Critics from The New York Times select 33 standouts from their weekly Playlists - and seven more tracks they had missed. Every week, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat.
(Note: It’s not a ranking, it’s a playlist.) Sabrina Carpenter, Espresso Atop a mid-tempo beat that recalls the muffled retro-funk of Doja Cat’s smash Say So , Sabrina Carpenter plays the unbothered temptress with winking humour: “Say you can’t sleep, baby I know, that’s that me, espresso.” Make it a double — you’ve surely heard this one everywhere.
- Lindsay Zoladz Tyla, Safer Following her worldwide 2023 hit Water , Tyla pulls away from temptation in Safer , harnessing the log-drum beat and sparse, subterranean bass lines of amapiano. Her choral call-and-response vocals carry South African tradition into the electronic wilderness of 21st-century romance. - Jon Pareles Ariana Grande, We Can’t Be Friends At once strobe-lit and silky, Ariana Grande appropriately channels Robyn — the patron saint of crying in the club — on this nimbly sung, melancholic pop hit, a highlight from her bittersweet seventh album, Eternal Sunshine .
- Pareles Billie Eilish, The Greatest Billie Eilish extols her own composure and skill at dissembling — holding back her unrequited love — in The Greatest from Hit Me Hard and Soft . Delicate picking accompanies her as she sings about how she “made it all look painl.