00:00Hello and welcome to Euronews Culture's music review of 2025. I'm Dukunbo Salako.
00:08And I'm David Morricond.
00:10Are you?
00:10I think so.
00:11Yes, you are.
00:12Okay.
00:13Thank you for joining me on this, because it's been an incredible year for music, I think, and I've only just heard a little bit of it.
00:19Has it been a golden year? There's been titans on tour, creative differences over AI. So much has happened in the last 12 months, David.
00:29Yeah, it's been a challenging year. There's been some good, some comebacks. We've seen Oasis going back on tour and patching things up.
00:37And then, as you say, we've had a fair dose of AI-generated slop with certain bands like The Velvet Sundown or Breaking Rust,
00:48essentially dominating charts at times and making you wonder, you know, where do actual creatives fit in a world that leaves AI going rampant?
01:01Yeah, but like in so many things, you know, there's so much division in so many areas, you know, even, of course, in music, there are some artists who are openly embracing this.
01:10And fair play to them. But it represents still an existential crisis for a lot of creatives and their rights, especially with regards to generative AI.
01:21And unfortunately, we're going to see more of that in the coming years.
01:25But there have been plenty of albums and plenty of much musical goodness this year to keep us just about sane.
01:35Just about sane. I think we can take the temperature on that.
01:38And you have been taking a temperature along with the rest of our team at 20 of what we think are the best albums of this year.
01:46We don't have time, unfortunately, here to discuss all of them.
01:49So we've whittled it down to the top five. David, what is at number five?
01:54At number five this year, we've picked Bleeds by Wednesday.
02:00Now, for those who don't know, Wednesday are a band from North Carolina who really impressed us two years ago with an album called Rats or God,
02:10which made our top albums of the year that year.
02:13And their new album is another really intoxicating helping of this scuzzy indie rock.
02:21And throughout, it's propelled by the razor-sharp lyricism of the singer-songwriter Carly Hartsman,
02:29who paints these pictures of heartbreak, of stupid decisions, of watching the human centipede after a fish gig.
02:39Don't ask.
02:39And all of that comes together with these really beautiful, evocative, funny, sometimes surreal snapshots that feel really lived in.
02:52And it's just been an absolute joy coming back to this album over and over again during the year.
02:57It's broken
02:58Sometimes it feels like it will never end
03:04David, that sounds absolutely incredible.
03:12Makes me wonder, what is at number four, even though I do know?
03:16Number four is the fourth album by Viagra Boys, and it's called Viagra Boys.
03:24Do they get it up?
03:25They, oh, they get it up, and they're a lively act to see live.
03:29I've had the pleasure of seeing them live before, and yeah, it's a lively old gig, and they're brilliant.
03:35And for those who don't know, they're a Swedish band, they're a post-punk band,
03:40and they've really impressed over the years by chronicling and satirizing what you could refer to as the inshittification of society, which was...
03:54That was a word of the year.
03:55Last year, yes, by Macquarie Dictionary, if I'm not mistaken.
03:58And essentially, how just society is becoming progressively more and more shit.
04:05And essentially, what they do is, you know, satirize and lampoon, whether it's the far right, toxic masculinity, any conspiracy theories.
04:18And I'm thinking specifically of their album Cave World, which was absolutely brilliant in 2002.
04:22And this year, it's more of the same, but they've kind of focused, shall we say, more on everyday follies.
04:30And throughout, the sound feels a little bit more polished this time, but the energy is still there.
04:37And the lyrics are still as irreverent, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes actually very, very moving.
04:45And it's just a really deliriously entertaining record.
04:49Well, let's have a listen.
04:52David, we're getting closer to the top.
05:08The podium place is...
05:10Who, or what, is at number three?
05:14It's a who.
05:15It's Anastasia with her album Tether.
05:18Now, this album was at the number three spot at our halfway mark review, the best albums of the year so far.
05:27And it's remained there.
05:29And in my mind, it is, without a doubt, the best debut album of the year.
05:34And it's a very overdue debut album, because Anastasia had a very hard time getting this one out, because she was met with some reluctance from record executives who wanted to steer her away from her folk soul sound.
05:52And more towards commercially viable R&B.
05:56And they were so wrong, because this album is lush.
06:02It is captivating.
06:04And it features Anastasia's just mahogany voice, which exists somewhere between Tracy Chapman and Nina Simone.
06:12And it's, I think Tether is one of the records I've gone back to the most this year.
06:18Like, at first, it sounded lovely.
06:21And just the more you listen to it, the more emotionally resonant it becomes, the more magnetic it feels.
06:29And I find it an utterly disarming record.
06:33And I can't wait to see what she does next.
06:36And you're not alone there.
06:37I choose to listen to it when I'm in the bath, for some strange reason.
06:41Beautiful, absolutely amazing voice that she's got.
06:53Let's talk about number two, shall we?
06:55Number two.
06:55Number two is Kellele in the blue light.
06:58This was our number one pick at the halfway point, and it's been pipped to the post.
07:04But this is a live album, which follows on from her record Raven, which was this kind of ambient, 90s-influenced dance record.
07:16And that was completely intoxicating.
07:19And here, she's gone in a very, very different direction.
07:24She's recorded, the album was recorded at the famous Blue Note Jazz Club in New York.
07:30And it's as if she's tailored her sound to the location, and the songs are stripped back.
07:36They're soulful.
07:38They're celestial, even.
07:41And it's a really gorgeous listen that just gave me really happy brain tingles throughout the year.
07:48And I can't recommend it enough.
07:51It was an incredible album indeed.
07:52Let's just have a little blast of that right now.
07:54David, we've reached the summit.
08:07And perhaps, for many, it's not going to come as a surprise.
08:11Yeah, our number one pick, and because it has been in many ways her year, is Rosalia with her album Luxe.
08:22And this is a tough one to adequately describe, to encapsulate.
08:28I mean, it's the Spanish artist's fourth album.
08:31And she goes, veers away from the sound we know her for, the flamenco, reggaeton, dance sound, and has done a complete pivot to opera.
08:45And it took everyone by surprise, and she's backed throughout by, on this record, by the London Symphonic Orchestra.
08:56And she creates this surprising, experimental sort of baroque opera with strings, electronic beats, and throughout an absolutely gorgeous, just crystalline vocal performance.
09:10And it's really mesmerizing.
09:13Tell us more about this.
09:15As you say, it is such a dramatic difference from what she's done in the past.
09:19What was her inspiration behind that?
09:20Well, you see, throughout, she sings in 13 languages, which is impressive, to say the least.
09:27Obviously, Catalan and Spanish, but also German, English, Japanese, Ukrainian, even Latin.
09:34And she does this to essentially talk about borderless themes and timeless themes of love, of sex, of divinity, her relationship with God.
09:48And also, to answer your question, the feminine divine, that seems to be a follow through in these songs, because she was inspired by the lives of female saints and mystics throughout the year, the ages.
10:04And by doing so, I mean, it all sounds on paper like a mess and a little bit gimmicky, let's be honest.
10:12It's not.
10:12It works.
10:13It works beautifully well and surprisingly well.
10:17And in terms of ambition, the best way I can think to describe this album is it feels like this is her version of Bjork's Vespertine, which is, in my mind, her Bjork's best album.
10:32That is high praise indeed.
10:34Yeah, because the ambition is through the roof.
10:38And more than that, it really defies contemporary pop conventions.
10:44It really goes for it.
10:45And more than that, and this is something which I admire enormously about what Rosalia has done, is it really demands your attention as a record.
10:58And especially nowadays when, you know, it's all about quick hits, quick highs.
11:03You know, the way we consume music is increasingly algorithm dependent and measured and driven by an algorithm.
11:11And here, this is completely the opposite of that.
11:15She said in a recent New York Times interview that the more we live in an era of dopamine, the more she wants to be different.
11:23And that is exactly what this album is.
11:26Looks is different.
11:27And it really demands that you sit down, listen to it, and it demands your complete attention.
11:34And the best thing is that it really, really rewards it.
11:38Well, she certainly is different.
11:40And she's, as you say, swimming against the tide.
11:43The thing which I've really enjoyed about what she said in recent interviews is that there's been this call, really, for young children to get into classical music, to get into playing instruments as well.
11:53Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's of paramount importance, especially, you know, when we are all a little bit attention starved, especially towards the end of the year.
12:03And I think it's only a positive thing to to encourage younger generations and any generation to, you know, think about what they listen to, the genres they listen to.
12:14And also beyond learning instruments and and getting more into music, just think about that.
12:19You know, you can have genres of predilection or things like that.
12:23But this goes to show that you can listen to reggaeton, you can listen to flamenco music, you can listen to rock, pop, whatever you like.
12:31You can also listen to classical and opera and and appreciate it.
12:35And if this record allows more people to get curious about other musical genres, then we're stronger for it.
12:49David, thank you for taking us and inviting us to dip into Rosalia's new album.
13:01It's a fantastic listen. And she's also on tour starting next March.
13:05Yes, a world tour next March. It starts in France.
13:10And yeah, we're going to be hearing a lot more from Rosalia in 2026.
13:13And those tickets, I mean, they're going to be the hot tickets next year.
13:16Oh, watch out for your Christmas stocking. Might be a surprise in there.
13:21But the rest of you, of course, you can watch and listen to our top 20, our best recommendations from 2025.
13:27That's on Euronews Culture.
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