Dear listeners,
This is Joe Coscarelli, a music reporter at The New York Times and Lindsay’s colleague on the Culture desk, filling in for this Amplifier. Luckily, I’ve had playlists on my mind recently, because I had the pleasure of hosting a workshop called “How to Make the Perfect Playlist” at The Times’s annual Take Our Kids to Work Day celebration last week.
As a group, we talked about the importance of mood, flow, genre and discovery when it comes to making a good mix, but I (mostly!) followed the kids’ lead when it came to actually choosing what was on our perfect, themed playlists. (You can check out the results of our two sessions here and here; they’re pleasantly deranged.) The truth is, despite having spent a decade in this music-intensive job and the previous decade as an obsessive fan and collector, I’m not super into making a bunch of playlists to suit my every vibe or situational need.
Instead, I tend to just keep a quarterly depository of all the songs I find myself returning to throughout a given season, so I can easily time-travel back to any chunk of my recent life and have the relevant and transporting — if disjointed — soundtrack all in one place.
Now that the weather is finally turning for good in New York (… right?), I have a new one going for spring that trends loosely toward a spirit of renewal and release. Here are some new songs that are original, addictive and hopeful enough to fit.
Listen along while you read.
1. Bon Iver: “From”
The shockingly sensual and optimistic new Bon Iver album, “Sable, Fable,” is a pointed rejection of the band’s sad-sack reputation, along with whatever had been going on in the life of the singer-songwriter Justin Vernon that made it so. For me, the album peaks in the middle with the back-to-back “I swear I’m smitten” tracks “Day One,” which features vocals from Dijon, and “From,” which has guitar by Mike Gordon, a.k.a. Mk.gee, two close collaborators themselves who have toured with Bon Iver. All three artists are invested in reclaiming — and subverting — the idea of “easy listening.” Unashamed of its throwback corniness, the bridge of “From” gets me every time.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Turnstile: “Never Enough”
The ambitious post-post-hardcore band Turnstile, from Baltimore, is playing with vintage-sounding electronics on the intro to the title track from its forthcoming album. It’s hard to situate in time, which for a band that seems to take increasing pleasure in being hard to classify by genre, feels like a logical next step.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. BigXthaPlug featuring Bailey Zimmerman: “All the Way”
Having quietly become one of the most dependable and fundamentally sound rappers of the moment, BigXthaPlug is blowing up and crossing over with — what else, in 2025? — a country collaboration. “All the Way,” with Bailey Zimmerman, might scan as cynical if BigX’s regimented flow and commanding baritone — especially when contrasted with Zimmerman’s plaintive yearn — didn’t fit so perfectly in this kind of vehicle.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Sleep Token: “Caramel”
Another genre clash that provided me a genuine jolt when I learned that somehow this is what a Top 40 song on the Billboard Hot 100 sounded like. Sleep Token, I soon learned, is a British experimental metal band that functions anonymously, in elaborate masks and with pseudonyms, à la Slipknot. “Caramel” is the group’s fourth-wall-breaking new single about what it’s like to be tugged from the shadows by growing popularity and obsessive fans (“This stage is a prison”). But even without the lore, the shift from SoundCloud sing-rapping over a pseudo-reggaeton beat to a punishing breakdown is among the wildest dynamics I’ve heard in a song so far this year.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Cortisa Star: “Paris”
The young rap experimentalist Cortisa Star went viral late last year for just how jarring the look and sound of her From the Block freestyle video for “Fun” was — “It’s time for me to stand up and admit … maybe I looked a little crazy here,” she posted on X last week. But the shock value of out-of-context clips on social media both highlighted and obscured the vision. In context, Star is carrying the torch for the hip-hop slice of hyperpop, and the flexing on “Paris,” about a trip to fashion week to make her runway debut for Miu Miu, is an appropriately high-low collision that celebrates how good it feels to rise from the internet muck. “Face card don’t decline / I ain’t playing, even Prada want me,” she raps.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Lil Yachty & Veeze: “Can’t Be Crete Boy”
The mumbliest of the mumble rap all-stars, having stuck around long enough to outlast the sting of the pejorative, take on a 2000s mixtape classic in the form of the beat for “I’m Ready” by Cam’ron’s the Diplomats. Then, the beat switches, but the disrespectful boasts keep coming rapid fire, making repeat listens necessary to catch the nuance in both the flows and the lyrics.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“6 (Genre-Smashing) New Songs You Should Hear Now” track list
Track 1: Bon Iver, “From”
Track 2: Turnstile, “Never Enough”
Track 3: BigXthaPlug featuring Bailey Zimmerman, “All the Way”
Track 4: Sleep Token, “Caramel”
Track 5: Cortisa Star, “Paris”
Track 6: Lil Yachty & Veeze, “Can’t Be Crete Boy”
