By: Clare Buchanan

It’s that time of year again! As has become tradition here on The Salemite’s website, I have compiled a list of my favorite albums released in 2025. The albums I selected spanned a variety of genres from alternative to pop to indie rock to country folk.

2025 in general was a busy year for the music industry. Rosalía, Bad Bunny, Tyler Childers, and Lady Gaga all released new albums- as did Taylor Swift, Brandi Carlile, and Addison Rae. But after much contemplation, here are my (personal) top ten albums released in 2025:

10. The Art of Loving – Olivia Dean

Photo Credit: Amazon

The Art of Loving is a pop-jazzy, introspective take on love, growing older, and finding one’s way through the ever-changing relationships of your twenties. The album is quintessential London– elegant and poised, yet vulnerable. There are some unbelievably catchy, feel good tracks on this album: “Nice To Each Other”, “So Easy (To Fall In Love)”, and the skyrocketing hit sensation, “Man I Need.” My personal favorites on the album are “A Couple Minutes”, a nostalgic step back in time with an unrecognizable past love, and “Let Alone The One You Love”, an unexpected yet refreshing, exasperated lament post separation. “I’ve Seen It” is an astonishing, stripped back album closer that hones in on the main theme of the album- seeing love in everything.

9. Melt – Not For Radio

Photo Credit: Spotify

María Zardoya, of The Marías, released Melt this year as her debut solo album. Melt’s sound is reminiscent of The Marías’ 2024 album, Submarine, however Melt is distinctly separate and holds its own weight. Listening to the album, I was transported into an alternate dreamscape– a wet world with ascending and descending arpeggios mimicking the sound of icicles melting. My favorite tracks off the album are likely “Puddles”, a timid song rooted in overwhelming delusions of longing for someone you’ve never even met- and “Back To You”, a light yet haunting number full of yearning and desperation hidden by the pleasant sound of piano and light percussion. 

8. Mount Pleasant – Kelsea Ballerini

Photo Credit: Genius

While this is more of an EP than an album, I found this collection of songs to be so striking, I had to include it in my top ten for this year. The leading single off the EP, “I Sit In Parks”, is a deeply candid and vulnerable track laced with some of my favorite lyrics of this year. “Hit the vape- hallucinate a nursery with Noah’s Arc” really tickled me upon first listen. So killer. Mount Pleasant is introspective and sort of unexpectedly devastating with songs like “The Revisionist”, and then ends on a deeply meaningful note with “Check On Your Friends”, a song that centers platonic love in a really important way. Mount Pleasant hones in on Ballerini’s easily recognizable Southern drawl backed with that synthy-pop sound that ties together her entire discography, creating a narrative on this EP that feels both nostalgic and future-forward. 

7. If I’m Honest For Once – Abby Powledge

Photo Credit: Genius

Another EP on the top 10 albums of 2025…but I couldn’t help myself. I actually consider Abby Powledge to be a somewhat-friend of mine, since I know a girl from studying abroad who goes to Belmont with her. So, we basically know each other- and if Abby Powledge happens to be reading this she should know that Abby Powledge is very loved at Salem College, and that Copy and Layout Editor Sam, and I, likely make up more than half of her monthly listeners. 

But in all seriousness, this EP is spectacular. “Generations In The Making” is a touching song about accepting oneself and finding strength in ancestral ties. “Real Winter” is very relatable as someone from California who also experienced my first winter once I moved to college. “Men On The Internet” is an extremely clever yet candid take on the struggles of online dating. And then Abby hits you with “Forgive”- dropping lines like “I’ve never felt much hell like the burn of my Christian guilt.” Abby’s raspy voice mixed with her experimental guitar chords are comforting and cathartic, marking this EP as one of my favorite projects of this year. 

6. Forever Is A Feeling – Lucy Dacus

Photo Credit: Pitchfork

Unfortunately, this album has rooted itself deeply into my understanding of this past year. I mean- it’s an unbelievably excellent record. But, it’s actually an album that has become difficult to listen to because it transports me straight back to where I was when I first heard it- the Lincolnshire wolds of England. I see the daffodils blooming. I see the lambs frolicking in the green pastures. And I see the relationship that was blooming at the time that has since ended. 

There are some truly devastating songs on this album, not in Lucy’s usual method of devastation, but rather through this anxiety that runs throughout the record that love won’t make it through the seasons, a fear that is then rescued by a sick optimism and genuine happiness that sends the message as the album wraps up that love always prevails. “Talk” struck me initially as a stand out on the record, and “Best Guess” seems to have solidified itself as one of Lucy’s most recognizable songs. “Most Wanted Man” is brilliant. Forever Is A Feeling is a record that feels entirely unique and outside of itself, singular, and meant for the time it was released. 

5. Good Story – Eliza McLamb

Photo Credit: Pitchfork

Dearest darling and North Carolina native, Eliza McLamb, is a constant favorite of mine. Originally capturing my heart with her 2022 EP, Salt Circle, Good Story is the latest album from McLamb. Blending genres between alternative, indie, pop, rock, and maybe even a little bit of folk, McLamb’s songwriting prowess is on full display here, the main through line of this album emphasizing the fact that McLamb lives her life knowing she can find understanding of it- only if she can weave it into a good story. “Like the Boys” is an interesting take on sexual attraction and patriarchy, and how the two often intersect, interact, and instigate each other. The soft, dreamy bridge of this song pulls back from the intensity of the verses and chorus- allowing for moments of true introspection. “Suffering” is another candid and raw masochistic anthem from McLamb. 

