Billboard’s First Stream 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.
This week, Drake wants to teach us a new dance, Sam Hunt has finally returned with a full-length, and Lindsay Lohan is once again a pop star. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
The Song That Will Turn You Into a TikTok Star:
Drake, “Toosie Slide”
“It go right foot up, left foot slide / Left foot up, right foot slide.” You’ve just been clued in to the dance that’s about to be replicated endlessly on social media, as Drake’s highly anticipated new single “Toosie Slide” is offered up as the “Cha Cha Slide” of the TikTok generation. Yet the song is also much more than its central command: over an elliptical set of beats, Drake reflects on his inner pressure, shouts out his friends, flirts with his many admirers and promises a hot summer of music. As one of our most bankable superstars, Drake is smart to launch a self-fashioned dance craze in this era, but “Toosie Slide” also showcases his skill of conjuring hooks and catchphrases out of thin air, which helped make him who he is today.
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The Album That Will Get You Choked Up Between Sing-Alongs:
Sam Hunt, Southside
Before he brings us to the party on his highly anticipated sophomore album Southside, Sam Hunt confronts his demons -- the country superstar, whose substance abuse issues culminated in a DUI arrest last November, sings on the stark opener “2016,” “Give the nightlife back to Nashville / One night at a time, 'til all the regret's gone.” Southside is a wiser album than 2014’s hits-packed Montevallo, with Hunt contemplating past mistakes and offering advice to those about to make them, as he does on “That Ain’t Beautiful.” Yet his ace storytelling, and ability to incorporate hip-hop influence into a more modernized form of country, are still intact, on both uptempo highlights “Hard to Forget” and the hit “Kinfolks,” as well as the self-lacerating and ultra-emotional closing track, “Drinkin’ Too Much.”
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The Song That Will Assuage Your Skepticism:
Lindsay Lohan, “Back To Me”
When “Back To Me,” Lindsay Lohan’s first new single in over a decade, begins playing, you wonder if the actress/tabloid fixture has too much cultural baggage to successfully relaunch her music career (“My life is full of ripped-up pages,” she sings in the pre-chorus, and... yes, we can easily recall a lot of that ripping). But then the song’s main hook hits, and all preconceived concerns melt away. “Back To Me” contains a stellar refrain that posits Lohan as a dance floor siren, its plinking beats circling her rallying cry of “I’m coming back to me!” Lohan’s best-case scenario was returning with a song with this sort of bulletproof hook, and by the end of “Back To Me,” you’ll be hitting the replay button and rooting for her.
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The Songs To Play In Your Headphones Before Drifting Off To Sleep:
Frank Ocean, “Dear April (Side A- Acoustic)” & “Cayendo (Side A - Acoustic)”
Originally released as vinyl-exclusive singles last October, “Dear April” and “Cayendo” have finally been unveiled on streaming services at a time in which the immaculate soothe of Frank Ocean’s voice feels more needed than ever. Casual fans searching for their Channel Orange fix will embrace “Dear April,” a floating ribbon of a ballad that lands upon its emotional climax in its final minute, while “Cayendo,” sung partly in Spanish and anchored by shifting guitar tones, exists for the diehards who want to see Ocean experiment even more. Whether or not these tracks are the side A of more songs to come, a preview of a new project or simply a pair of one-offs, it’s always worth delving into Ocean’s rarefied headspace.
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The Song That Will Fit In On Any New Hip-Hop Playlist:
DaBaby, “Find My Way”
Over the past year, DaBaby has become a rap star while rarely catering to a mainstream audience — he’s been able to launch hits built around his muscular flow, pop choruses be damned. “Find My Way” continues that trend but slightly softens the edges of DaBaby’s core sound: he’s still spitting with abandon, tossing out sex talk and staring down his enemies, but DJ K.I.D chops up a pensive guitar lick and DaBaby unlocks a surprising singsong cadence for the chorus. The North Carolina MC remains relentless with his wordplay, yet “Find My Way” deviates just enough from his proven formula to keep things interesting.
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The Song That Doubles As Good Advice In Our Time of Social Distancing:
Troye Sivan, “Take Yourself Home”
“I write these songs as a diary entry, then as life and places change and relationships change, songs can take on a new meaning entirely,” Troye Sivan said in a press statement about his new track, “Take Yourself Home. “Clearly that has happened for this song, with what is going on in the world right now.” Although the uniquely talented songwriter might not have intended the single to soundtrack a quarantined world, the moody pop on display here perfectly captures the sense of disoriented restlessness so many of us are experiencing. If Sivan’s 2018 album Bloom introduced his voice to a wider audience, “Take Yourself Home” lets the world seep in to his own.
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The Song That Lets You Floss In The Social Distancing Era:
Turbo, Gunna and Young Thug, “Quarantine Clean”
“Quarantine Clean” isn’t really about the coronavirus pandemic: aside from the titular phrase being part of the hook and Young Thug declaring that he’s “quarantine clean but got a slime disease,” the song doesn’t offer an extended take on our world turned upside down. That also doesn’t make the track a failure, though, as Turbo gives his Atlanta brethren a feisty bit of production grind over, and Gunna and Thugger deliver for the most part. Young Thug’s lyrics get a little unseemly at times, so let’s chalk this up as a win for Gunna, who daydreams of trips to Cabo and Maui that we could all use right about now.
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The Song That Can Soundtrack A Quarantined Cuddle:
Karol G & Anuel AA, “Follow”
The homemade video for the new collaboration between real-life lovebirds Karol G and Anuel AA says it all: even when you’re stuck at home with your partner amidst this quarantined existence, there’s still love, passion and creativity to harness. Over a reggae rhythm, Karol and Anuel play a game of hard-to-get while demonstrating why they have become so essential to the overall expansion of Latin pop and urban music. Even without the knowledge (and adorable visual) of their relationship outside of the song, “Follow” would be a nice little triumph for both artists involved.
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The Album That’s The Star-Studded Dance Party You Desperately Crave:
Steve Aoki, Neon Future IV
If this particular moment in history doesn’t feel like the best one to release a 27-song, 91-minute, star-packed dance opus designed for maximum club impact, nobody told Steve Aoki. The superstar producer has gathered an array of his major tracks and tapped his famous friends, from Travis Barker to Desiigner to Icona Pop to the Backstreet Boys, for a cross-genre fantasia that never really lets up. Aoki may not have designed the fourth entry in his Neon Future series as a one-sit listen, but even in these heady times, tracks like the Maluma collaboration “Maldad” and the lovely “New Blood,” featuring Echosmith’s Sydney Sierota, accomplish movement.
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