Miley Cyrus was 20 years old when she crashed into pop's upper ranks with "Bangerz," a surprisingly sharp tale of anguish, fury, and newfound independence cleverly disguised as a blunt wrecking ball.

"Bangerz" arrived mere weeks before Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth confirmed they'd broken off their engagement. Rumors had been swirling about the longtime couple for months — Cyrus was forced to deny cheating allegations, while Hemsworth was facing similar rumors of his own — and they'd already postponed their wedding.

This was the climate that fueled "Bangerz," Cyrus' first album on a major label after leaving the Disney Channel and Hollywood Records. The move gave Cyrus an increased level of authorship at just the right time; she had a grown-up budget, a captive audience, a complex story to tell, and the nerve to do it justice.

Most people know the album's flagship single, "Wrecking Ball," and for good reason — but it's the dialogue between grief and relief, the unsettled swirl of lovesick ballads ("Adore You," "My Darlin'"), gut-wrenching anthems ("Drive," "Maybe You're Right," "Someone Else"), and devil-may-care party-starters ("We Can't Stop," "#GETITRIGHT," "Do My Thang") that truly highlight Cyrus' range and stamina.

Throughout his time in the public eye, Tyler, the Creator has kept his dating history relatively private. His Grammy-winning album "Igor" follows that lead by cloaking itself in multiple layers of character work.

Still, Tyler reveals more than enough in his songwriting. "Igor" is thick with private confessions and tender pleas: "I'm your puppet / You control me," Tyler admits in track eight, immediately after begging "No, don't shoot me down!" in a song frankly titled "A Boy Is A Gun." Even the tracks that present as love songs, like Tyler's beloved hit "Earfquake," are stained by anxiety and desperation ("Don't leave, it's my fault").

The album ends with a one-two punch that tells a Hemingway-esque tragedy with titles alone: "I Don't Love You Anymore," "Are We Still Friends?"

Liz Phair's bluntly delivered debut, "Exile in Guyville," earned her a reputation for singing about the kind of stuff women aren't really supposed to talk about: resenting and desiring men in equal measure; having "unpure, unchaste" thoughts; secretly longing for a sweet boyfriend and "all that stupid old shit, like letters and sodas," but having meaningless sex instead.

The concept album — which was partially inspired by "Exile on Main St." by the Rolling Stones — also made Phair the poster girl for refracting rock 'n' roll through a feminine lens.

But to hear Phair tell it, she didn't intend to tap into a movement. She was just being honest and loud at the same time.

"Being emotionally forthright was the most radical thing I did. And that was taken to mean something bigger in terms of women's roles in society and women's roles in music," she said of the album's legacy. "I just wanted people who thought I was not worth talking to, to listen to me."

Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" is another landmark of '90s rock — the original golden era for pissed-off young women who write their own songs. The album spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Just three years after its release, it became the third female-led album in history to be certified diamond.

As legend has it (though never confirmed by the author herself), "Jagged Little Pill" emerged from Morissette's 1992 relationship with Dave Coulier. She was in her late teens at the time, while he was in his early 30s. ("I think I may have really hurt this woman," Coulier later recalled thinking when he heard her songs on the radio.)

In the opening track, Morissette claims that all she really wants is patience, deliverance, and "a way to calm the angry voice" — but in reality, she also wants to set the record straight with her ex, a motivation she cops to in the very next track. "I'm here to remind you," she famously sings, "of the mess you left when you went away."

"You Oughta Know" and its 11 fellow scorchers have inspired countless other women to bare their teeth and spill their guts, from Beyoncé and Halsey to Olivia Rodrigo and Reneé Rapp, not to mention a bespoke Broadway musical.

Some people insist that teenage love isn't "real" love, or that it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Those people have never listened to "Drivers License."

Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour," which houses that smash hit, is a quintessential cathartic breakup album in the vein of her pop-rock foremothers, yet artfully updated for a new generation. The production takes cool, unexpected detours, while the melodies dip and soar to suit Rodrigo's wide vocal range.

Through it all, Rodrigo's guileless songwriting remains the star of the show.

As Phair, Morissette, Avril Lavigne, and Taylor Swift did before her, Rodrigo poured everything she felt into her lyrics, civility and decorum be damned. Whether it burst forth in a fury, gushed out in a meltdown, or oozed slowly from her pores, she bottled and savored each impulse. We drank it up right away.

Ariana Grande's fifth and best album is impossible to detach from the true story that set the scene: Shortly after getting engaged to comedian Pete Davidson, her longtime friend and ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller, died of an accidental overdose.

By Grande's own account, Miller's death sent her into a feverish, drunken spiral. In quick succession, she broke up with Davidson and assembled her friends to help her process both losses.

For Grande and her inner circle, as with many creatives across history, that meant channeling pain into art. Grande recently credited the creative process with helping to save her life. "It was made with urgency, and it was a means of survival," she told The Hollywood Reporter.

"Thank U, Next" is anchored by its titular track, unleashed in the wake of her failed engagement. It's the most raw, self-referential, and iconic song in Grande's catalog, name-dropping her ex-fiancé as well as three other ex-boyfriends as proof of her gratitude and growth. By doing so, Grande also proved she had far more courage and moxie than your average pop star.

"I understand that like, to a lot of people, I'm not a real person," Grande said of the true-to-life lyrics. "But at the end of the day, these are people and relationships... It's real shit to me."

Amid a swirl of scandalous headlines and salacious rumors, Grande turned her plea for humanity into a hit. "Thank U, Next" became her first No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 and empowered Grande to enter an era of radical honesty.

The album arrived three months later and met the high mark its lead single had set. The 12-song tracklist is packed with poignant, personal details that expose the depths of grief, guilt, and self-sabotage — balanced by the highs of friendship, resilience, and self-discovery.

Unlike Etta James' seminal debut album, which includes swooning first-dance staples like "At Last" and "A Sunday Kind of Love," her second album is blues in its truest form.

The tracklist begins with a lonely plea: "Don't cry baby / Dry your eyes, and let's be sweethearts again." It ends lonely, too, but the pleading is gone. In "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," James is resigned to her seclusion, declining invitations for dances and dates: "My mind is more at ease / But never, never, nevertheless, why stir up memories?"

"The Second Time Around" is a classic tragedy, in which James is cast as a love-sodden, self-described fool. But this isn't an album for wallowing. James' warm, earthy voice makes the alone time sound inviting — a chance for tears and diary entries and going "plum nuts" without judgment, guilt, or embarrassment.

Willie Nelson is one of the most prolific and consistent singer-songwriters of all time, having released over 100 studio albums since the early '60s.

To this day, even in such a crowded discography, "Phases and Stages" stands out as a neatly conceived, exquisitely executed exercise in empathy.

The album is structured as a divorce story from inverse perspectives: Side A explores the fallout from the wife's worn-out perspective, while Side B flips to the husband's shell-shocked point of view. Concept albums haven't often been attempted in country music — especially not in the '70s — which makes Nelson's coherent vision even more special in retrospect.

"Ordinarily, concept albums strike me as pretentious bores," Chet Flippo opined for Rolling Stone at the time of its release, "but I find 'Phases And Stages' extraordinarily convincing. The oft-married Nelson has obviously seen his share of redeyed dawns."

"AM" was the first Arctic Monkeys album released after the band's frontman, Alex Turner, split from his longtime girlfriend Alexa Chung.

