Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lovato’s anguished ‘Anyone’ covers her pain
Pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on notable new songs and videos.
■ Demi Lovato, “Anyone.” Demi Lovato is 27 but has lived much longer. A former Disney star, and the one who consistently had the most conflicted relationship to that enterprise, she emerged in her late teenage years as a pop star with a big voice and unexpected edge. But she also struggled with addiction, and in 2018, she survived an opioid overdose.
“Anyone,” which she premiered at the Grammy Awards on Jan. 26, is her first single since then — a pensive eruption, a harrowing peal. It moves slowly and determinedly, and not totally steadily, which is the point — recovery is not a straight line. The pain here is palpable, and Lovato wields it like a weapon and a shield. She’s a torch singer for our modern era, which asks too much of those too young and doesn’t stop until it breaks them. — JON CARAMANICA
■ Dua Lipa, “Physical”; Little Dragon, “Hold On.” Let’s have some fun: There is hope for upbeat pop in 2020. The first song from a Little Dragon album due March 27 is an electro-soul benediction for an undramatic relationship set to a low simmer. The third track from Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia (out April 3) cleverly threads Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 song “Physical” through Lady Gaga’s album The Fame. It’s not as icon-clad as Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” but it has enough sizzle to winningly live up to the album’s title.
— CARYN GANZ
■ Torres, “Good Scare.” Torres — singer and songwriter Mackenzie Scott — ponders the volatility of romance and the relation between life and art in “Good Scare” from her new album, Silver Tongue. Booming percussion and sustained electric guitar tones give her a spacious backdrop as she observes a partner who’s scaring her by “eyeing all the exits.” Her reaction is to think about writing a country song. This is not one.
— JON PARELES
■ Sturgill Simpson, “A Good Look.” Will people learn line-dance moves from an anime? Sturgill Simpson, the insurgent roots-rocker, thinks they might. The underlying structure of “A Good Look” is funky blues-rock, but its sliding synthesizers and nonstop bassline make it feel machine-driven. And while Simpson is singing about all the things that compromise heartfelt songwriting — image, commerce, “you know they don’t like it when you take a stand” — the video clip is all artificial glee. Enjoy the paradox.
— JON PARELES
■ Meek Mill featuring Roddy Ricch, “Letter to Nipsey.” An earthy, uplifting tribute to Nipsey Hussle from Meek Mill with Roddy Ricch, one of Nipsey’s proteges. (They premiered it at the Grammys on Jan. 26.) Meek is in reflective storytelling mode, with scars still fresh: “When we lost you it really put some pain on me/Got me scared to go outside without that flame on me.” And Roddy sings his way through the pain. Even his melancholy is sweet, a balm for a feeling that’s never anything other than terrible.
— JON CARAMANICA
■ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (featuring Wayne Shorter), “Contemplation.” If Wayne Shorter is something like jazz’s Pablo Picasso — a master composer of the modern era who never abandoned tonality and form but was constantly finding new ways to turn them upside down — then the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra works as a gilded frame to display his masterpieces. Members of the 15-piece big band, led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, wrote arrangements of compositions from throughout Shorter’s career, and the orchestra performed them with him at Rose Hall in 2015. A glorious moment came on “Contemplation,” one of Shorter’s early works, first recorded with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in 1961. Playing it with the orchestra, he takes the tune’s only solo, subtly harking to the hollering style of the early R&B saxophonists he grew up hearing. But his blues phrasing often veers toward abstraction, his notes smearing and disappearing without an alibi — like a nose on a canvas shrewdly misplaced. — GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO