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    The Ultimate Dad Rock Playlist

    What is dad rock? You know it when you hear it, so listen to 10 songs from Wilco, the Grateful Dead, Steely Dan and more.Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, the patron saint of dad rockEnric Fontcuberta/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,This Sunday is Father’s Day, and I would like to celebrate the only way I know how — with a playlist of dad rock.What is dad rock? You know it when you hear it, but it’s difficult to define exactly, as I learned when I considered the supposed genre in an essay I wrote four Father’s Days ago*. One thing I want to make clear is that, while it’s an easy concept to poke fun at, I don’t consider the term “dad rock” to be an insult, per se. A lot of great music falls into the category, and you certainly don’t have to be a dad to enjoy it. Much of what I was grappling with in that essay was the fact that, in my 30s, I have come around to loving a lot of what I once dismissed as “dad music.” Perhaps, spiritually speaking at least, I am a dad.I associate dad rock with a certain laid-back, lived-in proficiency — an age and comfort level at which you no longer feel you have to prove your virtuosity but can just sit back and let it speak for itself. Accordingly, quite a few of the songs I’ve chosen here represent bands (Wilco, the Who and Pink Floyd, to name a few) in the middle years of their careers, polishing the rougher edges of their sounds while remaining indelibly themselves. Quite a few — from artists like Steely Dan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen — are straight from my own dad’s record collection, and, as you’ll see below, he even makes a cameo, offering a corrective to his only complaint about this newsletter.Last week, a website I had never heard of called Merchoid conducted a questionably scientific poll that asked 3,000 Americans, “Which band truly epitomizes dad rock today?” The names that appeared in the Top 10 responses were horrifying: Nickelback, Blink-182, Red Hot Chili Peppers … Limp Bizkit?! Sure, I get that time marches on and that the pop-punk and nü-metal fans of yesteryear are aging into fatherhood. But something about the antic scatting of the Chili Peppers or the teenage-boy humor of Blink-182 does not square with the easygoing cool I associate with dad rock.So consider this playlist a rejoinder to that list, or maybe just an argument starter. But whatever you do, make sure you consider it The Amplifier’s way of saying happy Father’s Day.Turn it up! That’s enough,Lindsay*My own father really enjoyed the article, except the part where I told the entire readership of The New York Times that he used to drive a Ford Taurus. Sorry, Dad.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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

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

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

    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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    Best Songs of 2022

    Seventy-two tracks that identify, grapple with or simply dance away from the anxieties of yet another uncertain year.Jon Pareles’s Top 25Full disclosure: There can’t be a definitive list of best songs — only a sampling of what any one listener, no matter how determined, can find the time to hear in the course of a year. For discovery’s sake, my list rules out the (excellent) songs on my favorite albums of the year, and it’s designed more like a playlist than a countdown or a ranking. Feel free to switch to shuffle.1. Residente featuring Ibeyi, ‘This Is Not America’Backed by implacable Afro-Caribbean drumming and Ibeyi’s vocal harmonies, the Puerto Rican rapper Residente defines America as the entire hemisphere, while he furiously denounces historical and ongoing abuses.2. The Smile, ‘The Opposite’Thom Yorke of Radiohead — in a side project, the Smile — wonders, “What will become of us?” Prodded by a funky beat and pelted by staggered, syncopated guitar and bass notes, he can’t expect good news.3. Wilco, ‘Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull’With Wilco picking and strumming like a string band, Jeff Tweedy spins a free-associative fable about elemental forces of life and death, leading into a brief but probing jam that reunites country and psychedelia.4. Rema featuring Selena Gomez, ‘Calm Down’The crisply flirtatious “Calm Down,” by the Nigerian singer Rema, was already a major African hit when Selena Gomez added her voice for a remix. He’s confident, she’s inviting — at least for the moment — and the Afrobeats syncopation promises a good time.5. Emiliana Torrini and the Colorist Orchestra, ‘Right Here’A plinking Minimalist pulse and a deft chamber-pop arrangement carry the Icelandic songwriter Emiliana Torrini through fond thoughts of hard-won but durable domestic stability.Thom Yorke, left, and Jonny Greenwood of the Smile performing at Usher Hall in Edinburgh in June. The band also includes the drummer Tom Skinner.Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns, via Getty Images6. Lucrecia Dalt, ‘Atemporal’“Atemporal” (“Timeless”) is from “Ay!,” Lucrecia Dalt’s heady concept album about time, physicality and love. It’s a lurching bolero that dovetails lo-fi nostalgia with vaudeville horns and an electronically skewed sense of space.7. Burna Boy, ‘Last Last’The Nigerian superstar Burna Boy juggles regrets, justifications and resentments as he sings about a romance wrecked by career pressures, drawing nervous momentum out of a strumming, fluttering sample from Toni Braxton.8. Aldous Harding, ‘Lawn’The tone is airy: unassuming piano chords; a high, naïve voice; a singsong melody. But in one of Aldous Harding’s least cryptic lyrics, she is trying to put the best face on a confusing breakup.9. Madison Cunningham, ‘Our Rebellion’Madison Cunningham sings, wryly and fondly, about an opposites-attract relationship in a tricky, virtuosic tangle of guitar lines.10. Big Thief, ‘Simulation Swarm’Adrianne Lenker’s wispy voice belies the visionary ambition — and ambiguity — of her lyrics. So does the way the band, not always in tune, cycles through four understated folk-rock chords, swerving occasionally into a bridge. It’s a love song with a backdrop of war and transformation, delivered like a momentary glimpse into something much vaster.11. Margo Price, ‘Lydia’Somewhere between folk-rock plaint and short story, Margo Price sings about a pregnant woman at a clinic, with a hard-luck past and a tough decision to make.12. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’Cool, fast, precise and merciless, the Bronx rapper Ice Spice dispatches a hapless suitor by designating him as a new slang word: “munch.”13. Jamila Woods, ‘Boundaries’Mixing a suave bossa nova with a tapping, stubbornly resistant cross-rhythm, Jamila Woods neatly underlines the ambivalence she sings about, as she ponders just how close she wants someone to get.14. Stromae featuring Camila Cabello, ‘Mon Amour’The cheerful lilt of Stromae’s “Mon Amour” is camouflage for the increasingly threadbare rationalizations of a compulsive cheater; he gets his comeuppance when Camila Cabello asserts her own freedom to fool around.15. Giveon, ‘Lie Again’Giveon floats in a jealous limbo, hoping not to be exposed to hard truths. His voice is a baritone croon with an electronic penumbra, in a track that hints at old soul translated into ghostly electronics.16. Tyler ICU featuring Nkosazana Daughter, Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, ‘Inhliziyo’No fewer than three leading producers of amapiano, the patient, midtempo South African club style, collaborated on “Inhliziyo” (“Heart”), creating haunted open spaces for the South African singer and songwriter Nkosazana Daughter to quietly lament a heartbreak.The Nigerian star Burna Boy addresses the challenges of balancing a relationship with his growing career on “Last Last.”Ferdy Damman/EPA, via Shutterstock17. Tinashe, ‘Something Like a Heartbreak’Nothing feels entirely solid in this song: not Tinashe’s breathy vocals, not the beat that flickers in and out of the mix, not the hovering tones that only sketch the chords. But in the haze, she realizes, “You don’t deserve my love,” and she moves on.18. Jessie Reyez, ‘Mutual Friend’Revenge arrives with cool fury over elegant, vintage-soul strings as Jessie Reyez makes clear that someone is definitely not getting a second chance.19. 