I hear: Troye Sivan, “Rush”
8.
Wednesday: “Chosen to Be Worthy”
The love of your life is a dirtbag who dropped out of school, pissed on the street, and made out with dumb friends who chugged Benadryl like PBR—and she's perfect, baby. Part homily, part evil statement of purpose, Wednesday's “Chosen to Deserve” is a country-rock summer in which frontwoman Karly Hartzman confesses her unpleasant past to her partner, moving forward with faith that when the story, he will still be smiling. “We've always started by telling all our best stories first/So now that time has passed, I'll come around/To tell you all my worst,” he begins. An occasionally observant Jewish girl raised on the Bible who hits the South, Hartzman appropriates the language of destination to deliver one of the most romantic tributes of the year, an open love song that proves that everyone, no matter how crazy, is a miracle. to someone. – Cat Zhang
I hear: Wednesday, “Chosen to Be Worthy”
7.
NewJeans: “Super Shy”
The zero-to-hero anthem 'Super Shy' is the daydream that runs through the mind of a neglected heroine as she sets her sights on the most popular boy in school. Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein exude quiet confidence as they plan to catch a cute surprise. Built around a riff on Powerpuff Girls theme and a hiccup-like bass drum, the song was co-written by Erika de Casier, who expertly guides the group towards a soft, sensitive take on drum'n'bass. Embedded in its message of humble strength is a bit of meta-commentary on NewJeans' approach: More sonically restrained than many of their K-pop contemporaries, they've quickly become chart titans. “You don't even know my name, do you?” the girls ask in disgust on the hook. The “but you'll want to” is implied. –Olivia Horne
I hear: NewJeans, “Super Shy”
6.
SZA: “Kill Bill”
With its devastating self-examination, SZA's songwriting encourages the kind of deep emotional inquiry that, as with all greats, helps us better understand ourselves. Not so much (one hopes) in the murderous 'Kill Bill'. At the beginning of it warning signHer wild stylistic melange, this inescapable boom-bap thriller immediately revealed the singer's morbid humor and range. is SZA gone fully auteur. Playing the villain, she crafts her allegorical single in the vein of murder ballads and action movies, imagining, in the impossibly cool chorus, the most extreme revenge imaginable against a friend who's moved on. Her harsh exaggeration and sharp psychological tuning might just kill the ex living in your head. Yet her disarming boasts — “I got me a therapist,” “I did all this sober” — are what suggest what's really driving the song's deadly fiction: SZA's quest for self-preservation. – Jen Pelley
I hear: SZA, “Kill Bill”
5.
Olivia Rodrigo: “Take him back!”
One way or another, Olivia Rodrigo will get you. On the insanely fun third single from her sophomore album OFFAL, rattles off an ex's red flags with a fun ditty that channels Waitresses' Patty Donahue and Blondie's Debbie Harry. In a hazy three-string melody, Rodrigo avenges the double meaning of the song's title, creating alternately violent and conciliatory fantasies that her therapist father (who gets a shout-out!) can chalk up to “anxious attachment.” “Take him back!” she literally sounds like the contrasting highs and lows of Rodrigo's warring impulses, her voice taking on the quality of a school bully in the song's rapped verses and a bubbly cheerleader in its exuberant choruses. The quiet-loud dynamic culminates in a final whispered bridge, which sends the frenzied climax of the song's final chorus into orbit. From his false start to Rodrigo's diabolical last laugh, “take him back!” it's as messy, flawed, and ultimately liberating as a breakup feels. – Ariel Gordon
I hear: Olivia Rodrigo, “take him back!”
4.
Name: “First Name”
Noname is not afraid to delve into the chaos of creating art with a global consciousness while toiling within a capitalist economy. On “Namesake,” he laments the spread of complacency, admits we're all complicit, and rails against war crimes through a cloud of blunt smoke. Over a piercing funk beat, Noname calmly deconstructs the very concept of sacred cows, adopting a fake cheerleader as she connects the dots between Super Bowl headliners Beyoncé, Kendrick and Rihanna, and the NFL's longstanding relationship with the military industrial complex . In the next breath, he calls out the woman in the mirror who played Coachella after saying she wouldn't. “Namesake” is a ruthless song about accountability that no one is safe from – not even Noname. – Matthew Ismael Ruiz
I hear: Name, “First Name”
3.
Sufjan Stevens: “Will Anyone Ever Love Me?”
The question at the heart of this song is the same one Sufjan Stevens has been asking in his music for the past 20 years, though he's never been so direct about it. It's easy to see why: the trembling whisper of his voice and the way he can make the strumming of an acoustic guitar sound like the loneliest sound ever created are instantly devastating in their own right, so cutting them with poetic narrative and elaborate arrangements can feel both merciful and necessary. But “Will anyone ever love me?” it's pure, undiluted, raw—the kind of song that makes your face scrunch up before a word is sung.
