10 albums from 2025 that I recommended even when no one asked me to

Those who know me well know that I am one of those people considered “annoying” when it comes to music. I am always talking about albums, songs, and artists, recommending new music even when no one asks. I understand why that can get on some people’s nerves, but this obsession with music has never been just a habit or a passing interest for me. It is the way I mark time, emotions, and the personal phases I move through.

Year after year, music serves as a kind of diary for me. Certain albums remain tied to specific moments, cities, relationships, or inner states, even when memories of everything else slowly fade. That is precisely why it feels important to me to pause, at least once a year, and try to make a small personal overview of the releases that marked the past twelve months. Not as a definitive truth or a ranking, but as a document of my own listening.

Related: The best albums of 2025, selected by Vogue Adria’s editorial team

To be honest, no matter how closely I follow music, it is never easy to single out the albums that truly represent a year and the best that the music scene has produced. The year was overflowing with releases, returns by big names, but also quieter albums that slowly crept under the skin. That is why I have been thinking for days about what “album of the year” even means, and whether it necessarily has to be the most ambitious, the loudest, or the most visible release, or rather the one that managed to hold your attention longer than you expected.

Marina Satti – POP TOO

POP TOO, Marina Satti

One year, while traveling to Thessaloniki with a friend, we quite accidentally wandered into narrow streets that led us to a hidden complex of taverns under tents. Inside were half-drunk students, loud music, chaos that felt perfectly organized, and the sense that everyone present was living the best night of their life. That is exactly the image I would use to describe POP TOO.

Marina continues to play with pop music and Greek musical heritage in a playful and self-aware way, without fear of overlap or excess. Folk motifs, club production, and clear pop structures collide within the same space, creating a sound that may feel overloaded with ideas to some listeners. Yet it is precisely that crowding that gives the album its charm and a strong sense of Greek authenticity. POP TOO does not try to be neat or polished, but to convey the energy of a culture. It is an album packed with energy, one moment taking you straight to the club floor, and the next into a Greek tavern.

Jymenik – Zidovi

Jymenik, Zidovi

My favorite regional release this year, and an album I can without hesitation place shoulder to shoulder with global, high-budget releases on this list. With her previous two EPs, Jymenik had already positioned herself as a serious author, full of creativity and freshness that the regional scene desperately needs, and with her debut album Zidovi she definitively cements that position.

Related: The best regional albums of 2025, curated by Aleksa Simić

Zidovi is an intensely moody album that draws you into subtle, almost sexual tension in one moment, only to overwhelm you with darkness and emotional weight in the next. I wish I could turn back time and show you my reaction when I first heard the song Zidovi, which carries the central idea of the entire album. The truth is that I still react almost the same today, not only to that song but to the album as a whole. The theme of night, which consistently runs through her discography, is treated here in a distinctly poetic and mature way. Night is not merely an atmosphere, but a space of vulnerability, desire, and unrest. That is precisely why Zidovi leaves such a strong impression, invites repeated returns, and creates that rare feeling that you can never fully exhaust it.

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

That Pinkpantheress, Fancy

Just say PinkPantheress. This was without a doubt her year. It is almost impossible that over the past few months you had access to the internet without hearing at least one of her songs. What has always fascinated me about PinkPantheress is the way her tracks function as small archives of pop culture, packed with samples, references, and fragments that feel familiar, yet never worn out.

Fancy That has only nine tracks and runs just 21 minutes, which some have cited as a flaw. I cannot agree. Her musical form is precise, restrained, and fully aware of its own limits. Everything she has to say is delivered clearly and without excess, while sampling is pushed to a point where it becomes almost obsessive, as if listeners are being challenged to recognize every reference. Bombastic, exciting, and sweet at the same time. Girl Like Me, Nice to Know, and Romeo are tracks I could listen to endlessly, which I realistically did. PinkPantheress is my most listened-to artist this year, and that is no coincidence. Fancy That is a true homage to the aesthetics of the 2000s and to British pop in its purest and most thrilling form.

Geese – Getting Killed

Geese, Getting Killed

If you are looking for an album full of unpredictability, raw energy, and a persistent refusal to fit into clear genre frameworks, Getting Killed is the right choice. Drawing on post-punk and art rock, but without any desire to make those references comfortable or easily recognizable, Geese deliver a release that constantly sounds as if it is on the verge of collapse. The single Taxes won me over immediately and clearly signaled that this was an album that would not play it safe. That song perfectly captures the nervousness and energy of the entire release, and its chaotic and suggestive video precisely reflects the world in which Getting Killed unfolds. The songs feel as if they are always close to losing control, and it is precisely that sense of tension and instability that gives the album its strength. Getting Killed refuses to be polished or pleasant, and it is in that discomfort that it finds its full effect.