070 Shake, ‘Web’Danielle Balbuena — the songwriter and producer who records as 070 Shake — overdubbed herself as a full-scale choir in “Web,” a pandemic-era reaction to the gap between onscreen and physical interaction. She wants carnality in real time, insisting, “Let’s be here in person.”20. Holly Humberstone, ‘Can You Afford to Lose Me?’In an ultimatum carried by a stately crescendo of keyboards, Holly Humberstone reminds a partner who’s threatening to leave just how much she has already put up with.21. Brian Eno, ‘There Were Bells’“There Were Bells” contemplates the slow-motion cataclysm of global warming as an elegy and a warning, with edgeless, tolling sounds and a mournful melody as Brian Eno sings about the destruction no one will escape.22. Caroline Polachek, ‘Billions’Is it love or capitalism? Caroline Polachek sings with awe-struck sweetness — and touches of hyperpop processing — against an otherworldly backdrop that incorporates electronics, tabla drumming and string sections, at once intimate and abstract.23. Stormzy, ‘Firebabe’In a wedding-ready, hymnlike ballad, Stormzy sings modestly and adoringly about a love at first sight that he intends to last forever.24. Hagop Tchaparian, ‘Right to Riot’A blunt four-on-the-floor thump might just be the least aggressive part of “Right to Riot” from the British Armenian musician Hagop Tchaparian, which also brandishes traditional sounds — six-beat drumming and the snarl of the double-reed zurna — and zapping, woofer-rattling electronics as it builds.25. Oren Ambarchi, ‘I’The first section of an album-length piece, “Shebang,” by the composer Oren Ambarchi, is a consonant hailstorm of staccato guitar notes, picked and looped, manipulated and layered, emerging as melodies and rejoining the ever-more-convoluted mesh.Jon Caramanica’s Top 22There are plenty of ways to try out something new — fooling around with your friends, tossing off a casual but not careless experiment, disappearing so deeply into a feeling that you forget form altogether.1. GloRilla featuring Cardi B, ‘Tomorrow 2’Kay Flock featuring Cardi B, Dougie B and Bory300, ‘Shake It’It was a great year for the Cardi B booster plan. Like Drake before her, she is an attentive listener and a seven-figure trend forecaster, as captured in these two cousin-like feature appearances. “Shake It” is as credible a drill song as a non-drill performer has yet made — Cardi’s verse is pugnacious and tart. And “Tomorrow 2,” with its big BFF energy, helps continue construction of a new pathway for female allyship in hip-hop.2. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’Ice Spice is a gleefully patient rapper. On “Munch,” she pulls off a perfectly balanced tug of war between neg-heavy seduction and the affect of being utterly unbothered.3. Bailey Zimmerman, ‘Rock and a Hard Place’The trick of this catalog of a couple’s catastrophic collapse is that the arrangement never lets on that the circumstances are dire, but atop it, Bailey Zimmerman sings like he’s narrating a boxing match.4. Lil Yachty, ‘Poland’A non-song. A koan. A cry from beneath the ravenous eddies. A memory bubbling up from repression. A tractor beam. A stunt. A hopeful warble. A promise of infinite tomorrows.5. The Dare, ‘Girls’Epically silly and epically debauched, “Girls” marks a return(?) of quasi(?)-electroclash(?), but, more pointedly, is a reminder of the perennial power of lust, sweat and arch eroticism.Cardi B didn’t put out a lot of her own music in 2022, but she showed up in a savvy selection of features.Mario Anzuoni/Reuters6. Sadie Jean, ‘WYD Now? (10 Minute Version) [Open Verse Mashup]’The logical endpoint of the TikTok duet trend: one extended posse-cut version aggregating everyone’s labor into a lofi-beats-to-study-to forever loop. The wooden spoon provides.7. Lil Kee, ‘Catch a Murder’From his arresting debut mixtape “Letter 2 My Brother,” a caustic and bleak pledge of revenge from the Lil Baby affiliate Lil Kee, who sing-raps as if in a trance of menace.8. Cam’ron, Funk Flex #Freestyle171Another year, another casual calisthenics lesson from Cam’ron, the last avatar of the intricately economical style that dominated Harlem rap in the ’90s and remains staggering to observe.9. Yahritza y Su Esencia, ‘Soy El Unico’The first song Yahritza Martinez wrote — at age 13 — was “Soy El Unico,” a defiantly sad retort from a discarded partner to the discarder that pairs the groundedness of Mexican folk music with a vocal delivery inflected with hip-hop and R&B.10. Kate Gregson-MacLeod, ‘Complex (Demo)’This song began life as viral melancholy on TikTok, a brief portrait of someone stuck in the gravitational pull of a person who doesn’t deserve their care. The finished song is desolate but resilient, a hell of a plaint.11. NewJeans, ‘Cookie’Most striking about “Cookie,” the best song from the debut EP by the impressive young K-pop girl group NewJeans, is its ease — no maximalism, no theater. Simply a cheerful