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☆ The 40 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-20 | by ( Jon Pareles | Lindsay Zoladz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat. LINDSAY ZOLADZFollowing her worldwide 2023 hit “Water,” Tyla pulls away from temptation in “Safer,” harnessing the log-drum beat and sparse, subterranean bass lines of amapiano. Her choral call-and-response vocals carry South African tradition into the electronic wilderness of 21st-century romance. JON PARELESOne We MissedAt once strobe-lit and silky, Ariana Grande appropriately channels Robyn — the patron saint of crying in the club — on this nimbly sung, melancholic pop hit, a highlight from her bittersweet seventh album, “Eternal Sunshine.” ZOLADZ

Persons: Sabrina Carpenter, LINDSAY ZOLADZ, Tyla, JON PARELES, Ariana Grande, Robyn —, ” Organizations: The New York Times, Spotify, Apple Music

☆ James Chance, No Wave and Punk-Funk Pioneer, Dies at 71
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-20 | by ( Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

James Chance, the singer, saxophonist and composer who melded punk, funk and free jazz into bristling dance music as the leader of the Contortions, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. His brother, David Siegfried, said Mr. Chance had been in declining health for years and succumbed to complications of gastrointestinal disease at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in East Harlem. Contortions songs like “I Can’t Stand Myself” and “Throw Me Away” filled the rhythmic structures of James Brown’s funk with angular, dissonant riffs, to be topped by Mr. Chance’s yelping, blurting, screaming vocals and his trilling, squawking alto saxophone. He was a live wire onstage, with his own twitchy versions of moves adapted from Brown, Mick Jagger and his punk contemporaries.

Persons: James Chance, David Siegfried, Chance, Terence Cardinal Cooke, James Brown’s, Chance’s, Brown, Mick Jagger Organizations: Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center, Mr Locations: Manhattan, East Harlem, New York City

Everybody Wants to Sound LikeBad Bunny As Bad Bunny and other Puerto Rican musical artists explode in popularity, language instructors say more people want to learn how to speak the island’s slick, swaggering version of Spanish.

Organizations: Puerto Locations: Puerto Rican

☆ Beyoncé’s Country Is America: Every Bit of It
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The first song on “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé’s not-exactly-country album, makes a pre-emptive strike. It’s a challenge she has engaged head-on since she released her visual album “Beyoncé” in 2013. For the last decade, even as her tours have filled stadiums, she has set herself goals outside of generating hits. “Cowboy Carter” is an overstuffed album, 27 tracks maxing out the 79-minute capacity of a CD and stretching across two LPs. It flaunts spoken-word co-signs from Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton that interrupt its flow; it includes some fragmentary, minute-long songs.

Persons: Cowboy Carter, ” Beyoncé’s, “, ”, Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter ”, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton

☆ On ‘Deeper Well,’ Kacey Musgraves Is Closer to Fine
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Songs thrive more often on extremes: desire, heartache, rage, despair, striving, longing, ecstasy. But Kacey Musgraves has now made two superb albums suffused with satisfaction: “Golden Hour” from 2018, which won the Grammy for album of the year, and her new one out Friday, “Deeper Well.”On “Golden Hour,” Musgraves sang about the gratification and relief of blissful romance in songs like “Butterflies.” With “Deeper Well” — which follows her divorce album, “Star-Crossed” — Musgraves finds more comfort in a wistful self-sufficiency. In the album’s title song, Musgraves calmly notes how she’s setting aside youthful misjudgments. She’s moving away from people with “dark energy” and no longer getting high every morning (though her Instagram account is still @spaceykacey). Her 2013 debut, “Same Trailer Different Park,” won a Grammy as best country album, as did “Golden Hour,” and she has won multiple Grammys for best country song.

Persons: Kacey Musgraves, ” Musgraves, Musgraves, She’s, ” Locations: East Texas, she’s

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Organizations: New York Times

☆ On the Eve of the Super Bowl, Usher Proves His Mastery
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It has taken perseverance, extraordinary musical gifts and a little luck for Usher to land where he is right now. At 45, the R&B singer and songwriter Usher Raymond is releasing his new album, “Coming Home,” just two days before he will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. His single “Good Good,” released last summer, has racked up tens of millions of plays on Spotify. It’s one of the 20 tracks on “Coming Home,” an album that sums up and expands what Usher does best. “Good Good,” which features Summer Walker and 21 Savage, is a downright mature post-breakup song about genuinely staying friends afterward.

