Favorite Albums of 2025 – Editor’s Pick
What defines a great album? When you’re several songs in and your mind is still exploding, you’re still groovin’, or turning it up and leaning in to listen closer? Lots of albums have that one incredibly great song, or two, or three. But for a favorite album you’ll want to play it all the way through and then listen all over again – and that’s true for every one of these albums here on this list. So without further ado here’s my top 10 for this year. Enjoy the thoughtfulness and receptive observations of every song. There’s a playlist at the bottom too.
If you’re interested in my list of favorite songs of 2025, you can find it here: Editor’s Pick: Roadtrip Earworms 2025
Vote for you own favorites of 2025 here: Vote for Your Favorite Albums of 2025
1) Jason Isbell Foxes in the Snow. Jason hit it out of the park yet again with this one with songs that grip your emotional attention and don’t shy away from harsh truths and observations like “god said ‘hold my beer’ and he made man so he could watch and laugh, ” “I wish I could be angry, drink a fifth of cheap whiskey and call and call and call…” and the haunting metaphor about how relationships end: “I finally found a match and you kept daring me to strike it, so now I have to let it burn to let it be.” https://www.jasonisbell.com
2) Todd Snider High, Lonesome, and then Some. The heartache in this album is in part, of course, knowing now that it was his last. But even so, the existential depth here is utterly profound, and if you ever loved Todd even a little, listening to the album provides a catharsis and even a question as to whether he wrote this somehow knowing the end might be near. Moving lines about the human condition and mortality abound:”I was born in the human condition facing the great unknown,” the lovely “let’s go to Reno one more time while we’ve still got a chance,” a slice of the truth: “I’m still looking for someone looking for someone like me… all she wanted me to be was a halfway decent person but I’d always been afraid of change” and “you’ve got to live a little, people die a lot, the temptation to exist must have been the first one we couldn’t resist.” Rest easy, brother. https://toddsnider.net
3) James McMurtry Black Dog and the Wandering Boy This album is a heavy heavyweight champion. Tackling Alzheimer’s in the fantastical yet fully relatable “Black Dog and the Wandering Boy” and then bending the arc of history to understand the shameful and dishonorable current moment in American history in “Sons of the Second Sons,” a conversation that took place on 9/11, and every song in between are honed, complex and insightful.This album is piercing, intricate and full of both bare truths and chilling imagery. https://www.jamesmcmurtry.com
4) Helene Cronin Maybe New Mexico. This album is excellent all the way through. There’s not one song that you’d skip forward, which is a remarkable characteristic in an album. Adult struggles, the horrors of razing the environment, mortality and big breakups all have their own set of nuances and Helene nailed them here without embellishment. Every line is treated with care and detail. This is a songwriter par excellence who needs to be known far and wide. https://www.helenecronin.com
5) Tyler Childers Snipe Hunter. If you haven’t listened to this one yet, just play the first song “Eatin’ Big Time.” There’s no way to listen once without your jaw dropping as you scramble to rewind and listen again. But then play it again and continue on and let the whole album wash over you. It’s masterful. Even the one where you’re on the “Bitin’ List” shoots straight under a more whimsical exterior (this could be REAL “kids” music), and the unlikely love song “Oneida” is sweet. The whole thing is riveting country-living metaphors. Hunting and Appalachian living are in the center and the band is smokin’ hot. Produced by Rick Rubin, it’s absolutely unique. https://tylerchildersmusic.com/
6) Dar Williams Hummingbird Highway. Dar really hit the mark with this whole album, with songs that tell sweetly complex stories with vivid imagery and identifiable experiences. There are songs about travelers, folks getting the worst possible news about someone that came by letter, springtime in Paris, beach scenes, a sacred mountain, and it all rolls along with toe tapping melodies and piano. The album chronicles following and choosing the right path along life’s journey, in high resolution. https://darwilliams.com/concerts/
7) Kathleen Edwards Billionaire Kathleen molds songs that are insightful and deeply accurate, from what happens to your soul where the money doesn’t matter, to grieving, to the heartbreaking song about letting go of a child as they grow up: “Little Red Ranger” (“you’ll always be that boy tying his skates”) and the exploration of how to let a friendship go: “the hardest part about the truth is saying something that might hurt you.” Electric guitar work and production for this album, notably, was by Jason Isbell. https://www.kathleenedwards.com
8) Terry Klein Hill Country Folk Music. This album ranges from the deeply resonant, funny and irreverently honest “Job Interview Song” – a must listen – through parenthood to words that might have been spoken to someone before they followed through with ending their life in “If You Go.” And in between there’s the honest depiction of a byproduct of maturing: “I Used to Be Cool.” All good stuff all the way. https://www.terrykleinmusic.com
9) Patterson Hood Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams. Patterson really seems to have been, well, going through it in this album. This is a shocking recounting of a journey, as it delves into past memories and, hopefully, processes and purges them. There are murky situations of wincingly uncomfortable abuse, a young man who unalives himself, a deadly tornado, and the sinister scene where the folks are engaging in a tryst that has them both thinking they’re going to hell, those wild parties surround a little kid, and then, more. Things were that bad and skewed growing up. It’s really an incredible listen. https://pattersonhood.com
10) Anna Tivel Animal Poem. This album delves deeply with wisdom into the experience of existence, forgiveness, love for humanity, nature, and reconciliation with mortality, and with lines like “paradise is in the mind I just know it is, but I’ve been searching for a lifetime… I can’t find it,” to “when you least expect it, you’re gonna find yourself traveling alone,” and “that dad slapped his kids around and built a swingset in the yard that no one ever used… I’m going to love you in the meantime. In the madness of real life, I promise to do my best,” and “good luck to the lucky few and god bless the rest of us fools.” The album is about love not just in spite of it all, but loving it all – the whole crazy mixed up mess. https://www.annativel.com/home
