This is woefully incomplete, as I failed to log any of my listens or favorites from March to December 2025.
Nevertheless, the ‘My Favorites of 2025’ gallery directly below is still being slowly retroactively populated with 2025 favorites as I listen to them again or discover them and log them in 2026 and subsequent years.
My Favorite Albums of 2025
All Noted Listens in 2025
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: folk electronic, dream pop, indie rock, a little proggy, British
Date Listened: December 29, 2025
Context/Location:
Format/Platform: Phone / Apple Music
I listened to this so much throughout December; this is just one representative log entry.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: folk rock, singer songwriter
Date Listened: March 16, 2025
Context/Location: anywhere everywhere
Format/Platform: Phone / Apple Music
Listening to every track by Big Thief on shuffle because I’ve wanted to see them for years but never could, and found out they are doing a Twilight Concert in Salt Lake in September for just $20 a ticket and I got a ticket and now I just need to figure out if or how I can convince anyone in my family to go to this concert with me. No worries if not, though, I will not hesitate to go by myself.
Genre/Description: noise rock toxic sludge apocalyptic capitalism american horror story
Date Listened: February 1, 2025
Context/Location: most recently while reading *Hell Followed with Us*
Format/Platform: Phone / Laptop / Apple Music
I’m purple man, too
Genre/Description: noise rock toxic sludge apocalyptic capitalism american horror story
Date Listened: February 1, 2025
Context/Location: most recently while reading *Hell Followed with Us*
Format/Platform: Phone / Laptop / Apple Music
EVERYTHING THAT THE SKULL SAID WAS TRUE
Genre/Description: noise rock toxic sludge apocalyptic capitalism american horror story
Date Listened: January 31, 2025
Context/Location: most recently while reading *Hell Followed with Us*
Format/Platform: Phone / Laptop / Apple Music
Send my body to Arby’s
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: slowcore shoegaze kind of heavy kind of ethereal tho
Date Listened: January 29, 2025
Context/Location:
Format/Platform: Phone / Apple Music
This was a “personalized” suggestion for me from the Apple Music algorithm and it was a good one. I hate that a little bit, but glad to learn of this band.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: epic bloated rock album full of earworms and basic weirdness
Date Listened: January 29, 2025
Context/Location:
Format/Platform: Phone / CD rip
(I built a playlist to finally try the original 3LP Vinyl edition tracklisting: Dawn - Tea Time - Dusk - Twilight - Midnight - Starlight)
Genre/Description: Congolese Soukous guitar plus latin beats and electro noise pop
Date Listened: January 25, 2025
Context/Location: driving around, at home, whatever
Format/Platform: Phone / Apple Music
This is one of those albums that opens several avenues of musical exploration, some entirely new to me (Ale Hop) and some I know and love but need to catch up with (Nyege Nyege Tapes, Soukous.)
Genre/Description: shoegaze, dreampop, indie, rock, 1980s, 1990s, British mostly
Date Listened: January 11, 2025
Context/Location: all over the place -- calling this a 'listening project'
Format/Platform: 5-CD set borrowed from the SLC Public Library and played in my car, then I might have um ripped them and added them to my private digital library before returning them and play them on my phone now
Been listening through this comp, but also using it as a jumping off point to explore more by some of these artists and also just an excuse or occasion to listen a lot of other 80s and 90s rock I loved or always wanted to listen to but didn’t have access back at the time.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description:
Date Listened: January 5, 2025
Context/Location: driving to work, errands, driving my daughter to a friend's house, etc. but also kind of constantly playing in my head...
Format/Platform: CD playing in my car stereo
This was so real to me as a 14 year old, and a little bit scary. First Smashing Pumpkins album I purchased. And I still like listening to it now, I guess.
Genre/Description: guitar rock, sophomore slump?
Date Listened: January 4, 2025
Context/Location:
Format/Platform: Laptop / Apple Music
After not being able to resist repeat listens of their self-titled debut and all the related singles from the time, this was indeed a letdown.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description:
Date Listened: January 3, 2025
Context/Location: while working mostly
Format/Platform: Phone / Apple Music
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: madchester, indie rock, classic rock, dance rock?, britpop?
Date Listened: January 3, 2025
Context/Location: work, driving, etc.
Format/Platform: Phone / Laptop / Apple Music / retro album blog pirate FLAC downloads
I don’t have much of note to say about this. It was a side quest from my Still in a Dream shoegaze/dreampop/4AD listening project and I’ve been stuck on it since, listening to it in various iterations. I know, I know, this isn’t remotely shoegaze or dream pop but it is from the same time period and was mentioned throughout the liner notes and I just wanted to listen to it again, and I get to do what I want with this project.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: classic alternative rock flirting with dreampop, prog, psych metal, shoegaze, whatever
Date Listened: January 2, 2025
Context/Location: driving around, working,
Format/Platform: old scratched CD playing in my car stereo, and also deluxe edition via Apple Music on my phone and laptop
Even exploring all these kind-of obscure shoegaze and dream pop bands I knew it was always going to end up with me listening to Smashing Pumpkins. A lot.
A 2025 Favorite
Genre/Description: shoegaze, dreampop, noise, blankets of sound, snowstorm music
Date Listened: January 1, 2025
Context/Location: driving to the middle of nowhere in the middle of a snowstorm
Format/Platform: CD playing in my car stereo
I went on a really random new year’s day afternoon-evening drive out to the middle of nowhere to maybe take pictures or just whatever and got caught in a snowstorm and I listened to this album twice in a row on my drive.