With the solstice happening on June 20, summer has fully arrived, and superstars like KAROL G, Jonas Brothers and Cardi B are all heating up the change of season with new music.
Benson Boone wears his American Heart on his sleeve for the release of his sophomore studio set while HAIM gleefully announce I quit with their first LP since 2020’s Women in Music Pt. III, and Keke Palmer unveils her visual album Just Keke. Plus, Key Glock adds three new bonus tracks to Glockaveli: The Don, Badflower rocks out on No Place Like Home, M.I Abaga unleashes The Wolf, Brett Young unveils 2.0, Samara Cyn drops her new Backroads EP, and Brian Kelley turns the page with Sunshine State of Mind Season Two, Chapter One.
Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran pauses the rollout for his upcoming album Play to shift into “Drive” for the soundtrack to F1®The Movie, Kesha enlists Slayyyter and Rose Gray for “ATTENTION!,” JADE continues to build expectations for her debut solo album That’s Showbiz Baby with fourth single “Plastic Box,” and The Band Camino delivers a one-two punch with dual singles “Stupid Questions” and “Hates Me Yet.”
Other new singles of the week include Halle’s “Braveface,” Bruses’ “ME ESTOY RINDIENDO am0r :(,” Dylan Marlowe’s “Sorryville,” The Black Keys’ “Man On A Mission,” Shoshana Bean’s “Hard Woman To Love,” Daisy Grenade’s “Don’t Sweat It,” Muse’s “Unravelling,” and Jake Worthington’s “Not Like I Used To.”
Below, press play on 11 new releases worth checking out including YUNGBLUD’s ambitious fourth album, Idols, Amaarae’s kick-off to her forthcoming third LP and more.
Cardi B — “Outside”
Cardi B is back “Outside”! The rapper gives the Bardi Gang their perfect summer soundtrack with her first solo single of 2025, which follows “Toot It Up,” her recently released collaboration with Pardison Fontaine, and “Higher Love,” her contribution to the Smurfs soundtrack with DESI TRILL, DJ Khaled, Natania and Subhi.
The GRAMMY-winning star alternates between being on the prowl in the wake of her split from Offset (“Favorite player from your favorite team, he in my DM,” she brags) and taking the entire opposite sex to task for, well, being the absolute worst as she goes for the jugular: “Lowdown, good-for-nothing dirty dogs, I’m convinced/ Can’t wait to see your mama, tell her how she raised a b—.”
Lorde — “Hammer”
Fans can practically feel the pulsing heat rising off “Hammer,” Lorde’s latest preview of her upcoming fourth album, Virgin.
The two-time GRAMMY winner opens up on the songs verses, laying bare her expanding perspective on her own gender in between references to that headline-making appearance in Washington Square Park to film the impromptu music video for previous single “What Was That” and memorable trips to Canal Street for new piercings and aura photos. “It’s a f—ed up world, been to hell and back/ But I’ve sent you a postcard from the edge,” she declares on the song’s climaxing outro.
Jonas Brothers — “No Time To Talk”
Back in 2023, the Jonas Brothers first referenced the Bee Gees as an inspiration ahead of receiving their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and releasing their sixth studio set, The Album. “Obviously, as we grew up being three brothers in a band, we definitely understood similarities,” Kevin Jonas said at the time.
Fast forward two years later, and the JoBros are channeling the brothers Gibb more clearly than ever before on “No Time To Talk,” which serves as the second preview of their forthcoming LP Greetings from Your Hometown and interpolates the Bee Gees’ No. 1 disco smash “Staying Alive” as Nick and Joe croon, “I can tell by the way you use your words that you came to dance/ No time to talk.”
KAROL G — ‘Tropicoqueta’
A full year to the day after dropping its merengue-infused lead single, “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” KAROL G’s highly anticipated fifth album has finally arrived — and boy was Tropicoqueta worth the wait.
In addition to Don Omar-sample follow-up single “LATINA FOREVA” from earlier this spring, the superstar’s latest full-length pays tribute to music across Latin history like the swaying “Ivonny Bonita,” the romantic “Papasito” and the closing title track on top of collaborations with the likes of Mariah Angeliq (“FKN Movie”), Manu Chao (“Viajando Por El Mundo”), Greeicy (“Amiga Mía”) and more.
