2025 year end hullabaloo
Welcome to the second annual water runs clear year-end hullabaloo! I have taken the creative liberty to introduce the “Hall of SHAME” to put on my hater hat and highlight what I found to be the year’s most disappointing records (there were unfortunately a lot to choose from). The rest runs the same format as last year, which you can read here. I will be linking my work from this year wherever relevant! Enjoy!
Hall of SHAME
The five albums below made me want to punch a pillow on camera in frustration a couple of times this year.
Forever is a Feeling by Lucy Dacus
It’s a common thing for creatives to fear contentment and happiness ruining their art, and Lucy Dacus’ Forever is a Feeling is a prime example of why. Via a profile in the New Yorker just a couple weeks before the record’s late march release, Dacus quietly publicized her ongoing relationship with the little one. Considering much of the record thematically surrounds the aforementioned love affair, this was a pretty smart PR move to make sure the album’s reception wasn’t marred with needless speculation. That is the only smart things that has to do with this record. Dacus has a record of beautifully written songs about topics that aren’t heartbreak. Historian’s “Nonbeliever” is a sprawling epic about the identity crisis of distancing yourself from the faith you were raised on. Home Video’s “Thumbs” is a masterclass in lyrical storytelling about accompanying a friend to reconnect with their estranged, abusive father. No such moments exist on Forever is a Feeling, and the lukewarm-at-best fan reaction is a reflection of that.
The Scholars by Car Seat Headrest
I love Car Seat Headrest. I have for years — which is why The Scholars is my greatest disappointment of the year. I understand what Toledo and co. were going for. When you brush shoulders with death, returning with the most ambitious project of your career makes plenty of sense. They’re one of the most ubiquitous indie rock bands of the 2010s with two modern classic records under their belt. Unfortunately, CSH just don’t stick the landing on this one. I should not have to scour Reddit for manuscripts explaining the record’s screenplay-style lore to enjoy a record, and the music just doesn’t stand well on its own. I’m glad that there seem to be people that got a lot out of this, but I am not one of those people.
Precipice by Indigo De Souza
After making a name for herself as a mildly beloved indie rock songstress, Indigo De Souza tried to go pop. It resulted in one of the most boring and uninspired records I’ve heard this year, and to put salt in the wound, she acted like a huge loser when people didn’t fuck with it. Any tongue that rises against Grace Robins-Somerville shall fall.
The Clearing by Wolf Alice
It’s so funny when otherwise pretty captivating UK rock bands sell out for elder-millenial-KEXP-traderjoes-marketing-consultant crowd. Like… why? For what reason? This album is a damn snoozefest.
i quit by HAIM
What’s with everyone using sentence case for their song titles now? “Down to be wrong” rules but the rest of it just makes me want to listen to Women in Music Pt iii and reminisce about how good that record was. Also, really hilarious that they did the “let’s submit this pop album for the rock Grammy categories so we have a better chance” gambit and it worked.
Top 11 songs (i could not choose which of these 10 to not write about and it doesn’t matter because this is my blog)
honorable mentions
“John Fetterman” by RXKNephew
“300 Dreams” by After
“Baby!” by Dijon
“Tell me i never knew that” by caroline
“I Punched Through the Wall” by quickly, quickly
“Everything is Peaceful Love” by Bon Iver
“Doom” by Great Grandpa
“Mega Circuit” by Japanese Breakfast
“Nettles” by Ethel Cain
songs highlighted below are listed alphabetically
“Au Pays Du Cocaine” by Geese
I considered about half of the songs from Getting Killed to highlight (more on that record later), but there’s certainly a magnetism to “Au Pays Du Cocaine” that made it an immediate fan favorite. Its lyrics are just vague enough for people to project whatever catharsis they need onto it — God knows I have. The way Winter’s delivery increases in desperation as the song crescendos is the kind of thing that justifies his status as a legend in the making.
“Back In Town” by Annie DiRusso
Being horny is fun. Being desperately horny makes a really great song. Annie DiRusso toes the line of nonchalance and desire on “Back In Town,” a song about a sexy cross-country situationship. “Swore I would take to my grave the fact I changed my flight out of Chicago / Just so I’d see you one more time,” she admits passively. It’s not long before she abandons this nonchalance, especially in the short passage that sets up a riling final chorus “When you’re back in town / I can’t handle it / If you want me now / You know where I live,” DiRusso delivers with the passion of a thousand suns. There’s something downright addictive about this track, which is why it was no surprise to find out about a writing credit from indie pop songstress Samia (we’ll get to her shortly).
“Daisies” by Justin Bieber
I don’t need to explain why one of the year’s biggest pop records is good. Bieber forces us to remember that he is a damn star, and you can’t even get mad at him for it because the song rules. But allow me to put my tin foil hat on for a second. I knew about the loose existence of a Dijon-involved Bieber album sometime in early spring from a solidly reputable source. “DAISIES,” however, leaked a couple months before the surprise release of SWAG via a TikTok where the song soundtracked some Mario Kart gameplay (not that it matters, but iirc they were playing as Yoshi). I would bet my life savings that leak was an intentional inside job. It’s clear that the label wanted the mystique and allure of a surprise release, considering it was Bieber’s first in four years and he had been on a run of minor PR nightmares (the “is it clocking to you” debacle, publicly being weird about his wife and Selena Gomez simultaneously). But with a surprise release, you forgo the intel that comes with prerelease material, which is vital for a record delivering a *relative* artistic switch-up. The people working on this campaign found some cutesy Mario Kart B-roll to post “DAISIES” to, sat back, and watched the positive reception roll in, and it fucking worked. “DAISIES” is SWAG’s biggest hit by far, it’s nominated for a Grammy or two, and as of writing this sits at #6 on the hot 100 four+ months post-release. All that said, let’s get Mk.gee on more pop records, please.
“Headphones On” by Addison Rae
I don’t smoke cigarettes and I vow to stay away from them for as long as I live. But if I had to guess how it’d feel to smoke one under the awning of a coffee shop to shrug off whatever stressor was prodding the back of my brain, it’d feel like this song.
“It’s A Mirror” by Perfume Genius
I failed to get on the Perfume Genius train until this year and I’m immensely pissed at myself that that’s the case. “It’s a Mirror” in particular is endlessly invigorating — vivid storytelling from Mike Hadreas about struggles with identity (“Can I move on without knowing specifics / While memories hum like a hive shaken out?”…. chills), deft use of dynamic range, sticky melodies, it really has the whole package.
“Mirtazapine” by Hayley Williams
This was also a case of going back and forth on picking a song from an album with plenty of viable options, but “Mirtazapine” is the kind of song I’ve wanted to hear from Williams for years, and it marked the beginning of the endless pleasant surprises that were to come as this uniquely strange album rollout continued. The driving, hazy 90s guitars, Hayley’s always impeccable vocal performance; you can tell that she’s trying to appeal to the Real Heads with this one, and from where I’m standing it’s paid off in spades.
“Nights in Armor” by Water From Your Eyes
How do you even come up with this shit? Someone has to start giving Nate Amos his flowers as one of the best currently working guitarists. Seeing him play these riffs live completely unflinchingly was so cool it started to piss me off. Several parts of this song get stuck in my head on a regular basis and it’s always a treat.
“North Poles” by Samia
“North Poles,” the stunning penultimate track of Samia’s third LP Bloodless is written how Taylor Swift claims her songs are written. As much as the song’s lyrics are laden with references — to literature, pop culture, and Samia’s personal life — it never buries the lede. She loves her best friend to death, but their similarities haunt her as overarching magnet metaphor implies. Dissecting the song feels like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You already know what the picture is, but figuring out how exactly the pieces fit together makes you appreciate it that much more. Beyond the sly reference to the absurd Wicked press tour, everything coalesces around one question: “When you see yourself in someone, how can you look at them?”
“Pick Up That Knife” by Wednesday
“Pick Up That Knife” encompasses everything that makes a Wednesday song great. Vivid storytelling, brain-splitting riffs, Karly Hartzman screaming — truly not much more you could ask for. Life’s most irritating inconveniences are detailed initially with a shrug, but culminate in vengeance. A cough drop cracking your tooth and broken drains resign you to a reality of constant distress. Sometimes you need to take it out on some bikers twice your size. But God willing, “One day I’ll kill the bitch inside my brain.” If I have any authority to speak on it (as an alleged top 0.5% Wednesday gurl), “Pick Up That Knife” is their opus.
“This Is Real” by feeble little horse
When people talk about “victory laps” in music they’re usually talking about rappers at the top of their game dropping a stray single or guest verse just to remind everyone they’re not going anywhere. “This Is Real” feels like the DIY indie rock equivalent of that. feeble little horse rapidly ascended from the Pittsburgh DIY scene because they’re truly and honestly about that shit. They hosted house shows, frontwoman Lydia Slocum does all the art for merch and album covers. Their collective goodwill and good tunes have made them the de facto band to namedrop to signal that you do, in fact, know ball, and they know it. “Book me for a show, I’ll put a Glock down / New York city babies wanna talk down,” guitarist Sebastian Kinsler taunts in the outro. In the minutes preceding, “This Is Real” is downright whiplash-inducing. bouncing between glitchy, hyperpop-adjacent hooks and hardcore mantras. With increasing intensity, Slocum repeats “If you’re not real, then I’m not real,” until she’s screaming like her life depends on it.
“Two Legs - Snail Mail Version” by This Is Lorelei/Snail Mail
Should this even count? I don’t know. But any time Lindsey Jordan does so much as breathe on record I am seated with my legs crossed and hands neatly folded. All love to Nate, but her voice just lends itself so much better to this beautiful, sweet love song that soundtracked the beginning of a relationship this year.
Top 10 albums of the year
Honorable mentions
Glory by Perfume Genius
Headlights by Alex G
Nested in Tangles by Hannah Frances
Where the Earth Bends by Daffo
Ghostholding by Venturing
Revengeseekerz by Jane Remover
Evangelic Girl is a Gun by yeule
Fancy That by PinkPantheress
Blue Reminder by Hand Habits
Lux by Rosalía
*some blurbs may be recycled from and for things I have written for other outlets. I am a full time student for another couple weeks I only have so much time to write about the same music. smooches!*
10. Animaru by Mei Semones
Sometimes you just want to hear some ear candy, and Animaru delivers just that for 38 straight minutes. I saw Semones live twice this year: on a beautiful spring night for a second date, and on a rainy final night in Paris with my mom. Getting to revel in the pure virtuous musicianship of Semones and her band of Berklee grads with my mom and boyfriend respectively were undoubtedly wholesome experiences. But in the middle of the Paris show, my phone started buzzing incessantly. The cause? Perhaps the most memorable piece of breaking news all year: Charlie Kirk was shot while debating about gun violence. Never had I experienced something so uniquely dissonant. I was granted a gift, though. Because I wasn’t in America, it had no effect on the crowd around me. I could reckon with the political disarray when I returned to my hotel, or even when I returned to the states the next day. In that moment, my one job was to sing along to masterfully crafted jazz-bossa-jpop tunes to cap off a rare bonding experience with my mom. “Let the dust settle on me / I’ll stay still just to spite it.”
9. It’s A Beautiful Place by Water From Your Eyes
I was catching up with a friend at a party the other day and I told her I’d been feeling pretty depressed over the last couple months. “Are your meds not working?” she asked, “They are, I just think the world getting so much worse is outpacing them.” On It’s A Beautiful Place, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown communicate that exactly, imploring that we must continue to live in spite of every force attempting to kill us slowly. If we’re gonna talk about “the long hard road from here to the truth” I better be able to shake some ass to the craziest synth line of the year while we’re at it.
praaactiiice shake it you’re freeeeeeeeee
Read my interview with the duo here.
8. Baby by Dijon
The Prince acolytes have found their way into the highest rungs of popular music, and it’s been nothing short of a delight. Uninhibited in its passion, Baby makes being a wife guy cool again. The self assuredness that’s come with his recent success and building a family is endlessly potent on this record. Dijon screams about his love from the mountaintops as he curates sonic palettes that somehow feel both modern and nostalgic – he’s a magician whose wand is an Ableton license.
7. Bloodless by Samia
My favorite nepo baby is finally getting her well-deserved flowers, and it feels like Samia has finally come into her own by (ironically) expressing her fears about lacking identity. Read my review here and my interview with her here.
6. Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party by Hayley Williams
There’s an air of liberation that surrounds Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. Its title is long and sarcastic, it’s Hayley Williams’ first release outside of the decades-spanning record contract she signed as a teenager, it was dropped on a random Monday via files scattered across her y2k-styled website. It’s easy to look at an hour long 20 track album and roll your eyes, bemoaning what streaming has done to the art of succinctness. But the intrigue of what the 36 year old Paramore frontwoman has to say about her life and its observations never run dry. There’s something for everyone: the unraveling of her relationship with bandmate Taylor York, religious grievances, sullen moments of unabashed misery. Whatever fans are looking for from Williams, sonically or lyrically, it’s probably on Ego Death’s menu.
5. I Heard That Noise by quickly, quickly
Despite it’s title, quickly, quickly’s 4th LP made no noise. It’s a shame, really. Graham Jonson is a man that loves his analog gear and loves his girlfriend. He turned those loves into a stunning lo-fi indie folk record. There is so much heart in this record that it simply feels like a love letter to life itself.
4. Patience, Moonbeam by Great Grandpa
Five years of change and reflection inhabit Patience, Moonbeam, a record that is perhaps the most under-appreciated of this year. Band members Pat and Caroline Goodwin are now married with two children. Al Menne is in the midst of a gender transition, allowing for a new, gravely warmth to his voice. There’s a mastery to the craft and attention to detail of this record that make its ambitions pay off — how well the melodic contour of the vocal lines mirror the words they’re expressing, the blink-and-you-miss-it introduction of a new instrument that never returns (i.e. the measure of sitar in “Ladybug”). They weave seemingly unrelated stories of parenthood, cults, and heartbreak together through the kindness and empathy of their approach. Really just a joy front to back, and I hope it’s not too long before they make something again.
3. Bleeds by Wednesday
Americans love to demonize things–themselves, each other, events they are helpless to trace to a root cause. The best way to combat that inclination, though, is to simply sit back and observe–accept absurdity with a stifled chuckle.
Read my full review here.
2. Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You by Ethel Cain
I have never been moved by music in quite the same way as this highly conceptual prequel album to Preacher’s Daughter, Ethel Cain’s star-making debut. I listened to it for the first time sat at my kitchen counter with Genius pulled up in another window, reading the annotations (most of them written by Anhedönia herself) in the wide margins between the lyrics’ deliveries. I spent an hour bawling my eyes out mourning uninhibited love that’s passed me by due to pure circumstance — I felt seen in a way that scared me. Will I ever be broken free from the cycles of grief? Of love on indefinite hold?
More than she is a musician, Anhedönia is a storyteller. She allows her words to breathe and linger, allowing her characters’ expansive lore to inhabit lyrics’ subtext. Deep diving into the lore of Ethel Cain and Willoughby Tucker as complex characters certainly enriches the source material, but the music stands on its own as a touching story of young love, loss, and addiction that rewards patience and attention. Its sprawling instrumentals foster reflection as their haunting leitmotifs return like Pavlov’s bell. Willoughby Tucker is far from an easy listen, but no moment is wasted.
“I’ve been picking names for our children / You’re wondering how you’re gonna feed them”
1. Getting Killed by Geese
For five months before its release, I was sitting on this album. The circumstances through which I was able to hear it three months before it was announced lined up in a way I could only describe as cosmic. My gut instinct upon hearing it was that it will be a quintessential, seminal rock record of this decade. Three months out, I am already being proven right. I fell in love to and because of this album, and I’ll get to further expound on that in print(!) early next year (which is why I’m keeping this blurb relatively short). For the first time ever, there are people my age making rock music that will be remembered for decades to come, and that’s really cool. It’s not often that I go to a concert with eight of my friends who are all just as excited to be there. There is less and less to be excited about each day, but it’s music like this that remind me how beautiful life can be.
“All people stop smiling once they get what they’ve been begging for”
Great reviews! Yikes at the Indigo deSouza thing, I can't believe I missed that.
hell yeah