The 20 best pop albums of the 21st century

Along with some of the best pop albums, the 21st century has given us countless defining historical moments: a few recessions, the birth of social media and a whole lot more. It’s been a hell of a quarter century. From the boybands we burst eardrums screaming for in the early '00s to the stars we stan on Twitter, pop music is the breakneck pace of the 21st-century in audio form.

But what exactly is “pop”? It’s a pretty vast classification, and one that feels too broad to simply just mean all forms of popular music (though it is usually made with mass appeal in mind). Its mercurial form, the way it fits itself into the crevices of our culture, means it never really has one defining property. It’s happy, it’s sad, it’s wistful, it’s exhilarating. To paraphrase the old adage about pornography – you know it when you hear it.

And though there’s an endless amount of it around, here are the 20 albums that have properly shaped culture, innovated sound and birthed icons. It’s time to turn up the nostalgia with the best pop albums of the 21st century.

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia (2020)

As the world locked down, Dua turned up. Future Nostalgia might have dropped in March 2020, the same month (for most of us) as Covid, but that didn’t stop its gold-plated bangers from soundtracking kitchen discos and – once Chris Whitty permitted it – real discos too. It’s a tight, glossy and utterly compulsive album, which (per the title) leans into classic dance sounds without sounding like a period piece. “Physical” and “Levitating” can still take house parties by storm.

Shygirl – Nymph (2022)

At a certain strobe-lit point on the musical landscape, pop becomes distinctly clubby, queer, and above all, horny. Shygirl’s debut album, Nymph, sits comfortably right here. It’s crammed with glistening melodies you could find on the singles chart any week of the year, but these tunes are very much aimed at the girls and the gays. Peerless pop hooks on songs like “Firefly” and “Heaven” are married to weird, even avant-garde beats taking in countless strains of bass music, courtesy of production from Arca, Mura Musa and Vegyn among others.

Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019)

You don’t need us to tell you about Lana Del Rey’s central position in the pop firmament. No one really makes music like her; no one else can really nail that combination of melancholy, cigarette-stained melodies, nu-Americana vibe, and impeccable song titles. And out of a catalogue of excellent albums, it has to be Norman Fucking Rockwell! that takes the crown. It’s gorgeous; it’s ambitious – where else would you find a 10-minute opus called “Venice Bitch”? – and it’s one of the best pop albums ever made.

Rina Sawayama – Hold the Girl (2022)

How we distinguish popular music, which contains everything from indie to hip-hop and beyond, from pure pop is always tricky. Rina Sawayama makes it even tricker. Her music, of which her second album Hold the Girl is the foremost example, is nominally “pop”, but it takes in dance, hyperpop, folk and nu-metal among many other genres. When a record contains bangers like “This Hell” and the title track, though, it’s hard to argue it can’t have a place among the pop greats.

Stromae – Racine Carrée (2013)

Yes, people make pop music in languages other than English too. And if you haven’t explored international pop beyond the occasional reggeaton or K-pop tune, then Stromae’s Racine Carrée is a great place to start. The Belgian musician’s second album took the French-speaking world by storm, for good reason: the dance-flavoured production is assured and agile, and the songwriting is superb, with topics ranging from absent fathers (the phenomenal “Papaoutai”) to relationship woes (“Formidable”) and even a cheeky riff on STIs, using Belgium’s national dish as a metaphor (“Moules Frites”).

Britney Spears – Britney (2001)

You can’t talk about 21st-century pop without mentioning its defining queen, Britney Spears. She’s an artist who not only contributed to the era’s early culture but shaped it, both as bait for a paparazzi-saturated tabloid media and as a puppeteer using her music to speak to broader conversations about her place as a celebrity. Her self-titled 2001 pop album marked a step in a more mature direction, featuring songs that appeared in her coming-of-age teen drama Crossroads which came out the following year. With songs like “Overprotected” and “Not a Girl, Not Yet Woman”, Britney swipes at life in a spotlight she’d been existing under since the age of eight, while sexier numbers like “I’m a Slave 4 U” and “Boys” mark the end of her performance as pop’s virginal princess. Her signature vocal fry and ability to turn any ‘e’ into an ‘ay’ are in abundance still, but in Britney, she greets a new century with a new identity.

Justin Timberlake – Justified (2002)

It’s hard to imagine a time when Justin Timberlake's success as a solo star held a question mark above it, but 2002’s Justified was a leap into the unknown for a culture used to seeing him as one of five dancing in unison. Fresh from lying through his teeth about *NSYNC going on ‘hiatus’ (we’re still waiting) and riding high as the court of public opinion’s ‘winner’ in his breakup with Britney Spears, Justin teamed up with producers The Neptunes and Timbaland to craft what would become his signature sound. If it sounds like Michael Jackson-lite, it’s because most of the songs were written originally with him in mind. The production calibre is out of this world, and four of the tracks on the album ("Señorita", “Rock Your Body”, “Cry Me A River”, “Like I Love You”) have gone on to be some of the most career-defining songs.

