The best new songs we heard this week: Lana Del Rey seeks sanctuary, Maxo Kream and Tyler, the Creator flex up

Every Friday, EW's music team runs down the five best songs of the week. In today's edition, Maxo and Tyler get down to business, Low get lost, Tasha wifes up, Syd's on the right track, and Lana makes her great escape.

"Arcadia" — Lana Del Rey

Cruise through the wistful world depicted in the fourth single from her upcoming album, Blue Banisters (her second LP this year), and you'll spot all the requisite Lana landmarks: images of brazen sexuality ("My chest, the Sierra Madre"); fragility as strength ("my heart is like paper"); the relentless tug-of-war between security and displacement ("I'm not from the land of the palms, so I know I can't stay here"); her enduring fascination with Americana (uh, the whole damn song). But lean in a little closer and it becomes obvious that the Arcadia of the track's title isn't just a city on the West Coast — it's a nameless and intangible sanctuary, a return to a simpler time when her every tweet wasn't parsed and eviscerated. "They built me up 300 feet tall just to tear me down," she declares over a muted piano, a hint of elegant brass and swoony strings sliding into the mix. "I'm leavin' them as I was: 5 foot 8." An unabashed come-on and a fanged kiss-off, this is the artist at her most stripped-down and defiant, ready to drown out the noise and let the work speak for itself. —Jason Lamphier

"Big Persona" — Maxo Kream and Tyler, the Creator

Maxo and Tyler's "Big Persona" is the kind of hard-charging, flex-heavy anthem that tricks you into thinking you're worth more money than you are. Tyler name-checks his million-dollar summer house, "boots in blue, the yellow hue," and a drop-top that has an interior that's "orange like a cantaloupe," while Maxo cooly boasts about his journey from Houston street life to rap stardom ("I'm the trap Barack Obama"), gobbling up real estate and sipping Arnold Palmers in front of his mom's new mansion. Then Tyler ups the ante on the chorus, transitioning his slippery flow into a near-bark as he shouts out a list of top-shelf triumphs: "big money, big cars, big jewels." —Alex Suskind

"Perfect Wife" — Tasha

Tasha is in love. Like, really in love. In the video for her bracing new single, she beams wildly, twirling around her chic pad like she's just been dropped into some saucy Fosse sequence. The Chicago musician can barely contain her excitement over the prospect of finally finding the one. Buoyed by sunny '60s-style guitar licks and fluttering flutes, she coos about blushing and being "a wreck" and just wanting to shake it all off with wifey on the dance floor ("You wear your hair down/I'll wear my favorite pants"). By the time she ascends to her roof in the clip's final moments, all loose-limbed under a spotlight, you half expect the singer to be joined by a cast of animated critters flaunting some fizzy choreo and sharing in her joy. But no, it's still just her, lost in her fantasy, possibly the most content she's ever been. —Jason Lamphier

"Don't Walk Away" — Low

Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker sound like the last lovers on Earth in "Don't Walk Away," a gorgeous, mournful cut off Low's new album, Hey What. "Don't walk away/I cannot take anymore," begs Sparkhawk over an icy bed of synths. "I have slept beside you now/For what seems a thousand years." Parker's harmonies give the story even more emotional heft — a couple locked in eternal limbo, realizing the connection they've shared for generations may not be enough to sustain them. As whispers and crackles filter in and out, Sparhawk comes to a heartbreaking conclusion, ruefully admitting, "I cannot play anymore." It's like the slowcore version of "Can't Help Falling in Love." —Alex Suskind

"Right Track" — Syd (feat. Smino)

The multitalented Syd has seen success fronting the beloved forward-thinking collective the Internet and as a solo artist. But collaborating with everyone from Beyoncé to Zayn to Lil Uzi Vert seems to have sharpened her approach to songwriting. On "Right Track," the R&B wunderkind hits her stride, gliding through the flashy single like a jet, magnetically appealing to her lover by suggesting "I think you and me could stunt." The production, which guest Smino aptly describes as "that Ricky Martin, Spanish string, you feel" is both sparkly and sensuous, fit to be played on loop on the dance floor. —Marcus Jones

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