22 December 2025 - The Wicked 25: My Top 25 Albums of 2025

This is a very different post than anything I have ever done here, and I’m doing it for a reason. 

You see, this year, I decided to listen to a lot of albums – I’m trying to reach 1,000 this year, and I will absolutely reach it by the time I hit the one‑year mark of starting the project. As of this writing, I’m north of 800, including nearly 300 albums from 2025. This project has had a strong impact on my musical taste, as maybe you have seen in the last few weeks as I’ve been posting music from a lot of those albums.

What I intentionally did was rate each album on a basis of 1–5 stars. And when I heard the second album that made me say “I wish I had a 6th star,” that told me that there were even elite albums I liked more than others.

What I unintentionally started to do was listen to a lot of new releases and new music – until I realized it, and then I started listening to new music and 2025 music intentionally. I wanted to do something with this information, so I decided to start making this list and give you my top…

…well, I started this intending to choose 10 albums. It is going to be 25 albums, and I would have LOVED to make 50, but… Pitchfork, for example, puts out a top 50. Do you know how many people they’re using to write that? FIFTY. Each review is by a different person. And it’s probably more than that. I’m your only writer here.

But also, you have to remember – this ain't Pitchfork's list. This is one person’s opinion. Music is subjective. I hope you check out and enjoy a lot of this music – but if you don’t, it’s OK. Also, this isn’t a perfect list. Ask me another day, and my #13 might be my #23. Something that didn’t make this list today could be #8 tomorrow. Even as I was making this list, some albums moved dramatically. Spoiler alert: the album I thought was #1 was not even #2.

One final note: some of these artists, I'm posting about for the first time.  I guarantee it's not the last. 

So, without further ado – and with apologies to Lily Allen (West End Girl), Lilly Hiatt (Forever), Doja Cat (VIE), CHUU (Only Cry In The Rain), Snocaps (Snocaps), George Houston (TODC), Mavis Staples (Sad and Beautiful World), Martin Carthy (Transform Me Then Into A Fish), Lorde (Virgin), Population II (Maintenant Jamais), Ela Minus (Día), Yves Jarvis (All Cylinders), Soccer Mommy (Evergreen (stripped)), Throwing Muses (Moonlight Concessions), Blondshell (If You Asked For A Picture), Housewife (Girl Of The Hour), girlpuppy (Sweetness), Black Eyes (Hostile Design), Debby Friday (The Starrr of the Queen Of Life), Lexie Liu (Teenage Ramble), Cœur de pirate (Cavale), Sabrina Carpenter (Man's Best Friend), Ariane Roy (Dogue), and, believe it or not, Ribbon Skirt (PENSACOLA) and Lou-Adriane Cassidy (Triste Animal) – here is the LONGEST post I have ever written: my Wicked 25, my 25 favorite albums of 2025

25. Beyries – REPRISES

REPRISES is Beyries looking back at songs she’s already lived with - and some you've lived with, too - and gently turning them over in her hands, re‑recording and re‑arranging them into something smaller, sadder and somehow more hopeful. In a year where I listened to a lot of “new” music, this little Canadian record of re‑imagining and second chances quietly became one of my favorite companions.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

24. Princess Nokia – GIRLS

Princess Nokia spends GIRLS turning her own trauma, desire, and day‑to‑day mess into a loud, joyful argument that women – especially weird, brown, queer, “too much” women – deserve pleasure, safety, and space. The record plays like a self‑help manual disguised as a party, full of hooks about cutting off predators, luxuriating in your friendships, and learning to like the person in the mirror again, and that fierce self‑possession is what makes it feel as vital as anything else being made today.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

23. Siula - Night Falls On The World

Siula’s debut barely exists outside of Welsh and UK indie circles, which makes it feel like a secret world you get to carry around. Night Falls On The World drifts between cinematic dream‑pop, ambient electronics and slow‑motion indie, a soft but slightly uncanny haze where memory, grief and late‑night internet solitude blur together; it plays less like a debut and more like stepping into a half‑remembered film reel about lost love and impermanence, with Iqra Malik’s bilingual vocals and Llion Robertson’s production guiding you through the dark.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

22. Oklou – choke enough

This album was my last-in, because it took some time to resonate with me. This is because Oklou makes music that sounds like a dream you can’t quite wake up from, and choke enough is her most complete version of that yet: warped pop melodies, submerged vocals, everything just a little waterlogged and bittersweet. It became one of my favorite relaxation records of the year - the kind of album that sneaks up on you until you realize you know every glitch and sigh.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

21. Marie Davidson – City of Clowns​

City of Clowns is what happens when Marie Davidson points her dry, dark sense of humor at capitalism and nightlife and decides to dance on their graves instead of just eulogizing them. It’s electro, spoken word, satire and genuine anxiety all tangled together, and in a year obsessed with AI and hustle culture, this record felt like someone finally saying, “This is insane, right?” over a beat you can actually move to.​

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

20. Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out​

On paper, a Clipse reunion could’ve been pure nostalgia; instead, Let God Sort Em Out is two grown men staring down God, guilt and legacy over a Neptunes production that still sounds sharper than most of what passed for rap in 2025. I loved a lot of rap albums this year - and in fact rediscovered my love for the genre, not only in this album but in many others. This is the one that made me sit up and rewind verses - the one where the weight of the past is right there in every flex and confession.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

19. Saya Gray – SAYA

Saya Gray’s SAYA is like scrolling through someone’s brain: songs splinter mid‑phrase, guitars and strings smear into each other, and you’re never quite sure where the groove is going to land. It’s dense and sometimes disorienting - it's not an easy listen, and even took a few listens for me to connect - but once it clicks, it becomes the thing to put on when regular alt‑pop feels too tidy and you want something to gently pull your head apart and rewire it for 40 minutes.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

18. Jayli Wolf – Daughter Of The Haze

Daughter Of The Haze is a debut (that isn't really a debut) that already feels like a world: an Anishinaabe/Cree artist threading folk, dark pop and field‑recording textures into songs about cult survival, intergenerational trauma and self‑reclamation. It’s only 34 minutes, but like Jayli's entire catalog (including her Once A Tree work and her beautiful spoken word YouTube offerings), it hit me like a whole novel - the kind of record where even the quiet moments feel loaded with ghosts and new beginnings.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

17. Laufey – A Matter of Time​

Laufey’s A Matter of Time is the rare jazz‑pop - a genre of which I am not generally a huge fan - album that actually sounds like someone working through their twenties in real time, not just playing dress‑up with old standards. She folds big, cinematic arrangements and retro chord changes reminiscent of Karen Carpenter and bossanova around lyrics about panic, heartbreak and trying to be a person, and in a year full of nostalgic pastiche, this one felt like the real thing.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

16. Fionn - scum. 

Fionn’s scum. is pure femme‑rage pop‑rock, a tight, snarling little record where every chorus feels like finally saying the thing you swallowed at work, at the bar, on stage. Songs like “Blow” and the title track turn mansplaining, bad exes and low‑level everyday misogyny into sugar‑rush guitar anthems, all Veruca Salt/Elastica‑coded hooks and twin‑sister harmonies that made this one of my go‑to “I'm pissed, but I need to be pissed safely” albums of 2025.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

15. Tyler Childers – Snipe Hunter

Snipe Hunter is Tyler Childers going all‑in on weird spiritual country: talking to gods, playing with garage rock and Phil Spector (and Rick Rubin) sounds, and still somehow landing back in the holler. It’s messy and brave in a way major‑label country almost never is.  This is the album I absolutely expected to dislike and almost didn't listen to - and yet, here we are, talking about it, because it is that undeniably good. 

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

14. CMAT – EURO-COUNTRY

EURO-COUNTRY is CMAT’s big swing at turning Irish country‑pop into a vehicle for millennial burnout, national history and the absurdity of trying to stay sane in late‑capitalist Europe. It’s funny and theatrical and sometimes devastating, moving from “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” to “Lord, Let That Tesla Crash” to the title track’s economic trauma monologue, and it was the record I put on when I needed to feel both seen and roasted.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

13. Rheostatics – The Great Lakes Suite​

I was not a Rheostatics person, which is exactly why it shocked me how hard The Great Lakes Suite landed: a sprawling, mostly improvised love letter to the lakes that turns geography into this wild, shifting soundscape. Alex Lifeson and Hugh Marsh are here, but the moment that really broke me is “The Drop Off,” built around a haunting spoken‑word recording from the late Gord Downie about Lake Ontario and water stewardship – it’s like having a ghost of Canadian music history standing in the middle of the suite, reminding you why this landscape matters.

