Bops Only: 10 Songs You Need to Start Your Weekend Right
Music

Bops Only: 10 Songs You Need to Start Your Weekend Right

New Release Friday always promises to be a treasure trove of the now and next in music, so leave it to PAPER to comb through obscure and mainstream corners of the internet and bring you the best. I curate this list each week and have specific, yet impossible-to-define taste in music, so who knows what'll pop up here? Kindly adopt the 10 songs, below, as your new favorite children and watch them grow up as you indulge my spiraling over whatever the hell I want every week! Is that too much to ask? Maybe, but thank you in advance.

This exuberant Chromatica duet by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande is pretty much capable of electrifying quarantines and strobe-lit Pride events on Zoom alike. That's our reality now, but at least we're alive.

HAIM leans into their seamless brand of deeply harmonic classic rock on "Don't Wanna," a song about sticking by someone's side come rain or shine.

Gia Woods is a heartbreaker in "Naive," a dark, yet sparkly track that is just as much a warning to a hopeful new lover as as it is a gigantic banger.

On his brooding new single, Guard ponders the phenomenon of gaslighting –– undoubtedly one of humankind's most frustrating traits. "Dousing me," he sings, as the beat morphs into a spastic meltdown, representing a love gone up in flames.

The Charli XCX-curated quartet teams with Dylan Brady for a spunky new track that, fueled by power chords and heavy percussion, is equal parts fierce declaration of self and fuck-you to naysayers.

DeathbyRomy's brand of alternative dark pop gets a markedly hi-res makeover in "Kiss Me Goodbye." On the anthemic track, co-written with hitmaker Jesse Saint John, the singer ends a relationship believing she can't compare to the competition, sounding resilient, not worn-down.

On the soulful, gorgeously sung "Home," Berlin R&B artist LIE NING is the loyal shoulder to cry on, and the place to land should you fall.

Ellie Goulding's latest is powered by driving '80s synth-pop, a deceptively upbeat song about the ins and outs of a fiery, yet imbalanced relationship.

R&B artist Tamera is moving on, but it's not a struggle, as the summery, breezy rhythms of "Flipside" suggest. Her warm vocal tone show she's hopeful for what comes next.

In light of COVID-19 lockdowns, Sinead Harnett is the latest artist to make an isolation jam, and though she sings about past regret and decisions, when she sings "What a time to be alive," it sounds like an invitation us to exhale right along with her. "Quarantine Queen" is a song to herself but a reminder that we'll come out on the other side.

Rodney Chrome's "Premium Goods" is simply the sauce: a delectable soup of freaky strip-club trap, sex-positive bars ("Baby grab ahold when I throw it back") and 8-bit video-game blips. The flavor this has.

What's your favorite track this week? Enjoy chaos and taste in equal measure, and stream our Bops Only playlist every week, below.

Photo via Instagram/ Courtesy of Lady Gaga

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