Sad and Beautiful World by Mavis Staples

Sad and Beautiful World, Mavis Staples' fourteenth solo studio album, arrived on Anti- on November 7, 2025, and it's almost entirely other people's songs, sung as if she'd written every one. The last surviving member of the Staple Singers picks from a wide, generous songbook: Curtis Mayfield, Eddie Hinton, Frank Ocean, Gillian Welch, Kevin Morby, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Sparklehorse and Porter Wagoner.

Brad Cook's production keeps things spare and warm so that voice can do the heavy lifting, and it does, gravelly and gospel-deep and still full of fight. "Godspeed", "Beautiful Strangers", the title track and "Human Mind" were the singles, and "Beautiful Strangers" and "Godspeed" each won at the 2026 Grammys. Critics loved it, year-end lists found room for it, it went to number 2 on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart, and she took it on the road across the US into early 2026.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.