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.
Lana Del Rey, ‘Bluebird’
“Bluebird” — the latest single from Lana Del Rey’s country-infused 10th album — has a homey, retro sound: a relaxed waltz tempo, acoustic guitar picking, dulcet strings and an innocent warble in her voice. Behind it is worry. She’s warning someone — a child? a friend? — to escape while they can, while she stays behind to shield them from abuse: “We both shouldn’t be dealing with him,” she sings. It’s an alarm that’s delivered as a lullaby: “Find a way to fly,” she urges, oh so sweetly. “Just shoot for the sun, ’til I can finally run.”
Madison McFerrin, ‘I Don’t’
Madison McFerrin transmutes a failed engagement into a wry but dramatic self-assessment: “Did I make a mistake in choosing who / to say ‘I do’ to?” she sings with crisp syllables. Syncopated piano chords and sympathetic backing vocals hint at the archness of a show tune, but a crescendo of distorted electric guitars suggests some feelings still unresolved.
Grumpy featuring Claire Rousay and Pink Must, ‘Harmony’
A mid-tempo, boom-chunk beat is the only relatively stable component of “Harmony,” a collaboration by four electronics-loving experimenters from pop’s fringe. (Pink Must is a duo.) “Harmony” is a hyperpop ballad that somehow stays winsome despite its filtered, pitch-shifted, overlapping vocals, warped instrumental sounds and angular bits of melody. “When I pray for harmony, it’s for you,” Grumpy sings, no matter how skewed her harmonies are at the moment.
Morgan Wallen featuring Post Malone, ‘I Ain’t Comin’ Back’
Released on Good Friday, “I Ain’t Comin’ Back” offers peak posturing and allusions to faith, along with brand placements for booze, tobacco and a vintage car. “There’s a lot of reasons I ain’t Jesus, but the main one is that I ain’t comin’ back,” Morgan Wallen and Post Malone sing with sullen pride. There’s some clever wordplay — “Go throw your pebbles, I’ll be somewhere getting stoned,” Malone taunts — but sour self-righteousness prevails.
Carin León, Diego El Cigala, Chanela Clicka, ‘Te Quiero y Me Miento’
The Mexican singer Carin León has leaned into border-crossing hybrids, fusing Mexican ranchera with ska, country, R&B and Spanish pop. His latest collaboration is with the celebrated flamenco singer Diego el Cigala. They’ve worked out the math between waltz and flamenco to share the tainted-love lament of “Te Quiero y Me Miento” (“I Want You and I Lie to Myself”). The production duo Chanela Clicka subtly dovetails the styles, meshing handclaps and flamenco guitar with regional Mexican instruments. Diego El Cigala pushes his throat-tearing grit; León’s tenor rises to tormented peaks, and he even tries some flamenco arabesques. They savor a trans-Atlantic heartache.
Ana Tijoux, ‘Serpiente de Madera’
The new EP by the French-Chilean rapper and singer Ana Tijoux is “Serpiente de Madera” (“Wood Snake”); in Chinese astrology, 2025 is a year of the wood snake. For the EP, Tijoux reunited with Hordatoj, who produced her international breakthrough “1977” in 2010. The title track has no drumbeat, just a swirl of flutes, as Tijoux raps, with calm commitment, about gratitude, overcoming obstacles and rejoicing in love. Then she offers a torrent of advice: “It’s never too late,” she raps. “It’s always early.”
M(h)aol, ‘I Miss My Dog’
M(h)aol — a four-piece Irish band — loudly memorializes a beloved pet in this dissonant, percussive post-punk track. Drums, bass, guitars, woodblock and dollops of indeterminate electronic noise accompany a chant of universal mourning: “You should be here.”
Matmos, ‘Changing States’
“Metallic Life Review,” an album due in June, builds tracks entirely from the sounds of metallic instruments and objects that Matmos — Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt — have collected over many years: struck, plucked, bowed, scraped, clanged together. In “Changing States,” those sounds include otherworldly chords plucked on pedal steel guitar by Susan Alcorn, who died earlier this year, along with electric guitar, glockenspiel and a vast assortment of percussion; it’s simultaneously elegiac and comedic.
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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