From McKinley Dixon to the Mountain Goats, here’s the best of the best.
It’s been some year, hasn’t it?
Despite being an utter dumpster fire in many ways, 2025 was a wonderful year for music. I listened to around 120 full albums this year, and it never felt like a chore – almost everything I listened to was fantastic. This is just the best of ’em.
In previous years, I’ve ranked every album I’ve listened to that year. I’m not doing that this time. Instead, I’ve selected fifteen amazing records that I love dearly. They’re unranked and unrated, and they’re all absolutely amazing.
Before getting started, here are some quick honourable mentions for some other albums I also loved, but just didn’t have as much to say about:
- Blood Orange – Essex Honey
- Florist – Jellywish
- Food House – 2 House
- Geese – Getting Killed
- Lorde – Virgin
- Mavi – The Pilot
- Ninajirachi – I Love My Computer
- PUP – Who Will Look After the Dogs?
- Rui Fujishiro & Koshun Nakao – Tiny Tales
- Sasami – Blood on the Silver Screen
- Wolf Alice – The Clearing
And without further ado, here are my favourite albums of 2025!
Bartees Strange – Horror
We’ve been huge fans of Bartees Strange here at QSO for years, and it gives me great joy to say that Horror is his magnum opus. (So far).
Everything Bartees has explored on previous projects is pushed to new extremes here. The cavernous house of Lovers, for example, feels like an extension of older classics like Flagey God on a grander scale. 17 is one of the most moving songs he’s written yet, and the Jack Antonoff-assisted Sober is a real contender for my song of the year. By the time the triumphant Backseat Banton wraps things up, I’m ready to give a standing ovation.
The album’s called Horror for a reason: Bartees Strange has delivered one of the blockbusters of the year.
Favourite songs: Too Much, Sober, Loop Defenders
Claire Rousay / Gretchen Korsmo – Quilted Lament
Between Claire Rousay’s unreal textures and Gretchen Korsmo’s shimmering synths, Quilted Lament is full of sounds like I’ve never heard before. Every time I listen, I hear new things, whether its the subterranean percussion in find yourself in a hole in the beach or angelic layers hidden beneath spiral branches.
This album sounds like light breaking through clouds, except the light takes on strange, alien shapes, and worms its way around your head. The highlight for me is the short but sweet kitchen duet, a sparse elegy that sticks inside you long after it’s over. It’s just perfect music for me.
Favourite songs: kitchen duet, human imperfection, spiral branches
Denzel Himself – Violator
Denzel Himself should be one of the most successful artists in the country, and Violator is proof. That voice! Those lyrics! Those mesmerising instrumentals!
From the grunge manifesto of Breathe Again to the pristinely vulnerable closer of Signed, Zz, Violator is one of the best debut albums of the century. It feels like the perfect titration of legendary artists’ works, from D’Angelo to Dinosaur Jr, and yet it feels completely fresh and transcendent, like nothing else you’ll hear all year. Violator is evidence that Denzel’s a visionary artist – don’t miss out.
Also, more people need to set aside a song on their album to talk about things they hate.
Favourite songs: Breathe Again, Goth Los Angeles, Y Ya
Jasmine.4.t – You are the Morning
I swear Jasmine.4.t’s music has magical properties. You Are the Morning is such a stunning debut containing some of the greatest love songs of the decade thus far.
The sequencing is unmatched. I’m obsessed with how the anxious heart of the record, Guy Fawkes Tesco Disassociation is orbited by its two shortest tracks: the joyous Tall Girl and my personal favourite, Best Friend’s House. Everything pales in comparison to the finale of Woman, however – a gorgeous, shimmering ballad about trans resistance and perseverance. It’s stunning, moving, and vital.
Favourite songs: You Are the Morning, Best Friend’s House, Woman
Jensen McRae – I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!
Jensen McRae’s sophomore album is incredible. If you like any folk-adjacent music, or if you simply like feeling things, then listen to this.
She described the album as being borne of experiences where “love… knocks the wind out of you” – and in turn, listening to these painfully diaristic songs feels breathtaking. Massachusetts is cinematic brilliance in the form of a pop song; Daffodills is just plain devastating; Let Me Be Wrong boasts one of the catchiest hooks of the year.
I don’t know how I found McRae’s music, but I’m so glad I did.
Favourite songs: Massachusetts, Let Me Be Wrong, The Rearranger
Jim Legxacy – Black British Music (2025)
First off, name me one other album that references both listening to Mitski and 90’s wrestling.
Black British Music (2025) completely stunned me from the first listen. The initial salvo of context into stick into new david bowie is one of the most sensational opening runs of songs on any album I’ve heard, and all but guaranteed I’d love this album. Jim Legxacy is both a daringly inventive producer and deft lyricist, and his ascent has been well deserved.
There’s such a range of genres explored here, from midwest emo to road rap, and it’s all done superbly. The comparisons to Frank Ocean are understandable, but make no mistake – Jim Legxacy is in a class of his own.
Favourite songs: stick, new david bowie, i just banged a snus in canada water
Kaho Matsui – Life Lover
In 2025, I got really into two one-of-a-kind artists who, across phenomenally diverse back catalogues, have explored so many sounds and blew me away. One was R.E.M., while the other was Kaho Matsui.
Although R.E.M. didn’t release an album last year, Matsui – thankfully – released four.
Life Lover is my favourite for its jaw-dropping range of sounds – no other album I’ve heard this year is quite like it. The stunning title track remains on repeat for me, the colossal torn/weapon/pest is labyrinthine and rich, and the electrifying intro to kickthebucket still gives me shivers.
Plus, if that isn’t enough, her new album nightmare intercom is already my album of 2026.
Favourite songs: life lover, oaf, kickthebucket
Lia Kohl – Various Small Whistles and a Song
Depending on how you count, this album has either one song or sixteen. Either way, it’s the shortest album on this list at a lean sixteen minutes. But, it’s got so many moments that stop me in my tracks that it feels more like sixty. It’s that good.
Combining field recordings, improvisation, and a range of instruments, each track feels colossal. Despite tunes like the plaintive and laid-back Walking Home, Los Angeles and the dizzying Sullivan’s Island Beach, Charleston being so different, they work together perfectly. It’s transportative and tender; capturing a bustling snapshot of places, people, and feelings. I truly can’t get enough.
Favourite songs: Voting Line, Downtown Chicago, Walking Home, Los Angeles, Basketball Court
This is Lorelei – Holo Boy
Note to self/any music journalists: wait to publish your end-of-year list until you’re sure Nate Amos hasn’t got anything up his sleeves.
After last year’s breakthrough Box For Buddy, Box for Star, and his work with Water from Your Eyes, Holo Boy feels looser and funner, a clearout of old-but-gold tunes. In another universe, This Is Lorelei is already a classic pop songwriter, and you’d hear songs like Name the Band everywhere. How lucky we are to have this record.
Favourite songs: Name the Band, I Can’t Fall, Dreams Away
McKinley Dixon – Magic, Alive!
For years, my friend Asher has told me to listen to McKinley Dixon. This year, I finally did. You win, Asher – I love it.
Magic, Alive! truly is magical. I’m a sucker for any kind of concept album, and this is one of the best of the form I’ve heard. It’s devastating, hilarious, and one hell of a listen. If nothing else, I bet you’ve not heard an album referencing the assassination of Shinzo Abe that’s half as good as this one.
Favourite songs: Listen Gentle, Sugar Water, We’re Outside, Rejoice!
Mereba – The Breeze Grew a Fire
The Breeze Grew a Fire is such a healing listen.
It’s an album full of love: for nature, for family, for her home. I can’t help but feel warm listening to it. Across skittering percussion, delicate strings, and angelic vocals, the arrangements are peerless. Mereba’s warm, lilting voice is stretched to its fullest capabilities, ranging from the spoken word of the title track, through the lilting Starlight, to the airy falsetto of Hawk. The way the flute slaloms between her words on breeze grew fire, the way the piano is underscored by the krar in Ever Needed, the way the 808s echo in Spirit Guiding – it’s intoxicating stuff.
My favourite track is Out of the Blue, the record’s tender centrepiece that’s as infectious as it is moving – but every one of the record’s thirteen tracks is a masterpiece, each a little universe that reveals hidden depths on repeat listens. Mereba is one of the 21st century’s greatest folk singers, and The Breeze Grew a Fire isn’t just proof, it’s also my album of the year.
Favourite songs: Out of the Blue, Ever Needed, Phone Me
The Mountain Goats – Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan
Look, I’m nothing if not predictable. The Mountain Goats have been my favourite band for years, so of course this was going to be here.
But wow, what a doozy of an album Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan is. John Darnielle dreamt up the concept, which makes sense, as tracks like Your Glow are full of fuzzy dreamlike textures and zoetropic imagery. It’s a natural evolution of 2023’s Jenny From Thebes in that it’s another concept record, but it’s even more ambitious and adventurous. The grand Overture is like nothing else the band have released yet in its Stephen Sondheim-esque glory, loaded with leitmotifs and a real sense of excitement and mystery. By the time Dawn Of Revelation rolls around, I dare you not to feel something.
Not many bands can make their twenty-third album one of their all-time best. The Mountain Goats truly are a special band.
Favourite songs: Rocks in my Pockets, Dawn of Revelation, Your Glow
PinkPantheress – Fancy That
Her name is Pink, and it’s really nice to meet her.
Despite being her third full-length release, it feels like a reintroduction to PinkPantheress in some ways. It’s just more than her previous albums – more hooky, more textured, more exhilirating. It’s a compression of UK dance music history into 20 relentless minutes of pop brilliance, and it just wouldn’t make sense to write about the best albums of the year and not mention Fancy That. Each song is a contender for one of her best. It’s so good, it feels Illegal.
Favourite songs: Tonight, Nice to Know You, Illegal
Yara Asmar – everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much
It feels like every December I’ll hear an album from that year that blows me away. For 2025, it’s this breathtaking album by Yara Asmar.
Everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much is at once comforting and transporting; a window into the artist’s world. A track like wooden giants and mechanical birds is cinematic in scope: the bass and clarinet lines echo the titular characters, the keys enter and exit like spectres, and I get utterly lost. Everything works so beautifully, from the dreamlike in dandelion fields to the hyper-intimate sounds from home. It leaves me awestruck. What a work of art.
Favourite songs: to die on any hill, in dandelion fields, wooden giants and mechanical birds
Yeule – Evangelic Girl is a Gun
When will we stop covering Yeule on our site? When they stop putting out absolute classics. So, I’m guessing never? Fine by me.
They’ve got one of the most consistent discographies of any artist ever, in my opinion, and Evangelic Girl is a Gun is up there with their best. The one-two punch of 1967 and VV near the album’s centre is devastating: each a meditation on grief, the former a noise-cloaked shot of pain, the latter an ethereal reflection on the aftermath. Later in the album, the title track may be their best song yet, a post-BRAT downhill sprint, like a bitcrushed All My Friends.
No one is doing it like Yeule – no one else ever could.
Favourite songs: Evangelic Girl is a Gun, 1967, The Girl Who Sold Her Face
AC is the Head of Written Content at QSO Media. Read more of their articles here.
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