Top Five Albums of 2025 That Are So Good, They Made Me Hate AI Even...

Being an artist of any kind right now is riddled with worry of what the technological landscape will mean for the future of visuals, writing and music. Sure, there are menial tasks that can be delegated to a chatbot or robotic system, however the task of encapsulating human emotion can only be completed by those who fully understand it. It’s that simple. Grief, love, nature, change and connection are recurring themes in any life and the essence of a life-lived is unmistakable. Even at its most sophisticated, I doubt that AI could successfully replicate even a viral Vine. And even if it did, it would be nothing but an amalgamated copy of videos made by people. But hey, I could just be paranoid of these powerful droids. 

Japanese Breakfast
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
Dead Oceans Records
Street: 03.21.2025
Japanese Breakfast = Joni Mitchell + Norah Jones / Perfume Genius

One question very few ask themselves is “what will I do once I finally win?” Preoccupied in the pursuit of victory and without a notion of what it entails, we lose sight of the end. The simple answer is to die. It seems as though the answer that Michelle Zauner came up with is: release another stunningly written and produced concept album. Coming down from the success of her album Jubilee and her memoir Crying in H-Mart, Zauner describes the experience as difficult and anxiety-inducing. This is revealed in the lyrics of “Picture Window,” which reads, “Are you not afraid of every waking minute / that your life could pass you by?” Titled like a love letter to her fanbase and adorned with a cover art revealing Zauner passed out at a table in a Baroque fashion, this album is proof that wallowing is an art form. 

Not For Radio
Melt
Nice Life/Atlantic
Street: 10.10.2025
Not For Radio = The Two Lips + 54 Ultra (A First Heartbreak)

The Marías frontwoman María Zardoya embarked on a solo project that will evaporate your heart like water coming off of an ice block. Each track plays like an early morning autumn stroll with the sky a bit gray and the changing leaves drifting to the ground. Each note fights the gravity of the atmosphere like it’s waiting for its lost love to come back and retrieve it. Each fractal forms a unique pattern and shape, revealing more of Zardoya’s romance. Floating like snow flakes, there are a few references to The Marías’ discography sprinkled throughout the piece — like Zardoya referring to a character named “Daisy” in My Turn, which is a character mentioned in the band’s song, Spin Me Around. The same song is built upon in Vueltas, whose lyrics read, “Y tú das vueltas en mi mente / Y yo rezando que me sueltes / Y Dios me dice que no puede.” There’s also a song on Melt called “Back to You,” which seems to be a connection to The Maria’s Back to Me. With an effortless, effervescent air that is as cool and flowing as a freezing fjord, Melt crystallizes like frost on a window.

Blood Orange
Essex Honey
RCA Records
Street: 08.29.2025
Blood Orange = Yves Tumor + James Blake + Dean Blunt

People still complain about Frank Ocean not releasing new music after nine years, but are you even a real music lover if you haven’t gone through each stage of grief to come to accept that it’ll probably never happen? Besides, if Blood Orange dropping an album for the first time in six years isn’t enough for you, I don’t believe you’re a true yearner anyway. Although the last six years have seemingly flown by, this release felt aptly timed — like an ultimate renewal and rebirth. Telling of Dev Hyne’s experience of mourning his mother, Essex Honey spills over the glass like bittersweet mead. The piece is marked by the unmistakable signature of the same breathy, cherub-like vocals and holy, celestial sounding instrumentals as found in previous works. I always imagine Hyne’s music playing in a cathedral with towering ceilings and glowing stained glass windows, reverberating off of the hallowed walls of hope and faith. If Mormon God was real, I’d pray to them to make Blood Orange one of the headliners for Kilby Block Party 7. 

Ichiko Aoba
Luminescent Creatures
Psychic Hotline
Street: 02.28.2025
Ichiko Aoba = Lamp + You’ll Never Get To Heaven (Scuba diving) 

I’m not entirely convinced that Ichiko Aoba isn’t a sprite harboring ancient and esoteric knowledge that found her way into a recording studio. The way she interacts with life, art and space is simply breathtaking and outside of human comprehension. Inspired by her time spent in the sea and with the friends that inhabit it, Luminescent Creatures is patterned with colorful scales and translucent air bubbles of sound. Leaning more towards classical than jazz or bossa nova in comparison to past works, this album feels more like a symphony. The composition comes together like a singular body of water. It’s as if Aoba took a piece of sheet music, rolled it up, tossed it in the ocean and allowed the oeuvre to simply synthesize with the movement of the current. Facing the fear of a fated ending to the natural world, it is paramount to record the depth and enigma associated with the ocean, and there’s nobody better to do so than Aoba. 

Smerz
Big city life
Escho
Street: 05.23.2025
Smerz = Cashmere Cat + Sassy 009 + Fine

In the battle of city versus country, I choose city every time. While I have a great respect for the earth and the way it exists entirely by itself, I associate city life with integrating yourself into a similarly naturally growing space — an ecosystem of people. Romanticizing metropolitan life is not new but it is a lost art, one that Smerz has mastered. The Cool-with-a-capital-c Norwegian duo outlines every trace of a world filled with skyscrapers and windows like an architect’s recreation of a skyline. Each intricate line is like a crack in the silver pavement and the syncopated beats oscillate between speeds that mimic cars on the street, stopping and starting again. It’s entirely meditative, like a smoke in the smack dab center of downtown in between drinks. There is something sassy, solemn and sleek about the shimmering energy that Big city life permeates. Just like culture exudes from cosmopolises all over the word. 

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