This year could have been big for the pop star about-turn. Instead the one-percenters stumbled with albums that were rep-obsessed, pratfallingly woke, or atoning for their past with beige acoustic music. But this doesn’t mean great pop didn’t prevail. While shrinking playlists and homogenization made radio tough grounds for many (particularly women and especially black female artists), there was no shortage of vibrant music happening in the corners, outside the traditional boundaries of pop and R&B, and in the fertile zone between them. Top 40 newcomers wrote bluntness and complication onto their blank slates. Long-in-the-making R&B debuts delivered with forward-thinking arrangements, incisive introspection, and vibrant personality. And there was at least one good pop star about-turn—it just happened to come from one of rock’s best guitarists, St. Vincent.
Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify and Apple Music playlists.
Dua Lipa: Dua Lipa
What made Dua Lipa this year’s winner of the battle royale of alt-pop newcomers, with more or less equal radio pushes and major-label backing? Strong material, left-field collaborators (including Miguel on bright spot “Lost in Your Light”), a throaty contralto that stands out from her thin-voiced peers, and yes, that savvy, color-coordinated video for “New Rules.” She’s got years ahead of her, she’ll count ‘em.
Listen: Dua Lipa, “New Rules”
Rina Sawayama: RINA
Up-and-coming Japanese-British singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama’s got a very-online set of interests—experimental J-pop, cyberpunk, turn-of-the-century pop nostalgia—and a knack for them all on her debut. “Take Me as I Am” is a better Britney/Neptunes track than Britney or either Neptune has managed in years. “Cyber Stockholm Syndrome” pulps the past 20 years of hooks into a hyper-compressed dopamine hit, much like those dispensed by the protagonist’s phone. And “10-20-40” sends Sawayama careening down a synthwave highway, chased by a shamelessly processed guitar solo.
Listen: Rina Sawayama, “Cyber Stockholm Syndrome”
Haim: Something to Tell You
Haim are no strangers to large-scale pop—their collaboration with Calvin Harris, “Pray to God,” yanked up the bar several feet for the once-maligned producer. But their real strength is in taking the past few decades of soft rock, adult pop, and JACK FM playlists and proving they’ve still got enough life for a trio of 20-something sisters to thrive. Something to Tell You, their second album, wisely doesn’t stray far from this sound in its intricate harmonies, meticulous attention to Linndrum arrangements, lush bridges, tasteful collaborators like Rostam, and heartbreak softened into wistful restraint.
Listen: Haim, “Little of Your Love”
Goldfrapp: Silver Eye
For over a decade, Alison Goldfrapp has basically been two artists—the shameless electro diva who made Black Cherry and Supernature, and the shameless cinematic fabulist who made Felt Mountain and Tales of Us. Attempts to blend the two have mostly proven disappointing. While Silver Eye still occasionally feels like the work of two artists, they’re both in top form. It begins with the filth-coated steel of “Anymore” before the roof falls away to reveal the starry, drifting “Moon in Your Mouth” and the Haxan Cloak–produced “Zodiac Black.” The rest of the album dwells in the spaces in between, which turn out to be gorgeous.
Listen: Goldfrapp, “Anymore”
Khalid: American Teen
Khalid knows he’s a voice of a generation, and that his generation has more than a couple grievances: the first two tracks on his album are called “American Teen” (preceding words: “the lie of the”) and “Young Dumb & Broke.” He’s a compelling voice, both figuratively and literally, landing somewhere between a baby Future and a conversational, gravelly folkie. As a songwriter, he’s strong enough to make even the most rote buildup-drop-profit EDM songs interesting, and he’s already mastered one key lesson: make your teenage existence specific—from hiding your car’s weed smell from mom, to griping about subtweets, to tolerating bad perfume in the name of love—and the rest as universal as possible.
Listen: Khalid, “Shot Down”
Sophia Somajo: Freudian Slip
Sophia Somajo has gone through a decade’s worth of identities but largely in the background: self-produced upstart (2008’s The Laptop Diaries), pseudonymous pop ghostwriter, collaborator with fellow rising Swedes (Style of Eye, Patrik Berger). Even in a country that seems like it raises its GDP via pop music, Freudian Slip stands out—particularly the cavernously dark “Mouth to Mouth,” the deceptively sprightly “Smoke,” and “The Last Summer,” which features a thinkpiece-worthy reference to Wu-Tang and Nirvana.
