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.

Last week, we featured Noah Kahan, Victoria Monét, Drake and Miranda Lambert.

This week, Troye Sivan’s anticipated fourth album is out; Slayyyyter drops another preview of her upcoming companion LP, and Remi Wolf’s Mud arrives … plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below:

Troye Sivan, She’s the Best

The sung-spoken delivery, gauzy production and lurching beat of She’s the Best‘s title track and advance single set up Troye Sivan‘s fourth album to be something of a swerve within his catalog — and further surprises lay ahead in the album, including a lift of ’90s one-hit wonders Forest for the Trees on the psych-leaning “I Do This for You,” and a dreamy acoustic shuffle on the Beabadoobee-like “Embarrassingly.” But for those who hoped for more four-on-the-floor sweat from one of the past decade’s greatest dance-pop purveyors, Sivan’s got plenty of that, too, including on the lusty, vocoder-assisted “Canada Dry,” the location-hopping (and Madonna-interpolating) “Party” and the skittering, PinkPantheress-esque “Troye Meets World.”

Slayyyyter, “I Think He’s Got a Girl”

Earlier this week, WOR$T MAN IN AMERICA — the long-teased companion set to Slayyyyter‘s breakthrough 2026 album WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA — was officially announced for this December. Two tracks from the new mini-LP had already been released in “Brand New Chanel$” and “Crank 2,” and this Friday they’re joined by a third: “I Think He’s Got a Girl,” a midtempo grunge-pop lament over a likely stepping-out lover. “You’re quiet on the phone/ What time you coming home?/ I hope it doesn’t mean what I know it means,” Slayyyter moans over the tenderly pulsing track, before making the titular chorus observation. It should make for another live highlight, as if she was still lacking for any of those.

Remi Wolf, Mud

Long championed by the pop faithful, Remi Wolf has spent much of the 2020s seemingly on the verge of a major breakout — most recently earning a big look as a featured performer on the first episode of the hit Amazon college romance series Off Campus. Hopefully third album Mud will finally be the set to put her over the top; certainly, the collection of alt-pop gems is strong enough to merit the crossover attention — from the lacerating acoustic heartbreak of “Twiggy” to the sweetly frustrated power-pop of “Burn Me Blue” and the John Mayer-assisted soft-rock ache of “Moon So High.” Sadly, it’s not a sure bet — as Wolf herself admits on partial title track “Covered in Mud,” “Nothing I write sounds like all the hits on the radio” — but top 40 would undoubtedly be a more interesting place if it would meet her halfway.

Gunna, “Pop It”

We haven’t gone a full calendar year without a new Gunna album since 2021, so even though we don’t have an official release date for it, it’s no surprise that a new album — Splurge, announced in September — is likely on the horizon. For now, fans awaiting the full project will have to suffice with a new single: “Pop It,” a short blast with regal horns and the rapper’s typical sing-song staccato (“She out her panties/ She call me ‘Daddy’/ Bulletproof Caddy/ Who having static?”) It’s another likely hit for one of the most commercially consistent rappers of the decade.

Girl in Red, “Blue”

It’s officially Marie Ulven’s time, as the leaves change color, the weather gets a bit nippy, and Girl in Red‘s seasonal perennial “We Fell in Love in October” begins its annual trek up the streaming charts. Ulven’s not wasting any time making the most of her signature month this year, as she releases “Blue,” an atmospheric heart-racer with rushing acoustic guitars and evocative, Swiftian lyrics like “I can tell time has passed by the wash of your denim/ The blue never lasts but it doesn’t fade for me.” Perhaps this winner will extend Girl in Red season into at least November this year.

Pitbull, PITCOIN

The latest full-length from the man born Armando Christian Pérez is another globetrotting (and musical spectrum-spanning) set, with features from artists as far-ranging as crunk pioneer Lil Jon, Dutch DJ (and Pitbull‘s old “Give Me Everything” partner) Afrojack, hitmaking Cuban reggaetón duo Gente de Zona and a pair of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer bands n KISS and Bon Jovi. “His music connects people,” the latter band’s frontman Jon Bon Jovi told Billboard of Mr. Worldwide in our cover story earlier this week. “He doesn’t care if you’re a rocker or a rapper, if you are Black or white, Republican or Democrat. The key is that he is spreading the universal theme of hope and optimism.”

