Sound Off: 10 Songs You Need to Hear Now

Sound Off: 10 Songs You Need to Hear Now

By Shaad D'SouzaJul 18, 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: Blood Orange, Caroline Polachek, Lorde, Mustafa - "Mind Loaded"


The first single from Blood Orange’s Essex Honey, his first album in many years, is a gorgeous slow-build that features a chorus of familiar voices, blended together to create one coherent whole. The most intriguing part of the song might be the jazz breakdown at the end — a canny production choice that shows Dev Hynes hasn’t lost his spark.

Bad Bunny - "ALAMBRE PúA"


Released to mark the first night of his monumental Puerto Rico residency, “Alambre Púa” is Bad Bunny at his finest, embracing and menacing in equal measure.

Alex G - "Oranges"


Alex G’s major-label debut is masterful, and “Oranges” is a highlight — sparse, simple, and purely emotional.

Emma Louise, Flume - "Easy Goodbye"

It’s been seven years since an Emma Louise project – 2018’s underrated Lilac Everything – and this portends a new EP with Flume. The beat is classic Flume, almost recalling his debut album.

Reneé Rapp - "Why Is She Still Here"


Reneé Rapp is just a theatre girl at heart, evidenced by this smoky old-soul ballad that feels like it was taken straight from a Broadway show.

MIAMI - "Tommy Richman"


Virginia’s best white boy Tommy Richman is back with another funky indie-pop summer smash.

salute - "more soul"

This cut from Salute’s deluxe album is so profoundly fun and euphoric – you have to respect its shamelessness in courting the mid-season summer day party crowd.

Sudan Archives - "MY TYPE"


More day party delirium – Sudan Archives’ new album is a totally electric club record, and this is one of the album’s many windows-down anthems.

Everything Is Recorded, Noah Cyrus, Bill Callahan - "Porcupine Tattoo"


I’m not exactly sure how DJ Koze flipped the Noah Cyrus/Bill Callahan track into an Everything is Recorded track and into this remix so quick, but I’m not complaining.

Olof Dreijer - "Iris"


This is what happens when your bug zapper decides to become a DJ…

Photography: Vinca Peterson

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