He can cry, he can write a thoughtful song about fighting toxic masculinity, but can he do a front flip on beat?

[Video]
[7.00]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: As a statement of vulnerability and solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, “I Cry” succeeds on every front. And that matters more than any comment that I could make about how unremarkable it sounds. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: The evolution of Usher from a singer whose empathy outmatched his command over his instrument into an artist who only needed the right vessel so he could unleash his newfound command was obvious by Confessions, long ago and far away. On “I Cry,” Usher connects his own professed lack of compassion for the sisters in his life with his self-absorption with his arsenal of gulps, octave leaves, and melismatic tricks. He shouldn’t have gotten away with it. 
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Protest Song as Lenny Kravitz pastiche — the opening piano chords, all boring majesty, fake you out in their self seriousness, but Usher’s strength has always been making rigid songs sound more fun than their base state. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: A lovely, sensitive (yet not mushy) midtempo record about how men shouldn’t be afraid to cry, sung absurdly well. I mean, we all know that Usher can sing his ass off, but this is some truly great vocalizing. Combine this with late 2019’s “Don’t Waste My Time” and Mr. Raymond’s got a solid new album gestating.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: A lush soul arrangement, all glissando and falsetto and slo-mo teardrop chords, undermined by that incessant prefab drum loop on the chorus. But when I imagine the track without, it sags, so clearly something is needed there. Just not this.
[5]

Alex Clifton: Simple, stirring, and a slap to the face against toxic masculinity. Thanks, mate.
[8]

Disco has made me rich, and now they’re after me…

[Video]
[6.57]

Kayla Beardslee: ATTENTION LISTENERS: Do you love the feathery disco glitz of “Say So” but want a Dr. Luke-free substitute with slightly more lyrical weight? Do you want to invest in the music of a charismatic R&B performer who’s gotten rich enough writing for other artists that she can approximate creative freedom in her solo work? Do you enjoy watching artists improve with every EP? Call 1-800-EXP-RNCE and use promo code NULUV to gain fast-track access to the discography of Victoria Monét today!
[7]

William John: April’s “Dive” was probably enough for Victoria Monét to be discussed merely in superlatives, without reference to her more well-known colleagues. She’s in the company of more friends on “Experience”, but any questions as to who is bringing the most star power to the table are answered by the end of her first breathy line. She exudes control and poise, even when her words indicate otherwise, and it’s a delight to hear her sleekly navigate her way through S.G. Lewis’ parade of trumpets and fistfuls of glitter. Khalid’s mumbled verse is virtually unintelligible, but well positioned; when Monét’s airy pre-chorus sails in afterward, all sins are forgiven.
[9]

Alfred Soto: “Tell me what you came for,” Victoria Monét asks. Honey, this. This. Honey-baked disco reliant on kick drum and the singer’s modest mirror moves, “Experience” boasts no wasted gestures and has the clean anonymity of many dance classics. 
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Disco-pop that leans so far into the gloss that it becomes featureless. Everyone’s talented enough to coast, but even In These Times ™️ we should do better than the bare minimum for dance tracks. At least the outro horns are nice!
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: “Lightning, this is what you came for,” goes another song on this theme; “Experience,” then, is the post-storm mist. As disco it’s diaphanous, more head than body, skimming over all feels — even the hook, “I’m hoping that experience can get you to change,” is held at an “I’m actually at capacity” emotional remove. Monét’s voice is a natural fit, light as Bath and Body Works spray — which will inevitably have her compared to her mentor, but the effect’s really more Cassie. Khalid, with his grainy-earthy voice, is not such a natural fit, and I can’t imagine the level of vocal-production mechanics necessary to turn him into a backing-vox sigh — but somehow, they did it! Sadly, no such vocal molecular gastronomy was applied to the horns, which couldn’t sound more General MIDI if they came with a tech spec.
[7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Victoria Monét’s “I’m all out of love/You gave it away” hook is feathery light and lovely–so why does Khalid have to come in and drown the mood? His enunciation on the second verse is so swampy that I can barely understand a word. It’s a shame, because Victoria Monét is more than strong enough to stand on her own, and by herself, this could have been so much fun.
[6]

Oliver Maier: Monét is content to continue being the person who reminds you that Ariana Grande exists, and Khalid is content to pour honey over proceedings. I can’t make out a word he’s saying, but I don’t suppose it matters. Utterly forgettable but plush and pleasant in the moment, and not the shallowest disco throwback single in recent times if I do “Say So” myself.
[6]

The shirt says it all.

