AARP Hearing Center
AARP’s Favorite Albums of 2026 (So Far)
Bruce Hornsby, Peter Frampton, Tori Amos and Ringo Starr make music critic Edna Gundersen’s list
Back row (from left): They Might Be Giants, “The World Is to Dig”; Ringo Starr, “Long Long Road”; Squeeze, “Trixies.” Front row (from left): Tori Amos, “In Times of Dragons”; Gorillaz, “The Mountain.”
AARP (Shutterstock; Courtesy They Might Be Giants; Henry Diltz; Dean Chalkley; Kasia Wozniak; Courtesy Gorillaz)
Boomer acts may be scarce on the upper reaches of Billboard’s album charts, but the 2026 release calendar is packed with new music by 50-plus musicians. In the pipeline are the highly anticipated Foreign Tongues by the Rolling Stones and Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II by Madonna. Also on the way are albums by Shania Twain, Yes, Foreigner, Everlast, Blondie, Michael Stipe and Peter Gabriel.
But you don’t need to wait for those. Already available are such wildly diverse releases as Squeeze’s “lost” rock opera, Peter Frampton’s triumphant resurrection, Gorillaz’s mortality dance disc and a Tori Amos dragon fantasy.
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
Here are AARP’s 12 favorite albums released so far in 2026.
Bruce Hornsby takes Americana in new directions on “Indigo Park.”
Zappo Productions
Bruce Hornsby: Indigo Park
Forty years after releasing The Way It Is, his multiplatinum debut album and its hit title track, Bruce Hornsby, 71, is plowing new ground and barely glancing at the rearview. His brand of Americana pulsates with verve, diversity and innovation on Indigo Park’s 10 warm, wise and wry tunes, and the singer-songwriter defiantly resists relying on moves that served him well before. He examines the decay preceding death on a haunted, humorous, piano-backed rap, “Entropy Here (Rust in Peace),” and looks at efforts to arrest the “slow-fading past” on “Memory Palace,” sweetened by Ezra Koenig’s harmonies, a mellotron and a metronomic beat. Bonnie Raitt joins Hornsby for the danceable duet “Ecstatic,” inspired by basketball chants during Louisiana State University games. The late Grateful Dead cofounder Bob Weir guests on the jazzy ragtime hoot “Might as Well Be Me, Florinda.”
Gorillaz spans the globe for “The Mountain," with tunes sung in at least five different languages.
Courtesy Gorillaz
Gorillaz: The Mountain
AI would be hard-pressed to conjure an entity as original as Gorillaz, the British virtual trip-hop band created by Blur singer Damon Albarn and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, both 58. Their ninth studio album, The Mountain, recorded in London, India and elsewhere, with performances in English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic and West African Yoruba, is a sprawling survey of mortality. Morbid? Hardly. The tone is celebratory, and the focus is rebirth.
The duo leans heavily on Indian classical music and guests a-go-go, including posthumous cameos by Bobby Womack, Dennis Hopper and D12 rapper Proof. The sizzler is “The Happy Dictator,” a diabolically cheerful look at lunatic autocrats sung by Sparks duo Ron and Russell Mael.
Jill Scott delivers a memorable musical memo on “To Whom This May Concern.”
Marcellous Lovelace
Jill Scott: To Whom This May Concern
Jill Scott’s trademark cocktail of soul, jazz and rap has lost none of its punch. On her sixth studio album and first since 2015’s Woman, the singer and poet, 54, spins searing and hilarious stories over sensual, propulsive basslines on songs that leap from a wisecracking rap with Too $hort on “BPOTY” to the rollicking R&B of “Be Great,” featuring Trombone Shorty. House beats goose a tribute to DJs on “Right Here, Right Now,” and Scott recites poetry honoring relatives and Black pioneers over breakbeats on the empowering “Offdaback.”
Lucinda Williams supplies a passionate soundtrack for dark times on “World’s Gone Wrong.”
Mark Seliger
Lucinda Williams: World’s Gone Wrong
On her 16th studio album, Lucinda Williams, 73, expresses the rage, frustration and struggles of modern life, a grim reality where justice and compassion are in short supply but hope is not abandoned. The blues/country singer’s urgent, warmhearted vocals and relatable vignettes elevate these timely tales above simple news bulletins.
The title track examines financial inequity through the eyes of two weary, worried workers. “How Much Did You Get for Your Soul” flays the powerful who left the meek behind. And the stately “We’ve Come Too Far to Turn Around,” with Norah Jones on piano and harmony vocals, urges defiance. Gospel singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples, 86, contributes vocals on a stirring cover of Bob Marley’s “So Much Trouble in the World.”
Peter Frampton's “Carry the Light” illuminates the rocker's hopes and fears for our shared future.
Courtesy Sacks & Co.
Peter Frampton: Carry the Light
The guitar virtuoso’s 19th studio album and first set of original rock tunes since 2010 is his most political work to date and also a deeply personal and victorious statement. Frampton, 76, is battling a muscle-wasting disease called inclusion body myositis, which has made playing more challenging and painstaking. Yet his chops throughout these 10 tracks remain energetic, clean and inventive. He coproduced the album with his son Julian and gets assists from Sheryl Crow, 64, Tom Morello, 61, and Graham Nash, 84, on songs that plead for sanity and unity in a world poisoned by greed, tyranny and a failure to learn from the past.
