Occasionally, an album will just grab you from the off & get better with each listen. These are usually the albums that move in & take up residence in your brain.
Sometimes these albums are a flash in the pan & 6 months to a year down the line, they are gathering dust on the shelf with the rest. However, sometimes you hear something that you know is here to stay & 2026 has served up a belter with the 15th album by Tricky called Different When It’s Silent.
The last couple of times i have had this feeling, i have been rewarded with albums which are now nestled in my all time top 20 (the last albums by Bill Ryder Jones, CMAT, Fred Again.. & SOAK immediately jump to mind) & I can’t help feel that this is one to add to the list. It is a really lovely album & each listen is revelaing another layer of brilliance.
What are your 2026 albums which are contenders for the end of year list? I hope that each of you have found one that has grabbed me like this wonderful album has
A link to the album here:
I also got myself the dinked edition which is rather nice
https://dinkededition.co.uk/editions/tricky-different-when-its-silent
There have actually been a few crackers this year.
JAZZ AOTY: Stramash 2 by Colin Steele
SOUL/R’N’B AOTY: Real Life Evolution by Joan as Police Woman
SINGER/SONGWRITER AOTY: Doing This For Love by Kris Drever.
All 3 leapt out of the speakers with panache and fandango.
JAPW – is it really that much different to Real Life (a record I adore)?
It really is, @MC-Escher, . Sure, the songs are broadly the same construction but it is as if the architect is completely different. Works equally stand alone as complementary; I prefer it.
đ I’ll have a listen
I have been meaning to give the Tricky a listen.
My record of the year so far is comfortably The Canyon by JJerome 87.
Beautiful, woozy West Coast vibes, a soupcon of Pacific Ocean Blue and Motown backing vocals. Plus, a lead single called Brush Me Like A Horse.
It’s a total vibe, and a great Summer album.
That’s very good.
I like that thanks Bingo. Ordered from the man’s site.
Awesome! Glad you guys liked it.
Itâs nice. On first listen I couldnât place the voice but looked it up. Itâs him from Alt-j on a solo run. His voice did a lot for their first album.
Hey @Bingo-Little I ordered ‘The Canyon’ direct from JJ and he promptly sent it along with a large signed card. Anyhow I’m imressed, with music that is. It’s had several plays and is almost certaian to feature in my year end Top 20. So thanks for the tip.
Excellent – glad you’re enjoying it! He’s definitely landed on a great sound, and it really hangs together nicely as an album.
‘Look for your Mind’ by the Lemon Twigs is the only new album that has filled me with anything remotely joyous so far this year. Melodic, crafted and with great hair.
Top of the pile so far for me
Like all of these:
Trixies by Squeeze
The Boys of Dungeon Lane – McCartney
Foreign Tongues – Stones
Also the following live albums are superb – St Vincent Live in London, Wilco Live (Yellow) – both streaming only, or pretty listenable – Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts – As Time Explodes.
Also heard Lemon Twigs, it’s fine, but I can’t get excited about it. 388 by The Coral, not sure yet.
The Squeeze album is so good that I think, in the future, it’ll be one of the one’s I come back to. A lot of their other more recent albums remain on the (virtual) shelf.
Paul McCartney – The Boys of Dungeon Lane
Tamikrest – Assikel
Rodney Crowell – Then Again (although technically itâs old unreleased material)
The Kris Drever album is good but I’m particularly enjoying “Mission of Mercy” by Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs. Grungy good time heartland rock. Great song writing and guitar playing par excellence.
Didnât know Mike Campbell had a new one out. Ordered!
You won’t be disappointed!
The Mountain by Gorillaz is far and away album of the year and may be Damon Albarn’s masterpiece.
Yes, it’s really something. Plus the live show was incredible.
One more for The Mountain.
Also Imarhan and McCartney.
I think The Mountain for me too so far.
The mountain for me too.
Plus the Tucker Zimmerman album.
Time by Taj Mahal is superb. Every track a different feel and all impeccably played.
Give it a go!
