We’re just over the halfway mark of 2026 and there’s plenty of music to show for it.
It’s been an especially active year for the pop-star set: Charli xcx released two records—one the ruminative, haunting Wuthering Heights, the other a pivot to rock. Elsewhere, Harry Styles put all of his hours logged at LCD Soundsystem shows to use on the dancey Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally, while Olivia Rodrigo traced the arc of a doomed relationship on you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love—her most mature offering yet.
We’ve also celebrated highly anticipated returns, from BTS’s first record following their compulsory military service to Phoebe Bridgers’s ruminations on love and loss on the folksy, evocative Lost Weekend, and Madonna’s long-awaited sequel to Confessions.
If anything, 2026 is turning out to be a year for star-making releases. Slayyyter is finally getting her due with WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA (just check out her Lollapalooza crowd!), Fcukers’ dance floor bops on Ö earned them an opening spot on Styles’s tour, and Haute & Freddy’s ’80s synth-pop record, Big Disgrace—with a baroque sense of style to match—earned instant acclaim.
BTS, Arirang
Grammys be damned—BTS released one of the best albums of the year in Arirang, their 10th studio album and first since the seven members completed their mandatory military enlistment in their native South Korea. Honestly, the first BTS comeback post-military didn’t need to be extraordinary; it would have been easy for the group to return with the kind of stuff they were making just before their hiatus—big, poppy, radio-friendly hits. Instead, they returned to the rap and hip-hop roots that distinguished them early in their career and built upon that foundation with all they’ve learned about how to use their unique voices. There are so many things to love here: “Body to Body” is a rush (and the closing Arirang interpolation makes for an incredible live experience), “Like Animals” and “Normal” see them delve into an interesting alt-rock vibe (the way V sings, “Got me feelin’ things unusual” on the latter is a serious earworm). They’re, at turns, brash and silly, pointed and sweet. As a whole, Arirang is a compelling encapsulation of where BTS has been and where they are (hopefully) going. —P. Claire Dodson
Bladee is no knight in shining armor on this album. I imagine him as a character operating between a Gothic novel and The Matrix, a wayward monk in a hooded robe and knotted rope, or a leather-clad baddie you wouldn’t want to encounter in a dark alley. Unlike the perceived irony “I Don’t Like People,” there is an element of bloodthirst to Sulfur Surfer; competing appetites for violence and redemption; darkness punctuated with light. True to form, Bladee’s daggers land with a delivery as sweet and honeyed as mead in his ethereal voice. The harmonies are angelic. This is mostly a lush listening album; “Blondie,” for me, can be sung along to. I visualize Sulfur Surfer as sonic graffiti—written with a quill. —Laird Borrelli Persson
Drake, Maid of Honour
I love Drake. I could blame it on the Canadian in me, but that wouldn’t be honest because the truth is he is just too good, as evidenced by this record. Arguably the best of the three albums he dropped on the same day back in May, Maid of Honour seamlessly carried me into a summer of fun. It’s one of the best dance records I’ve heard in a while—filled with eclectic beats and catchy, tongue-in-cheek bars. My standouts are “Road Trips,” one of the more popular MOH tracks, as well as “Stuck,” “Goose and The Juice,” and “Princess,” which close out the album on an intoxicatingly yearning—yet undeniably lit—note. —Fred Sahai
Ear, Rumspringa
Ear’s Jonah Paz and Yaelle met at Bard College and live in upstate New York, but recorded this album in a suburb of Copenhagen in the winter. The name refers to a male coming-of-age ritual, but the analog methods the duo used, in part, suggest a return to something past and playful, perhaps childlike—though the music shows maturation overall. The acoustic/electronic modes of production and glitchiness might be described as a gorp-core version of hyperpop. This is overlaid with twee elements that might be part of the mid ’00 nostalgia in the air. (Marc Spitz’s book Twee: The Gentle Revolution in Music, Books, Television, Fashion, and Film, was published in 2014.) The sound of the title track is reminiscent of kicking a pebble on a road or watching dust particles dancing in a shaft of light. —LBP
Fcukers, Ö