extended metaphor over an updated take on the club-oriented R&B of a couple of decades ago, finished off with a tasteful Jersey club breakdown.12. Jack Harlow featuring Drake, ‘Churchill Downs’The student befriends the teacher. Both drop out for a life of partying, followed by self-reflection, followed by more partying.13. Ethel Cain, ‘American Teenager’Midwest emo as refracted through Southeastern parchedness under a filter of radio pop-rock, delivering devastating sentiment about the emptiness of the American dream and the hopelessness of those subject to its whims.Ethel Cain turns a critical eye on the American dream with her debut album, “Preacher’s Daughter.”Irina Rozovsky for The New York Times14. Joji, ‘Glimpse of Us’You OK, bro?15. Delaney Bailey, ‘J’s Lullaby (Darlin’ I’d Wait for You)’One long ache about the one who’s slipping away: “Darlin’, I wish that you could give me some more time/To herd the whole sky in my arms/And release it when you’re mine.”16. Muni Long, ‘Another’Luscious, indignant, scolding.17. Romeo Santos featuring Rosalía, ‘El Pañuelo’Two traditionalists at heart, each feeling out the outer boundaries of their appetite for risk while still honoring what the other can’t quite do.18. Hitkidd featuring Aleza, Gloss Up, Slimeroni and K Carbon, ‘Shabooya’Roll-call rap that bridges the early ’80s to the early ’20s, with a cadre of Memphis women reveling in filth and sass.19. Kidd G featuring YNW BSlime, ‘Left Me’Lil Durk featuring Morgan Wallen, ‘Broadway Girls’What is hip-hop to country music these days? A source of vocal inspiration? A place for experimentation? Close kin? Safe harbor?20. Fireboy DML and Ed Sheeran, ‘Peru’The globe-dominating update of the Fireboy DML solo hit features bright seduction delivered with jaunty rhythm from Ed Sheeran.Lindsay Zoladz’s Top 25Anxiety abounds in this modern world, and music is one surefire way to process it — or maybe, for a few minutes at a time, to escape from it. The songs on this list consider both options.1. Hurray for the Riff Raff, ‘Life on Earth’Conventional wisdom tells us that life is short, time flies and there are never enough hours in the day. But Alynda Segarra takes the long view on this elegiac, piano-driven hymn: “Rivers and lakes/And floods and earthquakes/Life on Earth is long.” As it progresses at its own unhurried tempo, the song, remarkably, seems to slow down time, or at least zoom out until it becomes something geological rather than selfishly human-centric. The thick haze of climate grief certainly hangs over the track (“And though I might not meet you there, leaving it beyond repair”) but its lingering effect is one of generosity and spaciousness, inspiring a fresh appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things.2. The 1975, ‘Happiness’Matty Healy, the gregarious leader of the British pop group the 1975, is rarely at a loss for words, but on the supremely catchy “Happiness,” infatuation leaves him tongue-tied: “My, my, my, oh/My, my, my, you.” Ultimately, though, the song becomes an ode to giving oneself over to forces beyond control: like love, the unknown or maybe just the groove — particularly the loose, sparkling atmosphere the band taps into here.3. Beyoncé, ‘Alien Superstar’The moon is a disco ball and it orbits around Beyoncé on this commanding dance-floor banger, a studied but lived-in ode to ball culture and Afrofuturism. Like the rest of the remarkable “Renaissance,” the song’s focus flickers constantly from the individual to the collective, as Beyoncé’s braggadocious boasts of being No. 1, the only one, share space with her exhortations to find that unicorn energy within: “Unique, that’s what you are,” she intones regally, before a transcendent finale in which the song takes flight on a Funkadelic spaceship of its own making.4. Amanda Shires, ‘Take It Like a Man’The melody keeps ascending to nervy, dangerous heights, like a high-wire walk without a net: “I know the cost of flight is landing,” Amanda Shires sings on this imagistic torch song, trilling like some newly discovered species of bird. The title is playfully provocative, but it takes a twist in the song’s final lyric, when Shires proclaims, “I know I can take it like … Amanda” — a fitting finale for such a singular song of self.Amanda Shires makes a strong statement on “Take It Like a Man,” also the name of her latest album.Eric Ryan Anderson for The New York Times5. Taylor Swift, ‘Anti-Hero’Rejoice, you who have suffered through “Look What You Made