2025 has been a good year for music. A slew of releases by the biggest pop stars combined with a flurry of the most exciting new artists across genres has meant there is plenty for everyone no matter your taste.
With so many big names – Lady Gaga, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift – and buzzy bands – The Last Dinner Party, Smerz – it’s been difficult to whittle this year’s albums to 10. But after much deliberation, these are my picks of the best of 2025.
10. PinkPantheress – Fancy That
“TikTok artist” no more. PinkPantheress may write songs that only last two minutes each, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. Precise, perfectionistic production, generous sampling, watertight Y2K aesthetic, insouciant expression and girlish autotune makes Pink the dance music artist of her generation.
Fancy That is a masterful exploration of garage, drum and bass and pop, from the addictive stoner loop of “Illegal” to the nostalgic rush of “Stars”.
If you’re understandably disappointed that the album only lasts 21 minutes, fear not – just check out the remix album Fancy Some More, where Pink collaborates with the likes of Nia Archives, Basement Jaxx and Kaytranada on extended edits.
Stream: “Illegal”, “Tonight”
9. Olivia Dean – The Art of Loving
Smooth, soulful and warm, Olivia Dean’s second record, The Art of Loving, has put her firmly on the list of young British artists to be taken very seriously indeed. The album examines love from every which way – good, bad, happy, sad – through Dean’s already classic-sounding voice, old-school grooves and smart, tender lyrics; in her presence, musicality and emotional intelligence the 26-year-old appears much older than her years. The third single, “Man I Need”, became a summer hit for its feelgood romanticism – but it’s just the tip of the iceberg for an album that has depth and ease in every note.
Stream: “Man I Need”, “I’ve Seen It”
Read our review here.
8. Geese – Getting Killed
The cult band from Brooklyn are rapidly becoming one of the biggest indie acts of the decade. Interspersing glorious chaos with classic songwriting, the band’s third album, Getting Killed, oozes New York cool while embodying the ennui of Gen Z pining for something analogue – and proving it still exists. Cameron Winter, the 23-year-old frontman, is a little Nick Cave, a little James Murphy (his 2024 solo album is also fantastic), and is as charismatic screaming “there’s a bomb in my car” as he is singing softly about love. Geese are similar to the British prodigies Black Country New Road in pushing grainy indie rock to its 21st-century avant-garde potential – and any initial discombobulation soon dissolves into pure exhilaration.
Stream: “Cobra”, “Getting Killed”
7. Blood Orange – Essex Honey
Essex Honey is Dev Hynes’s fifth album as Blood Orange – it’s moving, eclectic and exquisitely rendered. Sliding effortlessly between tender acoustic guitar and propulsive neo-funk, Hynes draws on an impressive list of collaborators (among them Caroline Polachek and Lorde) to create an immersive and colourful landscape, where we circle through stasis and loneliness and grief (“I don’t want to be here anymore,” he sings on “Thinking Clean”). It’s warm and hazy while not shying away from rough edges, showing true musical maturity.
Stream: “Somewhere in Between”, “The Field”
6. Lily Allen – West End Girl
Nothing in 2025 has quite commanded the cultural monopoly that Charli XCX’s seminal album Brat did in 2024 – but if anything has come close, it’s Lily Allen’s West End Girl. A brutal blow-by-blow account of the breakdown of her marriage to the Stranger Things actor David Harbour, it has satiated the internet’s appetite for gossip like never before (and sparked plenty of conversations about the ethics of “open relationships”). Allen’s unflinching descriptions of gory details – like the Duane Reade bag she found in her ex’s “pussy palace”, and the lament dedicated to the now-infamous “Madeline” – have the power to shock on every listen. More than scandalous, the album is desperately sad, as Allen’s world crumbles and she tries miserably to hold herself together.
