The Best Songs of 2026 So Far

By Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Here’s our soundtrack to yet another tumultuous year in the making. Springsteen offered up a protest rallying cry against Trump fascism, Charli XCX gave us a droll, doom-ridden 2026 time capsule, Luke Comb cried in his beer, Olidia Rodrigo got her “Just Like Heaven” on, Lana Del Rey celebrated domestic bliss, and hip-hop legends T.I. and Juveline came through with lordly new hits. This list of our favorite songs of the year so far includes silky bangers, intimate pop maximalism, dance floor epiphanies, indie poetry, and much more. And you can hear them all in this playlist.

• Charli XCX, ‘SS26’

  Image Credit: youtube

  Centuries from now, historians will study 2026 with this Charli classic, in which spring and summer are doomed because “We’re walkin’ on a runway that goes straight to hell/Nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion or film.” The instrumentation is minimal — some electronic drums here, subdued, fuzzy riffs there — leaving room for Charli’s hilariously brutal songwriting to bask on its own. She revisits the Brat era and Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign (“Think my politics could work as a press strategy”) and pokes fun at cancel culture (“Wrote a really good notes app apology”) culminating in a wild time capsule for the ages. We can’t wait for her take on fall and winter. —Angie Martoccio