Persons: Usher, Usher Raymond, ”, cheater, Billy Joel’s, Summer Walker, ” Usher Organizations: Spotify Locations: Las Vegas, Atlanta

☆ 7 Grammy Winners Worth Another Spin
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Lindsay Zoladz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Dear listeners,I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but this year’s Grammys were … really good? Tracy Chapman, radiating joy and in fine voice, sang “Fast Car” publicly for the first time in ages, alongside a visibly reverent Luke Combs. For today’s playlist, we’re going to hear from some more of those slightly-less-than-household-name artists who took home Grammys this year. I chose two selections of my own, and I also asked my fellow Times pop critics Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica to send me a few of their picks — a mix of jazz, folk, pop, gospel and more. Listen below to tracks from Laufey, Peso Pluma and Samara Joy, and check out the Bonus Tracks for more of our Grammy coverage.

Persons: Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs, Joni Mitchell, Billie Eilish, Finneas, Taylor Swift, she’s, Phoebe Bridgers, Karol G, Lainey Wilson, Victoria Monét, Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Samara Joy Organizations: SZA Locations: Laufey, Samara

Two of the night’s strongest performances came from young women using pianos to accompany the wispy, stratospheric upper reaches of their registers — and to comment on the tyranny of fragility and prettiness. The second was Olivia Rodrigo, who nailed the vertiginous high notes that punctuate her rock-operatic smash “Vampire,” and then riffed on the song’s theme as she smeared herself with spurting fake blood. Each performance, in its own way, felt like a rebuttal to the constricting standards to which so many young women are held. Eilish’s was about the pain of being perceived as an object; Rodrigo’s reimagined the same kind of pressure as a horror movie. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Persons: Billie Eilish, Barbie, Olivia Rodrigo, Eilish’s, LINDSAY ZOLADZ

☆ Guide to the Grammys
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( The Staff Of The Morning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Two beloved songwriters, almost half a century apart in age, are set to be stars of tonight’s Grammy Awards. Joni Mitchell, who nearly died from an aneurysm several years ago, will give her first Grammys performance at the age of 80. And Taylor Swift has a shot to win her fourth album of the year award, something no other artist has done. But Swift, who has six nominations, faces tough competition. We asked three Times music critics — Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz — to share their thoughts on who might win tonight’s awards.

Persons: Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, Swift, SZA, ”, Victoria Monét, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, Jon Batiste, — Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Lindsay Zoladz —

☆ The Mother Who Gave Springsteen His Rock ’n’ Roll Spirit
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Joy and despair, vitality and darkness course through Bruce Springsteen’s songs. The joy, he told the world, came from his mother, Adele Springsteen, who died on Wednesday at 98. She scrimped to buy him his first electric guitar and she encouraged him to be a musician. She worked for decades as a legal secretary, an example that taught her son the dignity and camaraderie of holding a job. “It’s a sight that I’ve never forgotten, my mother walking home from work,” he said during “Springsteen on Broadway,” his autobiographical stage show.

Persons: Bruce Springsteen’s, Adele Springsteen, Springsteen, Dora, “, ” Adele, Adele Zerilli, ”, “ Springsteen

☆ ‘Tired of Being Quiet,’ Sarah Jarosz Tests the Mainstream
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jarosz, 32, is a luminary in acoustic Americana, where bluegrass, folk, jazz and chamber music mingle with pop and rock. The instrument sounds a little darker and twangier than acoustic guitar in the same range — a hand-played lower voice that answers Jarosz’s own hovering mezzo-soprano. She made her first four albums in Nashville, and she was urged to write songs with more seasoned musicians; she chose not to release any of them. “The quote-unquote ‘Nashville co-writing’ thing had been pushed on me when I was like 18, 17, making my first record,” she said. “I was really closed off to it back in that time, because I felt like I was still finding my voice.

Persons: Jarosz, ”, “, Hemby, Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga Locations: Austin , Texas, Wimberley, Nashville

☆ Dolly Parton Covers Billy Joel, and 8 More New Songs
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Jon Pareles | Lindsay Zoladz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Now that she’s released the deluxe edition — in honor of her 78th birthday, on Friday! — Dolly Parton’s already sprawling double album “Rockstar” runs nearly three hours long and clocks in at an indefatigably rockin’ 39 tracks. “I know the game, you’ll forget my name,” she sings, with a slight ache in her voice. “And I won’t be here in another year, if I don’t stay on the charts.” Given that “Rockstar” became the highest-charting album of Parton’s career just a few months ago, that fate seems, blessedly, unlikely. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Persons: she’s, Dolly Parton’s, Billy Joel’s, ”, Parton, Rockstar ”, LINDSAY ZOLADZ Organizations: Rockstar

☆ Ana Tijoux’s First Album in a Decade Fights Sorrows With Joy
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The finale of “Vida,” the new album by the Chilean songwriter Ana Tijoux, is “Fin del Mundo” (“The End of the World”). She sings and raps, in Spanish, about dire expectations: war, pollution, drought, a collision with a comet. I insist that it doesn’t mean that we live in a superficial place. It doesn’t mean that it’s not political. And there is nothing more political than defending life and defending humanity.”In the album’s first single, “Niñx” (“Little Girlx”), Tijoux urges her daughter, and all young women, to find strength in joy: “Life scares them,” she sings.

