Loberary

2025 in Lists

[Reader beware: I don’t go on at length about every album the way I do the first few, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything I say will mak sense for you!]

Following are some notes on my music listening in 2025, limited to 2025 releases only.1

Needless to say,2 this:

  • isn’t a “best” or “top” list, except for and to me.
  • It’s not comprehensive; I listened to a lot more that isn’t listed here.
  • I’m surely forgetting a lot, even music I would recommend if I did remember it. Cut me some slack, I’m an old man.3
  • Entries are in no particular order. 4

This year’s categories:5

  1. Music That Landed
  2. Music That Landed in My Backyard
  3. Million-Milers
  4. Music I Watched Land Elsewhere

Music That Landed

SABLE fABLE (Bon Iver).

First, after all this time, Justin Vernon’s still got it. And maybe even figured some of it out. That’s inspiring! Second, don’t bLame mE for Justin Vernon’s penchant for, umm, idiosyncratic titles and capitalization, starting with the title SABLE fABLE. I get it, the journey from darkness (sable) to light and love, etc (fable) that he was “able” to successfully negotiate,6 etc., I just don’t like remembering and typing it.

Anyway “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” probed my fragile psyche without anaesthetic, leaving me crying on the side of a dark icy road at 4:45 in the morning (literally).

I would like the feeling, I would like the feeling
I would like the feeling gone
’Cause I don’t like the way it’s, I don’t like the way it’s
I don’t like the way it’s looking

I get caught looking in the mirror on the regular
And what I see there resembles some competitor

I see things behind things behind things
And there are rings within rings within rings
I can’t go through the motions, I can’t go through the motions
How am I supposed to do this now?

Then, thinking I’d recovered, “S P E Y S I D E” came and smacked my face.

I know now that I can’t make good
How I wish I could … Nothing’s really something now the whole thing’s soot … As I fill my book
Oh, what a waste of wood
Nothing’s really happened like I thought it would

Yeah.

moisturizer (Wet Leg)

Changing gears a bit (because I kinda have to) Wet Leg returned with an album that proved my contention at the time that they were more than a one-hit wonder (“Chaise Longe”) or novelty act (“Wet Dream”).7 Sometimes by turns and sometimes simultaneously, moisturizer is funny, banging, sardonic, touching, sexy, playful, and beautiful. Standouts: the cleverly worded and constructed “mangetout,” the wide-swinging-with-love’s-wide-swings “pokemon,” and the melodic, not stalkery, complete with celebrity callback, “divina mccall.”8

Let God Sort Em Out9 (Clipse)

Even with rap and hip-hop being my latest musical deep dive,10 I wouldn’t have put Clipse—brothers (literally) who are nearly my age, their first music appearing when my grown-ass children were wee toddlers—releasing arguably the best album of the year and (somewhat more arguably) their best album ever, on my 2025 bingo card. I get tired just thinking about it. Everything you expect, or should expect from Clipse, is on Let God Sort Em Out—dense wordplay, sharp (razor sharp, doubled like shark’s teeth) delivery, and instantly memorable beats–but informed by wisdom and experience. Putting the moving rap ballad “The Bird’s Don’t Sing”11 first on the album is a baller move, and the tracks are almost invariably dialed to ten right through to the angelic choir supported final song.

And the features! John Legend is perfect on the aforementioned opening song. Then, after Kendrick Lamar drops what could be the best feature of the year on “Chains & Whips,” they get even better including Tyler the Creator on “P.O.V.” and Stove God Cooks on “F.I.C.O.” It’s saying something when a solid Nas feature is business as usual!

Standout tracks: practically all of them, but let’s say the opening four tracks: “The Birds Don’t Sing” - “Chains & Whips” - “P.O.V.” - “So Be It.”

“It’s a Mirror” (Perfume Genius)

I can’t say anything about the whole album because I haven’t listened to it. This track just caught my ear and hooked me into repeat play mode for a while.

It’s a mirror, holy terror Taking focus off the horizon It’s a chorus reaching for us Swarming locusts wherever you go

Black Hole Superette and I Heard It’s a Mess There Too (Aesop Rock)

Aes is one of the few rappers I’ve followed for more than a year or two. I was drawn to his dense, allusive, sometimes surreal lyrics and extensive wordplay on his album Labor Days, which I first heard in 2003. A paragon of consistency, Aes has released nearly a dozen albums since, and not a single dud among them. This year he released two notable albums, the first being Black Hole Superette, that are impeccably produced with plenty of room in the mix to allow his lyrics and lyricism to shine.

Standout tracks from BHS: “Snail Zero,” which highlights Aes’s remarkable ability to tease the profound from seemingly mundane experiences and objects (in this case, buying his girlfriend a fish tank)12 and “Send Help,” which can be placed in the genre of notable hip-hop artists wrestling with their place in the pantheon, but in a very Aesop Rock-ian fashion.

Standouts from IHIaMTT: “Bag Lunch” (definitely check out the video too), “Opossum” (the lyrics!), and the incredible, high-tempo “Poly-Cotton Blend.”

Neighborhood Gods Unlimited (Open Mike Eagle)

Remember how I said Aesop Rock was one of the few rappers I’ve followed for long? One of the others is Open Mike Eagle, who not only released an album this year, but one that may be his best, competing for best of the year to me too. Neighborhood Gods Unlimited maintains OME’s trademark, high-level blend of immensely smart, sardonic wordplay delivered with deceptive casualness, but in a framework of a concept album13 of sorts about Dark Comedy Television, a fictional cable network that only has the budget for an hour of programming each week. In this way, OME reflects, and reflects on, the anxiety and melancholy of our very particular age, while never giving in to the emotional equivalent of the infinite doom-scroll or compromising to serve the conceptual frame.

Standout tracks: “ok but I’m the phone screen” and “my co-worker clark kent’s secret black box.” The titles alone convey what I’m talking about!

Virgin (Lorde)

I’m baffled by the tepid reaction, at best, to Virgin amongst most of my (admittedly limited and inconsistently patronized) music-listening circles. I can’t help speculating14 that some of the negative reactions and dismissal are driven by misogyny (Lorde doesn’t hold back about her experiences as a woman, nor does she focus only on the sympathetic), petulance (“If you’re that frustrated by stardom and commercial culture, let me help you out”), or misguided ideas about innovation (pop and pop-adjacent artists are expected to grow and do something new with each album, but also deliver the same experience for listeners as their previous work).

More than most, this is best listened to as an album, in sequence. Experienced that way, the interlude “Clearblue” is a must-listen. Otherwise, standout tracks that stand alone: the urgent, very human, “Hammer,” the ballad-that-ends-up-going-hard “Man of the Year,” and the climactic finale, “David.”

Golliwog (BIlly Woods)

Golliwog is a heavy listen that is literally rooted in horror…and the horrors and generational trauma of black existence the world as understood through the lens of Afrofuturism. Everyone should listen to it at least once, but it’s too much for me to return to except sporadically, and with intention, despite “Corinthians” being a contender for 2025 song of my year.

Don’t Tap the Glass (Tyler, the Creator)

At 28 minutes, with production and lyrics as loose (in a good way) as the energy and fun is high, Don’t Tap the Glass is very much the blast Tyler, the Creator intends it to be. As he says on the opening track, “Big Poe” (introducing TtC’s swaggering persona for this album):

Number one, body movement (Funky) No sitting still (Dance, bro)
Number two (Hahahaha), only speak in glory, yeah Leave your baggage at home (None of that deep s*it) Number three, (N!gga) don’t tap the glass>

Magic, Alive! (McKinley Dixon)

Magic, Alive! is the equivalent of an interwoven book of short stories about the experience of a trio of boys who lose their best friend. The threads and knots of loss, mourning, and the possible magic of memory—do we, or can we, retain or recapture that magic as adults?—run powerfully through the album from the deep breath in the first track to the wistful sigh of its paradoxically positive and skeptical conclusion. Just listen to the first two tracks and see what happens.

Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party (Hayley Williams)

I hope Paramore’s “hiatus” really turns out to be one, not the usual code for “we’re done but don’t want to say it.” But if one of the products is more music like the wide variety found on Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, count me in. Standouts: “Kill Me,” “Parachute,” and the title track.

Everybody Scream (Florence+The Machine)

Another album with a surprisingly muted (but generally positive) reception, Everybody Scream deserves better. Standouts: “You Can Have It All,” the title track, and“One of the Greats.”