Alan Barnes & Dave Newton: ok, it was released in 2024 but it is, nevertheless, the best album I’ve heard so far in 2026! Unbelievably talented musicians … if you can see them live, do so!
Inferno by Boards of Canada anyone?
A few very good albums this year so far, but the two that immediately spring to mind are….
MONO / Snowdrop
Joe Jackson / Hope and Fury
Blue Morpho by Ed OâBrien is still weaving a spell for me.
I feel that there are a lot of excellent albums this year, most of them mentioned above, I canât be bothered to list them!
The new album that has grabbed me immediately this year is A Djinn And A Hunter Went Walking by Nebu Solo & Benego DiakitĂ©. It’s gloriously uplifting
I agree. It’s a genuine classic Malian recording.
Looks like something I’d be into, I’ll give a track or two a listen. That’s all I need to convince me I’ll like/dislike it. Although I doubt I’ll dislike it.
A bakers dozen of albums on my ‘best of 2026’ list for the December poll, but nothing head and shoulders above the rest. If I had to pick one now might be The Artist Known As Four Tet’s alter ego ‘Wingdings’ from whom an album sneaked out about a month ago. Favourite track..err.. try typing that into google search.
Aside from Macca, my picks for the year so far are all ‘pop girlies’…
Jessie Ware – Superbloom
Charli XCX – “Wuthering Heights”
Olivia Rodrigo – you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
Maisie Peters – Florescence
Suki Waterhouse – Loveland
Madonna – Confessions II
…and a country gal:
Kacey Musgraves – Middle Of Nowhere
The Madonna album turned out to be her best in a very, very long time.
The Charli album that’s come out today is also excellent, based on a couple of listens.
My favourite Olivia Rodrigo track this year wasn’t by Olivia Rodrigo….
Agree with all of this. The Charli album has been played through twice & i have enjoyed it immensely both times.
Yes, I’ve just got round to the Charli album… very, very good.
Yeah, that Kacey Musgraves has some great pop tunes on it.
I have three contenders, as of this month:
Rubbra Choral Works sung by The Choir of Merton College, conducted by Benjamin Nicholas;
Soft Machine – Thirteen;
and Brahms late piano works, played by Piotr Anderszewski
Theyâll all be in my top ten – but, at the moment, any of them could take the top spot.
Ta for the Softs tip. John Etheridge is one of our finest. I chatted to him at a little festival one time and he’s a lovely bloke too.
The album that grabbed me most is ThĂŠtas – The Irredeemable Age. It’s a (deep breath) organic brutal dissonant death/doom/sludge/free-jazz underground metal by a four-picee band from New York. I should explain.
For the last six years I’ve been taking care of my now 97 years old mother. I do it with love, naturally, but she’s in the last stage of dementia and unfortunately she has this agressive, malicious and unpleasant nervous attacks all day long. I’m slowly loosing my mind myself, having mostly only two to three hours sleep daily, she needs to be watched over all the time.
The music that speaks to me last few years is more and more this death/doom metal. It just answers to my emotional and physical state I’m in. I always listened to all kinds of music, but this is what is needed now. It will be in my top five come 2026 end of the year list.
You take what you need when you need it. Music seems to meet an emotional need that nothing else quite manages in the same way.
This is clumsy, and of course I donât know you – but your mother is lucky to have you, even if she doesnât realise it: I donât think I could manage to do what youâre doing. All my best wishes to you and your mother.
Yikes, sounds awful, @izzy, and I donât mean the music. (AlthoughâŠ.) Are there no other options?
You are built of stronger stuff than I, Izzy. My wife does homecare around the village and I help out sometimes with driving or moving furniture, things like that but the full-time intimate care you provide for your mum would be beyond me. Best wishes to you both…
Thanks for the kind words, guys, appreciated indeed. It’s too long a story to go into detail, but I’m determined to see it through. Although it is one of those things you truly wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. But it’s a right thing to do. As for me, when this is over I will need at least a year to piece myself together again. It’s just this 10-year life’s detour when I took intimate care first for my father and now my mother. Interests remain, music is calling, waiting for me to recharge and continue. I’m a quiet water, we’re wise and tough, just not in a flashy way.
