Best Music šŸŽµ of 2025!

March 2025: 81 newly released albums checked out this month (185 newly released albums for the year). There were some big new music Fridays this month and I had some big radar lists that kept me listening! Here's a 4x4 of my favorite albums from this month (alphabetical order by the artist). March was much more balanced for me across the board as far as genres go. I've also included a Spotify playlist with one song selected from each album (alphabetized by the artist).

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Amphibian - Collecting Silver
Backxwash - Only Dust Remains
Burning Palace - Elegy
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Floodlights - Underneath
Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
Jason Isbell - Foxes In The Snow
Lonnie Holley - Tonky

Lucy Dacus - Forever Is A Feeling
Men I Trust - Equus Asinus
NYX - NYX
PremRock - Did You Enjoy Your Time Here...?

Rose Betts - There Is No Ship
Steven Wilson - The Overview
The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble - Gemini
U Kronakh - Archaic Dance Of The Winds

 
musicjunkiegreg said:
March 2025: 81 newly released albums checked out this month (185 newly released albums for the year). There were some big new music Fridays this month and I had some big radar lists that kept me listening! Here's a 4x4 of my favorite albums from this month (alphabetical order by the artist). March was much more balanced for me across the board as far as genres go. I've also included a Spotify playlist with one song selected from each album (alphabetized by the artist).

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Amphibian - Collecting Silver
Backxwash - Only Dust Remains
Burning Palace - Elegy
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Floodlights - Underneath
Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
Jason Isbell - Foxes In The Snow
Lonnie Holley - Tonky

Lucy Dacus - Forever Is A Feeling
Men I Trust - Equus Asinus
NYX - NYX
PremRock - Did You Enjoy Your Time Here...?

Rose Betts - There Is No Ship
Steven Wilson - The Overview
The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble - Gemini
U Kronakh - Archaic Dance Of The Winds

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I almost bought the indie exclusive of forever is a feeling but I was listening to samples of the non singles and I found them to be pretty meh so I decided to pass on getting the album despite owning the magnolia variant of home video as that was one of my favorite albums of 2021. I got my method actor by nilufer yanya and careful by boy harsher instead.
 
Favorite Albums 2025: Q1

2025 has had the strongest Q1 of any year in recent memory. Not only was the quantity of albums released very high (I checked out 185 new releases in this year's first three months), but the quality of the new releases was superb. February was the standout month this quarter, with half the albums featuring on my 4x4 landing in that month. The standout genre for me this quarter was atmospheric black metal, but overall Q1 had a pretty diverse spread of styles. This was a very difficult 4x4 to narrow down (I went with 4x4s for all of my monthly favorite lists, so I decided to keep the consistency here, too), but I give you my Top 8.6% of albums that I checked out in Q1 (presented in alphabetical order by the artist).

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Ambrose Akinmusire - honey from a winter stone
Amphibian - Collecting Silver
Benjamin Booker - LOWER
GrƔb - Kremess

Grima - Nightside
Havukruunu - Tavastland
Heartworms - Glutton For Punishment
Lou-Adrianne Cassidy - Journal d'un Loup-Garou

Lonnie Holley - Tonky
maud the moth - The Distaff
NYX - NYX
Panda Bear - Sinister Grift

Rose Betts - There Is No Ship
Saor - Amidst The Ruins
Sivyj Yar - A Scarlet Sunset Over The Horrid Abyss
Void Of Hope - Proof Of Existence
 
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Top 10 most listened March:
  1. Alison Krauss & Union Station - Arcadia
  2. Maria Milstein & Nathalia Milstein - BartĆ³k & Berio: Duos for Two Violin
  3. The Sure Fire Soul Orchestra - Gemini
  4. Jason Isbell - Foxes in the Snow
  5. Les Musicians de Saint-Julien - Voix Humaines. Maria: PiĆØces InĆØdites pour FlĆ»te
  6. Billy Mohler - The Eternal
  7. Takuro Okada - The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line
  8. Alexis Ffrench - Classical Soul Vol. 1
  9. Nels Cline - Consentrik Quartet
  10. Neal Francis - Return to Zero
 
chart - 2025-04-01T102148.525.png

ALBUMS
Jason Isbell ā€“ Foxes in the Snow
Muriel Grossmann ā€“ MGQ live at King Georg, Kƶln
clipping. ā€“ Dead Channel Sky
Rose Betts ā€“ There Is No Ship
more eaze & claire rousay ā€“ no floor
Unknown Mortal Orchestra ā€“ IC-02 BogotĆ”
The Burning Hell ā€“ Ghost Palace
The Sure Fire Soul Ensemble ā€“ Gemini
Jeffrey Lewis ā€“ The EVEN MORE Freewheelinā€™ Jeffrey Lewis
EPs
Anoushka Shankar ā€“ Chapter III: We Return To Light
Kathleen Edwards ā€“ Covers
Charles Petersohn ā€“ Children Of Zu Zu
 
wokeupnew said:
My most listened to March! I'm debating if the new MiT is better than Jason Isbell, and it just might be even though I don't think it's MiT's best album.

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Men I Trust was my top artist šŸ† in March with 62 streams.
 
wokeupnew said:
My most listened to March! I'm debating if the new MiT is better than Jason Isbell, and it just might be even though I don't think it's MiT's best album.

www.last.fm

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The world's largest online music service. Listen online, find out more about your favourite artists, and get music recommendations, only at Last.fm
www.last.fm www.last.fm

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How does a scrobble compare to a stream?
 
musicjunkiegreg said:
How does a scrobble compare to a stream?
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Scrobbles just log your plays in various media formats. You used to have to have the app open while you played music from your iTunes or other mp3 library, but nowadays you can connect your streaming service of choice to log what youā€™ve listened to. It is recording all streams, mp3 plays from my phone and plays from my computer/itunes. Iā€™ve been scrobbling since 2008~.

www.businessinsider.com

Last.fm tracks all your music stats by 'scrobbling' them. Here's what that means and how it works.

Last.fm tracks what songs and artists you listen to by "scrobbling," a made-up word that refers to how Last.fm records your listening habits.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
 
Wes C. Attle said:
Top 10 in 2025 so far:

Moreish Idols
Great Grandpa
Sam Fender
Fust
Cloakroom
Squid
Free Range
Ex-Vƶid
Terraplana
The Tubs
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I donā€™t have 10 albums that I would consider ā€œTopā€ quite yet but there are a few on your list I still need to check out.

So far, I have only picked up 5 new releases on vinyl for this year:

Horsegirl - Phonetics On & On
The Men - Buyer Beware
Hamilton Leathouser - The Other Side Of The Island
Panda Bear - Sinister Grift
Momma - Welcome To My Blue Sky*

*I preordered Mommaā€™s new album which, based on what I have heard thus far; will likely make it to my list once eligible.
 
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Victoria's annual high school poetry slam festival is happening this week, and I've seen this kid fiercely rock the stage a bunch over the past few years, but didn't realize until last night that he put out an album in January. It's both juvenile and heavy in a way only a high schooler could pull off! Kid's got mad talent. He's also managed to rack up nearly 300k followers to his Instagram, where he's regulary posting freestyles.

In a world that's increasingly fucked up and infuriating, this brings me an absolute fuckload of joy! The kids are alright...



Or, for the non-Stupify users:

 
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avecigrec said:
For the past two or three years now, I have been sending a handful of friends a monthly 10 song playlist of odds and ends that caught my ear over the preceding month, and usually got played a lot while I was streaming. There's no set metric for what makes it and what doesn'tā€”sometimes something quirky and whimsical slips in, and sometimes my choices may be a bit predictable ("ooooh, another month with a Moor Mother track or collaboration, how shocking!") The most important thing is I very much enjoy the songs, and I really love putting the playlist together. Some months it's hard to whittle the accumulated tracks down to 10* and others it can be pretty easy.

Anyhow, I figured this year I'd share here for kicks in case any of y'all are interested:



*while there is no set metric in place, often songs that appear in my top 9 for a given month are some of the first to get whittled away from the playlist, which is why, for instance, "****ology 101" by Lambrini Girls didn't make this edition of the playlist, despite being an absolute jam that I definitely played a LOT.
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I've actually had this one ready for two days, other than renaming it, making it public and getting the linkā€”which i have finally done.

 
So far the only album I really connected with has been FKA Twigs but even that would have been the bottom of my top 10 last year. A lot of really good singles but just ok albums and looking ahead I donā€™t expect to be wowed by the new releases announced as of now. Really hope something surprises me soon. If I donā€™t have a solid AOTY contender by early May I tend to get anxious lol
 
Fleetwood-Matt said:
So far the only album I really connected with has been FKA Twigs but even that would have been the bottom of my top 10 last year. A lot of really good singles but just ok albums and looking ahead I donā€™t expect to be wowed by the new releases announced as of now. Really hope something surprises me soon. If I donā€™t have a solid AOTY contender by early May I tend to get anxious lol
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Exactly how I felt at this time in 2024..

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