From the now-confirmed release of Kanye West’s Swish LP to the anticipated debut from Aussie indie-soulstress Meg Mac, 2016 promises to be full of big albums and big names. Here are the 48 records we’re most eager to blast on our stereos this year.
U2
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Album: Songs of Experience
Release Date: TBA
The 14th album from U2 has been talked about ever since the release of Songs of Innocence, Rolling Stone‘s best album of 2014. “Early on it became obvious that we were working on two separate albums,” the Edge told Rolling Stone US. “The majority of the unfinished songs are worthy of becoming part of Songs of Experience and some are already as good or better than anything on Songs of Innocence.” U2’s plans have a way of getting derailed — just ask Bono’s surgeons — but the singer has been playing intimate previews of tracks from his phone, offering commentary such as “this has got a really crunchy beat” and “on this one we were going for a broken cassette recorder type of sound.” The band has accumulated at least 18 tracks, which they plan to whittle down to a dozen for a 2016 release.
Kanye West
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Album: Swish
Release Date: February 11th
What will Kanye West’s seventh album sound like? There’s really no telling. Over the last year, Kanye has released a solo record (“All Day”), a collaboration with Paul McCartney (“Only One”), a collaboration with Paul McCartney and Rihanna (“FourFiveSeconds”), a song with Vic Mensa (“U Mad”), a song with Vic Mensa and Sia (“Wolves”), a “Jumpman” cover (“FACTS”), a remix of a classic Larry Heard house record alongside Ty Dolla $ign and Post Malone (“Fade”) and, most recently, “Real Friends” and a snippet of “No More Parties in L.A”. And, according to Pusha T in an interview with Rolling Stone this past December, most of these records won’t appear on the oft-delayed Swish. Supposedly, music took a back seat to Kanye’s fashion escapades this year, but Pusha also promises, even though he wasn’t involved in its creation: “Everything I’ve heard is phenomenal.”
Metallica
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It’s been nearly eight years since Metallica won back fans and critics with return-to-thrash-form Death Magnetic (and five since they almost alienated them with their controversial Lou Reed collaboration Lulu). So it’s no surprise that they’re taking their time to perfect what will be their long-in-the-works 10th LP. They’re staying tight-lipped about its progress – in April 2014, Lars Ulrich estimated they were in the “fourth inning” of the process, though Kirk Hammett guessed they were “30 percent” done a year later. Regardless, they want you to know they’re working. Last March, Ulrich said the group was working with 20 songson the heels of their 2014 tour single “Lords of Summer.” They’ve also teased new material with video of James Hetfield playing a crushing new riff on guitar and of thrash-y song snippet on a computer. The band has only one tour date on the books so far, so they’ll have plenty of time to release more snippets this year.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
The absurdly durable alt-funk quartet are preparing for their eleventh album and first since 2011’s I’m With You. Singer Anthony Kiedis told Rolling Stone US this October that the group has written several songs over the past year, although the prevalence of modern-day recording devices has kept them from playing any in their live sets. Kiedis also stated that RHCP was collaborating with producer Danger Mouse for the LP: “He’s very good about coming up with super-modern ideas, but he’ll also touch on the acoustic guitar in the control room and strip the song down to its acoustic essentials, which is a beautiful place to be.”
Drake
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Album: Views From the 6
Release Date: TBA
Drake remains hip-hop’s foremost rap artist – critically acclaimed, a populist superstar, reshaping the genre simply when cosigning a trend. Even the revelation that Drake relied upon ghostwriters for recent hits hasn’t noticeably slowed his momentum. Drake appeared on two full-length – ahem – “mixtapes” in 2011,What A Time to Be Alive with Future and If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. But Views From the 6, Drake has emphasized in interviews, is to be more substantial, a deliberate statement. He told Rolling Stone that part of his return to Serious Business means working mainly with his longtime producer Noah “40” Shebib: “I just wanted to be able to come back to that and have it be important.”
Rihanna
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Album: Anti
Release Date: Still TBA, but tour starts February 26th
Rihanna came out guns blazing in January 2015, mentioning that her long-awaited follow-up to 2012’s Unapologetic was on the way, executive produced by none other than Kanye West. But after a few singles, including the acoustic “FourFiveSeconds” with West and Paul McCartney, and the R&B radio hit “Bitch Better Have My Money,” the campaign seemed to go quiet. The title and cover of Rihanna’s 8th album was finally unveiled in November, and her Samsung app ANTIdiaRy has been teasing fans with cryptic hints — but 2016 has so far began with no new single or release date. “To me it’s never done until it’s done,” Rihanna said of the album in September. As recently as November she canceled a performance at the Victoria Secret Fashion Show to put in some more work into it.
Flume
Album: Skin
Release Date: TBA
After releasing his self-titled debut in 2012, Flume has toured extensively and played headline sets at some of the world’s biggest festivals. Things have been quiet on the Flume front for a while now, but he took to Instagram last week to reveal the artwork and title of his 2nd album — as well as offering up a preview of what’s to come.
Lady Gaga
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
She’s spent the last year touring classic pop songs with Tony Bennett and starring as the Countess on American Horror Story: Hotel, but Lady Gaga has also been working on her follow-up to 2013’s Artpop. “I want the fans to be surprised,” Gaga told Yahoo in late December. “But I will just tell you that it’s a wonderful, soul-searching experience. … This record is like – my old self as a cadaver. And I’m just, I’m operating on my old self.” Among the forensic investigation: Possibly returning to the studio with RedOne, if a studio selfie with the “Poker Face”/”Bad Romance” producer is any indication. “We took a little break from each other and now it feels like we are in a good place, both of us. She did her thing, I did my thing, and it feels like we’re back on track together,” RedOne said to The National.
Frank Ocean
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Album: Boys Don’t Cry
Release Date: TBA
The follow-up to Frank Ocean’s 2012 Grammy-winning R&B smash Channel Orange even has Adele impatient. “I’m just fucking waiting for Frank fucking Ocean to come out with his album,” she told Rolling Stone in 2015. “It’s taking so fucking long.” In the works since early 2013, the concept album reportedly features collaborations with Hit-Boy, Tyler the Creator, Rodney Jerkins, Pharrell and Danger Mouse. Last year, Ocean announced, “I got two versions. I got twoooo versions. #ISSUE1 #ALBUM3 #JULY2015 #BOYSDONTCRY,” and posted a photo with a stack of Boys Don’t Cry magazines. July came and went, and Adele got nothing.
Tool
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Tool is free! It’s been practically a decade since the release of the hard-art-rock titans’ last studio album, 10,000 Days. Though they hit the road nationally a few times in those 10 ensuing years, as it turned out, they spent a good chunk of the time wrapped up in a lawsuit with an insurance company. With the lawsuit settled and the ensuing creativity-drain gone, Maynard James Keenan and company are back at it. This month, they’ll hit the road with Primus, and guitarist Adam Jones told Rolling Stone US last year that they’ve made major progress on a new album, due out this year. “Things are really flowing and going really well, and I’m just blown away at the stuff that’s coming together,” he said. “I’m excited and can’t wait for it to be done.”
Radiohead
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Radiohead fans were given an unexpected Christmas gift with the surprise release of the band’s unreleased Bond theme, “Spectre,” the band’s first taste of new music in four years. While the band has not confirmed a new album’s title or release date, drummer Phil Selway told Drowned in Sound last January that the band began working on new material in September of 2014. Johnny Greenwood later confirmed that the band had “done a couple months of recording” that “have gone really well,” noting that they’ve changed their method of making a new album again. In early December, Thom Yorke debuted a new song called “Silent Spring” at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Violent Soho
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Violent Soho guitarist, Luke Boerdam recently told Rolling Stone that, during a recent trip to Europe, he found recent inspiration in some unlikely places: “I went through a war museum in Paris, and a song idea just popped into my head. It’s funny how that can happen. A little melody pops into your head and I hummed it into my iPhone recorder.” While details are still sketchy surrounding the Brisbane garage-punks’ forthcoming release, lead single “Like Soda” sounds every bit as vibrant and snarling as their 2013 Hungry Ghost, showing that it’s unlikely the boys have lost any of their edge.
Bruno Mars
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Beyond working on “All I Ask” off Adele’s blockbuster 25, Bruno Mars has been focused on creating his third album, the follow-up to 2012’s double platinum Unorthodox Jukebox. Despite the wait in between albums, Mars has never really exactly left the spotlight, playing the Super Bowl Half Time show and appearing on 2015’s biggest single, Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk,” which spent 14 weeks at Number One.
