WE ARE CHARLIE KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRK WE CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRY THE FLAME…!
OK, so that song is obviously number one, no surprises there, but aren’t you still interested in the songs that finished #2 – #118?
Yadda yadda yadda, absolute dog’s bollocks tracks here, you know the drill: #118 is already a fucking banger, then each track afterwards manages to be somehow even better, until we finally reveal which piece of genius is almost as good as We Are Charlie Kirk.
Slightly smaller list than last year, partially because Prince’s insane output has been cordoned off this year to stop it hurting the self-esteem of 2025’s music, and partially because I made the last minute decision to not count any songs from Hallelujah the Hills epic ‘DECK’ project, as I promise I promise I promise that I’ll rank those 54 songs seperately sometime this year. Or, at a push, definitely before 2030. Ish.
Sit back, relax, bookmark this so your next few dumps are sorted, and think about how long it must have taken me to write this fucker if you’re on your twelfth trip to the toilet reading it.
‘Member Abi Reimold?? Well, she’s back. In coastal form.
I loved Reimold’s incredible album ‘Wriggling’ enough to name it the 15th greatest of the year. The Philadelphian then celebrated this achievement by not releasing a single other piece of music for nine years and seven freaking months!! High Tide is a notably more subdued take than that furious 2016 debut – it’s no Bad Seed (I wanna play with you ’till my hands bleed) – possibly suggesting maybe perhaps some sort of musical evolution in the past decade. It’s a lovely little track, but my main, fangirl response is the suggestion of some sort of follow-up to that classic debut.
117 Tommy Genesis: Butterflies and Diamond Chains
How do you explain the mind that just hangs on the hanger in the closet, fresh but an untouched deposit?
Maybe it’s my genetic makeup, maybe it’s Maybelline, maybe it’s my corn side with no sign of a tightening
I could spread it all out like I was made to be your object of desire
But instead I perspire my box, I was forced to lock the lock
I was told to talk the pussy talk after one time
And don’t get it wrong, my pussy is fucking divine
But on a spiritual note, who am I more than my flesh and blood
And the canvas of my skin and teeth and eyes and ears and toenails
Be careful with that whole ‘maturing’ thing though, Abi. The previously horrendously exciting purveyor of ‘fetish rap‘, Genesis Yasmine Mohanraj, decided that their 2025 album ‘GENESIS’ was going to be their mature project. Introspective, uncertain, vulnerable, achingly valid as it ponders Genesis’s eternal struggle to fit in, and is – my God – dull as all hell. I’m not arguing that Genesis always needs to be pigeonholed into raunchy and aggressive hip-hop, just that it’s frustrating how their real deep dive into deeper meanings and questions of identity also happens to coincide with them making the least affective music of their career by some distance. You can explore these things and not bore the listener to tears, you know? I did like Butterflies and Diamond Chains though, as it’s spiritual closeness to Wine and Spirits by 070 Shake probably presents the best case result of the whole project.
The Peak Millennialcore Corriedale.
After losing their Legit Boss status in 2014 (SHAME!!), it’s really hard to imagine my celebrity crush Sarah Tudzin ever releasing another album spectacular enough to qualify for the recently abridged 40 albums of the year list. Which is fine, they’ll continue to make effortlessly loveable punky little magic; they’ll appear on these Legit Boss lists every now and then; the world will keep turning; we’re all going to be OK.
However, Sarah, if you date me I promise every album you release will make the list. Like, lower 30s, but it’ll be there!
There’s generally something amiss about yeule’s most recent album. It was almost a ‘Cowboy Carter‘ effort where Nat Ćmiel is bending themselves slightly out of shape in order to impress people nobody else cares about. Like… is this… 90s alt rock with nu-metal production…? Who wants that??
However, the highs are legitimately high, and it occasionally contains some of the most wondaful music yeule has been a part of, with Saiko being just one example.
Who’s that creepin’ in my window?
I get a hot flash whenever the wind blows
Nothing to my name now and everybody knows
When I’m in need of cash, I go down to the bingo
Last night, I asked Jenny for a quid
This is the fifth time I’m used to taking the piss
A bottle of Rio and some chicken and chips
In my fuck-me-up pumps and my Winehouse quiff
Ok, so this song…
So, yeah, right, this song…
The thing about this song…
OK, yeah, this song is as dumb as shit.
But I love it.
Sticking out like a varicose vein on the otherwise emotionally searing ‘Lotus‘ album, Old is basically a joke song about Simbi Ajikawo pretending to be really… old… And, fuck, it’s a lot of fun, we gotta be all serious all the time?
And that “Next summer, I’ll probably be overseas/I speak a lot of French… oui oui oui” line might be the greatest of all time.
112 McLusky: not all steeplejacks
It’s never complicated
It’s never complicated
Till it’s always complicated
It’s always complicated
It’s always complicated ’cause it is
It’s never complicated
It’s never complicated
Till it’s always complicated
It’s always complicated
It’s always complicated ’cause it is
‘Member McLusky?? Well, they’re back. In… Well, in McLusky form, if we’re being honest, ‘The World Is Here and So Are We‘ was basically more of the same 21 years on, but it’s good to have them back nonetheless. Was checking to see if they’d ever made the Necessary Evil list before and realised that – although the semi-side project Future of the Left made the top 20 in both 2009 and 2013 – it’s been so long since their last album that I wasn’t even making lists back then!! This feels like when I tried to look up which song was number one when my Dad was born and realised that the charts hadn’t even begun yet, some real pre-history shit.
“And we’re the same, have it out down in the muuuu-huuuuuuuuuuuuuud!!”
Standalone single! Standalone single! Standalone single! Standalone single!
If this is on the next album then this song will be removed and the entire list retroactively cancelled, because that would just be embarrassing for all concerned.
110 DJ Haram: Fishnets ft. BBymutha, SHA RAY & August Fanon
Thick thighs bustin’ holes in my fishnets
Red cherry lace like the end of a cigarette
Big yes, and the bitch badder than a cuss word
Hips wider-fit, desired miss with the dumb curves
Big guys with C-notes still bitchless
Nigga tried to hit it, wrist pain when I list ’em
Bitch let you bag, but you wasn’t her first choice
The pussy you been in came in with an invoice
DJ Haram’s debut album was on the docket for NE25, but couldn’t quite make the list (especially with the #2025Tax considered). Now, I’m listening to this, checking Zubeyda Muzeyyen’s activism for Palestine, and maybe thinking… did Marina really need to be included…?
A chronically gorgeous song that manages to both imagine empathy for people taking the side of people who have gravely hurt you, and also reference a haunted eBay listing.
That repeated “I will always understand/The way that you protect him” line reduces me to an absolute quivering mess every fucking time.
108 Westside Cowboy: Drunk Surfer
And we can dance and pretend like it’s good for us
While razors line the skirting boards and the door is boarded up
For a good time, we can wonder what it’s like on the greener side
As the water runs dry
This is good stuff. I honestly can’t even remember who I saw supporting in 2025, but I was moved enough to officially say that they are ONES TO WATCH. Maybe the band won’t ever do anything, I just think they should be watched intently. Follow them home, peer through letterboxes, that kind of thing.
Mama, are you happy?
When that job that you’re working is taxing
Divisive, defenseless, I’m quiet, yet aim to be daring
I want to be loud and proud, this shit is illusion, the industry scares me
I thought since my titties were pretty, I’d conquer not cower, I’m louder, I’m bigger
I’ve used too many pictures on this list so far, haven’t I? That’s not how it works! Not every entry gets their own picture like they’re Presidents of the United States of America (the political status, I mean, not the band), that’s just how it’s happened so far! Now poor yeule and Cleo reed must think I’ve got some sort of agenda here!
This song fucking rips.
106 Moses Sumney & Hayley Williams: I Like It I Like It
Sigh… another picture… poor Cleo Reed…
OK, so this was – as the kids say – random skibbidi toilet six seven. How has Hayley Williams even heard of Moses Sumney?? Nobody’s heard of Moses Sumney!! I got to act all musical oracle with my friends who are Hayley Williams fans, like I am some sort of savant hardwired into all underground music. Ha! Little do they know I hadn’t even heard of most of the guest artists on Danny Brown’s new album! Fools!!
105 Laura Jane Grace: Your God (God’s Dick)
So deep it puts an ass to sleep?
Who’s the 6 to his 9
And what are his other kinks?
If he grows all the trees
Does he taste every peach?
Is your god fucking you and fucking me?I know creation must get lonely
After all he’s one and only
And his son was so well hung
I think the big man deserves oneDoes your god have a big fat dick?
Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
Are his balls filled with lightning?
Do they dangle like heavens keys?
Does your god have a big fat dick?
Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
See… the thing is when songs are from albums on the NE25 countdown I don’t feel the need to post the covers again, so it just means there will be more pictures for… Forget it, let’s just move on.
‘Lil old Laura Jane actually got some old fashioned Conservative Cry Baby Controversy (CCBC) over this song when she played it at a Bernie Sanders rally in mid 2025, and prompted noted alt-right baby potato Tim Pool to make out like he was some sage authority on anarcho-punk to somehow legitimatise his fatheaded transphobia. It was a great time!
But, just being curious, Laura Jane: I know that you were quick to mock this low IQ grifter – as well you should, it’s fun – but did have any smoke left for Bernie Sanders’ mealy mouthed stance on Israel or him happily voting for the gormless fascist Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State? The world’s biggest problems aren’t caused by the right wing’s dumbest podcasters.
