Katy Perry’s ‘World’ of Mixed Signals, and 11 More New Songs

“It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be living in it,” Katy Perry insists in “Woman’s World,” a song with six writers (among them Lukas Gottwald, a.k.a. Dr. Luke, who was behind her blockbuster album “Teenage Dream” before his extended legal battle with Kesha). “Sexy, confident, so intelligent, she is heaven-sent,” Perry sings. “So soft, so strong.” With echoes of Madonna’s 1990s electro-pop, the praise continues throughout this synthesizer-pumped, positive-vibes affirmation of the obvious. It’s too bad the overblown video clip — including a postapocalyptic sequence dotted with social media influencers — doesn’t live up to the euphoric sound.

Bomba Estéreo, from Colombia, supplies the beat, flute, chant and Spanish-language bridge behind a cheerfully assertive Nelly Furtado in “Corazon,” from her album “7,” due in September. Floating a blithe, catchy chorus over the Afro-Colombian rhythm, Furtado summons a perpetual, be-here-now party spirit, insisting, “My heart can’t stop.”

Bright Eyes, ‘Bells and Whistles’

“Expensive jokes and cheap thrills cost a lot,” Conor Oberst blurts in “Bells and Whistles,” a full-bodied shuffle that’s also a reflection on New York City, halfhearted self-promotion and the joys and ugliness of a rock career. “Secondhand amps, a bent-up crash/The band sounds like an animal,” he sings. Regrouped with his longtime musical support from Bright Eyes — Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott — Oberst musters keyboards, glockenspiel, whistling and more to reflect on decades in the trenches of indie-rock.

Zach Bryan featuring Bruce Springsteen, ‘Sandpaper’

Ever since the rockabilly era, country music has feasted on rock’s leftovers. Zach Bryan, the downhearted but prolific songwriter who has found a giant audience while ignoring Nashville’s bro-country clichés, makes his lineage clear on “Sandpaper” by duetting with none other than Bruce Springsteen. It’s a humble love song — “I ain’t scared of death/I’m scared of losing you” — that draws on both the steady-tapping beat of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” and Springsteen’s instinctive resistance: “They’ve been trying to smooth me out for 27 seasons now,” Bryan states.

The country-rooted, genre-stretching songwriter Sturgill Simpson vowed to make just five solo albums, an arc that concluded with his 2021 concept album, “The Ballad of Dood and Juanita.” Now he’s found a loophole: a name change. His new album, “Passage Du Desir,” is credited to Johnny Blue Skies, and it’s deliberately eclectic, hinting at outlaw country, Memphis soul, countrypolitan and Pink Floyd along the way. The seven-minute “Jupiter’s Faerie” is a melancholy drama. Its narrator thinks about the ex he broke up with a decade ago, decides to reconnect, then finds out she’s gone, perhaps a suicide: “Chose to check out and move on,” he sings. “I guess the pain became the only thing/each and every day would bring.” Piano chords, a string orchestra and a hint of “A Day in the Life” from the Beatles build behind him as he realizes, “There’s no happy endings — only stories that stop before they’re through.”

Dua Saleh, ‘Want’

Desire conquers better judgment in “Want” by Dua Saleh, who was born in Sudan, raised in Minnesota and now lives in Los Angeles. Reuniting with an ex who “threw it all away,” Saleh sings, “I know we probably shouldn’t but/Oh, I think I want, want, want to.” The synthesizers hint at vintage Janet Jackson, but the track deepens and gathers a marchlike heft as Saleh raps, coos, growls and exults in a liaison that’s unlikely to last.

Quavo and Lana Del Rey, ‘Tough’

Quavo and Lana Del Rey, the rapper and the pop whisperer, collaborate as equals in “Tough.” It’s neither a rap with a pop chorus nor a pop song with a rap verse wedged in. Although Quavo has top billing, the song begins like one of Del Rey’s slow-strummed, minor-key ballads, as she muses, “Life’s gonna do what it does.” A ticking trap beat announces Quavo’s arrival, staking out a new melody (with help from Auto-Tune) to insist on a mournful stoicism: “Still shining like a diamond in the rough/Still shining, and that’s hard if you ever lost someone that you love.” Eventually Quavo joins Del Rey’s melody, but they’re still listening attentively to each other.

Heavy breathing paces the rhythm track of “Gold Coast,” a song about hookups that can start in a club or on a beach. “Dance on you and you dance on me/Yes or no, well your hips don’t lie,” Moses Sumney sings with teasing anticipation. From a bare-bones opening, the track gathers layers of guitar, voices and electronics as Sumney (and partner) get to “bump all night and sleep all day.”

Magdalena Bay, ‘Image’

Magdalena Bay — the songwriting duo Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin — wraps glossy, harmonically sophisticated electronic pop around scenarios and sentiments that are far less sanguine. The disco-tinged “Image,” from the coming album “Imaginal Disk,” hints at a makeover that could involve plastic surgery or something more sci-fi. “Oh so hot/Meet your brand-new image,” Tenenbaum sings in her airily optimistic voice. But in the last chorus, the synthesizers pile on and distort, suggesting a fraught transformation.

Odie Leigh, ‘Either Way’

Odie Leigh wrestles with the awkwardness and insecurities of potential romance on her debut album, “Carrier Pigeon,” strumming her acoustic guitar and second-guessing her every impulse. “Either Way” is full of questions — “Do you wanna know me like I wanna know you?” — with a six-beat rhythm that mirrors her uncertainty by vacillating between twos and threes.

Laura Marling contemplates her new motherhood and the unfolding of generations in “Patterns,” the title song of her album due in October, “Patterns in Repeat.” Backed by acoustic picking and cozy sustained strings, Marling takes a long view. As she envisions how it feels “to have your children, your flock of birds/Your branch among the wood” and contemplates how “as those years go by they’ll look upon you as a friend,” vocal harmonies float in like imagined descendants.

Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn, ‘Breath Out’

“Time to let go now/You can breathe out,” Dawn Richard advises, offering solace with glimmers of underlying tension, in “Breath Out,” a preview of “Quiet in a World Full of Noise,” her second collaborative album with the composer Spencer Zahn. Echoey piano notes float above swelling strings as Richard sings about seeking a respite from drama and problems, even if it’s only temporary.