WNXP's Top 30 Albums of 2025

Music News

WNXP’s Top 30 Albums of 2025

By WNXP Staff
December 16, 2025

At the end of every year, the WNXP team circles back to the albums that stuck with us long after their first play. To calculate our top 30, we gathered each staff member’s top 10, did the math and let the favorite records rise to the top. The result is a snapshot of the albums that shaped how we heard 2025.

1. Sault - 10

Especially compared with the godless heathen rockers on the rest of this list (kidding!), SAULT is once again the honeyed antidote to a bitter pill of a year. The hypnotic grooves on this surprise release by the enigmatic British collective would be soothing if standalone. Now add in Cleo Sol’s almost pastoral care through her lyrics — “Time heals, don’t rush, slow down” (“R.L.”); “You’re not alone” (“T.H.”); “There is truly nothing to be afraid of” (“I.L.T.S.”) — with gospel-R&B runs, and I’m a believer. Over the course of 10, even light percussion with nonverbal harmonies (as on the interlude “H.T.T.R.”) can feel like spiritual practice. So does the cheerleading on “W.A.L.”, which slides from Afrobeats into a beautiful piano bridge where Sol coos, “There’s no limit to your light,” before jolting back into jubilant dance. Divine.
– Celia Gregory

2. Dijon - Baby

Dijon doesn’t just stretch the boundaries of alt-R&B on his sophomore LP Baby — he throws out the map altogether. He burns through genre and form like a fever, resulting in a body of work that is frantic and fragile, steeped in desire and domesticity, where drums stutter and vocals oscillate between whispers and wails. Dijon might have made the year’s most explosive love record — not by dialing things up, but by pulling them apart in a way that only he can.
– Carly Butler

3. Turnstile - Never Enough

On Never Enough, Turnstile pushes hardcore past its own borders, arriving at something bigger than any labels and built for impact. The Baltimore band has spent years kicking down the hardcore genre’s walls in an attempt to break their way into something larger, louder and impossible to contain, and their fourth full-length release feels like the final blow — a sonic supernova that balances hardcore crunch, dreamy synths and horns and Brendan Yates’ signature bark. Grammy nominations confirmed what fans already knew: this is the sound of a band evolving without losing their spirit.
– Carly Butler

4. Wednesday - Bleeds

Asheville band Wednesday delivered another sonic slice of Americana frankly unmatched by their peers in 2025. Singer/screamer/guitarist Karly Hartzman continues to level up her songcraft, finding new ways to paint rural southeastern hellscapes — and their ebbs of love, loyalty, loneliness — with brutal accuracy and yet a persistent fondness, too. This is both a rock record that rocks (“Townies,” “Candy Breath”) and a country break-up record that bleeds (“The Way Love Goes,” “Elderberry Wine”) and we agree that all directions are the right ones for Wednesday.
– Celia Gregory

5. Momma - Welcome to my Blue Sky

Equal parts nostalgic and exhilarating, Momma’s Welcome to My Blue Sky is alt-rock perfection. A cathartic look back at early adulthood, the coming-of-age album feels like having one too many beers with your friends on a carefree summer night. Perfectly melodic and fuzzy, the album recalls a swath of iconic bands from Hole and The Breeders to Pavement and Deftones.
– Emily Young

6. Viagra Boys - viagr aboys

Don’t let their silliness fool you, Viagra Boys have a lot to say. Hidden beneath tongue-in-cheek and often borderline inappropriate lyrics, viagr aboys pokes fun at the absurdity of the world around us. Led by joker supreme Sebastian Murphy, the Swedish band offers more than the assumed agitated guitar riffs. Instead, the post-punkers push their sound to unexpected depths with synths and sax solos, all the while keeping a giggly smile on the listeners face.
– Emily Young

7. Geese - Getting Killed

Cameron Winter found his voice on this record and pulled Geese from being a retro rock act to one of indie music’s most revelatory sounds. The band found freedom too, behind Winters howling mumble. They broke free and broke though, becoming the cult phenomenon of the year.

– Justin Barney

8. Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving

On The Art of Loving, UK singer-songwriter Olivia Dean captures the significance of love — both self or romantic — through catchy songwriting, soulful instrumentations and soothing melodies. Dean writes about the complexities of falling in love while carrying different emotions like heartache, happiness and personal growth. Dean doesn’t claim to know all the answers to love’s questions, or claim to have mastered what the art of loving truly is, but she beautifully demonstrates the nuances in finding out.
– Marquis Munson

9. Little Simz - Lotus

With her 6th album, Little Simz takes us on a jazz-fueled, funk-tinged hip-hop journey through grief, identity and pressure. Her most personal work to date may not have packed the punch of previous releases on first listen but, like the Lotus flower, it continues to grow and bloom brightly in longevity.
– Jude Mason

10. Parcels - LOVED

If there was ever a year that demanded musical comfort food, it was 2025. If you somehow avoided the laundry list of terrible that this year spewed forth like a firehose from hell, great! If not, may we recommend Parcels. Simple lyrics about basic concepts (“I’m sorry that it hurts to be loved” – you’re right Parcels, it does!) accompanied by early-days Phoenix mixed with the more crowd-pleasing aspects of Jungle and delivered by a harmonizing group of fellows who are the casually cool, just scruffy enough boy band you never knew you needed.
– Jason Moon Wilkins