Everyone loves a break-up album. However, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mr Steve Lacy went one further with Gemini Rights, giving us a record immersed in the toxic potency of an ex you’re still attracted to (and vice versa). This translates into woozy guitars, beautiful multi-part vocal harmonies and vicious lines such as, “Don’t depend on me, no/unless you’re swallowing”. It’s home to a couple viral tracks (odds are you’ve heard the delicious “Bad Habit”), but as a whole, this is a fully formed album brimming with lust, despair and playfulness.

Tying together the intensity of raw experimentation and soft vulnerability, Motomami is Spanish artist Rosalía’s astonishing third album. An exploration of femininity, it pulses with heady, left-field reggaeton, or elsewhere a flamenco grandeur with intricate clapping, always complemented by her unique vocals. This is sexy, fun, future-facing pop music, whereby the artist has mastered a blend of genres that is entirely her own.

On Love, Damini, Burna Boy packs in heat and slickness that makes you move your hips, while simultaneously inviting you into his tender self-reflection. Here, the current king of pop’s Afro-fusion style encompasses bold brass flourishes; vocals bouncing between gruff and soft; choral backing from Ladysmith Black Mambazo; the euphoric joy of “Last Last” (which was surely song of the year), and even an Amapiano remix built around a sample from Squid Game. A gift of an album, Love, Damini holds you and asks you to dance.

It seemed next to impossible that Isle of Wight duo Wet Leg would be able to follow up on the wave of hype that followed 2021’s surreal, deadpan, ludicrously catchy post-punk debut single “Chaise Longue”. But their first album came through this year with lyrics that flit between lovelorn, droll and scathing (“I don’t wanna have to stay friends, I don’t wanna have to pretend/I don’t wanna meet your girlfriend, Hope you’re choking on your girlfriend”) and pummelling guitars. Wet Leg more than delivered, and it’s a riot.

The album of the year according to several sources (the most-streamed album globally on Spotify, the biggest album on the Billboard 100), and that’s not without good reason. Bad Bunny is undoubtedly prolific right now, and Un Verano Sin Ti exudes an assured warmth. Taking you on a journey through Caribbean and Latin music, this is a seamlessly woven collection of songs that celebrates classic sounds of the regions while also pushing forward into new spaces with a lithe swagger. Sometimes boisterous, sometimes gentle, but always gleaming and full of warmth, it’s a delightful reminder of the communal power of the dancefloor.

The debut album from Nigerian singer-songwriter Asake is pure joy. It brings together the most prominent elements of Afrobeats and Amapiano, including saxophones, strings, sweet, mellifluous vocals and intricate percussion. Produced by Magicsticks (“the king of sound and blues”), it’s a sumptuous record, saturated with colour and feeling.

Welcome to the non-stop party, full of glamour, pleasure, opulence, hedonism and, put simply, fun. Reminding us exactly why she’s earned the name “Queen B”, Beyoncé’s vocal runs are otherworldly here, and the production is next level (not surprising, given she tapped the likes of Honey Dijon, Green Velvet and Ms Grace Jones to help bring to life this homage to the Black and queer roots of dance music). A basic take, sure, but there is just no other artist doing it like Beyoncé. She’s never sounded so free.

North Long Beach rapper Mr Vince Staples does not miss: this marks five great albums in a row. RPBMH acts as a companion to its self-titled predecessor, bringing us ever further into his interior world. The production submerges you in feeling while his fluid delivery and slick bars contemplate the contradictions he embodies and observes, lamenting lives lost and his own youth, swallowed up by the streets. “When Sparks Fly” is a standout; a gorgeous slow-burning showcase of immaculate storytelling where the subject of the complicated love song is… a gun.

On their previous album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys proved themselves (once again) to be divisive figures. Swapping out the big guitars and bigger egos of their AM era, they turned to pianos and pared-down singing with esoteric lyrics. This follow up is very much in a similar vein, and yet it seeks to be more vulnerable; over vast, gliding orchestra, Mr Alex Turner bares his insecurities amid his more out-there lyrics, all in his rich and distinctive falsetto. It’s an immersive, quite stunning listen, that ruminates on journeys, time and longing.

This is the Compton rapper’s most difficult album to digest, but you get the feeling that was what Mr Kendrick Lamar was going for with his much-awaited fifth record. A piece of art in itself (his Glastonbury show alone was testament to the sculpted, precise vision of Mr Morale), he wants listeners to sit with the robust production and his deft, unmatchable delivery style to consider faith, history, fame and his own fallibility. An often dense listen, but one that cements Lamar as an artist with consistently impressive vision – albeit one who doesn’t want your adulation.