This was a big Life Events year, but that didn’t have much of an impact on my music listening. Being in Texas for four years likely shaped my preferences a little bit (give me alllll of the woman-fronted indie alt country you can dig up) but I haven’t been back in the Bay long enough to see a pendulum swing back toward (checks notes) E-40?

My pre-2025 albums that should’ve made their respective lists: Geese’s 3D Country (2023) and Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal (2024) (which, to be fair, I could’ve slotted on this year’s list given its December 2024 release, but look, it’s hard enough to whittle things down to ten albums so I’m going to give myself this pass). You may be sensing a theme.

Oh, and Carole King’s Tapestry, but I wasn’t making lists yet (or alive) in 1971. So it goes.

My first two runners-up for 2025 are hardcore/pop-punk/whatever-you-want-to-label-them albums: NEVER ENOUGH by Turnstile and Who Will Look After The Dogs? by PUP. Both are fun hangs, and I suspect either or both may have ascended to the top ten if I had gotten myself to one of their shows (i.e., to one of their mosh pits) this year.

I don’t want to dwell on disappointments, but I have to agree with Stephen Hyden’s take that there were a lot of middle-of-the-road “legacy act” albums this year. HAIM, Lucy Dacus, Big Thief, Lorde, Japanese Breakfast… I looked forward to each of these releases hoping to uncover a new obsession, but instead found myself reaching for their older material. I haven’t lost faith in these artists or anything so cynical as that, but it was as good reminder that I could afford to explore: five of my top ten are artists that haven’t appeared in my top tens before. (Yes I’m counting Clipse, and yes, I know that’s ridiculous.)

Swiftie update: bleh. I’m not sure this version of Taylor has anything left for me. That’s fine; I haven’t yet grown tired of her miraculous pre-2024 catalog.

And one more thing before moving on to the list proper. What’s up with Dijon’s Baby? I saw Dijon open for Bon Iver in 2023 and was intrigued by his energy and stage presence. Justin Vernon is obsessed with and inspired by him. Pitchfork has anointed him their artist of the year, a distinction that they seem to have invented this year solely to inform the internet how hip they still are. But every time I listen to the album, I’m left a little empty. I appreciate it at the micro level. The production hits. The vibes, too. It should be my new Blonde, right? But the songs just aren’t there for me. I find myself tuning it out, like some kind of indie RnB muzak. I don’t know. I’ll revisit it periodically. Perhaps my moment of inspiration will come.

10. Indigo De Souza – Precipice

Precipice doesn’t really do anything that Any Shape You Take or All This Will End didn’t do, and maybe I should dock it for that, but I found myself listening to this album over and over again.

9. Jay Som – Belong

Jay Som is back! I don’t know if it was intentional, but this album plays like if my favorite songs from 2005 were reimagined as written by the kind of artist I want to spend my time in 2025 listening to. Seriously, am I the only one sensing a The Ataris influence?

8. Wednesday – Bleeds

I tried to get into Wednesday a couple years ago with Rat Saw God but it didn’t click for me. Bleeds did, though, from the jump: the opening scream of “Reality TV Argument Bleeds,” which sets the tone of, yeah you might get something nice like “Elderberry Wine” and some of the best lyrics you’ll hear all year, but ultimately we’re here to shred.

7. Tyler, the Creator – DON’T TAP THE GLASS

I don’t care if Tyler brushes this off as a chill / fun album. There aren’t many artists that could put out something this high quality a year after Chromakopia.

6. Bartees Strange – Horror

Bartees continues to blend a diverse set of influence that happen to be influences that I am extremely into. I don’t know if this fits the “more cohesive Bartees” that I hoped for a couple years ago when Farm to Table came out, but I think this is what Bartees is. The musical diversity is the point.

5. Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out

Ding ding ding. We have a winner! A non-Tyler rap album in my top ten, for the first time since 2019. I don’t think this is “the world is healing” moment so much as it is that Pusha and Malice are so practiced at what they do. It is precise, up there with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, IGOR, and blonde, doing exactly what it is setting out to do. I’m not saying I like this album as much as those, but it starts off with the only rap song that has ever made me cry and somehow transitions seamlessly into the unrivaled coke rap that you’d expect.

