I'd like to go out on a limb here and say that 2025 was the best year of music in the 2020s so far, and I don't even think it's close. The list of Grammy nominations is full of heavy-hitters, some of the greatest artists of our lifetime have released new music this year (see Lady Gaga's MAYHEM, of course), and there's been quite the resurgence of a handful of genres that haven't really been too dominant in the public eye in recent years.
Personally, I've ventured pretty far outside of my comfort zone with regard to my listening habits this year. I took on the endeavor of listening to one new (to me) album a day, every day this year. I listened to a good number of albums from the '50s through the 2010s, but I also listened to probably about 80 new releases from 2025.
Of those 80 or so albums, I'd say probably 70 of them were at least four stars, if not five. As one can imagine, then, it was not a very easy task to pare down 70 four- and five-star albums into a top ten list. However, we don't shy away from hard things here! So nevertheless, I present to you, my picks for the top ten albums of the year in 2025!
10 LUX by ROSALÍA
The multitudes and layers present throughout ROSALÍA's LUX showcase a depth of musical talent the likes of which we hardly ever see anymore in the 21st century. One could easily make a compelling case to classify this album as any number of different genres, from avant-garde to opera to art pop to reggaeton, not to mention the plethora of smaller genre influences present on each individual track.
LUX features lyrics in 14 different languages, collaborations from names like Bjork and Yves Tumor, and even a production credit from one of the greatest music producers of all time, Pharrell Williams. The album deals with themes of spirituality and femininity, and even without being able to understand the lyrics, the themes and meaning behind the lyrics are still clear as can be due to the emotion in ROSALÍA's vocals.
This album caught me totally by surprise. It actually took me a solid month or so after hearing all about LUX before I finally bit the bullet and listened, and when I finally did, I couldn't believe how impressed I was. ROSALÍA had the whole internet buzzing all about her newest album for damn good reason, and she deserves every last bit of praise she's gotten for it.
9 The Clearing by Wolf Alice
I was not particularly a fan of Wolf Alice before this year. My dad, however, has been a pretty big fan for some time now, and when he's driving, which he typically is when he's in the car, he controls the music. The two of us took a road trip in September, and he put on The Clearing just a few hours into day one of the drive. I decided I would make it the new album of the day on that day, and so I gave it an honest shot with fresh ears.
The Clearing absolutely blew me away, shocked me in every conceivable fashion, and totally converted me into a Wolf Alice fan. The uptempo tracks are catchy pop hits, the downtempo tracks are solemnly beautiful, and all 11 of them are pleasing to the ear. I think I proceeded to listen to this album upwards of five or six times in the week after we got home from the road trip.
Ellie Roswell showed out hard on this album. Her vocals in their whole glorious range are a force to be reckoned with on all 11 tracks, and each instrumentalist enjoys some truly phenomenal spotlights on nearly every song, including a number of collaborators. It's hard to pick out a highlight, or even three highlights, from this album; every song could be worthy of being a single. I honestly think this album's lack of a Grammy nomination could be the single biggest snub from the Recording Academy this year.
8 Essex Honey by Blood Orange
Essex Honey may very well be Blood Orange's greatest album to date. Devonté Hynes has been releasing music under the stage name Blood Orange since 2011, but Essex Honey took his artistry to a whole new level. This was his first album in six years, and his first after signing with his new record label, RCA Records. The album deals with grief after the loss of his mother in 2023, and a somber nostalgia for his childhood growing up in Essex.
The album kicks off with a chilling minor-keyed track in "Look At You," and takes off on a lo-fi trip inside Hynes' mind from there. The album boasts an impressive list of collaborators, including Caroline Polachek, Daniel Caesar, Lorde, and Paul Westerberg of the Replacements, bringing together a range of sound that encompasses years and years of musical influence.
Not a moment passes throughout all 14 tracks that the incredibly fraught emotion can't be felt in one's bones when listening to Essex Honey. There's a solemn and grief-stricken feeling that is present throughout the entire album, heightened sporadically in moments like a classical string solo on "The Field," for example—it is abundantly clear that Hynes laid his soul bare with this album.
7 It's a Beautiful Place by Water From Your Eyes
Composed of vocalist Rachel Brown and guitarist Nate Amos, Water From Your Eyes is growing at an exponential rate after the release of their seventh album It's A Beautiful Place. While it's far from their first studio album, it's only their second after signing with Matador Records, the label currently responsible for Queens of the Stone Age, Snail Mail, and music legend David Byrne.
It's A Beautiful Place is easily one of the more unconventional releases from such a big label this year, but it's the chaos and the way that Amos and Brown are able to disorient the listener that gives the album its charm. Of the album's ten tracks, really only six of them are actual, conventional songs, whereas the rest are simply experimental interludes that serve to make the listener feel a whole slew of emotions, discomfort chief amongst them.
Brown's spoken word vocals on tracks like "Life Signs" rival those of indie rock juggernauts Wet Leg, and Amos' distorted guitar riffs on tracks like "Born 2" complement them perfectly. The songs are at once catchy and discomfiting, memorable in sparing moments, and rarely are they the kind of catchy that results in earworms. It's A Beautiful Place is no doubt Water For Your Eyes' breakout album, and it absolutely earned them a spot on any and all reputable year-end lists.
6 Open Wide by Inhaler
Inhaler most definitely took a step forward this year with their third album Open Wide. Elijah Hewson has no shortage of inspiration and guidance for fronting a rock band as the son of Bono, one of the most legendary frontmen of all time, and he and his fellow bandmates began making a name for themselves outside U2's shadow from the moment they released their debut, It Won't Always Be Like This, in 2021.
Unlike his father's band, Inhaler never suffered from the sophomore slump, and their second album, Cuts & Bruises, was just as phenomenal as their first. They released Open Wide in February, continuing with the trend of personal growth as musicians and as people; Hewson hadn't yet turned 26 at the time the album was released, and he had already achieved a musical maturity that many vocalists take decades trying to perfect.
The singles from Open Wide are definitely among the album's highlights, "Your House" being the best of the bunch. Much of the album's production is heavily pop-influenced, but it is far from lacking in personality. The tracks are catchy but unique, clearly able to fit in on the radio, but playing just as wonderfully on a record player in a rebellious teen's room with the windows open on a spring afternoon. Open Wide is the kind of album that reminds so many of us of our teenage years, discovering rock music for the first time, regardless of the decade in which those years may have occurred.
5 Pogo Rodeo by The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
This album hit me like a ton of bricks. There's really no other way to say it; the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are among the greatest bands around today. They released two full-length albums this year, the latter of which, Pogo Rodeo, just about smacked me in the face when I heard it for the first time. It opens with "Salsa Verde," which is a solid contender for the number one rock song of the year, and features an iconic cover verse of the Beatles' "Come Together" right in the middle of the song.
You'd think that the album's greatest track coming at the very beginning might not exactly be a good thing, but this album never once dips in quality. "Salsa Verde" isn't the album's peak, because the entire record is the peak. "Born In the A.D's" goes just as hard, with face-melting guitar riffs and heart-thumping drum beats that roll over into "Manny's Ready to Roll," then "The Real Contra Band," and so on and so on.
There's something to be said for songs like these, that sound as modern as anything released this year, but sound just as incredible when performed live. Sure, the studio recordings are enhanced by mixing and production, but seeing the band perform these songs live feels like just as enhanced an experience. Their music could exist in the 1980s just as easily as it does today—they don't rely on today's technology to sound as great as they do, it comes entirely from internal talent and sheer passion for the music.
4 Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You by Ethel Cain
After Ethel Cain released the deeply experimental Perverts in January, many fans, myself included, found themselves a bit skeptical. Her 2022 release, Preacher's Daughter, is still a very strong contender for album of the decade, and Perverts was about as stark a contrast from her previous album as one could really imagine. I knew Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You was on the horizon for later in the year, and I still held out hope for one of my favorite artists, but I'd be lying if I said Perverts didn't leave me just a bit worried.
Cain performed "Dust Bowl" almost a full year before it was officially released on the album at All Things Go in New York City, and that set was actually my first introduction to her music. I became obsessed. There simply wasn't a single artist making the kind of gothic, ethereal music that she was making in the 2020s. "Dust Bowl" was an eerily hypnotic song that stuck in my brain and that I found myself subconsciously longing for the entire year following that performance.