Bleeds (Wednesday)

Dservedly sitting near or atop many year-end lists, the only thing that keeps me from listening to Bleeds all the time—it’s that good—is my moodiness at invocations of the incongruous nature of small town life. Karly Hartzman has the best writer’s knack for choosing just the right details to convey rich stories on a tiny canvas and the versatility to tell that using a broad palette, from country to sludge via indie-rock and pop, that all sound authentic. Standouts: “Townies” and “Elderberry Wine”

West End Girl (Lily Allen)

I’m not immune to the attractions of watching a celebrity train wreck, especially captured in detailed slo-mo by Lily Allen, a bawdy storyteller I already have a soft spot for. I get the kvetching about the gossipy aspects of West End Girl but wonder if the snobberati don’t perhaps protest too much? Not to mention that some of the songs are good…so good they can actually make other LOL-ridiculous lyrics work as LOL-moving, even just moving, work. Standouts: “Pussy Palace” (yep) and “Madeline.”

Double Infinity (Big Thief)

Double Infinity is a satisfying album that expands Big Thief’s palette while solidifying Adrianne Lenker’s place as one of the best of her generation of songwriters (and then some). Standouts: “Grandmother” and “Double Infinity.”

Willougbby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You (Ethel Cain)

Ethel Cain released two distinctly different, critically polarizing albums in 2025. Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is my keeper. There are some skips (there aren’t many 10+ minute songs I’ll suffer through), but the highs of “Fuck Me Eyes,” “Nettles,” and especially “Dust Bowl” more than carry the rest.

I’m Only F***ing Myself (Lola Young)

Cover the Mirrors (Ben Kweller)

Salvation (Rebecca Black)

When I Paint my Masterpiece (Ada Lea)

Welcome to My Blue Sky (Momma)

Holo Boy (This is Lorelei)

Music That Landed in My Backyard

Because I seem to be among a select few who noted their arrival…

Shish (Portugal. The Man)

I know I have an Alaska-sized soft spot for this band originally from that great state I am deeply homesick for, so what am I going to say about an album whose titles invoke familiar sights and locations from the same? But come-the-fuck on people!15 Shish is a great album in its own right, a return to palatably experimental, punk- and rock- and dance- influenced forms with catchy hooks anc choruses. Highlights: “Shish” · “Tanana” · “Denali.”

Always Been Craig Finn

Almost as cruelly ignored as the Alaskans, the latest solo outing by Finn, lead singer and primary songwriter of The Hold Steady is wearily-delivered fire. Finn leans hard into story, for which he has a demonstrably outsized penchant, and almost uniformly delivers as he tells the story of Nathan—a returning soldier, literally drinking dregs, who becomes a clergyman without a calling—and a constellation of similarly identity-conflicted and afflicted people around him. Standout tracks: “Postcards” · “People of Substance” · “Luke & Leanna” · “Fletcher’s” (save this one, or drink a little, if you’re allergic to flat-out spoken word tracks)

Blood on the Silver Screen (SASAMI)

SASAMI, a conservatory trained French horn player is an explorer. Her first, self-titled album was solidly indie-rock. Her second, Squeeze was a credible, though not incredible, melange of metal, hard rock and industrial. In BotSS, SASAMI has applied a study of contemporary pop and created an album that sounds as if she’s been playing in and with the genre her whole life. How she isn’t a major star yet is beyond my ken.

Standout tracks: the beautiful, layered “Honeycrash,” the hard-driving “Slugger,” and “In Love With a Memory,” featuring a classical arpeggio, classic synths, a bit of Clairo, and a genuine guitar solo.16

Honey, crash into me
Like a storm into the sea
Like blood on the silver screen
We can make it through all that
Always just remember
that a flood is a mirror to the sky

You think that because your older You’re gonna be better at being colder

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory)

The already fantastic Sharon Van Etten sounds (literally) better than ever on (literally) her best album ever. Or I should say “her and her band’s” best album because a significant part of the reason Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is this good is due to it being, by all accounts, a truly collaborative work.

Million-Milers

More (Pulp)

I was never super into Pulp,17 but I enjoy—and certainly recognize the importance of—their work. But 2025 appears to be a year of unexpectedly powerful returns. Like Clipse, with More Pulp not only returned after a long (nearly 25-year!) break, but with an excellent album, but one that sits solidly among their best.18 Favorite tracks: “Slow Jam” · “The Hymn of the North” · “Tina”

Let All That We Imagine Be The Light (Garbage)

Garbage has been in the game for more than 30 years now, and this may be there best in nearly two-dozen of them. An unashamed return to grunge pop, this time with an edge honed by years and clearly a dollop of experience with ageism, LATWIBtL is a great listen. Standout tracks: “Sisyphus” · “Radical” · “There’s No Future In Optimism”

The Life of a Showgirl (Tay-Tay)

I could’ve put TLoaSG either of the first two categories.