This was a canon event for the indie-sleaze era; the singer-songwriter and fashionista's romance had inspired many reverent blog posts. "My mouth hasn't shut up about you since you kissed it," Turner once wrote to Chung in a Valentine's Day card, which was published by British tabloids after she accidentally left it in a bar. "The idea that you may kiss it again is stuck in my brain." His words sent Tumblr into a frenzy.

When Chung was asked about Turner's reaction to the leak, she told The Guardian, "He said, 'I'm not upset that everyone saw it because that's the truth and I couldn't give a shit.'"

"AM" is Turner's Valentine multiplied by 12, intensified by loss, and set against a backdrop of moody Brit rock. Never have impudent yearning and late-night drug-fueled phone calls sounded so seductive.

Turner describes himself as a "puppet on a string," driven wild by desire and "diamond cutter-shaped heartaches." He stumbles around parties and midnight-soaked streets, rambling about mad sounds, knee socks, cough drop-colored tongues, and the empty hotel suite in his heart. He starts the album by asking, "Do you want me crawling back to you?" By the end of the album, he's still pleading on the floor: "I wanna be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust."

Yes, it's all a bit dramatic, but that's exactly why it works. Turner has mastered how to portray a familiar void in surreal terms — how to turn a phrase and sell it, bold and unblushing, with his signature Yorkshire drawl.

FKA twigs opened the portal to her sophomore album with "Cellophane," an aching lead single that presents the project's catalyst: "Didn't I do it for you? Why don't I do it for you?"

These simple questions illuminate the slippery slope of heartbreak — how often it leads to a shattered ego or an all-out identity crisis. For a famous woman of color forced to contend with tabloid drama, speculation, and racist abuse from her ex-boyfriend's fan base, that risk seems especially steep.

To cope, twigs drew inspiration from another misunderstood woman: Mary Magdalene. The complex biblical figure, a close companion of Jesus, has been flattened by generations of clergymen into a needy damsel at best and a trampy villain at worst. Twigs, who attended Catholic school as a child, felt compelled to reject these male-centric narratives as an adult.

"I am of a generation that was brought up without options in love," twigs told Apple Music. "I was told that as a woman, I should be looked after. It's not whether I choose somebody, but whether somebody chooses me."

The resulting concept album, "Magdalene," transforms the sting of rejection into sacred rage. Twigs reimagines herself as the savior — the one who gets to choose, who gets to write her own story, who gets to decide what pleasure feels like — and crafts a sonic soundscape that reflects her complexity.

As an artist, twigs is more than prepared to tackle these themes, and the album feels more triumphant than its lead single may suggest.

And yet, placing "Cellophane" as the closing track poses another interesting question: Does the search for one's own self, for empowerment and liberation, ever end?

Although Adele's debut, "19," earned two Grammy Awards (including best new artist) and set her up for global success, she hadn't planned for the title to set a precedent — naming each album after her age when she wrote it — until her first "all-or-nothing relationship" fell apart at a formative point in her life.

"When it came to naming this record it was the only relevant thing," Adele told Interview at the time, "because my relationship that the entire record is about was about me coming of age, and 21 is the age when you're suddenly a proper adult and on your own."

Ironically, "21" is characterized by wisdom, poise, and vocal depth that feels earned over several lifetimes, not two short decades. The tracklist, while concise, is loaded with some of the most deeply resonant torch songs in history, from the majestic opener "Rolling in the Deep" to the dignified closer "Someone Like You."

"It's warts and all in my songs, and I think that's why people can relate to them," Adele told Interview. "I don't write songs about a specific, elusive thing. I write about love and everyone fucking knows what it is like to have your heart broken."

In the liner notes for his debut studio album (also shared on his Tumblr page), Frank Ocean detailed how he fell in love with a man who didn't love him back — or, at least, who didn't admit to loving him back until it was too late.

"I felt like I'd only imagined reciprocity for years," Ocean wrote. "I kept up a peculiar friendship with him because I couldn't imagine keeping up my life without him."

As Ocean worked to untangle their intense, epiphanic connection, he wrote "Channel Orange," an album that resists genres and categories by design, but one informed by heartbreak nonetheless.

As its title suggests, the tracklist plays like Ocean is flipping through TV stations, searching for escape in scenes of obscene wealth and historical allegories — yet the author's true state of mind can't help intruding, resulting in songs like "Thinkin Bout You," "Pilot Jones," "Bad Religion," and "Forrest Gump."

"I wrote to keep myself busy and sane," Ocean explained. "I wanted to create worlds that were rosier than mine. I tried to channel overwhelming emotions." He also thanked the man who devastated and inspired him: "To my first love, I'm grateful for you. Grateful that even though it wasn't what I hoped for and even though it was never enough, it was."

At the time of its release, Marvin Gaye's 15th album shocked fans with its candid accounts of malice, regret, and resentment.

Even the title can be interpreted as a curt, not-so-subtle breakup note. In the mid-'70s, Anna Gordy Gaye filed for divorce and reportedly demanded $1 million from her famous husband. Instead, when their divorce was finalized in 1977, Gaye was ordered to give her the advance payment from his forthcoming album plus a hefty cut of the royalties.

The following year, as promised, Gaye released his new album via Motown Records — the label founded by Anna's younger brother, Berry Gordy. He called it, "Here, My Dear."

Gaye's audacious antics didn't end there. The album opens with a spoken-word intro: "I guess I'll have to say that… this album is dedicated to you. Although, perhaps, I may not... be happy… This is what you want." Throughout the tracklist, he skewers his ex-wife for breaking her marriage vow and trying to "shackle" him financially, though he also admits he's ashamed of his own spite. Still, Gaye makes no effort to shroud his accusations in metaphor or ambiguity. Track nine is literally called "Anna's Song."

"Here, My Dear" was a commercial failure in 1978, leading to meager payouts for both parties. However, it's since been venerated as a unique, impressively raw highlight in Gaye's discography — just as he prophesied in "You Can Leave, But It's Going to Cost You."

"You have won the battle," Gaye sings, "Oh, but Daddy's gonna win the war."

Although Taylor Swift's original 2012 album "Red" concluded with a hopeful ballad about finding new love ("Begin Again"), the bulk of the tracklist was always about rejection ("State of Grace," "Red," "All Too Well"), shame ("I Knew You Were Trouble," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "The Last Time"), and pining for an imagined future that would never materialize, full of cliffs and thrills and half-kept promises ("Treacherous," "I Almost Do," "Holy Ground").

Even "Begin Again" wouldn't exist without the heartbreak that preceded it. The ballad is as much about Swift's last ex as her shiny new muse — about overcoming distrust and patching old emotional wounds, just to risk the pain all over again.

"Red (Taylor's Version)," released in 2021, doubled down on the album's core themes (and its erratic use of genres) by adding even more breakup anthems ("Better Man," "I Bet You Think About Me," "The Very First Night") and closing with the towering 10-minute version of "All Too Well."

Over a decade after her fateful 21st birthday, Swift was still left wondering where it all went wrong, excavating more memories and pleading for clarity ("Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?"), proving that even the most carefully sanitized, tended-to wounds can become scars.

"When the Pawn…" may better be regarded as a pre-breakup album; by all accounts, Fiona Apple was still living with her long-term boyfriend, director Paul Thomas Anderson, until after its release. But that timeline only makes the content more intriguing.

