The National are top of my #NewMusicFriday playlist

Here it is, then. My (almost) weekly trawl through the release schedule, in which gems are uncovered and turds are buried.

1) The National - The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness
Standing head and shoulders above everything else this week, The National's new single is a swirling vortex of indie curlicues, which builds to a brassy climax, where Matt Beringer declaims: "I can't explain it any other, any other way".

He's described it as "an abstract portrait of a weird time we’re in". I'm just calling it beautiful.




2) Miley Cyrus - Malibu
In which Miley says, "forget the tongue-wagging, boob-baring, perma-twerking controversy magnet, I am in fact an delicate and innocent country-pop crossover artist."

And, to be fair, it works.




3) Calvin Harris - Rollin' (ft Future and Khalid)
"Bubbling summery discofunk" seems to be the theme for Calvin's recently-announced fourth album Funk Wav Bounces Vol 1 (awful title). This latest single would sound great at any poolside party, which shows how far Calvin has come since he emerged as a pasty-skinned teenager from Dumfries.




4) Imagine Dragons - Whatever It Takes
There's something of the Ed Sheeran about the way Dan Reynolds rap-sings the verses of this song, but it rises above that comparison with a truly fist-pumping chorus.

The middle 8 contains a lot of lyrics about punctuation, for some reason.




5) Felix Jaehn - Hot2Touch (ft Hight, Alex Aiono)
A bit of disco fluff that merits inclusion for the lyric "my heart's like a broken cassette".




6) Harry Styles - From The Dining Table
Harry Styles debut album is out today - and I wrote about it at length on the BBC this morning. In brief, it's a stodgy 1970s rock album with a few moments of real beauty. The closing track is one of my favourites, featuring one of Styles' most delicate and heartbroken lyrics; and a beautiful string interlude in the middle.




7) DNCE ft Nicki Minaj - Kissing Strangers
This has been out for a while, but gets an entertaining new video today, so in it goes...




8) Sub Focus ft Alma - Don't You Feel It
A solid, if somewhat unremarkable, summer jam.




9) Now, Now - SGL
US radio station NPR described this as "a heart-throbbing pop song with a karaoke-bar blast radius", and who am I to argue?




10) Sigrid - Don't Kill My Vibe (Live on Later)
This is a bit of a cheat, because Sigrid's EP came out last week. But this Jools Holland performance is one of those "oh, I get it now" moments, where the singer's charisma bursts through the screen and brings the song vividly to life.

Which, it turns out, is exactly why she sparked a record label bidding war last year - and there's a fascinating account of how Island beat the competition to get her signature over on Music Business Worldwide.

And that's your lot. Not a vintage week, by all accounts. But don't forget the Paramore album is out today, which kind of makes up for everything else.

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The best and worst of New Music Friday: Stormzy, Imagine Dragons, Hailee Steinfeld

Here we go again... New Music Friday has rolled around, with its usual cornucopia of delights and disappointments. Here's a selection:

1) Stormzy - Big For Your Boots
The first single from Stormzy's long-awaited debut album Gang Signs & Prayer, this contains this amazing couplet: "I was in the O2 singing my lungs out / Rudeboy, you're never too big for Adele."




2) Zara Larsson ft Ty Dolla Sign - So Good
Zara's urban-pop anthem was technically out last week, but now she's done a video to go with it. So here you are.




3) Imagine Dragons - Believer
Weirdly, this comes from the advert for Nintendo's new Switch console - but it's still a pretty heartfelt song, with Dan Reynolds explaining it depicts his "realisation that the emotional pain I faced the last few years actually helped me progress to this healthier mental space". Whatever, the new Zelda game looks amazing.



4) Liv Dawson - Searching
A solid, soulful, house track produced by Disclosure. Liv is just 18 and hails from Shepperton, fact fans.





5) Muna - I Know A Place
A powerful and timely video about acceptance and tolerance.
NB: Muna's excellent debut album is out today, and you should buy it.




6) Brooke Candy ft Sia - Living Out Loud
Sia's formula is starting to wear thin - you could set a watch by the arrival of her choruses. But her writing is still more electrifying than 99% of her peers. Basically, if you like Sia you will like this and if you don't like Sia you will don't like it.





7) Salen - Heartbreak Diet
"I used to dream of dying so you would cry at my funeral," sings Ellie Kamio on this infectious pop-hop jam. The London trio are rapidly becoming ones to watch.






8) Digital Farm Animals ft Hailee Steinfeld - Digital Love
A totally abhorrent Chainsmokers rip-off with some of the worst lyrics ever committed to tape. "I swipe right, cause I see just what I like / It's called Digital Love."

Shame on you, Digital Farm Animals. Shame on you all.

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Imagine Dragons: Gold

They might not know the right way to face a camera, but Imagine Dragons have gone from casino band to global stars in three short years.

Radioactive set a US chart record by spending 87 weeks in the Hot 100. Then they won a Grammy. Then Michael Bay personally asked them to record the theme to Transformers 4. And when your songs get covered on X Factor, you really know you've arrived.

Not bad for a band who thought their music was "too heavy for radio".

Now it's time to build on / piss all over that success with album number two. The quartet just revealed the title of the record via a tedious "fan campaign", which basically amounted to a bunch of people doing a jigsaw on a forum. Here it is in all it's glory:

The first single, whose video was revealed along with the album title, is I Bet My Life. Brazenly commercial, it has shades of Ryan Tedder in its big barrelling drums and gospelly chorus. To me, though, it sounds spookily like a worship song. And not one of the good ones.

Imagine Dragons - I Bet My Life

Much better is the second single / instant gratification pre-order track Gold; which sounds like Muse bashing Timbaland's laptop repeatedly with a hammer. As "Thumri W" notes on the YouTube page: "Dude this is so sick! Wow the audio and effects is so good!"

Imagine Dragons - Gold

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