I overthought it again. I think from now on I’m gonna release this list before the songs lists. I always get overambitious with these year-end lists and while I’m happy to do that for the songs, I think the albums lists would benefit from me being more brief and straight to the point.

So on that note, here’s my Top 50-11, then the Top 10 in written format.

#50 Tyler, The Creator - DON’T TAP THE GLASS (Best Song: “Ring Ring Ring”)
#49 Seeming - The World (Best Song: “Heart Of Hunger”)
#48 Bad Bunny - Debi Tirar Mas Fotos (Best Song: “DtMF”)
#47 Daniel Donato - Horizons (Best Song: “Hangman’s Reel”)
#46 Game Freak - Pokemon: Legends Z-A (Soundtrack) (Best Song: Lumiose City (Vert District))”
#45 Ruston Kelly - Pale, Through The Window (Best Song: “Pickleball”)
#44 Baths - Gut (Best Song: “Eyewall”)
#43 Skrillex - F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT <3 (Best Song: “VOLTAGE”)
#42 Danny Brown - Stardust (Best Song: “Copycat”)
#41 Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power (Best Song: “Winona”)
#40 JID - God Does Like Ugly (Best Song: “Glory”)
#39 redveil - sankofa (Best Song: “pray 4 me”)
#38 Unreqvited - A Pathway to the Moon (Best Song: “The Starforger”)
#37 Metro Boomin & DJ Spinz - Metro Boomin Presents: A Futuristic Summa (Best Song: “WTF Goin”)
#36 Grandbrothers - Elsewhere (Best Song: “We Collide”)
#35 Dove Ellis - Blizzard (Best Song: “Love Is”)
#34 Aesop Rock - Black Hole Superette (Best Song: “Movie Night”)
#33 Creepy Nuts - LEGION (Best Song: “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born”)
#32 bbno$ - bbno$ (Best Song: “two”)
#31 Open Mike Eagle - Neighborhood Gods Unlimited (Best Song: “i woke up knowing everything (opening theme)”
#30 Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer (Best Song: “Delete”)
#29 Amaarae - BLACK STAR (Best Song: “S.M.O”)
#28 Neko Case - Neon Grey Midnight Green (Best Song: “Wreck”)
#27 Treaty Oak Revival - West End Degenerate (Best Song: “Misery”)
#26 Saba & No I.D. - From The Private Collection of Saba & No I.D. (Best Song: “Westside Bound Pt. 4)
#25 Twenty One Pilots - Breach (Best Song: “Drum Show”)
#24 CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY (Best Song: “When A Good Man Cries”)
#23 Jim Legxacy - Black British Music (2025) (Best Song: “i just banged a snus in canada water”)
#22 This Is Lorelei - Holo Boy (Best Song: “I Can’t Fall”)
#21 Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out (Best Song: “Chains & Whips”)
#20 Little Simz - Lotus (Best Song: “Blood”)
#19 Turnpike Troubadour - Price of Admission (Best Song: “Heaven Passing Through”)
#18 Beach Bunny - Tunnel Vision (Best Song: “Tunnel Vision”)
#17 Backxwash - Only Dust Remains (Best Song: “Dissociation”)
#16 Nintendo - Mario Kart World (Soundtrack) (Best Song: “Title Theme”)
#15 Gigi Perez - At The Beach, In Every Life (Best Song: “Normalcy”)
#14 Atomiste - This Is Beyond All Of Us (Best Song: “Until The Spark Fades Out”)
#13 PinkPantheress - Fancy That (Best Song: “Tonight”)
#12 Chance The Rapper - STAR LINE (Best Song: “Letters”)
#11 Jason Isbell - Foxes In The Snow (Best Song: “Eileen”)

#10 McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!
I’m extremely confident in calling McKinley Dixon one of the best rappers alive. His run since 2021’s For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her has been nothing short of outstanding. Magic, Alive! further extends the streak with a vibrant, joyous album full of tremendous jazz rap beats and McKinley Dixon’s incredible knack for storytelling. Not only do these songs sound incredible, but Dixon is such a dynamic voice who leads each song with ferocious confidence and a huge heart that keeps his dark thoughts from dragging him and the listener into despair. This isn’t a sad album despite its themes. If anything, it’s a celebration of the magic you can find in art and the people you share it with.

Best Songs: “Could’ve Been Different” ft. Blu & Shamir, “Run, Run, Run Pt. II”, “Magic, Alive!”, “Listen Gentle”, “We’re Outside, Rejoice!”

