2025: My Top Albums of the Year

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As always, my accompanying essay will be posted tomorrow.

The 10 Best Albums I Listened to in 2025:

In an unprecedented year, 2025 saw me listen to only 21 new albums. I'll go into the reasons for that tomorrow. For now, here's my ten favorite. Also, the Fugs album, the Raincoats albums, and the Bill Cox album do not have links. That's because, although I've written reviews for the albums, they are currently unpublished while I finish writing their discography pages.

2. King Crimson: Discipline (1981)
3. The Raincoats: Odyshape (1981)
4. The Fugs: Tenderness Junction (1968)
5. The Raincoats: The Raincoats (1979)
6. Bill Cox: Rough and Rowdy Hillbilly of the 1930's, Vol. 2 (2003)
7. Iggy Pop: The Idiot (1977)
8. Wire: Send (2003)
9. Iggy Pop: Lust for Life (1977)
10. Various Artists: Kentucky Gospel (1927-1928) (1997)

Statistics for 2025:

For such a small number of albums, breaking down the stats seems a little silly, but I digress.

Total albums:
21

The grades I gave:
A-: 5 (22.7%)
B+: 8 (36.4%)
B: 4 (18.2%)
B-: (4.6%)
C+: 1 (4.6%)
Not graded yet: 3 (13.6%)

Album Types:
Compilations: 7 (31.8%)
Studio: 15 (68.2%)