Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.
Bruce Springsteen, ‘Repo Man’
While Bruce Springsteen was recording the somber songs on “The Ghost of Tom Joad” in 1995, he was also, it’s now revealed, blowing off steam with rowdy, lighthearted songs like “Repo Man,” the latest preview of his archival collection “Tracks II: The Lost Albums.” It’s a Chuck Berry-meets-Buck Owens country-rocker that has Springsteen hollering, “You shouldn’t have bought it if you couldn’t have paid!” It’s also a showcase for skidding, careening, scene-stealing solos by Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar, abetting Springsteen’s stunt driving as he turns class warfare into comedy.
S.G. Goodman, ‘Snapping Turtle’
“I grew up hard on bottom land where only crops should grow / Watched people reap what the demons sowed,” S.G. Goodman sings in “Snapping Turtle,” from an album due June 20. She’s from Kentucky, where she grew up and still lives; the cracks and scratches in her voice hark back to Appalachian roots. “Snapping Turtle” is a stoic, six-minute march, a two-chord jam with eerie resonances opening up under drums and guitars. Goodman sings about memories she can’t escape — including a friend who had “a life beat down” — and the bitter lessons of the small town “where my mind gets stuck.”
Sofi Tukker featuring Liniker, ‘Intensity’
Sofi Tukker — the duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern — sets aside its usual electronic production on its new album, “Butter.” Instead, they visited Brazil, enlisted the producer Marcio Arantes to assemble a mostly acoustic studio band and invited Brazilian musicians like Seu Jorge as guest singers. Most of “Butter” remakes (and unplugs) songs from the duo’s 2024 album, “Bread.” But “Intensity” — with guest vocals from the Brazilian songwriter Liniker — is a new song. Over syncopated acoustic guitar and a crisply sputtering, samba-rooted beat, Hawley-Weld and Liniker celebrate a partnership that’s “way too much / It’s the right amount for me.”
yeule, ‘Dudu’
Named after the nonsense syllables in its hook, “Dudu” has such a blithe, shiny pop facade that the verses could easily go unnoticed. Yeule — a style-hopping, electronics-friendly songwriter and producer from Singapore — sings about unrequited love that’s turned pathological. “Overdosed from the pain / Woke up in a bed, restrained,” yeule sings. “I screamed and screamed and screamed your name.” But the vocals are so nonchalant, surrounded by whizzing synthesizers and kicked along by a robust backbeat, that the heartache almost evaporates.
DannyLux, ‘Sirena’
The Mexican American songwriter DannyLux has thrived by playing up his sensitive side, and “Sirena,” the single from his new album “Leyenda,” is no exception. In a waltzing corrido that updates the traditional acoustic guitars with a sheen of reverb, extra vocal harmonies and a sudden shift of texture before the second verse, he insists he’s been hypnotized forever by a woman’s beauty — though he also reminds her that “Other guys would put a price on your body, a price on your kisses.” He’s more sensitive, of course.
The Lemonheads, ‘Deep End’
Evan Dando’s band, the Lemonheads, last released an album of their own songs in 2006, but are promising a new one in the fall. Its first single is a 1990s Massachusetts rock reunion, with backing vocals from Juliana Hatfield (an ex-Lemonhead with an extensive solo career) and flailing, distorted guitar solos from J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. The band reclaims its old indie-rock, with scruffy guitar riffs and choppy drums behind Dando’s jaded baritone; he toys with words — “Going off the deep end, depends” — as he sings about everyday ailments and minimal expectations: “On the way to doomsday/You better find yourself a friend.”
M(h)aol, ‘1-800-Call-Me-Back’
M(h)aol, a post-punk band from Ireland, snaps back at getting ghosted in “1-800-Call-Me-Back.” Touch-tone beeps are the only melodic component of a clattering, jittery track that piles on dissonant bits — tremolo guitar, grunting bass, distorted drones — while the drummer, Constance Keane, inquires, “Why did you say what you said before? / You disengaged and shoved me in a drawer.” All the sonic irritants add up to danceability.
Lido Pimienta, ‘Quiero Que Me Beses’
“La Belleza” (“The Beauty”), the new album by the ever-exploratory Colombian-Canadian songwriter Lido Pimienta, is a 28-minute orchestral suite. In it, Pimienta sings about desire, love, estrangement, heritage and more. In the lyrics to “Quiero Que Me Beses” (“I Want You to Kiss Me”), Pimienta longs for physical connection, while the music invokes a deeper cultural legacy. It begins with sustained, European-flavored chamber music, but is transformed with an Andean-flavored beat and the voices of a Colombian choir, insisting, “Give me more memories.”
Maruja, ‘Look Down on Us’
Over the course of this 10-minute song, the English band Maruja is by turns post-punk, industrial, orchestral, pastoral, pummeling, squalling and droning. One thing it’s not is complacent. Harry Wilkinson, its guitarist and lead vocalist, shouts and occasionally screams his rhymes about rapacious elites. “Corporations profit hard then cackle like some vultures,” he barks. Later, he calls for reconciliation, advising, “Turn pain to power, put faith in love.” Alongside him, Joe Carroll’s saxophone blares at first, then stakes out defiant melodies. It’s a bruising, cathartic track.
Falle Nioke, ‘Falle Le Le Le’
A steady pulse propels Falle Nioke — a musician from Guinea — through “Falle Le Le Le.” Plucked strings and multitracked vocals begin the song before electronics kick in. Then the mechanical drum-machine beats only underline the human dynamics of Nioke’s voice, which hints at the long lines and vocal leaps of griot singing, but also respects the electronic beat.
Qur’an Shaheed, ‘Dreams’
Starting with its wavering first note, Qur’an Shaheed’s “Dreams” constantly fractures itself. It’s a waltz that could have been sweetly utopian: “I dream of a place where I belong / I dream of a place where we all get along,” she sings. Instead, Shaheed — a songwriter, pianist and singer from California — and the producer Spencer Hartling created a future-R&B track that continually deconstructs itself, with pointillistic electronic plinks, jazzy drumming and keyboard chords, and backup vocals that waft in seemingly at random. It’s disorientation at its best.
Rihanna, ‘Friend of Mine’
Has Rihanna completely lost interest in music? “Friend of Mine,” her first song since “Lift Me Up” in 2022, will be on the soundtrack for the “Smurfs” movie. Like a featured vocalist on a thumping D.J. track, Rihanna shows up nearly a minute into the three-minute song, with her voice nearly anonymized by computer processing, to sing a bland sentiment: “Just met you tonight but you feel like a friend of mine.” The same verse — possibly the same take — reappears further on, extended with a few melismas, just enough to claim the Rihanna brand with the least effort.
Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. He studied music, played in rock, jazz and classical groups and was a college-radio disc jockey. He was previously an editor at Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.
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