By my math, 2025 puts us halfway through the 2020s. It's been, almost uniformly, the worst decade of my existence: COVID, Trump, wars and war crimes in Europe and the Middle East, soaring cost of living, the rise of AI, etc., etc. And things don't seem like they'll be getting better anytime soon. That said, at least one good thing happened this decade (I got married this year!) and, hey, it's been a pretty decent decade for music. If I had to put together a quick top 10 of my favorite albums of the decade so far (I didn't have to, but it helped me procrastinate writing this for another 30 minutes), it might look like this, roughly in order:
Cory Branan – When I Go I Ghost (2022)
Kendrick Lamar – GNX (2024)
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Weathervanes (2023)
James McMurtry – The Horses and the Hounds (2021)
Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS (2023)
Sincere Engineer – Bless My Psyche (2021)
The Beths – Jump Rope Gazers (2020)
Bethany Cosentino – Natural Disaster (2023)
Hot Mulligan – Why Would I Watch (2023)
The first couple things I notice when looking at this list is that it's going to be real tough for anything to crack that top two, and 2023 was a banger of a year, with four albums in the list. Then the next thing I notice is that no 2025 album managed to crack the list. There are a couple of easy possible explanations for that: 1) I haven't yet had enough time to sit with most of these albums (less than a year, again by my math), and/or 2) this year just wasn't a super-strong one, music-wise.
That happens sometimes—I've called out 2019 and 2021 for just that in this space before. I stand by it with 2019—nothing from that year made my list of top 25 albums from the 2010s list, and I don't think anything would make it if I redid that list five years later. I might've judged 2021 too early, though, as it has a couple albums on the above list. Sincere Engineer has been one of my favorite new bands of this decade, and I hadn't yet discovered McMurtry (and that incredible album) before I wrote that blog post.
So we'll see how 2025 looks when I make my 2020s list in another five years. (Assuming we haven't been embroiled in another world war or that bullshit AI technology hasn't used up all our water or drained our electrical grids.) As a bit of a caveat to this blog post, there's a lot of very good music that came out this year, but I'm not sure there's been much that's truly *great*.
As I ponder the songs and albums that came out this year, I honestly don't know if any of them will gain entry into my permanent rotation, my personal canon, the way that, for example, the Waxahatchee and Cory Branan albums did almost immediately upon first hearing them. Maybe there's something I initially underrated like GNX, or something I haven't yet discovered like the McMurtry album. It'll be very interesting to look back on this year on the eve of the 2030s. For now, let's see where things stand here, music-wise, at the end of 2025, again in the faux-Grammys format.
* = saw live this year
Best New Artist
Blondshell – If You Asked for a Picture
Jade Bird – Who Wants to Talk About Love?
Molly Tuttle – So Long Little Miss Sunshine
Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky
Winona Fighter* – My Apologies To The Chef
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Honorable mentions: Anxious – Bambi, Pool Kids – Easier Said Than Done, Snocaps – Snocaps, The Speaker Wars – The Speaker Wars, Wolf Alice – The Clearing
This would be more aptly titled "Best New(ish) to Me Artist," since most of these acts have been around for at least a few years. Although I had a passing familiarity with most of the nominees (and HMs), none of their previous releases made enough of an impression to land a nom or HM in any previous blog post (my arbitrary criterion for this category). I mentioned possibly doing a category like this last year, when I struggled to connect with many truly new-to-me artists. That wasn't the case in 2025, obviously. So let's check out this group of (mostly female) artists who broke through for me this year, roughly in order.
- Jade Bird was the last artist to make the cut here, narrowly beating out Anxious (an emo act with great riffs and melodies reminiscent of Oso Oso), Pool Kids (honestly a pretty similar sound to Blondshell), Snocaps (the Crutchfield sisters with an anonymous MJ Lenderman on guitar), The Speaker Wars (a heartland rock Cact with Stan Lynch of the Heartbreakers—a recommendation from my parents), and Wolf Alice (Big Thief meets CHVRCHES is the closest thing I can come up with on the fly). Bird does some strummy indie rock that verges into alt-country—I was shocked to find out she's English and not from, like, Colorado or Indiana. She gets the nod because I probably listened to her most, as she's an act my wife also likes. The anthemic "Save Your Tears" is the highlight.
