2025 Favorites: Music

Listen to the playlist :)

Sasha M

More Is More by George Riley

I’m possibly a little biased as I had the pleasure of profiling George a little before the album’s release, and she remains possibly the funniest and most charming person I’ve ever interviewed. More Is More is tongue-in-cheek pop girl perfection, designed for lovers of underground electronica and party girls alike. Start with “More,” and watch the accompanying music video directed by fellow cool girl Iris Luz to get a sense of the vibe.

Lily C

Erotica Veronica by Miya Folick

If I talked to you about music this year, I likely told you to listen to this album; it turned me from a casual Miya Folick enjoyer into a worshipper. Highlights include “This Time Around,” which my friend Lizzie said feels like a song she’s known her whole life, “Fist,” and “Light Through the Linen.” Released in the dreary last days of February, this was the perfect album to carry me into spring.

“I’ve Got a Feeling (Stay Lucky)” by Porridge Radio

One of my favorite concert memories from this year was seeing Porridge Radio on their last ever tour. I bought a long sleeve t-shirt from the merch booth and put it on over my other long sleeve t-shirt, stood in the back of the room with my friend Taylor and said goodbye to this band we love so much. “Write down what you want / and talk to it.” An anthem for the upcoming season of resolutions.

Myka G

LUX by Rosalía

It may be recency bias, but I don’t think so! The moment I heard “Berghain” and saw the early imagery, I was enthralled—it’s quickly become my most played album released this year. Its effect is reminiscent of FKA twigs’ MAGDALENE, another work that navigates the tangles of religion, human connection, and identity. brb I’m otw to get a halo dye job like Rosalía’s.

Taylor S

Sad and Beautiful World by Mavis Staples

I’ve been lucky enough in my young life to receive wisdom and friendship from my elders. That’s the gift I’m receiving when I listen to Mavis Staples’s 2025 cover album, Sad and Beautiful World. The album art, in which Staples sits at a kitchen table, smiling softly with her hands clasped and eyes closed, only deepens this feeling: I can so easily picture myself sitting across from her, listening to her story. Her raspy yet gentle timbre convinces me she’s lived every feeling she sings. Kevin Morby’s “Beautiful Strangers,” a protest song against gun violence, feels particularly poignant coming from this singer who soundtracked the Civil Rights Movement.

Getting Killed by Geese

I spent the scorching summer of 2021 enthralled by Geese’s epic debut single, “Disco.” I was fresh out of college, confused and enraged and desperate, and the band’s members were fresh out of high school, making music that spoke to my emotional state. When I return to the track now, I’m struck by how youthful it sounds—and I hear in it the roots of the sonic bravado on display in the band’s latest album, Getting Killed. “Nobody knows where they're going except me,” declares Winter on the album’s closer, then positioning himself in the tower of song: “Oh Charles, tell me about the end / You were there the day the music died, and / I'll be there the day it dies again.” You know what? I believe him. The chaos and anxiety of these songs feel damn near apocalyptic, but Geese grounds it all with purely human longings and laments. I’m excited thinking about what the band has yet to make, but I’m just as eager to spend years with this album. Like memories of youth, I imagine that new meanings will emerge from moments of blunt shock as time passes, making those strange scenes grow ever richer.

Philip K

I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! by Jensen McRae

You want to scratch the singer-songwriter itch? You want to hear brutally cogent lyrics with irresistible melodies? You want harmonies and hooks that will punch you in the lungs? This is the album for you! From its first texturally satisfying song, “The Rearranger,” the album tenderly unfolds into a patient yet rollicking parade of emotional disclosure. “Let Me Be Wrong” is a violently repeatable song, and “I Can Change Him” is so specific that you will feel as though McRae has wormed her way into your journal.

Amelia L

Recumbent Dog Radio on Mixcloud

Divest from Spotify and invest in your friends’ internet radio shows! My friend Racquel curates a fantastic collection of thematically arranged songs every couple weeks or months or so and it’s my favorite thing to tune into. I always end up researching at least one song I encounter on her playlists and that’s the hallmark of good music in my opinion, it generates a desire to explore. Algorithms are out, your friends’ taste is in.

Nolan K

Big City Life by Smerz

In the fall of ’25, I made the socially uncouth choice of moving back to Manhattan from Brooklyn. Even before I took the plunge, the girls from Copenhagen were whispering in my ear, preparing me for battle-communion with the beast. The 13 tracks of Big City Life range from rhythmic spirituals to suspended ballads, classical minimalism to cut-up post rock, and they circle the great themes of the urban environment: Distance. Speed. Getting dressed. Going places in stupid shoes. Looking out the window. Missing someone. Dreaming about them dreaming about you.

MUSIC by Playboi Carti

Every Carti album caps a period of hysteria while birthing his next iteration of hype. One of the most relentlessly imitated and leaked musicians on the planet, Carti has to dramatically innovate on his cadence and flow with each release, not only outdoing his previous work, but feinting direction and switching course through features and clips. In 2023, just when his “baby voice” phenomenon reached peak saturation, he parried, featuring on Travis Scott’s “FE!N” with a sinister growl a full octave below Scott’s copycat flow. The following 21 months were spent in almost excruciating anticipation by Carti fans, who offered crowd-sourced rewards to any producer that might gain access to Jordan Carter’s hard dive. When MUSIC finally appeared, it was predictably nothing like what we had come to expect. It’s janky and evil and unerringly fun. The very day it dropped, Carti posted “BBY BOI OTW,” indicating the next installment of his chimeric persona. Let the wait begin.

Georgina B

SNOEY by Zack Villere

I came across Zack Villere’s music video for “Cool” in 2018 maybe in the same YouTube watching session as the first time I listened to Cosmo Pyke’s “Social Sites” and Clairo’s “Bubble Gum.” I was late to the party, but I was 16 and I was slowly making my way from Fall Out Boy and Twenty One Pilots, through The 1975 and The Front Bottoms, to normal cool people music. “Cool” is from Zack Villere’s album, Little World, which went semi-viral for its bedroom-pop, Napoleon-Dynamite rap with quirky subplots and asides, a mix of awkwardness and bright colors and the vibe of having a crush on a boy on Snapchat but also he’s an alien…and I was obsessed with it.

Zack Villere came out with another album in 2020 that passed under my radar, but he popped up on my feed for the first time in years with a new album a couple of months ago. SNOEY is a concept album about an exiled yeti who has never heard of music before and dates a human girl. It’s delightful to listen to. It’s soft and kind, at times fun and at times a little heartbreaking, and it brings up all the warm feelings I felt in 2018 again. Much like Little World, it is otherworldly in a way that is incredibly comforting. My favorites are the successive “Ooey Gooey,” “Public Opinion,” and “Satsuma,” but the acoustic songs that end the album would satisfy the ears of anyone with a heart.

West End Girl by Lily Allen

The drama, the storytelling, the range – this to me is a perfect record. And paired with her listing the pussy palace brownstone for sale just days after the album release? Stunning.

Lizzie R

Bloodless by Samia

Every new Samia release hits me in waves: at first I listen so closely that I can barely hear it; then I fall in love with it all at once; then it’s on repeat until I need to take a break. I love everything she does and this album feels like she’s reached a new point of clarity. “Fair Game” and “North Poles” are standouts, but I could shout out the entire album. Bloodless is a walk through the woods, stepping on twigs in bare feet. It hurts a little but not too bad. You’re on your way to a lake, some people are waiting for you there. It feels good and it feels right.

Will K

horseshoe crabs and when the house bares its teeth by Nelly Was Nervous

In her two releases that bookended 2025, Nelly Was Nervous hones an infectious bedroom punk. This one-woman band has hooks for days; the pop songcraft keeps me listening deep enough to glimpse the warm, tentative vulnerability at the heart of these records. Where horseshoe crabs submerges many interlocked layers in amphibious reverb, the crisper production of when the house bares its teeth lets the twinkling melodies and lyrics burst forth. Let us all headbang and weep to Nelly Was Nervous.

Naava G

 
when i paint my masterpiece by Ada Lea

This album kept me company during a really hard summer. In Ada Lea’s gentle, soft voice, she regales us with curiosity and daily observations. Reflections on girlhood and this thing called life we’re all doing together. “Neon pothos, jigsaw puzzle / And I've forgotten every password / Cast iron stove pot from the yard sale down the road / A bowl of soggy rice / Yeah, everything comes at a price” <3

Ciaran S

SAYA by Saya Grey

This was the first no-skip album I discovered this year. It came out in February, and I'm still regularly revisiting it. A lot of the production on the project is airy and kinetic, yet this is juxtaposed with some pretty dark and introspective lyrics. Rather than dwelling in any particular feeling, there’s a continual motion through the album that, for me, is the perfect soundtrack for a long aimless walk. Similarly to an NYC stroll, you’ll see something beautiful and something gross, you’ll fall in love, and you’ll have your heart broken all within ten blocks, or in the case of Saya, all within ten very expansive songs.

We’re Having a Barn Dance by Lavender

Easy listening can have an extremely negative connotation in music, but We’re Having a Barn Dance by lavender is an easy listen in the best possible way. The album has an ambient feel where it can be played in almost any setting as long as the volume is adjusted properly. If you have it on quietly, it’s something to chill and work to, but if you blast it, you will inevitably be barn dancing. There is an immense depth to the production, and with every listen, I’ve pinpointed new sounds and melodies. There are many standout tracks on the project; as a big fan of the album in its entirety, I suggest starting at the beginning with track one: “lowlight:slowlight.”


Theodora L

Michelangelo Dying by Cate Le Bon

To me, she can do no wrong. With each album, she becomes more herself. Sad and dreamy; a retro high school dance crossed with a courageous video game.

Serving Kant by Miriana Conte

More people need to be tuning into Eurovision. I look forward to it all year. This particular song, the submission from Malta, was brutally censored: the chorus changed from “serving kant” to “serving k–,” ending in a gust of breath. This, plus a song about saunas, another about Italy (notably not the Italian submission), and another that features the line, “Life is like spaghetti: it’s hard until you make it”... all this and more still. What are you waiting for?

Adam P

Fancy That by PinkPantheress

PinkPantheress makes songs for the digital attention span. If it sounds that good, why not make it shorter than three minutes max? I’ll just play it back. At only a little over twenty minutes, this is my album of the year. Sometimes, I just need a little music that’s fun! The world is goin’ to hell in a handbasket, so let’s dance a little while we can. PinkPantheress has gone from bedroom beats to pop royalty. Even Mamdani was at the King’s Theatre show days before the election; she has the power. Sadly, I refrained from going to that show because that is a seated venue and I can’t help but dance too hard to every song. I can’t get enough of music that sounds like a 2000s ringtone. That “oooo” on “Illegal” has been stuck in my head like a wad of bubble gum pop ever since I first heard it on TikTok. The flow of her singing on “Tonight” moves in such a way that perfectly caresses the ear. “Anticipation makes me feel like throwing up”: girl, me too. Basement Jaxx is sampled and a perfect predecessor to shout out. I can’t get enough. Why’d she have to go and put stars in my eyes?

“DtMF” by Bad Bunny

I wish I had learned how to speak Spanish. That never slowed me down from loving Bad Bunny’s music. I’ve compared him to The Beatles of the past few years because he's put out project after project and never missed. Something about that beautiful, strong voice and infinite swagger. He’s a man who never had to try to be cool, he just was. Sometimes, because of the language barrier, I miss out on the deeper meanings of his songs at first and get lost in dancing. “DtMF” felt different. I could feel its sentimentality from those calming intro notes and Bad Bunny’s solemn solo voice coming in more vulnerable than ever. When I first heard this song, I didn’t know the person who was showing it to me would be a stranger to me soon after. This song and album came out at a time right before I really had to face myself and reflect on the hurricane of events that had been ripping through my life the past few years, good and bad. As the year went on and this song kept repeating, I found out what its lyrics meant. It was a time in life when I was caught up in themes of nostalgia and regret that were perfectly reflected in the song. We all wish we had taken more photos: photos of my deceased grandparents, photos of hot summer days growing up with my friend in the messy grass, photos of college parties that felt like they’d never end, photos with lovers in moments deeply felt but clouded by time like a dirty mirror. There are never enough of these photos, and when the moment’s gone, it only lives within you. This year, I got hung up on heavily missing the past even if it all ended up being a big, dramatic mess. So in a few months, when he takes the Super Bowl stage and those familiar notes start to play, I won’t be surprised if I tear up a little. Especially on the best parts of the song when the whole group sings and it sounds like everyone you love and loved is all together again. Hermoso.

“OPM BABI” by Playboi Carti

This sounds like snorting Pixy Stix and getting hit in the head with a firework riding your bike while your friend calls you on psychedelics and his room just flipped sideways while some asshole named Scantron is playing his dad’s adult hippie birthday party and your brother’s twin brother just came in the door and started beating him up on sight all because he mistook Smarties candy for hard drugs. iM lIkE wHaT ThE FuCK!?