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Apr 11, 2025 By Mark Redfern

Welcome to the 11th Songs of the Week of 2025. It was quite a week for songs from ’90s artists. As a teenager, in 1995, I once saw Stereolab open for Pulp at the Brixton Academy in London and both those artists make this week’s list, as well as Garbage and The Divine Comedy.

This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, Issa Nasatir, Marina Mallin, Scotty Dransfield, and Stephen Humphries helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 12, with a lot of strong honorable mentions as well.  

Recently we announced Issue 74, The Protest Issue. It features Kathleen Hannah and Bartees Strange on the two covers and can be bought from us directly here.

In recent weeks we posted interviews with Florist; SPELLLING; Craig Finn; Djo (a digital cover story); Black Country, New Road (a digital cover story); Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; girlpuppy; Lonnie Holley; Japanese Breakfast (a digital cover story); The Horrors; and more.

In the last week we reviewed some albums.

We’re also hoping to get 600 new (or renewed) subscribers on board in the next three months and so we’re offering 30% off subscriptions right now.

To help you sort through the multitude of fresh songs released in the last week, we have picked the 16 best the last seven days had to offer, followed by some honorable mentions. Check out the full list below.

1. Pulp: “Spike Island”

This week Britpop legends Pulp announced More, their first new album in 24 years, and shared its first single, “Spike Island,” via a music video. It’s disco 2025, as the new album is due out June 6 via Rough Trade. The band’s frontman Jarvis Cocker directed the AI-assisted “Spike Island” video, which attempts to bring photos from the band’s Different Class-era to life, sometimes to amusing results. Check out the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates, here.

Pulp’s last album was the Scott Walker-produced We Love Life, released in 2001. Since then the band went on hiatus, reissued their old albums, returned to touring from 2011-2013, put out the unreleased song “After You” in 2013, went back on hiatus, and reunited again in 2022 for a well-received tour that stretched from 2023 to 2024. The band’s bassist Steve Mackey sadly died in March 2023 at only 56, so he did not take part in the last reunion or the new album. Cocker also released several solo and collaborative albums, as well as guesting on various tracks by other musicians (including Air and Hot Chip) and collaborating with filmmaker Wes Anderson on songs for some of his movies. In 2019 Cocker formed the new band JARV IS… and released the 2020 album Beyond the Pale (it was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2020).

James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D.C.) produced More, which was recorded at Orbb Studio in East London. Pulp’s main lineup is Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, and Mark Webber.

“Spike Island” was inspired by the infamous Stone Roses concert of the same name in 1990. Cocker’s collaborator in the Relaxed Muscle side-project, Jason Buckle, co-wrote the song with Cocker. Apparently a DJ at the event repeatedly shouted all day the phrase: “Spike Island, come alive!” This got on everybody’s nerves and inspired Cocker to write the song, even though he didn’t actually go to the Spike Island concert. Pulp’s 1995 hit “Sorted for E’s & Wizz,” from Different Class, was also inspired by the Spike Island concert.

In a press release, Cocker had this to say about the “Spike Island” video:

“I was told that someone was interested in investigating A.I. and did I have any ideas?

“The first idea I had was to animate the photographs that Rankin and Donald [Milne] took for Different Class: after all, back in 1995 they had been an ‘artificial’ way of dropping us into real-life situations and getting an album cover done whilst we were too busy recording the music for that album to pose for pictures. No brainer.

“It was my initial idea to produce a kind of ‘making of’ video that showed how the photos had come to be taken—but as soon as I fed the first shot into the A.I. app I realised that wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to ‘go with the flow’ and see where the computer led me. All the moving images featured in the video are the result of me feeding in a still image and then typing in a ‘prompt’ such as: ‘The black & white figure remains still whilst the bus in the background drives off’ which led to the sequence where the coach weirdly slides towards the cut-out of me.

