Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw Kendrick Lamar dominate all conversation in the music world with his feverishly anticipated new album. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
For more music recommendations, check out our Listen To This section, as well as our Indie Mixtape and Pop Life newsletters. Also find our Uproxx HQ Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly with the best new music, at the end of this post.
Kendrick Lamar — “N95”
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers was the most anticipated hip-hop album since probably the 2017 release of Lamar’s Damn. The album has been out for a few days now and thousands of hours have surely been spent listening to and dissecting it. After the LP dropped, Lamar put the focus on one track in particular by dropping a video for “N95,” a cinematic and eventful clip.
Post Malone — “Cooped Up” Feat. Roddy Ricch
Last week was indisputably all about Lamar, but Post Malone had himself a nice run, too: He stopped by The Tonight Show ahead of his appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he performed the new single he released last week. The song is the Roddy Ricch collaboration “Cooped Up,” a song that perhaps could have been called “Pooped Up.”
The Smile — “Thin Thing”
While Radiohead proper hasn’t had an album since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, two of the band’s primary figures — Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood — teamed up with Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner to form a new band, The Smile. A year after making their public debut in May 2021, they’ve released their debut album, A Light For Attracting Attention. Uproxx’s Steven Hyden notes of final pre-album single “Thin Thing,” “[Skinner’s] machine-like Motorik groove on ‘Thin Thing’ accentuates the song’s robo-funk amid the splashes of sci-fi synths.”
Tate McRae — “What Would You Do?”
Pop up-and-comer Tate McRae has a new LP, I Used To Think I Could Fly, on the way, which she previewed last week with “What Would You Do?.” As has become more common in pop over the past couple years, McRae works a rock influence into the single, which plays well with her pop melodies.
My Chemical Romance — “The Foundations Of Decay”
Since MCR’s 2013 break-up, Gerard Way had tremendous success in the comic book world, creating The Umbrella Academy (which was adapted into a Netflix series) and co-creating Peni Parker, an alternate version of Spider-Man who would later appear in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. So, it seemed he was fully over MCR, or at least too busy to revisit it. However, the group reunited in 2019 and last week returned with their first comeback single, “The Foundations Of Decay,” a six-minute, in-your-face epic.
Bartees Strange — “Hold The Line”
Bartees took on a powerful topic on his latest single, saying of the song’s inspiration, “I remember watching George Floyd’s daughter talk about the death of her father and thinking wow — what a sad introduction to Black American life for this young person. It was painful to watch her grow up in that moment, like all Black kids eventually do.”
Death Cab For Cutie — “Roman Candles”
Ben Gibbard and company have been going at it for decades now, and soon they’ll reach the decade milestone in terms of albums, as they recently announced their tenth LP, Asphalt Meadows. Alongside that news came “Roman Candles,” a rock-forward track that’s a strong introduction to the album, both by itself and in that it’s structured like a two-minute album-opener.
Burna Boy — “Last Last”
African music is having a major moment right now; Tems recently became the first African artist to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100, for example. Burna Boy, perhaps the biggest artist to ever emerge from Nigeria, made his voice heard last week with “Last Last.” Uproxx’s Wongo Okon notes that on the song, “Burna conquers heartbreak and reinforces the claim that he is the best of the best.”
Vic Mensa and Chance The Rapper — “Wraith (Writing Exercise #3)”
Chance has kept busy since 2017’s The Big Day, but not necessarily with new music. Fans are still awaiting a new album and while one hasn’t been announced yet, he’s been more active on the musical front this year. After dropping “Child Of God” in March, he popped up alongside fellow Chicago favorite Mensa on “Wraith (Writing Exercise #3),” which sees the pair just straight-up rapping for two minutes and change.
Ethel Cain — “Preacher’s Daughter”
The self-proclaimed “cult leader of the swamp” dropped her first full-length album, Preacher’s Daughter, on Friday and was featured in a big New York Times profile on Sunday. So if she wasn’t firmly on your radar already, she will probably be soon. Featuring songs that are as haunting as they are soaring, Preacher’s Daughter is a stunning debut album that was written, performed and produced by the artist, who hails from the Florida panhandle and currently resides in rural Alabama. Previously, Cain put out two EPs that garnered her a bit of a cult following (“God’s Country” from Inbred is legit one of the most beautiful songs you’ll ever hear). And, for what it’s worth, she’s a delightful follow on Twitter too.
Florence And The Machine — “Dream Girl Evil”
Last week was a tough one for releasing an album if your name isn’t Kendrick Lamar, because inevitably, that’s where all the attention went. Nonetheless, Florence And The Machine had an anticipated release of their own: Their fifth album, Dance Fever. Included on the LP is “Dream Girl Evil,” a classic example of the group’s storied combination of soaring instrumentation and equally lofty vocals from Florence Welch.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. .
