Jeremy's 12 Favorite Albums of 2025

2025 sure was a year. I changed jobs, got engaged, Bears are good, got two little tiny dogs, listened to some music. So, let's just hit the ground running: here's my top 12 albums of 2025! Also, there is a link to a song from each album in the favorite song section. Check those out.

Albums 12 & 11: Just above Honorable Mentions

12) Margaux Gazur - Blurred Memories

A month or so ago, I looked up which album from 2025 was the highest rated Ambient House album, and it was this one. And yeah, that's pretty much the whole story. Just lots of instrumental Ambient House. Good for doing stuff to.

Favorite Song: Morning Ride

11) Ela Minus - Día

I wasn't super into Ela Minus's last album, but this one is kind of like a more industrial dance version of a Fever Ray album, and I am in fact into it. If Fever Ray was more interested in the club scene. Maybe like a mixture of Robyn and FR. I don't know, there's some perfect comparison that is escaping me. Regardless, it's good stuff.

Favorite Song: Upwards

Albums 10 & 9: I need a little more time with these

10) Perfume - Nebula Romance: Part II

This is the second part of the two-part concept album: Nebula Romance. Part I came out last year, and it left me pretty cold. But this one's better. But is it a concept album? Lol, idk. It seems like the same spacey, nonsense lyrics that most J-pop outfits usually throw out there. It definitely has the most English lyrics of any of their albums to this point. The beats are good, that's all that really matters here. There are tons of touches of City Pop on this one, which is perfect because I went through a month-long City Pop phase this past summer.

Favorite Song: Human Factory (Denzō Ningen)

09) Kaytranada - Ain't No Damn Way!

This is easily the grooviest set of songs that Kaytranada has put out. Kaytranada doing his best Avalanches impression.

Favorite Song: Backstabs

A Little Break: Some great albums from other years

I wanted to include a section in here for some albums I got into for the first time in 2025, but are not actually from 2025. These are in chronological order of when I started listening to them this year. Links in the artist names to a song from each one.

Eyeliner - Larp of Luxury (2012) - Super sterile vaporwave tunes with names like Toyota Prius and Bose Lifestyle. Some of the instruments sound like the Lion King game from Sega Genesis.

Women - Public Strain (2010) - Band that preceded Viet Cong/Preoccupations. The vocals are of all the band members layered on top of each other. It gives a super eerie effect.

John Coltrane - Giant Steps (1960) - Went through a big jazz phase over the summer, mostly out of an effort to learn more about music from the sixties. Turns out I love Coltrane.

John Coltrane - Olé Coltrane (1961) - Turns out I love Coltrane.

Tomoko Aran - Fuyü-Kükan (1983) - The best that came out of that aforementioned City Pop phase. The sample that The Weeknd used for Out of Time is from this album.

Far Apart - Hazel (1997) - I was watching some YouTube videos that would play five second snippets of each of the top fifty albums of a genre from Rank Your music, and in the post-hardcore video (I think), I found this three song EP that was the only release by this band. It's a shame because all three songs on here are so good.

Starflyer 59 - Silver (1994) – Discovered during an effort to find more music that sounds like the second Hum album. This was a slam dunk in that regard. Definitely my favorite album I found during those times. This kind of led me to invest way too much time creating a Rate Your Music account and then filling it in with all my stuff. Also, one of the songs is vaguely about Jesus. It's shoegazey, I can't even understand what he's saying.

Failure - Comfort (1992) - Same thing. Sounds like Electra 2000. This is a good one for driving around and listening to. Lots of shoegaze and post-hardcore to end out the last couple months of the year.

Albums 8, 7, & 6 - Bangers, straight-up

8) Horsegiirl - V.I.P. - Very Important Pony

So, this chick is a cosplay horse. Makes dope ass electro dance-pop songs. Sometimes the lyrics mention eating hay, sometimes it's not wanting to be a doctor because the outfit wasn't cute. Just usual Insta-thot horse-person problems.

Favorite Song: Giirl Math

7) Public Circuit - Modern Church

This band had my number one album last year. Their first album was very dark, gothy new wave. but I think that was mostly a set of songs the singer had written before teaming up with the rest of the band, so this album is the first one written as a unit. The change was from like last album Joy Division to now something closer to maybe first album Pet Shop Boys as far as the instrumentals go. The synths on Samson remind me of the synthed out violin from the ending performance in Revenge of the Nerds.

Favorite Song: No Faith

6) Deftones - Private Music

I was kind of worried that I might have to write off Deftones. I loved Diamond Eyes and Koi no Yokan, which came out in 2010 and 2012 respectively, but 2016's Gore was just ok, and then 2020's Ohms was just not interesting to me at all. But thankfully, they came out this year with some sort of reinvigoration and gave us a fun, hazy album with pounding guitars almost all the way through. A fine return to form.

Favorite Song: Milk of the Madonna

̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶F̶a̶b̶ ̶F̶i̶v̶e̶!̶ (The Top 5)

(I got sued by Jalen Rose for breaching the F*b F*ve copyright)

5) MSPaint - No Separation

This is a five song EP from synth-punk band, MSPaint. Pretty much all five of these could be considered protest anthems. There's the refrain in Surveillance, "Margins from profits will benefit evil, structured around anyone but the people!" or the outro of Wildfire, "We are all a part of the problem, docile and insecure, are you not tired of waiting, for nothing to save you?" Play this album for your kids, there's no swear words. Get them into the agenda early.

Favorite Song: Wildfire

4) Rebecca Black - Salvation

Rebecca Black continues to distance herself from her Friday days with this set of electro dance-pop songs (exact same description I used for Horsegiirl because I don't know what other genre descriptors to use). Similar to a lot of female pop albums, you can see the bones of other artists in each song. The first song sounds like Grimes, the second like Lady Gaga (she does call her out in the song though, so this is definitely on purpose), there's a song on here that is a better version of a Weeknd song. I wish she went on a cooler US tour than the Katy Perry one this year, though.

Favorite Song: American Doll

3) Greet Death - Die in Love

Dark and bleak, dreamy shoegaze. This is the soundtrack of me driving into the city on Fridays for the last two months, as the weather is getting worse and my mood is drifting downward with the thermometer. The guitars sound so good on this album. I think it's a big step up from their last album, which I also liked.

Favorite Song: Same but Different Now

2) Gelli Haha - Switcheroo

This album is a freaking hoot. It's like the bubbliest synth-pop album ever made. It's infectious, it makes you want to dance wherever you are. Also, one of the songs on here, the entire vocal part is a spoken story about peeing in a jar in front of your friends. I think we’ve all been there.

Favorite Song: Tiramisu

1) Lifeguard - Ripped and Torn

First, I just want to note that these top three are pretty interchangeable, any of them could have been number 1. This Chicago band, Lifeguard, rock real hard. This album was also a big time summer time fixture. Lots of driving back from the train blaring this out the open windows. Filled with post-rock guitar, and tons of fuzz everywhere else. There's also a bunch of experimental instrumental interludes peppered throughout the tracklist. I miss the summer.....Anyway, my favorite album of the year!

Favorite Song: Under Your Reach

See y'all next time!