But my personal favorite on the album is “Talisman”, a folky and magical song about finding meaning in making a story out of one’s life experiences. One of my favorite lyrics off the album is, “Going back again, telling the old stories, looking out before me. The future’s always blurry. Going back in time, I see everything fine. Maybe that’s why I’ve been making stories my whole life.” Eliza gets it. 

4. Willoughby Tucker – Ethel Cain

Photo Credit: Genius

If you know me, you know that ever since I was seventeen, I have had a very intense connection with Ethel Cain’s music. Preacher’s Daughter was one of those albums that genuinely changed the course of my life. Cain also released another album, Perverts, this year- which was a jarring, ambient, death-sounding album based mainly in tantalizing, dissonant ruckus. 

Willoughby Tucker was released eight months later in August of 2025, and rose quickly to become one of my most listened to albums of the year. A prequel to Preacher’s Daughter, Willoughby Tucker tells the story of Ethel Cain’s doomed love affair with Willoughby Tucker in their hometown- and what leads to their tragic end.

“Dust Bowl” is a notable track on this album, both sonically and lyrically. “Dust Bowl” has become my airplane song- a chosen song that I will play repeatedly about forty times to lull me to sleep on whatever random American Airlines flight I find myself on. “Nettles” was the song that helped me survive a summer of isolation on Catalina Island when I was living and working there as a naturalist. The album’s linear storytelling serves as an escape for the listener- accompanied by the whirring, synthy, dark, deep chords and sounds that are so distinct in Cain’s discography. 

3. West End Girl – Lily Allen

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Lily Allen’s West End Girl was my wildcard album of the year. I had no reference as to who Lily Allen was before the album started making waves on social media for its apparent connection to Lily Allen’s recent divorce with David Harbour. The internet was in an uproar at Lily Allen’s decision to unashamedly hang up her dirty laundry to dry through such a public, pop music project. When Lena Dunham posted about how much she adored the album- that was when I knew I had to listen to the album myself.

West End Girl unravels track by track like scenes in a play, a theatrical series of events, leaving the listener to wonder what has grounding in reality and what is fiction. The album starts with its title track, setting the stage up for the journey of bewilderment, devastation, anger, humiliation, and later acceptance that Allen takes the listener on. Served to the listener in catchy, amusing, and extremely clever pop bits- I became obsessed with this album instantly. 

My favorite tracks are “Sleepwalking” and “P***y Palace” because of their complete rawness, candor, and wit. “P***y Palace” is notably one of the most recognizable songs off the album, especially after it caused quite the stir on social media for the explicit frankness of its lyrics. The song seems to come from the depths of denial- opening with the sound of a panicked gasp. Then the beat comes in and seems to immediately transport me to the streets of the West Village, my feet hitting the pavement as Allen orates the horrifying and diabolical experience of possibly discovering your husband’s separate apartment is in fact not being used as a dojo- but rather as a “pussy palace.” Allegedly. Possibly. Maybe. Regardless of the context of the song- it’s a hell of a great one.

2. Moisturizer – Wet Leg

Photo Credit: Spotify

2025 was a joyous year for me because finally -after three years- my favorite band of all time, the British indie rock phenomenon, Wet Leg, released their highly anticipated second album. Moisturizer is an excellent follow up to their self titled debut, which had poked fun at the realities of modern dating with quintessential quirky, dry, British humor. Moisturizer turns a page on this narrative with a fresh new take on love and lust with even more graphic and stranger visuals to accompany the leading singles. 

While there is this touching narrative of the early stages of queer love very present in this album in tracks like “jennifer’s body” and “pond song”, there is also this hilarious sub-message of utter exasperation with the unwanted romantic coming-ons of men in songs like “catch these fists” and “mangetout”. One of my favorite lyrics is in “catch these fists”: “This always happens late at night- some guy comes up, says I’m his type. I just threw up in my mouth, when he tried to ask me out. Yeah, don’t approach me. I just wanna dance with my friends.”

But my favorite song on the album is going to have to be “pokemon”- an earnest moment about wanting to dive deep in love when one knows caution should probably be exercised. 

1. Who’s The Clown? – Audrey Hobert

Photo Credit: Spotify

To the surprise of absolutely no one, my favorite album released this year is Audrey Hobert’s debut powerhouse of an album- Who’s The Clown? Audrey Hobert seemed to rise up out of nowhere- captivating me immediately with her polka dot capris, clogs, peacoats of various bright colors, and catchy anthems of weird girl realness.

Every single song on this album describes the terrors and joys and bewilderment of your twenties- everything from the self-obsessed, vain concerns of a 25 year old girl who thinks too much about herself: (“I think I’ve got a fucked up face, and that thought used to haunt me.”), to the mundane disappointments of the modern dating scene: (“Touching my leg, you don’t have a headboard. Do that again- I think that I want more.”), to the natural regression towards one’s adolescent self in moments of anxiety: (“Can’t lie but I’m thinking like high school was better than this.”), to the never ending concern that one is leading a life that will eventually fade into obscurity: (“This isn’t Sex and the City, nobody’s watching me write in my room.”) 

While I am naturally drawn to the lyrics of this album and find myself wishing daily that I had come up with such lines, the synthy beats of “Sue Me” and “Bowling Alley” cannot be understated. Audrey Hobert has cracked the code on how to make the perfect pop song. She is ushering in a new era of weird girl pop, led by her self-effacing wit and brilliant sense of humor in the face of often trivial adversity. Listening to this album, I feel more connected to the human experience of being a completely ridiculous individual. Hobert is my prophet, and I am listening very closely to see what she has to say next- and you should too!