This Memorial Day weekend has turned out to be a rare respite between superstar album releases. Instead, hitmakers like Olivia Rodrigo and Charli XCX continue to tease new projects with advance singles. And with no automatic blockbusters arriving, perhaps there’s some breathing room for promising albums from Ed O’Brien of Radiohead, the Mexican songwriter Xavi, the “guitar explorer” Marisa Anderson, the British songwriter Maisie Peters and the poet-turned-bandleader aja monet. And of course, there’s no shortage of singles. Here are some of this week’s noteworthy new tracks.
Olivia Rodrigo: ‘The Cure’
Love can’t heal everything in “The Cure,” a high-drama song that Rodrigo has described as the climax of her coming album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.” It’s an increasingly painful realization for a narrator who’d hoped love would be the antidote for all her jealousy and insecurity. For the first full minute, Rodrigo’s only accompaniment is an insistently strummed guitar. And then, vocals and orchestral forces assemble around her in a crescendo reminiscent of 1990s Smashing Pumpkins (if not the Cure themselves). Rodrigo’s usual comic awareness is reserved for the surreal medical-themed video clip; the song is all angst.
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Charli XCX: ‘SS26’
Charli XCX’s flirtation with rock — a quantized, contained, clubby version of rock — continues on “SS26,” which is fashionista shorthand for the spring/summer 2026 season. Power chords strum over a machine beat as she juggles dire portents (“the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it”) the purpose — or futility — of the arts and the calculations of self-promotion. “Think my politics could work as a press strategy,” she sings, while “walking a runway that goes straight to hell.” In the music video, she flaunts and deconstructs the artifice of a fashion show. Every moment is meta.
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Vince Staples: ‘White Flag’
Over a reverb-laden, mid-tempo track that harks back to Burt Bacharach and Phil Spector, Vince Staples sings and raps about persistent racism, police brutality and how “sometimes love can turn to war” in “White Flag,” from his coming album, “Cry Baby.” The struggle exhausts him; in the chorus, he raises a white flag to signal “I don’t wanna fight no more.” His sullen, frustrated resignation speaks volumes. The music video makes its own statement: Staples paints an American flag white, and then shoots it full of holes.
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Katie Pruitt: ‘Same Boat’
Katie Pruitt attacks billionaires, rage-bait, lies and divisiveness in “Same Boat,” admonishing, “God knows it’s good for business when we’re at each others’ throats.” Her band delivers bluesy Americana steeped in Neil Young, using brawny electric guitars to buttress her plain-spoken economic populism.
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Ibeyi: ‘Aset’
Ibeyi — the French-Cuban twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz — conjures an international invocation in “Aset” from her upcoming album, “Offering.” Over two alternating chords that hint at flamenco, the sisters sing in English about the Egyptian god Osiris and divination with shells and in Spanish about the devastating power of love. Their voices echo and multiply as drumming gathers around them; the chords float, unresolved.
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Jordan Patterson: ‘Just My Friend’
The Los Angeles-based songwriter Jordan Patterson draws a boundary in “Just My Friend,” which will be on her EP “Songs from a Valley Girl,” due on June 19. Apparently an ex still wants more than friendship, and the track suggests turmoil behind her ultimatum. The song is paced by calm, loping piano chords, but drums and guitars often intrude while Patterson’s voice goes all over the place: quavering, whooping, gasping, squealing. She’s decisive, but not without a struggle.
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Balming Tiger: ‘Keep On’
‘Keep On’ is from “Gongbu,” the second album by the shape-shifting Korean band Balming Tiger, whose songs toss together psychedelia, rapping, pop hooks, hints of Asian traditions and more. “Gongbu” is a concept album about a sinister neuroscience institute, with lyrics in Korean along with some English and occasionally other languages. But the story line is irrelevant to the perky absurdity of “Keep On,” which sets assorted vocalists — some rap, some sing — atop a foot-stamping beat. A bass chant that shows up as an occasional refrain translates as, “This just makes absolutely no sense.” No argument here.
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What’s New in Instrumental Music
Tyondai Braxton: UnFS
Tyondai Braxton, a composer, guitarist and keyboardist who played in the band Battles and has written symphonic pieces also makes electronic music. “UnFS” is from his new, all-electronic album, “Splayed Werks,” due in August. “UnFS” could almost be a skewed techno track, danceable with some twists; it puts a (mostly) steady-thumping beat behind hopscotching bass lines and quasi-melodies that don’t always reduce to 4/4.
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What’s on the Charts
Dexter and the Moonrocks, ‘Freakin’ Out’
Dexter and the Moonrocks, a band from Texas, have climbed to No. 33 with “Freakin’ Out,” a power ballad about a panic attack. It builds from folky fingerpicking and shaky self-pity to full power-chorded grunge and a feedback finale — the kind of 1990s throwback that still fills format slots on so-called “alternative” radio.
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What Happened 40 Years Ago
Peter Gabriel: ‘Sledgehammer’
Peter Gabriel released his fifth solo studio album, “So,” on May 19, 1986. His previous four had all, confusingly, been titled “Peter Gabriel”; his label convinced him to differentiate the new one. Some of its songs — “Red Rain,” “Don’t Give Up,” “Mercy Street” — grappled with depression. But Gabriel had a major hit with the more lighthearted “Sledgehammer,” slinging phallic metaphors over a 1960s soul beat with a fluttering shakuhachi sound as an unlikely hook. A painstakingly animated stop-motion video presented the somber art-rock songwriter with a twinkle in his eye.
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Jon Pareles, a culture correspondent for The Times, served as chief pop music critic for 37 years. He studied music, played in rock, jazz and classical groups and was a college-radio disc jockey. He was previously an editor at Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.
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