Fcukers have been creeping into the mainstream for the last couple of years, but New York duo Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis’s latest venture, Ö, may have finally sealed the deal: the pair are taking their ’90s-influenced, reggae-tinged electronica on the road, opening for Harry Styles on his Together, Together tour. With Ö, released in March of this year, Fcukers offer a showcase in cool detachment set to foot-tapping beats to a near-hypnotic effect. Still, there is a puckish, cocky quality to their music, like on “Shake It Up” when Wise lolls, “You like me, I know / You like it when I get low.” Consider it the perfect soundtrack to a sexy, sweaty night on the dance floor. —Hannah Jackson
Glaive and Kurtains, God Save The Three
One thing you notice right away is there is a lot of singing on electronic artist glaive’s latest album with his friend and collaborator kurtains. There are beats too, the ominous trap-influenced rhythms glaive has specialized in on his excellent recent releases (Y’all and May It Never Falter), but the mood on this album is softer, affectionate and upbeat, with ballad-y interludes of acoustic guitar and piano. The whole thing is a paean to friendship, unexpected success, and partying. Standouts are “The Front,” “The Band,” “Let’s Link Up and Die,” but head straight for “The Troubles,” the album’s out-and-out banger with its jubilant refrain: “We get money, like the Troubles, blow it at the mall.” —Taylor Antrim
Good Sleepy, Constant Humming
Emo punk is always with us, and this year it came roaring at me courtesy of Good Sleepy, a quartet of mid-twenties guys from Worcester, Mass. Constant Humming follows 2021’s debut album eversinglelittlebit and a round of self-released DIY eps before that. All were good, but this is a leap forward, the most realized group of songs this young band has made. In good emo style you get intervals of aching sincerity and big squalls of noisy aggression. Fourteen tracks and some of the best crop up late (“Trap” “Looming”). I keep finding full-of-feels anthems to love.—TA
Grace Ives, Girlfriend
Grace Ives has done a lot of growing up since 2022’s Janky Star. On her latest record, Girlfriend, Ives contends with getting older and wiser—and sober. On “Avalanche,” one of the album’s early standouts, Ives balances the lyrical rawness of rock bottom with restrained production, singing, “And I want, want, want, and I take, take, take / Feeling sorry-not-sorry for the mess that I make,” over a sparse, sharp beat. Ives spends Girlfriend litigating how other aspects of her life have intertwined with her substance use, from her relationships to self-respect (and really, aren’t they often one and the same?). But she’s made her peace. On “Stupid Bitches,” she triumphantly declares, “But stupid bitchеs can’t hurt me / Yeah, I’ve been through thе needle now, I see / I won’t shatter in the aftermath / I’m a bullet on an arrow’s path.” It’s searing and hopeful—Ives at her best. —HJ
Gracie Abrams, Daughter From Hell
If The Secret of Us was Gracie Abrams cracking open the diary, Daughter from Hell finds her going back through it with a red pen. The title promises rebellion, but the reckoning here is largely internal: Abrams looks back at the versions of herself who hurt people, stayed too long, wanted too much, and wonders what to do with them now. “I once saw clearly, but it’s bloodshot,” she sings with an enveloping airiness on album opener “Hit the Wall.” “Men Like You”—a friendship breakup anthem if there ever was one—lets real venom into her usually featherlight delivery. “Minibar,” written with Audrey Hobert, is the much-needed sugar rush, and “Look At My Life” is Abrams and producing partner, the National’s Aaron Dessner, at their reckless, rollicking best. After the diaristic rush of her last record, Daughter from Hell finds Abrams at the hardest—and most rewarding—part of confession and self-actualization. —AC
Harry Styles, Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally
It was when I first saw that photo surface of Harry Styles and Zoë Kravitz huddled outside Berlin superclub Berghain in the growing sunlight, having probably clocked in double digits of raving, that I knew we were onto a good thing. Styles’s fourth album revels in all those hours spent shouting euphoria into the ears of friends on dance floors and riding the bassy, body-vibrating techno loops until well after the sun comes up. Straight out the gate, opening track “Aperture” gives us the record’s resplendent mantra: “We belong together!” There are delicious, dancey slowburns like “Ready Steady Go,” the Nile Rodgers-indebted “Dance No More,” and the sumptuously layered “Are You Listening Yet?” that I can attest is sublime live. “Pop” is a hypnotic central track—like an “As It Was” or “Watermelon Sugar”—and closer “Carla’s Song” is just begging for a big, fuck-off confetti drop. —AC
Haute & Freddy, Big Disgrace
I’m a sucker for a pop album full of bangers, and if you’ve yet to discover the duo Haute & Freddy, you’re seriously missing out. After years writing bops for other big artists—including Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Kylie Minogue—the two musicians have branched out on their own, and they come armed with their own danceworthy tracks heavy on the ’80s-style synths. Come for their club anthems like “Dance the Pain Away” and “Scantily Clad”; Stay for their freaky-chic fashions and artful music videos, heavy on the vintage, clown-inspired garb. —Christian Allaire