I feel silly explaining why I like a particular rap or hip-hop album given how little I listen to the genres these days. I only listened to this because it’s the Clipse and the album was getting rave reviews. But I’ll stand by everything that I wrote in the above paragraph.

4. Rosalía – LUX

My now-warm reception to LUX is what happens when I push through my initial indifference. I had to. I mean, the Dissect podcast had to drop an emergency episode to convince its listeners that yes, yes, this album was a work of genius, please go listen to it.

I don’t obsess over lyrics and their deeper meaning, but I do find myself a bit at sea with non-English lyrics. I suspect some part of Rosalía knew that an album sung in fourteen languages was going to be a hard sell, so she made sure that the music itself was undeniable.

So: I don’t know what anything means (beyond the opening weekend cliff notes from the Dissect episode) but even in the “worst case,” just taking her voice as an instrument, this is obviously one of the best albums of the year. I’ll report back once I’ve learned Spanish, Arabic, Catalan, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Portuguese, Sicilian, and Ukrainian.

3. Bon Iver – sABLE, fABLE

Ugh, men will tell you they don’t obsess over lyrics and then make their top three albums of the year three whose lyrics shape the whole experience.

I already sung the SABLE EP’s praises on last year’s list (number 4!), hoping and assuming a follow-up album was on its way. I didn’t expect it to be a direct follow-up, i.e., part of the same album. The release strategy worked well here: Bon Iver dropped an extremely Bon Iver EP, let it sink in for a little while, and then repurposed it as a literal transition into a new kind of Bon Iver music, taking a few steps back from nostalgia and loss and a shuffling toward hope and fulfillment. I suspect making the Sad Stuff was weighing on Justin, and if this is the way for him to find inspiration and continue to release classic record after classic record, well, it sounds pretty magnificent to me.

no, we don’t need no window curtains / and we can let the light come in / and we can shed your earthly burdens / of this I am certain of / you was made for me

2. jasmine.4.t – You Are The Morning

We strolled into the Lucy Dacus show halfway through the first opener, jasmine.4.t. We had listened to the album once in preparation, but I was in no way prepared for the power of standing in the third or fourth GA row and hearing the rawness of “Elephant” and “Woman” live and stripped down. We were bathed in empathy. It may sounds corny or trite, but that’s gotta be one of the best outcomes of live music, if not music as a whole. I looked around at the mostly-younger-than-me-and-queer audience that Lucy Dacus attracts and I couldn’t help but feel like jasmine.4.t was exactly what we all needed in that moment, especially in Texas.

After the show I wasn’t sure if listening to the album would hold up against what I felt that night. But, it delivered. I still feel a version of that empathy bath each time I listen. It helps that it was co-produced by the boygenii. It’s still pretty stripped down, which I think is fitting for the first album of someone who is hoping to wreck you as thoroughly as her. It’s just like… a really well-produced stripped down.

1. Geese – Getting Killed

Every year there are some albums on my list that give me a lot of hope for the Future Of Music. And every year there are some incredible albums that I can’t stop listening to. But they haven’t tended to be the same album.

For my list-toppers, I have sometimes favored albums closer to some simplistic definition of perfection: albums that are keen to tell you how meticulously they’ve been crafted, where every listen is a musical treasure hunt. Getting Killed is not that album. The album tracks themselves don’t even feel like the definitive version of each song (see the From The Basement set for an crystal clear refutation of that notion), but more like a gateway into their own messy world. The best versions of these songs don’t even exist yet. The best versions of these songs might never exist.

What is Cam even talking about? What is going on? Why am I hanging onto the thinnest, tightest thread, exhaling only after “Long Island City Here I Come” comes crashing to a close? Is this what they wanted?

The kids are all right.

This new Geese album is inspired. I don’t know, sometimes it’s that simple, right?

“Long Island City Here I Come” - Geese

Not that my faith in music videos was wavering, but this would’ve restored it if it was.

