You.” In “Gorilla,” her delivery — as usual — is utterly deadpan and matter-of-fact, over a track that starts with a horn fanfare, narrows down to a bass-and-drums vamp and brings in a pushy string section, as she calmly asserts her dominance: “My art will be timeless/I don’t do limits.” PARELESAndy Shauf, ‘Catch Your Eye’A dreamlike serenity is undercut with unsettling desperation in “Catch Your Eye,” the latest single from the Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf’s forthcoming album, “Norm.” “Words under my breath float through the ceiling,” he sings softly to an object of unrequited affection, as an airy synthesizer riff evaporates like smoke. “I need to meet you/I need to catch your eye.” ZOLADZ More

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      Best Albums of 2022: Beyoncé, Rosalía and More

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      The most effective artists of the year weren’t afraid to root around deep inside and boldly share the messiness, the complexities and the beauty of their discoveries.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesA Cornucopia of IdeasIf there’s one thing that unites my favorite albums of 2022, it’s a sense of creative abundance: of ideas spilling out so fast that songs can barely contain them, and of artists ready to follow their impulses toward revelatory extremes. No need to hold back: In 2022, more was more.1. Beyoncé, ‘Renaissance’A disco revival gathered momentum during the pandemic years, as musicians and listeners found themselves yearning for the joys of sweaty, uninhibited communal gatherings. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” also looks back to dance floor styles, but it goes much further. It’s not merely a nostalgic re-creation of a fondly remembered era. With leathery vocals and visceral but multileveled beats, it’s an excursion through layers of club culture, connecting with pride, pleasure and self-definition and taking no guff from anyone.Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” is a tour through decades of dance music.Mason Poole/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images2. Rosalía, ‘Motomami’“I transform myself,” Rosalía declares in the first song on “Motomami,” and throughout the album she does just that: playfully, impulsively and very purposefully smashing together musical styles and verbal tactics. Every track morphs as it unfolds, hopping across the Americas and back to Spain, rarely giving away where it’s headed. Along the way, Rosalía presents herself as fragile at one moment and invincible the next.3. Beth Orton, ‘Weather Alive’Over ghostly, circling piano motifs, the songs on “Weather Alive” meditate on longing and memory, connection and solitude, nature and time. Beth Orton’s voice stays unguarded in both its delicacy and its flaws, while her production cradles it in patiently undulating arrangements, floating acoustic instruments in electronic spaces; the songs linger until they become hypnotic.4. Sudan Archives, ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen’Sudan Archives — the songwriter, singer and violinist Brittney Denise Parks — juggles the many conflicting pressures and aspirations of being young, Black, female, artistic, carnal, career-minded and social on “Natural Brown Prom Queen.” The music is kaleidoscopic, deploying funk, electronics, hip-hop beats, jazz, chamber-music arrangements and the African fiddle riffs that inspired Sudan Archives’ name, barely keeping up with her ambitions.5. iLe, ‘Nacarile’Vulnerability and courage are never far apart on “Nacarile,” which is Puerto Rican slang for “No way!” The songwriter Ileana Cabra, who records as iLe, sings about political and feminist self-assertion alongside songs about toxic and tempting romances. Each of the 11 songs conjures its own sound — acoustic bolero, orchestral ballad, Afro-Caribbean drums, gravity-defying electronics — for music that’s richly rooted but never constrained.6. Sylvan Esso, ‘No Rules Sandy’Sylvan Esso’s electronic pop goes gleefully haywire on “No Rules Sandy,” the fourth studio album by the duo of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn. In songs that leap between the everyday and the metaphysical, they maintain the transparency that has always defined their music, but skew and tweak the details: moving vocals off the beat, slipping in hints of cross rhythms, always keeping serious ideas lighter than air.Sudan Archives’ “Natural Brown Prom Queen” reflects the vastness of her aspirations and influences.Frank Hoensch/Redferns, via Getty Images7. black