A crowded pavement can make cruelty look ordinary. DirtPhunks' "Subway Reflections" asks us to stop accepting that. The guitar-first single grew from a sight FH Baloo could not shake. As an Oslo student, he saw an older wheelchair user playing harmonica for money outside a downtown subway station near the old University. Passers-by mocked him. Instead of treating that scene as passing colour, the single asks...

A bright pop hook and a bad text arriving in the same minute can ruin an entire afternoon. Analiese understands that collision. Her debut EP, "Miss Melancholy", turns high-school heartbreak, shaky friendships, body-image worry, and prom-night drama into a seven-song pop release built for the car ride home. For a pre-release project, the idea lands fast: this is coming-of-age pop with mascara-smudged nerves and an appetite...