Different World

Some dance music is made to help you escape, but Alan Walker’s candy-coated EDM is for when you’re already up in the clouds. With helium-pumped vocals, skipping synths, and strings swirled together with big marching drums, it’s an endorphin rush bundled into 15 tracks. Different World is the Norwegian producer’s debut album, but he’s far from new on the scene; his 2015 breakout single, “Faded,” a dramatic, ethereal dance-floor lullaby, is included here. On newer cuts like “Diamond Heart” and the Noah Cyrus collaboration “All Falls Down” (featuring Juliander), he blurs the lines between festival bangers and classic, emotional pop.