Editors' Picks

Tones and I does it again, with another incredibly groovy single that brings all kinds of surprises, titled ‘Eyes Don’t Lie’.

With a fourth single now coming from his upcoming album, Michael Bublé brings it back to his roots with an interpretation of the famous jazz standard made famous by the legendary Nat King Cole, ‘A Nightingale Sing in Berkeley Square’.

Rereleased as part of a single, the ballad of Coldplay’s newest album, ‘Music of the Spheres’, makes rounds again, as ‘Let Somebody Go’ finds another way to find itself in your hearts thanks to the British group and Selena Gomez.

Another new single now has now totally mucked any theories on the band’s new direction, Muse came strong once again with one of the grooviest prog pop singles of the year, ‘Compliance’.

After missing out on the writing process for Metallica’s latest album, 2016’s ‘Hardwired… To Self-Destruct’, guitarist Kirk Hammett took the opportunity to dish it all out on his first solo project, the first single being the instrumental track ‘High Plains Drifter’.

When you have a supergroup composed of the talents of Cory Wong, Joe Dart, Nate Smith, and Mark Lettieri, you absolutely can’t go wrong. In 2020, they teamed up for an amazing record, and they did so again for a godly comeback with ‘The Fearless Flyers III’, taking the world by storm with a single from that record ‘Running Man’.

Very few artists can make each and every release sound totally unique, or rather thematic to their current music endeavors. MARO manages to exceed at this with each and every single release she puts out, while still holding on to a particular style that is only possessed by MARO alone. This is especially the case with ‘saudade, saudade’, her newest single, that brings so many elements of MARO’s previous music in a new direction.

Mixing the instrumentation of classic vocal jazz with the excitement of anthem pop, Michael Bublé takes to new levels with his third single from his upcoming album, ‘Higher’.

The queen of the dance-pop scene of the 90s is back with a gorgeous piano ballad titled ‘Olive Branch’.

Music comes and goes, going through fads and cycles, and though its recording attempts to immortalize it, some music simply fades. When a song becomes a landmark, experiencing it feels like a privilege of sorts – Jacob Banks delivers that feeling with his opus ‘Just When I Thought’.

The long awaited, emotionally-charged power ballad single from the musical genius Charlie Puth titled ‘That’s Hilarious’ is upon us, seeing a vulnerable window into the life of the pop star.

No, this isn’t a rerelease of some obscure Pink Floyd song you’ve barely heard, or a live single from a show long past; the legendary British prog-rockers that changed the course of rock forever have released a brand-new single, ‘Hey Hey Rise Up’, with Andriy Khlyvnyuk in support of Ukraine amidst the devastating conflict, their first single since ‘The Endless River’, which itself was an off-take from ‘The Division Bell’.

If disco had its uprising in 2022, still using a lot of the instruments and the special elements that made the genre so definitive such as strings and horns, it would sound very similar to ‘Dancing Feet’ by Kygo and DNCE.

If Bill Wurtz tries to make comedy the primary focus of his music, to the detriment of the song at hand, he failed so miserably. Not only is his newest song ‘I’m Scared’ hilarious, but it’s also one of the greatest neo-jazz songs to be released in the last decade.

Taking all the best parts of modern pop music and the rising force of pop punk, Beren Olivia creates the anthem of the year with her newest single, ‘So Emotional’.

If medieval, fantasy-and-legends-driven music were made today with the instruments and technologies now available, it would sound exactly like ‘King’, the newest single from ‘Florence and the Machine’.

The music world was shocked and saddened on Saturday to learn that legendary musician, Taylor Hawkins had passed away aged 50. Most well-known as being drummer for the rock band Foo Fighters, Hawkins tragically passed away in Bogota, Colombia, when the group was on tour.

The 80s happened over forty years ago, but the music and culture that came from it are still strong in our hearts, as made evident by the gorgeous new single by Brothertiger and Yvette Young titled ‘Torn Open’, that pays homage to the sounds and ideas that fuelled the late 80s and early 90s, flavoured with complex jazz harmony.

The Canadian pop-punk giants are back yet again, with an electrifying and popping new single titled ‘Ruin My Life’ featuring the talents of Deryck Whibley.

