Olivia Rodrigo: Bad Idea Right?

The 20-year-old pop phenom Olivia Rodrigo extends her winning streak on Bad Idea Right?, the latest reason to be very excited about her second album, Guts, due September 8. Departing from the sound of the album’s first single, the rock-operatic Vampire, Bad Idea Right? is a bright, kaleidoscopic head-rush of a pop song that inhales a dizzying array of influences — the chatty call-and-response hooks of ’60s girl groups, the gum-smacking sass of Toni Basil’s Mickey, the chugging guitars and elastic bass lines of early aughts pop-punk — and spits them all out in Rodrigo’s singularly conversational voice. “Seeing you tonight,” she sings of an ex, “It’s a bad idea, right?” Then she shrugs, mutters an expletive with sharp comic timing, and dives back into the mess. It’s a playful track, but there’s also something invitingly intimate about the way Rodrigo puts the rush of her own internal thoughts and feelings on display here. (“My brain goes ‘ahhhhh,’” sings a multi-tracked chorus of Rodrigos.) A girl’s got to make her own mistakes, after all. But if the listener is able to eavesdrop on her internal dialogue, she’s never completely alone.

Noname: Namesake

The Chicago-based rapper Noname — Fatimah Nyeema Warner — wraps contentious positions in smooth grooves and high-speed, rhythmically adept wordplay on her third album, Sundial, her first since 2018. “The whole world is culpable/Why complacency float the boat the most?” she asks in Namesake. The song also gleefully attacks headliners of Super Bowl halftime shows as “propaganda for the military.” With a smile in her voice, Noname raps, “Go Rihanna go — watch the fighter jet fly high/War machine gets glamorised.” But then she calls herself out for playing Coachella this year: “I said I wouldn’t perform for them/And somehow I still fell in line,” she admits. Careers are complicated.

Miguel featuring Lil Yachty: Number 9

Miguel

Miguel builds a monumental enigma in Number 9. Over a stark but triumphal electronic march, he overdubs his voice into antiphonal choirs, trading lyrics like “In the gun a kiss/Let it blow your mind/Till the dust returns/To the number nine.” Lil Yachty arrives midway through to announce “I am the grim reaper.” Neither one sounds daunted by mortality.

Kelsea Ballerini: How Do I Do This

Kelsea Ballerini

“I haven’t been on a date since I was 22,” Kelsea Ballerini sings in How Do I Do This — an arena-country song, with programmed drums and reverberating chords, about starting over even though she’s “scared of looking stupid.” The song elevates the awkward, in-between moments, then stops dead just as something might begin.

Ian Sweet: Your Spit

Ian Sweet

A crush-struck Jill Medford — who records as Ian Sweet — crafts an infectious, slightly gross hook on her latest single, which will appear on her upcoming album Sucker: “Kiss me like you mean it, kiss me like you’re leaving,” she sings. “Your spit tastes different.” Medford’s dreamy, sing-songy vocals dance atop the song’s driving electronic beat and squelching synths, giddily evoking fresh infatuation.