“The weekend I began work on the video was a strange time: I went out of the house and kept expecting weird transformations of the surrounding environment due to the images the computer had been generating. The experience had marked me. I don’t know whether I’ve recovered yet…..

“I have to thank Julian House for some expert post-production work and Rankin and Donald Milne for allowing me to use their work in this way. As it says in text at the end of the video, I think what they did for Pulp back in 1995 was ‘Human Intelligence at its best.’

“My final thought? H.I. Forever!”

Cocker also released a statement on the new album, which you can read here.

Read our tribute to Steve Mackey.

Read our interview with Cocker on JARV IS… and Beyond the Pale.

Read our 2017 print magazine article on Cocker and Chilly Gonzales’ Room 29 album.

Read our 2017 extended Q&A with Cocker on Room 29.

Read our 2009 cover story interview with Cocker on his second solo album Further Complications.

Read our 2007 interview with Cocker on his debut solo album Jarvis.

2. Stereolab: “Aerial Troubles”

This week, Stereolab announced Instant Holograms on Metal Film, their first new album in 15 years, and shared its first single, “Aerial Troubles,” via a music video. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is due out May 23 via Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp. Laurent Askienazy directed the “Aerial Troubles” video.

Stereolab’s last studio album was 2010’s Not Music, although despite an indefinite hiatus the band has remained active since then reissuing older albums and since 2019 they have been touring. The band is led by founding members Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane and also includes Andy Ramsay, Joseph Watson, and Xavier Muñoz Guimera. Instant Holograms on Metal Film also features Cooper Crain, Rob Frye, Ben LaMar Gay, Ric Elsworth, Holger Zapf, Marie Merlet, and Molly Read.

Instant Holograms on Metal Film was teased with an “Aerial Troubles” 7-inch being mailed to select fans (with an instrumental version of the song on the B-side). Cryptic posters featuring a Stereolab word search also appeared in some major cities.

Sadier released a new solo album, Rooting For Love, in 2024 via Drag City.

In 2021, Sadier guested on Jarvis Cocker’s cover of Dalida’s 1973 duet with Alain Delon, “Paroles, Paroles.” It was featured on Cocker’s album, Chansons D’Ennui Tip-Top, which was a companion piece to Wes Anderson’s film, The French Dispatch.

Also read our 2014 interview with Sadier or our 2010 interview where Sadier and Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox interviewed each other.

3. Florry: “First it was a movie, then it was a book”

Philadelphia alt-country band Florry are releasing a new album, Sounds Like…, on May 23 on Dear Life. This week they shared the album’s latest single, the expansive seven-minute long “First it was a movie, then it was a book,” via a music video.

Band leader Francie Medosch had this to say about the song and video in a press release: “When the weather was nicer, and when I didn’t really have a job yet last fall, Jon Cox and I would often go into Waterbury, VT to visit a wild thrift store called Bargain Boutique where everything was either 50 cents or $2. One time I found a random VHS in a blank white case and I threw it into my basket. Later on at a dinner party at Trash Mountain, where we live currently, there were a bunch of friends on our couch in the living room so I busted out the VHS TV and the random tape and it turned out to be bull riding. We instantly knew then we had to use it for the ‘Movie’ video cos the vibe was right.

“We shot the rest of the video at our very own Johnny Brendas in Philly, forever our favorite place to play anywhere that has venues. It only felt right to have footage of us playing there captured forever in a music video. Kurt Vile is somewhere in there too, I was reteaching him Passenger Side and Beast of Burden in the green room for our encore. We’ve been playing there since our conception as a band, and since then we’ve played it almost 15 times or so. Shout out to JB’s, their staff is amazing, the green room hummus platter is amazing, the tea is amazing, great sound, great crowds, great lights, great everything.”

4. The Divine Comedy: “Achilles”

This week another ’90s artist, The Divine Comedy (the orchestral-pop project of Northern Irish singer/songwriter/composer Neil Hannon), announced a new album, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, and shared its first single, “Achilles.” Rainy Sunday Afternoon is due out September 19.

