The best albums of 2025

A totally biased opinion from a musical office

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

This year was a horrible, no good, very bad page of the calendar; yet, despite the pain — or perhaps because of it — music flourished. Heavy hitters like Lady Gaga and Tyler, the Creator dominated the music scene from TikTok to radio, and new and old faces came out of the woodwork with enough indie-rock, shoegaze and sad girl music to counteract the onslaught of bad news (at least a little).

Folks at The New Yorker and Rolling Stone published their lists of 2025’s best albums, taking input from dozens of musical experts with diverse tastes. The Reader, however, has a staff of three. The following, then, is less of a “2025’s best albums” list and more of a collection of the albums that helped set the vibe of this paper’s office and the stories produced therein. In a way, that makes them the best.

Wet Leg, moisturizer

English indie-rock band Wet Leg conquered the Reader — and the world — in 2022 with the group’s first self-titled album, leaving us to wait until this last summer for moisturizer — and it was well worth it. With their usual British charm and subversive approach to music, Wet Leg delivered a bouquet of love songs that ran the gamut from questioning their emotional health in the pop-adjacent “CPR” to encapsulating quiet devotion in lines like, “It’s kinda cold on earth anyway when you’re not around” from “davina mccall.” Each song sits at indie’s cutting edge and is easy to listen to on repeat.

Lucy Dacus, Forever is a Feeling

This year was especially good for sad girl music — a subgenre of indie-alt that focuses on heartache and existential angst from the perspective of women. Dacus’ Forever is a Feeling represented the genre well, blending her singer-songwriter style with an often symphonic background. Just when audiences get comfortable with her soft stories of ill-fated love, she digs deeper with lo-fi beats and a dash of grit, taking her songs from ethereal to dark and brooding.

CMAT, EURO-COUNTRY

This Irish indie-pop album is about as “country” as it gets on this list, which is to say, there’s an occasional fiddle meandering between retro dance and slow, melancholy numbers. Singer Ciara Thompson — a.k.a. CMAT — has a soulful voice that sounds like it should float out of a ’60s radio, which she usually pairs with a modern driving beat. Even when lamenting the death of a lover or aging bodies, EURO-COUNTRY’s lyrics are always full of humorous jabs and pop culture references like “Lord, let that Tesla crash,” which give the album an added absurdity and authenticity at the same time.

Florence and the Machine, Everybody Scream

Florence Welch’s creative genius and sheer talent never disappoint, which is why any album she releases instantly becomes one of the year’s best. Everybody Scream continues the streak with complex meditations on womanhood, largely inspired by her 2023 near-death experience caused by a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Welch delivers her intricate storytelling in her traditional dark indie-rock, baroque pop fashion, sometimes belting, then switching to angelic high notes before descending into a deep growl. No matter the song, the music is bewitching, and listeners can’t help but feel her rage and passion in every note.

Hayley Williams, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Most people recognize Williams as the lead singer of Paramore, but her 2025 tour de force solidifies her as a unique powerhouse. The multi-instrumentalist pushed the boundaries of ’90s shoegaze and synth-pop with Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, often using bitter humor to deal with personal and social issues. As she sings in the titular song, “I’ll be the biggest star / At this racist country singer’s bar.” Williams’ style often dips into the familiar sound of Y2K emo bands, but can just as easily jump to ’80s alt-rock — either way, each song is written and performed perfectly to reward both casual and active listening.

The Beaches, No Hard Feelings

The ’80s were also in for queer pop-rock group The Beaches, whose 2025 tracks have a distinct glam rock flair that feels nostalgic in all the right ways. The band’s driving, modern beats enhance the retro dance tunes, creating a somewhat camp homage to the past while remaining relevant. Most of these songs are vehicles for addictive one-liners like this description of a toxic relationship in “Takes One to Know One:” “Anti-social, maladjusted / noncommittal, can’t be trusted / that’s so us.” It isn’t all pop hits, though, and the group shows its depth in songs like “Lesbian of the Year,” where the singer comes to a late realization about her sexuality.

Geese, Getting Killed

Unlike the rest of these albums, Getting Killed isn’t necessarily easy to listen to — it engages the audience’s brains from beginning to end. Why? Because they need to figure out what the hell they’re actually listening to. Are these songs folk or metal, funk or punk? Yes. Vocalist Cameron Winter has a voice that would have put him on stage with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young if he were born earlier, but instead he’s a stoned ’70s folk-rocker trapped in the body of a 23-year-old man. Take that mental image and introduce grunge into the equation, and you’re halfway to understanding Getting Killed.