The 50 Best Albums of 2025: 50-41 | culture

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50

Fueled by time – enthusiasts

Marcus Elliott Brown, a solo project called Nourished By Time, has a classic R&B singing voice in the style of Freddie Jackson or Luther Vandross: warm and earnest and with every word spoken as if it expressed the passion of his feelings. But his music is very different: a slippery layer of cake, multiple keys and pop production, with Brown singing of a world where the tides “don’t ebb right,” whether it’s in love or urban life. There’s still room for an instant classic R&B song on Tossed Away. Ben Beaumont Thomas

49

Rochelle Jordan – Through the Wall

everything Just like that On the British-Canadian producer’s sixth album: opulent, expensive deep house that suggests low club lights, gleaming mirrors, and intense gazes blazing across the dance floor. As much as the chilling beats and dancefloor flow of Ladida or the “body, body, body” incantations of On 2 Something suggest an unwavering commitment to letting go, Jordan maintains impeccable poise and control throughout, whether in diva mode on Words 2 Say, breaking hearts in Bite the Bait, advocating for her needs in Doing It Too (“I’m not too much / You only give too little”) or patiently waiting for a disappointed lover to see the light. Ladida. Party hosts are characterized by leadership, wisdom and a commitment to excellence in the atmosphere. Laura Snaps

48

Gerskin Fendrix – Once Upon a Time…in Shropshire

Jerskin Fendrix’s sublime scores for the last three Yorgos Lanthimos films can’t really help prepare you for the Midlands composer’s beautiful, eccentric second album, which combines original musical theater with the reckless prog cabaret of Faith No More and (particularly) the not-so-well-sung Morphine. At first, Once Upon a Time casts the bucolic bliss of growing up in Shropshire in the 2000s in a golden light, a haven for getting hammered by the Baileys and listening to Kanye on the farm, then eating a great communal breakfast in someone’s kitchen. But the unexpected deaths he has witnessed in recent years intervene to spoil the paradise, evoking frantic, absurd expressions of grief – the Jerskin Fendrix Freestyle is a brave wig – and unfathomable devastation from his camp, and a raspy voice. It requires a full theatrical production. L.S

47

Snapshot – Dead Sky Channel

Clipping frontman Daveed Diggs is best known as one of the original cast members of Hamilton, and for all that album is filled with loud industrial rap, you can easily imagine it being successfully adapted for the Broadway stage. Dead Channel Sky is set in a cyberpunk dystopia not unlike the sun-baked “real world” of the Matrix, teeming with junk technology and populated by fascists and terrifying hedonists. Producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes deliver it in acidic sways and up-tempo beats, while Diggs delivers his shifting verses like a prophet who’s ingested some amphetamine manufactured in a secret lab. BPT

46

Basins – Cotton Crown

In different hands, the Tubs’ second album might have been a crushing listen, and understandably so. In 2014, singer Owen Williams’ mother, songwriter and author Charlotte Greig, died by suicide. Sadness, as these songs detail, made him an insignificant friend. But Cotton Crown is often funny and passionate, and especially aware of how new love can feel like a life raft to a depressed mind ill-equipped to reciprocate: “Know it’s all on my mind/Stuck in the middle of loving you and going crazy,” Williams sings on Fair Enough. His striking voice, somewhere between Richard Thompson and Bob Mold, wafts through the band’s upbeat pop. Obvious students of form, they are virtuosos with no patience for perfection, and their tones dart and plunder like seagulls darting down a spilled catch as they hit you hard and deep. L.S

45

Summers – Big City Life

Katharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt feel like the pop girls of Copenhagen’s prolific and raw Rhythm Conservatory scene, making music that is more outward-oriented and arch than some of their more insular and traditional (and equally great) colleagues. Their second album oscillates between throwing yourself into life – “You’re a city girl and you don’t have to think twice,” they chant deadpan harmonies on Roll the Dice – and actually thinking twice a lot in existential swirls around purpose and desire. The dissonance between confidence and anxiety is evident in the album’s rolling beauty: one minute, instrumented piano clusters carry you like clouds amidst pop, R&B and ballads; Then they stab and stutter, like cracks in the sidewalk destined to trap your heels. In 2023, K-pop hopefuls NewJeans hired them as co-writers: more pop music bearing their mark can only be a good thing. L.S

44

Sabrina Carpenter – Man’s best friend

Released almost a year after her breakthrough hit Short n’ Sweet, and using a palette of soft rock, ’80s pop, light disco and yearning country melodies, Carpenter added rich color to one of pop music’s most distinctive self-portraits. Her blatant sexuality is matched by a wry sense of camp and a deep streak of sarcasm, as she wonders whether to wrap her little finger around a string of sexy but useless men. But whether it’s calling her ex while drinking “go-go juice” or being toxic to the sport (“You think I’m going to fuck your head off / Well, you’re totally right”), Carpenter knows she’s part of the problem. Her feigned helplessness in the face of her worst impulses is just one part of a vast arsenal of screwball comedy — she’s the Rosalind Russell of the dating app era. BPT

43

Jennifer Walton – girls

This Sunderland producer’s previous work has included one power electronics EP, one anti-club track, collaborations with Aya and 96 Back as Microplastics, playing with Kero Kero Bonito and a small host of other credits. So her stunning, fully-fledged songwriting debut was a complete bolt from the blue. An orchestral epic filled with shades of Julia Holter and Phil Elverum, it addressed her grief for her late father in quietly surreal images — a deer crashing into a car in the middle of the night — and the painfully mundane realism of sitting together in hospital corridors. The distinguished Miss America brings the two together to stunning effect, a numbing spell for all that Walton saw on the stateside trip as she learned of her father’s diagnosis, now both horribly familiar and mythical. L.S

42

Erika de Casser’s fourth album updates the 2000s R&B model that struggled for body-to-body sensuality in the face of increasing digital encroachment. The old-fashioned dialer tones that pierce Lifetime’s gushing, liquid atmosphere function both as homage to Janet and a wry sigh at how good those forebears were when emotional warfare could only be conducted via pager: “I took a screenshot so I could look at your pretty face all the time now / With no sign of me being online,” DeCasier sings on Phantom Earworm, a low-key anthem to contemporary dating anxiety. “It’s midnight / Not even a text to warm me up,” she said in The Chase. That’s one of the most attractive things about the Lifetime movie: its gorgeous, seductive surfaces hide De Casey frantically kicking her feet beneath the surface, just like the rest of us. L.S

41

Danny Brown – Stardust

The Detroit rapper’s first record after rehab completely disproved his fears that sobriety makes artists boring. On Stardust, Brown still holds together a cartoonish verve, coupled with a truly moving sense of gratitude: “I sleep well at night because I’m proud of myself,” he sings on The Book of Daniel. Although you probably wouldn’t describe someone who contemplates “going crazy and beating up your herd” as a wise old man, his thirst for life, opportunity and vicarious sensibility is evident in how clearly he is at ease with the younger producers of Digicore and the Hyperpop underground: his wild children 8485, Jane Remover, Underscores, Frost Children and more take the Stardust ride with glitch, rave, squealing riffs and over-the-top noise. The rare record that makes you want to riot and drop a tear smiley emoji. L.S

40-31 coming soon

Come back tomorrow for the next 10 albums in the countdown!