Billboard's 40 Most

Anticipated Albums of 2018

1/5/2018 by Andrew Unterberger

  

Getty Images; Design by Jessica Xie

001 Albums Preview 2018
041 Now that we're spent so very much of the end of 2017
remembering the best from the year that was, it's time to
look forward at what's to come in the new year.
Here, Billboard shivers to consider some of the LPs we're due
over the next 12 months -- big-ticket pop stars making their
hotly anticipated returns, indie favorites following up their
critically acclaimed breakthroughs, icons from the past
deeming to grace us with their presence once more, and so
much more that we know (and don't know) about. These are
the 40 albums we most hope to be looking back fondly on
next December. 

Dennis Leupold
002 Camila Cabello, 'Camila' (Jan. 12)
041 No longer titled The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving., the
recently rechristened Camila is easily one of the most-
anticipated pop albums of early 2018. Cabello's rst LP since
splitting with Fifth Harmony already has one bona de hit in
the No. 2-peaking Billboard Hot 100 smash "Havana" and
may have another on the way in the similarly smoldering
"Never Be the Same," but whether the breakout singer can
make the leap to true pop superstardom will likely be up to
her imminent solo debut.
 Eliot Lee Hazel
003
041
 Tune-Yards, 'I Can Feel You Creep Into My
Private Life' (Jan. 19)
It's been since 2014 since we last heard from Merrill Garbus,
the brilliant singer/songwriter/producer/musician
responsible for one of the more impressive ongoing winning
streaks in indie rock. Her fourth LP with her Tune-Yards
project is due later in January, and from the lead single -- the
o -kilter, bass-led groover "Look at Your Hands" -- she hardly
seems at risk of falling o anytime soon. 

Pamela Littky
004 Fall Out Boy, 'M A N I A' (Jan. 19)
041 Fall Out Boy have long served as one of the model success
stories for a rock band surviving the transition to a pop-
dominated alternative scene, but they hit a snag in 2017,
scrapping their new album and pushing back its release to
2018, explaining "The album just really isn't ready, and it felt
very rushed." Time will tell if the ensuing M A N I A -- now
 scheduled for later this month, and leaning even further into
the band's contemporary pop instincts with advance singles
"The Last of the Real Ones" and "Hold Me Tight or Don't"  --
was worth the unexpectedly extended wait. 

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

005 Justin Timberlake, 'Man of the Woods" (Feb. 2)
041 Justin Timberlake barely gave pop fans a chance to get
readjusted to the post-Holidays real-world before hitting
them with the rst pop bombshell of 2018: He'd be releasing
his fth solo album two days before his halftime set at Super
Bowl LII, the rootsier Man of the Woods. The LP's dramatic 60-
second trailer (as well as its lead single, "Filthy") has been
met with a mix of excitement and trepidation, but the
combination of JT, The Neptunes and Timbaland has never
let pop fans down before, so betting against it in '18 is still
risky at best.
 David Edwards
006 Franz Ferdinand, 'Always Ascending' (Feb. 9)
041 The title may be a little optimistic for a band whose
commercial peak is now over a decade in the rearview, but
Scottish dance-punks Franz Ferdinand never stopped making
irresistible singles or consistently compelling albums. The
February-due Always Ascending, produced by Philippe Zdar of
French house duo Cassius, seems unlikely to mark an
exception to this, and the percolating title-track lead cut is
their most glittering disco confection of the decade. 
 Alysse Gafkjenh
007 Brandi Carlile, 'By the Way, I Forgive You'
041 (Feb.16)
Longtime folk and Americana favorite Brandi Carlile has
peaked higher on the Billboard 200 albums chart with each
of her ve studio LPs, most recently hitting No. 9 with her
2015 album The Firewatcher's Daughter. February's By the Way,
I Forgive You seems likely to continue the trend, as evidenced
by the set's heart-rending lead single "The Joke," and by the
fact that Carlile's cult of fans has now swelled to encompass
everyone from Adele to President No. 42. 
 Travis Shinn
008 Judas Priest, 'Firepower' (March)
041 Well over 40 years into their recording career, metal gods
Judas Priest are still going strong, with legendary frontman
Rob Halford referring to March's Firepower as "some of our
best work -- without a doubt" in a 2017 interview. One
reason longtime fans can be hopeful about Halford's words -
- the band recorded the set with longtime producer Tom
Allom, guiding hand behind such classic '80s Priest LPs
as British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance. 
 Kelly Christine/Courtesy of Mercury Nashville
009 Kacey Musgraves, 'Golden Hour" (Early 2018)
041 Few Nashville singer-songwriters get the mainstream
media attention as Kacey Musgraves, owner of one of the
sharpest pens and most penetrating voices in all popular
music -- although radio programers have not yet been so
enamored with her old-fashioned country confessionals.
We'll see if the trend continues with Golden Hour,
which Musgraves says will expand her sonic palette to
include the diverse in uences of Sade, Neil Young and the
Bee Gees, and which she summarizes as "trippy." 

