My Favorite Music of 2025

Music has always been a focal point of my life. But over the last decade, I'd become disconnected. In 2019, I lost my piano in a flood. The pressures of work and parenting slowly and persistently squeezed my schedule, relegating music to tight corners wherever it fit, mostly into the background.

But in 2025, I've had a personal musical renaissance. I bought a new piano and made practice non-negotiable. I carved out time for deep listening sessions—the kind where you turn out the lights, put on a pair of over-ear headphones, and listen, really listen, to every part of a song. A small act of rebellion against a world that increasingly wants to choose for me and steal my attention. I get to pick, dammit, not you and your stupid algorithms!

Out of those deep listening sessions, I've compiled a list of the songs that impacted me most this year, along with a few thoughts on what makes them special.

I hope you enjoy them.

Southern Nights, Sullivan Fortner

It took me about three seconds to know I'd fall in love with Sullivan Fortner's “Southern Nights.” The warm, muggy atmosphere the whole song exudes is immediate and palpable. The track starts with Fortner strumming the piano wires, followed by whimsical, bluesy plucking in the piano's upper register. And if that lick hasn't got your foot tapping, the groove laid down by Marcus Gilmore (drums) and Peter Washington (bass) most certainly will.

I absolutely love the groove's simplicity. Washington lays the foundation with a two-note, syncopated bass line (ONE AND two AND, THREE AND four AND). Gilmore's drums are sparse, embellishing Washington's groove with some sizzling ride symbol and tambourine. All the while, Fortner’s piano sparkles and dances on top. There are only three musicians playing, but they might as well be the dozen-or-so-member brass band we see on the album's cover, for they treat us to the same spontaneity and energy.

Borrowed Eyes, Joshua Redman

I have been listening to saxophonist Joshua Redman for twenty-five years now, and it never gets old. Especially now, when he’s making records with musicians barely older than I was when I first found him. Words Fall Short is a major contender for my album of the year. It was hard to pick one track to feature. But what ultimately drew me to “Borrowed Eyes” is its beautiful harmonic movement, soulful groove, and, above all, restraint.

The tune opens with a bare G minor chord on the piano, played by Paul Cornish. A simple chord that pulls you into a somber, B-flat minor world. Nazir Ebo (drums) and Philip Norris (bass) lock in a simple but effective backbeat. Listen to how Ebo plays the entire beat on just the snare drum, and with brushes. I don't hear any kick drum until the last third of the song!

Redman sets the mood with a slow, spacious melody. It's patient and longing, almost surrendered. The whole tune wanders with a mournful, searching quality, which makes sense given the title's source in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road:

He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

That sorrow isn't all-encompassing, it would seem, because the song provides a few glimmers of hope. In one of my favorite moments, the quartet hangs on the form's final F major chord for a beat before B-flat minor gravity pulls them back down for Norris's bendy bass solo. The band returns for a blues-rock swell that hangs on that major chord again. But don't get too hung up on hope. Cornish ends the song on the same G minor chord from which it began, as if to remind us of that "absolute truth of the world."

Everything Means Nothing To Me, Brad Mehldau

The last half decade has seen the world mired in a pandemic, political and social unrest, war, and a low-grade feeling that everything is going wrong. So I was more than pleasantly surprised when my all-time favorite jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau, released a record covering songs by my all-time favorite singer-songwriter, Elliott Smith.

Projects like this demand skepticism. There’s no guarantee they’ll work, especially when they arrive in a world with so much negative inertia. Thankfully, Mehldau gets it right. He honors Smith and his legacy while still opening up genuinely new territory.

This song, “Everything Means Nothing to Me,” has long been one of Smith's standout tunes for me. Here, Mehldau begins by echoing Smith’s simple, beautiful piano part almost exactly, then gradually lets it drift into his own language. Smith’s vocal line is handed to a bassoon. And if you think about it, that’s a perfect choice. It captures the airy, reedy timbre of Smith’s voice in a way that feels natural rather than gimmicky.

The middle of the song takes a sudden, unexpected turn, slipping into a bouncy, carnivalesque passage that, to my ears, nods to Tom Waits. Unexpected, yes, but totally welcome. Amid the clarinets, French horns, and percussion, listen carefully and you can catch some wonderful vocalizations: squawks and caterwauls that embellish the arrangement. Planned or not, they’re a fine touch.

In the ultimate homage to Smith, Mehldau closes the song with its characteristic string part. Or was the original performed on a Mellotron? Either way, without it, no arrangement of the song would feel right. And in a world where so little feels right anymore, I'm grateful that this does.

