Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.

This week, Luke Combs is feeling wistful, Leon Thomas is feeling vindictive, and of course, the most anticipated pop release of the entire year is finally upon us. Check out all of this week’s picks below:

Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl

Yes, Taylor Swift‘s finally back doing big pop, and yes she’s got Max Martin and Shellback in tow again — but 1989, Pt. 2 this ain’t. The Life of a Showgirl has some of the big drums and plenty of the big hooks of this trio’s extended collaboration a decade earlier, but the songwriting and sonic palette are both updated for the mid-20

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