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Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, SZA’s SOS marks the return of a queen, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie fights inner demons and Lana Del Rey has a beautiful-sounding fun fact for you. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
SZA, SOS
Five years after dropping a jaw-dropping debut with Ctrl, SZA has finally returned with a follow-up that somehow sounds both pored-over, the product of endless hours in the studio sharpening edges and refining ideas, and as natural as the R&B star’s inherent gifts as a vocalist and songwriter. No one else could sing the words of SOS with an ounce of the personality that SZA brings to each track — in part because these songs are breathtakingly intimate, photographs of years of personal evolution as relationships scale up and sometimes crumble — but mostly because SZA is just that special of a performer, with every syllable on SOS popping out from the dense, varied production. SOS takes plenty of time to unpack across its 23 tracks, but whatever expectations you may have had for SZA’s second album probably weren’t high enough.
A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, Me vs. Myself
If Me vs. Myself, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie’s fourth studio album, ends up being the final major rap release of 2022, the NYC rapper will end up closing out the year on a triumphant note: his latest full-length meets the local-to-national hype that A Boogie has been incubating for years, and features the most complete songs of his career. That list begins with the Lil Durk team-up “Damn Homie,” which augments both rappers’ melodic instincts, and also includes the solo showcase “Ballin” and “Water (Drowning Pt. 2),” a sequel to A Boogie’s recent collaboration with Kodak Black that improves upon the original.
Lana Del Rey, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd”
The Jergins Tunnel, the passageway in Long Beach, Calif. that was abandoned in 1967, is a closed-off tunnel to a California beach — perfect lyrical fodder for Lana Del Rey, who sings on her stirring new track, “I can’t help but feel somewhat like my body marred my soul / Handmade beauty sealed up by two man-made walls.” The title track to her next full-length, “Did you know…” marries Del Rey’s sweeping approach to orchestral pop with an ideal subject, upon which the singer-songwriter can translate her longstanding curiosities with faded American beauty.
Polo G, “My All”
“I’m just tryna drop a hit and make the club jump / But I hate that I was too deep in so young,” Polo G admits at the end of the chorus to “My All,” a new single to close out the year before it appears on his much-anticipated new project dropping in 2023. Most popular rappers wouldn’t close out a hook with a moment of such succinct honesty — at 23 years old, Polo G is already a veteran who has the ability to entertain the masses yet has witnessed too much personal strife — but vulnerability has always been the key to his mainstream appeal, and “My All” sets the stage for more intricate stories to be unfurled next year.
Paramore, “The News”
Five years ago, Paramore preceded their album After Laughter with “Hard Times,” a brilliant bit of sociopolitical satire on which Hayley Williams begged to be excluded from reality’s narrative. Ahead of follow-up album This Is Why, the band grapples with everyday life in more serious fashion: “The News” questions how much space in our minds our modern atrocities, specifically wars in far-off countries, can take up before we explode with uselessness, as the band locks in to a jagged groove and Williams oscillates her tone between jittery and outraged to sell the song’s concept.
Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, RM presents a bold solo vision, Metro Boomin ends another big year with a superstar affair, and Lewis Capaldi’s latest will turn your frown upside down. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
RM, Indigo
Even with the context of every recent solo project from the members of BTS, which have presented their millions of listeners with individual aesthetics and ideas, RM’s official solo debut Indigo ruptures with artistic ambition from the opening minutes, where he raps about his humanity over a buttery R&B beat before Erykah Badu slides in with a majestic pre-chorus. Indigo wriggles free of easy classification, much like its creator: the moment one tries to peg the project as a mainstream hip-hop effort, a song like the arena-ready sing-along “Wild Flower” or the forlorn strummer “Lonely” upends expectations. RM’s curiosity balances out his natural talent on Indigo, resulting in an accomplished, multi-faceted solo step.
