#song-of-the-year

#song-of-the-year

Jessie Ware's Superbloom sounds like the sonic embodiment of a city street exploding with magnolia and cherry blooms as the air warms in spring. There's the love-drunk disco pop the singer perfected on her 2020 breakout album, the sumptuous proto-house recalling Paradise Garage, and the floral, cinematic soundscapes of '70s funk.

Zara Larsson could be called a veteran pop star... because there's an undertow of struggle to her glittering party-girl persona. The teen-age version of her... remains lodged in my memory—a closeted power vocalist dulling her instrument to fit catchy and anodyne tracks.

We're highlighting some of 2026's most outstanding albums to date by rounding up the ones that have earned high scores and Best New Music designations with a quick list of RIYLs.

I do not turn to celebrities for trenchant political takes or honestly really expect them to know what's actually going on in the news. However, I also think that most good art engages with the world in which it's being created, and now that we're in good-art-naming season (aka awards season), ignoring that world is privileged at best and evil at worst.

The only song here that really matters. Written just hours after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and released a few days later, Springsteen names names (looking at you, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem) and speaks bold, specific truth. With a title that recalls his own impactful Streets of Philadelphia, a melody reminiscent of Bob Dylan, and an urgency not felt since Neil Young's Ohio, it may not be groundbreaking musically, but Streets of Minneapolis is exactly what we need right now.

"I don't know," the group's leader, RM, says, "because time has passed. There are a lot of K-pop-related nominees you see in the general field and, really, I want to send big applause for them."

Over the last several years, Netflix has positioned itself as one of the few video streaming services focused on making an impact in the music industry. From the surprise revival of older songs like Bush's "Running Up That Hill" and Metallica's "Master of Puppets" in shows like "Stranger Things," to streaming the most originally produced music documentaries, there's no doubt Netflix's audience is musically in tune.

Destin Conrad dropped his second studio album, a jazz project titled wHIMSY. Both albums climbed the charts, and Conrad snagged a Grammy nomination for best progressive R&B album for Love on Digital his first as a solo artist. In an interview with All Things Considered, Conrad said he sometimes wondered if people wouldn't take him seriously as a musical artist because of his history on the former video-sharing app Vine, where Conrad shared quirky jokes and clips of himself singing samples

The Recording Academy just made a move that's splitting the music world down the middle. Their stance on AI-generated music promises to protect human creativity-but the guidelines? They've opened more questions than they've answered. The declaration sounds straightforward: only music with "significant human creative contribution" qualifies for Grammy consideration. Dig into the details, though, and you'll find a policy so riddled with ambiguity that artists, producers, and industry insiders are left guessing where the boundaries actually lie.

The 68th Grammy Awards aren't just a night of music industry awards, but a rock star celebration of music itself. There was a slew of showstopping performances at this year's awards ceremony, hosted at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, one of which featured all seven nominees for the best new artist category inlcuding Olivia Dean, Lola Young, and Sombr. Other performances included the in memoriam segment of the show, which featured country superstar Reba McEntire performing at the Grammys for the first time.

It might be a case of deja vu all over again at the 2026 Grammy Awards. Kendrick Lamar, who absolutely owned the 2025 Grammys, could once again dominate when the latest edition of Music's Biggest Night goes down Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The hip-hop superstar won all five of the categories in which he was nominated last year including two of the Grammys' so-called Big Four general field awards and he almost certainly will add to that tally this time around.

The song reflects on two contrasting visions. In the first verse, he looks back on his childhood growing up female and compares it to living in a dream. Then, after a stirring bridge, he revisits the same reflective structure and ponders his childhood growing up as a boy: "When I was a little boy I wanted to be real/ I wanted to feel all of the things my body wanted me to feel," he sings.