  1. Music that landed because it became the best-selling album of 2025 on its first day of release, already 5x-platinum, the most pre-saved album on Spotify, set the record for single-day streaming on all the major platforms, Billboard’s #1 album for 11 weeks, etc.
  2. Music that Landed in My Backyard because the critical takes are replete with bad-faith takes, reasoning from conclusions desired for all kinds of extra-musical reasons. In an alternate timeline where TLoaSG was released instead of 1989, it would be just as well-loved.

But I’m putting it here because this album is fun, footloose, and a banger. Imperfect? Sure, but even the weakest songs aren’t half as bad as some vocal critics who finally feel safe to complain are making them out to be.

Believe me: it pains me to be in the position of defending any billionaire. I’m just talking about the music. There are more than a few folks who should try that.

My favorite tracks: “Opalite” · “Ruin the Friendship” · “The Fate of Ophelia” · “Father Figure”

Music I Watched Land Elsewhere

LUX (Rosalía)

I’m not being contrarian, I swear. LUX may well be a perfect pop album, as I’ve seen claimed. It’s definitely a perfect example of an album that I earnestly admire but enjoy very little. I may radically change position on this album tomorrow. Or I may never find my way in. In any case, LUX is a stupendous accomplishment.

Getting Killed (Geese)

This opinion might get me killed,19 but I’m not hearing how Getting Killed is better than 3D Country (or Cameron Winter’s 2024 solo Heavy Metal for that maatter. I’m loving the rock mini-renaissance, though, long may it—and Geese—reign.

Addison (Addison Rae)

OK…I guess? Was this even the best album released by a (Tate Mc)Rae this year? You do you, babes, as Yasi Salek might say.

Footnotes

  1. Believe it or not, according to Last.fm, the music I listened to most in 2025 has been predominantly from earlier years…often much earlier. ↩

  2. Not really needless, I guess, since I’m saying it. ↩

  3. Speaking of elderhood: I also don’t claim that this is a “broad” range of music or that I listen “widely,” though I have tried to resist the fossilization that has struck many of my friends and acquaintances who are now dad passengers blissfully sailing the same sea of yacht rock their fathers did. ↩

  4. Don’t read too much into any ideas of implied by my verbosity. Many other factors play into even that. ↩

  5. Think of the albums or songs as airplanes. See? Look, it’s all I got right now. Don’t @ me! ↩

  6. And the lower-case “f” is either that Herr Iver is fecking able or that “able” is emphasized, hit powerfully, ala the “f = forte” in sheet music. Or both. I like both. ↩

  7. I got beef, or beefs, here. A) “one-hit wonders” should be celebrated as the amazing feat it is. B) “Wet Dream” is constructed much more carefully than many listeners think and it’s funny. Take that. ↩

  8. The no-caps thing is Wet Leg’s choice for titles. They need a bOn iVER feature. ↩

  9. I swear I’m going to stop talking about punctuation soon, but would it have hurt Messrs. Malice and T to throw an apostrophe before “Em?” How much could it have cost ‘em? ↩

  10. Every year or three (depending on how deep I feel compelled to go), I take an intentional deep dive into a musical genre. Past dives include multiple kinds of jazz, classic metal, multiple definitions of alternative, the foundations and forgotten contexts of grunge, pop girlies through the pop-heads who love them, and the ongoing plunge into rap and hip-hop. ↩

  11. Yes, this is an allusion to a scene in Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo which everyone should watch along with the wild documentary of its making (and near unmaking of Herzog), Burden of Dreams. ↩

  12. I am required here to mention possibly my favorite Aes track: “Pigeonometry.” If you haven’t heard it, stop reading this and go do that. ↩

  13. Having suffered the childhood indignity of repeated forced exposure to Yes, King Crimson, Rush, and Emerson, Lake, & Palmer by a (literally) insane uncle (on my adopted father’s side; none of those genes for me), I like very few concept albums and usually prefer my conceptual musical frames so loose they might better be called conceits. ↩

  14. Of course I can help it, I’m simply not going to. And this won’t be the first time. ↩

  15. And critics. ↩

  16. Long live the guitar solo, whose lamented disappearance I blame squarely on the group of grunge and indie acts I love most ↩

  17. Or most of the Brit Pop proper bands, a movement that strikes me as having had considerable influence on the American scene without for the most part ever actually being popular here. ↩

  18. Different Class and This is Hardcore of course. ↩

  19. Or it would if I had any readers. ↩

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