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    Mitski’s Beautifully Moody Meditation, and 11 More New Songs

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    Hear tracks by Jorja Smith, Towa Bird, Wilco and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Mitski, ‘Bug Like an Angel’Mitski has a gift for singing serenely about troubled thoughts and finding large implications in small images. That’s what she does in “Bug Like an Angel,” a song from her next album, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” due Sept. 15. That bug is stuck to the bottom of a glass — which makes her reflect, in turn, on drinking and a relationship gone stale. The song is subdued and moody, mostly just Mitski and four guitar chords. But when she gets to a life lesson, suddenly a choir appears, as if there’s a chance of redemption after all. JON PARELESTowa Bird, ‘This Isn’t Me’The singer, songwriter and guitarist Towa Bird evokes feelings of social alienation on “This Isn’t Me,” a single from her forthcoming debut album. Out of place at the sort of gathering where there’s “a special spoon for caviar,” she sings in a lilting melody, “Sycophants and luxury, everyone’s a somebody, and I wish you were here with me.” Her vocal delivery is breathy and muted, but beneath that, her nimble guitar playing expresses her inner rage. LINDSAY ZOLADZJorja Smith, ‘Go Go Go’“Go Go Go” isn’t a cheer — it’s a command, as an increasingly fed-up Jorja Smith decides, “I don’t know you that well/And I’m not trying to get to know you,” soon adding, “You gotta go.” Her voice ricochets off a backbeat that’s both pushy and lean, defined by a bare-bones, Police-like trio of drums, rhythm guitar and occasional bass, for a jumping, unapologetic heave-ho. PARELESPost Malone, ‘Joy’Post Malone — despite his face tattoos — has emerged as an old-fashioned rock songwriter, reaching for hooks. He’s also deeply committed to self-pity. “The harder I try/The more I become miserable/The higher I fly, the lower I go,” he sings in the ironically titled “Joy,” a bonus track added to his latest album, “Austin.” The beat pushes ahead, with a bass line that pulses like a 1980s Cure track, but Post Malone stays proudly mired. A choir arrives at the end to savor the word “miserable.” PARELESWilco, ‘Evicted’“Am I ever gonna see you again?” Jeff Tweedy wonders in “Evicted,” a low-key preview of Wilco’s album due Sept. 29, “Cousin.” Apparently not: “I’m evicted from your heart/I deserve it,” he confesses. With a new producer, Cate Le Bon, what starts as basic Wilco country-rock — steady-chugging piano, strummed acoustic guitar — gathers a shimmery psychedelic aura while the singer’s despair deepens. PARELESHalle, ‘Angel’Halle Bailey — half of the sister duo Chloe x Halle — contrasts celestial perfection with earthly travail in “Angel,” a somber but determined self-affirmation that fuses the church and R&B. “Won’t let the troubles of the world come weigh me down,” she vows. When she sings, “Some might hate and they wait on your fall/They don’t know there’s a grace for it all,” it could well be her dignified response to the racist backlash she received for starring as Ariel in the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.” Quasi-classical piano arpeggios roll through the song, and Halle’s tremulous voice leaps up to high soprano notes as she declares herself to be an angel, “perfectly a masterpiece” even with flaws and scars. PARELESNite Bjuti, ‘Singing Bones’Spirit, conjure, necromancy and memory seem to be some of the grounding ideas behind “Nite Bjuti,” the eponymous debut album from a new collective trio (pronounced “Night Beauty”) featuring the vocalist Candice Hoyes, the turntablist and percussionist Val Jeanty and the bassist Mimi Jones. They improvised all 11 tracks in the studio; by the last one, “Singing Bones,” Hoyes is inviting the dead to rise. Over a spare, electronic, six-beat rhythm from Jeanty and a plump, syncopated pattern from Jones’s electric bass, Hoyes almost whispers, then croons: “Rise up, singing bones/Shake yourself together.” Then the song is over, almost before it began. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLODamon Locks & Rob Mazurek, ‘Yes!’“New Future City Radio,” the first duo album from two longtime collaborators, the multidisciplinary artist Damon Locks and the trumpeter Rob Mazurek, was imagined as a pirate radio broadcast from the future. Or maybe from an alternate version of now, where a group of everyday anarchists might still have a fighting chance at repossessing a stray radio frequency. The music is about perception, not optimism. On “Yes!,” a slyly swinging drum loop clangs along beneath a cropped synth sample, until the music cuts out momentarily and Locks enunciates: “They got you where they want you: nowhere/Shrouded in confusion, grasping at straws.” The beat reappears. “When you’re living like this, you can’t envision/Blind to possibility, this is where the plan kicks in.” This album is supposed to make you long for another world, but like a good radio broadcast it also works well as background or ambience — putting questions in your head that you can’t articulate, without elbowing everything else out of your brain. RUSSONELLOKany García and Carin Leon, ‘Te Lo Agradezco’The Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Kany García has lately been dabbling in regional Mexican music; she had a hit 2022 duet, “El Siguiente,” with the Mexican singer Christian Nodal. Now she has another one: “Te Lo Agradezco” (“I Appreciate It”) with Carin Leon, a Mexican singer and songwriter who leans into the drama with tremolos and breaking notes. The song is a furious exchange of accusations, though they are sometimes shared in close harmony; apparently there were lies and betrayal on both sides. The arrangement stays elegant — with a sousaphone bass line, mariachi horns, a guitar obbligato and a hovering pedal steel guitar — while the singers battle. PARELESUsher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage, ‘Good Good’The world is full of scorched-earth breakup songs, but on “Good Good,” Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage team up for something considerably rarer: a song about staying on decent terms with an ex. “We ain’t good-good, but we still good,” Usher sings benevolently on the hook, while Walker echoes the sentiment, adding, “We’re happier apart than locked in.” But it’s 21 Savage who makes perhaps the most generous offer: “If you wanna open up a new salon,” he raps, “I’d still help pay for the wigs.” ZOLADZJonathan Suazo, ‘Don’t Take Kindly’Everything on the saxophonist and composer Jonathan Suazo’s new LP, “Ricano” — which finds him mining the intersections between his Puerto Rican and Dominican bloodlines — seems to be spilling energy out the top. This is richly built, effusively played Latin jazz, written from the heart and packed with complexity, always seeking the next level of altitude. On “Don’t Take Kindly,” as Tanicha López sings in billowy open vowel sounds and long, held tones, the ensemble’s three percussionists play around with a rhythm based in Puerto Rican bomba, while Suazo’s alto saxophone douses them in minor blues. RUSSONELLOKnoel Scott featuring Marshall Allen, ‘Les Funambules’The swing is righteously loose and steamy on “Les Funambules,” from “Celestial,” the debut studio album from Knoel Scott, a longtime saxophonist and flutist with the Sun Ra Arkestra. On “Celestial,” Scott’s acoustic quartet is augmented by a special guest: the explosive alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, 99, who has led the Arkestra since Ra’s death. “Les Funambules” means “the tightrope walkers,” but nobody walks a tightrope like this: going every direction at once, limbs kicking out. But the title fits. As Scott and Allen’s saxes trill in wild harmony, you can feel a sense of balance in motion, of poise and danger and control. RUSSONELLO More