#9 clipping. - Dead Channel Sky

clipping. released their concept album about a technological dystopia a little too on schedule. It’s hard not to hear this album’s eerie, frantic energy and not connect it to the ways we see technology take over our everyday lives for the benefit of only those gaining more and more power by the day. But if this album was simply relatable and timely, it wouldn’t be enough to be the best of the year. Thankfully clipping. deliver some of their catchiest, yet most kinetic songs to date through glitchy hooks and rock-solid atmospheres. One minute you feel like you’re being chased, the next it feels like you’re trapped in the room with no escape. Yet there’s still a compelling angle to the power structures and ineffable cool that this album teases you with. Are you fearful of the inevitable future, or your vulnerability to the corruption of power? 

Best Songs: “Mirrorshades Pt. 2” ft. Cartel Madras, “Dodger”, “Change The Channel”, “Ask What Happened”, “Dominator”

#8 Toby Fox - DELTARUNE Ch 3+4 Soundtrack

I was hesitant to include video game soundtracks in my usual studio music-based lists, namely because video game music is heavily dependent on the context of the game itself. Toby Fox has been my favorite video game composer for a while, and finally getting two whole chapter’s worth of new music after the four year wait reminded me exactly why. Whether you know the context of these songs or not, you’d be remiss not to recognize the incredible craft of these songs and motifs. Melodies that stick in your head despite their simplicity. The limited digital palette delivers sounds and timbres unlike anything you’ve heard. It not only enhances the gameplay of Deltarune, but calls to mind those special moments that become memories long after you’ve completed the chapter, as any good soundtrack should. I should know, I listened to this soundtrack more than even my album of the year.

Best Songs: “Hammer of Justice”, “It’s TV Time!”, “A DARK ZONE”, “Raise Up Your Bat”, “From Now On (Battle 2)”

#7 Saor - Amidst The Ruins

I was introduced to Saor ten years ago via their sweeping opus Guardians. The first time I felt a metal album truly resonate with me by blending in Celtic instrumentation and finding a beautiful marriage of elegance and brutality. Ten years later, Saor has surpassed that initial awe I felt back then. The black metal elements are sharper, the guttural howls are fiercer, the Celtic instrumentation is beautifully implemented, and the songs feel incomprehensibly massive. Every time I finish a song off this album, my ears are left ringing in the best way possible. The pacing between each song also makes this album feel like a complete journey, starting with a bang and ending with an even bigger bang. This was my earliest album of the year, and even after a year of new favorites and familiar triumphs, Amidst The Ruins still holds up. 

Best Songs: “Rebirth”, “Amidst The Ruins”, “Echoes of the Ancient Land”, “Glen of Sorrow”, “The Sylvan Embrace”

#6 Cole Chaney - In The Shadow Of The Mountain

It’s been four years since Cole Chaney released his phenomenal debut album, Mercy. A fresh listen confirmed that it’s still one of the best albums of the decade, but that put pressure on In The Shadow of the Mountain to deliver after such a long absence. This album is very different from Mercy. Chaney has a full band behind him now, and it shows in how much more developed these songs sound compared to the sparser sounds of Mercy. This band does so much to add to Chaney’s songwriting, giving it a grander atmosphere that truly embodies the echo of that shadowy mountain. The songs are much lonelier, maybe a little less self-assured than before, but there’s still some rugged hope buried underneath the grungier feel. You can tell a lot has changed in those four years, but at no point did it ever dull Chaney’s talent. 

Best Songs: “Alone?”, “Spirit”, “The Shadow of the Mountain”, “Charlene”, “Feels Like Rain”

#5 Moron Police - Pachinko

Moron Police’s comeback from tragedy is one of my favorite stories of the year. The loss of Moron Police’s drummer, Thore Omland Pettersen, is felt throughout Pachinko, but at no point does it ever break the band’s spirit. Even with their touching tributes like “Cramorant” and the drum solo that closes the album, the band never loses sight of their greatest strengths. Their massive hooks, their fiery passion, their sense of humor, everything that was great about A Boat On The Sea is present on Pachinko as well. So many of these songs soar through the skies with great enthusiasm, and the best moments of this album know how to make every moment feel monumental. It’s not an all-timer for me like the previous album was, but it did grow on me a ton over the following months. Which makes me think it will join the ranks soon enough.

Best Songs: “Giving Up the Ghost”, “Pachinko Pt. 1”, “Take Me to the City”, “Waiting Around For You”, “Nothing Breaks (A Port of Call)”

#4 Flummox - Southern Progress

I heard Flummox pitched as “southern-fried Mr. Bungle fronted by a trans woman”. It was an intriguing enough idea that I gave this band I otherwise knew very little about a shot. Something I should really do more often, because this was the album I needed in 2025. A manic, relentless blister of metalcore riffs and loud hooks. Guitars and drums that sounded like they were on fire while frontwoman Alyson Blake Dellinger shrieks and bellows with so much intense ferocity that every word feels like it comes with a punch to the face. The lyrics range from angry at the state of the world to deliriously horny, sometimes both at once. Either way, emotions, melodies, and solos spiral out of every song in a way that left me breathless more than once. “Siren Shock” was my song of the year and is easily one of the greatest bangers this decade has had to offer, but other songs off this album like “Always Something Going Down” and “Executive Dysfunction” were just as exhilarating the first and hundredth time I’ve heard it. 

Best Songs: “Siren Shock”, “Always Something Going Down”, “Executive Dysfunction”, “Southern Progress”, “Long Pork”

#3 Caroline Spence - Heart Go Wild

Heart Go Wild was my go-to sad album of the year. Lots of songs about loneliness and isolation, coming from the heart of an introvert who so desperately wants to be present with others. Even when the album picks itself up through songs like “Fun At Parties”, Caroline can’t help but get in her own way. It’s devastating, but it never stoops to a wallow or misery for the sake of misery. You can hear just through her delicate vocals that Spence is really trying. It makes the moments where she does experience a little bit of optimism and courage all the more heartwarming. Some of my favorite songs on the album happen to be the ones where that sadness and loneliness is challenged, whether it’d be finally acknowledging the pain you went through or the sound of your partner coming home. This might be Caroline’s best album to date, or at the very least, her best since 2019’s Mint Condition.

Best Songs: “Confront It”, “Where The Light Gets Through”, “Fun At Parties”, “The Sound Of You”, “Why The Tree Loves The Ax”

#2 billy woods - GOLLIWOG

I was between two albums for my album of the year. For most of the year, this was in the lead, uncontested. I’ve always liked billy woods, but I still felt a little bit disconnected from him. His lyrics are so dense and abstract that I found it hard to find a deeper resonance within his music (though it’s entirely on my end). Turns out the step needed for billy woods to not only click with me but strike me in a way no other album did this year was to lean into the horrorcore of his music. Bleak, crushing reflections of the self and the black diaspora that can only be contextualized through haunting production and creeping anxiety. These songs aren’t just brilliantly crafted and compelling songs, but the textures of the drums and beats made you feel paranoid and unsafe, not unlike the experience of being black and deeply conscious of that vulnerability. It’s not seeking to comfort or even guilt the listener, which is what makes it extra eerie. The album’s straightforward, unflinching, brutal reality is put front and center, which to some may seem horrifying and awful, but for others, it’s a feeling that’s all too familiar. Like the mundanity of the racist doll that is this album’s namesake. I was deathly close to giving this my album of the year. So many songs shook me to my core, and it especially resonated this year as we reckon with the horrifying future ahead of us. Why run from reality as it’s unfolding in front of you?

Best Songs: “BLK XMAS” ft. Bruiser Wolf & SadhuGold, “STAR87” ft. Conductor Williams, “Lead Paint Test” ft. E L U C I D, Cavalier & Willie Green, “Corinthians” ft. Despot & El-P, “Waterproof Mascara” ft. Preservation

#1 Nourished By Time - The Passionate Ones

But I know what my heart wants.

I’m an optimist, dammit! For every awful thing there is in the world, there’s joy to be found. There’s a song to be sung, a drive to be followed, a person to live for. If I’m gonna go insane, at least I’m loved by you. Beware of sedatives and passing time. Rip your heart out, toss it to the sun. The Passionate Ones is my album of the year because it brings out the desperate optimist in me who wants to live and experience the bliss of life, whatever form it takes. Marcus Brown’s performance throughout the album, singing with reckless abandon as his voice soars across these incredible songs that take a form unlike anything you’ve ever heard. A unique form of euphoria that comes in these flexible, colorful instrumentals that feels every emotion at once. This album gives me so much love and joy, even in its moments of sadness and despair. Because Marcus Brown’s drive to keep going and keep loving, even when he has every reason to fall into despair, is the most powerful weapon in his tool kit. Love can be painful, love can be great. Here’s to the passionate ones. 

Best Songs: “The Passionate Ones”, “9 2 5”, “Automatic Love”, “Max Potential”, “Idiot In The Park”