THE ULTIMATE GRAMMY PREVIEW: THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2025
Every year, I put out my best of the year list right before the Grammys hand out their awards, including Album of the Year. Why? It gives me an extra few weeks to listen to music, gather my thoughts...and catch up on the albums I missed on other people's lists that all came out by December 31. Sneaky! (This year the Grammys and I agreed that Bad Bunny released the best album of 2025. The last time that happened was more than 20 years ago, with Norah Jones and Come Away With Me.)
I check out the British mags, read U.S. reviews and keep an eye on the charts. But I also rely on the marvelous music blog, Burning Wood, where my friend Sal offers up a wide-ranging, entertaining take on classic music, new releases, songs and albums of the day, deep dives on artists he loves and every once in a while an excerpt from a terrific musical memoir he's penning about growing up in NYC. He's even polite about my sometimes quixotic taste. Check it out!
Hopefully, you'll scan this list, read about an act, become intrigued and give them a listen. If you discover some new music you love, my work here is done! And let me know what albums I should have included but didn't. My Best of the Year lists aren't written in stone. I'll remove albums that fall out of favor and–more often–add in an album that grows on me or escaped my notice.
If you want to know more, here's more:
Michael Giltz Personal Website
Michael Giltz on Substack
The Best Albums of the Year–1924 to the Present!
(My favorite album from each year for the past century (!), followed by my lists of the best albums from each and every year.)
My Music Library From A-Z, including Christmas Music, Soundtracks, Cast Albums and Compilations!
(Album reviews arranged by artist, from ABBA to ZZ Top)
Below, I list all my favorite albums and then offer a breakdown of what I found special about each one. Give 'em a spin! The best albums of 2025 are....
THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2025
BAD BUNNY/CONEJO MALO–Debí Tirar Más Fotos
IRMA THOMAS & GALACTIC–Audience With The Queen
GEESE–Getting Killed
BRIAN ENO & BEATIE WOLFE–Lateral
WET LEG–Moisturizer
BLOOD ORANGE–Essex Honey
THE HIVES–The Hives Forever Forever The Hives
LUCY DACUS–Forever Is A Feeling
ESLABAN ARMADO–Vibras de Noche II
BOZ SCAGGS–Detour
OLIVIA DEAN–The Art of Loving
PAUL KELLY– Seventy
FUERZA REGIDA–111xpantia
RHIANNON GIDDENS & JUSTIN ROBINSON–What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow
BUDDY GUY–Ain't Done With The Blues
VARIOUS ARTISTS–Sinners Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
BRIAN D'ADDARIO -- Till The Morning
RON D'ADDARIO/THE LEMON TWIGS–Written by
MARIA MULDAUR–One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey
NEIL YOUNG – Coastal
NINE INCH NAILS–Tron: Ares Original Soundtrack
JONNY GREENWOOD–One Battle After Another
CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT–Oh Snap
GYASI–Here Comes The Good Part
YOUNG GUN SILVER FOX– Pleasure
LADY GAGA–Mayhem
ICECREAM HANDS–Giant Fox Pineapple Tree
THE ELBOW PATCHES–Achingly Familiar
RUMER–In Session
JOHN C. REILLY & MR. ROMANTIC–What's Not To Love?
REISSUE: NEIL YOUNG–Oceanside, Countryside (1978/2025)
BOXED SET: THE BEATLES–Anthology 4
BOXED SET: NICK DRAKE–The Making Of Five Leaves Left
THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2025: The Liner Notes
BAD BUNNY/CONEJO MALO–Debí Tirar Más Fotos
Chinese astrology says 2025 was the year of the snake. But we know it was really the Year of the Bunny. I've had Bad Bunny albums on my "best of" lists for a while. But I never quite felt any of them was the absolute best of the year. Like many sprawling albums in the streaming era, they felt a little...baggy. Not here. Debí Tirar Más Fotos (trans: I Should Have Taken More Photos) is cohesive, purposeful and exciting. Mr. Bunny is paying tribute to the music of his youth, music your grandparents might listen to, such as salsa and bomba and other genres I've probably heard but am ignorant about. And it all comes into focus right on the first track. "Nuevayol" starts with a classic track by the great salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. That song is "Un Verano en Nueva York" and it sounds good, clear and distinct if maybe a little far away. Then suddenly the sound bursts into widescreen (like The Wizard of Oz going from black and white to color) and the music is bursting out of your speaks and dissolves right into "Nuevayol" (Puerto Rican slang for New York City) and Bad Bunny getting right into it, name checking musical greats like Willie Colón and examining the clash between tradition and modernity, self identity, ethnic pride and more. The song introduces a classic reggaeton beat and we're off. Bunny doesn't just echo some classic musical styles, he delivers them straight up, incorporates them into his musical mix and generally celebrates the past while making it feel very present indeed. The album never lags and though it's just as long as his other great recent albums, Debí Tirar Más Fotos this one feels like he poured everything he could into it.