Povezano: The best songs of 2025 that Miach had on repeat 

Bad Bunny – DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS 

Bad Bunny, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS

Ah, Bad Bunny, the musician you are. Once again, he managed to captivate us all and to be the most listened-to artist of 2025, and with good reason. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is his most personal album to date, and you can truly feel it. Introspective and nostalgic, with a strong focus on atmosphere and emotion, this album confirms the maturity and courage Bad Bunny is showing at this point in his career. Every song is a small spectacle, but BAILE INoLVIDABLE is something else entirely. If you listen to it purely as music, you will have a great time. But if you pay attention to the lyrics, it is hard to remain indifferent. I had a lump in my throat the entire time. Although at first glance the lyrics and the music may seem like complete opposites, together they function in a perfectly meaningful way. It is precisely in that collision that the essence of DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS lies.

Hayley Williams – Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

Hayley Williams, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party

One day, after who knows how many hours spent on TikTok, a video popped up in which someone casually mentioned a new Hayley Williams album. I was struck by how easily I had missed the release of a new project by one of the artists who defined my teenage years. Of course, I immediately put on my headphones and played Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party.

After just the first few songs, it was clear that this was a stripped-down and fragmented project, resembling a series of personal notes. It was precisely that immediacy that kept me listening to the end. Hayley sounds unburdened here, free from expectations, and in a year full of conceptually lavish albums, this restraint feels like a refreshing anti-spectacle. It may not resonate with everyone, but it will leave a strong mark on listeners ready for a quieter and more intimate musical experience.

ROSALIA – LUX

Rosalia, LUX

ROSALÍA.. Does anything really need to be added? Even though we are all aware of her status and the weight of this album, LUX still deserves a few words. When I heard Berghain as the first single, I was completely thrilled and eagerly awaited the album’s release. Exactly at midnight, I pressed play on LUX, and it quickly became clear that this was a release that demands full attention, but also rewards it generously. From beginning to end, the album held me without a single moment of decline.

LUX is not just a pop album, but an ambitious artistic project with elements of oratorio and lush orchestration. Structured through multiple movements, using thirteen languages, and featuring arrangements largely performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, the album clearly stands apart from contemporary pop conventions. That grandiosity makes it extremely compelling, but also a demanding experience, both because of its length and the density of its ideas.

Oklou – Choke Enough

Oklou Choke Enough

The alternative music scene truly flourished this year, and Choke Enough is one of its quietest yet most persistent moments. Oklou consistently builds atmospheric pop that slips away from classic structures, while Y2K aesthetics run through a hazy, almost twilight-like ambience, not as mere nostalgia, but as an emotional framework.

This is an album that slowly draws you in and remains present as a cohesive experience. The closing track Blade Bird shifts the perspective of everything you have heard up to that point, and through that subtle move creates the rare urge to return to it again and again.

Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong

Black Country, New Road Forever Howlong

According to Spotify Wrapped, Besties is my most listened-to song this year. It comes from the third album by Black Country, New Road and honestly, yes, I absolutely agree. It is so powerful and, I would say, larger than life that even after countless listens I have not grown tired of it, and the same goes for Forever Howlong as a whole, an album I returned to almost instinctively throughout the year.

Although the band significantly changed their sound and thematic approach this year, and although on first listen the album may not resemble the “old” BC,NR, the essential elements remain. Their recognizable musicality, sense for arrangement, and collective emotional charge are now more restrained and mature. Thematically, the album deals with transience, relationships, memories, and quiet emotional shifts, often without clear conclusions or dramatic ruptures. For some fans, this initially caused hesitation, especially among those who fell in love with the band because of their earlier, more direct drama, but over time it was precisely this gradual unfolding that was increasingly highlighted as its greatest strength.

Cameron Winter – Heavy Metal

Cameron Winter Heavy Metal

I wish I could say nothing about this album except that it is called Heavy Metal, and just watch your faces as you listen to it for the first time. And although the album is not heavy metal in genre terms, in some bizarre way, it absolutely is. It is so restrained, intimate, and atmospheric, with a focus on space, silence, and emotional fragility, that at some point you start to wonder what that has to do with the title. That is exactly the point. Heavy Metal does not build its weight through loudness or aggression, but through restraint and emotional pressure that lingers long after the album ends. I would say it is closest to minimalist and folk-adjacent albums that owe more to atmosphere than to structure, with songs that are deliberately unfinished, like emotional fragments or sketches.

This is not an album for everyone. There are no clear choruses, no climaxes, no classic narrative arc. But give it a chance. You may not even realize how quietly and slowly it will grow on you. The album was released in the final days of 2024, so it did not have time to appear on lists of the best albums of that year, but this year it is here justly and with full reason.