Tate McRae Dances in and Out of Love, and 10 More New Songs

New York Times

21-02-2025

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.
A lack of instantly recognizable, stylistically defining hits — aside from the slinky, irresistible 2023 smash 'Greedy' — has somehow not stopped the 21-year-old singer and dancer Tate McCrae's star from rising over the past few years. She dips into a more promising and vulnerable sound on the moody, pulsating 'Revolving Door,' the latest single from her just-released third album, 'So Close to What.' 'I keep coming back like a revolving door,' she sings on a chorus that thumps like an anxious heartbeat, 'saying I couldn't want you less, but I just want you more.' A McCrae single is still only as good as the choreography in its accompanying music video, and by that measure, it's one of her strongest yet. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) and Aldous Harding share 'No Front Teeth,' a surreal excursion that seesaws between pretty folk-Baroque pop and noisy, neo-psychedelic rock. Perfume Genius sings about being shattered; Harding answers him with a high, angelic call for 'better days.' The video just adds more layers to the conundrum. JON PARELES
On this heartfelt one-off single, Alynda Segarra returns to the gentle folk-rock sound they honed on 'The Past Is Still Alive,' the excellent album they released last year as Hurray for the Riff Raff. 'This is not a scene, it's a pyramid scheme,' they sing, pointing to a larger feeling of social collapse that, as the song progresses, dovetails with personal struggle. 'I don't know who you want me to be,' Segarra sings. 'And I don't know, and that terrifies me.' ZOLADZ
The latest blast from the Sleigh Bells album due in April, 'Bunky Becky Birthday Boy,' memorializes Alexis Krauss's dog, who died in 2023. 'Nights are long here without you,' she sings. But the song is manic and upbeat, swerving from electro to power-chorded pop, with eruptions of thrash drumming and tangents of dissonance — mourning by celebrating. PARELES
Mamalarky — the singer and guitarist Livvy Bennett and the multi-instrumentalist Michael Hunter — makes musicianly antics sound nonchalant on the duo's new album, 'Hex Key.' Bennett breezes through the self-satisfaction of '#1 Best of All Time,' declaring, 'I always win even when I fall.' Her voice stays casual (and doesn't worry about being a little flat) while the beat hurtles ahead and the chords take unlikely chromatic turns. The biggest boast is making it sound so easy. PARELES
The professional fiancés Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco invite a third onto their upcoming collaborative album, 'I Said I Love You First,' with this breathy Gracie Abrams feature. Regardless of the fact that 'Call Me When You Break Up' is a conceptually confusing sentiment for a record that seems to be celebrating the singer Gomez and the producer Blanco's love story, Ariana Grande did it first, and with more attitude. ZOLADZ
McKinley Dixon, a rapper from Richmond, Va., is a maximalist who regularly surrounds himself with live musical arrangements and hearty backup singers. In 'Sugar Water,' from an album due in June titled 'Magic, Alive!,' he wishes for and then witnesses the resurrection of a friend. The track deploys a springy, Latin-tinged jazz vamp, riffing horns and fervent vocal harmonies. 'Can't believe that I was finished,' says the returnee. 'No time to waste — let's get back in it.' PARELES
The rolling six-beat vamp behind 'It's Okay' rushes and then relaxes, underlining the song's anti-stress message: 'Everything's OK but you gotta feel it,' the rapper and drummer Kassa Overall advises. Emma-Jean Thackray overdubs herself into a one-woman jazz combo — trumpet, bass, keyboards, drums — and backup chorus, then offers her own rapped and sung admonition: 'Don't you worry 'bout a thing.' PARELES
Ledisi praises the quiet strength and unheralded sacrifices of Black women in 'Blkwmn,' singing 'Being silent, barely a thank you for all she gave / She smiles, powering through her pain.' Sparse piano chords, a slow-blues structure, hovering orchestral arrangements and the cry within Ledisi's voice all hark back to Nina Simone. But it's a new song, a reminder of labor that continues through generations. PARELES
Smerz — the Norwegian duo of Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt — has been making largely electronic music for a decade. 'A Thousand Lies' relies instead on the fragile sounds of acoustic instruments: a piano intro and then acoustic guitars. The melody rises above two chords defined by sparse playing and picking, sung as tentatively as the sentiments they express: 'I realized lately that it won't be like this again.' The structure is neat and austere; the emotion is not. PARELES
The electronics-loving, improvising guitarist Dustin Wong has a new single, 'Archangel Michael and the Pacific,' from a solo album due in April. It's an ever-evolving track that keeps shifting its downbeats and blurs any demarcation between playing, looping and multitracking. Wong's guitar materializes and melts away amid blipping, clanking, percussive electronics, bubbling with rhythm while keeping any final destination elusive. PARELES