Taylor Swift released an album so bad we won’t even talk about it. FKA twigs fucked around with EUSEXUA and found out… it got even better? Rosalía let her hair down from the Tower of Babel. Addison Rae went mainstream; Justin Bieber went indie. We all fell in love with Oklou and wore some big, big shoes. Here are 30 of the best pop albums of 2025, ranked by us with a little help from some of our favorite critics. –Anna Gaca & Walden Green
Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2025 wrap-up coverage here.
(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)
Lady Gaga: MAYHEM
MAYHEM’s best songs feel like they detonate at every audible frequency, retooling Lady Gaga’s pyrotechnic synth-pop to max out its sound. Despite a couple of funky skips, the album is fueled by the hunger of an artist who really wants the pop life again, perking up electro-scuzz and arena rock with new wave that gleams like glitter. –Owen Myers
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Oli XL: Lick the Lens / Pt. 1
The Stockholm producer’s Warp debut is a glitzy glitch-hop stim toy. For 25 minutes, he decorates his many guest vocalists with blipping electronics and indietronica flair, ensuring every melody is part of a larger tapestry of dizzying, downtempo cool. It’s a soothing confluence: Oli burrows you into the mix so you’re dazzled by the details, while fluttering vocal melodies keep things grounded. It’s as kaleidoscopic as it is cozy. –Joshua Minsoo Kim
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Raisa K: Affectionately
Bubbling up from the geyser of experimental-minded pop within Mica Levi’s orbit, London songwriter Raisa Khan’s gentle, beguiling debut hisses and spoils and woolgathers through foggy industrial atmospheres and imperfect singer-songwriter ballads: a record for when the knowledge of love comes hand-in-hand with the shadowy weight of Grouper dragging the deer up the hill. –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
JADE: THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!
Jade Thirlwall’s first album apart from Little Mix, her Simon Cowell-appointed girl group, is frequently as gaudy and hectic as the star machine itself. “Midnight Cowboy” pattern-clashes ballroom culture against shoutouts to former British Vogue editor Edward Enninful. Then along come “Plastic Box” and “Unconditional,” rarefied aeries where Thirlwall sheds any cynicism about the pop-industrial complex. THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! knows its tropes—the breakaway solo artist, the disillusioned diva—and sets them aside to let a class-A entertainer do what she does best. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Tyler, the Creator: DON’T TAP THE GLASS
Is DON’T TAP THE GLASS a pop album? I see one of the biggest stars of my generation following the likes of Beyoncé and Gaga to make his dedicated dance record, which for Tyler means eye-rolling intensity, big-shouldered bass, and a little lateral footwork. And he acts like he’s kicking and screaming the whole time: “Turn the goofy down, for real, bro,” like if you get too funky he’s going to have to turn it off. Hurry up before he changes his mind. –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Vylet Pony: Love & Ponystep
The political bedrock of Love & Ponystep—a galaxy-brained album from the battered Macbook of an anthropomorphic pony who fucks with Skrillex—is the abolition of copyright law. Benefits: 2010s YouTube-intro EDM for extraterrestrials with undiagnosed ADHD; Sugarcubes songs from the Mean Girls universe; seismic drops; weightless juvenile innocence; eternal storage space. The drawback: the comedown. –Samuel Hyland
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CMAT: EURO-COUNTRY
Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson is a born performer: big-voiced and flame-haired, a one-woman protest party singing lovingly of Irish pride and alienation in the European Union era. With its Irish-language opening lines, American country music stylings, and imaginary Tesla crashes, EURO-COUNTRY acknowledges the world on its doorstep, but it’s Thompson’s heartbreaks, insecurities, and petty grievances that hit closest to home. –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Isabella Lovestory: Vanity
Isabella Lovestory is the Gabrielle Solis of experimental pop-perreo, pondering the ephemerality of beauty in her triptych mirror. On Vanity, she waxes poetic on popping pills over gated drums and sets unrequited love to a lowriding trap beat. Her campy, combustible reggaeton, blissed-out synth pop, and crunked-up Y2K hip-hop have bombshell appeal, but carrying this drama requires real depth. –Tatiana Lee Rodriguez
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Ninajirachi: I Love My Computer
Yeah, it’s got a song called “Fuck My Computer,” but the thrills of Nina Wilson’s debut are mostly G-rated: clicking around London on Google Maps, sharing a pair of headphones on the bus, making the screen go blue. On I Love My Computer, the 26-year-old producer dumps the contents of her iPod Touch circa 2010—Skrillex, Diplo, Zedd—into a blender and hits “pulverize.” There’s a cautionary tale in all this (“Infohazard” alludes to a childhood encounter with a snuff film), but that’s growing up online. We can log out any time we like, but we can never leave. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Gelli Haha: Switcheroo
Thank God Angel Abaya got folk-rock out of her system. After leaving Boise for Los Angeles, she found her art-kid calling as Gelli Haha, making vaudevillian dance-pop for well-intentioned weirdos. Switcheroo is all snappy disco, clownish house, and musical sight gags. Why wouldn’t “Funny Music” conclude with a loud “Bonk!” when listening to Switcheroo is like getting hit on the head by an inflatable hammer? –Nina Corcoran
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Audrey Hobert: Who’s the Clown?
