Playlist #242: Top 10 Albums of 2025

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Happy Monday, folks! We’ve reached that point in the year when bands stop releasing new music and the music critic turns his weary, bleary eyes toward compiling top lists. Top 10 albums! Top 25 albums! Top 100 albums of the year! In all the genres and styles one can imagine. I’m just gonna do a top ten. It’s not that I couldn’t find enough for a longer list, but I already do ten-song playlists, so why not stick with that? In no particular order, my top ten for the year are:

  1. Matt Berninger, Get Sunk: Solo album from the National’s singer. As I commented back when I first featured a song off this album on a playlist, it seems to feature all the momentum and forward motion that’s been missing from the past couple of National albums. Virtually a no-skip album.
  2. Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World: She’s been trending more toward minimalism in her work the past couple of albums, and I kinda like it. Puts her amazing voice front and center. Her song selection skills remain top-notch, too.
  3. Snocaps, Snocaps: Feels very off the cuff and done for fun, which I’m always a big fan of. I like it when it sounds like the musicians had fun recording the music. And the two sisters at the heart of this group know how to write some killer songs.
  4. Jeff Tweedy, Twilight Override: We get it Jeff, you’ve got lots of songs in you. A triple album, though? That just screams “I’m gonna one-up Ryan Adams at something not gross.” But the songs are pretty uniformly good, even if a few of them feel more like song sketches and ideas rather than full-fledged complete songs.
  5. Jason Isbell, Foxes in the Snow: I’m not gonna call it his divorce album or his Blood on the Tracks, but there is something stark and sharp and beautiful in this voice and acoustic only set that really sucker punches you in the best way.
  6. Neko Case, Neon Gray Midnight Green: Any new Neko Case music is a cause for celebration, and this particular album sticks with you long after it’s finished playing. Nothing as immediate or obviously gripped as “Hold On, Hold On” here, but it’s still a strong album filled with the sort of gorgeous vocals and left field approaches Case has come to be known for.
  7. The Mountain Goats, Through the Fire Across From Peter Balkan: Trippy, dreamy titles aside, John Darnielle has described this one as the closest he’s ever come to writing a musical, and it still isn’t a concept album telling a coherent story as far as I can tell, but the songs are beautiful and obtuse and demand that you sit with the record and really listen.
  8. Lord Huron, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1: Atmospheric and folky, like Tom Petty mixing spaghetti westerns with ’50s pulp sci-fi.
  9. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska ’82: As archival releases go, this one is pretty great. Getting a look at what could have been with Nebraska, one of my favorite Bruce albums, is a fascinating exercise. Hearing the so-called Electric Versions was pretty cool and does ultimately support the myth that the original solo demos were the superior versions and ought to just be released as-is. The more recent live recordings of all the songs seemed a little superfluous to me, but more Bruce is never really a bad thing.
  10. Bob Dylan, Through the Open Window (The Bootleg Series, Volume 18): Speaking of archival releases, the latest in the long-running Bootleg Series digs into the absolute earliest Dylan recordings we’ve ever heard, and while you can definitely hear who he would become in the voice and the guitar playing, it’s very protean. Primordial, you might say. But the man found his footing in Greenwich Village quite quickly, and hearing some alternate takes on some of his earliest compositions and covers was a fun diversion. Someday, I’ll have to dive into the complete version of this collection, as the only version available on Apple Music was the two-disc Highlights selections.

Playlist #241

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Happy Monday, folks! I’ve returned from sunny, warm Florida to a much chillier Northern Virginia. But it was a good trip! We relaxed and had a lot of fun, I got to see a friend from college whom I had not seen in over 20 years, and I slept quite a bit. And the Wife’s presentation went over well! Here’s some songs.

