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 weekly guide to new and old songs.
Chappell Roan, ‘The Subway’
Chappell Roan commandeers vintage girl-group dynamics to pine for an ex-girlfriend in “The Subway.” She sings about all the random reminders urban encounters can bring — a hair color, a perfume — while wishing that her stubborn memories would fade: “I’m still counting down all of the days / Till you’re just another girl on the subway.” But as the crescendo mounts toward a pealing chorus, she exults in self-pity, stacking up tearful vocal harmonies to proclaim, “She’s got a way / She got away!”
Hayley Williams, ‘Mirtazapine’
Remember when drug songs were about tripping or getting high? “Mirtazapine” — one of 17 singles that Hayley Williams of Paramore has surprise-released — praises an antidepressant, grateful that “You make me eat, you make me sleep / Mirtazapine, you let me dream.” She’s buffeted from left and right by dissonant guitars, defies them with a barreling punk-pop chorus and reveals serious misgivings about whether her “genie in a screw-cap bottle” is too easy a solution, wailing “Who am I without you now?”
The Armed, ‘Sharp Teeth’
Most of the new album by the Armed, “The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed,” is a hurtling, screaming, overloaded barrage of fury at a 21st-century hellscape stoked by misguided beliefs and the worst human instincts. “Sharp Teeth” seems, at first, to be a breather, with a doo-wop intro and a melodic verse. But the respite doesn’t last long, as pummeling double-time drums come crashing in, joined by ferociously distorted guitar and a bellowed chorus. The looming mayhem backs up lyrics that declare, “I’ve got war inside my head.”
Tame Impala, ‘End of Summer’
“End of Summer” may be the first glimpse of Kevin Parker’s fifth album as Tame Impala, his one-man studio project. Since “The Slow Rush” in 2020, he has released soundtrack songs, collaborations and co-productions. “End of Summer” is seven minutes of ambivalent, tormented yearning, paced by a four-on-the-floor beat and harking back to the disco of New Order and Giorgio Moroder, with whizzing synthesizer notes and subdued but architectural electronic counterpoint. He ponders a separation in a chain of double negatives — “Just ’cause I don’t regret it / Doesn’t mean I won’t think about it” — and vacillates about whether to “do it on my own” while he’d also “love to put my arms around you / Even if I know it would mean nothing.” All he’s left with is that thumping beat.
Tyler, the Creator, ‘Ring Ring Ring’
Tyler, the Creator built “Ring, Ring, Ring” — from his new album “Don’t Tap the Glass” — on the elegant synthesized R&B of the 1981 song “All in the Way You Get Down” by Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio. Where Parker sang about proving his romantic skills, Tyler is trying to woo back an ex. He’s apologetic and horny, but his approach verges on stalking: “I know you said not to call you again, but I miss you.” Seems like she’d be smart to block his number.
Saweetie, ‘I Need Some Inspo’
Most of Saweetie’s new EP, “Hella Pressure,” flaunts her toughness and success. But its closing track, “I Need Some Inspo,” seeks a partner, a “muse to amuse me” who can offer “Good conversation with a side of new experience.” The track — produced by Daoud, Gaetan and P2J — mingles Afrobeats and R&B in ways that are intricate, transparent and constantly changing, a subtle profusion of one-note and two-note hooks.
Kehlani, ‘(Un)Folded’
Kehlani reworks “Folded,” the hit she released in June, with a version that’s just vocals and finger snaps. It only heightens the song’s lingering regret: “All I can think about is us since I seen you last,” she confesses. “(Un)Folded” is slower and layered with elaborate new harmonies, taking over the instrumental hooks and thickening the original vocal parts. While she’s singing to her ex, the voices sound like they’re all inside her head.
Sam Smith, ‘To Be Free’
Sam Smith reaches back to the purity of old gospel pop with “To Be Free.” There are echoes of the Staples Singers and of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions’ “People Get Ready” in the song’s electric guitar chords. But Smith isn’t singing about faith, but liberation: “Shake off all your burdens / Shame’s no friend of me.” A choir joins in to affirm self-determination, not to worship.
The Beths, ‘Mother, Pray for Me’
Elizabeth Stokes, the singer and songwriter who leads the Beths, ponders her relationship with her mother and her faith in “Mother, Pray for Me.” Accompanied only by her own electric guitar picking and churchy, supportive organ chords, Stokes sings about understanding, reconciliation and the possibility of an afterlife; she’s full of questions and apologies, hoping to connect. “I would like to know you and I want you to know me,” she sings with humble honesty. “Do we still have time? Can we try?”
Samora Pinderhughes featuring Lhasa de Sela, ‘Blood’
“Black Spring,” a mixtape by the pianist and composer Samora Pinderhughes, doesn’t cushion bleak tidings. “Blood on your hands don’t wash off too easy,” Lhasa de Sela sings in “Blood,” and later, “Blood on my hands don’t wash off too easy.” She intones fragmentary lyrics about death, betrayal, guilt and numbness over a repeating, descending piano phrase and flurries of cymbals. The song is an elegy, an accusation and a confession, sparing no one. “We can’t pretend we don’t feel that the world is ending,” she sings, answered by a distant gunshot.
Shakti, ‘5 in the Morning, 6 in the Afternoon’
Shakti — the East-West, Indian-jazz fusion band led by the English guitarist John McLaughlin and the Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain, formed in 1973 — reveled in Indian modal scales, complex rhythms and the note-bending nuances that Indian ragas share with the blues. This track is from “Mind Explosion,” an album recorded at live concerts on Shakti’s 50th-anniversary tour, with McLaughlin and a top-flight band of Indian musicians. It’s an exploration of precise stop-start riffs and rhythmically driven solos, never sacrificing momentum and ready to snap into quick-fingered unison at any moment.
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.
The post Chappell Roan Guts Out a Breakup, and 10 More New Songs appeared first on New York Times.
