Gwen Stefani’s Ska-Pop Flashback, and 10 More New Songs

When the brash, sneering No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani emerged within the mid-90s to interrupt up the boys-club monopoly of other rock, it will have been laborious to foretell the place she’d be now, at 51. She is arguably much more of a family identify than within the “Tragic Kingdom” days, however occupies an area on the deadest heart of centrist pop — a fixture on a broadcast TV singing competitors that’s (someway) in its twentieth season, and an occasional (if sonically ill-suited) duet associate along with her country-star fiancé. Her new single, the not-so-subtly-titled “Let Me Reintroduce Myself,” gestures again to Stefani’s center interval of, roughly, “Rock Regular” via “Hollaback Lady,” assuring the skeptical listener that she’s nonetheless “the unique, unique previous” Gwen. A number of clunky verse lyrics protest a bit an excessive amount of (“It’s not a comeback, I’m recycling me”), however when her brassy voice rises to match the ska instrumentation of the refrain, there’s a fleeting rush of that previous No Doubt magic. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

The neon-kissed “Simple” was already a spotlight off the Australian pop sweetheart Troye Sivan’s current EP, “In a Dream,” however a brand new combine by Mark Ronson and visitor vocals from Kacey Musgraves kick it into one other gear. Ronson’s manufacturing expands the music’s spacious ambiance, accentuating an echoing New Order bass line, starry synth prospers and cavernous percussion. For all her disco flirtations on “Excessive Horse,” Musgraves has by no means lent her benevolent croon to a music so straightforwardly poppy earlier than — however she sounds so at dwelling that it’s value questioning if this hints at a possible post-“Golden Hour” route. ZOLADZ

John Carpenter, ‘The Useless Stroll’

The director John Carpenter is a full-fledged musician who has additionally composed the scores for a lot of of his movies. “The Useless Stroll” is from an album due in 2021, “Misplaced Themes III,” of music with out motion pictures. It’s a martial, suspenseful, pumping, minor-key synthesizer melody, with a guitar overlay, that has its beat drop out halfway via, for blurred piano arpeggios, solely to renew with much more ominous intent. JON PARELES

George Coleman Quintet, ‘Sandu’

In 1971, seven years after his tenure with Miles Davis’s famed quintet, the saxophonist George Coleman was revving up his profession as a bandleader in his personal proper. On this newly found dwell recording, “The George Coleman Quintet in Baltimore,” Coleman — an inveterate weight lifter — drives the band like a private coach, whereas syncing up with the colourful trumpet phrasing of Danny Moore and the brawny Midwestern swing of Larry Ridley’s bass. On “Sandu,” a basic Clifford Brown blues, Moore nods to its creator with just a few upturned, fairly strains, however he’s figuring out his personal shapes. On Coleman’s solo, his suits of round respiratory appear to name again to the previous R&B saxophone hollerers of generations earlier than. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

The primary single from the forthcoming Funkmaster Flex compilation — Nineteen Nineties again! — is a taut instance of the storytelling rap that made the Chicago rapper King Von, who was killed final month, such a compelling expertise. JON CARAMANICA

Benny the Butcher, ‘3:30 in Houston’

Benny the Butcher raps “3:30 in Houston” from a wheelchair — the results of getting shot final month in an tried theft. At first, he’s laughing a bit — in spite of everything, he notes, he’s been on the opposite facet of a theft in his day. However midsong, as he relives the second of the assault, the temper sours:

Rolls-Royce truck principally stood out
Just one mistake, I ain’t have a lookout
Quarter in jewels, buying at Walmart
Take me out the hood however can’t take the hood out

Quickly, it’s a deadpan revenge story, together with the suggestion that somebody’s “pinkie finger’s getting despatched to me.” CARAMANICA

King Princess, ‘Ache’

“Low cost Queen,” Mikaela Straus’s 2019 full-length debut as King Princess, was a comparatively subdued affair, stuffed with mid-tempo tunes that telegraphed laid-back cool. So the in-your-face power of her newest single “Ache” is actually a departure, but it surely works: The kinetic maximalism of the music’s early 90s touchstones — a “Freedom! ’90” keyboard riff; some “Tom’s Diner” do-do-dos — maintain the music from wallowing within the muck of its moody subject material. “I can’t assist turning my love into ache,” Straus croons. The playful music video, directed by Quinn Wilson, conjures some cartoonishly masochistic imagery, with that titular phrase all of a sudden showing just like the bam and pows in an previous “Batman” episode. ZOLADZ

“Oh Sarah” is a desolate Southern soul ballad on Sturgill Simpson’s 2016 album, “A Sailor’s Information to Earth,” dropping itself within the loneliness and transience of the street: “Too previous now to learn to allow you to in/so I run away similar to I at all times do.” On “Cuttin’ Grass — Vol. 2 (Cowboy Arms Periods),” his second album of bluegrass remakes from his catalog, it’s much more reassuring, rooted in string-band choosing. It’s a vow of tolerating love regardless of the separations: “Don’t fear child, I’ll come dwelling.” PARELES

Elle King, ‘One other You’

Bitterness seethes and crests because the string part swells in Elle King’s “One other You,” a knife-twisting response to a message from a despised ex. Within the verses she particulars his failings, virtually singing via clenched enamel; within the refrain, she belts with vindictive pleasure a few new romance, proclaiming, “It wasn’t laborious to fill your sneakers.” PARELES

El Perro del Mar that includes Blood Orange, ‘Alone in Halls’

“I’m going via adjustments,” El Perro del Mar — the Swedish composer and singer Sarah Assbring — sings and speaks, time and again, in “Alone in Halls,” over two organlike chords that really feel like inhales and exhales. She’s joined, at times, by the voice of Blood Orange (Dev Hynes). Aren’t all of us going via adjustments? PARELES

“I wanna take the ferry to Michigan,” Margaret McCarthy sings, buoyed by oceanic guitar distortion on the refrain of “Ferry,” the primary single from the Chicago indie-rock trio Moontype’s upcoming debut album. “Ferry” marries the woozy swoon of Seashore Home with the rising sweep of a Galaxie 500 music, although McCarthy’s voice cuts via the haze with direct emotional lucidity. ZOLADZ