Listen: Sophia Somajo, “Sapphire”
Charli XCX: Pop 2
The “Boys” video of albums: a panoply of alt-pop and rap collaborators both expected (MØ and CupcakKe return from Number 1 Angel) and genuinely left-field (Brazilian drag queen Pabllo Vittar and Estonian rapper Tommy Cash appear), designed to make music nerds froth at the mouth (the lead track, an ebullient Carly Rae Jepsen cut). Charli XCX rises above the occasional drears of her last mixtape and ascends to what she calls the “the holographic purple world,” with lyrics that recall the hyper-emotional territory of her brilliant debut, True Romance. Among her plentiful company, Charli is an anchor: a solid, recognizable voice, guided in part by PC Music producer A. G. Cook from low femmebot robotics to the impossibly high trills of “Backseat” and “Lucky.” This is fast-fashion pop at its best.
Listen: Charli XCX, “Backseat” [ft. Carly Rae Jepsen]
Paramore: After Laughter
The past decade has seen these former Warped Tour darlings go through several lineup changes and flirtations with Top 40 radio. In doing so, they’ve followed an increasingly giddy, poppy musical path all the way to After Laughter, an album full of the kind of pastel-colored, freestyle-inflected, unapologetically ’80s arrangements last heard on Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION. They’re still Paramore, though, so they offer sugar over sour candy, as on tracks like “Tell Me How” and “Hard Times”—or, on the bracing and Aaron Weiss–fronted “No Friend,” sugar over strychnine.
Listen: Paramore, “Hard Times”
Sevdaliza: ISON
Trip-hop gets a bad rap, considering how many artists have resurrected it this decade, from the Weeknd to FKA twigs. ISON, the debut album by the Iranian-Dutch vocalist Sevdaliza, is reminiscent of the latter’s work, as well as Martina Topley-Bird. Produced with Mucky, the album drifts into classical and experimental arrangements of lush cello and flitting piano, dwelling on themes of motherhood and dissociation. It’s a reminder that the genre, maligned as background music, can be a vessel for slow, thoughtful introspection.
Listen: Sevdaliza, “Hero”
Kehlani: SweetSexySavage
The album’s title is a direct nod to TLC’s CrazySexyCool and it interpolates two separate Aaliyah tracks (yet, unlike dozens of producers who’ve died on this hill, doesn’t sound cliché). Kehlani’s debut harkens back to a time when every one of its singles would’ve crossed over. With the prolific R&B duo Pop & Oak, she takes each component to its most-felt heights: the exuberant highs and sly seductions of “Distraction” and “Undercover,” the unapologetic bluntness of “CRZY” and “Do U Dirty.” For an album released back in January, it’s had remarkable longevity, both in the R&B world and on pop playlists.
Listen: Kehlani, “Undercover”
The xx: I See You
The xx’s I See You found the band at the perfect midpoint between Jamie xx’s electronic experimentation and the intimate guitar-pop of their first two records. The hushed bedroom confessions of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim still sat front and center, but they were augmented by more adventurous and newly dynamic production. The result was a surprising accentuation of their best attributes: They still seemed shy and thoughtful and sneakily melodic, but all those qualities were projected onto a bigger screen, where every detail hit with new clarity. –Mark Richardson
Listen: The xx, “Replica”
Syd: Fin
Syd’s old project, the Internet, had a low-key assurance that belied its gimmicky name: It was quietly one of the most consistent acts out of the improbably fertile Odd Future. On Fin, Syd’s solo debut, she slinks with similar poise, through all the sounds of R&B’s last decade: turn-of-the-century glitchiness, thick cuts over horror-film riffs, smoky quiet storm. Syd, who is proudly out, gives a subversive twist to the independent-woman lust of “Got Her Own” and squad cuts like “All About Me.” And all of this? Just “an in-between thing,” she says; evidently, “in-between” for Syd would be a career high for countless others.