midi, ‘Hellfire’The human condition is nasty, brutish and ferociously virtuosic on the third album by the British band black midi. In songs that flaunt the complexity and dissonance of prog-rock and the bitter angularity of post-punk — while stirring in ideas from jazz, classical music, funk, salsa and flamenco — loathsome characters do odious things. But the music turns grotesquerie into exhilaration.8. Björk, ‘Fossora’Forget pop comforts: Björk has other plans on “Fossora,” leaning toward chamber music at one moment and blunt impact the next. Her new songs contemplate earthy fertility and the continuity of generations, using rugged electronic sounds, families of acoustic instruments and the very human passion of her voice. As Björk looks all the way back to a primordial “Ancestress,” she’s also determined for her music to move ahead.9. Billy Woods, ‘Aethiopes’In hip-hop that’s simultaneously grimy and cerebral, upholding a New York City legacy, the prolific Billy Woods raps about colonialism, poverty, personal memories and ruthless historical forces. The unsettling productions, by Preservation, draw on Ethiopian music (of course) as well as funk, jazz, reggae, soundtracks, Balinese gamelan and many murkier sources, and Woods is joined by equally determined guest rappers. The tracks are dense, and well worth decoding.10. Porridge Radio, ‘Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky’Catharsis is the agenda for Porridge Radio, the British band led by Dana Margolin. In songs that wrestle with connection and autonomy, her vocals declaim, sob and gasp; her lyrics blurt out dilemmas and demand responses that may not arrive. The arrangements sound live and jammy, harnessing post-punk and psychedelia for emotional crescendos.And 15 more, alphabetically:Rauw Alejandro, “Saturno”Bad Bunny, “Un Verano Sin Ti”Congotronics International, “Where’s the One?”Jorge Drexler, “Tinto y Tiempo”Ethel Cain, “Preacher’s Daughter”FKA twigs, “Caprisongs”Horsegirl, “Versions of Modern Performance”Jenny Hval, “Classic Objects”Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee, “Bamanan”Kendrick Lamar, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers”Makaya McCraven, “In These Times”Mitski, “Laurel Hell”Bonnie Raitt, “Just Like That…”Soul Glo, “Diaspora Problems”Soccer Mommy, “Sometimes, Forever”Jon CaramanicaLetting It All GoJudging by these albums, it was a year of release: superstars opting to get physical, neat songs spilling over with unruly emotions, artists relinquishing familiar beliefs, singing and rapping teetering on the edge of control. Disruption is in the air — being contentedly static is no longer enough.1. Zach Bryan, ‘American Heartbreak’An astonishing feat of emotionally acute songwriting and shredded-artery sentiment, Zach Bryan’s mainstream breakthrough is a heavy lift, in all senses: 34 songs, and 10 times as many small details that kick you in the sternum. “Summertime Blues,” the EP he released two months later, is maybe even better — bare bones and almost harried, it’s even more evidence of a faucet that simply won’t stop spilling.2. Rosalía, ‘Motomami’When Rosalía first broke through, she was engaged in a tug of war between tradition and modernity. But the dissonance she’s navigating on “Motomami” is more profound: cultivating a futurist aesthetic that spans multiple genres, eras and philosophies, making for an album as radical and syncretic as any released by a global superstar in the last few years.Zach Bryan’s “American Heartbreak” is a lengthy album that probes raw emotions.Kristin Braga Wright for The New York Times3. Drake, ‘Honestly, Nevermind’The better of the two Drake albums this year was the less expected one: a collection of earthen, sensual, soulful house music. In a career defined by blurring borders, this was less a plot twist than a quick spotlight on an underappreciated character: body music that keeps the heart palpitating.4. Priscilla Block, ‘Welcome to the Block Party’The most promising Nashville debut of the year belonged to Priscilla Block, a pop-friendly singer-songwriter with a robust grasp of country tradition. Her first album includes a few rowdy bridge-burners and a gaggle of torch songs sung in a sweet but unshakable voice.5. Beyoncé, ‘Renaissance’“Renaissance” is a few things that Beyoncé’s music hasn’t always been: chaotic, breathy, unrelentingly sweaty, appealingly frayed. A titanic collection of club music, it has an almost gravitational urgency, emphasizing the primal pull of the dance floor, where putting on airs is not an option.6. Bartees Strange, ‘Farm to Table’Bartees Strange