Friday Music Guide: New Music From Sabrina Carpenter, Tems, Charli XCX and more

Billboard's Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday's most essential releases — the essential music everyone will be talking about today and that will dominate playlists this weekend and beyond.

This week, we've got the long-awaited new album from Charli XCX and the long-awaited debut album from Tems, plus a musical swerve from Sabrina Carpenter and a theatrical epic from RAYE. See all of this week's picks below.

Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”

If you've fallen in love with Sabrina Carpenter during her previous fan-favorite disco-pop smashes, you might be a little surprised by “Please Please Please.” The song still has plenty of the snap of “Feather” and “Espresso” – down to the guitar chops and handclaps in the chorus – as well as the cleverly jaunty lyrics (“Heartbreak is another, my ego's other/ I please don't you're embarrassing me, baby'') But there's a melodic unpredictability at play here, along with an almost country swagger in Carpenter's luscious vocals, that make “Please” a truly compelling and surprising listen it won't stop any kind of Song of the Summer promotion for “Espresso,” but it might make you even more excited Short n' Sweet album this August. (Also: the music video features rumored real-life bum Barry Keoghan.)

tems, Born in the wild

Tems has already proven herself to be such an important part of the pop landscape of late — with guest appearances on global smashes from Wizkid and Future and her own solo favorites like “Free Mind” and this year's “Love Me JeJe” — that it can be hard to remember that he has yet to release a full-length solo album.This LP arrives this week with Born in the wildher 18-track debut, and it's safe to say that it was worth the wait: The set is full of the kind of happy grooves, piercing lyrics, and soulful melodies that fans have come to expect from the Nigerian songstress, along with special guest appearances from fellow Afrobeats hitmaker Asake and star American rapper J. Cole.

Charli XCX, Brat

She feels that Charlie was making fun of her Brat album for years, crushing enthusiasm with singles like “Von Dutch” and “360,” and now the full set is finally upon us. It already attracts some of the best reviews of her highly publicized career, Brat it spans future bangers, sentimental synth-pop ballads and countless shades in between, zipping through its 15 tracks at near breakneck speed. It's fun, it's flirty, it's often outrageous, and sometimes it's incredibly poignant, and it feels like the album that most of Charli XCX's last decade has been building towards.

RAYE, “Genesis”

Turns out, RAYE's 2023 070 Shake's thrilling, cinematic five-minute drama 'Escapism' was just the beginning. 'Genesis', the new song from singer-songwriter born Rachel Agatha Keen, is a three-part seven-minute epic produced by R&B legend Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins and evolves from a self-whipped instrumental intro into a dark and decadent R&B shuffle in a swinging and scatting (and almost upbeat) big band outro. It's a lot, and none of it is expected — meaning it might not have the pop appeal of “Escapism” — but it's sure to find its audience, and for many it'll likely end up being nothing short of a revelation.

Zach Bryan feat. Noeline Hofmann, “Purple Gas”

Just a week after his “Pink Skies” debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, Zach Bryan is back with a new duet. Noeline Hofmann may not have the name recognition of past collaborators Maggie Rogers or Kacey Musgraves — the 20-year-old singer-songwriter who originally wrote and recorded “Purple Gas” solo as “The Belting Bronco”, she doesn't have any other songs even officially available on Spotify — but the crispness and clarity of her Emmylou Harris-like performance makes for one of the most beautiful harmonies yet with Bryan's hard-edged, unpretentious croon.

“This song brought me to tears the first time I heard it, so it meant a lot to me that Noeline gave me the privilege of singing it with her,” Bryan said. he wrote on Instagram. “I've never covered another musician on an album, and it's because I was waiting for someone to write a song like that. Noeline resonates like Gillian Welch to me and Gillian is one of my favorite musicians ever. now it's also Noeline.”

Jung Kook, “Never Let Go”

After a 2023 in which he became a global solo star in his own right, with a trio of top five Hot 100 hits – “Standing Next to You”, Jack Harlow's collaboration “3D” and Latto with (and topping the charts ) “Seven” — BTS's Jung Kook returns with new single “Never Let Go,” which may have tickets for a similar pop hit. The song has a slight Afrobeats bounce, with a melody borrowed from The 1975 and even samples Tame Impala's “New Person, Same Ol Mistakes,” as Jung Kook belts out with distinct sentimentality, “And when the days grow long / You fill my world with wonder.”

Gracie Abrams, “Close to You”

With Abrams long serving as your favorite pop singer-songwriter's favorite pop singer-songwriter, she seemed for most of the 2020s to be right on the brink of a major breakthrough. “Close to You” feels like her attempt to complete this crossover, a stormy, synthetic declaration of love and lust reminiscent of Pure heroin-era Lorde cover 1989-era Taylor Swift, with all the radio extensions that come with it. Whether or not she reaches those chart-topping heights, it should set the scene nicely for her new album Our secretexpected to be released in just two weeks (June 21).