NPR Music - The best albums of 2026 (so far)

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

On a special mid-year episode of New Music Friday, host Stephen Thompson and a lineup of NPR Music writers and critics reflect on their favorite albums of the year so far. Albums featured in this episode:(01:14) Album No. 1- Noah Kahan, 'The Great Divide'(07:16) Album No. 2- underscores, 'U'(14:00) Album No. 3- Cécile McLorin Salvant, 'With Every Breath I Take'(20:13) Album No. 4- Neurosis, 'An Undying Love For A Burning World'(27:18) Album No. 5- Tiffany Day, 'HALO'(33:46) Album No. 6- Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall & Sandbox Percussion, 'Canto Ostinato'Credits:Host: Stephen ThompsonGuests: Hazel Cills, Ann Powers, Lars Gotrich, Sheldon Pearce, Tom HuizengaAudio Producer: Noah CaldwellDigital Producer: Dora LeviteEditors: Otis Hart, Elle MannionExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's a special edition of New Music Friday, where we gather members of the NPR Music team to talk about our favorite albums of the year so far. We have assembled a monster panel of heavy-hitting intellectual music lovers. Starting with the man across from me in the studio, Mr. Lars Gott, Rich. Hi, Lars. Lars is here. Anne Powers.

Hi, Ann? I'm just feeling all. all the brain energy in the room. Almost too much assembled intelligence. Speaking of which, Sheldon Pierce, welcome back to the show, buddy. Hey, Stephen, great to be here. Great to have you. I see Tom Hisinga.

Hi, Tom. Totally tickled to be here, Stephen. It is a delight as always, and Hazel Sills. Can't say I'm tickled to be here, but I'm excited. Well, it is a pleasure to have everyone here. Each one of us has brought one album that we want to talk about that has really delighted us over the course of the first half of this year. We have a broad cross-section of music,

and I hope that everyone listening finds something that they love. I guess I get to invoke host privileges. I guess. And kick us off with my favorite album of the year so far, though there was a lot of competition. I'm going just like straight ahead. Look, lots of people love this record. I love this record.

It's by Noah Khan. It is called The Great Divide. silence H4C, C, B3A, didn't know he drove American car so grateful you are So Noah Khan,

you know, certainly having a huge year This album is a very, very big hit. He just brings to this record, I think, such a wealth of emotional intelligence. These are songs based on reflection, based on experience, based on, you know,

really looking inward and picking apart decisions that he's made in his life. and I love this record's approach to friendship and family and his role in how things have gone in his life. Well, you know, Stephen in true Noah Khan style, I'm going to get personal. You know, when I first started listening to the album, I started at the beginning with the opening track,

the end of August, and I admit I got a little weepy. I mean, just so in awe of how the song worked on me, Clear-eyed, open-heartedly honest, in a way, cinematic, how the music quietly unfolds, you know, helping to put the focus on these really amazing lyrics. There's so many good lines in that song, and when I got to the line that goes, the minute that September hits, I'm going off my medicine, late August angst in a pointless night, and the feeling of being alive for the first time in a long time. It just hit hard. Bugs are just starting to die. All the neighbors voting for someone who wins every time. I thought getting older men, no it's too late to try.

I try getting sober. I swear I did better this time. I think the real leap on this record on the Great Divide, leaping from his massive hit stick season is really the music. You know, working not only with his usual producer, Gabe Simon, but also with a pop star whisperer Aaron Destner, Khan expanded his sound, but he also got back to a sound that he was excellent at before he became super famous. He is using his voice in really beautiful ways. He's going back to a soulfulness that he had. He has, before he became Mr. Stomp Klapp, you know.

And that's what I love. I love the soulfulness. I mean, I have to respond to the Stomp Klapp because I think I avoided this record because of the associations with Stomp Klape, which is a period of time and music that is unfortunately seared into memory. You worked at NPR in the late Ops? But, you know, I gave this record a shot in preparing for this show. And, you know, I got to hand it to him.

The songwriting is extremely mature. I like his use of melody. He's thinking about how a melodic line is going to flow and how it's going to work with harmonies rather than it just being all about him. There's a bit more, even though the album is very much about him, there's a little bit more of like a collective spirit to it. And so I resonated with that.

I don't know that I'll return to this record, But for the kind of music he's making and the kind of people who receive it, I think this is probably one of the better records I've heard from this kind of pop music. Yeah, I was just really struck by the stories on this album. You know, I don't always love it when artists kind of reflect on the relationship to success and fame, but I feel like Noah really pulls it off because it's coming from this place of, you know, growth and outpacing relationships and his relationship to his hometown. So I really, really enjoyed that aspect of it.