  1. MGMT, “Kids”: Yeah, it’s the only song I or probably any of you have ever heard from this band, but it’s a pretty good song. The Wife likes it, at any rate.
  2. Madison Cunningham, “Hospital”: So the album this song is off of won a Grammy for Best Folk Album? But this is very much not folk? Am I missing something? I think I must be missing something.
  3. Eve, “Let Me Blow Ya Mind”: One of our Uber drivers in Florida was bumpin’ a throwback R&B radio station, and this was one of the songs that came up.
  4. George Harrison, “You”: In case your morning needed a little…extra texture (see, this is funny, since the name of the album this song came off of was Extra Texture) (explaining the joke always makes it funnier) (over-explaining the joke makes it even funnier).
  5. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Insider”: This song just about made me cry yesterday afternoon. Admittedly, I’d had a weird dream featuring my grandmother and hadn’t taken my medication yet, but the fact holds.
  6. The Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood”: A plinky little Casio cover of this song played over the plane speakers as we were boarding our flight home. The Wife and I looked at each other and immediately felt a million years old. The songs of our youth have become muzak.
  7. The National, “Rylan”: I still just absolutely love the drums for this song. As with most songs by the National, the drums are definitely the best part.
  8. Counting Crows, “Hard Candy”: The twelve-string jangle of this song heals something in my soul every time I hear it.
  9. Jet, “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”: Stomping, rollicking fun with a sleazy guitar riff. Good way to kick off your week.
  10. Traveling Wilburys, “Heading for the Light”: The second Traveling Wilburys song I learned to play (the first was “Handle With Care,” naturally) and a whole lot of fun. I should play that one again.

Playlist #240: Covers!

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Happy Monday, folks! I’m probably somewhere between Northern Virginia and Orlando, Florida, as you read this. The Wife is presenting at an education conference, and I’m joining her for moral and logistical support (and for the opportunity to not work for a week). Here’s a list of covers that I’ve enjoyed recently.

  1. Aimee Mann, “Rainy Days and Mondays”: A Carpenters cover? In this economy? It actually works pretty damn well, I think. She updates it in a few subtle ways, but mostly sticks to the original for her version.
  2. Mavis Staples, “Everybody Needs Love”: I loved this song when I heard the Drive-By Truckers original, and I love Mavis Staples’s version almost as much. Her voice carries the right tone and quality for the tune, and belies the age the woman actually is. I love it.
  3. Marc Sibilia, “Bittersweet Symphony”: His cover utilizes the same symphonic sample as the Verve Pipe’s original, but everything built around that seems more subdued, more subtle. It’s good stuff.
  4. The Presidents of the United States of America, “Kick Out the Jams”: Gotta love a band gutsy enough to take on an MC5 song, especially this one, but they manage to pull it off with some nervy energy and chutzpah.
  5. Phoebe Bridgers, “It’ll All Work Out”: I didn’t think it would be possible to slow down this Tom Petty number, but she does. I do miss the mandolin from the original, though.
  6. Iron & Wine and Ben Bridwell, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”: A mellower, folkier version of the U2 classic.
  7. Margaret Glaspy, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”: I needed a slow, beautiful cover of CCR today, didn’t you?
  8. Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up (feat. Sinead O’Connor)”: Willie’s voice has just become this weathered, worn thing that just keeps getting better for the songs he sings. Fits perfectly, and Sinead O’Connor is a great duet partner for him.
  9. Bob Seager, “New Coat of Paint”: Seager turns Tom Waits’s raucous, bluesy number into…well, it’s not ’80s blooze-rock, not quite, but it does take some of the subtlety and nuance out of things. It’s still a fun cover, though.
  10. Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, “Quattro (World Drifts In)”: Speaking of nuance and subtlety, Plant and Krauss manage to inject a little bit more into this Calexico number. I dig it almost as much as I love the original, and I really love the original.

Playlist #239

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s Thanksgiving this Thursday, or “Thursday” as most of the world calls it. Americans call it an excuse to stuff ourselves silly with turkey and more pies than is advisable under any circumstances. America: We may be obese, but at least we also have shitty health care.

