Every new year brings the same question for music fans: what’s next? After a year that brought about some amazing albums, it reminded listeners that great art still rises to the top, even within an ...

As 2025 draws to a close, Metacritic has unveiled its annual rankings of the best albums of the year, highlighting a diverse and genre-spanning collection of critically acclaimed releases. From ...

The Agnes Varda of deep listening returns with another piece of intimate audio vérité, a two-CD headphone collage made from recordings of her mother's final four months. Here, Rossetto's mom tells ...

It’s easy to pinpoint when trends in music begin: People rally around a specific band or album, a new scene forms around a shared sensibility, or a particular sound permeates the zeitgeist. It’s more ...

The top country albums of 2025 are so different from each other that it seems like the only thing they have in common is that they fall under the same umbrella genre. But there is one thing these ...

If 2024 was the year of the situationship album (and, yes, there are still plenty that dropped thereafter), then 2025 was the year we danced through the fire. The hypnotic, high-tempo momentum of this ...

If we needed any more proof that the album isn't dead, 2025 was it. On this episode, Stephen Thompson is joined by Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen to run through 12 dazzling albums that stuck with ...

In 2025, bands had a lot to say about the state of the world, from La Dispute’s No One Was Driving the Car, which surveyed late-stage capitalism, and End It, who examined class structure through ...

Have you noticed that guitars are back? I’m being a little facetious, but rock and even punk has has been steadily climbing its way back to the mainstream and we felt that more this year than we have ...

Nearly 50 years after its release, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours isn't just the best selling classic rock album of 2025, it's the 25th-best selling record of the year overall. Of course, the very top of the ...

Before I share my list of favorite albums of 2025, I need to repeat my regular “year-end list” disclaimer. If you already know the drill, feel free to skip ahead. We all know this. Art isn’t a ...

Rosalía made an album invoking the saints, Lily Allen took us on a tragicomic trip through her domestic hell, Lady Gaga found the sweet spot between artpop and arena-ready funk, and Bad Bunny was just ...