Metro Boomin, Heroes & Villains
From Future to 21 Savage to The Weeknd, Metro Boomin has helped mold the sound of some of the biggest mainstream stars of the past decade as a producer and songwriter — so when he releases his own projects, they (and many others) naturally show up to pay homage. Heroes & Villains, the long-awaited follow-up to the Atlanta studio whiz’s underrated 2018 opus Not All Heroes Wear Capes, is a star-studded heat check before the end of the year that allows superstars to operate over slow-rolling beats (“Trance,” a bleary-eyed team-up between Travis Scott and Young Thug, is a highlight), as well as engage in some rollicking genre exercises (“Creepin’” joyfully re-creates Mario Winans’ “I Don’t Wanna Know” with The Weeknd and 21 Savage).
Lewis Capaldi, “Pointless”
Lewis Capaldi became a star on the strength of sorrow: his singles “Someone You Loved” and “Before You Go” grew into unlikely top 10 Hot 100 hits while embracing heart-wrenched balladry, as the singer-songwriter bet on unbridled emotion as a commercial vehicle and won handily. “Pointless,” the second taste of his upcoming sophomore album Broken By Desire to be Heavenly Sent, taps into another rush of feelings, but this one could soundtrack a wedding dance instead of a tearful night in bed: “Everything is pointless without you,” Capaldi sings, the intensity of his voice and stabs of piano drawing the listener into his love story.
Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time (Sampler)
After nearly two years of watching his Dangerous: The Double Album become one of the biggest commercial LPs of the past decade, and rebuilding trust in and out of Nashville following some high-profile controversies, Morgan Wallen is setting himself up for a major 2023, with a recently announced international stadium tour accompanied by a three-song sampler of an upcoming studio project. “One Thing at a Time,” “Days That End in Why” and “Tennessee Fan” don’t try to reinvent Wallen’s appeal, instead augmenting the long-running juxtaposition between his rustic, lived-in voice and sparkling, sophisticated country-pop songwriting, while also suggesting that fans will have plenty to look forward to in the new year.
Latto feat. GloRilla & Gangsta Boo, “FTCU”
From the moment you realize that the acronym “FTCU” stands for “f-ck the club up” in the new collaboration between Latto, GloRilla and Gangsta Boo, you hope that the trio can come as correct as Three 6 Mafia and Waka Flocka Flame did on their respective destroying-the-club anthems from different generations of hip-hop. Fortunately, they deliver: “FTCU” is pure, menacing fun, with Latto dropping threats with efficiency and GloRilla relying on her drawl to accentuate punchlines like “Walk up in your party, make that bitch my party, ayy.”
Arcangel, Sr. Santos
Sr. Santos, the new project from former Arcangel & De La Ghetto leader Austin “Arcangel” Santos, will likely draw most of its attention toward the explosive Bad Bunny team-up “La Jumpa,” which sounds ready to dominate clubs for the foreseeable future. Although Arcangel’s new album gains strength from its high-wattage collaborators — Bizarrap, Myke Towers and Duki all swing by — the reggaetón veteran also sounds reinvigorated on the project, surrounding the guest-heavy portions of the projects with sizzling solo tracks like “La Roca” and “PortoBello.”
Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, Pharrell Williams tosses out another major collaboration, Nicki Minaj and Maluma headline a World Cup anthem, and Saweetie toasts to the single life. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Pharrell Williams & Travis Scott, “Down In Atlanta”
In addition to producing tracks for artists ranging from Rosalía to Kendrick Lamar to Omar Apollo this year, Pharrell Williams also dropped “Cash In Cash Out,” a masterclass from 21 Savage and Tyler, The Creator with one of the most icy-cold beats of the year. Like “Cash In Cash Out,” new single “Down In Atlanta” finds Williams ceding the floor to a fellow superstar — in this case, Travis Scott, who mixes zonked-out warbling with tales of luxury and fills each line with his larger-than-life persona — while the multi-hyphenate focuses on making each drum-and-synth interaction tingle the listener’s senses.
Nicki Minaj, Maluma & Myriam Fares, “Tukoh Taka”
It’s World Cup season, and to celebrate the 2022 kickoff in Qatar, Nicki Minaj, Maluma and Myriam Fares have joined forces for a frenetic single that is the “Official FIFA Fan Festival Anthem” and sung in English, Spanish and Arabic. “Tukoh Taka” moves swiftly and tries to score efficiently: around the jittery hook, Minaj raps about a girl’s night out (with some soccer references tossed in for good measure), Maluma croons about scoring a goal in the 90th minute of play, and the beat throbs with the intensity of the tournament that the song is designed to celebrate.
