Top Ten Albums of 2025

TOBY WILKINS argues there's more to 2025 than albums from Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Drake or Tyler, The Creator. Here's his Top Ten recommendations for the year

Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz

2025 has been a strange year for mainstream music.

Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 List, detailing the most listened to songs of the year, didn’t have a single song released in 2025 in the Top Ten; in fact, a 2025 song doesn’t appear until spot 13, Morgan Wallen’s ‘I’m The Problem.’

Furthermore, many of the major stars had mediocre releases. Forgettable albums from the likes of Tyler, The Creator, Justin Bieber & Playboi Carti, as well as Drake’s drab collaboration with PARTYNEXTDOOR, Taylor Swift delivering an album that reads like she let a 13-year-old write half of it, and Sabrina Carpenter rehashing her album from last year, made it so that there was a lack of any real cultural mainstays. The only true superstar that had a halfway decent project this year was probably The Weeknd with Hurry Up Tomorrow, and even that one drags a bit over its 90-minute runtime.

That’s not to say there wasn’t any good music this year. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. While the charts are looking dangerously desolate in terms of songs that evoke any sort of positive reaction for me, there was plenty of albums that spoke to me heavily, even if they weren’t full of smash hits. This list is going to go over only ten of them, but there were a lot that I felt bad cutting out, so before we get into the proper list, I’d like to give a few honourable mentions:

• JID’s God Does Like Ugly wasn’t quite as consistent as his 2022 project The Forever Story, my favourite album of the 2020s decade so far, but highlights such as the explosive intro song ‘YouUgly,’ hosted by hip-hop’s resident trash talker Westside Gunn, make it difficult for me to not at least give him a mention.

  
  

• Rosalía’s Lux is a beautiful orchestral-pop album, but I didn’t find myself going back to it very often, so it didn’t feel right putting it on my list.

  
  

• Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong (soaring and beautiful art-pop), Earl Sweatshirt’s Live Laugh Love (a quick and to-the-point abstract rap album about the joys of love & fatherhood), and Racing Mount Pleasant’s self-titled debut (a lush, wintery folk-rock project) were all also on my shortlist but just missed out.

10. Jim Legxacy – Black British Music (2025)

Genre: UK Hip-Hop

Recommended Song: ‘Father’

Just two years ago, Jim Legxacy was homeless, desperately trying to make music work. Now, he’s steering UK hip-hop in a whole new direction, towing the line between R&B star, emo-pop balladeer, and rapper. His production is seriously addictive, particularly on lead single & viral hit ‘father,’ where he manipulates the vocal sample to end each line with either “father” or “bother,” depending on the context.

The pitched-up vocals that float through 'new david bowie’ make you sink into the beat, to the point that I had to immediately restart the track on first listen so I could focus on what he was saying. There’s a sensitivity to much of the subject matter, oftentimes a rarity in UK rap, as he touches on family relationships, struggles with poverty, and racial divisions in Britain.

On the other hand, he also showcases an unabashed confidence. Many of the songs end with what sounds like a radio announcer singing his praises; ‘stick’ closes with him exclaiming “Turn that mediocre bulls**t off, we’re listening to Jim Legxacy right now, so shut the f**k up.”

He’s not afraid to take risks either. ‘issues of trust’ showcases a sweet, folksy acoustic guitar, as his voice breaks singing to, and about, his late sister. Perhaps the folk angle shouldn’t be too surprising, considering he “was on the block listening to Mitski” according to his now-iconic line from ‘father.’

Legxacy consistently refuses to be tied down, and as he seemingly ushers in a new era of more vulnerable UK Hip-Hop, it’s impossible not to root for him.

 

9. PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Genre: Dance-Pop

Recommended Song: ‘Stars’

PinkPantheress might be the best talent that the UK has in its arsenal right now. Her playful and energetic brand of drum and bass inspired dance-pop is endlessly fun to listen to, and her knack for catchy melodies is remarkable. She somehow manages to improve with every project, and that trend continues with this mixtape.

Across just 20 minutes, she delivers eight tracks of pure ear candy. From the groovy, inter-continental yearning anthem ‘Stateside,’ to ‘Stars,’ an ode to mid-2000s club music with its interpolation of ‘Starz in Their Eyes’ by Just Jack, every song is a genuine pop masterpiece.

I think my only issue with the project is that it is so short. Obviously, no one can complain about receiving eight amazing songs, but I think most would rather receive 12 ones instead. Brevity is her style in fairness, as her only making of 90-second to two-minute tunes became a bit of a joke among her fanbase.

That isn’t the case with this record, as most cuts come in at around two-and-a-half minutes, so I guess the shorter tracklist is a bit of a trade-off. Maybe the next album can have 12 songs that are also over two minutes long. Unheard of, I know.

I would also recommend a couple of cuts from the remix album Fancy Some More?, namely ‘Girl Like Me (with Oklou),’ ‘Tonight (with JADE),’ and ‘Stateside (with Bladee),’ all of whom made quite fun additions to these tracks.

 

8. Backxwash – Only Dust Remains

Genre: Experimental Hip-Hop

Recommended Song: ‘Black Lazarus’

The cadence of Backxwash’s voice is what makes this album as quality as it is. It sounds so weathered & raw which really adds to ominous vibe of a lot of these tracks.

The opener, ‘Black Lazarus,’ is without a doubt the best conscious hip-hop track I heard this year; the beat at the beginning of the song is quite skeletal, featuring little more than a looped vocal chant and reverbed bassline. As the song progresses though, it brings in booming drums and group vocals, as she gets angrier, exclaiming “Why the f**k am I complaining here / When there’s kids in Gaza with a missing father?”

There’s quite a variety of styles across the project as well. ‘History of Violence’ & ‘Wake Up’ showcase heavy industrial production, the droning guitars and ethereal drums on ‘Dissociation’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a shoegaze album, whilst the title track is much brighter, incorporating a lot of gospel influences.

Somehow though, this eclectic mix sounds coherent and there isn’t a single wasted second. With its intense exploration of dark themes like social injustice and violence, I was in genuine awe throughout the whole project. I found myself returning to dense tracks like ‘Black Lazarus’ & ‘Dissociation’ more than I expected. They’re truly enthralling.

It’s been criminally underrated this year in my opinion, even in hip-hop circles, so it feels right giving it its flowers here.

 

7. Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out

Genre: Hip-Hop

Recommended Song: ‘So Be It’

Let God Sort Em Out is the first Clipse album since 2009. The Virginia coke-rap duo, made up of brothers Pusha T & Malice, who are aged 48 and 52 respectively, have been on hiatus since the early 2010s. Pusha T has embarked on an impressive solo career since then, but his older brother has been largely quiet, turning to spirituality in place of rap.

However, you’d never be able to tell that: a) the two have a combined age of 100; or that b) they hadn’t worked on any music together in almost two decades. Their energy & chemistry is absolutely off the charts, arguably even more so than when they burst onto the scene in the early 2000s, especially on songs such as ‘F.I.C.O.,’ where they’re effortlessly mixing the same mesmerising internal and external rhyme schemes.

Outside of the opener, ‘The Birds Don’t Sing,’ a beautiful tribute to their late parents, every song drips with pure venom, but none more so than ‘So Be It.’ The beat, a sample of Saudi Arabian artist Talal Maddah, sounds like the theme of a 1980s horror movie, creating the perfect backing track for Pusha T to deliver genuinely evil lines such as “your soul don’t like your body/ we help you free it.”

The guestlist on the project is also impressive, including the likes of Kendrick Lamar (‘Chains & Whips’), Tyler, The Creator (‘P.O.V.’), and Stove God Cooks (‘F.I.C.O.’), all of whom put their whole heart into making their contributions as quality as possible. That’s without mentioning the impressive production work of Pharrell Williams, who was clearly saving his best instrumentals for the duo.

In a year where rap has performed relatively poorly commercially, it’s important to highlight the quality that does exist outside of the charts and Let God Sort Em Out is truly the epitome of spectacular hip-hop.

6. Geese – Getting Killed

Genre: Indie Rock

Recommended Song: ‘Taxes’

I think that Geese frontman Cameron Winter is the only songwriter who could make the lyric “Like a sailor in a big, green boat/ like a sailor in a big, green coat” sound profound.

Geese are a truly mystifying band, and everything they do oozes pure class. The songs are artsy, but surprisingly catchy at the same time. The drums are always on point, perhaps the best in modern rock, and every bassline is as groovy as they come.

I mentioned Winter’s strange lyrics, but he also writes stuff that genuinely makes you think.

In ‘Au Pays du Cocaine,’ a song thought to be from the perspective of his mother after his father asked her to start an open relationship, he delivers the emotional gut-punch, “you can stay with me and just pretend I’m not there.” Or, on ‘Half Real’, perhaps the most underrated song from the project, where he declares “I’ve got half a mind/ To just pay for the lobotomy/ And tell ‘em get rid of the bad times/ and get rid of the good times too/ I’ve got no more thinking to do,” presenting an image of someone truly fed up with life.

It’s impossible to discuss this album without bringing up ‘Taxes.’ The intro has these sweet background vocals, before opening into one of the catchiest indie rock hooks I’ve ever heard; “Doctor! Heal yourself/ And I will break my own heart from now on.”

I don’t know if Geese are the saviours of rock and roll, as many people claim, largely because I don’t think a single other band could make these sorts of songs and be remotely close to their quality, and one artist alone cannot save an entire genre. But I do hope that they continue to make awesome tunes for many years to come.

5. McKinley Dixon – Magic, Alive!

Genre: Jazz Rap

Recommended Song: ‘Magic, Alive!’

This is such a feel-good rap album. I don’t know if it’s just because I saw him live and listening to these songs reminds of that great show, but there’s a real communal feeling to a lot of these tracks.

The live jazz instrumentation, especially on ‘Sugar Water’, makes you feel like you’re in the studio with McKinley and his band. The same can be said about the group vocals that appear on songs like ‘We’re Outside, Rejoice!,’ and ‘Magic, Alive!,’ which make for surprising earworms that you don’t hear often in jazz rap.

Dixon’s writing is so incredibly visual that it feels like reading a children’s book and picturing every scene vividly – “Babies with sun in eyes dancing under the moonlight/ Hooting, hollering, clapping, and never missing a beat.”

The features are great as well; ICECOLDBISHOP’s tribute to his mother on ‘All the Loved Ones (What Would We Do???)’ and Teller Bank$’s autotuned verse on ‘F.F.O.L.,’ which worked surprisingly well, were amongst my favourites.

One of the most touching moments on the record comes on the outro ‘Could’ve Been Different,’ when Dixon raps “I look up to the poster on my wall and I ask, “What you think?,” before his idol, Blu, who was presumably on the poster, delivers a heartfelt verse about being himself rather than trying to emulate his influences.

McKinley has carved a great lane out for himself in modern hip-hop, with his use of live jazz, visual storytelling, and feel-good, yet socially aware, lyricism making much of his music, but particularly Magic, Alive!, such a carefree and relaxing listen.

 

4. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo 2

Genre: Gangsta Rap

Recommended Song: ‘Ensalada’

As a genre built on collaboration, full projects between a rapper & a producer are one of the most exciting things about hip-hop.

Building on the already incredible Alfredo, released in 2020, Alfredo 2 sees two artists who have somehow managed to improve even further - even with almost 50 years of experience combined - come together to show it. They’re not reinventing the wheel by any means, with classic Alchemist beats that are jazzy and laid-back, over which Gibbs delivers aggressive bars about drugs, women, and violence. It’s a well-worn recipe for those accustomed to The Alchemist’s world. However, something in the DNA of this album makes it hit harder than it maybe ever has.

Perhaps it’s the hypnotic nature of a track like ‘Shangri La,’ where the vocal sample, twinkly keys, and Gibbs’ masterful flow combine to create one of the most fascinating vibes I’ve ever heard in a boom-bap track.

Maybe it’s the subtle experimentations in the instrumentals, such as on ‘A Thousand Mountains’ which is primarily flute-focused.

Or on ‘1995,’ which starts like a typical Alchemist beat, with a fluttery lead melody and a vocal sample, but brings in an awesome electric guitar in its second half.

The lush production, in stark contrast to the grimy nature of the first edition, allows Gibbs to get a lot more melodic on tracks such as ‘Empanadas’ and ‘Ensalada,’ which I’ve always loved from him.

Gibbs & The Alchemist have a lot of chemistry as far as rapper-producer duos go, and I think it should be mandatory that they release a project together every five years.

3. Quadeca – Vanisher, Horizon Scraper

Genre: Art-Pop

Recommended Song: ‘AT A TIME LIKE THIS’

Vanisher, Horizon Scraper is Quadeca’s most ambitious release to date. It’s a vast concept album, loosely about a sailor chasing the horizon, whilst facing a great storm and a Filipino moon-eating dragon.

Many of the songs do have an oddly nautical feel about them. Some sound as if they were being performed by a cast of sea-faring mariners, whilst the flute on ‘MONDAY’ sounds like the wind-whistling through the sails on an otherwise silent ocean. Tracks in the first half are beautifully folksy (‘MONDAY,’ ‘RUIN MY LIFE,’ ‘THAT’S WHY’), but there’s a foreboding aura that grips the later songs, as if the overwhelming pressure of the protagonist’s journey comes crashing down on him.

Fittingly, the aggressive, industrial beat on ‘THUNDRRR’ sounds like being caught up in the eye of a storm.

‘THE GREAT BAKUNAWA’ opens with a creepy vocal sample, before Danny Brown, from the perspective of the mythological sea monster that gives the song its name, raps about taking the protagonist below the waves and drowning him, whilst Quadeca’s verses see him attempt to come to terms with his imminent demise – “If it’s time for last words, I’ma make it count.”

‘FORGONE’ is perhaps the most impressive track on the record, feeling much like the protagonist woke after the worst night of his life, washed up on a beach with a piano, and decided to crank out an epic, gospel-inspired ballad, just thankful to be alive; “Holding the child that I once was/ Calling us both by the same name/ And all I can do is remain.”

Quadeca’s artistic progression through the 2020s decade has been impossible, and Vanisher, Horizon Scraper is another phenomenal addition to his great discography.

2. Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You

Genre: Post-Rock

Recommended Song: ‘Nettles’

The way Ethel Cain can balance having such beautifully ethereal instrumentals, whilst also creating an incredibly gloomy atmosphere is extremely impressive to me. It never feels melodramatic though, primarily because of the stripped-back nature of it all, apart from the much synthier ‘F**k Me Eyes,’ which perfectly suits the rural, American Midwest nature of the project.

The tracks are slow and long, with most of the songs clocking in at least six minutes, but there’s something gripping about them that stops the listener from ever losing focus or getting bored.

Part of it is the story presented, a tragic tale of doomed, youthful love. The lyrics perfectly portray a teenager who naively believes her first love is her soulmate (picturing his death in ‘Nettles,’ imagining him as a “white knight” in “A Knock At The Door”), and failing to recognise the clear problems that become obvious on the ruinous track ‘Dust Bowl,’ which climaxes in a roaring guitar riff, as if signalling the turning point in the relationship.

The instrumental interludes such as ‘Willoughby’s Theme’ and ‘Radio Towers’ add a lot to the project, making it feel very cinematic. ‘Waco, Texas’ is her magnum opus, a 15-minute journey that details the real world crashing down on their relationship, ending her ability to romanticise it; “You’ve changed, but did I ever know you?”.

The title is a reference to the 1993 Waco siege, which saw the American government burn down the compound of the Branch Davidians whilst they were still inside, a stunning allegory for the couple’s relationship breaking down whilst being too caught up in the good memories to leave it.

This album is so detail-orientated, and the care that was put into it is so beautiful to see.

1. Jane Remover – Revengeseekerz

Genre: Digicore

Recommended Song: ‘TURN UP OR DIE’

To put it simply, Revengeseekerz is unadulterated chaos in musical form.

Every song sounds like they stacked eight instrumentals on top of each other, and it’s somehow possible to hear every single one of them at once.

Pulling from far-flung influences (they evoke pop icons such as “’03 Avril Lavigne” and Miley Cyrus, as well as chronically online “rage” music à la Playboi Carti), every song will have you thinking “if music could always sound like this, why had no one made it before?” Every track is packed to the brim with infectious, sticky melodies and unbridled confidence, making Remover sound like a seasoned veteran of pop stardom, even at just the tender age of 23.

They do a phenomenal job of creating a world within the album with just a few sound effects; the sound of glass smashing, a screech from the Pokémon Palkia, and the robotic “J-J-J,” among others, is enough to transport you to a dimension where the ozone layer is replaced with huge, bass-boosted speakers overwhelming you with glitchy raps, inducing the most enjoyable panic attack possible.

Songs such as ‘angels in camo’ and ‘Dreamflasher’ are dense with volume, and sound like you’re constantly having the air forcibly sucked from your lungs, before it’s stuffed back inside them, and the process repeats for the duration of the tracks.

It’s a phenomenally exhilarating experience from start to finish, one from which you are very rarely given a break.

Remover undoubtedly proved themselves to be one of the most forward-thinking producers in the world with this project, and at such a young age, the future is looking very bright.

Written by TOBY WILKINS (BA Music Journalism student, University of Chester, UK)