Sometimes, you just need a soft, groovy pop track to lift your spirits. Florrie is there just for that, all thanks to her newest single ‘What If I’m Wrong’.

It is a project that has been in the works for over 11 years. Matthew Heafy, Trivium guitarist and vocalist, has had the dream of a black metal band for a long time, and now, it is finally happening. Rashomon, the debut album for Heafy's new band Ibaraki, will land on May 6 via Nuclear Blast.

It’s 2006 again, a new Avril Lavigne song is blaring on your cheap radio, titled ‘Bite Me’, and all seems right with the world again.

The New-York based multi-instrumentalist has returned with a new single, arguably his most ambitious yet, titled ‘Could It Be You’, alongside Luke Titus, to propel listeners in a groovy, experimental soundscape.

Songs of old are long past, but their spirits are still very alive, even in our youngest generations – Laufey brings the sound of traditional vocal jazz to the modern soundscape in one of the greatest studies of the genre I’ve heard in my lifetime.

March 20 this year marks the first official day of Spring. So, how appropriate that Weezer would choose to drop their latest album SZNZ: Spring on the same day. Their seventh studio album is the first in a four-album project and has just landed, with the ever-whimsical quartet informing us the "SZNZ" is pronounced "Seasons." Get it? Good. 

Brace yourselves. After four long years, hip hop legends Cypress Hill are back with a brand new release. Their tenth studio album, Back in Black has just dropped, and feels like a wondrous trip back in time. The band have created a stunning release that clings firmly to their roots, and that peppy, in-your-face, relentless sound that made us all fall in love with them back in 1991.

With a final single releasing alongside her first original LP ‘PREY//IV’, Alice Glass shows us how creepy atmospheres can be as groovy as ever with ‘EVERYBODY ELSE’.

From ‘Descendent’ fame, Dove Cameron released her second solo single, ‘Boyfriend’, that takes inspiration and fuels it up to levels unimagined.

Still fresh off their 2021 release, ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’, the supergroup ‘Silk Sonic’ show no sign of slowing down with a brand-new single, ‘Love’s Train’, a gorgeous Con Funk Shun cover.

Cory Henry is the king of the modern organ, that much is undisputed. In his newest single, ‘Fighting for Peace’, he puts his talents on the forefront, along with his gorgeous voice and band, to bring a slow-grooving classic R&B jam that’ll surely uplift your soul.

Bow Anderson released the ultimate young-adult anthem, ‘20s’, a song that’ll get you to celebrate and dance through your youth.

Caroline Polachek enters the world with one of the most ambitious singles of the year, ‘Billions’, where the lack of clear foundation, done so in complete confidence, ultimately works beautifully in its favor.

Never has pop music sounded so talented – Boyzlife have created an absolute masterpiece with their newest single, ‘Burn For You’.

Alt-J returns with a new single titled ‘The Actor’ to show the world that having ambiguous inspirations and an ambitious take on composition, production, and execution can result in some of the most interestingly unique music, even in 2022.

Back with a heavy metal banger titled ‘Fear of the Dawn’, Jack White reminds the world of his massive success in revitalizing garage rock back in the early 2000s, along with all the gold he’s produced through his solo material and White Stripes.

Michael Bublé returns to jazz roots for his second single from his upcoming album, Higher, titled ‘My Valentine’, in which he goes beyond the vocal-standard stratosphere into the realm of cinematic soundscapes.

Earlier in 2021, Lilyisthatyou took the world by storm with her first single, a viral Tik Tok hit, titled ‘FMRN’. Two singles later, Lilyisthatyou continues her message of sex positivity in one of the most fun songs of 2022 so far – ‘Purity’.

Virginia To Vegas have released a song that’s sure to find itself on many people’s summer playlist with his light-dance track, ‘Amnesia’, off his newest EP titled ‘it’s a little complicated, but I’m okay’.

In one of the cleanest-sounding metal track that’s been released in a long time, Halestorm releases the anthem of the year with their newest single, ‘The Steeple’.

Jung Kook, most notably known from his role in the worldwide sensation BTS, manages to find his footing in his own solo single, ‘Stay Alive’, with the help of ‘SUGA’ producing the track.

Anomalie, like a true magician, blended all rules of jazz, pop, and dance music to make one of the most intriguing tracks of the year, titled ‘Come Running to Me’.

