Every week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with several tracks that catch our attention, then round up the best songs of each month in this segment. Here, in alphabetical order, are the best songs of July 2026.
Billboard Style, ‘Billboard Style’
Victoryland and Forth Wanderers put out two of the most overlooked records of the past year; the former’s My Heart Is a Room With No Cameras in It stood out in the quiet release month of January, while the latter’s first album in seven years, The Longer This Goes On, arrived with little fanfare last July. But Forth Wanderers’ Ben Guterl and Victoryland’s Dan Howard have developed a steady collaborative relationship over the years, combining their DIY forces for a new project, Billboard Style, that should count as a supergroup. The eponymous first single from their debut album glorifies the sort of longing that obliterates memory and reorients your entire nervous system, mirrored in fuzzy guitars, clenched-fist drums, and a hook that worms its way into your brain regardless of whether you recognize the singer’s muffled voice. The line “I’m a blank slate” surely also applies to Billboard Style as a fresh creative endeavour, and the duo run with the thrill of it.
Coco & Clair Clair, ‘Coldplay’
Coco & Clair Clair’s new single is gauzy cloud-rap perfection, eerily close to what I imagine a team-up between IAN SWEET and Erika de Clasier might yield. But the Atlanta duo imbue ‘Coldplay’ with their unique brand of humour and longing, juxtaposing the romantic naiveté of looking at the stars with “that one scene in Zola where the white girl is hanging out of the roof of the car and bouncing around with her tongue out before all hell breaks loose.” Clair Clair, in her dreamy verses, can’t help but fall for a guy despite admitting he’s “such a tool,” while Coco advises her to make the night out all about herself instead. Which leads to the most hilariously scathing line I’ve heard all year: “Your man’s pee probably ain’t very clear/ Some would say it was all yellow.” Coldplay are not the punchline, for once, but they make for a fantastic setup. Stay hydrated, boys.
Greg Freeman, ‘Indu’
On ‘Indu’, Greg Freeman is struck by the kind of love that can rub against an introvert’s natural impulses. “I wanna feel like a drummer/ Felt but not shown,” he quips, “That’s one type of science/ That’ll get you hurt/ With me as the crime scene/ She’s the fingerprint expert.” So the first single from the Vermont-based singer-songwriter’s new album, All Set the Bone, finds him at his most vividly expressive, as imprisoned by the time difference that keeps the lovers apart – the verses are quick and nervy – as he is invigorated by its very existence. “All I want to do is look at you,” he sings purely as the chorus opens up, but it becomes clear he fears that you might soon be defined by its absence, which is felt but not shown. Is she “Looking at me with the moonlight in your eyes,” or is it just the night sky staring down at him? For five sprightly minutes, the difference barely matters.
Nia Archives, ‘Get Me Down’ [feat. Jorja Smith]
Rather than competing for space, Nia Archives and Jorja Smith’s voices melt seamlessly together on ‘Get Me Down’, two old friends reuniting for Archives’ first-ever feature. The track is awash in anticipation: poised at first, all gleaming synths and airy space, then insistent, punctuated by frenetic breakbeats. Yet their vocal interplay never allows it to be thrown off course, simply demonstrating the line rendered almost indecipherable by the surrounding chaos: “Need some and you’re missing out.” If you missed out on Archives’ new album Emotional Junglist, ‘Get Me Down’ is a sublime entry point.
Ninajirachi and Porter Robinson, ‘WannaCry’
There was little doubt that Ninarijachi and Porter Robinson’s long-awaited collaboration would land upon its release: it’s been nearly four months since ‘WannaCry’ made its live debut at Coachella, and the pair have taken it to festivals around the globe, including Primavera, where I first caught a glimpse of it. The fact that it links two of the biggest, nostalgia-coded electronic artists is bolstered by a sweet backstory, which is that the first concert Nina Wilson ever attended was a Porter Robinson show, an experience she likened to “a Victorian-age child being shown an iPod.” We’re all Victorian-age children with iPods listening to I Love My Computer or either one of Robinson’s 2020s albums, but what gives the track repeat value isn’t its history or aesthetic so much as its emotional force. Who else would write a song about an infamous 2017 ransomware attack and conjure empathy for the virus? “And it’s a message, I know what you are,” it calls, “I’ve already been there, and I’m already gone.” For these two, technology is a portal to our corrupted hearts, as fleeting as anything.
