Saba really  made me a fan with 2022's Few Good Things, so when I interviewed No ID in 2023, I was really excited to hear that they were working on a full-length project together -- in fact No ID revealed that he knew Saba's father, the Chicago R&B artist Chandler, way back in the '90s. And after a year and change of waiting, this tape totally lives up to my expectations, No ID's way of chopping familiar samples in refreshing new ways works is used to great effect on the first two tracks, and Saba's writing is just so frank and clear-eyed and he keeps switching up the flow, going more melodic on "Woes of the World" and more intricate and triplet-heavy on "Westside Bound Pt. 4." Here's the 2025 albums Spotify playlist I'm constantly updating with new releases. 

Nels Cline has been one of my favorite guitarists in the world for three decades now, and in most of that time he's been so prolific that there's been at least one new album from him as a bandleader or solo artist just about every year. But things have been relatively quiet on that front since 2020's Share the Wealth, although he's remained pretty active with Wilco and other sideman/session-type things. Judging from recent interviews, I guess the pandemic just slowed down his process of developing setting a set of new material with a band, but the first album from his new combo Consentrik Quartet is an excellent collection to return with. Cline and German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock will sort of weave together these different parallel lines and then suddenly lock into harmonizing on a busy run of notes, it's really a delight to hear them play together. I think my favorite part is on "Slipping Into Something," when that cool 15/16 bassline comes in and everybody just starts going off. 

I've never really been blown away by any of Lady Gaga's post-Born This Way albums, but Mayhem is pretty fun even if I can't tell whether her heart's really in this return to her earlier style -- really I can never tell how much she means anything, for better or worse. I didn't consider "Disease" or "Abracadabra" to be particularly good Gaga singles, but they're perfectly good Gaga songs that kick off the album well (while "Die With A Smile" is a great single but barely a Gaga song at all). Most pop albums that slow down in the second half start to lose my interest there but that run of midtempo songs that starts with "LoveDrug" is really my favorite part of the record.

When I interviewed Brian D'Addario of the Lemon Twigs a few years ago, one of the things I was most curious to ask him about was the creative dynamic with his brother Michael and how their writing and production styles differ -- he had some interesting answers, but I still mostly distinguish them by Brian kind of have a mellow folk pop singing style and Michael doing some more affected punk and glam-type voices, which works well as a yin/yang. They seem to be such a tight creative unit that I was surprised to see that either of them released a solo album, but Till The Morning came out on the brothers' new label Headstack Records and Michael co-produced the album and did a little writing and singing. So it's really pretty much a Lemon Twigs album, albeit a mellower one in the style of Everything Harmony. I particularly like the twangy pedal steel guitar on "This Summer" and "One Day I'm Coming Home." 

mssv (short for Main Steam Stop Valve) is kind of a similar deal to fIREHOSE -- Mike Watt plus a drummer he's played with for a long time (in this case Stephen Hodges) plus a younger singer/guitarist (in this case Mike Baggetta). A little noisier than fIREHOSE, though, which I like. They've had a couple previous albums but I think I like this one best, really captures the energy and immediacy of three guys playing together in a room well, and Watt really gets to let loose on the thunder broom on "Super Dumb" and anchor a dreamier soundscape on "On Its Face" and spiel a bit on "Boat Song" and "Careful What You Wish For." 

I recently ranked Husker Du's albums for Spin, but I haven't really kept up with Mould's post-SST adventures as much as I have with Mike Watt. I like this record, though, which has one of my favorite drummers in the world, Jon Wurster, doing great work. The songs Superchunk have released since Wurster stepped away from the band have been excellent, Laura King hit the ground running, but I'm still gonna make more of an effort to seek out whatever Wurster is playing on now. I think "Neanderthal" is my favorite track on Here We Go Crazy. 

It seemed like Playboi Carti was going to jump into the A-list when the anticipation for Whole Lotta Red was mounting, but it didn't quite happen, I think maybe the Christmas day release was a bad call. But Music (which was for years called I Am Music right up until its release, much like Drake's Views From The Six/Views switcheroo) really did big numbers and got the world's attention. I think Die Lit is still my favorite Carti album, he's getting a little carried away with wacky voices now. The standout tracks for me so far are "Charge Dem Hoes A Fee" featuring Future, and "Toxic," where Carti does a Future impression. I get why "Evil Jordan" is the most popular song because the beat is great, but he really ruins it yelling "I AM THE MUSIC" at the end. Also I disagree with Kanye...on a lot of things actually, but specifically that I think Carti and Kendrick are a good combination. 

The 1975 are a little more tongue-in-cheek about their quest to be the best band in the world than, say, Oasis, but I think they very much belong in that lineage of pompously ambitious UK bands, and the name of their last tour, The 1975 At Their Very Best (and the continued leg of the tour, Still... At Their Very Best) was pretty sincere about the greatness they're aiming for. And the thing is, I'm totally on board, I really think they're more or less the best mainstream band of the last decade or so and they're still operating at the top of their game. The Amazon concert special from earlier in the tour was paced a little better than this one, I know that a lot of their most popular songs are slow and the audience seems really pumped about the long stretch of slow songs in the middle of the show, but their studio albums do a better job of mixing tempos. That said, a pretty damn good live record. 

Will Smith released his new album almost exactly 20 years to the day after his last album, Lost and Found, which is kind of a sentimental milestone for me as well, because the first time I ever got paid to write was my Lost and Found review for Baltimore City Paper. Both of these albums get far on my lingering youthful love of He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper, Based On A True Story isn't an amazing return to form like the last LL Cool J album, but it's pretty solid when Will isn't trying too hard to sound current (I don't like the songs with Big Sean and Russ). 

I guess respect for NAV for not trying to reinvent himself as a mob boss like Drake, but it's crazy how he's been a bona fide rap star with consistent top 10 albums for like 7 years now and hasn't developed any swagger at all. He still raps in that blank monotone sounding like a middle schooler, and he still has that Mark Zuckerberg haircut that even Mark Zuckerberg doesn't have anymore. 

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