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Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at our Top Albums of 2025
We’re back!
By almost any metric, 2025 wasn’t great. The universe didn’t send us its best! But if we’re talking about records—and we are—this was a banner year. For every stain on the landscape (Daniel Ek, the Velvet Sundown), there were countless counterpoints: music that doubled down on what we love, artists unafraid to cover new ground, etc. Turns out the best weapon against things like AI and downward financial pressure on artists and scenes is to stare it all in the face and just keep going.
The best part? The appetite for all of that is only growing. People keep making music, and indie labels and venues keep springing up to help get it to our ears. Those might take forms we haven’t seen in a while (i.e., tape labels, house shows), but obstacles make you clever.
I sometimes get asked if I ever worry that I’ll run out of records to write about. My answer is always a polite version of, “Are you kidding me?!” That might happen at some point, but the biggest hurdle in 2025 was finding enough time to cover all the records I wanted to. I thought for sure I’d have figured out how to do that by now. Nope. Maybe next year.
The list below represents what I consider the best the year had to offer. As noted previously, I use objective criteria, but I’m also not above using things like first impressions and “vibes” in the calculus. These were the records that consistently fed my ears and lit up my brain. For fans of semantics, we can swap in/out terms like “best,” “favorite,” etc.—dealer’s choice.
The ultimate barometer is this: if we were at a diner after a show and you channeled your inner Rob Gordon and asked me what records I’d recommend, these would be the ones I pitched.
For the past couple of years, Sam Colt Steve Goldberg and I have put together our annual favorites. There’s not a lot of overlap in taste, and that’s what keeps this so fun. I’m not blowing smoke when I say that I start looking forward to this group project in early fall. Jami had to step away this year, but will hopefully be back with us in ‘26.
When you’re done here, please head over to their pages and
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