The 25 best albums of the year so far

While the Australian pop artist Sam Sparro is still best recognized for his out-of-nowhere 2008 hit "Black and Gold," it wasn't until 2020 that he unveiled his true musical colors, as his near-flawless third album, "Boombox Eternal," serves as a love letter to the late-'80s/early-'90s pop and R&B records he grew up with — think Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson at their early critical and commercial peaks. Perfectly paced and fused with remarkable sonic detail (those canned horn sounds!), Sparro gives the world his own spin on everything from New Jack Swing ("Love Like That") to plastic-guitar balladry ("Eye To Eye") to full Prince-indebted Minneapolis Sound party pop ("Marvelous Lover") without missing a single beat. Each song ends up being catchier than the last, and Sparro's multi-tracked vocals and surprisingly earnest lyrics help in selling the full nostalgic fantasy. Whether you're a lover of pop music history or just in need of a good time, "Boombox Eternal" is hands down the best pop album released this year. There may be six months still to go, but it's going to take a Herculean effort to dethrone an album as DayGlo fabulous as this from its neon throne.

With Florida rapper Denzel Curry quickly carving out an intense underground niche for himself and producer Kenny Beats raising his town profile with his hilarious make-a-song-in-a-few-hours YouTube show "The Cave," a natural bond formed between the two, and early in 2020, they released a collaborative EP called "Unlocked." Blessed with a wild splay of production styles, Beats is in fine musical form here, but it truly is The Denzel Curry Show from start to finish. "On one hand, I'm a Pharaoh / On the other hand, I'mma deal dope / Franklins on me, Los Santos / Diamonds on me, no Thanos," he spits over the chorus of "Lay_Up.m4a," hitting so many cultural references so quickly it's damn near head-spinning. Remarkably compact (clocking in at only 17 minutes), all it takes is eight short songs for the collaborators to explore a whole universe of rap history past, present and future.

After starring in a blockbuster drama and winning an Academy Award, one would think that Lady Gaga would continue going in the same vein of respectable mainstream fare instead of the dance-pop she made her name on. Little did anyone expect that instead, she would drop "Chromatica," a no-nonsense back-to-her-roots pop album that's as ridiculous as it is immediate. With nary a ballad in sight, Gaga serves up synth-funk, drum-n-bass breakdowns and K-pop duets over the course of 43 minutes, delivering everything from winking Madonna imitations (the stunning closer "Babylon") to new gay anthems ("Rain On Me" with Ariana Grande) to self-critical psychodrama you can actually dance to (album highlight "Replay"). After her detours into throwback jazz standards and pseudo-Americana balladry, few were prepared for Gaga to not only return to the dance floor but also come at it with such absolute power. It's not just a return to form: "Chromatica" ranks among her finest full-lengths.

In many ways, Phoebe Bridgers is a musician's musician: Her open-wound songwriting is captivating on its own, but when you also factor in how she formed the group Boygenius with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus as well as the Better Oblivion Community Center with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst - to say nothing of her multiple cameos on the latest album from The 1975 - it's clear that she is widely beloved by her peers and the industry. Yet with "Punisher," her sophomore effort, she has crafted a document designed to be enjoyed, dissected and revered all at once. Filled with lines about betrayal ("I'm gonna kill you / If you don't beat me to it" she threatens on the upbeat rocker "Kyoto"), the hellscape that is living in America right now ("Windows down, scream along / To some America First rap country song / A slaughterhouse, an outlet mall / Slot machines, fear of God") and so much more, Bridgers' keen lyrical eye has never been sharper, giving us a glut of new songs that could all be considered classics. "No, I'm not afraid to disappear," Bridgers sings on "I Know the End," and given the reception "Punisher" has already received, she won't be disappearing anytime soon.