Saweetie, The Single Life EP
Saweetie is winding up for a major 2023, but before this year comes to a close, the ascendant MC demonstrates the combination of her current star power and artistic potential on the six-song project The Single Life. The California native sounds collected and charismatic on tracks like “Don’t Say Nothin’” and “Bo$$ Chick,” but it’s “Handle My Truth” — on which she opens up about staying single over throwback, G-funk-informed production — that reminds us of the lyrical depth that Saweetie is capable of achieving in addition to hits like “Best Friend” and “My Type.”
Disturbed, Divisive
Overlook Disturbed at your own risk: the long-running, multi-platinum hard rockers are still catering to genre fans as well as a large group of casual listeners who can’t get enough of their inventive pummel. Divisive, their eighth studio album, contains all the hallmarks of a Disturbed project — in addition to the head-banging material, there’s also an effective ballad, this time a team-up with Heart’s Ann Wilson titled “Don’t Tell Me” — and is also a blast to listen to, regardless of how down with the sickness you may be.
Brockhampton, The Family and TM
If new album The Family and surprise release TM represent the final works of the audacious hip-hop collective Brockhampton, who have been hinting at a going of separate ways for some time, then the group will have gone out with a creative bang: instead of getting lost in contemplation and wobbling toward new beginnings, Brockhampton uses both projects to get back to what made them captivating upon their breakthrough, from zany sing-alongs (the Nickelodeon homage “All That”) to R&B and dance riffs (“Man on the Moon,” which checks both boxes) to hardened bars about who they are and what they want to accomplish (the stirring coda “Brockhampton”). Safe to say that, no matter what happens next, Brockhampton’s music and character will endure.
Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, Rihanna has another stirring soundtrack single, Bruce Springsteen covers some hand-picked classics and Wizkid is as cool and collected as ever. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Rihanna, “Born Again”
Rebirth as a metaphorical concept has been a lyrical trope in popular music for generations as artists shed their creative skins and begin new eras, but “Born Again” — Rihanna’s second single from the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, following the stark ballad “Lift Me Up” — takes that idea and turns it literal, swelling from a somber reflection of someone who’s passed into a thundering new beginning thanks to an extended choral outro. The end of “Born Again” is purposely unrecognizable from its beginning, but Rihanna’s graceful approach serves as the connective tissue; she’s been gone for years, and we’re not taking her for granted now that she’s back.
Bruce Springsteen, Only The Strong Survive
Although cover songs have always been part of the Bruce Springsteen live oeuvre, Only The Strong Survive, a collection of the Boss’ interpretations of older and slightly obscure soul tracks, is his first studio covers collection since 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, and following a prolific recording period that includes 2019’s Western Stars and 2020’s Letters To You. Because Springsteen can set his songwriting aside and focus on his voice with this project, Only The Strong Survive comes across as delightfully free-wheeling, with producer Ron Aniello helping construct snappy renditions of songs like “Nightshift,” “When She Was My Girl” and “Turn Back the Hands of Time.”
Wizkid, More Love, Less Ego
Wizkid’s fifth studio album arrives with expectations unlike anything the Nigerian superstar has experienced before — particularly in North America, where his Tems collaboration “Essence” became a slow-growing top 10 smash last year, and where Wizkid will headline New York’s Madison Square Garden next week. Yet More Love, Less Ego sounds utterly free of professional pressure: the Lagos native may be flaunting a bit more braggadocio on the mic and inviting some new guest stars into the fold (Don Toliver and Skepta are among those who stop by), but Wizkid’s confidence sounds effortless across the project, as if international superstardom was a natural next step.
Rauw Alejandro, Saturno
Rauw Alejandro may have found in urbano music before Saturno, but the Puerto Rican singer-songwriter’s new project accentuates every aspect of his aesthetic across 18 thrilling tracks: this is a euphoric yet personal dance project, full of bleary synth lines, rumbling percussion and the echoing voice of someone who knows how to command the moment. Alejandro has had plenty of memorable moments in popular Latin music prior to Saturno, but this is his most accomplished project to date, and a full-length that sounds essential to understanding the current moment in the genre.
