I went a little overboard this month and decided not to edit it down as much as I usually do, because of the time crunch with the draft coming up. So I give you 28 songs from the pop, alternative, hip hop, and metal worlds. You can also access the Spotify playlist here.

Lemaitre featuring Betty Who – Rocket Girl. An early candidate for song of the year, certainly my song of the year so far, powered by a soaring, anthemic vocal from Ms. Who.

Jungle – Happy Man. A welcome return from the British R&B collective behind 2014’s “Busy Earnin,” a top 20 song for me that year.

Childish Gambino – This Is America. I’ve never been much for Donald Glover’s music, which I thought showed his inexperience in that realm, but this song is truly catchy, makes a serious point in its sparse lyrics, and of course has come with a provocative video addressing gun violence in America.

Young Fathers – Toy. I linked to this song’s video a few weeks but had never put it on a playlist. This Mercury Prize-winning hip-hop trio has a unique sound that combines musical influences from two members’ African roots, American trap music, and more frenetic European EDM sounds.

Kid Astray – Can’t Stop. More pop goodness from this Norwegian quintet, although I was disappointed to learn that keyboardist and sometime vocalist Elizabeth Wu left the group at some point in the last two years.

Artificial Pleasure – I Need Something More. I could do without the 30-second intro, but after that there’s a droning, throwback new-wave sort of guitar riff that powers the rest of this song from their debut album The Bitter End.

Hinds – Tester. Maybe my favorite track yet from this Barcelona quartet, who always sound like they recorded their vocals in a tin can and as if they have never done anything so fun in their lives as recording music.

Black Honey – Bad Friends. I’m hoping this darker single presages a full-length release from Black Honey, who’ve dotted my top 100 lists the last two years.

Wye Oak – Join. A little Lord Huron, a little Cocteau Twins, maybe even a little Beach House (but with a stronger melody). This is from the duo’s new album The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs.

Hatchie – Bad Guy. I think I’ve now put four of the five song’s from Hatchie’s EP Sugar and Spice on monthly or annual playlists, ebecause she’s fantastic.

bülow – Not A Love Song. Megan Bülow is a teenager from the Netherlands with a heck of a pop sensibility; this track comes from an EP she first released in Europe in late November. She doesn’t seem old enough to pack this many musical influences into one track.

Courtney Barnett – Charity. Barnett’s second solo album Tell Me How You Really Feel dropped two weeks ago and is very similar to her first album (and, fortunately, not at all similar to the record she made with Kurt Vile).

CLOVES – Wasted Time. I think it’s clear at this point that CLOVES could sing an instruction manual for a toaster oven and I’d put it on a playlist.

Cœur de Pirate – Malade. From the Quebecois singer-songwriter’s new album en cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé, which dropped today. The entire record is in French, unlike her previous full-length, and has a broad mix of more upbeat dance tracks like “Prémonition,” some ethereal piano ballads like “Somnambule,” and in-betweeners like this.

Okkervil River – Love Somebody. I didn’t care for most of OR’s new album, In the Rainbow Rain, in large part because Will Sheff just isn’t a very good singer, but goes beyond his range in the intros to so many tracks here. This is the best song on the record and builds very nicely to a second movement (starting around 1:40) that showcases the best of Sheff’s songwriting both in music and lyrics.

Mourn – Fun at the Geysers. The ‘other’ great young band from Barcelona also put out a new song this month, with better production value and a bit more punk rock to their vibe, as with

The Charlatans – Totally Eclipsing. The track is just fair, but the Charlatans (sometimes called Charlatans UK here) are one of my favorite bands from the 1990s, so anything they produce gets consideration for a playlist here.

Sea Girls – Too Much Fun. Radio 1 tabbed Sea Girls a band to watch for 2018, and this song, from their forthcoming EP Adored, has that potentially anthemic chorus offset by an understated vocal in the verses.

Drenge – This Dance. I loved their first album (my #4 album of 2013), didn’t like the sonic shift on their second record, and am glad to hear this song sounds much more like their debut record.

Great News – Sleep It Off. A Norwegian trio who call their music “daze-pop,” Great News were among the big hits at last month’s Great Escape music festival in London.

Vast – She Is Murder. I lost track of Vast (or V.A.S.T.) aeons ago; their song “Touched” was one of the songs I played repeatedly while I was in grad school, but I had no idea Jon Crosby was still recording under this name. Their eighth album is due this summer.

The Get Up Kids – Better This Way. Emo/indie artists the Get Up Kids, not to be confused with the geddup noise, are set to release their first album in seven years and just their second since their breakup in 2005.

Wooden Shjips – Eclipse. Wooden Shjips’ latest album, just titled V., dropped on May 25th, and it’s only seven songs long because six of the tracks clock in between five and eight minutes. There’s a lot of spacey guitar noodling here, but that’s kind of my cup of tea, innit?

