This is the year-end category where I'm least likely to want to change my answers in the next week and a half, lol, so here we go.

Favorite new songs/albums of the year
- Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 by Lord Huron. Great vibes, a great progression, only one skip (“Digging Up the Past”). Dreamy and sad, suffused with existential horror, just weird enough both lyrically and musically. I wasn’t sure what I wanted from the new album, but this was exactly it. “Who Laughs Last” is probably my song of the year.

- Mayhem by Lady Gaga. When you're sixteen years into your career and can make a banger album like that this fits right in with your classics!!! The first six or seven songs in particular are an amazing run. “Perfect Celebrity” is probably my favorite, but it’s hard to choose.

- All the live tracks from the Oasis tour. I think this is the first officially released live version of Bring It On Down ever, and Wonderwall is the best live version since… idk, the one from Knebworth 1996 maybe? Or maybe ever? And this live version of Slide Away has finally brought me around on that song. Incredible stuff. (Full live tour album when???)

- "Van Horn" by Saint Motel. One of those songs I didn't really appreciate until I heard it live. Great fun. Also a couple of songs off their new album from the spring (as opposed to their new album for the fall).

- New Candys, which I stumbled across on Bandcamp. I got hooked on their single "Regicide", and the accompanying album The Uncanny Extravaganza is ideal "drowning out external noise" work music.

- All That We Imagine Is the Light, the new Garbage album. Some of the writing is a little dodgy, honestly, but the vibe is great. No Gods No Masters is still my favorite, though.

Disappointments
- I wish I liked Miley's new album more than I do. The tracks I like best are mostly her doing Lady Gaga, and that's not really what I go to Miley for.

- I discovered Dorothy Martin of the band Dorothy has gone full born-again Christian and is now giving interviews about spiritual warfare and the like. Bummer. We'll always have ROCKISDEAD, I guess.

Favorite new-to-me songs/albums
- This year I got really into the Monnow Valley and Sawmills versions of Definitely Maybe, which were released for the 30th anniversary last year. In some ways I like them better than the official album, or at least they've made me appreciate the official album more. Sad Song with young Liam on vocals is incredible, and I’m sad the official version left out that great electric guitar (bass?) hook.

- At the beginning of the year I had a month or so of listening almost exclusively to Doechii (mostly Alligator Bites Never Heal) and GloRilla (mostly Glorious and Anyways, Life's Great). Good times. TGIF is an all-timer.

Stuff I was really into for a hot minute and/or that I want to explore further
- Chat Pile and Hayden Pedigo through their collab album In the Earth Again. I love the contrast of the menacing electric guitars and Pedigo's contemplative, melancholy acoustic.

- Ethel Cain, maybe? Or maybe I just like “Tempest” a lot.

- The singles from Charli XCX’s upcoming Wuthering Heights-themed album. Brat didn’t do anything for me, but these are very much my jam. I love when a pop artist goes weird, like she does on “House.” My most anticipated release of 2026.

- That new Rosalia album. I think I need to spend more time with it to fully appreciate it. “Berghain” is a hell of a track, though.

- Jonah Kagen, mostly that single “God Needs the Devil,” which is exactly the kind of rootsy bitterness I like sometimes. However, his full album later in the year gave me bad politics vibes, always a hazard with Americana and country artists, so I don’t know that I’ll explore him further.

Some other favorite tracks from this year
“Problems” by Yonaka. That last bit leading into the chorus for the first time!! Gives me shivers.
“The Fate of Ophelia” by Taylor Swift. This song is NONSENSE but it’s so catchy.
“Lucky” by Renee Rapp from the Now You See Me 3 soundtrack. A classic bop. Apparently it didn’t even chart, which surprises me, but the charts were wacky this year.
“Song for Henry” by Loren Kramer from the soundtrack for On Swift Horses. You know, the angsty heartbreaker song playing over Julius and Henry’s first sex scene.

Old Favorites - stuff I already loved and continued to listen to a bunch in 2025.
Kendrick Lamar! His Super Bowl show reignited all my enthusiasm. I watched that thing so many times. This coincided with my Doechii/Glorilla phase at the beginning of th eyear.

Miley Cyrus's older stuff, especially her 2023 album Endless Summer Vacation. I’d have said Plastic Hearts was the one I really loved, and yet at this point I think I’ve actually listened to ESV more times. I guess maybe it’s the right mood for more situations than Plastic Hearts. It kind of wears down towards the end, and I find the last two songs unlistenable, but until that point it’s a basically flawless execution of the thing it’s choosing to be.

Oasis, lol. They were my top artist of the year yet again. Mostly the Definitely Maybe anniversary release and the live tracks, as mentioned above, but also according to Tidal I listened to the Knebworth 1996 live album a lot. I don’t even remember this.

Best lines - New or old, on their own or combined with the music:
- I got a burning feeling deep inside of me / And don’t know where to put it (“Who Laughs Last” by Lord Huron)

- You said you really don’t dream anymore (“Life is Strange” by Lord Huron)

…I probably just need to do a whole post about this album, huh. Does anyone else here listen to them?