When Willoughby Tucker was released this summer, and I finally heard "Dust Bowl" again in the company of nine other similarly eerie and gorgeous compositions, including a couple pop-influenced tracks to appeal to the masses, I felt like I was being reunited with a piece of myself. This album could not possibly be a more perfect follow-up to Preacher's Daughter, and on the off chance she's reading this, I'd like to issue Ethel Cain a formal apology for ever doubting you.
3 The Scholars by Car Seat Headrest
In 2022, Car Seat Headrest's frontman, Will Toledo, caught a bad case of COVID that resulted in some long-term complications and caused them to cancel the remainder of the tour they were on at the time. They were able to release a live album from that tour, which aided in keeping current fans satisfied, and continuing to grow their number of new fans, but the last full album's worth of new music was released in 2020. Personally, worryingly, I was starting to wonder if that was it.
This past May, the band released The Scholars, and upon hearing the opening track for the first time, I was honestly a little glad they made us wait. After all, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait, and this album is a hell of a good thing if I've ever heard one. The storytelling is near perfect, yet it doesn't totally reveal itself upon first listen; this is the kind of album you have to listen to multiple times before you really start to get it.
Beyond the conceptual story behind the lyrics, The Scholars is a sonic masterpiece. It features nearly every instrument you could imagine—clarinet, trumpet, piano, guitar, drums, bass, accordion, French horn, the list goes on. Toledo's deep vocals remain the primary driver, and they're as hypnotic as can be, especially when accompanied by the vocal harmonies of his bandmates. This is a rock album straight out of the '90s, and I, for one, adored every single second of it.
2 Woody At Home – Vol 1+2 by Woody Guthrie
Until his estate released this album, I don't think I could have rightfully called myself a Woody Guthrie fan. Woody At Home – Vol 1+2 has converted me so completely. The sheer fact that a Woody Guthrie album would be in consideration for the greatest album released in 2025, nearly 60 years after his death, is mind-blowing in and of itself, but listening to the folk legend's unexpected posthumous double album is truly a hell of an experience.
The album consists of 22 tracks' worth of tapes that Guthrie recorded from his apartment in Coney Island before he got sick between 1951 and 1952, and though the quality has definitely been enhanced to suit a 21st century audience, the music has a quality and aesthetic that just oozes cozy 1950s living room acoustics.
This album in its entirety is a staunch reminder of why Guthrie is still regarded as one of the greatest folk voices of all time, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it includes the first and only public recording of him singing "Deportee." The song has been widely covered by any number of folk artists, including Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, and his own son, Arlo Guthrie, but a recording of Woody himself singing the song had never been released until this summer. All in all, this album was such a gift to music lovers everywhere, and it deserves to be at the top of any and all Album of the Year lists for 2025.
1 Getting Killed by Geese
2025 was the year of Geese. After years of playing live shows that grew steadily in size over the years, dating back to their teenage years, Geese finally broke out and made it huge with their fourth studio album, Getting Killed, which led to a handful of outlets dubbing them Gen-Z's first rock band (a label I personally detest, but I won't fight it too hard because even if they're not the first, they are certainly among the very best).
Lead vocalist Cameron Winter released his debut solo album at the end of 2024, and generated quite a bit of buzz that no doubt ultimately led to the buzz and acclaim of Getting Killed. I first encountered Geese when they opened for psychedelic Australian rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard in the summer of 2024, and I enjoyed their set enough to check out their 2023 album, 3D Country, but I didn't really fall in love with that album the way I thought I might. When they released Getting Killed, I was eager to give them another shot, and I could not be happier that I did.
Getting Killed is mature, timely, and is bursting with personality on all fronts. The album kicks off with "Trinidad," easily one of the album's biggest highlights, in a way that shows they mean business. Other highlights include "Cobra," "Half Real," and "Taxes," but this really is a no-skip album if I've ever seen one. For a group of early-20-somethings, this album is a clear sign of greatness, and if it is any indication of what is to come, well, consider me a Geese superfan.
