I abandoned the radio a long time ago. More or less anything that hits the airwaves nowadays is so processed, repetitive, and shallow that it actually grates on my ears, and I'd rather just sit in complete silence than have to listen to it.
But it doesn't mean that new music is bad. In fact, you can find some of the best music you've ever heard, released just this year, with an adventurous spirit and a Spotify subscription. This year was actually a banger for new music, and I'm going to tell you about some of the things I found that you should definitely hear for yourself.
5. The Midnight - Syndicate
Syndicate isn't a song; it's an entire album. I discovered the LA duo The Midnight through a YouTube meme video years ago, and ever since, I have been hooked on their music. This year, they released Syndicate and reminded me why they're one of my all-time favorite bands.
For anyone not familiar with The Midnight, they're an 80s and early 90s-inspired Synthwave band that somehow brings the sound into the modern era and makes it sound fresh while still giving it that timeless feel. You'll feel like you're listening to a soundtrack from an 80s movie, complete with neon glowing off rain-soaked streets or riding your bike to the arcade as the sun goes down. In my personal opinion, they really shine when they create that semi-emotional John Hughes film feel.
Syndicate leans heavily into the intensity of the Synthwave, with heavy synth bass ostinato pushing an undercurrent of echoing, moaning guitars and reverberating drum beats. Then there are the saxophone solos that will make you replay any song they're on alone.
For me, the standout song on Syndicate is Runaways, which features fellow retro-enthusiast Bonnie McKee. It has everything I love about the Synthwave sound, including the driving bass, the sax solo, and that feeling of intensity that manages to feel like freedom. Next time you're in your car, driving around at night, throw on Syndicate and sink into the vibe this album gives. You'll be hooked, especially if you're an Elder Millennial or Gen X-aged person.
4. Kalandra - Ghosts
I first discovered Kalandra this year through their 2018 song Brave New World, and was so blown away by it that I had to delve deeper into their offerings. Sure enough, I was rewarded for my curiosity with some of the most hauntingly beautiful music I've ever heard.
Kalandra is a Norwegian band that lets their Nordic roots shine brightly through the music. Sinking into their music feels like stepping into a sort of Narnia. It's otherworldly and beautiful, but also sad. Lead songstress Katrine Stenbekk's voice is incredibly unique, sounding both sweet and powerful at the same time.
The haunting nature of their music really shines in the song Ghosts, which technically was released in 2024 but was released in 2025 alongside other songs for their EP Mørketid, which is Norwegian for "the dark time," which is really just another way of naming the Nordic winters where the sun doesn't rise. Ghost is something of a tribute to that time, recalling the sad beauty of winter, and just in time for the winter months to hit us here in the States.
"I sing because this time of year has ghosts" is a line that sums up Christmas, in particular, very well, and is sung in such a beautiful way that you can't help but think of your own ghosts.
3. Lorien Testard/Alice Duport-Percier - Alicia
I've raved twice now about a video game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and while I don't have enough good things to say about the game, the soundtrack to it is unrivaled in creativity and beauty.
The mind behind the soundtrack is a French guitar teacher named Lorien Testard, who didn't just create a few songs for the game; he created the music that formed a sort of backbone to the story. The opening song is titled Alicia, sung beautifully by the French vocalist Alice Duport-Percier, and it actually gives the ending of the game away without you even knowing. Even French speakers may not pick up on what is being revealed because it's sung in a sort of medieval French that is slowly becoming an extinct style of the language.
But even if you don't care about the game, the song itself is so beautiful that you could get lost in it. The string work in this song is top-tier composing, and when mixed with Testard's slow, tragic piano notes and Percier's mournful voice, it creates a hauntingly gorgeous piece of music. I'd say that quite a few tracks on the Clair Obscur soundtrack have this quality, but Alicia hits you first and sets the tone for everything.
2. Poor Man's Poison - Promised Land
This is a criminally underrated band that only recently achieved attention thanks to a song of theirs that went viral on TikTok. Poor Man's Poison is a folk rock band that sounds a lot more like country than most country bands on the radio nowadays. Frontman Ryan Hakker's voice sounds like it could live in the Outlaw Country hall of fame and create tunes that are pure Americana.
If you're on TikTok, you've likely heard the bit I'm referring to. They got people's attention with Hell's Comin' With Me, the story of a boy who was exiled by a corrupt town with a "black magic preacher." He vows to return and burn it all to the ground, later returning as a drifter and doing exactly as he promised, hanging the evil preacher, burning the town to ash, and confronting the town with the epic line "I am the righteous hand of God, and I am the devil that you forgot."
But while PMP delivers quite a few songs with this upbeat, folk country storytelling vibe, they're also capable of deep personal lyrics. This year, they released an EP that features the song Promised Land, a song of a man who, despite his best efforts, can't seem to get himself right enough to create stability with the one he loves. The star lyric during the chorus, "Won't you raise me some hell so I can feel right at home," speaks to a man who finds peace an alien concept, and he encourages his lover to take everything and leave.
It's a sad song, but oddly beautiful and hits me harder than anything I've heard from mainstream radio for years. It doesn't help that the tune is so raw and catchy. You'll find yourself singing or humming the chorus later without realizing you're doing it.
1. Lord Huron - Bag of Bones
Lord Huron has been my favorite band for years, and in 2025, they reminded me why with their new album Cosmic Selector: Vol. 1. Frontman and songwriter Ben Schneider has a talent for delivering a kind of cosmic frontier wanderlust and American ghost stories. Their music is odd to place, and I've yet to hear any sound like theirs. There's a sort of dream-like quality to it that mixes a western gothic feel, folk, and cinematic highway flair.
They love tackling subjects like death and the supernatural, wandering, impossible love, and the cost of looking into the void. Yet, it's not horror; in fact, it's entirely relatable. They are a band that expresses in words and strings what you've thought about when pondering the greater questions. Their albums shift just like a progression of time, where 2012's Lonesome Dreams is a story of a Western wandering romantic on a quest to never die, 2015's Strange Trails deals with the supernatural ghost stories, cheating death, and tales of revenge, and Vide Noir deals with the cosmic consequences of over-indulged ambition and reckless tempting of fate.
In 2025, the band released Cosmic Selector: Vol. 1 and continued the trend of making the overwhelming mystery of time and space feel incredibly personal. While it's hard for me to say which song is my favorite, the one I find myself going back to most is Bag of Bones, a song with a nihilist flair. It's the first-person perspective from a man who took the fall for his partner's transgressions, and now stumbles through life resigned to his solitude, that he's slowly learning to accept with lyrics that make light of getting the short end of the stick, like "Life is a joke if you laugh."
My favorite line from the song comes near the end as the man resigns to impermanence: "People die, and planets turn, and empires rise and fall and burn, nothing lasts, and no one stays, we just spiral off into outer space."
Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 deals a lot with humanity's misunderstanding of major concepts due to our cosmic ignorance and the regret that can come with them. Schneider described the concept for the album well, saying, “What if you could choose your fate like choosing a song on a jukebox? What if your finger slipped and you got the B-side instead? What if you misunderstood the meaning of the dang song to begin with?”
A lot of the album is just like that. It starts with the song Looking Back, an introspective song of regret and a longing for contentment, and ends with Life Is Strange, a song of accepting that you're not going to always find what you're looking for or get what you want, and that swallowing that pain is a part of life.
