The 26 Albums You Must Hear in 2026
Here's one resolution you’ll actually keep.
Three weeks into 2026… how are those resolutions holding up?
Yeah, same here.
So let me suggest one you might actually keep.
But first, a little housekeeping.
Our two most popular playlists, The Best Songs of the Year So Far (Spotify | Apple Music) and the Album of the Year Leaderboard (Spotify | Apple Music), have been updated for 2026! Join thousands of fellow music lovers and follow for a steady stream of great music all year long.
Alright. On to the good stuff…
My extremely reasonable proposal for 2026 is simple: listen to more records! Skip the algo slop and “Discover Weekly” noise. Just albums worth your full attention. The following 26 are a good place to start.
If you’re new here, consider this a crash course in how The Wax Museum operates. I dig through old crates, celebrate the present, and keep an ear out for the future. These albums are split between recent rotation staples, upcoming vinyl reissues worth grabbing, and 2025 albums I discovered too late to crack my 100 Best list.
Eight decades. Multiple genres. Zero filler. Let’s dive in and make this the one resolution that actually sticks.
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The 26 Albums You Must Hear in 2026
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music
I pulled one favorite track from each album to build this playlist, and it flows surprisingly well front to back — but don’t let that distract you from your new resolution. Listen to the full albums, daggummit!!
1. Paul Johnson - Feel The Music (1996)
Get Vinyl: Smokey
Genre: Deep House
We kick things off with a foundational record from Chicago house legend Paul Johnson. Feel The Music is a 1996 masterclass in groove that’s locked in from the needle drop. Long out of print and commanding stupid prices on the resale market, it finally returns to wax this April on smokey double vinyl. A must-own for any house lover or dance floor romantic.
Lead track “Hear The Music” famously opened Daft Punk’s legendary 1997 BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix — and if it was good enough to start that, it’s good enough to open things here too.
2. Harlem Shakes - Technicolor Health (2009)
Get Vinyl: Picture Disc
Genre: Indie Rock
OG Wax Museum heads already know my love for Harlem Shakes’ Technicolor Health, which I consider the most underrated record of the blog rock era, and sadly their one and only album. Their exuberant sound is packed with hooks and choruses that hit like endorphin bursts. Lead single “Strictly Game” doubles as a accurate 2026 mission statement with the chorus “This will be a better year / Make a little money / Take a lot of shit / Feel real bad and get over it,” which hits harder with every passing year. Also be sure to check out the clever music video.
Technicolor Health is begging for a vinyl repress; the only LP available is an absurd 220 gram picture disc that currently fetches over $1000. I’m one of the lucky few to own a copy (that’s my picture above), but I’d gladly Go Fund any attempt to get this onto more turntables.
3. Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface (2017)
Get Vinyl: Silver | Black
Genre: Alternative Rock
My favorite two weeks of the year happen around Thanksgiving, when I pack up the family and road trip from Orlando to the Smoky Mountains. Three of the last four years, I’ve lucked out and passed through Atlanta during Manchester Orchestra’s annual hometown show, The Stuffing.
This past Stuffing was an all-timer. For the first time ever, the band played their 2017 album A Black Mile to the Surface front to back. It happens to be my favorite Manchester Orchestra record, so I was in heaven. (Side note: the venue The Eastern was incredible! My wife is 5 foot nothing so general admission gigs sometimes suck; this place is structured in a way where everyone can see the stage clearly, and the sound was banging; can’t wait to go back!)
Andy Hull’s Manchester Orchestra remains one of the most underrated live acts going. They sound even bigger and sharper on stage than they do on record. With the tenth anniversary of Black Mile coming up next year, odds are good this album will see proper tour treatment. Trust me, it should not be missed.
If you need proof, last week the band released a 2023 acoustic performance of the Black Mile closer, “The Silence”, recorded in Union Chapel. Listen to this on a good pair of headphones and tell me you don’t get chills.
4. Shaking Hand - Shaking Hand (2026)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Math Rock
The first great album of 2026 is here?? That’s my take after listening to Manchester’s three-piece Shaking Hand’s debut self-titled. Built on tension and release, the record pulls from post-rock patience, 90s alternative grit, and nervous emo melodicism. If this is how 2026 is starting, we’re in good hands.