has quite a voice, or perhaps voices. He sings with huskiness and nimbleness, plangency and viscosity — sometimes all of these at once. On his eruptive second album, he writes about growth and self-doubt, Phoebe Bridgers and George Floyd, all unified by singing that’s brimming with heart and pluck and can pivot on a dime.7. Gulch’s final show, Sound & Fury Festival, July 31, 2022Not an album per se, but the video of this 34-minute concert — on the StayThicc YouTube channel — is a hair-raising document of this San Jose, Calif., hardcore band at its punishing peak, the fan fervor it inspired, and the ridiculous, anticlimactic conclusion in which power to the stage was abruptly turned off.8. 42 Dugg & EST Gee, ‘Last Ones Left’These two, stars in their own right, have all the makings of a great rap duo — EST Gee, from Louisville, Ky., is steely and narratively vivid, his verses square-cornered and bleak. 42 Dugg, from Detroit, delivers nasal, curvy passages flecked with scars of having seen too much.9. Asake, ‘Mr. Money With the Vibe’The debut album from the rising Nigerian star Asake is both appealingly grounded and aiming for an astral plane. Taking in Afrobeats, fuji and amapiano, but also flickers of jazz fusion and even gospel, Asake’s music is enveloping and inspirational, mellow but assured.10. Bad Boy Chiller Crew, ‘Disrespectful’There’s an inherent silliness to bouncy club music, songs designed to trigger full-scale abandon. Bad Boy Chiller Crew — effectively a comedy troupe wearing the costume of a music collective — amplifies and underscores that tendency on its second album. The songs — faithful bassline and garage tunes that sound like shout-rapping over a D.J. mix — are absurd and uncanny, an invitation to dance and a metacommentary on letting loose.11. Bad Bunny, ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’The defining pop star of 2022, Bad Bunny is fully untethered from expectations. His fourth solo album is a sunshine beam, taking reggaeton and Latin trap as starting points and embracing styles from across the Caribbean, from mambo to dembow.Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” has dominated the charts in 2022.Gladys Vega/Getty Images12. Bandmanrill, ‘Club Godfather’Bandmanrill emerged last year from the Jersey drill scene, which takes the drill template of immediate, punchy rapping and matches it with up-tempo Jersey club music. In short order, he became one of drill’s premier songwriters, but his debut, “Club Godfather,” already shows him stretching beyond the genre’s boundaries.13. Special Interest, ‘Endure’The ecstatically erratic third album from the New Orleans band Special Interest is full of politically minded punk-funk. It is a howling good time, but also nervous and tense, with songs that are agitated, but more crucially, agitating.And 16 more, alphabetically:The 1975, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language”Cash Cobain & Chow Lee, “2 Slizzy 2 Sexy (Deluxe)”Tyler Childers, “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?”Fred again.., “Actual Life 3 (January 1 — September 9, 2022)”Giveon, “Give or Take”Lil Durk, “7220”Mavi, “Laughing So Hard, It Hurts”Tate McRae, “I Used to Think I Could Fly”Rachika Nayar, “Heaven Come Crashing”Harry Styles, “Harry’s House”Earl Sweatshirt, “Sick!”Rod Wave, “Beautiful Mind”The Weeknd, “Dawn FM”Willow, “”YoungBoy Never Broke Again, “Colors”Honorary late 2021 release: Kay Flock, “The D.O.A. Tape”Lindsay ZoladzInner Lives, Shared WideThis year I found myself drawn to records that created their own immersive worlds that reflected the bold, distinct perspective of their creators — a trick that quite a few big-budget pop albums pulled off, sure, but plenty of smaller indie records did, too, with just as much personality and flair.1. Grace Ives, ‘Janky Star’Small, quirky pop albums are a dime a dozen these days, but they rarely come with the wit, vision and lyrical personality of this one by Grace Ives. For the last half year, the Brooklyn musician’s sharp, frequently hilarious observations have stuck in my mind as often as her infectious, synth-driven melodies: the overdraft fee from a $100 A.T.M. withdrawal on “Loose”; the flirty way she co-opts business jargon like “circle back” on “Angel of Business.” Or how about this deadpan punchline on the jangly, crush-struck “Shelley”: “I wonder what she wants for dinner/She’s really got me looking inward.” Ives’s voice across these 10 tracks is weighty but nimble, her ear for melody idiosyncratic but always immediate and true. By the end of “Janky Star,” it’s hard not to be charmed by the warm interiority of her sound and her peculiar, canted vision of the world.Grace Ives’s “Janky Star” is laced with small details and personal touches.Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images2. Beyoncé, ‘Renaissance’Along this dazzling and immaculately sequenced joyride through the history of dance music, Beyoncé celebrates her own uniqueness while also decentering herself, refracting the disco ball’s spotlight so it illuminates a long line of forebears: Grace Jones, Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer, Robin S., Moi Renee, Nile Rodgers, Big Freedia and of course her very own Uncle Jonny. Bless whoever dosed the lemonade at this party: “Renaissance” is Queen Bey at her loosest, funniest, sweatiest and — as she testifies on the sublime “Church Girl” — her most transcendently free.3. Rosalía, ‘Motomami’On the singular “Motomami,” one of the coolest pop stars on the planet mashes up innumerable genres and cultural influences to create her own sonic world. Rosalía combines the braggadocio of your favorite rapper (“Rosa! Sin tarjeta!”) with the emotional intensity of the flamenco legend Carmen Amaya (“G3 N15”), effortlessly pivoting between stylistic extremes that would give a less innovative talent whiplash.4. Alex G, ‘God Save the Animals’The Philly indie-rock everydude Alex Giannascoli reimagines the New Testament as a fanzine, sort of (“God is my designer, Jesus is my lawyer”), and the miracle is how well it actually works. The sudden jolts of sonic abrasion — a hyperpop breakdown in the middle of an acoustic ballad about the innocence of children, say — and the unbroken through line of weirdness do not diminish the radical empathy and poignant sincerity that is this record’s beating heart.5. Florence + the Machine, ‘Dance Fever’On her fifth, and best, studio album with her trusty Machine, Florence Welch’s imperial goddess persona comes crashing down to earth, or maybe somewhere even less dignified: “The bathroom tiles were cool against my head, I pressed my forehead to the floor and prayed for a trap door,” she sings on the gut-wrenching closer “Morning Elvis,” a painstakingly detailed depiction of a breakdown. Welch has never been sadder (“Back in Town”), more provocative (“King,” “Girls Against God”), or funnier (“And it’s good to be alive, crying into cereal at midnight”) than she is on the kaleidoscopic “Dance Fever,” an album that constantly, seamlessly moves between the macro and the micro, from an inquisitive exploration of gender and power to a blown-open window in the heart.6. Nilüfer Yanya, ‘Painless’London’s Nilüfer Yanya harnesses the antsy buzz of modern anxiety and transforms it into something not just manageable but actually beautiful, thanks to her elegant melodies and the lavender calm of her voice. The magnificent “Painless” is so well paced that one of the peak musical moments of the year comes at its direct center: that beat when the hitherto coiled “Midnight Sun” suddenly blooms into a reverie of guitar distortion.Florence Welch has never been sadder or funnier than she is on her latest album, “Dance Fever.”Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press7. Alvvays, ‘Blue Rev’This Toronto five-piece makes — and on its third album, “Blue Rev,” perfects — a kind of inverted shoegaze: big-hearted, smeary dream-pop oriented toward the sky. Molly Rankin’s achingly sweet voice cuts through the woolly squall of distortion as she sings of the thwarted expectations and indistinguishable hope of early adulthood: “I find myself paralyzed/Knowing all too well, terrified/But I’ll find my way.”8. Sudan Archives, ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen’Get comfy when Sudan Archives welcomes you into her domicile on the mood-setting opener “Home Maker” — you’re going to want to stay awhile. The prismatic songwriter born Brittney Denise Parks showcases the many facets of her musical personality — singing, rapping, playing violin — on the immersive, genre-hopping “Natural Brown Prom Queen,” an 18-track song-of-self filled to the brim with smart, sensual and continuously adventurous ideas.9. Angel Olsen, ‘Big Time’To address some radical changes in her life — coming out as queer just before both her parents died — the indie star Angel Olsen turns, incongruously, to the traditionally minded sounds of vintage country and torch-song pop. Turns out they suit the wailing grandeur of her voice perfectly, though, and she can’t help but make them her own thanks to the fiery force of her musical personality.10. Miranda Lambert, ‘Palomino’Miranda Lambert’s wandering