The Radar: This Week's Tunes You Need To Know – September 22

Every Friday in The Radar, The Music breaks down the week’s top performers and the breaking new music you need to be across.

DSPs

Today is arguably the biggest day of the year for new album releases, including Kylie Minogue’s hotly awaited 16th album Tension. Spotify and Apple both highlighted focus track Hold On To Now, ranked at #2 on Apple’s New Music Daily playlist, and #2 on Spotify’s New Music Friday. The former list is surprisingly topped by a country song – I Can Feel It by Kane Brown – with the latter going for a safer bet in Troye Sivan’s Got Me Started (which is ranked #3 on Apple’s list).

Both lists also show love to Doja Cat’s Agora Hills (her new album Scarlet also lands today) – ranked #2 by Spotify and #4 by Apple – as well as G Flip’s delayed DRUMMER cut Australia (#6 on Apple, #7 on Spotify) and the crash-hot newie from Blink-182, ONE MORE TIME (#6 on Spotify, #9 on Apple). Apple’s editors are clearly fans of the newly reunited pop-punk icons, with the B-side MORE THAN YOU KNOW rounding out their Top Ten.

Elsewhere in their respective Top Tens, Spotify platformed the new tunes by L.A.B. (Casanova), PANIA (PLAYLIST), Stephen Sanchez (Doesn’t Do Me Any Good), Lola Brooke (You) and the pairing-up of Jean Dawson and SZA (NO SZNS), while Apple shone their spotlight on the latest drops from 070 Shake (Black Dress), Cody Jon (SHOOT!) and Holly Humberstone (Into Your Room).

RADIO

This week brought impressive scenes at the NOVA Network, with five new songs added across the board (ATB): What It Is by Doechii, adore u by Fred again.. (featuring Obongjayar), get him back! by Olivia Rodrigo, Gimme Love by Sia and greedy by Tate McRae. Also added to their late-night rotation was G Flip’s Good Enough and Supafly’s Jackie.

Over on the Hit Network, those cuts from Rodrigo, McRae and Sia were all added to the national nighttime rotation, as was Paul Russell’s Lil Boo Thang. That and Sia’s tune were added ATB for Brisbane’s B105, while the title track (and second single) from Kylie Minogue’s Tension joined Gimme Love at The Fox in Melbourne. Gimme Love was also added ATB at Melbourne’s iteration of KIIS (KIIS 101.1), joined by Desire by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith (with Tension added to the nighttime rotation). The same additions were made for Sydney’s KIIS station (KIIS 1065), except with Desire swapped out for Single Soon by Selena Gomez.

Holy Holy are The Music’s latest cover star, and it’s not just us obsessed with their genre-bending fifth LP Cellophane – it’s this week’s feature album on triple j. Furthermore, six of the national youth broadcaster’s nine ATB adds for this week came from Australian artists: The Belair Lip Bombs (Stay Or Go), Day 1 (In Ya City, featuring Arz), DICE (Super-Vision), Hannah Brewer (Chill Girl), Hayden James (We Could Be Love, featuring AR/CO) and Memphis LK (Closer To You). As for the others, we heard the latest jams by Tate McRae (greedy), Laufey (From The Start) and Teezo Touchdown (You Thought, featuring Janelle Monáe) added to the mix.

Elsewhere on triple j, five new songs were given spot adds, with two being Australian (Club Angel’s Stylin’ and Void Of Vision’s Angel Of Darkness), two American (underscores’ gabby start-assisted Locals and ratbag’s exit girl.) and one Irish (KETTAMA’s Fly Away XTC).

As for this week’s Radio Monitor Hot 50 chart, Dua Lipa’s Dance The Night has sunk down from #1 to #3, putting Taylor Swift back in the lead with Cruel Summer, and bumping Rema to #2 with Calm Down. Holding on to their respective #4 and #5 spots are The Weeknd (with his Playboi Carti and Madonna joint Popular) and Olivia Rodrigo (vampire).

There are five new additions to the chart this week: Lil Boo Thing by Paul Russell (#33), Gimme Love by Sia (#34), Tension by Kylie Minogue (#44), adore u by Fred again.. and Obongjayar (#46), and the Alex Mills-assisted Million Dollar Bill by Beyond Chicago and Majestic (#48). And lastly, there are seven re-entries: Celestial by Ed Sheeran (#36), STAY by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber (#37), I Ain’t Worried by OneRepublic (#40), Cold Heart by Elton John and Dua Lipa (#42), As It Was by Harry Styles (#43), 2 B Loved by Lizzo (#49) and I’m Good by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha (#50).

COUNTRY

Hear the big new country tunes of the week on the Countrytown Hot Country Hits Playlist.

As we mentioned earlier, Apple Music had a huge country moment with Kane Brown’s I Can Feel It leading their biggest in-house playlist, New Music Daily (it’s ranked at #11 over on Spotify’s own New Music Friday playlist). Both major DSPs also featured the new tracks by Taylor Moss (Pour My Heart Out), while Spotify alone spotlit the latest drops from Carrie Underwood (Drunk And Hungover) and Alex Mather (Hurts The Best). They couldn’t hold a candle to Apple’s exclusive suite of country tunes, though, this week racking up to 16 new ones:

• Lady A – Love You Back

• Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys – Sidelines

• Cody Johnson – Work Boots

• Brad Butcher – Arrows Of Time

• Parmalee – Gonna Love You

• The Cadillac Three – Double Wide Grave

• Amends – I’m Not Sulking, I’m Sour

• Luke Grimes – Burn

• Wyatt Flores – West Of Tulsa

• SYML – My Best Self

• Ruby Jackson – Guilty Pleasure

• Sue Ray – Walking These Streets

• Anson Seabra – Heartbreak Souvenirs

• Caleb Hearn – Birthdays & Funerals

• Kita Alexander – Date Night (Remix, featuring Morgan Evans)

• Boys Like Girls – New Love

Looking at this week’s Countrytown Hot 50 chart, we see Travis Collins and The Wolfe Brothers continue their reign at #1 with Runnin’ The Country, while Sera Berki and Ed Sheeran have flipped places with A Boy That’s Into Trucks at #2 and Life Goes On at #3, respectively. Morgan Evans’ Hey Little Mama also returned to the Top Five at #5 this week (up from #7 last week), and with Jelly Roll’s Need A Favour bumped down from #4 to #7, Luke Combs’ Fast Car is up one place to take that #4 spot.

This week’s chart gives us four new entries – Live A Country Song by Amber Lawrence at #30, Real Man by Taylor Moss at #34, Size Up by Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham at #46, and Enchanted (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift at #49 – and just two songs returning to the list: She Keeps Comin’ Around by Jeremy Turner at #38, and Dancin’ In The Country by Tyler Hubbard at #47.

Hear the big new tunes of the week now on The Music Hit List.
For the hottest rock, punk and metal jams, check out Kill Your Stereo’s Heavy Hitlist.
And for the latest in hip-hop and EDM, get your ears around Purple Sneakers’ Best New Music.