Well, I think we can all agree, especially from Sheldon's silence, that every single one of us love this record and think it's the best of the year so far. I love how much you love this record, Stephen. That's what I love about this record. All right. Well, we're going to move on. That is Noah Khan. His album is The Great Divide. Next up, Hazel Sills.

Hazel Sills, give us your pick. Well, it's definitely not Stomp Klapp. That's for sure. No, it is not. It's awesome. I want to talk about what is definitely my favorite album of the year so far. It's an album titled You by the Artist Underscores. Last night, I had to watch me about the perfect song.

I just forgot all the notes. By any chance you know how it goes. I'm with you. It's a miracle. You're not New York Catholic and art, LA spiritual. I just can't stand with a Joe or something. They come from God.

I can't compare to it. I'm with you. It feels like it. Underscores is the project of an artist named April Harper Gray. This is her third album. And I think it is just such a strong statement about who she is as an artist and a producer. Like so many artists that I love, Gray, is kind of this like one woman studio. She writes all her own music, produces it, records it.

She grew up making music and posting it online as a tween. And I think this album is basically her attempt at making a proper pop. album. She has this kind of hyperpop, dubstep background, and I think she funnels all of that eccentricity into an album that is really leveling up her production and her songwriting. She also recorded a lot of this music in transit while on tour, in like hotel rooms and things like that. And the result is an album that I think is about constantly moving, not just like moving to the next place physically, but also her thinking about the next place in her career she wants to move to and leveling up her stardom. And yeah, I was just, I was really, really impressed with this album.

I got to ask you a question. Yeah. Have you thought about this album in relationship to the Olivia Rodriguez album? Oh, interesting. Not really. Because they both kind of have the same arc. They both are about the arc of a relationship. And I think underscores, I mean, respect to Olivia, she's the queen, but at the moment anyway. She's a queen. She's a queen. She's our current queen. But I really love the way these songs hold together to tell the story of an unresolved,

conflicted relationship. And I think that underscores writes beautifully, I guess I'll call her Amy. I think Amy writes beautifully about desire and how messed up desire is. I should say how messed up desire can be. Sometimes it can be beautiful and simple, but often it's messed up. Desire rules. Sheldon, I'm curious for your thoughts on this, because we'll get to your pick a little bit later in the show, but to me, Hazel's pick and your pick felt similar enough and kind of in conversation with each other enough,

to the point where when I was done listening to one, Spotify started playing the next without my having queued them up. So I'm curious what you thought of this record. Yeah, I would say that if I hadn't chosen my record, I probably would have chosen underscores you as my record for this. I do see similarities in them a lot. This record, I mean, for me as a fan of like, Turn of the Millennium rap like Timbaland and Neptunes, and as a fan of K-pop, like this record is mining those sounds

to very forward-thinking ends. It's so sonically rich, but it's also like very emotionally vulnerable. Well, I think people often struggle to wrap their brains around Hyperpop because it seems to be trying to download the entire internet at once. And spit it back to you as being. Yeah, yeah. And glitch out in its explosion of trying to sell you all those ideas at once. But this record to me is like so focused in its aims, not just creatively, but in terms of the story that it's telling.

And it does really feel like an artist sort of coming in the. to her own and trying to figure out what she wants to do with her music. And I think it's spelled by me. You know, I was so ready to not like this record, but then, oops. And the reason I say that is because, as many of you know, I'm not much of a fan of hyperpop, which I'm not saying this album is a hyperpop album, but it definitely leans in that direction. But whatever you want to call it, it was just working for me. but I would say in micro doses.

I mean, it is exhilarating, but it's also exhausting. I mean, it's a truly breathless record. And also what I like about it is you never really know quite where she's taking a song, and I think I like that almost improvisatory feel. But you just know that like every moment of every track is like highly polished and highly thought out. And in that, it's awesome. That is underscores. Underskors' new album is you, Hazel Sills' pick,

and it sounds like Sheldon Pierce's runner-up, for Best Album of the Year so far. We've got more picks coming up after the break. from NPR Music, it's New Music Friday, a special edition where members of the NPR Music staff are running down our favorite albums of 2026 so far. I am here with Tom Hisinga, Hazel Sills, Lars Gottrich, Anne Powers, and Sheldon Pierce, and I am Stephen Thompson. It is now Anne Powers's turn. Yay! And give us your pick. Best album of the year so far. We just talked about it on this show just last week. Well, I'm bringing in with every breath I take the new orchestral album

