Best album of 2026: the readers' vote
Sixteen albums from 2026, one winner. Vote in every cross.
Voting now
The bracket
The contenders
- 1 Lost Weekend Phoebe Bridgers · 2026 · United States Metascore 91 metacritic.com floodmagazine.com
- 2 Popstar Tinashe · 2026 · United States Metascore 90 metacritic.com thefader.com
- 3 Cry Baby Vince Staples · 2026 · United States Metascore 88 metacritic.com thefader.com
- 4 You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love Olivia Rodrigo · 2026 · United States Metascore 87, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list metacritic.com rollingstone.com
- 5 Nothing's About to Happen to Me Mitski · 2026 · United States Metascore 87, on Billboard's mid-year list metacritic.com billboard.com
- 6 Secret Love Dry Cleaning · 2026 · United Kingdom Metascore 87, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list metacritic.com rollingstone.com
- 7 Digitise HAAi · 2026 · Australia Metascore 87 metacritic.com mute.com
- 8 This Music May Contain Hope Raye · 2026 · United Kingdom Metascore 86, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list metacritic.com rollingstone.com
- 9 Here Because of Hope Ezra Collective · 2026 · United Kingdom Metascore 86 metacritic.com faroutmagazine.co.uk
- 10 Inferno Boards of Canada · 2026 · United Kingdom Metascore 85, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list metacritic.com rollingstone.com
- 11 Arirang BTS · 2026 · South Korea Metascore 83, three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 metacritic.com en.wikipedia.org
- 12 To Whom This May Concern Jill Scott · 2026 · United States Metascore 82, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list metacritic.com rollingstone.com
- 13 Free Spirits Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso · 2026 · Argentina Latin Grammy nominee for Album of the Year, Metascore 77 grammy.com metacritic.com
- 14 ¿Dónde es el after? Rawayana · 2026 · Venezuela Latin Grammy nominee for Album of the Year, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list grammy.com rollingstone.com
- 15 Más cara Bad Gyal · 2026 · Spain Latin Grammy nominee for Best Urban Music Album, on Rolling Stone's mid-year list grammy.com rollingstone.com
- 16 The Fall-Off J. Cole · 2026 · United States No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 280,000 units, Metascore 67 en.wikipedia.org metacritic.com
How it works
Each round is open for a few days. You get one vote per cross per day, and when a round closes the record with more votes goes through. A tie goes to the better seed. Seeds come from the rankings and sources listed under each album. To stop vote stuffing we use Cloudflare Turnstile and keep a scrambled version of your IP address for 24 hours.