Me Do,”“Me!” and even “Cardigan”: For the first time in nearly a decade, Taylor Swift has picked the correct lead single. “Anti-Hero” is one of the high points of Swift’s ongoing collaboration with the producer Jack Antonoff: The phrasing is chatty but not overstuffed, the synthesizers underline Swift’s emotions rather than obscuring them and the insecurities feel like genuine transmissions from Swift’s somnambulant psyche. Prospective daughters-in-law, you’ve been warned.6. Rosalía, ‘Despechá’Rosalía, smacking her gum, eyebrows raised, one hand on an exaggeratedly cocked hip: That’s the attitude, and this is its soundtrack. “Despechá” — abbreviated slang for spiteful — is a lighter-than-air, mambo-nodding dance-floor anthem, and an invitation to join the ranks of the Motomamis. As always, she makes pop perfection sound as easy as A-B-C.7. Pusha T, ‘Diet Coke’Pusha T, is, as ever, part rap-poet and part insult comic on the razor-sharp “Diet Coke,” bending language to his will and laughing his enemies right out of the V.I.P. room: “You ordered Diet Coke — that’s a joke, right?”8. Chloe Moriondo, ‘Fruity’“Fruity,” like the best hyperpop, is an anarchic affront to refinement and restraint, an ever-escalating blast of melodic delirium and warped excess. It’s a sugar rush, it’s brain-freeze-inducing, it’s recommended by zero out of 10 dentists. Turn it up loud.9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs featuring Perfume Genius, ‘Spitting off the Edge of the World’Yeah Yeah Yeahs grow elegantly into their role as art-rock elders here, not just by slowing to a tempo as confidently glacial as the Cure’s “Plainsong,” but by placing a spotlight on the existential dread of the next generation. “Mama, what have you done?” Karen O sings, channeling the voice of a frightened child. “I trace your steps in the darkness of one/Am I what’s left?”10. Grace Ives, ‘Lullaby’Grace Ives makes music of interiority, chronicling the liminal moments of her day when she’s by herself, daydreaming: “I hear the neighbors sing ‘Love Galore,’ I do a split on the kitchen floor,” goes the charming “Lullaby,” a passionately sung, welcoming invitation into her world.11. Weyes Blood, ‘It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody’The pandemic left many people isolated in their own heads, questioning their perceptions, feeling disconnected from a larger whole. The clarion-voiced Natalie Mering has written a soothing anthem for all those lost souls in the emotionally generous “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”; its title alone is an offering of solace and sanity.12. Florence + the Machine, ‘Free’A bass line buzzes like a live wire, snaking continuously through this exorcism of anxiety. “The feeling comes so fast, and I cannot control it,” Florence Welch wails as if possessed, but she eventually finds her catharsis in the music itself: “For a moment, when I’m dancing, I am free.”13. Ice Spice, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’“I’m walking past him, he sniffing my breeze,” the rising star Ice Spice spits expeditiously on this unbothered anthem; before he can even process the insult, she’s gone.14. Drake, ‘Down Hill’A sparse palette from 40 — finger snaps, moody synth washes, light Afrobeats vibes — gives Drake plenty of room to explore his melancholy on this standout from the welcome left turn “Honestly, Nevermind.”15. Alex G, ‘Miracles’An aching, bittersweet meditation on the holiness of the everyday, and an expression of intimacy from one of indie rock’s most mysterious, and best, songwriters.16. Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Western Wind’The one-time “Call Me Maybe” ingénue shows off a breezier and more mature side, as impressionistic production from Rostam Batmanglij helps her conjure California sunshine.17. Mitski, ‘Stay Soft’“You stay soft, get eaten — only natural to harden up,” Mitski sings on this sleek but deceptively vulnerable pop song, as her voice, fittingly, oscillates between icy cool and wrenching ardor.Drake takes a refreshing swerve into dance music with the songs on “Honestly, Nevermind.”Prince Williams/Wireimage, via Getty Images18. Miranda Lambert, ‘Strange’Down is up and wrong is right in this topsy-turvy, tumbleweed-blown country rocker, on which a wizened Miranda Lambert sings like a woman who’s seen it all: “Pick a string, sing the blues, dance a hole in your shoes, do anything to keep you sane.”19. Plains, ‘Problem With It’Katie Crutchfield, better