POP/ROCK

Janelle Monáe, "Float"

Since "Dirty Computer" in 2018, Monáe has focused more on acting than on music; the few songs she has released in the past five years have been one-off soundtrack recordings. The buoyant "Float," though, certainly sounds like a harbinger of Monáe's next era as a recording artist: It's looser and more conversant with contemporary hip-hop than the musician's work in the past. The Afrobeat heir Seun Kuti leads his late father's ensemble Egypt 80 to provide some brassy fanfare while Monáe raps, "I had to protect all my energy, I'm feeling much lighter" in a carefree cadence that backs up that assertion.

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Lana Del Rey, "A&W"

She works in liminal spaces: between breath and melody, between confession and persona, between image and experience, between commerce and art. The pretty but utterly bleak "A&W" has nothing to do with root beer or fast food; the initials echo "American whore," something she calls herself in the song. She sings as a woman without illusions or hopes, a celebrity who's always under scrutiny: "Do you really think I give a damn what I do/After years of just hearing them talking?" In this long, subdued, radio-defying track, she sings about a loveless hotel hookup that may have turned into a rape; "Do you really think anyone would think that I didn't ask for it?" she wonders. Halfway through, the track turns to synthetic sounds and the lyrics drift into a different obsession: "Jimmy only love me when he want to get high." In this song, everyone is a user.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Nickel Creek, "Holding Pattern"

This new tune is from "Celebrants," the first album in nine years from the reconvened string trio Nickel Creek, due March 24. It's a song that evokes the first months of the pandemic — "Washing my hands/Through the night can't sleep for the sirens," Chris Thile sings — and tries to draw comfort from companionship, urging, "Don't forget we're/Alone in this together." The siblings Sara and Sean Watkins pick circular guitar patterns and add vocal harmonies, while Thile plays a counterpoint on mandola that rises like mist off a pond.

JON PARELES, New York Times

New releases

  • Adam Lambert, "High Drama"
  • Gracie Abrams, "Good Riddance"
  • Gorillaz, "Cracker Island"