Bruno Mars — “Bonde do Brunão”
“Bruninho is here, damn it!” With that ecstatic declaration, Bruno Mars joins the world of Fortnite with “Bonde do Brunão,” a Portuguese-language banger that manages to be a complete and total earworm in just a single minute.
The song’s refrain (which roughly translates to “Bruninho has arrived, now the party is in Brazil/ Where are the big butts doing the square dance?”) is utterly inescapable at the current moment in the online battle royale — and the 16-time GRAMMY winner even headlined Fortnite Festival Season 9 inside the video game to debut the track. Players can also unlock a skin to play as Mars’ unforgettable look from the “Die With a Smile” music video, too.
Megan Moroney — “6 Months Later”
Heartbreak serves as a “tale as old as time, I guess” on Megan Moroney’s irresistible post-breakup anthem, “6 Months Later.”
The rapidly rising country singer sets the scene by thrusting fans back to the end of 2019, the month she was unceremoniously dumped by an ex-love and ended up “barely alive, out of 6 feet deep, I was five.” However, Moroney ultimately wins the upper hand when, as the song’s title suggests, her former flame comes crawling back and she’s able to knowingly lament, “What doesn’t kill you calls you six months later” before strutting away on her own accord.
YUNGBLUD — ‘Idols’
Early on in the rollout for Idols, YUNGBLUD described his fourth album as “an adventure that’s sonically more ambitious than I have ever been before.” After all, the LP’s lead single was the epic, kaleidoscopic, 9-minute opener “Hello Heaven, Hello.”
Now that the project has arrived in full, the U.K. punk rocker makes good on that promise across twelve tracks that include fellow singles “Lovesick Lullaby” and “Zombie” as well as standouts like the anthemic “The Greatest Parade,” the orchestral sweep of “Ghosts” and utterly lovely album closer “Supermoon.”
Offset & J.I.D — “Bodies”
Offset tees up “Bodies,” his new collaboration with J.I.D, by employing a surprising and totally disparate pair of samples: a pitched-down version of The Spirituals’ 2021 gospel track “Ringing Them Bells” and the eerie hook from Drowning Pool’s iconic 2001 nu metal hit “Bodies.”
“I think these n—s forgot where I came from, ’cause I got mansion and mansions with lake fronts/ I pull up a Porsche, I think I’m James Bond,” the Migos rapper brags before echoing Dave Williams’ whispered refrain of “Let the bodies hit the floor” on the chorus. Mid-bridge, J.I.D steps up to the mic for his own impressively relentless flow that drives the song to its breathless conclusion.
Amaarae — “S.M.O.”
Just days after the two-year anniversary of her 2023 breakthrough album Fountain Baby, Amaarae returns with “S.M.O.,” the sexually charged lead single to her just-announced third album, Black Star (set to be released Aug. 8).
The single also comes complete with a seductive, muscle-filled music video, which the afrobeats-pop singer filmed on location in Ghana. “I feel like the new Donna Summer mixed with Control-era Janet [Jackson] and the song pretty much speaks for itself,” Amaarae said in a statement. “Like ‘The Pleasure Principle’ or ‘Love to Love You Baby,’ I don’t know how much clearer one can get when they ask you to ‘SLUT ME OUT.'”
John Summit & Gorgon City feat. rhys from the sticks — “Is Everybody Having Fun?”
John Summit and Gorgon City just want everyone to hit the dance floor this summer with their new collab, “Is Everybody Having Fun?” The slice of UK-inspired tech house features chopped up vocals by rhys from the sticks, who self-consciously probes, “The party’s just begun/ Is everybody having fun?” over the song’s throbbing, shapeshifting beats.
The two dance acts have been building to the collaboration for half a decade, ever since they did a B2B together in Chicago back in 2020 and then proceeded to remix tracks by each other the following year.
Teddy Swims feat. BigXthaPlug — “All Gas No Brakes”
Teddy Swims is all in at 100 miles per hour on his smooth, BigXthaPlug-assisted single “All Gas No Brakes” — the latest addition to his upcoming 32-song super-deluxe compilation, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Complete Edition).
“All gas, no brakes/ That’s the only way that I operate/ If I’m gonna love you, I’m gon’ love you babe/ If I’m gonna learn my lesson, learn the hard way,” the recent Best New Artist GRAMMY nominee croons before ceding the floor to the Texas rapper for a syrupy guest verse.