Review: Ringo Starr maintains optimism on new Nashville single

Ringo Starr featuring Molly Tuttle, “Look Up”

Starr maintains his perpetual optimism in “Look Up,” the title track of his new, Nashville-centered album. Written by T Bone Burnett and Daniel Tashian, the song posits, “There’s a light that shines in the darkest days,” bolstered by richly twangy guitars and an unmistakable Ringo backbeat.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Morgan Wallen, “Smile”

In Wallen’s morosely understated “Smile,” a girlfriend’s brief grin for a cellphone snapshot at a bar only reminds the singer that she hasn’t been smiling at him “in forever.” She’s also barely speaking to him. Backed by steady guitar picking and vocal-harmony oohs, Wallen sings in the fragile high end of his range. Trying to find consolation in “a pretty little moment frozen in time,” but all too aware that it was “just for the picture,” he abandons his usual swagger.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Bad Bunny, “Baile Inolvidable”

Heartache and heritage mingle on Bad Bunny’s new album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”). Like many of its songs, “Baile Inolvidable” (“Unforgettable Dance”) morphs between current and vintage sounds, underscoring the multigenerational continuity of Puerto Rican music. “Baile Inolvidable” begins as a blurred dirge of synthesizer lines and Bad Bunny’s vocals, mourning a lost romance; “I thought we’d grow old together,” he sings in Spanish, and admits, “It’s my fault.” But the track switches to an old-school salsa jam, with organic percussion and horns and a jazzy piano; the lessons of the girlfriend who taught him “how to love” and “how to dance” have stayed with him.

JON PARELES, New York Times

SZA, “What Do I Do”

In “What Do I Do” — from “Lana,” her album-length addition to her album “SOS” — SZA answers her phone to hear an accidentally dialed call and the sounds of her boyfriend with another woman. A lean, finger-snapping track backs her as she grapples with the shock in brief, colliding phrases: old loyalties, new anger, hurt, disgust and the clear realization that “It’ll never be the same again.”

JON PARELES, New York Times

Hamilton Leithauser, “Knockin’ Heart”

Much of the solo work of Leithauser, lead singer of the New York rock band the Walkmen, explores the more stately side of his versatile voice, but “Knockin’ Heart,” a single from the forthcoming album “This Side of the Island,” erupts with spiky desperation. “Oh, there’s no one who’s gonna love you like I do tonight,” he sings, just before the chorus explodes into a riot of distorted guitar and stomping percussion.

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Julia Michaels and Maren Morris, “Scissors”

In this breezy kiss-off, Michaels and Morris announce, “If you wanna cut ties, I’ll get the scissors.” It’s a bossa nova that takes on an R&B rhythm section and cotton-candy vocal harmonies. With different lyrics — and some of the same ones, as the women sing “feels so good” — it could have been a come-on instead of a goodbye.

JON PARELES, New York Times

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