<\/p>\n
My habit of seeking out new music began with a few strokes of good luck. I grew up in a college town in the early to mid-nineties, during one of the golden eras of college radio. I spent a significant portion of my time with my ear pressed against a cheap hand-me-down AM\/FM boom box, dialling through forests of static until I found a coherent tune from one of the stations broadcasting out of Ohio State University or a smaller school nearby. My older siblings were already in college, and they would return home with mixtapes ripped from their own campus radio stations, adding fresh sounds to my sonic universe. It wasn\u2019t uncommon for me to hear new music and sense that it was altering my brain chemistry, in a way that I could palpably feel<\/em>. I still remember hearing \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d for the first time, huddled in the back seat of my oldest brother\u2019s car and looking out of the window in joyful disbelief.<\/p>\n New Yorker writers reflect on the year\u2019s highs and lows.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I have kept up my eager pursuit of new music all these years later, because I refuse to believe that the hope of brain-shifting listening experiences must be abandoned with childhood. My listening practice today is sprawling, involving as many as thirty albums a week. Each Thursday, I share a playlist of my favorite new songs on Instagram<\/a>. I\u2019ve maintained this habit for years, though it feels more important to keep up now, as the platforms<\/a> through which we consume music try to seduce us with the comforts of what we already like. The ritual has become a way to resist the nefarious designs of the algorithms that wish to remind me, again and again, of what I loved once, until I don\u2019t see fit to love anything else. Through tallying my favorite listening, I am reclaiming confidence in my own taste, even if it is still evolving as much as it was when I was using that boom box. So here is a list of songs I loved this year. I hope there are at least a few that might open up something in you.<\/p>\n anaiis<\/p>\n From the immense album \u201cDevotion & the Black Divine,\u201d by the French Senegalese singer-songwriter anaiis, \u201cGreen Juice\u201d is a sparse production featuring a bouncy bass line and twinkling bells that hover in the background of anaiis\u2019s light, airy vocals. A friend of mine described the song as \u201cWarm, like a summer evening,\u201d which feels accurate to me, listening to it now that winter has closed in.<\/p>\n Agriculture<\/p>\n This song, from Agriculture\u2019s album \u201cThe Spiritual Sound,\u201d is an outpouring of pain and rage from the singer Leah B. Levinson, who details, in twisting screams, the violent homophobia that their friends have endured. The L.A.-based group refers to their music as \u201cecstatic black metal,\u201d which I take to mean that it intends to transport listeners to places where they would not otherwise go.<\/p>\n Ransom, Boldy James, Nicholas Craven, Young Chris<\/p>\n I\u2019ve greatly enjoyed the past few years in rap music, thanks in large part to the confident soundscapes being built by a new generation of producers. The Montrealer Nicholas Craven is one standout, and this track, anchored by a looped vocal sample, provides an incredible playground for his frequent collaborators, the rappers Boldy James and Ransom. But the song\u2019s central delight, for me, is the presence of Young Chris, of the Young Gunz, whom I hadn\u2019t heard much from since the band\u2019s heyday in the mid-two-thousands.<\/p>\n Superstar Crush<\/p>\n The album \u201cWay Too Much,\u201d by the Hamilton, Ontario, pop group Superstar Crush, seemed to pass under the radar, despite possessing many of the same features as other hit albums this year: big, flashy guitar work, churning and relentless rhythms, and songs that feel like they never stop building. \u201cThis Night Has Been Unkind\u201d is an almost six-minute ode to heartbreak, accelerating to a heavy sprint of horns and drums before winding down to a feeling of emotional exhaustion.<\/p>\n ANKHLEJOHN, August Fanon<\/p>\n The album \u201cLIVE! At the Disco\u201d is a collaboration between the D.C. rapper ANKHLEJOHN and the brilliant experimental sound artist August Fanon, who works largely at the intersection of jazz and soul. \u201cEMILIO PUCCI\u201d stands out for the sweetness of the vocal samples and also because it feels like two songs in one, fading away within the first minute and then returning, seamlessly, as an entirely different machine.