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      Nicki Minaj Returns Ready to Rumble, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Kali Uchis and Summer Walker, Arlo Parks, 6lack and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Nicki Minaj, ‘Red Ruby Da Sleeze’Calm arrogance is Nicki Minaj’s gift. There’s no need to decipher all her allusions because her delivery and production say it all. The track of “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” based on Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh),” juggles near-flamenco handclaps, trap drums and choral vocals going “Uh-oh.” Her percussive rhymes are competitive in every realm — linguistic, sexual, financial, culinary (“guacamole with the taco”) — and their utter confidence is still convincing. JON PARELESKali Uchis and Summer Walker, ‘Deserve Me’“Red Moon in Venus,” the third studio album by the cheerfully bilingual Colombian American songwriter Kali Uchis, moves between sensual romance and fierce recriminations. “Deserve Me” is blunt: “I like it better when you’re gone/I feel a little less alone.” Uchis and Summer Walker take turns bad-mouthing the thoughtless lover who’s getting dumped, and harmonize sweetly to remind him, “You don’t deserve me.” The track starts out light and tinkly but keeps adding bassy layers, literally showing the depth of their contempt. PARELESboygenius, ‘Not Strong Enough’The indie-rock trio boygenius — Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker — formed in 2018, under a cheeky moniker that, Dacus said in an interview, was meant to harness some macho overconfidence: “We were just talking about boys and men we know who’ve been told that they are geniuses since they could hear, basically, and what type of creative work comes out of that upbringing.” The group’s stirring, acoustic-guitar-driven new single “Not Strong Enough” once again finds the women in provocative but poetic drag, as they harmonize on a chorus that answers Sheryl Crow: “I don’t know why I am the way I am, not strong enough to be your man.” On a steadily galloping bridge, Dacus leads the trio in a chant that expresses frustration at being “always an angel, never a god.” But by the end of the candid “Not Strong Enough,” boygenius has generated its own kind of strength in vulnerability — and in numbers. LINDSAY ZOLADZArlo Parks, ‘Impurities’The English songwriter Arlo Parks has absorbed Joni Mitchell, hip-hop and much more; it’s no wonder she is willing to enjoy her “Impurities.” Her new track revolves around echoey loops and samples, but she has a paradoxical lesson to impart: “When you embrace all my impurities, then I feel clean again.” PARELESMandy, Indiana, ‘Pinking Shears’On the echoey, percussion-forward “Pinking Shears,” the Manchester art-rockers Mandy, Indiana forcefully and exhaustedly reject an increasingly mechanized world: “J’suis fatiguée” (“I’m tired”) becomes a kind of mantra when chanted by the band’s vocalist Valentine Caulfield. But there’s catharsis and resistance in the industrial abrasion of the sound they create, like a rogue machine created from cobbled-together parts suddenly learning how to talk back. ZOLADZWater From Your Eyes, ‘Barley’The hypnotic “Barley,” from the Brooklyn duo Water From Your Eyes, sounds a bit like a playground chant reimagined by Sonic Youth: “One, two, three, counter, you’re a cool thing, count mountains,” Rachel Brown drones in a charismatic deadpan. The song — and first single from the forthcoming album “Everyone’s Crushed,” which comes out on May 26 — is full of loopy left-turns and unexpected riffs that jut out at odd angles, but Brown and bandmate Nate Amos are, at all times, utterly in command of their strange and alluring sonic universe. ZOLADZ6lack, ‘Since I Have a Lover’6lack positions himself between singer and rapper on “Since I Have a Lover,” which has a looped feeling. He barely projects his voice, but he rides the rhythm of a loping, two-chord guitar track as he promises more than a passing attraction. Will it last? The song suggests a woozy maybe. PARELESPrincess Nokia, ‘Lo Siento’Steady, wistful piano chords carry Princess Nokia through “Lo Siento” (“I’m Sorry”) from her EP due March 14, “I Love You But This Is Goodbye.” It’s not really an apology; as the production blooms into lush, pillowy harmonies, she switches from singing in English to calmly rapping in Spanish, cursing her lover for betrayal and noting, “Thanks for the pain, the pain in my song.” PARELESyMusic, ‘Zebras’A seven-beat rhythm percolates through “Zebras,” a minimalistic but eventful romp by the chamber sextet yMusic. The rhythm hops from key clicks on a bass clarinet to pizzicato strings; it’s juxtaposed with sighing melody lines and hints of a circus band, making the most of its three-and-a-half minutes. PARELES More

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      12 New Christmas Songs for a Vast Array of Holiday Moods

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      Hear tracks by the Linda Lindas, David Byrne, Summer Walker and others that lean cozy, confrontational and lightly comedic.