Editor's Picks aren't a top-ten list or a curated playlist. They're the reviews our editors single out as standout work, marked at the moment of filing. Updated when new picks land.
Andrew Gold’s 1977 hit “Lonely Boy” sounds like gleaming Los Angeles soft rock, but underneath the flawless Peter Asher production sits a comically bitter character study — a firstborn turning childhood resentment into lifelong mythology, and making self-pity irresistibly catchy.
Jackie’s Boy’s 2022 single “Recipe” is a bright, theatrical, funk-laced R&B song that turns love into a recipe — slick, flirtatious, and built for full-stage showmanship, with enough vocal command to keep the playful concept from tipping into novelty.
Cameron Winter’s “Love Takes Miles,” from his 2024 album Heavy Metal, is a theatrical, unsteady singer-songwriter confession that treats love as endurance rather than arrival — exhausting, strange, funny around the edges, and quietly unforgettable.
“Berghain,” the lead single from ROSALÍA’s 2025 album Lux, is a collision staged inside a cathedral, a nightclub, and a fever dream at the same time — orchestral, ritualistic, dangerously glossy, and excessive enough to argue with.
aja monet’s the color of rain is a 2026, 15-song spoken-word and jazz album that integrates poetry into the body of the band — political, intimate, communal, and a serious musical work by an artist expanding what the centre of a song can be.
Wednesday’s “Townies,” from 2025’s Bleeds, is a ragged, brightly-paced indie-rock song that turns small-town memory into emotional static — alt-country storytelling distorted into something rumored, mythologized, and quietly devastating.
Tara Clerkin Trio’s “Somewhere Good,” the title track of their June 2026 World of Echo release, is a weather-system of a song — minimalist jazz, dub, trip-hop, and avant-pop assembled out of breath, wood, and circuitry.
Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones,” from 1984’s Purple Rain, is a controlled emotional detonation disguised as a ballad — fragile, jealous, pleading, and finally torn open by one of the most famous screams in pop music.
CMAT’s “EURO-COUNTRY” is big, strange, clever, bruised pop music — the title track of her 2025 third album, a politically charged country-pop statement that refuses to choose between sincerity and spectacle.
David Ackles’ “Love’s Enough” is a small masterpiece of vulnerable songwriting from 1972’s American Gothic — tender, theatrical, quietly devastating, and brave enough to make sincerity feel dangerous.
Jellyfish’s “New Mistake” is power-pop at its most dazzling and faintly unhinged — a 1993 Spilt Milk highlight that stacks Queen harmonies, Beatles chord changes, and theatrical arrangement craft over a chorus engineered to feel like it has always existed.
A lyrically searing protest hymn that refuses cynicism — Davies maps the cracks in the world and still dares to hope.
A duet with Roger Joseph Manning that turns the post-show silence into a manifesto for the artist who works when the world sleeps.
A tender, gratitude-soaked tribute to a mother — and a promise that nothing important will go unsaid between them.
A nostalgia-soaked romp through the late '90s and early 2000s — flip phones, Smash Mouth, and MySpace top 8s, weaponised as romance.
An exhilarating, reference-packed tribute to John Williams that recreates the feeling of hearing him for the first time.
A masterclass in wordplay that turns lyrical virtuosity into emotional shrapnel — every syllable doing two jobs, and aching for both.
A theatrical, tongue-in-cheek tribute to the era of the legendary groupie — equal parts romp, roast, and quiet elegy.
A vicious, Bond-esque takedown of a social climber, delivered with British bite and zero appetite for redemption.
A quietly devastating ballad about loving someone you'll never be with — and choosing, instead, to be a friend.
A self-aware, vaudevillian romp about the unsung hero of every live show — written by someone clearly thrilled to be on the bill.
A vulnerable, autobiographical piano ballad in which Nick Davies thanks — by name — the music that saved him.
