Spencer TuckermanYou always hear about how music taste atrophies at a certain age, but you never expect that to actually happen to you. I’ve found that, no matter how hard I push back against this phenomena, it comes for me in one way or another. It’s not that I get stuck on old music, I just get stuck on music that sounds old or is made by old people.
2025 is no exception. Below is what I’ve spent the last 12 months listening to. It’s a lot of stuff by musicians who began making music when I was 16 years old or young artists lauded for their ability to make music that sounds like the music people listened to when I was 16 years old.
Time comes for us all.
(Except for Pusha T and Malice, who may be immortal.)
New, Old Songs:
There were a lot of re-issues, remixes, and live versions that I spent time with this year, and rather than cloud up the 2025 list with songs I’ve spent years listening to, I’m separating them.
Jeezy (ft. Color of Noize Orchestra & Akon) - “Soul Survivor (Live)”
My favorite song of 2005 (?!), taken to the stage with a live orchestra. The song still sounds great, even if this particular arrangement is much more electronic than I would’ve preferred.
Signals Midwest - “Caricature (Alt. Version)”
Layovers brings back a bunch of alternate versions and B-sides, including this one from 2013’s The Light on the Lake—which is where I first fell in love with the band. A blast of nostalgia.
Sufjan Stevens - “The Only Thing (Demo)”
My favorite song of 2015, back for its 10th anniversary. It’s the type of song suited to raw emotion and minimal production, so of course the demo sounds fantastic.
Wild Pink & Fenne Lilly - “Disintegrate (Edit)”
This song sounds as gorgeous as ever, but also serves as a great reminder that Dulling the Horns was an amazing album.
Mac Miller - “Funny Papers”
Recorded more than a decade ago, finally getting a proper release. “And everything was quiet but the music.”
Honorable Mention:
Other odds and ends I spent the year listening to but don’t really have much to say about.
- “All My Friends Are So Depressed” - Joyce Manor
- “Animal Thing” - Sister Ray
- “Coinstar” - Runnner
- “Cotton Candy” - Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz
- “Counter Strike” - Papo2oo4 & subjxct 5
- “Every Painting Has A Price” - Saba & No ID
- “Forever Never Ends” - Jeff Tweedy
- “Forget It” - Kerosene Heights
- “Hey Baby” - Flory
- “Kill” - Star 99
- “Madeline” - Zach Bryan
- “Mud” - Waxahatchee
- “Paranoid” - PUP
- “Permanent Ink” - Boldy James
- “Sons of the Second Sons” - James McMurtry
- “STILLWELL THEME” - Frog
- “Sycamore Leaves” - Moselle
- “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THING” - Bon Iver
- “Train To Babylon” - HORSEBATH
50. Destroyer - “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World”
Hard to tell at this point how much I even like Destroyer’s new music versus how much I like the ways in which it reminds me of Kaputt, a perfect album. (Just kidding, this is good.)
49. EBK Jaaybo - “Homebody”
The 22-year-old Stockton, California native made a song that feels like some kind of medieval ritual to channel the spirit of mixtape-era Chief Keef.
48. Lady Gaga - “LoveDrug”
I’ve been a Lady Gaga fan for going on 20 years and I still think she’s the best in one of two modes: Piano ballad or, in this case, power pop. She’s a great songwriter, and blending that with huge hooks works every time for me.
47. Turnstile - “NEVER ENOUGH”
Being old and aware of my own limitations and lack of coolness, I rarely get concert FOMO anymore, but Turnstile’s hometown Baltimore show looked magical.
46. Arm’s Length - “You Ominously End”
There’s a Whole World Out There didn’t quite capture me in the same way Arm’s Length did with their 2022 debut Never Before Seen, Never Again Found, but the album’s high points are still pretty undeniable.
45. Bonnie “Prince” Billy - “Turned to Dust (Rolling On)”
Will Oldham is one of the most underrated Cool As Hell guys out there, splitting time between a music career and appearing in Kelly Reichardt movies. He’s great at both.
44. Lorde - “What Was That”
I’m starting to panic that Lorde is never gonna get back to the magic of those first two albums, but “What Was That” at least feels like it exists in the same universe.
43. Bill Fox - “Terminal Way”
Cleveland’s Bill Fox returns with his first album in 13 years. It’s great and deserves more attention than I gave it in 2025, but “Terminal Way” is one I’ve returned to again and again.
