Halftime postgame!
+ new playlists and albums to stay sane in 2026
What a week for Bad Bunny, who became the story of the Grammys without even performing — by having the first Spanish-language release to win album of the year, generating a new hall-of-fame reaction meme, and claiming the biggest applause line of the night with two words: “ICE out.”
He followed that up with a festive, joyous halftime show full of sounds, symbols, and slogans built to last. Here’s a roundup of reactions…
The NYT’s Jon Caramanica expertly deconstructed the “history lesson” within the set: “It started in the sugar cane fields — once Puerto Rico’s cash crop, and a source of rampant labor exploitation. Bad Bunny began his show with the frisky “Tití Me Preguntó” from 2022, walking amid laborers in pavas chopping at stalks and tall plants forming something of a labyrinth. The first two minutes took place largely within that maze, an almost-protected space that projected safety and ease, before he emerged on the roof of La Casita, the replica of a traditional Puerto Rican home that served as the centerpiece of his set.”
For the LA Times, Tatiana Tenreyro “decoded” the performance from a Puerto Rican POV: “During the staged wedding sequence, I saw myself in the tired child napping over two chairs, waiting for the adults to wind down the party so I could go home to my own bed.”
NPR Music’s Anamaria Artemisa Sayre dove deep into the show, including its surprise cameos: “It may have felt easy to chalk up her inclusion as a way to pander to non-Spanish audiences, but Lady Gaga, as the wedding singer, fit too. The inclusion of her track ‘Die With a Smile’ felt almost Latin, yes for the salsa arrangement, but more because its refrain — "If the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you" — resonated perfectly with an underlying sentiment you’ll find at any wedding in Latin America: Hay que vivir. You have to live.”
Pitchfork’s E.R. Pulgar highlighted a local legend in NYC: “Latinxs who have found refuge in Williamsburg social club Toñitas will have been moved to see the legendary Nuyorican stronghold’s namesake matriarch where she is usually found: behind a bar, with a kind word to give, squeezing liquid courage into Benito’s hand.”
Former WaPo music critic Chris Richards challenged the “language barrier” in the first issue of his newsletter — subscribe here! — launched because Jeff Bezos laid him off after 16 years with the paper: “Of course Bad Bunny’s lyrics are rife with meaning and intention, but if those meanings aren’t instantly available to my English-speaking mind, is his music rendered meaningless? It sure wasn’t on Sunday night. As a sound, his voice was plain enough to feel personal, deep enough to feel steadying, rich enough to feel intimate, alert enough to make everyone listening feel like we might be having a new kind of fun together.”
The Cut’s Andrea González-Ramírez covered the politics of the performance: “In the end, Bad Bunny raised a football that read ‘Together, we are America.’ It served a dual-purpose: as a reclamation of the name to mean the American continent rather than just the US and a reminder that, no matter what this administration may say, we all belong in this country.”
Plus: WIRED has a cool behind-the-scenes look at the production that explains why all those people dressed up like plants // WBEZ covered the inclusion of Chicago conductor Giancarlo Guerrero
Beyond Benito, I could do a whole newsletter on the Grammys and how today’s pop stars are approaching this fraught political moment. (One impactful approach: Bon Iver released a pay-what-you-want live version of “Naeem” with all proceeds going to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.)
Still, for my sanity and yours I’m trying to find joy in broader music discovery — so as always, here are some new playlists, albums, and artists to check out!
🎧 Keeping up with new music in 2026
Robyn. Harry Styles. Noah Kahan. Bruno Mars!
Big names are kicking off the year with new music — not to mention the endless stream from indie bands and rising artists. It’s impossible to truly keep up, but here are a few highlights worth checking out, all captured in the rolling Hear Hear playlist…
Mitski // Snail Mail // Courtney Barnett: Three idiosyncratic indie stars with distinct voices all returned with striking new songs from highly anticipated albums. Mitski’s “Where’s My Phone?” “erupts into a cathartic, fuzzed-out guitar solo” // Snail Mail’s “Dead End” “gives off mid-’90s alt-rock vibes” // and Barnett’s “Site Unseen” features another singular vocalist, Waxahatchee.
Ratboys’ new album was stamped with Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music: “Bringing their country-tinted indie rock to boundless new landscapes, the Chicago band returns with their most emotionally affecting and compositionally advanced songs to date.”
