Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
Mandy, Indiana - "Sicko!" (Feat. billy woods)
Under the video for “Sicko,” the latest comment by a user named LordBass reads as such: "I am from the year 21299. We used this song as the basis for entire civilization. Thank you for its creation." Menacing and enrapturing in equal measure, “Sicko” is an electro-punk meltdown — one we imagine is the future but maybe doesn’t sound too far off from the present. It’s a dystopian anthem that brings the relentless minds of Mandy, Indiana and billy woods together. Over buoyant-but-grating synths and tearing percussion, woods sounds like he’s trapped in a possessed video game. There’s plenty of coughing, mentions of lobotomies, and fluids. It would all be completely terrifying if it didn’t go so fucking hard. —Margaret
Maria BC - "Night & Day"
Maria BC imagined "Night & Day" as "a kind of lonesome cowboy song, an ode to the night." It's about longing for home during the drudgery of the workday, portraying nights with loved ones into not just a respite from the day's toils but a sacred rite. They succeeded spectacularly at conjuring a solemn, almost spiritual vibe, an atmosphere that elevates a beautiful ballad to some grander plane. —Chris
Lala Lala - "Arrow"
"Resistance is the root of all suffering," Lillie West says of her new Lala Lala single "Arrow," a synthpop earworm with a La Femme sample. The buoyant track surrenders itself to a skittish pulse as West accepts her small role in the grand scheme of things. Accompanied by a fluorescent-lit music video of West enacting an exorcism-like choreography in a parking lot at night, the tune is an existential banger. —Danielle
Friko - "Seven Degrees"
On his band Friko's new single "Seven Degrees," vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan flips his own lighthearted gaffe into quantifiable yearning: "For a long time I thought the saying was 'seven degrees of separation' and not 'six,'" he explains. With a trembling wail reminiscent of Conor Oberst's and an Americana-tinged hook fit for wailing along, "Seven Degrees" is a bittersweet ode to connections of all scopes, from the ones that feel easy to the ones that don't. —Abby
Suitor - "Factory"
Suitor don't sound like a 2026 band. They sound like they had a stray track on a cassette-only 1992 compilation that got a Numero Group reissue years later. Of course, maybe that means Suitor sound the most like a 2026 band, since we've all sentenced ourselves to relive past glories again and again, in slightly different permutations. But the cool thing about "Factory," which honestly could've come out on Factory, isn't the scraping guitar tone or the exquisite vocal boredom or the corona of VHS-tape hiss that surrounds the entire enterprise. It's the spiky, locked-in energy on display — the kind of thing you need if you're trying to make old sounds feel new again. —Tom