NOTE: And if you want to listen to some of his influences, check out El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico's ¡Aqui No Se Siente Nadie! and Willie Colón's Asalto Navideño (w Hector Lavoe) or Siembra (w Rubén Blades).
IRMA THOMAS & GALACTIC–Audience With The Queen
Irma Thomas is a living legend, the embodiment of New Orleans as much as anyone else. She's not called "the Soul Queen of New Orleans" for nothing. And don't call this a comeback: she's always sounded great and produced terrific albums in recent years. So Audience With The Queen is simply peak Irma Thomas, here paired with New Orleans funk band Galactic. They do right by Thomas, offering up eight soulful originals that nod briefly to her age (she sings that she was drinking champagne back when we were in diapers; true!) but in general just get down to business. It kicks off with Nancy Wilson's signature song "How Glad I Am" and never lets up. If this is your first Irma Thomas album, you're in luck. She has a tremendous catalog of great albums, ranging from 1966's Take A Look (recorded when I was just in diapers) to 2006's After The Rain.
GEESE–Getting Killed
It took headphones for me to really get into Geese, the most hyped rock band of the year, by a mile. "They're so cool!" can be very annoying of course. But all that matters is the music. And a first listen is encouraging. The opening track "Trinidad" threw me for a bit of a loop, since it's more abrasive than the rest. And it's funny, which I appreciate...and yet worried it might pale on repeat listens. (I had the same fear about Courtney Barnett and was equally wrong about her.) Then I listened to it on headphones. The quirky instrumentation, the bizarre song structures, the "bang on anything and see what sound it makes" percussion and lead singer Cameron Winter's Tom Waits-like ability to sing in character all came alive for me. (Winter's not as gravelly and raspy as Waits...yet. Just a vocal chameleon.) Plus, any album that shouts out Long Island City gets bonus points. From wary to admirer to fan, all thanks to headphones. Sometimes it's where and how you listen music that can make it click.
BRIAN ENO & BEATIE WOLFE–Lateral
Brian Eno is one of the key figures in all of popular music. Few can rival his importance. He's a producer (the best work by Talking Heads, David Bowie, U2 et al). He's a technical and creative innovator. He's credited with essentially creating–and certainly naming–the ambient genre. He's also a multi-media artist, digital pioneer and so on. If I could afford them, I'd buy his flashcards to prompt creativity when an artist hits a mental block and pen my masterpiece. (I haven't hit a mental block; I haven't even begun my masterpiece. But I'm sure the flashcards would make it happen. Film rights available.) Really, I am crazy about Eno, which means I'm also hesitant to go nuts for his every release. I know my biases and he is definitely one of them. As he has throughout his career, Eno is enjoying his collaborations lately, including terrific stuff w Bloom, Fred Again and not one, not two, but three albums with Beatie Wolfe. All three have some good stuff, but Lateral is the keeper. It's an ambient album, which as Eno neatly defines it is music you can put on and it works effectively in the background. Or you can lean in, pay attention and find it equally rewarding that way as well. Longtime fans shouldn't hesitate. Newcomers can get a taste here and then dive right into, oh, Here Come The Warm Jets, Another Green World, Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Wrong Way Up (with John Cale of Velvet Underground), Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (with David Byrne) and on. You need some Brian Eno in your life.
WET LEG–Moisturizer
They rival Geese for wildly hyped rock band. And just like Geese, they wholly deserve it. Less bizarre than Geese's Getting Killed, this is balls-out rock n roll from start to finish. Just put it on and start nodding your head.