First track on an utterly triumphant comeback record.
Guys, I’ve got more than 100 left of these, they can’t all be fucking essays.
More fabulousness from ‘Bloodless‘, this time with Samia somehow managing to combine Radiohead’s There There with references to Man Ray photos and Alice Prin.
102 The Answers In Between: Dry Chicken
A bit of a Legit Boss Regular by this point, whoever the fuck The Answers In Between are they consistently produce fabulous pop songs.
101 Tame Impala: See You On Monday (You’re Lost)
Yeah, I geddit, this is basic as shit: a repeating backing that could well have been a demo button on a 1998 Casio keyboard paired with a ‘song’ so slight that it barely exists with little approaching a traditional song structure. But don’t you nerds appreciate how that’s part of it’s simplistic and straightforward beauty?? I dunno, why don’t all you idiots fucking marry 2010’s era Tame Impala?
100 Kendrick Lamar: Squabble Up
What the fuck?
I got hits, I got bucks, I got new paper cuts
I got friends, I got foes, but they all sitting ducks
Hit his turf and get crackin’, double back like a deluxe
Fifty deep, but it ain’t deep enough
Fuck a plea, there he go, beat him up
Fallin’ from a money tree and it grow throughout the months
Spit a loogie at the camera, speed off, yeah, it’s us
Oh… is it not the mustard one…?
Ah well. Still slaps.
She let me sit on the other side of Jason
Pooling his spit in a jar
Flat on her back with a tongue in her armpit
She told an insane joke
Only I followed (What?)Holding my breath on the other side of Jason
Until she tells me to stop
It only works when someone else between us
I tuck a scribbled note
In her Capezio
It’s company that makes ballet shoes, apparently. You might want to watch out, Michael Hadreas, Mikky H, you’re risking alienating a lot of your core working class fanbase fans from the council estates with these highfalutin references.
No, seriously, it’s spelled ‘highfalutin’, look it up. Buy some Capezios while you’re there, you fucking dumb prole.
98 Mogwai: Pale Vegan Hip Pain
Fucking incredible Mogwai doing incredible Mogwai things. Pretty much any piece of genius from ‘The Bad Fire‘ could have made this list. Did this one get the shout just because of its name.
Fuck you, mate, fuck you for daring to ask me that. I am a motherfucking journalist and have a fucking signed oath that I always fucking adhere to. Am I a fucking joke to you, you absolute cunt? I’m not going to even fucking give that fucking question the fucking respect of a fucking answer. You couldn’t waterboard it out of me. How. Fucking. Dare. You.
Your guilt cannot excuse you for the violence
Every time no one cared
Now I’m tired, I’m repressed
I want peace, I need head
Reparate, give me bread
When I’m down, get no rest
Yet I still pay my rent
Yet I still chase the check
‘Til I lose all my interest
Still no photo for poor Cleo. Here you go:
My work here is done.
Doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee…
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam…
BAM, BAM, BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM! Na-na-na-naaa-naaaa-naaaa-naaaaaaaaa! BAM, BAM, BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM! Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam…
Here we go:
YOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEEYOWEE…
I only ever need to listen to the first 40 seconds. I imagine the rest of the song is pretty good as well.
To be loved like a child’s toy or cigarette
Is to die a funny feeling in a chest
The girls bleed and drape over the recliner
You breathe slow in the dark
Letting pass every spark
Counting on me to catch eyes like fire
But you don’t know me bitch
You don’t know me bitch
Christ, Samia putting real numbers on the board. Though, spoiler alert, ‘Bloodless‘ gets quite a few entries on this list, but none as high as even the top 70. It’s a great album with lots of really great songs, that are never quite mindblowing.
94 Spellling & Weyes Blood: Destiny Arrives
Listen… I kinda hated the ‘Portrait of my Heart‘ album… In the politest possible sense! I still believe that Spellling is one of the greatest artists of the past decade or so and responsible for… two… albums of almost unbelievably good quality. But I seriously suspected they were taking the piss a bit on 2025’s album, and whenever I saw it included on critics’ yearend lists I kinda thought they were stupid, ugly idiots for being duped. When I saw Spellling live it kind of made a bit more sense: it’s obviously a record designed to be played live with far more energy and with far less string sections than previous efforts, and Spellling is a surprisingly* kinetic live performer. However, I have listened to at least a dozen albums that are both exciting to hear live and also not shit, so I’m not sure that’s a decent excuse. Out of the context of the album, the kinda laughably overblown Destiny Arrives is easier to enjoy on its own terms, and the special remix with Weyes Blood is another near Corriedale experience,
(*I say ‘surprisingly’ because my previous image of Spellling had been of a reclusive widow living in a lone and dilapidated castle on top of a hill in the Yorkshire Dales, lightning crashing all around and wind blowing through cracks in the doors to the extent that a number of the castle’s many candles are extinguished, while Spellling remains in the cellar below the East Wing, surrounded by papers upon papers of musical notations peppered with knife slashes, while Spellling sits in the middle, naked and sweaty after not bathing for days, as they try keys at a giant giant pipe organ, attempts at perfect music, interspersed with guttural screams. You get me)
93 Rico Nasty: Butterfly Kisses
What the fuck you mean, “How?” he met you once
You can like somebody and meet them once
He said, he, he is attracted to you
Your energy, your essence, dumbass, ohBlackout shades, I don’t like the light unless I’m lookin’ at diamonds
Whips and chains all in the crib, baby girl into that bondage
Bundles pulled back when I ride, pop out rockin’ my bonnet
Bitch, don’t speak on me, we slide, gang shit, we be mobbin’
Rico Nasty is one of my absolute favourite things, so it kind of killed me how ‘meh’ her 2025 album ‘LETHAL’ was. If she leaned away from the constant ballads and more into hyperpop insanity like Butterfly Kisses, she could make a similarly interesting schitzoid crossover to ‘STARDUST‘.
In 2025 I really started to suspect that Sabrina Teitelbaum might kust be doing the exact same song over and over again. However, what is beyond suspicion is that I fucking love that song.
We got new Helltown in 2025! And then, just when you think you’ve figured the erstwhile Efficax out, she changes her name again to Elizabeth666 and releases another album!! Seriously, Elle Gilliam would probably look at Prince in the 80s and consider him a lazy chancer who was nicking a living. However hard she is to keep up with, Raleigh Firs is a invigorating slice of Car Seat Headrest adjacent prog emo, and more evidence of Gilliam being amongst the most genre fluid artists of the time.
90 Tyler, The Creator: Tell Me What It Is
Mama, I’m a millionaire
But I’m feelin’ like a bum
I can buy the galaxy
But can’t afford to look for love
Where’s the map? I don’t know
Is there traffic to my soul?
I need answers
The stupendously good ‘Don’t Tap the Glass‘ is read by a lot of outlets as Tyler – in the best way possible – dicking about a bit. And, yes, it didn’t really come with its own complete gimmick overhaul and special mask to wear, and might sound to the more cursory listens as just Tyler making the most infectious (if perhaps somewhat disposable) party rap album possible. And succeeding, by the way, absolutely fucking succeeding.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, but my ears are far from cursory, aren’t they? My ears are meticulous, each lobe a low hanging barometer of fastidious intention. It’s not just me saying that, they’re all saying that, Sports Illustrated are saying that. As the wonderfully succinct record closes with the suddenly self-aware and ever so slightly despairing Tell Me What It Is, the record starts to feel like one 30 minute attempt by Tyler to dance his feelings away and escape the loneliness at the centre of his soul. Yes, I appreciate how this is perilously close to opining that “The concept of this album is that it’s not a concept album“, but it sounds to me like a record that illustrates how one might try hard to pretend that mindlessness still comes naturally, but it’s impossible to dispel these deeper thoughts from your mind for as long as half an hour.
89 Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking
Transient meditations, remote procedures
Slowly the deletion begins, the paragon of virtue
The pinnacle of despair, the apex of denial
The skyscrapers of untruth, customised feeds
Net neutrality, smart meters
Smart water, smart fucking motorways
Body positivity, believe in yourself
Imposter syndrome, fuck that!
Yeah, so I kind of overdosed on this song a bit this year. Initially, I thought this vicious, witty, uncouth and antagonistic title track and opening song was the greatest thing on the ‘Critical Thinking‘ album by some distance. It’s the only song on the album (with the possible exception of the closing track) that isn’t the Manics just doing the same anthemic rock with occasional reference to an artist they heard a Radio 4 documentary about, that they’ve been almost exclusively peddling for 25 years now, to various degrees of success. It hints towards an actually interesting and actually exciting record that the band could choose to make were they not seemingly terrified of how all those important legacy fans who are now the only people who buy their records (Hi!) would react.
Unfortunately, this was back in January, YouTube obviously liked the cut of my algorithm, and played me this song automatically at least seven times a day for 365 days in 2025. Now I’m like “This is a bit too aggressive, can we have some more of those Radio 2 standards, please?”.
88 Princess Nokia: Drop Dead Gorgeous
Late night, parking lot, Ford truck kinda summer
Fuck a guy on his boat for the fun kind of summer
We could do what we want, get a gun kind of summer
Girlhood, girls bleed, mean girl, girl fun
Girl books, girl code, girl hate, girl love
Free the girls, hope they all get divorced
Men suck, and they’re only getting worse
Put your boots on, let’s go have fun
Maybe go to the rave, private seats in the club
My goodness, on the sight of this period blood, I – as a member of the patriarchy and therefore apparently the ruling class – admit defeat at something I actually have no way of comprehending. You win, women. It’s 2016, I guess.
