Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Megan Moroney has her fans on Cloud Nine, Baby Keem looks to avoid the sophomore slump, Hilary Duff is feeling Luck-y, and SZA is back to “Save the Day” with a new soundtrack single… Check out all of this week’s picks below.
Megan Moroney, Cloud Nine
Few country albums this year will be as highly anticipated as Megan Moroney‘s junior full-length, arriving two years after sophomore set Am I Okay? brought her to the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time. Fans already know “6 Months Later,” “Beautiful Things” and “Wish I Didn’t” — all already Billboard Hot 100 hits — but new tracks like “Medicine” and “Stupid” further reinforce Moroney as the sharpest lyricist and keenest tunesmith about the delights and horrors (mostly the latter) of dating this side of Sabrina Carpenter. Meanwhile, “I Only Miss You” welcomes her first big cross-genre guest in duet partner Ed Sheeran, and “Liars & Tigers & Bears” immediately enters the canon of industry songs by bemoaning its impossible standards for female stars.
Baby Keem, Ca$ino
After nearly a half-decade’s wait for the follow-up to 2021 debut The Melodic Blue, Baby Keem announced earlier this February that he would be returning in just a week and a half with new album Ca$ino. The 11-track set arrives today with the rapper’s usual kinetic energy, with a tendency to switch up flows and beats mid-song, and also the ability to get heavier on songs like “I Am Not a Lyricist” and “Highway 95 Pt. 2.” Of course, cousin Kendrick is present, quoting Common’s “The Light” on “Good Flirts,” but the far more surprising West Coast rap legend on the guest list is Too $hort, who lends his inimitable swag to “$ex Appeal.”
Hilary Duff, Luck… or Something
Hilary Duff‘s incredibly successful 2020s comeback — which already includes one of the best singles of 2025 with “Mature,” and a recently announced tour visiting some of the biggest venues she’s ever played — continues with Luck… or Something, one of the most accomplished-sounding pop releases of the early year. Duff’s confidence and self-assurance as a now-seasoned performer is evident in everything on the album, from the vocals to the lyrics and even the sonics, with help in the latter two departments from writer/producer husband Matthew Koma and studio vet Brian Phillips. It’s a triumph, and one of the best pop stories of the past year.
SZA, “Save the Day”
SZA‘s first new solo music following the summation of her SOS/Lana era and her Grand National co-headlining tour with Kendrick Lamar is… a Pixar soundtrack single? Why not! To be fair, you probably wouldn’t guess from “Save the Day” that the song was recorded for the end credits of Hoppers, a robo-beaver odyssey due in theaters in March — the song is an impressively delicate and emotional ballad, with built around elegant piano from Ben Lovett of Mumford and Sons and a vulnerable lyric from Solána. It’ll tide fans over while they’re waiting for a new album and/or One of Them Days 2.
Ty Dolla $ign feat. Leon Thomas, “Miss U 2”
While Leon Thomas usually drifts to the more traditional R&B side of things, he’s cable of playing in a more hip-hop lane too — particularly when mentor and label head Ty Dolla $ign is involved. Coming off a recent Hot 100 hit in “Don’t Kill the Party” with Quavo and Juicy J, Ty Dolla is back with new single “Miss U 2,” as he trades verses with his Grammy-winning protégé, and sings a little Aaron Hall — who, between this song and Drake’s “Gimme a Hug,” is having a pretty incredible mid-2020s run with his signature solo hit “I Miss You” unexpectedly popping up in big releases.
Thundercat & Mac Miller, “She Knows Too Much”
Thundercat and Mac Miller seems like such an obvious musician-rapper combo to have brought out the best with one another that it’s sad to think that they only got to work together a few times during the latter’s lifetime. Driving that home is the new single from Thundercat’s upcoming Distracted album, which features the rapper delivering a frisky lyric about a girl who he’s trying to get with but likely to come up empty, sounding like he’s having too much fun to be down about his missed shot. And once it gets to the closing electric piano solo over the crisp groove and piercing horns, you’ll be too busy boogieing to be sad about what could have been too.
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