spirit is given plenty of room to roam on the majestic “Palomino,” a travelogue across not just the interstate highway system but the many musical stylings Lambert can command: honky-tonk country (“Geraldene”), Petty-esque Southern rock (“Strange”) and even some heartstring-tugging folk balladry (“Carousel”). Mamas, this is what it sounds like when you let your daughters grow up to be cowboys.11. Amanda Shires, ‘Take It Like a Man’Here’s the spirit of outlaw country in 2022: a fearless woman gathering all her strength and belting out her truths with a poet’s diction and a bird of prey’s voice. “Come on, I dare you, make me feel something again,” the singer/songwriter/fiddle player Amanda Shires trills at the beginning of “Take It Like a Man,” and then she spends the next 40 minutes rising to her own challenge.12. The Weeknd, ‘Dawn FM’If you’ve ever wondered what the finale of “All That Jazz” would sound like had it been scored by Oneohtrix Point Never, have I got the record for you. The Weeknd follows the huge success of “After Hours” with some high-concept and deeply stirring experimentation on the probing “Dawn FM,” reimagining the pop album as a kind of death dream without sacrificing the hooks.13. Aldous Harding, ‘Warm Chris’The New Zealand eccentric Aldous Harding is a folk-rock harlequin, clowning and mugging her way through beguilingly catchy tunes. In the weird world of her fourth album, “Warm Chris,” there’s not a lot of because, just a lot of deadpan, and glorious, is.And 12 more very good records worth mentioning:The 1975, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language”Bad Bunny, “Un Verano Sin Ti”Yaya Bey, “Remember Your North Star”Kendrick Lamar, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers”Julianna Riolino, “All Blue”Sasami, “Squeeze”Syd, “Broken Hearts Club”Sharon Van Etten, “We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong”The Weather Station, “How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars”Weyes Blood, “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow”Wet Leg, “Wet Leg”Wilco, “Cruel Country” More

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      Kanye West Replaced by Swedish House Mafia and the Weeknd at Coachella

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      A little over a week before the music festival’s first weekend, West, now known as Ye, dropped out of his headlining slot.Nine days before the return of Coachella, the festival has confirmed reports that Kanye West has dropped out as one of the event’s three headliners, and has been replaced by Swedish House Mafia with the Weeknd.No explanation was officially given about the departure of West, who was booked as the top performer for the third night of the festival, which repeats its lineup over two successive weekends. (Harry Styles and Billie Eilish lead the first two nights.) But the change, noted only in a revised lineup flier posted to the festival’s social media accounts on Wednesday, followed West’s ban from performing at the Grammy Awards, after weeks of unpredictable and troubling behavior online.The news of West’s apparent withdrawal was first reported on Monday by TMZ, and was quickly followed up by reports in the music press that the festival was seeking a replacement. Swedish House Mafia had been announced months ago as being part of the festival, though the group’s position in the lineup was left unclear. In October, the group released a track, “Moth to a Flame,” featuring the Weeknd on vocals.The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which was one of the first major events to be canceled by the spread of the coronavirus in 2020 — and was then postponed multiple times as the pandemic continued — will be held April 15-17 and April 22-24 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. It is being closely watched by the music industry as a symbolic moment for the full-scale return of the multibillion-dollar touring business. In February, the festival announced that attendees would not have to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination or a negative test to enter; masks are not required.West, who now goes by Ye, was nominated for five Grammys at Sunday’s ceremony, including album of the year for “Donda.” He won two nontelevised rap categories, bringing his career total to 24, but did not attend the show.The subject of a new Netflix documentary that coincided with the release of a new album-in-progress exclusively on a proprietary $200 speaker device, West had taken to posting extensively and combatively online about his divorce from Kim Kardashian, her dating life and their ongoing child custody battle.When Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” who was set to host the Grammys, said in a segment last month that West’s behavior was tipping into harassment and abuse, West responded in a post that referred to Noah with a racial slur. West was subsequently banned from Instagram for 24 hours and has not posted online since.Coachella’s 2020 event would have featured headlining performances by Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean. A crowd surge at Scott’s own Astroworld festival last October left 10 people dead and many more injured, leading the rapper to withdraw from most public appearances. West indicated in an Instagram post in February that he planned to bring Scott, his onetime protégé and erstwhile brother-in-law, to the Coachella stage as a special guest during his set.Coachella is expected to welcome up to 125,000 attendees per day. More

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      What’s Left for the Weeknd to Conquer?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherFollowing the Weeknd’s 2020 album, “After Hours,” which included the global hit “Blinding Lights,” it may have seemed as if he had nowhere else to go — that he’d finally reached the summit of the mountain he’d spent the decade climbing, starting out as a freaky recalibrator of R&B and ending up making unifying 1980s-style hits that need no translation.His new album, “Dawn FM,” suggests at least one future direction: leaning in on specific sections and subgenres of that decade and exploring ways to supersize the niche.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about making big tent pop in an age of the micro, and just how few options truly remain for the biggest mainstream pop star’s next moves.Guest:Rob Harvilla, senior staff writer at The Ringer and host of the “60 Songs That Explain the ’90s” podcastConnect 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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      Gunna Beats the Weeknd in a Close Race for No. 1

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      In a tale of two surprise albums with striking cover art, “deluxe” versions and retail discounts, the Atlanta rapper’s “DS4Ever” won by a nose.Last week, two new albums vied for No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with similar marketing arsenals and big fan bases set to click away on streaming services.The Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” and Gunna’s “DS4Ever” were both surprise releases, announced just days before they came out.Each LP had cover artwork featuring a striking treatment of its artist’s face. And each was filled with celebrity guest spots. Gunna, a rapper from Atlanta, had Drake, Future and 21 Savage; the Weeknd had vocals by Lil Wayne and Tyler, the Creator, along with narration by Quincy Jones and the comedian Jim Carrey.Both albums came out in “deluxe” versions with extra tracks, a common tactic these days to stir fan demand and drive up streaming counts. Their download versions were also heavily discounted online. And as last week came to a close, industry prognosticators expected a photo finish.In the end, Gunna won by a nose — a surprise, perhaps, given the enormous success of the Weeknd’s last album, “After Hours” (2020). “DS4Ever” had the equivalent of 150,300 sales in the United States, and “Dawn FM” had 148,000, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.While “Dawn FM” sold more copies as a complete unit — 14,800, versus 4,700 for “DS4Ever” — streaming tipped the balance. Gunna ended the week with 193 million clicks, while the Weeknd had 173 million.The soundtrack to Disney’s “Encanto,” which topped the chart last week, falls to No. 3. Adele’s “30” is the No. 4 album — while her song “Easy on Me” marks its ninth week as the No. 1 single — and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 5. More

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      The Endless Pop Shimmers of the Weeknd