  1. Todd Snider, “Alcohol and Pills”: Only just now discovering this guy’s music is like learning about a great novelist who wrote all these books that you know you’ll love but simultaneously discovering that he’s also dead and there won’t be anymore new stuff from him. Except he plays guitar.
  2. Fastball, “You’re an Ocean”: From the album after their big breakout. It’s a solid song. Does it do anything new or exciting? No. But it’s charming and fun and bouncy and features a nice guitar lick, so it gets a pass.
  3. Marc Scibilia, “More to This”: Dude finally released a whole album, and it’s pretty good indie singer-songwriter stuff, but this is still the best song on the thing.
  4. Florence + the Machine, “Everybody Scream”: I feel like Florence Welch has the right idea here, folks.
  5. Jimmy Cliff, “Many Rivers to Cross”: This man just passed, and I’m listening to his version of this song off of “Later with Joles Holland,” and damn could he sing.
  6. Big Red Machine, “Mimi”: I just like the rhythm to this one, I guess.
  7. Ra Ra Riot, “Ghost Under Rocks”: When was the last time I listened to this band? I need to go back and give them a listen again, I think.
  8. Glen Phillips, “Thankful”: It is Thanksgiving week, after all, and I do have a lot to be thankful for. I’ve got a job and a wife and a car and a place to live, I have all the things I need to do so comfortably, and I own more guitars than a saner woman would let me own. Someday, I may even be able to retire and live out the rest of my days as a curmudgeonly old man who yells at clouds.
  9. The Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”: If at least five people reading this don’t feel the need to reach for a bottle of mother’s little helper this week, I don’t know my audience.
  10. Josh Ritter, “Wait for Love (You Know You Will)”: It’s a sweet love song. Sort of.

Playlist #238

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Happy Monday, folks! The air is becoming crisper, it’s a little colder in the morning, and all the leaves have fallen off the trees and are now piled up everywhere. It’s actually feeling like fall! I’m here for it.

  1. Mavis Staples, “Anthem”: Mavis Staples’s latest album includes three straight-up amazing covers at the end, including this one. It takes some guts to cover Leonard Cohen, and to choose a Cohen cover that isn’t “Hallelujah.” Her vocals have the gravity to pull it off.
  2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: Obsessed with this album still, and especially with this song. I probably listen to it at least three or four times a week.
  3. Dan Auerbach, “Trouble Weighs A Ton”: There’s something about a song that’s just a voice and an acoustic guitar that speaks to something primal in me.
  4. Fiona Apple, “Fast As You Can”: This woman and her music are criminally underrated (see what I did there? Because her best-known song is still probably “Criminal”).
  5. The Police, “Masoko Tanga”: A lyric-less song off their debut that features Sting hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on with yelps and mumbles and all sorts of vocalizations.
  6. Mark Knopfler, “Speedway At Nazareth”: Just the way this song builds and builds to its climactic coda, it’s just…*chef’s kiss*
  7. Fastball, “You’re An Ocean”: Less well-known than their first couple of hits, but still bouncy and fun and a good listen.
  8. The Like, “I Can See It In Your Eyes”: They do the girl group style up right for the 2000s.
  9. She & Him, “I Should Have Known Better”: If I ever do a Beatles cover, I hope I do it half as well as they did.
  10. Ben Harper & The Blind Boys Of Alabama, “Satisfied Mind”: The Blind Boy’s actual hoots in the verses just send me every time. Love it.

Playlist #237: Wrecks

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Happy Monday, folks. We’ve got a short week this week, what with Veterans Day happening tomorrow, but we’ve also got a historically-based playlist for you today. Starting with:

  1. Gordon Lightfoot, “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”: Fifty years ago today, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior, taking twenty-nine men with it. Lightfoot apparently wrote and recorded the song just a month later, and it was released in August of 1976, giving him the biggest hit of his career.
  2. Tom Petty, “You Wreck Me”: Is there a better Tom Petty album than Wildflowers? If so, I haven’t heard it (and neither, I’d assume, has anyone else, ’cause this is clearly his best album). That chorus is so good to sing along to.
  3. Pearl Jam, “Wreckage”: Pearl Jam’s latest studio album included this gem, an acoustic-based song that stands as one of the best they’ve written in the past fifteen, twenty years.
  4. Bruce Springsteen, “Wrecking Ball”: It’s a song about Giants Stadium in New Jersey. They were about to tear it down, and the Boss had to write a song in ode to it. It’s one of his better latter-day songs.
  5. George Harrison, “Wreck of the Hesperus”: Based on a Wordsworth poem about a shipwreck? Or a Procol Harum song of the same name? I dunno. It’s mostly George Harrison lamenting getting older, but still being able to rock out. It’s chock-full o’ puns, which is one of my favorite forms of song lyrics.
  6. Loose Fur, “Wreckroom”: Look, Loose Fur is weird. Just…really weird. But also nifty. Mostly weird.
  7. They Might Be Giants, “Wreck My Car”: Please do not wreck someone else’s car, even if they ask you to. That’s probably insurance fraud, and you don’t wanna be involved in that.
  8. Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs, “Wreckless Abandon”: Mike Campbell’s solo work is more workmanlike than anything he did with the Heartbreakers, but c’mon, not everyone is a songwriting dynamo like Tom Petty was.
  9. Emmylou Harris, “Wrecking Ball”: A different “Wrecking Ball” than the Bruce Springsteen one. It’s a beautiful song, though.
  10. Wreckless Eric, “Whole Wide World”: Featured to great effect in the movie Stranger than Fiction, it’s one of those three-chord garage rock songs that you can learn in two minutes and play all by yourself forever. We recommend turning the amplifier way up for this one.

