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.)
Sprints - "Trickle Down"
There are countless quotes about history’s tendency to repeat itself. War, another war. Financial collapse. Widening gaps. Death. And then another war. And yet even though it’s basically common sense at this point that history loves a rerun, things always seem to find new ways to get worse while we wait around for the ultimate collapse.
Sprints’ latest single “Trickle Down” is a new anthem for that tragic waiting game. It’s the perfect song to put on when you have to walk somewhere in the rain — on your way to work when you can’t call off because the world is expensive as shit. When you remember nothing matters, but at least you know it’s all bullshit, and somehow that’s enough, right?
Like most Sprints bangers, "Trickle Down" goes hard and makes me want to jump the fuck around. The guitars grind with urgency, and vocalist Karla Chubb sounds like she’s clawing her way through the noise, ready to grip the loser trying to explain trickle down economics when she already knows no punchy jargon for ineffective policy can explain away the world’s rotten woes. —Margaret
Dutch Interior - "Go Fuck Yourself"
"The words don’t mean shit/ Just little spatters of spit." Now, that's a bar. It comes from Dutch Interior's new single "Go Fuck Yourself," an amusing piano-ballad diss track. A catchy fuck-you is nothing new — whether it's CeeLo Green's blatant "Fuck You" or Justin Bieber's suggestive "Love Yourself" — but the LA group's take on the form is jaunty yet slick, a refreshing tune from an unpredictable, promising band. —Danielle
Friko - "Choo Choo"
All aboard the Friko express! The Chicago indie rockers are going places, and this raucous tribute to riding the train might just transport you. Do I have any more railroad puns? Probably not, but there are many more good tracks (music tracks, not train tracks) where this one came from — namely, Friko's forthcoming Something Worth Waiting For. In the meantime, please enjoy "Choo Choo." —Chris
Aldous Harding - "One Stop"
Rick Ross in 2006: "I know Pablo, Noriega/ The real Norieaga, he owe me a hundred favors." Aldous Harding in 2026: "I met the real John Cale/ He had no words, but I don't mind/ I packed the stage while he ate rice." Different people, different sentiments, different feelings. Also, I only believe one of them. Aldous Harding does not present herself as a world-historical drug kingpin on "One Stop." Instead, she strips her art-pop down to its barest bones, her voice floating beatifically and even soulfully over a great little piano line before the ramshackle acoustic-guitar bit comes in. Still, what a flex. That's what both of those lines have in common. They're both amazing flexes. —Tom
Carla dal Forno - "Going Out"
Letting go of a crush just because they’re going out with someone you used to know? That would just be too easy for Carla dal Forno. The Australian dream pop artist knows that instigating a messy love triangle is taboo, and that explicit awareness makes her “Going Out,” the lead single from her upcoming album Confession, feel all the more ominous: “But I’ve made up my mind/ You will belong to me soon,” she coos over a plunky, melodic bassline and minimal-wave synths. In its sonic restraint, dal Forno makes a convincing case for not holding back your feelings at all. —Abby
