Since blowing up in 2015 with their fourth album, *Blurryface*, the duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun have parlayed their high-concept rap-rock-pop hybrid into massive mainstream success. All the while, they’ve built an ornate fictional universe in which the exploits of characters like Clancy and the Torchbearer function as allegories about living with depression, anxiety, and insecurity. *Breach*, the duo’s eighth album, concludes the decade-long narrative that began with *Blurryface* and continued with their next three full-lengths (2018’s *Trench*, 2021’s *Scaled and Icy*, and 2024’s *Clancy*), resolving the cliffhanger of its predecessor’s ending. Through a dense rap-rock dystopia populated by robots and necromancers, the duo fight through bouts of insecurity (“Garbage”) and paranoia (“The Contract,” which recruits YUNGBLUD to continue where last year’s “Paladin Strait” left off). “Did you learn a thing?” Joseph sings on the haunting closing track, looking back on the decade-long journey and concluding: “Intentions will set you free.”

When JADE made her bombastic solo debut with “Angel of My Dreams” in July 2024, her yet to be named album had already been completed. The song, a Mike Sabath production that splices power-ballad theatrics, stomping electro basslines, and sugary, sardonic melodies into a Frankenstein’s monster of a tune, was hailed by fans and critics alike for its bold experimentalism, setting up sky-high expectations for the Little Mix star’s future output. As JADE told Apple Music’s Rebecca Judd, shortly after its release: “There’s a lot of songs on the record that have that same experimental vibe. I have a few of the more straight-down-the-line, poppy songs on there, but peppered in with the chaos that is my brain.” The statement holds water now *THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!* has landed. Front-loaded with singles, which see JADE navigate shimmering disco sensuality (“Fantasy”), ballroom club (RAYE co-write “Midnight Cowboy”), and no-punches-pulled electropop (“FUFN (Fuck You for Now)”) with consummate ease, the back half of the record pulls her broad spectrum of influence together cohesively without sacrificing any of the originality or left-field choices that have come to shape her sonic identity. “I think \[the reaction to ‘Angel of My Dreams’\] has given me reassurance that I can really be myself,” JADE said. “I can take these risks. I can do something a bit braver…” That confidence extends to the album’s lyrical themes, which examine JADE’s complex feelings about life in the spotlight, love and its maddening effects—see the delightfully unhinged romance of “Plastic Box”—and the relatable feeling of being at war with your own mind, from all angles. She shoulders her own blame for throwing up emotional walls on “Self Saboteur” only to pull back the curtain with skittish midtempo “Glitch,” revealing the distorted inner voice “telling me lies, telling me how it is” and “hijacking all my decisions.” “Unconditional” makes floaty, ethereal promises of love without reservations to someone struggling to love themselves over a chugging, synth-pop beat, while “Natural at Disaster” takes the concept of a torch song and interprets it literally, putting a vocally dramatic match to the gentle, piano-backed memory of a toxic dynamic. “If there are any darker topics that are personal to me that I write about, then I always give it a bit of a humor to it,” JADE said, speaking to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in the week of release. “It’s been fun as a songwriter being able to finally write more personal concepts and explore that and show people exactly who I am.” Unsurprisingly, given JADE’s widespread songwriting contributions during the decade she spent as a member of one of the UK’s most successful girl groups, *THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!* shares some of its DNA (and its producers, including Sabath, MNEK, and Lostboy) with the sounds of late-career Little Mix. While it’s common for band members striking out on their own for the first time to reinvent themselves entirely—a kickback against the artistic compromise that collective creativity demands—JADE boldly bucks the trend, converging her own unique impetus with echoes of the familiar. *THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!* feels more grounded in authenticity as a result, allowing her to take ownership of her past as she builds for the future.

The members of Parcels had barely graduated high school when they left Byron Bay, Australia for Berlin in 2014, five friends sharing a dream and a cramped one-bedroom apartment. Within a year, they had released their debut EP and signed a label deal; by 2017, they were collaborating with Daft Punk on the band’s single “Overnight,” a track that would become the dance icons’ final production. After two albums—2018’s self-titled debut and 2021’s double LP *Day/Night*—and nearly a decade in motion, Parcels finally took a break in 2023. For six months, they lived their ordinary lives while working on songs individually before reconvening to finish them together. Whereas *Day/Night* was recorded in a single studio and meticulously planned out, their third album *LOVED* was made more loosely, with sessions in Berlin, Byron Bay, Sydney, and Mexico City, and a go-with-the-flow approach that let the album emerge on its own. “It\'s kind of like Parcels back to our most authentic self, in a way,” bassist Noah Hill told Apple Music’s Travis Mills in April 2025. “This one feels a lot more pure and direct, and more to what we naturally have inside of us.” From opener “Tobeloved,” *LOVED* is dotted with moments of laughter and colorful ad-libs that drop listeners right in the booth with them. That joy permeates the production, a vintage blend of peppy keys, hand-claps, chest-swelling crescendos, and funky guitar riffs that beg for a little shimmy. They also bring tenderness: “Ifyoucall” offers unconditional love with the warmth of a long hug, and “Leaveyourlove” is a starry-eyed declaration of devotion. The latter, written in Mexico while watching the sun set over the ocean, became the album’s anchor point. “We were all writing our own individual verses about our own love stories at the time, and wanting to lean into that directness and not being afraid to talk about love so directly,” said Hill. “This track just clicked with all of us instantly.” But *LOVED* also refers to the emotion in the past tense. The disco fizz of “Yougotmefeeling” sugarcoats the realization that a relationship is past saving, and the more delicate “Summerinlove” aches with post-breakup yearning. Other songs like “Safeandsound” and “Finallyover” embrace the unknowable future with optimism, while closer “Iwanttobeyourlightagain” circles back to where it all began: “I remember when we were green/Five people and two sets of keys/Trying so hard to be seen.”

