It’s hard to believe that we’re already two months into 2026.
I still find myself instinctively writing 2024 on some of my papers, but with a new year comes new pop culture events to enjoy. Some people lean toward movies, with big releases this year including “Dune: Part Three” and “Avengers: Doomsday.” Others prefer video games, such as “Resident Evil Requiem” and (finally) “Grand Theft Auto IV.”
But me? I’ve always leaned toward music.
I always anxiously wait for my favorite artists to drop an album. “Discovery” by Daft Punk, “IGOR” by Tyler, The Creator, “21” by Adele, and “Plastic Beach” by Gorillaz. I’d consider all of these some of the greatest albums of the 21st century without a doubt, and there are so many more I could mention.
And yet, the quality of music has been so inconsistent over the last few years that it makes me wonder. Do we need to worry about music in 2026?
2023—The Awful
Let’s face the facts. 2023 was a garbage year for music.
I’m not saying there was no good music in 2023, because there was. SZA’s “SOS” was a stellar album, probably one of the best of the whole year.
Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts” received rave reviews after her already popular album “Sour” did the same in 2021. Even “Barbie the Album” featured amazing tracks from Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Sam Smith, and… Ryan Gosling? I really should’ve seen “I’m Just Ken” coming after “La La Land.”
Unfortunately, the negatives far outweigh the positives.
Other than Zach Bryan’s self-titled album, country music really struggled.
Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” was nearly two hours of repetition and filled with terrible tracks like “Last Night” and “F150-50.” Politically charged tracks like Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” and Oliver Anthony Music’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” received positive and negative attention from seemingly everyone, but hey, any press is good press, right?
Rap also failed to find its footing.
Drake’s “For All The Dogs” was mid at best. Lil Pump’s “Lil Pump 2” felt dated and uninspired. “Sremm 4 Life” made it seem like Rae Sremmurd (consisting of brothers Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi) was losing their footing as a duo. And 6ix9ine… is 6ix9ine.
Not even releases from previous years are safe.
Fall Out Boy’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” a recap of the years from 1989 to 2023, was a terrible cover that attempted to rhyme Kim Jong Un with Iron Man, while avoiding any references to the COVID-19 pandemic. Roger Waters’ re-release of “Money” is an ominous, seven-minute slug of an amazing “Dark Side of the Moon” song. And “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” is another David Guetta remix that tainted the legacy of a 1990s classic, coming after his 2022 release “I’m Good (Blue).”
2023 was also the year that Dream dropped an album. It was not good.
So why was music so bad this year? According to Medium, “The main issue lies in the decline of creativity… [it] has diminished, giving way to an abundance of recycled ideas and tired formulas.”
I fully agree with this. Almost any song sounds like it could’ve come from the year before, or the year before that. There was nothing new. No innovation. Just recycled ideas that led to one of the worst years for music in recent memory.
2024—The Awesome
When 21 Savage dropped “American Dream” on Jan. 12, I knew it was going to be a great year. My friends told me to get ready for disappointment, and I’ve never felt so vindicated in my life.
Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine.”
MGMT’s “Loss of Life.”
Future and Metro Boomin’s “We Don’t Trust You.”
Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft.”
Charli xcx’s “Brat.”
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet.”
Tyler, The Creator’s “Chromakopia.”
Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX”
Each of these albums was loaded with hits, most notably songs like “Espresso,” “Like That,” and “the boy is mine.”
I could stop here. But I won’t.
There were many huge, year-defining events.
USHER’s Super Bowl performance raked in nearly 130 million viewers. The Kendrick Lamar-Drake beef cultivated in “Not Like Us,” one of the most acclaimed songs in history. Brat Summer brought back the Y2K aesthetic and promoted a carefree mindset. Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour finally ended in 2024 after 632 days and 149 shows—an insanely impressive feat. I mean, Mozart dropped. That’s how you know it’s good.
I won’t pretend like 2024 was perfect.