Persons: “ Vida, Ana Tijoux, ” “ Vida, “, ”, Niñx, Tijoux Locations: Chilean, Spanish, Barcelona

Her voice sounds utterly guileless as she sings about lust, betrayal, revenge and healing. 3. boygenius, ‘The Record’Synergy reigns in boygenius, the alliance of the singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Paul Simon, ‘Seven Psalms’“Seven Psalms” comes across as a farewell album from Paul Simon, 82. Simon sings about mortality as a “great migration” and extols the presence and purpose of “The Lord,” as the biblical psalms do. The songs on her second album, “Guts,” combine pop’s concision and melody with rock’s potential to erupt.

Persons: Karol G, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, mentorships, Paul Simon, ‘, It’s, Simon, ”, Olivia Rodrigo, Oliva Rodrigo, Feist, ’ Feist Locations: Colombian, Dominican, Afrobeats, boygenius

☆ In Spain, the Latin Grammys Recognize Powerful Women
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Spain tried to share the cultural clout of its former colonies at the 24th annual Latin Grammy Awards, which were broadcast worldwide on Thursday night from the Fibes convention center in Seville. It was the first Latin Grammy ceremony to take place outside the United States. Even with the trans-Atlantic move, the top awards went to women from Latin America. Karol G became the first woman to win a Latin Grammy for música urbana album; “How cool is it for a woman to win this?” she exulted. “I didn’t even know where to start, and music once again taught me its power, its medicinal power.”

Persons: Karol G, “, ” Shakira, Bizarrap, ”, Shakira, sinuously, Natalia Lafourcade, Todas las Flores Organizations: música urbana Locations: Spain, Seville, United States, Latin America, Colombia, Será Bonito, Argentine, Mexico

☆ For Latin Grammy Nominee Edgar Barrera, Mistakes Can Be Perfection
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I always try to have real musicians play, even if I found a loop in a music library,” he said. Even if a replayed part has mistakes, he added, “those mistakes in records make it feel more real and authentic. I think that in those mistakes is where the perfection is found.”Where other producers deliver programmed beats and bombast, Barrera offers clarity. And it’s exciting to see 14-, 13-year-old kids playing tololoche, upright bass, the way they slap it. “And I try not to be too complicated, especially because the audience who I’m writing to is a younger generation.

Persons: Barrera, “, ”, bombast, ” Barrera, ” “

☆ Meet the Next Generation of Black Folk Singers
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

What is folk music, though? I like the expansive non-definition proposed by the singer-songwriter and guitarist Big Bill Broonzy, as quoted by Bradley: “Some people call these ‘folk songs,’” he said onstage once. “Well, all the songs that I’ve heard in my life was folk songs. It also features some Black folk pioneers who inspired future generations, like Odetta and Tracy Chapman. May it open your ears and expand your conception of what folk is, and what it can be.

Persons: ”, Adam Bradley, ahistorically, Bradley, Jake Blount, Big Bill Broonzy, ’ ”, I’ve, Kara Jackson, Odetta, Tracy Chapman, Jon Pareles Organizations: “, New York Times Style, Wellington

“Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice will compete for best rap song. Tracks from the soundtrack also hog up four of the five available slots in best song written for visual media. Peso Pluma’s 2023 album, “Génesis,” is just tucked among the nominees for música mexicana. But música urbana — encompassing reggaeton, Latin hip-hop, dembow, Latin trap and more — is a crowded, competitive, hugely popular format. His 2023 album, “Seven Psalms,” plays as a thoughtful, complex, tuneful farewell, anticipating his death.

Persons: Greta Gerwig, ”, Billie Eilish’s, “, Nicki Minaj, Edgar Barrera, Eslabon, Natanael Cano —, Tainy, Rauw Alejandro, Karol G, JON PARELES Olivia Rodrigo, Olivia Rodrigo’s “, Rodrigo, Daniel Nigro, Mick Jagger, CARYN GANZ, Paul Simon, it’s Paul Simon, It’s, Simon, Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett, PARELES Organizations: Spice, Pluma, música, Grupo Frontera, Grupo Firme, Foo Fighters, Queens Locations: Mexican American, Americas, Mexican, música mexicana, urbana, Colombian, Será, Spanish, Newport

☆ Bad Bunny Looks Back and Hunkers Down
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-16 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s hard not to ask that question listening to Bad Bunny’s latest flood of songs, the suprise-released album “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (“Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”). With this album, Bad Bunny, a.k.a. Bad Bunny has a perpetually startling voice, a baritone that can sing or rap with equal power. Throughout the 2020s, Bad Bunny has smashed expectations and sales records entirely on his own terms. He asserts his Puerto Rican and Caribbean identity and regularly praises his role models; he collaborates across borders and genres.

