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4. Doja Cat: “Paint the Town Red”
Doja Cat said what she said. And I’m all ears. This 2023 track from her fourth studio album, “Scarlet,” was her first No. 1 solo smash, and it’s easy to see why: the laid-back bravado, the sharp-edged verses, the ultracool delivery and the killer sample at its center, from Dionne Warwick’s ethereal 1963 hit “Walk on By.” Upon the song’s release, Lindsay Zoladz, who normally writes this column, said it best: “It’s the perfect soundtrack for striding off into the sunset, leaving doubters in the dust.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Jessie Ware: “Begin Again”
Front to back, Jessie Ware’s 2023 album “That! Feels Good!” breathed new life into me. And this track in particular, with its big, brassy horns and disco-meets-dreamy-darkness atmosphere, has brought me to tears in a good way. It’s also the “touch grass” dance anthem, as far as I’m concerned: “Why does all the purest love get filtered through machines?” Ware asks. “Gimme something good that’s even better than it seems.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Sofi Tukker: “Jacaré”
While the horns are horning, this sexy track from the electro-pop duo Sofi Tukker — Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern — pulsates with humidity, transporting me to a faraway beach. Much of Sofi Tukker’s music draws on global dance sounds anchored in the pair’s love of Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language. The word jacaré means alligator in Portuguese but, as the duo told the music website Northern Transmissions in 2023, it’s also used as a derogatory word for women who are attracted to women. “We wanted to take the word and flip it into something positive and joyful rather than a term used as an insult or threat,” the duo said. A perfect pick for Pride Month.
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7. Wet Leg: “Catch These Fists”
This British indie-rock group skyrocketed to fame in 2021 off the success of its bawdy single “Chaise Longue,” which is delivered with scary-cool deadpan confidence. This new track off the band’s soon-to-be-released second album, “Moisturizer,” captures that mood with “bristling bass and guitar riffs and a beat that stomps its way into the chorus,” as our chief pop music critic Jon Pareles put it. Its combative twist gives me that adrenaline I.V. I need to push up a hill or keep my energy up for a late-night bonfire. “You should be careful, do you catch my drift?” the lead singer Rhian Teasdale taunts. “’Cause what I really wanna know is can you catch these fists?”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Lady Gaga: “Shadow of a Man”
While the consensus seems to be that “Abracadabra” is the crown jewel on Lady Gaga’s latest album, “Mayhem” (I’m not disagreeing!), it’s this swagger-drenched electro-pop bop that I haven’t been able to shake for even a minute. With its Michael Jackson-esque drip, sonic energy and feverish peaks, I almost spun into the fire pit dancing to it under the last full moon — so beware the “little monster” in you and I’ll do the same.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Billie Eilish: “Lost Cause”
No song could have saved me from the toxic relationships of my youth like this might have. Oh well! I can live vicariously now. From Billie Eilish’s second album, “Happier Than Ever,” this song about finally seeing an ex as the flop they’ve always been is breezy yet smoldering, jazzy yet modern and, best of all, studded with savage digs like, “Thought you would’ve grown eventually, but you proved me wrong.” Play it as soon as the sun has fully dipped and the darkness is expanding to cultivate a sultry and cheeky vibe.