Marshmello and Kane Brown’s “Miles on It” is everything wrong with bro-country. Lola Young’s “Messy” is, as it says, “a messy and extremely whiny track.” Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Vultures 2” is just a bad album. And this year, we had Ben Shapiro rapping, which was something else entirely.
Aside from these misses, though, 2024 was full of hits, and I really couldn’t be happier. It felt like a breath of fresh air after the year that was 2023. Unfortunately for me, I had to hold my breath throughout 2025.
2025 – The Mixed Bag
Where 2024 started with an actual good rap song, 2025 started with a Tom MacDonald song called “Daddy’s Home” featuring Roseanne Barr. I’m not trying to be political, but the fact that it wasn’t an SNL skit is stunning. I think this song was an omen, heralding the future of the year. And it was not a good one.
As I like to say, the theme of 2025 was the Law of Equivalent Exchange. It seemed like every time we got a bad album, we got a great one to balance it out, and vice versa.
As an example, we got Lil Wayne’s appalling “Tha Carter VI,” and a month later, we got Clipse’s amazing album “Let God Sort ‘Em Out.” When Morgan Wallen’s 37-song dud “I’m The Problem” dropped, Tyler Childers dropped “Snipe Hunter,” a thrilling project, around two months later. Lady Gaga’s “Mayhem” is full of hits like “Abracadabra” and the 2024 single “Die With A Smile,” yet I could not name a single song off Jessie Murph’s “Sex Hysteria.”
The charts were dominated by Bad Bunny’s “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” a revolutionary record-breaking alternative reggaeton album, Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl,” her most underwhelming and polarizing project yet, and songs from previous years like Rosé and Bruno Mars’ “APT,” Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather.” None of these are bad songs per se, but it felt like they were outshining the genuinely good songs from this year, like Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” and Leon Thomas’ “MUTT.”
This felt like the least eventful year for music in a long time. After Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, it all went downhill. People online documented the hunt for the ‘song of the summer,’ which ended without a single answer. Great songs were buried, so Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” could spend another week on top of the charts.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is running rampant in the music industry, with generative AI “artists” nearly indistinguishable from real singers. When the biggest musical event of the year is a Netflix movie about K-Pop stars killing demons, something is wrong.
All this is to say that it’s been a long three years for the music industry. We’ve had the good, the bad, and the ugly. Where will 2026 fall?
2026—Do We Need to Worry?
To keep it short, I’m cautious, but positive. Let me explain myself.
The first place I could see genuine improvement over 2025 is the rap scene. We’ve already had amazing album drops from J. Cole, A$AP Rocky, Don Toliver, and Baby Keem, with future releases confirmed by Jack Harlow, Cardi B, Roddy Ricch, and Drake, and even a theorized Kendrick Lamar drop.
And the more I scroll through Billboard lists, the more excited I get, because this year is going to have something for everyone.
Do you like pop music? Perfect. Harry Styles is putting out “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally” on March 6. How about K-Pop? BTS is dropping a new album, their first project back after their required military service. Is country music for you? Ella Langley, who had an amazing song in “Choosin’ Texas” in 2025, is releasing her full album on April 10. Is R&B more your speed? Lucky you, Brent Faiyaz already released his album “Icon” on Feb. 13.
Alas, there is trouble in paradise. Ye was set to drop his album “Bully” on January 30, and it has since been pushed to March 20. Megadeth’s self-titled album was a critical failure, and Nicki Minaj is dropping an album that will almost certainly flop due to her recent political controversies.
Again, though, I’m keeping an optimistic mood. I mean, when else have you seen names like Bruno Mars, the Gorillaz, Mitski, Paul McCartney, and BLACKPINK drop albums on the same day?
I can’t name every single artist that’s releasing an album this year, but here are a few: Denzel Curry, Luke Combs, Hilary Duff, American Football, Björk, and Madonna. Unless every single one of these artists underperforms, I have no doubts that 2026 is going to be an amazing year for music.
Check back with me in December. Maybe I’ll eat those words.
Matthew Koroski is a writer for The Setonian’s Opinion section. He can be reached matthew.koroski@student.shu.edu.