Bilk – Spiked. These guys are very British, very post-punk in sound, and very, very young.

Winger – Dance Macabre. I’m shocked to hear these glam-metal stalwarts, who sort of became the poster child for the hairspray excesses of the era, come back with a … wait, this is Ghost? And the song isn’t 30 years old? Never mind.

Lucifer – California Son. Lucifer is the new project from Johanna Sadonis, who was the lead singer for the one-album project The Oath, who broke up before their record was even released. It’s a deep throwback to the kind of 1970s British metal that I absolutely adore.

Pallbearer – Dropout. The dominant doom metal band recording today, Pallbearer just released this one-off single as they headed out on tour to support last year’s Heartless.

Amorphis – The Bee. This Finnish progressive/melodic death metal band has been recording for 25 years now, and just released their 13th album, Queen of Time, two weeks ago.

Twenty-seven songs on this month’s playlist, which is a lot, but they’re almost all from artists I’ve listed somewhere here before. As always, you can access the Spotify playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

Everything Everything – Breadwinner. This is one of four tracks on the British art-rockers’ recent EP, A Deeper Sea, one left on the cutting room floor from their 2017 album A Fever Dream. The EP opens with “The Mariana,” a slow, melancholy meditation on societal ideas of masculinity and the high suicide rates for young males.

DMA’S – For Now. Huge, soaring guitars, mixing electric and acoustic, with a memorable hook in the chorus … yeah, I’m all in. Take all my money.

Post Animal – Ralphie. A fun, bouncy rock track from a new band from Chicago that includes one of the actors from Stranger Things, Joe Keery.

Gang Of Four – Lucky. Gang of Four have always been overtly political, but their forthcoming EP, Complicit, is about as direct an attack as they’ve ever brought on a sitting politician. The EP’s cover is a photo of Ivanka Trump, and the EP’s title is repeated in Russian.

Sunflower Bean – Oh No, Bye Bye. The Brooklyn trio released their second album, Twentytwo in Blue, last week, and it’s filled with sunny, folk-tinged indie rock and great melodies; it feels to me like the album a band makes before they release the album that takes over the world.

The Men – Rose on Top of the World. This is very acoustic War on Drugs-ish, kind of surprising given The Men’s history of harder, punk-tinged songs.

Ride – Keep It Surreal. The second track from the shoegazers’ new EP, Tomorrow’s Shore, which also includes “Pulsar.”

Courtney Barnett – Need A Little Time. The second single in advance of the Australian singer/songwriter’s second solo album Tell Me How You Really Feel.

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The Decemberists – Once In My Life. Never a huge fan of the Decemberists, in part because Colin Meloy’s delivery always teeters on the brink of twee-pop, but it’s weird that they paired one of their best melodies ever with some of their weakest lyrics (a pale imitation of “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”).

Preoccupations – Disarray. This Canadian band’s latest album, cleverly titled New Material, came out on March 23rd; their sound, from reverbed guitars to production that dampens the vocals, gives everything they do a gloomy tinge while harkening back to everyone from Joy Division to Lotion to Mercury Rev. “Decompose” is another great track from the album, with an offbeat percussion line that keeps you off balance for the entire song.

Speedy Ortiz – Lean In When I Suffer. The noise-pop quartet led by Sadie Dupuis will release its third album, Twerp Verse, on April 27th.

Prides – Say It Again. These Scottish pop-rockers first showed up on my radar with 2015’s “The Seeds You Sow,” but they haven’t quite hit that level of hook in anything since … until this song, definitely my favorite track since that debut. Their better songs have reminded me of better Bastille stuff with a little early Coldplay (before they became just pop nonsense).

Artificial Pleasure – On a Saturday Night. It’s a bit slower than their first hit “I’ll Make It Worth Your While” or the track that made my top 100 from last year, “Wound Up Tight,” but I like the glam-rock stylings here even as they get away from the dance floor, with a song that sounds inspired by ’70s new wave (or even Bowie, apparently a hero of theirs) without coming off as derivative.

Young Fathers – Fee Fi. The 2014 Mercury Prize winners released their third album, Cocoa Sugar, on March 9th; as with their previous two, their tracks feature a lot of world-music percussion with less rapping than is typical of that genre.

Snail Mail – Pristine. Snail Mail is Lindsey Jordan, a Baltimorebased singer-songwriter, and her sound is sparse and also reminds me of Lotion – really, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that group in years, now they’re here twice in one playlist – whose voice and sound is way beyond her 18 years. She should tour with Speedy Ortiz.

Belly – Stars Align. That little opening guitar riff feels like a secret message to Belly fans from the ’90s that everything’s OK, Tanya’s here, although what comes after doesn’t have the same energy as King or Star, and I get the sense that Dove, their first album in 23 years, will be Belly-ish, but mellower.

