This time each year I end up scouring and devouring the “best-of” yearly round-ups. I really can’t say why, other than it’s the habit of a lifetime - assimilating as much information as possible about a subject I’m fascinated with. I’d like to break the habit if I could, so perhaps this post is therapy of sorts.
Are these lists useful? In a world of abundant content and a constant flood of new music, they should be - more than ever. Unless, like Liam Gallagher or Billy Joel, you are resigned to the idea that new music isn’t much worth bothering with. They might have an existential point, but wrong, nonetheless. 2025 served up an unwieldy number of really good records. But it is harder to find the really good stuff that will truly last. Albums we will listen to a lot, perhaps even come to see as classics?
I’ve written a book about the album (I’m sure I might have mentioned this before!).
Called Body of Work, in it I write about the tyranny of album discovery:
“It used to be that consulting a trusted media brand such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone or the New York Times would guide us towards the best albums released in any given year. These lists would contain the same fifty records, but in a different order. But today, each list from each outlet varies massively. Each is a dizzying display of albums you have not heard by bands you do not know and will never have the time for. There really is just too much music.”
If, like me, the most familiar you are likely to get with many of these records starts and ends with what you read about them on these lists, then perhaps I can at least do some sort of “summary” to narrow things down a bit. The lists I turn to each year are: The New York Times (the top two critics’ top 17/10), The Guardian (top 50), The New Yorker (top 15), The Quietus (100), Rolling Stone (100), Pitchfork (50) and NME (50).
That’s a cumulative total of 402 “slots”.
With the help of Chat GPT, I’ve done a comparison of these sources (although as I write this, The Guardian hasn’t yet published, so I’ll update this later if that list changes anything).
Some observations on the 2025 best-of lists:
From the 402 slots across all lists (above), the overlap is quite small. Chat GPT told me that 302 titles were mentioned across the lists. That reflects the fact that just a few critics are curating their lists from a vast array of high quality albums. Assuming 40 minutes per album that’s a staggering 200 hours of (subjectively high quality) music that warrants repeated listening.
That said, consensus on “the best” albums - those most mentioned (I think that’s what stats people call the mode) and higher up the lists - is relatively high. The most convergence is around these six albums:
It’s a Beautiful Place — Water From Your Eyes (mentioned on 6 lists, average rank of 18)
Debí Tirar Más Fotos — Bad Bunny (6, 19)
Sable, Fable — Bon Iver (6, 20)
Getting Killed — Geese (5, 22)
Lux — Rosalía (5, 23)
Baby — Dijon (4, 25)
So these are the really top picks, worth your time. I have to say of these six, I’d go with Bad Bunny and Rosalía, but I’ve heard so much praise for Geese, it’s possible the band has made a dent in music culture - not easy, but that’s what artists do - and long may that continue. It’s also worth pointing out that Bon Iver is still on top of his game according to the critics. I tried both Water From Your Eyes, and Dijon, but well it was musical mustard to me (sorry about that).
What are the ‘best kept secret’ albums of 2025? Those cropping up semi-consistently on the lists, but still fairly high in the rankings?
These include Nourished by Time: The Passionate Ones, Smerz: Big city life, Tranquilizer: Oneohtrix Point Never and caroline: caroline 2, keiyaA: hooke’s law, PinkPantheress: Fancy That, Sudan Archives: The BPM and Earl Sweatshirt: Live Laugh Love. As far as more ‘mainstream’ pop goes (if it still exists, there is a lot of it) Addison Rae’s debut album seems to have beaten off the pop competition, including Taylor Swift!
What’s often more intriguing with these lists is what isn’t on them. Some albums seem to get forgotten about…Karol G: Tropicoqueta made #35 on Rolling Stone’s list, Big Thief: Double Infinity #26 on the NME list. I would have expected both to be much more prominent, for various reasons including their quality and overall ratings with critics.
Meanwhile fantastic LPs by old indie hands Idlewild (er, my pick of the year see pic) and The Delines, received no mentions at all. Indeed, it does feel a little like older bands with fantastic records are (automatically) excluded on the basis of a sort-of music critic unconscious bias. Skunk Anansie: The Painful Truth is excellent but nowhere to be seen.
