Best Albums of 2025- Part 1

Music to keep you occupied all holiday long & beyond

Since Substack has its word/length limits, I gotta cut this down into two pieces, so here’s the first half, along with links to everything. I know it’s a lot but honest to God, I have listened to everything here two to three times at least and love all of it, to varying degrees. Everything from indie rock to punk to techno to old-school classic to alt-country to ambient to nu-jazz to dance pop to blues to some things that ain’t easy to categorize. Hope you find some things hear to discover or agree with or at least argue about.

Here’s also links to my favorite singles of 2025 and my favorite reissues/archive releases of 2025. And since this list is so long, I have a Part II of my fave albums of 2025 here.

1. Delivery Force Majeure (Heavenly)

2. Leikeli47 Lei Keli feat.47- For Promotional Uses Only (Acrylic)

3. Winona Fighter My Apologies To the Chef (Rise)

4. The Rumjacks Dead Anthems (Australian Broadcast Corporation)

5. Little Simz Lotus (AWAL)

6. Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Marek Štilec Wranitzky: Orchestral Works, Vol. 8 (Naxos)

7. Painkiller The Equinox (Tzadik)

8. Sexfaces Bad Vibes OST (Slovenly)

9. Greentea Peng Tell Dem It’s Sunny (AWAL)

10. HotWax Hot Shock (Marathon Artists)

11. John Glacier Like A Ribbon (Young)

12. clipping. Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop)

13. Danny Brown Stardust (Warp)

14. Ella Eyre everything, in time (Play It Again Sam)

15. The Dare Freakquencies: Volume 1 (Republic)

16. Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava, Dario Salvi Marschner: Overtures and Stage Music, Vol. 3 (Naxos)

17. Lilly Hiatt Forever (New West)

18. runo plum patching (Winspear)

19. Robert Randolph Preacher Kids (Dare)

20. Stephane Wrembel Django New Orleans 2 (Water Is Life)

21. Lady Gaga Mayhem (Interscope)

22. Cusp What I Want Doesn’t Want Me Back (Exploding in Sound)

23. Buck 65, doseone, Jel North American Adonis (A Purple 100, 2024)

24. Only Now Timeslave III (Kush Arora)

25. Kasey Tyndall Kasey Tyndall (MNRK)

26. Sam Akpro Evenfall (Anti)

27. Bootsy Collins Album of the Year #1 Funkateer (Bootzilla)

28. Superchunk Songs in the Key of Yikes (Merge)

29. Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Kazuki Yamada Premières symphonies: Bizet, Gounod & Saint-Saëns (Alpha)

30. D.K. Harrell Talkin’ Heavy (Alligator)

31. Water Machine God Park (FatCat)

32. Samantha Fish Paper Doll (Rounder)

33. Fishbone Stockholm Syndrome (Consigliere)

34. Wet Leg Moisturizer (Domino)

35. Hedvig Mollestad Bees In the Bonnet (Rune Grammofon)

36. Young Miko Do Not Disturb (The Wave Music Group)

37. CVC dimensional space [remastered by POLE] (Echospace)

38. Evren Ozel, Jan Mráček, Orf Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Howard Griffiths Next Generation Mozart Soloists, Volume 12 (Alpha)

39. Various Artists Sinners (Original Movie Soundtrack) (Sony)

40. ShrapKnel & Raphy Lincoln Continental Breakfast (fused arrow)

41. Baxter Dury Allbarone (Heavenly Recordings)

42. smut Tomorrow Comes Crashing (Bayonet)

43. Welly Big in the Suburbs (Vertex)

44. ZZ Ward Liberation (Dirty Shine)

45. Wednesday Bleeds (Dead Oceans)

46. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet Mozart: Piano Concertos Vol. 11 (Chandos)

47. Aitch 4 (Infinitum)

48. Grace Potter Medicine (Hollywood)

49. Ambrose Akinmusire honey from a winter stone (Nonesuch)

50. Nadia Struiwigh X1 Shift (Blueprint)

51. Raw Poetic The Flow of Time (Moore Music)

52. Dick Move Dream, Believe Achieve (Flying Nun)

53. Sorry Cosplay (Domino)

54. Catbite, Laura Jane Grace Operation Ivy Live at The Empty Bottle (Bandcamp)

55. Texas Headhunters Texas Headhunters (Blue Elan)

56. Various Artists It’s All Her Fault- A Tribute to Cindy Walker (Hummin’ Bird)

57. Odd Couple Rush-Hour des Lebens (Clouds Hill)

58. Theon Cross Affirmations- Live At the Blue Note New York (New Soil)

59. Various Artists Sons Del Badiu (Bahn)

60. Tayla Lynn Singing Loretta (Heart of Texas)

61. Winter Adult Romantix (Winspear)