The Best Albums of 2025

An odd mix of sounds from an odd and unprecedented year…

Without overstating the case, nearly 20 years after Amy Winehouse’s peak, an album has finally arrived that hits a similar spot without sounding imitative. London-raised singer Crookes is obviously aware of the connection — her song “Somebody to You” opens with a drumbeat almost identical to Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” — but it’s more in the form of knowing winks, of which there are plenty: A couple of songs here sound briefly like they’re leading into the chorus of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” But those are merely reference points: Crookes’ dusky, Billie Holiday-esque voice is strong and versatile, her lyrics are have a refreshing enduring-a-disappointing-lover attitude (“I shine and you get sunburn/ That sounds like a you problem”), and the music is a rare generation-spanning blend that plies old-school R&B and jazzy influences while still sounding totally contemporary. Need something to play in the car when you’re picking up your aunt and uncle for the holidays that they’ll actually like? Here’s a good bet.

This South African singer’s previous work showcased her sassy rap-singing and formidable melodic abilities, but was nowhere near as exciting or cohesive as this, her third album. Indeed, as she says in the press materials, “My last album ‘Phases’ showed you the different sides of me one at a time. ‘Full Moon’ is all of me, lit up in my entirety.” That’s due in no small part to co-writer/producer Johan Hugo (who’s collaborated with everyone from Self Esteem to Bruno Mars to Baaba Maal), whose hard, driving beats and throbbing bass provide a perfect setting for Moonchild’s sex-positive lyrics, imaginative melodies and sumptuous harmonies; she also drops “Yah!”s and “Whoo!”s into the background of nearly every song, a deceptively simple tactic that makes the songs even more exciting. Most of all, this album moves — it’s propulsive and pulsating from start to finish.

It’s safe to say that this is not the album that people expected a budding superstar like Dijon to make: A home-made album of soulful, harmony-rich alt-R&B with such a lo-fi sound that it often feels like demos. But it’s actually not surprising that he would throw a curve in a year that has seen him contribute enormously to Justin Bieber’s long-in-the-works “Swag” opus and Bon Iver’s latest, appear in “One Battle After Another” and score two Grammy nominations — presumably he’s following the proverbial muse and doing what he feels, even if it’s not what the industry or even some fans would necessarily want. (Not coincidentally, the influence of Prince looms large over nearly every note Dijon sings and plays.) Obviously he’s changed up that lo-fi approach for live work — he appeared on “SNL” last weekend accompanied by 13 musicians — but even with the boomy sound here, the songs and the vision shine through, and it’s hard not to get the impression that he’s just scratching the surface of what he can do.

The debut solo album from María Zardoya of the Marías seemingly presented some logistical challenges: Her main band is already basically named after her, and her voice is so unmistakable that it could be tricky to tell where one entity begins and the other ends. But none of the above is an issue for “Melt,” which is very distinctively Zardoya but channels the ‘90s trip-hop era of Portishead and Massive Attack, as well as adjacent groups like the underrated Broadcast. Written and recorded in a frigid Upstate New York, the album’s sound often conjures visions of the snowscapes and overcast skies of a Northeastern winter. Yet it’s also filled with some of the strongest hooks in her discography: The opening track, “Puddles,” has a simple descending keyboard hook that evokes dripping water and is nearly impossible to get out of your head; the breezy, piano-driven “Moment” and the ballad “Back to You” are the most Marías-like songs here; the album also branches into tropicalia terrain on the Spanish-language track “Vueltas.” While “Melt” seems to be more of a side-journey from the Marías’ course than a new vehicle, it’s a diverse and compelling chapter in Zardoya’s creative work.

