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.)
Bladee - “Love Is A State"
The job title "rapper" was never a comfortable fit for Bladee, and now it's a complete misdirect — a word that people can only really use because nothing else properly describes what this guy does. On "Love Is A State," producers Woesum and Yung Sherman give Bladee a melting synthpop track, its glittering beauty smeared and smothered in layer upon layer of echo and digital distortion even though the drums still hit hard. Bladee reacts by smearing and smothering himself even further, singing in a falsetto chirp through gurgling robotic filters. He sounds like a small child lost in a fairy-tale forest, if that small child was somehow also T-Pain. On paper, it looks like an experimental pile-up. In practice, the end result is almost overwhelmingly romantic. Maybe we just need a new word for Bladee. Dreamfreak? Electro-ghost? Gurgle-wizard? —Tom
Frog - "Je Ne Sais Pas"
Frog, the New York project of singer-songwriter Daniel Bateman and his brother Steve, have had a rather prolific streak as of late — next month they'll release Frog For Sale, their third album in just a little over a year. I credit Frog's abundant output in part to the lo-fi atmosphere and delightful candidness of their songs, like Frog For Sale's lead single "Je Ne Sais Pas," a ramshackle piano ditty that's mostly about being horny and frustrated. Daniel sings about rejection with a brilliant, three-beers-deep stream-of-consciousness, lamenting losers who live in "sixth-floor walk-ups" and "cannot get their cocks up." It's a catchy, witty anthem for when big-city dating feels even more soul-crushing than usual. —Abby
King Tuff - "Stairway To Nowhere"
King Tuff's new album MOO is out today. This week, in one last burst of promotion, he shared "Stairway To Nowhere," the kind of good-times guitar jam that would have sounded life-affirming on the radio half a century ago and would still today if radio stations were smart enough to spin King Tuff. Windows down for this one. —Chris
Jim Legxacy - "idk idk"
Blurry, restless, and emotionally malleable, "idk idk" feels like a late-night thought spiral set to a crunchy soul-sample and a syrupy flow. That moment when your mind is racing and you can’t sleep. Life is confusing and exciting. You’re alive, wtf that’s crazy. Legxacy blissfully leans into ambiguity — all about being stuck in that weird limbo of not knowing what you feel, what you want, or even what you’re doing. Life, babe. But Legxacy makes it sound so damn good with a melted microchip feel. —Margaret
Fire-Toolz - "Balam =^..^= Says IPv09082024 Strawberry Head"
If you're going to title a song "Balam =^..^= Says IPv09082024 Strawberry Head," it cannot be a normal song. But of course it's not a normal song — it's by Fire-Toolz. Are you looking for futuristic synths enmeshed with guttural screams? Do you want to feel like you're in a video game and at a death metal show at the same time? Then this track is for you. The crescendo is pure pandemonium as it burst with blistering blast beats, a dramatically proggy guitar solo, and sound effects that feel taken from a virtual battle on which the player's fate rests. In Angel Marcloid's world, nothing feels real, yet the stakes feel higher than ever. —Danielle
