Lil Nas X
Montero (Call Me By Your Name)
Everyone was shocked by the scene in the film Call Me By Your Name when Timothée Chalamet masturbates into a ripe peach. Lil Nas X’s seductive song of the same name manages to make this act seem entirely vanilla. Not only are there lyrics about drugs and oral sex, but the video shows the rapper sliding down a stripper pole into hell where he gives Satan a lapdance (but only after he makes out with a snake with his own face). It’s a fabulous Technicolor queer-pop party and you wish you were invited!
Gracey x Billen Ted
Got You Covered
You know you’ve been inside too long when a catchy dance tune such as this is released and you don’t think about listening to it on a smoky dancefloor with sticky sambuca-smeared hands but about blasting it on full volume during your Couch to 5k.
Rag’n’Bone Man
Fall in Love Again
Rag’n’Bone man looks like he owns an east London barbershop and sings like a busker who might make it to The Voice’s final but would lose the competition to a cute, hip-hop-influenced boyband called Only the Free. This soppy, sloppy ballad is about sabotaging your relationship for fear of commitment, and yet the one thing he shouldn’t have committed to is this song.
Julia Michaels
All Your Exes
With all the spite of snake-era Taylor Swift, this anti-cool girl anthem sees Julia Michaels imagine a world where all of her exes are dead. Its 90s alt-rock leanings mean it would work perfectly as the soundtrack to a Clueless-style high school chick flick, specifically the exact moment the main character sees her crush asking a cheerleader to prom.
Becky Hill
Last Time
I thought this was Jess Glynne at first, which makes sense because both artists are exactly the same, apart from the fact one of them got briefly cancelled for claiming that not being allowed into a restaurant called Sexy Fish wearing tracksuit bottoms was classist. This cut-and-paste electropop is pretty boring but it doesn’t matter because it will feature on the playlist of every post-pandemic spin class for years to come.
