The FADER’s latest cover star underscores (April Harper Grey) can do it all. The 26-year-old popstar and super-producer had already mastered hyperpop, math rock, digitized folk, and experimental dance music via her milkfish alias before she zeroed in on pop music on her 2026 breakout, U. No matter the genre, Grey’s music always boasts sharp songwriting and truly brain-breaking production. Here are some of The FADER’s favorite tracks from our July cover star’s stacked career.
Essential Underscores Tracks
“Spoiled Little Brat”
One of underscores’s earliest internet hits, “Spoiled Little Brat” represents the dominant styles of her earlier period. It’s defined by its pop punk panache and April’s always impressive sound design with surprising glitches, toy-like synth melodies, and pugnacious lyrics.
“The fish song”
underscores is often talked about for her whiz kid production, but her true superpower is her songwriting, which is sensitive, detailed, and filled with personality. “The fish song,” the quiet penultimate track on her 2021 debut, fishmonger, turns a strange story of a rare fish found in the Philippines into a moving song about impermanence.
“Loansharks” feat. gabby start
An early preview of underscores’s eventual full turn towards pop, this cut off of 2021’s boneyard aka fearmonger hopscotches between dubstep and math rock, all while retaining a bubblegum catchiness.
“Gunk”
Have you ever heard a quiet, story-based piece of acoustic guitar folk that begins and ends with pure dubstep cacophony? I hadn’t until I heard “Gunk”—one of underscores’s biggest songwriting and production flexes.
“Locals (Girls like us)” feat. Gabby Start
Only underscores could turn “arms, body, legs, flesh, skin, bone, sinew” into an inescapable earworm. This single off 2023’s rock-forward Wallsocket expands the record’s dreamy suburban mythology into flirty and finger-wagging terrain.
“Music”
Arguably the biggest hit off of U, “Music” doubles as a spirited song about having a crush and the necessity of music. Come for the delicious triplet rhythms and stay for the sparkling chorus.
“Do It”
This felt like the moment underscores leveled up into a true pop performer. A glimmering combination of early aughts Timbaland-style production with contemporary k-pop perfection, the lyrics find her truly talking her shit.
“Bodyfeeling”
A song that sounds like its title: “Bodyfeeling” is funky, embodied, and its bass hits you in the gut. It’s among underscores’s most evocative and flirty tracks.
“The Peace”
The sleeper viral hit off of U is the album’s central ballad. Over a vowel-only, Imogen Heap-style stack of harmonies, underscores sings of a series of run-ins with a crush. It reminds me of songs like “The fish song” which let underscores’s wildly effective writing take center stage.