Do you know what the best thing is about being an "experimental" artist? You can do literally whatever you want without fear of being pigeonholed. For the Florida-born Sean Bowie, recording under his Yves Tumor moniker means he can do it all. Soul-pop? Ambient instrumentals? It's all the same to him, but honestly the reason we keep talking about Yves Tumor is that he's so very good at every single pivot. So for his latest full-length, "Heaven to a Tortured Mind," swinging into bass-driven hard funk feels like the right kind of mood both given his career arc as well as the chaotic world we're living in. His most accessible record by a mile, this fuzzed-out, aggressive and surprisingly catchy record finds Bowie serving us both rock and psychedelic tropes but all with his own spin. Certain songs like "Gospel For A New Century" and "Dream Palette" overwhelm with their constantly crashing drum fills, but numbers like "Hasdallen Lights" and "Strawberry Privilege" go through so many wavy echo effects it feels like the guitars themselves are tripping out. A mess of contradictions, "Heaven to a Tortured Mind" sure sounds like heaven to us.

The strength of Carly Rae Jepsen comes from her completely knowing her lane as an artist: She makes fluffy, buoyant dance-pop and nothing but fluffy, buoyant dance-pop. For this reason, she has proved to be a bit of a genius at the medium, especially following the release of her legendary 2015 record, "Emotion." Yet as someone who writes more songs than get included on any given album, she amended "Emotion" with a fun also-rans collection called "Emotion: Side B" in 2016. Now, following her slept-on follow-up, "Dedicated," from 2019, she unveils a full-length record of unheard new tracks for "Dedicated Side B." Opening with the Jack Antonoff-assisted banger "This Love Isn't Crazy, ' "Side B" gives the world just as many joyous highs that "Dedicated" did while wisely avoiding her less-stellar non-album singles like "Let's Be Friends." From the wise and winking mid-tempo vibe of "Solo" to the aching whisper of "Heartbeat" (a rare ballad from CRJ), "Side B" contains a panoply of top-tier feel-good bops, proving once again that Carly Rae Jepsen is rapidly assembling one of the most compelling songbooks in pop music history.

Sweden's Little Dragon doesn't really care much for genre rules, because while they do songs in certain genres (synth-pop, minimalist retro-soul, dreamy ambient passages), it all feels like it's coming from the same artistic space. This versatility is partly why they've collaborated with everyone from Big Boi to Gorillaz to Mac Miller to Flying Lotus. So for "New Me, Same Us," their sixth full-length proper, they lean a little bit harder into their soul inclinations, and the results are glorious. "Where You Belong" gives off endlessly sly vibes while the brisk R&B of the Kali Uchis-featuring "Are You Feeling Sad?" feels like a logical musical progression for the band. When you cycle back to the loved-you-too-fast lament "Rush" (which you can totally dance to), it's clear that Little Dragon has once again proved that they exist in a sonic universe that is entirely of their own creation, pulling from clear influences but still developing a mood and feel that's all their own. An end-to-end burner.

The sisters of HAIM certainly know how to take time between records, going a full four years between their first two albums and then taking another three years before delivering their latest: "Women in Music, Pt. III." Yet while some may have felt let down by their sophomore effort, "Women in Music, Pt. III" is so clearly their best record it's not even funny. Fully leaning into their ever-present Fleetwood Mac fixation and delivering their most clear-sighted pop music to date, there's an effortlessness to this album that makes every song feel organic and unforced, even when working in traditionally rigid synthpop structures on songs like "I Know Alone." The highlights feel endless: There's the horn-accented stroll of a closer "Summer Girl," the straight-up Lindsey Buckingham homages that are "Don't Wanna" and "Up From a Dream," the reggae-kissed groove of "Another Try," the '90s pop throwback that is "Now I'm In It" - it's a dizzying array of song types that are all executed with unquestioned confidence. "Women in Music, Pt. III" isn't just a great pop album: It's also the sound of a group falling in love with the art of making music all over again. To call it infectious is an understatement.