GloRilla, Anyway, Life’s Great…
Anyway, Life’s Great… is the cherry on top of a whirlwind year for Memphis rapper GloRilla — following a breakout hit in “F.N.F (Let’s Go),” a label deal with CMG, and recently a top 10 Hot 100 hit with the Cardi B team-up “Tomorrow 2” — and as such, the nine-song EP basks in the MC’s enviable run while also laying the foundation for an even bigger future. Songs like “No More Love” and “Unh Unh” utilize GloRilla’s microphone tenacity in different ways, the former focused on post-fame betrayal and the latter on mid-stardom flexing, but throughout the project, she sounds ready for an even bigger stage in 2023.
Louis Tomlinson, Faith in the Future
A press release for Louis Tomlinson’s Faith in the Future touts his sophomore solo album as “a collection of songs designed for the live environment,” and indeed, the soaring pop-rock tracks on display here certainly keep the deafening crowds that packed One Direction’s stadium shows in mind. Yet Faith in the Future offers a hopeful vision of Tomlinson as an adult singer-songwriter, carving out a sound after a few years of experimentation — a song like “Silver Tongues,” driven by sprightly piano and shouted hooks, points toward a defined, agreeable aesthetic.
Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, Drake and 21 Savage expand their collaborative streak across a full-length, Selena Gomez gives us a peek inside her “Mind,” and Joji makes good on his artistic promise. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Drake & 21 Savage, Her Loss
Drake and 21 Savage have always pushed each other: while 21 Savage’s menacing flow has challenged Drake to sharpen his bars on their past collaborations, Drake has brought 21’s dense delivery onto some pop-crossover stunners, like their recent No. 1 smash “Jimmy Cooks.” With that dynamic in mind, the joint effort Her Loss functions exactly how you’d expect, and hope — punch and counterpunch, Drake returning to hip-hop braggadocio following his dance sojourn with Honestly, Nevermind, 21 Savage less concerned with pop culture references than ripping beats in half. It’s a focused, slightly chilly, largely riveting effort that ends both artists’ big years on a high note.
Selena Gomez, “My Mind & Me”
“All of the crashin’ and burnin’ and breakin’, I know now / If somеbody sees me like this, then thеy won’t feel alone now,” Selena Gomez sings as an epiphany on her searing new single. With the release of her new documentary My Mind & Me, Selena Gomez has released an accompanying song that captures the issues of sharing yourself with the world (especially as an ultra-famous artist) in the social media age, as well as the conclusion, over stately piano notes, that every struggle has been worth it if it had helped someone else in the process.
Joji, Smithereens
“Glimpse of Us,” the quietly devastating Joji single that became one of the year’s biggest breakthrough hits, may have introduced the 88Rising singer-songwriter to a much wider audience, but anyone familiar with Joji’s dulcet tones and emotionally revealing lyricism could have predicted that he’d become a solo star. New album Smithereens allows Joji to capitalize on a major moment with more melancholy and contemplation, but more accomplished vocals and songwriting than featured on 2020’s Nectar — a song like “Die For You” continues to refine his craft, taking the high of “Glimpse of Us” and pushing further upward.
Various Artists, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From and Inspired By
Curated by Kendrick Lamar, the 2018 soundtrack to Black Panther was a blockbuster, with multiple crossover hits (“All The Stars,” “Pray For Me”) and a perfectly orchestrated intermingling of superstars and rising artists. The soundtrack to the upcoming sequel boasts similar firepower — its opening track is “Lift Me Up,” the first new Rihanna single in six years, after all — as well as an impressive cross-section of artists either adjacent to or dominating the Afrobeats world, from Burna Boy to Tems to Fireboy DML to CKay, creating another high-profile, powerful showcase of Black culture.
