What a joyful relief that two of the most intriguing, progressive, and wildly beloved pop stars of the past five years have collaborated for the first time on a song that perhaps will shatter all expectations. Billie Eilish and Rosalía’s “Lo Vas A Olvidar” is anything but a pop smash, which doesn’t mean it won’t be popular. Rather, it takes what stars of this magnitude are supposed to do – join forces with marketing and maximize accessibility – and question it, stretch it, unravel it and reshape it. It is a meditation, spacious and unfettered. It rolls like a slightly unpredictable weather system: weak fog, thunderclaps, indifferent gusts of wind. The vocals come with a haunted reverb. Eilish sings most of her verses in Spanish. Neither of the two singers is in a hurry. It is, in the most literal sense, a mood. JON CARAMANICA
Weezer, “ All My Favorite Songs ”
Weezer’s latest sound appearance is retro. “All My Favorite Songs” is taken from the band’s next album “OK Human”, presented as fully analog with the group supported by an orchestra of 38 musicians and reminiscent of orchestral pop from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Instead of power chords, there is a muscular cello section; the violins and the trumpet take over from the lead guitar lines. But Weezer is still easily recognizable in this song, from its chunky mid-tempo beat to a pure Weezer attitude: “All my favorite songs are slow and sad / All my favorite people drive me crazy,” sings Rivers Cuomo. JON PARELES
Lilhuddy, “ 21st Century Vampire ”
Resign yourself to the fait accompli that is the arrival to pop music of TikTok alpha figure Chase Hudson (aka Lil Huddy, and now, Lilhuddy). His first single “21st Century Vampire” and his video nail a perfectly crowdsourced (and perfectly empty aesthetically) intersection of trends: pop-punk, quasi-goth, eboy, post-Eilish melancholy. It’s a rebellious pop cosplay in numbers and inefficient. If the evaluation is too long, try this: Listen to Marilyn Manson once. CARAMANIC
BRS Kash with Mulatto, ‘Kash App’
On “Kash App,” Atlanta rapper BRS Kash is concerned about one particular woman’s swing with a quick fervor reminiscent of New Orleans classics like 504 Boyz’s “Wobble Wobble” and “Drop It.” Like It’s Hot ”by Lil Wayne (rather than the laid-back Atlanta hit“ Wobble ”by VIC). He matched the indelicacy for the indelicacy of Mulatto, who asserts his authority in the second half of the song and makes it clear that the first half was just fancy. “Kash App” is another dirty entry for BRS Kash, which broke through last year with “Throat Baby (Go Baby).” A surprisingly warm loving ode to deeply debauched intimacy, she has a new remix, with her libertine colleagues DaBaby and City Girls, which is one of the early contenders for the most daring song of 2021. CARAMANICA
J. Hoard, a young, exuberantly talented singer and songwriter who treats assertiveness as an art form, recently left breadcrumbs on the New York scene, collaborating with jazz, rock, and soul artists. and electronic music. It shines brightly on two separate singles released this week by different artists. On “Real Lovin ‘”, written the day Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, Hoard insists on the connection (“Feel Somethin’ / To heal Some / For real lovin ‘”), melismically brushing against a King beat. Klavé equal parts Stevie Wonder and J. Dilla. “Find Light” was written last year with Simon Dufour and Aaron Day, as they all performed a Dilla tribute show. A recurring jazzy chord progression sounds like it was pulled from a ’90s R&B tape, but the message is all Hoard: “We’re more than heroes, even angels /’ Because living is not easy, we always carry on . ” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
Camilo, “Ropa Cara”
Designer brand names have been vocal hooks for decades in hip-hop, but elven-voiced Colombian singer Camilo puts a sly twist on the gimmick in “Ropa Caro” (“Expensive Clothing”). The way he puts it – as the beat shifts from reggaeton to Cuban son – he has a girlfriend with plenty of social media followers, and she wants him in more fancy clothes. He can’t afford them, but that doesn’t mean he can’t list them in a choir. PARELES
Goat girl, ‘Badibaba’
Impassive vocals, a tangle of guitars and synthesizers, a lively rhythm and a seemingly wan chorus topped with absurd “Badi badi ba ba” syllables disguise lyrics about the costs of ignoring the environment: “Push it somewhere that we won’t see / Turn our mess into the debris, ”the Goat Girl women sing. But before the end of the track, there are consequences. PARELES
Sheer Mag, ‘Crushed Velvet’
The punks at Philly Sheer Mag mix the DIY ethic with huge, arena-ready sound. The approach has helped them build a cult that includes Bernie Sanders – or at least any Sanders campaign staff who played Sheer Mag’s “Wait for the Bayonet” at one of his 2019 presidential rallies. The unique vampy single “Crushed Velvet”, from the soundtrack of the recently released Hulu original film “The Ultimate Playlist of Noise”, is the first we have heard since their 2019 album “A Distant Call”. In classic Sheer Mag fashion, however, it feels more like something from the “Dazed and Confused” soundtrack: lightning riffs, cavernous percussion, and the rock-star scream of Tina Halladay. Perhaps this is what Bernie, strafed and memorized to death, would have liked to hear at the inauguration. LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Carm with Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan, “ Already Gone ”
Carm – aka CJ Camerieri – plays the trumpet and French horn in yMusic, the contemporary chamber ensemble he co-founded; he also supported Paul Simon and Bon Iver. His solo album, “Carm”, features collaborations with Sufjan Stevens, Justin Vernon, Mouse on Mars, Shara Nova (of My Brightest Diamond) and, on this song, members of Yo La Tengo. On nervously vibrating keyboards, it multitracks in a three-dimensional brass ensemble, with thick chords and counterpoint tendrils, as Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan sing in haunted whispers about being “still zero.” leaves / still not there / already gone ”. PARELES
Deb Never, “ someone else ”
The clean opening of Deb Never’s “Someone Else” – a clickable programmed rhythm, barely tuned guitar and reluctant voice – is quite deceptive. She is jealous in anticipation; “I don’t want you to fall in love with someone else,” she sings to tinted Beatles chords. As his worries increase, so does his saving; she joined in more vocals, much more robust guitars and a lively double breakbeat before relapsing into her low-fi reverie, as if it was all just a pop mirage. PARELES
Patricia Brennan, “ Episodes ”
The image on the cover of “Maquishti” – the debut solo album by Mexican vibraphonist and marimba Patricia Brennan – prepares you for the tangled tranquility of her music. It’s a photograph of barren tree branches against a gray sky that has been cut away and refracted, creating an image that collapses at various focal points. Brennan recorded the album on her own, improvising with focus and patience, leaving a lot of cloudless space around her notes and sometimes using effects to create echoes or layers of electronic sound. Throughout the record, your ear is often guided into a pocket of heartwarming melody or something that resembles a pattern, with Brennan’s vibrations echoing against a background of silence. Then the pattern evaporates and you find yourself entangled in a new canvas, listening from a different perspective. RUSSONELLO
Jon Mueller, ‘Welcome’
Jon Mueller, a musician from Wisconsin who collaborated with Justin Vernon in the group Volcano Choir, creates weird, cavernous, and sometimes scary moments in the extended drone pieces of “Family Secret.” He used gongs, cymbals, bells, singing bowls and other much less identifiable sources of music that suggest gaping and unfathomable voids and distant threats. PARELES
