At the moment this fall when NPR Music's staff began discussing our picks for the best albums of 2025, the mere existence of the record we'd eventually name our No. 1 – in a landslide, it must be said ...

2025 was an unusual year for pop music in general. The charts reflected existing listening habits, meaning that songs over a year old still hung around in the Top 10 (we're looking at you, Teddy Swims ...

I don’t envy anybody who decided to put out an album within the 12 months succeeding Brat Summer, Manning Fireworks Fall, and “Not Like Us” — especially considering that 2025, broadly speaking, did ...