Audrey Hobert snuck up on pop this year and broke the curse of Swiftian literalism it’s been under with an album that, at first glance, seems like the quintessential document of that trend. Look closer, and Hobert is actually a sly surrealist: She lives across the street from a bowling alley? She’s drunk every waking second? She’s looking for a guy who “likes ’em avant-garde?” Her unassuming, soft-focus songs brought much-needed meticulousness to pop’s starting line this year; if her lyrics can come off a little crazy sometimes, just know that she’s doing it “for the sake of the story”—and for all of us at home, too. –Shaad D’Souza
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james K: Friend
The name “james K” has shown up on ambient compilations and other artists’ records for over a decade. Jamie Krasner makes protagonist music now. The Friend single “Play” carries enough spring-loaded tension that, when the back half kicks into hyperdrive, you may find yourself tempted to give leaping between skyscrapers a try. Probably safer to throw “Doom Bikini” on your headphones and pretend, at least for five minutes, that you’re the main character. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Sudan Archives: The BPM
Brittney Parks’ music as Sudan Archives is driven by desire, turbo-charged by ambition and sensuality, occasionally speedbumped but never stopped by insecurity in a world that tells Black women to want less. On The BPM, Parks lights up a power grid of sweaty techno, pulsating house beats, and violin acrobatics to produce her sci-fi dance-pop masterpiece. –Grace Robins-Somerville
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend
During Sabrina Carpenter’s performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards, everything appeared to go wrong. At least, that’s what she wanted us to believe: Carpenter is a showgirl, after all. “Shikatah,” she ad-libs, like MJ doing the “Billie Jean” kick, on the Man’s Best Friend single “Tears.” The song is about the thrilling novelty of being treated with basic care and consideration after a long history of manchildery. Across the album she seems to wink and say: Here’s a dance break, some flirty disco-pop, a few Christina Aguilera-worthy vocal runs, and a little country twang to distract from those unfortunate realities of even the most glamorous pop star. –Heven Haile
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
keiyaA: hooke’s law
keiyaA’s second album arrives thick with anxious fog, full of intrusive thoughts that bloom into spiky moments of self-realization. That hooke’s law is also one of the most innovative, ass-shaking R&B-electronic fusions you’ll hear this year makes it all the more impressive. The Chicago singer and producer’s hairpin-turning odyssey through hip-hop, jazz, and experimental music elevates her artistry with each crushing revelation. –Eric Torres
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
George Riley: More Is More
More Is More is the jewel in a crowning year for British singer-songwriter George Riley, who’s also appeared on tracks by SHERELLE, Shygirl, and Nosaj Thing and Jacques Greene’s Verses GT. Her mixtape nods to the neo-futuristic sheen of 2000s dance-pop and the lovestruck intimacy of Janet Jackson’s janet. in songs with playful personalities, twist endings (“Shotgun Wedding”), and irrepressible UK garage breakdowns (“More”). –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
John Glacier: Like a Ribbon
Like a Ribbon should be experienced four pints deep, stumbling from a pub onto rain-slicked cobblestones—except you’re far likelier to hear the debut album by London’s John Glacier while shopping at H&M. Delivering deadpan flex raps over static-charged beats that braid together grime, trip-hop, and post-punk, Glacier embodies the paradox of the buzzy XL signee: so in-the-know that she couldn’t possibly stay that way. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Justin Bieber: SWAG
Remember when Justin Bieber’s idea of swag was… eating fondue? Bieber’s best album in a decade has a looser, more expansive definition and—to borrow the parlance of his cosmetics tycoon wife—a “no-makeup makeup” kind of luster. His palette is light, smudgy guitar textures and warm synths; his message, more gestural than discursive, is love and lust. More than anything, SWAG is a vehicle for Bieber’s unmatched gift for vocal melody. Relieved of the genre strictures and ham-fisted lyricism that have burdened some of his previous efforts, he roams free. –Olivia Horn
