Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to subscribers on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Alex G - "Pain Is The Heart Of Love" (Feat. Paul Buchanan)
You might think, “Hmm, not much going on here.” But put those headphones on, baby! Hear those tritones creeping in the background, creating an intricate spine-tingle? Then, Paul Buchanan’s voice emerges like a wounded ghost, but there’s a glimmer of warmth there to remind us of hope in anguish. The truth that it's all connected, that "pain is the heart of love.” And that low, droning cello? It rounds the whole thing out, making it feel romantic and lush. It swells like an open sore. I can easily imagine putting this on in the winter, when the sun begins to disappear at 3:30 p.m. I’ll pour myself a large glass of red wine, light some candles, and watch the moon take to the sky. And while you might hear “nothing much happening,” I’ll be completely lost in my own gothic dream. —Margaret
Fontaines D.C. - "Marianne"
What's the next move for Fontaines D.C.? 2024's Romance was a great success, with the trip-hop anthem "Starburster" and jangly gem "Favourite" becoming some of their most famous tracks. But more than anything, Romance reached for a sound that was big and dreamy, and "Marianne" does the same. Synths twinkle, and Grian Chatten speaks in catchy melodies, especially when the hook in the chorus crashes through. "You should come and stay here/ You can follow my lead/ I can help you disappear," he singsongs infectiously, and it feels enormous. —Danielle
Squirrel Flower - "Cleveland"
"He's cuuuuuuute, but he doesn't like Cleveland/ No house, no dog in the yaaaard." That's how Ella Williams sums up the romantic pull of an American nuclear-family future and her reason for being unwilling to settlle for a guy who doesn't share that vision. For entire generations, that mythic image of domestic bliss has haunted and taunted young Americans, even beyond the time when that bliss seems remotely attainable. On "Cleveland," the soft-focus crush of the celestial guitar sustaine and Williams' soaring alto render that imagery as sharply as Norman Rockwell ever could. She makes the American dream sound dreamy. —Tom
Troye Sivan - "She's The Best"
Almost everything about "She's The Best" — the woozy synths over the breakbeat shuffle, the light DJ scratching, the murmuring deadpan rap-adjacent vocal delivery, the artfully directed video with Nicole Kidman in a starring role — seems designed to get heavy VH1 airplay in 1995. This marks a surprising departure for Troye Sivan, who was born in 1995 and whose biggest moments often take the form of horny club-pop. In paying affectioinate tribute to the women in his life ("She's walkin' down the street with her little cigarette/ Great smile and a cumstain on her… dresssss"), Sivan steers right into the beautiful haze, working with co-writers Jack Antonoff, George Daniel, and Styalz Fuego to craft a beautifully blunted trip-hop take on what I can only call big-budget chillwave. We know that Sivan loves women because he has given us a song that would've gone off at the Lilith Fair. —Tom
Phoebe Bridgers - "Bobby"
Phoebe Bridgers is known for slow, sad ballads full of piercing turns of phrase. Her work in that format is so potent that it's inspired a whole generation of imitators. But Bridgers does have other tricks in her bag. When she rocks out, it's often transcendent. And now we know just how good it can be when she rocks out joyfully.
"Bobby," one of many highlights on the singer-songwriter's long-awaited Lost Weekend, feels both as bright as "Kyoto" and as apocalyptic as "I Know The End," the two loudest offerings on her 2020 stunner Punisher. But unlike those bitter, doom-laden anthems, this song's great subject is romance. Buoyed by a soaring, resplendent arrangement as planetarium-ready as any of the album's slow jams, Bridgers captures the thrill of falling madly in love.
Her lyrics are strewn with little details that feel like private secrets ("I saw you slow dancing alone in your room/ I wanted to buy you a new pair of shoes") and allusions to an attraction verging on maniacal ("And if you didn't like either one of my friends/ I’d kill them, I'd kill them"). It all leads to a portrait of domestic bliss, heartwarming and intimate and once again vague enough to avoid oversharing: "Now I sleep in your shirts and you live in my house/ You sing in the shower, I talk to myself/ We've got stars on the ceiling and clothes on the floor/ And a thing in a box I don't touch anymore."
Bridgers delivers these lines in breathless, spiraling melodies, over urgent strums, spectral synths, and drums so booming they might leave cracks in the fabric of space and time. And maybe this love is on that earth-shaking scale: As "Bobby" reaches its breathtaking finale, her "This could be the end of wanting" refrain is pared down, one more open-ended twist from one of the finest writers in rock. "This could be the end," Bridgers and her lover sing together against the surging backdrop, obsession and oblivion blurring together into the same fireworks display. —Chris
