Every Friday, pop critics from The New York Times weigh in
on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. This week’s songs include pop
veteran
Ed Sheeran’s new single and indie musician Colleen Green’s “catchy,
funny, and straightforwardly earnest song” about being a dog.
اضافة اعلان
Ed Sheeran, ‘Bad Habits’
In the video for his new single “Bad Habits,” Ed Sheeran
boldly declares, “We live in a society.” Though I could have lived my life
contentedly without ever seeing the British musician dressed as a glittery,
high-flying hybrid of the Joker, Edward Cullen, and Elton John, the track
itself is a reminder of Sheeran’s knack for sleek songcraft. “My bad habits
lead to late nights, sitting alone,” he sings over the kind of brooding chords
and insistent, minimalist beat that suggests that pop music will continue to
exist in the shadow of the Weeknd’s “After Hours” for at least another trip
around the sun. “Bad Habits” doesn’t quite have the fangs that its video
incongruously promises, but it’s a well-executed, safe-bet pop song squarely in
Sheeran’s comfort zone, which is to say that it already sounds like a smash. —
Lindsay Zoladz
Willow, ‘Lipstick’
Willow Smith’s swerve into rock continues, abetted by the
drums of Travis Barker from Blink-182. Their first collaboration, “Transparent
Soul,” was straightforwardly vengeful pop-punk that proved she could belt.
“Lipstick” is more idiosyncratic, with angular vocal lines overlapping
stop-start guitar blasts of thick, jazzy chords. The sentiments are more
complicated, too, juggling confusion, pain and euphoria; it’s cranked up loud,
but it’s full of second thoughts. — Jon Pareles
Colleen Green, ‘I Wanna Be a Dog’
Los Angeles indie musician Colleen Green has a history of
playfully talking back to her punk elders: The title of her first album riffed
on that of an iconic Descendents record and featured a song called “I Wanna Be
Degraded”; in 2019, she released a gloriously lo-fi cover album of Blink-182’s
“Dude Ranch.” So judging by its name, the first single from her forthcoming
album “Cool” would seem to be a provocative sneer in the direction of a certain
Stooges classic. Except it’s not, really: “I Wanna Be a Dog” is instead a
catchy, funny, and straightforwardly earnest song about … how nice it would be
to be a dog. In a voice that balances self-deprecation with wry humor, Green
figures she’s already halfway there: “Each year aging more quickly, but I
always still feel so naive / And I get so bored when no one’s playing with me.”
— Lindsay Zoladz
Wye Oak, ‘Its Way With Me’
Jenn Wasner has released an extraordinary album this year,
“Head of Roses,” in her solo guise as Flock of Dimes. Back in Wye Oak, her
longtime duo with Andy Stack, she continues to merge intricate music with
openhearted emotion. In the gorgeous “Its Way With Me,” a rippling seven-beat guitar
line circles throughout the song, as horns and strings waft in and out and
Wasner sings, with aching determination, about accepting what life might bring
yet staying true to herself. — Jon Pareles
Wet Leg, ‘Chaise Longue’
“Chaise Longue” is the semi-absurdist and deliriously catchy
debut single from Wet Leg, an intriguing new duo from the Isle of Wight. In
their sound and in the self-directed video for this song, Rhian Teasdale and
Hester Chambers are agents of controlled, charismatic chaos. “Chaise Longue”
struts a fine line between deadpan restraint and zany freakout, faux-naivety
and winking knowingness. They’re one of those new bands whose sound and
aesthetic seem to have arrived fully formed, promising exciting if totally
unpredictable things to come. — Lindsay Zoladz
Helado Negro, ‘Gemini and Leo’
The music of Helado Negro (Roberto Carlos Lange) has always
had a bit of an interstellar quality to it: soft, sci-fi hymns that harness the
medicinal possibilities of sound and melody. For “Gemini and Leo,” the new
single from his forthcoming album “Far In,” the Brooklyn artist fully ascends
into a world of galactic disco. Glossy synths and a syncopated bass line
shimmer into a prismatic dance-floor strut. “We can move in slow motion. We can
take our time in cosmic balance,” Lange hums. It’s a reminder to embrace
tenderness and affection — in love, but also in our relationship to a world
still coming to terms with a year of grief. — Isabelia Herrera
Hyzah, ‘Dan Mi (Pass Me the Lighter)’
Hyzah, a 19-year-old Nigerian rapper and singer, has
followed through on a 49-second street-side freestyle that got hundreds of
thousands of views after a signal boost from Drake, who must have appreciated
both its melodic hook and its sprint into double-time rapping. “Dan Mi” turns
the freestyle into a full-length song. As Hyzah sings about trouble and
flirtation, he fills out the song’s modal melody above a peppery Afrobeats
track, produced by Ogk n’ Steaks, that sends percussion, voices and synthesized
horns ricocheting across the beat in a rush of cross-rhythms. — Jon Pareles
Low, ‘Days Like These’
The new Low song is almost unbearably stirring, a meditation
on hope and decay that sounds like a pop-gospel track run through William
Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops.” If “Double Negative” from 2018 proved that
these indie lifers were still finding uncharted frontiers in their spacious
sound nearly three decades into their band’s existence, this first taste of
their forthcoming album “Hey What” shows once again that they’re not finished
discovering exhilaratingly new ways to sound exactly like themselves. — Lindsay
Zoladz
Jazmine Sullivan, ‘Tragic’
“Tragic” picks up the thread Jazmine Sullivan started on her
excellent 2021 album “Heaux Tales,” a record as multi-vocal and casually chatty
as a particularly active group chat. “Why do you be looking for me to do all
the work?” Sullivan sings here in a weary voice, addressing the less-giving
half of a lopsided relationship. But the chorus finds her asserting her own
solution, in the form of a tuneful and infectious mantra: “Reclaim, reclaim,
reclaiming my time.” — Lindsay Zoladz.
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