Everybody loves a comeback, and there were some good ones in 2025. I wasn’t sure exactly what the qualifications for what constitutes a comeback should entail for the purposes of this post, but I kinda just went by whether an album felt like a comeback to me. A lot of these artists hadn’t released albums since the pandemic times, and I have to assume this global event also impacted the gestation periods for a lot of these albums to some extent. Whatever the case, these were artists that I was happy to hear from this year and who I hoped wouldn’t keep me waiting so long for another follow-up.
I think the album that stands out to me as the most impressive comeback album of 2025 was More by Pulp, just because it felt like the hardest comeback album to pull off. Not just because it had been such a long time since Pulp had released an album (24 years to be exact), but also because it was following up such an impeccable run of albums, starting with 1994’s His n’ Hers and ending with 2001’s We Love Life. Then on top of that, Pulp’s sound was so entrenched in the upbeat party times of the UK in the ‘90s that it’s hard to imagine what a wizened, modern Pulp would sound like.
Fortunately, More gives us a glimpse of an older Pulp that feels authentic to the band’s big, boisterous sound of yore, but also feels true to where Jarvis Cocker and his bandmates are at in middle age. That isn’t to say that I would quite put More in the same stratosphere as the band’s ‘90s albums, but the fact that it’s close deserves props. There was always a certain subterranean darkness hiding beneath the band’s more anthemic songs, and I would say that’s a little more at the forefront on More, even if their pop sensibilities never stray too far. There’s also a slight air of wistfulness that oddly enough feels like a continuation of what Pulp was doing way back on We Love Life, perhaps most notably on album closer “A Sunset”, which feels a bit like a sequel to that earlier album’s closer, “Sunrise”. I should also probably say that I’m glad this album exists for no other reason than that it brought about an American Pulp tour, which I got to see, and let me cross off a bucket list concert that I’d assumed I’d never get to cross off.
There is a part of me that wishes I had gone to see Lady Gaga’s latest tour, but I suppose I’ll just have to settle for listening to Mayhem one more time. This one does feel a little strange to classify as a comeback record since Lady Gaga hasn’t really left the public eye too much since the release of 2020’s Chromatica. She’s even been releasing albums since then, but it’s just that they’ve been things like another Tony Bennett album or her companion album to that Joker sequel that everyone has tried to forget. But here we get a full-fledged Gaga album, filled with the kinds of dance-floor anthems you’d want from her, and overall, it just felt like her really doing what she does best after her acting career started to cause one to ask where exactly she was going with all this.
Now, could one make the criticism that she doesn’t push herself enough outside her comfort zone on this one? Sure, I’m not certain she’s breaking a ton of new ground here. But the songs are just really fun and there is a slightly heavier, more industrial sound that feels a little new and a little bit scary. Even the songs that feel iffy at first (like lead single “Abracadabra”) have a way of worming their way into your head and feeling oddly irresistible. Also, in a year where people complained that Taylor Swift’s new album had too many songs that sounded like other artists, it’s pretty funny that Lady Gaga came out with a song that sounds like a blatant Taylor Swift ripoff (“How Bad Do U Want Me”) and yet still somehow sounds better than anything on the new Taylor Swift album.
Another album that felt like a big pop comeback (even if not everyone loved it) was Lorde’s latest album, Virgin. It’s only been 4 years since Lorde’s last album, which doesn’t make it the most unexpected comeback, but in pop years, 4 years can feel like a lifetime, and Lorde has made it clear that she doesn’t feel obligated to the major label album cycles or necessarily catering to recent trends. That said, she was savvy enough to collaborate across the whole album with one of today’s more accomplished pop producers, Jim E-Stack, which, of course, was a good move considering Jack Antonoff brought to life a pretty forgettable album in 2021’s Solar Power.
That said, I don’t think Solar Power’s shortcomings were merely Jack’s fault, as Lorde herself has stated the California hippie persona that she tried to embody in that album just didn’t quite fit her. Thankfully, Virgin picks up where 2017’s iconic Melodrama left off, full of moodiness and reckless nights, but filled with a kind of disarming exuberance when you least expect it. I suppose I see how you could make the criticism that it doesn’t break too much from Melodrama, but I think the heavier, more electronic sound fits Lorde well. Also, there’s a sneaky maturity to these songs, even if Lorde is still very much a girl figuring things out. Despite the persistent beats beneath each song, there’s a kind of ragged vulnerability throughout the album that feels like an artist rediscovering what she’s good at while getting back on track.
Apart from a couple New Pornographers albums, we have not heard from Neko Case in a while, seeing as her last solo album was released back in 2018. Seemingly to make up for this, Neko came back in a pretty big way in 2025, first with a memoir that was released earlier in January and then her latest album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, which was released in September. With this dual release of a memoir and her first album where she receives a sole producer credit, it does feel like a phase where Neko is reasserting her own autonomy and telling stories on her own terms, not that I’m sure that was ever a problem for her. But either way, she proves that she can do it wonderfully with Neon Grey Midnight Green.
With a singer-songwriter who’s this far into their career and has such a consistent pedigree of songwriting, you’re not going to expect too many new tricks, since just as long as Neko Case brings herself to the album, the listener’s going to be in for a rewarding listen. Still, there is something pretty unique about Neon Grey’s sound. It’s perhaps the fullest-sounding of Neko’s albums, as there’s this more orchestral bent to it, while there’s also this atmospheric spookiness to both the production as well as the melodies of the songs here. The album cover of her sitting next to a fallen chandelier feels appropriate, since the album sounds as if it were recorded in a haunted mansion. There are some more rousing moments like the single “Wreck”, but overall Neko feels very comfortable in this space, even if the album also has plenty of left-turns that display the restlessness in Neko’s songwriting and personality.
As it perhaps became clear in my post about disappointing 2025 albums, this year was not all that great for 2010s indie artists trying to remain relevant. I’m not sure that Jay Som is all that concerned with staying relevant or being a particularly high-profile artist, since 2025 saw Melina Duterte release her first album in six years with Belong. I’m not sure that this one stands head and shoulders above any of the other albums by her contemporaries that I alluded to, but overall, the album does have a nice energy to it, evoking the punchiness and dreamy melodies of her breakout album, 2017’s Everybody Works. I wouldn’t say the album strays too far from her classic sound, but considering there’s been a dearth of Jay Som material, it’s just nice to hear her doing her thing while also beefing things up a bit production-wise, since we’re now fairly removed from the golden age of bedroom indie pop.
Well, I suppose I’ll bookend this post with another album by a UK ‘90s artist that I was fortunate enough to see live this year by ending things with Stereolab’s Instant Holograms On Metal Film (of course it wouldn’t be a Stereolab album without an impenetrable title like that, right?). While the gap between their last album wasn’t quite as gigantic as Pulp’s, it had still been 15 years since a new Stereolab album. I couldn’t really tell you whether or not Instant Holograms picks up where 2010’s Not Music left off, since I’m mostly familiar with the band’s ‘90s albums, but either way, it provides more or less what you’d want out of a Stereolab album. They still embody this spacey astro-lounge version of ‘60s pop music, while singer Lætitia Sadier’s bouncy vocals are always a delight to hear ping-pong around in your eardrums along with this band’s other playfully eclectic sounds.
I’m really glad I haven’t attempted to write about Stereolab much (or possibly at all?) over the years, since their music is so distinct and so all over the place (in a good way) that describing what makes them great feels hard to pin down. But whatever it is, the band certainly recaptures it here. So I’ll just say, I’m glad they decided to reappear in 2025, much like the rest of the artists featured here, and I hope this won’t be the last time for a long time.