A real banner year for me. Felt like there was something huge to look forward to damn near weekly at a certain point.
Don't see too much changing in my top 15, barring a surprise release, so I'm ready to go. Top 15 Ranked: 1. Hayley Williams: Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party 2A. Motion City Soundtrack: The Same Old Waste Wonderful World 2B. Lady Gaga: Mayhem 4. Lorde: Virgin 5. Kali Uchis: Sincerely, 6. Momma: Welcome to My Blue Sky 7. Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful 8. The Maine: Dyed (2008-2023) 9. Anxious: Bambi 10. The Dirty Nil: The Lash 11. Doja Cat: Vie 12. Turnstile NEVER ENOUGH 13. Greet Death: Die In Love 14. FKA Twigs: Eusexua 15. Pup: Who Will Looks After the Dogs? 16-30 (A-Z): Addison Rae: Addison Big Thief: Double Infinity Great Grandpa: Patience, Moonbeam Heart Attack Man: Joyride the Pale Horse MARINA: PRINCESS OF POWER Not For Radio: Not For Radio Sabrina Carpenter: Man's Best Friend Taylor Swift: The Life Of a Showgirl Tyler, the Creator: DON'T TAP THE GLASS Wednesday: Bleeds Honorable mentions: Beach Bunny: Tunnel Vision Florence + the Machine: Everybody Scream Lucy Dacus: Forever Is a Feeling Mac Demarco: Guitar Maren Morris: D R E A M S I C L E Militarie Gun: God Save the Gun Spiritual Cramp: Rude Tame Impala: Deadbeat
ace enders, addison rae, amber mark, bon iver, bright eyes, clipse, coheed and cambria, conan gray, danny brown, the dirty nil, ethel cain, goose, gaim, hayley williams, jade bird, ls dunes, lily allen, lorde, mallrat, maren morris, the mars volta, miguel, militarie gun, mo, paul meany, portugal the man, rosalia, samia, sigrid, sleigh bells, st lucia, the starting line, trousdale, turnstile, the weeknd, yellowcard, zara larsson
It’s probably been 20 years since an album has hit me the way Pool Kids has. They have my #1 on lock, but plenty to work through beyond that.
my top three are probably locked in but i still have stuff to catch up on. also this is lorelei isn’t out yet
Top 5 is firm. The other 15 are in approximate order and you could throw a blanket over them. All Get Out - Side A Bon Iver - Sable, Fable Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving Coheed and Cambria - The Father of Make Believe Grayscale - The Hart Matt Nathanson - King of (Un)Simple The Starting Line - Eternal Youth Flycatcher - Wrench Black Foxxes - The Haar Deftones - Private Music Bearings - Comfort Company Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World Petey USA - The Yips Ruston Kelly - Pale, Through The Window Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs La Dispute - No One Was Driving The Car Turnstile - Never Enough Have Mercy - The Loneliest Place I’ve Ever Been The Smith Street Band - Once I Was Wild Ace Enders - Posture Syndrome
https://record.club/espo12/lists/2025-aoty My unranked list. Getting Killed is probably #1. I have a lot to check out
Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs Arm's Length - There's a Whole World Out There Scarlet Street - No Alternative Stay Inside - Lunger Greet Death - Die In Love trsh. - String Theory Saturdays at Your Place - these things happen Tape Trash - Eden Ben Quad - Wisher yubiori - yubiori2 Hard Chiller - Baby! Charmer - Downpour Anthony Green - So Long, Avalon Kerosene Heights - Blame It on the Weather Sound of Animals Fighting - The Maiden Just doing top 15 but Pup, Mars Volta, LS Dunes, Turnstile, Deftones, etc for honorable mentions. Top 7 are all basically tied for 1 for me as I've listened to them all many many times this year. EPs: Palamino - Death Tapes Vol. 1 Weatherbox - The Compass
01. Hayley Williams - Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party 02. Lorde - Virgin 03. Lady Gaga - Mayhem 04. Turnstile - Never Enough 05. Jensen McRae - I Don't Know How But They Found Me! 06. Lucy Dacus - Forever Is A Feeling 07. SCOWL - Are We All Angels 08. Samia - Bloodless 09. Annie DiRusso - Super Pedestrian 10. Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS Honorable Mentions 11. Cat Burns - How To Be Human 12. Julien Baker & TORRES - Send A Prayer My Way