So now I'm a Rheostatics guy. 

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

12. Chaeyoung – LIL FANTASY Vol.1

Chaeyoung’s LIL FANTASY Vol.1 sounds like someone trying to smash together K‑pop idol polish and the messier charm of bedroom pop, and somehow getting away with it. Across these short, twitchy tracks - the process of creating she was atypically intimately involved with - she leans into glitchy beats, chant‑y hooks and playful, sometimes bratty delivery; it feels closer to the hyper‑online experimentation of artists like PinkPantheress or Beabadoobee than to a traditional solo‑idol debut, and that risk‑taking is exactly what makes it so repayable.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

11. NewDad – Altar

Altar is NewDad leveling up: a colder, more gothic dream‑pop record than 2024's excellent Madra, that still finds room for bright, surging moments like “Roobosh” and “Everything I Wanted.” It's the perfect grey‑sky album - all smeared guitars, big choruses and that particular kind of Irish melancholy that somehow makes you feel better instead of worse.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

10. PinkPantheress – Fancy That

On Fancy That, PinkPantheress stretches her TikTok‑speed pop into something more theatrical and layered without losing the jittery, UK garage‑and‑DnB pulse underneath. It plays like a scrapbook of crushes, catastrophes and rewound memories, and even when it’s meme‑y or chaotic, the emotional throughline kept me coming back time and again.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

9. Mallrat – Light hit my face like a straight right

Mallrat’s album title sounds dramatic, but the magic of this record is how gentle its punches are: small, sharply observed pop songs about faith, doubt, crushes and feeling a little out of phase with the world. It snuck up on me as one of my most replayed albums of the last few months, that rare mix of bedroom intimacy and festival‑ready chorus from Australia's next big pop star.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

8. Gelli Haha – Switcheroo

Switcheroo is a chaos record in the best way: jagged indie rock, synthy detours, sudden hooks that feel like tripping over a hidden step. It sounded like 2025’s attention span in album form, and I kept coming back to it whenever I wanted something that felt restless and playful but still weirdly, deeply emotional.

Also, the red aesthetic really pops. 

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Deezer

7. Lights – A6

More than a decade after Siberia and Little Machines, A6 is the first Lights record that really feels like it belongs beside them - not as a sequel, but as their evolved equal. It’s a neon‑soaked grief diary that shows she is still the blueprint for the new wave of alt-pop, folding the heavier, LŪN‑era electronics into synth‑pop songs about damage, numbness and clawing your way back to yourself. she manages to make the "glitch-pop" trend feel grounded and visceral rather than just aesthetic, hitting with the urgency of someone rebuilding in real time.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

6. MUDRAT – Social Cohesion

Social Cohesion is a Molotov cocktail in album form: punk, rave and protest music smashed together into something that feels equally at home in a Melbourne squat gig and a city‑wide march. It’s furious about housing, work, the crisis in Palestine, and the slow death of the social safety net, but it never forgets that revolution needs rhythm, turning policy rage into choruses you can scream with strangers; in a year full of “political” records, MUDRAT actually made me want to do something.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

5. The Beaches – No Hard Feelings

The Beaches’ No Hard Feelings is the kind of record that lets this grown man scream along to songs about queer heartbreak, bad decisions and emotional spirals, and still feel like it’s partly about him. Beneath all the glittering hooks and big, bratty sing‑alongs there’s a steady, unmistakable ache – breakups, mental health crashes, that creeping sense that the wild nights might not last forever – and the band turns it into something that feels like youth’s last, joyful exhale rather than a defeat, which is why the sadness comes off as weirdly hopeful instead of pathetic.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

4. Addison Rae – Addison

Addison is the rare major‑label pop debut that understands exactly what it wants to be: glossy, hook‑drunk, emotionally legible and proudly “surface‑level” in a way that circles back around to feeling deep. From the EDM shimmer of “Summer Forever” to the Y2K‑coded bops and slick club touches, it’s an album about pleasure as a serious project, and somewhere in the middle of all that fun it quietly became one of the 2025 records I trusted most to make the day feel better.

Listen: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

3. Ribbon Skirt – Bite Down​

Ribbon Skirt’s debut lives in a dreamlike, fuzzed‑out space where colonial history, small‑town life and Indigenous joy all blur together under a haze of jangling guitars. Songs like “Deadhorse” and “Off Rez” slip from Cocteau Twins‑ish swirl into post‑punk bite, and the way Caroline Buswa writes about survival - both on this album and the PENSACOLA EP that followed it - without sliding into cliché made this feel like the defining rock statement of 2025 for me. 

