Recent weeks have seen plenty of high-profile music stories, but they’ve all come with a cost, or at least a whole bunch of haters.

Grab your Walkman headphones and steer that Delorean straight for the golden age of hip-hop, metal, and indie rock.

A Waxahatchee side project. Guided By Voices. keiyaA. Marfa Public Radio's Julie Bee joins NPR Music's Stephen Thompson to break down the best albums out on Halloween. The Starting 5:- Snocaps (Katie and Allison Crutchfield),

Bad Bunny is continuing a historic year. On Friday, as the Recording Academy announced its nominations for the 2026 Grammys, Bad Bunny became the first Spanish-language artist to earn nominations for three of the Big Four categories, including Song, Record, and Album of the Year.

Recording Academy revealed the five nominees for best reggae album at the 2026 Grammy Awards - and Jamaican musicians snagged every single spot. The five newly Grammy-nominated albums are Treasure Self Love (Lila Iké),

The ’80s saw myriad line-up changes as the band confronted new musical climates, with some hit singles along the way, before the ’90s heralded a mix of AOR rock and 15-minute prog epics. Recent albums have never quite matched early glories,

Memphis hip-hop star GloRilla is going for Grammy gold yet again, earning three nominations for the 2026 awards.

So much rap music comes out all the time, and especially with frequent surprise releases, it can be hard to keep track of it all. So, as a way to help keep up with all of it, here’s a roundup of the 5 rap albums from October 2025 that stood out to us most.