We may be one week into the calendar new year but I am in full reflection mode, taking stock of everything 2025 brought…which obviously includes my biggest obsession, music!
I’ve previously written about two of the artists listed below – check out my review of the latest 5 Seconds of Summer album and a deep dive into the Jonas Brothers’ nostalgic JONAS20: Greetings From Your Hometown tour. Without further ado, here are my favorite albums of 2025 in release date order, plus my thoughts and feelings on a few that have resonated most. Cheers to more new music and live music in the year to come!
| flipturn – Burnout Days | Djo – The Crux |
| FKA twigs – EUSEXUA | Babe Rainbow – Slipper imp and shakaerator |
| Lady Gaga – Mayhem | Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE |
I’d been longing for new Bon Iver music since 2019, and SABLE, fABLE was well worth the wait, instantly becoming a top album for me this year.
Casual listeners may still think of Justin Vernon as indie folk’s resident sad boy, but there’s always been much more to the melancholy, which he sinks into and underneath and begins to truly surface from on this record. The clarity with which you can feel the shift from depression and rumination (his classic folk sound) to unabashed joy and release (more pop/R&B/soul jammin’) between each half of the album is astonishing, lifted up by rich production and collaborations with Jim-E Stack, Mk.gee, Dijon, Danielle Haim, and more. When Vernon exhales the lyric “January ain’t the whole world” on the transition song “Short Story,” you can nearly hear heaven opening up and showering him in healing light. A sonic shedding of skin and suffering for both artist and listener.
| Men I Trust – Equus Caballus | Miley Cyrus – Something Beautiful |
| Kali Uchis – Sincerely, | Addison Rae – Addison |
| Joe Jonas – Music for People Who Believe in Love | MARINA – PRINCESS OF POWER |
Hear me when I say that Addison Rae is not just like every other TikTok star-turned-wannabe-musician!
Underestimate her at your own peril! If you need proof you should absolutely listen to Addison, her debut album and one of the strongest releases of 2025. Legend has it (it’s not legend, this is according to Addison herself) my queen walked into the record label meeting armed with nothing more than a mood board and a vision, and she manifested the hell out of it. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a modern pop artist create and promote an album with such strong influences in sound, stage presence, and attitude – Britney, Madonna, Charli, Gaga, Lana – that still manages to sound completely original. A star is born!
Yes, the record is sultry, summery pop perfection, buoyed by the addictively lush production of Elvira and Luka Kloser (Swedish pop excellence never dies, only reinvents itself), but beyond that, pay attention to every word Addison and the duo wrote. These lyrics are affirmations, a potent mix of confidence and flirtatious life force! “I’m dancing in my own reflection / I’m the ray of light / I’m transforming and realigning / I’ll take you with me high…” Money is everything, but Addison knows that true wealth is being able to grow and find joy and have fun through every high and low. Just one listen is all it will take for you, too, to be intoxicated by her carefree breath of fresh air and instantly hitting replay.
| Lorde – Virgin | Tyler Childers – Snipe Hunter |
| Noah Cyrus – I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME | Jonas Brothers – Greetings From Your Hometown |
| Lord Huron – The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 | Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You |
Ahead of its release, Lorde described Virgin as her most raw and visceral album.
I had no idea what to expect, but the meaning became clear when an enormous gray weight settled on my chest and spread through my entire being the first time I listened…it lingered for two full days. WHOA. This may be her most stripped back record to date, but lacking in substance and courage, it certainly is not! In typical Lorde fashion, she can’t help but expose her messy insides, writing so many uncomfortable, complicated, extreme, sensory events and emotions into physical poetry that cuts straight to the heart, even if you can’t directly relate (but of course I can and have many times with each album; we are curious and deep-feeling women of the same age, after all).
The hollow, industrial sound — another Jim-E Stack production job — amplifies Lorde’s intensity and creates a bare canvas for it to breathe and morph and take flight from, most notably on stage. Through every song on the Ultrasound Tour, she and tens of thousands of people filled arenas with an explosion of movement and light and connection that has always manifested in a tender way within her fanbase, from the album’s start to its breathtakingly cathartic “David” finish. Virgin is unlike any other album I encountered in 2025, a fluid and climactic full body experience. As Lorde likes to proclaim, the magic lives close to the edge.
| Dijon – Baby | JADE – THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! |
| Royel Otis – hickey | MIRADOR – MIRADOR |
| Goldie Boutilier – Goldie Boutilier Presents…Goldie Montana | Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving |
While I wouldn’t say pop music was amazing overall this year, a few of the girls did shine with new releases, Jade among the brightest!
Vulnerable pop (see also: brat, every Carly Rae Jepsen song ever) is perhaps my favorite subgenre, and her solo debut THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! easily takes the 2025 title. Aside from liking a few singles, I wasn’t really into Little Mix in the 2010s, so Jade came into my personal musical sphere out of nowhere and immediately grabbed my attention.
This record is a disco- and dance-inspired dream, just the right mix of honest writing with polished club beats and insanely catchy hooks. Jade puts her double-edged self — real and showbiz sides — on display, flipping off the exploitative music industry (and calling out a certain former The X Factor judge, which fills me with glee!) while also reveling in the glitz and glamour of performance. Behind the curtain, through love songs with refreshing angles and cheeky lyrics, she reveals an inner world of seduction, play, compassion, and self-exploration in toxic and healthy relationship patterns. Jade has served up a sexy, unapologetic, no-skip album with lots of heart, and I couldn’t be more excited to see how this It Girl continues to make her mark in the world of earworm pop! P.S. “Angel of My Dreams” is undeniably Song of the Year. Argue with the wall.
| Zara Larsson – Midnight Sun | Demi Lovato – It’s Not That Deep |
| Tame Impala – Deadbeat | Florence + the Machine – Everybody Scream |
| The Last Dinner Party – From the Pyre | 5 Seconds of Summer – EVERYONE’S A STAR! |
Florence + the Machine! Everybody Scream! Released on Halloween!
Which means this album has been in the ether for a bit now, but I am still devouring and digesting on a near daily basis and it feels brand new. Back for season six, Florence is at her most emotionally raw — more transparent than ever about her life, career, relationships, and anxieties, under the big themes of grief and healing from the physical and emotional trauma of a medical emergency — and thus her most powerful. I have adored this woman’s music for half my life and still the only thing I know is that she must be tapped into some ancient, divine source from a million timelines and eras ago! There is no logical, earthly explanation for her artistry and capabilities!
Florence leans heavily into that Old World on this record, conjuring up a dark, decaying autumnal scene in the liminal space between life and death…think potions, herbal remedies, folklore, eerie houses in the woods, ancestral ghosts, body horror, sorcery, green witchcraft, the works. Her operatic, ethereal vocals soar as free as ever, balancing darkness with light, and the signature thunderclap of FATM instrumentals thrums with an incredible tension and medieval feel. I am awestruck by heavy hitters like “The Old Religion,” “Drink Deep,” and “You Can Have It All,” already dreaming of how the songs will come to life through the extravagant stage production and environment (more like coven gathering) that only Florence can create. Everybody Scream is an exorcism, a hopeful prayer, the anguished yet resolved battle cry of a woman who is clawing her way back from hell and can still find heaven all around.