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

2. Ninajirachi – I Love My Computer

I Love My Computer is the album that made everything else in 2025 snap into place: a restless, shapeshifting electronic debut about growing up online, loving the machine that raised you, and reckoning with what that did to your brain. It zips between 2010s EDM nostalgia, hyperpop chaos and glittering trance breakdowns without ever losing its emotional core, and more than any other record this year, it felt like a true self‑portrait of what it means to be a person whose best friend, worst enemy and main instrument has always been a screen.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

1. Lou-Adriane Cassidy – Journal d'un Loup-Garou

If you had told me a week ago this would be the #1, I would have called you nuts. But here we are. Lou‑Adriane Cassidy’s Journal d'un Loup‑Garou is a lush, francophone art‑pop diary that swings from theatrical to painfully intimate without ever losing its sense of melody. It opens with “Dis‑moi dis‑moi dis‑moi,” a plea to a disappearing father that sets the tone for an album obsessed with who made you and who left, and closes with “Celle‑ci vient du cœur,” a literal end‑credits roll where she thanks the people who held her up while she made it. Even when I couldn’t catch every word on the first pass, those bookends—and everything between them—made the record feel like eavesdropping on someone’s most dramatic year.

Across fairy‑tale images of wolves, dragons, poisoned apples and vampires, Journal d'un Loup‑Garou becomes a diary about the monster under your skin and the people who helped put it there. She writes about childhood, abandonment, friendship and step‑parenthood with a specificity that lands even if your French is patchy: a father who disappears when she’s 16, a letter to her partner’s daughter (“Chanson pour Odile”), a messy, loving ode to her best‑friend‑rival Ariane Roy, and finally that closing‑credits roll where she thanks the people behind the camera. It’s huge and theatrical, but it never forgets to be a pop album; the choruses still bloom, the grooves still land, and even the spoken‑word bits feel like late‑night overshares rather than homework

What snuck up on me was how quickly it stopped being “the big francophone concept album I admired” and became the record I put on when I needed to feel understood. If the album is the diary, her live performances this year—especially that theatrical, bone-chilling run at the Polaris Gala—were the exorcism. Between this and its excellent but very different followup Triste Animal - which nearly made this list on its own merits - Cassidy has spent the year doing everything at once and doing it well. Even before I could parse every line, I knew exactly what kind of year she was describing: the one where you realize the scary stories weren’t about monsters out there, but the parts of yourself you’re still learning to live with.

Listen: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, Tidal, Soundcloud, Deezer

Did you agree with all my choices?  There's no way you did!  Tell me in the comments where I screwed up!

At any rate, I've also created a playlist on Spotify with a highlight song from each album.  Feel free to save and share it.  

19 December 2025 - Lou-Adriane Cassidy - Dis-moi dis-moi dis-moi

This was my favorite French song this year, and one of my favorites in any language.  It's that powerful. 

This song - from the Polaris Prize-shortlisted album Journal d’un Loup-Garou, and certain future Juno winner - is by someone who got her musical career kickstarted by performing on (and not winning) the Quebec version of The Voice, called La Voix. 

I promise you, this song starts really slow.  Stick with it.   It picks the hell up in a hurry.

At an outdoor music festival in Quebec last July, she performed an acoustic version of the song, which I think is just beautiful.

But what sold me on her was her Polaris performance last September.  It was emotional and powerful.  Stick around for the 2nd song, too.

18 November 2025 - CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY

I'm not entirely sure how it's possible I haven't talked about CMAT yet.

But here we are, three albums into her career, and her 2025 critically acclaimed album EURO-COUNTRY is.  This song - the title song from the album - was her first top 10 hit in Ireland, where she is from.  It is somewhat autobiographical, opening with an Irish-language monologue that speaks to her childhood and makes a lot of Irish references. 

But let's talk about the video.  It was recorded in the rather large and clearly not closed Omni Park shopping in North Dublin - and you can see people have their phones out recording her in the fountain near the end of the video.  

By the way - Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson.  It's her initials.  

I kinda glossed over the song's deep meaning, because, in this live performance, she straight up tells you it's about living through the Irish economic crisis in 2008 and beyond.  