The James Hunter Six melds sly humor and warm soul on “Off the Fence.”
Easy Eye Sound
The James Hunter Six: Off the Fence
Arriving 40 years after his debut, Off the Fence reflects the British R&B singer’s musical journey in songs that tap his roots while staking his claim on the current sonic landscape. Hunter, 63, draws from early American soul in 12 originals that brim with humor, joy, pounding rhythms, sassy brass and a modern vibe.
The band cooks on rowdy romps like “Gun Shy,” “A Sure Thing” and “Ain’t That a Trip,” a jump-blues workout featuring Van Morrison, 80, an early Hunter fan and collaborator. The secret sauce is Hunter’s sly sense of humor. Consider the song “Particular.” “Oh, it’s a lovely day,” Hunter sings, “if you’re not particular ... If low expectations come natural to you / And you leave out the part where she said we were through.”
Nine Inch Nails and Boyz Noize convene a darkly delirious dance party on “Nine Inch Noize.”
Courtesy U Music
Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize: Nine Inch Noize
After collaborating with electro-house sensation Alexander Ridha, a.k.a. Boys Noize, on the film scores for Challengers and TRON, Trent Reznor, 61, wanted to explore the possibilities of bringing the Noize to NIN’s songbook.
This is no ordinary remix project. It’s symbiosis. The reimagined tunes explode with energy, exuberance and light, shedding much of the gloom and complexity of the originals. Reznor’s rock and punk bluster fades against militant drum machines and waves of rave synths. And while his menacing vocals and dark lyrics still give the project its NIN imprint, this is a dance party.
On “Trixies,” Squeeze revisits a rock opera they wrote as teenagers more than 50 years ago.
Dean Chalkley
Squeeze: Trixies
Chris Difford, 71, and Glenn Tilbrook, 68, were teens when they wrote some of their first music together: a rock opera set in a fictional London nightclub called Trixies. More than 50 years later, Trixies, the band’s first album in eight years, arrives with all the imagination, melodies and hooks their best work is known for. Gangsters, working stiffs, a dancer and a bartender populate these evocative noir-mood songs that dwell on crime scenes and boozing. They range from mellow acoustic (“You Get the Feeling”) to glam (“Why Don’t You”) to crackling pop (“Hell on Earth”). It’s a musical soundtrack dug out of a time capsule.
They Might Be Giants: The World Is to Dig
The eccentric Brooklyn duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, both 66, delivers another batch of sparkling alt-rock on its 24th studio album, a collection brimming with joy, whimsy and surprises. The World Is to Dig (the title is inspired by the 1952 children’s book A Hole Is to Dig) dials up the fun on the retro-rocking “In the Dead Mall,” brass-fired “Get Down,” beat-crazy “Outside Brain” and the surly “What the Cat Dragged In.” The jazzy “Back in Los Angeles” toasts the West Coast city, and “Let’s Fall in Lava” wonders what the Terminator would feel if he had any emotional capacity.
Gogol Bordello's intense, eclectic music makes an emphatic point on “We Mean It, Man!”
Courtesy Shore Fire
Gogol Bordello: We Mean It, Man!
The eight-piece band’s ninth studio album — and best in 20 years — matches the blazing intensity of its live shows with an invigorating mash-up of techno, battering punk and gypsy music. Ukrainian American singer/composer Eugene Hütz, 53, dubs it “post-punk groove revenge.” Prime cuts include the ska-flavored dance track “Hater Liquidator,” the rocking “No Time for Idiots” and the heady “From Boyarka to Boyaca,” a slamming collaboration with dance-punk band Puzzled Panther that piles on Latin percussion, gypsy strains and wailing guitars.
Ringo Starr's “Long Long Road” once again finds the former Beatle in a countrified mood.
Henry Diltz
Ringo Starr: Long Long Road
After collaborating on the 2025 country album Look Up, a critical and commercial success, drummer Ringo Starr, 85, and producer T Bone Burnett, 78, opted for a sequel. The Look Up band and other musicians, including Nashville standouts Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, re-enlisted, and they add contemporary zest to the 10-song Long Long Road. But Starr is the album’s heart and soul. Just as his signature drumming anchors each tune, his voice sells every lyric with warmth, winking charm and an inexplicably natural country croon. He does Carl Perkins proud on “I Don’t See Me in Your Eyes Anymore,” and he’s positively endearing on the heartsick “She’s Gone” and romantic “You and I (Wave of Love).”
Tori Amos conjures up an intricate, imaginative concept album on “In Times of Dragons.”
Kasia Wozniak
Tori Amos: In Times of Dragons
On her ambitious 18th album, Tori Amos, 62, is married to an evil billionaire in an alternative reality she describes as “a metaphorical story about the fight for democracy over tyranny.” The complex, politically pointed epic finds her seeking allies and battling enemies before she morphs into a dragon. The intriguing narrative rides on powerful, evocative music. Amos sings and plays piano with renewed vitality on such highlights as the punchy rocker “Gasoline Girls,” anguished “23 Peaks” and playful “Fanny Faudrey.”
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
You Might Also Like
The 50 Essential Songs for Gen Xers
These are the anthems that raised us, scarred us and still live rent-free in our heads