[Video]
[8.29]

Andy Hutchins: If DaBaby’s “Intro” was triumph in rap in 2019, this is defiance and resilience circa 2020: The better Baby head-fakes with a single bar about whip appeal and then launches into one of the more blistering critiques of the current moment of American failure any citizen will deliver. He’s viscerally vivid when it comes to the paranoiac existence of Black people in a country still coming to terms with them as people (“I find it crazy the police’ll shoot you / And know that you dead, but still tell you to freeze”; “Stare in the mirror whenever you drive”; “Must not be breathin’ the air that I breathe / You know that the way I can bleed, you can bleed”) and perfectly relentless over the instrumental, as Section 8 layers insistent drums, delicate piano, and siren synths to mimic the tempest that is this “hell of a year” in American life — one so profoundly fucked that “What happened to COVID?” comes off as a dark joke. Even the most Instagram-ready bars — “Every colored person ain’t dumb, and all whites not racist / I be judgin’ by the minds and hearts, I ain’t really into faces” — work because this is, at its core, an exhausted acknowledgement that that’s not the point: “There’s a problem with our whole way of life,” charges the hook. And yet, the soul of “The Bigger Picture” is hope, and belief in a future: Baby’s proclamation that “We can storm any weather” gets followed by “You know when the storm go away, then the sun shine,” whether this world deserves that optimism or not. As anthemic and vital as music gets, and sincerely moving to boot.
[10]

Tobi Tella: The strength and conviction it takes to release this, especially in the current rap environment that has seen fanbases mostly co-opted by white people, but the line between anger and empathetic is rode well, and the honesty pouring out of this is beautiful. Beautiful enough for me to not sideeye at that COVID line.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The track contradicts the title: as filigreed as a miniature. Unafraid to look afraid, Lil Baby uses his high-pitched timbre and mixing board distortion in the service of a July 2020 journal entry. He wills himself not to dismiss the white people whom he’s justified in hating. The most hortatory line is the best: “Fuck it, I’m goin’ on the front line.” 
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Compelling mostly for its inner conflict and imperfections– in Lil Baby’s uncertainty, in the obligatory feeling of his lyrics (“we gotta start somewhere/ Might as well start here”), he conveys the weariness and resolve that allow “The Bigger Picture” to work as a protest song. The song’s worldview rooted in personal experience rather than movement politics, regardless of the protest chant samples, and it succeeds on the strength of that; you get the sense of thinking out loud rather than canned speeches. It’s not always artful or coherent, but it works nonetheless.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: This is just such a mass of complicated emotions — numbness, weakness, the feeling of power that one could change it — that it almost feels ridiculous dissecting it line by line or sound by sound. But “The Bigger Picture” does so much right. Take the newsreaders on the opening, the female voice relaying atrocities that have terrified millions with a numbed intonation, as if livelihood and life is just a thing to report. Take the audacity of saying “God is the only man I fear.” Take how every line seethes with intent and feeling, drawing a line between the everyday fears that were there before with the new ones. It’s impossible not to feel those fears a little.
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: This is the most astute song I’ve heard linked to 2020’s police brutality/Black Lives Matter protests, from a rapper from whom I frankly didn’t expect it. This is thoughtful and smart, with a subtle musical backing that accents and doesn’t outshine Baby’s lyrics.
[9]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: With sangfroid, surgical precision, and arresting directness, Lil Baby perfectly captures 2020’s political and racial zeitgeist in the same way that Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” did in 2015. “The Bigger Picture” isn’t a pretty picture, but it’s one that America needs to confront if it is to ever eradicate police violence and systemic anti-black racism. 
[8]

We hope you’ve made plans for a high scoring day…

[Video]
[7.88]