Nine Inch Nails
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It all started with a rare tweet from Trent Reznor’s official account: “New NIN coming in 2016. Other stuff, too.” This follows the positive reception of Nine Inch Nails’ otherwise understated, synth-heavy 2013 album Hesitation Marks – as well as its corresponding art book, Cargo in the Blood, released last December. “It’s not an album I’m trying to finish in a month,” Reznor told Rolling Stone US last June, “It’s more just feeling around in the dark and seeing what sounds interesting. It’s nice to do that every few years to try and reinvent and discover and try to learn about yourself and what feels exciting to you as an artist.”
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Maybe Macklemore and Ryan Lewis recognised they were facing an uphill battle or backlash going into the sequel to the duo’s enormously successful debut The Heist. “Downtown,” the yet-untitled follow-up LP’s lead single, was a long-overdue celebration of hip-hop’s early days, corralling hip-hop originators Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, and and Melle Mel. The song didn’t perform on the Billboard charts for very long, but its reverence was hard to see cynically. Still, it’s tough to imagine The Heist’s yet-unnamed follow-up will see the same level of success as its prequel, without a “Thrift Shop” lighting the way. Still, a newly-clean-and-sober Macklemore has promised to take on the influence of Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles in an ambitious attempt to break the sophomore slump.
Sia
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Album: This Is Acting
Release Date: January 29th
This Is Acting, Sia’s seventh album, pays tribute to the bewigged Australian’s other gig – writing songs for the likes of Rihanna, Beyoncé and other chart-toppers. Acting will consist entirely of songs that have been rejected by bigger names, and the match between song and intended target will, at times, be apparent on first listen. “One of them is a Shakira reject, which there’s no doubt when you hear it. You’ll know that it was a Shakira reject because I sound like Shakira,” she told Rolling Ston US in December. “Alive,” the album’s lead single, was intended for Adele and written alongside the British belter and the hotly tipped Canadian troubadour Tobias Jesso Jr. “I chose the people that we worked with and I choose those people because they’re so incredibly talented and they check their egos at the door too and allow me to be the artist. Then when I want to bring another artist, I try to check my ego at the door and be of service to them and allow them to be the artist.”
Beck
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
A few months after Morning Phase‘s surprise win for Album of the Year at the 2015 Grammys, Beck released the hugely catchy single “Dreams.” Produced by Greg Kurstin, who was a member of Beck’s backing band ages before he was helming chart-topping hits by Adele and Kelly Clarkson, “Dreams” was Beck’s biggest radio hit in more than a decade, reaching Number Two on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart and Number 23 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the best songs of 2015. “I was really trying to make something that would be good to play live,” Beck said in a radio interview last summer. However, six months after the single’s release, there are still scant details about the album’s title or release date.
Elton John
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Album: Wonderful Crazy Night
Release Date: February 5th
At 68, Elton John is still devoted to writing new songs with longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin. And Wonderful Crazy Night, which reunites him with longtime sidemen Davey Johnstone and Nigel Olsson, is his rowdiest and most upbeat album in decades. Mercury/Capitol, who released his downtempo 2013 album The Diving Board, will issue the album in February, although John says the label wasn’t thrilled with the rocking new record and would rather him just settle down and record a Christmas album or Motown covers. “I want this record to feel joyous from beginning to end,” John told Rolling Stone US in November.
Ed Sheeran
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
In a pop landscape driven mostly by EDM and hip-hop, Ed Sheeran made being an acoustic guitar-wielding singer-songwriter cool again thanks to tender ballads written for himself, Taylor Swift, One Direction and Justin Bieber. This year, he’s planning on releasing his as-yet-untitled third album and quit social media in early December to focus on his music. Back in September, Sheeran confirmed to Rolling Stone US that he was hard at work on his fourth album as well and would soon travel to Africa to look for new sounds. “I know a load of Ghanaian musicians in London, and they’ve always told me to go over there,” Sheeran said. “I feel like I’d go there and be revitalized.”
Lorde
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Kiwi songstress, Lorde, has had a hectic schedule since releasing her debut album, Pure Heroine, in 2013 — most recently contributing vocals to Disclosure’s hit “Magnets”. While details have been scarce about a forthcoming release, Lorde tweeted on New Year’s Day that she had whispered the title of her new LP to her mum while in the car.