This album presents the annual existential conundrum (for music writers, anyway) of whether or not to rep for an album that you admire and respect more than you necessarily enjoy — it is unquestionably one of the year’s best albums, but is it a personal favorite? “Lux” is like an intellectually demanding novel or a film densely loaded with symbolism and subtext: As Rosalía unleashes her pristine, soaring voice, in 11 different languages and almost always accompanied by a full orchestra, it’s nearly impossible not to be awed by the sheer scope and execution of her vision and ambition. And she certainly does not make it seem effortless: She set and achieved such high goals for herself with the album that the album is almost stressful to listen to — and her habit of jarring the listener’s attention (like Yves Tumor saying repeatedly, “I’ll fuck you till you love me!,” a deliberately disruptive element) only makes it more so. It’s almost reminiscent of Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers” in this way: Listening to “Lux” is like watching a mountaineer scaling a seemingly impossible cliff or an Olympic skier on a terrifying, breakneck downhill run — it’s a stunning feat of grace, strength, will and achievement, but it’s so much to behold that even listening can feel exhausting.

In an era loaded with overstuffed, overlong, overwrought albums, the fact that the long-delayed third chapter in Walker’s “Over It” series contains 21 songs and sprawls across nearly 70 minutes was not encouraging at first — but to her credit, she pulls it off. “Finally Over It” is a slow-burning classic R&B album, a sumptuous throwback to the ‘90s with Mary J. Blige as a patron saint looming over nearly every song. There’s a small army of featured guests — Doja Cat, Brent Faiyaz, Anderson .Paak, Glorilla and lots more — but it’s Summertime all the way. There are multiple songs that could be considered low-key bangers, but much more, “Finally Over It” is a real album — something you can put on and leave on, like a slow-burning candle that warms up any room it’s in.

Young’s second album, “I’m Only Fucking Myself,” is a series of raw, honest and often-harrowing dispatches from the mind of a brilliant artist who is quite publicly struggling with the challenges of pop stardom. While the album is great, some of Young’s rough edges got sanded down — but this solo acoustic Grammy Museum performance was absolutely riveting: It was just Young and her songs, accompanied by an acoustic guitarist, in a venue with pristine acoustics. Her delivery was raw, unfiltered and chilling, with her extraordinary voice and disarmingly honest lyrics front and center; almost any record would pale in comparison. She only played a handful of songs and I can’t find the full performance online, but I’ve played the bits I recorded on my phone over and over. The intensity was real: Four nights later, she collapsed onstage at Forest Hills Stadium after performing four songs; and on Sept. 30, she canceled all future tour dates, saying she was “going away for a while” to “work on myself and come back stronger.” Get well, Lola — we’ll be here when you come back. 

As a non-Spanish speaker, I have little idea what Karol G is singing on “Tropicoqueta,” let alone anything but a broad sense of the multiple Latin music genres she’s channeling on certain tracks, including merengue, ranchera and others. But I also don’t need to — the emotion and the sentiment in what she’s singing transcends language (the one English-language song is actually the weakest). The album’s well-sequenced 21 tracks skip from genre to genre like a mixture of interesting guests at a party; there are even interpolations of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” and the Beatles’ “And I Love Her.” I’m happiest when she’s rapping over a hard beat — like on “Latina Foreva” and “Un Gatito Me Llamo” — but the mixture of styles is what brings the heat to “Tropicoqueta.”

The first album in seven years from Dev Hynes (who essentially is Blood Orange) is, according to the press notes, “a soundtrack created from a dreamscape of his journey working through grief. It is also an album about growing up in Essex (outside London) and the way music has inspired, healed and interwoven itself through Hynes’ life.” Consequently, it’s a more low-key album than previous Blood Orange outings, with lots of quiet moments and interludes, beautifully stacked harmonies, gentle beats and very little R&B. Throughout, the songwriting and arrangements are deceptively deep and complex — the often-unconventional song structures and sudden changes of direction follow a kind of internal logic that keeps the album interesting and surprising, revealing itself gradually and continually even after several listens. “Essex Honey” isn’t something you’d put on to rock a party, but it’s perfect for the last hour of one, when people are winding down, or just a night at home with dim lighting — a chill masterpiece that isn’t for every mood but is perfect for many.

Previous albums from this unique Iranian-Dutch artist were compelling but so esoteric to be a bit unapproachable, but her third is much more inviting by unexpectedly leaning into Latin music. There are Spanish lyrics and reggaeton beats all over this album, along with guest appearances from Karol G, Pablo Vittar, Tokischa and others, and that mashup of cultures and melodies and sounds is what makes the best songs here so exciting — “Alibi” has a wild Middle Eastern chorus and guest raps from Vittar and Yseult; “No Me Cansare” is a lovely duet with Karol G that’s the prettiest song here; “Postergirl” is an aching pop ballad; “Angel” is practically trip-hop. Some of the English lyrics don’t quite land and parts of it are almost comically bombastic (probably intentionally), but this album is a wild ride where you have no idea what’s around the next corner.
 
TOP 10 ON A DIFFERENT DAY: Rusowsky, “Daisy”; Jessie Murph, “Sex Hysteria”; Tyler, the Creator, “Don’t Tap the Glass”; PinkPantheress, “Fancy That”; Sault, “X”; Giveon, “Beloved”; Noah Cyrus, “I Want My Loved Ones to Go With Me”; Kali Uchis, “Sincerely”; Ethel Cain, “Willoughby Tucker I’ll Always Love You”; Young Miko, “Do Not Disturb.”

As 2025 progressed, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” only grew louder in impact and cultural relevance. Dropping in the very first days of the year, and giving the album ample runway to define the months ahead, “Debi” quickly emerged as one of the Puerto Rican superstar’s most essential works. It served as a bold dedication to his native musical heritage, bringing reggaeton, plena, música jíbara and more traditional flavors to the global spotlight. Beyond its undeniable party appeal, its syncopated rhythms also powered real-world milestones: first fueling a historic 31-date residency, and then propelling him onto the world’s biggest stage as a Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner in February. Nearly a year later, the album’s impact continues to reverberate with its multi-layered storytelling that doubles as a powerful reminder of an island still shaping its identity after centuries of Spanish rule and, later, U.S. colonial influence.

Rae flaunts an unadulterated sense of freedom on her self-titled debut, a bold power move for a rising artist with everything to prove. Working alongside producers Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjärd, the alternative pop record builds from the schools of Madonna and Britney Spears, constructing a glittering pop fantasy of unapologetic desires. Tracks like “Money Is Everything” begin in a haze of sultry, slightly disorienting textures before erupting into euphoric bliss, toeing the line between empowerment and self-governed delusion. Throughout the record, Kloser and Anderfjärd step outside the box, slicing and layering percussive elements around Rae’s breathy vocals in ways that feel both futuristic and inviting – even the smallest details flourish as a strong first impression.

Following the release of her critically acclaimed album “Motomami,” Rosalía’s “Lux” — complete with hundred-year old religious references and robust orchestral instrumentals and vocals — was nothing short of an impressive pivot. She returns to her flamenco pop world, taking a different lens to her artistry. Consider every note and lyric, delivered across 13 languages, a puzzle with a high reward, demanding your attention to achieve transcendence. The odyssey concludes with her asking her listeners to imagine her funeral; On “Magnolis,” she intones, “They say if you see death pass by your side / in that long Mercedes / it’ll bring good luck / You’re all here / even my enemies cry today.”

“Black Star,” the third album from the experimental Ghanaian-American artist Amaarae, is the best kind of party: fresh and dance floor-ready club hits that thrill, leaving room for plenty of “What’d she just say?!” moments. The project blends her signature Afrobeats with the pulse of Jersey club, gleaming pop hooks, R&B sensuality and a foundation of forward-leaning electronic production. Among the standout moments are a duet with PinkPantheress on “Kiss Me Thru the Phone pt 2,” which makes the most of the singer’s razor-edge attitude into a nod to “Thong Song.” Elsewhere, she slips in a sly interpolation of Cher’s “Believe” on “She Is My Drug,” one example of the record’s rich palette of references. Yet amid all the textures and influences, the true throughline is Amaarae’s fearless push toward innovation.

