Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to New Music Friday’s most essential releases each week — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
Last week, we featured Madonna, Sienna Spiro, Riley Green and more.
This week: Beyoncé surprise drops a new R&B-leaning single; Suki Waterhouse releases her third album Loveland; and Teddy Swims shares a tender summer breakup ballad while teasing a new album in the works…plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Beyoncé, “Morning Dew (Donk)”
Over the weekend, Queen B decided to surprise drop her new R&B-coated single — much to everyone’s delight. “Morning Dew” is a gorgeous, downtempo track from Beyoncé, showing yet another side to the singer following ventures into country and dance music on her previous two albums (granted, this is a side we already know well). And while it’s long been speculated that her ACT III could lean rock, this single might just prove otherwise — or at least keep us on our toes a while longer.
Suki Waterhouse, Loveland
Following the 2024 release of her memorably-titled second album (Memoir of a Sparklemuffin), dreamy singer-songwriter Suki Waterhouse is back today with her third full-length, Loveland. As the British artist shared on X earlier this week: “Loveland is memorialization of the places that made me. The realisation that reality is not a given and must be continually pursued. The best and worst nights of my life. The move towards aliveness.”
Teddy Swims, “Break Up In Reverse”
For anyone not experiencing summer lovin’, Teddy Swims has you covered with his new heartbreak anthem for the season. The downtempo ballad is all about hitting rewind and yearning to be loved when a relationship ends in the same way he felt at its start. “Upon writing this song and my next album I’ve been going through it with my relationship with my baby’s mother coming to an end,” Swims shared in a statement. “We were super inspired by an old NAS song called ‘Rewind.’ We loved how the whole song takes place in reverse. So we thought, ‘how beautiful would it be if we took the same idea, but wrote it about my relationship.’”
The Rolling Stones, Foreign Tongues
As only a legendary act can do, The Stones shares its 25th studio album today, a fresh and tight set for the veteran rockers clocking in at just over an hour across 14 songs. Mick Jagger’s vocals are clear-eyed while the band’s instrumentals are just as driving as ever, resulting in an album well worth listening from top to bottom.
The Linda Lindas and Hayley Williams, “Closer”
It’s fitting, really, that Williams would help The Linda Lindas with its major label debut single. The band goes back with the rock icon, citing Williams as a longtime inspiration and even welcoming her onstage last year to perform their breakout hit “Racist, Sexist Boy” at London’s O2. Now, that relationship has been formalized with a collaboration; “Closer” is the bands first release since signing to Reprise/Warner in June, and the midtempo alt-rock track surely signals more new music ahead.
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