I got algorithmed into Mice Parade sometime last year. Would’ve been nice to have them for the entire time they’ve existed (estd. 1999!), but I’ll take it.

“Do Your Eyes See Sparks” - Mice Parade

I love the songwriting on the lead single from PUP’s new record. It’s a very simple concept for a song (I’m newly alone, woe is me, I’ll never recover), but the complexities in the rhythms and phrasing suggest something with a little more mystery behind it.

I can’t stop thinking about:

1. The change in vibe from “collapsed on the living room floor” to “collapsed on the floor” mid-chorus
2. The double subversion of expectations, “when one door closes…” you’re expecting “a window opens” or something like that, but no, first: “it might never open,” (ok, that’s a very different grammatical expectation), and second: “there might be no other doors,” (there is truly no hope here, cliches be damned).

Am I overanalyzing a fun pop punk song? Probably!

(More details on the songwriting process from the Stefan himself.)

“Hallways” - PUP

Radiohead could probably make several dozen “Hail to the Thief” live albums that would all be phenomenal. I don’t know how they go about picking specific recordings. Regardless, there’s such an overwhelming urgency in these recordings… I wonder if I’m going to listen to the studio album anymore.

“There, There (Live)” - Radiohead

Of course I reblogged NPR music in 2011 when this James Blake and Bon Iver collab dropped (a 2011 sentence if I’ve ever heard one). It’s been a treat for 14 years, and with hindsight there’s a crystal clear through line from this to 22, a million five years later.

And while we’re hanging out back here in 2011, fitting as this was released a few weeks after I moved to Berkeley the first time, let’s appreciate Wikipedia’s “Bon Iver singles chronology,” where Fall Creek Boys Choir sits right between Monster and Holocene. Pretty good.

“Fall Creek Boys Choir” - James Blake and Bon Iver

Moved back to California, so naturally listening to midwest emo (shrug). Here’s an absolute jam that closes out the deluxe edition of American Football’s ST deluxe edition. slow exhale

“The 7’s [Live at the Blind Pig, Champaign, IL, 1997]” - American Football

In 2019 when I saw a Lucy/Phoebe/Julien/boygenius show, I wasn’t familiar with Lucy’s solo material but I was blown away by her set and knew I’d be a lifelong fan.

On Saturday, I went to a Lucy show, and the first opener jasmine.4.t left me feeling the same kind of way.

Circles, circles.

“Elephant” - jasmine.4.t

Woke up today to the delightful surprise of a new Japanese Breakfast album (not that it was a secret, just that I wasn’t paying attention). Semi-related PSA: read Crying at H-Mart.

“Honey Water” - Japanese Breakfast

I’m going to have to try really hard not to pre-dub SABLE, fABLE my AOTY before it even comes out.

“If Only I Could Wait” - Bon Iver feat. Danielle Haim

How do I feel about the new Bartees album? Well, on my fourth (!) listen in the first 24 hours, every time a new song comes on, I think no, that’s the one I should post on my blog. So… … … yeah, pretty good, I’d say!

Given that my first introduction to Bartees was via his The National covers EP, it’s really cool how distinct a vibe and sound he has in my indie rock collection now.

“Wants Needs” - Bartees Strange

Bon Iver x John Wilson, the collab we all needed.

“Everything Is Peaceful Love” - Bon Iver

A PUP kind of day.

“DVP” - Pup

Fear not, Internet. I was released from the admittedly delightful clutches of Swiftomania by none other than… her releasing a new album that I was very not into.

So, yes, it was a “normal music year,” rather than one where I was caught up in an obsession. I’m not sure which I prefer. The latter certainly makes it easier to decide what to listen to at any given moment. I do wish that I loved The Tortured Poets Department, or even merely liked it.

Last year’s list is still looking pretty solid. I might be getting better at deciding what I actually like versus what I performatively like for list-making purposes.

There was only one pre-2024 album that should’ve made my list: Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” May her unbelievable music festival crowds endure!

