The Best Albums of 2025

Summary

All Songs Considered: The Best Albums of 2025

Host: Stephen Thompson (with Anne Powers and Daoud Tyler Amin)
Date: December 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

This special year-end episode gathers NPR's top music journalists to discuss their favorite albums of 2025, reflecting on trends, artists’ evolutions, and the emotional themes that shaped the year. The group delves into standout records across genres—pop, rock, R&B, hip hop, instrumental, and jazz—offering lively commentary, personal anecdotes, and heartfelt recommendations. Their goal is to champion discovery and encourage listeners to broaden their musical horizons.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Joy and Brutality of "List Season"

• Opening (00:26 – 02:30):
  The team discusses the paradoxical pleasure and pain of assembling year-end music lists, reminiscing about favorite records and the struggle of narrowing selections.
  • Anne Powers: “For me, it’s like… dropping the guillotine on stuff that I would like to include. But lists do have to have limits.” (01:24)
  • Stephen Thompson: On best-of lists as gifts: “If I see a list of new music and somebody says it’s great and I haven’t heard of a bunch of it, that’s a gift.” (02:22)

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Major Album Highlights

Rosalía – Lux

• Segment (02:31 – 06:24)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • A multifaceted album blending high concept (collaborators like Björk, Eve Toomer) and accessibility.
    • Sings in over a dozen languages, merges orchestral grandeur with raw emotion.
    • Track “Rilikia” highlighted for its emotional impact.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Stephen Thompson (on breakdown during “Rilikia”):
      “I just...involuntarily started crying. That is just, like, a rock emotional experience that...still went into making something so completely accessible that is just going directly for the center of your heart.” (04:11)
    • Anne Powers: “For me, I also heard...Celine Dion, Disney theme songs...Barbra Streisand. It’s pop in that way, because Rosalía has such a sense of how to please the ear.” (05:32)

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Wednesday – Bleeds

• Segment (06:24 – 11:56)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • North Carolina band reaches new creative heights; literary songwriting and genre-blending (hardcore, country, rock).
    • Focuses on authentic, sometimes gritty small-town life.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Anne Powers: “Their main songwriter and singer, Carly Hartsman, is such an incredible storyteller...the musicality completely matches her ambition as a writer. She is singing balls to the wall.” (07:14)
    • Stephen Thompson: “Small town life gets so endlessly glorified in our culture...sometimes growing up in a small town just means doing whippets in the Burger King parking lot.” (09:48)
    • Anne Powers: “It’s really like the freaks, the bohemians, the weirdos, the edgewalkers. And I love Carly Hartsman for capturing their stories.” (11:17)

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Nourished By Time – The Passionate Ones

• Segment (11:56 – 16:13)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Project of Marcus Brown—fuses 80s/Prince/MJ influences with experimental, modern R&B.
    • Explores themes of labor, artistic survival, and social isolation.
    • Distinct production blending live performance and electronic layering.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Daoud Tyler Amin: “There are songs where...that instrumental part does not make any sense without the delay part that’s layered on top of it.” (13:42)
    • Stephen Thompson: “He’s also thinking deeply about online isolation and indoctrination, the epidemic of loneliness, all these things that we talk about...all of that is swirled together in a record that still finds space for dance pop jams.” (15:01)
    • Anne Powers (on thematic depth): “The theme of this album is labor...the work of making music...how hard it is for artists to survive and thrive and have lives.” (14:28)

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Daniel Caesar – Son of Spurgey

• Segment (18:19 – 22:36)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Builds on deconstructed R&B, infusing gospel, soul, and collaborations (Bon Iver, Yebba, Blood Orange).
    • Examines spirituality and religious wrestling.
    • A tapestry of R&B’s many strains: classic, experimental, alternative.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Stephen Thompson: “Daniel Caesar really leaned into kind of his Bon Iver side on this record...part of kind of that deconstructed R&B sound that has become so enormously popular.” (19:25)
    • Daoud Tyler Amin: “RB is in this odd place where...there isn’t really a single dominant strain. And it seems like people like Daniel Caesar...want to do it all.” (20:39)
    • Anne Powers: “It’s definitely like a gospel or it’s a reckoning with religion. Definitely.” (21:51)

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Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp

• Segment (22:36 – 28:43)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • UK rap heavyweight dives into personal reflection and responsibility, referencing biblical narratives and the role of art.
    • Noted for lush production and intense introspection.
    • Track “Fairchild” praised for its narrative approach to sexual assault—duet storytelling with Nicole Black.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Anne Powers: “Dave is thinking about the responsibilities an artist has. What does he owe his public? What does he owe himself, his family, his loved ones? What has he done wrong?” (24:06)
    • Daoud Tyler Amin (on Kano’s guest line): “All these SM7Bs aren’t for us. That is the name of the microphone that is an industry standard for podcasts. I am speaking into one right now.” (25:24)
    • Anne Powers (on “Fairchild”): “I have never heard a track in any genre like this before.” (26:46)
    • Stephen Thompson: “This record is so freaking good. It is so lavishly, beautifully produced. God, his lyrics are amazing. So introspective, so insightful, so reflective.” (27:06)

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Clarice Jensen – In Holiday Clothing Out of the Great Darkness

• Segment (28:43 – 34:18)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Innovative cellist merges classical tradition with subtle electronics and minimalism.
    • Instrumental “sound bath” that’s accessible and deeply textured.
    • Praised for serving as both focus-enhancing and meditative listening.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Daoud Tyler Amin: “A record that I think teaches you how to listen to it. In its opening seconds, you will immediately recognize the strains of Bach’s cello suite number one...and then the sound starts to fold on top of itself.” (29:31)
    • Stephen Thompson: “Anything [Jensen] touches goes immediately onto that list...I just listen to it and I’m like, ah, it is just a beautiful sound bath.” (32:30)
    • Anne Powers (playfully): “I think we can call this an emo record, huh?” (33:40)

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Gwennifer Raymond – Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark

• Segment (36:38 – 41:26)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Solo Welsh guitarist with a PhD in astrophysics (!) and ties to both video game design and folk fingerstyle traditions.
    • Blends ragtime, blues, shredding, “Welsh primitive playing.”
    • Noted for virtuosic speed and a “muscular,” almost athletic style.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Anne Powers: “To me, the scientific concept that Gwennifer Raymond's playing evokes the most is fusion. She blends so many different styles in this music.” (37:13)
    • Stephen Thompson: “You really hear a sense of athleticism. And I think that is remarkable in music that is also still extremely beautiful.” (40:07)
    • Lars Gottrich (as credited by Stephen): “I saw her on Friday night, and I felt like witches were in the room.” (40:46)

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Cal Banks – Rhoda

• Segment (41:26 – 47:42)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Known as a producer (TDE); steps forward as a rapper with an 81-minute, sprawling debut.
    • Themes of grief (especially loss of his mother), vulnerability, and “messy interiority.”
    • Eclectic features (Pink Siifu, Audrey Nuna, Maxo, Maxo Kream, Baby Tate) and a beat-forward, Southern-meets-LA sound.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Daoud Tyler Amin: “I keep coming back to the word messy...It is sprawling, it is vulnerable...if you want to see the inside of my brain, this is it.” (43:28)
    • Anne Powers: “That kind of chaos is very much...the dissembling of a psyche under the pressure of grief.” (45:32)
    • Stephen Thompson (on K Pop Demon Hunters): “Which, let’s be honest, was the album I listened to the most in 2025.” (44:58)

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Mary Halvorson – About Ghost

• Segment (48:07 – 54:09)
  • Main Takeaways:
    • Leading jazz guitarist/composer with ensemble Amaryllis; adds two saxophonists for even denser textures.
    • Balances complex patterns and geometric compositions with a warm, generous, and engaging sound.
    • Praised for letting band members shine and for playful, confident, “additive” creativity.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Anne Powers: “She is about patterns, systems...I always think of, like, a spirograph or...geometric shapes are changing and forming and reforming...” (48:45)
    • Stephen Thompson: “She keeps adding. She has such an additive mind...so ambitious and so confident and just welcoming.” (51:39)
    • Anne Powers: “She...does have that kind of generosity and, like, concern for equity in the band...” (52:21)
    • Daoud Tyler Amin: “There are moments...where it sounds like a tape machine breaking down, where there’s these sudden warps in pitch, and I don’t know if it’s effects or all in the fingers.” (53:24)

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Lightning Round Favorites

(54:09 – 56:34)

• Annie DeRusso – Super Pedestrian
  • “Big fun summery rock record...one of my favorites of the year.” (Stephen)
• Coral Lahose
  • “Flamenco meets hip hop—don’t lose sight of her.” (Stephen)
• Patrick Watson – Uh Oh
  • “Went through a medical crisis, lost access to his singing voice...brings in collaborators for voice and texture.” (Stephen)

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Overarching Themes and Reflections

• Genre Fluidity and Experimentation:
  Artists blend influences—electronic, classical, gospel, alt-R&B, hip hop—often with enveloping orchestration and genre-defying approaches.
• Introspection and Grief:
  Many albums feature a vulnerable reckoning with self, grief (especially loss and heartbreak), and existential societal themes.
• Collaboration and Generosity:
  The hosts emphasize the communal strength in today’s music, with artists elevating each other and inviting listeners into deep, personal spaces.
• Discovery as a Gift:
  The team encourages listeners to embrace unfamiliar names and genres, framing obscurity as an opportunity for delight rather than a deficit.

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• On List Season:
  “Every time we publish a best of list...somebody chimes in: I’ve never heard of any of these artists...If I see a list of new music...that’s a gift.” – Stephen Thompson (02:22)

• On Artistic Vulnerability:
  “It is sprawling, it is vulnerable...if you want to see the inside of my brain, this is it.” – Daoud Tyler Amin on Cal Banks (43:28)

• On Grief as a Musical Theme:
  “It is about the breakup of [the artist’s] relationship...Grief was big this year in our best records.” – Anne Powers (45:32)

• On the Power of the Solo Instrumentalist:
  “There’s absolutely nothing to hide when you perform Alone. And so the listening relationship becomes really intimate.” – Daoud Tyler Amin on Gwennifer Raymond (37:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:31 — Rosalía – Lux
• 06:24 — Wednesday – Bleeds
• 11:56 — Nourished By Time – The Passionate Ones
• 18:19 — Daniel Caesar – Son of Spurgey
• 22:36 — Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp
• 28:43 — Clarice Jensen – In Holiday Clothing Out of the Great Darkness
• 36:38 — Gwennifer Raymond – Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark
• 41:26 — Cal Banks – Rhoda
• 48:07 — Mary Halvorson – About Ghost
• 54:09 — Lightning Round (Annie DeRusso, Coral Lahose, Patrick Watson)
• 56:53 — Outro & recommendations for listeners

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Tone and Closing

The episode maintains a warm, conversational, and deeply knowledgeable tone. The hosts weave personal connections, critical insights, and playful banter throughout. The energy is inviting—whether listeners are old friends of NPR Music or newcomers to the scene—and the episode serves as both a yearbook of musical excellence and an open invitation to explore further.

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For more recommendations:
Check NPR Music’s full year-end list and the 125-song playlist for 2025. For deep dives on older songs, Ann and Daoud’s “Old Songs Considered” podcast is available via NPR Music+.

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(“Take a moment to be well, reject the tyranny of Michael Bublé and treat yourself to lots of — [music].”) — Stephen Thompson (57:10)

Transcript

[Announcer]

This message comes from KeyBank. This year, Key for Women is celebrating 20 years, two decades of empowering business leaders and strengthening communities together. Key for Women made an impact, and they're just getting started. Learn [e-mail] women A quick note before the show. This podcast contains explicit language.

[Stephen Thompson]

Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with a very special episode of New Music Friday where we run down some of the best albums of 2025. I'm here with two of my treasured colleagues, Anne Powers, hello, Stephen. It is great to talk to you. Daoud, Tyler Amin, hi, Stephen. It is a joy to sit down with both of you. We are at the time of year when we go a little ham thinking about I'm tired thinking, yeah, thinking about all the albums we talked about and wrote about in 20, all the stuff we celebrated the most. Kind of going back and digging through our work and just like remembering what we loved, revisiting it, redeciding if we still love it. And then, of course, doing that most loving of processes, ranking things based on.

[Anne Powers]

Quality list, season loving or brutal?

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Let's be honest, little of both.

[Anne Powers]

For me, it's like, you know, dropping the guillotine on stuff that I would like to include. But lists do have to have limits.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah. Math is our enemy this time of year.

[Anne Powers]

Well, should we get into it? Let's get into it.

[Stephen Thompson]

Let's get into it. We're going to do these kind of in no particular order, and we're just going to go around the horn a few times. We're not going to talk, obviously, about every album that NPR Music picked as the best of 2025, because that would be a fool's errand. But we're going to talk about a bunch of them. And I just want to say before we start doing this, just one quick thought. Every time we publish a best of list, we'll post it to social media and somebody immediately chimes in. I've never heard of any of these artists. And it's often kind of delivered as a little bit of a self own, like, oh, I'm so out of touch with the kids these days. But sometimes it feels like a complaint or like, oh, you're a bunch of hipsters and you just look. We just love sharing the music we love. If I see a list of new music and somebody says it's great and I haven't heard of a bunch of it, that's a gift.

[Anne Powers]

Totally.

[Stephen Thompson]

Like, check it out. These are wonderful discoveries. We hope you Love them as much as we love them. And look, we didn't get to everything because it's impossible to get to everything. Let's kick things off with my favorite album of 2025, Rosalia. Rosalia's new album is called Lu. I think it's really easy with this particular album to talk about its greatness by rattling off statistics. You know, to be like, oh, she sings in more than a dozen languages. She works with the London Symphony Orchestra. You know, you start to list, like, her collaborators Caroline Shaw and Bjork and Eve Toomer and just all these amazing artists. The fact that she's singing about female saints and, you know, it's this deep artistic and historical exercise. It's easy to lose sight of how just breathtakingly beautiful this record is. And what hooked me wasn't even necessarily this sense of, like, I'm hearing this unbelievably bold and audacious piece of art. I just was sucked in, particularly when I got to the song Rilikia, just track two, where there's, like, a piano break in the song, and I just, like, completely involuntarily started crying. And that is just, like a rock emotional experience that all that art and all that work and all that research and all that study still went into making something so completely accessible that is just going directly for the center of your heart.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

That song has. There's an approach to string playing in that song that I think I would more readily associate with, like, sequenced samples. Like, it sounds like a 2000s robin song in a way, which is wild because she did, in fact, have the London Symphony Orchestra on hand. There's, like, lots of moments like that where you start to think about, like, I'm not 100% sure how this was done. And probably the answer is somewhere in the middle between, you know, real time live instrumentation and things happening in the box.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the sheer beauty of it, Steven and Doubt. I'm glad you brought up its connection to sequencing and to pop music. Because the one thing I want to say about this record is that, yes, it's high art, quote, unquote. But for me, I also heard, and this is absolutely a compliment, Celine Dion, Disney theme songs, like, you know, classic pop, orchestrated pop, Barbra Streisand. So I think that the reason this album jumps out so much in a year when there was actually a lot of high concept albums and even several orchestrated albums. I'm thinking of Lido Pimiento, at least a beautiful one called La Bellezza. I think this one stands out because it's pop in that way, because Rosalia has such a sense of how to please the ear.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's a beautiful record, really. One that I'm gonna keep coming back to for years and years. That is Rosalia. Her newest album is called Lux. Well, Anne, you're gonna kick us off on this next one, but the next up on our list, terrific, terrific rock record, Wednesday and their newest album bleeds.

[Anne Powers]

Catching up with the townies. Some have gone but most are still around. The ghost them surround me hang on tight until they drown Met you in the neighborhood you had connects to get as high and then you sent the nudes around I never you let you bout it cause you. Stephen, I was really hotly anticipating this album. It's hardly Wednesday's first album. The North Carolina band is in the hot middle of their career. Everything has come together for this group. Their main songwriter and singer, Carly Hartsman, is such an incredible storyteller, and I think on this album, this is the moment when the musicality completely matches her ambition as a writer. The first thing I noticed about this record was, man, she is singing balls to the wall.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I will say screaming occasionally.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, she even does, like, a total hardcore track called Wasp. And she also does country tracks where she, you know, croons with the best of them. So the voice is what I noticed first. Then I noticed this instrumentation that goes from hardcore to country to punk to psychedelia. And then the storytelling really sunk in. And, wow, I love the stories on this album.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

And do you feel like there's a definitive difference between this album and Rat Saw God? Because that was the one where, really, it felt like a huge new swath of people was kind of coming online as Wednesday fans. And I'm sort of wondering, like, now that they have the eyeballs on them, what they chose to do with the attention.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, when the record came out, several members of our team who love this band, we were talking about that, you know, are people going to overlook this record? Because Rat Saw God was so acclaimed. But they led with the single Elderberry Wine, which is classic country rock with an unforgettable chorus, unforgettable story in that song. And I think doing that really showed that this is opening up beyond what they'd accomplished on Rat Saw God in terms of craft, you know, both in the lyrics and in the songs. But everybody gets along just fine. Cause the champagne tastes like elderberry wine? And the paint boiled everywhere Stay afloat in the brine Cause even the Bell champagne still tastes like elderberry.

[Stephen Thompson]

I loved Rat's Haw God. And I think I liked this record even better. And what jumped out to me immediately, Anne, you kind of alluded to the instrumentation and the genre blend and the storytelling. For me, it's just these little literary details. One thing that I just love so much about this band, as somebody who grew up in a very, very small town. I grew up in a town of like 12, 1300 people, is that small town life gets so endlessly glorified in our culture. It is. There's a whole genre of songs that are just the glorification of small town life. But sometimes growing up in a small town just means doing whippets in the Burger King parking lot, you know, getting.

[Anne Powers]

Stoned in front of a Christmas tree on a bong made from a Pepsi bottle.

[Stephen Thompson]

Right. Like, a lot of it is just. A lot of it is just being a dirt bag. And like. And that's. And that's fine, too. I don't mean to suggest that it's some. That. That. That that represents some terrifying dark underbelly, that dark underbelly exists in small towns the way it does anyplace else. But to me, these are details of small town life that really spoke to me as someone who grew up in a small town, appreciation for it, but also understands that it's not the greatest thing on earth. And I heard details in this record that I hear almost nowhere else. And so that was so refreshing to me, even though, you know, I, Carly Hartsman and I grew up in completely different parts of the country.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, right. She's from North Carolina and you're from Wisconsin, so. But, you know, the other thing, I just have one tiny more thing to say about that. It is small town life, but it's a particular kind of small town life. You mentioned Dirtbag, the international order of the dirt bag. It's really like the freaks, the bohemians, the weirdos, the edgewalkers. And I love Carly Hartsman for capturing their stories. And that's why I can relate to this album so much, even though I'm a few generations separated from Carly. But having grown up, in a sense, I had a lot of these same experiences myself.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, it's a great record. That is Wednesday. Their newest album is called Bleeds Daoud. You're gonna talk about our next record. I remember we talked about this one on the show. It's a great one. It's by Nourished By Time. The album is called the Passionate Ones.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

I fall down and pretty baby Cause.

[Stephen Thompson]

I draw your Transmitted a supernatur.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

With.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

A touch of de J Please be careful with my.

[Anne Powers]

She's not aware.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Boy, how to distill this one. There's so much going on here. So Nourished by Time is the project of Marcus Brown, a Baltimorean by birth who kind of bounced around from LA to London to New York trying to figure out, like, just what his thing was going to be as he was nursing this project into existence. And then a couple of years ago, kind of fell backwards into indie stardom. And his first project since then, again with, you know, a new set of eyeballs on them, is this really dense work that is so 80s in certain ways and so contemporary in other ways. The spirit of Prince is all through it. There's also, like, deliberate Michael Jackson references. There's a. You know, the song It's Time has this line, I look myself in the mirror can't say I feel any clearer. And to me, the thing that's maybe most striking about it is it is a great example of when effects and sort of the process of production become completely integrated into composition. There are songs where it's like, that instrumental part does not make any sense without the delay part that's layered on top of it.

[Anne Powers]

My husband used a metaphor to describe this kind of music and this album as one of a group of R and B records. I'm going to say it's like R and B put into a washing machine.

[Stephen Thompson]

You know, and tossed around totally.

[Anne Powers]

He cited a different household appliance, but I'm not going to go there. But I'm just going to say it really has that effect. The clothes are spinning around and the colors are always changing.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Our colleague Sheldon Pearce, profiled Nourished by Time earlier this year and actually used a very similar metaphor. He talked about a song sounding like Whitney Houston and New Order being left to simmer in a slow cooker.

[Anne Powers]

Well, I don't think it's an accident that we're reaching for all of these appliance metaphors, because the theme of this album is labor is work and is the work of making music also how hard it is for artists to survive and thrive and have lives.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Totally not quite a concept album in the traditional sense, but every song and sort of every choice made is infused with this idea of the relationship between work and art and work as art, and also all of the ways in which, you know, all of your terrible day jobs inform the art that you make.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, and it's really interesting, like, we're in such a golden age of R and B where it feels like so many artists working with that palette are finding ways to incorporate sounds of the past, sounds of the present, sounds of the future that are all kind of chopped up and swirled together. We've come up with a million different metaphors to try to describe the swirl here, but at the same time, as cool as this record sounds, as much as it's bringing in elements of synth pop and new Jack swing, and you mentioned Prince and Michael Jackson. It also is a record that has something to say. He recorded his first album in his parents basement during COVID You know, he is somebody who has spent a lot of time in his music, not only perfecting the craft of this kind of eraless, genreless R and B, but he's also thinking deeply about online isolation and indoctrination, the epidemic of loneliness, all these things that we talk about when we ruminate on what has gone horribly wrong with society. All of that is swirled together in a record that still finds space for like dance pop jams.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Totally.

[Stephen Thompson]

No, he's got a purpose, but he's always working. Try to be consistent, Manifest a vision that is nourished by time. The passionate ones We've got a bunch more records we're going to talk about in the best music of 2025, but first let's take a quick break.

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[Stephen Thompson]

From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Daoud, Tyler Amin and Anne Powers talking about some of the best albums of 2025 as chose by the NPR Music staff. Next up, we've got Daniel Caesar. His new album is called Son of Spurgey. Finally, you're right where you wanna be.

[Anne Powers]

Comfortably.

[Stephen Thompson]

So the Daniel Caesar record was a pick of a couple of our colleagues. Robin Hilton and Bobby Carter were both extremely enthusiastic about this record, broke through in the mainstream in a big way, hit the Billboard top 10 again. You know, we were just talking about with Nourished by Time, the way that artists are finding ways to splice lots of different genres into R and B music. Daniel Caesar really leaned into kind of his Bon Iver side on this record. Isn't Bon Iver on this record actually working with Justin Vernon? Daniel Caesar himself has worked not only with Bon Iver, but with Dijon, with Justin Bieber, kind of part of kind of that deconstructed R and B sound that has become so enormously popular.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Also want to give a shout out to Mustafa, who co wrote for the songs on this album. Mustafa, who made Dunya last year one of the sleeper records of 2024. And I'm glad that he's still working.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, Mustafa, he. Oh, God. He sings a guest vocal on that Omar Apollo record that I feel like I was the biggest cheerleader for either last year or the year before where Mustafa's voice comes in, that guy's voice makes everything it touches sound better.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

But I think you're right, Stephen. RB is in this odd place where you have the strain of sort of beat driven 90s Atlanta, that style. There's the kind of old school soul, you know, revivalists and people want to tap into those sonics and then the kind of like experimenters and alternative types that really took off in the 2010s and beyond. And there isn't really like a single dominant strain. And it seems like people like Daniel Caesar and a lot of the really leading edge voices right now want to do it all. They don't want to choose between one of those.

[Anne Powers]

I mean, I think there is a strain and it's as big as the Ocean. Frank Ocean. That's what I'm talking about.

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, I mean, Frank Ocean, okay, Frank Ocean is not on this record. But so many of the other artists who are playing around in this genre blending strain of R and B appear on this record, Blood Orange you mentioned Yebba is on this record. Sampha is on this record. You get a pretty good bit of one stop shopping for a lot of different strains of R and B music. And this one is really also cut with an undercurrent of a lot of gospel.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I was gonna say the other guest artist here is perhaps the divine God.

[Anne Powers]

It's definitely like it is a gospel or it's a reckoning with religion. Definitely.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Well, you get moments at the ends of tracks where like he'll basically break character and have sort of like a sung hymn by a choir. It's all of these little interludes and sort of like hitting the note over and over again. This is what I'm wrestling with right now.

[Anne Powers]

On Earth and heaven, Praise be the sun.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is Daniel Caesar. His newest album is Son of Spurgey, one of NPR Music's favorite albums of 2025. Next up, Anne, you're gonna kick us off with a record I just love. It is by the UK rapper Dave. It's called the Boy who Played the Harp.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

Yeah, I sometimes wonder what would I do with the next generation in 1940 if I was enlisted to fight for the nation or in to fight for the rights of my people and lay down my life on the line so my grandkids could live a life that's peaceful? Would I be on that? Would I be frontline? That's what I'm thinking. If I was alive in a 1912 and a Titanic and it was sinking who am I saving? Am I fighting women and children or am I waiting? I wonder what would I do in the next generation battle of Kabbalah if they captured me for the sake of my father Would I stand on my honor like Hussein did it and told him to make me a mark?

[Anne Powers]

Well, Dave has been one of my favorite rappers for a while and he's never made a bad record. He's definitely one of the kings of UK rap. But this album, I think, is his deepest inquiry into himself. Again, here we have maybe we're just living in a moment where there's a lot of introspection happening in our favorite records. I mean, you could even say the Rosalia record in a way as showy and high concept as it is. It's really a confrontation with the deepest parts the of of herself. And that's what happens on the Boy who Played the Harp, Sheldon Pierce, also a huge champion of this artist, and he points out in his review that the title refers to the biblical story of David, but not the usual One referenced in rap songs, which is, of course, David slaying the giant Goliath. Instead, Dave is thinking about the moment when biblical David banishes the demons that are afflicting King Saul by the playing music for him, by playing his harp. And throughout this record, Dave is sort of looking at the responsibilities an artist has. What does he owe his public? What does he owe himself, his family, his loved ones? What has he done wrong? Really, really taking a hard look at who he is and what he wants to do moving forward. And all of this to this incredibly lush, deep, complex sound bed that is so. It just is so rich. You just want to stay in it. I never want to leave it.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I have to say, and this is undercutting things slightly, but one of my absolute favorite lines on this record isn't from Dave himself. It is on the song chapter 16, which is a back and forth with the rapper Kano, one of Dave's sort of, you know, elders and progenitors in UK rap. And he is basically saying, what do I do with the success and the visibility that I've gotten? And they're going back and forth. And Kano has this line where he says, all these SM7Bs aren't for us. That is the name of the microphone that is an industry standard for podcasts. I am speaking into one right now.

[Anne Powers]

That's crazy. That's crazy.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Just the idea that, like, there isn't, you know, there's an attention economy that has sort of ballooned up around us. And, like, the whole idea that, like, music could be this central part of, you know, art and entertainment, it's just like. Like it's not a given anymore. There's so much else to compete with.

[Anne Powers]

I want to definitely add that Dave is not only thinking about the ethics of the attention economy, but very fundamental values, including the treatment of women. There is an incredible song on this record called Fairchild. It's a duet, I guess you'd say, with a vocalist named Nicole Black. It is an account of a woman being sexually assaulted from the point of view of a man who feels that, you know, is he responsible? He's a bystander, in a sense. And then the woman herself. And what's amazing is that Dave starts the story and then she comes in and continues the story. Then they are speaking together, and they are confronting the larger culture in which women are constantly harassed, constantly objectified. And then we pull back and Dave himself is questioning himself. I have never heard a track in any genre like this before.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

When I heard about the time she Tried to make her home alone.

[Anne Powers]

She said a archway.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

I got out the car. It's quiet.

[Anne Powers]

And I'm walking up this long hill.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

Faint sound, cold chills.

[Stephen Thompson]

I swear I just heard a familiar voice. It's really interesting. Like, Sheldon Pierce, our colleague. We've mentioned his name several times.

[Anne Powers]

This is like the Sheldon Pierce Appreciation Hour.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, it is. But look like Sheldon has been beating a drum for this, right? Since it came out. It came out a couple months ago and I filed it away. I'm like, oh, I trust Sheldon. I know this is gonna be good. But Sheldon's already got it covered, right? Like, we didn't get an advance in time to talk about it on this show. So it just kind of got filed away as something I'd been meaning to check out and something I knew I would like. Cause I do trust Sheldon as a critic. But when I finally was forced to. Essentially forced to listen to it to prepare for this show, I was so angry at myself that I had already filed my top 10 list. Because this record is so freaking good. It is so lavishly, beautifully produced. God, his lyrics are amazing. So introspective, so insightful, so reflective. And you look at a list of his collaborators here, right? You get a sense of the sonic palette of this record. He's working with James Blake, he's working with Thames. He's working with Jim Legacy. But I just. You've already talked about, like, just how many of these songs are coming at you with a perspective and with. With a level of introspection and deep thought that I just. I just wanted to wrap my arms around it. I loved this record and kind of like the Rosalia record. I just filed it away as something I want to listen to just again and again and again for. For months and years wed you on.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

The 52nd floor just to take the piss. And somehow we've had to deal with higher stakes than this. You're the reason that I Take the risk. Had me on your tour team. I studied you since I was 14. I wanna know.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right, that is Dave, the Boy who Played the Harp. One of the best albums of 2025 as chosen by not only the NPR Music staff, but really the universe. Next up, speaking of music that seems to emanate from the universe in such a wonderful way. Clarice Jensen, one of the most reliable instrumentalist on earth. Her newest album is called In Holiday Clothing. Out of the Great Darkness.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

So the place to start with this record is, I think, the first track. Because this is a record that I think teaches you how to listen to it. In its opening seconds, you will immediately recognize the strains of Bach's cello suite number one. And she is not playing it 100% to the note, but she is letting you know, this is my starting point. And then almost immediately, the sound starts to fold on top of itself and you start to understand, oh, okay, this is somebody who is proceeding from a classical cello tradition and then using a small amount, not a huge amount, but a small amount of technology to sort of bring that into the present day.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, we were talking about this record, Daoud, and my first word out of my mouth was minimalism. And you're like, well, I don't know. I think it's really about the electronics and it's not a minimalist work in the traditional sense. But I think what you're getting at, there's kind of a, there's a lot of space, I think of like colors like indigo or onyx, but, you know, with a little bit of light coming through. It's a nighttime record for me for sure.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

And it does mirror the minimalist movement in its use of repetition. That way that it can choose a particular pulse or a particular drone and cause you to sort of see new colors and hear new rhythms just through the sheer force of hearing that part repeated over and over.

[Anne Powers]

Our colleague Tom Huizenga, who championed this record, calls Jensen an electronic sorcerer. And Steven, weren't you saying, like, there's kind of a magic to it?

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh my gosh. I mean, first of all, you want to get me to listen to a piece of contemporary classical music, just tell me Clarice Jensen plays on it. You know, we had a stretch. She's turned up at the tiny desk a couple of times. Once as like a co headliner and once as a member of the Max Richter Orchestra. And oh my gosh, I mean, you talk about familiar pieces of classical music that get used everywhere. If you know the Max Richter Orchestra song on the Nature of Daylight that turns up.

[Anne Powers]

It's in Hamnet right now.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's in Hamnet. I gotta say, once it turns up in Hamnet, it crossed over like maybe used a little too much in movies. It is very prominently in Arrival. It's in Shutter Island. A very, very familiar piece of kind of cinematic, very emotional music. Clarice Jensen is playing the cello on that song. Gosh, her tone, her command, her craft. I, you know, I keep a playlist of kind of head filling instrumental music to listen to when I'm editing or when I'm, when I'm writing, when I You know, when I just want to, like where I want to tune out distractions, but I don't want that music to become a distraction itself. But it's really filling my head and occupying the space that wants to be entertained while I work. Clarice Jensen. Anything she touches goes immediately onto that list. And this record for me, I don't necessarily have a lot of deep thoughts about the techniques of it. I just listen to it and I'm like, ah, it is just a beautiful sound bath that, you know that of course, at the same time has incredible amounts of command and craft.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

And I don't think you have to think about the technique. That's another thing that I like about it. It's not a process showcase. And those can be fun. You're aware that there's manipulation happening here, but I think you sort of accept it right away and you just don't spend that much time thinking about how the music was made.

[Anne Powers]

A testament to this album's accessibility might be that I learned from Tom Huizenga that she actually toured with My Chemical Romance and played some of the music from this record. So I think we can call this an emo record, huh?

[Stephen Thompson]

She is relevant to our collective and individual interests. Everything she touches, I want to hear it. That is Clarice Jensen. Her latest album is called In Holiday Clothing out of of the Great Darkness. And I'm gonna say sort of like we discussed, you know, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. This has holiday in the title.

[Anne Powers]

It does. It's a holiday record for sure.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's a holiday record. Listen to this. Instead of Jingle Bell Rock, make it so.

[Anne Powers]

Listen to this in the dark room where you retreat when you're sick of your family on Christmas day.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, you could do so, so, so much worse. All right, we've got a few more records we're gonna talk about, but first we're gonna.

[Announcer]

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[Stephen Thompson]

An NCIDQ certified interior designer must complete a minimum of six years of specialized education and work experience. Being NCIDQ certified means that you've proven your knowledge and skills and are recognized as a qualified interior design professional.

[Announcer]

Learn [e-mail] NPR this message comes from.

[Stephen Thompson]

Indulge in holiday cravings with the nutrition you need from Cachava's all in one whole body shake. It packs 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens and more high quality ingredients with no fillers. Or nonsense. Try the newest flavor, limited edition Chocolate mint. Go to cachava.com and use code NPR for 15% off. That's Kachava. K-A C H-A V A.com code NPR. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with my dear colleagues Anne Powers and Daoud Tyler Amin, running down some of the best albums of 2025 as chosen by the NPR Music staff. Anne oh, this was a, this was such a great discovery for me again, just from the process of preparing for this episode. Love this artist. The artist is Gwennifer Raymond. The album is called Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark.

[Anne Powers]

Well, no shock that Lars Gottridge picked this record for our list because Lars is our resident everything, everywhere, all at once out there. Music guy, right? Gwennifer Raymond is a unique, a unique human being. She is an acoustic guitarist, as we just heard. She's Welsh, but she lives in Brighton. She designs video games and she has a PhD in astrophysics.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

No big deal.

[Anne Powers]

I believe you can hear that in her playing. This album is directly related to her scientific pursuits in that it was inspired by reading she's done in both science and science fiction. To me, the scientific concept that Gwennifer Raymond's playing evokes the most is fusion. She blends so many different styles in this music. In the past, she's really relied a lot on drone. Here you hear her more like just recombining things so much. You know, there's a little ragtime, there's some blues, there's some flat out shredding. There's definitely what she calls Welsh primitive playing. There's the influence of people like John Fahey. It's all there. And then there is just the blistering speed with which she sometimes plays, which is absolutely. It's like Olympic skiing, the flips. It's wild.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

There are moments on this record where I was so certain that there had to be some kind of auxiliary percussion and I had to talk myself down from the ledge and realize that is probably just string noise hitting on the backbeat. That's like how dexterous she's able to be and how fast she's able to play. Also, I read an interview where she talked about like, like getting into Mississippi, John Hurt and Skip James and just the idea of like falling in love with the solo musician as an institution because of how little there is in between the performer and the audience and how much of the performance you are hearing. There's absolutely nothing to hide when you perform Alone. And so the listening relationship becomes really intimate.

[Anne Powers]

I just have to just go off the path a minute and tell you about. One of the best shows I saw this year was a anniversary show for the album World's Fair, which is the guitarist Julian Lodge's solo oh, sure. Album. And I was in this packed blue room in. In here in Nashville. I was with a friend who's a guitarist. He's like, everyone in this room as a guitarist. And Julian just played that record and some other stuff solo for, I don't know, like two hours. Right. And everyone was just fixated so intensely, and I have. That energy was so insane. And then at the end of it, everyone is going nuts, you know, and he just goes, I love music. Music is the best.

[Stephen Thompson]

I love that feeling. I've had that feeling at a lot of tiny desk concerts. I've had that feeling at a lot of concerts where it's just like, lord love music.

[Anne Powers]

But, I mean, I think this point of, like, the solo instrumentalist and what I got from watching Julian Lodge do that astounding feat is that it's really tough to sustain attention for so long with one instrument. And as you're saying, Daoud, this record, it sounds like so much more than one instrument.

[Stephen Thompson]

You know, I mean, there's such muscle.

[Anne Powers]

Well, she always holds her guitar like she's about to whack you with it, like she's one of those Lannisters from Game of Thrones, you know, I mean.

[Stephen Thompson]

One thing you really hear here, and I mean this in the best and most musical way, is you really hear a sense of athleticism. And I think that is remarkable in music that is also still extremely beautiful. You know, as you said, kind of at the top of this segment, this was a Lars Gottrich pick. I was listening to it. I was like, oh, this is a Lars Gottrich pick. And I immediately took to slack and wrote to Lars and I wrote, are you the literal damn genius who brought Gwennifer Raymond into the year end discussion? This record is giving me life. And it is very Lars coded. And he replied. He replied. I saw her on Friday night, and I felt like witches were in the room.

[Anne Powers]

I love that.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I really wanted to go to that show. I was too tired.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, man.

[Anne Powers]

I mean, anytime you want a tip on, like, a solo guitarist, turn to Lars, you know, he's turned me on to so many.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, he got me into Nathan Salsburg.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Nathan Salsburg, who's one of my favorites.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, God, yeah.

[Anne Powers]

William Tyler, who made one of my top records. Of the year time indefinite. So many great people working in this world right now.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is Gwennifer Raymond. Her newest album is called Last Night I heard the dog star bark. What a discovery. Just love it. All right, next up, the rapper Cal Banks. And his latest record is called Rhoda.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

Lay me down I pray this young forever paid a whole complaint I can't relate Just shut the up get this, get this case Shut the up ho.

[Stephen Thompson]

Get this plate Keep your pistol, keep.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Your faith he make your way but never make these hoses broke these lame enough to drive a PSA about the.

[Anne Powers]

Ethos and call of fame.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

I guess we charge it to the game.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

So for a lot of folks, this record is going to be an introduction to Cal Banks as a rapper because he has been known for the majority of his time working as a producer. He is one of the in house producers for tde, Top Dog Entertainment, the Los Angeles label that gave us the careers of Dochi Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Schoolboy Q, and notably Isaiah Rashad. And that is, I think, where he really came into his own on an album called the House is Burning. He and Rashad, who are the sort of resident southern boys on tde, this very LA label. Isaiah Rashad is from Tennessee, Cal Banks is from Texas. And they were able to find a sort of, you know, kindred spirits in each other, but also sort of indulge in a kind of like messy interiority that I think both of them really identified with. So you hear that very much on the House is Burning and now as his sort of solo showcase. And it is one heck of a showcase. Something like 80 minutes long.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, my God. 25 tracks, 81 minutes. Something like that.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

You get Kyle Banks at the boards and simultaneously stepping out from behind them. He's got a ton of features on this record, but a lot of the time the voice that you hear is his.

[Anne Powers]

Is it corny to say it's courageous? It's kind of a courageous act to step out in front of the mic.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I mean, yeah, it's rare to see it done with this level of. I keep coming back to the word messy. And I know that it sounds backhanded, but I really don't mean it. It to be like this is something that is like. It is sprawling, it is vulnerable. It is, you know, this is a record that was made in the wake of losing his mother. And his mother is very much, you know, in the music. And there are voicemails from, you know, friends and colleagues of his sort of checking in on him. Like it really is like, if you want to see the inside of my brain, this is it.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah. And sometimes you can charge. You know, I mentioned this a little bit with. With the Daniel Caesar record, where you can get a sense of where an artist is coming from by the company they keep. And that is definitely true in the features on this record. Pretty early on in this record, Pink Sifu pops up. And Pink Sifu is one of the people you call on if you want a certain kind of. I mean, you used the word messy and definitely intended it not as a pejorative. I would say chaotic.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

If you were. If you were looking for a chaotic sound, a sound that you really don't know what you're gonna hear next, that's the kind of person you want to work with. And the features, you know, all over the place, you know, names you see popping up on records, you know, by many different people. But then also in the back half of the record, you have a couple of tracks that feature Audrey Nuna, best known as one of the singing stars of one of the biggest pop breakthroughs of 2025, the soundtrack to K Pop Demon Hunters.

[Anne Powers]

Wow, that's crazy.

[Stephen Thompson]

Which, let's be honest, was the album I listened to the most in 2025. So, you know, I just. I appreciated throwing so many different voices at the wall, throwing so many different production techniques against the wall, and still having something coherent.

[Anne Powers]

Daoud, you know, you mentioned that he's in mourning on this record, the loss of his mother. And I think that kind of chaos is very much, you know, the dissembling of a psyche under the pressure of grief. Something that we. I mean, I'm gonna go back to Rosalia, that. That record is about heartbreak. It is about a breakup and. And that kind of grief. Even the Wednesday album, it's called Bleeds for a reason. It is about her community, but it's also about. About the breakup of her relationship with Wednesday's guitarist MJ Lenderman. Grief was big this year in our best records.

[Stephen Thompson]

Grief was big this year.

[Announcer]

We love it.

[Anne Powers]

Big year for grief. Excellent year for grief.

[Stephen Thompson]

Who here loves grief?

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Some other highlights on the features roster. Maxo Not Maxo Cream, although he is also on this record, which is wild. But for anybody who's confused, Maxo Cream is from Texas. Maxo is from la. And the song Spill, featuring Maxo has this very sort of pots and pans beat. Almost sounds like hitting a cardboard box at times, but it really matches the flow. Both of them are sort of rapping in this kind of broken shuffle. That's very in line with the beat.

[Guest Artist or Rapper (e.g., Dave or Cal Banks)]

What happens after your heart shatter you stagnant stuck on things that don't matter Gathering pieces matching from what's remembered of I feeling different from ways that wasn't decent enough I got get my time to grow from what I know the slow burn they say the flame black the herb I rather toss and turn about the way For I strike a nerve I never strike shoulders when words ain't work I had your hand.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Also, I really love the song IG featuring Baby Tate, who is doing amazing character work. She is basically doing a. A kind of sexual negotiation based on the terms of what was or wasn't fake faithfully portrayed online. Anyway, if you want more with Cal Banks after this, there's a really wonderful episode of the late, lamented NPR video series the Formula, where he and Isaiah Rashad break down a song from the House Is Burning. And he talks about his sort of, like, intuitive relationship to production. And he says, I don't even know what a compressor does, man. It just, like, what matters to me is, is it tight? And I think that's the spirit of a lot of what we hear on Rota.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is awesome. That is Cal Banks. His newest album is called Rota, one of NPR Music's favorite albums of 2025. We've got one more record we want to talk about in depth, and, boy, you know, we just talked about chaos. Next up, we have got Mary Halverson. Her new album is called About Ghost.

[Anne Powers]

Sam. Well, guitarist Mary Halverson is one of the greatest living jazz players. I'm just gonna say it. She's. She's truly a genius. And this album about ghosts features her group called Amaryllis, which I've gotten to see at Big Ears Festival here in Tennessee a few times, but augmented with two new players, two saxophone players, Brian Settles and Emanuel Wilkins, both amazing players in their own right. Just stunning. And what they bring to the group is, I don't know, it's like you add, it's a big group, okay? I'm trying to, like, count a lot of people. But you add two more and suddenly it feels like, you know, the world has just totally expanded. But to your point about chaos, Steven, I think Mary is the opposite of chaos. She is about patterns, systems, expanding. I always think of, like, a spirograph or some kind of animation in which geometric shapes are changing and forming and reforming. And that's what I get from her compositions. You know, it's dazzling, it's transcendent, it's complicated. But it never feels anything but beautiful and engaging. And this record is so engaging. There's a song that I love on this called Even Title, and that record is like a tide pool. You know, it's just. It's a very watery track.

[Stephen Thompson]

I mean, I think it's hard to talk about this record without using the word fluid.

[Anne Powers]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that particular track, you can just see the luminescent. You know, to bring up another record that I loved, Ichiko Aoba's record, Luminescent Creatures, this year. But you can just see the jellyfish. You can see the alien creatures in Mary Halverson's tide pool. That's interesting.

[Stephen Thompson]

You can see the jellyfish. That should be the sticker on the vinyl.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I thought of that one as a little bit spaghetti Western, but now I'm coming over to your side.

[Anne Powers]

Okay, spaghetti Western now. Now I'm getting a weird image of spaghetti in a pot. Maybe, I don't know, like, boiling and bubbling. Well, don't you. But do you agree with me, though, that, like, it's all about the patterning and repatterning?

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Totally, totally. And it's also. I mean, it's remarkable how much she lets the other members of her ensemble shine. Like, she is known for this really innovative acrobatic guitar playing, and she's doing it all the time, but sometimes it is as a background or a texture element, and you can just sort of like, you know, take one headphone off and listen while a saxophone solo is playing and hear her doing all of that amazing work, but she's not in the foreground.

[Stephen Thompson]

There's also a playfulness to her sound here where she keeps adding. She has such an additive mind. You know, there's a. I was kind of reading about this record. I remember when we talked about it on this show, and, like, somebody gave her a pocket piano synthesizer, and she, like, wanted to incorporate that into a sound that is already so busy and so collaborative and so finding ways to weave in patterns on top of patterns on top of patterns. It's so ambitious and so confident and just welcoming. Right. Like. Like, this is somebody who is welcoming additions to her sound and, like, finding ways to. To use that additional material to enhance it.

[Anne Powers]

Well, I don't want to be gender essentialist ever, but I will say, you know, she. As a woman bandleader, you know, she does have that kind of generosity and, like, concern for equity in the band that, you know, not. Not so much like, oh, here, take your space and play a solo. It's more like, like, Come in and find your role in the composition. Like, I read about the drummer, Tomas Fujiwara, and Mary says that she doesn't write drum parts. He comes in and she encourages him to kind of compose the drum parts himself. And she calls him a co composer on some tracks. I think it's also worth noting in Nate Shannon, who brought this record to my attention, notes in writing about it that the trumpeter Adam o', Farrell, the trombonist Jacob Garciak, the vibraphonist Patricia Brennan are all in this band, and they all also released top 10 worthy records this year. So, I mean, she just puts together the most amazing players too.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

I really, really would like to see her live sometime soon because there are moments of the guitar performance here where I. I'm like, I don't know how she did this. There's parts where it sounds like a tape machine breaking down, where there's these sudden warps in pitch, and I don't know if it's effects or if it's all in the fingers.

[Anne Powers]

I just also gotta say, she's like the coolest, most unflashy human. You know, she's just that genius who's like, I'm not gonna show off, because why would I? I'm just. I'm so good without having to.

[Stephen Thompson]

That is Mary Halvorson. Her newest album is about ghosts. Y'. All, we did it. We got through all nine albums that we wanted to talk about in depth. I still nevertheless was tasked with throwing together a really quick lightning round of a few of the others that the team really loved in 2025, including one of my very favorite records of 2025 by the great Annie DeRusso. We just published an extremely fun and funny and winning tiny desk concert from an artist who put out one of my favorite, kind of just like big fun, summery rock records. You know how 2024 was brat summer. I think 2025 for me was super pedestrian summer. So Super Pedestrian by Annie Deruso was one of my very favorites of the year. Also wanted to mention the Spanish singer Coral Lahose, who, you know, we talked about Rosalia, whose background is in kind of flamenco and kind of marrying flamenco to pop. Don't lose sight of. Of Kurat Lahose, who is doing kind of flamenco meets hip hop. Patrick Watson, a Canadian singer songwriter who has been an NPR Music favorite for a very, very long time, dating back to our early excursions into south by Southw. You know, Patrick Watson, you know, went through a medical crisis where he kind of lost access to his singing voice, which is a great, great loss if you've ever heard Patrick Watson sing. And his newest album is called, uh oh, Kind of named for that crisis in which he brings in a lot of collaborators to kind of, you know, give voice and texture to his compositions. He is a wonderful artist, a longtime NPR Music favorite and the creator of one of the team's favorite albums of 2025.

[Anne Powers]

I Lost My voice cause I talk too loud like an old friend that ain't hanging around oh I'm thus quiet while I do my best But I.

[Stephen Thompson]

Can'T stop making this shit up in and that is our show for this week. Thank you so much. Anne Powers Daoud, Tyler Amin, it is a pleasure to have you join me. What a joy to talk about. Just a string of absolute knockouts across so many genres.

[Daoud Tyler Amin]

Thanks, Stephen.

[Anne Powers]

And if our listeners want more, please go look at our list because each of us picked way more than one album.

[Stephen Thompson]

Sure did.

[Anne Powers]

There's many, many albums recommended in our year end list and also there's a wonderful playlist of 125 songs for the year 2025. And if you can spare the price of a fancy latte, please subscribe to Dowd's and my podcast, which we fondly call Old Songs Considered, in which we remind you that there's lots of music that came out in earlier years, you know, all the way stretching back to the dawn of recorded music. And we, we love to talk about we got an episode coming out soon on Holiday music. It's super fun.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah. And, and you get to that by subscribing to NPR Music. Plus, as Anne said, it is not expensive. It unlocks bonus content and you get access to Ann and Daoud's wonderful show about older music. This is a project I'm so delighted to have you guys working on because as much as we're constantly focused at least on New Music Friday and talking about new music, there is the this massive, massive, ever growing universe of older music, so much of which is just sitting there waiting to be rediscovered. And of course, you know, a lot of the time you're talking about older music that has never left us. And I think it's such a cool show. Everybody should subscribe. If you listen to New Music Friday, if you listen to All Songs Considered, you should subscribe to NPR Music to get Ann and Daoud two of my favorite minds and not for nothing favorite people. Aw.

[Anne Powers]

We love you too, Steven.

[Stephen Thompson]

You are, you guys are both treasures. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Muhammad. We'll be back next week when Robin Hilton and Sheldon Pierce talk about the listener piece picks for the best albums of 2025. Until then, take a moment to be well reject the tyranny of Michael Buble and treat yourself to lots of. This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at RosettaStone.com NPR this message.

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