Music

Smoochies Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2025 Ashnikko The 29-year-old singer/rapper blew up on TikTok with her 2019 breakthrough hit “ STUPID ,” joining the pantheon of defiantly bawdy, cyborgian e-girls. On her second studio album, which follows 2023’s apocalyptic  WEEDKILLER , Ashnikko hones her pop songwriting chops while valiantly striving to kill her inner It Girl . (See “It Girl,” a decaying folk song about rejecting the allure of external validation.) On  Smoochies , she recruits a crack team of weirdo-pop producers (longtime collaborator Slinger , plus Elvira Anderfjärd , Luka Kloser , and Tove Burman , who wrote and produced Addison Rae’s 2025 debut ) for sweet, tough, and distinctly modern love songs. “I want you in my body like microplastics,” she sings on “ Microplastics ,” and on “ Trinket ,” she collects boys like Labubus and dangles them from her purse. On “ Smoochie Girl ,” she wonders over glitchy sugar-rush synths: “Is this too much to keep a lock of your hair in a resin r...