I’ve listened to more Charlotte Cornfield’s ‘Hurts Like Hell’ more than anything this year.
Other than that, at various times, ‘Foreign Tongues’ and Kacey Musgrave’s ‘Middle of Nowhere’ have dominated.
Shoutout also to Laura Marling’s ‘Laura sings Raffi’. Probably not essential, being an album of kids songs, but I think it’s charming and occasionally quite moving.
When our daughters were small we had a cassette of Raffiâs Baby Beluga album which they absolutely adored. Theyâre a similar age to Laura so maybe she had it too. Must have a listen if only for nostalgiaâs sake.
Thereâs no one which has really leaped out of the pack yet but one which has matured and improved with every listen is Courtney Marie Andrewâsâ âValentineâ. Perhaps no coincidence that it came out early in the year and so has had time to work its way into my ears and my heart.
Nope. I can’t think of anything that’s particularly grabbed my attention since the last time this kinda post appeared. A few classical albums and a handful of jazz have been of passing interest. I very rarely bother with pop or rock of any flavour anymore and if I do it’s more likely to be something that’s been previously released. I guess my interest has waned a tad in 2026. I’m more active again now so I have been devoting fewer hours to sitting on my arse, maybe that’s got something to do with it. If I think of anything I’ll post again.
Yes. It’s been a bit quiet in the last couple of months. đ
Rather than criticise the underwhelming albums by the Stones and Paul McCartney, and the merely OK new effort by Olivia Rodrigo, I’ll nominate “Weapons of Beauty”, Jay Buchanan’s latest solo album. If you haven’t come across him, he’s the front man of Rival Sons. For me, he is the greatest current rock vocalist in the traditional sense. The new album is largely acoustic. From the opening track (“Caroline”) it’s powerful and stunning.
Top tip, thanks. Mrs. T says he sounds like Demis Roussos but I like it.
What’s wrong with a bit of Demis Roussos? I’ll not be having you round for a cheese and wine party at my gaff with that sort of attitude young fella me lad.
Little cubes of cheese on cocktail sticks, I hope..
Of course and pineapple chunks, all washed down with lashing of Mateus rose.
You were observing my childhood? Cocktail sticks stuck into half a melon on a bed of tin foil I assume?
100%
My copy of The Carpenters’ Greatest Hits and “Feliciano” by the great JosĂ© are on the autochanger.
Funnily enough, I watched Abigailâs Party the other week, for the first time in a decade or twoâŠ
I still enjoy Mateus RosĂ© Iâll have you know!
In the beard and hair departments, Mr B does resemble Mr R on the album’s cover. By the time he reached Brighton last week Mr. B had shed the beard and had a haircut.
Just in today, the AOTY by an old guy still performing, Cyril Nevilleâs Donât Wait Til Iâve Gone. OK, most of the riffs and rhythms are recycled NâAwlins staples, but a stellar family cast make it entirely fresh and credible. The youngest of the Neville Bros, Cyril is 77.
Nah, Phil’s the youngest – 49.
We donât mention him since he gave away that penalty against Romania..
The last time we did this, I ended up buying Michael Weston King’s Nothing can Hurt Me Anymore – and friends, let me tell you, that was a good thing. It is excellent.
My other contender for album of the year is Windblown by Karine Polwart, with Pippa Murphy and Dave Milligan. Now this album is utterly lovely, being haunting of both music and word, and nicely packaged with a hardback book.
However, in the spirit of openness, I feel I should be upfront that it is a concept album about a tree. Wait, come back! The tree in question used to be a very tall palm tree in the glasshouse at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. It was regarded fondly by many visitors. Reader, I knew that tree. This isn’t any hippy, dippy sentimentality though – it deals with the big themes around things being taken from one part of the world to another, loss and grief. I find it an absolutely spellbinding work – and if I haven’t succeeded in putting you off, you might too. You can have a look and a listen here: https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/product/karine-polwart—windblown