BLOOD ORANGE–Essex Honey
I'm sure in the British press, the artist Blood Orange is wildly hyped. But I came by him honestly–no hype in sight–and was immediately wowed. I think I played it because the title Essex Honey sounded like a play on Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey and I dug that. They're not alike musically but the comparison is apt. This has a melancholic air, which makes sense since I later learned Dev Hynes (the man behind Blood Orange) was dealing with grief. And then I find out how clueless I am. Dev Hynes as a producer and artist and songwriter has credits that are wildly impressive. Essex Honey includes contributions from the like of Ben Watt (Of Everything But The Girl, who keep doing rare performances in London I just miss, but that's another story) and Lorde and guys from The Replacements. He's a major talent and everyone knows it and I'm late to the game. So until I soak up all the music he's created under other names, I can't compare this to his body of work. But Essex Honey is soulful music with smarts, like Maxwell and D'angelo and the like, with a side of electronica. It's engaging, quietly compelling, autobiographical and quite fantastic. I may forgive myself for not seeing him in London when I had the chance at Alexander Palace last fall, but I doubt it. If you like the artists I name-checked here, give him a listen.
THE HIVES–The Hives Forever Forever The Hives
Has rock and roll made a comeback and nobody told me? I've seen some very interesting pieces on how rock bands have disappeared from the Billboard album charts and various, pretty convincing reasons why that might be. But screw the charts! Some of the best albums I've heard this year are flat-out, rock n roll: Geese, Wet Leg, Lucy Dacus of boygenius (she's next!) and Sweden's own The Hives. Dear god, they've been around for about 30 years! I thought the Rolling Stones were old bastards when they put out Steel Wheels in 1989 and they hadn't been around for 30 years yet. The Hives Forever Forever The Hives scratches the itch I get that Kaiser Chiefs and others satisfy. The title track is a great place to start. It's a propulsive, catchy as hell sing-along romp of a rock song made for arenas but works just great in a small club or when I'm driving in my car and belting along at the top of my voice. Irresistible.
LUCY DACUS–Forever Is A Feeling
As promised, another terrific rock album. This is by Lucy Dacus, who achieved a new level of success as part of the super supergroup boygenius. (No, I cannot say that three times fast.) I thought her solo album Home Video was one of the best of 2021. But I don't think she would mind my believing the well-deserved acclaim for boygenius gave her new confidence and swagger. Forever Is A Feeling rocks out, even though it doesn't always rock out. (Rock is an expansive term, you know. This ain't pop, that's for sure.) Knowing nothing of Dacus's personal life, I was kept delightedly off-kilter by the objects of affection here. Some songs seem to be straight, others bi, still others uncertain and even others all-embracing. Does it matter? Yes, since it's been about two minutes that we've had queer artists with this much visibility writing in such an open-hearted manner and embracing the complexity of life. Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde broke ground by being bad asses and I love them. They helped pave the way for Dacus, who is bad ass here by being vulnerable and confused and still being in charge.
ESLABAN ARMADO–Vibras de Noche II
I believe Mexicana™ is one of the most exciting genres around right now. And my foot in the door was Eslabon Armado, the California band which became the first Mexicana album to even reach Billboard's Top 10 on the album charts. And they did it by debuting at #9. That caught my eye, had me check them out and quickly fall hard for their engaging sound, not to mention the casual burr in lead singer Pedro Tovar's laid-back lead vocals. Vibras de Noche II is–as one would expect–a late night album, the sort you put on when the sun is falling and you don't turn any lights on so you can really experience dusk. Or it's late at night and a mellow vibe is exactly what's called for. Some of my favorite albums are late night albums, like Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours and the Blue Nile's A Walk Across The Rooftops and Nick Drake's Pink Moon. This is another worthy entry in that mood-setting company and as soon as I finish my beginner's Spanish lessons I'll tell you what they're singing about.
BOZ SCAGGS–Detour
Boz Scaggs is fondly remembered for his brief commercial peak in the 1970s when he delivered excellent albums like Silk Degrees and Down Two, Then Left. He's maintained a loyal if smaller fanbase ever since because Scaggs is a terrific songwriter and mines that soulful r&b pop vein a la Steely Dan and others that's proven a rich vein ever since. Oh and he's got an all-time great voice and knows how to use it. Scaggs reliably delivers literate, cooly emotional work, with detours into excellent blues and the like. And 25 years into his career, in 2003 to be precise, Scaggs said, "Oh, I'm a hell of a jazz singer too, by the way." His 2003 album But Beautiful and its 2008 followup Speak Low are master classes in singing the standards. Many pop singers tackle the standards during their career. Do a Christmas album? Check. Cover old rock songs? Check. Time for a standards album so I can make like Sinatra or Ella? Check. (Though what the hell is taking Sting so long to do one is beyond me.) Few do it as well as Scaggs who sings with marvelous restraint and subtlety. I'd compare his work to Linda Ronstadt, who was just becoming a great singer of standards when her arranger Nelson Riddle died and she hadn't the heart to continue. Ronstadt sang with an orchestra, which is its own challenge. Scaggs is working in a small group setting and Detour is damn near as good as his two earlier albums. Like Michael Bublé or the folks I mentioned? Well, pour a whiskey and get ready for standards, neat.