Take this stone, Cécile McLorin Salvant

If you've never heard Cécile McLorin Salvant, now you have. You're welcome. She's one of the greatest living vocalists, one who can inhabit any style of music so completely that you start to wonder if she isn't a person who makes music so much as music made into a person.

But, also, I'm sorry. “Take this stone” is not representative of her 2025 album Oh Snap—or her work at large. It's only one facet of a multi-genre, mind-bending masterpiece. It just happens to be my favorite.

Listen to the lyrics in the chorus:

Take this stone and pass it on / it alters with each handling / but it will not erode

Is she singing about herself? She's a musical shapeshifter. Yet, no matter what form she embodies, she is always unambiguously herself. Her music challenges me to peel back my own masks and be brave enough to meet whatever's underneath, so that I may become new, over and over again.

Si Entras Tú, Rita Payés

Technically, “Si Entras Tú” (“If You Come In”) is from 2024, but I first encountered it, and its composer Rita Payés, in 2025. She has quickly become one of my favorite artists, so I can't help but include her on this list.

At 26 years old, Payés already has striking musical depth. Her voice is as at home singing classic Spanish and Portuguese folk songs as it is in modern, pop-infused tunes. Her songwriting talent is rare and mature. And she's an accomplished jazz musician who plays trombone with a unique, fully formed style. You won't hear that trombone on “Si Entras Tú,” however, which is a bit of a shame. So be sure to check out the rest of her record, De Camino al Camino.

I chose this track for two reasons. First, the harmonies are sublime. There's constant harmonic interplay, reminiscent, perhaps, of Jacob Collier. But where Collier's music drips with youthful hubris, Payés wears her genius lightly. Second, “Si Entras Tú” is an epic musical journey that somehow lasts only 2 minutes and 45 seconds. It's full of contradictions and contrasts. The harmony is at once beautiful and uncanny, and the dynamics swing between intimate a cappella and a lush, full-band swell with drums, electric guitars, and strings.

Even the lyrics acknowledge this world of contrast. In the song's quiet opening a cappella section, Payés paints a crowded scene:

[Spanish]
Si entre mil almas que aguardan detrás de la puerta estás tú /
No hay incerteza ni duda, siempre estará abierta si entras tú

[English]
Even if you are one of a thousand souls waiting behind the door /
Without uncertainty or doubt, it will always be open if you come in.

Later, in the bridge, she treats us to a beautiful contradiction:

[Spanish]
Que no hay canción que describa el agua que nuestro río lleva /
Enfila hacia allá sin condición como esta canción

[English]
No song could describe the water our river carries /
It flows unconditionally, like this song

And flow this song does, indeed.

Luna Creciente, Natalia Lafourcade & Hermanos Gutiérrez

If it's not clear from this list, my two favorite styles of music are jazz and folk, especially Latin folk. Where Rita Payés represents the intersection of those two worlds, Natalia Lafourcade is firmly rooted in the latter. Her 2025 album Cancionera is a masterpiece. The entire record was recorded in a single take, giving it an undeniable feeling of authenticity.

On “Luna Creciente” (“Crescent Moon”), Lafourcade collaborates with Hermanos Gutiérrez on a guitar-soaked elegy to the moon. The opening is pure tone painting: a softly distorted electric guitar that shimmers and washes us in pale light; a lap steel rises in brief, ethereal swells, like the crescent moon slipping in and out of view behind clouds, or glinting through branches swaying in a breeze.

Then Lafourcade enters with voice and acoustic guitar, pleading with the moon to show more of itself:

[Spanish]
Luna, lunita creciente
Bajo tu luz de cristal
Tengo palabras quebradas
Y una voz que quiere volar

Luna, lunita creciente
Tráeme de vuelta tu luz
Son solitarias las noches
Son extraños mis cantos
Si no llegas tú

[English]
Moon, little crescent moon
Under your crystal light
I have broken words
And a voice that wants to fly

Moon, little crescent moon
Bring me back your light
The nights are lonely
And my songs are strange
If you don't arrive

Tone painting is always a treat, and the opening of “Luna Creciente” doesn't disappoint. Neither does the rest of the song, as the guitars grow increasingly restless and muddled, reflecting the protagonist’s mounting unease and longing. But what I love most is the juxtaposition. “Luna Creciente” is a song about artistic frustration—a songwriter unable to express herself—yet it's also a masterful act of expression.