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, Ariana Grande rings up another vocal powerhouse, Vampire Weekend make their long-awaited return and Dua Lipa is done with exhibition games. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Ariana Grande with Mariah Carey, “yes, and?” Remix
Pairing Ariana Grande with Mariah Carey was always going to lead to vocal fireworks — and, yes, the new remix to Grande’s latest No. 1 hit “yes, and?” featuring Carey does boast some absolutely scorching high-register work from both. Yet the true beauty of this new team-up exists in the superstars combining their respective ferocities, and injecting this ode to minding your own business with even more full-hearted passion. The chills-inducing moment here is when Carey barges in on the second verse with “Now, I’m so done with sharing”; she sounds phenomenal, but her personality is even more commanding than her voice.
Vampire Weekend, “Capricorn” / “Gen-X Cops”
In the hours since the release of Vampire Weekend’s first new music in nearly half a decade, a general consensus seems to have congealed around twin singles “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops” online: if you didn’t like the band’s last album, 2019’s Father of the Bride, you’re probably going to like these songs. That’s because, unlike the pop immediacy of a track like “Harmony Hall,” the wistful “Capricorn” and the frenetic “Gen-X Cops” recall the playful experimentation of the band’s 2013 classic Modern Vampires of the City, although Ezra Koenig’s gentle delivery always bridges the gap between different factions of Vampire Weekend fans.
Jennifer Lopez, This Is Me… Now
Although Jennifer Lopez’s new album title suggests a direct follow-up to her 2002 full-length This Is Me… Then, the fact that This Is Me… Now marks the multi-hyphenate’s first album in a decade — the longest recording gap of her illustrious career — also makes this new album (and its accompanying documentary film) a check-in on a superstar’s modern reality. While both projects are positioned as intimate profiles (the song “Dear Ben, Pt. II” is certainly fodder for celeb obsessives), This Is Me… Now also works as a sturdy pop album, with Lopez’s Anuel AA team-up “Rebound” sounding like the most surefire potential hit.
Dua Lipa, “Training Season”
Dua Lipa is ready to move on to the romantic regular season on her new disco-pop track, which harnesses the energy and attitude of previous single “Houdini” and adds a self-exploratory element to the dumb-guys kiss-off. Musically, “Training Season” features Lipa’s strongest instincts — fans of “Physical,” the laser-focused workout from Future Nostalgia, should wrap their arms around this one — but also showcases her personal evolution, singing as a former teen star who has grown into adulthood and knows precisely what she wants.
Yeat, 2093
After scoring the biggest chart hit of his career last year with “IDGAF,” one of the most enduring smashes from Drake’s For All The Dogs, Yeat conceivably could have stuffed his own project with tons of star power — and while 2093 does feature drop-by verses from Future and Lil Wayne, the 70-minute, dystopia-themed epic is largely a solo project, full of pitch-black menace and yelped hooks. Yeat’s world has expanded as he ascended the ranks of popular hip-hop, and 2093 should keep his upward trajectory steady.
Editor’s Pick: Karol G with Tiësto, “Contigo”
If the chorus of Karol G’s new collaboration with Tiësto sounds familiar, that’s because the Colombian superstar and Dutch producer have reshaped the Leona Lewis pop classic “Bleeding Love” into a Spanish-language dance track, complete with a chirping post-chorus and some surprising vulnerability from Karol on the verses. “Contigo” may be built around an interpolation, but Karol and Tiësto have fashioned something new and exciting, as well as a bid for top 40 placement in the United States.
