The year didn’t wait to get going. January brought a long-awaited rap record, an enormous country one, two pop stars testing a new chapter and a handful of underground records that should be on your radar. These are 10 releases worth your time, in release order, each with something to press play on.
Dry Cleaning, Secret Love (Jan. 9)
The London post-punk band’s new album is built around a line vocalist Florence Shaw delivers less than a minute in: “The objects outside the head control the mind.” The Quietus says that idea runs through the record, with Shaw’s vignettes drifting from confidence to self-consciousness over a band that gives them hooks. Pitchfork’s Stuart Berman, quoted by The Week, notes that “it’s hard to sing along to a Dry Cleaning song,” and that Shaw plays her characters, from a cruise-ship designer to a hypochondriac foodie, with “the calm elocution of a wellness podcast host.”
Secret LoveDry CleaningListen on Apple Music
Zach Bryan, With Heaven on Top (Jan. 9)
His first album since mid-2024 is 25 tracks and 78 minutes, and it opens with a spoken-word story about a Manhattan apartment fire. Rolling Stone says the songs are about time spent off the grid and the cost of life at the top, and that “Bad News,” with its lyric about ICE coming to “bust down your door,” is political even if Bryan isn’t. Paste called it “compelling, frustrating, and too damn long.” Days after release, he put out an acoustic version, which The Week credits with helping push the album to No. 1.
With Heaven On TopZach BryanListen on Apple Music
Bruno Mars, “I Just Might” (Jan. 9)
The lead single from The Romantic arrived two days after he announced his first solo album in a decade, and it set the table for the Feb. 27 release. Bruno Mars had kept the details quiet: just a Jan. 5 post that said “My album is done.” Read how the announcement unfolded.
I Just MightBruno MarsListen on Apple Music
Madison Beer, locket (Jan. 16)
Her third album is a loosening-up. Paste, quoted by The Week, hears her “singing with the casual sultriness of someone who eats boys for breakfast,” and Rolling Stone’s Maura Johnston calls the 11-song set “a creative breakthrough.” It moves from dark synth-pop bangers to a ’60s-crooner take on a booty-call yearner, and ends on an increasingly frantic dance beat.
locketMadison BeerListen on Apple Music
Courtney Marie Andrews, Valentine (Jan. 16)
Nine albums in, Consequence says, Valentine is some of her sharpest writing to date. The record was cut straight to tape, with chamber-folk and shoegaze textures, and songs like “Everybody Wants to Feel Like You” and “Outsider” treat insecurity with understanding instead of armor. Consequence calls it “a true folk songwriting love letter.”
ValentineCourtney Marie AndrewsListen on Apple Music
A$AP Rocky, Don’t Be Dumb (Jan. 16)
His first album since 2018’s Testing has Tim Burton’s drawings on the cover, Danny Elfman scoring many of the tracks and a rollout of videos starring Winona Ryder, a helicopter and Thundercat. It also gave him his first night as an SNL musical guest. Our stories on the “Helicopter$” video and his SNL debut cover the run-up.
Don’t Be DumbA$AP RockyListen on Apple Music
Harry Styles, “Aperture” (Jan. 22)
His first new music in more than 1,300 days is a hushed, dance-floor-curious opener for Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, due March 6. The FADER heard soft synth pads and slapdash drums that recall Jamie xx, and found it more plodding than ecstatic. Here is the full story of the return.
ApertureHarry StylesListen on Apple Music
Arctic Monkeys, “Opening Night” (Jan. 22)
The band’s first release since 2022’s The Car is a song for charity. Recorded at Abbey Road for the War Child compilation Help(2), due March 6, it comes with a Jonathan Glazer-directed visual. The album also includes Olivia Rodrigo, Cameron Winter, Beck, Big Thief and Pulp. “We are proud to support the invaluable work War Child do,” the band said in a statement.
Opening NightArctic MonkeysListen on Apple Music
Roc Marciano, 656 (Jan. 23)
Thirteen studio albums in, the New York rap elder is as sharp as ever, and this is his first fully self-produced LP since 2013’s Marci Beaucoup. The Quietus says it’s full of hazy, jazz-inflected loops, with opener “Trick Bag” rolling out on fuzzy organ and sneering wordplay. It’s proof, the review says, that he’s making some of the most vital music of his career more than two decades after he emerged with Busta Rhymes’ Flipmode Squad.
656Roc MarcianoListen on Apple Music
Also on our radar
J. Cole dropped four DJ Clue-hosted freestyles, Birthday Blizzard ’26, hours before turning 41 on Jan. 27, and one addresses his apology to Kendrick Lamar. It set the stage for The Fall-Off. By Storm, the alternative hip-hop duo of Injury Reserve survivors Parker Corey and RiTchie, released the debut My Ghosts Go Ghost, and Draag’s Miracle Drug EP was one of Consequence’s picks for shoegaze fans.
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
