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.
The Weeknd, ‘Dancing in the Flames’
It’s back to the mid-1980s synth-pop of Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Eurythmics in the new song by the Weeknd, abetted by the symmetry-loving production of two more producers, Max Martin and Oscar Holter. Pointillistic keyboard notes bounce in stereo over programmed drums, full of major-key optimism, as the Weeknd sings about a romance that’s like fast, reckless driving: “I can’t wait to see your face/crash when we’re switching lanes,” he sings in his sweetest falsetto. A tolling keyboard coda suggests an unfortunate outcome — made explicit in the video — no matter how catchy things were. JON PARELES
Soccer Mommy, ‘Driver’
The grungy chug of Sophie Allison’s guitar brushes up against a lilting vocal melody on “Driver,” the third single from “Evergreen,” the upcoming album from the singer-songwriter who records as Soccer Mommy. “I’m a test of his patience with all that I do,” Allison sings of a lover who calms her clanging neuroses. “’Cause I’m hot and he stays cool, I don’t know why.” LINDSAY ZOLADZ
FKA twigs, ‘Eusexua’
The title track from the coming album by FKA twigs, “Eusexua,” isn’t exactly euphoric or sexy. Produced by FKA twigs, Koreless and Earthearter, the track runs on nervous, hopping 16th-notes and distant chords under FKA twigs’s whispery soprano before a beat fully kicks in. It’s anxious and tentative at first, wondering about a primal, possibly dangerous, possibly life-changing attraction: “Don’t call it love — eusexua.” Later, as the rhythm revs up, she promises, “You feel alone, you’re not alone.” But the propulsion falls away, leaving her “on the edge of something greater than before,” but dangling. PARELES
Reyna Tropical, ‘Cartagena (Sylvan Esso Edit)’
The original version of “Cartagena” by the band Reyna Tropical had an Afro-Caribbean lilt with interlaced guitars that glanced toward Congolese soukous, as Fabiola Reyna sang about healing. Sylvan Esso has disassembled it down to the vocals, replacing the band track with all sorts of detached, syncopated elements: a terse bass line, drum machines, brief salvos of conga drums, cello-like synthesizers and a furtive marimba-like line, all little jolts. A guitar from the original briefly shows up halfway through; it’s like an emissary from a more comforting place that’s turned away. PARELES
Arca and Tokischa, ‘Chama’
Desire is mystical, carnal and orgasmic in “Chama,” a collaboration between the Dominican rapper and singer Tokischa and the Venezuelan songwriter and producer Arca. “I don’t think, I only feel,” Arca chants in Spanish. Tokischa sets aside her usual bratty delivery to sing delicate, echoey phrases over deep, shifting drums that hint at ritual in some places and elsewhere turn to dance beats: trap, four on the floor, dembow. “Me inside you, you inside me,” Arca chants; Tokischa responds, “I’m coming.” To scramble the sexual discourse further, the video shows them both with big, pregnant bellies. PARELES
Laila, ‘Idontneeduanymore’
Laila Smith, 18, constructs languid, breathy but tenacious R&B songs as a one-woman studio band in her bedroom in Brooklyn. “Idontneeduanymore” is the most harmonically dense song from her debut album, “Gap Year.” She pushes back against someone who’s rejected her — “You thought it would hurt and I would beg you to stay,” she taunts — over a plinking, bell-toned riff and quiet but dissonant, polytonal chords. Amid the clashing tones, she’s calm. PARELES
Suki Waterhouse, ‘Model, Actress, Whatever’
Stardom, by definition, is one of the rarest occupations. It’s also a wildly disproportionate topic for songwriters to take on. The immensely sly, self-conscious and droopy-voiced English model, actress and songwriter Suki Waterhouse takes up the self-pity of a star in “Model, Actress, Whatever,” the title song of her new EP. It’s a slow-building waltz about what happens after making it big: “All of my dreams came true/The bigger the ocean, the deeper the blue,” she declares. She musters grandiose orchestral production to sum up a feeling of emptiness. PARELES
Margo Price and Billy Strings, ‘Too Stoned to Cry’
In “Too Stoned to Cry,” Margo Price and Billy Strings lean into the tradition of country weepers to detail assorted miseries: loneliness, poverty, loss of faith, suicidal thoughts. It’s a stately waltz decorated by flatpicking guitar lines from Strings, while its chorus is so packed with intoxicants — wine, whiskey, pills, easy women, cocaine — that it’s bound to draw cheers and singalongs. PARELES
Joan Shelly, ‘Mood Ring’
“Mood Ring,” the title track from the Kentucky folk singer Joan Shelley’s upcoming EP, is a thing of delicate but intricate beauty. “Have you heard that there’s music in the walls?” she sings in a softly soulful voice, beckoning the listener to lean closer. In the track’s final minute, the guitarist Nathan Salsburg unfurls some ribbony electric riffs that provide the perfect complement to Shelley’s gentle luminosity. ZOLADZ
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