P!nk, “Never Gonna Not Dance Again”
P!nk’s last two albums, 2017’s Beautiful Trauma and 2019’s Hurts 2B Human, were led by singles (“What About Us” and “Walk Me Home,” respectively) that veered away from the pop star’s party-starting image — less “Raise Your Glass,” more raising the emotional stakes, as it were. So while “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” serves as a defiant ode against wasting time and self-seriousness, the song also gives P!nk another chance to operate at a faster tempo and groove over a nu-disco hook, setting up a welcome return to the dance floor.
Lindsay Lohan, “Jingle Bell Rock”
Interested in the Lohanaissance, playing Christmas music multiple weeks before Thanksgiving, and Mean Girls nostalgia? Lindsay Lohan has got you covered with her take on “Jingle Bell Rock,” from the resurgent singer-actress’ upcoming Netflix film Falling For Christmas, which leans into its good-spirited kitschiness and will be at home on any holiday streaming playlist (plus, everybody in the English-speaking WORLD knows this song!).
Selena Gomez just dropped one of her most vulnerable songs ever. Gearing up for the release of her Apple TV+ documentary My Mind & Me, the 30-year-old pop star unveiled an emotional new song and lyric video of the same name — before teasing that more new music will soon follow.
Gomez’s first solo release since 2021’s Revelación, “My Mind & Me” hit streaming services at 8 a.m. ET one day prior to the documentary’s Friday (Nov. 4) premiere on Apple TV. “My mind and me, we don’t get along sometimes / And it gets hard to breathe,” she sings on the track, a sprawling piano ballad written by the Only Murders in the Building star, Amy Allen, Jonathan Bellion, Michal Pollack, Stefan Johnson and Jordan K. Johnson.
“But I wouldn’t change my life / And all of the crashing and burning and breaking, I know now / If somеbody sees me like this, then thеy won’t feel alone now.”
Directed by Alek Keshishian, Gomez’s raw My Mind & Me film follows the singer-actress over the course of six years as she deals with lupus, depression, anxiety and other mental health struggles. One particularly devastating time in her life was marked by an episode of psychosis in 2018, something she opened up about in a Thursday (Nov. 3) cover story interview with Rolling Stone.
The Grammy nominee told the publication that she heard voices and experienced severe long-term paranoia during the episode and was eventually diagnosed as bipolar. “It took a lot of hard work for me to (a) accept that I was bipolar, but (b) learn how to deal with it because it wasn’t going to go away,” she said.
Gomez also shared in the interview that she’s written 24 songs or so for her next album, something she also talked about at her documentary’s Wednesday (Nov. 2) premiere at the AFI Festival. Speaking to Variety, the former Disney star shared that new music is coming “hopefully next year,” potentially followed by a tour.
“Maybe!” she said about possibly hitting the road. “I know. I should, right?”
Listen to Selena Gomez’s new song “My Mind & Me” and watch the lyric video below.
Britt Daniel was well into his thirties when he first got into dub music. In 2006, as his band Spoon was working on their sixth album — and eventual commercial peak — Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, producer Mike McCarthy told Daniel to check out a new compilation, King Tubby’s In Fine Style, by the Jamaican sound engineer and dub pioneer King Tubby.
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“That record really had a big impact on the sound of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,” the 51-year-old Spoon frontman tells Billboard. “Which is not a dub record. But there are trippy little dub elements all throughout it.”
For instance, “Finer Feelings” opens with a prominent sample from reggae singer Mikey Dread — which Daniel remembers clearing with Dread himself. “He was a real character. Very friendly to me, but at the same time, he seemed to hate lawyers,” Daniel says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I know you want to do it, but we do have to have something on paper.’ And if it came from the lawyer, he would just say, ‘No, no, no. This isn’t right.’”
In the years since, Spoon fans could be forgiven for not sensing much dub influence in the band’s famously exacting indie-rock hooks. Now, though, comes a fully fledged fusion: on Friday (Nov. 4), the Austin band will release Lucifer on the Moon, their first remix album, which is a song-by-song deconstruction of Spoon’s recent album Lucifer on the Sofa by Adrian Sherwood, the English dub producer and founder of On-U Sound Records. Sherwood turns tightly chiseled rockers like “On the Radio” and “The Hardest Cut” inside out, reimagining them with rattling rhythms, wobbly bass sounds and disorienting waves of vocal echo.