Playlist #236

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Happy Monday, folks! I spent the weekend hanging out with visiting family, strummin’ guitars and eating to much food. As one does. Here’s some songs to get you through the week.

  1. Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”: My dad had heard of the Gin Blossoms, he said, but couldn’t place a song by them. This is probably their best-known song. If he’s heard any of them, it’s probably this one.
  2. Snocaps, “Cherry Hard Candy”: It’s the lady from Waxahatchee! And her sister! And a couple of dudes she’s been performing with for a while! But it’s also a whole new and different band! But hey, more Waxahatchee by any name is good for me.
  3. Enigma, “Return to Innocence”: I heard this song (from the Pure Moods CD, natch) while I was in a Wawa last night. It’s the one with the faux-Native chanting/singing in it. You know the one. You heard it in all the commercials they ran for that collection in the ’90s.
  4. Tom Petty, “You Saw Me Comin'”: Finding Wallflowers is a fascinating document to me. I was talking with my dad about it this weekend, along with all the other archival releases legacy acts like Dylan, Springsteen, and Neil Young have been cranking out in the past few years. I’ve always enjoyed the iterative process of songwriting, and would have loved to hear where Tom took this particular song that just sorta…went away.
  5. Iggy Pop, “Passenger”: A classic Iggy four-chord rocker from Lust for Life.
  6. Wilco, “Handshake Drugs”: I love playing this song on the guitar. I have since I first figured out how to play it. Sometimes, Jeff Tweedy and Co. create some simple, very effective songs.
  7. Bruce Springsteen, “Reason To Believe (Electric Nebraska)”: One of my favorite songs from Nebraska. Is the electric version really all that different? No, not really. Again, it’s really obvious in hindsight why Bruce went with the solo demo versions of all of these songs.
  8. Hank Williams, “Move It On Over”: I always loved the George Thorogood version of this song, and the Hank original remains completely awesome as well.
  9. The Eagles, “Tequila Sunrise”: Always a fun guitar song.
  10. The Bee Gees, “To Love Somebody”: Learned this one playing guitar with my dad this weekend. Good song.

Playlist #235: The Boss

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Happy Monday, folks! I was in a Bruce Springsteen mood over the weekend (thanks in large part to the release of Nebraska ’82), so here’s a list of ten of my favorite non-studio-album Bruce songs.

  1. “Thundercrack”: This song always reminds me of “Rosalita.” It’s similarly-epic in scope and style, I feel, and features some great saxophone work from the Big Man.
  2. “Losin’ Kind”: I’d never heard this song before this weekend, but damn is it haunting and more than a little troubling. The whole narrative around Nebraska and the man lost in the woods period feels very real here.
  3. “Blood Brothers”: From the ’90s Greatest Hits collection, this sounds exactly like what you think a Bruce Springsteen song should sound like.
  4. “Rockaway the Days”: The Boss is a strong storyteller, as seen in this song where a dude gets in a bar fight and then wraps his car around a tree.
  5. “Follow That Dream”: From the recent Tracks II collection. Such a weird collection. Seven whole albums you recorded and never released? That’s a wild flex, Bruce.
  6. “Johnny Bye Bye”: Is this song just a retelling of “Johnny B. Goode”? I think this song is just a retelling of “Johnny B. Goode.”
  7. “Ain’t Good Enough for You”: Bruce has a lot of charisma, or “rizz” as the kids say these days. It’s hard to imagine someone rejecting him, but apparently it was a problem when he was younger? If this song is anything to go by, anyway.
  8. “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)”: Just a jumped-up blues song that’s way too much fun to sing.
  9. “This Hard Land”: Another one of those Greatest Hits songs that just sounds like a quintessential Bruce song. It’s, like, the ur-material that all other Springsteen songs are extracted from.
  10. “Open All Night (Electric Nebraska)”: One of my absolute favorite songs off of Nebraska, only with drums and bass.

