the top 50 songs of 2026 so far (one woman's opinion)
I'm really banging my head
Happy Friday. What does the weekend hold for you? Me, I got microneedling with stem cells (again, none of my business whose) and something called “cold plasma” done yesterday so I’m pretty much relegated to staying indoors lest I scare a child or turn my tender, flakey, red skin to ash in the unforgiving UV rays that beat down from the Los Angeles skies. On this week’s episode of Bandsplain I’m joined by Bre Morell of Crushed and Temple of Angels and we go through our favorite releases of spring 2026, some of which are on my top 50 songs of the year so far, and some of which are not. But first, some things to know/see/read:
This Madonna interview/photo spread for the cover of Interview by the one and only Mel Ottenberg is phenomenal. Shot by Nadia Lee Cohen and styled by Mel, it’s such a nice reminder of Madonna’s incredible ability to inhabit new looks and hair styles (and characters, here she is as “Dee Dee”) after a currently press cycle of a lot of sameness. Of course she trusted Mel, because Mel’s an absolute artist. Also the fact that he learned all this information (such as the tidbit about Madonna plying Danceteria DJ Mark Kamins with cocaine to get him to play her first single “Everybody”) BEFORE appearing on episode 1 of Bandsplain’s Madonna series and did not mention any of it shows breathtaking restraint. His playlist of his top Madonna songs is also excellent. Mentally I’m still here.1
Death Cab For Cutie covered one of my favorite Husker Dü songs “Green Eyes” (RIP Greg Norton) for Sirius XM.
Olivia Rodrigo announced her Daisy Chain Fields festival which will take place in Irvine in August (it sold out in 30 minutes). It’s sort of a modern day Lilith Fair, with a line-up that includes Stevie Nicks, Chappell Roan, Garbage, Rodrigo herself, and the originator of Lilith, Sarah McLachlan, amongst others. It’s cute! I’m glad she’s directing her fans towards these acts and also using her power and platform to do something cool like this. I do however remain perplexed at her citing artists like The Breeders and Bikini Kill (both playing the festival), as well as Courtney Love and PJ Harvey, while making music that sounds like…that. Anyway you should watch last year’s excellent Lilith Fair doc on Hulu.
Hua Hsu posted another edition of his Substack magazines where he goes through an old magazine (or in this case, a 1992 Village Voice) and muses about journalism, culture, the past, the future, and more in his signature (Pulitzer Prize winning) voice. I love it so much.
Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday announced their co-headline tour, the Bitch Cabal (perfect name, no notes) starting October 30th in Asheville, NC. I will be following them like people used to do The Grateful Dead.
Patrik Sandberg did his roundup of best songs of 2026 so far (it’s 288 songs, 16 hours long) and while we have some crossover a lot of it is very different and of course, very good.
Also this is 300 years in advance but I will be in the UK from roughly mid October to mid November if you’d like to invite me to things/have me host something/have me screen a movie/take me to the pub/propose marriage to me.
And now here are my top 50 songs (if the release its on came out this year I counted it) of 2026 so far. Obviously this is bent around my personal tastes. Justice for “Rock Music” (the song and the genre). This post isn’t paywalled because I want more people to know about these artists and derive joy from these tunes.
In alphabetical order because I famously hate ranking things:
Accessory — “Sunshine”
Angel Du$t — “Pain Is A Must”
Badvril — “Golden”
Basement — “Time Waster”
Basement — “The Way I Feel”
Blondshell — “Heart Has To Work So Hard”
Cardinals — “Masquerade”
Charli xcx — “Rock Music”
Cola — “Hedgesitting”
Dari Bay — “We’re Gonna Be Okay”
Dazy — “BIG Problem”
Death Cab for Cutie — “I Built You A Tower (a)”
ear — “Ne Plus Ultra”
Fiddlehead — “Baby I’ll Change”
Greg Mendez — “I Wanna Feel Pretty”
Hekt — “Beautiful”
horse — “gloss”
Hovvdy — “Try Try Try”
How Much Art — “XO”
Iceage — “Star”
Joshua Burnside — “It’s Not Going to be Okay”
Joyce Manor — “Grey Guitar”
Kelela — “linknb”
Kurt Vile — “Zoom 97”
Lambrini Girls — “Cult of Celebrity”
Lifeguard — “Appetite”
Lightris — “Up Down”
Lime Garden — “Cross My Heart”
Mackeeper — “Pieces Of Yours”
Madonna — “I Feel So Free”
Man/Woman/Chainsaw — “Nosedive”
Midrift — “Reaching For You”
Morgan Nagler — “Hurt”
Nation of Language — “The Wall & I”
Nine Inch Nails, Boys Noize — “Me, I’m Not - Nine Inch Noize...”
Nothing — “never come never morning”
Porches — “SPRING”
Real Lies — “A Land Beyond”
Ringing — “incandescent”
RIP Magic — “Screwdark”
Rostam, Clairo — “Hardy (feat. Clairo)”
Slayyyter — “CRANK”
Slow Pulp — “Better Man”
Station Model Violence — “Leisure”
supermodel* — “blue monday”
Tiberius b, Power Snatch, Hayley... — “Great”
Tigers Jaw — “Head is Like a Sinking Stone”
Turnover — “I See You And Realize”
2charm — “no pressure”
underscores — “Tell Me (U Want It)”
x
Madonna hospital