Okay, so the overall 2025 picture is starting to come in to view.
We've finally given at least one listen to every 2025 album that peaked our interest, so now it's just a matter of giving the remaining unranked titles a few more listens before locking them into a position in our year-end rankings.
Having heard everything, we can say there are still a number of contenders for Highest and Strong Recommends, particularly Buddy Guy's Ain't Done With The Blues, Alan Sparhawk and Trampled By Turtles' self-titled collaborative debut, Big Thief's Double Infinity, Anna Van Hausswolff's Iconoclasts, Clipse's Let God Sort 'Em Out, Backxwash's Only Dust Remains, Tyler Childers' Snipe Hunter, The Chills' Springboard, Jade's THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY!, and Lily Allen's West End Girl.
Of the new additions to our rankings, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band's wonderfully shambolic New Threats From The Soul steals our #2 spot from FKA Twigs, and CMAT, The Last Dinner Party, Wednesday, Pulp, Wet Leg, and Bad Bunny all claim top 20 spots.
And that is it for now, but keep checking back until summer 2026 for more updates on the music of 2025.
Highest Recommends
1. Getting Killed - Geese
4. The Clearing - Wolf Alice
5. GOLLIWOG - Billy Woods
6. Lotus - Little Simz
9. Glutton For Punishment - Heartworms
10. From The Pyre - The Last Dinner Party
11. Viagr Aboys - Viagra Boys
Solid Recommends
12. Bleeds - Wednesday
13. More - Pulp
14. Moisturizer - Wet Leg
16. Glory - Perfume Genius
17. Instant Holograms On Metal Film - Stereolab
18. DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS - Bad Bunny
19. Lonely People With Power - Deafheaven
20. Virgin - Lorde
21. It's a Beautiful Place - Water From Your Eyes
22. Never Enough - Turnstile
23. Through The Wall - Rochelle Jordan
Mild Recommends
24. For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) - Japanese Breakfast
25. BLACK STAR - Amaarae
26. SABLE, fABLE - Bon Iver
27. Cowards - Squid
28. Vanisher, Horizon Scraper - Quadeca
30. Live Laugh Love - Earl Sweatshirt
2025 Albums In The Pool (# Listens In / • = good early impression)
45 Pounds (1) - YHWH Nailgun
A Complicated Woman (1) - Self Esteem
A Matter of Time (1) - Lauren
Addison (1•) - Addison Rae
Ain't Done With The Blues (1•) - Buddy Guy
Alan Sparhawk with Trample By Turtles (1•)
Albarone (1•) - Baxter Dury
All That Is Over (1•) - Sprints
Altogether Stranger (2•) - Lael Neale
Always Been (1•) - Craig Finn
Antidepressants (1) - The London Suede
Baby (2) - Dijon
Big City Life (1•) - Smerz
Birthing (2•) - Swans
black british music (1) - Jim Legacy
Bloodless (1) - Samia
Blurrr (1) - Joanne Robertson
Can't Lose My (Soul) (2•) - Annie and the Caldwells
Choke Enough (2) - Oklou
Constant Noise (1•) - Benefits
Close To The Bone (1) - Tommy Castro
Dan's Boogie (1) - Destroyer
Don't Tap The Glass (1) - Tyler, The Creator
Double Infinity (2•) - Big Thief
Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party (2•) - Hayley Williams
Essex Honey (2•) - Blood Orange
EUSEXUA Afterglow (1) - FKA Twigs
Everybody Scream (1•) - Florence + the Machine
Exploding Trees & Airport Screams (1) - Patterson Hood
Family (1•) - Southern Avenue
Fancy That (1) - Pink Panthers
Forever Howlong (2) - Black Country, New Road
Forward (2•) - The Swell Season
Foxes In The Snow (1•) - Jason Isbell
Friend (1•) - James K
Halo On The Inside (2•) - Circuit des Yeux
Heavy Metal (1) - Cameron Winter
Headlights (1) - Alex G
hexed! (1) - aya
Humanhood (1) - The Weather Station
I Love My Computer (1•) - Ninajirachi
Iconoclasts (2•) - Anna von Hausswolff
If You Asked For A Picture (1) - Blondshell
Iris Silver Mist (1) - Jenny Hval
Let God Sort Em Out (2•) - Clipse
Lotto (1) - They Are Gutting A Body Of Water
LSD (1) - Cardiacs
Luminescent Creatures (1) - Ichiko Aoba
Lux (2) - Rosalia
Magic, Alive (1•) - McKinley Dixon
Man's Best Friend (1) - Sabrina Carpenter
MAYHEM (1•) - Lady Gaga
Michelangelo Dying (1) - Cate Le Bon
Mortal Primetime (1) - Sunflower Beam
Only Dust Remains (1•) - Backxwash
Owls, Omens, and Oracles (3) - Valerie June
Pain to Power (1) - Maruja
People Watching (1) - Sam Fender
Phonetics On and On (2) - Horsegirl
Pirouette (1•) - Model/Actriz
Planting By The Signs (1) - S.G. Goodman
Private Music (1) - Deftones
Sad And Beautiful Day (1) - Mavis Staples
Saving Grace (1•) - Robert Plant
Sinister Grift (1) - Panda Bear
Snipe Hunter (1•) - Tyler Childers
Snocaps (1•)
Songs For Other People's Weddings (1•) - Jens Lekman
Songs In The Key Of Yikes (1•) - Superchunk
Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (1•) - The Chills
Straight Line Was A Lie (1) - The Beths
SWAG (1) - Justin Bieber
Tether (1•) - Annahstasia
THAT'S SHOWBIZZ BABY! (1•) - Jade
The Art Of Loving (1) - Olivia Dean
