There will be no general musings this week, nor will there be any Baseball talk. No, this week is devoted entirely to the 2025 Will’s Cool Blog Music Awards.
2025 was a pretty dang good year for music. The pop mainstream has more or less fully moved on from the combo Bon Iver/Swedish invasion "I fell down a well" sound of the 2010s, and now we get varying flavours of synthy dance music in the top 40 every year, which is certainly my preference. In the trendy alternative world we saw such heights as Geese's "Getting Killed" and Black Country, New Road's "Forever Howlong," both of which were very good (though only one made it onto my list). The non-trendy alternative world was, as it always is, an infinite bounty of delights for those who dare to search. Yes, truly 2025 was an impressive year.
You wouldn't know it, looking at the Grammys, though. Seriously, who runs that clown show? They've got Justin Bieber's "Swag" up for album of the year, for God's sake. I've got nothing against the Beeb myself, but I tried listening to that album and let me tell you, it felt like I was eating the plate scrapings left over after a particularly forgettable meal attended by every one hit wonder from 2018. It has become increasingly clear to me that nobody involved with the Grammys takes anything seriously, and they probably all spend most of the day drunk. Well let me tell you, I may be hammered as I upload this late on Saturday night, but as I write it I am stone cold sober. In this state I feel fit to offer an alternative to the silly statue show's limp effort at pretending the zeitgeist didn't give up the zeit ghost 20 years ago. So without further ado, here are the 2025 Will's Cool Blog Music Awards.
In the spirit of framing this whole thing as a Grammys hit piece, let's open things up with perhaps the most important category of all:
Now, listen, I understand how the Grammys work. I understand that they are exclusively for honouring musicians your fishingest uncle has heard of. So this is a category designed to recognize when they trip over their dick even by their own standards. This year the award goes to Lorde for her album "Virgin."
I'm going to talk more about "Virgin" later, so I'll keep it brief for now. There actually isn't much more to say beyond pointing out, again, that Justin Bieber's "Swag" got an album of the year nod. "Virgin" did not. This is actually the second album in a row where Lorde has gotten big time snubbed. It's like the industry is punishing her for making the greatest pop album of the 21st century so far by totally refuting her subsequent projects just for the sin of not being literally the greatest pop album of the 21st century so far. But listen: Brian Wilson never made another "Pet Sounds," and we all still like Brian Wilson. And let's be honest, "Melodrama" to "Solar Power" is a far less jarring shift than "Pet Sounds" to "Smile." And "Virgin" is clearly better than "The Beach Boys Love You." This got away from me a little bit. Point is: Lorde deserves some respect, dammit.
Obviously this one goes to "Trinidad" by Geese, a song that just oozes paranoia. If PTA ever makes a Gravity's Rainbow adaptation, well, first of all, good luck, and second it should feature this song.
Yes, framing this piece as "awards" instead of just giving you my top ten albums is a way to bury my top ten albums under some stupid jokes and trash talk. I hope somebody out there is having as much fun as I am.
Okay, the Tone Deaf Response to a Queer Woman award of course goes to Taylor Swift for the song "Actually Romantic." Will this hyperspecific award ever be given out again? Only time will tell. This year though it seemed important to acknowledge just how...gross this song is. A bisexual woman makes a song entirely about her own insecurity in which Taylor Swift happens to feature as really obviously not the subject, Swift responds with a quasi-diss track that more or less boils down to "haha, I think she might have a crush on me!" That sucks! Get a job, stay away from her, etc.
The Big Pop Hit of the Year is "The Subway" by Chappell Roan. This is a category I made up because I had two songs in mind for Song of the Year, which is not enough to turn Song of the Year into a countdown list. So, "The Subway." This is an alchemically perfect pop song. Straightforward structure, great melodies, emotive performance, and palpable yearning: basically everything you want out of a hit. Then it builds up to this long outro built around a repeating refrain, which is a thing you don't see all that much of these days. It's a move than can be either great or obnoxious, but Roan executes it masterfully. I catch myself singing "She got, she got away" all the time. Chappell Roan continues to be probably the most exciting pop star out there right now.
"Mega Circuit" by Japanese Breakfast. I'll be going into depth on this one later in this piece, but suffice to say for now, this song has an absolutely perfect soft rock groove, excellent hooks, and lyrics that take a pretty interesting tack in pondering what the hell is wrong with men these days. It's catchy, it's beautiful, and it speaks to the current cultural-political moment. What more could one want out of the Song of the Year?
Okay, without further ado, here are my top 10 albums of 2025.
Lorde is, for my money, the best songwriter of all those who have regularly visited the top 40 over the past decade or so. She has a unique gift for turning specific, intimate feelings into anthemic, infinitely relatable pop hits. Her lyricism balances scene setting and reflection perfectly to get the listener invested in what she's saying, and her melodic sensibility makes the words stick. Her music has the hooks you expect from big pop music, but with the sort of depth you usually have to turn to alternative pop to find.
"Virgin" is more of everything anybody has ever wanted from Lorde, just with a flavour that reflects her decade-plus of artistic growth. It's a return to synth based pop after "Solar Power's" much maligned (unfairly maligned) acoustic/psychedelic pivot, but it features bolder, louder synthesizers than "Melodrama." It doesn't have any individual songs that go quite as hard as "Green Light" or "Perfect Places," but it trades those highs for an extremely well-rounded overall structure--the songs on "Virgin" flow perfectly. Lorde's lyricism is also at an all time high here, I would say.
In terms of specific highlights, I like the opener "Hammer" a lot. It opens with the vocal melody just not quite rhythmically lined up with the synths, until the drums come in to glue everything together. When that happens, it's extremely satisfying. "Clearblue" is short and acapella, making for both a nice little vocal harmony based track and a good pacing break in the album. "Favourite Daughter" is a near-"Melodrama" level Classic Lorde Banger, and "Broken Glass" has a synth line I really, really like.
Now I will confess. I don't really love "If She Could See Me Now." But down here at the number 10 spot, you can get away with a single miss.
Rating: ☆
Australian rock-music-for-freaks outfit Tropical Fuck Storm are always good for some of the weirdest guitar playing you've ever heard, and they deliver again on "Fairyland Codex." When I think of how to describe the Tropical Fuck Storm guitar style "janky" is really the word that comes to mind, but I don't like the negative connotations there. The guitar lines on this album are all janky and fucked up sounding, but that's great.
This album also maybe sees Tropical Fuck Storm at their hookiest and grooviest. "Dunning Kruger's Loser Cruiser" is the specific highlight for everything I've been talking about. Its verses hinge on this absolutely broken sounding guitar riff, and then on the chorus it moves into this extremely danceable drum beat and one of the best hooks the band has ever written ("time is an ill-lusion, let's go get lunch!") It also sees the band get a little more somber and a little more downright beautiful on the title track, which has singer Gareth Liddiard getting about as emotional as I've ever heard.
Only point against this album is that large parts of it traffic in a very gen X style doomerism that isn't like...wrong, but is a little tiring. The internet is evil, yes, we all know it. Still, if you like guitar music at all you really owe it to yourself to give Tropical Fuck Storm a try, and this album is a great place to start.
Rating: ☆
"Danny Brown collaborates with a bunch of hyperpop artists" is an idea so natural and obvious that it probably could've made my top ten list just as a concept with no actual album attached. Of course, the actual album that is attached is very, very good. Each song is Brown rapping over a beat made by a different hyperpop artists, with those artists also usually providing the hook and maybe a verse of their own. This makes for a sort of sampler type structure, which could risk feeling disjointed, but Brown’s performances and the persistent lyrical themes of sobriety and finding meaning form a thread that ties everything together nicely.
“Stardust” is the first album on this list that I am recommending caveat free: you should just go check this out. Danny Brown+hyperpop is a combo that sounds like just about nothing else, and while it will certainly repulse some, it will delight all others. It’s also the first album on this list that falls under a trend we’ll be seeing a lot of: artists taking big swings and reinventing themselves. This is a new sound for Danny Brown, and it is fresh and delightful. He is still very much himself, though, bringing the same fun eccentricity to every track.
However, I must issue a warning. The chorus to “Flowers” will get stuck in your head and it will never leave.
Rating: ☆
Everybody probably knew this was coming. The Mountain Goats are so near and dear to me that I’m almost reluctant to even try to explain why I like this one. The nuances of John Darnielle’s songwriting have become so core to how I think about music in general that looking in depth at them feels a little like trying to look at my own eyes. Why do I like this stuff? I don’t know! I don’t know how I would even go about not liking it.
This album is a big swing in a way I found pretty impressive, though. “Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan” goes farther than just being a fictional narrative concept album, familiar ground for the Mountain Goats, and reaches a sort of musical theater territory. It has an overture, it has recurring musical themes, it has Lin Manuel Miranda. That last point had me pretty worried, I really do not like that guy, but as a backup singer on a few tracks here he’s actually superb. He has a lovely voice, and he and Darnielle harmonize wonderfully.
The story on the album is lovely. It’s about caring for your fellow man under dire circumstances, persevering when it’s hopeless. That’s a message that resounds as the world continues getting worse and scarier. On the production side, I love how this thing sounds. It’s so warm and full.
Overall, this is my favourite Mountain Goats album since “The Sunset Tree.” I maybe like it even more than “The Sunset Tree.” If you like the Mountain Goats, or soft, densely arranged rock music, or intricate narrative lyricism, get on this one.
Rating: ☆
“Lux” is an album seemingly precision engineered to turn gay nineteen year olds Catholic. While I hope it fails in its mission, I must confess that I enjoyed it greatly.
This is another one of those big artistic swing albums -- it sort of isn’t anything like “Motomami.” It just sounds nuts. It’s densely arranged orchestral pop, with some experimental flavour. Bjork shows up at one point. It’s really, really Catholic, but in the freaky way that’s actually kinda fun. And it’s Rosalia, so it’s full of incredible vocal performances. It’s actually probably the hardest thing on this list to really talk about, and I’m not doing it justice.
For one thing, the album feels so big that after listening to it the first time I remembered it as being like 75 minutes long, when it is in fact closer to 45. This is because I remembered being the type of immersed that usually takes more than an hour to achieve. There’s just so much going on with each track, and with the album overall. The music is rich, the arrangements dense, the lyrics multilingual. Really, just give this one a shot.
Rating: ☆
We’re getting into real best of the year territory, now. I would be comfortable calling this album or any of the next four the best, though I do have slight preference as indicated by the arrangement of the list. And, well, actually there’s a pretty significant gulf between number 1 and numbers 2-5.
So, “Eusexua.” What an album. Craggly, old school electronic dance production contrasts with soft-sung, beautiful pop melodies. Lyrical exploration of deeply human feeling and pleasure contrasts with at-times alien sounding vocal production. Individual songs contrast with each other, as you move from the ethereal title track opener into the smooth dance pop of “Girl Feels Good” and “Perfect Stranger,” then onto the hard, impactful EDM sound of “Drums of Death.” The album keeps you on your toes, playing off itself in ways that are persistently surprising and exciting.
The most impressive thing, as is usually the case with FKA twigs, is how well the album balances experimental sensibility and pop appeal. None of these songs would be out of place in a club, but they all also have plenty of stuff for headphones freaks to appreciate. It’s music that is more truly for everybody than the sort of “for everybody” music that gets there through anodyne approachability. Some artists seek mass appeal by never offending anybody -- twigs does it by making music that forces you to move, no matter who you are.
But my favourite thing about this album is that every time I listen to it I come out with a new favourite track. For instance, I have it on as I’m writing this section, and realizing that I’ve been seriously underappreciating “Room of Fools.” “Room of Fools” is awesome.
Rating: ☆☆
4. “For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women” by Japanese Breakfast
I am a big fan of Japanese Breakfast, going back to “Soft Sounds from Another Planet.” Now, I must confess, Michelle Zauner has yet to write a song I like as much as “Diving Woman,” but also, that’s a little like complaining that Lorde hasn’t made “Melodrama” again. I still liked “Jubilee” a lot, as much as it felt like a pop pivot, and I like “For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women” even more, with its laid back soft rock style.
This is seriously just the smoothest, most relaxing listen of anything I heard last year. Most of the songs are soft and subtle, and even the more uptempo ones like “Mega Circuit” work with nice chilled out grooves. In comparing it with other albums to make this list, I struggled to pick out specific highlights or concrete reasons why it should have its place, and instead just kept coming back to how vaguely nice it feels to listen to it. It’s a warm, fuzzy album. I love it.
Still, I will call attention to a couple highlights. “Orlando in Love” is a beautiful little song, “Mega Circuit” is literally my favourite song of the year, and “Men in Bars” features Jeff Bridges, revealing that he has an awesome goddamn voice. Also in “Honey Water” Zauner makes back to back Emily Bronte and Kurt Vonnegut allusions, as if she was writing the song for me specifically. Of course I like this album.
I want to talk just a little more about “Mega Circuit.” The shuffle groove the song is built around is so, so good. On the strength of that beat alone I could listen to this thing on repeat for hours. It also happens to have a couple just ridiculously good melodic hooks. The rising and falling when she sings “Meeeeega, CIRcuiiiit” in the first verse is one of my favourite little soundbites of the year. On top of all of that, though, the song’s lyrics are an incisive look at how today’s young men are being turned into repulsive freaks by bigoted online influencers. Zauner approaches the problem with a sympathy I find touching, not letting this type of guy of the hook exactly, but expressing real regret about the state of things, and wishing that maybe she could be somebody’s role model instead of Joe Rogan or whoever. Now, she gets all this across with two extremely short verses and one short chorus. It’s one of the most elegant pieces of songwriting I’ve ever seen.
So yes, Michelle Zauner is a generational songwriting talent, and you should go listen not just to “For Melancholy Brunettes and Sad Women,” but “Soft Sounds for Another Planet” and “Jubilee” as well. I myself am going to go listen to “Psychopomp,” which somehow I’ve ignored until now.
Rating: ☆☆
Okay, before we proceed, let’s cover a few honourable mentions.
“Guitar” is Mac DeMarco distilled down to his essence, doing simply arranged soft, relaxed rock music. It’s an easy listen and a good time. “Eusexua Afterglow” is just, more Eusexua. It doesn’t have a “Girl Feels Good,” a “Drums of Death,” or even a “Childlike Things,” but it’s still got the delightful electronic production and immersive alien vibe. “Dan’s Boogie” is Destroyer at maybe their jazziest, or at least their jazziest since “Kaputt.” Dan Bejar is a really consistent guy -- if you’ve ever fucked with anything he’s done, you’ll fuck with this.
Now, onto the big three.
Guerilla Toss’ whole thing is making bizarro music with kooky synths, excellent, propulsive drum grooves, scratchy guitars, and esoteric, evocative lyrics delivered with electric energy. You can always count on them for these things, but what’s surprising about “You’re Weird Now” is just how many fantastic hooks it has. This is Guerilla Toss at their absolute catchiest, so much so that I’m tempted to call this a pop effort, even as it sacrifices none of their trademark strangeness.
Really, I think it just reflects a new artistic high. These songs are excellently written. There’s so much to pick apart and latch onto over repeat listens, but also plenty that jumps out and grabs you on first blush. It’s maybe the most their formula has ever worked over the span of a whole album, for me. And I say that as somebody who spent basically all of 2019 blasting “GT Ultra” and “Twisted Crystal” over, and over, and over.
I want to talk about album sequencing a little here, because oh man, this thing is just paced so well. “Krystal Ball” is a perfect opener, with its big dynamic shifts. “Psychosis Is Just a Number” then ratchets the energy up to a peak. “CEO of Personal & Pleasure” cools things down a bit, “Life’s a Zoo” fires them back up, and then “Red Flag to Angry Bull” brings the first half to a close with a real anthemic flair, different from anything on the album so far. The back half of the album carries on in similar fashion, the energy ebbing and flowing perfectly, making for a smooth and engaging overall listen.
Also, Stephen Malkmus shows up. Twice! Hell yeah.
Rating: ☆☆
Now here’s where I confess something: a lot of the work on this piece was retroactive. Which is to say, I spent the last few weeks going back and listening to a lot of stuff I missed last year, and relistening to stuff I only checked out briefly. These top two albums, though, were the ones that really, actually defined my listening last year. I listened to them both a whole lot, and as I went back over all of last year’s releases, nothing was able to overcome them in my esteem.
“Let God Sort Em Out” is interesting, in that it probably has lower lows than anything else on this list, it’s just also really good at making me not care about those lows. The big theme across the album is Pusha T and Malice just being so goddamn good that I am not bothered by whatever corny thing producer Pharell Williams is doing. We can take the opening track, “The Birds Don’t Sing,” as an illustrative example. The minimal piano based beat is good and fitting, if a bit sappy. The song verges into outright corny territory in its choral hook. Pusha T and Malice achieve musical escape velocity though, by delivering verses so brutally honest and genuinely heartfelt that the overwrought production actually feels earned. This song still gets me a little choked up every time I listen to it.
Now, I should say, the production is extremely good whenever Pharell isn’t doing something sorta corny. The problems mostly come out later on the album, especially the final three tracks, but again, they’re never day-ruining because all of the actual rapping is just so good. Pusha T and Malice are so engaging and so much fun, and the writing across this project is consistently excellent.
There are some great features on here, too. Kendrick Lamar is of course excellent on “Chains & Whips.” Tyler, The Creator’s verse on “P.O.V.” still makes me laugh. Nas is real good on “Let God Sort Em Out/Chandeliers.”
So all told this was my favourite hip hop release of 2025, and as long as Pusha T and Malice are doing their thing Pharell Williams can be as much of a cornball as he wants.
Rating: ☆☆
There was basically no question the entire time I was working on this list that “Forever Howlong” was my number one. I listened to the singles obsessively before the album came out, and then listened to the album obsessively when it followed. I never stopped thinking about this album as the year went on. It essentially was 2025 in music, for me.
Black Country, New Road were sort of forced to reinvent themselves for this project, following the departure of lead singer Isaac Wood. Three of the band’s instrumentalists stepped up to share lead vocal and lyric writing duties, namely Tyler Hyde, May Kershaw, and Georgia Ellery. It’s hard to overstate how much this has changed the character of the band’s music. The songs now are much more eclectic and diverse in their subject matter, a little less poetically weighty, and a little more chamber pop oriented. On the upside, the new songs have fantastic melodies, denser than ever arrangements, and a terrific energy stemming from the clearly more collaborative songwriting process. On the downside, Isaac Wood has a singular gravitas as a performer and songwriter, which is now absent.
I’ll be honest, I like this new incarnation of the band better. “Forever Howlong” is my favourite project of theirs by a significant margin, and they are no longer playing second fiddle to black midi in the hall of new British post punk bands I keep in my head (not that either of them really count as all that new anymore, I mean, black midi doesn’t even exist anymore. I actually saw them live way back when they were still four guys, before they became three guys. Now they’re no guys. It’s a crazy world).
Each song on “Forever Howlong” is its own little world. They have full, engrossing arrangements that often move almost more like classical music than pop, with long linear passages and big dynamic shifts. Each one tells its own little story, too, and the music beautifully reflects the narrative arcs it accompanies. There’s no better example of this than “Two Horses,” which goes on slowly and softly until the narrative begins to climax, at which point the tempo picks up and the drums enter. These songs are really holistically composed, lyrics and instrumentation working in tandem.
The vocals are also wonderful. Who knew that Black Country, New Road actually had 4 extremely capable lead singers in it, back when they first got started? Not only is each lead vocalist great on her own, but they all do some wonderful harmonizing together. I love it. I’m not sure there’s another band out there with as high a concentration of just raw, technical musical talent as this one. More bands should try having three singers, not that most bands or maybe any band could do it quite like these guys.
And, I mean, “Besties” and “Happy Birthday” are still just two of the best goddamn songs I’ve ever heard. No, I didn’t like anything I heard in 2025 as much as “Forever Howlong,” not even close. It is, indisputably, the album of 2025, at least according to me.
Rating: ☆☆