Mixing modern pop elements with rock songwriting and instrumentation, bülow crafts the perfect brew with her newest single ‘Don’t Break His Heart’.

Last year, in November, John Williams himself held a concert in Berlin, orchestrating the Berliner Philharmoniker, giving a new life to his greatest work. That concert was luckily recorded, giving new life to the songs that we all know and love, such as this newest release, ‘Yoda’s Theme’.

The modern king of traditional pop, the man who’s almost single-handedly kept vocal jazz alive in the last fifteen years, has released a new single, titled ‘I’ll Never Not Love You’, to promote his upcoming album, ‘Higher’ (due this year), and it’s the oh-so-familiar chocolaty-smooth music Michael Bublé is so well known for, with a modern twist.

Bill Charlap will serenade casual listeners all the while blowing the minds of those fascinated by jazz music with the first single from his newest album with his trio, titled ‘The Duke’.

The final season of Attack on Titan is upon us – a world manga fans have delved into for over a decade, and anime fans almost just as long. The last opening of the series is upon us, ‘The Rumbling’ by Japanese metal group SiM, and the song is worthy of praise far beyond being the most intense Attack of Titan opening.

MESSAGE FROM THE CLERGY – A new Papa has arisen amongst the ranks, and with it not only are the fans of Swedish rockers Ghost expecting a new album, but the band released a single to build hype, and give the world a preview of what’s ahead for the group, titled ‘Call Me Little Sunshine’.

The heavily-teased single (seriously, it was previewed over a year ago…) ‘Light Switch’ by Charlie Puth has finally been released. So, the question that everyone who both waited in anticipation for all that time and those who stumbled upon the song; does the song meet its expectations?

Raveena blesses our ears once again with her newest single, ‘Rush’, truly embracing Indian percussion in a soothing R&B anthem.

It’s the year for Lizzy McAlpine – with a new album underway and an upcoming performance on the Ellen DeGeneres show. On top of all that, the artist released a brand-new single in anticipation for the aforementioned album, ‘Five Seconds Flat’, titled ‘All My Ghosts’.

Is there such a thing as ethereal folk? If there isn’t, then AURORA can be given all the credit for creating the genre, especially with her newest single ‘A Dangerous Thing’.

There’s both a thousand ways to describe ‘Sent From Above’, Rivi Tiber’s newest single, and no way; it’s a true work of art that takes many liberties with very few components while also being packed with some of the most exciting song writing written in a long time, akin to legends such as Cody Fry, Jacob Collier, and Daniel Ceaesar.

Continuing with the momentum the band built up from their latest 80’s pop inspired 2018’s ‘Simulation Theory’, Muse takes a look back and dials the volume to eleven with possibly one of their heaviest singles in the band’s career, ‘Won’t Stand Down’.

Electronic musician, producer and DJ Simon Green has been creating music under his ‘Bonobo’ moniker for more than two decades now, and in that time has built up a cult following, swapping his native Brighton for LA along the way. Fragments is his seventh studio album in that time and follows on from his last effort Migration, and as is explained on his official website, it is an album “born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation”. 

Since indie rockers The Maccabees disbanded five or so years ago, former frontman Orlando Weeks has been through some big life changes, and not just of the lockdown variety. In 2018, Weeks and his partner welcomed their first child, a landmark event for anyone. Weeks, though, took this colossal life event one step further, infusing his debut solo album The Quickening with his thoughts, feelings and anxieties about impending fatherhood.

“I belong with you / you belong with me / you’re my sweetheart” went ‘Ho Hey’ by indie folk duo The Lumineers in what was one of the most infectious pop songs of the last decade. The only possible reason for having not heard it would be that you’ve been living in a cave in some remote mountain range since 2012, completely cut off from civilization. But even then, I’d have my doubts. 

Very few artists specialise in the cover version as emphatically as Chan Marshall, otherwise known as Cat Power, the soulful singer songwriter whose first covers record, released in 2000, was about as perfect as a covers collection can be. That record included interpretations of tracks by artists including The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, Moby Grape and Bob Dylan, among others. It was an almost uniquely rich dive into the meaning these songs carry, and a quite stunning set of sparse musical arrangements that linger long in the memory.

