The 14 best albums of 2026 so far

Avalon Emerson grows up on her second dream pop album Written into Changes. The DJ’s club kid persona morphs into something warmer, hazier and more mature in her deployment of echoing vocals, reverbed guitars, bouncy pianos and glimmering synths. Thematically, the tracks are all about embracing the contradictions that come with being human, bouncing between existential melancholy (‘How Dare This Beer’) and understated euphoria (‘Eden’). These are not big, dramatic ballads but sage meditations on what it means to be alive – to experience love and then lose it; to feel dissatisfied with your own success; to fight with a lover; to ultimately realise that life is fleeting and beautiful.

Standout track: Funky album opener ‘Eden’ sees Emerson try to salvage the remnants of a relationship, in the process painting magnificently vivid images of moonlight, rolling hills, foamy waves and falling water.

In 2026, weird-girl pop rules supreme – and Shhugar is Baby Nova's contender for the canon. This self-assured debut is intimate, cinematic and full of all the theatrics of a moody teen locked in her bedroom. But that’s not to say Shhugar feels juvenile: in fact a lot of Baby Nova’s sound is based on well-established musical tropes. Lyrically, the album leans on the honesty of classic country songwriting, while woozy Sixties-style production adds grittiness. There are adult themes, too, with echoes of Lana Del Rey – weird-girl pop’s patron saint – in the breathy melancholy of ‘Death Wish’ and ‘Cutting Up Peaches’. Elsewhere, 'Jesus Close Your Eyes' approaches religious shame with a sly wink. 

Standout track: Shhugar isn’t all moody: ‘Broke Bitch Boogie’, an immediate earworm thanks to its loose, shuffling groove, is a windows-down summer smash.

The hipster-approved death metal of Blood Incantation, 200 Stab Wounds and Sanguisugabogg is all well and good, but what about those of us who hunger for something a little less… fashionable? I was overjoyed to discover the awkwardly named New Jersey five-piece Funebrarum this year, a band that began producing grotty, doom-y, riff-heavy music a quarter of a century ago. Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence is their first full-length record for 17 years, and it’s bursting with a decade-and-a-half’s worth of evil ideas. No track feels rattled off or written in a panic. Deep, distorted bass lines, meaningful riffs and delightfully sub-audible gurgled vocals all combine to create an album that’s both old school and somehow cutting edge. The reek of putrefaction has never smelled so good.

Standout track: ‘Turning the Stones of Torment’ exemplifies everything that makes the band good. Fast bits. Slow bits. All extremely evil.

heavensouls (Chidi Obialo) is a devourer of genres. The Nigerian-born, Houston-based 20-year-old’s Westside Trapped contains not just twisting jazz-funk licks, soaring saxophones and samples of ear-caressing soul but also bold Fela Kuti interpolations, interplanetary post-rock, clattering drum solos and countless sounds and styles in a politically incisive ‘love letter’ to Nigerian art. Previously known for his collages of noise and samples, Obialo’s actually toned down his genre-melding for Westside Trapped, accentuating rhythms, making colours even more vivid and creating moments of transcendent grandeur. And he does it all while never losing sight of what the record is supposed to be: a glorious celebration of Nigerian music, past and present.

Standout track: The searing ‘shed a tear for me’, with its potent refrain of Eric Garner’s last words (‘I can’t breathe’), muscular distorted guitar and heavenly beams of synth.

On her third studio album, Grace Ives breathes out one giant sigh of relief. Back from a three-year hiatus, the alt-pop darling spends much of Girlfriend recalling her days smothered by addiction and tangled in self-destruction before she reaches sobriety and comes out on the other side ‘lucky just to be with my feet on the ground’. As heavy as that sounds, Girlfriend is a riot, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek lyrics and eclectically choreographed instrumental chaos. It’s iridescent with Ives’ satin vocals, slick electronics, glittering synths and racing orchestral embellishments.