“Tropicoqueta” is Karol G at her most ambitious; spanning 20 tracks, the Colombian singer-songwriter and reggaeton artist maps a vast spectrum of Latin music on an album that ranges from salsa to ranchera, with guidance from genre luminaries like Marco Antonio Solís. Standout moments include “Ese Hombre Es Malo,” featuring a 57-piece orchestra and delivering cinematic imagery that is the focal theme of the record. This is one of the best examples of genre fusion this year, positioning Karol as a pop star unafraid to go full throttle, translating centuries of Latin rhythms and melodies into a cohesive, globally resonant body of work.

“Daisy” proved to be a promising start for producer-artist Rusowsky. The Latin Grammy-nominated debut stakes out the Spanish producer’s territory in avant-pop, demanding attention with its inventive, out-of-the-box arrangements. The album is impressively complete and unforgettably honest. Rusowsky shines on the electro-merengue track “malibU,” which he entirely wrote, produced and performed himself. That energy carried over to his electric U.S. theater debut, which ran for limited dates, where audiences were left wanting and wondering what’s next.

One of the rawest narratives to emerge in pop this year, Allen’s “West End Girl” is an unflinchingly candid divorce album with lots to give. Across 14 sharply crafted tracks, she charts the progression from dawning awareness to outright liberation, weaving autobiography and invention. The spiked wit of “4Chan Stan” cuts straight through the noise, while “Relapse” transforms heartbreak into a battle against self-undoing. Songs like “Dallas Major” push the concept further, weaponizing hooks to confront dead ends in love, motherhood and public scrutiny. It’s some of the best pop songwriting of the year, doubling as a public testimony that’s impossible to turn off.

McRae’s first No. 1 album, “So Close to What,” didn’t sneak its way to the summit – it tore through with its razor-sharp confidence. Beneath the dance-floor gloss, the record’s true power lies in its precision: “Like I Do” drips with this attitude, her now-signature pitched-up vocals delivering the line, “You don’t wanna know me / You just wanna do what I do.” It’s a punchy statement of arrival from a promising student of pop with a worldview, not just a playlist presence. Onstage, these songs evolve even further through her pounding choreography and sweat-slick charisma, proving this album didn’t just elevate her career, but it pushed her into a completely new playing field.

If there were a masterclass on how to make the most of a viral moment, it would be taught by Argentine duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso. After their NPR Tiny Desk performance launched them to international fame last year, the pair built on that momentum with the release of their now-Latin Grammy-winning “Papota” EP. Composed largely of audio from their acoustic Tiny Desk concert, (the platform’s most-watched episode of 2024) the project also features four new songs and was brought to life with a short film that distills the duo’s whirlwind rise and culminates in a vibrant recreation of their Tiny Desk moment. Themes of impostor syndrome and the anxieties attached to maintaining their fame emerge through some of the year’s most inventive experimental pop, trip-hop and electronic music. The closing moment comes through on the triumphant “El Día del Amigo,” where the pair boldly vow to choose their lifelong friendship over the trappings of success.

PinkPantheress has made a habit of rapid evolution. Her 2022 breakout “To Hell With It” hinted at a singular talent who could compress so much of everything into minute-long hooks without sacrificing invention. The following year’s “Heaven Knows” fleshed out the emotional stakes, exploring love and loss, but “Fancy That” is, unequivocally, her most compelling and cohesive body of work to date. Not surprisingly, the project embraces her signature momentum of drum and bass, UK garage and pop that is dreamy without ever feeling too cluttered. “Tonight,” a synth-powered dance pop track, is the best evidence of her artistic balance – sleek and audacious.

In a year with admittedly less wattage than 2024, these were the albums that kept drawing me back in.

Lady Wray’s third solo album, “Cover Girl” is, essentially, a record about joy — in love, life and the acceptance of self. The artist formerly known as Nicole Wray reteamed with Leon Michaels for a record inspired by the traditions of bellowing gospel and 1970s soul, from the doo-wopping “Hard Times” to the wailing “My Best Step.” Wray sounds contented by the comforts of marriage and motherhood, belting as forcefully and powerfully as ever about what it means to find a sense of peace in a world where it’s often a challenge. Authentic is a word that gets bandied about when discussing how deeply an artist plumbs their experience, but “Cover Girl” is about as authentic as it gets.