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      “Dawn FM” extends and reimagines Abel Tesfaye’s fixation on perfect pop that he’s been chasing since the mid-2010s.There’s not a moment to breathe on the new album by the Weeknd, “Dawn FM” — no spaces for resolution and calm, no indications of a world outside of its borders. An uninterrupted set of iridescent megapop anthems blended like a D.J. mix, it is, as with so many things that he has made in the last decade, an all-or-nothing proposition.Since the Weeknd, born Abel Tesfaye, first arrived in 2011 with a trio of dank, sleazy mixtapes that radically reconstructed R&B, he has steadfastly, maybe even stubbornly, committed to thinking of his albums as discrete eras with evolving ideologies. And as he’s become one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, this has required both tremendous skill and a not insignificant amount of faith — in an era of microtargeting and niches that explode into ubiquity, he is choosing a far less assured top-down path.He has succeeded by remaining, even at peak saturation, enigmatic. Tesfaye, 31, is interested in world-building, and he remains obscure — at this point, evolving past strategic anonymity into full-scale character work — hiding behind hits.“Dawn FM,” his fifth major-label album, is sleek and vigorous and also, again, a light reimagining of what big-tent music might sound like now, in an era when most global stars have abandoned the concept. “Dawn FM” extends and reimagines Tesfaye’s fixation on perfect pop that he’s been pursuing since he first teamed with the hitmaker Max Martin in the mid-2010s — seven years later, he’s still chasing a deeply polished orb at the end of an infinite galaxy.What’s striking is the path he’s chosen to get there — yes, Martin is here, as are Oscar Holter and Swedish House Mafia. But Tesfaye’s true consigliere is Daniel Lopatin (a.k.a Oneohtrix Point Never), who began his career as a channeler of interstellar rumble but evolved into a soundtracker for space disco. Together, they make work that is mesmeric, both for its quality and its seamlessness. Tesfaye pulls Lopatin closer to blunt rhythm while allowing himself to get absorbed in the producer’s endless shimmers.On “Dawn FM,” they land squarely in the window between 1982 and 1984, when New York’s emergent hip-hop production was coalescing into the electro that was streaking its way into pop. This is breakdancing music, touching on everything from Afrika Bambaataa’s seminal “Planet Rock” to Man Parrish and Mantronix to the first Force M.D.s album to the tuneful Los Angeles proto-rap of Egyptian Lover and World Class Wreckin’ Cru to Maurice Starr and Arthur Baker’s early work with New Edition.What Tesfaye and Lopatin build on that foundation is ambitious. “Don’t Break My Heart” is soaringly sad, framing romantic desperation as an unescapable sonic maze. “Gasoline” dips into Depeche Mode-style hauteur for a classic Weeknd story about alluring degeneracy: “It’s 5 a.m. I’m high again/And you can see that I’m in pain/I’ve fallen into emptiness.”“How Do I Make You Love Me?” is a super-sweet version of the Michael Jackson-esque pop Tesfaye has been reaching for, as is the majestic “Take My Breath.” These songs, which appear back to back early on the album, are the best arguments for Tesfaye’s vision, and crucially, both are songs where Martin is there as an amplifying force.On “Dawn FM,” Tesfaye occasionally edges up against simu-funk, like on “Sacrifice,” which samples Alicia Myers’s dance-liberation thumper “I Want to Thank You.” And “Here We Go … Again,” which has the faintest mist of “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees, is the album’s weakest and least characteristic moment, a lyrical jolt into the deeply specific present for a performer who is trying to make music that exists outside of time.There’s a reason no one is currently trying to emulate what Tesfaye is achieving — it requires the meticulousness of an engineer, the ego of a superstar and the scars of the deeply wounded. Done wrong, it can come off as icy and algorithmic.The album is threaded with interstitials from a fictional radio station, mainly voiced by Jim Carrey — amusing but not particularly meaningful. What does hit harder is “A Tale by Quincy,” in which the influential producer and mogul Quincy Jones relates a story about learning to grow up rough. Jones is an obvious antecedent for Tesfaye, who aspires to be an orchestrator as much as a singer and songwriter. (There are echoes of Jones’s 1981 album “The Dude” here as well.)If anything has changed for Tesfaye, it’s his relationship to dysfunction. Though there are moments — like “Sacrifice” (“The ice inside my veins will never bleed”) and “Gasoline” — that recall the louche desperation of his early albums, he’s more often the victim.“I Heard You’re Married” — which features a crisp, dexterous guest verse from Lil Wayne (“If I ain’t your husband I can’t be your hybrid”) — is about what happens when your old weapons are turned against you: “Your number in my phone I’m gon’ delete it/Girl, I’m way too grown for that deceiving.” “Is There Someone Else?” is a remarkably chill song about being a reformed cad. And he boasts about a movie-star girlfriend on “Here We Go … Again.”Perhaps the shift is an acknowledgment of the regrets that come with age and experience. Perhaps it’s because the bad guy can only be the hero for so long. Or maybe it’s just a phase. The last full song on the album is “Less Than Zero,” a nod to Bret Easton Ellis debauchery but also a slightly stripped-down song about inner sadness. It’s the only moment on this mirror ball of an album that feels truly vulnerable, and dares to peek inside: “I try to hide it, but I know you know me.”The Weeknd“Dawn FM”(XO/Republic) More

