Stray Thoughts: Favorite Albums of 2026 (That I Haven't Talked About on Another Thought (Yet))

Somehow, we’re just over the halfway point of the year!

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last month debating whether I wanted to do a “best of the year so far” list. Sometimes I overthink these things. I get apprehensive about turning everything into “a list,” but at the same time, I find so much great music through other writers’ roundups.

The other side of this is that I started this newsletter, in part, as a way to write about the music that’s moving me and to strike while inspiration strikes. So I’ve been lucky enough to have already written about many of my favorite records of 2026 so far. And for those that I haven’t yet, well, I want to keep the door open for writing in-depth features and essays in the future.

So I’ve come up with this compromise. For you, dear Another Thought+ subscribers, I’ll be doing a rapid-fire rundown of some of my favorite albums I’ve heard this year that haven’t been prominently featured on Another Thought yet. I’m going to keep the write-ups brief in case I want to expand on them later. Lord knows I could write thousands of words about most of these records. Plus, I’m aiming to keep this one short. A fun challenge for a long-winded writer like myself.

So, let’s dig in!