I feel like barely 10 minutes passes these days without me saying “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW!” about some form of pop culture or other, but truly… the new Arlo Parks single is EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW!

Lifted from the album Collapsed In Sunbeams – which is also out today – Hope is, like last year’s Black Dog, another excellent song about feeling generally crap about everything. And interestingly, it’s one of those tracks that doesn’t feature its title in any of the lyrics. I love it. Really want it to give her a big hit.

Also on today’s round-up, the brilliant new Tom Aspaul song that came out a couple of days ago, the new Clean Bandit and Iann Dior song (which feels like it’ll be quite a grower), a new one from FKA Twigs, and a special acoustic-guitar-backed charity release from JoJo.

Rounding us off this week are a great new queerbop from Rebecca Black, and Kesha hopping on a new Sam Feldt banger.

Get the rolling 2021 playlist here, or below.