Playlist #234

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Happy Tuesday, folks. Yesterday was Diwali, a Hindu holiday, and one that FCPS takes off now. So naturally, I spent the day taking various individuals to the doctor – the cat, my wife – and doing laundry. So much laundry. Where did we even get all these clothes? Anyway, here’s some songs to get you through the week.

  1. The Dead South, “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company”: Whistling and stand-up bass and a title that’s entirely too long? Yup, hits a lot of points on the checklist.
  2. The Bridge City Sinners, “St. James’ Infirmary”: I was unaware I needed to hear a version of “St. James’ Infirmary” with the word “fuck” in it. And now I know.
  3. Glass Animals, “Heat Waves”: A random student walked by while I was playing the guitar outside last Friday and asked me if I knew how to play this song. I did not, so I looked it up. Seems easy enough to play, if a bit of a challenge for me to sing.
  4. Holly Golightly, “My Get Back”: How had I never listened to Holly Golightly until now? This is some good stuff. Blues-inflected, rough around the edges in just the right way. I dig it.
  5. Jakob Dylan, “Lend A Hand”: Spent most of yesterday listening to Dylan’s Women + Country on repeat for whatever reason, and this song still grabs me by the lapels and shakes me.
  6. Radiohead, “There, There (Live)”: The live Hail to the Thief versions are all great, especially this one, but I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t include “Drunken Punch Up At A Wedding.” Sad.
  7. George Harrison, “Stuck Inside A Cloud”: It still amazes me that Harrison was able to craft such beautiful, touching music while in the grips of cancer, dying from it. We need more folks like him.
  8. The Pixies, “Where Is My Head?”: So supposedly a Taylor Swift song sounds a lot like this song? And that’s a . . . bad thing? If she wants to become a Pixies cover act, I’d probably be okay with that.
  9. The Cranberries, “Salvation”: It’s a song where they basically chant “Salvation” in the chorus over and over again. Of course I love it.
  10. Elliott Smith, “Bottle Up And Explode!”: One of his best off XO, which is also his best album in my humble (and correct) opinion.

Playlist #233

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Happy Indigenous People’s Day, folks! We don’t talk about that other guy.

  1. Redbone, “Wovoka”: As the best Native American rock band of the 1970s, Redbone put a fascinating wrinkle on rock and roll. Nice native rhythms.
  2. Counting Crows, “1492”: Why does this song spend a whole verse talking about Christopher Columbus? What does this have to do with literally anything else in this song?
  3. The Narcissist Cookbook, “The Simplest Words”: Sometimes, your brain goes all dribbly, and this guy gets it.
  4. Phoebe Bridgers, “It’ll All Work Out”: A Tom Petty cover? In this economy? It’s slowed way down but beautiful.
  5. Alan Jackson, “Chattahoochee”: A song that understands consent better than the President of the United States.
  6. Rhett Miller, “A Little Song”: A beautiful little song off his new album, one made apparently while he was waiting to get surgery done on his vocal chords (he had a polyp and a cyst on them!) and was in danger of never being able to sing again if things went wrong. They went right, though, which is good for all of us.
  7. Rilo Kiley, “Does He Love You?”: Still one of the bitterest love songs I’ve ever heard.
  8. Seven Mary Three, “Water’s Edge”: Look, ma, we’ve got Richard Marx in the ’90s!
  9. Passenger, “Let Her Go”: What if Cat Stevens got his start in the 2010s?
  10. Matt Berninger, “Little By Little”: Still a damn good song that I just keep going back to again and again.