Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Bad Bunny returns sooner than expected, Offset corrals his famous friends and Ice Spice links up with Rema for a new hit. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Bad Bunny, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana
Thought you had to wait until 2024 for Bad Bunny’s next opus, which would follow last year’s enormous Un Verano Sin Ti? A lot of us did — there’s a reason why his new semi-surprise project is titled Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana (“Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”), considering how widespread the belief was that the Puerto Rican superstar would sit patiently until the calendar flipped. Instead, Bad Bunny has gifted another 80 minutes of dynamic solo material: zero guests stop by Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, clearly a conscious decision to delineate between the summer-ready opulence of Un Verano Sin Ti and his captivating next phase. Bad Bunny’s latest requires due diligence before a snap judgment, but needless to say, it’s good to have him back sooner than anticipated.
Offset, Set It Off
The cover of new Offset solo album finds the rap star falling away from the world as it explodes away from him, the sky and ground inverted; after Quavo’s somber Rocket Power, which reflected on Takeoff’s untimely death throughout its track list, Offset’s new artwork could be construed as a reaction to his fellow Migos member’s passing. While Set It Off does contemplate grief and unspoken words (see the late highlight “Upside Down”), Offset’s latest also revels in blockbuster-rap elegance — especially in its first half, which includes guest spots from Travis Scott, Don Toliver and Offset’s wife, Cardi B.
Ice Spice feat. Rema, “Pretty Girl”
During her meteoric rise, Ice Spice has never compromised her style or relaxed her flow to fit in with mainstream expectations — but on crackling new single “Pretty Girl,” featuring Nigerian superstar Rema, the rapper showcases her ability to translate her effortless rhyming into a traditional pop structure, and scores one of the most likable singles of her career. “Pretty Girl” benefits from an Afrobeats-adjacent thump and the melodic charisma that Rema flaunted on “Calm Down,” but Ice Spice dominates the track, each of her bars a dart that hits its mark.
Troye Sivan, Something to Give Each Other
Troye Sivan has always possessed a distinct pop voice — both literally, with his warm, richly developed tone, and figuratively, as a former YouTuber making fundamentally sound and unabashedly queer pop music. Yet “Rush,” the thrilling lead single to third album Something to Give Each Other, hinted that his song construction had leveled up, and the full-length has confirmed as much: not every song on his new project carries the tempo of “Rush,” but from the robo-fantasia of “One of Your Girls” to the clap-along lullaby of “Can’t Go Back, Baby,” Something to Give Each Other gives Sivan the sonic depth required to help his voice fully soar.
Boygenius, The Rest
Prior to a breakout 2023 in which they released their debut full-length and headlined arenas, Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker conjured magic with a six-song EP in 2018, unveiling Boygenius as a collaborative project and slowly winning over thousands of listeners. The Rest, a new four-song EP, arrives in very different circumstances for the group yet feels just as intimate, a short, moving songwriting showcase defined by sparse arrangements and overlapping voices; the closer “Power,” in particular, feels like a summation for this phase of Boygenius, with Baker singing about “a crooked little trajectory” before being joined by her best friends.
Editor’s Pick: Fred again.. feat. Jozzy, “Ten”
As he caps off a string of shows in New York and Los Angeles, effectively putting an exclamation point on a professional period during which he ascended to dance’s A-list, Fred again.. has also unveiled one of the more satisfying grooves of his career: “Ten,” a new single with Jozzy, plays with space and vocal pitches, but that percussive hook is as wonderfully woozy as Fred hoped it would be, and Jozzy makes his presence felt in a short amount of time. “Ten” begs to be presented to and bopped with a crowd of thousands — lucky for those with Fred again.. tickets this month.