Taking a break even for a few years is enough to veer a music career off course, yet Clipse’s Pusha T and Malice spent the past 16 years sharpening their pencils for 2025’s greatest comeback. Already proven street poets, the duo delivers cascades of intricate rhymes with a nonchalance that makes the whole thing seem like light work. There’s enough beef and barbs to fill a plate, yet they find moments to round out the world of “Let God Sort Em Out” with an emotional punch (see opener “The Birds Don’t Sing”). Assuming the throne as hip-hop’s elder statesmen can be a daunting task in an industry where age is currency, and the brothers Thornton do it at the highest level.

An introductory listen to Lily Allen’s surprise fifth album “West End Girl” reveals enough to max out the pages of any tabloid rag, yet to stop there would be a disservice to the artistry that drives it. Allen has always been a gifted and vivid storyteller, her songs often performed with a wink and smirk. But beneath all the talk of butt plugs and Madelines is a true sense of melancholy and betrayal, a real heartache that she explores with a glassy remove, as if she’s a bystander who can’t believe what she’s witnessing in her own life. Allen sure shows, but it’s what she doesn’t tell that lowers the emotional floor of “West End Girl,” an instantly canonical entry into the pantheon of divorce albums.

What is Gaga if not pop’s most A-level experimentalist? It’s easy to forget that her last album wasn’t the COVID-era distraction “Chromatica,” but rather “Harlequin,” a vanity collection of big band and jazz standards inspired by her character in “Joker: Folie à Deux” (which is, frankly, something only Gaga could get away with releasing unscathed). Trying out new things is great and all for the creative spirit, but going back to basics has never looked better on Gaga than with “Mayhem,” her seventh album that exhumed the tropes of her earliest work while reframing them in a contemporary context. To put a sleazy song like “Garden of Eden,” for instance, on a Gaga album more than 15 years into her career, and have it make sense? That is, without a doubt, the power of Gaga. Behold.

The scope and breadth of Rosalia’s widescreen fourth album, “Lux,” is so vast that the Spanish singer instructed listeners to listen to it for the first time with the lights off, reading along to the lyrics on your computer screen as the record played through. And her suggestion was correct. “Lux” is a popera in the purest sense, a record overflowing with ideas that are so rich and complex that they demand repeat listens, the type of record that exists in both the past and the present: her classical training is front and center, yet her modern pop sensibilities shine through. This feels like the type of album that smaller minds could only conceptualize; Rosalia brought it to life.

Fans expecting a complete U-turn from last year’s “Short ‘N Sweet” didn’t get much of an offramp, but rather an addendum. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Man’s Best Friend” builds an extension on the previous album’s universe by embellishing the sonic precedent — single “Manchild” has enough country twang and pop decoration to sidle next to “Please Please Please” —  while pushing the sound in new directions. “Goodbye” is a full-on ABBA tribute performance, while “Nobody’s Son” plays like a descendant mashup of UB40’s “Red Red Wine” and Blondie’s “The Tide Is High.” Carpenter is at the heart of the album, her sarcastic and whip-smart brand of humor tying the whole thing together. It’s a project that sells you the idea of Carpenter and once again proves what she’s actually capable of achieving, which, as it turns out, is quite a lot.

Tyler, the Creator is a whiz when it comes to world-building, pairing high-concept ambition with higher execution. Last year’s “Chromakopia” confronted mortality and embraced the notion of what it means to age not just in hip-hop, but in life, his thoughts filtered through dark, often frenetic songs. “Don’t Tap the Glass,” released with little warning in July, was like hitting a pressure valve on all the insecurities and big questions that come with growing up. The rapper dipped back into the days of sweaty house parties and simply let loose, stringing together an escapist record that’s meant to move your body, and not much else.

FKA Twigs will always distort the boundaries of what pop music can be, but it’s when she approximates convention (whatever that means) that her music approximates immediacy. “Eusexua” is Twigs’ most tangible record to date, a project inspired by the sour thump of acid house and glitch-hop. Echoes of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” permeate through “Eusexua,” a record that exhumes the tropes of ’90s club music and brings them into her universe. It’s not Twigs-gone-pop by any means, but it’s the clearest example of what she’d sound like if she wanted to.