Yeah, Nokia’s latest ‘Girls’ kind of suffered from the same decade old, dumb as rocks, performative and Grammable feminism in lieu of any real class politics that torpedoed Self Esteem’s borderline disastrous third album ‘A Dangerous Woman’. However, while Self Esteem’s 2025 record was far too often dragged into inane “Sisters doing it for themselves” po-faced platitudes, at least Princess Nokia is still always a lot of fun while she spouts identity politics nonsense: “Lana Del Rey, side of fries and a diet coke”? I mean… yeah, sure…
87 Tame Impala: Piece of Heaven
Gorgeous. Youse are all idiots.
86 Alan Sparhawk: Princess Road Surgery
A song that was performed live by Low more than a decade ago (it’s ‘New Song 1’ at this 18th June 2014 Chicago gig). While Sparhawk and the much missed Mimi Parker never managed to make it work enough for a proper Low release, the song simply radiates love and timelessness with Trampled by Turtles’ expansive backing. Apparently, the song was inspired by seeing a sign for the titular surgery in Perth and thinking that “It sounded like a fuckin’ superhero name”.
Alan, mate, you know I love you, but what the fuck are you talking about? Please give me an assumed origin story and superpower of a superhero called ‘Princess Road Surgery’. She’s part of a royal family?? I mean, so is Wonder Woman, I guess, but she keeps that shit to herself. Her superpower is surgery? I can just about accept that, even though there wasn’t even an X-Man whose mutation was ‘super surgery’. OK, so what about the ‘Road’ part? Is this superhero a road? Explain that, Alan.
Listen, I get that some of you dorks might have issues with Kevin Feige, but I strongly recommend you don’t hand the Marvel film franchise over to Alan Sparhawk.
‘Cause I’m an actress, all of the medals I won for ya
Panic attack just to be your favourite daughter
Everywhere I run, I’m always runnin’ to ya
Breaking my back to carry the weight of your heart
But I keep dancing till I get sick
Why’d you have to dream so big?
Why did no one listen when you hit the notes from your heart?
A ‘Virgin‘ highlight which marries infectious and incredibly sequenced pop with quite complex lyrics that in part question how Lorde’s particular artistic merit was so much more commercially successful than her similarly talented poet mother, but largely (aside from the humble brag) lowkey accuse her mother of attempting to vicariously live though her. “You really remind me of my brother who committed suicide”: Jesus Christ, Old Ma Lorde, maybe go easy with that emotional burdening, yeah?
Not especially high because it’s almost more of an introduction to the rest of the album – Dr Pepper; Raymond Carver; leeches on underwear; the whole thing – than a completely full song in itself (verse, verse, verse, verse, verse, outro, boom, that’s your lot), but there weren’t many albums that had more perfect lead ins this year.
Yeah, that’s the cover. Almost everything about Self Esteem’s third album was a fucking disaster. Almost everything.
There are a few highlights that aren’t typical of the album’s wider, fetid “Alexandra Burke‘s LinkedIn” sound of the surrounding album. The Curse, however is quite congruous with what Rebecca Taylor is aiming for with the rest of the album – it’s anthemic, it’s epic, it’s bathed in strings, it’s big and important – only it’s done with far more self-awareness, far more lashings of wit, and is a far, far, far more effective song than 90% of its neighbours. It actually proves that the album’s issue was never the choice of direction, just that it’s baaaaaaaaaaaad.
82 Moonchild Sanelly: Big Booty
Big, big booty bop, bitty boop, bitty bop
Big, big booty bop, bitty boop bah
Big, big booty bop, bitty boop, bitty bop
Big, big booty bop, bitty boop bah
Yeah, I don’t think further justification is needed.
81 Lonnie Holley: A Change Is Gonna Come
Remember how I told you about ‘Honky’s dirty trick in having its first track and its last track be by some distance the strongest things on the record? Well, this is me proving 50% of that hypothesis.
80 Anna von Hausswolf: Aging Young Woman
It’s Anna von fucking Hausswolf featuring Ethel fucking Cain though, yeah? There’s a certain type of really annoying person that would have lost their shit over this collaboration, isn’t there?
Also: it’s me. I am that type of really annoying person.
Yeah, Danny Boy Bejar couldn’t quite keep up with his #2025Tax payments, unfortunately. This last year, just continuing to be as excellent as always wasn’t good enough anymore: suddenly, only huge and outstanding artistic statements were enough. Unless you were in the Manics, of course. Or maybe Marina. But Destroyer are none of these, so the typically brilliant ‘Dan’s Boogie*’ just missed the cut, despite containing typically brilliant songs like Bologna.
(*not to be confused with ‘Jools’s boogie’, which can be witnesses in certain parts of the world every December 31st)
DAANG! DAAAAANG!
DANG-DANG!
Yeah, her again, but it’s for the last time I promise.
It loses a few points, because in the aforementioned “DAANG! DAAAAANG!/DANG-DANG!/WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!” breakdown I always do air drums and mimick a fucking awesome drum fill that I don’t think is actually in the song. It always hurts when you realise that you can play artists’ songs better than the artists themselves, like when you first beat your Dad at football.
Yeah, I know, I only beat my Dad 5-1 on Subbuteo, but it didn’t seem right to score any more before I called 999 and reported the heart attack.
LP two, I’m bout to blow up
Little red, I stay riding the beat
He love my braids, now he kissing my feet
Touch my toes, give him something to eat
I gotta go, I said it’s nice to meet ya
That bitch is slow, I said she really gotta catch up
Bitchpunk baby, no, you don’t want me to act up
He hit my line, he wanna link
Yes please sir and thank you.
I saw the marvelous Debby Friday support Spellling in 2025, and while the above pictured pictured second album ‘The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life‘ didn’t quite make the cut, the Canadian officially became one of my new Favourite Things, and there will be at least one more track from her back catalogue to feature among the 2025 Legit Bosses. And Spellling didn’t make the album’s list either, if that makes you feel better, Debby??
I showed the album to a friend and her only question was if Debby was really contorting her body that way. I said that I’d check when I went to see her play a headlining gig later that year. That gig was cancelled. I guess there are some mysteries we’re just not supposed to know.
76 The Answers In Between: Realign (feat. Hey Rel)
I hoped for it
I’d levitate for a moment
Shed my outlining
Like I thought I needed
All clung to
A halo till the horn cut through
Phantom limb came unglued
It’s for the best
Yeah, these bozos again. Listen, if they keep dropping mysterious gems of floaty synth pop that sound like they could have been produced by William Orbit and soundtracking a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in the early 00’s, then I’m gonna keep on ranking them.
Who’s Hel Rey?
Seriously, mate, shut the fuck up, yeah? It’s taken all of my energy to find even the slightest clues about who The Answers In Between are, don’t go sending me on side quests.
N’fa ka foro ba san gne
N’fa ka foro ba san gne
ne faka foro ba san gne
Wolo fa bèrè ka foro ba san gne
Ko n’ka tiga fin sènin
Ko n’ka nion fin sènin
Ko n’ka malo fin sènin
Ko ne ka kaba fin sènin
Ko n’ka se n’yèr
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, this song is so beautiful. I hope the lyrics aren’t hate speech or anything, that would be super problematic. To be honest, I’m not 100% even sure what language he’s singing in. Maninka, maybe? Though that could just be French as far as I know, that’s how language illiterate I am. I’m barely a monoglot, I’m probably closer to a semiglot. I’m a fucking retard, is what I’m saying.
Born into a Malian royal family, ostracised because of his albinism, Salif Keita decided instead to play music. For the next thousand years. Seriously, this guy was at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute in 1988 and was almost as old as me when he did so! I haven’t been able to work out what Aboubakrin is about. It namechecks a ‘Aboubacar Sidiki Cissé‘ who is, erm, a Guinean accountant and politician…? Maybe it’s about him…? Or is ‘Aboubacar Sidiki Cissé’ like ‘John Smith’ is some parts of Africa…?
Whatever. Keita’s ‘Golden Voice of Africa’ nickname sounds trite at first. But then you here it and you’re like “What, just Africa…?”
Twigs had an astonishingly great 2025… but also a bit of a difficult one to keep up with. The possible career best ‘EUSEXUA‘ was released in January, then not long after there was talk of an expended edition coming out before the end of the year, but then – hold on – actually there’s a whole new album, the fabulous ‘EUSEXUA: Afterglow‘, coming out, but now – hold that thought once again – on the same day as ‘EUSEXUA: Afterglow‘ comes out there actually is a separate special edition of ‘EUSEXUA‘ coming out, only rather than an ‘expanded’ or ‘deluxe’ edition, it’s actually a ‘reimagined’ edition and has a completely different track listing, including losing many of the tracks from the original ‘EUSEXUA‘. Are you paying attention? Mi look. Yeah.
Twigs herself said that it was to make the the album a more cohesive experience, some people have argued that the tracks that were dropped were those more forced upon her by the record label as commercial possibilities (really? Girl Feels Good? That’s your big hit, Atlantic Records?). It loses Childlike Things, which apart from the bizarre and a little creepy North West feature is a great little tune but definitely a commercial exercise, but also Wanderlust. Which, yeah, I love because it reminds me of Space Between by SIA. That may be one of the greatest belt-alongs of modern times (and 15th best song of the Disability Decade), but I accept might not be the coolest comparison you want.
