Billie Eilish attracts a connection between the general public’s consumption of pop stars and plastic dolls on “What Was I Made For?,” a sparse, forlorn piano ballad from the “Barbie” soundtrack: “Regarded so alive, seems I’m not actual,” she sings in a quivering whisper. “Simply one thing you paid for.” The track hews nearer to the extra conventional, crooner-inspired fare on Eilish’s album “Happier Than Ever” than to the remainder of “Barbie the Album,” which options upbeat tunes from Dua Lipa and Charli XCX. Nonetheless, Eilish is aware of find out how to tease out the pathos and a delicate sense of macabre from a selected sort of female malaise. “I’m used to drift, now I simply fall down,” she sings, making life in plastic sound lower than unbelievable. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Margaret Glaspy sings as if each phrase is a wrestle in “Reminiscences,” a track of sheer grief and loss: “I’m lonesome with out you/however I’m a wreck occupied with you.” Her voice arrives behind the beat after which leaps onto the observe; the vocal quivers, cracks and typically breaks, conjuring feelings which might be nonetheless uncooked. JON PARELES

Jamila Woods that includes duendita, ‘Tiny Backyard’

Jamila Woods sings about incremental, extraordinary however real emotions of affection in “Tiny Backyard”: “It’s not gonna be an enormous manufacturing/It’s not butterflies and fireworks,” she sings. “It’s gonna be a tiny backyard/However I feed it each day.” As she describes an actual however undemonstrative connection and the testing section of a romance — “You need to make sure that I would like you/Not simply somebody enjoyable to do” — the observe pulses with keyboard chords and rises with gospelly backup vocals, promising that there’s a real non secular hyperlink. The artist duendita joins her close to the tip, greater than keen to “watch all the aim we place multiply slowly over time.” PARELES

Troye Sivan, ‘Rush’

Troye Sivan — the Australian pop musician, ex-YouTuber and uncommon musician who really proved to be a watchable display presence on “The Idol” (ahem!) — returns triumphantly with “Rush,” a sweaty, kinetic, gloriously hedonistic summer time dance-floor anthem with a frivolously NSFW video to match. Sivan’s breathy vocals dance atop an insistent beat and house-inspired piano riff, whereas a refrain of deep male voices chant the track’s infectious hook: “I really feel the frenzy, hooked on your contact.” Finally, Xander is free! ZOLADZ

Born in India, Sid Sriham grew up in California, learning Carnatic (South Indian) music together with his mother and father whereas absorbing American R&B and jazz. He constructed a profession in India, singing Bollywood hits together with Carnatic ragas. For his American debut album, “Sidharth,” due Aug. 25, Sriham veered towards the experimental, working with the producer Ryan Olson (from Poliça) and musicians together with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). “The Laborious Approach” is a lovelorn ballad — “I might do something, something, something to make you smile,” he insists — that’s chopped up and positioned inside a jittery digital exoskeleton: racing double-time beats, pitch-shifted vocals, bursts of multitracked concord. It’s daring; he may simply have chosen a extra business, much less thorny method. PARELES

Yard Act, ‘The Trench Coat Museum’

It’s a legislation of nature that there’s by no means an excessive amount of cowbell. Yard Act, the post-punk band that would virtually be LCD Soundsystem with a British accent and a social-media replace, has re-emerged after its debut album. Meaning post-punk nostalgia folded in on itself like origami. “The Trench Coat Museum” imagines that there may be such an establishment — celebrating a garment that’s assertive, concealing, protecting, too lengthy and too evocative — in a spoke-sung eight-minute observe that simply provides option to its early Eighties groove: beat, bass riff, turntable scratching, clawing rhythm guitar, synthesizers and Latin percussion that undoubtedly consists of cowbell. The open secret of post-punk is that regardless of how cynical the vocal will get, the track is at all times in regards to the groove. PARELES

C. Tangana, ‘Oliveira Dos Cen Anos’

C. Tangana, the Spanish songwriter who began as a rapper and has delved ever deeper into the musical previous, stays out of the foreground of his newest challenge, a hundredth-anniversary track for a soccer workforce from Galicia, Actual Membership Celta de Vigo; his father is from the city of Vigo. “Oliveira Dos Cen Anos” (“Hundred-Yr-Previous Olive Tree”) is rooted in Galician folks custom however underpinned by electronics. C. Tangana is without doubt one of the songwriters and co-producers and the director of a sweeping, scenic video; Galician musicians sing lead vocals. An ardent choral anthem, with folk-song lyrics vowing love and loyalty, provides option to a traditionalist six-beat stomp, with a fierce cameo from the drumming, singing ladies of As Lagharteiras, together with a glimmering harp interlude and a stadium-sized singalong. “I’ll at all times be right here,” males shout. “Celta without end! PARELES

“Not all the things is kind of audible,” the rapper and singer RiTchie calmly observes in “Déjà Vu.” The producer Loraine James constructed a perpetually disorienting mixture of jolting digital glitches, soothing piano and furtive snippets of percussion and synthesizer. RiTchie, from the group Damage Reserve, layers on a number of vocals, sung and spoken, and sounds utterly unfazed by his environment: “You simply gotta soak all of it in,” he advises. PARELES

Oxlade that includes Dave, ‘Intoxycated’

Oxlade, a singer and songwriter from Nigeria, and Dave, a rapper from England with Nigerian roots, commiserate about straying lovers and social media in “Intoxycated.” Oxlade decides “love is overrated” after seeing his girlfriend with one other man on Instagram; Dave displays, “Love’s simple to seek out, more durable to carry/Most tales finish and begin with a cellphone.” A minor-key Afrobeats groove with little guitar curlicues sums up the temper: modern and resigned. PARELES

Jlin, ‘Fourth Perspective’

The composer and producer Jlin — Jerrilynn Patton — constructed head-spinning digital music out of percussive sounds, so it made good sense for her to write down music for reside acoustic efficiency by the ensemble Third Coast Percussion, which appeared on the group’s 2022 album, “Views.” Now, Jlin has reworked these compositions for her personal mini-album “Perspective,” due in September. Her new model of “Fourth Perspective” brings again digital sounds, transferring a ghostly, plinking, minimalistic waltz towards the ratchety, foreboding terrain of entice. PARELES

MaJa — the Dominican songwriter Maria-José Gonell — sings about contentedly being a fish out of water in “A Vivir en Desacuerdo” (“To Dwell in Disagreement”). Her ethereal voice makes her appear tentative at first, however the manufacturing — by her songwriting collaborator Gian Rojas — radiates rising confidence, as a beat slips in and electronics sparkle ever extra brightly. She’s not diffident; she’s above all of it. PARELES