Dawn Richard, Creole Culture

Dawn Richard has finally unleashed the newest addition to her soulful, experimental, Afrofuturist body of work. Co-executive produced by the Danity Kane alum and Katalyst, Creole Culture paints a hypnotic picture of New Orleans, blending the city’s rich history with a fresh, inspired approach to R&B, soul, jazz, hip-hop and even bits of bounce music. Featuring Big Freedia, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, Durand Bernarr, and more, the 11-track set is as much a love letter as it is a homecoming. — KYLE DENIS

Joyce Wrice, Machiko

Five years after she won hearts across the R&B scene with her debut album Overgrown, Joyce Wrice has finally delivered her sophomore effort: Machiko. Named for the Japanese word for “city girl,” which also doubles as her middle name, Machiko finds the California singer-songwriter reflecting on the woman she’s become. Featuring Ty Dolla $ign, JID, Rio Da Yung OG, Odeal, Salimata, Eem Triplin and Mack Keane, Machiko is a gorgeous journey through several eras of R&B — but Wrice’s best pocket is still that breezy ’00s R&B space she thrives in. — K.D.

Judeline, “La Falda”

On the heels of having the No. 1 Latin hit of the moment — for her collaboration on Karol G’s “BbY WOW” — Judeline presents “La Falda.” On the cheeky new track, the Spanish trailblazer sings about intimacy, freedom, desire, and self-expression: “Put your hand under my skirt (Olé!)/ He does what I want because I know what he loves.” Sonically, the track is a reggaetón and flamenco fusion powered by an elegant sample from the soundtrack to the 2001 French film, Amélie, by composer Yann Tiersen. — JESSICA ROIZ

Randy Rogers Band and Parker McCollum, “Tommy Jackson”

Randy Rogers Band teams with Parker McCollum for the first release from the Randy Rogers Band’s upcoming, multi-artist collaborations album, Songbook. They pair up for a new version of a song written by Rogers and originally included on the band’s first studio album, 2002’s Like It Used to Be. The track simmers with rustic instrumentation and a rolling rhythm, as the band and McCollum pour out the story song’s tragic tale of a man on the run, following an alcohol-fueled murder incident. — JESSICA NICHOLSON

John Prine, Found Dogs

Thirty years ago, music troubadour John Prine released the influential LP Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. Now, Oh Boy Records (which Prine co-founded in 1981) celebrates that project with the release of Found Dogs, an assembling of music from the original recording sessions and demos, including alternate takes on tracks like the album opener, “Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody, as well as five previously unreleased, original Prine songs. Together, the songs take longtime Prine fans and new followers more deeply into his vivid approach to songwriting, which gave voice to the lives, emotions, struggles and celebrations of everyday people. — J.N.

Chase & Status, Generic Everything

Let’s face it — you know what to expect from this British duo, and you’ll always want more. Dramatic, chaotic and yet totally controlled, the productions by Saul Milton and Will Kennard are unmistakable. Their seventh studio album, Generic Everything, doesn’t veer out of their lane, serving as a welcome extension to their well-established, totally ferocious sound.

The album opens with “Disgruntled Everything (feat. J Hus & IRAH)”, a fiery roller with brash attitude. “Carnage (feat. Little Simz)” gives the British rapper total vocal freedom atop a laid-back beat and snarling synths. Skrillex joins the lads on “Essa Ta Quente”, which pulls in the same sharp-edged Latin flavours that are all over his 2026 album Soma. 

But it’s “Gone Too Far (feat Debbie)” that rekindles the soaring euphoria of “Blind Faith”, the 2012 classic that brought Chase & Status so much adoration in the mainstream. All in, no skips. —KATIE BAIN.

Haai, Digitise

Australian producer Haai will surely punch her way into myriad dance playlists today with her fourth studio album, Digitise. Bookended by two longer songs at 6:30 each, the album dives between short tracks — packed with gritty, glitchy and straight-up gnarly sound design — and more structured, four-to-five-minute dance heaters. 

Haai’s arrangement and production techniques in Digitise are sometimes challenging to the listener by design. “Depth Perception”, a mere minute and a half long, boasts moments of dubstep and bass, before bringing in breakbeats and leading us into the album’s title track, which pulls you straight back onto the dancefloor with its anthemic synth stabs. 

With a host of collaborations (Echonomist, Kaiden Ford, James Messiah, Cantoalegre and more), the very least that this album pulls off is showcasing just how versatile an artist Haai is. — K.B.