5. Gwenifer Raymond - Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark (2025)
Get Vinyl: Eco-Mix
Genre: American Primitivism
This is the first of eight 2025 albums in this piece that deserve placement on my 100 Best Albums of 2025 list.
Let’s stay in the UK for some American Primitive ironically. Gwenifer Raymond is one of the most compelling guitarists working today, and Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark proves why. Drawing from Mississippi blues and Appalachian folk, Raymond’s finger-picking sounds otherworldly. This Bandcamp review nails it, calling the record “something impossible: it gives the guitar a unique new voice after all these centuries.” This is the kind of music you want to hear echoing in a room, or better yet, live.
6. Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan (2020)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Chamber Folk
Spellbinding is the word that comes to mind listening to Ichiko Aoba’s Windswept Adan, and it’s finally returning to vinyl on February 13. The record drifts between sprightly folk and ambient jazz, intimate one moment and vast the next. Aoba’s singing is stunning throughout, full of intensely beautiful moments. It’s the rare album that truly feels like an escape, and I’m thrilled to finally have it on wax.
7. David Bowie - ★ (Blackstar) (2016)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Jazz Rock
This month marks the tenth anniversary of David Bowie’s 26th and final album, ★ (Blackstar), released just hours before his death from liver cancer. It remains the greatest deathbed album ever made, with Bowie confronting his own mortality head-on, turning fear and acceptance into something strange, restless, and alive. Bowie surrounded himself with jazz musicians who pushed him into unfamiliar territory, resulting in a coda that feels exploratory rather than retrospective.
The anniversary has sparked a wave of excellent writing. Nate Chinen’s oral history is packed with insight, Chris DeVille’s retrospective is typically beautiful, and Oliver Kemp’s interview with bandleader and saxophonist Donny McCaslin sheds light on how intentionally Bowie approached the album’s sound and structure.
Ten years on, it still feels impossible. Time flies. Time is short. Bowie knew it, and Blackstar stands as proof that there’s still room to take risks even at the end.
8. Gerald Wilson Big Band - Moment of Truth (1962)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Jazz
In 2022, Gerald Wilson’s 1962 album Moment of Truth was reissued as part of the Blue Note Tone Poet Series, cut all-analog and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and I finally grabbed a copy last month. Holy guacamole does it sound good. The nine-song set, seven written by Wilson himself, is pure action from start to finish.
This is why Blue Note’s reissue program is untouchable: a relatively overlooked record, immaculate sound, and endlessly fun to spin. Add in killers like Carmell Jones on trumpet, Teddy Edwards and Harold Land on tenor, Joe Pass on guitar, and Jack Wilson on piano, and you’ve got an easy record-mendation.
9. Todd Terje - It’s Album Time (2014)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Nu-Disco
Keep Todd Terje’s debut It’s Album Time in your back pocket for a rainy day. It is a instant mood reset. It also doubles as an elite Mario Kart soundtrack.
Terje dropped this joy-soaked record and then more or less vanished, now pushing over a decade of silence since. Maybe it was the three tropical cocktails he’s juggling on the album cover and he’s still recovering… So while it’s still not album time, maybe 2026 is finally the year.
Here’s a festival set from around the album release I still jam out to.
10. Yin Yin - The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers (2019)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Neo-Psychedelia
Dutch quartet YĪN YĪN blends disco, funk, surf, and psychedelia into something entirely their own. With their fourth album Yatta! dropping tomorrow, it’s a perfect time to go back to the source. Their 2019 debut The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers is an immersive trip through Southeast Asian grooves that turns your living room into somewhere much farther away.
11. Heavenly - Le Jardin De Heavenly (1992)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Twee Pop
Here’s a comeback I didn’t see coming: UK indie pop quintet Heavenly return next month with Highway to Heavenly, their first album in over 20 years. From 1989 to 1996, the band released four albums before disbanding after drummer Matthew Fletcher took his own life.
My favorite of the bunch is 1992’s Le Jardin De Heavenly, a sugar-rush of jangly guitars and harmonies that define peak twee pop. It’s a perfect entry point for anyone curious why this band’s return is a big deal.
12. Mia Wilson - Mia Wilson (2025)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Laurel Canyon Folk
Mia Wilson’s self-titled debut feels like it wandered out of a sun-faded Laurel Canyon bungalow sometime in the early 70s and landed gently in the present. Piano-led and warm, the songs glow with the same intimacy as Tapestry or Heart Food, tailor-made for a solo drive up the PCH, windows down, nowhere to be.
