Common, Green Day, Dirty Projectors: Grading the week's best (and worst) singles

Every week, EW’s music staff takes a hard listen to the biggest new tracks and offers up our unfiltered opinions. Read on for reviews of new tracks by Common, Green Day, Dirty Projectors, and Sad13.

Common, “Black America Again”

With her band Speedy Ortiz, Sadie Dupuis infused grunge cuts with off-kilter melodies and vivid lyricism for a ’90s-indebted swirl that was entirely her own. On her new solo project, Sad13, Dupuis brings her unique aesthetic to synth-pop. Not all the production ornamentations on “<2" work out, and its best elements — a jagged guitar solo, Dupuis' irresistibly sardonic diction — are the ones it shares with Speedy. Nevertheless, Dupuis is one of the most singular songwriters currently working in indie, and her willingness to experiment is exciting. B+ —ERB