It’s not just older bands that are AWAL from these lists. Another great indie album by Sports Team Boys These Days, didn’t make any lists. Two other indie bands that featured prominently on their last outings, New Dad, and Nation of Language, also nowhere to be seen this year. I’m curious as to whether their new albums were not as good, except a glance at Album of the Year (terrific website, this) suggests their new albums were in fact critically revered. Just forgotten about at list time? If those could be disputed, what about Annie & The Caldwells: Can’t Lose My (Soul) on the lists I picked? Again, forgotten. Other outlets included it. Mojo Magazine ranked it #5 out of 75. Bandcamp also picked up on Can’t Lose My (Soul).
One inherent problem with lists is timing. It feels like some omissions are a direct result of release dates. Can’t Lose My (Soul) was a March release, that’s a long time ago. Albums released in Q1 are most likely to be forgotten (Mareba: The Breeze Grew a Fire, anyone?) while some are too late in the year to register when they would almost certainly have otherwise (Still Blank, Lily Allen, Dove Ellis). If these lists matter to artists - and they do to some, then watch out if you are bookending the calendar on release.
Some of the year’s most hyped albums did feature but perhaps lower than expected, such as Wet Leg: Moisturizer, or Wolf Alice: The Clearing. The Last Dinner Party seems to have missed the end-of year roundup party altogether (although the NME clocks the album From The Pyre at #29). It seems the outlets I picked - some of them - swerve the mainstream or big major titles, somewhat. Big sellers or award winners feature less prominently than you might expect, including Sam Fender: People Watching, Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving and Lady Gaga’s Mayhem. That may be because my chosen outlets lean towards indie (Pitchfork), and even experimental (The Quietus).
It may also be that the critics job is to some extent, give a platform to the less obvious. They are certainly doing that. Out of The Quietus’ top 100, I had heard of less than half, and had listened to just a dozen. The Quietus makes something of a statement with its vote for #1: aya: hexed! (it’s weird).
Pitchfork’s list is more accessible. This time I knew of just over half of the list, had listened to a dozen of them (of 50 this time). Again, Pitchfork’s top choice was stubbornly ‘alternative’: Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka. I have tried.
Some conclusions from this quick exercise? In an increasingly global music scene, no one source is an authority these days (Rate Your Music perhaps comes closer to representing the global whole, as it’s based on universal voting, not the critics’ choices). None of the media outlets can hope to be ‘exhaustive’ - clearly there are albums that did just not drift into their radar (even when their critics and writers combine their respective lists). The lists skew towards where the critics are based (in the above cases either the USA or the UK) and, despite global presence on streaming and social platforms, it’s a lucky few international artists that can barge their way into these lists. That is bound to change. The lists are useful but the rankings, less so. It’s the rankings that tend to look a bit shaky. If the above aggregate rankings meant something, then Water From Your Eyes has made a classic album. Mmm, perhaps I’ll have to give it another go.
As the New Yorker qualifies with its own list (compiled by music writer & critic Amanda Petrusich): “There are plenty of albums that might have made the cut on a different day. But good list-making requires hubris, constraint. A moment of wild and fearless conviction”. I guess that’s the point. See these lists as entertainment first, information second. Pick a list that you feel you can count on, use the streaming service recommendations if you must (Spotify’s genre round-ups are pretty damn good, as they are picked by editors rather than the algorithm).
Bandcamp seems to have found a nice way to present its own lists - largely genre-based - and within these resisting a numbering system in favour of simply curating albums worth your time. A very elegant set of lists well worth perusing (and if you do like the records you can always buy them on Bandcamp of course). The genre-based lists may be the way to go - there’s too much music to whittle things down to one multi-genre list these days.
Best of all, discover the albums yourself - via your record shop, or simply keep up your fandom for your favourite artists. It’s impossible to be a completist in a world of such abundance, so embrace the random walk. After all, my top album of the year was one I bought after hearing about one minute of one song, playing in my local record shop. The old ways are as valid as ever, sometimes.
My Song Sommelier “Decanted” top picks are on my website, and inevitably, I’ve missed a few.
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