…
…
…
…FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILL THE VOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID IN OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUR BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED….!
A worse writer than me would have gone back and changed their Ethel Cain post once they decided that it was unfit for purpose. Of course, a better writer wouldn’t have written such a confused and unfocused post in the first place. The fact that I’m right in that sweet spot is what makes me such a fascinating artist.
I don’t dislike ‘Portrait of My Heart‘ because so much of it is a 90s alt-rock pastiche – I once named Blondshell as the 2nd best album of the year for Christ’s sake: this is my wheelhouse – I dislike it because it far too often just isn’t very good. When Spellling gets it right, such as on the menacing and meaty Waterfall, it can be pretty spectacular.
71 Moonchild Sanelly: In My Kitchen
Want you to rumdudumdudum
Dumdudumdudum
Dumdudumdudum rumble
Humbubumbubum
Bumbubumbubum
Mumbubumbubum, be humble
Mamamamama
Mamamamama
Mamamamama, mumble
Ratatatata
Tatatatata
Tatatatata tumble
Want you to rumdudumdudum
Dumdudumdudum
Dumdudumdudum rumble
Humbubumbubum
Bumbubumbubum
Mumbubumbubum, be humble
Mamamamama
Mamamamama
Mamamamama, mumble
Ratatatata
Tatatatata
Tatatatata tumble
Yeah, I don’t think further justification is needed.
“Waaaaaaaaa! I don’t like this as much as the stuff that me and the bros used to chug brewskis too back in our DORM!!!”
Seriously, just marry early 2010’s Tame Impala if you love them that much.
Which you could actually do, because it’s just one guy.
Well… you couldn’t, because of the nonexistence on time travel, but otherwise you’re good to go.
69 (dude) Perfume Genius: No Front Teeth (ft. Aldous Harding)
Aw, mate, the way Mr Genius sings “It’s in the palm of myeeeaaaand” sends shivers down my urethra.
That’s a good thing, right? Like, medically?
68 Self Esteem: I Do & I Don’t Care
Be very careful what you wish for
She said, looking at me all smug
Like she was the first person to say that
I’m not complaining, I’m not complaining, I say
I’m whinging in a new way
And as yet another person with a doctorate in internet
Diagnoses me with ADHD, I’m done
I don’t care
But I do
I’m still fifteen years old, surely
The passing of time is only measured by the child you talk of
While I talk about mine
My childhood
The only child I know
I watch the Bias Cut movie on repeat in my head
It’s still me, but in an old way
My God, the opening track of ”A Complicated Woman’ really suggested we were going to get a very different album. The cutting and legitimately darkly hilarious lyrics seem to blow apart the meaningless identity politics of performative feminism (“We’re not chasing happiness anymore, girls/We’re chasing nothing”) and suggests the album will be concerned with questioning these beliefs. Perhaps suggesting class consciousness instead? Hmmm? Comrade Esteem?
If I’m so empowered
Why am I such a coward?
If I’m so strong
Why am I broken?
If I’m so empowered
Why am I such a coward?
If I’m so strong
Why am I broken?
If I’m so empowered
Why am I such a coward?
If I’m so strong
Why am I broken?
If I’m so empowered
Why am I such a coward?
If I’m so strong
Why am I broken?
If I’m so empowered
Why am I such a coward?
If I’m so strong
Why am I broken?
The fact that the album quickly descends into Tumblr feminism is an actualy heartbreaking shame. Wha’ happen???
67 Moonchild Sanelly: Scrambled Eggs
I, I, I’m it, I’m it, I’m it
I’m it, I’m it, I’m it (Oh-oh-oh, iyoh, iyoh, iyoh)
I’m it, I’m it, I’m it
You’re shit, you’re shit, you’re shit (Oh-oh-oh, iyoh, iyoh, iyoh)
Yeah, I don’t think further justification is needed
66 Sudan Archives: A BUG’S LIFE
She just hit a scam for like 80 grand
Went to Tijuana in a navy Benz
Only ever see her with some new friends
Got a BBL and some cute tits
Player bitch but she want a wedding ring
Weave like a crown, she a true queen
Unpredictability’s a routine
Don’t forget the past when you check
Don’t show that picture to Jordan Peterson, he’ll claim it’s some Chinese human milking machine or something.
An excellent dance track that sounds like it could have both been released in 1992 by N-Trance or in 2092 by our new robot overlords as they feed us high emotions in order to fertilise our dopamine to craft their space lasers, or whatever the fuck. But when that marimba kicks in underneath the bridge?? Oh, dude, harvest all the things you motherfucking want, Robot Daddy/N-Trance.
Is it a marimba? I mean… maybe… kinda sounds like one. What am I, a music journalist??
No. I’m a revolutionary philosopher.
Babe, I’m intense, don’t you know what I meant?
When I say, “I like you, ” that means I’m obsessed
You’re my one desire, I’m usually shy
Coming for the kill like I’m ready to die
Hunt you from afar like a jaguar
‘Til you say “Hello, kitty”, make me go “rah-rah”
Yeah, I know, it’s a little silly, but Marina at her best was always about combining pop perfection with more than a little dash of absolute nonsense, so the gorgeous Hello Kitty is actually Peak Marina.
Bit of a debate over the lyrics though: I have always believed them to be “‘Til you say ‘Hello, kitty’, make me go ‘rah-rah'”, as in once this person calls Marina ‘Hello Kitty’ she’s rolled onto her back asking them to tickle her tummy. Very much the modern version of “I love it when you call me Big Poppa” (“Throw your hands in the air if you’s a true player“). And let’s face it: Notorious B.I.G had quite a tummy to tickle.
However, I’ve also seen it written as “‘Til you say ‘Hello, kitty, make me go rah-rah'”! Like the person that the song is talking bout is actually calling Marina ‘Hello Kitty’ (which we have to deduce is her sub name) and demanding that, in fact, Marina herself tickle the other person’s tummy!! This either makes it way less or way more sexy, depending on your personal predilictions.
I love art that has lots of different interpretations.
Also, until this very moment, writing this incisive post, I’d always sung it as ‘Peppermint scent’ rather than ‘Babe I’m intense’. Woman needs to enunciate better.
64 Manic Street Preachers: Brushstrokes of Reunion
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah, the big, meaty, melodic and infectious anthemic rock song that all us fans kind of wish the Manics would move on from occasionally but it’s impossible to deny that they do so well. This year I’ll be talking about the thirtieth fucking anniversary of the album they first perfected this sound on and have tried and failed (sometimes heroically. Sometimes miserably) to replicate ever since.
63 Magdalena Bay: Second Sleep
Fucking hell, Magdalena Bay just released a lot of singles towards the end of 2025. The band are becoming a bit of a culture war online as the… extremely decent… ‘Imaginal Disk‘ climbs the charts of highest rated album ever on absolute nonsense sites like rateyourmusic.com (currently 86th best album of all time) and albumoftheyear.com (currently #44), which obviously means that you have to think they’re one of the greatest bands of all time (nonsense), or either that they’re actually Redditslop and the worst band ever (less than nonsense).
But what do I do with all these singles though?? I can’t just rank them all?? Are all eight (!!) of them going to be included on an album later this year that I can properly review/jerk off to?? Do I just make them into a fake album?? Is eight tracks enough for a fake album?? Jherek Bischoff once reached #30 with a six track fake album, so there is precedent.
Christ, Bay, I’m going to start my own little culture war regarding how much disarray you’ve plunged this list into.
Also, Jherek Bischoff, 2026 will be ten years since your last proper album. Sort it out.
Yeah, Speedball Mike Bailey – the trans-coded French Canadian pansexual judo master – is fucking awesome, we can all agree on that, but regardless of his qualities his theme tune goes fucking hard.
For those taking notes, this wonderfully surreal and lowkey aggressive hypno-banger, which dates back to the ‘Magdalene‘ era, appears on the ‘EUSEXUA’ album that isn’t the actual ‘EUSEXUA’ album but the deluxe edition that isn’t actually a deluxe edition but an entirely new album, but not on the reissue that is more of a reworking than a reissue.
There will be a test at the end, so I hope you’re paying attention
We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede
Two things I now wish I had never seen
Hard to argue with that.
You think I’m pretty, you think I’m pretty cool
You wanna fuck me, I know, most people do
“Here, take this packet, you read it, it says, “Mangetout”
I gave you magic beans, I hope you’re gonna get out soon
Oh, man, I hope you’re gonna get out soon
I really hope you’re gonna get out soon
Oh, man, I hope you’re gonna get out soon
The brilliant ‘moisturizer (sic)‘ album gains much of its power from just how dang sexy it is. Rhian Teasdale is an astonishing frontperson and manages to mobilise such sexual energy that listening to the songs can get one rather hot and bothered.
I went back and listened to Wet Leg’s first album to see what I missed last time, and my God, what is this sexless mess? Not a single erection, honestly.
Mangetout is wordplay, y’see: ‘Man Get Out’, though I can’t imagine any man being gross enough to deserve such abrasiveness
58 Destroyer: The Same Thing as Nothing at All
That’s life, a lot of near hits
Some misses
Dead man walking
Dead women being born again
It intends to see you in this particular light
It intends to see you
And it’s the same thing as nothing at all
It’s the same thing as nothing at all
It’s the same thing as nothing at all
It’s the same thing as nothing at all
Yeah, standard Destroyer greatness, standard Dan Bejar lyrics, just not quite enough to beat the #2025Tax.
57 Tyler, The Creator: Sugar On My Tongue
Mate, that pregnan pause between “Sugar on my…
…
…
…
…tongue” is what I live for.
56 Anyma: Joke’s On You (feat. 070 Shake)
Listen, I gotta get my 070 Shake fix at least once a year, or I go into convulsions. While Shake’s collaboration with the Italian dance artist/DJ Matteo Milleri isn’t quite up there with their 2024 dominating track with Raye, it’s a lovely mini-epic piece of stripped down electronic.
You’re asking me what Anyma’s songs are usually like?
Mate, I’ve been very busy…
The Disiniblud theme song! An impossibly beautifully piece of music that… oh my God look at all the people in the nip in that video!! I’m not old enough to see all those flopping, flaccid penises!!
54 Anna von Hausswolf: The Iconoclast
So many dreams and so many bodies
So many faces all around
Following something, following people
Someone lonely gets left behind
Making up stories, fucking with evil
I’ll fuck everything up in my life
Give me some headspace, give me a mirror
I need to lean into myself for a while
“My sweet child, for you I’d diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!!!!”
Fuck me what a tune. I might not be old enough to watch the Disiniblud video, but I fear I might be too mortal to be exposed to something this divinely aggressive. Eleven minutes and fourteen seconds.
Pump it.
Straight.
Into my.
Fucking.
Veins.
53 Hinds: Girl, so confusing featuring lorde
Hinds covering one of the highlights of ‘Brat’ (and 19th best song of 2024)? Sometimes life is perfect.
I love how confusing the title is as well: this isn’t Hinds featuring Lorde, it’s Hinds specifically covering the Charli XCX song that features Lorde. Bit of mystery as well: when I saw Hinds perform the song live they changed Lorde’s “Forgot that inside the icon/There’s still a young girl from Essex” line to “Young girl from Madrid“, but on record neither I nor Genius has any idea what the line is changed to. I have contacted the band on Twitter, and I will keep you updated.
[UPDATE: the fuckers never told me]
52 No Joy: Garbage Dream House
I actually got a lot of joy from…
Wait, did I do that before? Whatever, it’s masterful journalism.
51 Lauren Mayberry: Something In The Air
Must be something in the AAAA-EEAAA-EEEAAA- EE-AI-EE-YEA-YEEEA!!!!
There’s a lot of great stuff on the CHVRCHES singer’s debut solo album, and it would have made the top 50 were the list that large (or even the top 20 or 30 in previous years #2025Tax), but the karaoke potential of the opening track ensures it’s the highlight.
50 Lambrini Girls: Cuntology 101
Healing your inner child is cunty
Getting therapised is cunty
Having autistic meltdowns, cunty
Shagging behind some bins (Cunty)
Doing a poo at your friend’s house (Cunty)
Stealing shit from chain stores (Cunty)
The ‘breakthrough’ of sorts for the brilliant Lambrini Girls, chiefly because it mixes the band’s ever present wit and energy, but combines it with that all important 100 gecs memability.
I went to see them live in 2025 with a friend who’d never of them, and she was so blown away by them that they bought a t-shirt from the merch store with ‘Cuntology 101’ emblazoned across the back. She told me that she loved the band, even though she didn’t agree with the ideology of Cuntology (???).
She thought it said ‘Scientology’. Listen, English is her, like, fourth language…
49 Kendrick Lamar: reincarnated
Wait… this isn’t the mustard song either?? God damn it…
Kendrick explains how he’s actually both John Lee Hooker and Billie Holiday reincarnated, which is very humble of him. Mr Lamar, you realise that those two artists were alive at the same time? What, were you spending Monday and Wednesday as Hooker, Tuesdays and Thursdays as Billie, and alternated weekends? Checkmate, liberal.
Yeah ahm a bu-ter-fly, you just never see my energy!
Again, perfect mix of great pop and great nonsense that Marina might be a world leader in.
47 Oklou: harvest sky ft. underscores
Not my favourite gig of 2025 (nor even close, if we’re being very TBH), but Oklou at New Century in November might have contained my favourite moment of live music. In a set generally filled with the sort of chill Peak Millennialcore vibes that Oklou is most well versed in, the appearance of Harvest Sky near the end of the set and the gig suddenly turning into a euphoric rave was absolutely exhilarating.
46 Bea Elmy Martin: Joy When You Enter
Saw Bea Elmy Martin (maybe make your name a little easier to remember?) support Dua Saleh in 2025, and witnessed their talent at squeezing big ass epic ballads from her little onstage keyboard with no backing in the flesh. Joy When You Enter is an absolute fucking powerhouse belter of a song, and the way the chorus crashes back in around the the two minute mark is among my favorite musical moments of the year.
45 Car Seat Headrest – CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You)
Dum dum.
Dum dum
Do-diddle-iddle.
¡Regalada llaga!
¡Regalada llaga!
Jouez hautbois!
Jouez hautbois!
Jouez hautbois!
A simply perfect introduction to the utterly incredible ‘Scholars’ album, incorporating different elements into the accepted CSHR with far more grace than the clunky ‘Making A Door Less Open’ album, and blossoming into an absolute classic eight minute epic.
Listen, there are apparently five characters with singing parts in the lyrics, you’re going to struggle to map a cohesive narrative here, and even what CCF stands for is unclear (someone on Genius suggests it’s a reference to Cartoon Network’s 1999 show ‘Cartoon Cartoon Fridays’ because… fuck, I dunno…) but, Jesus Christ, these lyrics are still fan-fucking-tastic. If you listen to lines like “Most of what memory tells us is “Watch out, (that shit will hurt us)/Like I never forget, every lover ranked from worst to best” or “I am a stranger saying “Hi”/To moments in life when I feel alive/When I come down off this cross of mine” or even the simple refrain of “Mom and Dad say:/”Text us when you get there”/”Text us when you get there”” and think “Well, I get simply nothing off these lyrics unless I 100% understand the wider narrative that’s been told” then you’re a fucking imbecile who shouldn’t be allowed to encounter art.
Seriously, I’m going to hunt down every person who doesn’t love this album and slice their throats.
44 SPELLLING: Portrait of My Heart
Whoah-oh-a-whoah-a-whoah!!
Like, yeah, maybe this could be an Avril Lavigne song from 2004, but it would be by far and away Avril Lavigne’s best song, yeah?
Wet thighs, I’m ecstatic, chemistry was automatic
Don’t touch, there’s no rush
I gotta know something about you
Just tell me, would you do it hard?
Wham, bam, I think we can, a victim of your touch
Baby, it’s you, play my double-dutch
Do it right or do it without you
Just tell me, would you do it hard?
I… I can’t… I’m not old enough for this… can someone call my Mum please…?
42 Moonchild Sanelly: Tequila (To Kill A Single Girl)
Where growth exist, we be choppin’ cheese
When we cuddle, still the connection deep
He knows my heart and I read his sleeve
He touch my thighs and I melt like please
I pull his head, ask him just to bend
Where I do submit ’cause his sex is lit
I be like putty in the hands of a porn star
And we really do connect, I’m a born star
I have never met a man that can take it (Uh-huh)
I am so much more than sex and he sees it (Hello)
I be like putty in the hands of a porn star (Yeah)
And we really do connect, I’m a born star (Uh-huh)
I have never met a man that can take it (Uh-huh)
I am so much more than sex and he sees it
Yeah, I don’t think further justification is needed
If it’s true that Shamir’s appropriately titled tenth album ’10’ is their last as a solo artist, then they’ve had a pretty impressive Necessary Evil adjacent career. Seven of their previous nine albums have made the year end list, which is as many as Taylor Swift and Charli XCX and a number that only two other artists can beat (you can probably guess the two) and he was also behind the 44th best song of the Disability Decade. They’ve been a massive part of this blog’s history, and I hope the fact that they’re retiring as a solo artist hints at more interesting collaborative stuff down the line. Most importantly, he retweeted me a couple of times. You don’t forget those kind of special moments you share.
Yeah, their last couple of albums, including ’10’, haven’t been great (‘Homo Anxietatem‘ may have been their nadir, seemingly heavily influenced by Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany‘s), but there are still moments of simple beauty like Golden to remind you of their endless talent.
I got a lot of this information from an interview Shamir did with rabbit.org about their pet bunny Leche, who features on the record cover.
This song isn’t on Spotify, so maybe it criticises Israel and so got banned.
Oh, wow, white collar crimes on the company dime
Couldn’t catch a break on company time
Life on the clock’s like, eating with your eyes
Might find God, and go for a hike
More brown liquor, I chase my pain
I’m bitter by the hour, I state my claims
I’m hanging by a nail, my body’s on a scale
And work is really jail
One of my highlights of 2025 (like, in general) was going to see Sudan Archives play live at Manchester Academy and first finding out that one of my favourite new artists Cleo Reed was headlining when they walked out onto the stage. After a predictably brilliant set, the disappointment of them announcing that they had only one more song was soothed somewhat when they started the chords of the wonderfully epic eight minute Salt n’ Lime.
39 Manic Street Preachers: Hiding in Plain Sight
Love’s in hiding, hate displayed
Keep the curtains drawn all day
The mirror is a trap that saves
Or a debt that makes you pay
See you hiding in plain sight
And I wanna be in love
With the man I used to be
In a decade I felt free
YRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE L
I mean… not great… But definitely good!
