One Writer’s 2025 Musical Wish List
While 2024 lacked in, well, most positive qualities, it overflowed in musical bounty. From a Hurray for the Riff Raff record that represented today’s America better than any radio country wastrel could ever pretend to, to Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) cementing her spot as one of our very best songwriters, to MJ Lenderman simply being EVERYWHERE, 2025 has the nigh-impossible task of matching its older sibling. However, if we collectively close our eyes and wish EXTRA hard, maybe a few of the following suggestions will come to pass.
1) A song featuring MJ Lenderman is released before the end of January – As I mentioned in last month’s 45 RPM List (https://americanahighways.org/2024/12/20/americana-highways-45-rpm-2024-reasons-to-purchase-music/), the best songs of the past two years (2024’s “Right Back to It” and 2023’s “Chosen to Deserve”) featured indie’s It Guy on vocals (the former with Waxahatchee, the latter as a part of Wednesday). As of this writing, Lenderman has about three and a half weeks to get this year started off right.
2) New albums from Japanese Breakfast and Big Thief – Japanese Breakfast beat me to the punch here, releasing the first single, “Orlando in Love,” from their upcoming, excellently titled For Melancholy Brunettes (and sad women) while I was in the midst of writing this piece. Two of the best bands in indie music have been busy with multiple projects – Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner adapting her memoir, Crying in H Mart, into a screenplay, and Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek releasing gorgeous solo records. But it’s time to get the bands back together. It’s been three years since Big Thief’s Dragon Warm Mountain I Believe in You and nearly four since Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee. We’re ready for something new and, if possible, even more amazing.
3) A Denver-area tour stop from Sturgill Simpson – Seriously, is there a better host for three hour-long jams than Colorado? We missed out on the Sturgill/Tyler tour in 2020, but a Johnny Blue Skies appearance in the Land of 300 Days of Sunshine would be a pretty poetic make-good.
4) Electric Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen, via his website, promised “never-before-heard material” for 2025. Wouldn’t the long-mythologized full-band recordings of the songs that eventually comprised Springsteen’s darkest (and solo-est) album be a great companion to the upcoming Jeremy Allen White-starring Deliver Me from Nowhere? Yes, Boss.
5) Me finally interviewing Jason Isbell for Americana Highways – Yes, it’s a bit self-serving, but it’s MY wish list! Although he doesn’t (as far as we know) have an album in the pipeline, he does have four May dates in the Denver area, PLUS the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June. We can even stay away from more “sensitive” topics. Wanna talk about guitar tone and NL East (Go Nats!) baseball, Mr. Isbell? I’m your guy.
One Writer’s 2025 Musical Wish List