Speaking of Laurel Canyon, have you read my theory that the 1960’s music scene may have been orchestrated to neutralize radical politics? If not, grab your tinfoil hat and dive in!
13. Connie Converse - How Sad, How Lonely (2009)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Folk
Connie Converse disappeared in 1974 and was never heard from again. No body, no car, just a goodbye note and a clean break from the world. It’s impossible not to hear How Sad, How Lovely through that lens: her beautiful alto hovering over a lone guitar, full of intimacy and loneliness. She was doing something quietly radical decades before the world was ready for it, recording personal songs alone in her apartment during the 1950’s but never finding an audience. Listening now feels like tuning into a transmission meant for the future.
Third Man Records is reissuing How Sad, How Lovely this March, its first reissue in ten years, finally bringing this essential record back into the world where it belongs.
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14. Bennie Maupin - The Jewel in the Lotus (1974)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Jazz Fusion
Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel in the Lotus is, quite literally, a jewel in my record collection. Original pressings go for serious money, so ECM’s Luminessence Series reissue is both welcome and long overdue, and it sounds fantastic. Maupin is best known for his work on classics like Bitches Brew and Head Hunters, but this leader debut stands comfortably alongside them. The record is built on space, restraint, and slow-burning ideas instead of flash. This reissue finally gives the record the attention it has always deserved.
15. De La Soul - Cabin in the Sky (2025)
Get Vinyl: Splatter | Cloud | Blue | Sky Blue | Yellow
Genre: Conscious Hip Hop
Here’s a quick history lesson for the uninitiated: De La Soul formed in Long Island in the late ’80s, a trio made up of Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove, and Maseo —high school friends who would go on to reshape hip hop with 1989’s 3 Feet High and Rising. Over the next three decades, they built one of the most creative and consistent catalogs in rap. Unfortunately, Trugoy passed in 2023, leaving a void in the hip hop community that grew up on his humor and honesty.
Their 2025 return, Cabin in the Sky, is everything I hoped for and more, especially in the final stretch: the title track wrestles with loss and longevity as Pos reflects on losing friends while his dad turns 90, then “Don’t Push Me” is a transmission from the cabin with Trugoy’s voice sounding at peace and eternal. Rest in peace, Trugoy. Enjoy your cabin in the sky.
16. jj - jj nᵒ 2 (2009)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: Balearic Pop
One of the most overlooked indie microgenres of the 2000’s was the resurgence of the Balearic beat, and two of my favorites from that era were Barcelona’s Delorean and Sweden’s jj, both of whom fizzled out by the mid-2010s.
jj n° 2, jj’s debut, is still a record I come back to. It’s 30 minutes of reverb-washed, slo-mo sugar with enough weirdness to keep you guessing. Start with “Ecstasy,” a hazy, euphoric mash-up of Lil Wayne and Will Smith.
17. Night Tapes - portals//polarities (2025)
Get Vinyl: Blue Marble (sold out) | Clear
Genre: Dream Pop
What an exciting debut from Night Tapes, an aptly named trio who make music for the twilight hours. portals//polarities is transportive and addictive, led by Estonian vocalist Iiris Vesik’s ethereal delivery and wrapped in lush, shifting soundscapes that recall Cocteau Twins or Magdalena Bay. It’s a rare kind of versatile record, blissful enough to drive to, dance to, or fall asleep to, depending on where the night takes you.
18. Rocketship - A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness (1995)
Get Vinyl: White Swirl
Genre: Indie Pop
Here’s a quick lesson in patience. On January 10, someone paid $240 for a 2015 pressing of Rocketship’s delightful 1995 debut A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness. Just five days later, the album received its first repress in 10 years for just $21. That’ll sting.
19. Jobber - Jobber to the Stars (2025)
Get Vinyl: Emerald Green | Ruby Red
Genre: Sludge Pop
What a debut from Brooklyn quartet Jobber, who’s wrestling themed Jobber to the Stars is right up my alley, featuring 11 twisty, power pop songs with killer melodies. Vocalist and guitarist Kate Meizner uses the world of pro wrestling as both metaphor and mirror, capturing real-life anxieties and capitalist struggle with humor, energy, and flair. One of multiple standouts from the Exploding in Sound roster’s killer 2025 run.