I explained in my review how Hiding In Plain Sight is The Wire’s greatest performance leading a song by quite some distance. Yes, it’s Wire once again on his “Weren’t the old times great?” kick that he’s literally been on for close to thirty years now, but the song is a melancholic masterpiece, and the sheer yearning in Nicky Wire’s voice when he cries “And I wanna be in love…” absolutely melts my heart.
38 FKA Twigs: Perfect Stranger
A song so good I can’t even be bothered checking which version of which ‘EUSEXUA’ album it did or didn’t appear on.
37 Kendrick Lamar: man at the garden
I did it with integrity and niggas still try hate on me, just wait and see
More blood be spillin’, it’s just paint to me
Dangerously, nothin’ changed with me, still got pain in me
Flip a coin, want the shameless me or the famous me?
How annoying, does it angers me to know the lames can speak
On the origins of the game I breathe? That’s insane to me
It’s important, I deserve it all because it’s mine
Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker
What? This isn’t the mustard song either?? Fuck, we’ve not got many songs left on this dumb list, maybe that mustard song didn’t even make it…? I mean… fair enough I guess, considering I can’t even remember the name of that song or how the rest of it goes. I just know the mustard part.
God, this is such an American song, isn’t it? Extreme defensiveness that only comes from being the absolute globalist imperial winners, overeager to argue how, actually, I worked really hard for this and deserve every single fucking piece of it, actually, actually, actually. I’m sure the American military that Lamar tacitly endorsed with his Superbowl performance will be chanting this mantra the next democratically elected leader of a foreign country they kidnap or the next oil field they decide to liberate.
Fruita roja i rodona, ¿qui l’endevina?
Òbviament és la poma que està prohibida
I si només la mires, et salvaries
Et però sense mossegar
This ghost’s still alive, I’m still alive
Està més viva que mai,més viva que mai
‘Divinize’ is a verb I learned while working on this project, and I loved how it sounds, I loved what it means. When you’re centered, I think you can let light through. We all have the potential to be creative. In our daily lives, in the little things, in so many contexts, we can be creative. Creation, in the end, is something divine. Creation is connected to divinity. So, that’s why I think we’re all capable of divinizing. Of allowing something to pass through you, of being able to shed more light. And that’s why that phrase is there.
Jesus Christ, all these languages and that motherfucker is still teaching me English.
Apathy had to make out-of-body the status quo
Avatar opportunity is creating the capital
And no cap, audiences are infinitely more valuable
When they thinking they ugly, inactive, fat, and unfashionable (kill yourself)
My favourite “kill yourself” drop of 2025. Ideally, every song that an artist has any pretensions of being a breakthrough hit should include at least one of those.
Daveed Diggs really is an absolute wonder of the world when in full flow.
And after they found you and they charge you, they put an “X” in your hair
They take the sheep shears and they’ll cut an “X” in your hair
So they’ll know you were a product of the Alabama Industrial School
Oh I wish that I could rob my memory
I’d be like Midas and turn my thoughts to gold
And one day end up just being alright
Where I wouldn’t do nothing to lose my soul
I try to tell my children
This brain that I have
I’ve given it to you all and I understand the responsibility to the truth we bear
Remember how I told you about ‘Honky’s dirty trick in having its first track and its last track be by some distance the strongest things on the record? Well, this is me proving the final 50% of that hypothesis.
An epic, brooding piece that hits with grand emotional girth, with presumably stream of conscious lyrics that are as striking and brutally honest any anything any of them fruity poets dedicate their lives to enscribing.
I saw him live at the White Hotel* in 2025, where Lonnie and an extremely talented live band completely concocted made up songs live for an hour or so. It was absolutely incredible and – just as a matter of comparison – shit all over the Arctic Monkeys’ last three albums.
(*which apparently hates Palestine according to some mystery graffiti that’s been popping up around the city. Yeah, that’s right, I cover local news here as well. This website is basically fucking perfect and you munters get it all for free)
33 Jane’s Addiction: Underground
Fuck, this finished high…
If you want to get all factual and technical and truthfully and spoilsporting (we agreed not to use fact checking!! How am I supposed to compete if you use facts?? The truth is OP and needs to be nerfed!!!!) then, yes, this song wasn’t actually released in 2025, but way back in 2011 on Jane’s Addiction’s fourth album ‘The Great Escape Artist‘ which – be honest now – you had no idea existed.
Wait… Jane’s Addiction only had four albums?? That’s insane. Dave Navarro did as many episodes of ‘Sons of Anarchy‘ as he did Jane’s Addiction albums. Come on guys, you’ve got to do better than that, is there a new album on its way in the future? Oh. Probably not. Geez…
But it’s on 2025’s list because Anthony Bowen chose it as his AEW entrance theme to re-launch his solo career after the Acclaimed split, so at least one person in the world remembers that fourth (fourth?!) Jane’s Addiction album. Bowens called it “the perfect professional wrestling song” and had apparently been wanting to use it since he was in college.
His solo run absolutely flopped and now he’s back with the Acclaimed. But this song is fucking awesome!
What’s that? What would be my professional wrestling theme? Easy. Endorphinmachine. Next entry:
32 Manic Street Preachers: Johatsu
I want you to know that I’m not a ghost yet
The company man looks so desolate
Domestic abuse victims violence and debt
I want you to know I’m not a ghost yetAs sunlight falls over a broken life
A wreck of constellations, a city
So hostileScattered debris in the Bible-black air
All life’s possessions in a carrier bag
Of despair
YRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE LYRIC GOOD NICKY WIRE L
Maybe the greatest song the Manics did in 2025. Not on YouTube, because fuck everyone, right?
Jōhatsu (蒸発, or “evaporated people”) is the name given to the estimated 100’000 Japanese people annually who decide to just nope out of the country’s notoriously grueling work culture and disappear. They abandon their work, their families, whatever community they might have (which, in Japan, is vanishingly thin, and the reason behind the prevalence of Jōhatsu-ing in the first place) and even their appearance. It’s appropriate that the song about these people ghosting out of view would only be released as a Japanese bonus track, fittingly out of view of the casual observer. Very much a 21st century Sepia (15th best song ever… currently...) in it’s underplayed anguish and reserved beauty.
And, yeah, obviously it’s about Richey. But so are all their other songs. Sorry, have you never heard of this band before?
His daughter Hollis singing the chorus oh my God I am literally dead oh my God oh my God oh my God.
Although, as previously noted, isn’t Hollis, like, 40 years old by now or something? Christ, get over yourself. And get a damn job. And clean your room.
30 Perfume Genius: It’s a Mirror
We enter the top 30 with an absolute modern classic, which bodes extremely well for the next 29 of these fuckers. It’s a Mirror seems to rise and fall, speeding up and slowing like a beating heart, inflating and depressing like breathing lungs. Until, about two minutes in, it just stops. It makes you appreciate how much beauty, melody and emotional effectiveness can be contained in a perfect pop song of barely 120 seconds but then holy shit it starts up again we’ve got more of this oh Jesus lord God I love my life so!!!!
Also, it would really help if you remembered the lyrics to the chorus are “It’s a mirror, holy terror/Taking focus off the horizon/It’s a chorus reaching for us/Swarming locusts wherever you go”. I never really managed that so spent the year singing “It’s a mirror… hirror… hirror… hirror… hirror, wherever you go”.
It’s a mirror.
Down.
I’m borderline!
It’s getting late!
I feel alive!
I wanna show you!
I-e-I-e-I-e-eyey-I, I’ve got a birthmark on my mind, I think you’ll liiiiiiiiiiiiiike it!
Christ, is this like the 72nd Twigs song on this list or something?
Every time the track’s backing drops out and Pusha T careers back in with “Ballerinas… doin’ pirouettes inside of my snow globe” I actually ejaculate with joy.
27 Car Seat Headrest: Planet Desperation
Remember when we were all blown away by the ambition of Famous Prophets (Stars)’ sixteen minutes and ten seconds? Enough to scientifically name it the 47th best song of 2018? Pah! What naive young sluts we all were! Here’s Planet Desperation majestically soaring to just eight seconds short of nineteen minutes like it’s nothin’.
Part of what makes CSHR the past decade’s most important rock act is their insane ambition.
Most of what makes CSHR the past decade’s most important rock act is that they meet those ambitions so incredibly.
Pitchfork heard this song ascends through the heavens and climaxes passionately with the repeated “You can love again!/If you try again!” album motif at around the 15 minute mark and thought “Hmm, yes, probably a 6.5 album. Decent, I suppose”.
Did I cry myself to sleep about that?
Cheat about that?
Rot teeth about that?
Did I sweat hours a week about that?
Compete about that?
Lose my freak about that?
Huh, all of the above
In terms of songs about eating disorders, it’s not quite up there with 4st 7lbs, and doesn’t have a line as great as “Kate Moss gives no fucks that my period has stopped“, but it’s still a searingly honest confession of the kind of self-hatred that can often trigger such self-destruction. Oh, but more importantly, it’s an absolute banger.
25 Ninajirachi: Fuck My Computer
Proof that Australians will try anything before going to therapy.
When you hear how the strings circle and penetrate Rosalía’s voice during that first chorus of “Soy tu reliquia!”, you’ll conclude that however many pesos the London Sympathy Orchestra demanded, it was absolutely money well spent.
Although… are those strings heavily synthetically treated… or are they actually 100% synthesised…?
Mate, you could have just got that from Garage Band. Those crafty Cockneys have ripped you off.
Man dooooown.
Level up!
Wet Leg continue their noble quest of making indie music sexy for the first time since Bret Anderson threatened to jump on your bones back in 1993. What’s notably impressive about their so far extremely successful crusade is that they’re managing to do so with songs about how how gross I am and how I shouldn’t even be looking at them. Yeah, these songs are solely aimed at me, and I apologise for that. Although… without my lecherousness… we wouldn’t have the incredible ‘moisturizer (sic)‘ album… so, in reality… I’m kinda… a hero…?
Just putting it out there
Do you swing
From your neck
With the hope
Someone cares?
Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn, Ethel!
Or, technically, daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn, Willoughby, as this is the only song from the incredible ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You‘ album sung from the titular character’s perspective. It’s one of the most aptly titled songs of the year, as an absolute motherfucking tempest of billowing guitar chimes and thunderous kick drums build towards a ten minute powerhouse.
That repeated “Forever” over the tracks final three minutes will make you see the face of God.
“Hmm, yes, probably a 6.7 album. Decent, I suppose”.
Hey, uu-uu-u-wuuu…
OK, here’s a fact that is literally only interesting to me and perhaps even complete gibberish to anyone over the age of 20, but the original ‘Even she was weirded tf out” meme was actually inspired by an Ethel Cain reaction on Instagram Live. Then, PinkPantheress was interviewed by ID and reacted to a door slamming shut, and was bestowed ownership of the meme by the internet Gods. And now here both Ethel and Pink are side by side on this list! That’s super interesting, no? No? Ok: no.
I mean… the original meaning of the meme only works because Ethel Cain is widely considered a pretty weird chick, so something that weirded out even her would obviously have to be pretty nuts. PinkPantheress, however, is an extremely charismatic and likeable popstar, and not considered ‘weird’ in the slightest. She does, however, have perhaps the most beautiful eyes in the world, and you just wanted an excuse to look at them more, didn’t you, internet Gods?
I really enjoyed PinkPantheress’s 2025 album/mixtape ‘Fancy That‘, even if it still felt a little too inconsequential and familiar to make the year end list (plus there’s the #2025Tax as well of course). But Illegal was the sound of a proper pop summer anthem the likes of which we hadn’t heard since Nelly in 2002.
Good gracious, eyes are bodacious.
20 Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: Afterlife
There was a woman named Ariel who was very sick. She had a lot of breathing issues and was waiting for a lung transplant. She came to multiple shows and befriended me and my bandmates. I remember we were in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I saw her in the street with a friend. They were in tears, telling me how much our music meant to them, and how it helped Ariel through all her hospital stays and every time she had to do her breathing exercises. Her parents would help her come to all of our concerts and she was always upfront. I would sing Seventeen to her at the end of the show.
We stayed in touch over the years and we had one last talk on Zoom before she decided to go into hospice care. It was really, really intense. She was scared, but also really at peace. She had a profound effect on all our lives. I wrote Afterlife around the time she died.
Ok, that’s very sweet, and you can tell how much I appreciate the story behind the song by how few crass jokes I make.
So… you’re saying that your Ariel always gave you a great reception?
See? Only one.
19 Unknown Mortal Orchestra – BOYS WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOLVES
The spit just like Dom Pérignon
With a prayer to protect you from ghosts
Whether animal or mineral
There’s a devil that can swallow you whole
Yeah, God save your soul
The temperature rises, you’re losing control
There’s no way home
Boys with the characteristics of wolves
God save your soul
The temperature rises, you’re losing control
There’s no way home
Boys with the characteristics of wolves
God, remember when Unknown Mortal Orchestra had the 2nd best album of the year?? Well, that achievement recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and the band haven’t got close to releasing an album anywhere near as good since, with their last album – 2023’s ‘V‘ – failing to make the list at all, despite a handful of great songs.
Their 2025 EP ‘Curse’ is probably the closest they’ve got to reaching the incredible benchmark of ‘Multi Love’, and the chunky, abrasive Boys With the Characteristics of Wolves is the best song they’ve done in… yeah, maybe a decade. Can you, like, be this good for a whole album, please?
How bad does it have to hurt to count?!
Does it have to hurt at all?!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!
You try hard to make me yours!
But once you get me, I get bored!
I’ll come back if you put me down two times!
Fucking hell, Teitelbaum, stop doing this to me!
17 DEBBY FRIDAY: SO HARD TO TELL
Yeah, so it was actually released three years ago, but I didn’t hear it then so that’s not fair!!
16 Nourished By Time: Max Potential
An incredible song that… doesn’t really sound like anything else?? That’s, like, ever been released?
The song seems to be constantly either building up to something that never arrives or cresting over peaks that you swear you must have missed. The song structure is all over the place and manages to sound like an adlib in places. It’s only after you step back a bit that you can appreciate how these rises and falls are actually the song itself, and Marcus Brown manages to craft music from the spare parts to songs that you wouldn’t even previously consider notable.
Oh, and when it all crashes back in around three minutes in? Yeah, that’s the 2025 OMT Moment of the Year. No mean feat by Marcus considering there was a Manics album in 2025.
Whatever’s wrong with me
I will take to bed
I give in so easy
Nature chews on me
Little death like lead
Poisonous and heavy
It has always been this way
It has always been this way
I am punished by love
I am punished by love
Waaaaaaaaaaar, wooooooooooooooooooooor…
Not featured on the 7th best album of the year, but the lead single from Cain’s 89 minute ‘EP’ (seriously, we need to introduce laws on how long an EP can be) ‘Perverts‘, released in January. A difficult, challenging but intensely rewarding work that just missed out on the top 40.
Punish, though, is unde-fucking-niable: a slow march of a near gruelingly ambient drone, that eventually reveals itself to possess utterly beguiling beauty.
Apparently, “about a pedophile, ashamed but not sorry, who harms himself repeatedly to simulate the bullet wound that his victim’s father gave him“.
See? That makes sense!!
14 Anna von Hausswolff: The Whole Woman (ft. Iggy Pop)
I want you to be here
I want to see you, I want you near
I wanna touch you, smell your hair
Feel your lips everywhere
Were you aware that human beings were capable of such extraordinary beauty? Maybe it’s a Swedish thing.
13 Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles: Stranger
OK, so we’re back to confusing name conventions now: this song is credited to Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles, so that’s what we’re going with.
Seriously, I’m not joking, this song should become a legitimate all time standard, every busker in every city, every annoying prick with a guitar at ever party, should be starting with this song for the rest of time.
12 Sharon van Etten & The Attachment Theory: Trouble
An incredible glam-yacht stomper that is comfortably one of the greatest things that Sharon has ever done. And she’s done a lot of great shit, so that’s saying something.
11 yeule: Evangelic Girl is a Gun
Scream at the sun.
Cry when you come.
While the surrounding album suffers slightly when compared to the heights that yeule has previously reached, its title track is a certified banger. A lot of the record is yeule attempting to find a satisfying bridge between their longstanding idiosyncratic and stripped down dystopia to more mainstream appeal. While they too often fall short (although the record went top 40 in the UK, incredibly. Even more incredibly the Alan Sparhawk record was top 30 that week! Are people actually buying these albums??) but the title track is a perverted club classic that sees yeule find the perfect commercially viable distillation of her incredible oddness. If MTV2 was still a thing, this would be doing numbers.
10 Lambrini Girls: Company Culture
Palatable, unthreatening, ’cause all men know better than me
Yet human resources say I’m asking for it
Look over my shoulder
Indecent exposure
My co-workers say I’ve got no sense of humour
Smile and ignore that my boss wants to fuck me
The wandering eyes at all times in the office
Day on the job looking hot playing dumb
When will I learn that men just do it better?
Michael, I don’t want to suck you off on my lunch break
Don’t touch me!!
Fuck! That bass man! Company Culture is already a pitch perfect punk song, pristine in every way, incessant and irrefutable, but then to add that shuddering and apocalyptic bass stab underneath it is just filthy.
Somebody say it!
The wonderful Ms. Cohen’s pretty wonderful fourth album didn’t quite make the cut for 2025’s list (#2025Tax and all that), but holy hell, the lead single from that record is an absolute, undeniable stomper. An infectious rallying call to anyone who’s ever had to deal with the absurdities of a partner’s bonkers family.
If you can’t relate, that’s because you’re the one whose family is fucking nuts and everyone hates.
8 ROSALÍA – Berghain feat. Björk & Yves Tumor
Seine Angst ist meine Angst
Seine Wut ist meine Wut
Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe
Sein Blut ist mein Blut
Excuse my language, but Jesus fucking cunting Christ.
Let’s not mince words here, Bergain is certifiably insane. What kind of mentalist would even consider constructing a song with all these elements? An aggressive choir you’d generally only hear in cheap 70s horror movies hurriedly and intensely chanting the ‘chorus’ (in German as well, the most sinister of languages); the verse singing operatically about lead teddy bears penetrating their brain; fucking Björk?? You’d have to be mentally unwell to even imagine this song. You’d have to be an absolute genius to make it work.
7 Anna von Hausswolff: Stardust
Oh, sweet mother
How can you be so pure and divine
When you’re beaten
The sky is crashing down
Upon the ships of freedom
And while the rivers run wild
You run aground
OK, I’m not going to post that for every song now, I promise.
But I could, yeah?
And it would be fucking valid.
6 Little Simz: Blood feat. Wretch 32 & Cashh
My family is my armour
Through the muddiest water, water, water, water
When you clean off sins and karma
You get the muddiest water, water, water, water
Distance in the dark
I feel we’ve grown apart
If you want greener grass
You have to water where you are
One song released this year that I can say literally stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it. I was walking to a friend’s house, listening to the new Little Simz album, and actually had to stop and sit down so I could listen to it more intently and play closer attention. An utterly compelling piece of art.
