My 2025 Listening Habits

Top 5 Albums Released in 2025
Headlights	Alex G
Thee Black Bolt	Tunde Abebimpe
Sogolo	WITCH
1985: The Miracle Year	Hüsker Dü
NEVER ENOUGH	Turnstile

15 Favorite songs for the year:

Miracle Aligner - The Last Shadow Puppets

I had tried The Last Shadow Puppets previously but was expecting a version of the Arctic Monkeys. This somng finally clicked,

Magnetic - Tunde Abebimpe

The closest to a recent TVOTR radio release and a fun album for the year.

Metronomic Underground - Stereolab

2025 was a Stereolab year.

Don't Know How I Keep Loving You - Julia Jacklin

Discovered this on. the local AAA station, great vocals that remind me of Sharon Van Etten.

Madness - Prince Buster

They call it madness.

Sungu Lubuka - Petelo Vicka et  Son Nzazi

The first track on another great compilation from Analog Africa, this aptly titled Congo-Funk.

Skinhead Stomp - Symarip

I watched a great documentary on Trojan Records. I had missed the fact that Jamaican artists in Britain were releasing tracks for that market and skinheads specially.  

Lou Reed Was My Babysitter - Jeff Tweedy

Fun moment from the triple album of the year!

Stop It - Pylon

nev er dug in, not sure why I took so long!

Kamsule - We Intend To Cause Havoc

Zamrock originally continue to release funky stuff.

Seconds - The Human League

The LCD Soundsystem London Session included a cover of this, and although I listening to to Dare before, this time it stuck with me.

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Not sure why I had not listened to this before having heard Winter in America but not this amazing track.

Alex G - Afterlife

90's REM vibes.

CAN - Mother Sky

Didn't have Soundtracks before this year, finally realized what I was missing.

Parliament - Mothership Connection (Star Child)

Dug into P-Funk this year, one of my favorite tracks from that exploration.

My 2017 Listening Habits

A momentousness year for my household where there never seems to be enough time to listen to music. Some of my favorite artists of the last 10 years release some of their most disappointing records (looking at you Arcade Fire) and a few artists that I hope to go back to at some point (Fleet Foxes). In the year of infinite music, it becomes a challenge to focus on new records, and I find that in the CD era I may have listening to something 3 or 4 times before deciding if I liked it or not. Now, I never even made it through Everything Now during 2017.

This year, I spend some serious time re-listening to music of my childhood. YouTube provides a great conduit for live performances and I enjoyed some great stuff from my 80s favorites of REM, The Smiths, and the Depeche Mode. I thought a lot about how the music my parents listening to had a big effect on my own taste as well as the point an album became my own. An REM record I had overlooked, Live at the Olympia, fit the mode with multiple older cuts from the IRS era. An excellent document of an band in their twilight revisiting their younger days.

Two older records in contact rotation this past year was Can's Tago Mago and The Clean's Anthology. Can has been a favorite for a while, but I never listened to this one, which may be my favorite from their discography. I could listen to Paperhouse forever. The Clean take elements of the Velvet Underground and distill it down to it's base elements. If The Modern Lovers were the American take on this sound, The Clean gave us the Kiwi version. A favorite track from this collection was Secret Place.

Favorite records of 2017:

Future Islands The Far Field 
War On Drugs A Deeper Understanding
The National Sleep Well Beast
Zola Jesus Okovi
Beach House 7

My picks for 2010 - 2019

Without further ado:

Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest
Sufjan Steven: Age of Adz
Arcade Fire: The Suburbs and Reflector
LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening
Wolf Parade : Expo 86
Bon Iver: Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Dirty Projectors: Swing Lo Magellan
Beach House: Bloom and 7
Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Future Islands: Singles
Wilco: Star Wars
Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool
War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream
Kurt Vile: Wakin' on a Pretty Daze
Tame Impala: Currents
Thom Yorke: ANIMA
Sigur Rós: Kveikur
Wye Oak: Civilian
The National: High Violet
Cate Le Bon: Reward
Angel Olsen: All Mirrors

My 2016 Listening Habits

2016, where did you go? It was the year I had a hard time getting heavily invested in any one new record. I spend a fair amount of time with the following records: Bowie's masterful departure note Blackstar gave us the jazz record we never knew we needed. Bon Iver's 22, A Million took Justin Veron's experimental and voice-as-an-instrument experiments to the max, leaving those who still think of him as folk singer in the woods far behind. Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial embodied many of the things I still love about guitar based rock music. Verbose songs, with elements of Built to Spill and Pavement, memorable obtuse choruses and songs that grow. 

The majority was spend listened to Radiohead's beautiful A Moon Shaped Pool. It was the first Radiohead record completely missing at least one song with distorted guitar, and most closely related to 2007's lush In Rainbows. Depending about how you feel about bands progressing from their initial sound and beauty in music, the record was sleeper or a tonic to the senses. Amazing string arrangements from Jonny Greenwood spattered across many of the songs, where "the guitars sound like pianos, the pianos sound like guitars." With ties to songs that have been the band's repertoire for quite some time, we finally get a studio version of True Love Waits at it's most abstract. Stand out tracks for me included the dreamy Decks Dark, and the soulful Identikit. Broken hearts truly do make it rain.

My 2015 Listening Habits

Late again, I know; Let's go!

Some past favorites released excellent rerecords this year. Björk with Vulnicura and Sufjan Stevens with Carrie & Lowell were both revealing, soul barring records, mining the depths of human emotion over broken relationships and dead loved ones. Both use mostly non-rock style instrumentation, with Carrie & Lowell avoiding drums almost completely. Haunting to listen to, but not for sunny afternoons. 

TV on Radio with Seeds and Interpol on El Pintor were both in rotation. TVOR has moved farther from there clattering post-punk sound and funk-style deviations to crystal clear synth-rock. Although I am often left wanting the sounds of Return to Cookie Mountain, I am glad the band continues to evolve it sound. Interpol released the record everyone wanted with El Pintor harking back to Turn On the Bright Lights. A good choice and a solid non-reinvention.

2014 material I caught up with this year included  Aphex Twin's excellent Syro (listenable glitch IDM; always different but recognizable all these years later), The War on Drugs' Lost in the Dream (hazy guitar rock of yore),  and Caribou's Our Love (dreamy dance music done right). 

My Favorites Records of 2015:

Wilco :: Star Wars

An excellent surprise record. Hints of Television and A Ghost is Born. Kraut-y jams abound with a in studio/live feel to the entire record. Makes me smile.

Alabama Shakes :: Sound & Color

Surprising if you expected retreat of roots-soul-rock. The Shakes decide instead to expand their sound to be electric, modern, and unexpected in the best ways possible. 

Joanna Newsom :: Divers

On her most accessible record yet, Joanna still manages to make you ant to follow her down the rabbit hole. Beautiful avant-folk for the modern age.

Blur :: The Magic Whip

Hard to believe they finally released this after a supposed failed recording session in Hong Kong in 2014. Although Albarn has many side projects to keep him busy, the boys from London remind us of why we feel in love with them in the first place with a record that does not disappoint.

Beach House :: Depression Cherry // Thank Your Lucky Stars

In the age of fast attention spans, Beach House releases two record in a year. A further trip along the fuzzy, dream pop trail.