- Of all the nominees, Blondshell was the only one I wasn't really familiar with before this year. I don't recall ever listening to her 2023 self-titled debut, but I did listen to a single called "Docket" last year that featured Bully (who appeared in my 2023 blog post) but I honestly think I thought it was an actual Bully song. Anyway, Blondshell is another moody female-fronted indie rock act with a cynical streak and some powerful choruses. "T&A" is the standout, a sad and soaring power ballad about a FWB situation going wrong, but "What's Fair," "Event of a Fire," and "Change" are among the other bangers on the album.
- I like the Blondshell and Jade Bird records, but the next three are on another level—AOTY contenders for sure. Continuing through the list alphabetically, that brings us to Molly Tuttle. She had been on my radar since 2019, when "Light Came In (Power Went Out)" actually made my best of the year playlist that year. I don't recall listening to the album as a whole much, and it looks like there are at least three albums since I didn't listen to much or at all. But from the bluegrass-infused opener "Everything Burns" to the Sheryl Crow–esque "The Highway Knows" to slick country-pop production of "That's Gonna Leave a Mark" to the honky-tonkin' "Old Me (New Wig)," Tuttle's oustanding latest ensured she won't be falling back off my radar anytime soon.
- We're really running the gamut of female vocal artists here, from Tuttle's country-pop to Bird's folk/Americana to Blondshell's cool-girl indie to, now Momma's '90s alt-rock throwback jams. They first came on my radar with "Speeding '72" from their 2022 debut, but I didn't hear it until at least a year or two later. Then "Ohio All the Time" knocked my socks off last year and made Blue Sky one of my more anticipated 2025 releases. It didn't disappoint. If you're still reading music criticism in 2025, you've heard the comparisons to '90s Hole-adjacent alternative chick-rock bands like Veruca Salt and The Breeders, which are certainly apt, but this New York-by-way-of-Brooklyn act also reminds me a bit of a couple of my favorite 2020s Chicago acts, Sincere Engineer and Ratboys. The standouts here are "I Want You (Fever)," which wouldn't miss a beat on MTV2 at 2:00 a.m. in 1997, the sunny "Stay All Summer," and swooning album closer "My Old Street."
- Okay, I'm cheating a little bit with runaway category winner Winona Fighter, as I included their "Swear to God That I'm (FINE)" as an HM for Song of the Year last year. I should've just waited until this year, but the song was just too damn good to not mention at the time. These guys are a totally badass pop-punk act out of Nashville fronted by the powerhouse that is Coco Kinnon. I was instantly hooked the first time I heard them. Think New Found Glory's riffs, Brodie Dalle's swagger, and a decidedly Millennial perspective. They're an absolute blast, from the positively electric opener "JUMPERCABLES" to the ferocious "ATTENTION" to the bouncy "FINE." This is definitely the album I had the most fun with in 2025—and they rule live, too. Can't wait to watch this band grow and (hopefully) find the larger audience they deserve.
Best Old Artist
Beach Bunny – Tunnel Vision
Craig Finn* – Always Been
James McMurtry – The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
The Beaches* – No Hard Feelings
The Beths* – Straight Line Was a Lie
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Honorable mentions: Ben Nichols* – In the Heart of the Mountain, Hot Mulligan – The Sound a Body Makes When It's Still, Hayley Williams – Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, Sunflower Bean – Mortal Primetime, Wet Leg* – Moisturizer
If I'm going to do Best New Artist, might as well do Best Old Artist! All the nominees and HMs here are artists are ones I'm quite familiar with, from the frontmen of two of my all-time favorite bands to a couple other male acts I've only semi-recently become familiar with to, you guessed it, female vocal artists of all stripes. I don't know if I'll use these categories again, but it seemed like a better breakdown than genres (almost everything in this entry is guitar-based) or male/female (since female acts would just dominate; see below). For now, let's break down these "old hat" acts.
- This was an easier field to narrow down that Best New Artist. Of the HMs, the only one I really considered for a nomination was Wet Leg, who's raucous yet polished second album got a lot of airplay this year (although it suffered a bit from some skippable tracks). Of the others, Nichols's latest solo effort sounds not dissimilar to a late Lucero released; it needs further exploring but I dig it a lot. The Hot Mulligan and Williams albums are great but a bit overlong, and the Sunflower Bean record has a nice Metric sound going on but not enough true bangers. So Beach Bunny pretty easily made the field as the final nominee for their third album (a second-straight nomination after 2022's Emotional Creature). It's reminiscent of a more rockin' Soccer Mommy—confessional lyrics, ear-wormy choruses, a strong writerly touch. The "Tunnel Vision/"Clueless" back-to-back at 4/5 is a true high point, and both are SOTY contenders for sure.
