This is not pop-punk. Hayley Williams, from Paramore, drives her solo statement (although she’s still collaborating with Paramore’s guitarist Taylor York) with syncopated, almost Caribbean-tinged drums. The song starts with her panting breath pacing the beat; the video shows her on the run, nude, in a horror-movie pursuit. But her voice is levelheaded, refusing to panic, trying to gauge “the line between wrath and mercy” while vowing to protect her child. There’s more tension because she refuses to explode. PARELES

Megan Thee Stallion, ‘B.I.T.C.H.’

Megan Thee Stallion is still trying to determine the best way to package her ferocious, sharp-elbowed rhymes into a package that has both hard and soft appeal. On “B.I.T.C.H.,” she turns for inspiration to a star of an era when that was the norm: 2Pac. “B.I.T.C.H.” updates “Ratha Be Ya ____,” one of his more salacious songs (and itself an update of the Bootsy’s Rubber Band track “I’d Rather Be With You,” the bedrock of many a ’90s rap hit). But while 2Pac’s song was a flirtatious encouragement by a sexual scalawag, Megan’s version is brimming with stern resentment to a man who can’t seem to commit. Not that she’s waiting around: “I got my mind on gettin’ paid, we ain’t spoke in some days/He prolly’ thinkin’ I’m in pain but I’m really on game.” JON CARAMANICA

Mitski, ‘Cop Car’