Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.
Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone, ‘Fortnight’
“I love you, it’s ruining my life,” Taylor Swift and a subdued Post Malone sing to each other, full of breathy regret, in “Fortnight,” the song that opens Swift’s new double album, “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.” They’re both obsessing over a brief but unforgettable affair, even though both of the song’s narrators are now married — and, to make things worse, neighbors. “Your wife waters flowers, I wanna kill her,” Swift notes. The music is a measured march with vocal harmonies wafting through electronic spaces where the recriminations can smolder.
Cigarettes After Sex, ‘Dark Vacay’
Greg Gonzalez, the songwriter behind Cigarettes After Sex, sets decadent, morbid, sex-and-drugs scenarios to plush, slow-motion retro-rock that David Lynch might appreciate. In “Dark Vacay” he’s taking pills, “sipping Château Lafite Rothschild” and listening “to the last message that you left/Then the voice from the suicide hotline.” He’s calm, even a little self-satisfied, as he invites someone to “Feel it all around you/Crash and fall.”
Arooj Aftab, ‘Raat Ki Rani’