Since their first project as Frost Children (2020’s *Aviation Creates Adventurous Beginnings*), the duo of Angel and Lulu Prost have honed their chaotic maximalism while helping to define what exactly the “indie sleaze revival” means—is the trend a sound or a feeling? If the free-wheeling, red-blooded party-rock anthems of the St. Louis-raised, New York-based duo are any indication, it’s the latter—drawing from hyperpop, indie rock, electroclash, and meme mischief, Frost Children’s music is hard to pin down, but easy to dance to. On *SISTER*, the duo wrings every last drop of pathos from a serotonin-heavy blend of scuzzy bloghouse, mid-aughts dance-punk, and festival-core EDM. The spirit of indie sleaze is alive on “ELECTRIC,” with its buzzsaw synths and Rapture-esque vocals, while Kim Petras collab “RADIO” channels sleazy late-2000s electropop. Setting aside their previous work’s occasional tongue-in-cheek humor, the prevailing mood is earnest: On the title track, stripped-down ’90s rock shimmers with a hyperpop sheen as the siblings recall the dandelions and hand-me-downs of their Midwestern upbringing: “The two of us, driving down a roundabout life again/It’s the two of us/Sister.”

After the rousing success of 2022’s *Pain Remains*, New Jersey deathcore crew Lorna Shore returns with their fifth album. Vocalist Will Ramos made his full-length debut with the band on *Pain Remains*, and felt the pressure to deliver again on *I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me*. “I definitely approached this one with 1,000 percent more anxiety, if you can imagine,” he tells Apple Music. “Everyone’s like, ‘What’s the next Lorna Shore album going to be like? It’s got to be the most incredible thing ever.’ That stuff is always in the back of your mind when you’re writing stuff.” The title *I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me* is taken from a line in the album’s opening track, “Prison of Flesh.” “It’s about my family’s history of dementia,” Ramos says, which creates “a fear inside, like you’re running from something. That line is one of my favorites from the song, but honestly, we were just trying to come up with a sick-ass name.” Musically speaking, Ramos and his bandmates—guitarist Adam De Micco, drummer Austin Archey, bassist Michael Yager, and guitarist Andrew O’Connor—expand Lorna Shore’s crushing sonic palette while stripping back some of their renowned technicality in favor of monster grooves on tracks like “Unbreakable,” “In Darkness,” and the Lamb of God-inspired “War Machine.” “We weren’t too strict on keeping it 100 percent deathcore or 100 percent death metal or whatever other people expect Lorna Shore to put out,” Ramos says. “At the end of the day, we just want to put out good music.” Below, he comments on each song. **“Prison of Flesh”** “My grandma, I don’t know where she is in her head at this point. My aunt is slowly forgetting things. Throughout the song, I personify these demons that are coming to get you, but the demons are the void that’s slowly filling you up. The song ends in this big climax like you’ve just been eaten by whatever this void is, until you don’t even know who you are or who the people around you are. It’s my ode to people with dementia and the families who have to deal with that.” **“Oblivion”** “I think *Interstellar* is the best movie ever. There’s a scene where the astronauts go to a water planet that looks beautiful but is actually hell. They realize that they made the worst decision they could have made, and by doing that they screwed themselves. I thought it was a perfect example of the things that we’re doing to ourselves and to our own planet. We’re going to look back and be like, ‘What the hell did we do?’ The song sounds surreal and angelic but also kind of desolated. And that’s exactly how we felt when we watched *Interstellar*.” **“In Darkness”** “This is one of the band’s favorites because it just sounds freaking huge. It’s basically a song that goes out to all of the outcasts. I think all of us that are metalheads know the feeling. Now it’s cool, but back in the day people were probably looking at you weird because you’re a little bit different than what everybody else wants. So it’s like we were raised in a valley of darkness—that’s the metaphor I think of—but in that darkness we became exactly who we are, and that’s awesome.” **“Unbreakable”** “This is completely out there for Lorna Shore. I wanted a song that people would react to like Queen back in the day, when they played ‘We Will Rock You’ and people are clapping their hands, stomping their feet, and they’re part of the show. I wanted that unity in a room full of people that is so powerful that you have this moment when you feel like you’re on top of the world. So this is supposed to be that unifying type of song. It\'s talking about how we’re almost like diamonds: The pressure of everything has squeezed us together and we became this beautiful thing that is perfect and imperfect at the same time, but unbreakable.” **“Glenwood”** “To me, this is the most important song on the album. It’s about when I fixed my ties with my father. My dad and I had a very strange relationship when I was growing up. We had a lot of moments when we did not talk, and the last time was for a lot of years. I don’t think it was out of any kind of animosity. I think we were just so similar and so incredibly stubborn that we fought a lot about dumb stuff. He had to work a lot, which meant he wasn’t home, and I never really saw him. He was working so we could live in a nice area, but as