I stopped using Spotify in 2025. As much as I would love to stand tall as a moral leader who finally, courageously left a platform we all hate but still use, it was not a particularly moral move. In March, an ex finally kicked me off the family plan I was still on. I used it as an opportunity to explore alternatives, something I could have done for years and did not do. I’m in no position to talk down to anyone.
Still, as the year rolled on, I saw encouraging signs that others would join me. I watched artists like Deerhoof exit the platform after the CEO, Daniel Ek, invested in an AI drone startup. Regular people seemed supportive, and some promised to leave, too! Everywhere I looked, someone was talking about alternative platforms or returning to physical media.
And then Wrapped came out. It was a lonely day for me. To top it off, the non-Spotify streaming app I chose had a milquetoast rip-off version that I dared not post.
Well, no matter. Like (almost) always, I have been planning to write my own 2025 music wrapup for months. And somehow I’m posting it well into 2026, also like always. My list is below, and you can jump right to it if you don’t want to read my takes and personal anecdotes.
Tasteful twang
There’s been a long-term trend toward country-inspired sounds in indie music, and I’m just as shocked as anyone that I enjoy it. I’ve disliked country music for most of my life. I just couldn’t get past that over-the-top twang.
I grew up in Southwestern Ontario, 900 kilometres north of Nashville, in an area where nobody sounded like that, and yet it was full of people who listened to the music. The rural lifestyle is similar anywhere, I guess. It was also, to me, deeply off-putting. For years, I avoided anything even a little bit country, assuming that there was only one way to be country.
It turns out, though, that I cannot get enough tasteful twang. The stand-out album this year was Bleeds by Wednesday. Karly Hartzman’s lyrics speak to my experience of small-town life. In those songs, I see a reflection of myself in the small town I used to call home and the characters I knew there. Sonically, the record is eclectic yet cohesive. It features heavy metal moments alongside music that sounds straight out of a rural dive bar. It is Wednesday at their absolute best.
I also want to shout out Patience, Moonbeam by Great Grandpa. It’s one of those records where I know a critic has good taste if they’re recommending it. It’s got that touch of twang, the songwriting is deep and rewards many listens, and the whole thing is polished in a way that demonstrates the artists’ deep passion for what they do.
Toward the end of the year, and into 2026, I got really into Hana Eid’s Trains Running Backwards. Sadly, I’ve seen little love for it on year-end lists. Eid writes evocative lyrics, and backs them up with heavy guitars that bring shoegaze to mind. And of course, she sings with a tasteful twang. It fits perfectly in the genre Kelsie of The Yellow Button has called Countrygaze, and I think it’s one of the best albums in the mix.
New favourites
I love finding new artists to listen to, which is a big reason why I make these lists (almost) every year. In 2025, my favourite new-to-me group was Mamalarky, with Hex Key. Their brand of indie rock is fun to listen to, unpolished in all the right ways, and criminally underrated. I have had this album on repeat since it came out in April.
I’m also one of the many people jumping on the Geese bandwagon after the release of Getting Killed. I doubt I can say anything novel about it. It’s just excellent, weird indie rock. At this point, it’s probably a little overhyped, but only because the niche they serve has felt neglected lately. It deserves the praise.
Sometimes though, this wrap-up exercise leads me to look at artists I already knew but had written off. In 2025, this happened with FKA Twigs. Eusexua came out during a slow period for releases, though it would have stood alone no matter when it was released. FKA Twigs is a fine purveyor of art pop, and I’m a little embarrassed I slept on her this long. Admittedly, this is not the type of music I generally go for. But after I opened my ears to dance music last year via Brat, it seemed appropriate to continue broadening my scope. Speaking of which…
I like electronic music now?
As someone who hasn’t been out dancing in over a decade, I would not have expected last January that in a year I’d be writing about so many electronic albums. And yet here I am, excited to rave about Revengeseekerz by Jane Remover and I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi. I will not, however, be raving to them (publicly at least).
Look, I love a good, organized cacophony, and Jane Remover is an expert at crafting them, hooking me from the very first track, “Twice Removed,” which opens with the sound of phones ringing and notifications going off. The album does not really quiet down for about 50 minutes. And somehow this is the music that I found myself working along to most this year. I can’t explain that. Try to write or edit with this pumping through headphones and let me know how that goes.
