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 gayle Madonna See latest videos, charts and news
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This week: Madonna drops her anticipated Confessions II ; rising star Sienna Spiro releases her anticipated debut album, Visitor ; and Riley Green shares his latest collaboration… plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
After months of hype and world building, Madonna’s Confessions II finally pulls up to the club this Friday. The icon’s 15th studio album since 1983 and her first since 2019’s Madame X , Confessions II returns her to the throbbing beats and writhing rooms of 2005’s Confessions on a Dancefloor . While that album leaned hard into disco via classics like “Hung Up” and “Sorry,” Confessions II is more upscale dance-pop and lush electronica, with songs like “Good for the Soul” and “One Step Away” pairing layered, cerebral productions by Stuart Price (who also produced the original album) with Madonna’s philosophical musings about how “the dancefloor is not just a place, it’s a threshold, a ritualistic space where movement replaces language.”
But despite its heady tendencies, the album certainly possesses the dance world’s spirit of playfulness and fun, with “School” functioning as a slinky little ass-shaker and “Danceteria” running down a typical night at the song’s namesake club in New York City, where Madonna did her first performance in 1982. And as the original Confessions contained as much emotional nuance as it did kickdrum, so too does this new one live up to its title, via deeply personal songs about motherhood (via a collaboration with Lola Leon, Madonna’s daughter), the sting of betrayal and all flavors of romance. We’ll confess, we love it. — KATIE BAIN
After breaking big on and off the charts with the emotive “Die on This Hill,” fast-rising soulful pop artist Sienna Spiro releases her debut album this Friday (July 3). Titled Visitor , the project includes that smash hit as well as previously-released singles “You Stole the Show” and the quasi-title track “The Visitor.” Spiro co-wrote the album alongside collaborators including Omer Fedi and Michael Pollack (both of whom also co-produced several tracks) among others. — LYNDSEY HAVENS
Three years ago now, in 2023, pop singer GAYLE scored a Grammy nomination for song of the year with breakout single “abcdefu.” She went on to release two EPs and contribute a track to the Barbie soundtrack, in addition to opening on tours for Taylor Swift and Tate McRae. Now, after some time away, the rising artist is back with new music — and a big announcement. Her debut album Observing Choas ,…