I had more than one person tell me that 2025 was a tough year for them. Whether it be socially, politically, or just several external factors that were weighing on their mind, it was not an easy year to separate the art from whatever else was going on in the world. It also doesn’t help that popular music did not reflect this. 

As someone who’s always taken familiar solace in books or film as opposed to music, I hesitate to make any greater commentary on what the state of music was in 2025. Still, according to some of my friends, there just wasn’t much to consume: no big bombastic spectacles in pop or hip-hop, nor indie darlings making any splashes to make things shine.

Nevertheless, there were some albums—five, actually—which got me through different points of the year. These projects may not have been cultural milestones, but in the confusion that was 2025, they did wonders for me. 

5. Tranquilizer by Oneothrix Point Never

Not too long ago, my roommates and I traveled through hell and back to watch this movie called Marty Supreme. If you haven’t seen it, it’s this really high-octane thriller about a professional table tennis player who ruins his life through a series of bad decisions; think Good Time, if the main character had a sense of humor. 

Regardless, despite the many technical proficiencies in that movie, my favorite part about it had to be the soundtrack, which was just this crisp, heavy electronic music that pounded the listener during every scene. I’d compare it to something like Challengers, but the way this movie did it was way more intense. And that’s great, you know? When the soundtrack is so present that you’re able to feel the tension of every character from an otherwise unfamiliar sound. It’s strange, yet does something spectacular to you as a viewer.

That soundtrack is not on this list, but the person who made the soundtrack is.

Daniel Lopatin, or as he’s better known by Oneothrix Point Never, is an American electronic producer who created one of my favorite albums of the year. I’m always a fan of his stuff, but this time around, I wasn’t aware how desperately I needed something from him. His new album, Tranquilizer, is something completely different from the usual downbeat, low-tempo electronic music he tends to provide his listeners with.

The instrumentals here sound a lot cleaner, as if the audience is being transported into some beautiful, glitchy world. The titles, while they don’t give too much away, certainly help me make up a story in my head, which I’m sure is what Lopatin intended when he created the album. It’s as if these feelings of fear magically fade away as the album progresses, seeing as the synths grow quieter and also more comforting.

Mostly, I think I just needed an album like this. Something calm, but abstract, where I could relax as I did my work amidst the chaos. Lopatin has made calmer work, but nothing designed to resemble a journey—definitely something which helped me through 2025.

4. Lover of a Ghost by Violent Vira

When I was in middle school, I was fascinated by this YouTube personality named Poppy. She was this girl, who also claimed she wasn’t a girl but actually a computer, all while there was this side of the internet that claimed she was secretly working for the devil. In retrospect, I may have just been way too into horror and internet theories. This is, of course, ridiculous, but if you know her now, she is notably one of the biggest names in contemporary metal, where she just announced a world tour opening for Evanescence and Spiritbox. 

This sounds like a joke, if only for the fact that many of the factors that led to Poppy having any success in music were largely from her getting hurt and mismanaged by shady record executives. I still follow her, and have even seen her live, but watching Poppy’s rise to mainstream success made me realize something that was vaguely uncomfortable to confront: there are just no women in mainstream metal.

I mean, yes, you have Evanescence, and Nightwish, and the aforementioned Spiritbox, but they’ve been around for decades. When I first heard Violent Vira, she was still going by the name Vira, so let me tell you, I’ve been listening for a pretty long time, just waiting for the album.

I don’t love every song on Lover of a Ghost. For example, I’m not sure what to make of the strangely bitter song “Indie.” Most of the songs are pretty good, though; metal needs to be sung by women because that’s just when it’s done best. More of this and less of whatever Metallica’s doing.

3. Animaru by Mei Semones

For much of 2025, my Instagram feed has been littered with videos of jazz player Mei Semones and her otherworldly guitar playing skills. The music Semones creates on Animaru is cute and soothing, yet noticeably complex. Semones plays as if she creates for no one other than herself, and that is a marvelous thing. During a radio interview in 2024, the bebop player stated her reason for playing as self-help: “The music that I love makes me feel less alone,” she said. “It’s something to relate to.”

I first discovered Mei Semones through mutual friends when I was asking for more upcoming artists to add to my library. This was early in the year, so my search for new music hadn’t started, but it conjured an idea. I’d wanted to listen to more jazz for quite some time, but much of the jazz I listened to was old and reprinted. 

I’ve since fixed this problem, but Semones was definitely a step in the right direction. Her songs “Animaru” and “Rats with Wings” were two of my favorite tracks by the end of the year, sparking a love for contemporary jazz, which I wasn’t sure was fully there. I look forward to the next project, and seeing as she’s frequently touring, I hope to catch a show soon.

2. Racing Mount Pleasant by Racing Mount Pleasant

This is the second album from indie band Racing Mount Pleasant, and this is also the second time they’ve melted me with nothing but drums, an acoustic guitar, the occasional electric, and some of the best horns I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure if this is my favorite album on the list, but it was definitely the album I was most introspective about, what with how climactic all of it is. I remember hearing the album the entire way through and being speechless at how carefully tuned every vocal was, just to create this shy, yet confident winter album.

I’m still not clear what the message of this album is, and I want to keep it that way. At the time of publication, political tensions are still high. I often worry that with the creation of art, it can be challenging, if not impossible, to interpret art in a meaningful way that doesn’t self-impose arrogance onto the listener. After all, can it not be painful to feel when the world is telling you anything but?

It’s beneficial to have art that encourages us to be what we are: human. Art that’s so unabashedly bright, despite its cryptic sadness, that it almost feels lovely to listen to. It’s about going back to the old place and living within those memories in awe, because that’s what art makes you feel — beauty within nostalgia.

Who is Emily? What happened in the Seminary, and does it even matter? How does the speaker fall into anyone when they’re still held by the constraints of the place they once called home? And even more important, are any of these questions answered in the album? In my opinion, yes. Depending on the listener.

1. ICONOCLASTS by Anna Von Hausswolff 

Anna Von Hausswolff did not hold back in 2025, releasing an album that would attack not just religion, but the world. The droning passages on this album are as intense as they’ve always been, creating a mood so destructive that she seeks to split it with ballads from respected balladeers Ethel Cain and Iggy Pop, this time around. 

This is an album about gunning for the outcasts, rooting for those who have been pushed or even killed by society for nothing but shards of an aesthetic. Von Hausswolff sings as if she were an ostracized princess, capturing the hearts and attention of her viewers, creating something truly haunting on songs such as “Aging Young Women” and “Struggle With the Beast.” 

These songs build, with very little of the album containing actual vocals. However, when something is said, it contains power. The instrumentals leave little room for silence, similar to Von Hausswolff’s other projects. Much like 2025, the chaos was center stage, forcing you to look, no matter how exhausted you were. 

Images taken from Genius and racingmountpleasant.com