Help! There’s So Much Pop!

The temperatures are warming, the windows opening, and a pop or pop-adjacent album is being released every week. This year’s song-of-summer bracket promises bops and bangers of all types, fit for many situations. Here, a guide to maximizing the current deluge.

Charli XCX, Brat (June 7): While Charli has long experimented with different sides of pop, her latest album — with the clappy beat of “Club Classics” and the looped, Gesaffelstein-assisted “B2b” — recalls her “Vroom Vroom” era. After her wild Boiler Room rave, these songs are destined to be club classics, not just reference them.

Camila Cabello, “I Luv It”: Learning that this isn’t a Charli song — her 2010s hit is “I Love It” — but is in fact by a blonde Cabello doing something very different from her other solo attempts will make you do a double take. Gone is the swinging chill of “Havana” or the heartrending, down-tempo vibes of “Never Be the Same.” She’s now operating at the speed of hyperpop. “I need you now and tomorrow,” she croons before singing — or saying? — “I love it” almost 30 times.

Charli XCX, A. G. Cook, Addison Rae“The Von Dutch Remix”: The former TikTok star isn’t coming for Charli’s style so much as she’s adjacent to it — all fun, all play, all dead-eye glaring and party outfits. If you’ve ever said, “I like Charli and I need more,” here’s where you’re headed. Rae’s now-viral scream that comes after two “I’m just livin’ that life” verses is a real “Wait for the drop” kind of moment.

Ariana Grande, eternal sunshine: This may be the ultimate “Good for her” divorce album: Ari plays smug and thrilled about her split from ex-husband Dalton Gomez and about finding her new beau, SpongeBob. From the preening “the boy is mine” to the provocative Improv Comedy 101 “yes, and?,” this is for anyone happy to cut and run.

Zayn, Room Under the Stairs (May 17): Gone are the days of Zayn’s post–One Direction bad-boy moodiness. Now, he’s all regret, feeling rueful and lonely after his separation from Gigi Hadid and whatever might have happened with Selena Gomez. You’re gonna hear his half-hearted remorse via moaning and groaning (sometimes in a twang) set to low-tempo beats. Song titles include “Alienated” and “Gates of Hell.”

Shakira, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran: Another divorce album, but this one won’t make you think about dating a theater kid. It may not match the ruthlessness of her viral diss to her ex, “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” but it’s a poppy, electro-dance record full of fun features (Cardi B! Karol G!). It also doubles down on Shakira’s genre-bending excellence, shifting from rock to Latin pop to emotional ballads.

Maya Hawke, Chaos Angel (May 31): The actress’s third album seems a little more angel and a little less chaotic, opting for slowish, twangy tracks that suggest her Flannery O’Connor role in Wildcat might have influenced her acoustic sensibilities. It’s possible Hawke’s music is a little too easygoing for how much she has to say in each song, but she’s a good rambler: “Didn’t think I’d get in, so I didn’t apply / Now I’m a drunk hanger-on hitting on a younger guy / I buy booze for the Ivy League with my television salary / They think they look up to me,” she sings, pouring that all into the early verses of “Missing Out.”

Conan Gray, Found Heaven: Gray’s sad-boy ’80s synth pop includes lyrics that are wistful and yearning but set to beep-boop-y sounds, giving his tunes a fun sense of cognitive dissonance. Some on this chart are relieved to split from their partners; Gray’s album comes from pure heartbreak (he got dumped on a plane!). “Dance with me so we don’t cry,” he sings on “Lonely Dancers.”

Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft (May 17): The Oscar and Grammy winner told Rolling Stone her third LP is a real “album-ass album.” That concept — no singles — plus her newfound love of pussy (one song is called “Lunch”; she came out as queer last fall) and frank discussion of self-pleasure signal that Eilish is eager to explore new things.

Tyla, Tyla: Tyla’s debut is sweet and sultry with “Truth or Dare” daring you to get off the couch and move a little. As for the more extroverted singles, there are “Water” (“Make me sweat / Make me hotter / Make me lose my breath” — direct!) and “ART,” in which she boasts about being someone’s piece and muse. And no matter your situation or personality, prepare to gravitate toward “Jump,” featuring Skillibeng and Gunna, all summer.

Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!”: To quote the great Nicole Kidman, “Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” Roan’s belting, unabashedly queer pop (not the JoJo Siwa kind) is full of longing and sensuality. On her new single, whose title is meant to encourage her and her fans, she sings, “I don’t wanna call it off / But you don’t wanna call it love,” bemoaning the uneasy in-between of being not quite single but not quite taken, either.

Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department: Swift details her most oversaturated year yet — the Joe Alwyn breakup, the Matty Healy thing, the exhaustion of her Eras Tour, fan annoyance, coupling up with Travis Kelce — in a wordy double LP. To quote the great anonymous poet, “i ain’t reading all that. i’m happy for u tho, or sorry that happened.”

Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood: This is the poppiest turn yet from Katie Crutchfield’s folksy solo project. Her previous album dealt with a post-sobriety return to a sense of stability with longtime partner Kevin Morby; this one’s about being a normie. “My life’s been mapped out to a T / But I’m always a little lost,” she sings on “Lone Star Lake.” The songs are dreamy and groovy.

Meghan Trainor, Timeless (June 14): The singer says she and husband Daryl Sabara — enough! We know! Her sixth album’s lead track, “Been Like This,” is about how she has been the same person this whole time — “Ain’t nothin’ new / Still that bitch,” she threatens — suggesting that her marital bliss and goofy throwback songs are here to stay. The album is called Timeless.

Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso”: The new single from the former Girl Meets World star turned Olivia Rodrigo nemesis turned Taylor Swift opener is a silly summer song for the ages. Her performance of it at Coachella, where she shouted-out her beau, Barry Keoghan, with a sexy wave and a winky bathwater reference, catapulted it into the Billboard top ten; now she has landed a musical guest spot on SNL. Who are any of us to argue with the power of “That’s that me, espresso”?

Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter: In the artist’s own words, this is “a Beyoncé album,” and it’s full of fun tracks like “Ya Ya”. But in true country fashion, she turns more inward than she did on Renaissance: Several songs reference her continued love and devotion to Jay-Z (“I’ll be your shotgun rider till the day I die,” she sings with Miley Cyrus on “II MOST WANTED”), but she still has strong words for him. “Thinking ’bout leaving, hell no,” she warns in “Alligator Tears.”

Jojo Siwa, “Karma”: Between her new Kiss aesthetic, hump-happy music video, and bizarre quotes — “gay pop” should be an “official genre”; she has a sperm donor “lined up” for her future kids, whose names will rhyme — it’s clear the 20-year-old former child dance star is going through a delayed teenage phase. (The one she skipped during those recent bow and high-pony years.) Her revenge track, presumably targeting ex Avery Cyrus, includes the word bitch but dials it back elsewhere, using eff instead of fuck. Meanwhile, she keeps trying to get whatever this move is (the “Siwanator”?) to catch on.

Justin Timberlake, Everything I Thought It Was: Timberlake tries and fails to unite his semi-apologetic dad vibe with the sexy, poppy songs he put out in the early aughts to mixed, if not outright lackluster, results on his sixth solo album. Not even the ’N Sync feature saves this, though it may inspire some Oh shit, I’m old–style reckoning.

Dua Lipa, Radical Optimism: Lipa again goes for an upbeat dance album with throwback disco signifiers. Calling it Radical Optimism is a puzzler — was she not optimistic before? What’s radical, exactly, about what we’re hearing? Is it just about how she dyed her hair red? Do we care what she’s saying, or do we just like singing “go Houdini”? The Service95 editor-in-chief is our most baffling media-mogul–pop-singer hybrid — and the only one — but her commitment to consistency is one comfort in this world.

Kacey Musgraves, Deeper Well: On this grounded, gentle follow-up to her divorce album, Musgraves is still exploring healing and growth. But just because she stopped smoking weed and started getting high on her Saturn return doesn’t mean you have to when you listen to her music. Either way, you’ll both be realizing some stuff about who you are out there in this big world.