from my favorite artie woman and jazz's great singer, Cecil McClure and Salvin. There's not a morning that I open up my eyes and find I didn't dream of you without a warning. though it's never a surprise soon as I away. I'm a Cecile McLaurin's avant superfan. I love every record she's ever done. I think she is a revolutionary force in jazz. And I knew the strings album was coming. Cecile has finally made a fully orchestrated album

working with the Metropole Orchestra, which is a Dutch orchestra, and with the arranger Darcy James Argue. This is a collection. of standards, of show tunes. There's one original on it. But it's really Cecile, to my mind, the goat in jazz, and certainly in vocal jazz,

working at an Olympic level. The technique alone on this record is outstanding, but she is bringing her super creative ears and sensibility to songs that we, well, at least those of us who love standards, know so well, whether it's sophisticated ladies, or lush life or one of my favorites, Send In the Clowns. I could talk for an hour

just about her version of Send In The Clowns. It's so incredible working with Darcy argues arrangement which sort of tilts everything and then her vocal tilts everything

absolutely capturing the beautiful imbalance that that song offers to us. Isn't it real? Are we a pair? Here at last. Some of the choices that both Cecil and Darcy make on this album are so interesting to me. When I first spent time with it, I immediately went back to Scott Walker's first solo albums.

And the way, specifically when he would sing Jacques Brel songs, and he would elongate certain phrases to put an emphasis on what he wanted you to pay attention to and in kind the arrangements would do the same. And there are some points in this album was like, well, that was a choice. For sure. Yeah. She really pushes things. She really pushes it in a way that makes me question both what she's doing, but also

how I am receiving that choice, which I like that in an album experience. But she also does some fairly straightforward arrangements. Like she does the love theme from Umbrellas of Sherbourg, which is one of my favorite songs. One of my favorite songs. And she keeps it pretty straight, but in a way that still does the tilt that you're talking about. I go I've been I've been

in the silence of four mure of my I have to your absence me pursue every night

and me and me every day I go pretty hot and cold on this album, I have to admit I think her voice has never sounded better

for sure. But I kept asking myself at times, you know, are some of these songs too deconstructed for their own good? I know her art well enough to know that she was not going to take these standards straight and, you know, always something fresh. But for me, I just kept asking maybe a few too many times during the album, you know, is this a little too fresh? Well, Cecile likes nothing more than to go out on a limb. And so if it doesn't work for you or if you think she fell up, I can respect that. But anyway, I love it. It's not a record for the background.

It's a record for the foreground. All right, that is Cecile McLaurin Salvant. Her album is With Every Breath I Take. Anne Powers is picked for the best album of 2026 so far. Seameless transition. This is going to be so smooth. You're going to be like, wait, is this another Cecil McClore and Salvation? on record?

They're both sublime. They're always. You know what? They both go out on limbs. Lars Gottrich. Give us your pick. My pick is an undying love for a burning world,

the first album in 10 years by the heavy metal juggernauts, Neurosus. Neurosus is a heavy metal band that's been around for over 40 years at this point. This is a metal band in a constant state of evolution.

They started out as a hardcore punk group and then over time, became to define what's known as post-metal, which basically mixes all different kinds of extreme sounds to make something heavy, but not necessarily always wild. You're getting all the girth. You're getting everything in. This neurosis album is called an undying love for a burning world, and it comes with so much story. That's what I have written in my notes. There's so much backstory here. There's so much story. And so I'll run through it very, very quickly, but suffice to say, a founding member of the band quietly was fired from the band in 2019,

and then it came out in 2022 that he had psychologically and physically abused his family. And this was such a shock for the metal world. And so when on March 20th, they pulled a straight-up Beyonce, like no album announcement, no singles, no teasers, no anything. They dropped an entire album with a... that member and they introduced Aaron Turner who has also made a serious case for post-metal in the bands ISIS and Sumac and together they have made this record that's very much about the reconciliation of a world that feels like it's constantly on fire and how to

live in that world and why it is worth fighting for musically it is very much up the neurosis valley, but there's more time to sit with those lyrical revelations. They spend a lot more time with, like, ambient interludes to kind of, like, let you sit with, like, how devastating the world can be, but how much it's worth fighting for. I appreciate that you mentioned the kind of the ambient interludes. I mean, I think one thing that really works for me about this record is how it can be punishing. It can be sprawling. The last couple songs on this record are like 10, and 17 minutes long, there's a sprawl to it, but at the same time, there are these moments of beauty. And so it can be very riffy and punishing and metal, but it also, there's space in it

to breathe. There's space to breathe, but I also, you know, I don't know if I'm necessarily listening, first of all, I'm not listening to that much metal. But when I am listening to metal, I feel like I'm not necessarily listening to it for the writing and the lyrics. But there were so many moments on this album that I was struck with, you know, know, these very beautiful kind of cathartic lyrics, like there's that line, you know, we have forgotten, we are wild, so we suffer on the song, we are torn wide open.