Ninajirachi’s work is much more straightforward EDM, though no less brilliant. I worked along to her music too, though I was more frequently distracted by her clever lyrics, which range from hilarious to heartwarming to anxiety-inducing. I Love My Computer captures the essence of Logging On in the best way. It brings me back to those halcyon days in my childhood bedroom, goofing around on the old family Dell desktop. Especially because it often sonically evokes the EDM of the early- and mid-2000s when I was doing that.
Revengeseekerz feels chronically online in different, less tangible ways. In the sort of way where I don’t think you could make it, or appreciate it, if you hadn’t spent substantial time cooking your brain online. It scratches my brain in a way that I always want TikTok or Instagram to do, and in a way they always fail to do. I Love My Computer presents a more nostalgic view of using the computer, though it doesn’t shy away from the negative aspects, like seeing a snuff film and being unable to forget it. Weirdly, it makes me feel empowered to find ways to enjoy spending screentime. It’s about the joy you make for yourself, rather than deferring to the major platforms.
Artists evolve
For years, any time someone asked me about my favourite band, I’d usually hem and haw in a way that suggested I was pretentious and insufferable, before saying “probably Black Country, New Road.” I formed that opinion on their first two albums. Shortly after the release of the second one, the lead singer quit. I was saddened I’d never get to watch them play those old songs, but delighted that the other six members were keeping the band going in an altered form.
Forever Howlong, their first studio album in the six-member formation, did not disappoint. It’s a different approach from the previous two records, but one that still features the signatures of the musicians who made such masterpieces. I approached it almost like a debut album, and I think that served me well. It rarely sounds like the other two, but it always sounds excellent in its own right.
Too often, I think musicians are pressured to make the same music over and over, lest they be branded sellouts or has-beens. The alternative is so much more refreshing.
Similarly, Pool Kids changed up their sound on their latest album, Easier Said than Done, which paid off beautifully. Look, I’ll always be an emo kid, and that math rock/emo sound is what drew me to them several years ago. But thank goodness we’ve all changed. The ever-present depth in their lyricism is matched with a broadened texture of sounds that play to their traditional sound while moving it forward. It’s like a blueprint for aging gracefully as an emo.
There’s even a counterpoint to the emo cliché “I don’t need this town.” In “Leona Street,” the singer discusses returning to her hometown as a changed, more mature version of herself, and reflects on how people she used to know may interpret that, as well as how they may have changed. I feel just as seen listening to this now as I did while listening to the melancholy emo of my teens. It truly gets better, where “it” is both life and the music.
The album isn’t dead
Commentators have been soothsaying the downfall of the album for as long as I can remember. In my youth, the iTunes shuffle button was the devil, but today it’s playlists and streaming algorithms coming to kill the medium. I’m sure one could find similar laments against home-recorded mixtapes, the music video, or radio DJs, since these all also remove a song from its original context.
I’ve never found these arguments compelling. In my experience, one never has to wait long for a visionary artist to come along and release a project that embraces the album for what it is. In 2025, it was Rosalia with her opus LUX.
On it, Rosalia sings in 13 languages, inspired by the lives of female saints and mystics from around the world, and backed by the music of the London Symphony orchestra and guest appearances by Björk and others. It’s the musical equivalent of an ornate cathedral. It overwhelms you in its scope, and yet reveals more details everywhere your eye manages to focus. It continues to blow me away, even though I don’t understand the majority of the lyrics. Instead, I keep my eye out for deep dives like the one by Sophia Smith Galer that breaks down the languages and saints that informed the album.
Or how about GOLLIWOG by billy woods? This project needs to be heard as a whole. It’s a rap album, but also a horror project. In context, the songs terrify and unsettle in a way that I didn’t realize music was capable of.
Frankly, anything I’ve discussed here could be cited in defence of the staying power of the album. While I love a playlist, I expect that listening to albums cover to cover will always be my favourite way to listen to music.
Wrap it up and get to the list
Okay, enough from me. Here are my 15 favourite albums from 2025. Don’t read too much into the order. I more or less slapped this together. You could not go wrong listening to any one of them.
- Revengeseekerz – Jane Remover
- Hex Key – Mamalarky
- Bleeds – Wednesday
- LUX – Rosalia
- I Love My Computer – Ninajirachi
- Getting Killed – Geese
- Trains Running Backwards – Hana Eid
- Easier Said than Done – Pool Kids
- GOLLIWOG – billy woods
- Forever Howlong – Black Country, New Road
- Patience, Moonbeam – Great Grandpa
- Ghostholding – venturing
- Eusexua – FKA Twigs
- SAYA – Saya Gray
- Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You – Ethel Cain