Songs of the Week - 24/08/2026
These are the essential tracks you need to check out this week!
Aimée Fatale - 'Summertime Ain't Easy'
"‘Summertime Ain’t Easy’ is about the fear of missing out and feeling like you’re watching everybody around you be so happy, and you’re asking yourself, ‘Why am I not as happy as that?’ I kind of disguised it in this tropical happy song in the spirit of The Beach Boys; a heaviness you can dance to."
Aimée on the track
Sondre Lerche - 'Drive Me Away From You'
"I wrote a lot of very romantic songs when I was younger, and then I got into more of an existential love song period. This felt like returning to the sentiment of the flamboyant love songs that I used to write, through the eyes and experience of a man in his forties. F**k it, this is how I feel. Love will not ask for your permission to occur."
Sondre on the track
Alex Amor - 'This Must Be The End'
“When you put out an album, it’s really the moment where you say, ‘Hello world, this is me, this is my sound. My life has changed so much in the past few years, all of which has inspired this music. I just needed to come home to myself first; to feel grounded in what I was making before sharing it with others. It felt like a calling"
Alex on new album 'Heavely Bodies' which features 'This Must Be The End'
Maisi and the Disco - 'Pop Is My Religion'
Maisi and the Disco drops another banger with ‘Pop Is My Religion’, a high‑energy love letter to pop that pulls Y2K chaos into one brilliantly maximalist track. It’s another release that shows just how confidently Maisi’s shaping her sound, each song landing with more bite than the last.
Alien Chicks - 'Madmen'
"Mad Men’ at its core is that half-ironic, half-serious idea that as the state of the world gets more extreme, democracy itself starts to feel meaningless. The line about being a ‘great dictator’ pushes that frustration further, exposing how quickly political dissatisfaction can tip into authoritarian thinking. It’s quite direct and serious lyrically which is unusual for us and definitely a sign of the scary times that we’re living in."
Alien Chicks on the track
SerpentS - 'Midnight Murderess'
"The best way to describe ‘Midnight Murderess’ would be free therapy. The song began as a joke to expel our feminine rage, and was originally titled ‘Get Away from Me(n)’ - but as it took shape, we quickly knew we were writing the song of the summer and we needed to release it as our second single."
SerpentS on the track
House of Fyah - 'Queen'
"Having grown up as a single parent child, with only my mother to raise me, you realise just how wonderful women are - how powerful and empowering women can truly be. With an incredible mother and a wonderful fearless partner and mother to my two children, I wanted the song 'Queen' to be a celebration of all the incredible women in the world! The Queen EP is a celebration of Love, Life and Loss."
Vocalist Matt Hoy on the track and new EP
Caro - 'The Guy Bangs'
Caro has announced her new album 'Returning to Innocence', out on 9th October, with the release of brilliant new single 'The Guy Bangs'
"Returning to Innocence isn’t about finding innocence again. It’s about accepting that everything, the beautiful and the uncomfortable, is part of who I am."
Caro on 'Returning to Innocence'
ISSA ODYSSEA - 'rain check'
Issa Odyssea continues her stellar 2026 with the release of ‘rain check’, an alt‑indie pop track about the resistance of slowing down when everything around you pushes the opposite way. Chilled bossa nova and lo‑fi rhythms give it a warmth that makes it an ideal end‑of‑summer listen.
CAN'T STOP TALKING - 'Cool People Are Arseholes'
"Cool People Are Arseholes' takes the piss out of the way people try to manufacture a personality through clothes, brands and whatever happens to be fashionable that week. It's about that endless performance of looking interesting, detached and effortlessly cool, when underneath it all there might not be much going on. But the song isn't written from a completely superior position. The 'I can't leave it' line is an admission that we're all caught up in that world to some extent, even while we're laughing at it."
CAN'T STOP TALKING on the track
Drew Regan - 'LETTING IT GO'
Drew Regan has just released a stellar duo of songs with ‘LETTING IT GO’ and ‘PILE’. The two tracks capture contrasting sides of the same emotional moment, with ‘LETTING IT GO’ in particular not leaving my head all weekend. It’s a raw alt‑rock release built around heavy distorted guitars and a hook that hits immediately.
Marital Bed - 'Ghost'
"Instead of it focusing on heart break or boys, the lyrics explore a young woman uncovering the fact that a rich powerful man she is having an affair with is in communion with a dark, sinister force. I wrote it after having a vivid nightmare about Elon Musk and Grimes. This was during the peak of the Jeffrey Epstein drama surrounding Trump’s 2nd election, which I assume was a major subconscious influence on the lyrics."
Vocalist Charissa Jene Lindquist on the track
Naomi in Blue - 'Draw A Line'
"I’d warned a gig promoter of a known abuser and they chose to not believe me and other people who’d come forward about the same person. It’s something we see time and time again in the music industry. It’s a song that criticises silence and I think this is reflected in the loudness and ‘ballad’ feeling of the song. It’s meant to be catchy – the relentless guitar riff, the singalong chorus – in the hope that people will not look away."
Naomi on the track
Samuel Virgo - 'ICU'
Samuel Virgo has released the entirely self‑produced track ‘ICU’, the first taste of his upcoming EP.
"I wrote it about the way the world spins narratives, deceives us and hides the truth from us"
Samuel on the track
Sarah Louise - 'Different Kind Of Girl'
"The idea for Different Kind of Girl began during a period when I was changing not just as an artist, but as a person. I'd spent years doubting myself and trying to fit into what I thought people expected of me. Then someone came into my life who saw something in me that I couldn't yet see in myself."
Sarah on the track