Apple, only in her early '20s at the time, is credited as the sole songwriter on all 10 tracks. Today, they play as half-retort to sexist critics and backlash ("Here's another speech you wish I'd swallow") and half-prophecy about her love life ("The shame is manifest in my resistance to your love").

It feels like Apple tapped into a deeper, visceral pulse to make this album — a gut feeling that her life didn't fully fit, that she should run far away — but one that she wasn't ready to act on. Or, as Apple puts it in track six: "I've acquired quite a taste for a well-made mistake." Call it self-sabotage or a woman's intuition, but it makes for a deliciously indignant listen.

In "Fast As You Can," it sounds like Apple is baiting her lover to leave when she's really asking him to listen, to see her for who she really is, instead of a "pretty mouth" or a pet.

By "Get Gone," the penultimate track, Apple is making her discomfort even more explicit: "You got your game, made your shot / And you got away with a lot / But I'm not turned on," she sings. "So put away that meat you're selling."

Long before "gaslighting" became a buzzword and mental health was embraced as a serious topic for musicians, "When the Pawn…" examines how feeling flattened and misunderstood can dramatically warp a woman's psyche — even make her question her reality. "Paper Bag" is the paragon, witty and fuming: "He said, 'It's all in your head,'" Apple sings. "I said, 'So's everything,' but he didn't get it." Its music video was ironically directed by Anderson himself.

Decades later, Apple would tell The New Yorker about the pair's drug-addled dynamic and the cold, painful loneliness that defined her life at the time. She said she remembers thinking in 1998, "Fuck this, this is not a good relationship," though she was reluctant to say it publicly. Fans of "When the Pawn…" already had a hunch.

As Lorde admits in the closing track, she was a reckless, inflamed teenager when she wrote her sophomore album — roaming around New York City, figuring out how to be alone, and chasing a vision of "perfect places" that she ends up deciding does not exist.

The tracklist largely came together in the summer of 2016, shortly after Lorde split from her first serious boyfriend, photographer James Lowe. She has also said she was reeling from the recent deaths of her heroes, Prince and David Bowie, and sickened by the constant barrage of bad headlines and record-high temperatures.

"It sort of drove me insane," she wrote while annotating her lyrics on Genius. "I was walking around Midtown every day and felt like I was this close to ripping my clothes off or freaking out at a stranger."

All those formative, agonizing, skin-crawling sensations were compounded and crystallized into "Melodrama," which, despite Lorde's consistently brilliant output, remains her best work to date.

True to its title, the scope of "Melodrama" captures the way that being young and heartbroken feels like the end of the world — so every party is approached like it might be the last. Lorde's lyricism is a masterful blend of high and low brow, often dancing between esoteric and obvious, reflective and reactive.

Importantly, it never scans as arrogant because Lorde implicates herself as a member of, in her own words, the "loveless generation." She's not above any of it — the escapist drugs, the mind games, the ill-advised flings — but she's better at articulating their effects.

At first blush, Carole King's "Tapestry" may feel too warm and cozy to jive with a broken heart. Then, one day, you're listening to "It's Too Late" as you lay in bed all morning, wondering whether to bust loose from your perfectly fine relationship, and the weight of her songwriting clicks into place.

"Something inside has died / And I can't hide and I just can't fake it," King sings in the indelible chorus — though she sounds less like something has died and more like someone has been reborn.

Indeed, "Tapestry" is the sound of resolve and reinvention in the face of solitude and uncertainty, the sound of very sage advice. "You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face / And show the world all the love in your heart," King sings in "Beautiful." This is not the standard mindset of a person who recently weathered a life-upending divorce, but that's the magic of King: When you listen to her music, you've got a friend.

Joni Mitchell's "Blue" has been cited as one of the greatest albums of all time so often that it hardly bears repeating.

"Blue" cemented Mitchell as a pioneer in the confessional school of songwriting. She authored the Laurel Canyon-era masterpiece during the tail-end of her relationship with Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) and in the aftermath of their breakup, when she began dating James Taylor. Naturally, Nash has said listening to "Blue" is "quite difficult for me personally."

"It brings back many memories and saddens me greatly," he wrote for Jeff Gold's 2012 book, "101 Essential Rock Records."

Nevertheless, even the apparent subject of eye-stingers like "My Old Man" ("But when he's gone / Me and them lonesome blues collide / The bed's too big / The frying pan's too wide") and "A Case of You" ("Just before our love got lost you said / 'I am as constant as a northern star' / And I said 'Constantly in the darkness'") can't resist the album's eloquent, hypnotic allure.

"'Blue' is, by far, my most favorite solo album," Nash wrote, "and the thought that I spent much time with this fine woman and genius of a writer is incredible to me."

The Beach Boys' magnum opus "Pet Sounds" masquerades in pop culture as a cheery, charming pop album — a reputation fostered by needle drops in cheery, charming movies, like "God Only Knows" in the ensemble Christmas classic "Love Actually" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" in Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore's quirky rom-com "50 First Dates."

"Pet Sounds," however, is far more than the sum of its parts — and far more devastating than those scenes would imply.

Lead singer and songwriter Brian Wilson is credited as the album's mastermind. Just 23 years old at the time of its release, he was determined to push the band's creative and emotional limits, drawing inspiration from an unrequited teenage crush and the general malaise of innocence lost.

"Pet Sounds" opens with an existential quandary: "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older? / Then we wouldn't have to wait so long / And wouldn't it be nice to live together / In the kind of world where we belong?"

The notion is romantic, of course, but the phrasing betrays a sense of impending doom. It would be nice, Wilson implies, if only that kind of world were real.

The rest of the story unfolds as a tragedy with contrastingly bright percussion and sparkly guitars, as if the melodies, harmonies, and chords are all conspiring to disguise the grief at its core — the first stage, denial, at its finest. "You Still Believe In Me" reveals a narrator riddled with shame, grasping at thinning gestures of trust from his partner, while "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" describes a moment that's both intimate and heavy with fear. "Let's not think about tomorrow," Wilson begs, delaying their moment of reckoning.

By the closing track, it seems his fear has come to pass: "Oh, Caroline, you break my heart," he moans. "I want to go and cry / It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die." The listener is left with the sound of dogs barking and a train whizzing by, an everyday emblem of missed opportunities.

Fellow musicians and critics alike have admired the album's dense, ambitious scope, which famously spurred The Beatles to make "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Many have argued that "Pet Sounds" pioneered what we now think of as "the modern pop album."

"Rumours" is the definitive breakup album — a prismatic display of heartbreak, where every composer has their own ax to grind.

The real-life drama that fueled "Rumours" has been thoroughly documented and even turned into fiction. As Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and John McVie decamped to Florida in the mid-'70s to write their second album together, the bandmates' relationships became increasingly tangled.

Around this time, Nicks broke up with Buckingham after several years as a couple, though neither was happy with the decision. The McVies were going through a divorce while Christine began dating the band's lighting director, Curry Grant. Fleetwood was also divorcing his wife, Jenny Boyd; they remarried in 1977, the same year "Rumours" was released, but it wasn't long before Fleetwood and Nicks began having an affair. Everyone was writing songs to and about each other, and no one was trying to hide it.

The tracklist reflects every texture and shade of the band's entwined turmoil, from Christine's post-divorce stroke of clarity ("Don't Stop") and Buckingham's indignant kiss-off ("Go Your Own Way") to Nicks' eerie snapshot of rock stardom and its illusion-shattering vices ("Gold Dust Woman").