It's wild to think that Jay Electronica first showed up on the rap scene in 2007, but it wasn't until 2020 that he put out his debut full-length. Having jumped on numerous legendary guest spots (including holding his own after given the unenviable task of following Kendrick Lamar's verse on 2013's "Control"), his buzz has been building for some time, but "A Written Testimony" is a truly surprising creation. Heavily featuring his Nation of Islam ideology, "A Written Testimony" feels like few other rap records out there, with orchestral flourishes and beatless sample loops giving an almost ethereal backdrop for his striking rhyme schemes. "Have you ever heard the tale of the noblest of gentlemen who rose up from squalor? / Tall, dark, and decked out in customary regalia / Smellin' like paraphernalia / Hailin' from the home of Mahalia," he raps in "The Neverending Story", showing off his unbelievable dexterity. As if that wasn't enough, Jay Z guests on nine of the album's ten tracks -- and they're all uncredited. "A Written Testimony" is a rap record like no other.

The chemistry between rapper/activist Killer Mike and rapper/producer El-P is nothing short of electric, and the duo has gone from releasing their first Run the Jewels album as a free download to this year's "RTJ4" entering the Billboard Top 10 after only two days of sales. The goodwill they've built up over the years has not weakened their verbal barbs or stymied El's thundering, unsettling production. Despite being anchored by one of their worst singles ("Ooh La La") and a track with a meandering 2 Chainz guest verse, "RTJ4" still takes no prisoners, with the one-two punch of "Walking in the Snow" followed by the defiant "JU$T" (in which Zach de la Rocha screams for us to "Look at all these slave master posing on your dollar") being one of the most politically charged seven minutes you're likely to hear all year. "Walking in the Snow" hits especially hard with Killer Mike's "I can't breathe" verse being heard in the wake of the worldwide George Floyd protests. Powerful to the point of being essential, Run The Jewels' latest only proves that the duo is once again at the top of their game.

It's difficult being a Neil Young fan because for every rumored project he's about to embark on, there's a good chance he will drop it last minute and put out something completely different instead. Thankfully, Young has balanced out his ever-wild new genre experiments with glimpses into his secret vault, mining his history and putting out items ranging from his reworked version of the still-unreleased "Chrome Dreams" record to his long-fabled recorded-in-a-day acoustic record "Hitchhiker." Yet 2020 saw the release of one of the most heavily bootlegged and prized items in the entire Neil Young discography: "Homegrown." Shelved in favor of the release of 1975's grief-stricken rock album "Tonight's the Night," "Homegrown" was a breakup record that maybe revealed too much of his heartache but still found Young in fine songwriting form, each song sounding completely lived-in and unhurried. This fabled disc has been a source of constant inspiration, with tracks like "Little Wing" and "Star of Bethlehem" having been rerecorded and reworked on other albums, but hearing their quiet, beautifully paced original recordings is nothing short of a thrill, to say nothing of the songs that fans are only now hearing for the first time. Without question, it's one of Young's finest releases.

To some, The 1975 will always be one of the most pretentious bands working today, and in fairness, the first three songs off its fourth full-length (a five-minute spoken word piece by Greta Thunberg followed by an in-the-red hard rocker followed by an orchestral instrumental) will do nothing to convert non-believers. Yet once the shuffling almost-techno of "Frail State of Mind" takes hold, "Notes on a Conditional Form" truly turns into its own distinct entity. Featuring some of the most straightforward rock and pop songs the band has written since its debut, singer Matt Healy and Co. have found an incredible groove together, giving us alienating acoustic strummers ("The Birthday Party"), '90s alt-pop throwbacks ("Me & You Together Song"), country-affected rockers about the pitfalls of fame ("Roadkill") and even a pitch-shifted, choir-assisted number about losing meaning in the pursuit of success ("Nothing Revealed/Everything Denied"). Focused and confident in the same way that its last album felt truly frazzled and disconnected, "Notes on a Conditional Form" finds The 1975 in fine form indeed.

Released nearly eight years after her last album, "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is Fiona Apple's most daring record to date, featuring a sound made out of shaky drum kits, pounded pianos and moments of genuine bliss and beauty. Tackling the societal norms that women have to contend with and be subjected to, "Bolt Cutters" is a defiant album that doesn't care if it's commercial or not because it doesn't think in those terms. Instead, it growls and attacks the manipulating men who have gone by unscathed even in the #MeToo era, focusing less on their deeds and more sympathizing with the women who are in such close proximity to them (summed up with the poisonous line "I wonder what lies he's telling you about me / To make sure that we'll never be friends"). Tackling everything from crippling depression ("Heavy Balloon") to the inverse of the male gaze ("Rack of His"), "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is at times shocking, unrelenting, and often surprisingly funny. It is a bold, uncompromising document, and one that we will all be talking about for years to come.

After topping the charts and winning the Grammy for Best New Artist right off the strength of her debut, Dua Lipa slowly pivoted from being the new voice in radio pop music to a full-on disco diva, as collaborations with Calvin Harris and Diplo's Silk City showed Lipa being most comfortable when singing over an undeniable beat. Thus, "Future Nostalgia," her sophomore full-length, embraces her new role as queen of the dance floor. From the Olivia Newton-John homage "Physical" to the funky bass-driven "Pretty Please" to the psychedelic delight that is "Hallucinate," Lipa covers a wide swath of styles in less than 38 minutes, hitting that mirrorball pleasure center in our brains time and time again. Its last two songs have proved to be incredibly divisive among her fans, but they don't detract from the sweaty strobelight wonderland that is "Future Nostalgia."

Finding a perfect medium between the chilled-out electronic vibes of Stereolab and the guitar and vocal aesthetics of early My Bloody Valentine, Joe Stevens' Peel Dream Magazine made huge artistic strides between the 2018 debut and 2020's excellent "Agitprop Alterna," mainly by going from a home-recorded project to a full-band outfit. While the production on their new album is undeniably cleaner, Stevens still isn't afraid to dirty his songs up with a hefty helping of guitar fuzz, truly capturing the interplay of his influences while carving out a sound all his own. Tracks like the dreamy "It's My Body" and the Flaming Lips-nodding closer "Up and Up" really push the psychedelic elements to the front while still sounding purposeful and contained. It's a beautifully hypnotic record that is as seductive as it is compelling.

For the Bay Area electronic/R&B hybrid act that is The Seshen, their third full-length was inspired by the dark times America found itself in following the 2016 presidential election and when singer Lalin St. Juste starts stacking her vocals on top of each other while saying "I'm spiraling" on the propulsive "Faster Than Before," we can all relate. Using catchy and crisp keyboards to paint stories of deep personal exploration, "CYAN" is such an easy record to get into, even with some of its heavier personal and political themes. "Head to Head," for example, is a bubbly electropop number that just so happens to be about not finding common ground with people whom you may not agree with. "Don't Answer," meanwhile, lifts its simple romantic plea up onto a bed made of acoustic guitars and giant swells of orchestral strings, proving that while the group still trades in some traditional soul tropes, its vision is expansive and all-encompassing. One of the most slept-on records of the year already.

In one corner, you have Daniel Avery, an acclaimed U.K. electronic artist with a knack for setting a mood. In the other, you have Alessandro Cortini, a keyboard wizard who's best known for his time playing on various Nine Inch Nails albums as well as touring with the band on occasion. On their first-ever collaborative effort, the two have forged a distorted, emotional, and forceful piece of cinematic ambient music that's unafraid to take on traditional forms even as it pushes its textural elements to some rather incredible extremes. The track "At First Sight," for example, rests on a simple bass pattern to give the song some backbone — but the e-bow'd guitar wails and de-tuned keyboards all collide to create something that simply sounds cathartic, giving the listener a real sense of emotional release. Heck, even the opening song, "Sun Intro," manages to find beauty within never-ending waves of metallic synths. It's a remarkable, wordless experience and is already one of the best ambient releases of this young decade.