a kid you don’t really see that. You just think he should be home more. But I’m an adult now, and I get it. I wanted to capture that feeling.” **“Lionheart”** “This song is supposed to feel like you’re going into battle. You don’t know what the world is going to throw at you, but you’re going to face it. It’s supposed to be a super-empowering song, like you’re on a horse galloping into this hellfire, but whatever the trials are that you’re about to face, you’re down to do it. We’ve got ‘Unbreakable’ to bring everyone together, and now we’re gonna go fight some shit. Let’s fucking go.” **“Death Can Take Me”** “It’s a song about being in a position of power. As time goes on, you feel like you have to hide how you are, and in a way, it feels incredibly numbing. I think I\'m trying to describe the way that Lorna Shore was when we finally got big, we finally freaking made it, and it just felt like everything that we did, we were walking on eggshells. And you know there’s people who are knocking on your door, just waiting to pull the rug out from under you and take whatever you have. I think you can only be in that position for so long until you’re like, ‘I don’t want this anymore.’ So the song ends with this person jumping off of a tower and basically just being like, ‘I’m going to splat on the ground, and the whole world can watch this happen and know that it was because of everybody that got me to this point.’” **“War Machine”** “We wanted to write a song that was an ode to all the older bands that we listened to growing up, like Lamb of God. But it took a long time to figure out how to write this one. Like on ‘Unbreakable,’ we wanted to pull back a little bit on vocals and rather than shredding the fretboard into oblivion, we wanted to write something that was groovy, heavy, and angry. So we made it sound like you’re in the fucking trenches, the world has been taking from you, you’re pissed, and now it’s time for you to take back from the world.” **“A Nameless Hymn”** “This is basically our anti-religion song. All of us in Lorna Shore were raised Christian but as we got older, we started to stray from our beliefs. We started to realize there’s so much hypocrisy and cruelty involved, and nobody does anything about it. If you’re into metal, there’s probably a good chance that you gave up on the Christian world, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I wrote this from the perspective of a pious Christian who’s dying. He’s sacrificed so much for something that never came through for him. In his last moments, he looks for redemption but never gets it. He’s angry and resentful and he ends up unseen, unheard.” **“Forevermore”** “When we were writing this, we were describing it as a Viking shooting a flaming arrow at a wooden ship floating off into the sunset. Me and Adam had two big losses in our immediate families, and for me it was my first loss of somebody that was very close to me. It got me all fucked up and it was hard for me grieve because when it happened, I went on tour the next day. This was a young dude who passed away, and it was very unexpected. So I wanted to write a song that was an ode to him. One of my favorite lines in the song is, ‘This isn\'t goodbye, we\'ll meet again on the other side.’ It’s about finally having acceptance of that loss. I’m sad he died, but I’m also happy that I got to live at the same time as him, in some of the same moments with him.”

Ed Sheeran used his last two albums as a bit of a genre cleanse. Now he’s ready for a full pop revival on his eighth full-length. “I think *-* \[*Subtract*\] and *Autumn Variations* were a really good circuit breaker for me to just be like, ‘I’m a singer-songwriter, I’m going to make singer-songwriter albums and I am going to dip in and out of things when I feel like it,’” he tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And I think that *Play* will be one of the last pop hurrahs that I’ll get away with.” *Play* inhabits a familiar but expanding sonic space in Sheeran’s oeuvre. For several songs, he relies heavily on diverse Eastern musical styles like the Bollywood-tinged “Sapphire,” the Persian-influenced “Azizam,” and the Punjabi-inspired “Symmetry.” “I’m just exploring completely new different world and cultures, and there are superstars in the same country with different languages, and that’s super exciting as well,” he says. On tracks like “Old Phone” (a remembrance of lost friends that recalls the storytelling of “Castle on the Hill”) and “The Vow” (which harkens to “Perfect” and “Thinking Out Loud”), he throws back to the traditional Sheeran sound of old. Both deeply personal and *mostly* relatable, many cuts belie his devotion to his family and wife. Two sweetly romantic odes, “In Other Words” and “For Always,” also describe universal emotions. “They’re very human things that you go through with your partner or your kids,” he says. “There’s stuff that I can relate to with my friends going through the same things. I’m very vastly different in other areas of my life and things that I do, but I think when you are a partner and a father and a friend, you share many, many, many experiences.” But it’s the album’s first song “Opening” that may be more specific to Sheeran’s particular circumstances, taking a critical eye to his own international fame. “Not the pop star they say they prefer/Kept quiet but I came to be heard/Been a long time up top, but I ain’t complacent/If I look down, I can see replacements.” He’s not worried, though, about those deemed “the next Ed Sheeran”: “I just take them on tour.”