Stream: “Pussy Palace”, “Madeline”
5. FKA Twigs – Eusexua
January feels like a long time ago, but FKA Twigs’ explosive return has withstood the year in music. A pounding club album of gothic techno and mysterious electropop, it is as weird and wonderful as we might expect from the ever-elusive Twigs, and yet also full of repeat-listen bangers. She digs deep on the opener and title track, a stonking bass drop coming just when you need it; “Striptease” is intoxicating in its breathless drama. Eusexua accelerates and lingers just where you want it to, Twigs’ ethereal voice and presence cutting through the thrum of vibrating speakers. It’s not a Sunday morning easy listen, but its intensity makes it one for the ages.
Stream: “Eusexua”, “Drums of Death”
Read our review here.
4. Rosalia – Lux
Nobody knew what to think when Rosalia dropped Lux in November. We’re used to high drama from the Spanish superstar, whose last album was released in 2022, but it was immediately clear she’d upped her game in a classical-pop fusion album full of passion, sadness and anger. The lead single, “Berghain” (featuring Bjork and Yves Tumor), opens with an intense violin solo followed by a terrifying Carmina-Burana-style chorale; “La Perla” is a sort of cutthroat aria, replete with orchestra, about a deceitful lover. Across the album Rosalia seems to expand the very possibilities of pop music, switching between heartfelt recitative and frenetic electronica, blurring the lines between fact and fiction with exquisite bite.
Stream: “Reliquia”, “Berghain”
3. Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp
Grime wunderkind Dave has excelled himself once again with his third album, The Boy Who Played the Harp, a tender and expansive concept record loosely based on the biblical figure David. It’s an outpouring of vulnerability through hard-nosed rhythms and foggy, looping beats (James Blake features several times).
“I’m just praying I find peace before I find love”, Dave raps on “My 27th Birthday”, a static outpour of neurotic thoughts and breathless anxiety. “You’re the rap Messiah, you and Simbi,” says grime veteran Kano on duet “Chapter 16” (Simbi refers to Little Simz, who also put out a fantastic album this year). He’s right: as ever, Dave has woven something vibrant and beautiful out of life’s darkest, coarsest threads.
Stream: “Chapter 16” feat Kano, “Selfish” feat James Blake
2. Sam Fender – People Watching
Sometimes the Mercury Prize gets it right. Geordie troubadour Sam Fender shows both enviable maturity and infinite promise on People Watching, a raw and full-throated album about love, masculinity and home. Fender is often compared with Springsteen, and for good reason, but there is a lot of uniqueness here, deeply rooted in place (Fender is from North Shields). Produced by The War on Drugs, the album has an expansive feel, with huge arena-filling choruses and stare-out-the-train-window verses, while Fender maintains an unflinching focus on the realities of life as a British working-class man. Run to listen to it.
Stream: “People Watching”, “Rein Me In”
1. CMAT – Euro-Country
CMAT has been charming audiences with her brash theatrics and lilting country-pop for several years now – but her 2025 album Euro-Country has made her a star. From start to finish the album rattles with political anger, acerbic self-reflection and raw feeling. Single “Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” is a masterclass in creative songwriting, drawing on an unpindownable feeling – “this is making no sense to the average listener”, she sings – and building to an epic climax; the title track is a loving paean to CMAT’s home country of Ireland; “Coronation Street” is a gentle ditty about wallowing in your own misery; “When a Good Man Cries” is a heart-wrenching meditation on self-sabotage – and all that before we’ve even got to “Take a Sexy Picture of Me”, the breakout single written in response to people body-shaming her online.
I liked CMAT before, but I was floored by this record, and it’s made her one of the most important artists not just of the year but of the decade.
Read our review here.
Stream: “When a Good Man Cries”, “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station”
…and the worst
Ed Sheeran – Play
I’m sorry, I tried – but I just can’t get on board with Play, the sprawling first instalment of Ed Sheeran’s new remote-control-based series of albums. It careers dangerously around genres, features too many lyrics along the lines of “You should see the way the stars illuminate your stunning silhouette” and takes so long lingering over thinly veiled attempts to increase global Spotify success (I’m looking at you, “Azizam”) that by the time he says something honest we’re all exhausted. I have a lot of respect for Sheeran as a songwriter, but at this point in his career he desperately needs a heavy edit.
Read our review here.