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Addison Rae: Addison
Addison Rae’s incredible leap from TikTok dead-end to the Grammys mainstage was made through sheer force of self-invention. Her debut crackles with the thrill of becoming another person much closer to herself: black-lit in a cavern of crystals (“Aquamarine”), at the calm center of a symphonic surge (“Headphones On”), glammed-up like a rampaging Blondezilla (“Fame Is a Gun”). Breathy vocals piled with dry ice cushion direct and vulnerable songwriting. Halfway through “Money Is Everything,” she astonishes herself with how totally she’s squared her dreams with reality, as if that wasn’t the plan all along. –Harry Tafoya
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Rosalía: LUX
Encompassing 14 languages, minimalist electronica, classical instrumentation, breakbeat, opera, and flamenco, Rosalía’s latest album offers up a cross-century vision of pop. Illuminated by divine mysteries and bolstered by the Spanish experimentalist’s technical prowess, this marriage of heaven and hell tells the stories of saints, bad love, and redemption. When in doubt, go toward the LUX. –E.R. Pulgar
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
PinkPantheress: Fancy That
Though Fancy That is her third full-length, PinkPantheress reintroduces herself in its much-repeated first line. Fair enough—this 20-minute sugar-rush of a mixtape is the perfect point for anyone to jump into the British singer-producer's glittering world of bass-driven pop. It's an educational moodboard of her references, sampling Basement Jaxx, Panic! at the Disco, and Sugababes, but what holds it together is the nonchalant, breezy voice at its center. She pulls many sounds into her orbit, but no one else in pop sounds quite like her. –Aimee Cliff
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Blood Orange: Essex Honey
On Essex Honey, Devonté Hynes constructs a mosaic of hazy childhood memories and fills in the gaps with melodies remembered from pop, indie rock, and R&B. Calling on a Rolodex of guest stars (Caroline Polachek, Lorde, Daniel Caesar), Hynes dapples his scenes in golden lo-fi. The textural, piano-laced “The Last of England,” a tender dedication to his late mother, illuminates the LP’s delicate balance between expressing grief and finding peace. –Eric Torres
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Rochelle Jordan: Through the Wall
Rochelle Jordan is sparing with her showy melismas, but she’s got swing for days. Through the Wall is the new tempo bible: the British Canadian artist bamboo-dances between post-Timbaland polyrhythms on “Bite the Bait” and each syllable of her “Crave” hook—“touch-it-touch-it-touch-it-go!”—pops like a flashbulb. Under Jordan’s steely command, deep house, disco, and UK garage all bend in supplication to the almighty groove. –Walden Green
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Karol G: Tropicoqueta
Tropicoqueta is an homage to the Latina showgirls and pinup stars who have graced Latin America’s most essential album covers and nightclub stages throughout the 20th century. Karol G’s embodied camp is a dizzying compilation of genres not limited to salsa, vallenato, ranchera, merengue, and obviously reggaetón, a metaphysical Tropicana where a cumbia interpolation of “Careless Whisper” makes total sense alongside a Marco Antonio Solís ballad, a Pérez Prado mambo, and a “Piel Morena” listening session with Thalía. It’s wacky, lovingly erudite, totally liberated, and Latina, forever. –Stefanie Fernández
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Erika de Casier: Lifetime
Erika de Casier keeps getting better: Lifetime, her self-produced fourth LP, is as luxe as cashmere. Its dusty breakbeats and Y2K trip-hop synths are the stylish foils to her earnestly transparent writing, where a yearning love song might bring the chill of “December,” a little starburst of record scratch, or a busy signal you haven’t heard in 30 years. Were you listening to Mariah Carey or Portishead? “We will lock our eyes ’n’ sigh-lence”—that’s all Erika. –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
FKA twigs: EUSEXUA (Alternate Version)
