The Best Albums of 2025

Civil war in Lebanon. Corporate agrocapitalism. Tips for getting through a nasty divorce. Violence, unbridled greed, and the need to hold on to your heart all fill these, along with other timely themes, throughout the diverse but generally excellent group of albums released over the past year. A terrible time in many ways that we know all too well, 2025 has also given us stunningly inventive, exciting and entertaining music. It's actually been an exceptionally good year for music, especially music that poignantly describes bad times and offers ideas for how to survive.

Many of the most inventive recordings have been hybrid works, continuing the mixing of genres and styles that practically define music in every category these days, making the very idea of ​​categories seem bizarre. I've been making lists like this for decades, and when I started, in the early 21st century, it seemed odd to me to mix albums from pop, jazz, hip-hop, classical, and other music genres; but now everything seems at home with everything else. If only this sense of friendly differences, strength in unity, would spread throughout the rest of the world.

My selection of the 11 best albums of 2025, in alphabetical order by artist:

ARTMS, Club Icarus

Pronounced “Artemis” after the Greek goddess. ARTMS is an amazing K-pop quintet born out of South Korean teen idol factory Loona, and their music is a scientific formula of pure joy distilled into sound. Bouncy and playful, with hints of retro hip-hop beats and underlying EDM tones, the six songs on this EP have a polish that is both captivating and, in its meticulous perfection, a little unsettling. (Not to be confused with the excellent American jazz quintet Artemis, who have also released an exquisite new album. And treesthis year.)

Ted Hearn Agriculture

An unclassifiable composer with a seemingly inexhaustible imagination, Hearn brings together the narratives of William Penn and Jeff Bezos to imagine big tech capitalism as settler colonialism through digital means in this bold techno-pop song cycle. The libretto is adapted from historical archives and contemporary texts, cut and pasted over sound created by Hearn from sampled sources. Agriculture performed by Hearn and the excellent choral group The Crossing from Philadelphia under the direction of Donald McNally.

Imperial Triumphant, Goldstar

This three-piece experimental metal band wears black outfits, masks of Apollo, Hecate and Baal, and their plastic cauldron of music bubbles with daring mythical cosplay. Goldstartheir seventh album since the band formed in 2012, it's a bloody feast of death metal, jazz and new music. Are these guys serious? I hope so. Otherwise they wouldn't be so delightfully stupid.

Kronos Quartet, Witness

Armenian American composer and documentarian Mary
Kouyoumdjian, a 2024 Pulitzer Prize nominee for music, collaborated with famed musical adventurers Kronos Quartet on two oral history suites—about two bloody conflicts her family endured—that were set to chamber music on this earnest and moving album. “Bombs of Beirut” is a three-part sound collage that uses audio of Kouyoumdjian's interviews with her family about the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, while “Silent Cranes” is based on archival material about the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Lady Gaga, chaos

I don't want to compare Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, but… actually, yes. I liked the Swift 2025 release, Life of a show girl– but while there's nothing wrong with it, it's filled with lush sounds similar to her earlier songs and doesn't hold up as a concept album. Lady Gaga chaos this is pure pop on a higher level: fresh and melodic, with nods to her earlier music that feel self-aware rather than self-plagiarized. This is an album of smart pop music that doesn't pander to an artist who can make whatever music he wants, but makes pop music the best it can be.

Little Simz, Lotus

Following a tumultuous split from her longtime collaborator Inflo, London hip-hop artist Little Simz enlisted new producer and collaborator Miles Clinton James to create this pulsating, finely textured album full of fast, edgy rap. The sound atmosphere is bright and lively, with a trap setup and analog instruments (piano, guitar, saxophone) helping to showcase Simz in full swing.

Thomas Morgan There is a forest around you

This unusual project might seem like a gimmicky mess, but it inexplicably works. Morgan, a jazz bassist best known for his lyrical playing with guitarist Bill Frisell, invented the digital instrument using SuperCollider, a computer programming platform created three decades ago. Almost but not quite artificial intelligence, it is generative within certain limits and has a retro sound that is almost a mixture of marimba, zither and Squidward's clarinet. Morgan programmed it to play in a trio with himself on bass and a number of guest instrumentalists from the top ranks of jazz, including Frisell, Henry Threadgill, Ambrose Akinmusire and Craig Taborn, as well as poet Gary Snyder on the closing track. They all sound like they're having fun playing with Morgan's funny old robot.

Cellulose, More

Eclectic and energetic, Pulp always came across as more mature than its vain, sex-obsessed lead singer and chief lyricist Jarvis Cocker. After a 10-year hiatus from playing together, the band reunited and released their first album in 24 years. Cocker is 62 and now has a lot to sing about, including the regrets and feelings of resignation that often come with age. It's an album that's understated but also wildly eclectic: vintage Britpop charm mixed with quirky elements of jazz, music hall and Weimar cabaret.

Rosalie, Lux

Lux is some of the richest and most impressive music I've heard in years. It's grand in scale, a kind of orchestral art-pop, with music written or arranged by Björk, Caroline Shaw (Pulitzer Prize winner), and many others from the area where classicism and adventurism intersect. It is equally grandiose thematically, dealing with issues of femininity, mysticism and love in their various forms. Over 18 tracks, divided into four parts, in a classical style, Rosalía sings passionately in 14 languages, although you don't need to know any of them to be moved by this music.

Mavis Staples Sad and beautiful world

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The sorrows and joys of life are revealed in this elegiac new album from Mavis Staples, the only surviving member of the Staple Singers. Backed by a who's who of Americana, blues and roots music (Buddy Guy, Jeff Tweedy, Derek Trucks, Katie Crutchfield, Patterson Hood and many others), Staples sings a selection of wistful songs, most of them relatively recent (the title track by the late Mark Linhaus) or new (“Human Mind,” written for the album by Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Russell). She sounds great, subtly conveying all the sadness and beauty in a voice that has weathered over 86 years in this world.

Teyana Taylor Quest room

Five years after announcing a hiatus from performing, the R&B singer-songwriter has returned with an epic tale of heartbreak and anxiety following a stormy divorce. Taylor is back in a big way—and I'm not talking about her stellar career. One battle after another. Quest room it's essentially an oratorio disguised as a pop album, with nine spoken word pieces from guest artists (including Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash and Jodie Turner Smith) interspersed between 22 original songs full of rage, angst and exultation in freedom.