Every Monday, I make myself a playlist of (mostly) new songs. It gets me in the habit of hunting for new music and hopefully gets me embracing fresh trends. This is the Monday Mixtape.

Mark Ronson feat. King Princess, “Pieces of Us”
Ronson has been promoting his new album Late Night Feelings as a break-up record, and he’s not kidding: None of the throwback froth of his previous effort Uptown Special can be found within, replaced instead by icy beats and nakedly emotional longing. On paper it’s a recipe for disaster, but in execution it is exquisite and bracing. That’s largely thanks to Ronson’s keen ear for collaborators, including a bunch of well-established stars (Miley Cyrus, Camila Cabello, Alicia Keys) and plenty of people nobody has ever heard of (Yebba, Diana Gordon, Ilsey). Somewhere in the middle of those two poles lies King Princess, a gender-fluid bedroom folk-popper who got a bit of attention on alternative radio for her song “1950” and who possesses both an exquisitely broken voice and a knack for making melodies shine. This is not as good as the Ronson/Cyrus joint “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” (one of the ten best songs of this decade), but this thing still cries while it bangs.