The guest list on Thundercat's latest bass-driven jazz-rap swirl of an album is impressive: There's Ty Dolla $ign, Lil B, viral comedy star Zach Fox and the ever-elusive Childish Gambino. Yet no matter how many voices chime in, they're all a part of Thundercat's otherworldly musical universe. Ever-threatening to veer into full yacht-rock territory with its syrupy vocals and buoyant energy, "It Is What It Is" is such a rich, melodically satisfying experience that it's hard to even describe the spell it puts a listener under. What moments stand out? How about the ascending vocal swells of the prog-soul excursion "I Love Louis Cole"? Or the blistering machine-gun fretwork of "How Sway"? Or the touching two-part elegy to the late Mac Miller that encompasses the closing title track? It is a lovely, twisting, deeply weird and truly heartfelt record that easily stands out as one of the year's most distinct releases.

While Jessie Ware has long traded in pop and electronica circles, collaborating with everyone from Disclosure to Nicki Minaj, she didn't fully embrace her role as a mature dance diva until 2018 when her stellar single "Overtime" dropped and pointed her fans in a new direction. Since then, several other remarkable upbeat cuts — largely created in partnership with former Simian Mobile Disco member James Ford — started leaking out, and by the time she dropped "What's Your Pleasure?," her fourth full-length record, anticipation had reached a fever pitch. Despite the unforgivable sin of not including the '90s house throwback "Overtime" in the tracklist, "What's Your Pleasure?" feels like Ware has taken the entirety of dance music history and filtered it through her distinct worldview, whether it be striking cheeky poses in "Ooh La La" that would make the members of Vanity 6 blush or writing the best Robyn song we've heard since Robyn's last album with "Save A Kiss." It is a smorgasbord of dance fantasias, with orchestral strings mixing with synth pads to make tones that range from outright cinematic (the drama-filled "The Kill") to sensual (the simmering "In Your Eyes"). It may not go full four-to-the-floor like a Lady Gaga or Dua Lipa record, but the strength of "What's Your Pleasure" is that it doesn't need to, as it occupies a dignified realm all its own. What's our pleasure? Listening to Jessie Ware's best album to date, obviously.

Fat Possum Records has traditionally been known as an archival label for blues artists, and only in recent years has it started signing newer, younger acts following the success of The Black Keys, who put out two albums under its umbrella. Yet Ellis (aka Ontario native Linnea Siggelkow) still sounds like nothing else ever backed by the Possum: smart, glorious dream-pop sounds propelled by a songwriter with real smarts. Clocking in at a comfortable half-hour, "Born Again" feels like a small self-contained universe where echo guitar plucks are married to Ellis' quiet-yet-honed vocals, all of it under constant threat of being drowned out by a wave of amplifier fuzz. There's a real tension between her beautifully languid songwriting and the sometimes striking guitar textures that weave in and out, and that's in part why "Born Again" remains such a compelling listen. When she notes how she'll be "Peeling off my skin 'cos I'm not who I have been" on the synth-heavy rocker "Saturn Return," it feels like a contradiction of terms, because after listening to "Born Again," it's clear she knows exactly who she is as an artist.

It's not that Caribou's Dan Snaith hasn't been busy since his last record under the name — he put out a record under his more dancey-dance moniker Daphni in 2017 — but given that his Caribou is the project that led him to critical acclaim and gigs openings for the likes of Radiohead, he wanted to make sure he got everything just right. With "Suddenly," his fifth Caribou record proper, he continues pressing his sound into striking new directions. Whether he's slipping into bubbly synthpop lullabies ("Cloud Song") or reworking straight-off-the-vinyl soul samples into new shapes (like when he turns a Gloria Barnes classic into a whole new style on "Home") or playing around with '70s-era keyboard sounds in search of something new (like on "Lime"), it's clear that with "Suddenly," Snaith is experimenting around with his aesthetic more than ever, and the result is one of the most joyous, delicious and subversive electronic albums we've heard in some time.

