The 2025 Music Round Up

Jason Decrow/AP

I’m still getting through daily life because of music. Times are tough for most everyone these days. Being young has maybe never been more worrying and uncertain than it is today. But for what it’s worth, I see a turn toward good vibes coming from my generation. We’re accepting our situation and figuring out how to live inside it. Or at the very least, we’re bringing the party back. If this shit is going to go up in flames, we might as well dance while it happens.

So here’s my look back on the music that mattered to me in 2025. Not a Wrapped. Not crude, surface-level data packaged into infographics. Just a more thoughtful accounting of what actually stood out, and why. I’m putting on my music-journalist hat and doing my best to make sense of what I enjoyed this year, and why you might too.

My critique might not be the best. I’m not an insecure white guy with one of those little performative black beanies crying in the shower to Kendrick Lamar. Fantano has “the dichotomy is crazy” going for him. I don’t. I’m just an insecure white guy. This is my first time doing something like this, so give me some grace. I’m not a music journalist. I’m just a dedicated fan.

@theneedledrop on YouTube

Album of the Year Award

Forever by Bassvictim

Forever, by the experimental London-based duo Bassvictim, is a low-key buzzer beater. The album only came out about a month ago, and I honestly haven’t even spent that much time with it. Still, I’m confident giving it this accolade. It deserves its flowers.

American Ike Clateman and Polish Maria Manow are the names behind Bassvictim. I’ve been following the duo since their 2024 breakthrough Basspunk. In the year of Charli XCX’s Brat, I kept reaching for Basspunk instead. It felt like Brat made by, and for, people who actually like electronic music, not pop heads chasing micro-trends. I loved what they were doing then, and on the similarly styled Basspunk 2 in 2025. So imagine my surprise when Forever arrived sounding familiar but more refined, deeper, and somehow completely fresh.

I’m not sure I have the language to describe this album without killing some of its magic. I can only speak in vibes. At times it feels like a kid writing in their diary in a treehouse on a cold, dewy morning. Very sensory. But that image is a memory. The album lives in the present, where that same kid is now a young adult trying to navigate the world. The past feels solemn. The present reflects on those dormant feelings, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally, in strange places like the dance floor.

That’s a lot of shit, and it might not immediately make sense. But it feels right to me. The ambiguity might even be the point. You don’t need to name exactly what’s happening. Somewhere inside, it clicks. You smile. You dance. That’s the important part.

It’s only 33 minutes long. Brevity and precision matter in an age where music is endlessly accessible and endlessly bloated. Bassvictim has something to say, and they don’t overstate it or overstay their welcome.

Runner-up: Museum Music by Edward Skeletrix

Edward King Bass IV, also known as Edward Skeletrix, does a bit of everything. He’s from Georgia and started making music young, like 13-years-old young. Under the name Cight, he was producing beats for artists like XXXTentacion and Night Lovell while still in high school. He was already on my radar back when I was a SoundCloud demon in middle school. He’s been around, working hard, and has earned his place in the scene.

Today, Skeletrix is best described as a multimedia artist. He prefers the term “Magician,” according to his Instagram. I’d go as far as calling him one of the most avant-garde musicians of this generation, and Museum Music is my receipt. The rollout alone was wild. “Congratulations” dropped as a teaser, and alongside the album release, Skeletrix opened a one-day-only exhibition in NYC. It involved performance art with Skeletrix himself, in the flesh. I wasn’t there, but my online circles talked about it for weeks.

The album could be called a concept record, but the sound never feels sacrificed for the idea. Many tracks punch above their weight, both lyrically and sonically. Plastic Body, Drug Dealer Injects His Fentanyl, Killing Over Likes, and Skeletrix Island are good entry points if the experimental framing feels intimidating.

I think explaining art too much is stupid, so I won’t spell everything out. What I will say is this: context matters. Rap has been culturally dominant for a long time. Rage rap is in. The culture has taken on some perverse forms. This project mirrors that energy, critiques it, and asks everyone involved to reflect. It’s worth engaging with on your own terms.

Artist with the Most Motion in 2025 Award

Fakemink

My Algerian king, Fakemink, had the most motion this year. Full stop. He picked up cosigns from underground legends and mainstream names alike. He collaborated with Ecco2k. Drake brought him on stage at a festival. A year ago, he was on Instagram Live doing absolutely nothing in his room in London, pigeons flying through the window and landing on his head. That might’ve been his first cosign. Animals know things. Same energy as Bernie Sanders. Two heroes of the people.

Banter aside, LV Sandals blew up, and he brought the scousers up with him. EsDeeKid is trending now and could’ve easily taken this spot, but the underlying truth is that Fakemink is leading the UK underground right now. The movement is bigger than him, and he stands on the shoulders of people before him, but what he’s doing is genuinely his own.

Runner-up: GEESE

GEESE were inevitable here. The Brooklyn band that Pitchfork-adjacent writers couldn’t shut up about in 2025. They killed it.

I don’t have a personal story with them. I just found them this year. Their album rips, they got deserved attention, and that’s enough to land them here.

Now, for the boys. GEESE are peak performative male music. If you missed the memo, you were supposed to spam them all year so you could flex that #1 placement on your Spotify Wrapped. That window has closed. You probably posted something lame instead. You will receive zero esoteric baddies from your Instagram story.

For any beautiful esoteric women reading this: my decision to include GEESE is not performative. Despite an unknowable number of ironic layers, this is a sincere choice. I am single. My inbox is open.

Song of the Year Award

Music and Me by Fakemink

I knew this spot belonged to Fakemink almost immediately. Real shit.

This is Fakemink in prime form. Didier Drogba in the air. Producer Ok sets up the cross with a dreamy beat that feels like the final evolution of cloud-rap production. As someone who’s followed the genre since the beginning, I’m serious about that. Fakemink doesn’t waste the moment. His delivery is locked in, and the lyrics show a level of maturity that feels like cloud rap reaching its endgame.

Rocky has a family now. Yung Lean and Drain Gang got sober. Many of the genre’s defining figures have settled into better places. Seeing a young artist arrive already aligned with that philosophy feels like a quiet resolution. By the end of this year, I realized I could finally let cloud rap rest. Especially with a music video this good. The game’s been won. Fakemink can take a bow.

Martin Scorsese

Runner-up: LIKE WEEZY by Playboi Carti

I played this song constantly. MUSIC will be remembered for the hype and controversy, sure, but it also had genuinely great tracks. This is the best one.

Carti taps into something specific here: a love letter to late-2000s Southern hip-hop. The Bend Over sample, the title, the whole presentation makes that clear. The video feels like sitting at home as a kid, half-watching VH1.

There’s no deep technical justification here. This one is intuition. After years of thinking Carti fell off, I’ll defend this album, especially this track. It still hits in December. That matters.

Who to Watch in 2026 Award

Effie

There’s a movement brewing in East Asia that’s splintering off from rage rap and hyperpop, pulling from hardstyle, dubstep, and electronic subgenres with real range.

Names that come to mind: Sebii and Billionhappy from China, Kimj and Effie from South Korea, and Kegøn from Japan. I found this scene through a collaboration between Jackzebra, Sebii, and Kimj.

That track sent me digging, and I landed on Effie. She stood out immediately. The passion is obvious. The fun is obvious. The energy is infectious.

Her album E nods directly to Ecco2k, which tracks given her Drain Gang influence. Between pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr and E, 2025 was a huge year for her. I’ll be watching closely in 2026.

Runner-up: Frost Children

Frost Children are the sibling duo Angel and Lulu Prost, originally from St. Louis and now based in New York. Their sound pulls from post-2008 EDM festival culture, emo pop-punk vocals, dubstep, and crunkcore aesthetics. Familiar, but not nostalgic.

SISTER in 2025 felt like a refinement. The memes fell away. The hyperpop comparisons quieted. What remained was a genuinely fun, cathartic album. Put it on when you want to dance.

I first found them through Flatline in FC24. EA still has an uncanny ability to soundtrack rising artists before they blow up. I’ll be keeping an eye on Frost Children in 2026.

Conclusion

This was a great year for music. It somehow keeps getting better. There’s too much to cover seriously without making this a full-time job, and even then someone would still be “wrong.”

This was about the music that carried me. The sounds that made sense when not much else did. The party I needed while everything felt uncertain.

That feels worth sharing, even if it’s messy and incomplete.

drowning in distortion