18-05-2025
The Best Music of 2025 So Far
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Graphic by Chris Panicker
Pitchfork's editors are already sorting, compiling, and straining to remember all the music that's been released this year. So we're spotlighting some of 2025's most outstanding records to date by rounding up albums that have earned high scores and Best New Music designations with a quick list of RIYLs (that's Recommended If You Like) and links to our coverage.
Unlike our year-end lists, this one is organized in reverse chronological order. To help you keep track of the year's best music, we'll be updating it periodically throughout the remainder of 2025.
(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)
RIYL: Fragrantica reviews; phenomenology; dream logic; the relationship between scent and memory; live music as a liminal space; subtle club beats; modern dance; the sounds of the Oslo subway
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Actually watching, not waiting out, the movie credits; Lia Kohl; loop pedals; Mississippi humidity; buying old family photos at a dilapidated vintage shop; The Sacrificial Code; taking the window seat on multi-hour train trips
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Scrapbooks; collage; free spirits; false starts; first-thought-best-thought; house shows; unplugging; touching grass; smoking grass; growing grass; that one tape that's been on the dashboard of your car for like five years, since that road trip you took with your best friend, and still sounds great no matter how garbled it gets
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Timelapse videos of nature; drum 'n' bass to chill out to; Floating Points symphonies; Objekt; making a complex, inventive beverage to pair with a piece of buttered toast
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Geopolitics; anticolonialism; peace studies; survivor's tales; kuduro; Burial; rave stabs; reverb; battered patinas; smoke; shrapnel; slivers of light; silver linings
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Grouper; the landscape of coastal Ireland; Gothic novels; Cocteau Twins; going to the beach when it's raining; dream pop; uilleann pipes; frost on the windows
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Tinned salmon; vintage folding lawn chairs; Bruce Hornsby records; grinning from ear to ear; love's clarion trumpeters; more fine product collaborations
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Sea shanties; foghorns; Ravedeath, 1972; Ágætis byrjun; secular acts of worship; always carrying Narcan; 'the great blue yonder'; prior accordion experience not required
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Trance without the kick drum; chance music; jazz-not-jazz; engineering; oops all intros; '90s ambient; deconstructed techno; stereofields; Skee Mask
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Dappled sunlight; reducing, reusing, and recycling; lifelong friendship; minimalist folk; cosmic ambient; getting really stoned and going to the aquarium; pondering mortality
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Every genre you've ever heard; Drain Gang when they have joie de vivre; Pokémon fanfic; Julio Torres; dying on arcade games; hyperpop wunderkinds; sensory obliteration tanks; sci-fi EDM; emo rap with plausible deniability; playing Skrillex and the Chainsmokers in separate tabs and thinking it's one song that kind of slays
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Backpacking across India; private afters at Ibizan villas; warped cassette tapes; warm fuzzies; schlager; Afro-house; a blurrier Blur; a kindlier Keinemusik; breathing exercises; golden sunsets
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Self-deprecating humor; mixtapes; vocal fry; quick cuts; hyperpop; hyperactive pop; video-game soundtracks; 'Will It Blend?' videos; monster-truck announcers; monster bass; deadly beats; resurrection
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Trips to the dentist; unrelenting Britishisms; laser pistols; SOPHIE's 'Faceshopping'; Federici's Caliban and the Witch; eye of newt; tongue of frog; how changing your gender changes reality
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Chilled red; midlife crisis literature; bologna sandwiches; Bowie/Eno; barbershop quartet in Purgatory; auditioning younger actors for your biopic
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Meditative piano; native plants in bloom; Music for Airports; sitting on a bench at a James Turrell exhibit; sunlight through stained glass; Ryuichi Sakamoto; seeing how long you can hold a note
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Sensory deprivation tanks; hushed, cozy beats; slinking around the club by yourself; pre-cringe James Blake; softboy vocals
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Exposure therapy; dyeing your hair blonde as a trauma response; the phrases 'featuring Aldous Harding' and 'produced by Blake Mills'; agoraphobia; ragged guitar solos; tasteful flutes; sneaky disillusion; quiet wisdom
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Ceremonial music in the club; Boredoms; rough edges; raw Chicago footwork; arrhythmia; keytars; cowboy hats; spamming samples in DJ sets; 'if you ain't red-lining, you ain't headlining'; collapsing the distant past and present
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
RIYL: Psychotic art rock; drummers; New York noise rock; Battles; Hella; rototoms; bands so tight they sound electronic
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Power pop done right; yung Guided by Voices; Royal Headache; big lo-fi hooks; Chicago rock; DIY spaces; a pill that makes you stay young forever
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Having a formative Andy Warhol phase as a teenager; maximalism; analog synths; the concept of lipsyncing for your life; this photo of David Bowie and Trent Reznor hanging out; a touch of funk; campy horror movies; inventing your own nachos
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Model/Actriz; Modest Mouse; Deafheaven; 'weightlifting music' generally; the tortured artist; the intentionally ugly; getting it off your chest
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Alan Watts; jiu-jitsu; meditation retreats; Total Refreshment Centre; woolly sweaters; baby animals; joining a The Artist's Way book club
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Anti-capitalism; open-source software; culture-jamming; UbuWeb; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; 2000s electroclash; gabber remixes; self-aware bangers that aren't afraid to break a sweat
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Free diving; folktronica; music boxes; Burt Bacharach; full moons; glowing tides; weightlessness; the softest blanket ever
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Beach Boys; beach buoys; stacked harmonies; distilled essences; family reunions; midlife crises; new beginnings; simple pleasures; the golden light of Lisbon
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Dean Blunt; King Krule; SSENSE; NTS; natural wines; autumn leaves; the after-afters
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Friday night at the jazz club; Sunday mornings at home; celestial harps; acoustic soul; Betty Carter; Joni Mitchell; the scent of jasmine
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Going on a date to the Met Cloisters; Caroline Polachek; Bladee; Baroque polyphony; e-girl aesthetics; Y2K nostalgia; making memes about Enya but also genuinely loving Enya
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Introspection; introversion; intricate wordplay; extended rhyme schemes; hypnagogic drift; hip-hop history; psychedelic sample flips; hard-won wisdom
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: PJ Harvey; Julianna Barwick; David Lynch; attic rooms; taxidermy; RCA cables; 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned'
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Distorted 808s; Carti worship; bass-boosted edits; shitposting as a love language; 'ok is the hardest'; dunking on leakers
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Rage and resilience; an unexpected Kenny Segal collaboration; bluesy Yves Tumor; a dreamy ode to gay bars; righteous provocations; corroded textures
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Hallucinogenic dance music; soukous guitar; Ghanaian highlife; Latin cumbia; synth horns; bit-crushed drums; fireworks finales; dream sequences
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Ray of Light; Vespertine; 'I Feel Love'; strobe lights; Simonson technique; fetish couture; kissing a stranger at the club
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Re-reading Braiding Sweetgrass; somatic therapy; social media detoxes; Joni Mitchell deep cuts; long life-affirming conversations with friends; a little jazz, a little banjo; quilting as a metaphor
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Hot coffee on hot afternoons; pouring rum in coffee; street music; salsa; dembow; collapsing the past and the present sounds of Puerto Rico; songs about sexy ladies on the beach; songs that will make you call your mom
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
RIYL: Classic rock; soft rock; close-harmonized vocals; theatrical vibrato; exploratory falsetto; unabashed melodrama; states of innocence; songs about mononymic women; theological subtexts; the warble of warped vinyl; the vicissitudes of migrating geese
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal
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