Standout track: ‘Stupid Bitches’ is both a banger and Ives’ final exorcism. She rises from the ashes as synths smack in between declarations of ‘doesn’t hurt me anymore’.

It’s a miracle of modern pop culture that a man who once ate a cake made of human hair on YouTube now sells out arenas. But on Piss in the Wind Joji doesn’t serve up the alt-R&B that made his previous record Smithereens such a shiny success. Instead he refuses to play nice, denying listeners satisfying cadence in a way that reflects real-world anxieties. Even chart heavyweights Giveon and Don Toliver are subsumed by Joji’s skeletal production, their vocals pitched down like tragic WhatsApp voice notes sent from a cracked phone. In an era of sterile pop designed for Spotify playlists, Joji’s commitment to the mess feels downright heroic. If you’re awake at 3am staring at the ceiling, there is simply no better company.

Standout track: ‘Hotel California’ – Forget the Eagles. Joji’s ‘hotel’ is about falling for someone way too fast and realising you can’t mentally check out once they go.

For more than 40 years, Madonna’s icon status has been built on reinvention. It’s fitting then that ‘I Feel So Free’ opens with her murmuring about slipping into a new persona and disappearing into the club over a sweaty, thumping groove. It sets the tone for Confessions II – the first time Madonna has created a direct sequel – an album of vulnerability, escapism and reflection. She’s back behind the desk with Stuart Price, and together they take us back to a dancefloor of escapist house beats (‘Everything’), Eurosummer disco (‘Love Sensation’) and even Batucada drums (‘Read My Lips’). But Confessions II isn’t all euphoric nights out: slower-paced numbers ‘One Step Away’ and ‘Fragile’ find Madonna at her most revealing in years, doubling down on the album’s confessional premise. Five decades in, Madonna refuses to retire into legacy-artist status: Confessions II is proof she remains a potent pop force whose continual reinvention keeps building her legacy.

Standout track:  ‘Danceteria’, with its chewy hook that gives way to a roll call of the culture kids of the day.

Mandy, Indiana are presumable the sort of thing Brexit was meant to prevent. Franco-Mancinian by way of Berlin, the outfit are clearly an acquired taste, and the taste you need to acquire is for a Parisian woman (Valentine Caulfield) shouting in French over a noise that sounds like a kitchen being flattened. Once you’re on board with that then there’s a massive amount to enjoy in second album URGH, which augments the skull-splitting moments with thrilling passages of thumping techno and exotic flurries of otherworldly synth. There are shades of The Knife, HEALTH and Crystal Castles, but much of the joy of URGH comes from the fact that it doesn’t really sound like anything you’ve ever heard – it’s joyously, aggressively unpredictable.

Standout track: You’d be pushing it to say anything here is ‘accessible’, but the paranoid techno of ‘Dodecahedron’ verges on floor-filler before gorgeously disintegrating into a cloud of alien chiming.

Pacific Northwest alt-rock talismans Modest Mouse celebrated their 30th-and-a-bit anniversary with a rollicking, buccaneering collection of songs – into which vocalist/songwriter Isaac Brock pours out his grief for drummer and founder member Jeremiah Green, who died in 2022. Powered by Brock’s trademark growl, all of Modest Mouse’s sonic heft and even the odd marimba, the canvas of An Eraser and a Maze is broad enough to encompass campfire blues (‘Dogbed in Heaven/Give It a Skeleton’), widescreen anthems (‘Life’s a Dream’, ‘Picking Dragons’ Pockets’), delicate philosophising (‘Remember Yourself’ is this record’s ‘Ocean Breathes Salty’), and the Pixies-ish whiplash of ‘Song About Nothing’. It’s Modest Mouse at their most playful and adventurous, the sound of a band turning its deep loss into something redemptive and celebratory.

Standout track: ‘Speak ’N Spell (Or Not)’ is a real throwback of a Modest Mouse tune and the record’s high point, with relatable concerns about airport luggage carousels and a spry summery vibe.

