Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.
This week saw new tunes from 21 Savage, Blackpink, Romy, and YG. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.
21 Savage And Metro Boomin — Savage Mode II
21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s original Savage Mode was beloved in 2016, so the pair decided to run it back with a sequel, Savage Made II. The duo really made their handful of features count, as the album features Drake, Young Thug, and a whole lot of Morgan Freeman.
Megan Thee Stallion and Young Thug — “Don’t Stop”
Megan is fresh off what was surely one of the biggest thrills of her career: Being the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Ahead of that, though, she took advantage of the increased exposure to drop a new song (and cinematically referential video) with Young Thug, “Don’t Stop.”
Bryson Tiller — Anniversary
October 2 marked the fifth anniversary of Tiller’s debut album, Trapsoul. Naturally, an album released on that exact day five years later titled Anniversary is heavily referential to it. The focus only drifts from Tiller once, when Drake pops up on “Outta Time.”
YG — My Life 4Hunnid
YG has been on an annual album release schedule since 2018, and with just a few months left in 2020, he returned with My Life 4Hunnid. He got a number of friends to help him out with this one, including Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla Sign, Gunna, Lil Tjay, Lil Mosey, Calboy, Tay2x, and D3.
Bartees Strange — Live Forever
Strange recently told Uproxx about how he decided to let his real tastes shine through on his new album, saying, “I hear this song one way, a rock song with a hip-hop verse and a pop chorus, but no one’s going to get that so I need to just make it a rock song. I’ve always tried to walk myself back to make it more digestible for other people. And with this record I was just like, ‘I’m just going to make the stuff I like. These are the sounds that come natural to me.”‘
Blackpink — The Album
Blackpink are one of the leaders of the K-pop movement, and they did it all without a proper album. They changed that last week, though, with The Album, which, aside from their universally understandable pop sound, makes an appeal to English-language speakers with guest spots from Cardi B and Selena Gomez.
Dua Lipa — “Levitating” Feat. DaBaby
Dua Lipa has remixed and re-worked Future Nostalgia in just about every way and at just about every opportunity possible since its release. That’s great because it’s a superlative album, and she refreshed one of its strongest songs last week, “Levitating,” by adding DaBaby to it.
Beabadoobee — “How Was Your Day?”
A lot of things about being a touring musician are great, but it can put a strain on relationships. That’s something Beabadoobee addresses on “How Was Your Day?,” which she describes as “a track that explores all the relationships I neglected when I was away from home.” She also noted of the raw track, “I wanted to emphasize the rawness of the lyrics with the song sonically which is why I recorded it on a four-track with all the little mistakes and vocal wobbles included.”
Denzel Curry — “Live From The Abyss”
Curry decided to take advantage of the charitable Bandcamp Fridays initiative by dropping a new Bandcamp-exclusive track, “Live From The Abyss” (to benefit Dream Defenders). The track sees Curry rapping about Black-positive themes, with lyrics like, “I’m screamin’, ‘Black is beautiful,’ views are probably anti-race / I can see the fear in your eyes when you look in my face.”
Romy — “Lifetime”
Earlier this year, The xx’s Romy declared her intention to release her first solo album, and last week, she got one step closer to realizing that with a new solo single, “Lifetime.” The guitarist’s fresh song might not be what you expect for a guitarist’s solo single, but is instead more indebted to the dance influence of The xx’s recent material.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.