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, it’s all about collabs — between two alums from blockbuster megapop groups, a couple veteran indie favorites, and a pair of genre-crossing TDE s–t-talkers — as well as a couple longtime hitmakers still going it solo.
JISOO with ZAYN, “Eyes Closed”
If pop groups stocked with breakout solo stars is your thing, you’re undoubtedly very excited about the arrival of “Eyes Closed,” a meeting of BLACKPINK and One Direction alums. JISOO and ZAYN team up here for an emotional, tender ballad with pulsing synths and booming drums — not dissimilar from mid-’10s ZAYN duets “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever” (with Taylor Swift) and “Dusk Till Dawn” (with Sia). Both those songs have stream counts in the multiple billions, so perhaps this one will also prove to be catnip on DSPs.
Khalid, After the Sun Goes Down
After taking a half-decade for third album Sincerely, hybrid hitmaker Khalid is back with LP4 in just over a year’s time: After the Sun Goes Down, his first full-length since coming out as gay in late 2024. The breezy 16-track, no-guest effort features a return to big pop sounds and hooks, with regular Ariana Grande collaborator Ilya serving as executive producer, and Khalid finding inspiration in the “Rihannas and the Britneys and the Janets,” as he explained to Rolling Stone: “I feel like with this album, I knew that I wanted to go back to pop, but I wanted to do it in the way that I felt connected to it the most. I look at this as more like an homage or just thanks to the icons that paved the way for me.”
HAIM & Bon Iver, “Tie You Down”
It’s a pairing made in early-’10s indie heaven: L.A. pop-rock sister trio HAIM and indie-folk stalwart Bon Iver — with Rostam, formerly of Vampire Weekend, helping out on production, no less. Justin Vernon provides lovely harmonies over the top of frontwoman Danielle Haim’s lamenting here of a relationship she wants to maintain but may have to let go of: “I want you here/ But I don’t know how not to tie you down.” The lilting acoustic ballad previews HAIM’s upcoming deluxe version of its I Quit album, with three new tracks, out next Friday (Oct. 17).
Gorillaz feat. Trueno and Proof, “The Manifesto”
There’s always been a globetrotting flair to the Damon Albarn-led Gorillaz project, with guests and musical influences hailing from all over the map. That seems to be truer than ever on upcoming album The Mountain, which Albarn recorded in India, and whose second single not only features traditional Indian instruments like the tablas and the sarod, but also guest vocals from Argentinian rapper Trueno. The most surprising contribution on this one comes from an American, however: late D12 rapper Proof, who appears halfway through via an early freestyle.
Alemeda & Doechii, “Beat a B!tch Up”
TDE singer-songwriter Alemeda showed great promise with the crunching pop-punk and gauzy alt-rock of her 2024 EP FK IT, which she continues to pay off this year with the blackout anthem “Beat a B!tch Up.” This time, she’s also got a starry guest in tow with rapper Doechii, warning “Don’t put my hand on that Bible, please,” before the song reaches its incendiary chorus. For those who got in the pit for SZA’s SOS rager “F2F,” you’ll undoubtedly love this new collab between her TDE labelmates.
A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, “Part of Me”
One of New York hip-hop’s preeminent MCs of the late ’10s and early ’20s is back with his new single, “Part of Me,” and he’s drawing from a Billboard Hot 100-topping pop classic. No, it’s not Katy Perry’s 2012 smash of the same name, but rather Mariah Carey’s 20-year-old “We Belong Together,” which A Boogie interpolates the chorus and even some of the verses to in this heartbreak anthem. It’s an effective lift, and should help satiate both A Boogie fans eagerly awaiting the rapper’s new set and Lambs still craving more Mimi post-Here for It All.