known as Waxahatchee, embraces her twang and her Alabama upbringing on this collaboration with the Texas-born singer-songwriter Jess Williamson; the result is a feisty, ’90s-nodding country-pop gem.20. Charli XCX, ‘Constant Repeat’“I’m cute and I’m rude with kinda rare attitude,” she boasts on the best song from her aerodynamic “Crash” — a top-tier lyric befitting some next-level Charli.21. Alvvays, ‘Belinda Says’As in Belinda Carlisle, whom the Alvvays frontwoman Molly Rankin addresses at the climactic moment of this blissfully moody song: “Heaven is a place on Earth, well so is hell.” Towering waves of shoegaze-y guitars accentuate her melancholy and give the song an emotional pull as elemental as a tide.22. Jessie Ware, ‘Free Yourself’A thumping, glittery one-off single from the British musician finds her continuing in the vein of her 2020 disco reinvention “What’s Your Pleasure?” and proving that she’s still finding fresh inspiration from that sound.23. Koffee, ‘Pull Up’The Jamaican upstart Koffee has a contagious positivity about her, and this reggae-pop earworm is an effortless encapsulation of her spirit.24. Anaïs Mitchell, ‘Little Big Girl’“No one ever told you it would be like this: You keep on getting older, but you feel just like a little kid,” the folk musician Anaïs Mitchell sings on this moving standout from her first solo album in a decade, which poignantly chronicles the emotions of a demographic drastically underexplored in popular music: women at midlife.25. The Weather Station, ‘Endless Time’“It’s only the end of an endless time,” Tamara Lindeman sings in a mirror-fogging exhale, eulogizing a whole host of things taken for granted — love, happiness, the inhabitability of Earth — expressing a fragile, and very human, disbelief that they won’t last forever. More

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    Review: Wilco’s Understated Magnum Opus ‘Cruel Country’

    On “Cruel Country,” the Chicago band ponders a genre and a nation.Wilco’s “Cruel Country” makes a modest first impression for a magnum opus. Its tone is naturalistic and understated; the album was recorded largely with Wilco playing live in the studio as a six-man band, quietly savoring the chance to make music together after pandemic isolation.Most of the songs have a quietly strummed acoustic guitar at their core, basic and folky. The sonic experimentation that Wilco has enjoyed since its 2001 masterpiece, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” — which it recently performed at concerts in New York and its longtime hometown, Chicago, and plans to reissue in vastly expanded form in September — has been temporarily, though not entirely, cut back on “Cruel Country,” as if to set artifice aside.“Talk to me/I don’t want to hear poetry,” Jeff Tweedy sings in “The Universe,” continuing, “Say it plain/I want to hear you speak.”But “Cruel Country” is also a double album, a full 21 songs, that sets out to engage the notion of “country” as both a musical style and a nation. Tweedy’s songs ponder history, politics, mortality, ambivalence and the utility — or futility — of art in 21st-century America. They also, at times, blur distinctions between patriotism and romance. Yet in the album’s title song, Tweedy sets ambiguity aside as he sings, “I love my country like a little boy/Red, white and blue,” only to follow it with “I love my country, stupid and cruel.”Wilco was a musical throwback when it got started in 1994. In a decade of grunge and hip-hop, it drew instead on a boomer trinity of the Band, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And now that the group itself has decades of its catalog behind it, “Cruel Country” also circles back to Wilco’s own past; the band used a similar hand-played, live-in-the-studio approach on its 2007 album, “Sky Blue Sky.” The country music that Wilco embraced on that album, and returns to through most of “Cruel Country,” has a particular vintage: the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were pushing country toward rock while bands like the Grateful Dead, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers were connecting three-chord country to psychedelia.Half a century later on “Cruel Country,” the sound is even more nostalgic, though it still leaves room for exploration, especially in a handful of songs that open up into the kind of jams that Wilco extrapolates onstage. Trudging or shuffling along in mid-tempo, the songs can often sound serenely resigned. But