Friday Music Guide: New Music From Boygenius, Jisoo, Chlöe and More

Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond. 

This week, Boygenius offers three-for-one greatness, Jisoo steps forward as a solo star, and Chlöe delivers on years of promise. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:

Boygenius, The Record 

Five years ago, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker were all up-and-coming singer-songwriters who decided to combine their indie-rock stylings for a six-song EP, under the name Boygenius; since then, all three artists have enjoyed critical acclaim and exponentially bigger audiences, while their shared EP has adopted cult-classic status. A full Boygenius album could have very well never happened, but what a treat for fans that it now does: The Record not only rejoins three singular talents, but the reunion is rendered with effortless enthusiasm and remarkably affecting writing, as Bridgers, Dacus and Baker reflect on their friendships and artistic bonds by amplifying their solo and collective strengths.

Jisoo, Me 

Roughly two weeks before Blackpink makes history by becoming the first K-pop Coachella headliner, the quartet’s Jisoo has made a promising solo debut, with a two-song project, Me, that combines the group’s arena-ready pop craft and a subtly revealed individual skill set. While “All Eyes On Me” unleashes an imposing, mass-appeal chorus defined by Jisoo declaring the titular phrase, “Flower” creeps forward with a vocal delicacy and rich production. Jisoo capably navigates both sonic approaches, turning Me into a well-rounded preview of (hopefully) a larger body of work.

Chlöe, In Pieces 

Chloe Bailey possesses a generational level of talent — we’ve known this for a while, based on her work as one-half of Chloe x Halle and her years of solo singles preceding this debut album. Listeners have been waiting for an official project to let those gifts fully shine, and In Pieces functions as that long-awaited showcase, with dazzling vocal displays (the luxurious “Looze U” boasts some breathtaking technical skill) as well as crackling featured guests (“Cheatback,” in which Chlöe plots revenge on a cheating boyfriend alongside acoustic guitar strums and Future’s warbled encouragement, is an easy highlight).

Tyler, The Creator, Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale 

“Call Me If You Get Lost was the first album I made with alot of songs that didn’t make the final cut,” Tyler, The Creator shared on Twitter earlier this week. “Some of those songs I really love, and knew they would never see the light of day, so I’ve decided to put a few of them out.” Thus, one of the most critically acclaimed full-lengths of 2021 has been bestowed with eight extra tracks, as “The Estate Sale” deluxe edition, that thankfully live up to the quality of its host album: “Dogtooth” sounds like a no-brainer breakout hit, while “Wharf Talk,” featuring an especially nimble A$AP Rocky, is unrepentant hip-hop joy.

Becky G & Peso Pluma, “Chanel” 

While Becky G has spent the past five years reinventing herself as a versatile Latin pop star, Mexican rapper-singer Peso Pluma has recently taken off as a corrido tumbado sensation, flooding the streaming charts with multiple ascendant singles. Together, the two artists inject regional Mexican music with a sense of yearning on the new duet “Chanel,” on which Becky enters relatively unfamiliar musical terrain with a natural ease, while her counterpart’s voice keeps up with her own — no easy feat, considering how Becky’s vocals can outshine plenty of other singers.

Melanie Martinez, Portals 

If there were any lingering doubts that Melanie Martinez was not a typical pop singer-songwriter, new album Portals — a meditation on death, reincarnation, repeating patterns and gazing into the universe’s nothingness — should promptly put an end to them. Although Martinez has long operated within lofty concepts and ambitious multimedia executions, Portals also contains some of the most directly accessible songs of her career, from the rhythmic trot of “Spider Web” to the darkly lit pop-rock of new single “Void” — with the new album, Martinez caters to listeners who love enveloping themselves in her world, as well as those looking for a new pop-playlist jam.

Related Images: