It's the start of 2025 List Week, going over the worst and the best of the year and everything in between. We are going to begin by going over some of my Honorable Mentions for 2025 – some albums that I thought were good, I thought were highlights, I thought were significant cultural moments, but maybe I wasn't blown away by them personally. Maybe not to the same degree I was other albums, but I still wanted to shout them out because I think they're good and worthy of mention, worthy of note. In fact, many of you have noted them already and a lot of other publications too, on their respective lists.

clipping. – Dead Channel Sky

The experimental hip hop trio is still doing their thing after all of these years, going for a bit of a stylistic switch on this record with a series of instrumentals that aren't quite as abrasive or hip hop oriented, trending a little bit more toward dance music, specifically a lot of techno aesthetics during the late '90s, early 2000s that have a bit of a like Y2K hacker movie soundtrack feel.

Of course, this also fits in very well with Daveed Diggs' lyrics and narratives around dystopia – tech dystopia, specifically. There are some points where the beats come across a little bit dated or common for the sounds and styles that they are referencing. Not every narrative and concept pans out into a mind-blowing moment, but still, it is an interesting and ambitious record in the clipping. catalog. It seems like a lot of people have been taking to it this year, and I just want to show love and respect to a record that I understand the hype behind it, and I get why people would like it. It's just personally not my favorite in their catalog, but this is just one record after many very positive experiences and glowing reviews that I've given clipping.'s work up until this point.

Dijon – Baby

One of my most anticipated albums of the year, there's a lot of great highlights on it. A lot of amazing moments. I think in a lot of ways, a respectable follow-up to Dijon's breakout debut, but I feel like it didn't go far enough.

We didn't get enough material from this record. Some of the tunes came across a little bit dodgy and I think obscured in the noisy production toward the back end of the album. It's a good record. It's a cool record. It has me excited to hear more from Dijon in the future, especially given what he was able to do with some of the production on Justin Bieber's latest couple of releases, SWAG and SWAG 2. I just wanted more from this.

Still, it continues to be the case that Dijon is one of the most interesting and creative minds out there in alternative and underground pop and RnB. I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not we have to wait another five years for another record, and if he will maintain this raw and obscure vibe moving into the future with his sound.

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

A lot of bops on this thing. It's very simple, it's very straightforward, it's very sweet, it's very catchy. Didn't go quite as far with the tunes and the evolution as her breakout album, but still a lot of standout cuts on this thing, even a few that have grown on me. I think if this project does anything positive for her, it essentially continues to prove that Pink is absolutely here to stay and is just a force to be reckoned with in pop and dance pop. The TikTok fad allegations have been proven wrong, sir.

Wednesday – Bleeds

Wasn't head over heels for this one, but this is easily my favorite Wednesday release to date. There's a lot of catchy songs on this thing. The '90s raw grungy guitar tones are so awesome. Some of the tinges of country here are very tasteful. And of course, Karly's lead vocals and lyrics about Southern, lower to middle class destitution all hit and are very creative. The band is continuing to grow and do good stuff, and I think they're going to continue to be mainstays on the indie scene for a minute.

Sudan Archives – The BPM

While this record was a little inconsistent to my ears, it does actually pull off a very ambitious, dance-oriented switch-up with Sudan heading pretty boldly into more electronic music styles and coming through with a lot of great grooves, a lot of great bops, a lot of eccentric production with her talents for singing, rapping, and violin. This album is pulling from so many different places, embodying so many different shades of dance music, and somehow making them all work in tandem (most of the time) in ways that you just couldn't have imagined before having heard this record. So shout out to this LP for being the surprise that it is.

Anna von Hausswolff – Iconoclasts

There were a few moments here and there that were a little underwhelming or maybe a bit too enveloped and swallowed completely in this record's super massive, super reverby, cavernous sound. I think some tunes and passages that were maybe a little bit more dry and intimate, maybe more down to earth sonically would have provided some nice switchups in the tracklist. But with that being said, the high points, the most massive, most epic art pop moments and experimental moments on this record are mind-blowing or something to behold. The saxophones sound insane on this thing.

While this may not be my favorite Anna von Hauswolff record, I can say it is most definitely her most daring in terms of really going for it. There's some interesting crossovers and features with Ethel Cain in the mix as well. Most definitely listen to this thing if you take your art rock spacey and heavy.

billy woods – GOLLIWOG

A record for sure that I liked and enjoy, generally. I just feel like I'm a little at odds with some people who have been hyping it up because maybe there weren't enough new sounds or surprises. I feel like this record doesn't add quite as much to Billy's catalog sonically and artistically and conceptually as maybe his past few albums have. While there are some interesting personal stories and references on this thing, I do love the background of how the title and some of the themes came together as far as how it relates to his childhood. But as somebody who has been reviewing this man consistently and loving the vast majority of that work since the early 2010s, I'm well aware that woods is one of the most unique and significant vocalists and lyricists in hip hop today.

These are things I have been saying. And while this project maybe didn't hit me quite as hard as Aethiopes did, I'm glad that there are a lot of listeners who are finally coming around to how good billy woods is. I feel like you can't really deny how, in terms of commercial success, in terms of general discourse in underground music broadly and hip hop music, specifically, billy woods seems to be on everybody's lips at the moment, and that's a good thing. That's a great thing.

The people who maybe just started listening to Woods's work around Haram, go back and listen to Dour Candy, go back listen to Kown Unkowns. Go back and listen to History Will Absolve Me. Go back and listen to the first Armand Hammer albums. Again, amazing stuff. This man's catalog is aging like fine wine, and it sounds like there's still a lot of gas left in the tank.

Rosalia – LUX

Next, we have this new Rosalia album, LUX, a record that I expected really big things of this year, honestly, given "Berghain", given the orchestral leanings of some of the tracks, given just how huge the buildup and setup for this album was.

Just before this thing was about to drop, I was really thinking like, Man, could this record be so good that it could steal the number one spot on my album of the year list. And while I was impressed with a great deal of this LP, in a lot of respects, I was underwhelmed a little bit as well, like with Rosalia's last, Motomami. Because while I think the baseline ideas are there. I like the direction. It's very bold and I think creative to switch things up in such a surprising way on this LP for Rosalia to challenge herself and challenge pop fans with something that is so heavily influenced by classical music.

But once I dug deeper into the project, a lot of these sounds and ideas felt maybe a little bit more like window dressing, as there were tunes and there were song structures that read to me as very basic and very plain and paint by the numbers. In fact, I think she could have gone even harder when it comes to the opera influences and the classical influences.

But with that being said, the high points on this thing are high, and this project also has to contain some of the best production and engineering I have heard in 2025. I wouldn't be surprised if it receives a Grammy for how good the engineering is. And of course, Rosalia remains a completely unparalleled vocal talent, but I digress.

Redveil – sankofa

This guy really, really was throwing this album out there with just a few more seconds on the shot clock of 2025. In fact, the week this thing came out, most publications were dropping their lists. And obviously, while the album also fell short of mine, I still think this is Redveil's best release to date. Still, I do think my main issue with his work remains to be just how obvious his influences are and how boldly he wears them on his sleeve to the point where you do get a bit of odd future aesthetics, deja vu, whatever you want to call it.

But I do think he gives some amazing vocal performances on this record and drop some incredible verses as well with super passionate rapping as he reckons with the ways that he is growing and changing as a person. Because keep in mind, this guy started getting a buzz behind his music at a super, super young age, his mid-teens.

And now that he's in his early 20s and he's really starting to take an assessment of his life and his music career, he's thinking a lot about his history, his past, his family relations, and coming to grips with some pretty profound stuff in the process. Writing that is honestly mature beyond Redveil's years. And for him to be sounding this clear-eyed and this passionate this early in the game, it has me looking forward to and wondering how far he's going to take it into the future.

Jim Legxacy – Black British Music

This is one of the most interesting and breakout mixtapes from the UK in 2025. And while it is a little all over the place, and I think some songs pale so much in comparison to the highlights on the record, the highlights are incredible. I think Jim Legxacy is showing himself very early on to be one of the most versatile and intriguing and multifaceted artists to make waves in 2025. Some of my favorite songs of this year land on this project, and I just love the ways in which Jim just doesn't really seem to have many boundaries stylistically when it comes to the popular music forms that he colors within on this project, whether he is dealing in some West African or pop or rock or different shades of hip hop.

He's just doing it all and coming out with some amazing work in the process as well. And that's without even getting into how versatile as a vocalist he is, too. While I do think there are aspects of his writing and sound that are still very much in a bit of an incubation period, there's so many good things you could say about this tape, and it has me really excited for what he's going to do in the next few years.

Hayley Williams – Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party

I can most definitely say this is Hayley's best batch of songs yet. It certainly leapfrogs her past to solo records that she dropped not too long ago. I loved a great deal of the songs in the batch of original random tracks and singles that she put out. As they were assembled into an album with a few other songs being added in the aftermath, the entirety of Ego Death to me just felt a little daunting.

There were just far too many middle-of-the-road tracks and low-key moments that I think made the flow of this thing a bit of a slog. If Hayley is going to continue to make solo music and rock music that is this measured, I would hope that some of her production choices and lyrical choices get a little bit bolder to keep every part of the tracklist interesting. Whether we are talking about songs like "Mirtazapine", the themes of which I found to be very sharp in terms of how Hayley was writing about them, and also the riffs and chorus on that track just go. Also, the title track on this album, too, is one of the best songs she's ever done as well. Maybe in the running for the sharpest opening line of 2025. That song is definitely going to be on my singles list for sure. But the album itself, I have some more mixed feelings on, even if for the most part, they are positive.