HC and Subaru, Bygdetrapen
These two 22-year-old Norwegian artists and their album have been one of the most positive disruptions of my 2026. They have an incomparable sound—which is not at all doctored–and a clever construct. Bygdetrapen translates to rural trap. “We thought it would be cool to make this kind of hard hip-hop in, like, this weird dialect that doesn’t really have anything to do with hip-hop at all,” Subaru told me. The best friends are from Bø, a small rural town with a vibrant youth car culture called råning or rægging. According to Wikipedia, the local patois has Viking roots, making it very difficult to understand, but as HC and Subaru sing about their friends not only in dialect but in local slang, the lyrics would likely be nonsensical anyway. The warm elasticity of Subaru’s voice shock-absorbs the staccato and machine-like delivery of HC’s unique voice. Overall, there is a driving energy to the album as well as a haunted carnivalesque atmosphere. Sad Boys’s Gud produced “Ettan Laus,” which combines a relentless forwardness with chimey tinkling; Drain Gang’s Woesum, with Stacy, are behind “Vreimsida,” which has a folk dance-meets-Midsommar movie vibe. Take a listen to Bygdetrapen, it might not be your cup of tea, but you haven’t heard anything quite like it. —LBP
Jessie Ware, Superbloom
A friend turned me on to Ware in the last year or so, and I’ve become transfixed with her smooth vocals and lush, groovy ’70s sound. In April, she released Superbloom, which has her firmly in her established genre—decadent, almost hedonistic. The aural experience, overall, has a velvety, glimmering sensuality. It is sexy, sensual, and altogether seductive. While its backbone is certainly a pulsing dance beat, it’s overlaid with silky, playful vocals.
A standout for me is “Sauna,” a mix of crispy beats and heavy breathing. “I don’t need fast, I need stronger, take me to the sauna,” Ware pants. OK, mama! Excited to see her in concert this fall. —Max Berlinger
Kelela, new avatar
Admittedly, I’m a newcomer to the Kelelian universe. I listened to “LMK” around its initial release in 2017; the song was saved in my music library for years, but I wouldn’t gravitate towards it or much more from Kelela’s repertoire until Raven was released in 2023, a project that sent me into a sonic trance and left me in a fervid state of anticipation for her next project. Enter: new avatar. When the world (and I) needed her soulful, contemporary R&B essence, coupled with her ethereal layering techniques, Kelela returned with exactly that and more. A dissonant state of yearning while recognizing one’s worth is a consistent theme for the singer, highlighted in the last track (and a personal favorite), “if we meet again,” as she sings about the lack of effort in a relationship and the colloquial expression “playing in my face” takes center stage within the most angelic of vocal melodies. But what I admire most about Kelela’s artistry is that each of her collaborations is thought through with intention—though I would never say no to a PinkPantheress x Kelela link-up. All in all, new avatar reaffirms you can bring sad girl summer to the club (or kick back). —Edgar Gatsinzi
Kim Petras, Detour
After nearly a decade of waiting, Kim Petras’ true debut album Detour has finally arrived, and girl was it worth the wait. The album is a sonic boom of maximalist production and sprawling lyricism, with topics ranging from endless joyrides to early transition struggles. We even have a track approved by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani with “I Like Ur Look”! For longtime fans of Kim, this album feels far from a detour and more like a homecoming as she struts into the sounds we know her for all while elevating her pop star skillset. The album’s earnest moments are touching, followed immediately by dance floor bangers that feel like a punch in the face (in a good way). “101” stands out as a track reminiscent of the kind of person who doesn’t want the party to end, with build-ups in production that tease a conclusion before promptly switching up and encouraging listeners to stand back up again. “Basketball” serves as a reminder that the genius of SOPHIE is everlasting. This album is proof that with a stellar production team in her corner and full creative control, Kim Petras is a de-tour de force of the pop world. —Edward Horgan
Logan, angels
One of the discoveries of the year for me is the first full length from electronic artist logan, who also releases tracks as heylog, and who blends beats, samples, distortion, and processed verses on tracks placed somewhere between hip-hop, alt-rock, and hyperpop. Angels is relentless, melodic, and aggressive—Pocket Pet and Achilles are standouts—a darkly feverish run of glitchy and tense soundscapes. –TA
