Thread by @NYTmag

25 songs that matter now.
Our annual Music Issue is here: nyti.ms/2xxFEsu

The songs that follow range from the mindbogglingly popular to the fairly obscure nyti.ms/2xxFEsu

But almost all these 25 songs have something common: the willingness to simply be what they are, and to let things fall where they may nyti.ms/2xxFEsu

.@billieeilish has resuscitated the macabre and the melancholy, mostly absent from the charts since the ’90s: nyti.ms/2TMjE5U

#HotGirlSummer started out as a tweet that morphed into a meme that became a chart-topping track that catapulted Megan @theestallion into a national spotlight nyti.ms/38LWUXU

“Old Town Road” by @LilNasX — is there any getting over this song? Isn’t there some new town road we should be strolling down? Here we are, still stretching this thing to infinity, @Wesley_Morris writes nyti.ms/2w2VKt

It’s rare for a musician to shock anymore. Mikaela Straus — @KingPrincess69 — says [expletive] that nyti.ms/2W6Riod

On “Earf­quake,” @tylerthecreator ditches the safety of youthful disaffection to seek love and some version of earnestness — but, surprise, it hurts nyti.ms/3cUFrQn

.@Harry_Styles managed to repurpose the past to become a new kind of star. “Adore You” lets him show off the full, androgynous range of his voice nyti.ms/2TYy8hQ

The movie version of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” happily spays and neuters everything that made the musical work, @jamiekeiles writes nyti.ms/2IIzbwZ

On “Goat Head,” Brittany Howard guides her love-soaked voice through the varying registers of the blues — and a grim bit of family history nyti.ms/2w0rsYy

Romeo Santos, the bachata superstar from the Bronx, is an old school balladeer, whose old-fashioned passions are displayed to great effect on “El Beso Que No Le Di” nyti.ms/2vPnMc9

In “The Man,” Taylor Swift channels her sly braggadocio into a broader protest against the sexism and skepticism that all women face nyti.ms/38MbcYy

“Dangote” by Burna Boy (arguably the biggest star in Afrobeats) is a dispatch from a pitiless world in which the refrain — a billionaire’s surname — is both a striver’s mantra and a yelp of despair nyti.ms/2wQiqgK

The opening riff of “953” is a brazen statement of purpose for black midi’s 2019 debut album, “Schlagenheim” nyti.ms/38Mr7WA

Denzel Curry is one of the inventors of woozy-sounding SoundCloud rap, but “Ricky” is a brisk, unfussy, and powerfully thrilling nyti.ms/2IDkQCb

Normani’s “Motivation” is a sunny early-aughts reverie, breaking through the haze of contemporary pop radio nyti.ms/3aMDDH6

Lana Del Rey’s “Doin’ Time” was a breezy seasonal anthem. It’s also a portrait of male discontent, an incel revenge ballad — on a level only Del Rey could get away with nyti.ms/2IMpZYp

With Red Hearse, the star producer @jackantonoff is only making music with friends — just like he does with stars like Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift and St. Vincent nyti.ms/2W8xjpe

Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” is a deeply cute bop, but also a taunt, glowing with the fury of the big black women in pop’s past — shining where figures like Martha Wash never got to nyti.ms/2TZmH9z

Richard Dawson’s songs are full of visceral, emotional gut punches. With “Jogging” he pulls off a fascinating one — and writes about the present day like few others can nyti.ms/2w0zErM

Kanye West is part of a long line of secular artists to take up the gospel. On “Follow God,” he’s by turns a proselytizer and a penitent nyti.ms/3aMFEmH

“I’m familiar with a certain type of hierarchy of cool. I know it. The artistic part of me just doesn’t buy it anymore” — Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig (@arzE) talks about the influence of jam bands on “Harmony Hall” nyti.ms/33ejyqH

“stupid horse,” from the manic duo 100 gecs, is pop intensified, a 220-volt current coursing through our 110-volt brains nyti.ms/2vS4Byt

With its slow guitar lick and slurry production, Summer Walker’s “Playing Games” is a late-night outpouring of bottled-up grievances nyti.ms/2Q61RnO

On “Redesigning Women,” the debut single from the Highwomen, you hear four women’s voices. Amanda Shires decided to assemble an all-female country supergroup when her daughter told her she wanted to be a musician nyti.ms/2IHS6YQ

If you need to move, to sweat, to swing into a dark place filled with other people and let out a wail, but have no time to sneak off to a club or a bar — listen to “10%” by Kay­tranada nyti.ms/2THHsrk

“The Center Won’t Hold” is the perfect encapsulation of Sleater-Kinney at its best — and an act of creative destruction that cost them a member nyti.ms/2QbMaeR