It’s impossible to be across all the new music out each Friday. Luckily, PAPER is here to help you out: each week, we round up 10 of our favorite new songs from artists — emerging and established — to soundtrack your life. From the surreal to the sublime, these songs cover every corner of the music world. The only criteria: they all have to absolutely rip.
Subscribe to our Sound Off Spotify playlist here and check out this week’s tracks, below.
Song of the Week: Model/Actriz – “Cinderella”
Come to “Cinderella,” the first single from Model/Actriz’s second album Pirouette, for its masterful sense of tension and release, stay for lead singer Cole Haden’s timid, breathy verse vocals, which feel of a piece with Britney Spears’ agonized, wormy vocals on 2007’s Blackout. As a whole, the track feels like a refinement of the songs on Dogsbody, the band’s grueling dance-punk odyssey, which is not to say there’s anything demure about “Cinderella” – it still feels like it should be locked up in a dungeon somewhere. (Complimentary!)
Hikaru Utada – “Electricity”
An unexpected and very welcome link-up – Arca pulls Utada’s “Electricity” into a dazzling synth vortex, finding pretty new contexts for the J-pop legend’s iconic voice.
Queen Key, GloRilla – “Hell Woods 2”
Chicago’s Queen Key re-ups her hit “Hell Woods” with a typically brash guest spot from GloRilla, commanding the room with her fiery, combative verse.
Two Shell – “Oops…”
Two Shell tap into the sound of 2000s icons like The Ian Carey Project and Bodyrox on this jittery club track.
Tate McRae – “Siren Sounds”
Tate McRae gives her latest album – already tracking for a No. 1 Billboard 200 placement – a tidy boost with this sweeping power ballad.
d4vd, Kali Uchis – “Crashing”
Two modern crooners unite on this vintage-toned soul ballad, Kali Uchis’s featherlight voice intertwining perfectly with D4vd’s falsetto.
Grimes – “idgaf”
“Idgaf,” an outtake from 2020’s underrated Miss Anthropocene, splits the difference between that album and the defiance of Art Angels, and it’s so alluringly catchy that it’s easy to ignore the ongoing posting.
Hope Tala – “Magic or Medicine”
Hope Tala channels Lily Allen on this plainspoken, warm R&B track — her cotton-candy-soft voice a perfect counterpoint to the song’s sunny-day production.
2hollis – “style”
The return of 3OH!3? No, just a deliriously fun, endearingly sleazy new track from 2hollis. The young California rapper might be controversial, but he absolutely has an ear for bangers.
Benson Boone – “Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else”
Benson Boone follows up his triumphant Grammys backflips with this pop-punk-tinged new single.
Photography: Yulissa Benitez