Haim
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
The Haim sisters have experienced a roller-coaster ride since their 2013 debut, Days Are Gone — including collaborations with Calvin Harris and M83, a show on Beats 1 and an opening slot on Taylor Swift’s 1989 Tour. In October, they told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe that their long-in-the-works second album was almost finished. “Essentially the oven has been pre-heated and the oven door is open. … Fish fingers in the tray,” they quipped. While their signature harmonies will likely remain intact, there are a lot of wild cards at play: “We’re always writing and figuring out new vibes and trying to get our inner Kanyes out,” Alana Haim told Rolling Stone US in 2014.
Charli XCX
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Charli XCX kept busy in 2015, guesting on tracks like the Ty Dolla $ign single “Drop That Kitty,” launching a fashion line, and releasing a documentary about pop and feminism. Later in the year, she focused on music, cancelling her fall 2015 tour with Bleachers to work on her follow-up to 2014’s Sucker. In September,she offered a few details about the still-untitled album to the U.K. newspaper The Mirror: “It’s definitely the most electronic pop sound I’ve done,” she said. “I’ve been really inspired by Paris Hilton, small dogs and a glitter, luxe lifestyle.” In October she bore out that prediction when she released the dark, pounding “Vroom Vroom,” produced by future-shocked electro artist Sophie.
Chance the Rapper
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Will 2016 be the year the critically acclaimed MC finally puts his name on a commercially available debut? “That’s a good question,” Chance said when Rolling Stone US asked him last July if such a release was forthcoming. “Let’s say I don’t know.” Chance kept busy in 2015, working with the jazz-rap collective Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment on their wide-ranging and highly regarded release Surf. Chance also premiered two new tracks during high-profile TV slots: He introduced “Angels” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and performed “Somewhere in Paradise” on Saturday Night Live. It’s not clear yet whether those cuts are part of a larger project to surface this year. As Chance says: “I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to do a fucking thing!”
My Morning Jacket
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
My Morning Jacket just released their seventh album The Waterfall last May, but they’re already looking forward to the eighth. At the time of The Waterfall‘s release, the band revealed that they had produced over 24 songs, and that they would release the remaining material in 2016 – though their latest tour has made finalizing the next LP a bit difficult. “It’s this pile that I’m always mixing up, if I have a week or two off, I’m at home playing with the pile, or working on a solo record, or working on Jacket stuff or trying other stuff,” MMJ’s Jim James told Rolling Stone US. “We’ll definitely record more to make another record. There’s some things that we did for the last record that will end up getting used, I think, that I really like a lot. There’s only half the story there for the next record.”
M.I.A.
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Album: Matahdatah
Release Date: TBA
We heard several new tracks from brilliant global-punk-dance provocateur M.I.A. in 2015, at least a few of which seem likely to resurface on her fifth studio album, due sometime this year. In July, she dropped a long-form video called “Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border” that included the new song, “Swords.” Then in November, the video for “Borders,” which M.I.A. dedicated to her uncle, a Tamil migrant, directly addressed the global refugee crisis. “The concept for this LP is ‘broader than a border’ and Matahdatah is the journal of Matangi.” M.I.A. said in a statement, referring to her 2013 album. “Sometimes I move vertical and sometimes I move horizontal.”
Gwen Stefani
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Beyond the glare of tabloid cameras and The Voice, tireless businesswoman and artist Gwen Stefani has, in fact, had some time to make some actual music. Stefani reportedly started work on her third solo studio album, the follow-up to 2006’s The Sweet Escape, in 2014, but scrapped most of it. Instead, we got the first single, the nakedly personal ode to ex-husband Gavin Rossdale, “I Used to Love You.” Stefani told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe that the song arose as part of an unusually prolific, post-writer’s-block period. “I think I have enough for probably two albums,” she told him. “I have to write a few more songs, because I feel like, might as well keep going while it’s there.” It’s not all torch songs and ballads, though, she told him. A new single, a “really happy song,” is likely due out next — it’s called “Misery.” Go figure.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Considering that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is made up of 7 band members, it’s incredible (even from just a scheduling perspective) that they have been able to put out 7 full length releases over the past five years. 2015’s Paper Mâché Dream Balloon was born out of taking a break from recording a “nightmarish concept album” the group had been working on for years. Speaking to Rolling Stone recently, frontman, Stu Mackenzie, said they’d returned to New York’s Daptone Records studio to finish off that abandoned LP. Mackenzie tentatively confirming it’ll be their next release: “we’ve recorded most of it now, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Missy Elliott
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Missy Elliott bounded back into the pop spotlight in 2015, appearing with Katy Perry at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, guesting on a track on Janet Jackson’s new album and, most excitingly, collaborating with Pharrell on her gangbusters new single, “WTF (Where They From).” Elliott claims nerves kept her on the sidelines. “I felt like, ‘How do I fit in?'” she told i-D in November. “I’m battling. But then I never fit in! The whole time, I’ve never fit in!” As for a new album, longtime collaborator Timbaland has been saying it’s ready to go for more than a year. “It’s on her,” Tim said back in 2014. “She got the first single, it’s just a matter of when she wants to do it. We got the hollow-tip bullet in the gun. We have the game-changer right there.”
