25 March 2026
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
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Latest solo offering of eclectic and indiosyncratic pop from the ex-Soft Boy veteran singer-songwriter, backed by three members of REM
6.7
Given the musicians involved, it comes as no surprise that Goodnight Oslo shimmers with janglingly melodious guitar textures. Read Review
Hitchcock’s most tightly arranged album of the decade. What it harkens to most is his ‘80s heyday, when Robyn reveled in neatly constructed pop gems with glorious harmonies. Read Review
Hollies-ish harmonies, horns and tastefully distorted guitars. Read Review
It’s unlikely to gain any new converts to the cause, but you get the impression Hitchcock stopped caring about that sort of thing long ago. Read Review
Curiously, his psychedelic folk rock sounds more youthful now than it did in the '80s, despite the usual fixation on mortality. Read Review
There are no girl-group background vocals or horn-and-string backing here. And it's a good thing, presenting Hitchcock's songs in pure form, highlighting his songwriting skill, which has aged like a fine wine Read Review
One gets the feeling that with a little more ruthlessness about what makes the final cut, Goodnight Oslo could offer more hits than misses. As it is, it falls just a little short. Read Review
Goodnight Oslo is the sequel to the acclaimed Ole! Tarantula, and sounds disturbingly wide-eyed for a man of his Soft Boys vintage. Read Review
Byrds-like harmonies bolster Hitchcock's reedy voice. Delightfully odd Read Review
Print edition only
Robyn Hitchcock And The Venus 3: Goodnight Oslo
Underscores U
It’s a confident evolution from her 2020 EP Character Development!, with Grey producing an utterly refined sound that encapsulates the highs of the 2010 pop, bro-step and bubblegum bass eras The Quietus
Kim Gordon Play Me
She’s incorporating sounds and techniques that – and apologies for bringing age into it – most other septuagenarians would recoil from The Quietus
BTS ARIRANG
There’s a lot riding on the sensational K-pop group’s first album in four years, but its generic songs ring hollow and lack the vim and vigor of the band’s best work Pitchfork
It’s a scintillating experience, perhaps the moment where underscores fully out-strips her peers, and comes into her own Clash
Ladytron Paradises
Ladytron have produced an album that, from its inception, sought to invoke the same spirit that the band had 25 years ago Far Out
Gorillaz The Mountain
The strongest case in years that Gorillaz can still make records that matter as records Dork
'Play me' doesn’t try to comfort. It tries to provoke, energise and outlast the scroll Dork
The Orielles Only You Left
These songs come from months of demo-hoarding and forensic listening, the band archiving every practice-room spark before lovingly picking through the results Dork
James Blake Trying Times
Blake sounds energised by the room he has carved out for himself Dork
Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
This isn’t an album built like a straight line from hook to hook. It moves in waves, often favouring texture and atmosphere over immediate release Dork
It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing Sputnik Music (staff)
Indie rock icon Kim Gordon acerbically wrestles with the state of the world over hip-hop and industrial beats on Play Me PopMatters
The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms Pitchfork
On U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career The Line Of Best Fit
Performing, writing and producing everything herself, April Grey pares back her hyperpop electronics for an LP in thrall to 90s pop-R&B, with songs that big stars would die for The Guardian
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past twelve years or so. Rankings are calculated to two decimal places.
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
Fiona Apple Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways