I listened to more new music in 2025 than I had in a long time (600 distinct albums to be exact).

A big part of that came from making a conscious effort to get back into actually discovering music, not just putting on the same artists and albums I already knew I liked. That meant listening outside my usual genres, checking out artists I’d never heard of, and giving albums a real chance instead of deciding whether I liked something after 30 seconds.

These aren’t ranked. Trying to decide whether a hardcore record is “better” than a jazz-influenced hip-hop album or a two-hour Swans record feels pretty pointless anyway. They’re simply 15 albums from 2025 (that came out in 2025) that stuck with me, made me want to hear more, or opened the door to something new.

McKinley Dixon — Magic, Alive!

McKinley Dixon was one of those discoveries that made me wonder how the hell I hadn’t heard of him before.

I remember seeing a comment somewhere underneath one of his videos that said, “Why isn’t all music like this?” I don’t agree with the question, I definitely don’t want all music to sound the same, but I completely understand the reaction.

The instrumentation and production on Magic, Alive! would be impressive enough on their own, but Dixon’s rapping takes the whole thing somewhere else. His music sits somewhere between hip-hop, jazz, live instrumentation, storytelling, and something I don’t really know how to categorize.

His previous album being called Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? might actually be the best description of his music, punctuation and all.

Favorite tracks: “We’re Outside, Rejoice!”, “Listen Gentle”, “Could’ve Been Different”

DITZ — Never Exhale

My favorite punk album of 2025.

Never Exhale is dark, heavy, noisy, experimental punk that immediately got my attention. I only discovered DITZ fairly recently and have since listened to The Great Regression and some of their newer material. So far, every new thing I hear from them makes me more interested in the band.

They’re aggressive without just relying on aggression. There’s enough weirdness happening musically that repeated listens actually reward you.

DITZ has quickly become one of those bands that I will be eagerly awaiting follow up releases.

Favorite tracks: “britney”, “Smells Like Something Died in Here”, “The Body as a Structure”

Clipse — Let God Sort Em Out

I’d heard plenty of Pusha T before and had even listened to some older Clipse, but apparently I’d never given the duo the attention they deserved.

Let God Sort Em Out fixed that.

Pusha is predictably great, but one of my biggest surprises was Malice. I knew almost nothing about him going into this album, and there are moments where he might actually be the better half of the duo.

The features are ridiculous, Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator, John Legend, and others, but importantly, they never turn this into one of those albums where you’re just waiting around for the guest verses. This is still very clearly a Clipse record.

My biggest complaint is probably some of Pharrell’s vocal contributions, although as the producer he’s obviously a huge part of why the record works as well as it does.

One of the best hip-hop albums of 2025.

Favorite tracks: “Chains & Whips”, “M.T.B.T.T.F.”, “The Birds Don’t Sing”

Population II — Maintenant Jamais

My favorite psychedelic rock album of 2025, and an album that helped push me further outside my usual listening habits.

Population II are from Québec, and Maintenant Jamais was one of the first albums I really got into that wasn’t primarily in English or Chinese. The fact that I couldn’t understand everything didn’t matter much.

Musically, there’s enough here that’s familiar to me, psych rock, garage, heavier moments, to immediately give me something to grab onto. But it also has its own identity and local influences that keep it from sounding like another band simply recreating psychedelic rock.

Albums like this make branching out easy. You start with something adjacent to what you already know, and suddenly you’re wondering what else is happening in an entire scene you’ve never paid attention to.

Population II is definitely a rabbit hole I plan to keep digging into.

Favorite tracks: “Mariano (Jamais je ne t’oublierai)”, “La Trippance”

Honningbarna — Soft Spot

My favorite hardcore album of 2025.

I can’t understand a word they’re saying.

Doesn’t matter.

Honningbarna are a Norwegian punk band that have apparently been around since 2009, which means I’m extremely late to this one. Soft Spot was my introduction, and the energy alone was enough to immediately hook me.

There’s something particularly exciting about hearing a punk band that still clearly has its roots in punk and hardcore but doesn’t sound like they’re trying to recreate a record from 1982. There’s experimentation here. There’s personality. And there’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of energy.

I haven’t gone far into their back catalog yet, but I definitely will.

Favorite tracks: “God gutt”, “Festen som aldri stopper”, “Heute ist mein tag”

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs — Death Hilarious

First of all, I refuse to shorten their name.

Death Hilarious was my introduction to Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs and helped open another little branch in my musical taste.

Not everything I’ve explored around this heavier, sludgier end of rock has clicked with me, but Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs absolutely did. This thing just oozes energy. It’s heavy without becoming a slog and weird without losing the riffs that make it immediately fun.

And somehow there’s an El-P feature.

That looked completely bizarre to me when I first saw it. After actually listening to the album, it somehow makes perfect sense.

Favorite tracks: “Blockage”, “Stitches”, “Glib Tongued”

Geese — Getting Killed

3D Country was my introduction to Geese. I liked a lot of it, but it wouldn’t have cracked my top 100 albums of the decade so far.

Getting Killed is different.

This album completely sold me on them.

It’s difficult for me to comfortably put it into one genre, and that’s probably part of what I like so much about it. There are moments that sound like rock, post-punk, art rock, indie, noise, and whatever else they felt like throwing into the room.

More importantly, it doesn’t sound experimental for the sake of being experimental. The weirdness serves the songs.

Considering the trajectory between Projector, 3D Country, and Getting Killed, Geese might be one of the bands I’m most excited to follow over the next few years.

Favorite tracks: “Trinidad”, “Husbands”, “Islands of Men”, “Au Pays du Cocaine”

CHIME OBLIVION — CHIME OBLIVION

John Dwyer has approximately 700 side projects. This is one of them.