Persons: a.k.a, Benito Martínez Ocasio, Drake, Ye, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, doesn’t Organizations: Puerto Locations: Puerto Rican, Caribbean

☆ Perelman Arts Center Opens in New York and Welcomes the World
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-18 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

When the center was being built, Mr. O’Farrill was part of an advisory committee of artists; he urged the center to pay close attention to acoustics. He’s a very thoughtful man, and he’s looking to expand the conversation on what performing arts is, what elitism does to the arts. Maybe you make it by bringing music that’s just so incredible that everybody wants to get on the subway and go down there. For a performing arts center to support that speaks straight to my heart. And we have the place called the Perelman Center right next to ground zero that is open to the whole world.

Persons: Arturo O’Farrill, O’Farrill, ’, ” Mr, “ That’s, He’s, ” Laurie Anderson, ”, “, it’s, that’s, Ms, Kidjo, I’ve Organizations: “, Refuge, Jazz Alliance, clarion, Perelman Center Locations: New York City, Americas, Europe, Paris, Benin, Brooklyn

☆ The Rolling Stones Start Up Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For the band members, the most crucial part of the Rolling Stones sound is what Richards calls “weaving” — the ever-changing, spur-of-the-moment interplay between the instruments, particularly the guitars. The band recorded the core of most of the songs together in the studio, playing off one another as they would onstage. Of course we have disagreements about how things should be, but I think that’s pretty normal. And that’s a matter of rhythm.”The Stones groove got its foundation from Watts, who died at 80. “There would have been a Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts, but without Charlie Watts there wouldn’t have been the Rolling Stones,” Richards said.

Persons: Richards, Watt, “, ”, ” Wood, Jagger, Taylor Swift, Keith, I’m, ” Richards, Charlie Watts Organizations: Beyoncé Locations: Watts

☆ ‘Stop Making Sense’ Is Back, and Talking Heads Have More to Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-09 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four decades after it was filmed, “Stop Making Sense,” the Talking Heads concert documentary, is still ecstatic and strange. “It stays kind of relevant, even though it doesn’t make literal sense,” David Byrne, the band’s leader and singer, said in a recent interview. “Stop Making Sense” is both a definitive 1980s period piece and a prophecy. “Sometimes we write things and we don’t know what they’re about until afterwards,” Byrne said. I’ve looked at things I’ve written and I go, ‘Oh.

Persons: ” David Byrne, Jonathan Demme, ” Byrne, “, I’ve, ’ Organizations: Toronto

☆ Jimmy Buffett Was More Than Beaches and Booze
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Jimmy Buffett built a pop-culture empire on the daydream of “wastin’ away again in Margaritaville”: just hanging out on a tropical beach, drink in hand, a little wistful but utterly relaxed. Buffett leveraged it into a major brand for restaurants, resorts, clothing, food and drink, as well as a perpetual singalong on his robust touring circuit, where his devoted fans — the Parrot Heads — gathered eagerly in their Hawaiian shirts. Buffett cannily marketed his good-timey image; it made him a billionaire. He came up with wry song premises like the one behind “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which starts as the lament of an attempted vegetarian who can’t resist carnivorous impulses. But Buffett’s songwriting wasn’t all smiley and one-dimensional.

Persons: Jimmy Buffett, wastin ’, “, ”, Buffett, Buffett cannily, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Zac Brown, I’ve Locations: Margaritaville ”, Paradise, “, Paris

“Dolores” is easily one of the most infectious melodies Wayne Shorter wrote during his stint as musical director for the Miles Davis Quintet. But it’s not one of the (many) Shorter tunes you’re likely to hear called at a jam session or covered at a straight-ahead gig. Maybe there is something intimidating about the balled up, stop-and-start melody; the centerlessness of its structure; or how perfectly the quintet plays it on the classic 1966 recording. Strong-but-bendable rhythm, splintered melodic lines and rough-and-tumble interplay are par for the course for (this) Davis, especially with her Diatom Ribbons project. When Lage departs from it on his solo, he travels far — and the band comes with him.

Persons: “ Dolores ”, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, it’s, Kris Davis, Davis, Trevor Dunn, Terri Lyne Carrington, Julian Lage’s, Lage, RUSSONELLO Organizations: Village Vanguard

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