Ariana Grande's album 'Eternal Sunshine' just dropped. Here are 10 albums we still desperately need and 10 nobody asked for.
Ariana Grande's seventh studio album, "Eternal Sunshine," was released Friday.
Artists like Beyoncé and Kacey Musgraves are also preparing to release highly anticipated projects.
But not all albums are successes, and there have been some memorable flops recently.
The nearly four-year wait for Ariana Grande's return to music is officially over, and while the internet debates which songs are the best, we already can't stop thinking about all the new music set to come this year.
While some artists seem to hit the mark over and over again (hello, Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter), others are destined to endure a musical flop or two throughout their careers.
So, in celebration of finally getting "Eternal Sunshine," here's our breakdown of albums we can't wait to hear and those that probably should've stayed in the drafts a little longer.
After the somewhat lackluster album "Positions," fans are excited for what Ariana Grande’s "Eternal Sunshine" will bring.
"Dangerous Woman," "Sweetener," and "Thank U, Next" are three of the most iconic pop albums of the 2010s and 2020s, so it's understandable that "Positions," while not a bad album by any means, was more low-key — especially since it represented a calmer time in Grande's personal life. She married Dalton Gomez and was cast in her dream role as Galinda in the "Wicked" films.
Since then, things have gotten a tad more turbulent for Grande; namely, she filed for divorce in September 2023 and reportedly started dating her "Wicked" costar Ethan Slater (known to some as SpongeBob from the "SpongeBob" musical), who had filed for divorce from his wife that July.
Now, "Eternal Sunshine" will be her response to the increased scrutiny on her love life yet again, and a divorce album.
Fans have been clamoring for any music from the star, and on March 8, she's finally sharing her side of the story.
Realistically speaking, we might never get another full-length Frank Ocean album, but we can dream.
For someone with such a huge fan base and critical acclaim, it might be hard to believe that Ocean has only put out two LPs in his career: 2012's "Channel Orange" and 2016's "Blonde."
When it was announced that Ocean was headlining Coachella in 2023, some were hopeful that new music was on the way.
Instead, his first-weekend performance became a debacle, with the "Pink + White" singer cutting his set short due to a curfew … which only was a problem since he'd started an hour late.
He ended up canceling his second-week set, citing a leg injury.
Ocean has sporadically released singles in the eight years since "Blonde," so maybe he'll surprise-drop an album in 2024. We can dream.
Cardi B’s debut album, "Invasion of Privacy," turns six years old in 2024. We need the follow-up ASAP.
Cardi B took the rap world by storm with her single "Bodak Yellow" in 2017, and then the album that followed it broke records and took home best rap album at the 2019 Grammys.
Since then, Cardi's had two kids, and put out multiple hit singles — remember "WAP"? — but has not released a full-length album, and the rap world has suffered from it.
Perhaps 2024 will be the year she makes her return.
Somehow, we still don’t have a release date for Normani's debut album.
If you could go back in time and tell your 2019 self that even though the song "Motivation" is playing on the radio all day long, the music video is a hit, and is charting on the Hot 100, Normani's first album would still not be released in early 2024, you wouldn't believe it.
Fans have been waiting for Normani's solo music since Fifth Harmony parted ways in 2018.
We finally have a name for her album ("Dopamine"), which was announced in February this year, but still no release date, which means that some fans are convinced she might pull the rug out from under them again.
Bruno Mars hasn’t released a solo album since 2016's "24K Magic."
It might not seem like it's been that long since we heard Mars' voice, since he teamed up with Anderson .Paak to form Silk Sonic and release "An Evening With Silk Sonic" in 2021.
But Mars hasn't released an album alone in almost eight years. Yes, somehow, songs like "24K Magic," "That's What I Like," "Finesse," and "Versace on the Floor" are from an 8-year-old album.
The world is in desperate need of some bangers like those — it's time for Mars to put out some new tunes.
The BeyHive is ready for Beyoncé's "Renaissance" follow-up, "Act II."
"It's a real life boogie and a real life hoedown" thanks to Beyoncé's upcoming album "Act II."
The second installment of the performer's three-part album series seems poised to take over the world of country music thanks to lead singles "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages."
At the time of writing, "Texas Hold 'Em" is on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the single made Beyoncé the first Black woman to top the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart after its release in February.
While some fans of the genre have been less than welcoming, we're excited to see how much Beyoncé is already changing the narrative within country music and reclaiming space for Black artists just like she did with house, disco, and techno music on Act I of this project, her Grammy-winning album, "Renaissance."
March 29 seriously can't come fast enough.
After the heartbreak-filled album "Star-Crossed," fans are ready to see Kacey Musgraves happy again with "Deeper Well."
Continuing with Texas natives and country stars, Kacey Musgraves is set to release her sixth studio album, "Deeper Well," on March 15.
We became real fans of Musgraves after hearing her album of the year winning record "Golden Hour." The album was all about love, so you could imagine the surprise of hearing her next project, "Star-Crossed," which detailed how that love fell apart with songs like "Camera Roll" and "Breadwinner."
