Each week, 10 new releases are selected to go head to head, with one weekly winner which will then go up against future weekly winners later in the year at the end of each quarter of the year, and then again at the end of the year to determine the ultimate winner of 2026.

Last week's results:

Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis [8]

Noah Kahan - The Great Divide [5]

Paris Paloma - Good Girl [5]

Melanie Martinez - POSSESSION [3]

Embrace - Road to Nowhere [2]

Skindred - This Is The Sound [1]

Artemas - professional heartbreaker [0]

The Snuts - Summer Rain [0]

Total votes: 24

Here are this week's contenders:

There's so many options, and we're getting more votes than ever - so I've increased the songs to 10.

Arlo Parks - Heaven

The Black Keys - You Got to Lose

Ladytron - A Death in London

Mandy, Indiana (feat. billy woods) - Sicko!

Metric - Victim Of Luck

Mitski - I'll Change for You

Morrissey - Notre-Dame

Peter Gabriel - Put the Bucket Down

Power Snatch - ASSIGNMENT

sombr - Homewrecker

2026 Indie/Rock/Alt Track of the Week Winners

Week 1: Ladytron - Caught in the Blink of an Eye

Week 2: Mandy, Indiana - Cursive

Week 3: Gorillaz (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson & Anoushka Shankar) - Orange County

Week 4: James Blake - Death of Love

Week 5: Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis

Went for the great new Black Keys track this week!

Voted Sombr, but the Ladytron track is also massive.

sombr for sure, no competition this week

Metric

My personal rankings for Week 6;

1. Ladytron – A Death in London

2. sombr – Homewrecker

3. The Black Keys – You Got to Lose

4. Peter Gabriel – Put the Bucket Down

5. Mitski – I'll Change for You

6. Power Snatch – ASSIGNMENT

7. Arlo Parks – Heaven

8. Morrissey – Notre-Dame

9. Metric – Victim Of Luck

10. Mandy, Indiana feat. billy woods – Sicko!

10 hours ago, awardinary said:

My personal rankings for Week 6;

10. Mandy, Indiana feat. billy woods – Sicko!

1. Mandy, Indiana feat. billy woods – Sicko!*

🖤

Unsurprisingly voted for Mandy, Indiana this week too with yet another abrasive banger 💙

Last day to vote!

Changed my vote to Mandy, Indiana after discovering it this week!

On 05/02/2026 at 23:58, Bror said:

(I will stop playing with fire with the deadlines of these polls one day)

That day is not today!

(doing it now, will vote v shortly)

27 minutes ago, Bror said:

That day is not today!

(doing it now, will vote v shortly)

All good! I’ll just keep it open until I put the next one up tomorrow.

Always enjoy reading your commentary!

1 Mandy, Indiana

2 Power Snatch

3 Mitski

4 sombr

5 Ladytron

6 Arlo Parks

7 Peter Gabriel

8 Metric

9 The Black Keys

10 Morrissey

Stacked week here! Mandy, Indiana is a very easy favourite of the bunch (absolute heat, I liked the previous 2 singles a lot as well but this is by far the best of the 3 for me *.*) but almost all of these were very good - I wasn't sure whether to expect Power Snatch to just be diet Paramore but was very much not that, sounds like Hayley doing her version of a Dry Cleaning song and I'm very here for it. Finding this second single from Mitski to be a lot more instant than the first, lovely loungey vibe on this one. sombr coming through with another earworm (not straying far from his previous hits in sound or subject matter but it's not feeling too stale yet), the Ladytron and Arlo songs I think aren't quite as hooky as their respective previous singles but still sounding good, loving Arlo's production aesthetic this era in particular. I wasn't super feeling the first Peter Gabriel single of the year but this one is much more interesting to me. And Metric's is just another good indie pop tune from them, albeit I will hope they have more ambitious songs to come this era (we need more 'Doomscroller' type songs from them). The other two songs are a way behind though - The Black Keys' is just alright, and although the instrumental is pretty good on the Morrissey song I find on the whole it's much worse than the lead single for me oops, his vocals do not sound good on this one and WTF are the lyrics?