Looking back on the last six months, it feels like 2025 might be remembered as a turning point for music in the 2020s. Every decade has a year like this, where you can see in real time one generation of musicians begin to retreat a bit from the mainstream as another group arrives to take their place. This year, several artists whose work I generally like put out records I thought were just okay, or worse. Meanwhile, I find myself being wowed by acts I have just discovered.
My mid-year list isn’t completely devoid of old favorites, but the majority are relative newcomers (or newcomers to me). This is an interesting development that might not continue in the back half of the year. Or it might suggest that we’re about to have a much better understanding of the overall story of music this decade. Either way, I can’t wait to find out. In the meantime, here are 23 albums from 2025, listed in alphabetical order, that I like a lot.
Alien Boy — You Wanna Fade?
It’s been a while (too long!) since 2021’s Don’t What Know What I Am, which made my best-of list that year. But these canny Portland power-poppers justified the wait with an even better record. While Alien Boy is often classified as emo, You Wanna Fade? shows that they’re really just a great pop-rock band with a stealth knack for melodramatic grandiosity. The melodies come fast and furious, but the moody guitar tones ground the music in a kind of magnetic melancholy, like Fountains Of Wayne if they sounded more like Disintegration.
Beauty Saloon — BS
A recurring theme of my 2025 favorites is a certain sound that once was described as alt-country and now gets slotted as indie Americana. Whatever you want to call it, lots of good bands are making that kind of music right now. Add this Chicago outfit to the list. On BS, they specialize in languid jams built from liquid-sounding guitars and a gently shambling rhythm section. It’s definitely more indie than Americana, or more Pavement than Drive-By Truckers. But it’s custom-made for the back patio nevertheless.
Bon Iver — SABLE, fABLE
The song titles are a tip-off. With a Bon Iver album, they can be a difficult proposition. Ever since 2016’s 22, A Million, the tracklist for a Justin Vernon LP reads more like a menacing letter from a Zodiac-inspired serial killer than a rundown of songs. But on SABLE, fABLE (the first Bon Iver album in six years, and the fifth overall), the song titles are shockingly comprehensible. Take the duet with Danielle Haim, “I’ll Be There.” Vernon titling a song “I’ll Be There” is like Frank Zappa naming one of his sons John Frederick Zappa. It’s a weird act of uncharacteristic normalcy. And yet it suits the track, an art-rock love song with churchy chords and bedroom-sultry vocals that sounds like Luther Vandross as produced by Godley & Creme or Peter Gabriel after an intense six-month Sade phase.
Caroline — Caroline 2
A member of this English post-rock octet once described their sound as “sadboy triumphalism,” a self-deprecating classification echoed on their latest album by naming a song “Coldplay Cover.” It’s not an actual Coldplay cover, mind you, though its strummy campfire vibe does sort of resemble a deconstructed, intellectualized redux of “Fix You.” I’ve been ambivalent about other British acts (your Geordie Greeps, your Black Country, New Roads) that mine a similar vein of brainy art rock that draws from ’90s emo and ’70s prog. I always admire their chutzpah, but their actual music frequently borders on annoying cleverness-for-the-sake-of-cleverness. Caroline 2, however, has some genuinely mind-blowing moments, starting with the first track “Total Euphoria,” where it sounds like every instrument is playing a different song. (When I listen to it on my laptop, I always get tricked into thinking that I have multiple songs playing on different tabs.) Then things align and explode, and I’m floored all over again.
The Convenience — Like Cartoon Vampires
My podcast co-host Ian Cohen sometimes talks about resisting bands that seem almost too well-suited to his tastes. It’s a natural critical impulse: Do I really like this thing, or do I like the things this thing is referencing? This thought crossed my mind after hearing The Convenience, a duo from New Orleans who essentially make straight-up “normal guy” indie rock in the vein of Spoon and Parquet Courts. But I didn’t dwell on it for too long. This kind of music always seems easier to make than it does, and the craft on Like Cartoon Vampires is just impossible to deny.
Jerry David DeCicca — Cardiac Country
I’ve been a fan of this Texas-based singer-songwriter since his time with The Black Swans back in the aughts. But DeCicca is on an extra-special roll lately, after 2023’s New Shadows — a pitch-perfect homage to boomer rock singer-songwriter records from the 1980s, a la Bob Dylan’s Infidels and Don Henley’s Building The Perfect Beast — and now this dutch-angle country effort. Unlike a lot of artists working in a similar “literate Americana” lane, DeCicca understands that the right vibe can take a good song and make it something greater. On Cardiac Country, he locks into a hyper-specific frequency I liken to watching an old episode of Austin City Limits from the ’90s on YouTube starring Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Joe Ely. If that description communicates something visceral to you, grip this album now.
Destroyer — Dan’s Boogie
This is the 14th album Dan Bejar has made as Destroyer. When you get to the 14th album in any discography, you’re hoping for something that sounds fresh and exciting while also delivering the unique qualities that kept you interested through the other 13 records. Dan’s Boogie does that. It feels like a new beginning after the previous three releases, which form a stylistically united trilogy. (Let’s call those dark, synth-infused LPs his ’80s Dylan period — which coming from me is a compliment.) Dan’s Boogie, meanwhile, retains some of the feel of that music while also reaching back to the live-band looseness of aughts-era albums like This Night and Rubies.
Craig Finn — Always Been
While he continues to tour with The Hold Steady, he’s been busier making Craig Finn records in the past dozen or so years. Always Been is his sixth solo effort, though it also represents an exciting departure. After years of fruitful collaboration with producer Josh Kaufman, who is based in New York’s Hudson Valley, Finn switched coasts and threw in his lot with Adam Granduciel, who recruited several of his bandmates from The War On Drugs to give Finn’s songs an unmistakable TWOD vibe. Craig Finn’s voice and songs plus music that sounds like The War On Drugs — the elevator pitch for Always Been is so simple that it almost seems too simplistic as a description. For an artist who has been compared to Springsteen semi-constantly for the past two decades, Always Been is the closest Finn has come to making an actual Springsteen record. Born In The U.S.A. and Tunnel Of Love, in particular, feel like obvious signposts.
Florry — Sounds Like…
The Philadelphia band Florry first came across my radar in 2023, upon the release of their third album, The Holey Bible. Led by singer-songwriter Francie Medosch, who started the project when she was a teenager, Florry is part of the same country-rock solar system that includes Wednesday and MJ Lenderman (whose 2022 LP Boat Songs was put out by Florry’s label, the rising indie Dear Life Records). What set The Holey Bible apart was its ragged, blown-out sound. It was more like a bootleg of studio jams than a normal “proper” album. Thankfully, while Sounds Like… is slightly less anarchic, is nowhere close to slick. The result is the rare indie-rock record from 2025 that actually rocks.
Bill Fox — Resonance
This reclusive cult hero from Ohio put out two perfect home-recorded albums in the late ’90s, and then mostly stayed off the grid. That is, until he unexpectedly re-emerged this year with his first album in 13 years. Unlike the unruly blasts of psychedelic pseudo-arena rock turned out by his peers in Guided By Voices, Fox plays songs with Dylanesque instrumentation (voice, guitar, harmonica) and a Beatlesque melodic sense. And his lyrics — often lovelorn, occasionally political, usually introspective, and always poetic in a plainspoken way — are far better-written and heartbreaking than they need to be.
Friendship — Caveman Wakes Up
Another band adjacent to the Wednesday/MJ Lenderman Cinematic Universe. (You might have seen the video of Friendship singer Dan Wriggens doing “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” with Lenderman earlier this year.) On Caveman Wakes Up, Wriggens plugs into the same wryly literate indie-country lane that David Berman pioneered in the ’90s, with stories of downbeat struggle rendered with wit and insight, courtesy of a barstool poet’s knowing eye.
Fust — Big Ugly
On record, the focal point of this North Carolina band is squarely on Aaron Dowdy’s songs, which marry hearty alt-country music with impressionistic lyrics infused with authentic small-town southern lore. He is especially fond of deploying regional slang that might be confounding to outsiders, starting with the album title (named after one of the record’s best songs), which refers to an unruly, unsightly creek. On stage, however, Fust has a communal band vibe that’s immediately inviting, starting with the interplay between Dowdy and singer/fiddle player Libby Rodenbough, and extending to the lively interjections of pianist (and long-time Dowdy collaborator) Frank Meadows. I implore you: Seek out this record and then see this band live.
S.G. Goodman — Planting By The Signs
Certain foundational artists go through cycles where they become fashionable namechecks for artists and critics alike. In the 2020s, one of those artists is the great Lucinda Williams, whose landmark 1998 album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road has been an essential text for a new generation of singer-songwriters. Thing is, though, many of these younger writers don’t sound much like Lucinda. S.G. Goodman is the exception. I loved her 2022 album Teeth Marks, which balanced personal revelations with barbed political commentary. Her latest is a very worthy sequel.
Horsegirl — Phonetics On And On
In the ’60s, a generation of rock bands dedicated themselves to studying and replicating blues music that was anywhere from 10 to 30 years old. In the 2020s, something similar is going on with current indie bands and the indie music of the ’90s. (In this scenario, Stephen Malkmus is Robert Johnson.) Horsegirl is a Chicago band whose members are all in their early 20s, and yet the music they make — wiry post-punk with lackadaisical but nonetheless catchy melodies — sounds nearly twice as old. Add in producer Cate Le Bon — whose dry, naturalistic sound is perfectly suited for this band — and you potentially have the finest 1992 album of 2025.