Also, she's really personable and still has a huge voice. 

17 December 2025 - Oklou - family and friends

Before I release my list of the best albums of 2025, which I am doing next week, I wanted to pay an acknowledgement to what others were saying about albums.  

And Oklou's album choke enough is one that is populating so many year end lists - and deservedly so.  It's a great and mellow pop album - one that sounds unique and cool.  French artist Oklou (prounouce it like "OK Lou", not "oakloo" - it's a play on her real first name, Marylou) has made a pretty solid career as a producer and artist, and she's hitting a solid stride.  

This was the first single, and it is a cool song co-produced and co-written by the artist. 

Hearing it live is a similar experience, honestly. Oklou is nothing if not consistent. I see good things coming.  

By the way, she did this show while pretty significantly pregnant. 

16 December 2025 - NewDad - Entertainer

Back in July, I first heard Irish band NewDad, and their 2024 album Madra, which was really good.  This album was shortlisted for the Choice Music Prize (which Fontaines D.C. rightly won).  

In September, NewDad released Altar, which is, in my humble opinion, a step forward and a step up for the band.  The song (also released as part of their EP Safe, at which time this visualizer was released) is both beautiful and hard-rocking - and not, as of this writing, released as a single.  It's a song that builds harder and louder as it goes on.

You can hear the ramp-up during their KEXP performance of this song as well.  

But what if you strip it down and take out the drums? 

They did just that during this September performance in Liverpool. It just gives Julie Dawson's vocal more room to shine. 

15 December 2025 - Emmanuelle Boucher - Mieux à deux

Should I be saving this for March? 

Probably.  

I'm not, though.  I have WAY too much music for March to not post Canadians the rest of the year.

Emmanuelle Boucher is a country artist from Nashville.... oh, wait.  She's not from Nashville.  She's from Quebec, and does country music primarily in French.  This song is off her latest album Ma route, and translates to "Better together". 

Anyway, it's a lively, exciting country sound that will make you forget you're listening to country music in French. 

12 December 2025 - Fontaines D.C. - Starburster

In a couple of weeks, I'll be chronicling my favorite albums of 2025.  I've been listening to a lot of them this year, and I have focused a lot on recent albums of late.   

One that won't make the list is the latest album by the Fontaines D.C., Romance.  That's not because the album isn't great - it is - but because it was released in 2024.  I *almost* posted about this song before #AmericanAutumn, but decided against.  

It's a shame.  The Grammy-nominated song was also on a lot of year-end lists as single of the year - which makes sense.  The album itself was also on a lot of those lists, and had we done such a list last year, we would have been one of those lists.  It is retroactively one of my favorite albums of 2024.

I waited just as long as I could to post this. 

By the way, the D.C. stands for Dublin City.  The band is from near Dublin, Ireland, and added it as a disambiguation from a Los Angeles band - who seem to have not done much of anything for about five years.  Fontaines D.C. are still making music, still being politically active (their music is not available in Israel as of this writing), and I look forward to what they do next. 

The song itself starts quiet.... with organ, then piano, then drums.... then it explodes!

Look, the band is solid and every performance sounds just like the recording.

The performance from the Glastonbury festival in 2024 is perhaps the greatest crown engagement thus far. 

11 December 2025 - MUDRAT - I HATE RICH C***TS

I was VERY HESITANT to publish this.  I almost posted this under an alternate title ("WE DESPISE THE BOURGEOISIE" which I figured out even before I heard it), but no.  I had to censor the title.  It's not a word we use politely in the United States.  It's a little more casually tossed out in Australia and elsewhere.  

And acclaimed Australian MUDRAT is absolutely from Australia, and he's got some RADICAL views.  His album SOCIAL COHESION - which was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize - is in my conversation for favorite album of 2025.  It's raw and angry, and a MUST listen.

So, I ultimately decided to post this.  I may have fallen in the category of his white friends who might be initially scared by his rhetoric, but at the end of the day, I absolutely don't wish his silence.  I want to amplify his voice. 

In this song, he makes it very clear his views on Matt Walsh.  I wonder if Matt Walsh has heard this song?  I am totally going to tag him today. 

10 December 2025 - Princess Nokia - Drop Dead Gorgeous

During his presidency, Barack Obama was instrumental in introducing the Lifeline program, which supplied cell phones to low-income people, for free. 