Jimmy Fontaine
010 Charlie Puth, 'Voicenotes' (Early 2018)
041
 The rapidly maturing Charlie Puth emerged as one of top
40's most reliable singer/songwriter/producers in 2017,
thanks to unavoidable radio mini-masterpieces like the Pop
Songs-topping lite-funk rumbler "Attention" and its even
friskier follow-up "How Long." The next step for Puth is a full-
length LP as delectable as those singles, and while we were
originally scheduled to nd out if Puth was up to the task in
January with sophomore LP Voicenotes, the album's exact
release date appears ambiguous at the moment. 

Andrew Benge/Redferns
011 Belly, 'Dove' (May 4)
041 Alt-rock '90s band Belly were often overshadowed in their
mid-'90s heyday -- sometimes even by their members' other
bands -- but a ection for the underrated Boston quartet
remains strong, and should extend to May's post-reunion
e ort Dove, the quartet's rst album in 23 years. Fans
hoping to hear transmissions from the new set at this year's
Coachella and Governors Ball festivals would be advised to
 save their money, though: That's the other Belly on those
posters. 
 

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

012 Ariana Grande, TBD (TBD)
041 Perhaps no pop comeback in 2018 is more highly
anticipated than that of Ariana Grande -- who hasn't been
gone that long since 2016's Dangerous Woman, but who
found herself at the epicenter of a 2017 tragedy that many
artists would be understandably unable to nd their way
back from. However, Arianators have reason to be hopeful:
Grande ended last year with a short Instagram post of a
computer playback of her harmonizing with herself, with the
tantalizing caption: "See you next year." 
 Noam Galai/WireImage
013 MGMT, 'Little Dark Age' (TBD)
041 A decade ago, MGMT seemed like they were destined to
spend the next 10 years as the biggest act in indie-pop, a
status they quickly demonstrated they had no interest in
holding with a handful of increasingly esoteric, experimental
LPs with little of the stadium-sized sparkle of alt smashes like
"Time to Pretend" and "Kids." The duo might not be
recapturing that with the upcoming Little Dark Age, but at
least their pop mojo is back with the darkwave throb of the
album's title track, MGMT's most neon-lit dance- oor
transmission since "Electric Feel."
 Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images
014 Nicki Minaj
041 This time last year, we were anxiously awaiting the fourth
studio LP from the legendary Queens MC. Now 12 months
later, we've gotten an imaginary feud (and a top 10 hit single)
with Cardi B, a much realer feud with (and a top 20 hit single
about) Remy Ma, another smash Yo Gotti collab, huge remix
lifts lent to Lil Uzi Vert and A$AP Ferg, a show-opening
medley at the Billboard Music Awards, and an all-time Hot
100 record set -- but still no new album. Please don't leave us
doing this again in 2019, Nicki. 

Charlotte Rutherford
015 Charli XCX, TBD (TBD)
041 Underground pop icon Charli XCX spent 2017 gifting fans
with two new mixtapes, the glorious Number 1 Angel and Pop
2 sets, which re-established her (after a couple of years of
arguable false starts) as one of the genre's most reliable
artists. So is that third LP nally coming in 2018? Hopefully, if
she decides that releasing an album is even still a thing: "It
still de nitely works for some artists, but I don’t know if it
 works for me anymore," she told EW in December. "So who
knows what'll happen." 

