Philly music this week, with Lucy Dacus, Bright Eyes, Mary J. Blige, the Linda Lindas, and the Dead Milkmen

This week in Philadelphia music features two top-flight singer-songwriters playing the Met, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Penn professor drumming at Solar Myth, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul bringing the hits to South Philly, and Philly punk rock legends making a weekend-long stand at Underground Arts.

It starts on Wednesday with Lucy Dacus, the Richmond, Va.-raised songwriter who resided in West Philly during the pandemic years before decamping to Los Angeles.

Dacus — who was painted by artist Will St. John on the cover of her new Forever Is a Feeling in Renaissance portrait-style — became enamored of the Barnes Foundation and wrote “Modigliani,” a song for her boygenius bandmate Phoebe Bridgers, after visiting the museum.

Dacus has just completed a European tour in which she played intimate shows that, in many instances, were actually staged in museums. Her early-starting Met show is the kick-off date of a North American tour, with opening acts Katie Gavin and Jasmine.4.t.

Back in January, virtuoso guitarist Yasmin Williams’ show at 118 North was postponed due to nasty weather. She’s playing a makeup date, and is now in the news since going public with an email exchange with Kennedy Center chief Richard Grenell, who told her, “Yes, I cut the DEI bulls- because we can’t afford to pay people for fringe and niche programming that the public won’t support.”

Williams called the comments “egregiously unprofessional and ridiculous.” She plays the Wayne venue Wednesday.

Belgian Egyptian heartthrob Tamino made an arresting impression opening for Patti Smith and Mitski. Now the singer and model who plays guitar, piano, and oud is headlining Union Transfer in support of his new Every Dawn’s a Mountain. Also Wednesday, long-running experimental rock band Mercury Rev — still at the top of its game on last year’s Born Horses — plays Johnny Brenda’s.

Argentine indie-rock band Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado headlines Underground Arts on Wednesday. That same night, another formidable South American artist will be in West Philly: Chilean rapper and activist Ana Tijoux plays World Cafe Live, in support of Vida, her first album in 10 years.

Mary J. Blige swung through Atlantic City last month at the start of her “For My Fans” tour. She arrives in Philly at the Wells Fargo center on Thursday. R&B singers Ne-Yo and Mario open.

Black Ends, the Seattle “gunk-pop” band — that’s a mashup of riot grrrl and punk — tops a four-band bill at Foto Club on Thursday and includes Philly’s Grocer.

Alejandro Escovedo’s brilliant career reaches back to the origins of punk with The Nuns and has included time with estimable ensembles Rank & File, True Believers, and Buick Mackane. He’s on tour in support of his 15th solo album, Echo Dancing. The talented Texan who told immigrants’ tales in English and Spanish on his twin 2018 albums, The Crossing and La Cruzada, is at City Winery on Thursday. Calder Allen, grandson of Lubbock songwriter and visual artist Terry Allen, opens.

The Rascals — the 1960s rock and soul band whose hits included “Good Lovin’” and “Groovin’,” were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 by Steve Van Zandt. The band is celebrating its 60th anniversary at the Keswick Theatre on Friday. The band’s lineup includes original members Felix Cavaliere and Gene Cornish.

The Dead Milkmen does two nights at Underground Arts on Friday and Saturday. The Rodney Anonymous- and Jo Jack Talcum-led sardonic quartet beloved for “Bitchin’ Camaro” and “Punk Rock Girl” has the Ditches and the Rectors opening Friday and EDO and the Ditches Saturday.

Penn prof Tyshawn Sorey, who won the 2024 Pulitzer for music for “Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith),” is playing two nights at Solar Myth on South Broad Street, teaming with octogenarian avant-garde sax player Roscoe Mitchell on Friday and Saturday night. Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie, the former leader of the Microphones and producer extraordinaire of Bala Cynwyd-raised songwriter Mirah, plays Union Transfer on Saturday.

“I never thought I’d see 45, how is it that I’m still alive?” Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes asked on “Bas Jan Ader,” on last year’s Five Dice, All Threes, in which he keeps up his “search for that miraculous mystery.”

It’s been a long time since Oberst emerged as a teenage wunderkind in the mid-1990s. Since then, he’s amassed a prodigious catalog of folk rock songs that, at their best, keep bitterness at bay and hold on to a measure of the romanticism that animated his work from the get-go. Along with his Bright Eyes bandmates Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott, Oberst is at the Met Philly on Saturday, with Cursive opening.

In theory, Ron Gallo is playing Johnny Brenda’s on Monday in support of his 2024 album Foreground Music. But the Philly troubadour now has a whole bunch of new songs that he has been quickly writing and posting in response to Trump administration policies with titles like “ICE at Jersey Kebab,” “Jesus Was a Radical,” and the viral hit “If Only Zelenskyy Had a Nice Suit.” They’re gathered on the new 7 a.m. Songs of Resistance for the Internet (Part 1).

The Los Angeles teenage punk rock band the Linda Lindas first came to fame when a video of a performance of their song “Racist, Sexist Boy” at the L.A. Public Library in 2021 went viral. Since then, they’ve grown up considerably — and released a song called “Growing Up” that’s not a Bruce Springsteen cover. The band is supporting its new No Obligation, at Union Transfer on Monday with Pinkshift opening.

Texas indie pop songwriter Ben Kweller was a teenage phenom back in the 1990s as a member of the alt-rock band Radish. Kweller has always had a gift for melody, and that’s true of the music from his upcoming album Cover the Mirrors, which includes collabs with Waxahatchee, Flaming Lips, MJ Lenderman, and others. He’s at Underground Arts on Monday.