42. JID (ft. Clipse) - “Community”
Kilos turnin' boys to men, gotta pick a side here Some were Jesus Shuttlesworth, some of us were Nasirs
I spent so much time listening to Clipse in 2025 that I’ve even shoehorned features into this list. Malice, fresh off retirement, seemingly ran out of places on his own album to stick A-list verses so he’s stashed one here. Nobody had a better year.
41. Greg Freeman - “Gallic Shrug”
Maybe we’re both blue Or even worse just two people who Have too many yesterdays
I’ve become alt-country obsessed in 2025, and Freeman owns part of the blame. Burnover is brilliant, and isn’t done on this list.
40. Snocaps - “Wasteland”
Snocaps’ self-titled album—a surprise Halloween release—is one of my favorites of the year. “Wasteland” sees Katie Crutchfield sounding more like her Waxahatchee alter-ego than other corners of the album, but that’s a good thing.
39. Bon Iver (ft. Dijon & Flock of Dimes) - “Day One”
Dijon––known previously for the incredible “Nico’s Red Truck,” and known currently for Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another––crash lands into Bon Iver’s brilliant 2025 album.
38. GELO - “Tweaker”
I MIGHT SWERVE, BEND THAT CORNER WHOA-OA
37. Westside Gunn & Conway the Machine - “Ray Lewis”
Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine are a pair of talented lyricists but they’re, first and foremost, artists I enjoy most in a far simpler, sonic way. Their voices sound great over this beat, which almost feels like a spaghetti western over drums.
36. Geese - “Half Real”
He may say real love Is a nail in the wall And that's how a lot of assholes feel But that's not how I feel at all
This isn’t my favorite track on the Geese album (stay tuned!), but it represents maybe the best meeting of Cameron Winter’s voice and the band’s instrumentation. Here, each sound like they're being painfully drawn out in the same ways.
35. Maude Latour - “Miss America”
I’ve been listening to Maude Latour for five years and I’ve never seen a single other person discuss her music. She continues to release great stuff, but I’m starting to think she’s a figment of my imagination.
34. Arm’s Length - “Funny Face”
This song makes me want to attempt a backflip off the roof of my house.
33. Boldy James & RichGains - “Skinny Me”
This Murder During Drug Traffic song samples Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty,” a 1973 song about a pair of Mexican bandits, flipping it into a story about a more modern variety.
32. Flycatcher - “Dissolve”
One time, years ago, someone described a Dogleg (release a new album please) song as a ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack song’ and since then it’s become an intrusive thought when describing some music. Here’s an entry for 2025. It’s so good and I wanna hear it while grinding rails with Bucky Lasek.
31. The Cool Kids - “Rockbox”
It’s hard to describe to anyone in 2025, but The Cool Kids were, at one point around 2007 or 2008, one of the most important and influential voices in hip-hop. Their new album is good, but “Rockbox" specifically feels like a song for those of us who were there almost 20 years ago. Sir Michael Rocks dusts off a “Fishing Lessons” verse. It’s hard to describe how much joy I derive from Chuck Inglish rapping.
30. Dominic Fike - “White Keys”
An unreleased track gets released. Dominic Fike has enough of these cast-off, effortlessly catchy songs to fill an album.
29. Wednesday - “The Way Love Goes”
Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman wrote about the production of this song in a Vulture essay. It’s very well written and almost shockingly vulnerable.
28. Chappel Roan - “The Giver”
If you don’t like this song, you hate fun.
27. jake’s big day - “You Cared Enough to Pretend”
Jake trades in his piano for a guitar. If you’ve got the voice and songwriting chops, this kind of sparse arrangement works really well on me.
26. Geezer - “Geezer”
These two (Dominic Fike and Kevin Abstract) can make great pop music when they choose to.
25. Zach Bryan - “River Washed Hair”
After a few years of non-stop releases, 2025 was quiet for Bryan, but he did let go of a few. The best of the bunch is “River Washed Hair,” a long, slow story. What he does best.
24. Greg Freeman - “Rome, New York”
Another Greg Freeman banger. This one ambles before devolving into a group sing-a-long about broken dreams and broken-into cars.
23. Friendship - “Free Association”
The cover of Friendship’s brilliant Caveman Wakes Up features a painting of an abstract scene––a pair of figures cross the frame in front of a laptop, resting on a bed, overlooking a window with a view of a city at sunset. “Free Association” is where the album meets that muster, a kind of jangly, sprawling, freewheeling track that really does conjure up the liminal scene of a dark apartment at sunset. It might be the year’s most transportive 4:35.