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.Silversun Pickups, ‘Just Like Christmas’The grungy Los Angeles band Silversun Pickups heard potential in “Just Like Christmas,” which was more like a country song when the Minnesota band Low introduced it on its 1999 album, “Christmas.” It’s a song about touring Scandinavia, seeing — and scoffing at — the snowy image of Christmas but feeling its attractions anyway. With sleigh bells and rippling, echoing guitars, Silversun Pickups find a chiming optimism in the song, embracing a joyful illusion even as they realize it’s temporary. JON PARELESSamara Joy, ‘Warm in December’Samara Joy sings with a jazz trio in “Warm in December,” taking on an aspiring standard as she goes swooping, quivering and hopping through her phrasing. The way she leaves room for her backup to improvise echoes the exchange of affection that the song promises. PARELESPhoebe Bridgers, ‘So Much Wine’Phoebe Bridgers’s annual Christmas cover is, by now, a modern tradition; she’s previously released renditions of such holiday laments as Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December” and Tom Waits’s “Day After Tomorrow.” This year, she tackles the folk duo the Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine,” a dark but ultimately tender tale of Yuletide overindulgence. While the original version is played for macabre comedy (“I had nothing to say on Christmas Day when you threw all your clothes in the snow”) Bridgers, characteristically, amps up the pathos and issues an impassioned plea to sober up for the holidays. “Listen to me, butterfly,” she sings in a trembling voice, “there’s only so much wine that you can drink in one life.” LINDSAY ZOLADZThe Tribe, ‘This Christmas’This team-up of soft soul music stalwarts takes on Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” with charm and adoration. High points include Freda Payne’s careful, tender entreaty to “shake a hand,” and Michael McDonald absolutely howling, “The fireside is blazing bright/And we’re caroling through the night.” (The song also features Kenny Loggins, Richard Marx and several other singers and musicians.) Proceeds from the track benefit the Donny Hathaway Legacy Project (DHLP), a mental health-focused charity established by Donnita Hathaway, Donny’s youngest daughter. JON CARAMANICASam Smith, ‘Night Before Christmas’’Tis hardly the season for something unholy, so Sam Smith’s “Night Before Christmas,” a new holiday original written with the musician’s longtime collaborator Simon Aldred, is tasteful, traditional and sweetly soulful. “With everything closed now, there’s nowhere to go,” Smith sings over a sparse guitar arrangement, but the atmosphere soon grows merrier with the addition of piano, percussion and a fleet of backup singers. “Baby, this time of year can make you feel old,” Smith sings on the chorus. Coziness, though, is the cure: “But when I’m with you, I don’t feel the cold.” ZOLADZThe Linda Lindas, ‘Groovy Xmas’This is how you do it — a jubilant, surf-ish rock jam about the small details of holiday thrill, including the ones that never, ever change: “Same playlist every year/Mariah brings the cheer/And pumpkin spice lattes are here.” The Linda Lindas continue to extract maximum happiness from every available moment, including watching the cat lap up water from the Christmas tree stand. CARAMANICAStars, ‘Christmas Anyway’Stars, the long-running Montreal indie-rock band, offers a pandemic-era Christmas song in “Christmas Anyway,” singing about a long-delayed reunion — “Two years since we did this” — fraught with unresolved tensions. Amid strumming guitars and a stolid backbeat, they sing about how “we got through it somehow,” and how a holiday can offer at least a temporary reconciliation. PARELESSummer Walker, ‘Santa Baby’“Santa Baby” is one of the classic holiday flirtations, and Summer Walker is one of contemporary R&B’s great emotional reckoners — an optimal match. But Walker’s version of this classic is restrained, and almost a little reluctant. Just a sweet little plea for some seasonal blessing. CARAMANICADavid Byrne, ‘Fat Man’s Comin’’David Byrne applies his quizzical-observer perspective in “The Fat Man’s Comin’,” a brief, brawny and elaborately arranged chamber-pop bolero about “a roly-poly man in the dark, he’s riding.” It’s perfectly poised between objectivity and amusement. PARELESOld Crow Medicine Show, ‘Trim This Tree’“Trim This Tree,” an original from Americana stalwarts Old Crow Medicine Show, is a spirited, occasionally hilarious snapshot of Christmas in modern, overdeveloped Nashville: Sloshed reindeer ride by on a pedal tavern, the ornaments are exclusively from Dollar Tree, and, as the frontman Ketch Decor puts it in a Springsteenian croak, “In front of this Airbnb, there’s a Joseph and a Mary and Jesus all lit up like a Walmart.” Even in such environs, though, the group’s rollicking sound manages to rustle up some genuine down-home cheer. ZOLADZImogen Clark, ‘I Got Dumped for Christmas’The Australian songwriter Imogen Clark bashes her way through the self-explanatory “I Got Dumped for Christmas,” with sleigh bells and power-pop guitars. “Your timing was extraordinary,” she jabs, nicely capturing how seasonal expectations can go so badly awry. PARELESNorah Jones, ‘The Christmas Waltz’Norah Jones has nearly doubled the track list for the expanded version of her 2021 album “I Dream of Christmas,” mostly with bluesy, louche studio tracks and live remakes. Her version of the vintage Tin Pan Alley song “The Christmas Waltz” — written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, once recorded by Frank Sinatra — cheerfully trades a waltz for a shuffle, bringing in a quivering harp and an insinuating saxophone, playing with meters but still sounding fond. PARELES More

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      Best Albums of 2021

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      Less isolation didn’t mean a return to normalcy. Albums with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Olivia Rodrigo, Moneybagg Yo and Allison Russell stood out in 2021.From left: Grant Spanier; Noam Galai/Getty Images; Bethany Mollenkof for the New York TimesJon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesSongs of Trauma, Fear and TriumphThe past year was awash in recorded music — not only the stuck-at-home recordings that musicians occupied themselves with when touring evaporated during the pandemic, but also many albums that had been made before the lockdowns but had been shelved in hopes of some return to normalcy. The albums that resonated most with me during 2021 were songs of reflection and revelation, often dealing with traumas and crises, transfigured through music.1. Bomba Estéreo, ‘Deja’The Colombian duo Bomba Estéreo released “Deja” as a series of EPs tied to the ancient elements: water, air, fire, earth. Each new one broadened an album that entwines folklore and electronics, personal yearning and planetary concerns. With Liliana Saumet’s tartly endearing singing and rapping and Simón Mejía’s meticulously kinetic productions, the songs dance through their fears. (Read our interview with Bomba Estéreo.)Simón Mejía and Liliana Saumet of Bomba Estéreo released “Deja” as a series of EPs.Valerie Amor C2. Allison Russell, ‘Outside Child’Allison Russell, the longtime frontwoman of Birds of Chicago, transforms a horrific childhood — she was abused by her stepfather — into songs of joyful survival. “I’m still rising, stronger for my pain and suffering,” she sings. Drawing on soul, country, folk and deep blues, she connects her own story to myth and metaphor, remembering the trauma yet decisively rising above it. (Read our interview with Allison Russell.)3. Mon Laferte, ‘Seis’Sometimes visitors can see what residents take for granted. Mon Laferte is from Chile, but she has been living for more than a decade in Mexico and has immersed herself in its music. On “Seis,” she wrote songs that draw deeply on regional Mexican traditions — mariachi, banda, ranchera, corrido, norteño — to sing, in a voice that can be teasing or furiously incendiary, about deep passions and equally deep betrayals. (Read our interview with Mon Laferte.)Mon Laferte drew on Mexican traditions for one of two albums she released this year, “Seis.”Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times4. The Weather Station, ‘Ignorance’Tamara Lindeman, who writes songs and records as the Weather Station, surrounded herself with a jazzy, intuitive backup group for “Ignorance,” clearly aware of Joni Mitchell’s folk-jazz precedent. The rhythms are brisk and precise; winds, keyboards and guitars ricochet respectfully off her breathy vocal lines. She sings about impending disasters, romantic and environmental, and the widespread disregard for what’s clearly about to happen. (Read our interview with the Weather Station.)5. Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’Mdou Moctar is a Tuareg guitarist born in Niger. Like Tinariwen, his band plugs North African rhythms and modal vamps into rock amplifiers and drums. But “Afrique Victime” further expands the sonic possibilities for Tuareg rock, from ambient meditation to psychedelic onslaught. Six-beat rhythms and skeins of guitar lines carry Moctar’s voice in songs that can be modest and introspective or unstoppably frenetic.6. Julien Baker, ‘Little Oblivions’“Beat myself until I’m bloody/And I’ll give you a ringside seat,” Julien Baker sings in one of the brave, ruthlessly self-indicting songs that fill “Little Oblivions,” an album about the toll of one person’s addictions on everyone around her. She played all the instruments herself, scaling her sound up to arena size and chiming like U2, even as she refuses herself any excuses or forgiveness. (Read our review of “Little Oblivions.”)7. Black Midi, ‘Cavalcade’The virtuosic British band Black Midi bristles in every direction: with jagged, skewed funk riffs; with pointed dissonances; with passages of Minimalistic, ominous suspense; with lyrics full of bitter disillusion. And then, just to keep things unsettled, come passages filled with tenderness and wonderment, only to plunge back into the fray. (Read our interview with Black Midi.)8. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’Olivia Rodrigo, now 18, fixates on a breakup with an adolescent’s obsessiveness on “Sour,” building on the audience she found as a cast member in Disney’s “High School Musical.” With Taylor Swift as a role model for craftsmanship, her songs are as neatly detailed as they are wounded, and the production whipsaws through styles — calm piano ballad, ethereal choir harmonies, fierce distorted guitars — to match every mood swing. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)Olivia Rodrigo’s songs are neatly detailed.Erica Hernandez9. Esperanza Spalding, ‘Songwrights Apothecary Lab’“Songwrights Apothecary Lab” was the bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding’s pandemic project; she consulted neuroscientists, music therapists and ethnomusicologists to devise music for healing, and an online user’s guide prescribes the purpose of each song. But the songs are equally effective off-label; they encompass meditations, serpentine jazz compositions, calm or turbulent improvisations, open-ended questions and sly bits of advice, the work of a graceful, perpetually questing mind. (Read our interview with Esperanza Spalding.)10. Tyler, the Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’A life of luxury can’t mollify Tyler, the Creator. He’s no longer the trolling provocateur he was a decade ago when he emerged with Odd Future, but he’s still intransigent and high-concept. After singing through most of his 2019 album, “Igor,” he’s back to rapping, now simulating a mixtape with DJ Drama as hypeman. In his deep voice, he raps about all he owns and all he can’t control — mostly romance — over his own dense, detailed productions, at once lush and abrasive. The album peaks with an eight-minute love-triangle saga, “Wichita”: a raw confession, cannily orchestrated. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)Tyler, the Creator swings back to mostly rapping on his 2021 album.Luis “Panch” PerezAnd here are another 15 deserving albums, alphabetically:Adele, “30”Arooj Aftab, “Vulture Prince”Khaira Arby, “New York Live”Billie Eilish, “Happier Than Ever”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, “Promises”Flock of Dimes, “Head of Roses”Rhiannon Giddens with Franceso Turrisi, “They’re Calling Me Home”Idles, “Crawler”Ka, “A Martyr’s Reward”Valerie June, “The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers”L’Rain, “Fatigue”Arlo Parks, “Collapsed in Sunbeams”Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raise the Roof”Omar Sosa, “An East African Journey”Jazmine Sullivan, “Heaux Tales”Jon CaramanicaProcessing Pain, Blurring BoundariesIn the second year of global quasi-paralysis, what made the most sense were, once again, albums that felt like wombs and albums that felt like eruptions. When there was nowhere to go, literally or metaphorically, there were still places to retreat — to the gut, to history, to memory, to forgetting.1. Mustafa, ‘When Smoke Rises’Did you mourn this year? Were you broken in some way that was beyond words? Mustafa’s debut album was there with you, a startling, primal chronicle of relentless loss and the relentless grace required to navigate it. In moments when the ground buckled, this album was a cradle. (Read our interview with Mustafa.)Mustafa’s debut album is a profound meditation on loss.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times2. EST Gee, ‘Bigger Than Life or Death’The latest in a string of excellent releases from the Louisville, Ky., rapper EST Gee, whose verses are refreshingly burly and brusque, and who tells stories sprinkled with surprisingly vivid left-field details. A bold back-to-basics statement, utterly free of filigree.3. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’The most important new pop star of the year delivered a debut album of poppy punk and punky pop that’s sometimes musically blistering and always emotionally blistered. A reminder that a failed relationship might leave you icy or bruised or drained, but in truth, it frees you to be emboldened. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)4. Moneybagg Yo, ‘A Gangsta’s Pain’Moneybagg Yo is a casually sassy rapper — a don of tsk-tsking, fluent in arched eyebrows, dispositionally blunt. This is his fourth major-label album, and it’s punchy and robustly musical. À la peak 2 Chainz, Moneybagg Yo boasts so long and so intently that he sounds fatigued, and in turn, uproarious.5. PinkPantheress, ‘To Hell With It’This is music about listening to music, about the secret places we burrow into in order to make sure our favorite songs can wash over us unimpeded. The singing is sweet and melancholic, and the production flirts with memory and time — stories of right now and back then, all told as one. (Read our review of “To Hell With It.”)6. Summer Walker, ‘Still Over It’The most emotionally direct vocalist working in R&B today, Summer Walker is a bracing listen. And this album, her third full-length release, is rawly vindictive and unconcerned with polish, the equivalent of a public-facing Instagram account that feels like a finsta. (Read our notebook on Summer Walker.)Summer Walker’s third album is appealingly unpolished and intimate.Theo Wargo/Getty Images7. Lana Del Rey, ‘Chemtrails Over the Country Club’Lana Del Rey albums have become pop music’s most compelling ongoing saga about American loneliness and sadness. This, the better of her two albums this year, is alluringly arid and dreamlike. (Read our review of “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.”)8. Tyler, the Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’In which the rapper who introduced himself a decade ago as the genre’s great anarchist reveals something that was long clear to close observers: He reveres tradition. Brick-hard rhyme structures. Ostentatious taunts. Mixtape grit. All of it. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)9. Playboi Carti, ‘Whole Lotta Red’Just an unyieldingly odd record. Notionally a cousin of mid-2010s SoundCloud rap, it also has echoes of 1980s industrial rock and also the glitchcore of the 2000s. It’s buoyant and psychedelic and totally destabilizing.10. Kanye West, ‘Donda (Deluxe)’“Donda” lives at the intersection of Kanye’s “Yeezus” era and his Jesus era. On the one hand, there’s scabrous, churning production that sets a chaotic mood. On the other, there are moments of intense searching, gasps for air amid the unrest. (Read our notebook on “Donda.”)11. Rauw Alejandro, ‘Vice Versa’Rauw Alejandro, the most imaginative meta-reggaeton Latin pop star, dabbles in drum ’n’ bass and baile funk on his second major-label album. But the star is his hypertreated voice, which is synthetically sweet and appealingly lush, almost to the point of delightful suffocation. (Read our review of “Vice Versa.”)Rauw Alejandro’s latest album puts a spotlight on his vocals.Thais Llorca/EPA, via Shutterstock12. Doja Cat, ‘Planet Her’Outlandish, eccentric, lustrous, mercenarily maximalist pop from the sing-rapper with the richest and keenest pop ear not named Drake.13. Chloe Moriondo, ‘Blood Bunny’Openhearted and effortlessly catchy indie punk-pop about lovelorn confusion and beginning to figure out you’re too cool for that. (Read our notebook on Chloe Moriondo.)14. Kidd G, ‘Down Home Boy’Why yes, those are Juice WRLD cadences in the singing on the year’s best country debut album. (Read our interview with Kidd G.)15. The Armed, ‘Ultrapop’Shrieking sheets of nervy noise — a battering ram.16. Carly Pearce, ’29: Written in Stone’A brief marriage, a messy divorce, a helluva album.17. Yeat, ‘4L’If “Whole Lotta Red” is too coherent for you, try Yeat.18. Conway the Machine, ‘La Maquina’A cold, cold, cold growl of a classic-minded hip-hop album.19. Farruko, ‘La 167’“Pepas” is here, along with a confidently expansive range of reggaeton styles.Farruko’s “La 167” is a showcase for reggaeton styles.Rich Polk/Getty Images20. Mickey Guyton, ‘Remember Her Name’A pop-country winner that feels both universal and singular. (Read our interview with Mickey Guyton.)… and 20 more albums for a more well-rounded year.42 Dugg, “Free Dem Boyz”Gracie Abrams, “This Is What It Feels Like”Aespa, “Savage”Jay Bahd, “Return of Okomfo Anokye”Benny the Butcher and Harry Fraud, “The Plugs I Met 2”Ivan Cornejo, “Alma Vacía”Jhay Cortez, “Timelezz”Dave, “We’re All Alone in This Together”Drake, “Certified Lover Boy”Halsey, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”Cody Johnson, “Human the Double Album”NCT 127, “Sticker”RXK Nephew, “Crack Dreams”serpentwithfeet, “Deacon”Spirit of the Beehive, “Entertainment, Death”Don Toliver, “Life of a Don”Rod Wave, “SoulFly”Tion Wayne, “Green With Envy”Wiki, “Half God”Young Thug, “Punk”Lindsay ZoladzOpening Up Hearts and MindsIn an emotionally hung over year when so many people were trying to process loss — of loved ones, of charred or flooded homes, of the world as we once knew it — some of the best music offered an opportunity to slow down and reconnect with feelings we may have rushed right by before truly acknowledging. Sometimes we just needed a voice to capture and echo the absurdity all around us, but other times records gave us a way of experiencing nothing less than mass catharsis.1. Adele, ‘30’It takes a certain kind of record to make me want to quote Rumi, but Adele really killed this, so let me say: “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”Adele has been our mass-cultural bard of heartbreak for the past decade, but in her music — save for the handful of instant-classic ballads scattered across her discography — I did not really get the sense that she was truly open in all the terror and glory that implies. Then she turned 30. “I’m so afraid but I’m open wide,” she sings on the divine “To Be Loved,” her imperial voice trembling but assured. Most breakup albums are full of anger, scorn, and blame, but this one is remarkably self-directed, a grown woman making a deeply considered choice to leap into the void and break her own heart wide apart. “I took some bad turns that I am owning,” she sings, audibly italicizing that last phrase, as if the preceding 10 tracks in all their startling honesty hadn’t already made that clear.On “19,” “21,” and “25,” Adele acted wise beyond her years: “We both know we ain’t kids no more,” she chided an ex on an album about being in her mid-20s, which also included a world-wearied number called “When We Were Young.” “30” refreshingly winds back the clock and finds her admitting that all along she was “just a child, didn’t get the chance to feel the world around” her. But now she sings like a mature woman who knows there’s still plenty of time to get wine-drunk on the everyday wonders of her own freedom, to break her heart open again and again in her newly omnivorous and sonically eclectic songs. This, at last, is Adele living up to her promise, pop majesty at the highest count. (Read our review of “30.”)Adele breaks her own heart open on “30.”Cliff Lipson/CBS2. Tyler, The Creator, ‘Call Me if You Get Lost’He’s still on the boat! Tyler has never sounded this breezy yet in control, but for all the luxurious braggadocio, there’s a darker undercurrent at work, too. “I remembered I was rich so I bought me some new emotions,” he raps at the beginning of the album; by the stunning penultimate track, the heart-tugging epic “Wilshire,” he’ll have to admit that’s impossible. Full of playful reflections on his past (“I was canceled before canceled was with Twitter fingers”) and auspicious blessings for his future, “Call Me” finds Tyler dropping a stone into that murky blue and discovering