Pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on notable new songs and videos.
Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, ‘I Don’t Care’
This clever, clockwork song has Ed Sheeran abetted by the pop pros Max Martin and Shellback. True to Sheeran’s catalog, it’s a tale of insecurity at a party that somehow turns to romance: “You take my hand, finish my drink, say shall we dance.” The crucial clockwork is Afro-Caribbean: the syncopated backbeat that links dance hall, reggaeton and dembow, which is stripped down and then decorated differently verse to verse. Along the way arrive high piano chords, backup “oohs,” a “hell yeah” out of Beck, floating keyboard notes and Justin Bieber’s Auto-Tuned vocals joining in for star power in the guise of male bonding. Without that Afro-Caribbean beat, the song wouldn’t exist.
— JON PARELES
Mary J. Blige and Nas, ‘Thriving’
Of course “Thriving” rhymes with “surviving” in Mary J. Blige’s latest parcel of motivational advice. Her message — “I’m a diamond ’cause of pressure/The bigger the trial, the bigger the blessing” — is delivered atop a tense, urgent, two-bar vamp and a sustained tone that run nearly nonstop through the track, hinting at psychedelic-era Temptations. Even in such tight confines, Blige stokes a gospel-charged conviction.
— JON PARELES
Skepta, ‘Bullet From a Gun’Stormzy, ‘Vossi Bop’
The titans of grime have remained admirably true to form even as their popularity has exploded far beyond what seemed possible even a few years ago. Stormzy, long the genre’s most accessible star, will be one of the headliners at the Glastonbury Festival next month, a first for a grime artist. His new single “Vossi Bop” bested Taylor Swift to top the British singles chart. It’s fleet, confident, almost joyous hip-hop, skipping out on low end almost entirely in favor of some chipper boasts and a flow that oozes from one bar to the next. Meanwhile, Skepta remains a ferocious and tart rapper, and “Bullet From a Gun” continues the bruising, both in the way he jabs his syllables, and also in his sentiments: “See it’s too easy to write a sad song about how my dad raised me/’Cause I'm looking in the mirror and my dad made me/A real top boy, I just can’t play the victim.”
— JON CARAMANICA
Jhené Aiko, ‘Triggered’
Whatever her partner did, it wasn’t minor. “You need to stay out of my way,” Jhené Aiko warns. “Triggered” circles through a few piano chords as she processes a major betrayal. It’s a negotiation with her partner, with herself, with her continued attachment and her roiling anger: “You are my enemy, you are no friend of mine,” she decides, but moments later realizes she’s still attracted. “All that history, all that’s history,” she says, but soon realizes, “I’ll calm down eventually.” Emotionally, this story isn’t over.
— JON PARELES
Zayn and Zhavia Ward, ‘A Whole New World (End Title)’
Everyone is OK with this? Zayn — you good, buddy? Peabo Bryson, are you listening?
— JON CARAMANICA
iLe, ‘Contra Todo’
“Contra Todo” — “Against All” is the battle cry that opens “Almadura,” the second solo album by iLe: Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar, who sang and rapped for a decade with Calle 13. With a melody that hints at Afro-Caribbean chants, an obstinate drumbeat and burly saxophones backing her up, she vows — for herself and, it seems, for her hurricane-battered home, Puerto Rico — to become “the shout of a silenced voice.”
— JON PARELES
Rhye, ‘Needed’Niia, ‘If I Cared’
Everyone misses Sade during her long silences, and for some songwriters, it’s an opportunity to provide mantras of melancholy. As part of a new EP titled “Spirit,” Rhye — the songwriter Michael Milosh — croons “I want to be needed/that’s what I need” in a track that’s as intricate as it is subdued; a full band and string arrangement infuse themselves behind the echoey piano chords that begin the song. The singer and songwriter Niia collaborates with the producer Robin Hannibal, a founder and ex-member of Rhye, in the even slower, preternaturally hazy “If I Cared,” which gradually reveals its pitilessness in a sweet whisper: “I don’t want to hurt you/again and again,” Niia sings, but then again, “you’re weak by nature/and I’m sharp like a razor.”
— JON PARELES
Mark Dresser Seven, ‘Black Arthur’s Bounce (In Memory of Arthur Blythe)’
The name of the new album from Mark Dresser, a bassist with unimpeachable avant-garde credentials and a waxy, flexible attack, is “Ain’t Nothing But a Cyber Coup & You.” As you might expect, it’s a healthy mix of droll irreverence and life-or-death conviction, played by a septet of masterful improvisers. Who else embodied this kind of musical approach? Nobody better than Arthur Blythe, the underappreciated alto saxophonist known as “Black Arthur,” who died in 2017. On “Black Arthur’s Bounce,” Dresser pays homage as he leads his band through crooked dance grooves, well-cropped swing, riotous bursts of improvising and, finally, an almost-peaceful fade away.
— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
ASAP Ferg featuring ASAP Rocky, ‘Pups’
The ASAP Mob first arrived in hip-hop as a crew of aesthetes, but what’s become clear over time is that the mode the members thrive in the most is rowdy rhyming. “Pups,” the new ASAP Ferg single, is essentially a remake of DMX’s “Get at Me Dog,” delivered with the rawness of a freestyle on an old DJ Clue mixtape. While Ferg leans in to his sense of humor, ASAP Rocky doubles down on the clipped, nimble flows that he sometimes abandons on his solo projects, but which mark him as an inventive rapper hiding in plain sight.
— JON CARAMANICA
Caroline Davis, ‘Landing’
The latest project from Davis, an emerging alto saxophonist, is Alula, her most formally innovative group yet. It’s a trio, with two established experimentalists laying the foundation under her sax: Matt Mitchell on synthesizers and Gregory Saunier (best known as a member of Deerhoof) on drums. Each of the 11 tunes on her new album has its own identity, but they’re all unified by a loose, scrappy energy and a dedication to serious plotting. “Landing” stands out, for its papery synth sound, long sax tones and percussion that sounds like a marching-band drummer rehearsing alone in an empty auditorium. It’s just the right amount of unsettling — like what you’d expect to hear in the background after a confounding, climactic scene in a great David Lynch film.
— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.