Top 10 Albums

10. War + Raindrops - EP

iyla

Iyla (pronounced ['aɪ:lə], or eye-la) is an up and coming R&B artist, and she deserves a place in the playlist of any SZA, Jhené Aiko, or Kali Uchis fan. Her producer (and boyfriend) Kadis has collaborated with the likes of Trey Songz, Lil Wayne, and Bruno Mars. Together the artistic vision of this album (and Iyla's other work) comes together in a captivating world of love, sex, and taking back control. I hate to be the guy who "liked 'X' before they were cool," (I lied, I live for that shit) but I did find Juice on YouTube before it had reached 100,000 streams and I immediately fell in love with her music.

If you've ever had a terrible relationship that you just can'tquit, I'm sure you'll find something to relate to in this EP. If you haven't, you can still live vicariously through iyla's truly angelic voice and creative lyrical/visual storytelling.

Best Song on the Album: Juice

Favorite iyla Song: Strings

9. Regional At Best

Twenty Øne Piløts

It's a national tragedy that Twenty One Pilots' best album also happens to be the one that they lost the rights to when signing with Fueled By Ramen. They did remake some of the songs for Vessel, but some of my absolute favorites like Kitchen Sink and Slowtown are lost to the ages. Luckily, you can still listen to the album on Soundcloud, but for you Spotify nerds out there you'll just have to add the songs as local files and be forever condemned to listening through the desktop app.

That being said, Twenty One Pilots hit it out of the park with their second ever album. The release of Blurryface in 2015 redefined alt rock and made it the second best time to grow up emo (after 2008, of course). Regional At Best, like most of their music, is lyrically dense and esoteric, while evoking a feeling of catharsis for depressed and hopeless teens that helps them grow up to be apathetic (but still living) adults.

Best Song on the Album: Ruby

Favorite Twenty One Pilots Song: Redecorate

8. Candle Kid — EP

Candle Kid

This bluegrass band from Tennessee was almost completely unknown before being included in the end credits of this Philosophy Tube video titled Capital Punishment (& Prison Abolition). It wasn't on any streaming service when this video came out (they're on Spotify now!), so I ended up buying the album for $5 on Bandcamp. The lead singer, Luke Levenson, has had a not entirely unsuccessful country music career, but makes his living doing marketing for a Nashville-based audio plugin software company. I don't like his solo stuff that much, but Candle Kid is pure gold.

There are themes of nostalgia, growing up, substance abuse, depression, gambling, prostitution, and pretty much everything a good country album should have. It gives a heavy dose of Appalachian regret, reminiscence, and resilience with a hint of coffee shop hipster. Go give them a listen if that's your thing.

Best Song on the Album: Waiting for Death

2nd Best Candle Kid Song: New Orleans

7. Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition

Caroline Polachek

Caroline Polachek is an experimental badass, blending pop and electronic music in a way reminiscent of artists like AURORA and Imogen Heap. This album feels like a free-spirit dropping everything and traveling the world to soul search after a breakup. It sounds like endless nights of new experiences, new faces, and the same longing for something that will change you forever. Sorry Caroline, I wish it was that easy to find answers to life's greatest questions.

If this list were just about musical ingenuity, Caroline would easily break the top 3, maybe even taking the top spot. However, this list is reflective of many personal factors including (but not limited to) how formative the music was for me, how much I listen to a given artist/album, and how often I listen to said songs on repeat. It's mostly vibes based, if I'm being honest. Caroline is always a good vibe, and the variety in her vocals puts her alongside Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, and Beyoncé with the best of the best.

Best Song on the Album: Welcome To My Island

Favorite Caroline Polachek Song: So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings

Bonus: The Best Live Performance Ever Performed

6. I Have Been a Good Bing

The Fooming Shoggoths

Get ready to absolutely love or hate this one (hopefully you love it as much as I do) because the entire album is sung by AI music creation program Suno. The lyrics were adapted from posts on LessWrong, historically some of the loudest and most passionate people sounding the alarm on AI alignment and trying their darndest to think up solutions before we get the bad singularity. This album really holds up when judged on its quality, Regardless if you see AI as a tool for artistic democracy or the end of all jobs for creatives.

The album is split between folk songs and dance music, exploring rational and logical axioms, a press release from Anthropic, and waxing poetic about the now defunct Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. Do you want to hear a sea shanty about basing your beliefs in observable reality? What about a melancholy poem contrasting the grandiose technocapital of San Francisco with a return to prehistoric nature? This album is to tech nerds what Dark Souls is to gamers.

Best Song on the Album: Half an Hour Before Dawn in San Francisco

2nd Best The Fooming Shoggoths Song: The Litany of Tarrrrrski

5. Bloom (Target Edition)

Troye Sivan

I'm not sure how anyone can come out the other side of having listened to this album without having a deeper appreciation for synth pop. Dreamlike gay joy that shifts halfway through into dreamlike gay lovesickness just scratched some sort of confidence/self-love itch I had as a teenager. Love songs were the equivalent of narcotics to me growing up. Troye Sivan's openly sexual themes in his songs took away a lot of the shame I might have otherwise felt after coming out. The album really takes itself seriously, reflecting on the best and worst parts of a formative relationship and period of time in Troye's life. I chose the Target Edition specifically because of the two additional songs that are included at the end: "This This" and "Running Shoes".

