2025 Mid-year Top 20 (and more)

I ranked 20, without lots of thought, and then listed a bunch of other records that I've really like so far this year. Another terrific year for music.

1. Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On (Matador)

2. SPELLLING - Portrait of My Heart (Sacred Bones)

3. Nadia Reid - Enter Now Brightness (Chrysalis)

4. Bartees Strange - Horror (4AD)

5. Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film (Warp)

6. Kali Uchis - Sincerely, (Capitol)

7. Course - Hue Mirror (self-released)

8. WITCH - SOGOLO (Desert Daze)

9. Lifeguard - Ripped and Torn (Matador)

10. PinkPantheress - Fancy That (Warner UK)

11. Kelela - In the Blue Light (Warp)

12. The Tubs - Cotton Crown (Trouble in Mind)

13. Galactic and Irma Thomas - Audience With the Queen (Tchoup-Zilla/Thirty Tigers)

14. FKA twigs - EUSEXUA (Young)

15. Shamir - Ten (Kill Rock Stars)

16. Ty Segall - Possession (Drag City)

17. Vicki Peterson and John Cowsill - Long After the Fire (Label 51)

18. John Glacier- Like a Ribbon (Young)

19. The Chills - Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (Fire)

20. Doves - Constellations for the Lonely (EMI North)

Others:

James Brandon Lewis - Apple Cores (Anti-)

Beach Bunny - Tunnel Vision (AWAL)

These New Puritans - Crooked Wing (Domino)

Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear (Domino)

CIVIC - Chrome Dipped (ATO)

Spill Tab - Angie (Because)

The Freedom Affair - The Freedom Affair (self-released)

Mei Semones - Animaru (Bayonet)

Edwyn Collins - Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation (AED)

Vundabar - Surgery and Pleasure (Loma Vista)

Pulp - More. (Rough Trade)

Nao - Jupiter (Little Tokyo)

ALT BLK ERA - Rave Immortal (Earache)

Pearl Charles - Desert Queen (Taurus Rising)

Sparks - MAD! (Transgressive)

Tune-Yards - Better Dreaming (4AD)

Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla (Bella Union)

Sunny War - Armageddon in a Summer Dress (New West)

Yeule - Evangelic Girl Is a Gun (Ninja Tune)

Tunde Adebimpe - Thee Black Boltz (Sub Pop) 

Kinsella & Pulse, LLC - Open ing Night (Kill Rock Stars)

Self Esteem - A Complicated Woman (Polydor)

Ex-Void - In Love Again (Tapete)

Peter Holsapple - The Face of 68 (Label 51)

Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Twilight (Plastique)

FACS - Wish Defense (Trouble in Mind)

Pictoria Vark - Nothing Sticks (Get Better)

Miso Extra - Earcandy (Trangressive)

SASAMI - Blood on the Silver Screen (Domino)

Mekons - Horror (Fire)

Half Gringa -  Cosmovisión (Teleférico)