Giveon has the gift of having one of the most distinctive voices in R&B, a deep baritone that feels like a warm hug even when he’s bemoaning love lost. “Beloved,” his sophomore album, is rich in soul and steeped in heartbreak, paying homage to the sound of classic R&B icons like Al Green (“Rather Be”) and the Delfonics (“Numb”). And in classic soul tradition, his songs come alive despite being awash with grief over the end of a relationship, even when he’s on his knees groveling (“We were meant to be, don’t leave me behind,” he sings on “Don’t Leave”). “Beloved” is homage as much as it is an expression of self, a tough tightrope to walk.

There’s something to be said about the artists who actually do their homework to study and mine from the past. (To use a now-dead colloquialism that briefly gained traction this year, “reheat nachos.”) Tate McRae dug into the archives for her third album “So Close to What,” a project that pulls together a glut of influences — Nelly Furtado, Pussycat Dolls, essentially everything Timbaland touched in the early aughts — and repackages it as a blissful pop album that skims the surface and does it with flair. There’s a sense of propulsion to these songs, whether they gun for the dance floor (“Sports Car”) or scratch at something deeper (“Revolving Door”). It may not be the heftiest pop album ever made, but it sure makes for a fun listen.

Honorable mention: PinkPantheress, “Fancy That”; Madison McFerrin, “Scorpio”; Rose Gray, “Louder, Please”; Larry June, 2 Chainz and Alchemist, “Life Is Beautiful”; Freddie Gibbs and Alchemist, “Alfredo 2”; Oklou, “Choke Enough”; Coco Jones, “Why Not More?”

I adore all the albums on this list of 10, and so many dozens more I considered for it. The first three so fully embedded themselves in my heart at a time when I needed them that I have them in a veritable three-way tie for No. 1. There was Lily Allen, brandishing her very fresh wounds; Lucy Dacus, making falling in love sound like a good idea all over again; and Brandi Carlile, suggesting that falling in love with life and humanity is the only way through our present madness. Three very different and equally valid ways of looking at the world in 2025. And then there was Taylor Swift, telling us that “‘eating out of the trash — it’s never gonna last’” — a sentiment I’m sure that any of the other artists on this list, from Amanda Shires to Wet Leg, would share.

There’s a sense of mortality constantly bubbling up throughout this reflective and moving collection of songs, but it’s not a grief album; there were some very good examples of that genre this year, but Carlile didn’t necessarily have to lose anybody to look at the big picture. If anything, she’s reacting to current events (explicitly called out only once, in the rocker “Church and State”), and to the threat of getting too caught up in doomscrolling to focus on the most important matters of human connection while the breath within us still allows it. “Baby, you’re gonna have a heart attack / And they won’t thank you, they don’t make awards for that,” she sings, and how many among us couldn’t use that reminder as a mantra in these tense times? “In a moment, anything could change,” she points out in the chills-down-the-spine closer, “A Long Goodbye,” which might be the most spookily touching song she’s ever written. One thing that doesn’t change: the best voice in the business. That she knows exactly what use to put those chops to as a writer makes this deceptively low-key-sounding album a possible high point in her career so far.

This is already going down in music lore as one of the most legendarily candid albums in pop history. The pleasure of listening to “West End Girl” is thrill of listening to a master storyteller who makes your jaw drop by seeming to have spilled all the tea almost at the very outset of the album… and then the tea just keeps on coming. Not since Boston in 1773, maybe, has anyone dumped it this massively, or this fulfillingly. But it’s not just what she says from moment to moment but how she says it that keeps you riveted. The level of pop craftsmanship remains superb throughout, under the guidance of executive producer Blue May, in 14 songs that somehow manage to keep the emotions feeling utterly raw at every turn, even as the tour-de-force music itself is anything but crude. Each song about her split from her husband unfolds in a different style than the last, evoking spaghetti Westerns when she’s considering unleashing hell on an Other Woman dubbed “Madeline,” or going back to ska-pop inflections with “Nonmonogamummy,” where she hilariously describes rejoining the dating scene as a result of a spouse’s desire to have an open marriage. There’s a lot of characteristic wit embedded in the album’s heartbreak, but she leaves any trademark humor behind when she lays everything on the line in the bare-bones “Just Enough.” Long after the story has lost its shock value, everything about the music is captivating, in an album that manages to combine the best aspects of theatrical show tunes with the best that deeply personal pop has to offer. “Masterpiece” isn’t too strong a word.