These songs are only available on the Target Exclusive CD, and by that I mean they are ONLY on the Target Exclusive CD (and YouTube). No music streaming platforms includes these songs. Generally, albums that are released with Target Exclusive songs are allowed to release them elsewhere after a certain period of time, such as Taylor Swift with "Hits Different" and Bon Jovi with "We Don't Run", but for whatever reason, the Bloom Target Exclusive tracks have not been given this opportunity. Most exclusive releases don't even include new songs, and are just recolors of album covers, or have a poster included. Even then, most exclusive songs are just acoustic versions or remixes of existing songs. Funny enough, Taylor Swift is the only other artist I know of to have unique songs only released on Target exclusives ("Sweeter Than Fiction TV") and Walmart Exclusives ("I Heart?" and "Beautiful Eyes"). Great business model, Target. Everyone loves it when you gatekeep music.

Best Song on the Album: This This

Favorite Troye Sivan Song: i'm so tired... (Lauv ft. Troye Sivan)

4. IGOR

Tyler, The Creator

Something I love that Tyler, The Creator does with his music is make the tracks flow into each other so well that they feel like one 45+ minute song. Seriously, try listening to this one from start to finish in order (preferably with headphones), it feels like one cohesive piece of art rather than a bunch of semi-related tracks on an album. It feels like magic, and is some of the best hip-hop/rap out there. I don't even really know how to classify what genre Igor falls into, because it's really its own thing. Once again, synth music = best music.

Honestly, Tyler is really at the top of his game as a musical visionary, and has continued to drop banger after banger since Flower Boy. Some may argue that his earlier stuff is full of bangers too, and I would agree that his sound back then is still incredible, but I find it deeply uncomfortable to engage with most of his early work. It definitely appealed to a niche audience of edgy young men (probably not very niche), but as he has grown older his music has matured and become artfully provocative rather than shocking and unsettling.

Best Song on the Album: Puppet

Favorite Tyler, The Creator Song: Take Your Mask Off

3. Ctrl

SZA

Melancholia, nostalgia, jealousy, insecurity, and the age old question, "Am I the problem?" This album has it all. SZA lays out her deepest insecurity, analyzing the times she feels attractive and wanted against the times she feels needy and worthless. A string of bad relationships or situationships sure is enough to make you question your own worth as a person. Her raw emotional honesty is so incredibly captivating. Many of these songs feel like a stream of consciousness directly from SZA's most vulnerable moments.

Substance abuse, relationship issues, and learning to love yourself again are such prominent themes in this album; I think anyone who relates to at least one of these issues can get some sort of emotional catharsis from SZA. It's about falling into the same patterns you know are unhealthy, but keep you coming back anyways. It's about learning to detach your sense of self-worth from others' approval, because once you don't care what other people think, the only one in charge of your happiness is you. It is a slow, meandering journey to that conclusion through all the muck and grime that you might go through before coming to that realization.

Best Song on the Album: Drew Barrymore

Favorite SZA Song: Saturn

2. Pure Heroine (Extended)

Lorde

Fun fact: I won an iPod Shuffle 4th Gen and a $25 iTunes gift card in a competition in middle school, and this was the first album I ever bought. I didn't even have a phone then, and it was the first time I was able to listen to music without the radio or YouTube. That may have something to do with the ranking, but you know what else I factored into the ranking? Just how much Lorde changed the fabric of pop music when she was 16. Ella Yelich-O'Connor came out with the ethereal, slow, introspective pop at the height of dance pop, and even if she wasn't the first to come out with this sound (*cough* Lana Del Rey *cough*), she became a cultural catalyst for the music we enjoy today from the likes of Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan, Conan Gray, and Olivia Rodrigo to name a few. For reference, this album came out around the same time that these songs were popular:

• Roar by Katy Perry
• Applause by Lady Gaga
• Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
• Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke
• Brave by Sara Bareilles

Not one of these songs is sonically similar to Pure Heroine. This whole album feels incredibly nostalgic for a time in our youth where we weren't aware of the hardships in the world and could just be kids. It embodies that feeling of being on the brink of adulthood, where you can reminisce and hold onto that ephemeral moment for just a second before you must face reality head on. It is the liminal space between complete freedom and being burdened with responsibility and obligation. I've felt intense nostalgia since I was very young, and this album spoke to me in ways that I could not realize back then. I cannot begin to tell you how emotionally evocative her imagery is. If you like this, take a look at some of her newer stuff. Her new album "Virgin" just came out on June 27, 2025.

Also if you're looking for the Extended Edition of Pure Heroine, it no longer exists on streaming services. Lorde actually released her first EP, The Love Club, a year prior to this album. 5 songs were removed from the album to re-release The Love Club EP (along with Royals). The only song no longer available in either album is "No Better", but it was released as a single on Spotify to make up for the weird licensing issues with the two albums.

Best Song on the Album: Buzzcut Season

Favorite Lorde Song: Perfect Places

1. Scarlet 2 CLAUDE

Doja Cat

Doja Cat is an icon, a true powerhouse in the music industry. Even her first EP "Purrr!" in 2014 has no skips. It takes a hot girl memelord extraordinaire to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the 2020s as well as she has. She simply breathes and goes viral. Hot Pink made her a household name, Planet Her cemented her status as a musical luminary, and Scarlet is what happens when you get fed up with the toxic music industry, parasocial fans, and Twitter conspiracies claiming that you're an Illuminati devil worshipper because you had the audacity to exist in public.

But even the most confident, accomplished, give no fucks person has problems that they do, in fact, give a fuck about. Having a tough exterior means you are careful about who you let into your life, and when someone you care about hurts you, it stings even harder. When your day job is to be richer, hotter, and more talented than everyone else, then you come home and get into a fight with your partner, have 99+ notifications of strangers dragging you on every social media, and you can't even get drunk about it because you're sober now? Nasty work. Real shit. I'm here for the confidence and the vulnerability always.

Best Song on the Album: HEADHIGH

Favorite Doja Cat Song: 4 morant (better luck next time)