The Best Songs Released in October 2026

We’re officially down to the last two months of 2026 and I truly can’t believe it! There are so many amazing releases in this list to check out, and so many I still need to listen to. We reviewed a few of these albums as well: Ashe’s The Girl Of Your Dreams, Remi Wolf’s Mud, and Troye Sivan’s She’s The Best.

Noteworthy album & EP releases:

Autosmile, @
Heavy Is The Crown, Anderson .Paak, Cordae
In Bloom, Andrea Bejar
the afterparty, Andy Shauf
Instinct, Angele
Back to Pennsylvania, Anna Shoemaker
Bottled Up, Asha Banks
Desire is an Angel, Asha Jeffries
The Girl of Your Dreams, Ashe
Live at Carnegie Hall, Cameron Winter
Blue Alchemy, Catie Turner
Fantasize, Chloe Qisha
So Much 2 Say, Daisy Grenade
creole culture, Dawn Richard
Hunting What We’ve Already Killed, Dev Lemons
ZIRP!, DIIV
HOW TO QUIT SMOKING, Dominic Fike
do you love the color of the sky?, Dummy
AFTER THE AFTERS, Earth to Emily
Dopamine Chamber, Fontaines DC
BLUE, girl in red
Palace For The People, Greta Van Fleet
Unfindable Ring, Grumpy
4 Dear Life, Gus Dapperton
Kiss Me Extra Hard, Henry Morris
hold me, don’t hold back!, Jahson Paynter
let the feeling die, Jessie Manzin
Eternity of Anything, Jonah Kagen
MACHIKO, Joyce Wrice
Okay Piano Guy, JP Saxe
Follow The Light, June Mcdoom
Shop Girl, Kate Bollinger
My Midwest Best, Knox
We’ll Never Be This Young Again, Laila!
4×4, Laundry Day
Sleeping Lion, Lennon Stella
PRESS PLAY, LISA
ALOUD!, Lucky Daye
Believe You Me, Mackeeper
COMING OF AGE, METTE
FUDGE, Michael Kiwanuka
People Pleaser, Mollie Elizabeth
Plain Jane, Moody Joody
late night swim, Niko Rubio
this wolf may cry, nomi.
Sensitive to the room, sensitive to the sound, Presley Regier
Life 1, Quadeca
hard/SWEET, Queen of Jeans
What’s In Between, Radio Free Alice
Mud, Remi Wolf
And The Crowd Goes Mild, Sasha Alex Sloan
Focus Group, Slimdan
Proceed With Caution, The Paradox
my bad, Thomas Day
The Precariat, Tommy Lefroy
She’s The Best, Troye Sivan
Pursuit of Anything, Vacations
Nobody Wants This: Season 3, Various Artists
Frequency of Love, Victoria Monét
when no one watches, wilt
Nature’s Pill, Wishy

In chronological order:

“Separate” – Joesef
Release date – October 1

I first discovered Scottish singer-songwriter Joseph Traynor, known professionally as Joesef, back in 2023. His album Permanent Damage, released in the same year, was one of my favorites of 2023, and the writing team at Staged Haze liked it enough to give it the 23rd slot on our Best of The Year list. Anyway, enough setting the scene for you. I’ve been highly-anticipating his return since Permanent Damage, and his new song, “Separate” is the first taste of his unconfirmed sophomore album.

Co-produced by Barney Lister (Olivia Dean, Fred again.., Rina Sawayama), “Separate” was inspired by “watching somebody leave for the last time,” as described by Joesef in an Instagram post. The track keeps Joesef’s signature alt. pop and R&B-infused sound at the forefront, but opts for an element of electronic element with the perfect BPM for the dance floor. The slight shift makes sense, given today’s current pop landscape. The song crescendos at the bridge before repeating the chorus one more time, a climax that sonically and emotionally reminds me of what I consider to be the best pop song ever written, Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own.” The biggest compliment you could ever get from me, really! – Kristin

“Housewife” – Tate McRae
Release date – October 15

Tate McRae kicked off her next era this month with “Housewife,” her first new music since the deluxe edition of So Close To What last November. She announced it on Oct. 7 with nothing but the cover art: a red bikini, sunglasses, and a stroller stacked with cash, which pretty much tells you the joke before you press play. The song flips the housewife idea on its head, and the line that stuck with me most is the one that sums it all up: “I just wanna make a lot of money, be my own housewife.”

She wrote it with longtime collaborator Ryan Tedder, and at this point the two of them seem to have a formula down, but the credits also include Julia Michaels and El Guincho, a producer best known for his work with Rosalía…a fun and unexpected surprise and maybe a hint of where things are headed for Tate’s music. It feels very glamorous, like LA Hollywood pop music, which fits the whole money-and-mansions fantasy perfectly.

She told Jimmy Fallon it’s about “a woman who can’t be contained,” and admitted the title had been hiding in plain sight, lit up on the stage at the start of her Lollapalooza set over the summer without anyone catching it. The video was shot in the south of France, and a few days after release she gave the song its live debut at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, with Gigi Hadid joining her on the runway. If that glossy, Hollywood feel is a hint of where the new era is going, I’m curious to see how far she takes it on the rest of the album. – Jesse

“expectations (feat. Chappell Roan)” – Olivia Rodrigo
Release date – October 16

I’m here to report another incident of a remix sort of taking over the original to become THE version. “Ooh, Olivia does remixes now,” Chappell Roan says on the studio teaser Olivia posted to her stories, and it’s a first on both sides: Olivia’s first remix and Chappell’s first feature on anyone’s track. The Dan Nigro girls finally made a song together, and the remix leaves most of “Expectations” alone.

Chappell takes over the second verse, joins Olivia on the hook, and belts ad-libs through the ending. Olivia runs down the boys who let her down, and Chappell turns the same standards on a girl who said she’d call and never did. As Chappell put it, she loves “making things a little gay.” The video is so cute. The two of them play a whole cast of characters on a retro game show called The Big Expectations Show, Dan makes a cameo, and David Byrne is the host.

When they sat down with Zane Lowe, Olivia said she wrote the song as a mantra she could sing every night, and that Chappell’s swagger inspired it from the start. And I’m clearly not the only one who thinks this is the version, since the album climbed back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 the week after the remix dropped. Hearing Chappell this playful on someone else’s song is a treat, and I’m hoping it’s not the last time these two end up in a studio together. – Jesse

“God Forbid A Girl Gets Used to This” – Emily Bear
Release date – October 23

Singer-songwriter Emily Bear, well-known for her work on the 2021 concept album The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, which won the Grammy Award for the Best Musical Theater Album, has released her first new single since 2023’s “Jealous,” and the worth was certainly worth it. “God Forbid A Girl Gets Used to This” is a jazz-infused pop song comparable to artists like Lizzy McAlpine and Dodie. The track is the absolute definition of an ear worm: Bear’s soulful vocals slide up and down the notes with such ease, making a complicated song composition and production wise sound simple.

And that’s not surprising, considering Bear’s musicality has gotten her far in her career at just 25-years-old, she previously toured with Beyoncé on the Renaissance World Tour as the featured pianist, and became “the youngest person to score a feature film for release on a streaming platform” back in 2023 when she scored the music for the Netflix film “Dog Gone.”

Bear wrote in an Instagram post announcing the single that every time she considered releasing new music over the last couple years, she “get extremely scared and retreat back into the world of writing for film and theater,” but I hope she continues embracing the fear and releasing music for herself, because I’m loving the direction she seems to be taking her sound with this single. – Kristin