Now, with lead single "Deeper Well" and its accompanying album, it appears Musgraves has landed on her feet as she sings, "So, I'm saying goodbye to the people that I feel are real good at wasting my time."
It's an era for healing, and we're here for it.
SZA's Instagram posts suggest another album may come sooner than we thought.
OK, yes, this might seem like a lot to ask for given that we just got the genre-bending-should've-won-album-of-the-year-masterpiece that is "SOS" at the end of 2021, but SZA has been teasing us!
In February 2023, Variety reported that the artist was releasing a deluxe edition of the album with 10 new songs.
Then, after months of silence, SZA shocked everyone with a series of six Instagram posts captioned "LANA" on December 10, 2023. The photos ranged in imagery from the singer sitting in a tent with camping gear, standing in a field wearing nothing but greenery, posing on a chair in an all-white outfit with brown loafers, and three shots of her on a farm wearing an oversize jersey and baggy jeans holding a turkey, surrounded by pigs, and with a horse.
Even Instagram commented, "screaming right now," and all we have to say is: same. Any and all of the photos would make amazing album covers.
And, finally, the most convincing evidence that another album is coming: the release of her new song "Saturn," which she debuted in February for a Mastercard commercial during the Grammys.
Just please just don't make us wait another four years.
Singles "Houdini" and "Training Day" have Dua Lipa fans excited for her next album.
Since her debut self-titled album was released in 2017, Dua Lipa has become a formidable figure in pop music who's transformed her stage presence from giving us nothing to giving us everything.
With hits like "New Rules," "Don't Start Now," "Levitating," and her latest single "Training Season," Lipa has solidified her position in the top five female streaming artists on Spotify, behind only Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish, reported ChartMasters.
Now, her third studio album is expected to be released this year with influences from "Brit-pop bands and UK rave culture," reported Business Insider.
After her stand-out performances at the Grammys and the BRIT Awards, we can't stop thinking about everything that's in store.
Rihanna returned to the stage. Does this mean she's returning to the studio, too?
We couldn't make this list without including Rihanna. The Barbados-born multi-hyphenate just gave her first full show in years at the pre-wedding party for Indian billionaire heir Anant Ambani.
Obviously, she's been busy lately with her two sons, multiple businesses, and fashion-week appearances, but we can't help but hope that R9 will one day see the light of day.
And now, for albums that fell short of our expectations, we have André 3000's debut solo record "New Blue Sun" which came with a "No Bars" warning label.
So we think it's fair to say that nobody was expecting a flute jazz record when they heard that rap legend André 3000 was releasing his first solo album … but that's what we got.
Clearly, he was prepared to get ahead of the confusion because the album came with a "No Bars" warning label and the first track was titled, "I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A 'Rap' Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time."
When asked about the lack of rapping on the album in an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in January 2024, he said, "It wasn't a decision, just like any other song we've ever done. It's not a decision; you just do it, and it just happened to have no bars on it, so I had to let people know because that's what I usually serve."
So, while this wasn't what we originally had in mind, at least we can say we have some new chill music to vibe to. A win is a win, right?
Plus, we have to appreciate these song titles like "Ants To You, Gods To Who ?" and "Ninety Three 'Til Infinity And Beyoncé."
Miley Cyrus fans might want us to forget the experimentation phase that brought "Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz."
Let's set the scene: It's 2015, two years since the world saw Miley Cyrus twerk on Robin Thicke at the VMAs and swing naked on a wrecking ball.
It's a time of immense change and experimentation for the former Disney star who was understandably trying to remove herself from the image of Hannah Montana.
And that brought us to what Pitchfork described as "an indulgent collection of experiments that exist for no other reason than because they can," otherwise known as "Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz."
In 2021, Business Insider included three songs from the album in a list of her worst songs of all time, and we have to admit "Dooo It!" and "Milky Milky Milk" feel like a total fever dream in comparison to more recent fan-favorites like "Flowers" and "Malibu."
Compared to the rest of Cyrus' work, this album just doesn't come close.
Liam Payne's only solo album, "LP1," failed to reach the top of the charts.
Remember when Liam Payne released a song with Quavo? That's OK; only the Liam stans from his One Direction days probably do.
The former boyband member released his debut solo album, "LP1," in 2019 which featured singles like "Strip That Down" and "Get Low."
While his other bandmates were exploring sounds like rock and roll (Harry Styles), R&B (Zayn Malik), and folk-pop (Niall Horan), Liam decided to reintroduce himself to the music scene with a pop-rap, early 2000s Justin Timberlake-inspired album.
With disappointing lyrics like "You know I used to be in 1D (Now I'm out, free)," the album failed to produce any chart-topping singles with "Strip That Down" peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and songs like "For You (Fifty Shades Freed)" and "Bedroom Floor" peaking at 76 and 98, respectively.