Soundgarden
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Soundgarden always vowed that if they’d ever reunite after their 1997 breakup, it would be to resume the band’s creative path and not just play the hits. The band stayed true to that promise with 2012’s thorny, hard-rocking King Animal. And though they’ve taken a break from playing live in the last few months as frontman Chris Cornell toured for his solo album Higher Truth, it appears that the band’s 7th full-length is somewhere on the horizon. “We’re already working on material for a new album,” Cornell told Rolling Stone US in August.
DMA’s
Album: Hill’s End
Release Date: February 26th
Already announced to play Coachella in April, Sydney trio DMA’s have had a mountain of international success, off the back of just their self-titled 2014 EP. With the full-length release scheduled for early 2016, time will tell if their
their long-awaited LP will finally reveal if the hype has been worth it.
Charlie Puth
Kevin Winter/Getty
Album: Nine Track Mind
Release Date: January 29th
Singer Charlie Puth came out of nowhere in 2015 with one of the biggest singles of the year, singing the chorus to Wiz Khalifa’s Paul Walker tribute “See You Again.” The track hit a billion views on YouTube in less than a year, spent 12 weeks at Number One and is currently up for three Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe. Puth will launch his 2016 with his solo debut, Nine Track Mind, which will include guest appearances from Meghan Trainor (“Marvin Gaye”) and Selena Gomez (“We Don’t Talk Anymore”). “[Listeners] should expect a soulful vibe,” Puth recently promised in an interview with Vulture.
The 1975
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Album: I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It
Release Date: February 26th
Judging by advance singles “Love Me” and “Ugh!” Manchester rockers the 1975 have mined funky Eighties hitmakers like Peter Gabriel, Terence Trent D’Arby and Prince for their second studio album. “[The Eighties were] a time where technology came into play vastly,” the band told iHeartRadio. “It was a forward-thinking time, and trying to capture the ethos of that time without being over-referential, in like a pastiche, is something that we wanted to do.” The album will be supported by a North American tour that begins April 18th in Los Angeles.
PJ Harvey
Maria Mochnacz
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Last winter, PJ Harvey set up shop at London’s Somerset House for “Recording in Progress,” a four-week art installation during which she and collaborators set about writing and recording her ninth studio album while viewers watched through one-way glass. “I hope people will see the attention and the labor and the care that goes into making a recording,” she said in a statement. “I hope people will see the interactions between everyone involved.” In October, the shape-shifting British singer debuted 10 new songs at London’s Royal Festival Hall. (Longtime collaborator John Parish and former Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds member James Johnston sat in.) A teaser posted online in December would indicate that at least some of the album, which does not yet have a title or release date, will be much more sonically abrasive than the 2007’s gauzy White Chalk and 2011’s Let England Shake.
Hilltop Hoods
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Album: Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung
Release Date: February 19th
In early December, Hilltop Hoods surprised fans by releasing new single, “Higher” and announcing their latest project Drinking from the Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung. As they did in 2007 with The Hard Road: Restrung LP, the trio worked with composer Jamie Messenger and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra to re-work, re-record and remix a selection of songs from 2012’s Drinking From The Sun and 2014’s Walking Under Stars, but this time added the 20-piece Adelaide Chamber Singles Choir to the equation as well.
