Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a useful information to New Music Friday’s most important releases every week — the important thing music that everybody will probably be speaking about immediately, and that will probably be dominating playlists this weekend and past.
Last week, we featured Jack White, Arlo Parks and Anne Hathaway.
This week, Lady Gaga and Doechii group up for the high-powered, high-fashion “Runway” from The Devil Wears Prada 2, Katseye releases a pre-Coachella single with “PINKY UP” and The Strokes are again with a brand new music and album on the way in which… plus way more. Check out all of this week’s picks beneath:
Lady Gaga and Doechii, “Runway”
Turns out, Lady Gaga and Doechii are the right pair to “turn a dance floor into a runway,” as they sing on their catchy collab — and though the 2 stars had by no means labored collectively earlier than, it sounds apparent right here they had been meant to. “Runway” — which was co-written and co-produced by Bruno Mars — is the primary official single from the anticipated upcoming movie, The Devil Wears Prada 2, out May 1. Fittingly, the observe is booming with in-your-face bass and full of the precise kind of assured sass that anybody about to hit the runway would wish to hear.
KATSEYE, “PINKY UP”
“Pinky Up” arrives at a pivotal time for Katseye: the lady group is recent off the Grammys and in the future away from making its Coachella debut and, after all, now working as a fivesome following the current hiatus by member Manon Bannerman. Needless to say, the lady group’s new single had simply a little bit of stress on it. But the high-energy techno-pop observe delivers, dizzying and delighting with its relentless tempo — maybe meant to soundtrack simply how nonstop Katseye is true now.
The Strokes, “Going Shopping”
This week, The Strokes introduced its first album in six years, Reality Awaits, produced by Rick Rubin. With the announcement got here the discharge of lead single “Going Shopping,” an auto-tuned but nonetheless retro-sounding Strokes music that appears to discover a steadiness between the band’s essence and maybe its commentary on the “reality” of what’s forward — or is already right here — in well-liked music. The new music arrives simply in time for the band’s Coachella set, offering a possibility to preview much more tracks off the upcoming venture.
Alabama Shakes, “American Dream”
After saying a 2026 tour, bluesy rock band Alabama Shakes is again with new music — and proper on time. The aptly titled “American Dream” is the group’s first new launch since 2015’s Grammy-winning Sound & Color (however follows two solo albums from vocalist Brittany Howard) and regardless of its sluggish and simmering manufacturing, delivers an pressing message. “What are we doing?” asks Howard, earlier than reciting numerous indicators of the state of the nation proper now: “Got the White House pretty and pimped out/ Gun reform/ My body my choice…Low grade fever, lower wage people/ How many folks got shot this week/ It’s enough to make you wanna go back to sleep.” Still, Howard concludes on a notice that may very well be considered as sarcastic, educational or hopeful — and perhaps even all three — when she states, “keep dreaming.”
Tiny Habits, “Right In Front Of Me”
Folk-pop group Tiny Habits (a trio that shaped in 2022 whereas nonetheless college students at Berklee College of Music) may very well be gearing up for its subsequent period. Following a debut EP in 2023 and full-length debut in 2024, the group has launched its newest single, “Right In Front Of Me,” a breezy observe that sounds as carefree as its topic yearns to be. “You can tell by myself, is where I’m comfortable at/ Oh, but tonight this lady, she looked crazy, but so free,” the three harmonize forward of the music’s blissful ending, wherein the topic hits the dance flooring as freely as they all the time needed. And the most effective half? “Nobody is saying, ‘You look crazy.’”