22. Cory Hanson - “Bird on a Swing”
I can count on my friends Like I count on my debts On the middle finger of my right hand Where all my promises are kept
Anyone looking for some insight on the worldview of Cory Hanson need look no further than the album artwork for his 2025 release, which features what appears to be a phot of his own face, taken from a distance, situated in the center of a sniper’s crosshairs, beneath the album’s title: “I Love People.” This kind of sardonic outlook permeates the album, but perhaps no more than on “Bird on a Swing.”
21. Chance the Rapper (ft. Vic Mensa) - “Back To The Go”
Surprise! It’s the boy from the premature burial
Going into 2025 I’d have bet the odds of a Chance and Vic Mensa song appearing on this list were roughly a trillion to one, but Chance took the year to finally pull out of what’s been something like a decade-long skid. STAR LINE is not my favorite album of the year, but that’s mostly owed to simply growing out of his music over the years, rather than a failing of the music itself. The guy made another good album.
20. Bon Iver - “Everything is Peaceful Love”
But you're favored now by fifty And I'm right at home
The logline I saw used over and over again this year was “Bon Iver, but happy.” That sells, but doesn’t really capture what it feels like in practice, on “Everything is Peaceful Love,” hearing Justin Vernon’s sonic palette applied in a hopeful manner. It feels like flying.
19. Boldy James - “Spider Webbing Windshields”
Feds put a hold on brodie bond way out in Roslyn Tickets on tuck from all them racks that I be coddlin' Fondlin', kept that nickel on me like I'm Donovan Past was kinda gloomy but my future lookin' promisin'
The best hip-hop released outside of a Clipse album comes on this brick-dense Boldy James track produced by Nicholas Craven. I’ve been listening to Boldy since 2011’s “JIMBO.” At the time, it felt like a fly-by-night mixtape hit like so many of its era, but 14 years later and he’s not only more central to the scene but even better as a lyricist.
18. Fust - “Mountain Language”
We have our own language Well, I had mine But yours had all those ways of saying how and why So we use yours But I still dream in mine
On the line between optimism and pragmatism, between dreams and reality. Plus a good guitar solo.
17. Been Stellar - “Breakaway”
And the sun will meet the moon But the marker's always you Yeah, the markеr's always you
I spent the last six months listening to this song and trying to figure out what music from my childhood it reminded me of and came up with nothing. Maybe it’s just the general sound of 2000s nostalgia.
16. Clipse - “Ace Trumpets”
Hakuna Matata, island wearing tie-dye Umbrella in my Rolls match the one that's in this Mai Tai Listen, you are not I, cross T's, dot I's I done disappeared and reappeared without a voilà
Any fears about Clipse’s long-awaited reunion album were assuaged by the opening lines on the album’s first single. Lesser artists may have shied away from letting “yellow diamonds look like peepee” be the first bar out of the door on such an anticipated record, but Clipse is a duo that’s built its legendary taste by chasing down every instinct and exploring every ill-advised idea. (Though, even that opening line’s harshest skeptics would’ve been foolish to write off the album if they struck around for Malice’s verse, which is perfect to the letter.)
15. Geese - “Cobra”
Baby, let me wash your feet forever Baby, you can stay in my house forever and ever
While everyone was fawning over the (very good) Geese album, I spent more of 2025 listening to Cameron Winter’s Heavy Metal, which I prefer, save for a few tracks like “Cobra.”
14. Lucy Dacus - “Ankles”
This came out in January, which makes it the longest-tenured song on this list. I found the album somewhat disappointing, but Lucy at her best is still catnip to me, and “Ankles” joins a handful of those immutable (and un-mutable?) songs.
13. Clipse (ft. Tyler, The Creator) - “P.O.V.”
Sand color Rolls Royce, we like Saudis here The only Audi here is driven by my au pair Ghostface with the wrist, bird falconaire Willy Falcon, trunk full of talcum here
“P.O.V.,” the third song on Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out, is where I knew the duo’s comeback album had connected with destiny. I think it’s the song I listened to most from the album, probably because every corner has something worth running back––Pusha’s Audi line, Tyler’s mosh pit line, Malice’s Jekyll line. Tyler doesn’t even make music like this, but––as previously evidenced by “Trouble On My Mind”––a lifetime of songwriting and worshipping at the Clipse altar means he’s plenty qualified to wear it like a costume every once in a while. A career-best verse.