Alfred Soto: Just when I thought this Russian singer-songwriter’s twitchy synth groove had run out of crinkles to smooth it pulls a few more as Kate NV, submitting to the demands of the bass guitar, scats over more synths. And the hell did that sax come from? Like Nilüfer Yanya, she’s cheerfully at ease with collaging material.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: Much is made of contrast: a tense post-punk arrangement, every moment a twitch of staccato voice or crackling-knuckle percussion, yet one with plenty of spacey interludes to fall into.
[9]

Jessica Doyle: The anachronistic comparison I want to make is to “Baker Street,” on the flimsiest of grounds: both songs are longer than the pop standard, both pull a lot of power from saxophones (although the saxophone sounds themselves are of different origin, and to different effect), and both have the effect of befriending the listener by describing disconnected anomie. Gerry Rafferty employed the second-person “you” to extend a subtle empathy: “And it’s taken you so long to find out you were wrong” is immediately understood as not a condemnation but a regretful reflection. Kate NV has the same “you,” but her “Everything has changed / Surely you noticed this” is delivered in an almost confiding way. You noticed? You don’t have anything optimistic to say? Then come sit right by her, and listen to her say, “There are plans on this planet somewhere,” in a tone too wry to be convincing and therefore comforting.
[8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Existential dread, but make it camp.
[6]

Tobi Tella: One of the most succinct summaries of the general dread that comes with living in the world at that moment. During a time where I’m desperately trying to feel like I have control over anything, Kate’s lyrics remind that everything is terrible and the leaders and systems we look to for order are all shams. The more I listen, the more I think this would probably be crushingly depressing if it didn’t sound so funky and smooth.
[7]

Oliver Maier: The kind of song where you know you’re in safe hands from the first 10 seconds or so. Kate doesn’t lean on the bassline too hard though — “Plans” has enough left turns and rabbits pulled out of hats to end up feeling wonderfully disoriented, but still familiar in ways you can’t quite place. The runtime betrays it just a little.
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The first time I heard “Plans” I was instantly taken by it — every element felt like a barbed fruit, hooking onto me in ways that I did not fully understand at the time. As I unraveled the song, listening in to the bassline or the saxophone, I realized gradually what Kate NV is doing here. “Plans” is at once crammed with detail and flourish and appealingly bare — there’s never too much going on, which allows for each individual detail to expand out into full screen. It’s a song that’s stretching out the form of pop to full use, curling its fingers around the canvas and pulling until the point of near crisis. At the heart of it all is Kate herself, her wry vocal performance undergirding the instrumental experimentation and preventing the surface from breaking.
[9]

Kylo Nocom: Though the music-wide galaxy pull towards pop conventions sometimes concerns me, “Plans” seems to be free of cynicism, instead indicating an artist who has genuine interest in the pop format. Kate NV’s minimalistic approach towards melody allows for her to play around with the surrounding arrangements, incorporating idiosyncrasies that suggest an enthusiasm for obscure new wave yet never using them as mere decoration. She may lyrically bemoan her inability to plan against the ever-changing world, but the efficiency of this track suggests a strategic approach towards songwriting — a breath of fresh air compared to modern artists in the played-out synthpop tradition.
[7]

• David Cooper Moore started a new Medium page for pop culture and parenting essays.
• Kayla Beardslee posted the transcript of her most recent radio show, where she and her best friend talked about the music that was most formative to their listening habits in middle school, high school, and college.

We’d say it’s a timely title, but when the hell in 2020 wouldn’t it be?

[Video]
[6.00]

Leah Isobel: “Jobs” is admirably efficient; Miami and JT come in, drop their bars, and leave. It’s not as effusive as their past work, but it’s lean and focused, and their rapport is as strong as ever.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: A [4] for Miami, a [6] for JT. Everything else is a wash, but the former feels overly derivative (somewhere between “Savage” and “Nonstop,” which is to say at the exact center of contemporary rap), while the latter at least has enough switches to flip to make “Jobs” feel less like drudgery.
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: In this economy, where elites are protected from economic and health risks and value humans as expendable capital, thank you, City Girls, for the hilarity and subversiveness of “I don’t work jobs/Bitch, I am a job.” Capitalism, what’s good? 
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Something tells me a lot of people are going to be really feeling this song in the next month or two. Although maybe in remix form, i.e., over 2 minutes.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: “I don’t work jobs, bitch, I am a job” is a great line, and Yung Miami and JT have wonderful voices and flow. That said, with this clocking in at 2:01, I want more verses and more song.
[6]