But unlike most of the projects I associate with him, he isn’t really the center of attention here. He’s on guitar, backing a fantastic female vocalist, and the result is something that feels connected to his musical universe without simply sounding like another version of Osees.

This is CHIME OBLIVION’s debut, and I really hope it isn’t a one-off.

In fact, this might already be my favorite Dwyer-associated project outside of Thee Oh Sees/Osees. It scratches some of the same garage-rock itch while having enough of its own identity to justify existing separately.

Please make another one.

Favorite tracks: “NEIGHBORHOOD DOG”, “THE FIEND”, “THE UNINVITED GUEST”

Ghostface Killah — Supreme Clientele 2

He’s still got it.

Supreme Clientele 2 sounds like Ghostface never missed a beat. There’s obviously nostalgia involved when you’ve got other Wu-Tang members popping up throughout the record, but it doesn’t feel like a nostalgia exercise.

It feels like Ghostface making a genuinely great hip-hop album in 2025.

“Georgy Porgy” is a particular standout for me. The beat is mellow, relaxed and almost funky, which creates this great contrast against Ghostface’s harder delivery.

I haven’t spent enough time with this one yet to know exactly where it’ll eventually land, but right now I think it’s not just one of the best hip-hop records of 2025, it has a legitimate argument for being one of my favorites of the decade so far.

Favorite tracks: “Georgy Porgy”, “Iron Man”, “Sample 420”

The Armed — THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED

Apparently I like screamo again.

Or whatever combination of screamo, hardcore, or noise rock we’re calling this.

A few years ago, I probably wouldn’t have expected myself to get this into music this heavy. Then I stumbled onto The Armed knowing basically nothing about them and THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED immediately clicked.

It’s chaotic, abrasive and absolutely overflowing with energy.

After hearing the album, I watched their KEXP performance on YouTube and that only made me appreciate them more. There’s a level of commitment and physicality to this music that makes it feel like it was built to be experienced live.

Me likey the heavy now.

Favorite tracks: “Purity Drag”, “Local Millionaire”, “Heathen”

Rosalía — LUX

LUX represents another side of what made 2025 such a good year for discovery for me.

It’s an album that doesn’t fit neatly alongside most of what I normally listen to, and that’s exactly why something like this belongs on the list. Rosalía is working with a completely different musical vocabulary than the punk, garage rock and hip-hop that dominate a lot of my listening.

It came out a bit late in the year, so most of my exposure to it has come in 2026 and its already one of my most listened to albums this year.

While I typically don’t get into a lot of pop solo artists, I saw this on so many year end lists that I had to learn why.

Now I know why.

Favorite tracks: “Berghain”, “Dios Es Un Stalker”, “Divinize”, “La Perla”

Little Simz — Lotus

I somehow made it to 2025 without hearing Little Simz.

Clearly, I have some catching up to do.

Lotus doesn’t sound quite like any other hip-hop album I listened to this year. There are sections that almost move into spoken word, the energy can be much more restrained, and the production gives the songs room to breathe rather than constantly trying to hit you over the head.

But that restraint doesn’t make it boring. Quite the opposite.

The beats are fantastic, the lyrics are strong, and there’s a confidence to the whole record that doesn’t require everything to be turned up to 11.

Now I need to go through the rest of her catalog.

Favorite tracks: “Young”, “Free”, “Lion”

Backxwash — Only Dust Remains

One of the best completely blind discoveries I made all year.

I knew absolutely nothing about Backxwash. No recommendation from a friend, no existing familiarity, no expectations based on something I’d read.

And then she knocked it out of the park.

What immediately stands out about Only Dust Remains is that every track can have its own identity while still clearly belonging to something larger. It’s personal, heavy and carefully constructed. The production feels fresh, and you can hear how much thought went into making this an album rather than a collection of songs.

I’m also a sucker for an album that knows exactly how to open. This one hits immediately and establishes the mood from the beginning.

Favorite tracks: “Black Lazarus”, “9th Heaven”, “Dissociation”

Osees — ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST

At this point, John Dwyer putting out another good record shouldn’t surprise me.

And yet here we are.

Osees have become one of my favorite active bands, in large part because of how absurdly consistent they are while still refusing to settle into one particular version of themselves. I came into them through Help, then Orc completely hooked me, and I’ve been working my way through an intimidatingly large catalog ever since.

ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST is another reason I keep going.

The energy is there, obviously, but what keeps Osees interesting is that Dwyer never seems particularly interested in making the same record twice. Even when you immediately recognize the band, there’s usually some new mutation of garage, psych, punk, noise or experimentation waiting around the corner.

I don’t think this replaces Orc as my favorite Osees record, but it absolutely reinforces why they’ve become one of my favorite bands making music today.

And they’re still very high on the list of bands I need to see live.

Favorite tracks: “ABOMINATION”, “GOD’S GUTS”, “INFECTED CHROME”, “FIGHT SIMULATOR”

Swans — Birthing

My favorite post-rock album of 2025.

This is also the album on this list I’m least likely to casually throw on while doing the dishes.

Birthing demands something from you. You could technically put it on in the background while studying or working, but doing that misses a huge part of what makes it special. Give it your full attention and it’s incredibly easy to get completely lost inside these songs.

And “songs” almost feels inadequate. They’re spaces you sit inside for a while.

I doubt Birthing will become one of my most-played albums of the year. That’s not really what it’s built for. But I can easily imagine it remaining one of the albums I respect most from this year.

It’s huge, demanding, occasionally exhausting, and completely absorbing.

Sometimes that’s exactly what I want an album to be.

Favorite track: “The Healers”

By Lish