Traditionally, this is around the time of year that a plentiful bounty of worthwhile albums tend to come out, just in time for summer roadtrips, barbecues, and declarations of jam status. It’s hard to tell exactly if this will be true of the next few weeks, but there are certainly some promising releases from premier pop stars and veteran rockers alike coming out, including what looks to be a pretty great one that was just released today.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before Spring turns to Summer, I thought it would be worth looking back at the last few months, which I’m not sure saw an amazing stretch of albums that really grabbed me. However, there were a few Spring standouts I found myself coming back to, even if there were probably more mildly pleasing albums than all-out stunners to come out during Spring 2026. Here are those albums that stuck out to me, even if they ultimately leave me eagerly looking to see what the rest of the warmer months bring.
Another year, another really solid Yaya Bey album. I feel like I’ve talked about this endlessly creative but underdiscussed indie R&B artist a fair amount the last few years, and she’s never kept me at a loss for assuredly lowkey albums to soundtrack my early morning walks. After releasing her breakout Follow Your North Star in 2022, Yaya Bey followed herself up with an album in 2024, 2025, and now 2026. These past two albums saw her grappling a bit with grief in the wake of her musician father, even though her playfully easygoing sound retained itself, never really feeling like mourning music.
Fidelity was supposedly a concerted effort to write music and lyrics about something other than grief, and the album has that same stream-of-consciousness feel, as if her thoughts are being effortlessly transmuted to these songs that never feel merely dashed off. Yet despite this search for different subject matter, the album feels more or less like a continuation of the sonic palette that Yaya Bey established on the other albums she’s released in the last few years. She’s an artist restless enough that I could see her mixing things up at some point down the road, but for now her albums feel so comfortable and so cozy to live inside that I have no problem hearing her hone her established style like she does here.
I enjoyed Friko’s debut album, Were We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here when it came out in 2024 even if there was a part of it that made me a tad bit uncomfortable. First, in that it made me feel old because it seemed to be influenced by a lot of ‘00s indie rock bands that I came of age listening to or, at the very least, ignoring while my friends listened to them (sorry, Bright Eyes). But also, this band has a kind of earnestness that seems to fly in the face of being labeled as cringe, which makes them a little easy to scoff at but also easy to admire as well.
The band’s sophomore album, Something Worth Waiting For, has this earnestness in tow once again, perhaps heightened even more with an ambitious, unbridled sound reaching for the rafters. In an era when very few rock bands are willing to go for big emotional energy (let alone let themselves be labeled as “rock”), it’s often thrilling to hear the band really going for it on this release. I’ll admit it took me a little while to really come around to it, since the heart-on-their-sleeve nature of these songs poked me in those discomfort zones again before wearing me down until I couldn’t resist. Also, the more rocking numbers are complemented nicely by the album’s quieter, more nuanced songs, showing a band more than capable of weaving all sorts of different influences into their sound.
After releasing the instant classic Golden Hour in 2018, Kacey Musgraves’ albums had gotten slightly less interesting with each release, first with the pop-baiting Star-crossed and then the blandly folky Deeper Well. So suffice it to say, I did not have high expectations for Middle of Nowhere, especially when “back to basics” albums can be pretty hit or miss, and this one saw Kacey returning to her country roots after dabbling in other genres. So I was surprised to hear such a resolutely solid batch of songs, full of the observant wit of Kacey’s best work, possibly due to her rediscovering the plainspoken storytelling inherent in the best country songs.
It’s a little hard to tell what the exact narrative is with this album lyrically, since her past couple of albums have certainly had a theme (Golden Hour was her “falling in love album”, Star-Crossed was her break-up album, Deeper Well was her post-sobriety album). But maybe the lack of a theme works in the album’s favor. It’s more a collection of vignettes, some seemingly autobiographical, some seemingly fictional, but all of them containing a comfortable breeziness that feels like Kacey rediscovering what made her fall in love with writing songs in the first place.
The last decade or so has lowkey been a pretty good time for jazz, even if a lot of the more notable jazz artists have remained slightly below the mainstream (though you could maybe count the popularity of Olivia Dean as a stealth win for modern jazz?) Anyways, guitarist Jeff Parker has been at the forefront of Chicago’s jazz scene for a number of years, as well as jazz’s recent critical resurgence. That said, despite listening to Suite for Max Brown when it came out in 2020, I still haven’t gone too deep on this artist seemingly at the top of his game.
So it makes little sense that the album of Parker’s that would ultimately hook me would be a live album consisting of just two 20-plus-minute songs. Go figure. Perhaps chalk it up to me being a fan of Miles Davis’ albums made out of sidelong cuts like In A Silent Way or Jack Johnson, not that Happy Today sounds particularly like those albums. Its meditative nature feels a bit more indebted to the work of Pharaoh Sanders, though both songs on the album have this great cathartic quality to them, as they slowly build to an insatiable groove, rewarding those willing to sit and wait for their building tension to pay off.
This one I don’t have too much to say about, other than I’m just surprised I ended up liking it. Outside of Charli XCX, hyperpop is a subgenre I have not dipped into too much, perhaps because I like my pop music a little more anthemic and straight-down-the-middle with perhaps a few bristles of weirdness sticking out the side. U, the third album by Underscores, is a little more on the weirder side, but at the same time has a backbone of sturdy songwriting beneath all of its autotune and pulsating, dubstep-inspired rhythms. It’s at once an album that feels a bit schizophrenic with all of its various shifting tonal qualities, and yet is a surprisingly cohesive album, clearly interested in excess but also knowing when to stop short of overdoing things.
This is the most I’ve enjoyed a Kurt Vile album in a while, though I realize this may be a product of a real lack of objectivity. First off, Kurt Vile kicked off this album’s release by signing records and handing out vegan cheesesteaks at Triangle Tavern in Philadelphia, just around the corner from my house. Secondly, the album’s title hints at the fact that it embraces the city Vile has called home in a very wholehearted way, and since I’ve been consistently inspired by this city’s abundance of working-class humility, sneaky warmth, and commitment to weirdo art, I also happen to share the sentiment that Philadelphia’s been good to me.
But apart from that pandering, I just like what Kurt has done with his sound here. He’s gotten very good over the years at making his songs feel like they’re conversations going on inside his own head. The off-the-cuff nature of these songs have that same quality, exhibiting where Vile is in his life right now as a family man, working musician, and troubadour following in the footsteps of his rock heroes. There’s similarly a looseness to these songs that feels a little rougher around the edges, which is a nice contrast to some of Vile’s later albums, which can feel a little slick and same-y to me sometimes. However, Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me keeps you guessing, whether it’s with a 10-minute daydream like “99th song”, a synth-y instrumental like “Red Room Dub”, or an old-fashioned rocker like “Chance to Bleed”.