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.)
Prism Shores - "I Didn't Mean To Change My Mind"
"I didn't mean to change my mind" — that's a good hook. Not much else can be heard — except maybe "I'm sorry that I changed my mind" — on Prism Shores' new blown-out power-pop ballad called, you guessed it, "I Didn't Mean To Change My Mind." The words summon a specific kind of sadness, or maybe anger or regret, and the jangly guitars feel like condolences, reassurances. Like something is over because it has to be, but there's rebirth on the horizon. —Danielle
Swapmeet – “I Know!”
Sometimes a song falls together like magic. Singer Venus O’Broin says "I Know!" basically wrote itself, and you can tell, in the best way. Swapmeet's debut single for Winspear seems to flow out of them, chugging along with a natural sense of purpose and propulsion. The hook, matching O'Broin's vocals with a needling bit of '90s guitar, is just one phrase repeated — "I know, I know, I know" — followed by the dam-breaking sound of the band rushing back in. It's an acknowledgement that something's not right, embedded a song where everything works together perfectly. —Chris
Norman D. Loco - "I Want A Beer"
On Bandcamp, London four-piece Norman D. Loco describes their sound as "guitar music with lemon zest." Their debut single “i want a beer” is a wonderfully sour pop song. It nearly sounds possessed with whirling industrial stammers and eerie vocals. Morbid images float by: "She passed in the living room. An Ironic way to die." Guitars swim forward like something out of King Krule’s The Ooz, trudging through a mucky hungover, nearly rotten. “i want a beer” isn’t just lemon zest. There’s something dark and unrelenting about it, a throbbing sting in a fresh cut. —Margaret
Quiet Light - "Berlin"
As a society, we really unlocked something when we decided that "pop music" and "popular music" could mean two entirely separate things. Spiritually, "Berlin" would've once fit in perfectly among the college-radio misfits. It's a murky, atmospheric confessional, a kaleidoscopic journey through emergency rooms and too-loud parties and distracted, distracting phone calls from trains. But Riya Mahesh delivers her unsettled-life lament through the language of past mega-pop generations — impressioinist breakbeat-splashes, tingly keyboard tones, smooth-jazz saxophone solos suddenly smashing through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man. And what do you know? In the right hands, those elements can be just as transportive and communicative as the world's jangliest guitar. —Tom
Grace Ives - "Stupid Bitches"
Grace Ives says her upcoming album Girlfriend is about giving herself "room to fail, to experiment, and to become more honest" as an artist, and that freedom pays off in the record's latest single "Stupid Bitches." The track sees the LA-via-Brooklyn musician fully embrace an underground pop diva persona, as buzzing synths and industrial-lite percussion set the foundation for her musings on a recent romantic rejection. At first she's sad about getting dumped, naturally, until she has one shocking epiphany: Stupid bitchеs simply cannot hurt her. As self-assured musically as it is lyrically, "Stupid Bitches" is a refreshing reminder that limerence is fleeting: "Honestly, it's fine/ I think you're a hater." Sometimes moving on is just that easy. —Abby
