Upcoming Music Releases

By Dylan Jahnke 42Fifty Staff Writer

Getting tired of your current music playlist? Need some new music ASAP? Good news, you came to the right place! There is a lot of new music expected to drop within the next few months and over the year, so get those Spotify and Apple Music accounts ready! There’s music dropping for lovers of every genre within the next few months, from pop, hip-hop/rap, and many more! Well, let’s get to it, here are the most anticipated albums dropping this year.

Let’s start off with hip-hop/rap. Hip-hop and rap are officially the world’s most streamed and bought genre for music according to Billboard and Spotify. The rap game really took over the music industry in 2017 with hits from Post Malone featuring 21 Savage with their #1 hit “Rockstar”, DJ Khaled featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tillers’ top 5 “Wild Thoughts”, and French Montana featuring Swae Lee’s top 10 “Unforgettable.” It is no doubt that rap is changing the game big time. In 2018, you can expect new music from Post Malone with his album “Beerbongs and Bentleys.” Malone has already dropped his smash hit “Psycho” which features Ty Dolla $ign, and it is steadily climbing the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Post Malone’s album is currently up for preorder and is expected to drop April 27. Of course, we can expect new music from Drake as well. Drake took to Twitter last week to announce that his upcoming album “Scorpion” will be out sometime in June 2018. Drake is already having a great year which his smash hits “God’s Plan” and “Nice For What”, both which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. There is no doubt that his upcoming album will do great as well. Just like last year, hip-hop/rap is definitely going to dominate 2018.

Pop music is not as big as it was 4-5 years ago, but people still love it. There are definitely some pop albums that have a good chance to do well on the charts. Last year, we had hits like “Shape Of You” from Ed Sheeran, “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber, and “Bad At Love” by Halsey. What will pop music bring to 2018? Well, expected to drop on May 11, we have “Voicenotes” from Charlie Puth. Puth dominated 2017 with his top 10 hits “Attention” and “How Long”, both which are featured on the upcoming album. There is no doubt that Charlie will continue to see phenomenal success throughout 2018. Although there is no confirmed release date yet, Shawn Mendes and Selena Gomez have both confirmed in interviews and on social media that we can expect new music from them both sometime this year. Both are already seeing major success this year with Shawn’s hit “In My Blood” and Selena’s “Wolves”, there is no doubt that both of their albums will be a hit. Time will tell, but pop music is definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.

EDM/dance music is also slowly taking over the game. This is the type of music that you hear at festivals that just makes you want to dance. Dance music is typically not popular on radio, unless it has another featured artist. For example, Kygo and Selena Gomez dominated the edm/dance game in 2017 with their top 10 hit “It Ain’t Me” and Zedd and Alessia cara also dominated the game last year with their top 5 “Stay”. We can expect edm/dance music to continue to slowly take over the music industry in 2018. Dropping sometime this year, we can expect an album from Major Lazer, the edm group who created hits like “Cold Water”, “Lean On”, and “Know No  Better”. The groups album “Music Is The Weapon” has no official release date, but has been confirmed to be dropping sometime this year. In 2018, we can also expect an album from Zedd, an edm artist who is already dominating 2018 with his smash hit “The Middle”. Like many others, Zedd has no official album title or release date, but has confirmed he will be dropping a new album this year. Get ready to dance!

There you have it, the most anticipated albums of 2018! Hang in there y’all, you will be able to update your playlists very very soon with tons of new music. 2018 is clearly going to be a groovy one!

Dylan Jahnke covers entertainment and local stories. He can be reached at 18000484@students.sd308.org or contact the publication directly at 42fifty@sd308.org