Top Albums of 2025

End of Year Albums Fuck it, we're close enough to the end of the year, I've had a couple of beers, so here are my favourite albums of the year: Let's go!
5. "West End Girl" - Lily Allen
I'm fucking delighted we got a return to form from Lily Allen, but it's tragic that it had to be through the catastrophic slow-motion "monkey swallowing a hand grenade" spectacle of a disintigrating marriage. Frank, confessional, and a mish-mash of genres (foreshadowing is a literary device...) which should not work: it's the sort of raw, pure art I admire. Highlights are "Dallas Major" (a truly miserable, "what the fuck am I doing here?" track framed as upbeat, one hundred percent my jam) and "Relapse" (she brought back trip-hop! I want to kill myself over this, but you know progress!)
4. "Parasites and Butterflies" - The Nova Twins
A late entry. What a band. They're great. The Nova Twins are unapologetic about their mishmash of genres and weird shit (callbacks are a literary device...) but crucially have that ear for hooks, tunes and heavy pounding shit I kind of love. They do my main benchmark of a good album: just make a shitload of good tracks individually and parcel them in. Highlights are "Drip" (the horny track they've taken 3 albums to make... well worth it), "N.O.V.A", "Parallel Universe" and "Hide and Seek".
3. "That's Showbiz Baby" - Jade
Absolutely unhinged. Jade is the best member of the excellent Little Mix, and came out fucking swinging with this album: the lead single switched tempo and genre 5 times whilst sampling "Puppet on a String" by Sandy Shore, and only got weirder from there. Feeling like a simultaneous primal scream (hah, I actually kind of want a Primal Scream influenced Jade album now, she'd suit it) against the predatory sexist industry of commodification and "product", and a celebration of all things queer: she just made the equivalent of a riot in a gay bar circa 2008. I love this. Absolutely bananas. Highlights are "Midnight Cowboy" (horny and a bonkers 2000s Euro Club track), "IT Girl" (fucking abso-fucking-lutely fuck yes fuck) and obviously "Angel of My Dreams".
2. "Mad!" - Sparks
Sparks are the best band on the planet. Name a band you love, and chances are their favourite band is Sparks. There is no band like them. At the ages of 78 and 80, brothers Russel and Ron Mael (who fathered half of Europe and do this for love of the game) still find ways to sound fresh, unique, interesting and ahead of the curve despite nobody having caught up to them even now. With their usual glib, coy "are we in on the joke or is this just what it seems?" energy (which, at this point, could just be the joke...) they scamper and dance through the highest octaves of vocals the spectrums of human emotion, making something so quintessentially them and yet something new; no mean feat after their 3rd comeback (!) in the public zeitgeist with their last chart-topper "The Girl is Crying in her Latte". I saw them tour this album, and once again Sparks changed my life but more importantly: I took 2 friends of mine to the gig and they are changed people now, Sparks superfans after going in blind. Highlights are "I-405 Rules" (a love letter to their favourite motorway), "Drowned in a Sea of Tears" (I got emotional seeing it live), "Do Things My Own Way" (their thumping, heavy, thesis statement of 5 decades, and an absolute fucking belter) and "Running Up a Tab at the Hotel for a Fab" (pure Sparks, nothing else to say)
Before I get to number 1, some honourable mentions:

"Sleepless Empire" - Lacuna Coil
I knew "Swamped", and got this for my partner who is a massive fan. I fucking love these Goth-rock icons. Unironic, unabashed, incredible live. Highlights: "Sleep Paralysis", "Gravity", "Hosting the Shadow"
"Closer" - Kim Wilde
It's a Kim Wilde album in 2025! And it's fucking great! She's fucking great guys, why did we let her go away? It's a master of the craft doing what she does best. Highlights: "Midnight Train", "Hourglass Human", "Trail of Destruction".
"Princess of Power" - Marina
Continuing the momentum of "Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land" (a future classic in her canon, not even an underrated one) with the eclectic madness of her early works, the introspection of "Froot" and the feminism and coherent point missing from that piece of shit "Love and Fear". Highlights: "Cuntissimo" (obviously), "Princess of Power" (openers are never a problem for her), "Final Boss" (I got to hear Marina scream "FINISH HIM"), and "Hello Kitty"

"Let All that We Imagine Be the Light" - Garbage
It was never not going to be this. The darkest parts of the soul for every outcast, reject and person just fucking furious at the world have put out their "optimism" album, in their 60s. And unlike many of that era they've not lost their minds: the album calls for trans rights, black power, and crushing the madness which consumes us. They used to embrace the misery and darkness, because they were cool outsiders, but now that same darkness consumes the bright and subsumes decency: and they are unleashing that roar of disapproval in the way only they can. It's furious, sad, happy, melancholic and bright in equal measure. From songs about the lead singer adoring tramadol after an operation, to the extent that it caused her to reconnect with her lapsed Catholicism (the real shit, the Scottish shit) in a near-death experience, to aforementioned political songs, whilst never once losing their git for hook after hook after riff after jam. Every song is layered with enough to make this shit look easy, and they keep piling them on not out of ego but to advance the project. This shit was what I needed. We can all be good people: Garbage are a bunch of aging rockers still furious at the injustice of the world, and doing their part, in their lane, mastering it. Highlights: "Get Out of My Face (AKA Bad Kitty"(funky, dark, quintessential Garbage), "Sisyphus" (we're ancient but if we can one piece of good with our tired and fragile bodies, we are content), "Hold" (even the simplest love songs sound urgent and terrifying in their hands), "Have We Met (The Void)" (Jesus Christ... age will come for us all, we die. How you confront that? That's on you. These legends can at least maintain dignity and the illusion of happiness in its face), "Chinese Firehorse" (sexism and ageism in the music industry needs to be burnt out like the cancer it fucking it. Based as fuck), and "R U Happy Now" (probably my track of the year: a nightmare Goth rave held by a girl 800 leagues out of yours. ""We have an idea, no one can take part. We sew a seam but then they pick it apart. It's picture perfect, so white, so clean... They kill books, they break rules, they kill dreams")

"The Sparks Brothers" Review - From the Vaults

 First things first: "The Sparks Brothers" is a wonderful look at a band too beautiful to live and too weird to die. It keeps that mystique but also gives tantalising insight into why people love them. You could go into this knowing nothing about them, and come out of this wanting to listen to everything they've ever done. No band like them

"Annette" Review - From the Vaults

 "Annette"

When asshole comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) begins a whirlwind romance with beloved French opera diva Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), they soon birth a daughter named Annette. Over the course of their relationship, we embark upon an odyssey of control, abuse, talent, celebrity, misogyny and the trappings of wealth and fame...

Remember when I said that "Space Jam 2" made me reconsider my views on art and the medium of cinema?

This regrew my faith in it.

This is a rock opera by Sparks. 

That sentence will immediately make you decide whether or not you want to watch this movie, and whether or not you will enjoy this. 

Sparks fucking rule. I'm torn between "Big Beat", "Hippopotamus" and "Indiscreet" for which album is best. But that's the beauty of Sparks: every fan is correct!

The music, as expected, is fucking genius, opening on the truly breathtaking "So May We Start"and never letting up from there. It's a truly quirky, delightful soundtrack throughout. Cotillard, as expected, is phenomenal, and whilst Driver is a lot less impressive initially, it fits his character as a man whose estimations and arrogance and cruelty override his talent; something the actor is clearly aware of. This is one his nastiest, cruellest performances in ages, and after that fucking dire piece of shit "The Rise of Skywalker" it is good to see him not only being allowed to act, but being allowed to play an actual villain.

His controlling, domineering, vile presence and stage persona as a comedian makes this a far superior "Joker", especially with the film's central gimmick of having Annette played by a wooden puppet, reflecting his control over women he so casually, cruelly enjoys

It's a surreal, 4th-wall shattering movie about control, fame and love and how it destroys and is inaccessible to the truly evil. But it is not for everyone:

Despite some gorgeous (genuinely AMAZING) shots and scenes and a never-ending gourmet of music, it's not for everyone. It's surreal, goes on for too long (you can trim part of the first act and a fair bit of the third. My fiancee recommended an EXCELLENT part where it can end, despite a truly lovely ending with a great child actor) and I can definitely see why this is not widely marketed: but this is a story which wanted to be told, a passion project of love, romance, music and beautiful imagery.

Also, side note, I appreciate that Simon Helberg (under-utilised here, but excellent, much like in "Florence Foster Jenkins") and, to a greater extent Adam Driver, are embracing weirder projects and throwing off their mainstream parts, overshadowing their bigger co-stars in those projects.