Runners up:

• Kendrick Lamar - “GNX” (it’s a fun listen, but I’m having a hard time getting into rap these days)
• Jamie xx - “In Waves” (I’ll delight in having this in my music collection for years to come, but it doesn’t hit the highs of “In Colour” or his earlier singles)
• Nilufer Yanya - “My Method Actor” (an excellent album; there are only 10 spots to fill)

And, the list:

10. Beyonce – Cowboy Carter

Dropping “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold Em” at the same time was one of the most “I AM BEYONCE, WHO ARE YOU?” statements of her career, and was probably sufficient to grab a spot on my list (see #4, my standards for duration are at rock bottom). The whole album being a lot of fun didn’t hurt.

9. The War On Drugs – Live Drugs Again

Stephen Hyden’s book on Pearl Jam got me excited about bootlegs and live albums. The problem is that, despite a bunch of book-adjacent listening, I just don’t like Pearl Jam all that much. Lucky for me, The War On Drugs released another live album this year. I’m pretty sure I prefer it to their studio albums now; the liveness add the pinch of salt that some of these songs need to be truly exceptional.

8. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood

I am here for as many albums in the Katie Crutchfield Americana saga as she wants to provide (more Plains, too!). “Right Back to It” is a perfect song.

7. Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk

6. Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee

I’m lumping these two albums together not because they’re sonically related but because they both feel thesis statements about “The Future Of Indie Rock” that I’ll be looking back on in years to come. “Imaginal Disk” is pushing out into the distance where it meets “Diamond Jubilee” which is music stuck on the event horizon of a black hole. What am I even talking about?

5. Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia

I don’t need to talk about how Tyler is the only rapper that I still feel drawn to; I’ve done that to death. I would not have pegged him as being one of my most personally inspirational musicians when I first saw the Yonkers video in 2011, but I love how deep he gets in his craft and that he’s not afraid to share that with us.

4. Bon Iver – SABLE

It’s only twelve minutes, but it’s the most cathartic twelve minutes of the year. Here’s hoping this is some sign that a new record (and tour) is coming soon.

3. Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

If I’m being honest with myself, any new Vampire Weekend would make this list. I am a fanboy. But I’m not fanboy just because of nostalgia or the earworms or the VW-ese affectations that litter their tracks, I’m also a fanboy because of how seriously they seem to take each new album. Ezra has talked about not wanting to make albums too quickly because he wants each of them to feel significant; he doesn’t want to rush out new ideas. OGWAU is the biggest sonic shift yet in Vampire Weekend’s discography, but it fits in so well. I used to want them to release albums more often, but I’m happy with the twice-per-decade (or whatever) pace if it means that (1) the quality is this good, and (2) the band can live life and figure out what album needs to be made in the first place.

(And, side note, the band taking requests and covering random songs during their encores is also one of the most surprisingly fun concert-going experiences I had this year.)

2. Charli XCX – brat

The first time I listened to brat I was deeply into it, but I didn’t think that it was going to be a mega-smash. It felt like a logical succession of what Charli and the other hyperpopstars have been doing for a decade, but those albums weren’t mega-smashes. Charli and A. G. Cook’s production does the heavy lifting here and makes this an overwhelming-in-a-good-way initial listen, sorta like a hyperpop Yeezus. But even setting the production aside, there are some unforgettable lyrics and hooks here (“Everything Is Romantic” being my favorite example; there aren’t many lyrics, but those that are here are doing so much to evoke time, place, and feeling).

I’m glad I was wrong about the mega-smash-ness, because the world needed a brat summer. It reminds me of Pokemon Go summer in 2016 right before… you know.

1. Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future

What percentage of my top albums of the year are also the most transportive? After all these years of putting together these lists, I guess that’s what I’ve learned. A lyric, melody, or rhythm might pass, but a feeling never fades.

Ranking things might be fundamentally antithetical to Art, but I keep doing this because I tell myself that this is for me, not for the world. Being able to look back years from now and pinpoint the thirty to sixty minutes I found most affecting in a given year is form of self-documentation that I’m otherwise lacking. I don’t have an active social media presence and I don’t keep a journal. This is it.

So, on that note: Bright Future wrecked me like none other this year. Adrianne Lenker continues to stupefy me with her songwriting.