The idea grew out of a routine request from Spoon’s label, Matador, for bonus material from the band, such as B-sides or remixes. Daniel felt bored with cookie-cutter digital reworking. “I wanted to find someone who could do things in a less computer-y and more… musical way?” Daniel explains. “Adrian seemed like the right guy for that.”
He sent Sherwood the album and invited him to remix a few songs. Daniel gave him just a few instructions: “Avoid things that wouldn’t be possible on tape. Add whatever you want to add. Don’t make it computer-y. And the less modern, the better.”
A week later, the Spoon frontman received Sherwood’s dub-inspired remixes of “The Devil & Mister Jones” and “Astral Jacket.” He was blown away. “I was driving around in my car, listening to those mixes over and over again that night. I was very psyched,” Daniel said. “Next we said, ‘Well, maybe we should do one or two more.’ Then we got those done. And then we said, ‘Well, maybe we should do one or two more.’”
Pretty soon, Sherwood had remixed the entire record. Spoon decided to release it as a standalone companion piece to Lucifer on the Sofa, available digitally and on vinyl this week (and on CD in Japan).
If Spoon has a surprising kinship with dub, it derives from the fact that the band has long placed an emphasis on groove and empty space, epitomized in indelible tunes like “I Turn My Camera On” and “Stay Don’t Go.”
“When we started out, it wasn’t like that. A thing that would hit you over the head with our records was distorted rhythm guitar,” Daniel says. “At some point, around the Girls Can Tell era [in 2001], we started realizing that less could mean a lot more. When you get rid of that element, then a lot of what you’re focused on is the bass and drums. It makes the tracks feel more open. Around that time, people started to say we were minimalists.”
For Spoon, Lucifer on the Moon culminates a triumphant year of renewal and reinvigoration. After releasing Lucifer on the Sofa in February, the band spent a big chunk of 2022 on the road, touring both with labelmates Interpol and on their own headlining tour. Those runs have gone well, though Daniel concedes that it is not an easy time to be a mid-level touring band.
“It has been a much harder year to turn a profit,” the singer says. “We had like a week’s worth of shows in the middle of this tour that had to get postponed because a couple of us got COVID. We tacked them onto the end of the tour. But basically all that meant was, we were still paying for all of the crew, all of the busing, all of our trucking, everything for an additional week, but with the same amount of income. That made it a lot less profitable. It was almost unprofitable.”
Is it still worth it? “Yeah, it’s worth it. I have a good time,” Daniel says. “I guess we’re gonna have to assess how things go. Even on the tours where we didn’t have to postpone, the cost of busing is up two or three times what it was when we were touring last September. That takes a huge chunk. So that’s why, when I see Animal Collective canceling a tour, I’m not surprised. Things have just really gone nutty.”
Spoon’s future plans are uncertain. In March, Daniel made fans nervous when he admitted he wasn’t sure there would be another Spoon record after Lucifer. Asked to clarify, Daniel says, “Should we do another one? We will see. I don’t know what’s next. I haven’t figured that part out yet. We basically just finished touring.”
For years, Spoon has been held up by fans and critics as a paragon of indie-rock consistency. It’s hard not to wonder if they ever feel the urge to enter their ‘80s-Neil-Young phase and make a tossed-off record just for fun.
“Maybe we should do that,” Daniel laughs. “I do remember when [2010’s] Transference came out, a lot of people did not like that record, especially coming after Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which had some of our biggest, most commercial, universal songs. And then we came out with this record that was very much an ugly record. I think it’s a great record. But there were a lot of people that didn’t like it. Mostly did not get amazing reviews. We’ve done a record that people said was us falling off. And yet the word ‘consistent’ gets thrown about.”
Asked if he feels inclined to give any of Spoon’s prior albums the remix treatment, Daniel quickly points to the band’s 1996 debut, Telephono. “Not in terms of, like, a dub remix. I’d just been thinking of it in terms of, ‘Wow, I know we could make this sound so much better.’”
It’s the only Spoon album Daniel feels unsatisfied with. “It doesn’t feel as much like us,” he admits. “It’s like I almost don’t recognize the person who wrote those songs. Even when you get to [1998’s] A Series of Sneaks, that sounds more like us. And then Girls Can Tell really sounds like us. And then we settled in.”