Slayyyter, ‘brand new chanel$’
If you’ve ever been cheated on, you know it takes a moment for the realization to hit. In its gradual intro, ‘brand new chanel$’ hovers in that space longer than most pop songs: “Was it worth causing all my darkest days?” Slayyyter asks, voice drenched in reverb over dreamy guitars. Then the beat creeps in, and through the locked-in melody her state of frenzy elicits pure excitement, building up to the sort of confectionary pop that dominated both mainstream and indie airwaves a decade ago. A blast from the past may not offer more than a shot of dopamine, but it’s enough to hold the pop star through the night, especially when she’s only got days before playing the biggest festival in the world. Slayyyter may be all alone in a giant field in the accompanying video, but she’s made this – a song lyrically more devastating than almost anything on WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA – her euphoric summer anthem. And instead of capitalizing on the angst of ‘BEAT UP CHANEL$’, she ultimately twists the single to remind us how far she’s come. While he’s stuck “at those nasty little after parties,” she’s being called up to the big leagues. Why waste time on the phone with him?
Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal, ‘She Swear I’m Colorblind’ [feat. billy woods]
It’s unfortunately rare that a track released on the final day of the month makes it onto this column, but this inclusion is more than a case of recency bias. Open Mike Eagle and Kenny Segal are longtime friends and occasional collaborators, and DOOMED!, “a rap album about a relationship that ends in every possible universe,” is their first full-length collaboration, to be released by Backwoodz, the label run by billy woods, who guests on the newest single ‘She Swear I’m Colorblind’. The track has lingered around the edges of my mind for days: Aaron Shaw’s saxophone and flute keeps the tension at a low simmer, brewing as Open Mike Eagle’s insecurity rises to the surface. “I could walk 500 miles still wouldn’t be no cure,” he raps in total resignation, as if turning a shared favourite into an insult. woods, granted a moment to think, is more vivid and evocative in his description, tuning into minute details like the ringing of keys etched into the beat. “It’s everyday things fashioned into weapons.” Musically, there’s no crescendo, only a muffled echo of the argument, then silence. This musical conversation, at least, is easy to listen to.
It’s been five whole years since Arca burned through the Kick pentalogy, but XXXXX turns the clock back further, ushering us into the speculative world of Diva Experimental FM. If a five-album project has the inevitable effect of demarcating styles, the Barcelona-based producer’s latest, though technically an album, embraces the lawless spirit of her earlier mixtapes, scabbing at the rougher edges of sounds she might have previously teased just briefly; of course her goal remains to deconstruct club music, but here those fraught rhythms are overlaid with classical instrumentation, hovering in the ether for longer periods of time. On the spoken-word interlude ‘Cinch’, she puts words to her unclassifiable endeavour: a plunge into the unknown, open-hearted and “evermorphing.” Then, for another half hour, she demonstrates precisely what the hell that means.
One of the first things 
“Looking at my life in its final form/ The shape it took, I’d never seen before,” Jilian Medford sings on ‘Silver Screen’, a highlight from her new album Shiverstruck. She might as well be describing the ever-shifting trajectory of 
It’s a fact that there are few guitar wizards like 
As soon as PinkPantheress joins Kelela on ‘the bridge’, the penultimate track and final single of new avatar, she helps sum up the entire project: “Spare my eyes, I fear I get no sleep.” For the Washington, D.C.-born singer-songwriter, sleeplessness turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. The night is where negativity festers, curdling uncertainty, regret, and desire into pure nerves; it’s also what gets her gears turning, harnessing a formlessness eventually reclaimed by the morning light. For over a decade, Kelela has proven herself a master of liminal spaces, and the follow-up to 2023’s Raven, for all its rough edges and unpredictable twists, is her most illuminating. 
After moving to New York City in 2017, 