The Strokes
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Julian Casablancas spent almost as much time in 2015 promising new material from the Strokes as he did hyping his new music with the Voidz. “It’s the first time we’ve been exclusively writing since [2013’s] Comedown Machine,” the Strokes vocalist told Noisey last April. “We’re planning on recording stuff. I still think we could do cool things and I’ll do that.” In September, during a Strokes show at the Landmark Festival in D.C., Casablancas reportedly announced from the stage that the band planned to return to the studio.
Vampire Weekend
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
“In some ways [our first three albums were] like kind of one massive period of obsessing, making music, touring, all those things,” Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig told the No Effects Podcast last May. “I think now for the first time in a long time I kinda feel like, a little bit more relaxed. Like, ‘Yeah, we’ll definitely make a fourth album.'” Details are still scant, but the indie rock foursome’s leader revealed that he wants their fourth album to “feel like a new era.” He also said that discarded songs from the Modern Vampires sessions are among the tracks being considered for the as-yet-untitled project.
Deftones
Getty
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Almost 30 years into their careers and following near breakups and the death of original bassist Chi Cheng, alt-metal heroes the Deftones are in the midst of a creative renaissance. Their last two albums, 2010’s Diamond Eyes and 2012’s Koi No Yokan, rank among their finest hours, and the band shows no signs of letting up when it comes to pushing the boundaries of its already expansive sound. In May, singer Chino Moreno described the group’s forthcoming eighth album to NME as “out of the box” and full of “keyboards and a lot of cool, spacey low frequencies.” He also added that Morrissey was serving as a key influence on the songs. “I’ve been on this crazy Morrissey tip recently – totally obsessing over his solo records – so I brought a lot of that to the table,” he said. “On those early solo records, he uses this awesome, Elvis-y delay on his vocal that I’ve been ripping off a ton.” As of November, the album – which reportedly includes a cameo from Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell – was being mixed, with a spring release expected.
The Jezabels
Album: Synthia
Release Date: February 12th
Australian quartet The Jezabels began teasing fans with news of a new album back in November. Since then, we’ve been given a taste of the album via the visuals for stirring lead single, “Come Alive”. With their next tour making stops in 20 cities across seven countries, 2016 is shaping up to be a big year for The Jezabels.
Santigold
Denise Truscello/Getty
Album: 99¢
Release Date: January 22nd
We already got a taste of one of 2016’s first big releases, Santigold’s 99¢, from the album’s first single, “Can’t Get Enough of Myself,” a giddy tune driven by a unique and uncharacterizable global pop beat. “The record cover is a picture of me basically in a bag, shrink-wrapped, with a bunch of items, random clutter from my life … and there’s a 99-cent sticker on it,” Santigold said of the album title. “Everything is a product at this point, including people and relationships, and everything’s about marketing products. So, I’m a product. And also, everything is undervalued, so I thought 99 cents is a good price for me and my life and all my hard work.”
Run the Jewels
Mark Horton/WireImage/Getty
Album: RTJ3
Release Date: TBA
The dynamic duo of Killer Mike and El-P spent 2015 in victory lap mode, hitting festivals from coast to coast, and releasing Meow the Jewels, a novelty record for charity in which their acclaimed 2014 album Run the Jewels 2 was drenched in cat noises. Of course for the politically charged team, a “victory lap” also entails interviewing presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and recording a record for the Rumble Kings soundtrack. Not much is known about the group’s forthcoming album, though, as El-P suggested in his Colbert performance last September, it may take a while: “We’ll get to it once we finish up with all this other shit,” El-P added. “So, it should take til 2029.”
Animal Collective
Hiroyuki Ito/Getty
Album: Painting With
Release Date: February 19th
The day before Thanksgiving, those traveling through the BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore may have been lucky enough to get the first taste of Animal Collective’s upcoming album, Painting With, which was debuted via the airport’s PA system. According to Avey Tare’s cousin, Matt Baetz, the album was “heard best in the bathrooms, some observation areas, pre-security and the big lounge after security.” In a recent interview in Rolling Stone US, the band promised to cut down on their signature reverb and embrace a much poppier sound, much more like2007’s Strawberry Jam – or, the Beatles at their druggiest peak. Lead single “FloridaDa” retains all the bubbly idiosyncrasy of the avant-pop trio. Due Feburary 19th, the album features cameos by The Velvet Underground’s John Cale and saxophonist Colin Stetson, as well as some “metal rods from the Poltergeist soundtrack.”
