As you put the final touches on your Halloween costumes for tonight, why not listen to some new music from your favorite queer artists? Billboard Pride is proud to present the latest edition of Queer Jams of the Week, our roundup of some of the best new music releases from LGBTQ+ artists.
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From Tyler the Creator’s latest track to Reneé Rap’s victory lap, check out just a few of our favorite releases from this week below:
Tyler, the Creator, “MOTHER”
With his deluxe edition of Chromakopia, Tyler, the Creator only added one new song — but it’s a track that he called the “grounding piece” to the album. Throughout “Mother,” a nearly-5-minute track filled with sonic and lyrical switch-ups, Tyler manages not only to flex his dexterity as an artist, but the true excellence of his writing. Dedicated to his mom Bonita Smith and the various lessons she taught him growing up, “Mother” sounds like Tyler’s entire Chromakopia run bundled into one glorious, messy, all-encompassing new track.
Reneé Rapp, “Lucky”
For her next trick, Reneé Rapp is turning a one-off song for the soundtrack of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t into a genuine pop-rock banger. “Lucky,” featuring credits from pop songwriting royalty like Ryan Tedder and Omer Fedi, sees Rapp strutting out a victory lap from her Bite Me era with a cheeky new single. As she flexes her accolades and taunts her haters, the singer comes to a simple conclusion with the track’s bridge: “Okay, got my way/ It’s almost like I’m Reneé.”
Orville Peck, “Drift Away”
After taking a light detour by starring in a Broadway show, Orville Peck is back in his full cowboy glory on “Drift Away,” the first single off his upcoming new album Appaloosa. Lamenting the state of life in a post-pandemic world, Peck offers an alternative to the dismay and disconnection of modernity with a dreamy, escapist country melody that offers to make like the title and simply float off into the distance.
Cat Burns, How to Be Human
She may be in the midst of a lying streak on The Celebrity Traitors in the UK, but Cat Burns is nothing but radically honest on her latest album How to Be Human. Throughout the magnificent new record, the singer-songwriter recounts in often excruciating detail how she got through a particularly trying period of her life. With raw lyrics, inventive production and Burns’ best vocal performance to date, How to Be Human is a must-listen for any music fans out there.
MIKA, “Modern Times”
As life in our current era gets more complicated and chaotic, pop singer MIKA is here to try and make a little sense out of “Modern Times.” On his first single in two years, MIKA takes an avant garde, dance-pop approach to the constantly-moving changes of the world today, all while constructing the kind of soaring melodies that made him a star in the first place. With new production flourishes bolstering his already well-established vocal talent, MIKA makes his comeback feel all the more glorious with “Modern Times.”
Check out all of our picks on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week playlist below:
