To think the RIAA didn't have a sales award higher than gold until 1976. By Paul Grein Metallica celebrated a major career milestone in May, when their 1991 album Metallica was certified Double ...

Our staff's favorite albums from the year that was. Is pop now officially an albums-driven genre? The year 2025 made a strong argument for the answer being “yes.” Acclaimed sets from rising stars like ...

Rosalía made an album invoking the saints, Lily Allen took us on a tragicomic trip through her domestic hell, Lady Gaga found the sweet spot between artpop and arena-ready funk, and Bad Bunny was just ...

We’re at the end of yet another year where commentators and fans speculated on the health of the rap world. In October, it was reported that, for the first time in 35 years, there were no rap songs in ...

Nearly 50 years after its release, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours isn't just the best selling classic rock album of 2025, it's the 25th-best selling record of the year overall. Of course, the very top of the ...

This year in country music was all about artists discovering ways to innovate old forms and traditions. In some cases, like Eric Church’s Evangeline vs. the Machine and Carter Faith’s stunning debut ...

The Korean pop outsider Effie and the Brooklyn indie-rock band Geese top our critics’ lists this year. By Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz Jon Caramanica Musicians know how to make music, and they ...

In other words, 2025 had plenty of peaks and valleys. In our list of the year’s top albums, we try to capture these trends and tell the story of a music scene that is fractured, matching a cultural ...

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. Piling on, stripping down, looking back, pushing ahead: Musicians found all sorts of uses for the album form this ...

One band absolutely dominated the hardcore conversation this year, and they did it by working way, way harder than anyone else. Affable Boston bruisers Haywire spent 2025 playing sweaty, cathartic, ...

There’s magic in an artist’s debut album that can’t be recreated. On these introductory bodies of work, excitement, experimentation and the best parts of inexperience meet to make something ...

War. Peace. War. A moon landing. An assassination. Stranger Things. Ozzy’s farewell. 100 men vs. a gorilla. Coldplay’s kiss cam. Six-seven. Labubus. A jeans ...