Lucy Dacus’ heart looks good out here on her sleeve. Maybe part of why this album is so disarming is because she hasn’t focused her attention nearly as much on romantic songs before, so hearing that already warm voice set to use on extolling the elation of true love is positively heart-melting. There are some breakup songs or possible-breakup songs here, too, reflecting on times before everything got so good — don’t worry, she hasn’t turned into a total sop or anything. “Big Deal” is a spirit-rending song about letting someone you might have to let go of know that they have no idea how much a relationship actually meant to the singer in question. But then “Best Guess” and “Most Wanted Man” are two of the smartest swooning songs you’ll her in your life, sung by one of the most disarming voices of her generation. Boygenius may be on a long hiatus, but Dacus is still in her genius phase.

The title of Shires’ album is, if not quite a play on words, certainly loaded with possible emotional meanings — either the forlorn or liberated side of independence. We get plenty of both in a record that is fairly scathing toward a former partner and tenderly nurturing toward herself. Shires has been through a very well-publicized split with the man who was both her husband and bandleader, and from the sound of these songs, there was not much you’d call traditionally amicable about it. “I hope you finally find your missing piece of mind,” she rails in the record’s most hard-driving track, as if to suggest that the marriage was called on account of insanity. That rancor makes for riveting listening. But just as intriguing is the ongoing debate Shires has with herself in some of the best tracks — about whether she wants to move forward as already healed or still has unresolved shit to work out. Producer Lawrence Rothman helps her find just the right balance between musicality and rawness as she finally moves through a wounded victory lap.

It’s the best Christian rock record of the decade. Well, that’s a cheeky and, well, not 100% representative way to put it. But Rosalía’s “Lux” is God-haunted like no other ostsensibly secular album by a pop superstar in memory, and that’s something no one could have seen coming from the “Motomami” mother of flamenco-gone-wild. There’s an ecumenical spirit to the album, which is full of references to her native Catholicism and its saints (particularly the female ones) but also figures fron other faiths — as represented by her audacious choice to sing in 13 languages. (Who does she think she is with that number, Taylor Swift?) The result is the rare record with F-bombs and sexual references that’s ever going to be hailed by an appreciative representative of the Vatcan, but such is its power as she gets into the mystic. Is it a sort of literary exercise or a true walking of the stations of the cross? Rosalía sure seems seriously intentioned as she grapples with the agony and ecstasy of faith, even if, like most of her generation, she’s not about to slip into a sectarian version of it. Of course, it’s not the religious aspect that caused Andrew Lloyd Webber to issue a video declaring it “the album of the decade” (no qualifiers attached). It’s her gorgeous voice and the way it’s framed with orchestration by Kyle Daniel Gordon, who helps make it seem as if symphonic spirituality was always her first genre. Getting lusty for God is nobody’s idea of a canny career move, and yet, providentially, almost, it seems likely to take her to a next level.