Lars's hands are on his heart right now. Yeah, yeah, which is... So that opening song, I was listening to the album this morning. I was walking to work. I literally cried. It's so, it's so beautiful, and it just, it really kind of encapsulated the tone of the album for me, this, like, idea of, you know, you really need to kind of lean into that, free, wild expression of grief and confusion.

And we have to do that as humans sometimes. And yeah, so I thought that was gorgeous. We struggle so we suffer. We forgot now to die. So we suffer. We forgot we are wild. So we suffer. We exist in isolation.

So we suffer. I just want to shout out Aaron Turner. What a great combo. his vocals with this band. It's really working. Yeah, I was about to say, when I saw that Aaron Turner had joined this band, my ears perked up. I mean, the Sumac record that was released with More Mother last year was one of my favorites. And so I was expecting this record to be everything that it was. To Hazel's point, there's a lot of visceral imagery, like bodies weary and bruised, nodded in darkness, like corpses in the snow. It is like playing with a lot of sort of like,

scary stuff in a way that is sort of like hauntingly beautiful. I do have a question for you, Lars. I was thinking about metal vocals and it's a real legit style, this kind of octave below laryaryngitis, gravelly vocal stuff. And, you know, as the as the opera guy at NPR music, I was just wondering, like, you know, I was wondering if like the great metal vocalists are visiting their E&Ts as much as opera singers do. For sure. The story about Andrew W.K., especially at the height of his screaming power metal kind of ears, he had like a vocal trainer. So, yeah, hopefully they're checking in with their instrument.

Yeah, there are trainers who specialize in extending those guys' careers. Yeah, for sure. All right, that is neurosis. Neurosis' album, An Undying Love for a Burning World is Lars Gottrich's favorite album of 2026. So far. We've got two more records. We're going to get to first. We're going to take one last quick break.

From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday, running down our favorite albums of 2026 so far. We have assembled a dream team of NPR music heavy hitters, Sheldon Pierce, Hazel Sills, Lars Gottrich, Tom Hisinga, Ann Powers, and me, Stephen Thompson. Sheldon Pierce, you are up next. Give us your pick. Yeah, as you teased with the underscores album, My album is in the same sort of hyper-poppy space. It's from a 26-year-old L.A. transplant named Tiffany Day. It's called Halo.

Halo, I would say, is a bit more on the blown-out maximalist side of hyperpop. The music matches up dubstep and late aughts electro-pop and future bass, Warped Tour Punk and Electro-Clash. it is not going to be for everyone. I will lead with that caveat. But for me, it is one of the most interesting records released this year. Tiffany Day was a sort of like viral sensation in her youth who built a YouTube platform as a teenager. And then was making like mood-lit bedroom R&B.

It was working but didn't really resonate. in the ways in which the music she makes now, which is much bigger, much more massive, much more glitched out, and much more meta in its considerations on what it means to be a young woman artist who is constantly performing online and then also trying to reckon with identity. For me, it is the meta nature of the music that makes it really interesting. She is thinking about the liminal spaces between work and labor and attention and engagement and inspiration and being an artist and being a fan. And all of that is wrapped up in the music of Halo.

I just got to say, this record is cool, but my vote for the best music writing of the year, Sheldon, is your piece on this record. Sheldon is a phenomenal writer if you're not reading him. I'm humbled by the goat. Truly, you wrote such a great piece about this, and it really made me listen to this record with new ears because I think a superficial listener,

of this record, you're going to just hear kind of Tiffany's perky voice and the energetic quality of the music and maybe not get to the depth and complexity that's there. You've got to take some time. Yeah, there's real heart on this album and

life in this album, even if it, like Anne, as you said, someone might listen to it and just hear that kind of hyperpop, artificial, glitchy sound. But yeah, so much of this album is about self-realization and like, you know, she's trying something new in this music, but she's also working through in real time

what it means to take creative risks as an artist and figure out who she is. I was really endeared to that song, Copycat, which is basically a song about, like, wanting to be someone else. And, yeah, I think, like, even including a song like that on your album is a statement. And, yeah, hearing her work through these ideas in this music made it so much more interesting and complicated to me. Can I be the superficial person here? It's usually my role, but I'll allow it.

Here's the thing that really struck me about this and the underscores record is that I was trying to figure out why I was so attracted to these hyperpop albums and not other ones, because I think I am also with Tom. Like, I don't get it. But I think the thing that it really attracted me about is like the way that she writes her melody. is just, it's like the Postal Service meets early 2000s ballpunk. So it's just super catchy. You get these hints of, yes, there's this deeper thing going on. But then I listen to a song like same outlayant. I'm like, yeah, that's a banger.