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      Cécile McLorin Salvant Branches Out, and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by FKA twigs and the Weeknd, Leon Bridges and Khruangbin, Animal Collective and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Cécile McLorin Salvant, ‘Thunderclouds’The headline here isn’t that the cream-of-the-crop jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant has serious creative appetites that run beyond the American-songbook-and-curios repertory, which she has so famously explored. That was becoming clear, slowly but surely, over the past few years. It’s that when she focuses instead on her own writing, and shifts away some from straight-on modern jazz, she also softens the archness and the neatness of her delivery. There’s a new, expanded range in both the music and the expression. “Thunderclouds” will help you clock the shift: an up-tempo lullaby of wistful, wounded hopefulness, its shapely chord changes carried loosely by the band and its bouncy rhythm nodding to Caribbean-infused jazz. “Sometimes you have to gaze into a well to see the sky,” Salvant sings, repeating the phrase as if to convince herself. The song comes from a forthcoming album, “Ghost Song,” due in March; it’ll be her first for Nonesuch Records and her first to feature primarily originals. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLeon Bridges and Khruangbin, ‘B-Side’In a Texas alliance, the soul singer Leon Bridges is backed by Khruangbin, a trio from Houston that has soaked up global rhythms. “B-Side” is from a collaborative EP due in February. Khruangbin supplies mid-tempo, two-chord Afrobeat funk, with terse bits of rhythm guitar answered by tootling organ chords, as Bridges croons in falsetto about much he misses a distant lover. It sounds like a slice of a jam that went on much longer. JON PARELESAnimal Collective, ‘Walker’Plinking, cascading xylophone and marimba sounds and the nasal, pumping string tones of a hurdy-gurdy circle through “Walker,” a meditation on getting through grief that’s named after the songwriter Scott Walker. It’s less dizzying and more patient than much of Animal Collective’s catalog, and for its final minute, only plinks and stray words remain, like shards of mourning. PARELESTierra Whack, ‘Sorry’The high-concept miniaturist Tierra Whack has been releasing a series of three-song genre-testing EPs: “Pop?,” “Rap?” and now “R&B?,” which relies on slow-ticking drum machines and electronic tones. “Sorry” is cast as a phone message, “one last conversation” with someone who won’t answer. The synthesizer chords are frayed and quivery as her apologies tumble out — heartfelt but apparently too late. PARELESFKA twigs featuring the Weeknd, ‘Tears in the Club’Miserablism and sensualism pair elegantly in this collaboration between FKA twigs and the Weeknd. For twigs, an impressionistic singer, this marks her most pointed and theatrical vocals, and the Weeknd, who has long embraced deviant sadness on a grand scale, dials it back ever so slightly to match the beatifically aghast mood. JON CARAMANICARvssian and Future featuring Lil Baby, ‘M&M’On “M&M,” the Jamaican producer Rvssian serves up an ominous synth that sounds like a video game console on its last legs, tinny and fading. Lil Baby matches it with a needling singsong verse, and Future approaches it with an indignant wheeze. CARAMANICATyondai Braxton, ‘Dia’Tyondai Braxton’s new electronic track, “Dia,” emerges after a long silence. It has an insistent but implied beat, many layers of overt and implied syncopation, and a determination to keep changing. PARELES24kGoldn, ‘More Than Friends’Around 14 months ago, 24kGoldn was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with his breakout single “Mood.” Now he’s remaking Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend.” It’s a cheeky success that feels like a grim concession. CARAMANICA More