OG Brian's Favorites of 2025

We’ve reached the end of another music year. It’s taken me a while to put digital pen to digital paper and give you, loyal reader, my favorite albums (and other music-related ephemera) of 2025. Why the delay, you might ask? Have I been busy? Maybe a little. Distracted? Oh, of course. Felled by illness? Bingo. My household has been swapping around the same bug for about two weeks now.

The delay came with an unexpected benefit. In the extra time I had, I was able to read other peoples’ year-end lists (some of which seemed to have been written back on Halloween). This allowed me to discover some albums that slipped my attention the first time around, and also remember others from this year that I genuinely liked but forgot about. That said, I’m not going to pretend for the purposes of listmaking that Geese’s Getting Killed or Rosalia’s Lux spoke to me, because they didn’t (although hat tip to Marc in the 3A6OG group chat for getting me to go back and listen to 3D Country, because I had to admit that album seriously bangs).

Looking at other lists gave me one other much-needed reminder. Indie rock in 2025 maybe, kinda, sorta took a bit of a leap. Young musicians seemed to have heard the artists of the ‘80s and ‘90s – the music of my youth – and decided that those bands really could be their life. You can hear a lot of those influences in my favorites (not the best, to be clear, but my favorites) of 2025. In fact, my favorite album of the year is a testament to the perseverance of indie rock.

So read on, listen on, and enjoy. If you need a break from your family this holiday season, we’ve got you covered.

Favorite Album:

• Bill Fox – Resonance: My favorite album of the year is a literal lo-fi bedroom recording from the lead singer of the barely-known but influential Cleveland power pop band The Mice. This is Fox’s first album in 13 years. He doesn’t give many interviews, he doesn’t often play shows and on the rare occasions he does he sticks close to home (his most recent performance was in a small venue in Columbus in August 2025). But this year he released an album that I returned to more than any other. The instrumentation is sparse, the songwriting is beautiful, and the recording would make fellow Ohioan Robert Pollard proud. That some of these songs might have been kicking around in his mind for 20-30 years is astounding. The highest compliment I can pay is that even during my early listens, the songs on this album sounded comfortable and familiar.

The Next 10

Just like last year, these are the 10 albums that tended to stick with me the most throughout the year. Just because others didn’t crack this list doesn’t mean they weren’t important to me, or at times weren’t in heavy rotation, but these were the albums that stood just above.

• Wednesday – Bleeds: From Boat Songs to Rat Saw God to Manning Fireworks, the Wednesday-Lenderman Industrial Complex has consistently maintained a grip on the top spot of my year-end lists (Twin Plagues likely would have as well if I had this Substack back in 2021). But don’t interpret relegation to The Next 10 as a sign of diminished quality. Karly Hartzman still has mad skills as a chronicler of life in the modern American South, a genuine disciple of Patterson Hood. Bleeds is an accomplishment and a true progression for the band. Sometimes everyone just needs a change.

• Fust – Big Ugly: This album came really close to being my favorite for 2025, as it was another that I returned to more often than most. It didn’t hurt that “Spangled” was quite possibly my favorite song of the year, and yet there were times when I thought that “Gateleg” was even better. Like Hartzman, Fust’s Aaron Dowdy is a master storyteller, and 2025 saw him grow as a bandleader and performer. Go see Fust live and you’ll appreciate Big Ugly even more.

• Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – New Threats from the Soul: A great indie rock lifer and a great live band produces arguably their best album. And one of several Americana-tinged records to leave a mark this year. The David Berman comparisons are cliché by now but also a little complicated. Davis’ lyrics are arch and sardonic and maybe a little mysterious, backed by a band that has never been so tight.

• The Tubs – Cotton Crown: I admit to being in the tank for this band. Loved their first record, 2023’s Dead Meat, and I feel the same about this one. Love that they finally made it Stateside to tour, and I saw them play an amazing set opening for The Wedding Present earlier this year. Love that their audience is growing, and that more people are discovering their very Welsh, very jangly sound.

• Good Flying Birds – Talulah’s Tape: Indianapolis-based Kellen Baker gives a big ol’ spoiler alert by naming his band after a Guided by Voices track. When I first reviewed this record I described it as “catchy guitar hooks covered in 4-track fuzz and so much more.” The description still stands. I’m admittedly an easy target for GBV-inspired power pop, but this record stands out among several from young bands that seemingly listened to Bee Thousand on repeat.

• Sharp Pins – Balloon Balloon Balloon: Speaking of which, allow me to introduce Kai Slater, member of Chicago noise-rock band Lifeguard (might hear from them again later) who also releases music under his side project Sharp Pins. Their newest, Balloon Balloon Balloon, came out late in the year and really made an impression. Sharp Pins allows Slater to explore his interests in jangly psych-pop, making a clear distinction from his also excellent work in Lifeguard. Oh, and did I mention he was only 20 when he recorded all this?

• Aesop Rock – Black Hole Superette: The hip hop record that I kept going back to most throughout 2025. Took me a minute to get to this one, but once I did it was in heavy rotation. I’ve written before about how hip hop is one of several genres, along with pop and mainstream country, that’s significantly easier to stay connected to when you’re young. So maybe not surprising that I’m drawn to an MC who’s been at it a while. Aesop Rock had a second release in 2025, I Heard It’s a Mess There Too, but Black Hole Superette has been rewarding with each listen.

• Florry – Sounds Like…: You know those bands where people say “you gotta see them live”? That’s Florry. I really liked 2023’s The Holey Bible, and I enjoyed “Sounds Like…” at first but it didn’t fully knock my socks off. The band came off as a little subdued. Then I saw them play a headlining set at DC’s Songbyrd, where their energy really came through. From that point, I could hear the spirit of their live show on the album, and “Sounds Like…” really grew into one of my favorites from this year.

• Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones: The Baltimore-based indie R&B album I wasn’t aware I needed. Catchy hooks, relevant lyrics, compelling beats. Serious messages and serious rhythms. Marcus Brown made what could end up being the most 2025 album of 2025. And by the time the rest of us have caught up to him, he’ll have already moved on to the next thing.

• Friendship – Caveman Wakes Up: This is another one that caught me in the first half of the year and stuck with me. Indie rock with a touch of country and lo-fi. Part of a vibrant Philly scene. Sometimes mellow, sometimes rocking, always interesting. Seems like there’s always an East Coast band playing heartland-adjacent rock that catches my ear. In recent years that slot on my list has been occupied by Wild Pink. This year it goes to Friendship.

Honorable Mentions

Once again, any number of these could have cracked the group of 10 above. In some cases I feel genuinely guilty for not including them more prominently. But hey, I can’t ignore my own arbitrary restrictions. A man must have a code.

• Alien Boy – You Wanna Fade?

• Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Mercy (this was a tough omission from The Next 10; sometimes reminded me of listening to MF Doom for the first time; other times felt like homework)

• Beauty Saloon – BS

• The Berries – s/t

• Chime Oblivion – s/t (gotta continue stumping for John Dwyer)

• De La Soul – Cabin in the Sky (RIP, Trugoy)

• Dutch Interior – Moneyball

• Greg Freeman – Burnover

• Golden Apples – Shooting Star

• SG Goodman – Planting by the Signs (the anti-Florry; what I liked from the album did not carry over to the live show)

• Cory Hanson – I Love People (not sure how much I actually liked it; appreciated the swing)

• Home Front – Watch it Die (oi! punk for the 2020s)

• Horsegirl – Phonetics On and On

• Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon

• Lambrini Girls – Who Let The Dogs Out

• Lawn – God Made the Highway

• Lifeguard – Ripped and Torn (I said you’d be hearing from them again on this list)

• Liquid Mike – Hell is an Airport (they had me at the album title)

• Militarie Gun – God Save the Gun (I’m generally higher on Militarie Gun than most here, so I’ll stick to the bit; still hoping to catch them live even though my days in the pit are long gone)

• Momma – Welcome to my Blue Sky (I’m generally lower on Momma than most here, but I’ll include them since I thought the album was pretty good)

• Previous Industries – Evergreen Plaza

• Prism Shores – Out From Underneath

• Pulp – More (cool to see a Britpop band release relevant music in 2025)

• Snocaps – s/t (this should be more in my wheelhouse but I might just be Crutchfielded out at this point; the album is quite good though)

• The Spindles – Wavelength

• Suede – Antidepressants (cool to see a Britpop band release good music in 2025; it’s a fun album, but I think the idea of Suede still being a going concern is a little better than Suede in reality)

• The Tisburys – A Still Life Revisited

• Jeff Tweedy – Twilight Override (either I’m fully into Dad Rock mode or this Tweedy fellow just might know what he’s doing)

• The Waterboys – Life, Death and Dennis Hopper (a true drop-it-on-the-table idea for a concept album that actually worked and produced one of my favorite live shows of the year)

• billy woods – Golliwog (it’s like splitting the vote at the Oscars; if you combined the best parts of Golliwog and the best parts of Mercy, we’re easily talking about one of my 10 favorite albums)

Plus two EPs of note:

• Glass-Beagle – Early Riser

• Wishy – Planet Popstar

Favorite Music Book from 2025:

• Such Great Heights: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion by Chris DeVille: Reading this book was a different experience for me. This was probably the first time I read about a music scene that took place after what anyone would reasonably call my “youth” stage. It was written about and from the perspective of a millennial experiencing the early 2000s through the early 2010s in the same way I experienced the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Sure I listened to most of those same aughts-era bands (The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, etc.) but my listening experience was very different. I wasn’t on message boards or going to Shout! parties or squeezing myself into the Mercury Lounge (or even imagining myself doing so). I was married and starting a career and preparing to be a father. And it was cool to read a different perspective – the millennial generation would say the right perspective – on this period of time. The writer has a nostalgia for the fringier bands of the era that I don’t simply because they were the bands of his era. I appreciated the context the book provided and the experiences of those who viewed the music of the aughts as the music of their youth.

Favorite (Fake-ish) Music Documentary from 2025:

• Pavements: The hints started trickling in throughout 2022 and 2023. A museum exhibit? A jukebox musical (Slanted! Enchanted!)? None of it made sense because Pavement were never that band. But then it made sense. It was all a part of Alex Ross Perry’s bonkers film experiment designed to explain the appeal of Pavement and the absurdity of music biopics. There was a fake Pavement biopic (naturally called Range Life) within the film. There was a play that was actually staged. There was a real exhibit that the real members of Pavement were filmed touring that included fake memorabilia. It was the perfect ode to the band who told us they were dressed for success, but success it never comes.

Favorite (Real) Music Documentary from 2025:

• Billy Joel: And So It Goes: You can take the boy out of Long Island. No real insight here, this was just a fun watch. Especially the first part, which got into his early days and his move to LA and his first marriage, some stuff that flew under the radar even for those of us who received his catalog as required by Nassau County ordinance (only sort of kidding) and were introduced to live music via one of his Coliseum concerts (not kidding at all). Since most music docs now are basically promotional content produced by their subjects, I have to give credit to Joel for allowing a true warts-and-all approach by the filmmakers. The movie didn’t shy away from Joel’s biggest elephant-in-the-room subjects – his drinking, his relationships with women, his relationship with his now-adult daughter. It also touched on some less serious matters that still painted Joel in a negative light, including his perceived lack of cool, his misguided attempt to reinvent himself as a classical musician, and his “why is there plastic on the floor?” firing of longtime drummer Liberty DeVito. Worth a watch even if you haven’t listened to Joel since before his denial of blame for starting the fire.