1. Sia wrote “Alive” with Tobias Jesso Jr. and Adele, Rihanna turned it down, and now the soaring, life-affirming ballad is the first single from her upcoming album.
2. “Exchange” off Bryson Tiller’s brand-new T R A P S O U L is exactly the kind of post-PARTYNEXTDOOR, chest-thumping R&B we’ve come to love from the Kentucky singer-songwriter.
3. Grab tissues: "Weak," this latest from Wet, is as vulnerable, emotionally astute, and downright pretty a song as we've heard from the trio to date. Now where's that album they speak of?
4. On "L's," the Chicago rapper formerly known as Lil Herb reflects on the tough circumstances he was born into and waxes on how he would live life if he could choose: lavish and long. Amen.
5. Isaiah Rashad's "Nelly" sounds like waking up after a glorious night of smoking and drinking and dancing: slow-moving and hoarse, but still sort of glowing.
6. Lontalius' drowsy, delicately processed pop songs often make us feel an indescribable longing. Watching the dusky, friendship-themed video for "All I Wanna Say" makes us feel it so much, and all at once.
7. Between "No Sleeep" and this great new Missy Elliot collab, "Burn It Up," Janet Jackson is basically fully back in the zeitgeist. Why aren't more people talking about this?
8. Real Lies recently shared a striking video for one of their new album's most emotionally resonant tracks, "Blackmarket Blues": I love my friends more dearly then I'm allowed to say aloud, to say aloud, to say aloud...
9. With sentimental synths and lyrics about Manhattan literary haven The Strand, Frankie Cosmos' typically twee aesthetic sounds downright John Hughes-ian on "Sand," the first leak from her new EP.
10. Lust For Youth, the rave-channeling Swedish crew with the best band name out right now, have a strobe-light-paced new song called "Better Looking Brother." It's adrenaline-stoking and hazy and danceable, like something straight out of Madchester on the cusp of the ’90s.
11. Feel like at this point in 2015 Tinashe could cover "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and we'd at least be somewhat intrigued. The fact that she took on Bleachers' triumphant "I Wanna Get Better" is just gravy.
12. The way Arca's blurred blue body contorts in the video for mind-rattling Mutant single "Soichiro" is as passionate as it is dissociating.
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