It’s a pretty fruitful New Music Friday this week; lots of very enjoyable musique to get to grips with – including, I am delighted to say, a nice amount (…two or three songs) of early-2000s-reminiscent pop-rock!

My personal fave of the week is probably the new one from Baby Queen: Raw Thoughts is yet another slam-dunk from this extremely promising new-ish artist, following the excellent Medicine EP last year.

Also noteworthy: Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion are, as suspected, the guest stars on Ariana Grande‘s new version of 34+35; while Pale Waves continue their recent hot streak with Easy (wouldn’t sound out of place on Avril’s Let Go!!),. and Aly and AJ are back with the also kinda-guitar-y Listen!!!.

Elsewhere, Wild Youth have put out a nifty little bop called Champagne Butterflies, Zoe Wees‘ Girls Like Us is further proof that you should check Spotify’s New Music Friday Sweden playlist as often as the UK one, and Ashnikko has put out a Kelis-sampling beast by the name of Deal With It.

Finally, new Voice coach Anne-Marie is making a play for her first Top 40 single in a year with Don’t Play, on which she enlists KSI and Digital Farm Animals; and Selena Gomez has delivered on the speculation that she’s releasing some Spanish material – De Una Vez completes the round-up.

Follow the rolling 2021 playlist on Spotify here, or below.