Louder: Losing Control With ‘Sound of Metal’ Star Riz Ahmed

January 29, 2021

By Caryn Ganz

Pop Music Editor

In “Sound of Metal,” Riz Ahmed plays Ruben, a punk-metal drummer recovering from a heroin habit who struggles with the onset of hearing loss. The role has catapulted the rapper and actor into the best-actor Oscar race, and as Kyle Buchanan learned profiling him, intensified Ahmed’s already quite intense process.

Madlib, a producer and rapper with a mysterious process of his own, has made all kinds of music for almost three decades, but hadn’t had any interest in making a solo album — until the producer Four Tet pretty much pulled it out of him. Eric Ducker explains how it all came together. And Lindsay Zoladz profiled Tamara Lindeman, who records as the Weather Station and is releasing an album that captures the emotional impact of living with climate change.

Jon Pareles named Arlo Parks’s debut, “Collapsed in Sunbeams,” a Critic’s Pick; Ben Sisario brought news about the sale of Sun Records’ storied catalog (minus Elvis); and in a delightful moment of worlds colliding, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and The Times’s A.O. Scott chatted about their shared interests after Ulrich suggested it in a Rolling Stone interview conducted by my former colleague Kory Grow.

Read, enjoy — and next Friday keep an eye out for the premiere of “Framing Britney Spears,” a new documentary by The New York Times that examines what the public might not know about the pop star’s court battle with her father for control of her estate. (It’ll air on Feb. 5, at 10 p.m. on FX and be streaming on Hulu.) For background, read Serge F. Kovaleski and Joe Coscarelli’s report from 2016.

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Losing Control With Riz Ahmed

The actor’s process is so intense, his “Sound of Metal” director refused to share dailies with him. But after all that overthinking, formidable instincts kicked in.

By Kyle Buchanan

THE CRITICS

Critic’s Pick

Arlo Parks Offers Solace Without Illusions on Her Debut Album

The 20-year-old English songwriter faces down despair on “Collapsed in Sunbeams.”

By Jon Pareles

The Playlist

Kodak Black Celebrates Clemency From Trump, and 10 More New Songs

Hear tracks by FKA twigs, Jupiter & Okwess, Prettymuch and others.

By Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Giovanni Russonello

INTERVIEWS

Left to right: Nathan Bajar for The New York Times, Daniel Dorsa for The New York Times

How Four Tet Helped Madlib Make Something Totally New: A Solo Album

For decades, the producer and rapper Madlib had no interest in synthesizing his disparate works into a single statement. So the electronic music producer Four Tet took matters into his own hands.

By Eric Ducker

Angela Lewis for The New York Times

Climate Change Is Worsening. So the Weather Station Is Singing About It.

The 36-year-old Canadian musician Tamara Lindeman’s piercing new album, “Ignorance,” explores the emotional impacts of a global problem.

By Lindsay Zoladz

What Do Lars Ulrich and A.O. Scott Have in Common? A Lot, It Turns Out

The Metallica musician and our film critic have both spent their careers thinking about the creative process and how it’s received. They compared notes.

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Sun Records, Storied Early Rock Label, Sells Its High-Wattage Catalog

The independent company Primary Wave Music acquired recordings by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and other pioneers — but not the music of one of Sun’s biggest stars, Elvis Presley.

By Ben Sisario

The Flaming Lips Performed to People in Literal Bubbles. Is It Safer?

Medical professionals questioned how well the individual plastic bubbles protected band members and concertgoers from the coronavirus.

By Johnny Diaz

Ticket Brokers Agree to Pay Millions in Scalping Settlements

The settlements are the first enforcement actions brought under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, which was designed to prevent brokers from buying large numbers of tickets.

By Sarah Bahr

The Charts

Morgan Wallen Repeats at No. 1 With Big Streaming Numbers

Songs from the country star’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” were streamed 177 million times in its second week out.

By Ben Sisario

OBITUARIES

Those We’ve Lost

Jerry Brandt, Whose Music Clubs Captured a Moment, Dies at 82

Energizing Manhattan night life, he opened the Electric Circus in 1967 and the Ritz 13 years later. He died of Covid-19.

By Neil Genzlinger

Pauline Anna Strom, Composer of Enduring Electronic Sounds, Dies at 74

Her blindness, she said, enhanced her music, which included homemade recordings from the 1980s prized by aficionados.

By Neil Genzlinger

Jonas Gwangwa, Trombonist and Anti-Apartheid Activist, Dies at 83

He became a leading light on the South African jazz scene at a young age, and went on to lead the African National Congress’s flagship ensemble.

By Giovanni Russonello

Junior Mance, Jazz Pianist Who Played With Giants, Dies at 92

After working with Dizzy Gillespie and many others, he emerged as, in one critic’s words, “one of the most swinging and utterly delightful pianists in jazz.”

By Richard Sandomir