Stacking, stripping, looking back, moving forward: musicians found all sorts of uses for the album format this year, long after the jukebox in your pocket first threatened their existence. Here are the 25 LPs that held the fragments of my attention span together in 2025.
Our picks for this year's best in arts and entertainment.
1. Jensen McRae“I don't know how but they found me!”
The year's sharpest pop songwriting came from a wildly successful Los Angeles native who understands, at 28, that romantic relationships don't live (and certainly don't die) between just two people. In loquacious but carefully measured melodies with almost as many hooks as words, McRae illuminates the accumulated humiliations and misunderstandings each couple struggles with. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder if his ex's sister got lucky with the baby.
2. SZA, “Lana”
The only dishonest thing about “Lana,” which arrived just before Christmas last year when 15 new songs were slipped under the wrapping of 2022’s “SOS,” is that SZA says it’s not an album.
3. Madi Díaz, “Fatal optimist”
Nothing to lose and nowhere to hide.
4. Morgan Wallen, “I am the problem”
It's her party and she'll cry if she wants.
5. Dijon, “Baby”
An album about new fatherhood that it feels like a new fatherhood.
6. Bad Bunny, “I Should Have Thrown More Photos”
After the adventure, the return home.
7. Tobias Jesso Jr.“Shine”
A pop star whisperer takes a moment to listen to himself.
8. Parker McCollum“Parker McCollum”
Be careful with the Nashville authenticity game and admit that sometimes it works.
9. Gigi Perez“On the beach, in every life”
Like an emo-folk snowball.
10. Justin Bieber, “Swag“
In which, having survived teen pop stardom, he throws another ash into the old yard.
11. Geese, “kill them”
Rock is safe in the hands of those under 25 years of age.
12. mall“But what the hell do I know?”
Oh really.
13. Sam Fender“Watching people”
A pint hoisted in the heart of the country.
14. Lady Gaga, “Violence“
The second (third?) life of a showgirl.
15. Bon Iver, “Sable, Fable”
“I could leave the snow behind / For a land of palm and gold.”
16. Sabrina Carpenter, “Man's best friend“
Every himbo has its day.
17. CMAT, “European”
Hungry for love, hungry for sex, hungry for anything that isn't cooked by Jamie Oliver.
18. Haim“I leave it”
Many breakup albums seek solace in certainty; Haim's life on the slippery surface of doubt.
19. Lucy Dacus, “Forever is a Feeling”
Sensual or cerebral is a false dichotomy.
20. Summer Walker, “I'm finally over it”
A sculpted eyebrow arched perpetually.
21. Lily Allen, “The West End Girl”
[Flush-faced emoji]
22. Bruce Springsteen“Philadelphia Street Sessions”
From the trove of lost albums of The Boss's “Tracks II,” a more vivid depiction of a dispirited Bruce than director Scott Cooper's leaden “Deliver Me From Nowhere.”
23. Zach Top, “I'm not doing this for my health”
Nashville's most playful traditionalist.
24. Eddie Chacón, “Lay Low”
Brilliant psychedelia in slow motion.
25. Mariah Carey“Here for everything”
Wrinkled '70s soul, bass-bouncing gospel, a faithful cover of Wings' wonderfully melancholic “My Love” – as its title promises, Carey's sixteenth studio album opens its doors to a little bit of everything.