All I wanna do is work on this list but I have actual work to do at work this week, the existential dread is real
the chorus ranker helped me a lot this year: 1. La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car 2. Greet Death - Die In Love 3. Deftones - private music 4. Thrice - Horizons / West 5. Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE 6. Wednesday - Bleeds 7. PUP - Who Will Look After the Dogs? 8. Turnstile - Never Enough 9. Anxious - Bambi 10. Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs 11. Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You 12. Julien Baker & TORRES - Send a Prayer My Way 13. Ethel Cain - Perverts
this is the first year in a while that i’ve listened to enough new music to fill out a top 50 (or even 100!). i intentionally center music by folks of marginalized genders, so i haven’t listened to many albums from bands fronted by men. i’m not great with genres, but i included them anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pigeon pit - crazy arms (folk punk/alt country) Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done (emo/pop) Trousdale - Growing Pains (indie pop meets country pop w/beautiful 3 pt harmonies) Vandoliers - Life Behind Bars (cow punk/alt country) Mereba - The Breeze Grew a Fire (alt R&B) Chase Petra - Lullabies for Dogs (“quarter life crisis pop”/indie rock) Hayley Williams - Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party Jensen McRae - I Don’t Know How but They Found Me! (indie) Mini Trees - Slow It Down (“living room pop”/indie pop) Hope Tala - Hope Handwritten (alt R&B) Eliza McLamb - Good Story (indie) Career Woman - Lighthouse (indie) Cam - All Things Light (former country artist writes pop) Sydney Sprague - Peak Experience (indie pop) Free Range - Lost and Found (indie folk) Olive Klug - Lost Dog (folk/indie folk/tinges of alt country) Press Club - To All the Ones that I Love Soot Sprite - Wield Your Hope Like a Weapon (shoegaze/emo/alt rock) Jay Som - Belong (bedroom pop/indie pop) Stay Inside - Lunger (art rock w/lots of horns) EGOISM - And Go Nowhere (indie pop) Maura Weaver - Strange Devotion The Starting Line - Eternal Youth (alt rock) fanclubwallet - Living While Dying (indie) Winona Fighter - My Apologies to the Chef (pop punk) Saoisre Dream - saoisre dream (indie/emo/chiptune) Molly Tuttle - So Long Little Miss Sunshine (bluegrass pop) Katie Crone - Still (indie pop) Beach Bunny - Tunnel Vision (power pop) Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke (folk/americana) Margo Price - Hard Headed Woman (alt country) Kerosene Heights - Blame It On the Weather (emo punk) Sister Ray - Believer (folk) Jade Bird - Who Wants to Talk About Love? (folk rock/americana) Sorry Girls - Dreamwalker (Tusk-inspired pop) Fortitude Valley - Part of the Problem, Baby (power pop) Chloe Foy - Complete Fool (indie folk) Momma - Welcome to My Blue Sky (alt rock/pop rock) Sharon Van Etten - Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory (indie rock) Snocaps - Snocaps (indie rock) Good Luck - Big Dreams, Mister (emo/pop punk) Anna Vaus - Downhill From Here (Laurel Canyon folk/americana) Ways Away - I’m Not You (punk/emo) Elway - Nobody’s Going to Heaven (skate punk) Pretty Bitter - Pleaser (indie/emo) Merpire - Milk Pool (indie pop) Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam (indie) Cusp - What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back (indie) Daisy the Great - The Rubber Teeth Talk (indie pop) Cheekface - Middle Spoon (talk-singing indie rock) EPs Chloe Parché - Split Ends (indie pop) Townies - Speak with Your Chest (emo rock) Jordana - Jordanaland (indie pop) Berra - Lover’s Virginia (indie pop) Now, Now - 01 (indie pop) hey, nothing - 33° (folksy emo) Clarity - Out of Love (post-hardcore) No Windows - The Great Traitor (indie) Georgia Maq - God’s Favourite (indie) Jahnah Camille - My sunny oath! (indie)
Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun Turnstile - Never Enough Arms Length - There’s a Whole World Out There Geese - Getting Killed Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not To Have a Thought PUP - Who Will Look After the Dogs? Hot Mulligan - The Sound A Body Makes When It’s Still Liquid Mike - Hell is an Airport Joey Valence & Brae - HYPERYOUTH The Callous Daoboys - I Don’t Want to See You in Heaven Saturdays at Your Place - These Things Happen Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done Ben Quad - Wisher Stay Inside - Lunger Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz Home is Where - Hunting Season Wednesday - Bleeds Anxious - Bambi Kerosene Heights - Blame It On the Weather Other stuff I liked a lot: Snocaps - Snocaps (T-T)b - Beautiful Extension Cord Michael Cera Palin - We Could Be Brave Petey USA - The Yips Telethon - Suburban Electric Bartees Strange - Horror Addison - Addison Rae Bony Macaroni - Death Drive Twiabp - Dreams of Being Dust Motion City Soundtrack - The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo - In The Earth Again The Mountain Goats - Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkin
1. The Armed - The Future is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed 2. La Dispute - No One Was Driving the Car 3. Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power 4. Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo - In the Earth Again 5. TWINS - It's_complicated 6. Snooze - I Know How You Will Die 7. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Dreams of Being Dust 8. End It - Wrong Side of Heaven 9. Crochet - Cherish 10. The Callous Daoboys - I Don't Want to See You in Heaven Honorable mentions: Superheaven - Superheaven Camelia - Insieme Awfully Pretty - A Spot Between Morningviews - Anedonia Caustic Wound - Grinding Mechanism of Torment Abrupt Decay - The Illusion of Our Choices in a World of No Options Die Spitz - Something to Consume Rolo Tomassi - In the Echo of All Dreams EP Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services Cosmic Joke - Forced Perspective EP Ethel Cain - Perverts
Greet Death - Die in Love Downward - Downward Deafheaven - Lonely People in Power Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes Hotline TNT - Raspberry Moon Sam Fender - People Watching Alex G - Headlights The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You Subsonic Eye - Singapore Dreaming Algernon Cadwallader - Trying Not To Have a Thought Wednesday - Bleeds Geese - Getting Killed Snocaps - Snocaps Moving Mountains - Pruning of the Lower Limbs Jay Som - Belong Greet Death is my AOTY, everything else is unranked. Fabulous year for music.
1. Arm's Length - There's a Whole World Out There 2. Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band - New Threats From the Soul 3. Ben Kweller - Cover the Mirrors Also liked Clipse, Jason Isbell, Geese, Bon Iver. My 8yo daughter would vote for Huntr/x, G Flip, Taylor, Lorde, Haim. 6yo son votes Cheekface, Turnstile and Kweller. We agree soty is Junebug by The Wonder Years. Burst and Decay 3 and the remastered No Closer To Heaven will be high on my most listened but I can't include them on the 25 list. Best show: The Wonder Years with Suzi. Check out Centrelink Summer by Suzi, great track. I don't have time for listening to 50 albums these days but thought this was a great year for tracks, maybe not as strong for albums. Bon Iver, Haim, Turnstile, Alex G, JID all examples of albums where I liked some songs a lot but didn't return to the full record a lot.
1. The Armed - The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to be Destroyed 2. Geese - Getting Killed 3. Clark - Steep Stims 4. Deftones - private music 5. Deerhoof - Noble and Godlike in Ruin 6. Tortoise - Touch 7. Jafre Cantu-Ledesma - Gift Songs 8. The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood 9. JID - God Does Like Ugly 10. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out 11. Shearing - Motherfucker: I am Both: "Amen" and "Hallelujah" ,,, 12. Brian Eno - Bloom: Living World 13. Guerilla Toss - You're Weird Now 14. Mobb Deep - Infinite 15. Ella Minus - DÌA 16. Crippling Alcoholism - Camgirl 17. Street Sects - Dry Drunk 18. Ciśnienie - (angry noises) 19. Excide - Bastard Hymns 20. Lifeguard - Ripped and Torn