Top 10 Albums of 2025

What's old is new. For me, musically, it was the year of uncle hip-hop and dad rock.

With Nas' Mass Appeal label rolling out its nostalgic 'Legend Has It' series, '90's rap diehards drank from a holy grail. The long anticipated Nas & DJ Premier album, the final Mobb Deep record, a Supreme Clientele sequel and projects from Big L, Raekwon, Slick Rick and De La Soul. I might be forgetting one, I haven't even had a chance to give the Big L a spin.

The best of the bunch was Cabin in the Sky, the first De La Soul album since the death of Trugoy the Dove in 2023. De La were always great with concepts, and on Cabin they reunite with longtime collaborator Prince Paul, a master of crafting themes. Skits and interludes are a welcome blast from the past, a true hallmark of the days when hip-hop albums felt like hangouts and not digital bits. DJ Premier and Pete Rock lay down some killer beats, including my favorite of the year "Yours," a royally superb mash-up of Nas's "The World of Yours" (which Pete Rock also produced) and Slick Rick's "Hey Young World," as MC Ricky D appears on the chorus as Common and Psodnuos repeat the song's sage advice: "And there's no forever young section / So make sure the life you live age you to perfection."

Seemingly barrel aged, the Clipse emerged after a decade-plus hiatus. Let God Sort Em Out is a razor sharp return from Malice and Pusha T, entirely produced by Pharrell Williams, cranking out his best beats in years. Garnishing their wit with wisdom, Clipse have elevated their sound, expanding their content beyond cocaine and consumerism (slightly) to aging and grief. While it wasn't part of Mass Appeal's 'Legend' series, Nas appears anyway, cementing his status as the ambassador of oldies rap.

Frankly, it was difficult generating a Top 10 this year as I find myself listening to older music more often. Maybe because there isn't much great new music out anyway. MTV is dead and there's now a Best Podcast category at the Golden Globes. Albums and movie theaters are becoming niche like opera tickets.

Yet great art transcends time. Marty Supreme, a '50s set epic about a ping-pong pro, is bookended by Tears for Fears needle drops. I visited the lone record store in Davao City, Philippines and picked up a Connie Francis album as TikTok resurrected her hit 'Pretty Little Baby' 63 years later. Swapping chef's knives for guitars, Jeremy Allen White portrayed Nebraska-era Springsteen for an unconventional bio-pic focused on a brief period in the musician's career. Meanwhile, the Boss waxed nostalgic with a massive box-set of unreleased material on the phenomenal Tracks II: The Lost Albums collection.

I didn't have a Dennis Hopper alt-country concept album on my bingo card for 2025, but out of the blue came the Waterboys star-studded opus. Tracing his life through his time as an upcoming actor alongside James Dean to his freewheeling Easy Rider days to his self-destructive downfall and comeback in David Lynch's Blue Velvet on the aptly titled 'Frank (Let's F*ck)', Life, Death and Dennis Hopper musically biographs the man and the myth.

In the year that was 2025, as musicians reached into the past to craft something new, the most legendary rappers know, nothing rhymes like history.

10. Hatchie - Liqourice