No fewer than three tracks also happen to be some of the greatest ever made: "Dreams," "The Chain," and, of course, "Silver Springs," an archetypal Nicks song that was cut from the album's standard edition and replaced by the poppier Nicks-Buckingham duet "I Don't Want to Know." When Fleetwood broke the news of the swap to Nicks, "I started to scream bloody murder," she told Rolling Stone.

As it turned out, "Silver Springs" was the final, key piece to secure the album's legacy — witchy, feminine rage distilled to its purest form. After Nicks delivered that famous unblinking performance of the song at a Fleetwood Mac reunion show, it was released as a live recording on 1997's "The Dance" and earned a Grammy nomination for best pop duo/group performance.

"Silver Springs" was eventually included on deluxe versions of "Rumours," becoming a cult favorite, a staple on the band's setlist, and fulfilling the author's fateful prophecy: "You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you."

Read about the 50 best breakup songs of the 21st century and listen to the complete list on Spotify.

Year: 2024, at the 66th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Midnights" by Taylor Swift

Even as a card-carrying Swiftie, I was disappointed to watch Taylor Swift win her fourth album of the year award for an album that doesn't measure up to her best work.

The radio-friendly pop music of "Midnights" pales in comparison to the brutal, sprawling genius that SZA displays on her sophomore album. Despite its late 2022 release date, "SOS" proved to be a peerless force, dominating the musical landscape of 2023 and confirming SZA as "a key voice in her generation" (per Rolling Stone). She received more Grammy nominations than anyone else in 2024, including song and record of the year for "Kill Bill."

Unfortunately, like many essential Black artists, SZA was shut out in major categories. Her wins were confined to genre-specific awards: best progressive R&B album, best R&B song for "Snooze," and best pop duo/group performance for "Ghost In The Machine." 

Year: 2023, at the 65th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Harry's House" by Harry Styles

Each time Beyoncé failed to win album of the year, it got a little more inexplicable and infuriating.

Her eighth album, the queer-pop masterpiece "Renaissance," was the obvious choice for album of the year in 2023. Instead, it marked her fourth loss in the category.

To make matters worse, the Recording Academy spent a large chunk of the ceremony exalting Beyoncé for becoming the most-decorated person in Grammys history — and patting themselves on the back for allowing it to happen — just to end the night by handing the top award to Harry Styles. And to be clear, "Harry's House" is good, but it's no "Renaissance." It's not even close.

Once again, Beyoncé was triumphant in genre-specific categories — best dance/pop album, best dance/electronic recording for "Break My Soul," best traditional R&B performance for "Plastic Off the Sofa," best R&B song for "Cuff It" — but not in the prestigious general-field races.

Year: 2022, at the 64th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "We Are" by Jon Batiste

Olivia Rodrigo stunned the world in 2021 with "Drivers License," her first official single that immediately soared to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

Rodrigo seemed to arrive on the pop battlefield as a predestined star, brandishing lyrics that could make grown adults cry.

Her debut album "Sour" built upon this power with an array of eloquent heartbreak anthems, from pop-rock bangers to tender piano ballads. The collection was met with universal critical acclaim and commercial success, charting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for five nonconsecutive weeks.

At the Grammys, however, "Sour" suffered a shocking loss to Jon Batiste's "We Are." Although Batiste was the most-nominated artist of the evening, few expected his album to take home the top prize. It had failed to crack Billboard's top 50 and made a minimal impact on the year's musical legacy.

Thankfully, Rodrigo did walk away with three awards for her celebrated debut: best pop vocal album, best pop vocal performance for "Drivers License," and best new artist.

Year: 2020, at the 62nd Grammy Awards

What beat it: "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" by Billie Eilish

Just a couple of months after releasing the best album of her career, "Sweetener," Ariana Grande found herself in the midst of multiple personal crises. Her longtime love and ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller, unexpectedly died of an accidental overdose. Shortly after, she broke off her whirlwind engagement to Pete Davidson.

Grande channeled this feverish period of upheaval and grief into one of the most compelling pop albums in recent memory. "Thank U, Next" is filled to the brim with intimate personal details, irresistible hooks, genre-blending beats, and angelic vocal runs. It was written and recorded in just three weeks.

This isn't to say Billie Eilish's debut album isn't a stunning piece of art, or that she isn't deserving of praise. As a teenager, Eilish already cemented herself as a Grammy darling.

But it is to say that 2020 should've been Grande's year. She has proved herself as a once-in-a-generation pop star, infusing her music with brightness and resilience. "Thank U, Next" marked Grande's arrival as a living icon, while Eilish has plenty of growth ahead of her — and even Eilish herself would agree with this assessment.

"Can I just say that I think Ariana deserves this?" she said during her acceptance speech.

Year: 2018, at the 60th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "24K Magic" by Bruno Mars

The so-called "sophomore slump" is extremely difficult to avoid, especially when you're following a trendsetter like "Pure Heroine." But Lorde returned with "Melodrama," a masterfully vivid portrait of a woman in transition and easily one of the decade's best albums.

But "Melodrama" was viciously undervalued at the 2018 Grammys, netting just one nomination for album of the year.

Lorde was the only female artist nominated for album of the year in 2018 (and the only nominee who wasn't asked to perform solo). She ultimately lost to "24K Magic" by Bruno Mars — a catchy, safe album that doesn't come close to Lorde's precocious grandeur.

Year: 2017, at the 59th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "25" by Adele

"Lemonade" is a one-of-a-kind album that only Beyoncé could make.

The disrespect she was paid at the 2017 Grammys is one of the great injustices in music history; she also failed to win best pop solo performance for "Hold Up," best rock performance for "Don't Hurt Yourself," best rap/sung performance for "Freedom," and record and song of the year for "Formation."

Even that year's album of the year winner, Adele, said that "Lemonade" should've won. (To make matters worse, it was Beyoncé's third straight loss in that category.)

"I can't possibly accept this award. My artist of my life is Beyoncé. And this album for me, the 'Lemonade' album, was just so monumental," she said onstage. "So well thought-out and so beautiful and soul-bearing and we all got to see another side to you that you don't always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists here, we fucking adore you. You are our light."

Year: 2016, at the 58th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "1989" by Taylor Swift

Although "1989" is a pop gem, its artistry doesn't match Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly." 

Lamar is widely considered the greatest living rapper, known for impeccable lyricism and prodigious production. But his third studio album also holds an extraordinary amount of cultural significance. As Mark Braboy wrote for Business Insider, it "became the unofficial soundtrack to the Black Lives Matter movement amid a continuing wave of fatal police violence against unarmed black Americans across the country."

To this day, Lamar has yet to win album of the year. Meanwhile, Swift has won more times than anyone else.

Year: 2015, at the 57th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Morning Phase" by Beck

When "Beyoncé" unexpectedly arrived on a Thursday night in 2013, it was the definition of game-changing. The concept of a surprise drop or a "visual album" didn't really exist before. Now, everyone wants the magic Beyoncé created that night.

At a time when immersive listening experiences had all but disappeared — streaming had begun to take over, and iPod playlists encouraged fans to bounce from song to song without much thought — Beyoncé offered a collection of 14 songs that were so intentional, so unique, so undeniably flawless that we had no choice but to wrap them around our collective consciousness like a blanket.

Each track on "Beyoncé" was its own moment, but they were inextricably connected, weaving a stronger fabric together. Enter: Beyoncé the storyteller, the big-picture visionary.

