POP/ROCK
Alan Sparhawk, “Can U Hear”
In September, Sparhawk of the long-running, boundary-pushing Duluth art-rock group Low will release his debut solo album, “White Roses, My God,” his first release since his bandmate and wife Mimi Parker died in 2022. “Can U Hear,” the album’s first single, is certainly an unconventional expression of grief, with its droning electronics, sputtering beat and eerie Auto-Tuned vocals. But that digitized wail is unmistakably mournful, and there is something admirably bold in the way Sparhawk, as ever, rejects the expected.
LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times
Kim Deal, “Coast”
“Coast,” a delightfully woozy solo single from the eternally cool Breeders frontwoman, begins with a kind of self-deprecating punchline: “I’ve had a hard, hard landing/I really should duck and roll out,” she sings in her inimitable voice, pausing to add with great comic timing, “Out of my life.” Deal has said that the song was inspired by a wedding band she saw cover “Margaritaville,” but part of the track’s charm is that despite its surf-rock lilt and buoyant horn section, she is never quite able to tap into those blissful vacation vibes. Instead, it is a song about shrugging and carrying on in spite of what bums you out; the fact that it was produced by Steve Albini, who died in May, adds an extra note of elegiac bittersweetness.
LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times
Joy Oladokun, “Drugs”
