All Songs Considered

The Best Albums of 2025

December 12, 2025

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  • The NPR Music team celebrated 2025 as a year where the album format proved its vitality, featuring 12 dazzling albums discussed by Stephen Thompson, Ann Powers, and Daoud Tyler-Ameen. 
  • A recurring theme among the top albums of 2025, including those by Rosalia and Dave, was deep introspection, confrontation with personal grief, and grappling with the responsibilities of artistry. 
  • The featured albums showcased a wide genre spectrum, ranging from high-concept orchestral pop (Rosalia) and genre-blending R&B (Nourished by Time) to intense acoustic guitar work (Gwennifer Raymond) and complex jazz (Mary Halverson). 

Segments

Introduction and List Context
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(00:00:27)
  • Key Takeaway: The hosts are running down some of the best albums of 2025 chosen by the NPR Music team.
  • Summary: Stephen Thompson, Ann Powers, and Daoud Tyler-Ameen are compiling their favorite albums of 2025, a process they acknowledge involves both loving recollection and brutal ranking decisions. They noted that listeners often complain about not knowing the featured artists, but the hosts view unfamiliarity as a gift for discovery. The discussion will cover a selection of the 12 albums that stuck with the NPR Music team.
Rosalía’s ‘LUX’ Analysis
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(00:02:42)
  • Key Takeaway: Rosalía’s album ‘LUX’ is praised for being a breathtakingly beautiful, accessible record despite its high-art concepts, deep research, and collaborations with artists like Bjork and the London Symphony Orchestra.
  • Summary: The album features Rosalía singing in over a dozen languages and exploring themes of female saints, demonstrating deep artistic and historical exercise. The music successfully merges high art with accessible, raw emotional impact, exemplified by the moving piano break in the song ‘Reliquia.’ Ann Powers noted that the album also contains elements of classic orchestrated pop reminiscent of Celine Dion and Barbara Streisand.
Wednesday’s ‘Bleeds’ Deep Dive
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(00:06:33)
  • Key Takeaway: Wednesday’s album ‘Bleeds’ showcases songwriter Carly Hartsman’s ambition matching the band’s musicality across hardcore, country, punk, and psychedelia, offering authentic details of small-town life.
  • Summary: Carly Hartsman’s vocals are noted for their intensity, ranging from screaming to crooning, while the instrumentation blends diverse genres. The lyrics provide refreshing, un-glorified details of small-town life, focusing on the ‘freaks, the bohemians, the weirdos.’ The single ‘Elderberry Wine’ demonstrated an opening up of craft beyond their previous acclaimed album, ‘Rat Saw God.’
Nourished by Time’s ‘The Passionate Ones’
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(00:12:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Nourished by Time’s ‘The Passionate Ones’ integrates production effects deeply into composition, creating a sound that swirls 80s influences like Prince with contemporary R&B themes of labor and isolation.
  • Summary: Marcus Brown’s project blends 80s sounds, including deliberate references to Prince and Michael Jackson, with contemporary elements, making production effects integral to the composition. The album thematically explores labor, work, and the challenges artists face in surviving and thriving. The music is described using appliance metaphors, suggesting a complex, chopped, and swirled sonic texture.
Daniel Caesar’s ‘Son of Spergy’
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(00:18:36)
  • Key Takeaway: Daniel Caesar’s ‘Son of Spergy’ synthesizes multiple R&B strains—from beat-driven Atlanta style to experimental—while heavily incorporating gospel and reckoning with religion.
  • Summary: The album achieved mainstream success, hitting the Billboard top 10, and leans into a deconstructed R&B sound, featuring collaborators like Mustafa and Yebba. It functions as a ‘one-stop shopping’ experience for various R&B styles, blending influences from artists like Frank Ocean and Blood Orange. The record is marked by an undercurrent of gospel, including sung hymns by a choir at the end of tracks.
Dave’s ‘The Boy Who Played the Harp’
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(00:22:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Dave’s ‘The Boy Who Played the Harp’ is a deep personal inquiry into the responsibilities of an artist, referencing the Biblical David who played music to banish demons, not slay giants.
  • Summary: The album features lush, complex production and addresses the artist’s obligations to the public, family, and self, reflecting on what he has done wrong. A standout track, ‘Fairchild,’ is a duet confronting sexual assault from multiple perspectives, including a bystander’s view. The track ‘Chapter 16’ includes a line referencing the SM7B microphone, commenting on the attention economy surrounding podcasting.
Clarice Jensen’s ‘In Holiday Clothing…’
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(00:29:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Clarice Jensen’s ‘In Holiday Clothing, Out of the Great Darkness’ proceeds from a classical cello tradition, using subtle technology to create an engaging, minimalist sound bath.
  • Summary: The album begins by referencing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 before folding the sound upon itself using minimal electronics to bring the tradition into the present. The music is characterized by repetition, space, and a nighttime atmosphere, avoiding being a mere showcase of technical process. Jensen’s command and craft are evident, and she has toured with artists like My Chemical Romance, indicating broad accessibility.
Gwennifer Raymond’s ‘Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark’
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(00:35:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Acoustic guitarist Gwennifer Raymond, who holds a PhD in astrophysics, fuses ragtime, blues, and shredding, inspired by science and science fiction, creating music evoking intense athleticism.
  • Summary: Raymond’s playing is characterized by a fusion of styles, including Welsh primitive playing and influences like John Fahey, often executed at blistering speed. The music is intimate due to the solo performance format, allowing listeners to hear string noise as auxiliary percussion. Her background in astrophysics informs the album’s conceptual framework.
Cal Banks’ ‘RHODA’ Showcase
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(00:41:05)
  • Key Takeaway: Producer Cal Banks steps out as a rapper on the sprawling, 81-minute album ‘RHODA,’ which is characterized by messy vulnerability stemming from the grief of losing his mother.
  • Summary: The album serves as a showcase for Banks’ dual role as producer and artist, featuring 25 tracks and numerous collaborators, including Pink Sifu and Audrey Nuna. The chaotic, sprawling nature reflects the dissembling of a psyche under grief, a common thread among the year’s best records. Banks’ intuitive production philosophy is summarized by his statement that he focuses on tightness rather than technical knowledge like compression.
Mary Halverson’s ‘About Ghosts’
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(00:47:29)
  • Key Takeaway: Jazz guitarist Mary Halverson’s album ‘About Ghosts’ features complex, fluid compositions built on patterns and systems, showcasing her generosity by encouraging bandmates to co-compose their parts.
  • Summary: Halverson, described as a genius, expands her Amaryllis group with two saxophone players, creating a sound that feels expansive and fluid, like a tide pool. Her compositions rely on geometric patterning and re-patterning, though she allows other members, like drummer Tomas Fujiwara, to compose their own parts. The ensemble includes several musicians who also released top-10-worthy records in 2025.
Lightning Round Mentions
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(00:53:49)
  • Key Takeaway: Annie DiRusso’s ‘Super Pedestrian’ defined ‘Super Pedestrian Summer’ for Stephen Thompson, while Patrick Watson’s ‘Uh Oh’ marked his return after a medical crisis affecting his voice.
  • Summary: Annie DiRusso’s album was highlighted as a fun, summery rock record. Queralt Lahoz was mentioned for blending flamenco with hip-hop, contrasting with Rosalía’s flamenco-pop fusion. Patrick Watson’s album ‘Uh Oh’ involved many collaborators to help texture his compositions following his vocal health crisis.