Alfred Soto: I can foresee a moment, like a similar one with DaBaby, when their boasting and teasing will sound blah. What stops me: I love their vocal tone. Far from star-worthy or even immortalizing, City Girls sound like normal people with unusual self-confidence. This is the secret of good hip-hop and dance.
[7]

Keep an ear out for the follow-up retro throwback, “U2 Luv…”

[Video]
[6.17]

Thomas Inskeep: Sampling “Juicy Fruit” and interpolating “Computer Love”? A pair of singers as solid as Ne-Yo and Jeremih on the track? Not to mention Ne-Yo returning, wholeheartedly, to the R&B sphere that raised him? (About time he moved away from EDM crap and garbage records with the likes of Pitbull.) This is pure Adult R&B catnip, which means it’s also pure catnip to me, specifically. One of the year’s catchiest and best.
[10]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Basic in conception, execution, and style, “U 2 Luv” is a love story that begins and ends with Ne-Yo and Jeremih’s nostalgia for the ’90s. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: The “alt-R&B” conversation has died down, maybe mercifully, but at a weird time considering the lushness like this R&B’s longtimers are producing. The samples (prominent, great) aren’t the only thing in “U 2 Luv” that’s out of time. There’s some “Don’t Disturb This Groove,” some of what mid-10s Miguel was spinning, some artifacts late-’00s R&B — I’m thinking of the autotune, not today’s blearier sort but more fizzy, shimmery, decorating the vocal line with cartoon rocket trails.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Because neither artist has excited me since Barack Obama’s first term, I saw the numerical title and shuddered. I don’t know if they sing together or benefit from the wizardry of engineers, but their harmonies twist like creeper vines over an impressive repurposing of the “Juicy” beat. “U 2 Luv” gets better with each play.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: The theory that three minutes and thirty seconds is the optimal length for a pop song runs into trouble when that time drags as much as it does here. If Ne-Yo wasn’t so busy awkwardly turning Netflix on and off during a massage, then he might have come up with a few more ideas for a song that would work just as well, or even be improved, at a length of one minute and ten.
[4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: A mediocre example of the vaguely-’90s throwback R&B that will play on rap radio for the next 12 months. It’s better than “24/7“, about on par with “On Chill“, and slightly worse than “Back Home.” They’re all worse than “Don’t Waste My Time,” which happens to be the one that doesn’t get as much play.
[5]

From a table away…

[Video]
[4.33]

Kayla Beardslee: Kelsea Ballerini’s new album can be arranged into two halves. In one half are the slower, less interesting songs, many with lyrics too focused on categorization (whoops) or playing into tropes, in the other are the upbeat tracks that generally have more introspective and interesting lyrical themes. Unfortunately, “The Other Girl” falls into the former category: its premise of blurring the lines between “girlfriend” and “mistress” is decent, but too easy to poke holes in. If the guy is messing around with both women, then the contest over who he cares for more has no actual value, and, of course, Kelsea starts the song with a judgmental verse that ends with “I bet she’s more promiscuous than I,” while Halsey chimes in on the awkwardly conciliatory second verse, the structure privileging one girl’s viewpoint over the other rather than being completely fair. And speaking of unfair, I suppose I could try harder to like this song, but the music itself is just too dull. May I recommend “Hole in the Bottle” or “The Way I Used To” instead?
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Kelsea Ballerini is the latest female country artist to flee the tomato trap that is country radio in hopes of finding airplay, or maybe just stray streams, in mainstream pop. But “The Other Girl” isn’t a massive pop alpha-strike like “The Middle” but something softer and subtler. There’s plenty lovely: the muted guitars, the high pealing synths, that part after the chorus where Kelsea and Halsey echo “girl,” their timbres similar but, like the romantic rivals they play, just different enough to count. There’s a little Lana Del Rey — the lilting intonation on the post-chorus is so similar it’s uncanny — and more than a little “Girl Crush,” in how Kelsea and Halsey’s verses don’t sound jealous so much as scoping one another out. What’s especially weird is that this is a pop song at all — it’s written by Shane McAnally, whose range is broad but almost entirely in country, and Ross Copperman, best known for sensitive-dude love songs, bro-downs like “Tip It On Back” and “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,” and on the female side, “Female.” “The Other Girl” is a world apart from them, or for that matter Ballerini’s “Legends” or “I Hate Love Songs”; the only person you’d expect to have this in them is Halsey. How many features is it now that she’s been the best part of?
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Ballerini bends away from country and towards Halsey, which ill suits this song. “The Other Girl” has a strong concept, but one that depends on tension between its leads — not because they should be at odds, but because it might sharpen their revealed allegiance. Halsey herself fails to make much of a mark, because for all that Ballerini tries to construct her counterpart as a real person, with an enviable poise and specific tastes in cocktails, Halsey’s talent is in smearing her emotions into spectral uncertainty. (Consider her track titles: “Nightmare,” “Graveyard,” “Ghost.”) This story’s leads lack chemistry; theirs is a love triangle that won’t stand.
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: In the grand tradition of excellent songs about love triangles, “The Other Girl” scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Kelsea and Halsey exchange feckless insults, pontificating about a relationship with no real emotional stakes. 
[3]

