Kacey Musgraves laments her frustration, the Pussycat Dolls attempt a comeback and Bella Kay cracks the Top 40 with a tune about turmoil.
Every established musician has to find a personal answer to a tricky question: What's the difference between reliable quality and mere predictability? This week's most surprising answer comes from Jack Harlow, whose new album, "Monica," completely recasts him from boastful rapper to modest, affectionate R&B singer, as he detailed in an interview with The New York Times Popcast. Other notable album releases this week, by long-running songwriters like James Blake's "Trying Times" and Jorge Drexler's "Taracá," are less startling but clearly ambitious, seeking new extensions of expansive artistic territory. Meanwhile, singles keep arriving as previews of albums on the way. Here are some of this week's promising new tracks.
What's New
Kacey Musgraves, 'Dry Spell'
With a lean, minor-key track that hints at Dire Straits and spaghetti-Western scores, the sly country-psychedelic explorer Kacey Musgraves sings about being "lonely with a capital H, if you know what I mean" in "Dry Spell." It's from "Middle of Nowhere," an album due May 1 that will feature guests including Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert and Billy Strings. "Dry Spell" serves up more or less single entendres with complaints about having "nobody's tool up in my shed" and "nobody's truck up in my drive." Musgraves’s voice sounds frustrated and exasperated, but also ever so slightly amused.
The Pussycat Dolls, 'Club Song'
As K-pop acts make hits that hark back to 1990s and early 2000s girl groups, who can blame their role models for trying a comeback? The Pussycat Dolls brand has been revived for a new song and the announcement of a world tour, though the current group is just half of its 2005 lineup. Only Nicole Scherzinger -- lead singer and collaborating songwriter -- along with Kimberly Wyatt and Ashley Roberts remain from the sextet that had hits two decades ago with "Don't Cha" and "Buttons." They reclaim their old approach on "Club Song": celebrating women's sexuality, belittling an inadequate man and mixing R&B with touches of Bollywood in search of pleasure. "Give the girl a club song and look at her go," they sing.
beabadoobee featuring the Marías, 'All I Did Was Dream of You'
The Filipina-British songwriter beabadoobee collaborated with the Marías, a Los Angeles band, on "All I Did Was Dream of You." The Marias, who were nominated as best new artist at this year's Grammy Awards, combine calm momentum and a sonic haze, while beabadoobee contemplates longings and uncertainties. "All I wanted was to see everything you see in me / Everything I wanna be," she sings. Tension arrives in an amplified crescendo as she demands, "Stay or just leave me be," a challenge that lingers.
Yahritza y Su Esencia, 'Oídos Sordos'
The 19-year-old songwriter Yahritza Martínez willfully ignores well-meaning advice and red flags about someone she loves in "Oídos Sordos" ("Deaf Ears"). It's from "Metamorfosis," the official debut album -- after multiple EPs and singles since 2022 -- from Yahritza y Su Esencia, the Mexican-style band she formed with her brothers in Washington state. "I know that loving you will never be a bad idea," she declares with tearful conviction, well aware that she's obsessed.