-
Noah Kahan “Doors”Noah Kahan’s latest record, The Great Divide, doubles down on the sound and subject matter that resonated with listeners on 2022’s Stick Season. In “Doors,” Noah confronts the barriers he’s built around himself and questions whether love can survive them – admitting that he wants connection while simultaneously pushing people away. Though much of his music deals with similarly tough themes, we hear it reflected sonically in this track, as he employs minor chords in a much more prominant way than usual.
-
Lucy Dacus “Planting Tomatoes” In her first release since 2025’s Forever is a Feeling, “Planting Tomatoes” finds Lucy Dacus balancing everyday beauty with an awareness of mortality, turning small moments like gardening, or overheard music from a neighbor’s apartment, into reflections on staying present. It pairs Dacus’ warm indie-rock voice with some distorted instrumentation, giving a sonic backup to the melancholic nature of the theme, which culminates with the devastating line, “Now I’m older than you’ll ever be,” a meditation on outliving someone you’ve lost.
- Bleachers “we should talk” This new one from Bleachers explores friendship, distance, and the conversations that never happen. Jack Antonoff reflects on how any number of factors can quietly pull people apart – a phenomenon most of us recognize as we transition from one stage of life into another.
- Suki Waterhouse “Back in Love” In what has to be my favorite song on this list, Suki Waterhouse celebrates her newly rediscovered lust for life with the first single off her forthcoming album Loveland. Catchy, dreamy, atmospheric, “Back in Love” screams for self-connection. This record comes after Waterhouse and partner Robert Pattinson welcomed their first child in 2024. “I felt like my identity had been cut open in becoming a mother,” she shared in an interview with Variety. “It’s like [I got] belief back in myself, and then also being … I don’t want to say back in love with my partner, because it sounds like I was out of it, which I was never. But it’s also a new relationship. Your old relationship has been wiped out, and so it’s building that new one and kind of celebrating the beauty in that, like, we’ve survived this.””
- Sam Fender feat. Olivia Dean “Rein Me In” Sam Fender calls on recent Grammy Award-winner Olivia Dean for help on this track from People Watching (Deluxe Edition). “Rein Me In” is a nostalgic reflection on a relationship, hidden within an upbeat duet. Unlike in the original version of the song, Dean’s verse transforms the song into a conversation, offering tenderness where Fender offers guilt, and urging him not to run from vulnerability.
Late night listeners will also hear these songs:
- Billy Ray Cyrus & Noah Cyrus “On Our Way Along”
- Bridgette Calls Me Baby “I Can Take the Sun Out of the Sky”
- Brother Wallace “You’re the Man”
- Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds “Situation”
- Low Cut Connie “Can’t Be Wrong”
- MEEK “Fabulous”
- NEEDTOBREATHE “Say it Now”
- Pete Yorn “All the Beauty”
- Phillip Phillips “Homesick”
- The Red Clay Strays “Demons in Your Choir”
- Thee Sacred Souls “Any Old Fool”
- Tyler Ballgame “Matter of Taste”