And "Morning Phase" is, well, fine.

Beck's win for album of the year read as an overdue apology; the Recording Academy failed to reward his best work from previous decades, like 1996's "Odelay" and 2008's "Modern Guilt." Obviously, it was too late. Giving him the award in 2015, the year of "Beyoncé," was just laughably out of touch. 

Year: 2014, at the 56th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Random Access Memories" by Daft Punk

In 2014, Swift was already the youngest album of the year winner in history. But her fourth album, "Red," elevated Swift to a new level of success: it spawned her first-ever No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 ("We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together") while "All Too Well" was hailed by fans as the best song of her career.

"Red" seemed like a shoo-in for Swift's second big win at the Grammys. Instead, fans and critics were shocked when she lost the award to EDM duo Daft Punk.

This misstep has only proved more and more galling as years have passed. In 2019, "Red" topped countless rankings of the decade's best albums, from Stereogum (No. 10) and Billboard (No. 4) to Rolling Stone (No. 4) and, yes, Business Insider (No. 1). "Random Access Memories" failed to crack the top 10 in any of these lists, or it failed to be included at all.

Year: 2013, at the 55th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Babel" by Mumford & Sons

Frank Ocean didn't produce one of those debut albums that you later recognize, only in retrospect, as the birth of an icon. "Channel Orange" was an instant classic — a tectonic shift in the modern musical landscape. Those young artists that are being hailed these days for "genre-bending," like Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X? Their music wouldn't exist without "Channel Orange."

But the Grammys gave Ocean a consolation prize known as best urban contemporary album (like, what does "urban contemporary" even mean?). "Channel Orange" lost the big award to a much safer, more traditional option: the folk-rock, banjo-heavy sophomore album from Mumford & Sons, which isn't even the band's best work.

Year: 2011, at the 53rd Grammy Awards

What beat it: "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire

"The Fame Monster" was such a Moment that Pitchfork ranked it as one of the best albums from the 2010s, despite it being released in 2009.

"For something that cast such a long shadow over this decade, we're making an exception," Amy Phillips wrote. "'The Fame Monster's' release kicked off an arms race of pop kookiness: Suddenly, it seemed like everyone from Katy Perry to Nicki Minaj to Kesha was falling all over themselves to out-weird each other. But nobody's freak flag ever flew higher than Gaga's."

Once again, however, the Recording Academy favored a more obvious choice: Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs," an admittedly excellent album, but far more palatable for a voting bloc that's majority male, white, and older.

Year: 2008, at the 50th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "River: The Joni Letters" by Herbie Hancock

In 2008, Kanye West had already been nominated for album of the year twice: for "The College Dropout" in 2005 and "Late Registration" in 2006.

But "Graduation" felt like his watershed moment, his career-defining masterpiece (of course, we hadn't yet heard "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy").

It also seemed like a much easier choice for the Recording Academy to make, even for a group of voters that historically ignores rap and hip-hop. "Graduation" was more commercialized than West's previous works. It was the work of a perfectionist, a sharp student of pop music who craved acclaim, an artist desperate to be recognized as an icon in his own time.

"Graduation" perfectly synthesized the culture in which it was formed, but still had an eye on the future. It had huge stadium bangers, radio hits, sprawling self-examinations, and one particularly poignant self-fulfilling prophecy: "On this day, we become legendary."

And what did this genius piece of work lose to? A... tribute album... of cover songs. OK!

Year: 2008, at the 50th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "River: The Joni Letters" by Herbie Hancock

Grammy voters squandered two chances to get it right in 2008.

"Graduation" was a phenomenal piece of work, but the question of its legacy is divisive for West's fan base. The Mark Ronson-produced "Back to Black," on the other hand, is an undeniable, certified classic — and, in retrospect, Amy Winehouse's last chance to get the recognition she deserved. (She swept the other three main categories that year, and she deserved to sweep all four.)

"The Grammys voting panel could not have known that Herbie would ultimately outlive her and that 'Back to Black' would become her final album," Dee Lockett noted for Vulture. "But they should've known then that while both albums were an homage to the past (Hancock was a Joni Mitchell covers album; Amy's a doo-wop and soul tribute though technically original work), they had different purposes."

"Amy's album proved her a once-in-a-generation talent, but Hancock's only reaffirmed the obvious: He's a legend," Lockett continued. "Except there are quite a few of his albums that do a better job of making that point. Amy would never have another."

Year: 2007, at the 49th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Taking the Long Way" by The Chicks

Listen, we love The Chicks. But Timbaland really did his thing with "FutureSex/LoveSounds." Justin Timberlake was already a star, but this album made him a legend.

The current landscape of pop music simply wouldn't exist without Timberlake's seminal body of work. With its indulgent interludes, beatbox bridges, futuristic symphonies, twitchy beats, and sing-song rap verses, "FutureSex/LoveSounds" is super weird — too weird for Grammy voters, especially in 2007 — but it's also weirdly perfect. It was somehow both commercially successful and ahead of its time.

Year: 2006, at the 48th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" by U2

"The Emancipation of Mimi" is often cited as Mariah Carey's comeback album, following a decade of pop dominance and then two albums that flopped.

Commercial giants are only welcomed back when the new music is undeniably catchy or downright transcendent. This album was both.

"The Emancipation of Mimi" became Carey's highest-selling release in the US in a decade. The Grammys typically like to reward albums that are relevant (it means all the voters have listened to it, at least). The Grammys also like Carey, who won best new artist back in the day. And yet, voters chose to congratulate U2 yet again.

This wasn't even really a case of two near-equal albums going head to head: "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" was less deserving than multiple nominees, including Kanye West's "Late Registration."

As Zach Schonfeld wrote for Newsweek, "Grammy voters love U2, but this one's a stretch. Though commercially successful thanks to 'Vertigo,' 'Atomic Bomb' was the first U2 album that sounded like just another U2 album."

Year: 2002, at the 44th Grammy Awards

What beat it: The soundtrack from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Movie soundtracks are usually considered long-shots for the major Grammy categories, so how did one beat the debut album from one of this century's most talented vocalists?

As BBC's David O'Donnell noted, "Acoustic Soul" by India.Arie received seven nominations but received zero awards, despite how it "broke the mold for female R&B singers at the time."

"It's a piece that blurs the boundaries of the genre and as a result found a diverse audience base from hip-hop to folk fans," O'Donnell wrote. "It's an album of simple beauty from a singer with a sublime vocal talent."

Year: 2001, at the 43rd Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Two Against Nature" by Steely Dan

"Kid A" is one of the most innovative alt-rock albums and profound musical statements in recent memory. Both Rolling Stone and Pitchfork named "Kid A" the No. 1 best album of the 2000s. The Guardian ranked it at No. 2, describing it as "the sound of today, a decade early." (That was in 2009, but it's still an apt description if it were "two decades early.")

By contrast, "Two Against Nature" was thoroughly average. But since it was Steely Dan's first album in 20 years, I guess the voters got overly excited.

Year: 1998, at the 40th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Time Out of Mind" by Bob Dylan

Radiohead's "OK Computer" was so perceptive it feels prophetic. It was less of an album and more of a crystal ball, peering into our technology-driven future (now present) and empathizing with our emotions before we had even felt them.

"Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that's subsequently come to characterize everyday life in the 21st century," Steven Hyden wrote for the AV Club. "Lofty thematic chit-chat aside, 'OK Computer' delivered the goods for a monumental rock record: It sounded miles-deep and ocean-wide, it blew out your brain and re-invigorated your ears, and made lying on your bed with headphones on seem like a profound activity."

"Time Out of Mind" may have been Bob Dylan's best album to date, but it feels downright forgettable compared to "OK Computer" — an album that is literally preserved in the Library of Congress for having significant cultural, historical, or aesthetic impact on society.

Year: 1997, at the 39th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Falling Into You" by Céline Dion

Céline Dion is a force, but in retrospect, her massively popular album "Falling Into You" is formulaic at best.

It had little lasting impact on the landscape of music and pales in comparison to its album of the year competitors, including the Fugees' "The Score," the Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," and especially Beck's best album "Odelay," which still sounds fresh and innovative to this day.

Was "Odelay's" egregious snub the reason Beck has gone on to win Grammy Awards for inferior projects? We can only speculate.

Year: 1988, at the 30th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "The Joshua Tree" by U2

"The Joshua Tree" is probably U2's best album, but I think we can all agree that Prince's best album trumps pretty much any other musician's best album almost every time, including U2. 

"Purple Rain" might be Prince's best-known work, but "Sign o' the Times" is his magnum opus. It was even inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, nearly 30 years after it was disrespected by that same organization.

Year: 1985, at the 27th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Can't Slow Down" by Lionel Richie

No disrespect to Lionel Richie, but this is "Purple Rain" we're talking about. I rest my case.

Year: 1981, at the 23rd Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Christopher Cross" by Christopher Cross

Not only is "The Wall" a seminal body of work, a self-evident standard that artists still strive to and fail to reach, but it lost to "Christopher Cross." Oh, you don't know who Christopher Cross is? That's OK, neither does anyone else.

If any one ceremony could encapsulate why the Recording Academy can't be trusted, it's this one. Cross became the only artist in Grammys history to win all four major awards in the same night — album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, and best new artist — and remained the only artist to do so for nearly four decades, until Billie Eilish joined the ranks in 2020. He never won another.

Year: 1970, at the 12th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "Blood, Sweat & Tears" by Blood, Sweat & Tears

"Blood, Sweat & Tears" is a wonderful jazz-rock album, but that hardly matters when "Abbey Road" is in the running — and, mind-bogglingly, the award wasn't even given to the next-best choice.

As Craig Jenkins wrote for Vulture, "The Recording Academy had one job in 1970, and that was to slide the album of the year trophy to one of the three masterworks of the late '60s."

"'Blood, Sweat & Tears' is great, but 'At San Quentin'? 'Crosby, Stills & Nash'? 'Abbey Road'!? These are epochal records within their respective forms. 'Blood, Sweat & Tears' isn't even the tightest mainstream jazz-fusion album from the same eligibility period. (What's up, 'Chicago Transit Authority'?) Swing and a miss."

Year: 1967, at the 9th Grammy Awards

What beat it: "A Man and His Music" by Frank Sinatra

Thankfully, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" did win album of the year in 1968. But the band's second-greatest work failed to get the same recognition the previous year.

To make it even worse, "Revolver" was only nominated in that singular category, so despite creating an album full of classics — from "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine" to "Got to Get You into My Life" — the band came up completely empty-handed.

When a song resonates so broadly and intensely that it becomes the longest-reigning No. 1 hit in Billboard Hot 100 history, a music critic needs to pay attention. Thankfully, "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" is well worth the focus.

Shaboozey's breakout hit came on the heels of his star-making turn in "Cowboy Carter," an album that knows the value of an unpredictable, well-placed sample. Shaboozey used that strategy to great effect, flipping J-Kwon's 2004 club hit "Tipsy" into a heady pub chant. It was a Beyoncé-level stroke of genius; the hook has shown to transcend both genre and generation.

If you like this, listen to: "Anabelle," "My Fault (feat. Noah Cyrus)," "Vegas"

Just one month before Sabrina Carpenter released "Espresso" and commenced her plan for world domination, she stole the show in "You Need Me Now?" with a cheeky fourth-wall break.

Carpenter presumably crossed paths with Marie Ulven, aka girl in red, the darling of sapphic bedroom pop, while they were both booked as openers for the Eras Tour. At first glance, this feels like an unlikely team-up — but Carpenter's polished vocal shimmer is the perfect foil for Ulven's grittier vibe.

"You Need Me Now?" was released as the third single from Ulven's sophomore album as girl in red, "I'm Doing It Again Baby!" Her unrelenting, feisty tone recalls the fan-favorite track "Serotonin," while the lyrics reveal a scathing kiss-off to an ex, which turns out to be Carpenter's specialty.

"You know what would be really fucking cool on this? Sabrina," Ulven declares in the bridge, turning a solidly good indie-rock song into a lively, interactive experience. Now that Carpenter is as famous as she is, Ulven's epiphany feels slightly prophetic — and Carpenter's enthusiasm is even more delightful.

"Oh my god, you're so right!" Carpenter cuts in, eager and prepared for her moment. "I'm gonna sing now."

If you like this, listen to: "Too Much," "Phantom Pain," "New Love"

Hana Vu is only in her early 20s, and she already has a timeless song under her belt.

The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter is truly of the millennium (she was born in 2000, making her the same age as Ice Spice and Reneé Rapp), and yet, her single "Care" is not mired in trends or modern touchstones. (Sure, there's a thinly veiled jab at consumerism, but it's not like Gen Z invented existential ire toward the status quo.)

This isn't the case for all of Vu's music; in 2019, she named her EP "Nicole Kidman/Anne Hathaway" after her two favorite actors. But "Care" is an extra special song, anchored by Vu's lush melodies, soulful delivery, and ever-relevant ruminations — about what it means to be human, to love, to hope, and to "find it all too much."

If you like this, listen to: "Hammer," "Dreams," "Find Me Under Wilted Trees"

Katie Gavin is known as the lead singer of MUNA, but in her debut solo album, "What a Relief," she strips away much of the band's arena-sized bravado to make room for more intimate meditations.

"The Baton" is Gavin's masterpiece: stark, folksy, and acutely compassionate. The song pays homage to her mother, who guided Gavin's growth, and the hazy silhouette of her future daughter, for whom she'll follow her mother's example.

"I'd pass her the baton and I'd say you better run / 'Cause this thing has been going / For many generations," she sings, suggesting an optimistic inversion of Fiona Apple's "Relay." Still, Gavin's lens is not entirely rosy: "There is so much healing / That still needs to be done."

Unfortunately, "The Baton" hits way harder post election, now that women and queer people across the US are getting ready to fight for control over their own bodies — and, ideally in doing so, to protect future generations from having to do the same.

If you like this, listen to: "As Good As It Gets," "Sanitized," "Sparrow"

Earlier this year, acting on little beyond a gut feeling, I was lucky enough to catch Fabi Reyna, aka Reyna Tropical, perform in Brooklyn. I found myself hypnotized by her organic production style, her seamless weave of multicultural traditions (Reyna was raised between Mexico, Texas, and Oregon), her tender embrace of queer themes, and, most of all, by "Conocerla."

Now, whenever I return to this song, I have a hard time putting my finger on what it is I love so much — but I always have the same recurring, insufficient thought: "This is the coolest thing I've ever heard."

