The Playlist: Prince’s Own ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ and 12 More New Songs

Prince’s estate has released his original 1984 studio recording of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” the song that became an international hit for Sinead O’Connor in 1990. Prince recorded every part except some backing vocals (by Paul Peterson and Susannah Melvoin) and a saxophone solo (by Eric Leeds), and it’s a mystery why he didn’t release it initially himself. It’s already a crescendo of heartache underscored by everyday details, a finished song. (O’Connor’s version hollowed out the arrangement, amplifying the loneliness, and added a crucial touch — an upward leap when she sings “Nothing.”) The video clip uses rehearsal footage of Prince dancing with his bands: strutting, kicking, spinning, doing splits, all in his high-heeled boots. While the images distract from the song, they’re a reminder of his physical presence — joyful and, yes, incomparable.

— JON PARELES

It’s been just under a year since a suicide bomber killed 22 people leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England; the victims ranged in age from 8 to 51. From the title, Grande’s first new song since the attack — “No Tears Left to Cry” — would seem to be a ballad about emotional exhaustion and the long toll of trauma. It is … not that. Instead, Grande delivers neutered British-influenced dance-pop with an occasional sprinkled lyric — “We way too fly to partake in all this hate/ We out here vibing” — that scans more as discourtesy than tribute.

— JON CARAMANICA

This song — a discard from the “Red” sessions, written by Taylor Swift and Train’s Pat Monahan — unsurprisingly sounds like Sugarland covering “Red"-era Taylor Swift. Jennifer Nettles has been such a signature country vocalist because of her gift for tightly controlled howling, but here she sounds constricted, hemmed into another vocalist’s box. And Sugarland’s rootsy jubilation is replaced with anodyne arena folk rock.

— JON CARAMANICA

As Anteloper, the drummer Jason Nazary and trumpeter Jaimie Branch steer their acoustic instruments through an atmosphere of electric whorls and beats and grounding tones. There’s nothing distant or bashful about those digital sounds, but it’s the analog playing that provides clarity and direction (even as Branch maintains her aversion to smooth, linear phrasing). “Oryx,” the opening track from Anteloper’s debut album, “Kudu,” begins with a gargle of static and high tones; Nazary starts an irregular pattern on the snare drum and high-hat, and Branch’s trumpet comes swirling in close behind. Eventually she starts on a wagging, anticipation-building melody, almost songlike. Just as things are about to dissolve into a haze again, a Moog arrives with a synth-pop hook, inviting a pithy, soulful trumpet statement on the way out — bolstered, of course, by an octave pedal and a fleet of acid effects.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Optimism radiates from “Queendom,” a dance-floor declaration of female empowerment from Norwegian songwriter Aurora. The beat is a solid but unobtrusive four-on-the-floor; above it are pulsing, bustling, fluttering electronics and airy voices in a production that rebuilds itself differently with every verse, never settling for repetition. “You have a home in my queendom,” Aurora promises.

— JON PARELES

“Lovely” is the song of someone inextricably attached or trapped: “I hope someday I’ll make it out of here,” Billie Eilish sings with Khalid — not in dialogue or counterpoint, but in unison, as if they’re each others’ partner and burden. “Wanna feel alive outside/ I can fight my fear.” The backdrop is piano and strings lingering on two chords; the melancholy never lifts, and at the end Khalid and Eilish share a chilling greeting: “Hello-welcome home.”

How would you like your reggaeton-pop crossover?

a) At the mercy of a former mid-tier British boy bander who greasily sings, “Your hips roll, you do the calypso”

b) Delivered in English as part of a cravenly calculated collaboration with an electronic music producer and a pair of endlessly flexible rappers

c) With a resurfacing post-disco diva making a digital Gipsy Kings update

This may well become the year of true mix-and-match Latin-influenced pop, with lesser artists looking to appear progressive in the post-"Despacito” haze. So far, few of these efforts have truly worked (and Pitbull was doing this years ago, to little recognition or respect). Of this latest crop, the correct choice, in so much as there may be one, is b. But maybe it’s really

d) Let’s call the whole thing off.

— JON CARAMANICA

Belated recriminations seethe and erupt in “Everybody Knows,” which was an early single from “Primal Heart,” the album released Friday by the songwriter Kimbra, from New Zealand. “I ain’t gonna try to forget what I’ve gone through,” she sings, and adds, “I was young and gullible but baby I grew/ And now the whole world’s watching you.” The track begins with tentative plinking, but gathers impact as the accusations emerge.

— JON PARELES

Tank and the Bangas only grumble a little bit — “Whatcha trying to ruin everything?” — as a relationship devolves into an occasional booty call. After all, the 1970s-tinged groove still cruises along, with little flurries of jazzy keyboard, spoken-word bits that turn into babble and what turns out to be a very minor request: “Just be honest.”

— JON PARELES

Grant Green’s guitar style is one of jazz’s simple pleasures: stout and crisp; articulated in strong, single-note lines or little spinning helixes of harmony. In his own unflashy way, Green by the end of the 1960s was doing a lot to explode the divisions that the recording industry had helped to establish in the landscape of black music. The albums he made for Blue Note covered hard-bop and bossa nova, molasses-dripping blues and earnest funk. On “Funk in France: From Paris to Antibes (1969-1970),” a new archival release out Saturday, Green covers James Brown’s “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door, I’ll Get It Myself),” managing to sound down-home, au courant and prescient all at once. Listen to his darkly seductive riffs here — caustic minor phrases over Larry Ridley’s single, repeated bass note — and you can easily hear the seeds being planted for Jeff Parker’s brand of beat-driven contemporary jazz.

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

The Los Angeles-based producer Ras G makes futurism feel like comfort, especially on his new album, “Stargate Music.” The tracks here seem like they might’ve been built in a lab full of microscopes and mirrors: He zeros in on small elements, giving them a sharp clarity even in the darkest environment; beats and little patterns ricochet and build on each other, like a mosaic of reflections. An avowed Afrofuturist, Ras G is making music for your soul and imagination, inviting a combination of close inspection and expansive thinking. (On “The Arrival,” is that an Alice Coltrane sample? Maybe it doesn’t matter.)

— GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO