New Music Friday: The best albums out Feb. 27

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🗓️ 27 February 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

Bruno Mars. Mitski. Grief and celebration from Gorillaz. Robin Hilton welcomes Raina Douris from WXPN in Philadelphia to chat about their favorite albums out Friday, Feb. 27. Plus, a handful of NPR Music writers and critics offer personal picks in the lightning round.

The Starting 5

(00:00) Introduction & Bruno Mars, 'The Romantic'
(03:54) Mitski, 'Nothing's About to Happen to Me'
(09:44) Gorillaz, 'The Mountain'
(15:04) Heavenly, 'Highway To Heavenly'
(20:34) Voxtrot, 'Dreamers in Exile'
(27:12) Nothing, 'a short history of decay'

(32:52) The Lightning Round

- Buck Meek, 'The Mirror'
- Maria BC, 'Marathon'
- Bill Callahan, 'My Days of 58'
- GENA, The Pleasure is Yours'
- Sarah Kirkland Snider, 'Forward Into Light'

Sample the albums via our New Music Friday playlist and see our Long List of notable releases on NPR.org.

Credits:
Host: Robin Hilton
Guest: Raina Douris, WXPN
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Dora Levite
Editors: Otis Hart, Elle Mannion
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Special thanks to Hazel Cills, Ann Powers, Sheldon Pearce and Tom Huizenga

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music.
0:10.2	I'm Robin Hilton sitting in for Stephen Thompson, who is away this week.
0:14.5	It is New Music Friday.
0:16.1	And here to talk about the best new albums out on February 27th is host of World Cafe on WXPN, Raina Duras.
0:24.3	Hello, Robin. It's great to be here. Please excuse my sort of scratchy voice. I have the same cold.
0:29.8	Everybody else seems to have right now, and I'm just getting over it. So I'm happy to be here.
0:34.3	We can do this. We're going to get through it together. This is a bonkers
0:38.1	release day. Absolutely stacked. Mitzki, guerrillas, Buck Meek, Bill Callahan, incredible release week.
0:48.1	Do you ever wonder, like, what's going on? Like, are they planning this?
0:52.4	Yeah, like, talk to each other.
0:55.1	Spread it out.
1:01.9	Yeah, I feel like this time of year, it's a great time to release an album because like nothing else is really happening.
1:03.1	People aren't distracted.
1:06.8	Yeah, we've got all the time in the world.
1:12.4	We're going to get to as much as we can on this episode of New Music Friday, but I want to start with one of the most anticipated releases out today that we weren't actually able to hear
1:17.0	in its entirety. It is the long-awaited new album from Bruno Mars called The Romantic, and the one
1:24.6	single that they've shared ahead of it is called I Just Might. Well, Raina, this is one album that they really kept under wraps.
1:52.7	And I mean, you and I've got some pull, but...
1:54.6	No, I think I asked if you guys had an advanced stream, and the response I got was definitely not.
2:00.0	Definitely not.
2:02.1	But let's talk about what we do know.
2:04.1	His first solo album in a decade, he did have that project with Silk Sonic with Anderson
	...

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