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.
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These 10 tracks from artists including Ellie Goulding, Kimbra, PVRIS and Blu DeTiger will get you energized to take on the week. Pop any of these gems into your personal playlists — or scroll to the end of the post for a custom playlist of all 10.
Ellie Goulding, “Let It Die”
“Now the lights are dimming,” Ellie Goulding sings on her propulsive new track “Let It Die” — a sly callback to her breakout hit, and a slick metaphor for a romance that ends with a whimper instead of a bang. By contrast, “Let It Die” surges with electricity, with Goulding’s voice possessing a determination that commands this relationship to end, and for the listen to move.
Rosa Linn & Duncan Laurence, “WDIA (Would Do It Again)”
As her song “Snap” takes off globally, Rosa Linn has teamed up with Eurovision breakout Duncan Laurence for a piano ballad that centers both of their most tender inclinations. “WDIA (Would Do It Again)” is an old-school post-breakup duet, showcasing the singers’ vocal skills even as the percussion picks up in the back half.
PVRIS, “Anywhere But Here”
Both songs within the two-pack that PVRIS dropped last week are worth your time: while “Animal” channels its fuzzed-out rock aggression toward modern fame, “Anywhere But Here” withdraws with yearning acoustic guitar and Lyndsey Gunnulfsen’s pleas for a fresh start. Extra credit to the latter for a keen sense of space and the soulfulness of Gunnulfsen’s vocal take, which recalls electro-R&B in its approach.
Siights, “Fake It”
Siights are the relatively new L.A. duo of Toni Etherson and Mia Fitz, but within about 15 seconds of new single “Fake It,” the pair convinces you that they’re experts at creating warm, heartfelt pop. “Fake It” adopts a whirring, multi-part pileup of instruments in its hook, but the thesis of the song — “I could never fake this with you” — slices through and rings out.
Joel Corry feat. Tom Grennan, “Lionheart (Fearless)”
Think of “Lionheart (Fearless)” as a caffeine substitute: blast this new collaboration from Joel Corry and Tom Grennan in the first hour of your day and you’ll be ready to take on the world. The chest-thumping lyrics are paired with production that matches the soaring effect of the early-2010s EDM boom — festival season may be a little while away, but “Lionheart (Fearless)” will get you counting the months.
Blu DeTiger, “Elevator”
Blu DeTiger tends to exude an unflappable sense of cool in all of her songs, but “Elevator” may be her most impressively chilled-out track yet, as the rising pop star gives a tiring relationship no more attention than an eyeroll. DeTiger, embarking on a headlining tour this fall, is quickly amassing a catalog that would highlight any live show.
Biig Piig, “This is What They Meant”
Biig Piig’s track “Feels Right” was used in the closing credits of the recent romantic comedy Meet Cute because of its beguiling groove — something the singer-songwriter replicates, with a bit more atmosphere, on new single “This is What They Meant.” The song finds a commendable balance between her hushed words, funk guitar and the rain of synth lines sparkling across each line.
Champs, “Adeleine”
“Adeleine,” the first new track since UK duo Champs since 2019, bounces along with an ease that makes it four-and-a-half minute run time feel like half of that, as brothers Michael and David Champion lock in to a folksy rhythm and shake it for all it’s worth. This is type of song you’ll be happy to have stuck in your head for hours after a single listen.
Kimbra, “Save Me”
“Save Me” is the type of showcase for Kimbra that serves as a reminder that the New Zealand singer-songwriter, who’s preparing her first new album since 2018’s Primal Heart, has been dearly missed within the pop landscape. A meditation above cascading pianos that oscillates between sparse vulnerability and chorus-backed fortitude, “Save Me” recalls the fragile beauty of Kate Bush’s later records, and sets the table for a breathtaking new era.
The Hails, “Exonerate”
Indie quintet The Hails linked up with Magdalena Bay’s Matt Lewin for new single “Exonerate,” and you can hear the crisp, comfortable electro-pop of Lewin’s duo being translated here. For their part, The Hails take the blueprint and run with it, with the keyboard line humming along and each hook landing with the utmost conviction.