Listen: Syd, “All About Me”
Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life
Lana Del Rey’s last two opuses, 2014’s psych-soaked Ultraviolence and 2015’s extravagantly unhurried Honeymoon, proved her brash 2012 major-label debut, Born to Die, was as real as the summertime blues. With Lust for Life, she leveraged that cachet for her sleekest, catchiest set yet, buttressed by big names ranging from the Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, and Playboi Carti, to Stevie Nicks and Sean Ono Lennon. Lana might be smiling on the cover, but such effortlessly meta genre-mashing is still a lonesome road. –Marc Hogan
Listen: Lana Del Rey, “Love”
St. Vincent: Masseduction
In which St. Vincent plunges, deliberate as a guided missile, from the heady realms of art-pop to the raucous seat of mega-stardom. She gleefully, winkingly adopts all the trappings: models and sold-out arenas, neon photoshoots, iridescent-purple riffs, Jack Antonoff production. And she reveals it all as a twisted, addictive grieving process: pop via pain machine.
Listen: St. Vincent, “New York”
Ibeyi: Ash
The second album by the French-Cuban twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz continues recent conversations of Solange and Dev Hynes: meditative, reflective arrangements that nod to resistance, simmer beneath the glare of history, and draw in jazz, soul, and West African percussion. With the help of bassist Meshell Ndegeocello, saxophonist Kamasi Washington, and well-chosen samples ranging from Michelle Obama speeches to Frida Kahlo journal excerpts, Ibeyi create an album that, in 2017, aches in the muscles with subtext.
Listen: Ibeyi, “Deathless” [ft. Kamasi Washington]
Charlotte Gainsbourg: Rest
On Rest, Charlotte Gainsbourg departs from her past albums—Beck records, in everything but name and breathiness—to assemble an exceedingly unlikely team: Ed Banger’s SebastiAn, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Owen Pallett, and Sir Paul McCartney himself. The results are sumptuous and symphonic, befitting her chiffon-fine vocals and family lineage. For the first time, Gainsbourg takes over as lead songwriter and proves herself a compelling voice, finding the barely hidden grief behind nursery rhymes, wedding vows, and Moroder machines.
Listen: Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Lying With You”
Sampha: Process
Soulful secret weapon Sampha finally stepped out from the shadows and grabbed the spotlight with his debut this year. Icy synthesizers and lurching drums flesh out his signature piano accompaniments, with intricate arrangements that lift up mourning songs to the rafters and beyond. Utter heartbreaker “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano” is a sonic red herring, but also the best indicator of what Process is all about: capturing the tendrils of Sampha’s soul and putting them on display, unhealed scars and all. –Noah Yoo
Listen: Sampha, “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano”
Kelela: Take Me Apart
In all of the year’s pop and R&B albums, Kelela’s full-length debut may display the most sheer craft with the least apparent sweat. Take Me Apart’s title track is R&B at its most kaleidoscopic and forward-thinking, “Truth or Dare” could be really good mid-to-late-era Janet Jackson, and the lockstep precision of “LMK”’s beat, paired with the single-minded assurance of Kelela’s verses, are made for car stereos just after sunset.
Listen: Kelela, “LMK”
Lorde: Melodrama
Everyone loves a precocious newcomer; historically, people love them much less once they’re adults. On her second album, Lorde leans into this challenge, lending her scratchy, guttural vocals to strange, “incorrect songwriting” and making them anthems. Throughout Melodrama, she is unsparing in her feelings: excoriating a certain ex via an uncanny Kate Bush impression, turning fake beach pics into an exposé, hijacking the (back of the) Louvre for a dance party powered by a striking anti-chorus comprised of heartbeats and crushes. It’s not the sacrilege it sounds like—it’s fine art.
Listen: Lorde, “Supercut”
SZA: Ctrl
From her nimble delivery to her opulent nü-soul arrangements, SZA is a singer with a rapper’s sensibility. On her long-delayed debut, Ctrl, she writes with unsparing candor about exes, hookups, and herself. Her detail-driven specificity is the same kind that makes short stories go viral, from the inertia-fueled coupling of “Love Galore” to the non-monogamous rules of “The Weekend” and the quarter-life anxiety of “20 Something.” The territory is familiar, but SZA’s take may well be definitive.