there’s an underlying tension in the lyrics and in Tweedy’s scratchy, subdued, openly imperfect voice. He sounds weary but dogged, hanging in there like the music he clings to.The album opens with “I Am My Mother,” a waltz about an immigrant’s hopes and roots: “Dangerous dreams have been detected at the southern border,” Tweedy sings. And in “Hints,” he contemplates a bitterly divided nation, urging, “Keep your hand in mine” but noting, “There is no middle when the other side/Would rather kill than compromise.”The album juggles despair and persistence, gravity and humor. Wilco comes up with twangy, jaunty, chicken-pluck country in “Falling Apart (Right Now),” where Tweedy complains, to a partner or a populace, “Don’t you fall apart while I’m falling apart,” and in “A Lifetime to Find” — a conversation with Death, who arrives suddenly: “Here to collect.” And amid tinkly keyboard tones and teasing slide-guitar lines in “All Across the World,” Tweedy admits to the mixed emotions of being comfortable while others suffer — “I can barely stand knowing what’s true” — as he wonders, “What’s a song going to do?”A song can only do so much, and on “Cruel Country” Wilco offers no grand lesson or master plan, only observations, feelings and enigmas. Many of the album’s best moments are wordless ones. “Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull” offers a free-associative string of nonsense couplets that’s like a nursery rhyme until it ends in a fatal stabbing; it turns into an intricately picked two-chord jam, with Glenn Kotche’s drumming providing whispery momentum as Tweedy and Nels Cline toss guitar ideas back and forth, then interlace them. It’s a brief stretch of communion and consolation in doleful times.Wilco“Cruel Country”(dBpm) More

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    Sam Smith’s Ode to Self-Acceptance, and 10 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Regina Spektor, Tokischa, Wilco 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.Sam Smith, ‘Love Me More’“Every day I’m trying not to hate myself,” the pop crooner Sam Smith sings on a new single, “but lately it’s not hurting like it did before.” “Love Me More” is a simple but affecting ode to self-acceptance, and Smith delivers it with a breezy lightness that convincingly brings the message home. The arrangement keeps things airy and understated, so that even when a choir of backing singers enters in the middle, the effect is neither dolorous nor heavy-handed. The song, like Smith, keeps moving forward with a confident spring in its step. LINDSAY ZOLADZRegina Spektor, ‘Up the Mountain’Regina Spektor traces an ecological treasure hunt — ocean to mountain to forest to garden to flower to nectar — in “Up the Mountain,” seeking an answer in the taste of that nectar. It’s mystical and earthy, moving from tolling piano to implacable beat, with strings and horns ganging up behind her; whether or not she finds her answer, she’s thrown everything into the search. JON PARELESWilco, ‘Falling Apart (Right Now)’Wilco’s going country — or maybe it’s just going back. Jeff Tweedy has always had a complicated relationship with the genre: His work with Uncle Tupelo and the early Wilco records certainly flirted with it, but they also had the sort of punkish grit that generally earned them the “alt” prefix. There’s a straightforward sincerity to “Falling Apart (Right Now),” though, that makes the first single from the band’s forthcoming “Cruel Country” feel like fresh territory for a group 12 records and three decades into its run. “Baby, being blue, when it comes to me and you,” Tweedy sings, “it’s always on the menu.” His delivery has a playful, twangy warmth, but what really sells the song and its country bona fides is the nimble steel guitar playing of Nels Cline. ZOLADZMarshmello and Tokischa, ‘Estilazo’Plenty of artists in the Latin music industry have spent the last year dabbling in electronic textures. But the Dominican dembow rebel Tokischa has never been one to conform, so don’t consider her new collaboration with the EDM producer Marshmello trend-hopping. “Estilazo” is pure Toki: raunchy lyrics, coy moans and unabashed queer aesthetics. “Larga vida homosexual,” she says on the track — long live the gays. The video is a deliciously playful romp, too: Dennis Rodman, Nikita Dragun and La Demi preside over a drag competition, as dancers walk and vogue down the runway. RuPaul is shaking in his boots, and I’ll be screaming “ser perra está de