2025. Bad year for politics. Great year for music…
Our sage Craig Finn teamed up with Adam Granduciel (War on Drugs) to drop his best solo album yet.
Turnstile, CMAT, Saya Gray, Greg Freeman, Sasami, and Indigo De Souza leapt forward.
Viagra Boys, Big Thief, Blood Orange, Wet Leg, Haim, Alex G, Sharon Van Etten, and the Beaches continued to stride. Lily Allen, Bon Iver, Kathleen Edwards, Panda Bear, James McMurtry, the Deftones, and Hamilton Leithauser stretched their primes into three decades and beyond.
Bad Bunny made me want to understand Spanish.
Rosalia made accept that I will never understand the 71 different languages that she croons on her indie-pop-flamenco-concerto.
Justin Bieber, who I never appreciated before, made a killer record after dumping Scooter Braun for the gonzo R&B of Dijon and Mk.Gee.
A song about Townies (see Wednesday) made the rounds on the best-of-year lists for NPR, Paste, Pitchfork, and the like.
Finally, and in defiance of grammar, Goose gave us two great records while Geese gave us one. But Geese is the one that crushed Adam, Nate, and me. You may say that our love is only half real, but that’s only half true.
Here are our picks for the year. You can listen on Spotify.
Band of Townies: Favorite Albums of 2025
Caleb’s picks
1. Getting Killed ~ Geese
Getting Killed feels like spinning yourself to the liminal space between transcendence and puking up breakfast. Like the first taste of an especially peaty yet not especially expensive Scotch. Like when Townes Van Zandt threw himself off a fourth-floor balcony at the University of Colorado not because he wanted to fall but because he wanted to know what it feels like just before you fall. Like waking at 2:00 and understanding the utility of military time because the shades are drawn and it could be AM or PM or Tuesday or happy hour or you’re late for work and is it February already?
Getting Killed is as brown as Mollusk era Ween, as ambitious as Yoshimi era Flaming Lips, and as beloved as Funeral era Arcade Fire. I’ve heard folks say that they haven’t been as excited about what a rock band might do next since Radiohead’s Ok Computer, and this comparison doesn’t seem batshit crazy.
Song picks: “Half Real” and “Taxes”
Lyric: “The lord has a lot of friends, and in the end, he’ll probably forget he’s met you before.”
2. Sounds Like… ~ Florry
Sounds Like… sounds like Neil Young, Daniel Johnston, and Drive-by Truckers—three of my all time favorites. Its songs are crisp and sad and funny and beautiful and wholly original. To interpolate their opening track: I give this record a five out of five. How’d they make a record like that?
Song picks: “First It Was a Movie, Then It Was a Book” & “Pretty Eyes Lorraine”
Lyric: “Guess that all I really wanna do is you with your pants off”
3. Always Been ~ Craig Finn
Craig Finn would have been my favorite writer even if the ink on his quill had dried after Boys and Girls in America. Instead, he’s spent the 20 years since then holding steady with his rock band and releasing a string of intoxicatingly depressing and increasingly beautiful solo albums. Always Been tells the story of an agnostic ex-marine who becomes a preacher because “a man needs a vocation.” There’s a world behind every Craig Finn character, and on this record and its companion book Lousy with Ghosts Finn reveals more than a taste of their triumphs, heartaches, sins, and mediocrities.
Song picks: “People of Substance” and “Fletcher”
Lyric: “The highway goes forever, but your funds will fence you in.”
4. West End Girl ~ Lily Allen
It may be true that all happy couples are alike and each divorced couple divorces in their own way, but the stages of divorce that Lily Allen describes on West End Girl will feel familiar to anyone how who’s survived this life stage, even if they’ve never been (or been with) a nonmonagomummy.
Allen rose to fame in the Myspace-mp3-pirating era of the naughties. I remember enjoying her catchy melodies and clever lyrics, but I don’t remember her songs hitting as hard as they do here, even if—or maybe because—here is a place that she has come to hate.