 Tim Cadiente
016 A Perfect Circle / Tool, TBD (TBD)
041 For alt-metal fans, most if not all of the last decade has
been spent in wait of a new project by one or both of
Maynard James Keenan's most famous out ts, Tool and A
Perfect Circle. No luck in 2017, but signs are encouraging for
2018 -- Tom Morello says he's heard the new Tool album and
describes it as "epic, majestic, symphonic, brutal, beautiful,
tribal, mysterious, deep, sexy and VERY Tool," while fans
have already heard signs of life from A Perfect Circle, most
recently the Jan. 2-released, multi-part skyscraper
"Disillusioned."
 Joseph Okpako/Redferns
017 SOPHIE, 'Whole New World' (TBD)
041 Future-pop purveyor SOPHIE captured headlines in 2017 by
coming out as trans in the video for "It's Okay to Cry," but
she should've captured just as much attention for the song
itself, a minimal (until maximal) pop ballad with a chorus
towering enough to be Celine Dion-worthy. Fans can look
forward to more of the same -- or, perhaps more realistically,
more of the completely di erent -- with the genius
producer's upcoming Whole New World LP, her rst since
2013's underappreciated PRODUCT. 
 Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for TIDAL
018 Cardi B, TBD (TBD)
041 No rapper's rise in recent memory has been as meteoric as
Cardi B, who sent each of her rst three Hot 100-charting
singles to the top 10 in 2017, and may have a fourth on its
way with the 21 Savage collab "Bartier Cardi." Can she
capitalize on all that momentum with an insta-classic debut
LP, to complete her transformation from viral sensation to
potential all-time great? As the rapper herself would say, let's
nd out and see. 

Noam Galai/Getty Images

019 Rae Sremmurd, 'SremmLife 3' (TBD)
041 The original SremmLife in 2015 scored ve hit singles, was
ultimately certi ed Platinum and made Rae Sremmurd a
household name. SremmLife 2, released a year later, earned
the duo their rst Hot 100 No. 1 (and
the Billboard sta 's favorite song of 2016) and made
individual stars out of members Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee.
 J
To continue the series' momentum, SremmLife 3 might have
to cure lupus or solve the remaining zodiac cryptograms or
something. 

David Rams
020 Migos, 'Culture II" (TBD)
041 The most remorselessly productive out t in rap has barely
given themselves a second to breathe following the massive
success of last year's Culture album, but Culture II is already
expected in 2018, with a pair of scorching singles (in the
Cardi B/Nicki Minaj collab "MotorSport" and the Pharrell-
helmed "Stir Fry") already tabbed for the new set. If the Mig
do it for the Culture again in 2018, you can bet the rest of the
hip-hop world will still be biting like vultures. 
 Courtesy of Chu Media Artists
021 The 1975, 'Music for Cars' (TBD)
041 No small task to follow up one of the decade's most
ambitious (and ambitiously titled) alt-pop albums in the
Billboard 200-topping I Love It When You Sleep, for You Are So
Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, but U.K. quartet The 1975 have
never shied away from going one bigger, and they've already
thrown down the gauntlet for upcoming LP3 Music for
Cars. “If you look at third albums, OK Computer or The Queen
Is Dead" -- said frontman Matty Healy, referring to the
unanimously acclaimed masterpieces by Radiohead and The
Smiths in an Apple Music interview -- "that’s what we need to
do."
 Courtesy of Press Here Publicity
022 Arctic Monkeys, TBD (TBD)
041 With their last album, 2013's AM, U.K. modern-rock greats
the Arctic Monkeys nally broke through to the U.S.
mainstream, becoming one of the biggest bands in the
States thanks to coarsely suave nocturnal anthems like
"Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" and "Do I
Wanna Know?" Then for a long time, nothing happened --
frontman Alex Turner busied himself with side project The
Last Shadow Puppets, but the Monkeys have been little
heard from. That should change in 2018, at least according
to bassist Nick O'Malley, who revealed that the band had
been recording LP6 at a "secret location" -- to a motorcycle
magazine, appropriately enough.
 Danny Clinch
023 Courtney Barnett, TBD (TBD)
041 Australia's pre-eminent musical modern-life commentator
tided fans over waiting on the follow-up to 2015's Sometimes
I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit with last year's ultra-
chill Kurt Vile collab LP Lotta Sea Lice. Next year, hopefully LP2
will arrive in earnest for Courtney Barnett, and she recently
told Zane Lowe that the album's close, though there is one
major holdup: “I’m trying to come up with a title for my new
album... It’s all one sentence thoughts, you know, trying to
come up with something clever."
 Ebru Yildiz
024 Mitski, TBD (TBD)
041 Acclaimed 2016 masterwork Puberty 2 marked Mitski's
arrival as perhaps the most incisive voice in rock, and it's
hard to think of a singer-songwriter who'd be more welcome
to hear from again at the onset of 2018 than her. Fans
shouldn't expect the Mitski that returns to be the same one
that recently left, however. "I think it’s di erent,"
she told Stereogum of the music she was working on in 2017.
"I always have strong urges to sabotage myself. Whenever
someone says they like something about my music, I tend to
not want to do that anymore."
 Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Universal Music
025 Pusha T, 'King Push' (TBD)
041 Pusha T's underrated King Push: Darkest Before Dawn album
from 2015 was billed as "The Prelude," but nearly three years
later we've still yet to get the main event. Among the many
reasons longtime fans of the Clipse alum and G.O.O.D Music
president have to look forward to the album: It's entirely
produced by longtime producer partner Kanye West, with
the rapper telling fans at September's Made in America
festival, “We’ve just been locking in, getting this album
perfect for y’all.”
 Marc Broussely/Redferns
026 My Bloody Valentine, TBD (TBD)
041 After a two-decade absence, Shoegaze paragons My Bloody
Valentine made a surprisingly warmly welcomed return to
recording with their mbv album in 2013 -- a nice enough
experience that the band is planning a much shorter wait for
their fourth LP. The band recently told Pitchfork of their plans
to return to touring and the pressure it put on them to have
a new album out soon, putting the odds at an unnervingly
optimistic "100 percent" that the new set would be out in
2018. 
 Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New Yorker
027 Carly Rae Jepsen, TBD (TBD)
041 Doesn't feel like it's been three calendar year since Emotion,
does it? Helps that Carly Rae released a set of LP leftovers in
2016, and the indomitable "Cut to the Feeling" single last
year -- not to mention that her devotees haven't stopped
rocking the real thing in the rst place. Nonetheless,
enthusiasm would no doubt be at a Foreigner-level fever
pitch for a new CRJ LP in 2018 -- and news that she's been
working with Robyn producer Patrik Berger on the "80
songs" she's already written for the set should do little to
quell that. 

