Reader beware, this is my one annual opportunity to write about what I think is going on with music and I’m not gonna waste it! The main thing I’m thinking is: is everything going to shit or am I just getting older? Music tends to be a bellwether for where other media will end up going and 2025 was the first year that AI “musicians” started generating millions of streams on Spotify, which sure is discouraging. Except when you realize that millions of streams still isn’t that much money going to whoever uploaded that slop, especially relative to the enormous cost they probably spent to game the system and get into peoples’ feeds. Also we’ve seen that most of us, when given the choice, will loudly proclaim we prefer actual human artistry… which is admittedly a low bar for hope in our species. But at least it seems like, right now, we clear it?
On the other hand, the art of curation seems to be on the way out. It’s getting harder and harder to find good criticism as more and more iconic outlets are shuttered or left critically understaffed in the name of short-term profit maximization. When I was in college my dream was to write at a place like The AV Club. It was too hard for me to seriously try in 2011. Is it even a viable career path at all today? I mean hell, MTV went off the air a few days ago. And the record labels themselves? They are busy laying people off and turning to TikTok to find new artists. The algorithms, man! I’ve come to realize a lot of people now fully depend on their streaming apps to find new music. It makes me feel so old that those discover playlists just don’t click with me! I still rely on places like Paste, Pitchfork, KEXP, fuckin’ TV show and movie soundtracks, and, of course whatever Colin decides is worth writing about to add to my streaming music library.
Speaking of, here’s something: Paste’s #2 and Pitchfork’s #1 album of the year is not on Spotify or Apple (don’t worry, I haven’t heard it yet either, my bad). That’s a great reminder that the resurgence of physical media has continued; with vinyl, CD, and cassette sales growing again last year and seemingly a similar phenomena happening in film with Blu-rays. Look how big the Criterion Closet has gotten on social media! And don’t forget, the problem isn’t streaming — it’s that streaming is rigged against the artists. It used to be bands toured to support the album, now they release albums so they can tour (which has turned legacy acts like Oasis into the biggest shows but that’s a whole other thing). The music industry has never been more consolidated than it is right now, with a few people at the few remaining, gargantuan labels keeping almost all the money for themselves. At the same time, it’s never been easier to make music and share it with the world. Where we are right now is unsustainable. Again, I take solace that most people want to invest human artistry and share experiences with each other. I don’t know what will happen next, but maybe there is a glimmer of hope just over that horizon?
Honorable Mentions
The Beths – Straight Line Was a Lie
HAIM – I quit
Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones
ROSALÍA – LUX
Wolf Alice – The Clearing
For such a long time, I thought Rosalía had a lock on being my favorite pop album of the year to the point that I even started writing a blurb about LUX for this post. But then I kept seeing Oklou showing up in other publications’ album of the year lists and so I gave her a shot and holy shit this is a banger. Actually, I’ve now got a pretty huge list of 2025 albums that I need to listen to way more – I’m pretty sure if I wrote this in February I’d have an almost totally different top ten. But this is my favorite albums I listened to last year, not my favorite albums I crammed in between late-November and now.
All right, pop is over: now let’s get to the sadness. Or at least melancholy, one of the best emotions that also sounds like a dog. The only thing that undercuts the totally goth vibes of For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is the unexpected arrival of Jeff Bridges, about 16 years after Crazy Heart. But that’s the sort of thing you get to do if you made Jubilee! Also, my actual favorite Japanese Breakfast song of 2025 is the one they did for the end credits of Materialists.
Colin said it in a paragraph but basically, expectations are a bitch. After releasing two of the best albums of the decade, The Weather Station took three years to come back with something a little more personal and somehow even more pared-down than the last two albums. Humanhood did not set the world on fire — we already did that with greenhouse gasses, hey-oh — but I still really liked it! Will I remember that when I name Ignorance one of my albums of the 2020s four years from now? Who knows!
Yeah, look, there’s a lot of January and February representation on this list. Maybe I just need more time to work on these lists nowadays? Plus those cold, dark winter months were when I was the most introspective and listened to the most music in 2025 – later on in the year I needed more distracting entertainment. I get the feeling Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory understand. This is an album about not giving up on the things worth fighting for even though the world feels hopeless. I’m really trying to manifest that mindset every day.
Jenn Wasner is low-key the most important musician in the world to me. This Baltimorean, one half of Wye Oak, has toured with The Dirty Projectors, supported Sylvan Esso, and is a member of Bon Iver. So please understand it was a big deal when she released her third album from her solo project Flock of Dimes. The Life You Save saw her turn a little more acoustic and a little more sad. I think we all get it. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s so profoundly in my wheelhouse that I couldn’t not put this on my list. Look, I’ve seen a thousand sunsets, that doesn’t mean I don’t still think they’re beautiful.
I’ve written about this before, but sometimes an album comes out early in the year and inexplicably I just never take it out of rotation. Phonetics On and On was that album for me in 2025. I love a musical duo that seems like they’re just in it to have fun and that seems to be the case with Horsegirl, who put out one the year’s most pleasant, stripped-down little albums. It’s personal without being embarrassing, it rocks without making you want to get out of your chair. I’m all about it.
It seems impossible that it’s nearly been four years since Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You! It felt like simultaneously too soon and way too long since we got a new Big Thief album. And I know I say this every time, but I feel like Double Infinity is their most approachable one yet. Huge props for releasing this in September, it’s got great late summer/early fall vibes.
Face Down in the Garden is the final album from husband-and-wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley as Tennis. Which sounds like they’ve left the door open to do something else down the line, just with a different name. I sure hope they do because otherwise… I guess that means I’m just getting to the age that the bands I grew up with are retiring and that’s gross. Anyway, I think this album is really consistently good and there just wasn’t enough of that in 2025. At least I thought that was the case until I started writing this list and found out I had like 30 albums I wanted to put on here. But this is one of the albums I listened to the most! So… fuckin’ voila.
SABLE, fABLE is weird. The first part, SABLE was released in 2024 as an EP. The rest of the album, fABLE, has been called an “epilogue” – the conclusion of the lonely guy in a cabin in the woods story that’s followed Justin Vernon since 2006. The good news is that’s it’s noticeably upbeat, with Vernon seemingly in a good place and collaborating with a bunch of great artists like Dijon, Flock of Dimes, and Danielle Haim. Is it an epilogue for the band too? Hard to say, there doesn’t even appear to be a tour supporting SABLE, fABLE? Like with Tennis, I’m happy if Bon Iver has said all it needs to say. If this is the end, how lucky we are that we got such a nice au revoir to Eau Claire.
I mean if you’re gonna take five years to put out your sophomore record, the least you could do is make it one of the most acclaimed albums of the year. Actually, Billboard Heart didn’t exactly feel this momentous when it released back in February, garnering modestly positive reviews, but it went on to the send Deep Sea Diver across the country and they returned as champions, becoming The Seattle Times’ favorite album from Washingtonians and KEXP’s #2 album of the year. I don’t know what else more to say, this is pretty much a heater down the middle for me – I just can’t lay off of it.