Hotline TNT — Raspberry Moon
On their 2023 breakthrough Cartwheel, Hotline TNT’s Will Anderson worked closely with co-producer Ian Teeple to create a furious, blown-out sound that nearly overwhelmed the melodies buried in the murk. On the new record, however, Hotline TNT worked more as an actual live unit, a byproduct of the constantly changing lineup finally solidifying during the Cartwheel tour cycle. Under the guiding hand of producer Amos Pitsch from DIY heroes Tenement – they recorded Raspberry Moon in Pitsch’s (and my) hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin — Anderson both streamlined and beefed-up Hotline TNT’s sound, sacrificing some of the gritty character of Cartwheel for extra anthemic power. You can hear it in the single (and one of the year’s best songs) “Julia’s War,” which has a “na na na” chorus I can imagine inspiring massive sing-alongs live.
Kyle M. — The Real Me
Former SNL cast member Kyle Mooney is a master at replicating the minutiae of awkward, poorly executed amateur media. On his anti-singer-songwriter album The Real Me, he applies the same careful eye to Bandcamp indie that he previously had to high school public access TV programs. Over rudimentary guitar picking and demo keyboard licks, Mooney talk-sings about about feeling like a cowboy instead of a cowman with a mix of ironic detachment and genuine middle-aged dread. What initially scans as a comic lark reveals itself over time — not that much time, it’s only a 19-minute record — as a set of weirdly catchy and spiritually unsettling songs.
Momma — Welcome To My Blue Sky
This Brooklyn-by-way-of-LA band suffers somewhat by virtue of doing something musically that a million other bands have attempted in the past several years. The reference points couldn’t be more obvious: Siamese Dream, Veruca Salt, Hole’s Celebrity Skin era, general shoegaziness. But Momma deserves extra credit for attempting all that and actually pulling it off. If you can allow yourself to be drawn in one more time by a music critic promising “MTV Buzz Bin rock but new,” I promise that you will find Welcome To My Blue Sky as fun as I do.
Panda Bear — Sinister Grift
The title of this album is somewhat misleading — there’s little about this otherwise warm and inviting record that reads as “sinister,” at least as it relates to Animal Collective and AnCo-adjacent music. Instead, Sinister Grift feels like a continuation of recent AnCo albums, which represent some of the poppiest and most accessible music of their career. I actually kind of miss the more sinister side of Panda Bear’s music, but I can’t really complain about that when I’m listening to this consistently lovely LP.
Jane Remover — Revengeseekerz
Now here is some serious sinister grift. If I had to use one world that describes my feelings about the state of the world in 2025, it would be “discomfort.” If I had to use two words, it would be “extreme discomfort.” I’m generally an optimist, but the possibility for technological apocalypse — among other looming forms of apocalypse — seems frighteningly real. And more than any other album, this frenetic and chaotic and internet-damaged and melted-brain future pop music captures that feeling than anything I can think of.
Bruce Springsteen — Streets Of Philadelphia Sessions
The best of the seven albums included in the massive Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set. It’s also the most infamous — for years, there was word of a record in the Boss’ vaults rooted in synthesizers and drum loops, derived from the style that won him an Academy Award in the mid-’90s for the song “Streets Of Philadelphia.” As a rumor, it seemed like a potential trainwreck. But now that the album is actually available, it suddenly seems like a shame that he didn’t make this creative pivot 30 years ago. As it stands, this is now the best LP that Bruce made in the ’90s, a period that once seemed fallow and now appears to have been creatively fertile for the rock icon.
Turnstile — Never Enough
If Glow On was about leveling up, Never Enough is concerned with maintaining this so-called hardcore band’s newfound status as one of the few “actually good” mainstream rock acts. Incredibly, Never Enough picks up the thread about as well as could be expected. If anything, this record sounds even bigger and dreamier than Glow On. (It was recorded at the same Laurel Canyon studio where the Red Hot Chili Peppers made BloodSugarSexMagik, so it comes by the ’90s alt-rock vibes honestly.) Given how miserable and colorless most of their peers are now — no other genre revels in performative dreariness like the lip-ring soul-patch merchants populating your local modern rock radio station — the sheer effervescence of Turnstile feels like a small miracle. And Never Enough shines like an 80-degree day after endless months of rain.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory — Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Not to be that guy, but I saw Sharon Van Etten very early on in her career, way back in the late aughts, when she was a stand-alone folkie who often looked ill-at-ease on stage. So, it’s been doubly fascinating (and gratifying) to watch her evolve into a true-blue rock star over the course of 15 or so years. Her 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow, where she discovered her inner Patti Smith, was a milestone in that regard. But her latest album, billed as a group effort with The Attachment Theory, confirms that transformation. Van Etten has always been a great singer, but something about these pounding synth-rock jams brings out an extra layer of swagger that seemed unimaginable back in those lonely club days.
Cameron Winter — Heavy Metal
This record dropped the same day as my year-end list for 2024, which of course at this point is just irrelevant trivia. A decade from now, when I look back on my favorite albums of that year, I suspect that Heavy Metal will be among the standouts. (I’m putting it on this list as a “better late than never” move.) Winter’s songs — grand, idiosyncratic, funny, disturbing, densely wordy, and deeply moving — have remained lodged in my cranium. It feels like a major statement by an emerging artist, and there’s also reason to think that he will never make an album like it ever again. But for now, it sounds new and fresh and feels ancient and profound.
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