Yeah. That's a big pop. That's a banger. That's the standout song on that record for me. It's a pretty straightforward pop song. But I really like the fact that it's kind of electropop meets the club dance floor at times too. So you can get up on your feet with this record. That is Tiffany Day.

Her album, Halo, is Sheldon Pierce's favorite album of 2026 so far. We've got one more pick. Tom Heisinga, buddy. What do you got for us? Well, I've got a 50-year-old piece of Dutch minimalism that... I mean, of course... I was going to bring the 50-year-old piece of Dutch minimalism, but I was like Tom will be here. Me too.

I mean, my theory actually is that we are all... hardwired to be attracted to minimalist music. I mean, our lives are made up of these clock-like cycles, right? I mean, you know, the earth spins, the sunrises, and sets, we recycle our daily routines. And this hour-long piece, there are riffs of rhythm and melody that interlock and repeat and slowly transform. Let's listen to just a little bit of how it gets started. It's called Kanto Ostenato, and it's by the Dutch composer Simeon Tad Holt. And the performance here are sandbox percussion, Metropolis Ensemble, and the pianist Eric Hall. So you have these like little delicious, delicate little ripples there, right?

But then the piece kind of undulates in these waves and you have a much larger sounds that kind of just roll over you, like about three quarters of the way through. And then there's like this separate melody on top. There is such a wondrous quality to this music. I feel like I'm jumping from one dream to another. Like every minute, it has a very dream logic style quality to it. It's very playful but unexpected. Everything is named in sections. So section 88 to 90, it reminded me of like if there was like a chamber group playing Bach in an MC Escher-like kind of painting.

Ah, yeah, I like, I love that. There's a lot of interlocking going. Yeah. I really, really, really loved this album. Tom, I have a question for you about this piece. I was doing a little reading about it, and it seems like it was originally meant to be performed by four keyboard players. So this is kind of an expansion or a variation on the usual way it's performed, right?

Exactly. And that's what I also love the freedom that's actually baked into the music, because the composer Simeon Ten Holt really imagined that, you know, various groups of instruments could play it, large or small. And this new arrangement, which is for mallet instruments, winds, strings, and piano. I mean, to me, it just seems like it's the perfect size. It gives the music the heft when it needs it, and yet it can pare down to these smaller, more intricate points of view. And I love it because ultimately it's music you can get lost in, but, I found too that it performs this kind of utilitarian function

and that it works like kind of this musical scrubber that can wipe clean the slate of your mind in order to create space for you to think. I love that. Actually, I took it on a walk and it's actually great to exercise to this music. It's really, it does have... Yeah, I also walked listening to it. Yeah.

If I ever try exercise, I will do the same thing. Steven, you don't leave the studio, right? You're actually here 24-7. Yeah. It's a bunker. Well, I have to say, if you ever get a chance to hear it live, go. I saw it here in D.C. a few months ago, and it was just an extraordinary intoxication. That was my first thought.

I was like, how would this play in concert? It's such a hypnotic piece of music, but it's also so dynamic. There are so many movements that swell, so many sections that get big and really detailed. There are so many places to live in it. I mean, walking with it really is an experience because you sort of like find yourself getting pulled into the rhythm of it. It's just a really, really sort of twinklingly beautiful

piece of music. That is Canto Ostinato, performed by Sandbox percussion, Metropolis Ensemble, and pianist Eric Hall. Tom Hising's pick for the best album of 2026 so far. This has been so fun, y'all. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It is just delightful to listen to people talk about their favorite music. It's just one of my favorite things, which is good that I have this job. Let's have a whole other episode where we just talk about Wendy Eisenberg's self-titled album, which is so good. Give me one more minute to list all my other favorite albums. All right, listeners, we want to know your favorite album of the year so far. Let us know in the Spotify or Apple Music comments. We also wouldn't say no if you were to leave us a dazzling review wherever you get your podcasts, Tom Heisinga,

Anne Powers, Hazel Sills, Sheldon Pierce, Lars Gottrich. Thanks to all of you for being here. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. This was so fun. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and El Manion and edited by Otis Hart. Our production assistant is Dora Levitt. The executive producer of NPR music is Soraya Mohamed.

We'll be back next week to discuss more new music from Jack White, Baby Rose, Alison Russell, and more with Maggie Brennan of WCBE in Ohio. Until then, take a moment. moment to be well, celebrate your independence this weekend by unplugging from the internet and getting outside, and treat yourself to lots of great music.