Pop Prognosticators, Rap Rebels

1. 100 gecs, ‘1000 gecs’

The sound of internet splatter. The collapse of avant/gauche binaries. The use of machine textures to capture and amplify deeply human joy. “1000 gecs” is a snowblower of an album — completely rowdy but technically astute, full of references to pop-punk, dubstep, megaclub oontz-oontz-oontz jams and much more. After the last decade, why wouldn’t you put everything in a blender and start over?

2. Bad Bunny, ‘X 100PRE’

Bad Bunny, the definitive global pop star of the last two years, is good at lots of things: low, moanlike singing; densely packed rapping; melodies that melt atop all kinds of production. So his debut album is erratic by design — one minute he’s inconsolably sad, another he’s flirting with verve, the next he’s a pop-punk scamp. And because of his versatility, he’s accelerating the conversations between reggaeton, Latin trap, hip-hop and pop.

3. Polo G, ‘Die a Legend’ YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘AI YoungBoy 2’

The latest iteration of post-post-Drake sing-rapping comes in the melancholy lullabies of Polo G and YoungBoy Never Broke Again, both of whom made heartbreaking albums. “Die a Legend” is delivered with cold emotional clarity, and the howls of sadness and vitriol on “AI YoungBoy 2” are almost disorienting.

4. Kim Petras, ‘Clarity’

A high-gloss debut album from a rising pop star who has made something pure out of pastiche. “Clarity” is an impressive statement of purpose from Kim Petras, who’s clearly enamored of all of pop’s most saccharine subthreads and also its left-field auteurs. Her songs capture the thrill of slightly askew pop gems, then amplify them into something undeniable.

5. Romeo Santos, ‘Utopia’

Romeo Santos has nothing left to prove in bachata: He brought the genre into the present day, made it huge and gleaming, and remained the most tender-voiced and, at times, one of the most boundary-pushing singers in Latin pop. “Utopia” is a clever victory lap — a series of duets with other bachata greats, many who preceded him, that serves as both a collection of microduels and a this-is-your-life of the genre.

6. Lana Del Rey, ‘Norman _____ Rockwell!’

Each song on “Norman _____ Rockwell!” lands like a stern kick. Lana Del Rey’s songwriting is at its most complex and also most economical, and she sings with the conviction of someone who’s been speaking truth so long she no longer cares if anyone believes her — but you’d better believe her.

7. Kalie Shorr, ‘Open Book’

“Open Book,” by the relative newcomer Kalie Shorr, is the sort of gut-wrenching album made by someone who understands how vital and detailed country music can be, and who is faithful to its heritage (including its lineage of resistance). Everyone in Nashville, Tennessee, is likely hoping to sandpaper her into something just a little bit less confrontational; fingers crossed that that doesn’t happen.

8. Baby Keem, ‘Die for My Bitch’ Guapdad 4000, ‘Dior Deposits’

The new rap eccentrics cloak their peculiarities in au-courant-sounding packages. For Baby Keem, it’s storytelling candor — the directness of the sentiment on “Die for My Bitch” often leaps out. And for Guapdad 4000, it’s slickly whispered absurdist posturing that’s just this side of sketch comedy.

9. Kanye West, ‘Jesus Is King’

For everyone who heard Kanye West rap three years ago, “I miss the old Kanye, straight from the ’go Kanye/Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye/I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye/The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye/I miss the sweet Kanye, chop up the beats Kanye,” and agreed wholeheartedly — well, here he is.

10. 10k.Caash, ‘The Creator’

“The Creator” is 22 minutes of puerile pleasure from the Dallas quasi-rapper 10k.Caash, who is single-handedly restoring early Beastie Boys mayhem to hip-hop. This album could pass for a sound-effects reel; it’s exuberant, wobbly, silly and consistently neck-breakingly fun.

11. Ariana Grande, ‘Thank U, Next’

Since the beginning of her career, Ariana Grande has been an excellent singer, precise and slyly emotional. And then in recent years, she became a pro at stirring up online conversation. “Thank U, Next” is when those threads came together. It’s her most thematically textured album, as well as her most musically adventurous. It marked her arrival as a pop superstar who could still turn on a dime.

12. Summer Walker, ‘Over It’

Rarely does an album feel so frank, so cut-to-the-quick. Which isn’t to say vulnerable; it’s clear Summer Walker is protecting herself on “Over It.” But the frustration, the desperation, the lust, the disappointment, the dismissal — they ooze off Walker like summer sweat. The result is startlingly damp.

13. Benny the Butcher, ‘The Plugs I Met’

Stoicism can turn into a kind of flamboyance — hard-nosed commitment to form is rare and electric. So it is with Benny the Butcher, part of the Griselda Records crew, who is kiln-fired in the ethos of 1990s New York rap. This coldblooded EP features others in the tradition (Jadakiss, Pusha-T) and comes off like a gathering of Mafia elders, reflective but still scowling.

14. Taylor Swift, ‘Lover’

Behold what’s likely to be the final album of Taylor Swift’s Middle Period, the era in which she jettisoned her country-prodigy training wheels and became a fully formed, ideologically neutral pop star. Which she’s good at, too! “Lover” is a welcome return to emotional intimacy after the armor of “Reputation.” Moving forward, though, it’s likely Swift will stop wrestling for pop’s center; she didn’t get this far by emulating other people’s ideas of what a pop star should be.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .