The annual resurrection...

 


As is customary at this time of year, I'm giving the blog it's annual dust-off to look back at the best of 2025. We're slightly up on last year with a list of 75 albums which all in some small way rocked my particular world this year and which I reckon you should probably check out as well, starting with the first two instalments (75-61 and 60-51) on Boxing Day then ten a day to New Year's Day.

Overall, I reckon it's been a pretty good year for music looking at the quality of the stuff in here and again, I'd like to think we've got a fairly varied list for you here which takes in everything from pop to metal, indie to rap and all sort of other curveballs. From exciting new acts to established veterans to a few who've genuinely defied expectations to turn out their best albums in years, it spans all across the musical lifespan as well. As always, it ended up being a bit of a last minute rush job due to other people publishing their lists a week or two ago and yours truly realising there were a few decent sounding albums that had gone under his radar as well and quickly taking a quick timeout to investigate tehem. Hopefully, paying it forward, you'll find a few things in here that you might have missed first time out and be inclined to go and listen to them as well. Links to where you can listen to 'em on Bandcamp or via other artist-friendly sites (f**k you Spotify) included where possible.

From my own point of view this year, while I've enjoyed revisiting Nite Songs for its annual dust-down, unfortunately I'm still in no way really able to start doing this regularly again - work remains busy and with the increasingly tough times we live in and the mental drain I suspect it's having on all of us, it's just difficult to find the brain capacity to be a reviewer and music journalist when you're already devoting five days of your week to a complex office job. Maybe some day in the future eh?...

We'll see you on Saturday for part 1 of the end of year list. Till then, enjoy your Christmas and don't overdose on Gruffalo whatever you do...

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