Smashing Pumpkins
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Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
After spending 2015 touring with Marilyn Manson, which Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan insisted was not a nostalgia tour, the alt-rocker promised a “very exciting” and “very futuristic” record – and called statements that this might be the end of the band’s catalog “clickbait.” “I’ve basically said the Smashing Pumpkins dies when I die,” he told Rolling Stone US. His newest album, originally titled Day For Night, is a follow-up to 2012’s Oceania and 2014’s Monuments to an Elegy, all a part of the 44-track Teargarden by Kaleidyscope song cycle. The title was changed because, as Corgan wrote, “in order to rewrite everything, or write anew, I had to think that maybe my initial conception of what DAY FOR NIGHT would stand for (which was some kind of end) was misguided. So let’s say this’ll be more of a farewell to MONUMENTS funerary.”
Savages
Francine Orr/Getty
Album: Adore Life
Release Date: January 22nd
When Savages began work on their second LP, the U.K. post-punks took on a new challenge: love songs, which singer Jehnny Beth was inspired to write after being showered with good vibes from crowds around the world. Adore Life is just as visceral as Savages’ debut. “If there were beautiful lyrics, we wanted it to be contradicted by something nasty or aggressive,” bassist Ayse Hassan says.
Swans
Joseph Okpako/Getty
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
It’s hard to imagine Michael Gira, head of the long-running, heavy noise purveyors Swans, ever going silent. And indeed he won’t – last year, he announced that Swans, as a project, would continue. He is, however, disbanding the current, fully fleshed-out, eardrum-melting, six-member lineup that will be marking their final road hurrah this year. 2016 should also see the final studio album from this group, an effort financed through the crowd-funding of The Gate, a live album and concert DVD. Gira promises something lofty, as he wrote in an extended note to fans on his website last year. He hopes the album will be “the best, most fully realized, most sonically diverse and nuanced, most urgently performed and best produced album yet associated with the name [he] picked at random from a list on a scrap of paper at a kitchen table in New York City’s East Village a century ago.”
Abbe May
Tobey Black
Album: Bitchcraft
Release Date: TBA
Following recording sessions throughout 2015, Abbe May previewed songs from the delayed new album, Bitchcraft, at her Live Lodge show in October. “It’s certainly a lot more accessible than my previous work”, May told Rolling Stone recently, adding that “It’s a pop record for sure, but it is not lacking soul and certainly has avoided falling into cheese land.” There remains no confirmed release date for Bitchcraft, but May says “if it is unleashed in 2016, it will be late in the year”.
Meg Mac
Metaxia
Album: TBA
Release Date: TBA
2015 was a big year for rising indie-soul star, Meg Mac. After touring the US as the support act for D’Angelo she returned home for a string of festival dates and a sold out tour with Jarryd James. This year she has already been crowned one of Spotify’s 2016 spotlight artists, setting the stage for what’ll undoubtedly be one of the biggest local debut LPs of the year.
Sunflower Bean
Ollie Millington/Getty
Album: Human Ceremony
Release Date: February 5th
This Brooklyn trio has garnered plenty of buzz since their heavier-than-heavy 2015 EP, Show Me Your Seven Secrets, and are getting ready to release their official debut. Judging by the leadoff single “Wall Watcher” – about “existing in a lonely world,” bassist Julia Cumming told The Fader – the band has dialed down the fuzzy psychedelia and dialed up the tempos. Human Ceremony, recorded in just seven days, is propelled by Cumming’s ethereal voice and a rhythm section that has only gotten tighter and faster after dozens of live shows last year, opening for the likes of Wolf Alice and Best Coast. When Sunflower Bean formed in 2013 they were teenagers who celebrated their EP release in a family-friendly fashion: “We put streamers everywhere and served baked goods,” Cumming told Rolling Stone US.
Mavis Staples
Mike Coppola/Getty
Album: Livin’ on a High Note
Release Date: February 19th
Legendary singer Mavis Staples will release a new album in February, following up a pair of Jeff Tweedy-produced Americana albums, 2010’s You Are Not Alone and 2013’s One True Vine. Staples has remained relatively quiet about her upcoming album but the LP will feature the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer singing songs written exclusively for her by artists like Justin Vernon, Nick Cave, John Batiste, Aloe Blacc, Ben Harper, Neko Case and more. Also in February: the HBO premiere of the documentary film Mavis! which takes a look at her life.
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Top Illustration: Ryan Casey
