50 Albums I'm Listening to in 2025
Context
This is list of albums I plan on listening to in 2025. I had published this list on X (Formerly known as Twitter) earlier in the year, but due to reasons I started regularly deleting my tweets again.
I worked with Claude to generate this list given my 2024 listening history. We poked around the idea of expanding my music tastes and this is what we came up with. I'll create a post for each album, along with a short accompanying review.
The goal here is to sit and listen to albums in a more deliberate manner, rather than the unfocused, slopified track-by-track approach that streaming encourages. Some of these albums I've listened to a hundred times over (e,g. 22, A Million, Maggot Brain) but most of these are new for me.
Here is the list:
| Album Title | Artist | Genre |
|---|---|---|
| 22, A Million | Bon Iver | Experimental Folk/Electronic |
| Afrique Victime | Mdou Moctar | Saharan Blues/Psychedelic |
| Begin to Hope | Regina Spektor | Anti-folk/Indie Pop |
| Black Angels | Kronos Quartet | Experimental Classical |
| Black One | Sunn O))) | Drone/Experimental Metal |
| Brother, Sister | mewithoutYou | Post-Hardcore/Indie Rock |
| Colors | Between The Buried and Me | Hardcore Punk/Alternative |
| Cuttin' Grass Vol. 1 | Sturgill Simpson | Bluegrass |
| Dandelion Gum | Black Moth Super Rainbow | Psychedelic/Electronic |
| Dopethrone | Electric Wizard | Doom Metal/Stoner Metal |
| Every Kingdom | Ben Howard | Folk/Indie Folk |
| Fire of Love | The Gun Club | Punk Blues/Post-Punk |
| For You | Tatsuro Yamashita | City Pop/Yacht Rock |
| From Sleep | Max Richter | Minimal Classical/Ambient |
| H'art Songs | Moondog | Avant-garde/Classical |
| He Has Left Us Alone... | Silver Mt. Zion | Post-Rock/Experimental |
| Heaven or Las Vegas | Cocteau Twins | Dream Pop/Shoegaze |
| Hex | Bark Psychosis | Post-Rock/Ambient |
| Holy Mountain | Sleep | Stoner Metal/Doom Metal |
| Homenaje a una Grande | Chavela Vargas | Ranchera |
| Hot Dreams | Timber Timbre | Gothic Folk/Blues |
| I Could Live in Hope | Low | Slowcore |
| Just Another Diamond Day | Vashti Bunyan | British Folk |
| KIWANUKA | Michael Kiwanuka | Psychedelic Soul |
| Maggot Brain | Funkadelic | Psychedelic Soul/Funk Rock |
| Nilsson Schmilsson | Harry Nilsson | Pop Rock |
| Not Even Happiness | Julie Byrne | Contemporary Folk |
| O | Damien Rice | Folk/Indie Folk |
| Parallelograms | Linda Perhacs | Psychedelic Folk |
| Phaedra | Tangerine Dream | Progressive Electronic |
| Pompeii | Cate Le Bon | Art Rock/Post-punk |
| Punish, Honey | Vessel | Electronic/Experimental |
| Radio Bakodji | Orchestra Baobab | Afro-Cuban/Senegalese |
| Re | Café Tacvba | Latin Alternative/Rock |
| Ruins | Grouper | Ambient/Experimental |
| Scott 4 | Scott Walker | Baroque Pop/Art Pop |
| Seneca | Charles Wesley Godwin | Appalachian Folk |
| Sex & Food | Unknown Mortal Orchestra | Psychedelic Pop/Rock |
| Singing Ringing | Laraaji | Ambient/New Age |
| Sinner Get Ready | Lingua Ignota | Experimental/Neo-Classical |
| Songs from the Big Chair | The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus | Industrial Folk/Experimental |
| Sound & Color | Alabama Shakes | Blues Rock/Soul |
| Space 1.8 | Nala Sinephro | Ambient Jazz |
| Stand For Myself | Yola | Country Soul |
| Tender Buttons | Broadcast | Electronic/Experimental Pop |
| The Complete Guide to Insufficiency | David Thomas Broughton | Avant Folk |
| The Haxan Cloak | The Haxan Cloak | Dark Ambient/Electronic |
| The Magnolia Electric Co. | Songs: Ohia | Alt-Country/Indie Rock |
| The Pearl | Harold Budd & Brian Eno | Ambient/Minimal |
| Thickfreakness | The Black Keys | Blues Rock |
| Third | Portishead | Trip-hop/Experimental |
| Time of the Last Persecution | Bill Fay | Folk/Psychedelic |
| Timewind | Klaus Schulze | Berlin School Electronic |
| Un Día | Juana Molina | Experimental Folk/Electronic |
| Upstairs at Eric's | Yazoo | Synthpop |
| Variety | Mariya Takeuchi | City Pop/J-pop |
| World of Echo | Arthur Russell | Avant-garde/Experimental |
| Your Queen Is A Reptile | Sons of Kemet | Contemporary Jazz |