Alex John Beck

028 Vampire Weekend, 'Mitsubishi Macchiato'
041 (TBD)
 Of all the albums in this preview this one perhaps feels the
most tentative -- it's been ve years, it's unclear to what
extent producer/multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij is
still part of the group, all the members have done solo LPs,
and that album title might just be a bad joke by frontman
Ezra Koenig. All that's for sure: If Vampire Weekend does
decide to nally release an album this year, it'll be as exciting
a release as we get in 2018 alternative. 

Courtesy of Republic Records

029 Post Malone, TBD (TBD)
041 The follow-up to ascendant sing-rapper Post Malone's 2016
set Stoney has already been delayed multiple times, which
would normally be a pretty bad portent of how things are
going. In Posty's case, however, it might be as simple as him
wanting to wait until his old stu stops spinning o hits -- not
only is "Rockstar" still No. 2 on the Hot 100 after an eight-
week reign on top, but Stoney ballad "I Fall Apart" is still
hanging around the top 20, and Fate of the Furious
 soundtrack contribution "Candy Paint" has unexpectedly
climbed into the chart's top half.

Courtesy Photo
030 Liam Payne, TBD (TBD)
041 Liam Payne's trap-in uenced, Quavo-featuring solo bow
"Strip That Down" was a top 10 hit on the Hot 100 last year,
but subsequent releases "Get Low" and "Bedroom Floor"
found less chart success. Now, it may be up to Liam's solo
debut to recapture a little of his early momentum -- a similar
situation to the one his One Direction bandmate Louis
Tomlinson nds himself in, a couple singles after his rst top
40 bow with "Back to You." Which of their two debut LPs will
drop rst in 2018, and save their creator the indignity of
being the only 1Der on the block without his own solo
album? 
 Courtesy Photo
031 Celine Dion, TBD (TBD)
041 Now two decades removed from her "My Heart Will Go On"
supremacy, Celine Dion's brand of near-operatic pop
divadom is rarely seen in the 2018 scene -- making it the
perfect time to come back and show all the young'n pop
stars that grew up listening to her how the cinematic power
ballad is really done. As with Shania Twain's long-awaited
2017 comeback, it might be a little late for Celine to take over
top 40 radio again, but hey, that Shania album debuted at
No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was actually way more fun
than it had to be.
 Andrew Lipovsky/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
032 Jack White, 'Boarding House Reach' (TBD)
041 Considering how it feels like he never really goes away, it's
a little stunning to think that it's been four years since the
21st-century rock practitioner last released an album -- but
indeed, that's about how long it'll be between
2014's Lazoretto and 2018's eventual Boarding House Reach.
Hard to tell exactly what to expect form the album from the
rapidly dial-changing "Serving Portions" teaser for the album,
but considering he'll be headlining at both Governors Ball
and Boston Calling this summer, let's hope there's some
festival-sized ragers in there somewhere.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

033 Pistol Annies, TBD (TBD)
041 Feels like Miranda Lambert might take an
understandable minute to unburden herself from The Weight
of These Wings, her masterful 2016 double-LP, so fans will be
 more than happy with the next-best thing to that set's follow-
up: Another album from her Pistol Annies supergroup!
Lambert promised a new album from the trio in 2018 --
which also features the similarly brilliant country singer-
songwriters Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe -- in
her Billboard cover story from July.