12. Wednesday - “Elderberry Wine”
Sweet song is a long con I drove you to the airport with the E-brake on
An unassailable bit of songwriting.
11. MJ Lenderman & This is Lorelei - “Dancing in the Club (MJ Lenderman Version)”
I lay down in that street My favorite city's artery And I stared into the moon Like it was staring back at me
This Is Lorelei’s Nate Amos is someone I’d describe as a classically talented songwriter and idiosyncratic musician. I like a lot of his music (”I’m All F****d Up” was one of my favorites of 2024) but these cover songs do a lot to strip him back to his lyrical ability. MJ Lenderman makes this kinda weird song sound incredible.
10. Snocaps - “Heathcliff”
I see you in infrared vision When you movе around I know just what I’m missing
Katie and Allison Crutchfield team up with MJ Lenderman and Brad Cook for an album that seems purpose-built to appeal to me. The surprise-drop nature and consistent quality of the album means I’ve tended to just play it through from front to back and haven’t really latched on to any song in particular, but “Heathcliff” is probably the winner for me.
09. Greg Freeman - “Gulch”
Are you living in the wastes of a withered place Or in the city's strung-out lights? Are you there in the back, looking at me tonight?
Guitar music is alive and well on one of my favorite albums of the year.
08. Romy Mars - “A-Lister”
I miss being a real girl, sure But I'm not a rеal girl anymore
Romy—daughter of Sofia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola––had the Song of the Summer, if you ask me. Rooting for the nepotism tree to continue into its third generation.
07. Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band - “New Threats from the Soul”
I was a cactus flower I had Heisman buzz Now it's a pissing competition Between the man I am and the guy I was
This might be higher on this list if I simply had spent more time with it, but look past Ryan Davis’ nondescript band name and you’ll find the kind of songwriter I will gladly fall for every time. The corollaries here are obvious to me: Father John Misty? Sun Kil Moon? Jeff Tweedy? It’s the way the songs are brick-dense and kind of pretentious but doing it knowingly and therefore getting away with it. And also the way you’ll be six minutes into a song and just get crucified by a couplet.
06. - Cory Hanson - “Texas Weather”
An angel came to save me But I left with devil-may-care Took the highway east toward San Antone Gonna try my luck out there
The cover art of Cory Hanson’s “I Love People” leaves little confusion about his worldview. This album’s dark and irreverent, turning sticky situations into black comedy. “Texas Weather” is a song of comic struggle.
05. PUP - “Hallways”
I'm losing the will to keep dragging on But I can't die yеt 'cause who will look after the dog?
PUP’s at their best with these kind of emotional, rollicking sing-a-longs. This one’s about losing hope but finding the strength to keep going, for any reason.
04. Julien Baker & TORRES - “Sugar in the Tank”
I love you clear as day and in the dark I love you sleeping on my dead left arm
Everything is country music now. It’s a good thing. This is the best love song of the year.
03. Geese - “Taxes”
I will break my own heart from now on
Maybe the best entry point into the Cameron Winter/Geese universe because it’s pretty unambiguously a pop song and sounds even more like 2000s New York indie than a lot of his other music. This beat drop makes me feel like I’m floating.
02. Friendship - “Love Vape”
Too late to turn back now If you don’t know how to end it You can just fade out
Come for the flute, stay for the bassline, get murdered by the lyrics. Probably the year’s best songwriting by someone who’s not a rapper named Malice.
01. Clipse - “So Be It”
Wish upon the stars on my roof, they all scattered Ain't no more Neptunes, so P's Saturn
The year’s best song almost didn’t make it on the year’s best album. When Let God Sort Em Out was released, So Be It had transformed to “So Be It Pt II.” The neutered version had a new beat because of issues clearing the sample––a ‘70s song by the Saudi musician Talal Maddah. When producer Swizz Beatz found out, he worked some connections he had in Saudi Arabia thanks to his camel racing team, and the rest is history.
Rap has always been seen as a young man’s game. (Nas, who is younger than Malice, has a horrifically geriatric verse elsewhere on the album.) But Clipse came back in 2025 and challenged everything we know about being a rapper in your 50s. “So Be It” is perfect.