Luckily, for Reyna, that instinctive pleasure is the whole point. She told Paper that "Conocerla" is about "personal exploration" and creating a space to nurture emotion, not logic. "Through art and music," Reyna explained, "we can hold more than we realize when we don't rely solely on our minds."

If you like this, listen to: "Cartagena," "Lo Siento," "Conexión Ancestral"

Donald Glover's final release as Childish Gambino, "Bando Stone and the New World," is an apocalyptic concept album that follows his character, also a musician, while he navigates doomsday on a remote island.

"Bando Stone" is presented as a holistic body of work, but as with many survival epics, the hero is better off with some company. The album hits its peak when Glover is joined by Jorja Smith and Amaarae for "In the Night," which soundtracks a humid, nocturnal love affair. The women strike conspiratorial tones, singing about lustful dreams and illicit rendezvous; the mini-drama seems immaterial to the end of the world, but it succeeds in infusing the saga with fresh textures and intrigue.

If you like this, listen to: "Lithonia," "Talk My Shit (feat. Amaarae & Flo Milli)," "Running Around (feat. Fousheé)"

Immediately upon the release of "Eternal Sunshine," Ariana Grande's sixth studio album, "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" became the runaway favorite across the board. Fans sent it straight to No. 1 on the Hot 100. Keith Urban called it "audible heroin." Many critics (including myself) compared the sparkling synths and propulsive rhythm to Robyn's "Dancing on My Own," a compliment of the highest order among pop nerds. (Max Martin, who produced much of "Eternal Sunshine," has also worked with Robyn. The pair earned two top-10 hits in 1997.)

"We Can't Be Friends" is patently a reaction to Grande's recent divorce, but subtextually, it confronts the inevitable public fallout — that is, the stigma of being a famous woman with a string of romantic missteps. Still, at least in song, Grande can emerge from the fray with her ecstatic falsetto, unashamed and resilient as ever. "Know that you made me / I don't like how you paint me," she insists, "yet I'm still here hanging."

If you like this, listen to: "Don't Wanna Break Up Again," "Eternal Sunshine," "I Wish I Hated You"

Maggie Rogers has always been an exceptional producer, as evidenced by her famous Pharrell critique (or, more accurately, his lack of critique) that catapulted her from NYU student to indie darling.

In her underappreciated sophomore album "Surrender," Rogers pivoted from folk-electronica to a more organic rock sound as she came into her own as a vocalist. "I learned how to use my lower register," she told The New York Times, "to just sing with my whole body."

When it came time to record her third studio album, "Don't Forget Me," Rogers was already equipped with these polished-up skills. This time, it's her songwriting that comes into clearer focus, totally shorn of self-doubt and pretense.

This is especially true of the title track, in which every word has been chosen with keen precision. Throughout each verse and chorus, Rogers paints miniature portraits of Sally (a vision of domestic bliss), Molly (a besotted portent of mediocre love), and herself (an autonomous woman with a lust for emotional heirlooms).

As Rogers explained in her email newsletter, some of these details were invented for the song. "Pen to paper. Fully formed. There they were," she wrote. But that doesn't make them feel any less lifelike: "I think in this way, some of the deepest truths about my present were able to come forward."

If you like this, listen to: "The Kill," "If Now Was Then," "On & On & On"

Grace Cummings makes music as though she's building a bridge between the old and the new. Her album "Ramona" is vivid and nostalgic, saturated with hues of old-school blues, yet dauntless in a distinctly modern way — the kind of music that a Gen X dad and Gen Z daughter could play on a roadtrip and equally enjoy.

The centerpiece is "Common Man," which juxtaposes vintage instrumentation and familiar pastoral imagery (thunder booming overhead, a sunrise on the horizon) with Cummings' singular, androgynous, anything-but-predictable voice.

Even in this wide-open landscape, her belting easily swells to fill the space. So when Cummings delivers the song's thesis, "I can't stand to be the common man," it's no challenge to believe her.

If you like this, listen to: "On and On," "A Precious Thing," "Help Is On Its Way"

"Too Sweet" is Hozier's highest-charting song ever on the Hot 100, which is kind of a miracle, since he didn't even bother to include it on his latest full-length album, 2023's "Unreal Unearth."

Thankfully, "Too Sweet" didn't get buried forever. It was released seven months later on the EP "Unheard," a brief collection of songs from the "Unreal Unearth" sessions that Hozier had scrapped "for different reasons."

Perhaps Hozier felt the song was too radiant and playful — or, ahem, too sweet — for the album's conceptual journey through the nine circles of hell. That could explain it, although the narrator is certainly at risk of being punished for gluttony (he has a whiskey habit and a 3 a.m. bedtime, so I'm assuming he's not a fan of moderation). Or perhaps Hozier sensed that he had a smash hit on his hands, and didn't want it to overshadow the rest of the project, like "Take Me to Church" did with his debut.

We may never know his reasons for unleashing "Too Sweet" when he did. We can only be grateful that he did it at all — and maybe consider this a learning experience. As his career trajectory has proven, he's a more patient man than most, and something this sweet is worth the wait.

If you like this, listen to: "Nobody's Soldier," "July," "Fare Well"

"Soup," the second track and fifth single from Remi Wolf's "Big Ideas," is a shining example of an earworm done right. Backed by Tame Impala-esque guitar riffs and bright '80s synths, Wolf delivers a series of airtight melodies and just the right amount of quirk.

Like all the greatest top-40 bops, the chorus is ideal for screaming in the car — yet there's no risk of tedium or replay-induced headaches. "Soup" can be played on a loop and Wolf's songcraft stays fresh.

If you like this, listen to: "Cinderella," "Toro," "Alone in Miami"

As with the two singles from "Guts" that preceded it ("Bad Idea Right?" and "Get Him Back!"), I remain aghast that "Obsessed" wasn't a No. 1 hit.

Olivia Rodrigo is at her best when she's a little punk, a little rock, and completely unhinged — and this "Guts (Spilled)" deluxe track about developing a fetish for her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend ("I know her star sign, I know her blood type") may be the most loosely hinged track in her entire catalog.

In polite society, it's rare that women are allowed to express the full spectrum of emotion — rage, envy, lust, self-loathing, and, of course, obsession — without getting labeled crazy. Rodrigo actively bucks against that sexist custom with her songwriting, flinging herself into the deepest trenches of her psyche and emerging even stronger. In her capable hands, "I can't help it, I've got issues" becomes less of a confession and more of a rallying cry.

If you like this, listen to: "So American"

I tuned in to Fontaines D.C. last fall, when I saw them open for the Arctic Monkeys' The Car Tour. The Irish band had already released three albums and won a Brit Award, but it still felt like they were on the cusp of greatness, like they were building toward a true breakthrough.

That catalyst arrived seven months later with "Starbuster," the celebrated lead single from their new album, "Romance." The song is punchy and cinematic, like Kasabian's "L.S.F." meets Gorillaz's "Dare" meets the atmospheric, suburban angst of "Skins" (the original UK series, not the busted US version). But despite its traceable lineage, "Starburster" is no mere imitation; it synthesizes its post-punk and rap-rock influences to craft something new.

If you like this, listen to: "In the Modern World," "Sundowner," "Death Kink"

In Luca Guadagnino's horny tennis drama "Challengers," the thrilling reveal of a young, headed-for-stardom Tashi Duncan ("The hottest woman I've ever seen," in the words of Patrick Zweig) is set to the equally thrilling thumps of "Yeah x10."

