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 Jack White, Arlo Parks and Anne Hathaway.
This week, Lady Gaga and Doechii team up for the high-powered, high-fashion “Runway” from The Devil Wears Prada 2, Katseye releases a pre-Coachella single with “PINKY UP” and The Strokes are back with a new song and album on the way… plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Lady Gaga and Doechii, “Runway”
Turns out, Lady Gaga and Doechii are the perfect pair to “turn a dance floor into a runway,” as they sing on their catchy collab — and even though the two stars had never worked together before, it sounds obvious here they were meant to. “Runway” — which was co-written and co-produced by Bruno Mars — is the first official single from the anticipated upcoming film, The Devil Wears Prada 2, out May 1. Fittingly, the track is booming with in-your-face bass and filled with the exact type of confident sass that anyone about to hit the runway would want to hear.
KATSEYE, “PINKY UP”
“Pinky Up” arrives at a pivotal time for Katseye: the girl group is fresh off the Grammys and one day away from making its Coachella debut and, of course, now operating as a fivesome following the recent hiatus by member Manon Bannerman. Needless to say, the girl group’s new single had just a bit of pressure on it. But the high-energy techno-pop track delivers, dizzying and delighting with its relentless tempo — perhaps meant to soundtrack just how nonstop Katseye is right now.
The Strokes, “Going Shopping”
This week, The Strokes announced its first album in six years, Reality Awaits, produced by Rick Rubin. With the announcement came the release of lead single “Going Shopping,” an auto-tuned yet still retro-sounding Strokes song that seems to find a balance between the band’s essence and perhaps its commentary on the “reality” of what’s ahead — or is already here — in popular music. The new music arrives just in time for the band’s Coachella set, providing an opportunity to preview even more tracks off the upcoming project.
Alabama Shakes, “American Dream”
After announcing a 2026 tour, bluesy rock band Alabama Shakes is back with new music — and right on time. The aptly titled “American Dream” is the group’s first new release since 2015’s Grammy-winning Sound & Color (but follows two solo albums from vocalist Brittany Howard) and despite its slow and simmering production, delivers an urgent message. “What are we doing?” asks Howard, before reciting various indicators of the state of the country right now: “Got the White House pretty and pimped out/ Gun reform/ My body my choice…Low grade fever, lower wage people/ How many folks got shot this week/ It’s enough to make you wanna go back to sleep.” Still, Howard concludes on a note that could be viewed as sarcastic, instructional or hopeful — and maybe even all three — when she states, “keep dreaming.”
Tiny Habits, “Right In Front Of Me”
Folk-pop group Tiny Habits (a trio that formed in 2022 while still students at Berklee College of Music) could be gearing up for its next era. Following a debut EP in 2023 and full-length debut in 2024, the group has released its latest single, “Right In Front Of Me,” a breezy track that sounds as carefree as its subject yearns to be. “You can tell by myself, is where I’m comfortable at/ Oh, but tonight this lady, she looked crazy, but so free,” the three harmonize ahead of the song’s happy ending, in which the subject hits the dance floor as freely as they always wanted. And the best part? “Nobody is saying, ‘You look crazy.’”