Maybe we're just holding a grudge from his "Impaulsive" appearance in 2022, or maybe the numbers speak for themselves.
"This Is Me... Now" left everyone except Jennifer Lopez confused.
Where do we even begin with this one?
First, we feel like it's important to establish each component of this three-part musical movie endeavor. There's "This Is Me… Now," J. Lo's ninth studio album; "This Is Me… Now," her self-funded musical film; and "The Greatest Love Story Never Told," a documentary that follows the making of previously mentioned musical film.
Business Insider watched the trailer for the film and called it "a disorienting amalgamation of science-fiction visuals, melancholy romance tropes, and proclamations about Lopez's character (herself?) maybe being a sex addict."
Back to the album. While it received a solid 6.6 rating on Pitchfork, the lyrics can be pretty cheesy. On the title track, Lopez sings, "Now we know what it takes for our ever after. Took some lefts, now we right here where we are," and we cannot get over the fact that this is about Ben Affleck.
The album debuted at No. 38 on the Billboard 200 chart and lasted there for just one week.
Unfortunately for Lopez, this entire project seemed like a lot of work maybe no one asked for.
Katy Perry has an iconic discography, but her albums "Witness" and "Smile" didn't live up to their predecessors.
This one kind of hurts. Katy Perry lives rent-free in so many Gen Z elementary and middle school memories with hits like "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," "Firework," and "Dark Horse" but her recent work seems to have failed to capture public attention in the same way.
"Witness" and "Smile," her fifth and sixth studio albums, received poor critical reviews and failed to make the same cultural impact as records like "Teenage Dream" and "PRISM."
While songs like "Bon Appétit" and "Daisies" hint at her pop mastery, we're unfortunately still waiting for her next big breakthrough moment.
Remember Chris Gaines' album "In the Life of Chris Gaines"? Garth Brooks would prefer you didn’t.
One of the wilder things to happen in pop music was the decision by country legend Brooks to create a new rock persona named Chris Gaines, and release an entire album as Gaines in 1999.
He even starred in an episode of "Behind the Music" on VH1 and performed on "Saturday Night Live" as Gaines.
The story goes that Brooks was planning on starring in a film called "The Lamb," which was about Gaines, but that never happened.
Instead, we're left with this random rock album that, to be fair, performed well on the Billboard 200 — though it only produced one successful single, "Lost In You" — but did this need to happen?
We'd argue no.
It's hard to pick an album that truly meant the Maroon 5 of "Songs About Jane" was gone, but there's a pretty good case that "Red Pill Blues" was the nail in the coffin.
When Maroon 5 released their debut album, "Songs About Jane," in 2002, it was an exciting time in pop music. "She Will Be Loved," "This Love," "Harder to Breathe," "Sunday Morning," … the hits didn't stop.
But 15 years later, the band was hardly recognizable, with bland pop songs like "Don't Wanna Know," "What Lovers Do," and "Girls Like You."
Sure, they perform well on the radio, but it's too easy to find people online wondering what happened to Maroon 5.
We don't know, but we'd appreciate it if the group returned to their pop-rock roots.
Ed Sheeran's first three albums all sold over 2 million copies. His 2023 album "-" sold a fraction of that.
At one point, Sheeran was an unstoppable force in pop music. For years, "Shape of You" was the most streamed song on Spotify. But there's a case to be made that Sheeran's mega-success caused him to be overexposed. Vice even created a guide to hating him.
Did you even know that Sheeran released two albums in 2023?
First was "-," or "Subtract," the last of his math-themed albums. None of the singles from the album reached higher than 19 on the Hot 100, a far cry from his top 10 hits like "Shivers," "Bad Habits," "I Don't Care," "Thinking Out Loud," or "Perfect."
Second was "Autumn Variations," an album that only had one single, which failed to make it on the Hot 100 at all.
Perhaps it's time for a greatest hits album from Sheeran, instead of new music.
We all know and love Robert Downey Jr. as a movie star, but he released an album in 2004, "The Futurist," that didn’t jump-start a musical career.
RDJ is most likely going to win an Oscar this year for his role in "Oppenheimer" — he's already won the Golden Globe, Critics' Choice Award, SAG Award, and BAFTA. But his album "The Futurist" did not receive the same critical acclaim.
Downey is a talented singer (just watch him sing "River" on "Ally McBeal"), but the lackluster chart performance of this album suggests he's just not a rock star.
Panic! at the Disco's final album, "Viva Las Vengeance," was relatively well-received by critics, but fans were less than thrilled.
Panic! put out four albums as a band, and then three additional albums as a solo act with just Brendan Urie.
But while Urie's final album as Panic!, "Viva Las Vengeance," has a high rating of 82 on Meteoritic, fans didn't love the album as much.
One reviewer on Album of the Year called it "insincere" and "bitter."
"Few albums have ever done as much damage to the legacy of a band than what has been created here; 'Viva Las Vengeance' will go down as a legendary moment of musical failure for many," the review said.
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