As it turns out, Destiny Nicole Frasqueri was eligible for a Nokia phone. So, as she was experimenting with names - Wavy Spice was an early contender - she chose the one that stuck as a tribute to her Obamaphone. 

Maybe she had an app on that phone that helped her figure out how to create compelling, unique hip-hop... or maybe it's just talent and her tough upbringing.  And, that tough upbringing has not come without controversy.  However, it's made her a strong advocate against racism and sexism, and she not afraid to put her money where her mouth is.  For example, if you watch this whole video, you'll see a racist get thrown off a train by a group of people. including a woman near the end throwing a bowl of 

hot soup on him.

That soup belonged to Princess Nokia, and she's the one who threw it and told him to get off the train. 

Good. She is a badass. 

She released a new album in October, titled GIRLS, and it is fantastic, end to end.  This song - an early single that has been out for several months - is one of the highlights of an overall excellent album.  

9 December 2025 - Ninajirachi - All I Am

I am really really happy that American Autumn is finally over.   Not because I didn't love it, but because, while you were listening to my American music posts, I was discovering music from literally everywhere else.

Take Girl EDM superstar from Australia, Ninajiraci.  Her stage name is a combination of her real name - which is Nina Wilson - and her favorite Pokémon - which is Jirachi. 

Can't deny he's adorable

As I write this, I know that her debut album, I Love My Computer, is shortlisted for won the Australian Music Prize (think Mercury Prize but for Australia), and she also is nominated for eight ARIA Awards (think Junos, but for Australia), which is more than any other artist this year.  By the time you read this, you're going to know if she won any of that (I predict at least 4 of the ARIAs and the AMP win for her, and I will honestly tell you if I got it right) (Update: she won 3 ARIAs and the AMP).   

She's making compelling EDM with smart and fresh lyrics, and she's poised to be a worldwide superstar. 

By the way, she's touring, and I hope we get better live footage of her by the time we actually publish, but for now, have a YouTube Short. 

Even here, you can tell she brings a TON of energy.  

8 December 2025 - (I'm not putting an artist name here and I'll explain why in a minute) - sugarcoat / How It's Done

This is a story of intrigue - of record label intrigue - of KOREAN record label intrigue.

On March 5, 2025,  Alexaundra Christine Schneiderman - who had previously announce that she was going to do a re-debut in April - announced that she was going to be changing her stage name to Kim Se-Ri - and moving her social media accounts to @seriinade. 

Two days later, ZB Label released this song under her former stage name, AleXa. Which, by the way, is a fun single. It's great.  

Well, then, in April, she released an independent collaboration.... as AleXa.

Then, in July.... well, clearly she's familiar with KPOP Demon Hunters (she did audition for the movie), because she released a song.... as AleXa.

In December - literally last week, people - she appears on a music competition on Swedish television.... as AleXa.   

The cover is awesome, but I have no freaking clue what to call her.  Luckily, I *do* know her social media profile.

"OK, but why are you talking about KPop drama during #AmericanAutumn!  Did you forget today's the last day?"

Nope.  The artist whose name I cannot with any reliability tell you is from Oklahoma.   In fact, she's best known for winning the American Song Contest, which was an attempt to make an American EuroVision.  

She represented Oklahoma.  In fact, when I started doing this little exercise, I knew I was ending with this artist, whatever her name is.  

So, I know I usually end these posts with a video.  Not today.  I wanted to thank you for taking this journey with me this autumn.  It's been a huge challenge to get through it, and I think it paid off.  

I promise a non-American artist tomorrow. 

5 December 2025 - Shawn Colvin - Steady On

Our penultimate American Autumn post is today.  

It was the easier Dakota, as Shawn Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. 

This song - her debut single off her debut album of the same name - would not be her biggest hit, but its modest success and heavy rotation airplay on VH1 would fuel her future successes.  

Plus, it's a really happy song, and I think it's a great 2nd-to-last song for this project.  I mean, I am smiling writing this post.  It's just happy.

The album won a Grammy in 1991 for Best Contemporary Folk album - which it really deserved.  She would go on to win two more in 1998. 

I wanted to choose a live performance that showcased JUST Shawn on a guitar, and I found this one, from 2019.  This is in conjunction with an acoustic version of the Steady On album in 2019, to celebrate its 30th anniversary (a year early).

It's still really happy, in its sparseness. 