OLIVIA DEAN–The Art of Loving
Think of Corinne Bailey Rae or Sade or Adele. Not for any particular similarities in Olivia Dean's soulful pop. Just in the way that she arrives fully formed as an artist who knows exactly who she is and what she wants to do. Impressive.
PAUL KELLY– Seventy
I was way late to the Paul Kelly Appreciation Society. This Aussie institution delivers adult rock, including here an adorable ode to a new granddaughter he touchingly imagines he'll never see turn 21 years old. Let's hope Kelly's wrong. If you're a fan of John Prine and Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson and the like, this is for you.
FUERZA REGIDA–111xpantia
Like I said, Mexicana is one of the most creatively exciting genres of music right now. Fuerza Regida (trans: Governing Force) is right up there in terms of artistry. They pop into Eslabon Armado's Vibras de Noche II and here deliver their latest, which continues their innovative corridos tumbados style, which combines rap with norteños and the narcocorridos sub-sub-genre I try to avoid. And of course I looked all that up! I just know it rocks.Without getting into the ethics of narcocorridos, I don't expect artists I like to be great on politics and the like. (Heck, I hat tip Van Morrison below and he was a putz during the pandemic.) But it's great to know when an act has its heart in the right place. Fuerza Regida puts themselves on the line often: donating money to help make street vending legal in LA, renting out a hotel for victims of the wildfires, speaking out against ICE and so on. It's always cool when an act like Fuerza Regida or Springsteen make you feel even better about loving their art.
RHIANNON GIDDENS & JUSTIN ROBINSON–What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow
This is some old shit! And it was recorded in about as old a style as possible, like Alan Lomax style. She and fellow Carolina Chocolate Dropper Justin Robinson are seen on the cover, standing in the middle of a dirt road playing music, Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle. And damned if that isn't what they did. The album was recorded in North Carolina outside the homes of two of their mentors and–rather spookily–a former plantation. You can hear birds chirping along and according to the liner notes, two types of cicadas that hatched simultaneously. The eighteen tunes on offer are instrumentals and vocals, with Giddens and Robinson shaking the dust off the songs and letting you hear them literally the way they were heard way back when. It's a fusty conceit and at first I just admired it. But the songs are too enduring and these artists too good and the setting so unique/commonplace that it gained weight and impact as I listened and sang along. If you dug the legendary compilation Anthology of American Folk Music (which Bob Dylan studied obsessively), well...you probably own this already. If you are hearing for the first time and like the one, grab the other.
BUDDY GUY–Ain't Done With The Blues
VARIOUS ARTISTS–Sinners Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The movie Sinners is one of the most welcome hits of 2025, an original period horror film set in the Deep South in the 1930s. Twin brothers with an aura of violence about them return to their small town, determined to open a juke joint. The Klan, the law, even wary people of their own community aren't so sure about that. But it's the vampires that prove the real problem. (The Klan? They don't stand a chance.) The best part of the movie? The terrific music and a cameo by blues legend Buddy Guy, quite literally the last man standing for this type of electric blues from back in the day. Guy's new album I'm happy to say is one of his best in ages! Good timing? Yes, but not really. Guy's been around since the 1960s and he racked up deserved Grammys in the 1990s. But he had another great album in 2018 (The Blues Is Alive and Well) and 2010's masterpiece Living Proof. Simply put, Buddy Guy rarely lets you down. And the soundtrack shows the blues isn't going anywhere. Good stuff.