The Divine Comedy’s last album was 2019’s Office Politics, although in 2022 Hannon released Charmed Life - The Best of the Divine Comedy. Hannon also wrote the original songs for the hit 2023 film Wonka.

Rainy Sunday Afternoon was recorded at the legendary Abby Road Studios in London. Hannon wrote, arranged, and produced the album. “My musical output is, for better or worse, a representation of my personality,” Hannon says in a press release and social media statement. “A good chunk of that personality revels in the rumbumptious; celebrates the silly. And I made ample use of that for the Wonka songs.”

“I have, though, like everyone, a darker, more melancholy side. And for one reason or another it has been much in evidence of late,” Hannon adds. “I needed to use this album as an outlet for those feelings. To work through some stuff. Mortality; memories; relationships; political and social upheaval. Everyone should get to make an orchestral pop album once in a while. It should be available on the NHS,” he says, perhaps referencing his 1996 hit “Becoming More Like Alfie.”

There will be a limited edition deluxe CD release of the album that includes the bonus disc Live in Paris & London.

Hannon was one of several artists featured on the cover of our 20th Anniversary Double Issue, in honor of him being on the cover of Issue 2 of our print magazine.

Read our 2017 The End interview with The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon.

5. Garbage: “There’s No Future In Optimism”

And one more artist from the 1990s makes this list, alt-rock titans Garbage. They are releasing a new album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, on May 30 via BMG. This week they shared its first single, “There’s No Future In Optimism,” via a music video. Benjy Kirkman directed the video.

The band’s frontwoman Shirley Manson had this to say about the song in a press release: “I love the title. The band sent it me and I was like, ‘This is great. I’m keeping that.’ But the lyrics are an action against that title. Because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble. It’s about a city, in my case, Los Angeles, but it could be anywhere where bad stuff is happening. After the George Floyd murder, which is one of few things in my life that I wish I’d never seen: I was changed entirely by seeing the footage of that cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. In Los Angeles there were huge protests and a lot of upheaval after that. Above our house in Hollywood, there were helicopters all day long, for days on end. It was precarious, chaotic and terrifying.”

Garbage’s lineup remains all four founding members—Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker, and Butch Vig. The album was produced by the band and longtime engineer Billy Bush and recorded in three main locations: Red Razor Sounds in Los Angeles, Vig’s studio Grunge Is Dead, and Manson’s bedroom.

Manson had this to say about Let All That We Imagine Be the Light: “This record is about what it means to be alive, and about what it means to face your imminent destruction. It’s hopeful. It’s very tender towards what it means to be a human being. Our flaws and our failures are still beautiful, even though we’re taught that they’re not. This is a tender, thrilling record about the fragility of life.”

Garbage’s last album, No Gods No Masters, was released in 2021 via Stunvolume/Infectious Music.

Read our interview with the band’s Shirley Manson about the album here.

6. Deerhoof: “Under Rats” (Feat. Saul Williams)

7. Hotline TNT: “Julia’s War”

8. Sorry: “Jetplane”

9. Say Sue Me: “Vacation” (Feat. Silica Gel’s Kim Hanjoo)

10. Doves: “Lean Into the Wind”

11. Turnstile: “Never Enough”

12. Gwenno: “Dancing On Volcanoes”

Honorable Mentions:

These songs almost made the Top 12.

The Convenience: “Western Pepsi Cola Town”

Lana Del Rey: “Henry, come on”

Frankie Cosmos: “Vanity”

Lifeguard: “It Will Get Worse”

Mamalarky: “Won’t Give Up”

The New Eves: “Highway Man”

Sandhouse: “Undefeated”

Smerz: “Roll the Dice”

Sports Team: “Sensible”

Sunday (1994): “Rain”

Tennis: “12 Blown Tires”

Tune-Yards: “Heartbreak”

Here’s a handy Spotify playlist featuring the Top 12 in order, followed by all the honorable mentions:

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