COUNTRY
Kidd G featuring YNW BSlime, "Left Me"
There's been an increasing amount of crossover between country and hip-hop in recent years, though often the relationship between the two influences can feel strained. But here's a collaboration between two sing-rappers, both teenagers, that sounds utterly unforced: Kidd G, who's making the kind of naturally syncretic music Nashville should be inching toward, and YNW BSlime, younger brother of the incarcerated star YNW Melly. Kidd G taps into his Juice WRLD influences, with pitter-patter syllables and scraped-up singing, and YNW BSlime's guest verse is chilling, and sung with disarming innocence: "Two years my brother's been gone/ And I've never/felt so alone." It sounds like the No. 1 song of 2030.
JON CARAMANICA, New York Times
POP/ROCK
John Mellencamp, "I Am a Man That Worries"
The Rock Hall of Famer from Indiana stays grim and grizzled throughout his new album, "Strictly a One-Eyed Jack." In the song "I Am a Man That Worries," he's worried about everything and belligerent about it: "You better get out of my way," he growls. It's a vintage-style blues stop with slide guitar and fiddle flanking his voice, and though he proclaims his bitter solitude, he has a crowd shouting alongside him by the end.
JON PARELES, New York Times