Nicholas Donohoue: Individual shame stemming from a form of being wronged is such a rich well to draw from. Pondering the desirability of another through the eyes of your partner is too. Even two people simultaneously considering the state of the triangle they are in from a shared cheating partner is workable. All together though, it comes out as way too spread to be as mellow as it is, especially given this is two people who, while sharing a situation, don’t have to be sharing the exact reaction.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The hell is this twaddle? So promiscuity and dry martinis are the signs of a slattern? 
[2]

Have you heard the world is ending?

[Video][Website]
[6.57]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: An abopalypse with deadly stakes: if “Die 4 Ur Love” was a weapon, it’d be a razor-sharp steel dagger lying on a bed of rose petals. 
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Gorgeous, but what’s the point of an immaculate coruscating polished-pretty gem of a song about the fucking apocalypse? Have we learned nothing from Kesha? That gonzo Lavos gurgle in “Till the World Ends“? Even Alice Chater?
[6]

Oliver Maier: “Die 4 Ur Love” is slick and catchy, but poised to the point of stiffness, with an aloof Tei Shi not quite selling the knife’s-edge lyrics. This problem is best summed up by the way she repeats “apocalypse,” with the same melody, between the pre-chorus and hook, as a clause of its own with no meaningful relation to the rest of what she’s saying. Not only does the repetition feel like slapdash recycling, but lyrically it’s not much more than a clunky signifier of non-specific stakes, a smoke machine kicked on when half of the audience has left already.
[5]

Tobi Tella: Soft and inviting even at rock bottom; the casaulness mitigates the heartbreak.
[6]

Leah Isobel: Tei Shi is a quintessential [6] artist, but her solemn pronunciation of “apocalypse” — a great word to include in a pop song! — upgrades this to a solid…
[7]

David Moore: Sleek electropop that might be Tei Shi’s most transparent play for wider recognition, since her sneakier hooks and subtler pop moves circa Crawl Space weren’t world-beating, perhaps by design. Still, I think her former sound — ingratiating but claustrophobic — feels closer to the zeitgeist.
[6]

Nicholas Donohoue: I’m a sucker for any pop song format that’s just piling up 10 or so hooks all on top of each other without ever giving away the game. The level of expectation setting and release here is such a mood and groove based slice of solid craft that you end up with a full soundscape that’s earned its total consuming final 30 seconds. All so while keeping a cool head that does invoke a form of apocalypse, however bound in any one line by putting every flavor and twist somewhere in the layered cake buildup.
[8]

• Nortey Dowuona released a new album, plug in the hoverboards!, on Bandcamp, and is dropping another, a drum for mrs fleisher-djoleto, on August 2.
• Claire Biddles interviewed Australian queer pop group Cub Sport about their upcoming fourth album for The Line of Best Fit.
• Jackie Powell profiled Grace Thybulle, a 17-year-old basketball player writing poetry about racial injustice, for SLAM.
• For The Next, Powell also wrote about 2020 WNBA #1 draft pick Sabrina Ionescu and her leadership style as part of the New York Liberty.