Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Karol G explores Latin history, Benson Boone’s Heart beats loudly, and Cardi B is ready to take the gloves off. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Karol G, Tropicoqueta
In the lead-up to Tropicoqueta, Karol G has been candid when discussing how 2023’s smash hit Mañana Será Bonito and its coinciding world tour left her wondering what the best next step would be for her long-term future; it turns out that the answer was in the past, as Tropicoqueta reveals more of Karol’s backstory while also exploring and celebrating different strands of Latin music, creating a curious, wholly absorbing new chapter.
Benson Boone, American Heart
If “Beautiful Things” changed the trajectory of Benson Boone’s pop career, then American Heart, his new album released more than a year after his breakthrough smash, represents the crystallization of everything we’ve learned about the backflipping, big-voiced singer-songwriter in the interim: the 10-song project is relatively short but full of theatrical spunk, as Boone prowls across each song with feeling and determination.
Cardi B, “Outside”
A long-awaited new Cardi B track titled “Outside,” released on the cusp of summer, might be perceived as a new warm-weather anthem from an artist who’s had a few of them — but the single is instead a cutthroat diss track at an estranged romantic partner, with Cardi using her clout and cunning (“Favorite player from your favorite team, he in my DMs!” she exclaims) to move on personally and artistically.
Haim, I Quit
By releasing a new album every four years, Danielle, Alana and Este Haim have been able to take their time expertly crafting the pop-rock melodies that they’ve always traded in, and the overarching themes of the full-lengths that house them. With I Quit, 2021’s masterful Women In Music Pt. III receives a follow-up full of airtight compositions, housed within a full-length statement about moving on from unnecessary details in order to appreciate our limited time on Earth.
Sombr, “We Never Dated”
“I can’t make you love me,” Sombr repeats on new single “We Never Dated,” approaching a time-honored theme in pop songwriting with Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies and a modern sense of tenacity; with breakthrough hits “Undressed” and “Back to Friends,” the teen star was able to reinvigorate a classic alternative sound for 2025, and “We Never Dated” continues that balancing act with aplomb.
Megan Moroney, “6 Months Later”
Megan Moroney’s songwriting has rapidly sharpened over the past few years, as a line like “What doesn’t kill you calls you six months later” on her new single makes for a devastatingly funny eye-roll toward an ex — but the real attraction here is Moroney’s voice, full of weariness when recalling a breakup and packing smoky, sarcastic personality in each syllable, on a song that the rising country star soundly commands.
Fred again.., Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax, “Victory Lap”
After playing a surprise show together in Brooklyn earlier this week, Fred again.. and Skepta have commemorated the unexpected team-up with a summer-ready single: “Victory Lap” is a restless, scorching dance cut, with the fusion of Fred and Skepta’s respective energies producing a slickly rhymed, garage-adjacent banger that does not stop moving.
Editor’s Pick: Lorde, “Hammer”
The third and final pre-release single from Lorde’s Virgin begins with what sounds like out-of-focus chatter, before the pop star’s voice barges in to provide clarity: “There’s a heat in the pavement, my mercury’s raising / Don’t know if it’s love, or if it’s ovulation.” Lorde has long been a wry, literary songwriter, and throughout “Hammer” — the album track, which she described as “an ode to city life and horniness” — she once again captures universal feelings in striking, singular fashion.