Bryan Ste y/WireImage

034 Toni Braxton, 'Sex & Cigarettes' (TBD)
041 Love, Marriage & Divorce, Toni's collaborative album with
Babyface, basically set the modern-day standard for grown-
person R&B back in 2014. Now it's time for the inimitable
soul great to make her solo comeback, with the intriguingly
titled (and long-awaited) Sex & Cigarettes. “I’m excited to be
doing what I love doing,” she told The Insider of the upcoming
set last year. “I feel like I’m older, I want to say what I feel, I
don’t want to be censored.”
 
 Dennis Leupold
035 Tinashe, 'Joyride' (TBD)
041 Will 2018 be the year? Fans have been waiting
for Joyride, Tinashe's o cial LP follow-up to her 2014 future-
classic Aquarius, since she announced it in 2015, but three
calendar years, one similarly titled mixtape and a whole lot
of features and one-o s later -- still no Joy. It's been a much
tougher last three years for Tinashe than we all likely
anticipated from her blazing mid-decade breakout, but her
talent is considerable enough that we'll be ready for her
o cial comeback whenever she is.

Laura Lewis
036 Troye Sivan, TBD (TBD)
041
 Viral Australian star Troye Sivan enjoyed a well-earned pop
breakthrough from late 2015 into 2016, with rst full-
length Blue Neighborhood debuting inside the top 10 of the
Billboard 200, and single "Youth" even giving him his rst top
40 hit on the Hot 100. Emerging as one of the most
compelling young artists in '10s pop, hopefully Sivan's next
album will be the one to o cially catapult him to
superstardom -- and based on his recent tweets, it might be
dropping in the not-distant future. 

Adam Elmakias
037 Major Lazer, 'Music Is the Weapon' (TBD)
041 Remember them? Wasn't long ago that Major Lazer rode a
Justin Bieber collab to their biggest Hot 100 hit to date, and
though they enjoyed a slightly smaller radio pro le in 2017,
Diplo & Co. never stray from pop's center for too long. Now
that the trop-house sound they helped popularize has
o cially run its top 40 course, it's about time for the out t to
 return with some big names in tow to let music's mainstream
know what's coming next. 

Lorne Thomson/Getty Images

038 Travis Scott, 'Astroworld' (TBD)
041 Finally making good on one of his two long-promised
projects at the end of 2017, with the Quavo teamup Huncho
Jack, Jack Huncho, Travis Scott's fans can now resume
grumbling about when Astroworld, Scott's purported follow-
up to 2016's chart-topping Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, is
nally gonna materialize. The perfectionist rapper/producer
has set his sights high for the project, telling Billboard in his
recent cover story: "My next album is gonna have Stevie
[Wonder]... Well, I'm trying. We're talking."
 NABIL
039 Zayn, TBD (TBD)
041 Speaking of One Directioners gone solo, Zayn is likely the
rst up to his sophomore album, following the Billboard 200-
besting Mind of Mine from 2016. The last year saw Zayn test
the waters with both huge commercial ballads ("I Don't
Wanna Live Forever," "Dusk Till Dawn") and smaller pop
slitherers ("Still Got Time"), but the ultimate direction of his
LP2 remains something of a mystery. “I feel like my
songwriting de nitely developed,” he's o ered of the set. "I
feel like the songs are a bit more organized, where I felt like,
before, that Mind of Mine was a brainstorm."
 Jabari Jacobs
040 Twenty One Pilots, TBD (TBD)
041 The most surprising mega-success story of 2016 was from
this Columbus, Ohio, alternative duo, who scored uke
crossover hit after uke crossover hit until there was no
longer anything uky about 'em. Twenty One Pilots mostly
took it easy on the new-music front last year, but considering
how massive and virtually unprecedented their success was
two years ago, you can't imagine they'll be waiting much
longer to make their return -- a comeback they may
have teased on Instagram over the summer, or not. 
 Rich Fury/Invision/AP
041 Rihanna, TBD (TBD)
041 She owned 2016 by releasing an album at the beginning of
the year. She owned 2017 without releasing an album at all.
We may be hoping more than anything at this point, but the
#R9 rumors are already spreading, and we'll happily stoke
'em until the real thing arrives.  

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