Looking for some motivation to help power you through the start of another work week? We feel you, and with some stellar new pop tunes, we’ve got you covered. These tracks from artists including Jimin, Amy Allen, Pure Shores and more will get you energized to take on the week.
2024 has been a busy, bordering on hectic, year for pop music so far, between the A-lister album rollouts (Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande), new stars becoming brand names (Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Shaboozey), unexpected mainstream comebacks (Charli XCX, Hozier, Tinashe), and ever-present superstars making hay out of new albums, singles or feuds (Zach Bryan, Morgan Wallen, Kendrick Lamar). These seven months have been so breathless in the pop world that it’s undoubtedly been more difficult for other artists to cut through the noise and headlines, and garner attention for their own songs or projects.
Sometimes, though, something comes out that refuses to tumble into the streaming void — something so immediately original and attention-grabbing that you can’t help but run it back, dig deeper, get sufficiently hooked. That’s how Jade’s “Angel of My Dreams” functions: the debut solo single grabs your shoulders and shakes them relentlessly, demanding your focus with a shape-shifting hook, jarring transitions and an off-the-wall vocal performance. “Angel of My Dreams” has sky-high ambitions — this song refuses to settle for anything less than exhilaration. And in a competitive space, Jade has dropped one of the best singles of the year.
Considering her pedigree, this isn’t shocking: Little Mix, which ran for a decade as a highly successful UK girl group, boasted Jade Thirlwall as a vocal force and co-writer on some of the quartet’s biggest hits, including “Wings,” “Move” and “Shout Out to My Ex.” After her group mates Perrie Edwards, Jesy Nelson and Leigh-Anne Pinnock all made their recent solo debuts, Jade was the final member to make her bow, after signing to RCA Records in 2022. And while that position often stymies pop group alumni trying to separate their work from the already-launched solo projects of their fellow members, Jade has emerged with a purposeful vision: “Angel of My Dreams” not only crackles with well-drawn sonic features, but reintroduces the singer as an unflinching pop thinker, ready to bake years’ worth of industry experiences into a three-minute single.
Above all else, “Angel of My Dreams” is a commentary on the pop machine, with the tension between its dreamy bubblegum chorus and steely robo-thump verses representing the warmth of the spotlight and cold behind-the-scenes realities. “Sold my soul to a psycho / They say I’m so lucky / Better act like you’re lucky, honey,” Jade intones, tossing out a delicious homonym (Little Mix was signed to SYCO Records, of course), before the chorus kicks back in, this time sped-up and acting like pre-programmed TikTok fodder.
“Angel of My Dreams” is brimming with melodic change-ups and smart details, but never sounds too disjointed, or clever for its own good. Working with producer Mike Sabath (who helped Raye break through last year with “Escapism”) and co-writers Steph Jones (Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”) and Pablo Bowman (Marshmello and Jonas Brothers’ “Leave Before You Love Me”), Jade has crafted a testimonial that still prioritizes being a five-alarm banger.
Little Mix never had a single catch fire in the States, and “Angel of My Dreams” is probably too off-the-wall for U.S. pop radio. Regardless of its chart prospects, though, Jade’s solo debut is too bold to go unnoticed — and, whatever else comes out before the end of the year, her next move deserves to be hotly anticipated.
Here are some more new pop songs worth checking out this week…
“We never met but she’s all I see at night,” Jimin declares on the sleek new single “Who,” which utilizes romantic lyrics, restless percussion and a snappy piano run to follow up his previous solo hits with a successful nod toward turn-of-the-century pop, complete with a choreo-heavy music video.
Marlene and Ji Nilsson’s duo keeps tossing out a seemingly endless supply of shimmery club singles, and “Superhuman” shuffles toward a hook that revels in the towering status of a romantic partner, thanking their mother and describing them as “the eighth world wonder.”
London producer duo Eli & Fur captures the endless cycle of yearning for another on “Missing You,” repeating clipped phrases as the hypnotic production edges toward resolution; lush and emotional, the track reaches out with a hand for any dance listeners to grab.
The great New York band Oso Oso have traded in emo-leaning rock over the years, but new single “That’s What Time Does” sounds closer to late-‘00s indie-pop, full of wistful melodies and power strums that invite a hoisted beverage in the late summer haze.
In between co-writing smash hits for artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae, Amy Allen is prepping a solo album with a singular pop-rock sound removed from her other studio work; “Even Forever” is another winner, with guitar cacophony inflating the hook as Allen cries, “Even forever can’t last forever!”