Favorite albums of 2025
Unusually, this is a mostly male lineup of artists this year.
1. Tunde Adebinpe – Thee Black Boltz
I definitely have associations with TV on the Radio. “Return to Cookie Mountain” makes me think of being in the rather outdated Jimmy Fund Building in Dana-Farber during the second year or so of grad school, looking in the fluorescent microscope of various GFP-fused cellular proteins that supposedly “interacted” with HIV-1 integrase as part of a very doomed first PhD project. “Dear, Science” is definitely associated with being about a year or so in with my relationship with Anna, when I had the back room of a rented condo on St. Paul St. Seeing TV on the Radio at the House of Blues Boston was possibly the first time I attended a concert and was so incredibly disappointment (in this base, by the mixing) that I was in total disgust. None of their following stuff ever really struck a chord with me, so they kind of disappeared from my rotation.
That said, I feel like I hear Tunde Adebimpe’s voice on this album and it sounds to me as good as anything I was enjoying back in early-mid grad school. He’s clearly aged, and that speaks to me too, as so have I. I guess I now have a memory of singing “Pinstack” at the top of my lungs driving to Trader Joes at ~8pm on a cold and snowy Cleveland evening. Some other favs: “Drop“, “Streetlight Nuevo“
2. La Dispute – No One Was Driving the Car
La Dispute and their album “Wildlife” had come across my musical feed back in 2012. I remember working in the Center for Life Sciences Building (so after the lab moved from the Jimmy Fund Building), and hearing the spoken-wordy ultra-depressing songs like “Edward Benz, 27 Times” or “King Park” and — since it takes me a while to really pay attention to the lyrics in a song — being surprised when I realized what stories they were telling.
I forget why I even found this new album, since they seem more like a cult-following type of band, and I don’t think it made it only most review aggregator websites. But between my giving this album a listen, and the fact that I noticed their tour was stopping by the Grog Shop in the nearish future (and doing my homework on their expected setlist), I took the necessary time to figure out why they work. I mean, for a lot of people it’s an almost absurd level of anxiety-or-sadness emoting vibe will be a total non-starter (eg. Anna). But they have their one specialty and they do it quite well, and in many ways, it can be quite cathartic. As I am square in middle age now, the thematic elements of the inevitable march of time speaks to me. They still paint pretty great emotive* (again, very specific emotions) picture, such as on “Steve“, which I think is an awesome song. “Sibling Fistfight at Mom’s Fiftieth” paints another specific mood. “Environmental Catastrophe Film” is an interesting song in their canon, since nothing terrible actually happens in the song, yet it it’ still a super emotive* (the same ones again) multi-part song about getting older and maybe being poisoned by toxins and pollutants we have put back into our environment. They feel very rust-belty.
It’s not the reason it’s on this list at this spot, but I did a great job timing my peak interest of La Dispute and this album right when the show was, which is something I try to do for every show but don’t always manage to do. It remember it being a great show; lots of energy. I love seeing a mosh pit at the Grog Shop. It was great to be in a crowd that, too, found their sound uniqutely cathartic, and I was impressed when what felt like the majority of the crowd could shout and out-volume the singer for the climactic moment of “King Park”. I think this was my favorite show of the year. “I Dreamt of a Room with All My Friends I Could Not Get In“, “No One Was Driving the Car“
3. Antony Szmierek – Service Station at the End of the Universe
This was an album I just had on repeat for a while. It almost feels like the opposite of La Dispute (eg. dancey electronic music with little strong emotion), but with some similarities (eg. meant more for artistic expression than popularity, concept albums). “Rafters“, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy“, “Take Me There“
3.5 Bad Bunny – Debí Tirar Más Fotos
I almost forgot about this album, since it peaked for me back on… Feb 2nd. I think I like bittersweet sound present through many of the songs on this album. I’m giving it the 3.5 designation, since it feels like it fills a similar niche to me as the previous album. “DtMF“, “CAFe CON RON“, “TURiSTA“.
4. Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out
I feel like I could put this album on here just for “Birds Don’t Sing“. Maybe another song that makes me think about impending mortality. I remember having their album “Hell Hath No Fury” on repeat in the fall shortly after starting grad school. It feels like Clipse has been around this whole time due to how prolific Pusha-T is (especially with most of his albums being so highly rated), so it’s kind of crazy this is the actual subsequent Clipse album. “Chains & Whips“
5. Various honorable mentions:
Saba – From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D.
Hayley Williams – Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party
Deep Sea Diver – Billboard Heart
Saba: It’s like Saba and Chance the Rapper did the whole “sliding doors” thing, where Chance got noticed, went corporate, and lost his potential artistry, while Saba just keeps doing the Chicago alternative rap thing. “Breakdown“, “Acts 1.5“
Hayley Williams: Only now am I realizing this was her second solo release. Lots of songs on this album and there are some skips, but also some pretty good ones: “Mirtazapine“, “Parachute“
Deep Sea Diver: Always solid music. I think the first time we saw them was opening for Telekinesis at Brighton Music Hall in Allston (ie. Boston). The second time was on the main stage of the first year of the short-lived Upstream Music Festival a little south of downtown Seattle. Anna and I both had the chance to see them at the Grog Shop this year. “See in the Dark“, “Happiness Is Not a Given“