Michelle Branch – The Spirit Room (2001)

In the early 2000s, our pop girls were mostly either sugary sweet or angry at the world. They were Britney or they were Alanis because the idea of multifacetedness in female artistry was limited at best. But through those weeds, there were the pop girls who existed somewhere in the middle. Sweet and approachable, but with just a thimble of angst in the mix. Michelle Branch’s 2001 debut The Spirit Room isn’t the electro-injected sugar high we may expect considering her contemporaries, but instead packs a punch with rock-inspired builds and a simple acoustic guitar. A benchmark break-up album for the ages, it sings of heartbreak and longing to an audience probably only old enough to romanticise the pain she sings about. So influential was this album for young women at the time, it apparently influenced an early Taylor Swift to pick up a guitar and build her own brand of crossover pop.

Lady Gaga – The Fame (2008)

Lady Gaga’s eruption into public consciousness came with a bang, not a whimper. Armed with hotpants and a disco ball bra, her image screamed ‘girl you’d momentarily become best friends with drunk in a club bathroom’. With 2008’s The Fame, she took as much inspiration aesthetically from New York’s 90s Club Kids as she did their ideals of sex, money, drugs and sexuality. Singles like debut “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” introduced an artist who hadn’t quite yet reached full freak status, while “Paparazzi” would go on to be one of her most defining singles. We’ve lived with Gaga long enough to know her identities aren’t set in stone. We’ve seen her abandon meat dresses for cowboy hats and everything in between, but somehow The Fame’s highly-stylised party girl concept feels like the purest form of Gaga we’ve ever had.

Katy Perry – One of the Boys (2009)

Katy Perry’s One of the Boys is the debut that’s not quite a debut. The singer had been churning away at the music industry for years before landing on her feet, first releasing an album as a Christian singer under her real name Kate Hudson (yep, really) at the age of 16. But with her new name and nouveau pin-up aesthetic, she launched herself onto the world in 2009 with an album that would help influence pop music for the 2010s to come. Catapulting to No.1 with ode to bi-curiosity “I Kissed a Girl”, the album also spawned three other top ten singles ("Hot n Cold", “Thinking of You”, “Waking Up In Vegas”). We may be making fun of the twee girlies of yesteryear on TikTok now, but the craze would have been nothing without Katy Perry.

Beyoncé – Lemonade (2016)

She might be perennially snubbed, somehow, for best album recognition from the Grammys, but that means shit when you're Beyoncé, when you have a masterpiece like Lemonade under your belt. At least partially inspired by her husband's alleged infidelity, it percolates with so much candour, so much pain and pleasure — individual, societal, generational — while boasting some of the best, most richly grandiose production you'll hear on a pop record this side of the century, from the in-your-face defiance of “Formation,” through to the sexy, liberating cry of “All Night." The multi-hyphenate singer-songwriter really got the crew together for this one, with features from the likes of James Blake, Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd; this was a gigantic statement, cementing Beyoncé as the most varied and creative artist of her generation.

Taylor Swift – 1989 (2014)

Taylor Swift has cemented herself as one of the culture’s canniest operators. Few artists are as in tune with the discourse that surrounds them or as embedded in their core fanbase after such huge success, and while some may question whether that’s a ‘good’ thing overall, it’s exactly this level of cognisance that gave us her 2014 pop triumph 1989. The album, which spawned seven singles ("Welcome to New York", “Blank Space”, “Shake It Off”, “Style”, “Bad Blood”, “Out of the Woods”, “Wildest Dreams”), was a direct response to critics who felt previous album Red (2012) shirked her authentic country roots for a manufactured pop image. She stood her ground, instead deciding to go full synth-laced pop girl to prove genres don’t indicate authenticity. Deciding to release the album without the help of Spotify in a show of solidarity against the platform’s paltry artist royalties, it still went on to be Taylor’s most commercially successful album.

One Direction – Four (2014)

One Direction are one of the most culturally significant groups of the 21st century, but to many, their musical impact begins and ends with the image of a mob of screaming, hysterical teenage girls. And while, yes, that certainly was a defining element of their success, their 2014 album Four (the last with fifth member Zayn Malik, ironically) proves they have the musicality to warrant the hype. The album birthed two No.1 singles, “Steal My Girl” and “Night Changes” – the latter enjoying a viral renaissance thanks to TikTok. Each member contributed to the writing process of the album which, though not the first time in their discography to that point, is still often left out in conversations about their legacy and worth as musicians. When listening back to Four, it’s easy to spot a maturity in their sound that permeates each member’s solo music today.

