Week of October 31, 2025
This week featured a few selections from a diverse variety of genres. Following Halloween, one might even say that this week’s New Music Friday selections have given listeners a ‘choose-your-Starburst-flavor’ experience. This candy-type variation originates from the tasteful flavors of pop-classical music from Rosalía, alternative hip hop from Tyler the Creator, and an indie acoustic-style ballad from Florence + The Machine. While this week’s playlist offers a subtle amount of music from bigger artists, smaller artists have more than succeeded in performing to their fullest artistic capabilities. What feels a little rough this week, though, was the opposite of artistic growth, an artist going back in time with their artistic progression. Disco Lines, the DJ responsible for the recent summer hit, “No Broke Boys,” has released his long-anticipated follow-up single called, “Cocaine Inside My Blunts.” Not only was the song flat in production, but the repetition of “that’s why I put cocaine inside my blunts” feels lazy and regressive, almost so barren that when I opened the song credits, I was met with a spooky Halloween surprise—two songwriters on a song that barely needs one... Anyways, with my harsher critiques being out of the way, here are some treats of the week, no more tricks!
1. Most Streamed Song of the Week – “Berghain” by Rosalía, Björk, Yves Tumor (10/10)
Collaborating with Björk, Yves Tumor, and the London Symphony Orchestra for her heavily anticipated fourth studio album, LUX, Rosalía holds an open door for her audience to soak in the classical training she received at top music school, Escola Superior School of Music. Combining Latin pop, reggae, jazz, and classical music influences in her previous works, “Berghain” and—seemingly—LUX enable the singer to express her unique blend of classical and contemporary electro-pop. Apart from having a niche central focus around a club in Germany, Berghain, the song starts strong, featuring Rosalía’s vocal abilities to sing German Opera alongside an array of magic-engrained strings. While the song seemingly begins as a dramatic but sole classical arrangement, the song does not hold back; it merges German, Spanish, and English, and an impressive questioning of ‘divinity’ and what it entails to have the ability to live. Especially cumbersome is the song’s quickly accelerated and brave lyrics, which replace the initial classical music with an accompaniment of alternative rap. This song is fresh, original, and creatively intelligent. If anything, I’d like to think that Rosalía deliberately released a weaker lead single, paving the way for LUX to be a modern masterpiece, sworn for history books.
2. Lyrical Standout – “Mother” by Tyler the Creator (9/10)
Following a busy year for Tyler the Creator continues to add onto the 72 minutes and 24 songs which was contributed to his discography from CHROMAKOPIA and DON’T TAP THE GLASS, the two albums he released within the past year. Mother, part of the deluxe version of CHROMAKPOIA, was previously exclusive to the vinyl release and has now been released to streaming services. So, while the song is technically not new, it does not diminish the allure and brightness of the track. Reflecting upon his upbringing, Mother is a deeply emotional yet trauma-inducing song that showcases the unconditional love and wisdom Tyler has received from his mother. Where Tyler raps about growing up in conditions and an environment that enforced “street rules” and common tropes of inducing fights, the song shows how generational trauma had been broken due to his mother’s actions, often persuading Tyler to avoid fights or ending up in situations like she was forced into. Touching upon sexual abuse and hustle culture, this track proves difficult to have made and listen to–using palettes of lyrics to invoke multiple shades of trauma, and getting away from such horrors.
3. Sonic Standout – “Sympathy Magic” by Florence + The Machine (9/10)
Like many of us have felt before, Florence + The Machine embarks on highlighting a common but often undercovered feeling: receiving sympathy for your misfortune that feels fake, unhelpful, and most importantly, humiliating. Singing “it didn’t keep me safe” throughout her song, “Sympathy Magic–” off her new album, Everybody Scream– Florence reflects on her experiences with fame and the existence of a “terrible gift” (a.k.a. Sympathy.) Knowing people feel sorrow over the singer’s pain, but feeling that others don’t care enough about taking action, The Machine highlights the bitter irritation of being faced with people who, like with one’s feelings, say more than they actually do. It follows a trope of superficiality in the 21st-century “virtues” that don’t fulfill their promises. In a fashion similar to Charli XCX’s “Sympathy is a Knife’s” message, the London-born singer provides Irish-inspired production: a windy flute, bagpipes, chimes, with slight modern touches, synths for example. While not my personal cup of tea, the song continues to contribute to the singer’s distant and unique island in a sea of cluttered and unoriginal music.
4. Hidden Gem – “lost myself 4 u” by Thomas Day (7.75/10)
Known by many on the corners of the internet but still unheard of to the general public, Thomas Day with a current 1.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify has released a new track, “lost myself 4 u.” While admittedly the song is not very unique in its meaning–you can already tell the whole plot from the four-word title–Thomas is clearly a singer-songwriter worth predicting as a future widestream success. Already seeing success with his summer song, “she got a thing about her” (which hit over 13 million streams), his world provides a parallel to a more mature version of the recent 20-year-old stardom, Sombr, blended alongside singers such as Olivia Rodrigo, with her ability to craft heartbreaking piano ballads (listen to “Lacy.”) With lines such as “if I was made for you why’d you have to cut so deep,” Day sounds distinct from his fellow indie artists with similar levels of success. He carries an assertive New England Vineyard Vines aesthetic that evermore solidifies the ingredients he offers as a potential superstar: brand, consistency, and unique clarity.
5. Personal Favorite – “ego of a man” by Mikayla Geier (9.5/10)
Similar to above Thomas Day, Mikayla Geier is a lesser-known artist, averaging around 832,000 monthly listeners. This week, “ego of a man” off her new album HOT POT! provides something the rest of the songs within this article cannot: fun, let-loose music. Starting off quick, snappy, and bubbly, Mikayla gifts us with a unique metaphor, “Seymour’s spying on a jellyfish,” likely referring to Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors, who discovers a man-eating plant. The singer refers to herself as a girl who gains the ability to learn or “eat” a man’s ego, and highlights the life she’d gained from doing so. Including off-key moments that add to the song’s well-intended sarcasm intended towards her male addressee, the song boasts the singer’s witty personality as she narrates the audience through a whirlwind of piano beats, colorful production, and energy. Throughout the song’s 2:37 duration, Geier successfully offers an invitation to feel quirky and approach serious topics with a more relaxed mindset. Truly, the song should not stay stalled at only 400,000ish streams, as well as the artist, whose creative and intentionally unique songwriting skills deserve way more attention.