The Bad Fire (1•) - Mogwai
The BPM (1) - Sudan Archives
The Passionate Ones (2•) - Nourished by Time
The Scholars (1•) - Car Seat Headrest
Time Indefinite (1) - William Tyler
Twilight Override (1•) - Jeff Tweedy
Welcome To My Blue Sky (1•) - Momma
West End Girl (1•) - Lily Allen
Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love You (1) - Ethel Cain
Who Is The Sky (1) - David Byrne
Who Let The Dogs Out (2•) - Lambrini Girls
Last Updated 01.24.26
PAST UPDATES
8.02.25 - So we've got our first official placement of 2025, Heartworms stirring Goth/Darkwave/Alt-rock melange Glutton For Punishment, a very tight, thirty-seven mood-rocker with nary a wasted moment.
8.26.25 - We're adding two new titles to our rankings this Tuesday, August 26th, including FKA Twigs fantastic Eusexua, which has a strong hold on McQ's top 2025 spot with just four months left in the year. I was never as big a fan of her earlier albums as the critics, but I just love this one - a little more energy, a little less cryptic, but still stylistically broad and inventive.
Also a fan of Stereolab's return to form Instant Holograms On Metal Film. Like all Stereolab albums, it just delighfully meanders and flits here and there, sometimes receding into the background, but then surprising with a super colorful musical stretch a few moments later.
Of recent first listens, fell right in with Valerie June's latest Owls, Omens, and Oracles just as I have her previous few full lengths (she's got to be one of the most underappreciated artists working today - just consistently fantastic on record and nobody talks about her), and also really intrigued by Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band's lyrically dominated country-rocker New Threats From The Soul, which possesses some of enigmatic ramshackle charm of acts like Lambchop and The Silver Jews.
10.13.25 - Five new additions to our rankings this October 13th. Leading the pack is British rapper Little Simz Lotus, which continues to support my belief that she may be the best beat maker working in hip hop today - there's just something cool or fun or moving about every groove on Lotus.
Also impressive is Viagra Boys Viagr Aboys which continues their exploration of today's lost males with out missing a beat from their fantastic previous outing Cave World.
Two other very solid additions are Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory which finds Ms. Van Etten going bigger this time out in an almost Flo + The Machine way, and Perfume Genius Glory, which is a bit of a difficult album to get a grasp on, he's been much more accessible before, but feature's beautiful songwriting and production touches throughout.
Lastly, is Bon Iver's SABLE fABLE, a combination of an early EP and new album worth of material. The front end EP material is quite solid, the new album's material, outside of the heartfelt Everything Is Peaceful Love, is not.
As to what's coming down the line, Geese's Killing Time is definitely the standout title in the listening pool. Right now I feel it will be a three way race between that and Eusexua/Lotus for McQ's 2025 album of the year.
11.22.25 - Thanksgiving update.
First off the absolutely killer (pun intended) Getting Killed by whacked-out New York jam band Geese. Loose and chaotic, with a lot of the numbers more grooves than songs, it is nonetheless the best front-to-back listen I have heard in ages and just might be my favorite album of this decade, let alone 2025 so far. A real eureka album–just keeps digging it's claws in deeper with every listen.
Not far behind it in the top-tier front-to-back listen category is Wolf Alice's latest The Clearing, while almost as varied as their previous listens, there's a mellower, almost Fleetwood Macish mid-70s soft rock vibe to this one, which put me off a bit on first listen (was just expecting more rock), but by my final listen was loving near every minute just like I do on Getting Killed and Eusexua.
Then there's Billy Woods' Golliwog, which similar to Get Out, explores the modern black American experience through the lens of the horror movie, suggesting things aren't much better now than when the Golliwog cartoon/doll was first introduced by racist factions in the late 1800s. Potent lyrics throughout, but the real star is the beat production, which makes every song feel like an excerpt from a scary as all heck underground horror classic.
For our last new addition, we've got Drive to Goldenhammer, the debut of UK folk/country outfit Divorce. I loved it. Some of the best Mumford and Sons/Lumineers-styled indie-folk I've heard in the last couple year.
And get ready for Ann von Hausswolff's Iconoclast - only given one listen so far but damn does it sound epic!
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