Eight albums deep and Kevin Morby has finally fully succumbed to the wide-screen Americana sound he’s long flirted with. Produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, this chugging collection of mellow Midwestern bops conjures up Bruce Springsteen at his most rural or a dive bar Woody Guthrie. ‘Die Young’ is the kind of song made for listening to while driving through an Iowa cornfield in a 1970s flatbed Ford with the wind in your hair, while the title track paints a free-falling dreamscape peppered with lyrics of doubt and heartbreak. But, like, catchy. Equally, ‘I Ride Passenger’ comes over all perky with its gorgeous bluegrass lit, but seems to be about dying. Misery never sounded so much like a breath of fresh air.

Standout track The husky drawl of iconic folk rocker Lucinda Williams on ‘Natural Disaster’ is a little treat.

On the surface former black midi bassist Cameron Picton doesn’t carry over much from his old group to My New Band Believe – a name that apparently appeared to him in a delirious fever dream. MNBB’s self-titled debut replaces skronking prog-noise-punk with tumbling loops of acoustic guitar, swooning strings and pastoral elegance (with help from arty rock octet caroline). Really wrap your ears around My New Band Believe, however, and you’ll discover Picton’s same penchant for meticulously knotty songwriting and epic maximalism. It’s a record to tuck into the details, sidle up to the characters, let yourself wallow in its billowing strums and luscious layers. The most luxurious indie rock album of the decade so far.

Standout track: ‘Love Story’ – no, not that one – with its beautiful happily-ever-after piano intro and first half which is very sweet and loved-up, followed by a devastating final verse.

It only takes one listen of Olivia Rodrigo’s third – and, I’d argue, best – studio album to realise how much she’s matured in the six years since her breakout single ‘drivers license’. Rodrigo’s gone from a promising Disney Channel popstar to a major songwriting talent who may well define this generation. you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love chronologically details the dazed blossoming of a crush (track one and lead single ‘drop dead’) growing into a flourishing new relationship (with the deliriously content ‘u + me = <3’) before a masterfully crafted twist which unfurls on ‘purple’ and culminates in the devastating concluding songs ‘expectations’ and ‘cigarette smoke’. 

Standout track: O Rod expertly takes you for a ride through giddiness, elation, doubt, whimpering heartbreak and grief – all of which is demonstrated on the gut-wrenching ‘The Cure’.

All new dance-pop is inevitably harshly compared with Charli xcx’s 2024 album-turned-pop-cultural-reset Brat – but Slayyyter need not worry. WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is a boisterous riot of an album that boldly carves out its own lane. The tetchy base and prickly synths of opening track (and lead single) ‘DANCE…’ tease the energy and vulgarity that explodes on songs like ‘BEAT UP CHANEL$’, ‘CANNIBALISM’ and ‘CRANK’. But it’s not all whiplash-inducing noise – WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA has thoughtful, vulnerable and carefully crafted lulls (like ‘GAS STATION’ and ‘BRITTANY MURPHY’) that make the highs even higher.

Standout track: ‘I’M ACTUALLY KINDA FAMOUS’ is addictive and stupidly catty.

The modern music industry is constantly chucking stuff out, challenging listeners to keep pace with endless releases. Reset your ears with Tara Clerkin Trio’s Somewhere Good. The Bristol band are masters of manipulating time, forcing you to be patient and lock in to interweaving electronics, playful time signatures and subtle complications. The Bristol band’s second album is their most pop-inclined release yet, combining the spareness of their jazzy, electro-acoustic origins with trip hop-esque beats, psychedelic loops and intricately built, gently cacophonous walls of sound. Be taken into someone else’s sense of rhythm, you know you want to.

Standout track: ‘Slow Island’, which is not just Somewhere Good’s most driving tune but among the most topically direct, concerning the changing face of your hometown and putting down roots somewhere new.