Peter’s favorite tracks of 2025…double playlist!

I’ve curated two different playlists for 2025, one with singing, and one without singing. Most of the time, my year-end playlist picks feature mostly songs (with lyrics), but this year there were a lot of instrumental tracks that I thought were worth sharing, so I made a second playlist. I thought about trying to find a theme, but besides “Almost Completely Women Vocalists,” I’m stumped. I welcome suggestions.

Peter's Favorite Tracks of 2025 

You can also find this playlist on Apple Music.

 

1. Madison Cunningham: “Golden Gate (On and On)” from Ace – Let’s start out with bass clarinets, shall we? Beyond prominent use of one my favorite instruments, the texture building and the rush at the beginning of the chorus stood out.
2. Hope Tala: “Survival” from Hope Handwritten – A relatable message to the modern condition, set to a groove: several things can be true at once—we have real challenges and feelings in the present that are not negated by more difficult challenges of the past, and we can be successful and suffer at the same time.
3. Sarah Siskind: “Come on Heart” from Simplify – An earnest, simple, and onomatopoetic song.
4. Madi Diaz: “Fatal Optimist” from Fatal Optimist – Diaz made this list for the second year in row with this similar theme to The Beth’s “Future Me Hates Me”—this relationship is a bad idea, but I guess I’m doing it anyway.
5. Molly Tuttle: “Summer of Love” from So Long Little Miss Sunshine – Turning to real optimism, is this song about pining for a past moment in history, or a failed relationship? Probably both. Also, I love some good song call backs. Tuttle proves she doesn’t have anything to prove with this album—she’s doing what she wants.
6. Mishra: “Akhiyaan Udeek Diyann (feat. Deepa Shakti)” from Turn O Spinning Wheel – Maybe the most successful fusion of South Asian and Celtic music I’ve heard. Also, another bass clarinet!
7. Haley Heynderickx and Max Garcia Conover: “Flourescent Light” from What of Our Nature – Contemporary folk music about how we may have traded something vital to get our modern conveniences; fittingly, the production is live and sparse.
8. Rosalía: “Reliquia” from Lux – For many, Rosalía produced the best albums of the year as the Spanish artist brought up from a Flamenco tradition swings hard with emotion and maximalist production.
9. Phoebe Rings: “Fading Star” from Aseurai – I found out about this New Zealand retro band when they opened for The Beths. This one hits all the right notes (and timbres). Taking care of the elderly has never been so cool.
10. Hayley Williams: “True Believer” from Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party – This very specific, biting gothic song is about Williams’ hometown, Nashville. And is somehow (necromatically) optimistic
11. Oklou: “blade bird” from choke enough – The French electronically-assisted singer’s debut album made a lot of year-end lists. I, of course, love the bird theme, including the birdsong that is mixed in. The bridge section surprises with faster melodic movement than the verse/chorus.
12. Haim: “Spinning” from I Quit – Perhaps the song that inspired the most repeat listening on this playlist, it starts with some Prince-inspired synths and builds and layers right up to the end, making great use of the sisters' vocal harmonies.
13. Brighde Chaimbeul: “She Went Astray” from Sunwise – How about some loud bagpipes drones to wake you up? Interspersed with some rhythmic call and response in Scots-Gaelic? Actually, let’s make it a canon, too.
14. Momma: “I Want You (Fever)” from Welcome to My Blue Sky – Shoegazy, headbangy, guitar rock. Great use of an intro that is also a pre-chorus; pull it all back at the start of the chorus; and make up for a repetitive chorus by delaying its return.
15. Jenn Butterworth: “The Housewife’s Lament” from Her By Design – Butterworth performs an American song dating from the late 19th-century. When you put it that way, what a depressing life many women led, historically and still lead today; not to diminish their plight, I think most people can relate to monotonous, neverending chores. The arrangement is meticulous and beautiful, and the vocal performance is haunting. And the vacuum at the end is a nice touch.
16. Girlpuppy: “Windows” from Sweetness – Georgia artist’s debut album. Somehow, the one-word chorus gets me—and the way she riffs on it toward the end.
17. High Horse: “Discern (feat. Jacob Jolliff)” from High Horse – This band is taking the Newgrass innovations from The Punch Brothers and moving in their own direction. I love the close, tall vocal harmonies and the changing time signatures.
18. Allt: “Caim Chaluim Chille Chaoimh” from Allt, Vol. 2 – I’ve written before about Allt, formed from two power couples from Scotland and Ireland. Technically from late 2024, this album is their second, and this was the most enchanting and haunting selection, with Fowlis on beautiful vocals. It’s a prayer in Scots-Gaelic, Irish, and little Latin. And a surprise oboe.

Bonus playlist: Peter's Favorite Instrumentals of 2025 

You can also find this playlist on Apple Music.

 

My Favorite New Albums of 2025

Happy New Year! Better late than never; I had a lot of material to cover before I could post this. I listened to a record 124 albums in 2025—79 were new albums from 2025, 20 were from 2024 (and 14 were the complete albums of Caspar Babypants, but maybe I will write about that journey another time). Here are my top 5 albums from 2025 in no particular order. Soon, I will post my favorite tracks of 2025.

Straight Line was a Lie by The Beths – Chiming, harmonic depression therapy – Start with the title track "Straight Line was a Lie". I feel like so much of influencing culture is about "try X and Y will happen" or "buy W and it will solve your problems." This song is about trying a bunch of things to improve your situation and getting nowhere, which is true to life and this year for me. The quiet line "I don't know if I can go round again," delivered in the middle of a raucous song, is deeply relatable. Also, I love how the song doesn't really have verses (it's all chorus, baby!) AND it starts off with a recorded mistake. If you are wondering if they all perform the recorder break in “No Joy” in their live show, the answer is yes.

Anything at All by Denison Whitmer – Elevated pedestrian – I did not know anything at all about Whitmer until I heard about this album, produced by Sufjan Stevens’ label Asthmatic Kitty, in February. You can hear Stevens’ influence; Stevens also plays and sings on most of the tracks. The palette Whitmer creates is lush and beautiful; also its optimism (and some soft-spoken depression) is a good counterpoint to everything else going on this year. This album has the best song about birds (and flowers and happiness) this year: “A House With”. Also, check out the pedestrian and delightful “Clockmaker”--which seems to exist to tell a ”dad joke”. 

Tunnel Vision by Beach Bunny – Depressive, introspective mosh pit – Beach Bunny’s first album Honeymoon (2020) and second album Emotional Creature (2022) both made my best-of lists, and their third album doesn’t disappoint. I knew it was going to be on my best albums of 2025 list on first hearing. The lyrics are chock full of anxiety, self-doubt, and incisive social commentary, but the music is layered, varied, and full of hooks. Maybe start with “Big Pink Bubble” and if you don’t like it, you’ve only wasted two minutes.

Precipice by Indigo de Souza – Well-constructed slice-of-life synth bops – de Souza is a North Carolina artist who has recently relocated to Los Angeles after her home was destroyed in Hurricane Helene. With some experimental music bones, the strength of this album is in the production and the hooks. Try out “Crying Over Nothing” or “Pass It By”.

Flyway by Tern – Scottish/Nordic boundary pushing folk – The double bird reference made me (figuratively) pick up this album, but the combination Scottish and Nordic influences and the impeccable playing kept me listening to this album, the first for Shetland Islands-based group Tern. It is not a straight folk album—there is some classical treatment of folk melodies, for example in “Storpolksa.” Usually, piano in Celtic music is an automatic turn-off for me, but this group pulls it off somehow. “Living Stream” is a good example of Tern’s inventive approach to folk tune arranging.

My Favorite Tracks of 2024 Playlist

I posted my favorite albums or 2024 back in December (with a bonus playlist of albums I mostly liked), but as usual, I also want to share some favorite new songs that weren’t on those albums. Hopefully not everyone has moved on to the new year, new administration, new social media platform, new music, etc. I don’t really have a theme for this playlist, but I hope you find something you like, anyway.

1. Katie Gavin: “The Baton” from What a Relief – This rootsy song, from a solo record by one of the members of MUNA, imagines generations of women as a relay race of healing.
2. Girl Ultra: “blu” from blush – This short piece from this Spanish artist wishes great things for a growing woman. (There might be some willful ignorance in interpretation here).
3. The Deku Trio: “Song of Storms” from Zelda and Jazz – The Deku Trio came out with not one, but two albums of jazz covers from the Legend of Zelda game series. This track from Ocarina of Time is my favorite—the melody swings surprisingly well.
4. Childish Gambino: “Steps Beach” from Bando Stone and the New World – I’m still not sure what this album from Donald Glover is about, but this track doesn’t sound much like the rest of the album; it’s a meditation/celebration of a not-perfect but loving homelife, with some winking.
5. Half Waif: “Ephemeral Being” from See You at the Maypole – This album was produced in the wake of a miscarriage (among other life events) and describes processing grief; this track is electro pep talk.
6. Clairo: “Sexy to Someone” from Charm – While this song has some satisfying 1960s production throwbacks, the low synth flute interjections and staccato piano chords are what really makes this song great.
7. Angélica Garcia: “Color De Dolor” from Gemelo – An electronic rumination on pain and loss.
8. Charly Bliss: “Tragic” from Forever – This well-crafted pop song goes right up to limit of being too repetitive, without quite getting there; the elision of verse and 2nd chorus and the sudden silence of accompaniment in the 3th chorus are great antidotes.
9. Esperanza Spalding and Milton Nascimento: “Wings for the Thought Bird” from Milton + Esperanza – Spalding teams up with one of Brazil’s musical legends, though this song with its wandering melodies and harmonies is pretty much all Spalding. It manages to capture the idea of birdsong while still being musical. Gotta love the flute. And the tempo changes.
   
10. Remi Wolf: “Cinderella” from Big Ideas – As usual with Wolf, I’m not totally sure what this song is about—but its feel-good catchiness plus horn section makes it hard not to move those hips from left to right.
11. Raveena: “Pluto” from Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain – The space princess is enjoying some Earth nature from a speeding sports car while remembering a loved one that passed too early.
12. Madi Diaz: “God Person” from Weird Faith – A beautiful jealous rumination on the faith of others. Good use of drones (the musical ones).
    
13. Aoife O’Donovan: “The Right Time” from All My Friends – This album is inspired by the suffragist movement during the early 1900s, particular Carrie Chapman Catt—I think “The Right Time” is about how naysayers who keeping saying it is not the right time for something, when really for them, the right time is never.
14. American Patchwork Quartet: “The Devil’s Nine” from American Patchwork Quartet – This is what happens when you record American roots music with an Indian classical singer; I’m hoping next time, they do Indian roots music (or Japanese—the bass player is a Japanese immigrant) in an American style.
15. Faye Webster: “But Not Kiss” from Underdressed at the Symphony – Great title for an album (and as an Atlanta artist, I know she is referring to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), this song is a sketch in contrasts from the point of view of someone who wants intimacy, but perhaps has some baggage or misgivings she needs to work through. Some great use of slide guitar and de-tuned piano.
16. Twice: “Ocean Deep” from Dive – I usually don’t include songs on these playlists that are also by artists on my “best album” list, but I made this exception because this song is from a different album and in a difference language—from this year’s Japanese album (still mostly in English). As with other Twice songs, don’t think too hard about this one; just dance.

My Favorite New Albums of 2024...and a bonus playlist of curated albums

2024 was stacked with big album releases: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar. Add to that a couple of artists who have produced my past top albums of the year: Imagine Dragons and Sarah Jarosz. And yet I was mostly disappointed by those albums—songs from these albums didn’t even make my 2024 favorite track playlist. But of the 76 new albums I listened to during 2024 (a record for me, plus 8 from 2023), some album rose to the top. Here are my top 5 albums from 2024:

Sleigher by Ben Folds — It’s not often that an artist who produced one of my favorite albums one year produced another favorite album in the next year, but Ben Folds has managed it—and with a Christmas album of (mostly) new material, at that. Folds is a master of joyfully depressing vignettes, and the holidays is a perfect time for those. Beyond these slice-of-life gems (“Sleepwalking Through Christmas,” “Me and Maurice,” “Christmas Rhyme,” there is a perfect little solo piano accompaniment for snow falling (“Little Drummer Bolero”), some well-chosen covers, and some excellent harmonica playing (not from Folds). There’s also a song making fun of AI-generated lyrics—you could tell he is having so much fun with it. The album manages to be a good balance of the new and familiar that works really well for a Christmas album. And it has the perfect title.

UTOPIA NOW! by Rosie Tucker — This pick is definitely my rare #1 favorite album of the year. Tucker’s music is great, but she really won me over with inventive and biting lyrics that skewer capitalism, her exes, herself, and the music industry. It is hard to pick a favorite (are there a better song titles than “Paperclip Maximizer” and “Gil Scott Albatross”?), but maybe start with “All My Exes Live in Vortexes,” which references a country song in the title, but also somehow references the plastic crisis, the film Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, labor conditions in online fulfillment centers, and also the personal problems of people not really responsible for the destructive systems surrounding us while being self-obsessed (but also wanting love). And it’s a banger—maybe my top song of the year. There are also songs that personify the “White Savior Myth” and use obscure astronomical principles as central metaphors. The title track does one of my favorite things in songs—musically and lyrically sets up an expectation and then immediately undermines it; I’d explain more, but it actually doesn’t make sense written—I’ll let you figure it out. The songwriting and production never fail—the inventive and varied use of guitars also sets this album apart.

empathogen by Willow — Maybe the best-titled album of 2024, the music is also inventive. This is 23-year-old Willow’s sixth studio album, and up to now she has been mostly a pop musician, but here she takes inspiration from a lot of different genres and vocal styles. But I’m here for the all-over-the-place styles and enjoy not knowing what is going to come next (I think Pitchfork got it right calling one track “somewhere between Alanis Morissette and Esperanza Spalding” and I would expand this description to most of the album). If you like, you could also check out the deluxe version of the album, ceremonial contrafact, which has three extra songs.

Start Close In by the Rheingans Sisters —While the Rheingans sisters are British fiddle players and vocalists (and multi-instrumentalists), they take inspiration from all over Europe and North America for this album—Norway, Sweden, Ireland, France, Occitania, and Quebec. The arrangements are adventurous (even when only played with two fiddles). There is a mix of traditional tunes, contemporary traditional tunes, and some original songs. It’s a ride that doesn’t get old, even for a couple of 7-minute tracks.

With YOU-th by Twice —And moving from the self-released to the big company-produced…Twice is a K-pop group formed in 2016 of 9 women, and amazingly their lineup has not changed in all that time. This year, they came out with three EPs, one of which was in Japanese (or English-Japanese, I guess). Usually, I only like one about song per album (there is a lot of mass production in K-pop), but this album is pretty good all the way through (if you can get over the terrible title). If you want enjoy some light, fluffy pop music and not think too hard (and honestly, don’t think too hard about the mixed Korean/English lyrics), then this is the album for you.

Bonus playlist: Curated albums I *mostly* liked 2024 – There were a few album this year that I couldn’t elevate to my favorite albums, mostly because they were uneven—a lot of good tracks, but some “meh” or "I'm not sharing that publicly" tracks mixed in. Usually, albums like these are good fodder for my year-end-playlist, but there was enough good stuff that I had a really hard time just picking one track to represent these albums. So I compromised. Here is a curated playlist with all the good songs from five more albums. Some are from artists that I've highlighted here in the past: 

Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves (I’m a sucker for songs about birds, as in “Cardinal”…even if the syllabic emphasis is wrong; “Heaven is” a Scottish lullaby with word rewritten by Musgraves; also included is “Anime Eyes,” which I think a lot of people panned this song in the album, but you have to work pretty hard to name-check Miyazaki and have me not like the song)

ORQUÍDEAS by Kali Uchis (in which the American-Colombian artist proves a point and sings mostly in Spanish for change...with some English thrown in)

BRAT by Charli XCX (including one later-released updated song with an answer verse from Lorde—see the story here; “Rewind” and “I think about it all the time” feature some self-reflection you don’t normally hear on pop album)

Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa (an album I thought was much better than a lot of people did—or at least six of the songs)

As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again by the Decemberists (Classical depressing gothic/folk/pop as fine as any previous Decemberists' album, it almost made my top albums, but there is just one song, “Joan in the Garden” (the last track in the album) that I absolutely hated—so I have included every song here except that one)

Enjoy!

Favorite Tracks of 2023 (Double) Playlist

Earlier this week, I shared my favorite albums of 2023. But, per usual, I have curated a playlist of favorite songs from 2023 that aren’t on those albums. I did not notice until after I put the list together, but none of the main artists in these songs are white men. I guess that is one overarching theme, but I'm also pairing the tracks together in 7 separate themes. Here we go:

1&2: Things are changing

Sampha: “Spirit 2.0” from Lahai – This song by British artist Sampha bottles the feeling of hope in a new situation, even when things didn’t go great last time.

