{"id":1972949,"date":"2025-08-21T19:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1972949"},"modified":"2025-08-21T19:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T19:35:08","slug":"best-new-songs-of-the-week-august-21-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/best-new-songs-of-the-week-august-21-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Best New Songs of the Week (August 21, 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

At <\/i>Paste Music, we\u2019re listening to so many new tunes on any given day, we barely have any time to listen to each other. Nevertheless, every week we can swing it, we take stock of the previous seven days\u2019 best new songs, delivering a weekly playlist of our favorites. Check out this week\u2019s material, in alphabetical order. (You can check out an ongoing playlist of every best new songs pick of 2025 here<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n

Dijon: \u201cYamaha\u201d<\/h2>\n

Dijon does the dated stuff better than most, preserving the \u201880s and \u201890s in grains and textures rather than copying someone else\u2019s image or attitude, and his new album Baby<\/a><\/em> is meteoric proof that his debut, Absolutely<\/em>, was star-making and his sound will command R&B\u2019s next destiny without leaving any of its ancestry behind. The vocals on \u201cYamaha,\u201d which come in at every direction, boast a handsomeness not unlike prime D\u2019Angelo and stack where guitars rambled in Dijon\u2019s work three years ago. Here, his voice is not only his instrument but an ecstatic ride that plays well into the album\u2019s collage-y, with cresting, contrasting synth programming, manipulated pitches, choral tangents, and Top 40 piano drama coagulating. For some, that might make for a frustrating listen. For me, it makes writing down whatever hyphenated genres have been swirling around Dijon\u2019s output feel less corny. Alt-R&B, post-pop, anti-Americana, and nu-jungle are all ludicrous descriptors but apropos. \u201cYamaha\u201d sounds out of time but of the moment. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/em><\/p>\n

Elias R\u00f8nnenfelt ft. Dean Blunt: \u201ctears on his rings and chains\u201d<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Iceage guitarist Elias R\u00f8nnenfelt and Dean Blunt are two of my favorite collaborators. From their sunny 2023 single \u201cSmile Please\u201d to the recent release of their EP Lucre<\/em>, the duo\u2019s meshing of post-punk and experimental rock is a fusion that just makes sense. On R\u00f8nnenfelt and Blunt\u2019s latest collaborative effort \u201ctears on his rings and chains,\u201d warm guitars mingle with midtempo drums and sparse synths to create a dizzyingly romantic soundscape. The song\u2019s clean production gives it an innately effortless sound, while R\u00f8nnenfelt\u2019s broken vocals provide a satisfying contrast to the cleansing backdrop. \u201cAnd I just wasn\u2019t made up for these times, but I don\u2019t care as long as you are mine,\u201d R\u00f8nnenfelt sings, traversing equally poetic themes of love and existentialism. It\u2019s another satisfying piece of off-kilter rock from two of the scene\u2019s best voices. \u2014Camryn Teder<\/em><\/p>\n

Greg Freeman: \u201cSalesman\u201d<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"Greg Freeman<\/a>\u2019s \u201cSalesman\u201d doesn\u2019t just knock\u2014it barges in, briefcase swinging, kicking up dust as the band tears into one of the liveliest cuts on Burnover<\/em>. Slide guitar smears across the mix, horns jab in like punctuation marks, the rhythm section pulling everything forward with a reckless kind of swagger. It\u2019s a strange, exhilarating tension: the lyrics circle mortality, fate, the inevitability of time\u2019s door-to-door routine, but the music refuses to sink under that weight. Freeman sings about clocks, rules, bullshit, and eternity, his voice catching somewhere between resignation and a grin, and the band answers back by sounding like they\u2019d rather keep playing than let life itself get a word in. Halfway through, the song unspools into a screeching instrumental stretch\u2014pedal steel grinding into sax, riffs unraveling into their own crooked logic. It doesn\u2019t feel like a funeral march, but a stubborn detour, a tongue-in-cheek joyride, a way of putting off the knock just a little longer. That\u2019s the trick of \u201cSalesman\u201d: it knows what\u2019s coming, but it dances anyway. Sometimes the racket is the only rebellion we\u2019ve got. \u2014Casey Epstein-Gross<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean Dawson: \u201cRock A Bye Baby\u201d<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"As he told me in our cover story conversation in January<\/a>, the wisdom of Prince\u2019s music remains one of the best gestures of love in Jean Dawson\u2019s life. It\u2019s become, as he put it, a \u201cLovecraftian romance.\u201d Dawson\u2019s work is a vault not just of Black performance, but of cross-generational excellence\u2014just as Prince\u2019s mononymic heritage was and is. Dawson\u2019s first single since last year\u2019s Glimmer of God<\/em>, \u201cRock A Bye Baby,\u201d is superbly culled from the education that Prince\u2019s innovations have afforded pop music for four decades. It\u2019s a chugging, snappy synth-pop track smacked with rattling snares and head-pounding bass phrases. But don\u2019t get it twisted: Dawson\u2019s latest is not a novelty or some, as he would say, \u201cretro-fuck.\u201d A song covered in chrome, \u201cRock A Bye Baby\u201d lovingly wears its inspirations into the present. I\u2019ve been saying that dance music is up right now, and it\u2019s echoing back to me. This is pop perfection. Templates remain outdated in the company of Dawson\u2019s ear. \u2014Matt Mitchell<\/em><\/p>\n

Joyce Manor: \u201cAll My Friends Are So Depressed\u201d<\/h2>\n

\"\"\"\"It was about time for some new music from Joyce Manor. After a 3-year absence, the SoCal punk band returned this week with \u201cAll My Friends Are So Depressed.\u201d Bandleader Barry Johnson said the track comes from his stab at writing a Joyce Manor version of Lana Del Rey\u2019s lyrical style, with references to the Lord on Tecate trucks, key lime pie, writing songs being high, wearing a dress, and, of course, being deep in depression. Close enough! But instead of fully committing to the bit and making it sound like a Lana track, Joyce Manor goes for an alt-country slant, a direction that feels fitting with the genre\u2019s rise to the mainstream. Johnson has always been a vivid songwriter, one who, even when approaching songs with a sense of humor, makes them feel sincere and conversational, so it\u2019s no wonder that even while challenging himself with an admittedly silly prompt, he comes up with something that still retains that relatable quality. The way he casually throws out the line \u201cWish that I would fucking die\u201d is said with the same cadence as you would while venting to a friend. And who wouldn\u2019t go for some \u201ckey lime pie and Frampton live\u201d? \u2014Tatiana Tenreyro<\/em><\/p>\n