<\/p>\n Sorry Girls<\/p>\n This was a great year for the subgenre of songs that I tend to think of as \u201cSad, But Willing to Dance.\u201d \u201cFalling Down Stairs\u201d is, lyrically, about the ache of reaching for someone who is not fully reaching back. But the music is danceable enough to make you slip away and forget the pain of it all.<\/p>\n Joe Kay, Isaiah Falls, Cruza<\/p>\n Cruza, an alternative R. & B. band out of Florida, made one of my favorite albums of last year, \u201cCruzafied,\u201d and this new song might be the one I listened to the most throughout 2025. Its primary scaffolding is bass and the rhythmic clapping of hands, which at first I thought might become grating. But then the track unfurls other elements: guitar, and stunning vocal arrangements.<\/p>\n Divide and Dissolve<\/p>\n Divide and Dissolve, an instrumental project helmed by the composer Takiaya Reed, runs a gamut of sounds, from the weightier precincts of doom metal to softer, more atmospheric arrangements. \u201cGrief\u201d is the shortest of my favorite songs of the year; it\u2019s just under a minute and a half, but it feels<\/em> full, and slow-moving, like watching a dark cloud inch its way in front of the sun.<\/p>\n Makin\u2019 Out<\/p>\n I like a song that gets right to it, and \u201cHum of Your Voice,\u201d by the Minneapolis punk band Makin\u2019 Out, drops the listener into the middle of a conversation with the singer Caitlin Angelica. She has an unforgettably expressive voice, wringing the feeling out of each syllable in the chorus: \u201cI don\u2019t wanna be alive\u00a0\/ I don\u2019t wanna die\u00a0\/ I just wanna lay down next to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Infinity Knives, Brian Ennals, Nicolas Ratany, \u00c9mile Joseph Weeks, The Lil\u2019 Black Oxen<\/p>\n \u201cA City Drowned in God\u2019s Black Tears\u201d is among the most expansive and ambitious of the albums I loved this year. This not-quite-title song, which is nearly eight minutes long, is a sort of mini-suite, opening with a dog barking, giving way to an acoustic-guitar melody accompanying polyphonic vocals, then becoming electric and crashingly alive, until the relentless screech of a guitar drags you to the end.<\/p>\n Fusilier<\/p>\n It is hard to make music as thoughtful and precise as that of the singer-songwriter Blake Fusilier while still delivering the feel of an improvisatory stage show. He pulls from funk, classic soul, and contemporary R. & B., and he doesn\u2019t tend to silo his influences. \u201cHello\u201d is part acoustic folk song, part upbeat R. & B. jaunt, and it never becomes any less surprising as it shifts between the two modes.<\/p>\n SPELLLING<\/p>\n The Oakland-based experimental artist Chrystia Cabral, a.k.a. SPELLLING, resists genre categorization in a way that allows her almost to defy time. \u201cLove Ray Eyes\u201d would easily feel at home as a soul-rock anthem of the seventies or eighties, but its explosive chorus and enticing vocal dramatics bring to mind mid-two-thousands My Chemical Romance.<\/p>\n Backxwash<\/p>\n \u201cOnly Dust Remains,\u201d by the Zambian Canadian rapper and producer Backxwash, is one of my favorite albums of the year, as much for its atmospheric electronics as for its way with language. The song \u201cHistory of Violence\u201d confronts both personal trauma and the brutalities of the world beyond the self. The scathing litany of an outro is delivered in a near-shout: \u201cNever mention the women\u00a0\/ Never mention the children\u00a0\/ Never mention the victims or you\u2019re in league.\u201d<\/p>\n Goya Gumbani<\/p>\n Featuring a horn-and-keys-driven, jazzy framework, and the laid-back flow of the London-based rapper Goya Gumbani, this song feels like a tune I could have seen performed once upon a time under some blue-tinted lights on a too-small stage, looking across the room and locking eyes with the future love of my life.<\/p>\n MICHELLE<\/p>\n Long live MICHELLE, the R. & B. collective made up of six twentysomethings from New York. They bid us farewell earlier this year, but not before dropping the EP \u201cKiss\/Kill,\u201d which includes \u201cMVP,\u201d perhaps the best song of their brief and stellar career. It\u2019s about the overflow of desire, a desire so intense that a lesser heart might think of all that wanting as greed. MICHELLE knows better.<\/p>\n Dreamer Isioma, Dua Saleh<\/p>\n \u201cStarX Lover,\u201d the 2025 album by the Nigerian American singer-songwriter Dreamer Isioma, is relentless, like someone clawing their way through a wall to deliver the good news of their survival. \u201cSmoking Death\u201d is a colossal sonic experience that hits a high point midway, with a refrain of red<\/em> that repeats until it puts a listener into a trance.