Near the end of most years in my 16-year tenure at a Midwestern newspaper, I offered up a favorite albums list. (Notice: favorite, not best—because who in the world can say?)
Whether or not the exercise meant much to readers, it allowed me to ground myself once again in the music that shaped and saved me over the course of 365 days.
Although I’m now working outside that role, I knew I wanted to continue—I needed to. Especially this year, one of profound overhaul and remarkable beauty. These albums are, on their own terms, remarkable pieces of art. And together, they collide to remind me and the world that I was here for another revolution.
Here are my Top 10 records of 2025 (with 15 more for good measure):
1. jason isbell, “Foxes in the snow” (Southeastern/thirty tigers)
Can one man with one guitar fashion the album of the year? The answer is yes, supposing that man is Jason Isbell. And provided the year is one of sifting and shifting and rehearsing the truths of liberating yourself, body and soul. Isbell’s acoustic breakup record (truly a solo project) is something more and less than a defense of his own heart—it’s full of nostalgia and bitterness, remorse and lack of remorse, sex and promise, of wrestling memories and leaving them with hip pointers like the Biblical Jacob. My year and my own untangling have been far from perfect and, as such, “Foxes in the Snow” is the perfect imperfect soundtrack for me.
Key tracks: “Gravelweed,” “Foxes in the Snow,” “True Believer”
2. pink breath of heaven, “Colors make a sound” (self-released)
Last year, amid the manic experience that is being online in the 21st century, a series of singles crossed my radar; a San Francisco band called Pink Breath of Heaven was teasing a full release with songs that sounded like Mazzy Star, but also paid dues and debts to their city’s psych-rock history. Push the calendar forward and, unlike so many things in this 21st/online century, the band’s debut more than exceeds expectations. Liv Field’s voice is a natural force; closest collaborator Rex John Shelverton and the rest of their mates back Field with a sound both haunting and hopeful. More, please.
Key tracks: “The Wind is Calling,” “Colors Make a Sound,” “Blue is the Morning”
3. Jeff tweedy, “Twilight override” (DBPM)
This shit shouldn’t work. The Wilco bandleader’s solo joint is not one or two, but three times the album; 30 songs, nearly two hours worth of music in a season when his day job keeps releasing quite good but very same-sounding records (see: minimalist, country-tinged). But Tweedy grants us one of his finest (and most compounding) moments, full of offerings that both reflect his hard-earned wisdom and a boyish devotion to rock and roll that can’t—and shouldn’t— be shaken.
Key tracks: “Forever Never Ends,” “Out in the Dark,” “Enough”
4. saba and no id, “from the private collection of …” (self-released)
Wire-to-wire, my favorite hip-hop record of 2025 is a true act of community with Saba and his brilliant producer creating something that effervesces in praise and lament, pays homage to the good people and places of Chicago and weaves sounds and voices together to deliver a true portrait of what it means to be bound to other people.
Key tracks: “Every Painting Has a Price” (w/BJ the Chicago Kid and Eryn Allen Kane), “Woes of the World,” “Westside Bound Pt. 4” (w/MFnMelo)
5. Mt. joy, “hope we have fun” (bloom field/futures)
A decade in, this L.A.-via-Philadelphia outfit offers an album marked by its delightful surface area and deeper, darker substance. Mt. Joy doesn’t just make pop-rock songs, they make catalysts: prompting you to dance your ass off, dart out toward the midnight horizon, pull aside a future flame and predict what’s next.
Key tracks: “Pink Lady,” “Lucy,” “Groove in Gotham”
6. ruston kelly, “pale, through the window” (rounder)
It’s not hyperbole to say Kelly’s songs have been life-savers for me these past two years. Sifting his catalog, I see and hear the language of personal redemption, of bending your life through and beyond recovery to something lasting. His latest beautifully braids rock, country and pop to consider how we might achieve quiet minds and generous hearts amidst the demons that rear their heads inside and outside us.
Key tracks: “Half Past Three,” “Me and You,” “Waiting to Love You”
7. Tyler childers, “Snipe Hunter” (RCA)
Tweedy might have made a triple album, but my vote for most audacious record of 2025 goes to Childers, who fucks with the conventions of country music while fulfilling them. The Kentucky native creates gorgeous juke-joint ballads about May-December romances, takes Beatle-esque spiritual digressions and just flat-out turns up the dial on each of his rock, honkytonk and gospel influences.
Key tracks: “Eatin’ Big Time,” “Oneida,” “Getting to the Bottom”
8. Dead Gowns, “It’s Summer, I Love You, and I’m Surrounded by Snow” (Mtn Laurel)
Geneviève Beaudoin (aka Dead Gowns) took the early year by storm with this Valentine’s Day release that is peculiar, cathartic and unmistakably brilliant. Beaudoin’s work holds up to nearly a year’s worth of listening, revealing its wonderfully strange dispatches and depths in songs that ruffle your collar, then rub your back.
