Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to New Music Friday’s most essential releases each week — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond. Explore Dominic Fike Mariah Carey See latest videos, charts and news
Last week , we featured LISA, Miley, Kacey Musgraves & John Mayer. Related Selena Gomez Celebrates 'Ups & Downs' With Demi Lovato: 'I'm Proud of What We've Been Through' Meet Leah Barylsky, the Woman Behind the Camera - And On the Stage -- During Rüfüs Du Sol's Record-Breaking Tour Will My Chemical Romance Score Its First No. 1 Album Next Week (With a 20-Year-Old Album)?
This week, Dominic Fike drops his first LP as a minted hitmaker; Mariah Carey takes another glance at her polarizing Glitter project and Queens of the Stone Age turns down the amps for its ninth album… plus much more.
Check out all of this week’s picks below:
It feels like one of 2026’s most-anticipated LPs, given how this was the year that mainstream-adjacent singer-songwriter Dominic Fike belatedly proved himself as a pop hitmaker, with the long-running Hot 100 hits “Babydoll” and “White Keys.” But while How to Quit Smoking is one of the autumn’s most satisfying arrivals, its relatively lo-fi, genre-agnostic vibes show how unlikely Fike’s top 40 dalliances were in the first place — including with “White Keys,” present here as something of an album centerpiece — and how another such hit is far from required for the album to be deemable as a success. Its charms are mostly gentle and acoustic, but with at least a toe kept in hip-hop, leading to winningly unpredictable moments like the Danny Brown guest verse on “Not the Spirit,” an ODB interpolation on “Not the Spirit” and a thoroughly disarming Tay-K appearance (via phone) that closes the album.
Gracie Abrams, “Here You Come, There You Go”
As Cher Horowitz once said about report card grades, it appears that album releases are just a jumping-off point to start negotiations for Gracie Abrams. After scoring the biggest hit of her The Secret of Us era in 2024 with the deluxe edition cut “That’s So True,” it feels like she could be on track for a second straight bonus high-water mark with “Here You Come, There You Go,” lead track from her upcoming Daughter From Hell deluxe edition. While that album could sometimes drift through a little unobtrusively, “Here You Come” demands your attention from its opening bass rumble and arresting opening line (“Hell froze in my bedroom”), displaying the extra bite and musical development many pop fans have long hoped to hear from her.
After hosting a hip-hop rodeo on 2025’s country-infused I Hope You’re Happy , BigXThaPlug is back in his rap bag with Better Over Time . Stacked with a starry line-up of guest artists, including Leon Thomas, Belly Gang Kushington, Lil Yachty, Glorilla, Loe Shimmy and Ava Max, BigX’s latest LP recounts the pricklier moments of remaining independent amid his mainstream surge, while also showcasing his ear for radio-minded hooks. — KYLE DENIS
Mariah Carey, Glitter (Digital Deluxe Edition)
Whether you believe Glitter to be a lost classic in the Mariah Carey catalog or a frivolous misstep, it cert…