The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Did Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert really ever have beef with each other, or is it a story that they played up to make their reconciliation into more of an event? I don't know! Is the writing on "Hoses And Divorces" slightly corny and cutesy and self-impressed? Probably! But the total package absolutely works. Some of it is the classic honky-tonk arrangement, with its waltz time, lonely pedal-steel call-and-response moments, and trilling mariachi accordions. Part of it is the way these two voices — one low and plummy, one high and twangy — rub up against each other. And some of it is the sheer double-shot pop-star charisma that the song exists to communicate. It's fun to hear these two hardened industry professionals turn the charm on, making their truce summit sound like a warm, casual hang. —Tom

I do not speak French. I studied the language in high school, but my brain has refused to retain 99% of it except that one powerful word: la liberté. It makes for a great subject to scream about, which Prisonnier Du Temps do on their sick-as-hell single “La Liberté S'Obtient Par Le Sang.” It’s punchy and aggressive, with wooly vocals, cursive guitars, and stabbing drum kicks. Every hit lands like a boot through a locked door. The title, which is repeated vigorously throughout, translates to “Freedom is obtained through blood.” Prisonnier Du Temps turn righteous fury into a serrated anthem for anyone who stays updated with the news, their nails digging into their skin with every new headline. —Margaret

RIP Magic's last single "5words" was the first song produced by James Murphy for another artist in over a decade. It lived up to the hype, but to these ears, this next one from the London combo is even better. With its breakbeats, samples, DJ scratches, bass played so nastily that it sounds like a guitar, and lyrics that segue from mumbled melodies to slacker-rap amidst the clatter, "Screwdark" is a throwback to Odelay-era Beck. Yet the track is somehow dreamier and harder-hitting than the comparison implies, and the delivery of the phrase "You're keepin' me up all night" suggests the RIP Magic party is just getting started. —Chris

Swimmy guitars, a gently sputtering beat, and dreamy vocals: These ingredients will lead any song to success. Kelela's "linknb" concludes before the two-minute mark, but the atmosphere is so immersively lush that it's hard to realize how quickly it goes by. There's a lot to love about the exquisite tune, but her breathy, shimmering vocals are the centerpiece, especially when she wonders profoundly, "Where, where do I go?" Encased in such a gorgeous song, the question holds a new weight, like it's never been asked before now. —Danielle

Swirling strings. Thundering drums. A growling, heaving, noisily trumphal electric guitar solo. Somewhere in there, a harpsichord. Maybe it didn't happen all at once. Maybe it's just a few musicians in the studio, layering one set of instruments over another. But I prefer to imagine that Father John Misty's "The Payoff" was recorded live, that a small army of formally dressed orchestral musicians and scraggly, bleary rockers assembled in the same studio, working together to build Josh Tillman's six-minute wall-of-sound sprawl-out — that Tillman needed all of them to be there in person so that his six-minute meditation on transactional power and oily persuasion would be afforded the vast cinematic gravitas that they deserve. Even with all those crescendos going to work, his poetry's uncomfortable. I blame the news. —Tom