Key tracks: “Wet Dog,” “Bad Habit,” “Maladie”
9. Daniel Caesar, “Son of Spergy” (Republic)
Listen, people have combined sex and the Holy Spirit in their art since, well, since people have been making art. The Toronto singer-songwriter adds to the canon with an album that’s driven by gospel- and folk-music aesthetics and is likely to inspire more than a few immaculate(-ish) conceptions. Notably, Bon Iver, Blood Orange and Sampha stop by, but this is a very personal songbook of revelation for Caesar.
Key tracks: “Have a Baby (With Me),” “Baby Blue (w/Norwill Simmonds),” “Moon” (w/Bon Iver)
10. Bon iver, “Sable, Fable” (jagjaguwar)
This is the sound of an artist reckoning with the first half of his life and sketching out the blueprint for its successor. Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon never makes reflection a drab affair, but rather leans into warm acoustic sounds, jubilant pop and buttery R&B. Every song here sounds like a beautiful, overdue exhalation.
Key tracks: “Things Behind Things Behind Things,” “Everything is Peaceful Love,” “There’s a Rhythm”
The next 15
11. Wednesday, “Bleeds” (Dead Oceans) Karly Hartzman, MJ Lenderman and Co. just keep making records that are heavy as hell while celebrating all the twists, turns and nuances of country and folk music. An essential album from an essential act.
12. The Beths, “Straight Line Was a Lie” (Anti- ) An already great band levels up. Anchored by Elizabeth Stokes’ indelible voice and ever-evolving songwriting, the New Zealand band convenes an indie-rock masterclass with style and significant depth.
13. Josh Ritter, “I Believe In You, My Honeydew” (Pytheas/Thirty Tigers) Reliably one of my favorite songwriters, Ritter crafts the year’s great humanist gospel record; something like a quieter Whitman, he pens odes to love, nature and intuition that deserve their own Sunday-morning meetings.
14. Nation of Language, “Dance Called Memory” (Sub Pop) Few bands are innovating within the synth-pop realm like this Brooklyn trio. These songs are cool to the touch yet warm you inside-out.
15. De La Soul, “Cabin in the Sky” (Mass Appeal) The first De La Soul record since 2016 feels both like a picking up where the iconic hip-hop crew left off and a testimony to everything learned across the years and miles. What a welcome return.
16. Water From Your Eyes, “It’s a Beautiful Place” (Matador) On their latest, Rachel Brown and Nate Amos craft songs too brilliant and indelible to be labeled anything other than pop and too slippery and strange to be classified outside the realm of art-rock. But you’ll be too busy feeling the catchy catharsis to consider what you’re calling these tracks.
17. Ezra Furman, “Goodbye Small Head” (Bella Union) Creating something like punk, something like emo and definitely something like a modern blues, Furman grants us glorious texture while she indulges in catharsis. “Goodbye Small Read” is a rich text that rewards the level of attention paid.
18. Mac Miller, “Balloonerism” (Warner) The second posthumous record to emerge since Miller’s 2018 death offers fresh reminders of what made the rapper so special. These songs are direct and drowsy, get by on vibes yet house remarkable little details. “Balloonerism” makes use of striking colors to fill in our portrait of the artist.
19. SG Goodman, “Planting by the Signs” (Slough Water/Thirty Tigers) The Kentucky singer-songwriter delivers one of the great lyrical experiences of 2025 (“Snapping Turtle”) and the latest in a growing catalog of near-perfect records that exhibit pristine songcraft while shining light on the raw, quavering alto she owns.
20. Brent Cobb and the Fixin’s, “Ain’t Rocked in a While” (Ol’ Buddy/Thirty Tigers) The affable Georgia songwriter and his band keep Southern rock from ever growing stale on a set that allows the Stones and Skynyrd equal time at the mic.
21. Florence and the Machine, “Everybody Scream” (Polydor/Republic) If all the divine Ms. Welch gave us here was “One of the Greats,” perhaps the definitive musical takedown of myths of male genius, “Everybody Scream” would be worth its weight. But Florence and the Machine pack this one with wonderful meditations that range from earthy to ethereal, sexy and witchy in equal measure.
22. Armand Hammer + The Alchemist, “Mercy” (Backwoodz Studioz) The artful, dodgy hip-hop duo join forces with one of our moment’s truest producers for a slippery, sonically-sliding album that will leave you thinking about its sounds and themes long after the last strains fade.
23. Nourished by Time, “The Passionate Ones” (XL) After breaking through with 2023’s “Erotic Probiotic 2,” Marcus Elliot Brown delivers a dozen songs that somehow perfectly balance old- and new-school R&B, immaculate songcraft and scuffed-up production.
24. Brandi Carlile, “Returning to Myself” (Interscope/Lost Highway) Carlile plays rock hero early and often on her latest while fully cementing herself as heir to the throne established and inhabited by her beloved Joni Mitchell.
25. Cass McCombs, “Interior Live Oak” (Domino) In 16 songs and around 75 minutes of music, the Bay Area veteran twines rock, folk and ‘70s-styled pop sounds into a document that’s somehow both cinematic and plainspoken.