BRIAN D'ADDARIO -- Till The Morning
RON D'ADDARIO/THE LEMON TWIGS–Written by
Brian D'Addario is one of the two brothers at the helm of the excellent band The Lemon Twigs. Ron D'Addario is their dad. I was determined to enjoy the multi-artist tribute to Ron's songwriting and not enjoy Brian's solo album because WTF is he doing a solo album? I mean, I put it on hoping it would be rap music or acoustic folk or some other left-field genre. But Till The Morning sounds exactly like a Lemon Twigs album, give or take. And the band is poised for greatness. (Their most recent album A Dream Is All We Know is where to start.) So I was worried Brian was thinking he should go solo or the brothers were fighting or something and I was not happy. But Michael co-produced and sings on songs and co-wrote two of them and I guess it's a little different, a tad more acoustic than their usual Seventies vibe of Todd Rundgren meets the Beach Boys meets every other rock act you love from that era. And damnit, it's really good, with a stronger element of their Christian faith popping up here and there, a la the Avett Brothers. Just saw them in concert at the Bowery Ballroom and they rocked out even harder than I expected. (I certainly didn't expect so much gymnastics; Brian makes like Pete Townsend, jumping around when going to town on his electric guitar.) Oh and that tribute to their dad includes Sean Ono Lennon, Rundgren, Matt Jardine and of course the Twigs themselves. It's a good argument for nature and nurture, since they got good music genes and doubtless had vinyl on repeat in the D'Addario household.
MARIA MULDAUR–One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey
Remember the song "Midnight at the Oasis"? If you do, you're singing it right now. ("Midnight at the Oh-A-Sis!") If not, have a listen. It's pretty great and until this year I couldn't have told you the name of the artist of anything about her. Turns out Maria Muldaur is still enjoying a terrific if circuitous career as a singer and performer. She recorded with Jerry Garcia and Paul Butterfield and enjoyed the fluke success of a Top 10 hit. And ever since, Muldaur followed her muse, recorded original albums even better than her debut, dug deeper into the blues and folk and soul and jazz and did it all well. She even recorded a very good holiday album titled Christmas at the Oasis, which really should have doomed it to being a crappy cash in, but is well worth the time of Christmas music fans. Perhaps her best album of originals I've heard so far is Waitress in a Donut Shop from 1974, with Muldaur holding her own amidst contemporaries like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. And really, she can sing anything: pop, soul, blues, folk, jug band music, Americana, rock, you name it. Now she's celebrating the music of blues great Victoria Spivey, an artist very much in the spirit of Bessie Smith. That is, bawdy, funny, her own damn woman. Perhaps just like Muldaur. She doesn't want any one minute lovers because she's a one hour mama, as the title song makes clear. If the sound quality wasn't so terrific, you might easily imagine these were recorded in the 1930s instead of today. If you love blues singers such as Smith, this will be right up your alley. And then like me you'll get to dive into the weird and wonderful career of Maria Muldaur.
NEIL YOUNG – Coastal
WILLIE NELSON–Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle
COWBOY JUNKIES–More Acoustic Junk
VAN MORRISON–Remembering Now
Old favorites who deliver again. Really, I'm celebrating Neil Young here: he's got a crotchety, angry, beautiful, funny new album called Coastal and he put out a never-released 1977 album titled Oceanside/Countryside. Sure his voice is craggier, but you'd be hard-pressed otherwise to say which album came out today and which was recorded almost 50 years ago. They're both great and the man has stayed true to his hippie ethos, which is easy to mock but hard to argue with. It's pretty dumb not to protect and love the earth, isn't it? (That's celebrated in his in-concert fan favorite "Love Earth" which Young intro's by asking "What's your favorite planet?" The crowd immediately begins chanting the refrain "Love Earth!" while Young sings the verses. The new album ends with the briefest song, the less than one minute number "Don't Forget Love." Young sings that phrase a few times and then, hilariously, says "That's it! That's the whole song." Don't forget love. Good advice.
The new albums by Willie Nelson, Cowboy Junkies and Van Morrison are all solid offerings, not quite best of the year list material, but honorable mentions worth sharing since fans will enjoy them. Nelson is still rock solid, even if his voice quavers a bit–but then, he is 92 years old. His latest is a tribute to Merle Haggard, one of the all-time great songwriters. If nothing else, Nelson rehabilitates "Okie From Muskogee," which was always just a character song and not a mission statement for Haggard, for pete's sake. The Cowboy Junkies album is an odd duck, essentially a new ep paired with an older ep and turned into an album. Michael Timmins remains an insightful, subtle songwriter and sis Margo Timmins a captivating singer. Van Morrison's Remembering Now is thisclose to being on my best of the year list. The album could easily be edited down to a better work. But it wasn't. Still, "Haven't Lost My Sense of Wonder" is a gem and for an artist who seems to shovel out new albums whether they're any good or not, the overall quality is his best in ages.