4 December 2025 - Jewel - Foolish Games

Three guesses on her father's name.  

Juel Kilcher - yep.  Not Jewel at birth.  Indeed, she grew up near Homer, Alaska, singing and yodeling alongside her father.  

And yes.  She was on a few episodes of her family's show.  

This song - written by Jewel - the third single from her debut album Pieces of You, was nominated for a Grammy award and would go on to be one of her biggest hits and indeed, a song that still endures.

Did she perform the song live?  Of course she did, and you know I love featuring performances from the most unhinged festival of all time, Woodstock '99. 

No fires appear to have been started during her performance. 

On her Greatest Hits album, Jewel reimagined this song as a duet, with Kelly Clarkson.  They also performed it together - kinda - as a Zoom duet on Clarkson's talk show. 

By the way, she also has been known to yodel with her dad, even after her fame. 

4 December 2025 - Atz Kilcher - Can't Nobody But A Daddy Know

Atz Kilcher is best known for two things. One of them is being one of the stars of a Discover Channel reality show called Alaska: The Last Frontier - which is centered around the Kilcher family homestead outside of Homer, Alaska.  His sons - Atz Lee and Otto - also star on the show.   His daughter.... well, we'll get there (and some of you already figured it out).

He's also an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right.  Here he is, in 2018 - at age 70 - just getting ready to start a national tour with his kids - it was a book tour, with a musical element.

By the way, he is also an accomplished yodeler....

3 December 2025 - Hands - New Heaven

Forget what I said about Wyoming yesterday.

North Dakota was really REALLY hard.

But I found Fargo's Hands, a Christian metal band who were really active in that community from 2007 to 2011.  

Today's very angry song is from their 2017 reunion EP New Heaven/New Earth, which is really excellent.

I have no idea if they are still together, but if they are, God bless 'em for making Christian metal.  

2 December 2025 - Chris LeDoux - This Cowboy's Hat

Wyoming was really hard, and this is one of those days I wish Scott - a country music lover -was still writing for us.  But I got it done.  

Chris LeDoux - from Wyoming - got a slow start to his music career.  

That's because he was a very successful rodeo cowboy.  But he did start recording while he was active in rodeo - in 1979, he released his first single, and released a few more prior to his retirement from the rodeo in 1986.  

This single, from 1991, was at the beginning of a string of minor country hits, which started in the early 1990s and continued for a few years.   

Sadly, LeDoux passed away kind of young, only aged 56, of bile duct cancer.  But his cowboy music lives on. 

If you really want to hear LeDoux play what would be one of his signature songs - I mean, he was a rodeo cowboy, for Pete's sake - try this performance from 1997.

1 December 2025 - Linda Ronstadt - It's So Easy

We're coming close to the end.  

Arizona was the 48th state.  

And huge hitmaker Linda Ronstadt is from Tuscon, Arizona.  

She had a string of hit songs in the 1970s - her huge voice bringing life to songs that would be both pop and country hits.  I'd say she was the Taylor Swift of her era... but literally every hit you know of hers is a cover.   

This song is one of them.  Originally recorded in 1958 by The Crickets - as in Buddy Holly and the Crickets - and written by Holly and Norman Petty, their version did not chart.    Ronstadt took their song to the top 5 in 1977 (and to the country charts, too!), adding a bit of a bite and snarl to the song.  

I have to be honest.  I grew up hearing this version of the song, and when I heard Buddy Holly singing it, it felt wrong.  This feels right. 

Of course she performed the song live.  Here she is with her band in 1980 - with the same snarl.

28 November 2025 - Nicolette Larson - Lotta Love

In a past life, this would have gone on Totally Covered. Or, maybe it did.  But I don't really think of it as a cover.   

Nicolette Larson was from Helena, Montana.   She was a backup singer for many artists, including Neil Young.... and she and Linda Ronstadt both sang backup on his 1978 album Comes A Time, which featured this song (Larson did not sing backup on that song).  Larson and Ronstadt have different recollections on how her version came to be.  Ronstadt said - in 2013, in her memoirs - that she made the suggestion and Larson's producer was appreciative.  

Larson's story is more colorful.  Her recollection was that she found a demo version of the song on a tape on the floor of Neil Young's car.... and he gave her the song.  

She took Young's melancholic song and turned it upbeat, with strings and horns.... and made herself a classic. Held until October 1978 - waiting to see if Neil would release it as a single (he did not - although it did end up being a B-side) - her version - her debut single - ended up being a top 10 pop hit, her biggest by far. 

