The 5 Best Songs On Tinashe’s ‘Popstar’

You can’t really say that Tinashe has gone completely unnoticed in the music world, but in the Hollywood pipeline and major label terminology, the R&B pop singer is what you could regard as a survivalist that dates back well before her own solo work made her a nasty viral darling. After three consistently good albums for RCA Records that offered up household name recognition despite a system which ultimately failed her, she set out to prove her worth on her own through a series of four self-released album. The timing? Optimal, as the Internet age easily did just that once proper calendar cycles and image crafting signed off by A&R could be bypassed in favor of pure artistic vision.

The culmination is Popstar, Tinashe’s 8th studio album, and a return on her terms to a proper label on Atlantic Records and its Ricky Reed-led subsidiary, Nice Life Recording Company, that hears her solidifying her stature as one of pop music’s best to do it under their own creative control. Synthesizing all her knowledge and talent, and ascribing it to modern pop songwriting methodology with meta critique, the listen feels like something she was fated to arrive at eventually, even if most of the world is just catching up with her now.

While we’ve been gifted no shortage of alternative pop albums over the last several years to satiate that fix for a hook, this one is straight-up made for mass appeal without settling on its substance. Tinashe is a force in the field, and these five songs are the best of them to prove why she’s 2026’s Popstar to top.

5. “Crash Out”

Tinashe has every right to talk her shit, and “Crash Out” is the place she lays it on hard. Over an icy, mean, mechanical arm crafted by downtempo house producer Couros, the lights of fame here are switched dim all the way to dark, giving Tinashe the opportunity to swoop right with her sharpened nails to dig into all that’s broken with the culture. “It’s overrated / In a city full of people tryna make it,” she sings. “The American dream is outdated / Now they sitting on the internet, hating.” At this point in the late stage of capitalism and a brain-rotted society, there’s no need for politeness when that energy isn’t reciprocated. In fact, her energy here gives back exactly what it deserves, and sounds dangerously cool doing so.

4. “Flashbacks”

There’s plenty of sensory overload making its way into your body throughout Popstar, but stripping it all down to minimalism reveals a different shade of heat in Tinashe’s lust. It provides you with a bated comedown at the core of the album on “Flashbacks”. Ivory pianos blinking over synth blips helmed by Illangelo and Tinashe switching it up between a fully-rizzed, rap-focused bossy persona and whispercore chanteuse, the line between making your panties drop and falling in and out of love with her elicits a passionate alchemy between the freaky horny and baring-your-soul-butt-naked balladry. The bouncin’ back and forth between the two is hypnotic — a best of both worlds when it comes to the kind of relationship memories that haunt you as much as they tempt you to go back to them.

3. “Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore”

Somewhere, Trent Reznor is listening to this mercurial mid–tempo drip with a satisfied smirk on his face. Maybe it doesn’t serve as blunt of a carnal come-on like the words, “I want to fuck you like an animal” did, but with its similarly strobing industrial beat and electronic palpitations staring their way at a generation that’s having way less sex (and overall, fun socially) than previous ones, Tinashe’s double entendre invitation to get wet on the dance floor tempts them back into the real world. “Too cool with their sunnies and their baggy pants / But I’m drippin’ sweat, I don’t need the clout,” she sings, fully in the moment as the Kingdom and Ricky Reed-fused currents move through her. This is to say is that Tinashe is what’s happening when you’re too busy staring at your phone.

2. “Popstar”

For all of the highs and lows the music biz has handed Tinashe, they’ve all led up to this moment. It’s a tale of irony at that which comes full circle, seeing as self-awareness of what living your life in the spotlight does to you arrives during her second wind in the major label industry system. In turn, she’s bringing with her what a heater of a single, as “Popstar” bares the stylistic tropes of the Aughts biggest R&B pop chart toppers with a contemporary sizzle that burns down the fourth wall of all the glitter and fame. “If you wanna sell your soul, then you gotta pay the price like,” she forewarns while swatting away social climbers, getting through late work nights, and faking it just enough to get her seat at the table. The grind isn’t romantic, but Tinashe’s picture-ready game face lets you know that she’s one step ahead of it.

1. “Melatonin”

“Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on me, bitch, you so melatonin.” This could easily double as the thesis statement for the whole album, because — and in admitting to guilt on this end as well — that it’s taken eight albums for the world at large to stop sleeping on Tinashe is very much criminal. Thankfully, our punishment is this jolt to the system plenty of us needed. The third track on the longplay is just that — the antithesis of the usual vibe-driven background pop pastiche that’s oversaturated the nervous system over the last several years through an over-caffeinated techno-hyperpop-dream-pop hybridization produced by Zack Sekoff, Nightfeeling, and Ricky Reed made to rave that only accelerates in its heartbeat the more it keeps going. If you’re still asleep after this one’s over, you may want to check your pulse.