NINE INCH NAILS–Tron: Ares Original Soundtrack
JONNY GREENWOOD–One Battle After Another
Two of the best film scores of the year from two of the best composers in recent years. For some reason, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross decided this score would be credited to Nine Inch Nails instead of them as a duo. I can't fathom any stylistic reason why they did this; a late stab at branding? In any case, the score is literally the only reason to see Tron: Ares, which for some reason I watched in 3-D. Happily, you don't have to watch the movie to hear the score, which is a fantastic, furious industrial work. The Tron films are bad, but they've inexplicably been the inspiration for three excellent scores. Wendy Carlos did the ground-breaking first one (now only available as an orchestral work when it was originally a synth affair), Daft Punk did the 2010 sequel justice with house music and now NiN. I mean, the movies are bad, but if it means another great score, bring on Tron 4.
I'll bet all you remember from the score for One Battle After Another is that driving piano. Maybe it was overused in the film, but Jonny Greenwood's score is eclectic and spare and plays more like avant-garde music than your typical soundtrack. It's probably even better as a 48 minute album than stretched out for the 162 minute film. Bracingly good.
CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT–Oh Snap
Cécile Mclorin Salvant is one of the great jazz singers of recent years. Her work is groundbreaking enough that the only comparisons I can make are to the likes of Cassandra Wilson and Abbey Lincoln. You can't go wrong with any of her bold albums of standards, though I'd send newcomers to Dreams and Daggers from 2017. After nonstop success, she recorded the 2023 album Mésuline entirely in French. And now Oh Snap is where she veers into pop territory, just to prove she can do anything. That would be the pop terrain of Kate Bush (who she's covered before) and Björk and the like. Salvant hasn't gone mainstream on us, thank goodness. (Though her cover of the Commodore's "Brick House" is great fun.) These are personal, genre-hopping songs she wrote for herself, mining her childhood in Miami, where apparently the radio was always on and music was in the air. "I Am A Volcano" she sings at the start and "A Frog Jumps In" at the end. So either you're in or you're out for her most idiosyncratic album yet. I'm still in, though I didn't warm up to this or Mésuline as quickly as her earlier work.
GYASI–Here Comes The Good Part
YOUNG GUN SILVER FOX– Pleasure
You want your stomping 70s glittery rock and roll fix? You want some T. Rex, some Thin Lizzy? Have no fear, mates. It's here waiting for you to press play. Basically, a kid from West Virginia saw David Bowie and heard glam rock and said, "By god, that's ME!" Damned it he wasn't right. Now when is rock radio going to join the party?
You want your Steely Dan fix? You want awesomely detailed production and wry lyrics and a world-weary vibe? You want to beat up anyone who calls it yacht rock? Have no fear, my friend/ Young Gun Silver Fox is here, wacky name and all, with its new album Pleasure. And pleasure is what it provides, sans the Fagen cynicism. Like John Mayer's Sob Rock (which revived the glossy '80s sound with affection), this gives that glossy 70s sound with love and respect and–crucially–strong songwriting.
LADY GAGA–Mayhem
Lady Gaga can sing. Lady Gaga has her heart in the right place. Lady Gaga is arty and works hard and makes good career choices. So I've taken no pleasure in not really digging her actual albums. Here, finally, this sort of stylistically career-spanning album gives me a little bit of everything and I get it. Mayhem? Cool.
ICECREAM HANDS–Giant Fox Pineapple Tree
THE ELBOW PATCHES–Achingly Familiar
Looking back, I think 2025 is the year rock n roll reasserted itself as the cool kid on the block. Right up there for me? Power pop, a sub genre of rock n roll which embraces hooks and stacked vocals and a seemingly cheerful surface (though pain and longing can be right under the surface). Icecream Hands brought it with the goofily titled Giant Fox Pineapple Tree, the latest from an Aussie band that's been delivering the power pop goods for many years. I just caught on with their comeback album No Weapon But Love and I've got a lot of catching up to do.