The aptly named song is the highlight of the movie's soundtrack, created by Nine Inch Nails maestros Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The Oscar-winning duo provides the precise mix of tension, delight, youthful awe, and "unending homoerotic desire" that's needed to match the characters' churning drama.

Tashi (played by Zendaya) struts onto the court, lithe and confident, as her two future suitors (Josh O'Connor as Patrick and Mike Faist as Art) revel in their shared surge of desire. The scene-and-song combo kicks off a riveting chain of events that dominated cinephile discourse this year. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," indeed.

If you like this, listen to: "I Know," "The Signal," "Challengers: Match Point"

In 2022, FKA twigs launched a new era of pleasure with "Caprisongs," an aura-heavy, electro-pop mixtape designed to sweat out the demons.

This year, she doubled down with "Eusexua," the lead single from her upcoming album of the same name. The twigs-invented word seems to be derived from the Greek word "euphoria," modified to reflect something more erotic, something truly ineffable. The song is an intricate choreography of techno beats and cascading synths, the exact kind of soundscape where twigs and her peculiar mystique tend to thrive.

If I had to define "Eusexua" based on how the song makes me feel, it would be "feeling present in one's body." Not the body-positive platitude of "feeling comfortable in one's skin," per se, but a sensation of full aliveness — every hair on your arms standing in salute, your heartbeat thumping in your fingertips.

If you like this, listen to: "Perfect Stranger," "Drums of Death"

Over the summer, shortly before the release of her new single, Raye told me how she's willing to sacrifice profit for her creative vision.

"It upsets me to do a half-assed gig or to do a half-hearted thing," Raye explained. "If I was in this to make money, I wouldn't even be releasing the kind of music that I am."

"Genesis." is proof positive of that credo; the amorphous, seven-minute song is the kind of big swing that artists take after years of hard work and honing their creative vision. During the three-part odyssey, Raye unspools everything weighing on her mind, from algorithmically encouraged envy, self-loathing, and substance abuse to political causes she cares about, like universal healthcare and worker rights. It's a lot to digest in one go, but this song deserves the time and effort.

If you like this, listen to: "Oscar Winning Tears."

The cultural impact of "Not Like Us" is self-evident. By many accounts, Kendrick Lamar was already winning in his rap beef with Drake, largely thanks to his Pulitzer Prize-winning lyrical skill. But then, Lamar did the most devastating thing he could to a chart-topping, best-selling behemoth. He dropped an absolute banger.

It takes a truly remarkable diss track to have consumers, gatekeepers, and corporations alike in a chokehold: No. 1 on the Hot 100 for two weeks; six Grammy nominations, including both record and song of the year; plus a much-anticipated performance at the Apple Music-sponsored Super Bowl in February.

Lamar may be the only artist alive who could've pulled it off — that is to say, the only rapper who's shrewd, ruthless, and respected enough to convince stuffy executives to let him call Drake a "certified lover boy, certified pedophile" on national TV.

If you like this, listen to: "Squabble Up," "Luther (with SZA)," "Heart Pt. 6"

There was a time this summer when I couldn't go on Instagram without seeing "Nissan Altima" shared on someone's story. More recently, videos of Doechii performing the frantic first verse — in which she calls herself "the new hip-hop Madonna" and "the trap Grace Jones" — have taken over my TikTok feed.

Despite the never-ending clips, I have yet to see Doechii botch the lyrics or trip over her tongue. "Nissan Altima" puts her star power on full display; she's a formidable, top-tier rapper with a flair for eccentric phrasing.

Released as the lead single from Doechii's latest mixtape, "Alligator Bites Never Heal," this is the kind of cult-classic crowd-pleaser that, sooner or later, fans will hold up as a turning point in the artist's career.

Although "Nissan Altima" is still relatively niche and has yet to appear on the Hot 100, it has sparked an undeniable groundswell of support, even snagging a Grammy nomination for best rap performance. Don't be surprised when you start to hear Doechii's music everywhere.

If you like this, listen to: "Boiled Peanuts," "Denial is a River," "Beverly Hills"

This time last year, I crowned Chappell Roan's "Red Wine Supernova" as the best song of 2023.

I'm willing to bet Roan wasn't stunned by the praise; "I'm not that surprised people like it because it's really good," she told Dork at the time. But the selection did get some pushback from friends and lurkers online. Back then, Roan was little known by mainstream standards, performing for crowds of a couple thousand at most on The Midwest Princess Tour. Upon its release, "Red Wine Supernova" debuted at No. 75 on the Hot 100 — nothing to sniff at, certainly, but nothing sensational.

Now, "sensation" is just one of many suitable labels for Roan's career. She's become a main character in pop music, performing for massive crowds at music festivals and millions of viewers on network TV. Her rise to stardom has been ferociously analyzed, nitpicked, and gawked at, but as Roan said herself, it should've come as no surprise. She boasts an exceptional, magnetic talent that, once witnessed, makes it impossible to ignore or forget.

This became clearer than ever at Coachella, where Roan performed the as-yet-unreleased single "Good Luck Babe!" with the conviction of a much bigger star. A clip of her singing the bridge while staring down the barrel of the camera, eyes alight with both anguish and clarity, went viral online. There, in the desert, standing face-to-face with "I told you so," she banished every flicker of doubt.

"Good Luck Babe!" is now a top-five hit on the Hot 100, a Grammy nominee for song of the year, and the epicenter of this year's so-called "lesbian renaissance."

In retrospect, it's no wonder that Roan's watershed moment was a song that nods to her own staying power, a magic touch that lingers for a lifetime. She was right all along: You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.

If you like this, listen to: Roan only released this one song in 2024, but keep an eye out for her much-teased sophomore album, expected to arrive next year.

It'll presumably feature unreleased songs "The Subway," which Roan has performed at several music festivals, and "The Giver," a sapphic Shania Twain-esque bop that Roan debuted on "Saturday Night Live."

Charli XCX's "Brat" already earned the No. 2 slot on this year's best albums ranking — but I'm breaking my own rule, which forbids overlap on both end-of-year lists, for two reasons.

First, the "Girl, So Confusing" remix does not technically appear on the standard edition of "Brat." It was released as a single before its inclusion on the remix album, "Brat and It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat," which, as the name suggests, is a completely different thing. Second, the "Girl, So Confusing" remix is a force of nature unto itself and needs to be treated as such.

I can't remember another time there was such a consensus, from critics and fans alike, about the year's most affecting, most visceral pop song — let alone a spontaneous remix like this one.

Lorde had already heard the original "Girl, So Confusing" by the time Charli sent her a heads-up that, hey, long time no see, but there's a song about our unspoken rivalry on my album. Any Lorde fan would've expected her to respond with grace and mercy, but she went several steps further, offering a real-time resolution: "Let's work it out on the remix." She sent her entire verse over text, the same way it appears on the track, to which Charli reacted the same way everyone else did: "Fucking hell."

Cultural observers and political pundits have been asking each other all year, what makes someone or something "Brat"? Even Charli has struggled to articulate it, but of course, Lorde understood implicitly. Their public truce encapsulates the true essence and charm of the album: off-the-cuff, unedited, and vulnerable in the same way that throwing up in the club and letting a friend hold your hair back ends up bringing you closer.

If you like this, listen to: "Everything is Romantic featuring Caroline Polachek," "Apple featuring The Japanese House," "B2b featuring Tinashe"

Listen to BI's complete list of 100 best songs on Spotify.