The Districts – Nighttime Girls. The Districts feel like a mixture of Preoccupations (see above) and the Hold Steady, with the former’s general sound and style (including echoing vocals) with the dry delivery of the latter.

The Horrors – Fire Escape. The Horrors’ new single includes this song and “Water Drop,” with one of the keyboard loops repeated throughout both songs; this track has more of an identity, like an actual single rather than a B-side or deleted scene. I love the heavy guitar/drum break around the 1:10 mark that introduces the vocals.

Starcrawler – Different Angles. This LA glam-rock act released its debut album, produced by Ryan Adams, in January, with a good sound but not enough good hooks to sustain a full record. This was my favorite track, which, like most on the album, comes in well under three minutes.

Turbowolf – Cheap Magic. I wasn’t familiar with this Bristol psychedelic hard-rock act before a few months ago, but this is the second great, heavy rock track from them (think INHEAVEN) in the last 90 days, this one a collaboration with Death from Above’s Sebastien Grainger.

Underoath – Rapture. Underoath is, or perhaps was, a Christian hard-rock band, although it seems like their faith or stance on it is at least no longer the core feature of their music. This would have been considered metal when I was in high school, somewhere between glam rock and thrash (death metal existed, but had almost no audience or mainstream awareness at the time), and earned some nostalgia points with me.

Bicurious – Sleep. Bicurious describe themselves on their Bandcamp page as “a confused, loud, instrumental and experimental duo based in Dublin.” There’s some jazz in here, a little heavy rock, and what sounds like a good bit of two-hand tapping (or maybe even a Chapman stick?). It’s not boring, though.

Melvins – Stop Moving to Florida. King Buzzo is back – although I think I’m nominating him for “aging rocker most likely to go milkshake duck” – with a song that gives you two minutes of conventional grunge and then turns into abject silliness for the rest of its run time.

At The Gates – To Drink from the Night Itself. Pioneers of the Gothenberg sound, At the Gates will release an album with this as the title track in May, their first record without founding guitarist Anders Björler.

Memoriam – Weaponised Fear. I’m pretty sure Memoriam was supposed to be a one-off project, a tribute to the late drummer Martin Kearns, who played in the legendary British extreme metal act Bolt Thrower along with two members of Memoriam. They’re back now with a new album, The Silent Vigil, that continues the first album’s doom-influenced thrash with more growled vocals, not too far away from the sound on Bolt Thrower’s final studio album, Those Once Loyal.

Barren Earth – Further Down. Barren Earth is a Finnish supergroup that features Kreator guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö, producing progressive death metal that incorporates symphonic, technical, and even folk elements.

Huge month for new music – 31 songs on this playlist is a new record for me, but this is after I cut a few tracks just to try to limit it to the best songs I’ve heard since June 1st. You can access the Spotify playlist below or via this direct link.

Oh Wonder – High On Humans. I know a few of you are big Oh Wonder fans, but they’re pretty new to me, and so far I’m a fan – this is good, smart, alternative pop.

Portugal. The Man – Rich Friends. Their latest album Woodstock dropped two weeks ago and is really strong, their usual mix of bombastic, melodic rock, with more R&B influences than I’ve heard on previous records.

The Amazons – Black Magic. Fairly new English band from Reading who’ve gotten a ton of hype in the British music and mainstream press; I’m a fan of the huge guitar riff driving this song.

Sløtface – Nancy Drew. The Norwegian punk-popsters who gave us “Empire Records” last year are back with another subtly poppy track with slightly twisted lyrics.

Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong. Katie Crutchfield’s next album, Out in the Storm, comes out on July 14th, and this track is more in the folk-rock vein of 2015’s “Under a Rock.”

The Preatures – Girlhood. This Australian quintet is about to release its first album since 2014, with a similar ’60s British pop/rock vibe. Also, I couldn’t figure out what the repeated line was in the verse, but according to my Internet it’s “a morning girl.”

Beach Fossils – Tangerine. Brooklyn indie-rockers Beach Fossils just released their latest album, Somersault, of stoner/surfer/lo-fi tracks, with this track offering the best hook on the album.

The Districts – If Before I Wake. I didn’t love the Districts’ acclaimed 2015 album, A Flourish and a Spoil, but this song is absolutely anthemic.

No Win – You’ll Be Fine. Apparently No Win is a side project of a member of FIDLAR, although I’m not a big fan of FIDLAR’s music so I was totally unaware of this, but hey, this song rocks.

Ride – Lannoy Point. The shoegazers’ first album in 21 years, Weather Diaries, starts out very strong and has probably four songs that would fit in very well with their vintage output, but I felt like it tapered off towards more maudlin lyrics and less inventive music.

Radiohead – I Promise. Radiohead has reissued OK Computer for the seminal album’s 20th anniversary in a two-disc set called OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017, including three previously unreleased tracks from the recording sessions, including this melancholy acoustic track, which would have fit very well on The Bends.

Manchester Orchestra – The Alien. Speaking of melancholy acoustic tracks, one of two new singles from Manchester Orchestra off their upcoming album A Black Mile to the Surface, is a surprisingly melodic, gentle song from a band I typically associate with huge, crunching guitars and with Andy Hull screaming himself hoarse.

Birdtalker – One. Another acoustic track, this one more like vintage folk with some smart and incisive lyrics, from a new Nashville band founded by the wife-and-husband duo of Dani and Zack Green.

The War On Drugs – Holding On. At least this time, the boys kept the song under six minutes! The Bob Dylan overtones can still be a bit much but this song has a driving, memorable hook that really powers the track even when Adam Granduciel starts to sound more like Richard Belzer doing a Dylan impression.

Liam Gallagher – Wall Of Glass. Yep, that’s the former Oasis singer, with what sounds like a solid post-Be Here Now sort of Oasis track.

Death From Above (1979) – Freeze Me. They’ve dropped the ‘1979’ from their name, although it still appears on Spotify. After a decade-long hiatus, they’re about to release their second album in three years, with this lead single probably my favorite track from them yet.

Washed Out – Get Lost. To borrow a malaprop from my daughter, I’m just so-and-so on Washed Out, the nom de chill of Ernest Greene, whose latest album Mister Mellow drops on Friday. This song encapsulates what I like about Washed Out – a melodic, upbeat, highly layered track that brings more complexity than just calling it a dance song would indicate.

Sparks – What The Hell Is It This Time?. Sparks have been around since the early 1970s, although if you know them at all, it’s probably from their one-off collaboration with Jane Wiedlin, “Cool Places,” which reached #49 on the Billboard 100 and became a staple of new-wave compilations. Now aged 71 and 68, the brothers Mael are about to release their 22nd album, Hippopotamus, and this very catchy lead single finds them just as weird as ever.

Floating Points – Kelso Dunes (Edit). Experimental music is an acquired taste and I won’t pretend to be an expert, but I’ve liked some of Sam Shepherd’s stuff so far, and not just because he’s a neuroscientist who happens to make music.

Phoenix – Ti Amo. The title track from the Grammy winners’ latest record is a throwback to the two-step/garage era of the early ’90s on top of the new wave stylings they usually bring.

Arcade Fire – Creature Comfort. I liked “Everything Now” more, but that’s a top five track of the year for me, so that’s not exactly a slight to this second single from their upcoming fifth album.

Queens of the Stone Age – The Way You Used To Do. Anything from QotSA is an automatic inclusion. Their upcoming album Villains comes out August 25th.

Royal Blood – Hole In Your Heart. The duo’s second album, ?How Did We Get So Dark? , came out earlier this month and it really rocks – it’s a step ahead of their debut – with this, “Lights Out,” “Hook, Line, & Sinker,” “I Only Lie When I Love You,” and “Where Are You Now?” my favorites.

Wolf Alice – Yuk Foo. The first single from the British quartet’s upcoming sophomore album, Visions of a Life, is harder and harsher than anything I remember from their debut album, which had a great balance of hard, fast, driving rock and mellower passages that showcased singer/guitarist Ellie Rowsell’s vocal range.

A Giant Dog – Bendover. It’s so loud and obnoxious it’s almost shtick, but it works on this track.

Superchunk – Up Against the Wall. Not only have Superchunk not changed their sound in their nearly 30 years of recording, they don’t even sound like they’ve aged on their new two-track release (the other song, “I Got Cut,” is more of the same).

Jason Loewenstein – Superstitious. Hard rock from one of the guitarists in Lou Barlow’s Sebadoh and the Fiery Furnaces.

Big Boi with Troze – Chocolate. Big Boi’s album Boomiverse is … fine, I guess. I like his vocal style, but I think the album suffers from too many guest spots and from some mediocre beats. Highlights include this track and “Kill Jill” (with Killer Mike and Jeezy).

Ice Cube – Good Cop Bad Cop. A bonus track on the 25th anniversary reissue of Death Certificate, this new song has Ice Cube actually sounding a bit like his old self on a very angry track about police shootings of unarmed black victims and the blue wall of silence that protects the perpetrators.

Less Art – Pessimism as Denial. The new band featuring Ian Miller (Kowloon Walled City) and Riley Breckenridge (Thrice) of the old Productive Outs podcast and of the, uh, grindcore (?) band Puig Destroyer strongly reminds me of early ’90s post-hardcore acts like Quicksand. This first single is off their first album, Strangled Light, due July 28th.

Danzig – Skulls & Daisies. Here primarily for its novelty, as Glenn Danzig is now 62 and sounds it throughout his namesake band’s latest album, salvaged on this track by the guitar work of Tommy Victor, whose main band, Prong, also has a new album due next month.