L’Rain, fata morgana
L’Rain has been a staple of the Brooklyn music scene since her self-titled debut in 2017, a project that introduced listeners to her experimental guitar layering, textural sampling, and haunting vocals. Since then, the artist—whose stage name and project are inspired by her late mother—has released Fatigue and I Killed Your Dog, both of which were met with widespread acclaim. Her new project, fata morgana, pushes her sound into new territory. “soulless cycle,” one of the album’s first singles, gives way to a grittier, noisier, more chaotic free-energy sound while retaining the melodic sensibility that has become her signature. The song has a cyclical nature reminiscent of being trapped in a thought loop: “I am so tired of being so tired; I am so sorry for feeling so sorry; psycho, I’m a psycho cycle, I’m a psycho cycle.” Other standouts are definitely “glass ceiling,” “borderline,” and “july 5th,” on which she collaborates with dancehall artist Screechy Dan. She even has a surprise metal song, which is an addictive listen! —CD
Madonna, Confessions II
Just when you think Madonna can’t possibly deliver another album full of bangers, the queen of pop goes and does it again. Her highly anticipated follow-up to the 2005 Confessions on a Dance Floor record did not disappoint this summer. It’s truly a no-skips lineup. On “Danceteria,” she sings about her early club-kids days in New York City. “Get into the elevator—I run into Debi Mazar!” On “Read My Lips,” she enlists Feid for a slightly reggaeton bop. Even though the album has a heavy dance feel, Madonna also delivers some tender and intimate moments—such as “L.E.S. Girl,” about longing for her younger and more-naive days at the beginning of her career. Her ability to constantly stay fresh, while also reinventing herself, proves why she is the queen. —CA
Muna, Dancing On The Wall
Muna’s 2022 self-titled album, their first freed from their major label and on Phoebe Bridgers’s Saddest Factory, was an unabashedly bash-the-closet-door-down-coming-out pop record, inflected with country lilts and glittering hooks about living your truth. Dancing on the Wall, released as summer began to bloom, unfurled with libidinous, darker shades: basslines pulse, Katie Gavin’s sumptuous vocal range swings from heaven’s gate-opening falsettos to deep pop swoops. It’s a record about self- and shared-pleasure: “It Gets So Hot” is lustful with neon-slick synths, “Wannabeher” a fuzzy, horny Bikini Kill ode. Songs about heartbreak and toxic relationship cycles are precise and lucid, even in their delusions. Then there’s “Big Stick”: their most political and propulsive tune yet, ferociously taking on greed and war without mincing any words. Muna loved, DotW fucks. —AC
Naomi Scott, F.I.G
Naomi Scott’s F.I.G was my big surprise of the year—partly because I had no idea that Scott, who you might remember from her starring roles in Aladdin and Smile 2, even made music. On her impressively self-assured and seriously stylish debut album, she merges R&B, alt-pop, and soul to create a sophisticated but also idiosyncratic sonic self-portrait of a “girl in process,” as she said when I spoke to her for a story in June. I can’t remember exactly how I stumbled upon it, but it ended up being one of those records that I can listen to in any place, at any time, and it has serious replay value. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up in the number one spot on my Spotify Wrapped.) I dare you to find a more irresistible chorus than “Cherry” or a groovier bassline than “Gracie” on any other record released this year. —Liam Hess
Olivia Rodrigo, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
I’ve been an Olivia Rodrigo fan since her Disney days. Every album of hers has hit for me, so I was only bound to enjoy her latest as well. In the months leading up to the release, before we got the name of the album, we fans thought that it would be a happy album about love, only to find that Rodrigo would still be providing catchy hits with relatable lyrics for us single girls who also have internet crushes on people we stalk on Instagram! —Irene Kim
Phoebe Bridgers, Lost Weekend
When, in June, Phoebe Bridgers played to a sold-out, phone-free crowd at Madison Square Garden, the atmosphere during the set was surprisingly cozy, given the scale of the place. The audience that night was very well behaved, happy to hear Bridgers croon the old songs they all knew well—“Motion Sickness,” “Waiting Room,” “Kyoto,” “Moon Song”—rather than scream the lyrics themselves; and at other moments, spots of light spread across the arena floor that didn’t come from screens, but swaying lighters. In other words, they understood the brief of the evening: simply to be there and feel things.
