Business Wire
Songs from Ariana Grande, Adele, Pentatonix and Lady Gaga are among the 25 tunes that the New York Times says “tell us where music is going.”
Adele’s “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)” is #1 on the list. According to the Times, Adele’s an example of a white artist making “black music.” And according to the Times, “It has become obligatory for white artists who do this to pay a public contrition tax to their black peers.” That’s what Adele did by acknowledging Beyonce at the Grammys after she won Album of the Year.
“That’s the future of music,” writes the Times. “Recognizing that you’re permanently indentured to the past.”
Ariana Grande’s hit “Side to Side” — which is about sex — makes the list because, according to the New York Times, “we’re in a golden age for…media made by women, aimed at women, in which sex is explicit, messy and most important, funny.”
“Jolene,” the duet between Pentatonix and Dolly Parton, is on the list because it was recorded as part of a partnership with Cracker Barrel. The Times notes the irony of the restaurant chain — which has a history of discrimination — teaming with a group that includes a Latina, a black Seventh-day Adventist, a Jew and an openly gay man. Asks the Times, “Could it be that five choir nerds hold the secret to bridging a divided nation?”
Gaga’s “Grigio Girls,” a bonus track on Joanne, is included because, the Times says, it reassures fans who worried Gaga was abandoning her dance-pop roots. It is “an ode to friendship” that “celebrates sisterhood,” and proves that “Gaga is still fundamentally Gaga.”
The list also includes Migos‘ “Bad and Boujee,” “That Girl” by Kungs vs. Cookin’ on Three Burners and tracks by Kanye West, Lil Yachty, Solange and Future.
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