It could’ve been her “Ima fix wolves” moment. But in swapping out just four tracks, FKA twigs finally brought planet EUSEXUA into the orbit of her late-’90s pop lodestars. Goodbye blatant Ray of Light rip and “I don’t know the food that’s your favorite now”; “The Dare” is peak trip-pop like Alanis Morissette or Natalie Imbruglia used to make, while “Lonely But Exciting Road” stands as the retooled record’s “Together Again” or “The Power of Goodbye”—each transcendent precisely because of their schmaltziness. twigs fans are the latest to reckon with streaming’s fundamental impermanence, but that’s part of the EUSEXUA experience, too. You can’t bottle this feeling. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Bad Bunny: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
After years at the top, Bad Bunny’s returned home to remind the world that his music is inseparable from his island’s history. On his magnetic sixth full-length, the reggaetonero mines the genres of Puerto Rico’s past, weaving plena hand drums and salsa horns into a razor-sharp modern música urbana record packed with references to the struggle for sovereignty under U.S. colonialism. Benito knows pessimism isn’t the answer: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS pulses with joy, defiance, and unstoppable energy. –Maria Eberhart
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
Amaarae: Black Star
The Black Stars is also the name of the Ghanaian national men’s soccer team, but Amaarae is the suave captain of another club. The guest list is VIP only: PinkPantheress, Bree Runway, Naomi Campbell, Charlie Wilson. Amaarae will let you do anything in here—skeet-skeet on pizzicato, fa-la-la-uck your soul out. It’s pitch dark but you can follow her around by her unmistakable falsetto, which issues the DJ instructions like, “Acid, drop it, boost.” This is the point where the acid house squiggles into “S.M.O.,” and obviously they have every drug you can think of. Giddy, lustful, and dazed, she floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. –Anna Gaca
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
Oklou: choke enough
choke enough is a record of anticipated endings: wondering if you need to leave home, realizing that a lover is going to leave you, knowing that you have but one life to live. As much as she looks to the future on these somersaulting electropop songs, Oklou is fighting to live in the moment, to engross herself in the love that’s all around her.
Oklou has said she thinks of choke enough as the soundtrack of an animated children’s film, and there’s a tenderness to its baroque, playful melodies. You taste her desire to savor the fleeting sweetness of a summer day on “ict” and feel her grappling with the tension between present happiness and future loss on “Blade Bird,” a heartrending ballad about a love that can never be returned. choke enough asks what lies ahead while honoring what must be lost before we get there. –Vrinda Jagota
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
Smerz: Big city life
Possibility, aspiration, fantasy: These are the currencies of pop music, and Smerz are making their own mint. Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt mine gold from a new-agey harp preset (“A thousand lies”) or a piano loop that sounds like an Apple ringtone (“Roll the dice”). The-Dream laid down the demo for Rihanna’s “Umbrella” over a stock GarageBand groove (“vintage funk kit 03”) that made it unchanged into the final version. Smerz pluck a few more rhinestones off the bedazzled “Feisty” baby tee and wear it out of the house.
Great pop also warps the zeitgeist around it, which explains why a remix project that counts ML Buch, MIKE, and They Are Gutting a Body of Water among its guests rivals the original, and why Sky Ferreira made a rare public appearance to join Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt for the sublime “You got time and I got money” in Los Angeles. Everything about Big city life feels like sleight of hand—the moment “But I do” smears like an oil spill, the endless echo chamber of “Dreams”—right up until “Easy”’s strings and drum machine vanish in a plume of cigarette smoke. Over and over, Smerz pull off the same magic trick we play on ourselves when it comes time to leave our apartments and hit the town: This night could go on forever. And if it doesn’t, there’s always another one. –Walden Green
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