It wasn't easy to find a real live version of this song.  A lot of her early ones were on TV and were lipsynced.

However, this performance from 1991 - six years prior to her untimely death - show that she still had it.

This live recording from 1978 is absolutely spectacular.  

27 November 2025 - Gelli Haha - Spit

Sometimes, serendipity plays a role.   Today is one of those days. And I am thankful for that!

Angel Abaya was born in Boise, Idaho, and joined the Boise music scene at the age of 18.  She's definitely Idahoan...

Her latest (not really debut) album - Switcheroo - was released under the stage name Gelli Haha, because it moved from her earlier work (as Angel Abaya), which was guitar-driven pop, to more electronic, playful pop. 

It was the right call. I have to say, I really enjoy this sound quite a bit, and the album is one of my favorites of the year. 

This song is a highlight of the album, with it's overabundance of 's' words..... and let's be clear, the red aesthetic isn't just a stage persona - it's a lifestyle choice for her.  

She has not performed live as Gelli Haha MUCH, but when she does, she leads with this song.  Stick around for the rest of the performance, because it very well might be the most fun you'll have listening to music this year. 

Also - was NOT joking about the red.

26 November 2025 - 7 Seconds - Young Till I Die (and a surprise)

7 Seconds formed in Reno, Nevada during the rise of punk in 1980.   Although there have been significant lineup changes, they're still around and still performing. And yes, Kevin Seconds and Steve Youth - the real life Marvelli brothers - are still there. 

This song is from their 1984 debut album The Crew - regarded by many as one of the greatest hardcore albums ever recorded.  And, really, it's raw and angry and energetic.... and somewhat stoic.  Written by Kevin Seconds, it has an almost straight-edge feel.... but it ain't straight-edge.  

So, this song was released in 1984.  

Thirty years later, they performed it in Moscow with arguably more energy.

But if you know them before this post, you probably know them for their cover of the Nena classic song "99 Red Balloons" (yes, the English version).

It's spectacular.

This is the one song they can't not play.   And it's always just as spectacular.

As Kevin says during this performance EARLIER THIS YEAR, they first performed this song in 1982.

In 2025.... 45 years after they formed.... it still sounds spectacular. 

25 November 2025 - Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy Lover

Today, we talk about Colorado.  

We're not talking about Phil Collins.  We can discuss him another day.  

Philip Bailey was born in Denver, Colorado, which is why he's here today.  In his prime, he was known for a four octave vocal range - and served as one of the two lead vocalists for the legendary band Earth, Wind & Fire.  

But he also had a solo career - and while he had a few hits, none eclipsed this collaboration with the Genesis drummer, which was a huge hit worldwide.  The story behind this one is quite simple - Collins was also a pretty well-regarded producer, and he was hired to produce Bailey's 1984 album Chinese Wall.  At the end of the sessions, Bailey asked Collins to co-write a song with him.... this song.  They had a great time writing it, and so they recorded it right away (and you can actually hear in this video some of the raw sessions from that - which I love).  

It ended up being just great just as they did it.  

And, at this point, I'd usually overwhelm you with their individual live performances of the song.  

Not today.  This is #AmericanAutumn, not #UKNovember.  So, here's Bailey performing the song live with Kenny Loggins.  Kenny's just not as good a match - but Bailey's voice is fantastic.  

24 November 2025 (Special Edition) - Jimmy Cliff - Many Rivers To Cross

It was announced this morning that famed Jamaican singer the Honourable Jimmy Cliff OM, who had a career that started in the early 1960s, passed away today - from a seizure followed by pneumonia.  He was 81 years old.

That title refers to the Jamaican Order of Merit, an award celebrating great achievement by their citizens or by others that have had a huge impact on Jamaica in the sciences, arts, or any other endeavor.  He was the only living reggae musician to receive that honor. 

His career was full of hits and accolades, including this one, which he originally wrote and recorded in 1969.  Others - most notably Annie Lennox, UB40, and Cher - made this song into a much bigger hit that Cliff did (it was a French hit, oddly, a place where he had a lot of hits).  He certainly had much bigger hits.  

I chose this one as a fitting tribute because of this heartfelt and well-received performance from the 2003 Glastonbury festival.  

His voice and his passion will be missed.