The Elbow Patches is the new endeavor by John Dunbar of the late, lamented The John Sally Ride. (R.I.P. bassist Sal Maida.) It's Dunbar's best since the last studio album from the band proper, 2021's Now Is Not A Great Time. Stacked vocals and melodic hooks? Yep. Amusing self-deprecation pushed to the point where, hey, maybe some therapy is called for? Yep. On the other hand, the talking cure might stymie the songwriting, so suffer away. Ten songs, well done, with the vocals recorded more winningly than before. A new mic? I could kvetch about the drumming, but that's just me. :) Power pop fans, dive in.
RUMER–In Session
Rumer is the awesomely talented British singer-songwriter, with a voice like Karen Carpenter (but more soulful) and originals Burt Bacharach would nod approvingly over. She's also a stunning interpreter of other songwriters, which is good since her own output is rather slow-going. She is one of my favorite acts to recommend. If you're looking for some mellow, deeply good music for adults, Rumer is waiting. Now if you've heard me rave about her before, you may already know Seasons of My Soul or Boys Don't Cry or any of her other excellent offerings. (The quality is solid throughout.) But if you're new to her, this live album serves as a greatest hits sort of introduction. It features the Redtenbacher Funkestra, but this is by no means some radical reimagining of her sound. It's got the laid back '70s sound one might call soft rock if it didn't dig so deep lyrically and emotionally.
JOHN C. REILLY & MR. ROMANTIC–What's Not To Love?
So actor John C. Reilly is not thought of as a singer. But he should be. The great producer Hal Wilner cast Reilly in two songs on an album of pirate music called Rogue's Gallery. He scored a triumph in the so-so film version of Chicago doing "Mister Cellophane." Reilly scored a Grammy nomination for the musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Jack White worked with him. The man has actorly chops! That is to say, he doesn't have a great voice as such, but he can act the hell out of a song.
So naturally Reilly decided he needed to do a stage show of love songs. And he would play Mr Romantic. And Mr. Romantic would come out of a box and sing and look for love and if he found it, why then Mr. Romantic wouldn't have to go back into the box. Makes sense to me. I think if I'd seen the stage show, it would be one of my favorite things of 2025. The album is also a delight, but I feel I'm missing something not getting to watch Reilly–I mean, Mr. Romantic–bare his soul for an audience. The songs are mostly standards by Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer and the like, with three songs by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan for good measure. Oh and the title track was co-written by Reilly with Randy Newman and the albums co-producer David Garza. Garza proves the perfect collaborator, with the arrangements sounding like they were teleported straight from 1933 or so. The more I play it, the more I like it. So this curveball of an album might just move up higher and higher on my list in years to come. If you're a fan of Tin Pan Alley or John C. Reilly or just a fool for love, this album is for you.
REISSUE: NEIL YOUNG–Oceanside, Countryside (1978/2025)
BOXED SET: THE BEATLES–Anthology 4
BOXED SET: NICK DRAKE–The Making Of Five Leaves Left
Three of the best reissues of 2025. As I mentioned above, Neil Young's Oceanside, Countryside was recorded in 1977 but never released. God knows why, but then this is the fourth album from that decade he's put out in recent years. Only an artist as prolific and restless as Young could leave so much terrific music in the vaults for so long.
Anthology 4 isn't a revelation like the earlier anthologies, which were filled with stuff new to folks like me who never got into bootlegs. But by god it's the Beatles and it's great.
Five Leaves Left is the classic debut album by Nick Drake. He only had three official albums and they're all great: Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. You should listen to them all, going Pink Moon then Five Leaves Left and finally Bryter Layter. Beyond that, we've had a modest series of releases that unearth home recordings and the like. There's not much in the vaults but they haven't gone to town with every scrap of music for this cult figure. Still, the last one or two offerings felt rather slim pickings. So I was suspicious about this combo of rough cassette recordings and the story behind his debut album. But technology made recent finds ready for hearing. The result is a compelling glimpse at Nick Drake coming into his own. The heart of it are tracks when Drake went into a studio to record some demos. No one had really heard a note from him and I can only imagine the engineer flipping out as Drake and his guitar offered up one beguiling song after another. If we had a tape of Bruce Springsteen auditioning for John Hammond, it would be this kind of exciting. Really, this is strictly for Nick Drake fans. No one who isn't already deeply in love with his three albums should bother. But if you do love them, this is a satisfying postscript.
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