Fresh off his stellar Madlib-produced 2019 record "Bandana," Freddie Gibbs is showing no signs of slowing down as the current reigning poet laureate of underground gangster rap. This time working with the raw sounds of producer The Alchemist (Prodigy, Curren$y), "Alfredo" is a dusty, aggressive affair, with the rhymes coming hard and fast and Gibbs using profanity with such artful frequency we can't even find a standalone line to print. Constant and even punishing at times, "Alfredo" truly peaks at the moments when he slows down and lets us catch our collective breaths, best exemplified on the gorgeous "Something to Rap About," where a laid-back guitar sample and an ace Tyler, The Creator verse add up to a smoky backroom vibe that goes down like sonic whiskey. This "Alfredo" is so good, we're giving compliments to the chef.

Dan Deacon's fifth full-length proper has certainly been cooking for some time, as his last album — the truly underrated synth fantasia that is "Gliss Riffer" — came out in 2015. It's been a long five years between Deacon records, but "Mystic Familiar" is more than worth the wait. A semi-concept album of self-reflection built out of suites and interlacing themes, "Mystic Familiar" feels like the most dramatic and personal project Deacon's distinct brand of energetic electro-pop has ever been married to. He finds comfort in anonymity, often hiding his voice and his lyrics behind waves of vocal effects to mask his pain and anxiety. "There's a darkness in this place / There are fears I cannot face / But I'll hold onto you / As long as I can," he sings through metallic vocoders on "Arp III: Far From Shore" as rising BPMs and arpeggiated synth sounds fly around him. Mixing his known keyboard/drum machine sounds with moments of heightened live orchestration transform "Mystic Familiar" into something quite different in the Dan Deacon discography, as it feels like a dance album and more like a cinematic journey into one man's vulnerable mind. Completely slept on by critics when it came out, this "Mystic Familiar" cries out for more attention.

Although ambient purists may balk at the popularity of beat-driven "brovient" acts like Tycho, there's still very much a place for engaging instrumental electronic music even if follows a traditional 4/4 beat structure, and 2018's "All That Must Be" by George FitzGerald only proved the power of this subgenre when handled artfully. Christopher Sky, a protege of The Album Leaf's Jimmy Lavelle, knows this territory well, and for his second proper album following a litany of EPs, he proves unafraid to oscillate between rich, beat-driven numbers like the very Tycho-indebted "Slowly" and soothing, near-pastoral ambient passages like "Travelers Theme." Often, he mixes these two aesthetics in interesting ways, playing around with synth tones and some offbeat instrumental flourishes not often found on records like this. Perfect for soundtracking a drive down a road with steel-gray clouds blanketing the sky above, the strength of "What Is Is, What It Isn't" lies in the fact that this record knows exactly what it is.

For the noted glitch-loving electronic artist Will Wiesenfeld, his songs take on multiple forms, whether it be under his slow ambient moniker Geotic or his more well-known confessional pop vehicle Baths. Because a track of his may start as intended for one project before transforming into another, there's a lot of scraps and strays laying around Wiesenfeld's hard drives, and in 2011, he rounded them up in a beloved rarities comp called "Pop Music / False B-Sides." Nearly a decade later, he decided to round up even more, and even if intended as a clearinghouse of odds and sods, "Pop Music / False B-Sides II" is still a remarkable electronic record and perhaps even one of the best of the year.

Opening with the fractured piano trills and wailed vocals of "Immerse" — a pained pop track so good it's inexplicable how it never landed on a Baths release proper — this collection rolls from one highlight to the next with a nearly reckless abandon. From the playful video game bounce of "Mikaela Corridor" to the midtempo guitar-and-drum rumination "Agora" (with that dynamite opening line of "Abyss slips on like a nightgown / Wear it around, stay in the house") this gathering of Wiesenfeld's orphan songs ends up being one of the most consistent electronic records we've heard this year. Let's just hope we don't have to wait another decade for Part III.