- Next up are The Beaches, who also make it two nominations in a row for their follow up to 2023's Blame My Ex. No Hard Feelings is another collection of bops and ballads from these queer, badass Canadian lasses. That said, I wouldn't have been surprised if Blame My Ex was a one-off, especially if they tried to recapture the viral sensation of "Blame Brett." Not that they don't still know how to have fun—"Last Girls at the Party" might be THE banger of the year—but songs like "Did I Say Too Much" and "Takes One to Know One" belies a much more fully developed, mature sound that hints at even more exciting things to come. Oh, and they absolutely ROCK live!
- Our next nominee, The Beths, make it three strong showings in a row after 2020's #2 overall album, Jump Rope Gazers, and a category win for 2022's Expert in a Dying Field. These New Zealander indie rockers seem to have taken up permanent residence in my aesthetic wheelhouse. (I hope the accommodations are nice!) What's the secret to their success? I think it's the harmonies. One think I know about my musical taste is I'm an absolute sucker for vocal harmonies. I've been to countless concerts where a band doesn't do the album harmonies live and I always miss them. Not so with the Beths—the harmonies from all four band members are such a central part of their sound, and they don't skimp on them live unlike a lot of bands. Their latest is another in the exact same vein as their first two, with maybe some of their most fully realized, heartfelt indie rock ballads yet, with "Mother, Pray for Me" and "Til My Heart Stops" even better live back to back than they are on the album.
- Just like the category below, it was incredibly tough choosing between the top two. If we were ranking only by the best songs on each album, the latest from The Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn might very well have been #1 here—and the year itself. The high points of Always Been, Finn's first-ever solo nomination here, are just that good. For my money, the urgent, tender, and heartbreaking "Luke & Leanna" is one of the best songs Finn has ever written—and he's written some of my favorite songs of all time. "She says it's just nothing / It's something at work" is absolutely devastating in context. On a much more downbeat, yet somewhat hopeful, note is "Fletcher's," a 5+ minute spoken word story-song about a young urban everyman struggling with his station in life. (Okay, that describes plenty of Hold Steady songs.) But Finn imbues it with hyper-specific details ("Found my shoes in the foyer in a jumble of sneakers and one silver high heel") and an almost unbearable sadness that gives way to a sublime ray of hope at the end ("It was pretty good right here"). I'll have more to say about the rest of the novel-like album below (spoilers).
- It was a tough decision in an incredibly tight race in this category, but I'm going with the relatively unheralded James McMurtry as the winner here. Is this partially trying to make up for not discovering his previous album (2021's excellent The Horses and the Hounds) in time for my blog post that year? Possibly. But other than perhaps the Craig Finn album, The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy is a showcase for the best songwriting that I've heard this year. If the Finn record is a plaintive novel, this is an rollicking short story collection, with tales about drug deals gone bad ("Laredo (Small Dark Something"), an aging cop left behind by modern times ("South Texas Lawman," a true highlight), and autobiographical tour life musings ("Sailing Away"). McMurtry name checks Jason Isbell on that last one, and like Isbell's recent albums with The 400 Unit, Black Dog is a very political record, ruminating on post-9/11 and our current Trump-poisoned America ("Annie," "Sons of the Second Sons"). This is unadorned musicianship and plainspoken poetry at its finest.
Song of the Year
"Last Girls at the Party" – The Beaches*
"Luke & Leanna" – Craig Finn*
"South Texas Lawman" – James McMurtry
"Swear To God That I'm (FINE)" – Winona Fighter*
"T&A" – Blondshell
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Honorable mentions: "Clueless" – Beach Bunny, "I Want You (Fever)" – Momma, "mangetout" – Wet Leg*, "The Highway Knows" – Molly Tuttle, "Til My Heart Stops" – The Beths*
There are two kinds of songs that make up the nominees and HMs here: emotive story-songs that get you in the feels and straight-up bops/bangers. Okay, there's definitely some crossover, but I think you can divide this list of 10 songs fairly down the middle. Of the HMs, they're mostly in the bop/banger category: "I Want You" and "mangetout" are earworms through and through, and while "Clueless" and "Highway" clearly have emotion behind them, they're more riff/chorus first than lyrics-first. Is this arbitrary? 100%. But let's see on which side of the divide the actual nominees land.
- I didn't really have too much trouble narrowing this field down. Blondshell's "T&A" was comfortably the last name in the field, but it's also in a kind of mini-tier all its own a bit below the other nominees. It definitely falls into the story-song category. Lyrically, it's kind of Jenny Lewis–esque in its sexual frankness—"We were really friends / Didn't think about anything else / I liked having someone to call / But I started taking my shirt off / And facing the wall." Musically, it's fairly downtempo with a simple riff that lets songwriter/vocalist Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum's voice take center stage. The chorus is one of my favorite of the year, sorrowful and resigned: "Letting him in, why don't the good ones love me? / Watching him fall, watching him go right in front of me." It feels like you're listening to something you shouldn't be hearing in the best way possible.
- The other four nominees were all very real contenders here, and I probably had them all in the top spot at some point during the writing process. (I truly didn't know which song would win until I sat down and thought/wrote about them all.) Our next nominee, "Swear To God That I'm (FINE)," Winona Fighter's buoyant, baleful pop-punk mosher, was slotted into the #1 spot for most of the year (especially since it came out late last year). It's an addictive admixture of early Paramore and later NFG with a chugging bassline, crunchy riffs, shout-along chorus, and the requisite breakdown. It's the second-biggest banger of the year...
- ...after the absolutely terrific "Last Girls at the Party" by The Beaches. Serving as the album capper—as well as the opening *and* closing number of their live show—it's a jubilant ode to looking hot, taking shots, being queer, and staying up late. (Hey, I can relate to one of those!) With guitars and bass reminiscent of The Cure, gang vocals, and the catchiest chorus of the year, what's not to love? And did I mention that it SLAYS live? Like I mentioned, the band opened with it and then did a reprise version to close the show out at one of my favorite concerts of the year. This one absolutely almost won this category but will have to settle for merely Banger of the Year. I don't think they'd mind.
- The final two nominees are definitely in the story-song category and are two of the finest pieces of songwriting this year. It was an agonizing choice, but barely coming in second is James McMurtry's "South Texas Lawman," a contemplative, mournful vignette about a lawman from, well, South Texas, who "cheats on both his wives" and "reckons after Vietnam, we musta all gone soft." It might sounds like McMurtry flirts with CNN-style, Joe the Plumber both-sides-ism, but aside from being a well-sketched character study, "South Texas Lawman" is—like many songs on the recent McMurtry albums I've listened to—a rumination on aging. "I can't stand getting old / it don't fit me," sighs the lawman in the chorus. While the lawman winds up "Naked in the moonlight / sidearm in his hand," McMurtry wields his weariness like Hemingway wielded his typewriter before he... well, anyway. Moving on!
- The winner here—and the song I truly think I'll remember most from 2025—is Craig Finn's happy-sad masterpiece "Luke & Leanna." The titular Midwest couple, who "moved to the city / to have an adventure," face a crisis of faith after "ten years together" when Leanna, a nurse, has an affair with a doctor at work. Finn tells their tale matter-of-factly over "Walk of Life"–esque keys courtesy of producer Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs, slowly building their lives through seemingly mundane details ("On weeknights, they stay in / Takeout and watch TV"), mostly from Leanna's perspective, before she comes home crying. Luke asks her what happened, and "She said it's just nothing / It's something at work" hits you like an emotional elbow drop from the top rope. Just a beautiful song and songwriting. And note that this category could just have easily been won by the above-mentioned "Fletcher's." Two of the best songs of the year on the same album.
Album of the Year
Craig Finn* – Always Been
James McMurtry – The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy
Molly Tuttle – So Long Little Miss Sunshine
The Beths* – Straight Line Was a Lie
Winona Fighter* – My Apologies To The Chef
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Honorable mentions: Beach Bunny – Tunnel Vision, Blondshell – If You Asked for a Picture, Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky, The Beaches* – No Hard Feelings, Wet Leg* – Moisturizer
I think it's pretty clear that society has shifted from valuing individual songs over whole albums. Yet music writers and the Grammys themselves persist in holding Album of the Year in higher esteem than Song of the Year. I think that's still the case for me—I still largely mark years by albums, not songs—but I'm not sure for how much longer. I'll be much more likely in future years to listen to my (forthcoming) playlist of favorite 2025 songs than I'll be to listen to most/many of the albums I'll discuss below. But since Song of the Year is still the top category, let's see which one—if any—will enter my personal cannon and perhaps make that best of the decade list in five years.