Billboard’s First Stream 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.
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This week, Taylor Swift turns the clock to Midnights, Arctic Monkeys continue to challenge themselves, and Shakira links up with Ozuna. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Taylor Swift, Midnights
Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights, was introduced to us as an exercise in restlessness. “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night,” Swift wrote in August while announcing the project, “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.”
This explanation for Midnights makes sense in the context of its arrival. Less than two years after the unexpected, two-pronged opus of Folklore and Evermore, and smack in the middle of her extended process of re-recording (and expanding) her first six studio albums, Swift certainly did not need to release an album of original material this year. Yet like any middle-of-the-night rumination, these songs gnawed at her, begging to be expanded upon instead of stored away for another day. Midnights brims with the bleary-eyed doubts, private triumphs, left-field questions and long-term musings that haunt us in the darkness; Swift felt compelled to hoist hers into the light.
Click here for a full review of Taylor Swift’s Midnights, and a track-by-track breakdown of its standard edition.
Arctic Monkeys, The Car
Casual Arctic Monkeys fans might turn their nose up at The Car, the band’s seventh studio album; why, they might wonder, has the wildly successful UK rock band behind hits like “Do I Wanna Know?” and “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” pivoted to highly orchestrated lounge music? But Alex Turner and co. haven’t designed The Car for casuals — these are gorgeous, complicated songs, performed with the intimacy and confidence of a band willing to open themselves up to new ideas and having the panache to pull them off.
Shakira & Ozuna, “Monotonía”
After linking up with Raw Alejandro for “Te Felicito,” Shakira has previewed her forthcoming album with another high-wattage Latin music collaboration, this time with Ozuna joining on the spacious bachata tracks “Monotonía.” With vocalists as skilled as Shakira and Ozuna, the production wisely clears out as the two superstars operate with nuance and passion, finding a charming balance between their two tones.
Roddy Ricch, “Aston Martin Truck”
“I’m trying to make another hundred million / Figure out how I’m gone bring my brothers in,” Roddy Ricch raps on new single “Aston Martin Truck,” which possesses a level of urgency that the hip-hop star injects into all of his most accomplished work. A few years after exploding with “The Box,” Ricch is looking for another single to scale the charts, and “Aston Martin Truck” grabs the listener for the entirety of its running time, in a way that suggests this might be the one to make the leap.
Carly Rae Jepsen, The Loneliest Time
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the “Call Me Maybe” phenomenon — the summer-dominating No. 1 smash that made Carly Rae Jepsen an unlikely pop star following years spent as a successful singer-songwriter in Canada — and while Jepsen is now removed from the hits-chasing discourse, she’s still releasing arresting pop gems that deserve to get stuck in your head as well. The Loneliest Time considers new directions for Jepsen after years of perfecting a shimmering retro-pop aesthetic, with slower tempos and more contemplation mixed in to winning sing-alongs like “Surrender My Heart” and the title track (featuring Rufus Wainwright).
Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights, was introduced to us as an exercise in restlessness. “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night,” Swift wrote in August while announcing the project, “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face.”
This explanation for Midnights makes sense in the context of its arrival. Less than two years after the unexpected, two-pronged opus of Folklore and Evermore, and smack in the middle of her extended process of re-recording (and expanding) her first six studio albums, Swift certainly did not need to release an album of original material this year – especially considering that she already has a mini-career’s worth of new material that she has yet to even play on tour.
Yet like any middle-of-the-night rumination, these songs gnawed at her, begging to be expanded upon instead of stored away for another day. Midnights brims with the bleary-eyed doubts, private triumphs, left-field questions and long-term musings that haunt us in the darkness; Swift felt compelled to hoist hers into the light.
There are no skippable tracks on Swift’s new album… but we already know that there are a few standouts out of the 13 on the standard edition. Here is a humble, preliminary opinion on the best songs on Taylor Swift’s Midnights.
Want more on Taylor Swift’s new album? Click here to read a full review of Midnights, and don’t forget to check out this breakdown of the 20-plus different versions of the album’s physical format.