Lala Lala’s brand of powerful indie pop is sharper than ever on a new batch of songs from an upcoming album co-produced by Jay Som.
Christine & The Queens dropped a collab featuring a fellow French artist, “longtime friend and collaborator Thee Diane…a classically trained musician who combines afrobeats and alt-pop.”
Ari Lennox, “one of contemporary R&B’s premier sophisticates,” writes Shaad D’Souza for The Guardian, has a vibey new album “preferring a palette of lush jazz, soul and 90s hip-hop over the more genre-fluid sound pushed by contemporaries SZA and Kehlani.”
The Format’s comeback continues: I covered the return of one of my favorite bands back in the fall, with Nate Ruess emerging from a hiatus after the “We Are Young”-fueled success of his other project, fun. I’m thrilled to report that the first proper Format album since 2006’s Dog Problems more than delivers. The band also released a b-side protest track, “The Bar Is Set So Low,” with all proceeds going to immigrant rights organizations.
More returning artists to note: Ambitious chamber-rock from Chicago band Friko, Icelandic singer-songwriter Ásgeir, indie rock stalwarts The New Pornographers, retro power-popper GUV (fka Young Guv)
And back, briefly, to Harry Styles. Based on resale prices for his 30-night residency at MSG, he certainly doesn’t need any more coverage — but his new music video is a genuine treat.
🥶 Playlists for this chilly winter
Winter Mix No. 08 from graphic designer Laura Filas melds “the elegance of ‘60s soul, the sound of freezing rain on a window pane, country-tinged power pop, Brazilian pop, pedal steel, snowflakes glittering in headlights, Laurel Canyon stuck somewhere else in time” // ft. Mapache’s Sam Blasucci, Sharp Pins, Silver Synthetic, This Is Lorelei, Whitney, The Replacements, Rose City Band, Kate Bollinger
WINTER A-GO-GO from Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua has “a little under 3 hours of snow day indie from the 21st century — a relaxed wintry mood.” // ft. Mazzy Star, The Walkmen, Real Estate, Beach House, Vampire Weekend, Feist, Cat Power
Jan 2026 from culture critic Cat Zhang anchors a casual email blast covering what she’s been into lately, including a few emerging artists: “British jazz vocalist/producer/percussionist Momoko Gill, who’s releasing her debut album next month; Dove Ellis, a 22-year-old from Galway who opened for Geese; and Not for Radio, Maria Zardoya of The Marias’ solo project.”
📺 Late night corner: Geese, A$AP, Silvana Estrada
Geese “brought its off-kilter aesthetic to network TV, with performances that were both confounding and audacious,” writes Lindsay Zoladz about the band’s divisive offering on SNL.
A week earlier, A$AP Rocky brought out bassist Thundercat and composer Danny Elfman to drum for his SNL stint, pairing with a Tim Burton-designed album cover to successfully pique my interest for his exciting record Don’t Be Dumb. “PUNK ROCKY” is a highlight, with a Mac DeMarco sound — apparently stemming from genuine collaboration, referenced with another song playfully subtitled “BLACK DEMARCO.”
And this was back in December over on Kimmel, but I’ve been wanting to share it — a simply lovely performance from Mexican musician Silvana Estrada with members of the LA Philharmonic.
🍿 Movie music: Marty Supreme & Ann Lee
Two Daniels are making some of the most thrilling music in film right now…
Daniel Lopatin, aka the alternative electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, continues his collaboration with the Safdie Brothers after memorably scoring Uncut Gems, with “versatile, freewheeling, and adventurous” music for Marty Supreme that stands on its own outside of the film, as Will Schube writes for Boardroom. [Standouts: “Holocaust Honey,” “Force Of Life,” “Hoff’s” and “I Love You, Tokyo”]
Daniel Blumberg, former frontman of rock band Yuck, followed up on his brilliant score for The Brutalist by collaborating again with the film’s husband-wife director duo, Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, on songs for The Testament of Ann Lee, an unconventional musical about the Shaker movement full of surprisingly catchy repurposed 18th-century hymns. [Standouts: “Hunger & Thirst,” “Worship,” “All is Summer”]
Finally, I’ll leave you with two unexpected new songs from legends: Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets Of Minneapolis,” instantly memorializing the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good with an anthem worthy of the moment, and a much lighter one from David Byrne — a choral cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License.”