unexplored new depths. (Read our review of “Call Me if You Get Lost.”)3. Snail Mail, ‘Valentine’Lindsey Jordan begs, bargains and finally accepts the pain of heartache in this searing song cycle that further establishes her as one of indie rock’s brightest young stars. There’s a raw immediacy to these 10 songs that make them almost feel hot to the touch — the thrashing title track, the keening acoustic ballad “Light Blue,” even the slinky, synth-driven vamp “Ben Franklin.” Her nimble guitar work highlights a sharp ear for off-kilter melody, but at the core of “Valentine” is Jordan’s passionately hoarse voice, lungs filled to the brim with sound and fury. (Read our review of “Valentine.”)4. Jazmine Sullivan, ‘Heaux Tales’The chatty, candid interstitials woven through this wonderful album play out like an adult reunion of those young girls in the classroom from “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” — now grown women swapping secrets, recollections and hard-earned wisdom. “Heaux Tales” is a prismatic, multiperspective snapshot of female desire in the 21st century, enlivened by the testimonies of friends like Ari Lennox and H.E.R. but made cohesive by the soulfully versatile voice of Jazmine Sullivan. She breathes life into a spectrum of emotions, from the sassy assertion of “Pick Up Your Feelings” to the naked yearning of “The Other Side,” proving that it would be too limiting to choose between being a hard rock or a gem. Aren’t we all a little bit of both? (Read our review of “Heaux Tales.”)Jazmine Sullivan explores the multiple dimensions of female desire in the 21st century on “Heaux Tales.”NAACP, via Reuters5. Illuminati Hotties, ‘Let Me Do One More’The indie producer turned surprisingly ebullient frontperson Sarah Tudzin is a personable and occasionally hilarious guide through the surreal ruins of late capitalism. “You think I wanna be a part of every self-appointed start-up?” she seethes in a punky, cartoonish voice, but a few songs later she’s exhausted enough to sound resigned to inevitable compromise: “The corner store is selling spit, bottled up for profit,” she sighs, “can’t believe I’m buying it.” Still, Tudzin’s songs glow with the possibility of human intimacy amid all the rubble, and they show off her mastery of so many different genres that by the end of the record, it seems like there’s no ceiling to her talent as both a producer and a finger-on-the-pulse songwriter. (Read our interview with Illuminati Hotties.)6. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Sour’Hell hath no fury like a young woman out to prove she’s no one-hit wonder. From the opening guitar-crunch of the Zoomer primal scream that is “Brutal,” Olivia Rodrigo proves there’s so much more to her than could be expressed even in a song as exquisitely expressive as her seismic smash “Drivers License.” Rodrigo fashions teen-girl sarcasm into a lethal weapon on the dream-pop “Deja Vu,” rails against the Instagram industrial complex on the barbed social critique “Jealousy, Jealousy” and transforms a sample of one of her idol Taylor Swift’s sweetest love songs into a tear-streaked heartbreaker on “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” If it feels comparatively weak on the back end, that’s only because the first half of this album is probably the most impressive six-song run anybody put together this year. (Read our review of “Sour” and watch her “Diary of a Song.”)7. The Weather Station, ‘Ignorance’How do you make music about climate change without it sounding too didactic and abstract? Tamara Lindeman, the Canadian musician who records as the Weather Station, came up with a winning solution on her stirring album “Ignorance,” which finds her singing elegiac love songs to a dying planet. The graceful melancholy of “Tried to Tell You” surveys the natural beauty we’ve been too numb to mourn, while the sparse, jazzy “Robber” is a kind of musical tone-poem about large-scale corporate destruction. With her nimble voice — sometimes high and fluttery, other times earthy and low — and evocative lyricism, the songs of “Ignorance” animate, as one of her bandmates puts it, “the emotional side of climate change,” employing music’s depth of feeling to ignite political consciousness. (Read our interview with the Weather Station.)Tamara Lindeman of the Weather Station finds artful ways to sing about the climate crisis.Angela Lewis for The New York Times8. Low, ‘Hey What’If only every band could sound this adventurous 30 years into existence. As their eerily heartfelt harmonies cut through with rhythmic blurts of electronic noise, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk sound, quite literally, like ghosts in the machine, imbuing vast, steely soundscapes with a disarming beauty. Following the sonic reinvention of the stunning 2018 album “Double Negative,” the Duluth band have continued to frame human yearning amid a churning and apocalyptic backdrop, with career-best songs like “Disappearing” and “Days Like These” capturing both the difficulty and the necessity of finding light in a dark age.9. Lucy Dacus, ‘Home Video’Lucy Dacus’s wrenching third studio album is as much an achievement of memoir as it is of songwriting, a vividly conjured coming-of-age story so personal that she used her own teenage diaries for research. “In the summer of ’07, I was sure I’d go to heaven,” she sings on “VBS” (as in, Vacation Bible School), before a gradual and all-consuming doubt begins to creep in. By the final song, when a friend tells her she’s afraid that their desires have rendered them “cursed,” Dacus responds, “So what?” As thoughtfully crafted as a collection of short stories, “Home Video” achingly chronicles the tale of a young person who loses her religion but in the process gains autonomy, a sense of identity and the glorious strength to tell her own truths in song. (Read T magazine’s interview with Lucy Dacus.)10. Dry Cleaning, ‘New Long Leg’“Are there some kind of reverse platform shoes that make you go into the ground more?” the ever-droll Florence Shaw asks, one of many absurdist yet somehow relatable philosophical questions she poses on the English post-punk band Dry Cleaning’s singular debut album. The instrumentation around Shaw swells like a sudden squall, but her deadpan, spoken-word musings — a mixture of found text, overheard chitchat and offbeat poetry — are the eye of the storm, remaining steady and strangely unperturbed in all kinds of weather.11. Billie Eilish, ‘Happier Than Ever’No record grew on me more this year than Billie Eilish’s patient and personal sophomore effort, which shuns repeat-the-formula predictability and unfolds at its own unhurried pace. It’s somehow even quieter than her sumptuously ASMR-triggering debut, until those sudden moments when it isn’t — as on the corrosive conclusion to the Nine-Inch-Nails-like “NDA,” or the fireworks display of pent-up frustration that rips open the title track. Exquisitely sequenced, this is a rare pop album that doesn’t show all its cards right away, but instead saves its strongest material for the end, building toward a satisfying finale and a hint at the potential versatility of her future. (Read our review of “Happier Than Ever.”)Billie Eilish’s second album, “Happier Than Ever,” reveals itself at its own pace.Rich Fury/Getty Images12. Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’The fluid and incandescent playing of the Tuareg guitar hero Mdou Moctar transcends borders, seamlessly fusing Western psychedelia with North African desert blues. “Afrique Victime,” his strongest and most focused record to date, showcases not only his quicksilver fingerwork but his innate gift for melody and songcraft, proving in every one of these nine blazing tracks that shredding is a universal language.13. Bitchin Bajas, ‘Switched on Ra’This shouldn’t work, or at least not nearly as well as it does: A drone synth outfit tackling the otherworldly compositions and complex harmonies of cosmic jazz pioneer Sun Ra? But Chicago’s Bitchin Bajas approach the task with equal parts reverence and playfulness, assembling an Arkestra of 19 different analog synths and in the process creating a prolonged musical meditation on time, space and the meaning of retrofuturism. The vibes are exquisite, and the whole thing sounds like the Muzak that would play in an intergalactic portal’s waiting room.14. Remi Wolf, ‘Juno’Here’s to anyone who takes a technically skilled voice and chooses to do something delectably weird with it. The Palo Alto native Remi Wolf’s pipes are strong enough to have propelled her to Hollywood on the 2014 season of “American Idol,” but she’s since carved out a much less conventional path, making bold, psychedelic pop that bursts at the seams with ideas, melodies and truly wild wordplay (“I love my family intrinsically, like Anthony Kiedis,” she sings, which — sure!). On “Juno,” one of the most promising debut albums of the year, Wolf throws everything she’s got at the wall — and a surprisingly high percentage of it actually sticks. (Read our interview with Remi Wolf.)Remi Wolf makes bold, psychedelic pop that bursts at the seams with ideas.Amy Sussman/Getty ImagesSome runners-up worth mentioning:L’Rain, “Fatigue”Rostam, “Changephobia”Flock of Dimes, “Head of Roses”Lana Del Rey, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club”/“Blue Banisters”Halsey, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”Palberta, “Palberta 5000”/Lily Konigsberg, “Lily We Need to Talk Now” More

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      Summer Walker Beats Abba’s First Album in Decades to No. 1

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      The Atlanta R&B singer’s “Still Over It” becomes her first LP to top the Billboard 200, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States.When Abba, whose classic songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” are the epitome of Europop ear candy, announced in September that it would be returning this fall with its first studio album in 40 years, it was assumed that the new release would be an immediate blockbuster.The album, “Voyage,” came out on Nov. 5, and it has indeed reached higher on Billboard’s chart than any previous Abba release — but it did not quite go to No. 1.“Voyage” opens at No. 2 with solid album sales but low streaming numbers, edged out by the latest from Summer Walker, a 25-year-old R&B singer from Atlanta.Walker’s “Still Over It” becomes her first No. 1 album, with the equivalent of 166,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Fans mostly consumed “Still Over It,” Walker’s second album, on streaming services. It had 201 million clicks online and sold 12,000 copies as a complete package.Abba’s “Voyage” had the equivalent of 82,000 sales; of those, 78,000 were attributed to copies sold as a complete package, including 42,000 CDs and 17,500 vinyl LPs. (It was available in eight vinyl configurations, including two picture discs and five color variants, in addition to standard black.) Songs from “Voyage” were streamed 4.9 million times — or about as many clicks as Walker got in four hours during her debut week.“Voyage” is also the title of Abba’s virtual comeback concert, in which computer-generated “Abbatars” of its four members will perform with a live band in a custom-built venue in London, starting in May.“What interested us was the idea that we could send them out while we can be at home cooking or walking the dog,” Benny Andersson, one of the group’s members, told The New York Times in a recent interview.Despite the enduring popularity of Abba’s singles, its original albums were only moderate chart hits in the United States. According to Billboard, the group’s highest-charting title before “Voyage” was “Abba: The Album,” which went to No. 14 in 1978. (Two Abba-related soundtracks did better: “Mamma Mia!” went to No. 1 in 2008, and “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!” landed at No. 3 a decade later.)Ed Sheeran’s “=,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 4, while Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” is No. 3 and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 5. More

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      Lana Del Rey’s Sisterly Solidarity, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Miranda Lambert, Summer Walker, My Morning Jacket 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.Lana Del Rey, ‘Blue Banisters’“Blue Banisters,” out Friday, is the ever-prolific Lana Del Rey’s second album released this year, and its melodically roving title track feels like a kind of spiritual sequel to “Dance Till We Die” from her previous record, “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Del Rey’s music has recently become populated with a kind of coterie of female first names, giving many of her songs an insular yet invitingly chummy atmosphere. If “Dance Till We Die” was a kind of matriarchal communion with some of her musical heroes (“I’m covering Joni and dancing with Joan/Stevie’s calling on the telephone”), “Blue Banisters” finds her getting by with a little help from her less famous friends. This vaporous, searching piano ballad ponders a choice between settling down into conventional, wifely femininity and living a more restless and solitary artist’s life: “Most men don’t want a woman with a legacy,” Del Rey sings, quoting her friend Jenny’s poolside musings. By the end of the song, though, she’s eked out a third option, neither in love nor alone, surrounded by “all my sisters” who come together to paint her banisters a different hue than the one her ex once preferred. For all the criticism Del Rey bore early in her career for conjuring the loneliness of embodying a male fantasy, it’s been fascinating to watch her music gradually turn into a space warmed by romantic friendship and female solidarity. LINDSAY ZOLADZMiranda Lambert, ‘If I Was a Cowboy’Beyoncé famously mused “If I Were