- The last name in this field was Molly Tuttle, who had to fend off Momma and The Beaches (in that order, I think). I don't think any of these albums (or the rest of the HMs) will be ones I'll revisit a ton. I'm sure I'll come back to The Beaches if only for "Last Girls at the Party," while Momma could either be a one-hit wonder or a band that could look too low here in a few years depending on what they do next. I like the Tuttle album the best out of all of these, and it reminds me a bit of Maggie Rogers's excellent album from last year... which I didn't go back to a ton in 2025, if I'm being honest. Tuttle's record seems like it'll be in the same boat. Very much enjoyed it this year but not an all-timer.
- I know I'll be revisiting the rest of the albums in this category, starting with The Beths, who as mentioned above are one of my favorite discoveries of the 2020s. This album really clicked for me when I saw them live last month—just watching the interplay between the band members and how the harmonies come together was revelatory and one of my favorite concert experiences of the year. Again, I know they're a band I'll revisit over the years, but I'm not sure this album really stands out from the rest of their discography in such a way as to make it especially more memorable than the others. I kind of put The Beths in a similar category as Charly Bliss, who very nearly won AOTY last year—and who I only occasionally revisited in 2025. Very much like, but canonical? I'm not so sure.
- There's no doubt that Craig Finn has real estate staked out in my personal canon, but it's with The Hold Steady and not necessarily as a solo artist. While I've generally enjoyed his previous solo efforts—especially the first one, Clear Hearts Full Eyes—as mentioned above, this is his first solo record to make a real appearance in this space. And it's really an exceptional album, albeit not one that I've been keen to listen to all the way through often, which is kind of a major criterion for this category. It's a lot of 3:30+ mid-tempo numbers, which is fine but not necessarily conducive to how I listen to music anymore. That said, I nearly talked my self into going with it in this category due to Finn's incredible lyrics and Granduciel's note-perfect production. I could see this record being one I look back on and ranked too low here. But for now it's a solid #3.
- So this category definitely came down to Finn and the final two nominees. I very much had a tough time picking between probably the most artistically accomplished album (Finn), the most listenable (Winona Fighter), and the best combination of the two (McMurtry). Eventually, I settled on James McMurtry here at #2. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't think the high points are quite as high as the Finn record, but it also feels like a more cohesive album that's just flows from track to track. I know I listened to it all the way through more than Finn's record... although not quite as much as #1 below. I guess what I'm saying is that I slightly prefer McMurtry's short story stylings to Finn's more novelistic approach. But both albums are excellent entries into the dad rock genre—and I actually got my dad The Horses and the Hounds for Christmas this year. Early reviews are positive. I don't think he's quite ready for Finn, but maybe next year.
- So that means that the prestigious AOTY goes to none other than Winona Fighter. This year feels almost exactly like 2021 when Sincere Engineer—a young, female-fronted, punk-adjacent band—took the top prize over a strong late-career effort from a veteran dad rock–adjacent band in Lucero. Like that year, the tiebreaker eventually was simply "Which album did I listen to most?" This year, the (documentable) answer to that question was unquestionably the brash badasses from Nashville. Now, they do have the advantage of their album coming out much earlier in the year than Finn or McMurtry, but Winona Fighter were on constant rotation and their album was the most purely joyful musical experience I had this year. I very much look forward to seeing where they go from here—and maybe, like Sincere Engineer, their next album will be another AOTY contender. Regardless, I know this is an album I'll be enjoying for years to come.
Bonus Category: Concert of the Year
I've got enough time before I need to get ready for New Year's festivities that I can drop a list of my favorite concerts of the year (with minimal commentary). Here we go!
The Beths @ The Van Buren (November)
Craig Finn/Patterson Hood @ The Musical Instrument Museum (November)
The Offspring/Jimmy Eat World/New Found Glory @ Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre (August)
The Beaches @ The Van Buren (October)
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Rilo Kiley @ The Van Buren (May), The Academy Is... @ The Observatory (December), Dreamy Draw Festival @ Scottsdale Civic Center (November), Menzingers/Lucero @ The Nile (May), Winona Fighter @ Valley Bar (June)
Fall was a great season for concerts! The best of the bunch was The Format at the AZ State Fair. I never got to see them back in the day, as I think I was living in L.A. during most of their initial run. Then they canceled not once but twice during COVID. But I managed to scoop up a couple tickets for their reunion show this year and it was just as good as I could have hoped—better even! So, so good. Immensely excited for their new album in 2026... as well as whatever else the year holds, music-wise. Whether it's the new Format album or something else entirely, I can't wait to see what else might enter my personal musical canon next year.
As always, thanks for reading! Happy New Year. =)
