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.
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This week, Sabrina Carpenter torches a former flame, Lil Wayne continues to surprise, and Addison Rae makes a grand debut. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Sabrina Carpenter, “Manchild”
Although Sabrina Carpenter still has multiple hits from her Short n’ Sweet era hanging around radio, she’s returned more quickly than expected to eviscerate an ex: “Manchild,” which Carpenter created with her collaborative cohorts Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff, functions as a colorful, country-tinged bookend to her No. 1 hit “Please Please Please,” allowing the pop star to take down the man she begged to not embarrass her with lines like, “Why so sexy if so dumb?”
Lil Wayne, Tha Carter VI
Hip-hop may have changed around Lil Wayne since he kicked off his mega-selling Carter series more than 20 years ago, but Weezy accounts for that evolution on Tha Carter VI — which features relatively new stars like Jelly Roll and BigXThaPlug — while also remaining a singular voice in popular music, capable of warbling a Weezer hit (“Island Holiday”), placing his voice next to Andrea Bocelli’s (“Maria”), and, of course, stringing together gonzo rhymes for minutes on end.
Addison Rae, Addison
It’s time for the doubters of Addison Rae’s musical chops to be bid adieu: on debut album Addison, the former influencer turns in a tour de force of personality and pop know-how, breathing each syllable and gliding over every synth riff with enough detail to give the listener a glimpse inside her world, and the confidence to sell her artistic vision.
Turnstile, Never Enough
Even though Turnstile represents one of the biggest hardcore breakthroughs of the past decade, their long-awaited new album Never Enough is not a hardcore project — instead, the Baltimore quintet experiment with horns, synths, song lengths and sonic textures on the follow-up to 2021’s Glow On, although the head-banging hooks remain immediate enough to satisfy longtime listeners.
Mariah Carey, “Type Dangerous”
As she’s returned to the top of the Hot 100 for multiple years in a row with her holiday classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey has concurrently tinkered with her traditional approach to rhythmic pop, and “Type Dangerous,” a sultry new R&B single that samples Eric B. & Rakim’s “Eric B. Is President,” finds the legend continuing to innovate instead of resting on her laurels.
Ed Sheeran, “Sapphire”
Ed Sheeran continues to explore different musical cultures on “Sapphire,” a free-spirited new anthem that, like recent single “Azizam,” looks east for inspiration: with backing vocals and sitar from Indian superstar Arijit Singh, the song doubles down on the growing trend of South Asian production reaching Europe and North America, in the name of a type of love without geographical boundaries.
KATSEYE feat. Ice Spice, “Gnarly (Remix)”
KATSEYE’s recent single “Gnarly” leapt off the speakers with an irresistible audacity upon its release, and now that the song has gone viral for the global girl group, Ice Spice has gleefully hopped aboard to compare herself to LeBron James in his rookie year and sneak in some brand promotion (“No soda, the ceiling is Starry!”).
Editor’s Pick: Little Simz, Lotus
The creation of Little Simz’s excellent new album Lotus may have been tumultuous — ““I got to a point where I lost my sense of purpose,” the British rapper recently told Billboard — but the result is on par with her 2021 breakthrough Sometimes I Might Be Introvert in terms of lyrical dexterity, and with even more luxurious production — these grooves, combined with Simz’s nimble delivery, are worth sinking into for hours.