a Boy”; Miranda Lambert is now giving a similar song-length thought exercise a countrified twist. “If I Was a Cowboy” — Lambert’s first solo single since her eclectic, Grammy-winning 2019 album “Wildcard” — finds her in a breezy, laid-back register, as opposed to her more fiery fare. But the song’s outlaw attitude and clever gender commentary give “If I Was a Cowboy” a casually rebellious spirit. “So mamas, if your daughters grow up to be cowboys,” Lambert sings on the smirking bridge, “ … so what?” ZOLADZMy Morning Jacket, ‘Lucky to Be Alive’The seventh track on My Morning Jacket’s new album — its first in six years, and ninth overall — is an especially succinct encapsulation of two things the Louisville band has always been able to do well. The first half of the song is all effortlessly playful, carnivalesque pop (with the frontman Jim James hamming up his growly delivery of the word “aliiiiive”). Halfway through, though, “Lucky to Be Alive” transforms into the sort of psychedelic, Laser-Floyd jam session that suggests why MMJ has built a reputation as a stellar live band. Put the two sides together and you get the song’s — and perhaps the band’s — overall mantra: Always look on the bright side of the moon. ZOLADZAlex Lahey, ‘Spike the Punch’Here’s a potent blast of sweetly spring-wound power-pop, courtesy of the underrated Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey. If you’ve ever thrown a party at which the guests have lingered a little too long, this one’s for you and your beloved: “Spike the punch and get everyone sent home, so in the end it’s you and me dancing all alone.” ZOLADZSnail Mail, ‘Ben Franklin’The enticing second single from Snail Mail’s upcoming album, “Valentine,” finds Lindsey Jordan growling and vamping atop a slinky bass line. “I never should have hurt you,” she sings in a low register, “I’ve got the devil in me.” Jordan’s just as winningly charismatic in the music video: Come to see her channel VMA-snake-era Britney Spears as a yellow python slithers across her shoulders; stay to watch her share an ice cream cone with a puppy. ZOLADZSummer Walker featuring JT from City Girls, ‘Ex for a Reason’If the title suggests a kiss-off directed at a past boyfriend, think again: “Ex for a Reason” turns out to be a sharp-tongued warning to a current man’s stubbornly lingering former flame — consider it a kind of R-rated “The Boy Is Mine.” Summer Walker spits venom in a deliciously incongruous, laid-back croon (“Tonight I’ll end it all/spin the block two, three times, make sure all the cancer’s gone”), before JT from City Girls steps in to land the fatal blow, with gusto. ZOLADZÁlvaro Díaz featuring Rauw Alejandro, ‘Problemón’There are plenty of entanglement anthems in reggaeton, but the Puerto Rican singers Álvaro Díaz and Rauw Alejandro are masters of perreo desire. For their latest collaboration, “Problemón,” the pair tackle a tricky situation: a partner lied about being single, and now a romance has to be kept under wraps. Díaz and Alejandro put melody front and center on a track that spotlights the contours of their addictive pop. It’s an easy addition to sad girl reggaeton playlists. ISABELIA HERRERASam Wilkes, ‘One Theme’The bassist and producer Sam Wilkes has been gaining popularity among both jazz fans and beat-heads thanks to a series of woozy analog-tape recordings with the saxophonist Sam Gendel. On Friday, Wilkes released an album of his own, “One Theme and Subsequent Improvisation,” which flows from an equally viscid vein. He went into the studio with two drummer friends to record a lengthy improvisation, then picked apart and edited that recording, and had two keyboardists subsequently lay their own improvisations over it. The end product is a magnetic album that revolves around, and often spins out far away from, the harmonized bass figure that opens the album’s opening track, “One Theme.” Across 33 minutes, Wilkes can sometimes call up minimalist voyagers like William Basinski or even Éliane Radigue, or he can wind up in post-rock territory — especially when the twin drummers take the wheel. (Gendel also released a single this week, a wholesale reworking of Laurie Anderson’s “Sweaters,” from her hit experimental album from 1982, “Big Science.”) GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJlin, ‘Embryo’“Embryo,” from the producer Jlin, is pure electronic calisthenics. A buzzing synth flutters through the track like a nettlesome fly in your ear as a high-intensity workout session commences with overblown bass, thumping drums and four-on-the-floor rhythms that flicker in and out of focus. Before you know it, the whole thing is over, and your heart will need some recovery time. HERRERAAnimal Collective, ‘Prester John’The first offering from Animal Collective’s forthcoming album “Time Skiffs” (which will be out in February 2022) is surprisingly bass-heavy, a gently hypnotic groove that unfolds across a pleasantly unhurried six-and-a-half minutes. As far as Animal Collective songs go, it’s relatively tame — devoid of its signature freak-out shrieks and sounding more like a cross between the Beach Boys and Grizzly Bear, as the quartet’s voices join in stirring harmony. Still, it feels like a natural step in the indie stalwarts’ gradual evolution, the sound of a band once so fascinated with childlike awe acquiescing to their own version of maturity. ZOLADZKazemde George, ‘This Spring’For the young, Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist Kazemde George, to insist doesn’t necessarily mean raising the volume or pushing idiosyncrasy. His debut album — titled “I Insist” in a reference to jazz’s protest tradition, and to Max Roach specifically — is mostly about laying a claim to the straight-ahead jazz mantle. With a brisk swing feel and a set of suspenseful chord changes that only half-resolve, “This Spring” is one of 10 original compositions on the record, but it also would’ve been at home on an album from a young saxophonist 30 years ago, during jazz’s Neo-Classicist revival. Throughout, what George insists upon most — from himself and his bandmates — is clarity: Melody is never sacrificed to flair or crossfire, even as the momentum builds. RUSSONELLO More

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      2020 Popcast Listener Mailbag: Taylor, Dua, MGK and More

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyPopcastSubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle Podcasts2020 Popcast Listener Mailbag: Taylor, Dua, MGK and MoreAnswering your questions about the year’s biggest stars, and also some of its curious flops.Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.More episodes ofPopcastDecember 23, 20202020 Popcast Listener Mailbag: Taylor, Dua, MGK and MoreDecember 15, 2020Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’: Let’s DiscussDecember 9, 2020The Best Albums of 2020? Let’s DiscussNovember 29, 2020Saweetie, City Girls and the Female Rapper RenaissanceNovember 18, 2020  •  More