Sen Morimoto: “Feel Change” from Diagnosis – This song from Japanese American artist Sen Morimoto, is about not liking change but knowing that it continues to happen whether we like it or not. I love the musical irony of the constantly changing meter below the lyrics “nothing will change.”

3&4: Modern Spanish flamenco

Israel Fernández: “Despierta (Bulería)” from Pura Sangre – A bulería is a particular type of flamenco song or dance with a particular kind of rhythm, and often features improvisation from the singer. This bulería is telling us to “look forward, wake up”; in other words, don’t dream about the past, but plan for the future. The song also features some non-traditional effects and instruments.

María José Llergo: “Rueda, Rueda” from ULTRABELLEZA – This flamenco-influenced song is even less traditional, with the chorus sounding more pop than flamenco. “Rueda” means wheel and in this song refers to a cycle of party/touring life that this singer has found herself in, which is working out okay for her now, but if she stops what she is doing, she is worried that there will be bad consequences.

5&6: Chicago black girl power

Noname: “beauty supply” from Sundial – From the iconoclast Chicago rapper Noname, a song about how maybe standards of beauty—even if they are in protest of other standards of beauty—maybe are still not healthy. Strangely, Spotify tags this song as having explicit lyrics, when the same (single) word is featured multiple times in the “clean” version of one of the Olivia Rodrigo songs from GUTS.

Jamila Woods: “Boomerang” from Water Made Us – The masterful Chicago songstress and powerful lyricist with a track about feeling excited yet trepidatious that your ex wants to get back together, and is asking—is it really going to be different this time?

7&8: Classic Celtic, new twists

Claire Hastings: “Ca’ the Yowes” from Lullabies from Scotland – A beautiful old Scots song about a shepherd from an album of Scottish lullabies. Like Claire Hastings, who dreamed up this album while caring for her child, I think we should all sing songs in 5/4 to kids.

Nuala Kennedy: “Whirlpools: The Lighthouse Polka” from Shorelines – Did you know that polkas are considered traditional dances in Ireland and have been played there for 200 years? This one is by Kennedy, though.

9&10: What the heck is going on?

Genevieve Artadi: “Black Shirts” from Forever Forever – Maybe the title of this track lured me in. It's a fun, quirky jazz-influenced song about missing someone before they’ve left (on a business trip?); I don’t really mind that the words don’t scan well. “Black shirts” are what the singer is wearing until their significant other gets back.

Carly Rae Jepsen: “Aeroplanes” from The Loveliest Time – A prolific songwriter, Jepsen often comes out with a “Side B” album not long after a “main” album comes out. This album was the Side B of The Loneliest Time, one of my top albums from 2022. Usually, I’m not that excited about Side Bs, but this one has a higher percentage of great tracks, including this one, which thematically is really more about loneliness (unrequited love) but is also very weird harmonically, has three-bar phrases in the chorus, has a 2nd verse that pretends to be a bridge—and then the song transitions to an unexpected outro.

11&12: Not sure what is going on here, either…

Samaïa: “Avlanskani Cuneli” from Traversées – In this album, this French female folk trio sings songs from a lot of different cultures and languages. I think this track is in Laz, a language spoken in modern-day Turkey and Georgia. The song is also in mixed meter: 3 + 3 + 2 + 2.

Tricot: “Oool” from Fudeki – This song was actually from late 2022, and is actually a lot less weird (especially metrically) than many songs from this all-female Japanese band often labeled as “math rock.” You can hear their complex layered approach. I’m not quite sure what it is about, from what I can find—maybe an office romance, but they find out they are different outside the office, like Severance?

13&14: Been away

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “Alice in Bluegrass” from City of Gold – What do you get when you cross Alice in Wonderland and bluegrass music, and then throw in various references to drug use? This song.

Haim: “Home” from Barbie: The Album – There are quite a few noteworthy tracks from this movie album, but this one from sister trio Haim is the best—though it is quite a bit more earnest than, for example, Lizzo’s ridiculous “Pink” acrostic poem (K is kool?).

In the words of Ben Folds: “But wait, there’s more!” I had a hard time paring down my list of great songs from this year, so I created a 2nd list of favorite tracks of 2023. I’m calling it “Yes White Elephant” because there are a lot of varied tracks and I’m giving you no background—just put on shuffle and enjoy whatever you get.