Album of the Year So Far: Our 2026 Picks

Mitski's first album in four years turns her trademark anxiety inward, trading arena-sized anthems for close, brittle songs that feel like overheard confessions. It's a record about stillness as its own kind of dread — the moment before the storm that never arrives.

Devon Karpf's second full-length as underscores is a frantic, hyper-online collage of hyperpop, alt-rock and club music that refuses to sit still. U is messy and maximalist in the best way — an album that treats genre like a suggestion and mood like a dare.

Slayyyter's third album is a sharpened, self-assured statement that pulls her internet-pop instincts toward something grittier and more personal. Equal parts electroclash, nu-metal and Midwest attitude, it's the record where she stops chasing virality and starts owning her weird.

RAYE's sprawling second album is a maximalist act of defiance — 17 tracks of jazz, big band, soul and orchestral pop built around one radical idea: that hope is worth the risk. Featuring Hans Zimmer, Al Green and her own grandfather, it's ambitious, unhinged, and quietly moving in equal measure.

The reclusive Scottish duo's first album in over a decade is a dark, hypnotic extension of their pastoral electronic world. Inferno trades some of their familiar nostalgia for unease — woozy, liminal, and quietly devastating.

At 83, McCartney sounds playful and loose on an album built from home-recorded sketches and collaborations with younger writers. The Boys of Dungeon Lane is ramshackle in the best possible way — a legend still curious, still messing around, still surprising himself.

Staples' latest is a short, sharp record that pairs his deadpan wit with warmer, more melodic production than we've heard from him before. Cry Baby is funny and bleak in equal measure — a rapper who's figured out how to be vulnerable without softening his edge.

Rodrigo's third album is her most adventurous yet, pushing past the pop-punk of her first two records into messier, more ambitious territory. The title sets the tone — wry, heartsick, and willing to be a little unlikable.

Bridgers returns from a long solo hiatus with a record that expands her haunted-folk sound into something more expansive and collaborative. Lost Weekend is late-summer music for overthinkers — gorgeous, spacious, and quietly devastating.