On her third studio album, Lost Weekend—which she teased fairly heavily at MSG, nesting seven new songs amongst the familiar ones—Bridgers is just as dropped in. Not only does she sing quite beautifully about love and grief and sometimes feeling a little outside her own body (the album highlights for me are “The Outside,” “Kill Me,” “Bobby,” and “As Before”), but she also does a fair amount of yowling and yelling and yipping about those things—ad-libs that let the feelings announce themselves in pure, human noise, however sophisticated the production around them. I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly the kind of viscera I look for in a Phoebe Bridgers project. —Marley Marius
Robyn, Sexistential
The 11th-hour release of Robyn’s “Dopamine” last December promised a sexy, free-spirited 2026. While the jury’s still out on that, the singer certainly held up her end of the bargain with Sexistential. It’s not all as bawdy as the name implies, though. Robyn is at her best when she’s intertwining the head rush of great sex with the cavernous depths of loneliness. While “Dopamine” and “Talk to Me” (especially the new Zara Larsson feature) are unabashedly horny dance floor bops, the quieter “It Don’t Mean A Thing” offers a kind of heart-wrenching look back at a relationship gone sour. As Robyn looks back at what were once great memories, her voice melts and warps into her vocoder: “It don’t mean a thing / It don’t matter at all.” —HJ
Slayyyter, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA
When I spoke to Slayyyter last September in the run-up to the release of her killer third album, Worst Girl in America, she mentioned that the lack of wider interest in her previous record had almost led her to give up on music altogether. Thank goodness she didn’t. Worst Girl in America is undoubtedly one of the best albums of the year: a scuzzy, sleazy, rip-roaring ride through tales of bad romances and nostalgia for the ’00s and moments or surprisingly raw emotional vulnerability. Sonically, it also marked a step forward for Slayyyter, whether in the impressively intricate production which veers between electrocrash and all-out rock, or in the playful use of her voice on tracks like “Cannibalism” and the emotionally charged album closer “Brittany Murphy.” I noted in that story that it feels like the world is ready for exactly this kind of pop star—so I was delighted to see that, if the crowds at her standout Lollapalooza set are anything to go by, plenty of others agree. It’s the season of Slayyyter. —LH
The Rolling Stones, Foreign Tongues
I’m obviously biased when it comes to the Rolling Stones, given the only thing I’ve deemed worthy of tattooing on my body is their logo (I was 23). But I haven’t been alone in saying that their new record—which comes two years after they returned to releasing original material for the first time since 2005—is a delightfully solid collection of rock songs (and one really unexpected Amy Winehouse cover). But truthfully, what I’ve loved almost more than the album itself is the amount of press the band has been doing to promote it. Mick Jagger has famously been aloof and hard to crack in interviews over the course of his 60+ year career, but he’s been very open, thoughtful, and surprisingly vulnerable lately. Overall, Foreign Tongues offers refreshing nods to late ’70s/early ’80s-era Stones, without ever leaning into nostalgia, because they would never let themselves get that sentimental. —FS
The Strokes, Reality Awaits
Since its late July release, there’s been a lot of discourse surrounding The Strokes’ new album—or at least on my little corner of TikTok. Reviews have been mixed, to say the least. One friend texted me that she “needs that man (Julian Casablancas) to stay far away from the auto tune, unless Daft Punk is in the studio,” and I understand. That being said, I didn’t dislike the album (not even “Falling Out of Love!”) Is it their best? No. But have I been enjoying it? Totally. I think that the thing about the Strokes is that they are so uniquely themselves—for better or for worse—so I’m always going to prefer listening to this album over a lot of music that’s come out this year. You can’t say that “Lonely in the Future” or “Dine n’Dash” aren’t perfectly good songs. And while I may have caught myself making a face of genuine confusion when I was walking down the street and first listening to “Psycho Shit,” it, and the rest of the album, have absolutely grown on me. It just needed a few listens. —FS
Underscores, U
Over the course of her now-decade-long career, the wildly talented April Grey of Underscores has experimented with plenty of different genres: indie, emo, electropop, even dubstep. (That versatility is especially impressive for an artist who is still only 26 years old.) But with her fantastic third full-length album, U, which dropped in March, it feels like she truly hit her stride, creating an artful amalgamation of all the sounds that have influenced her, but threaded through with some of the strongest pop hooks of any album this year. Come for bangers like “Music,” a bouncy, glitched-out ode to the parallels between romantic infatuation and writing a perfect song (Grey certainly knows a thing or two about the latter); stay for the album’s gentler moments, like “Lovefield,” a gorgeous, twinkling ballad that mourns a relationship that could have been, if only they were just that little bit more compatible. This fall, Underscores is heading off on tour in support of Charli xcx—the perfect end to a banner year. —LH
