Mutual appreciation or celebrity damage control? Taylor Swift’s apparently new boyfriend — Matty Healy, from 1975 — mocked Bronx rapper Ice Spice and made other offensive comments about a since-deleted podcast that may or may not have been a tongue-in-cheek comedy; social media flared up. Now proclaiming admiration and good feelings everywhere, Ice Spice gets her moment on a remixed Swift track that portends karmic revenge against all the singer’s adversaries and obstacles. Ice Spice seizes the opportunity in her verse, warning, “Karma never gets lazy.” JON PARELES
Beyoncé featuring Kendrick Lamar, ‘America has a problem’
Beyoncé has now handed the opening minute of her song “America Has a Problem” to Kendrick Lamar – the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper who previously worked with her. His verses use multiple voices and registers to battle with corporations (Universal) and technology (Artificial Intelligence), while acknowledging hip-hop history by praising Jay-Z. It’s a commercial boost to the “Renaissance” album that also deepens his sense of layered traditions and knowledge. Somehow the timing of the new song gets to 4:20. PEARLES
Dua Lipa, ‘Dance the night’
“I don’t play it safe,” insists Dua Lipa on her shiny, disco-kissed “Dance the Night,” the first single from the soundtrack to the upcoming “Barbie” movie. But the song itself – a rehash of the familiar “Future Nostalgia” formula with a bit of “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” thrown in – makes the counterargument. Though disappointingly self-righteous and light on the “Barbie Girl” camp, “Dance the Night” is a boring, fun summer jam that showcases Lipa’s easygoing confidence: “Ooh my outfit is so tight,” she sings, “You can see heartbeat tonight.” LINDSAY ZOLADZ
Water from your eyes, ‘Everyone is crushed’
The title track of Brooklyn art-rock duo Water From Your Eyes’ excellent new album “Everyone’s Crushed” is a kind of lyrical Rubik’s Cube, with Rachel Brown twisting and rearranging a few deadpan sentences until they take on new meaning. “I’m with everyone I love, and everything hurts,” declares Brown, prompting Nate Amos to blurt out a biting, angular guitar riff. The song makes room for both a collective sense of general malaise and the relief of sharing it with others: “I’m with everyone I’ve hurt,” concludes Brown, “and all is love.” ZOLADZ
Squid are one of the British bands reconfiguring prog rock in the wake of post-punk, combining musical technique and caustic attitude. In “The Blades,” Squid sets up a tense 7/4 beat and a gnarly counterpoint of guitars, drums and horns, while Ollie Judge sings insinuatingly and ultimately screamingly about surveillance and insensitivity. The song climaxes with a haunting vision of crowds that look like blades of grass, “begging to be trimmed”, then tapers into a quietly alienated coda. PEARLES
Jeff Rosenstock, ‘liked you better’
Jeff Rosenstock’s prowess for writing Long Island sing-along choruses is on full display in “Liked U Better,” a one-off single that’s as thrilling as it is catchy. Racing thoughts and a pounding heartbeat set the song’s antique tempo, before he shrugs them all off in a cathartic chorus, “I liked you better when I wasn’t thinking about you.” ZOLADZ
Jess Williamson, ‘Time is not accidental’
A dinky drum machine beat from a mobile app ticks behind “Time Ain’t Accidental,” a song about a brand new romance with an old friend from a seldom-visited town. Texas native but widely traveled, Jess Williamson recently teamed up with Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) as the country indie rock band Plains; this will be the title track of her next solo album. “I have a life somewhere far away,” she sings, and later, adding guitar and banjo, “Look me in the eye, I know it’s experimental.” But the number revels in staying beaten. PEARLES
Blk Odyssy featuring Kirby, ‘You Gotta Man’
The situation is clear — “You gotta man, I gotta girlfriend” — but the music is hazy and dazed, as R&B songwriters Black Odyssy, from Austin, and Kirby, from Memphis, exchange impressions and rationalizations about an infidelity sparked by “dopamine and Hennessy.” Over a slow, hazy beat, amidst a mishmash of echoing voices and electric sitar, Blk Odyssy’s speech sounds incredulous and hesitant, answered by Kirby’s high-pitched whisper, both uncertain and then in love; “See you next life,” they promise before parting. PEARLES
Ichiko Aoba, ‘Space Being’
“Space Orphans” joins Ichiko Aoba’s vast catalog of quiet, skeletal, soothing songs, often accompanied only by her acoustic guitar; they are related to bossa novas, American folk pop and Japanese koto melodies. A string arrangement – warmly supported and at times harmonically ambiguous – opens the song as her Japanese lyrics speak of an otherworldly romance, where “We go to sleep every night / In a quiet place that’s neither land nor sea.” In an initiative led by Brian Eno called EarthPercent, Earth is credited as a co-writer and receives royalties for environmental programs. PEARLES
Anjimile, ‘The King’
There are clear echoes of the minimalism of Philip Glass, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich in ‘The King’. The song moves from a complex, wordless chorale to a whirlwind of keyboard arpeggio as Anjimile sings biblical allusions and wise advice: “What doesn’t kill you almost killed you,” she notes. PEARLES
