The Greatest Music of 2025 So Far

Pitchfork’s editors are already sorting, compiling, and straining to recollect all of the music that’s been launched this 12 months. So we’re spotlighting a few of 2025’s most excellent information so far by rounding up albums which have earned excessive scores and Greatest New Music designations with a fast listing of RIYLs (that’s Really helpful If You Like) and hyperlinks to our protection.

In contrast to our year-end lists, this one is organized in reverse chronological order. That will help you preserve monitor of the 12 months’s finest music, we’ll be updating it periodically all through the rest of 2025.

(All releases featured listed below are independently chosen by our editors. Once you purchase one thing via our retail hyperlinks, nevertheless, Pitchfork could earn an affiliate fee.)

Could

RIYL: Fragrantica critiques; phenomenology; dream logic; the connection between scent and reminiscence; stay music as a liminal house; delicate membership beats; trendy dance; the sounds of the Oslo subway

Hear/Purchase: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Tough Commerce | Spotify | Tidal

April

RIYL: Really watching, not ready out, the film credit; Lia Kohl; loop pedals; Mississippi humidity; shopping for outdated household images at a dilapidated classic store; The Sacrificial Code; taking the window seat on multi-hour practice journeys

Hear/Purchase: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Tough Commerce | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Scrapbooks; collage; free spirits; false begins; first-thought-best-thought; home exhibits; unplugging; touching grass; smoking grass; rising grass; that one tape that’s been on the dashboard of your automobile for like 5 years, since that street journey you took together with your finest good friend, and nonetheless sounds nice irrespective of how garbled it will get

Hear/Purchase: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Timelapse movies of nature; drum ‘n’ bass to sit back out to; Floating Factors symphonies; Objekt; making a posh, creative beverage to pair with a bit of buttered toast

Hear/Purchase: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Tough Commerce | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Geopolitics; anticolonialism; peace research; survivor’s tales; kuduro; Burial; rave stabs; reverb; battered patinas; smoke; shrapnel; slivers of sunshine; silver linings

Hear/Purchase: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Tough Commerce | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Grouper; the panorama of coastal Eire; Gothic novels; Cocteau Twins; going to the seashore when it’s raining; dream pop; uilleann pipes; frost on the home windows