Music album long list, 2026

I love music singles and mixtapes, but at heart I’m an album person. I love listening to entire LPs and EPs from start to finish, over and over again.

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Screenshot from the YouTube Music smartphone app showing the badges received by this listening. The most recent badge is from 3 May 2026 and is titled, “Top Listener of U2”. Text below this reads, “You were in the top 0.25% of their audience of 15 million in April 2026”.

Here are the 36 albums I’ve listened to on repeat over the last five years or so, listed in alphabetical order by artist name.

• Big Thief – Double Infinity (2025)

• The Birthday Massacre – Violet (2004)

• Charlie XCX – Brat (2024)

• The Chicks – Gaslighter (2020)

• Deep Forest – Made in Japan (1999)

• Devon Cole – Two Shades Blonder (2024)

• Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa Live from the Royal Albert Hall (2024); Radical Optimism (2024)

• Elderbook – Another Touch (2024); Little Love (2023); Innerlight EP (2021)

• Filter – The Algorithm (Ultra Edition) (2023)

• Garbage – Let All That We Imagine Be the Light (2025)

• Goo Goo Dolls – Vol.2 (2008)

• Gretta Ray – Positive Spin (2023)

• Haim – I Quit (2025)

• Heleina Zara – Autopilot (2024)

• Jackson Browne – The Very Best of Jackson Browne (2004)

• Laufey – A Matter of Time (2025)

• Linkin Park – From Zero (2024); Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000–2023) (2024); One More Light (2017)

• Michelle Branch – The Trouble with Fever (2022)

• Natasha Humera Ejaz – Ordinary Miracle (2023)

• Peter Gabriel – I/O (2023)

• R.E.M. – R.E.M. Live (2007)

• Rosa Damask – Adore You (2024)

• Rosalía – Lux (2025); Motomami (2022)

• St Vincent – All Born Screaming (2024)

• Tori Amos – Diving Deep Live (2024)

• U2 – Easter Lily (2026)

• The War on Drugs – Live Drugs Again (2024); I Don’t Live Here Anymore (2021)

• Wet Leg – Moisturiser (2025); Wet Leg (2022)

I did listen to lots of other albums, of course. They didn’t make it to this list because I only liked a handful of songs from them.

Take Lady Gaga’s Mayhem (2025), for example. I listened to that from start to finish a few times and then I picked the songs I liked the most (seven of them, it turns out) and added them to my ‘Current’ playlist. But this wasn’t an album I listened to on repeat all the way through.

Same with albums from Aly & AJ, Cannons, The Chemical Brothers, Folk Bitch Trio, FKA Twigs, Kesha, Kita Alexander, London Grammar, Mammoth, Miya Folick, Moby, Neil Finn, Nine Inch Nails & Boyz Noize, Robyn, Rosa Damask, Sabrina Carpenter, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Taylor Swift, Xani, and Zoe Keating, to name a few.

What albums have you had on heavy rotation over the last few years? I’d love to know.