Charli XCX – Pop 2 (2017)

Name a Twitter-addicted homosexual from East London who doesn't love Pop 2 by Charli XCX — go on, we'll wait. It's for good reason: ranked as one of the best forty albums of the 2010s by Pitchfork, the fourth mixtape from the PC Music pioneer and Brat mastermind boasts some of her most ear-wormiest tracks, from “Out of My Head”, a heady ode to hedonism with killer features from Tove Lo and Finnish singer Alma, through to “I Got It,” the boppiest of glitchy electronic bops. Then there's the “Boom, Clap” break in the middle of “Delicious” featuring Tommy Cash — hair raising, every time. Crash, her most commercially successful and most recent album, might also boast bops aplenty, with a style all the more accessible for those who like their pop a little easier on the ear, but this is a truly unique work from a real virtuoso.

Robyn – Body Talk (2010)

The reason for Robyn’s 2010 album Body Talk being on this list could, quite frankly, begin and end with “Dancing on my Own”. Undeniably the standout song from the Swedish pop-maestro’s almost 20-year career, it’s become an anthem for the lonesome, the yearning and the pining; positively pleading in all its synth-pop ministrations and laced with the kind of euphoric sadness reserved for only the most painful of unrequited loves. But elsewhere in the record, which gave us singles “Call Your Girlfriend”, “Hang With Me” and “Indestructible”, Robyn further balances cool, futuristic soundscapes with the kind of raw emotion you feel before you hear. Body Talk proves pop doesn’t have to make you happy – it can be just as satisfying if it makes you cry in the middle of a sweaty club dancefloor.

Troye Sivan – Bloom (2018)

Troye Sivan’s 2018 sophomore album is the result of watching a pop star grow up in front of our eyes. Off the back of a successful YouTube career, the Aussie singer dropped his debut album Blue Neighbourhood in 2015, wrestling with ideas of heartbreak, isolation and queer longing. 3 years later, in Bloom, a happier and more mature Sivan emerges, showing us the joy that springs when you realise your first love probably won’t be your only and best one. In his Troye Sivan way, singles “My! My! My!”, “Lucky Strike” and “Dance To This” (which featured Ariana Grande) sing of being consumed by someone, but this time from a place where it actually feels pretty nice instead of awful. Love is the most common theme pop songs explore and almost every aspect of it has been exhausted now, but Bloom somehow navigates the crevices that are harder to find.

Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion (2015)

Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2015 album Emotion has reached such mythological pop icon status in the near-decade since its release, she even released an album full of its abandoned b-sides. A commercial failure by the standards of pop stardom, this album (led by singles “I Really Like You”, “Run Away With Me” and “Your Type”) instantly became a cult classic, a holy writ for the people who know having a crush is embarrassing but love it anyway. Backed by a unique synth beat, Emotion is a departure from the bubblegum pop Jepsen became famous for with the inescapable “Call Me Maybe”. But even if she shed the outer layer the message of unabashedly, wholeheartedly having feelings for someone is still at her core. There’s nothing ‘cool’ about Emotion, but that’s kind of the coolest thing about it.

Blood Orange – Cupid Deluxe (2013)

Anyone who has been following Devonté Hynes since the very beginning will know that this is a man who has inhabited many musical lives. From the early jagged dance-punk of Test Icicles to the indie acoustic flavour of Lightspeed Champion and the 2010s pop-funk shapes of Blood Orange, Hynes is a multihyphenate. Real heads know that he's also produced for literally everyone, from Kylie Minogue to FKA Twigs and A$AP Rocky. His best work, though, arguably came in the shape of Cupid Deluxe, his second album under the Blood Orange moniker. From the slick, glistening synth lines of “Chamakay” to the addictive 1980s pop of “You're Not Good Enough”, Cupid Deluxe made pop music ‘cool’ at a time before alternative pop had really had it's moment in the sunshine. Over a decade later, and the album still feels like a masterwork: infectious, throwback, full to the brim with grooves.

Rihanna – Anti (2016)

Let's be real: any number of Rihanna albums could be on this list – yes, even Unapologetic, which has “Diamonds” on it, remember? And even on those very, very early Rihanna albums – have you listened to “Pon De Replay” recently? – it's shocking how much she ate everyone up in the mid-2000s. Even so, it was Anti – her eighth, most genre-flipping record – that really felt like it pushed pop music forward. From the winding twist of “Work ft. Drake” to the synth rock sound of “Kiss it Better” and the glimmering R&B psychedelic haze of “Sex With Me”, listening through the entirety of Anti feels like sparking up on a hot summers day: dreamy, sexy, perfect. We didn't know at the time that she wouldn't make another album for nine years and counting, but we won't go on about that.

Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (2023)

“Welcome to my island, see the palm trees wave in the wind / Welcome to my island, hope you like me, you ain't leaving,” so begins Caroline Polachek in “Welcome to My Island”, the colour-soaked, synth-splattered album opener on Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. On Polachek's second solo record, the ex-Chairlift singer gave us a true slice of transformative pop. Made in close collaboration with producer Danny L Harle, a PC Music alumni, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You manages to straddle pure pop perfection with electro-alt weirdness, never quite landing on one or the other, but instead inhabiting both. Does anyone know what “Bunny is a Rider” actually means? It doesn't matter because – much like the rest of this album – the song spills over into musical genius.