GL.25.05: TONY SCHOENBERG
GL.25.06: Mario Sanders
GL.25.07: Darrin Shillair
GL.25.08: Scott Lawson
GL.25.09: Erik Kristjanson
GL.25.10: Curt Trnka
GL.25.11: Marisa Plaice
GL.25.12: Max Einstein
***
2025 Year End Song Album List
I recently listened, for the first time in literally 45 years, to the rock album Alive II by KISS. There was a time in my life (between ages 8 and 10) when I believed KISS was the greatest rock band on earth, the only one whose existence mattered. There were times a bit later in life when, during those exceedingly rare moments when I thought about KISS, I brushed them off as loathsome peddlers of schlock who were maybe the worst band in the history of rock music (that would have been in my 20s). Now, substantially older and less prone to sweeping pronouncements, I feel comfortable saying that KISS was neither the best rock band ever (I know, I’m really going out on a limb there), nor the worst band ever. What it most definitely was – at least during its initial burst of fame in the mid 1970s – was a band of its time.
This was confirmed by my recent relistening to Alive II, the album I exalted above all others during my childhood love affair with KISS. Alive II is, first and foremost, a live album, that most 1970s of things. Second, it is a double album, another 1970s relic. And the music is the kind of arena-ready hard rock, full of cartoonish sexual bravado and swagger, that was rampant in the 1970s and that now sounds ridiculous, if not offensive. And, lest we forget, they wore makeup and costumes and had comic book personas! But if you can put aside the childishness of it all, KISS in the mid-1970s was a pretty darn good hard rock band, with catchy rock hooks, strong musicianship, great energy, and more New York Dolls influence in their sound than you might expect. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my musical sensibilities as a child weren’t as terrible as I had feared. (Either that or my childhood infatuation with the band has reasserted itself on my middle-aged psyche and blinded me to reality.)
Which brings me back to this list. For at least a decade now, music writers have been proclaiming the death of the album. They make these proclamations despite the fact that rock and pop artists still release new albums every single day. Those same music writers, every single year, put out lists of the year’s best albums. Ergo, it is factually false that the album is dead, and writers who say as much are engaged in a form of cognitive dissonance. While it is undoubtedly true that what the album is and what it signifies as a cultural and musical concept has changed quite dramatically, albums are certainly not dead.
Good for me, because I have always been, first and foremost, a consumer of albums. As a child and teenager, I bought only albums, never singles. And even in today’s streaming world, I almost always listen to entire albums. In fact, my prior guest lists often read like album reviews. So this year, rather than list my favorite songs of the year, I’m listing my favorite albums. In no particular order:
Sharp Pins, Balloon, Balloon, Balloon: Sharp Pins was one of my favorite discoveries this year. Writers tend to compare the band (which is really the project of one Kai Slater, who somehow is only 21 years old) to Guided By Voices, and no doubt that influence is very apparent on some of their songs (even more so on its 2023 album, Turtle Rock). The bigger influence here, however, is the Beatles. What’s cool to me is that Sharp Pins takes its cues not (like many previous indie bands) from the power pop and psychedelia of the Revolver-Sgt. Pepper’s-era Beatles but, rather, from the straight-up Beatlemania sounds of a few years earlier. Indeed, some songs on this album sound like they could have been outtakes from With the Beatles or A Hard Day’s Night. And Mr. Slater nails it. His reinvention of British Invasion songcraft and style is nothing less than breathtaking.
Sharp Pins, Radio DDR: Same as above, but I also hear other influences on this album, particularly Big Star. Which is a very good thing.
Horsegirl, Phonetics On and On: I totally dug how this band sounded with big distorted guitars on Versions of Modern Performance, but I think I enjoy the clean-guitar sound on this album even more. If anything, it does more to illuminate their great vocal interplay. To me, it sounds like an evolution, and a very good one at that. On the other hand, it throws a serious wrench into my theory that the 1990s indie band they most resemble is Black Tambourine. But that’s a small price to pay for a great album. Especially one with a killer lead off track (“Where’d You Go?”).
Geese, Getting Killed: This is the album that made everyone lose their shit in 2025, and for good reason. It’s seriously dope. I find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what is so compelling about this album. Clearly, Cameron Winter’s singular vocals have a lot to do with it. But his vocals were singular on prior Geese albums, yet those albums were not this compelling. I’m going to quote what my brother said to me about the album, because it’s as good an explanation as any: “It’s like my subconscious has been recorded. How did they do that?”
Snocaps, Snocaps: Hurray for supergroups! They’re all the rage again. But unlike the bloated garbage otherwise known as the supergroups of the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, supergroups in the 2020s are awesome. I tend to like the poppier Allison songs a bit more than the twangier Katie songs, but having them together in one band (with gorgeous MJ Lenderman guitar work) elevates both.
Greg Freeman, Burnover: Another great discovery for me in 2025 was this guy, Greg Freeman. He’s based in Burlington, the largest city in Vermont. The population of Burlington as of the 2020 census was 44,743. The city’s most famous exports are Bernie Sanders (who was mayor in the 1980s), Ben & Jerry’s, and Phish. I’m not sure why I mention those things, other than that it may explain the rusted-out small town feel evoked by Freeman’s slightly twangy, guitar-forward indie rock songs. Maybe it’s also why he sounds to me like some weird melange of the Meat Puppets, Wilco and Neil Young, artists with origins in Tempe, Belleville and Winnipeg – places that, like Burlington, you would never confuse with New York or Los Angeles. But never mind that – this guy’s a first-rate songwriter, and his lyrics are as good as his hooks.
Wednesday, Bleeds: On my guest list two years ago, I said the following about Wednesday: “I didn’t love their 2023 album Rat Saw God as much as everyone else on earth, which I think is because I find Karly Hartzman's vocals a bit off-putting, which is compounded by the fact that they are buried so low in the mix that they are sometimes hard to hear (which is no doubt a deliberate aesthetic choice).” I’m pleased to report that Wednesday read my 2023 guest list and took my advice. Because, on Bleeds, Hartzman’s vocals are not only higher in the mix, but she’s clearly put work into her singing over the past two years. In fact, her singing is downright great here. I think this is Wednesday’s best album to date. While the sound is still rooted in distorted guitars and 1990s indie rock aesthetics, there’s more sonic and stylistic variety than on prior releases, and it totally works. I thought the last album was very good; I think this one is great. It also has the funniest couplet I’ve heard in a song in a long time: “We watched a Phish concert and Human Centipede / Two things I now wish I had never seen.”
Tony Molina, On This Day: If you’re the kind of person who would enjoy spending 23 minutes of your life listening to 21 beautiful and fleeting songs that channel the most gorgeous and lyrical pop, rock and folk music of the 1960s, then this album is for you.
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