20. Prewn - System (2025)
Get Vinyl: Cloudy Orange
Genre: Alternative Rock
We stay in the Exploding in Sound universe for Prewn’s sophomore album System. Led by exciting up-and-comer Izzy Hagerup, System sharpens everything that made Through the Window so compelling, pairing Izzy’s unmistakable voice with crushing strings, warped cellos, blown-out guitars, and a constant push-and-pull between beauty and grit.
21. Baton Rogue - Totem (2014)
Get Vinyl: Black
Genre: French Punk Rock
I stumbled onto Baton Rogue recently and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. A now-defunct band from Lyon, they released just two albums, but Totem packs in emo, punk, noise rock, and post-hardcore with zero hesitation, all delivered in French. It’s raw, loud, and immediately gripping, the kind of record that makes you wonder how it slipped past everyone. This one rips, you’ll love it!
22. Population II - Maintenant Jamais (2025)
Get Vinyl: Green Split | Black
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
We stay in the French dialect a little longer with Montreal trio Population II, whose third album Maintenant Jamais (“Now or Never”) is a swirling, prog-laced psych rock trip. The grooves and melodies call to mind pre-Currents Tame Impala, with songs that bleed into one another beautifully.
For a taste of how sharp they sound live, check out their mini-concert filmed among the monoliths in Carillon, Québec, a nod to Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii, and a perfect visual companion to the epic scale they’ve dialed in here.
23. Rusty - Fluke (1995)
Get Vinyl: Neon Splatter
Genre: Post-Grunge
“I hit top speed, I smoked the dragon” is how Rusty’s 1995 debut Fluke kicks off, and from there it’s full throttle. This Canadian alt-rock gem blends post-grunge grit with big melodic hooks, and it still holds up three decades later. After years of being CD-only nostalgia, it’s finally landing on wax for the first time — long overdue and worth the wait.
24. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
Get Vinyl: Pink
Genre: Indie Rock
Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade is considered one of the most influential indie rock albums of the 2000s, and it’s finding new life thanks to the hot new show Heated Rivalry, which introduced single “I’ll Believe in Anything” to a new audience. Sub Pop is wisely riding the wave with a hot pink vinyl reissue, landing at the end of next month — perfect timing to rediscover just how good this record still is.
25. A$AP Rocky - Don’t Be Dumb (2026)
Get Vinyl: Black and White | Alt Cover
Genre: Hip Hop
A lot has happened since A$AP Rocky last dropped an album eight years ago. He started a family with Rihanna, acted in films by Spike Lee and Mary Bronstein, collaborated with Wax Museum favorite Jessica Pratt, and even debuted a Ray-Ban partnership in the middle of his criminal trial. All of that feeds into Don’t Be Dumb, an album that feels like an event, complete with an over-the-top rollout helmed by director Tim Burton. Musically, it’s eclectic and ambitious, with Rocky rapping over everything from trap to jazz piano, and backed by cameos from Damon Albarn, Doechii, Thundercat, Tyler, The Creator, Westside Gunn, and Danny Elfman. It’s his strongest record since Long. Live. ASAP, and after the long wait, it more than delivers.
26. DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Fantasy (2025)
Get Vinyl: 6 LP Signed Box Set
Genre: Plunderphonics
We end this playlist with a bang. London’s DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ has conjured more sorcery with Fantasy, a 4 hour, 40 song dopamine overload that casts a spell on you and before you know it, an hour or two has slipped by.
Since 2023, DJ Sabrina has blessed us with over 12 hours of top shelf tunes!!! No one is doing it like her.
OK that’s 26 albums to get your started! And if that’s not enough, I recently asked some of my favorite artists (including DJ Sabrina herself) what music they loved most in 2025 — dive into that rabbit hole here.
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in! I’d love to hear what you’re currently spinning; drop your favs in the comments or reply to this email.
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Until next time,
Jared
This is such a thoughtful curation. The idea of skipping algo slop for full albums is something I've been thinking about lately too. Started doing this last year and dunno if its just me but entire albums feel different when theyre not just background noise to whatever Spotify decides. Really aprreciate the mix of obscure picks and classics here.
Man, I haven’t heard someone talk about Technicolor Health in such a long time, and I’m so glad to see it on your list. I can’t wait to dig into some of these other albums.