New Music Friday landed on October 30, and the drop was unusually loaded: a Gracie Abrams surprise ahead of her Halloween “SNL” slot, a BLACKPINK member going solo with a second single, a French dance duo previewing the score to one of the most anticipated video games ever made, and a Nashville singer finally delivering the honky-tonk concept album she’s been teasing all year. Streaming services buried all of it under algorithmic playlists with names like “Fresh Finds,” so we pulled out the seven releases actually worth your attention this week — who made them, what they’re attached to, and why they matter beyond the first 24 hours of hype.
Gracie Abrams, “Here You Come, There You Go”
Abrams dropped this one on October 29, giving fans barely a day’s notice before she took the “Saturday Night Live” stage as Halloween-episode musical guest. Co-written with longtime collaborators Jim-E Stack and Amy Allen, the track extends the run from her third studio album, Daughter From Hell, which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in July with 124,000 equivalent album units — her first chart-topper in the U.S. The album’s opening week also pulled nearly 18 million global Spotify streams on release day alone, with “Good Reason” leading its six tracks onto the Daily Global Songs chart. “Here You Come, There You Go” reads as a bridge single ahead of her Look at My Life arena tour, which starts in December.
JISOO, “Addicted”
While her BLACKPINK groupmate Lisa was busy breaking her own chart record with the Press Play EP this same week, Jisoo quietly released “Addicted” on October 30 as the second single from her long-teased debut solo studio album, following September’s “Click” (which sold 95,541 copies to debut at No. 3 on Korea’s Circle Album Chart). “Addicted” was written with Austin Wolfe and Tiina Vainikainen and builds on a solo run that’s already produced one Billboard Global 200 top-five hit (“Flower,” 2023) and the million-selling single album Me — reportedly the first Korean female solo act to clear that mark. The full album has not been dated yet, but two singles deep, Jisoo’s solo lane looks increasingly separate from the group’s.
BigXthaPlug, “BURN” (feat. Ava Max)
The Dallas rapper’s fourth album, Better Over Time, arrived October 30 via 600 Entertainment and UnitedMasters — an 18-track course correction back toward straight rap after last year’s country-leaning I Hope You’re Happy experiment with Luke Combs and Jelly Roll. “BURN,” his pairing with pop singer Ava Max, is one of two outside-genre features on the tracklist (the other being Leon Thomas on “NO LIMIT”), and it’s the clearest pitch at radio crossover on a record that otherwise leans into features from GloRilla, Babyface Ray and Lil Yachty. BigX previewed the album with a hometown listening session in his native Dallas on October 26, complete with an accompanying short film.
Anderson .Paak & Cordae, “A Good Day”
Technically a week old now, but worth circling back to: .Paak and Cordae’s joint album Heavy Is the Crown landed October 23 through APESHIT, Mass Appeal and EMPIRE, with “A Good Day” serving as its lead-off single and the cut radio is actually picking up. The 11-track record features J. Cole and 9th Wonder behind the boards, and industry trackers are projecting a 33,000-to-38,000-unit first week — enough to put the pair in range of a top-10 Billboard 200 debut. It’s the kind of veteran-meets-rising-star pairing (.Paak’s Silk Sonic pedigree against Cordae’s lyricist’s lyricist reputation) that doesn’t always deliver on paper but mostly does here.
Kaitlin Butts, “Hello, Honky Tonk”
Butts’ fourth studio album — her first full-length since signing to Republic Records in October 2025 — finally arrived October 30, and it’s a concept record built around barroom characters, something she’s said draws as much from the movie musical Chicago as from Disney World’s Country Bear Jamboree. Recorded in Nashville with producer Tofer Brown (Carter Faith, Willow Avalon, Little Big Town), the album was previewed across the year by singles “Never Really Mine,” “I Wanna Be Bad” and “What More Could You Want.” Rolling Stone had already flagged it as one of 2026’s most anticipated country records before a note landed, and the title track is the rowdiest, most theatrical thing she’s put her name to yet.
Justice & Gesaffelstein, “Pusher”
The most unusual release of the week isn’t tied to an album at all — it’s a trailer for a video game score. French dance duo Justice reunited with fellow Parisian producer Gesaffelstein (their first joint track since 2015’s “Aleph”) for “Pusher,” released October 29 as the first preview of Justice’s original score for Grand Theft Auto VI, due December 11. It’s a strobing, distorted needle-drop built for a trailer, and it confirms what Rockstar had only hinted at: the next GTA‘s soundtrack isn’t just licensed needle-drops, it has an original score attached to it, composed by one of electronic music’s most cinematic acts.
Sam Smith & Jacob Lusk, “My Guy”
Released October 30, this duet pairs Smith’s falsetto with the gospel-trained tenor of Jacob Lusk — the “American Idol” season 10 finalist who now fronts the soul trio Gabriels and has shared stages with Elton John at Glastonbury and Moby at Coachella. The pairing of two vocalists built on church-rooted belting rather than studio polish makes “My Guy” the most straightforwardly soulful thing either has released this year, and it lands as a standalone single rather than an album cut — for now.
Seven songs, six genres, zero overlap in who’s listening to what — that’s roughly the state of pop culture every single Friday now, which is exactly why this rundown is becoming a weekly fixture here rather than a one-off. Check back next week for whatever New Music Friday throws at us next.