Liverpool trio The Wombats are a staggeringly impressive success story. From their founding in the early noughties after meeting while studying at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts to the Spotify-conquering, hard-touring outfit that has shifted more than one million albums worldwide, their journey has been an incredible if curiously unrecognised one, thanks in part to their curious status as somehow the ‘uncool’ indie kids on the block.

“Just got to keep your head up / And the lights on / That’s all you can do”, coos Twin Atlantic’s lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Sam McTrusty on ‘Keep Your Head Up’, the opening track to the Scottish indie rock duo’s fifth album Transparency. It feels like the mantra we’ve all lived by over the last couple of years, and for an album that had its own troubled genesis, it’s also perhaps been something of a rallying cry for McTrusty and bassist Ross McNae, the only remaining members of the band after the departure of drummer Craig Kneale last year.

In the career of Green Day, there are many defining moments, a roll call of defining tracks, events and breakthroughs that propelled them on their way to becoming the stadium-conquering global behemoth they are today. If you were forced to narrow this list down to just a singular point though, to settle on ‘the’ Big Bang moment that transformed them forever and irreversibly from California punk upstarts to A-list stars, it would have to be the release of American Idiot in 2004. Nimrod nearly did it, Warning couldn’t, but American Idiot nailed it.

FKA twigs is back from her opus ‘Magdalene’ with the powerhouse that is ‘The Weeknd’, fresh from his own opus ‘After Hours’, with the trap banger ‘Tears in the Club’.

Lights has returned with her newest single, Real Thing, which is a fun play on slow R&B jams with a mix of 80s instrumentation.

Sometimes, a cup of coffee just isn’t enough. You need that boost of energy that caffeine just can’t achieve, which is where Bloc Party comes into play. ‘Traps’, the band’s newest single, is all the energy you need for that picker-upper.

Babe Rainbow, through the newest single, ‘Smash the Machine’, reminded the world once again of an era of music long lost but never forgotten.

Embracing R&B and Jazz roots, Areej delivers a beautiful slow-jam ‘Bloodshed’ filled with ambitious instrumentation and raw delivery.

There’s nothing quite as warm as hanging around a group of talented musicians jamming together, playing in blissful harmony. Benee encapsulates that feeling beautifully with her newest single, ‘Doesn’t Matter’.

Enveloping the listener in an esoteric aura of calm in an almost chaotic way, the seven-piece group consisting of Greg Spero, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill, Makaya McCraven, Irvin Pierce, Jeff Parker and Darryl Jones show an underappreciated portion of jazz done in a both traditional and modern style in their new single, ‘Cloud Jam’.

It’s that time of the year again, and everyone is feeling jolly. What better way to help those who need a hand in joining the others in this festive mood than with a slow Christmas song, such as ‘It’s Christmas’, by ‘Katie Garibaldi and Joseph Metcalfe.

Protest songs aren’t uncommon by any means, but a protest song against music is, well, quite daring. That’s what One Cure for Man, a musical project made by James Parkinson, very successfully did with his newest single ‘Too Many Songs’.

The vibes are always immaculate whenever a Moonchild song comes on, and such as is the case, with the help of Alex Isley, with their newest single ‘You Got One’.

For a while there, it seemed like Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket might well have called it quits, so focused were all their respective components on their own side projects and other pursuits. Even when new My Morning Jacket material appeared, as with last year’s The Waterfall II (the followup to 2015’s The Waterfall), it was composed of recordings from sessions made in 2013 that also yielded its predecessor. 

It’s hard to convincingly blend styles together in music without sounding either tacky or forced, but Kali Uchis and Ozuna do a wonderful job in their newest single ‘Another Day in America’ doing just that.

In an interesting play on musical contrasts, Alice Glass’ newest single, ‘FAIR GAME’, finds a way to both soothe and hype the listener all at the same time.

Milan Ring is one of those musicians and songwriters that it’s really hard to pin down to any particular genre. On her debut album ‘I’m Feeling Hopeful’, released the other week, the Sydney-based artist moves through R&B, soul and hip hop influences to weave tracks that are sultry, smooth and modern all at once.

In a very vulnerable and raw performance, Alicia Keys spills her heart with nothing but her voice and a piano in her newest single, ‘Like Water’.