Am I trying to get cute here, putting two “divorce albums” from members of the same fractured marriage on the same list? Or just incapable of picking a side? I’d say it’s none of the above. Whatever you think of their respective positions IRL, or the little we outsiders know about real life, both Amanda Shires’ album and ex-husband Jason Isbell’s are fascinating and superior exercises in getting seriously hairy stuff off the chest in the studio. In Isbell’s case, whether he meant to be this symbolic about it or not, he followed the occasion of going solo in his personal life with an album that had him going completely solo in the studio, except for engineer Gena Johnson. It’s actually too bad “Foxes in the Snow” didn’t get an engineering Grammy nomination; the recording of Isbell’s exquisitely mic-ed 1940 Martin O-17 guitar on this recording is that exciting. But the record doesn’t have a solo mood to it — it’s got a bit of a split personality, between its pretty rough divorce songs and some contrasting tunes that seem to reflect the intoxication of a subsequent relationship. There are also some outlier songs, like “Crimson and Clay,” a highly topical tune about blue people choosing to stay and keep the lights on in red states. While he’s singing about split unions, it makes sense that he’d devote at least one cut to our new civil war.

For years, each new Lady Gaga album has been at least a little bit divisive among her fandom, both the casual and serious parts… until this one, because you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who has any appreciation for Gaga at all who didn’t find “Mayhem” to be a real kick, if not the best collection she’s put up in a decade or more. Part of the fun is that she seems less worried than she ever has before about overtly nodding to forebears or influences. There is a great all-new “Prince song” on this album, another great completely fresh “Michael Jackson song”… and, in “How Bad Do U Want Me,” one of the best “Taylor Swift songs” of the year. (Sorry if that is heresy to any little monsters out there, but I do mean it as a compliment.) But, of course, many of the tracks, like “Disease,” are pure Gaga… and ultimately served as a delivery system for an arena show that really doesn’t have any exact parallels in pop-dom. Gaga talked about some of the torment that went into this album, and probably that is really there, but I think what most listeners heard was a star who wanted to deliver her audience a really good time, and succeeded. Artpop is all well and good, but “Mayhem” really marked a serious indulge in just plain funpop.

Fulks is one of the funniest singer-songwriters in America, or one of the most sobering, depending on which mindset you find him or yourself in. His sensitivity, wryness and all-around musical dexterity were again on superlative view in the mostly contemplative, very occasionally rowdy “Now Then.” Fulks has been a sort of alt-country guy, and his last album delved into narrative bluegrsss, “Now Then” is more in a folk-rock vein, with punky or countryish asides amid what otherwise stands as acoustic-oriented. The passage of time is on his mind, gently or otherwise, and a song like “Ocean City” — about his family’s summer trips when he was a kid, culminating in a dream where everyone is back alive and young — is really a trip to songwriting class. “The 30 Year Marriage” is another singular, autobiographical song, about measuring the difference between intentionality and inevitability… what it feels like to get to three decades of matrimony and realize just how few congratulations you might really deserve for just hitting a mark. But massive amounts of congrats are due for songwriting as sharp and human as what he pulls off here.

Rock isn’t dead! And neither is love. What I said earlier about Lucy Dacus unexpectedly wearing her heart on her sleeve… that applies to Wet Leg, too, but here it’s even more surprising, because this is a feisty rock ‘n’ roll band with a lead singer who likes to defiantly flex her bicep in concert, and what’s love got to do with it, anyway? Plenty, as it turns out on the band’s second album, which is just as good as the widely heralded first. Hearing the aggression of their assault in tracks like the first single, “Catch These Fists” — wherein frontwoman Rhian Teasdale threatens to plant a knuckle sandwich on a guy ruining a girls’ night out in a bar — you tend to expect all their material to be that defiant or cocky. But this time around, that rush of guitar music is a front for Teasdale (and occasionally guitarist and fellow lyricist Hester Chambers) just being besotted. They can still be cheeky in the midst of being lovestruck, as offbeat, culture-associative songs like “Davina McColl” and “Jennifer’s Body” announce from their titles forward. But there’s some almost shockingly sweet stuff here, along with riffs up the wazoo.

HONORABLE MENTION: Sabrina Carpenter, “Man’s Best Friend”; Elton John and Brandi Carlile, “Who Believes in Angels?”; Lucius, “Lucius”; Tyler Childers, “Snipe Hunter”; I’m With Her, “Wild and Clear and Blue”; Haim, “I Quit”; Amber Mark, “Pretty Idea”; Little Simz, “Lotus”; Lola Young, “I’m Only F**king Myself”; Sparks, “Mad!”