Song picks: “Tennis” and “Dallas Major”
Lyric: “Lie to the children, the ending was mutual”
5. Bleeds ~ Wednesday
I don’t know whether to be inspired, infuriated, or infatuated by another band that writes a song called “Townies” as perfect as the second track on Bleeds. Wednesday bill themselves as creek rock, but their creeks are swarming with townies doing townie shit, like cracking teeth on cough drops, mouthing off to bikers at stop lights, stokin’ bonfires with leaf blowers, smoking weed out of Pepsi cans, chopping ketamine with motel room keys, and driving to airports with the e-break on.
Song picks: “Townies” and “Gary’s II”
Lyric: “I find comfort that the angels don’t give a damn”
6. Crazymad, For Me ~ CMAT
7. Baby ~ Dijon
8. Lifetime ~ Erika de Casier
9. Saya ~ Saya Gray
10. Double Infinity ~ Big Thief
11. New Threats From the Soul ~ Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band
12. Burnover ~ Greg Freeman
13. The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy ~ James McMurtry
14. This Side of the Island ~ Hamilton Leithauser
15. CAN’T RUSH GREATNESS ~ Central Cee
16. Essex Honey ~ Blood Orange
17. Swag ~ Justin Bieber
18. Sable, fABLE ~ Bon Iver
19. Honeycrash ~ SASAMI
20. Precipice ~ Indigo de Souza
21. Sinister Gift ~ Panda Bear
22. I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME ~ Noah Cyrus
23. Everything Must Go ~ Goose
24. I Quit ~ HAIM
25. The Art of Loving ~ Olivia Dean
26. The Passionate Ones ~ The Art of Loving
27. DON’T TAP THE GLASS ~ Tyler, The Creator
28. Lotus ~ Little Simz
29. I’m Only F**king Myself ~ Lola Young
30. Man’s Best Friend ~ Sabrina Carpenter
31. Earthstar Mountain ~ Hannah Cohen
32. Glory ~ Perfume Genius
33. Headlights ~ Alex G
34. Lucius ~ Lucius
35. People Watching ~ Sam Fender
36. viagr aboys ~ Viagra Boys
37. Ruby ~ JENNIE
38. Something Beautiful ~ Miley Cyrus
39. Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory ~ Sharon Van Etten
40. Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You ~ Ethel Cain
41. moisturizer ~ Wet Leg
42. If You Asked For a Picture ~ Blondshell
43. Send a Prayer My Way ~ Julien Baker & TORRES
44. Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams ~ Patterson Hood
45. Billionaire ~ Kathleen Edwards
46. Snipe Hunter ~ Tyler Childers
47. Middle ~ Jesse Welles
48. No Hard Feelings ~ The Beaches
49. Heartache in Room 14 ~ The Altons
50. Sex Hysteria ~ Jessie Murph
Singles
“Messy” Lola Young
“Lucy” Mt. Joy
“Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” ROLE MODEL
“The Rope” Wunderhorse
“Too Pretty for Buffalo” Baby Nova
“moody” Royel Otis
“back to friends” sombr
“The Fate of Ophelia” Taylor Swift
“Headphones On” Addison Ray
“Henry, Come On” Lana Del Rey
Adam’s picks
In no particular order, other than that Viagra Boys generally kick ass.
Viagra Boys - Viagr Aboys
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Pogo Rodeo
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Carpe Diem, Moonman
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Phantom Island
Pulp - The Man Comes Around
Population II - Maintenant Jamais
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Trash Classic
Mogwai - The Bad Fire
The Beths - Straight Line Was a Lie
Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH
Geese - Getting Killed
Cameron Winter - Heavy Metal
NIИ - Tron Ares soundtrack
Osees - ABOMINATION REVEALED AT LAST
Wet Leg - moisturizer
Deftones - Private Music
Nate’s Picks
Put Geese on the list, I love this year’s and last year’s albums.
Also the Propagandhi album, At Peace.
The New Circles Around the Sun album, Interludes for the Dead Vol II, is good.