Sound Off: 10 Songs You Need to Hear Now

Sound Off: 10 Songs You Need to Hear Now

By Shaad D'Souza
May 02, 2025

It's impossible to be across all the new music out each Friday. Luckily, PAPER is here to help you out: each week, we round up 10 of our favorite new songs from artists — emerging and established — to soundtrack your life. From the surreal to the sublime, these songs cover every corner of the music world. The only criteria: they all have to absolutely rip.

Subscribe to our Sound Off Spotify playlist here and check out this week's tracks, below.

Song of the Week: Bambii, Jessy Lanza, Yaeji - "Mirror"

The first single from Bambii’s Infinity Club II is a fantastic, frizzled team-up with low-key club mavens Jessy Lanza and Yaeji, who add a gelatinous warmth to the rising Toronto producer’s frantic UKG framework. (With shades of post-punk and R&B thrown in there for measure!)

Turnstile - "Seeing Stars"

Turnstile, no longer a hardcore band, are just making really good '80s-inflected rock now, a style that, somehow, works, frontman Brendan Yates’ voice stretching with agility over the band’s arcing chords.

Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco - "Talk"

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco ... sampling Cake? You love to see it, folks. Fantastic, weird move on their part!

Maroon 5, LISA - "Priceless"

I have a fondness for this kind of lite funk, kind of, and it’s fun to hear Lisa play in this more chill mode than most of the music on her debut album Alter Ego.

Jorja Smith - "The Way I Love You"

What’s the opposite of a recession indicator? Jorja Smith returning to dance music, baby! “The Way I Love You” is a sexy, dubstep-inflected two-step track and I already know I’m going to be listening to it every day this summer.

Katyseye - "Gnarly"

Alice Longyu Gao wrote this song, but couldn’t you already tell? It’s batshit insane and totally thrilling.

Flume, JPEGMAFIA, Ravyn Lenae - "Is It Real"

A Flume/Jpegmafia collab EP is a fantastic idea, to the point that I kinda can’t believe it’s taken this long to happen. Ravyn Lenae’s heavenly voice is a perfect contrast to the more abrasive elements of the song.

Fifty Fifty - "Pookie"

Sweet as sugar and light as cotton candy, “Pookie” is fun and buoyant in the vein of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - "Deadstick"


Sticking with the ‘70s blues-rock tip they’ve been on for a minute, King Gizzard rampage through “Deadstick,” adding horns and a call-and-response middle-eight for an extra kick.

Yung Lean - "I'm Your Dirty, I'm Your Love"

The latest single from Yung Lean’s Jonatan is a big, bright synth ballad that continues down Lean’s post-punk path.

Kacey Musgraves - "Lost Highway"

Kacey Musgraves has celebrated her signing to the seminal Lost Highway label with a sweet, simple cover of Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”.

Photography courtesy Bambii