A rapped conversation between Simz and her (fictional) brother Wretch 32, arguing over the brother’s hectic schedule as a touring artist meaning he is never there for the family, but also about the brother’s traumatic abuse from their father, and how Simz never appreciates his emotional intelligence. It’s an extraordinary work, and the brother may actually represent Simz herself, debating with her own family over the things she suspects (or knows?) they believe about her.
It might not sound like much, but the furious and intense “You ain’t the only one that’s got shit suppressed/I ain’t the only one that’s got shit suppressed?/You ain’t the only one that’s got an intellect” exchange may be my favourite lyric of the year, as it encapsulates so many relationship struggles, with one person believing they have the final word on past traumas, but the other believing them to not have adequate understanding,
If you can’t relate, that’s because you’re the one whose family is fucking nuts and everyone hates.
Something stopped me dead in my tracks
I was headed for disaster and then I turned back
I was wrestling with a coat hanger, can you guess who won?
The universe shrugged, shrugged, then moved on
It’s a guess, no idea
It’s a feeling
Not a voice in my head
Just a feeling
And by the way, Spike Island come alive
And by the way, this time I’ll get it right, oh
Pulp’s first album in more than 20 years was… good… very good, maybe. However, it was probably the first Pulp album that was just a Pulp album. There didn’t seem to be any vision or musical personality to the album, no real theme or coherent ideology like on previous Pulp albums. It was just the band getting back together and trying to sound as much like the Pulp that Pepperidge Farm remembers. And that’s fine! One of the world’s most likeable and universally beloved bands of all time just having fun being in Pulp, I mean, who wouldn’t??
That comeback single though? Yeah, that blew my tits off.
It’s, again, just Pulp being Pulp. It isn’t even the first single they’ve released about Spike Island – it was the inspiration for Sorted For E’s & Wizz after a friend said that was what they overheard someone shouting out at the legendary Stone Roses gig. However, they do Pulp so well on Spike Island that the result is simply undeniable.
And is that “So swivel” in the chorus actually a reference to the classic old Brass Eye sketch?? Outstanding.
MDMA in the back garden, blow our pupils up
We kissed for hours straight, well, baby, what was that?
I remember saying then, “This is the best cigarette of my life”
Well, I want you just like that
OK, first off: yeah, I know that this is essentially just a Green Light (13th best song of the Disability Decade) asset flip. But I don’t care: if the song is this good then to be honest I wouldn’t care if 6’500 slaves died while making it.
The track is perfect, first of all, let’s just accept that, OK? It also contains perhaps some of Lorde’s most incisive and relatable lyrics. Taking MDMA in someone’s back garden while swearing the cigarette you’re taking a drag on is the greatest you’ve ever had? I’ve fucking been there, mate! That’s fucking me! I’ve been the one blowing my pupils up, smoking like a wedding veil, I can still feel that moment reality hits in the blue light of a club.
I’m sorry, but I’m a 42 year old man and Lorde remains one of the most relatable lyricists working today.
I try (I try), to let (To let)
Whatever has to pass through me pass through
But this is staying a while, I know
It might not let me go
Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels!!
3 Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful
When the song absolutely crashes before the chorus, commits complete self-immolation in a hellish massacre of brass and drums, and the distorted squeals of Miley Cyrus cry out:
Boy, I’m losing my breath, yes
Boy, you’re marking up my necklace
Boy, I’m losing my breath
I’m undressing, I’m confessing that I’m so obsessed, yes
That’s… one of the greatest moments in music in 2025. Maybe ever. Every time I hear it I can’t stop myself shaking for the next 45 minutes. This is what art is supposed to do.
And it’s Miley fucking Cyrus doing it. I’ve been a committed Smiler for some time now, and have long argued that Cyrus has been responsible for some of the greatest pop songs of the 21st century. Something Beautiful is the best thing they’ve ever done by a country fucking mile. A jazz rock gem that manages to showcase both Cyrus’s admirable desire to take risks and experiment with her music, but also, come on,. that fucking voice. Coming after the ‘Something Beautiful’ album’s astonishing first track Prelude, listening to the album for the first time you honestly start thinking “Holy shit, I think Miley Cyrus has made the year’s best album”. Then track 3 happens and… yeah, the rest of the album is very good. maybe even 8/10.
But… for a while I thought the world was going to change…
Round one, nonstop, first class, fat ass
Relax, this not gonna be nothing like your past
Anyway, round two, so sick, pee-yew
Breeze through, look at, look at you
I think that you’re cute
Put it in my mouth, then my bank account
No, no, no, no no, get your mind out of the gutter! The song’s about Ms Pac Man, thank you very much! And what do you do in that game? Exactly: put things (pellets) into your little character’s digitised mouth! Which then are put into your ‘bank account’ (score)! Jesus, it’s 2026 now, and here I am still trying to explain to you Boomers how video games work!
Fuck you on the couch in my favorite blouse
And… that line… is about… Look, in Ms. Pac Man, when you get a high score… erm… See, the ‘blouse’ here actually refers to Ms Pac Man’s bow… and the couch is… the ghost’s pen…?
Whatever, shut up, Ms Pac Man is a raucous, spectacular, succinctly perfect yet perverted glitch pop anthem that doesn’t really sound like anything else ever concocted by human kind. A career high by a spectacular artist who is only going to get better.
Also… Why didn’t they just call it ‘Pac Woman’?
1 Car Seat Headrest: Gethsemane
[Verse 3: Chanticleer]
You puke and spit and beat your fists against it, but it’s unshaken (Atargatis)
There’s nothing left to offer to restore what has been taken
Your body is a temple, but your holy wounds are aching
Leave the fat off[Refrain: Behemoth’s Voice]
Tabernacle
Tabernacle
Tabernacle
Tabernacle[Part II]
[Verse 4: Rosa’s Lizard Brain]
I can do whatever the fuck I want when I want to
You’re only wearing my skin
I can do whatever the fuck I want when I want to
You’re only wearing my skin
Without a shadow of a fucking doubt.
OK. so Aratgis (𐡏𐡕𐡓𐡏𐡕𐡄 in Amharic) is a fertility Goddess from Northern Syria in Classical Iniquity; the tabernacle is the portable earthly dwelling of God that housed the Ark of the Covenant, Indiana Jones probably fought a giant spider there or something; and Gethsemane is a (real) garden in East Jerusalem where Jesus was arrested before his crucifixion (possibly real, let’s not get into that). Oh, and in the story of ‘The Scholars‘, Rosa has been captured by the Behemoth and the Chanticleer and blah fucking blah blah.
I have explained before how I actually don’t give a flying tabernacle about the story or the narrative of the fifth best album of the year. I’m not even sure ‘The Scholars’ is meant to have a coherent narrative: it’s a concept album about a play, but that concept only exists as an excuse to spin lyrics off. It is just a theme within which Toledo can spin off incredible lyrics that the listener can take to mean whatever they want. In 2011/2015’s (they’re back catalogue is confusing) Strangers, Toledo themselves admits that “When I was a kid I fell in love with Michael Stipe” (“I took lyrics out of context and thought ‘He must be speaking to me'”), and as the CSHR frontman has matured as a lyricist, they have adopted a similar writing style to the REM frontman. You neither need to know nor care what the lyrics are literally about to love them.
I have no idea what Gethsemane is literally about. I don’t care. I love the poetry of lines like “Radio tower neck speaks with the accent of my stomach/Early morning birds call with some generator running” and “What’s beautiful is good, but what’s that blood along the ridges?/What is that for?” and “You’re just a lie in my heart/Everybody starts out curious/Is there no king behind these walls?”. Do you need to know literally what “I can do whatever the fuck I want when I want to/You’re only wearing my skin” to be able to relate to that desire for disembodiment, to seperate your body from your soul’s desire? Mate, I don’t think you understand how art works.
Anyway, fuck the lyrics, Gethsemane would still be the best song of the year if it just had to lyrics to the Macarena.
Gethsemane is an utterly monstrous song. A ten minute saga of incredible ambition that simply puts all other attempts at guitar music to shame in the year of our lord twenty twenty five. It puts all other music to shame, as this placement attests to. Musically, it takes the listener on a thrilling journey that I’m not sure any other artist could touch. It almost goes out of its way to prove that CSHR are a band now, and is a showcase for just how incredible these musicians are. It’s simply the most impressive piece of musical work done in 2025, and I swear has about four seperate climaxes, that will each make you swear that you have been taken to nirvana (not Nirvana, though I guess they’re an influence) and understand the fucking universe (tabernacle!) and swear that your life is worth living (tabernacle!) and, yes, you can love again (tabernacle!) if you try again (tabernacle!).
When CSHR are on their game, there’s simply no other artist on their level. And on Gethsemane they are not just on their game, they are fucking eating it.
A hostage heart, a scrap of light
The naked priest, the introvert
The millionaire, conspirator
Misshapen form,rotten wheat
Like war porn, a constant feed
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love again if you try again
You can love, you can love, you can love, you can love
No idea. But, at the same time, I understand each word intensely.
Seriously, every other artist, catch up.
Oh, and:
And CSHR join Janelle Monae and Charli XCX as the only owners of an album of the year and Legit Boss.
Less than 15’000 words and out before February! Enjoy
And stay beautiful
Ax
Necessary Evil 