moda” (“being a bad bitch is trendy”) at the club all summer. ISABELIA HERRERAI Am, ‘Omniscient (Mycelium)’I Am is a duo: Isaiah Collier on saxophone and Michael Shekwoaga Ode on drums. “Omniscient (Mycelium)” has a basic structure — a 4/4 beat and a mode — that gives them ample room to improvise and embellish. Collier touches down regularly on two low notes before he goes trampolining into upper-register acrobatics; the drumming grows ever more hyperactive to match him, and the track fades out before they peak. PARELESAdrian Quesada featuring Gabriel Garzón-Montano, ‘El Paraguas’It is difficult to recreate the magic of a balada, a song of longing popular in the 1970s that defined a generation in Latin America. The Black Pumas guitarist and producer Adrián Quesada manages to harness the genre’s power on a forthcoming album called “Boleros Psicodelicos.” “El Paraguas,” with the Colombian artist Gabriel Garzón-Montano, exemplifies the raw, full-throated vocal drama of the record; Montano unleashes a torrent of verve and anguish that glides over the woozy production. A vintage organ helps conjure a spaced-out, nostalgic haze. HERRERAFlora Purim, ‘500 Miles High’The Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim has never sung like a jazz crooner, nor like your average bossa nova whisperer. When she burst onto the scene in the 1970s, she had something unique: an ingenuous, gossamer voice that became immediately recognizable, and fit perfectly into the fast-opening landscape of jazz fusion. On her latest album, “If You Will,” Purim pays tribute to Chick Corea, whose Return to Forever was her first major gig; the pianist died last year. Here she presents a version of “500 Miles High,” their most famous collaboration from the Return to Forever years. She sounds remarkably undiminished at 80, as her band takes a high-energy run through the tune, driven by Endrigo Bettega’s hotfooted drumming. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMaria de Fátima, ‘Vocé’Maria de Fátima, from Rio de Janeiro, spent much of her career singing backup for leading Brazilian songwriters and singers: Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Flora Purim. But in 1981, when she was living in Uruguay — it’s a long story — she seized her chance to record a solo album, “Bahia Com H,” rereleased today. The album mingled her Brazilian spirit with her Uruguayan backup; she sang acclaimed Brazilian songs alongside her own, among them “Vocé,” which envisions lovers united like the sun and moon. Syncopated acoustic guitars and hand percussion in an odd meter — ⅞ — carry her through a melody that hops around and keeps landing on expressive dissonances; imagine if Joni Mitchell were born in Brazil. PARELESMiles Okazaki, ‘In Some Far Off Place’The guitarist Miles Okazaki and his longstanding quartet, Trickster, have never sounded as unbounded as they do on their newest album, “Thisness.” Trickster’s normal signatures are its elaborately stitched, lopsided grooves and its affinity for lunging misdirection, following the lead of Okazaki’s chunky single-note playing. But that’s all submerged here in a blend of thrummed acoustic guitar, wobbly bass from Anthony Tidd, and distant sonic elements that rise and fade (you may hear voices lurking behind the instrumentals, but only faintly, and only for brief moments). At first, it recalls the aesthetic of 1970s ECM albums by Eberhard Weber, Gary Burton and Ralph Towner. By the end something closer to Trickster’s usual brand of woozy kinetics has kicked in, but the new sense of mystery hasn’t been dispelled. RUSSONELLOGiveon, ‘Lie Again’Giveon’s voice floats in a jealous limbo in “Lie Again,” a new take on the age-old lover’s plight of trying and failing not to think about a partner’s past. “Lie so sweet until I believe/that it’s only been me to touch you,” he implores aching smoothness. The track eases along on a vintage soul chord progression, but the production summons ghostly voices and furtive instruments, like all the facts the singer wishes he could avoid. PARELESSkylar Grey, ‘Runaway’Emerging from marital and legal entanglements with her first album in six years — self-titled as a declaration of sincerity — Skylar Grey whisper-croons about desperation for a second chance in “Runaway.” She’s barely accompanied as she sings, “I need a place where I can be alone”; strings cradle her as she hopes to “start the whole thing over.” The music builds patiently as she hopes for the best. PARELES More