<\/p>\n Everything Is Recorded, Roses Gabor, Jah Wobble, Jack Pe\u00f1ate, Yazz Ahmed<\/p>\n Everything Is Recorded is a project spearheaded by the producer Richard Russell, who has worked with artists including Gil Scott-Heron, Bobby Womack, and Kwes. \u201cNo More Rehearsals,\u201d one of the greatest songs released under the moniker, features Roses Gabor\u2019s voice, gentle to the point of near-whispering, softly layered over a backbone of piano. It just feels nice<\/em>.<\/p>\n Yves Jarvis<\/p>\n The Canadian multi-instrumentalist Yves Jarvis is the artist I pushed on the most people this year. I adored his whole album \u201cAll Cylinders,\u201d and this midtempo tune is the highlight. It\u2019s a sensual ode to the admiration of another, with a second act that veers hard into howls of electric guitar. But, admittedly, the part of the song I enjoy the most is the rhyming of \u201cjewelry\u201d with \u201ctomfoolery.\u201d<\/p>\n Fines Double, Mic Write<\/p>\n The brilliant album \u201cEspejismo,\u201d by the Portland, Oregon-based producer Fines Double, features a wide variety of m.c.s and wonderfully dense production. Many of his beats\u2014like this one\u2014are drenched in brass, giving them the feeling of a slow and not unenjoyable march to a dark place.<\/p>\n keiyaA<\/p>\n KeiyaA is a Chicago-born songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist whose arrangements are hyper-populated with sounds: shattering glass, clips of poems, and constantly churning percussion. On \u201cbreak it,\u201d the drums provide an anchor, blurring with the sometimes-warped samples of voices that hypnotically repeat the song\u2019s title.<\/p>\n Hannah Jadagu<\/p>\n I like songs of longing that rely on the vulnerability of plain language: you are somewhere, and the person you love is somewhere else. This track, by the Texas-born, New York-based pop singer Hannah Jadagu, contains one of my favorite lyrics of the year: \u201cMy love, I hope you get all my time.\u201d<\/p>\n Greet Death<\/p>\n Another great line\u2014\u201cI hope you lay next to me\u00a0\/ In some small-town cemetery\u201d\u2014opens this song by the Michigan band Greet Death. A two-and-a-half-minute dirge made up of vocals and acoustic guitar, it\u2019s an ode to love\u2019s permanence, even in death, even in burial. The song speaks to the romantic in me who doesn\u2019t think love ends when our hearts stop.<\/p>\n Pretty Bitter<\/p>\n This track, from the album \u201cPleaser,\u201d by the synth-pop group Pretty Bitter, starts with a tantalizing loop of guitar that eventually gives way to the chopped-up sounds of a drum machine. The lyrics unspool a fantasy of burying an abuser\u2014\u201cMuddy shoes and bloody dues.\u201d Mel Bleker, the group\u2019s lead vocalist, has said that the song is \u201cmeant to be set in a sort of dream world where you\u2019re allowed your justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Bartees Strange<\/p>\n\u201cGreen Juice\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cThe Weight\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cCollection Plates\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cThis Night Has Been Unkind\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cEMILLIO PUCCI\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cFalling Down Stairs\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSlow It Down\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cGrief\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cHum of Your Voice\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cA City Drowning. God\u2019s Black Tears\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cHello\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cLove Ray Eyes\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cHistory of Violence\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cBeautiful BLACK\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cMVP\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSmoking Death\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cNo More Rehearsals\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cGold Filigree\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSecond Line\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cbreak it\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cMy Love\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSmall Town Cemetery\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cBodies Under the Rose Garden\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cBTNY\u201d<\/h2>\n