{"id":342091,"date":"2025-12-13T14:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T14:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/best-of-2025-music-the-metropole\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T14:05:12","slug":"best-of-2025-music-the-metropole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=342091","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2025, Music \u2013 The Metropole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>[Editor\u2019s note: To read our other selections for Best of 2025, see <a href=\"https:\/\/themetropole.blog\/category\/best-of-2025\/\">here<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Beyond the obvious \u2013 Beyonc\u00e9, Taylor Swift, and a handful of others \u2013 there are fewer big stars, groups or bands around to set any kind of dominant sound these days. Music journalism, like much of the rest of the industry, has been a shrinking proposition for over a decade, such that discovering popular music today, particularly new music that falls outside one\u2019s usual \u201calgorithm,\u201d has become harder. Fragmentation is real. Granted, we\u2019re historians, and outside of a few exceptions, not exactly seen as authorities on music. However, we\u2019re also humans. Humans with ears, so for what it\u2019s worth, here\u2019s some of what departing senior editor, Ryan Reft, listened to in 2025.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ryan Reft\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At my age, I won\u2019t profess to be on the cutting edge of anything, but I\u2019m also not some Generation X reactionary who remains steadfastly attached to Pearl Jam or Goodie Mob or opines on the importance of Pavement (though they all have their virtues; re: Pavement see <a href=\"https:\/\/tropicsofmeta.com\/2010\/04\/26\/cherish-your-memorized-weakness-the-politics-of-pavement\/\">Crooked Rain<\/a> or the criminally underrated <a href=\"https:\/\/tropicsofmeta.com\/2015\/08\/04\/dog-days-classics-rethinking-wowee-zowee\/\">Wowee Zowee<\/a>). New music is new music, and I\u2019m game.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>2025 delivered several albums that I enjoyed immensely. For the older heads out there, The Clipse dropped <em>Let God Sort Them Out<\/em> and then embarked on an early aughts-era publicity campaign celebrating the album. The Clipse are honestly in my top hip hop acts of the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century, and I\u2019ve been on that corner for some time (see <a href=\"https:\/\/tropicsofmeta.com\/2011\/12\/25\/christmas-clipse-spending-your-holiday-trill-with-virginia-beachs-most-notorious-rap-duo\/\">here<\/a> if you doubt me). There\u2019s a softness and, dare I say, empathy that emerges throughout <em>Let God Sort Them Out<\/em>. Take the first cut, \u201cThe Birds Don\u2019t Sing,\u201d a tribute to Malice and Pusha T\u2019s parents who passed within months of one another in 2021 and 2022. It opens with lament: \u201cLost in emotion, mama\u2019s youngest\/Tryna navigate life without my compass\/Some experience death and feel numbness\/But not me, I felt it all and couldn\u2019t function.\u201d The Clipse never lacked for emotion, but it was often clipped (no pun intended), such as on the track, \u201cWe Got It For Cheap\u201d from <em>Hell Hath No Fury<\/em>: \u201cAnd to little Brother Terrance, who I love dearly so\/If I ever had millions, never would you push blow.\u201d <em>On Let God Sort Them Out<\/em>, Malice and Pusha T dig deeper into that bag without forgoing the forthrightness that has been their trademark.<\/p>\n<p>For those looking for something not so millennial-coded, the band Friendship released the very Silver Jews- tinged <em>Caveman Wakes Up<\/em> (for those of us of a certain age, it\u2019s hard not to envision the late Phil Hartman as Unfrozen Caveman). The best song, in my opinion, is \u201cFree Association\u201d: \u201cI thought I was wise\/I thought I knew about love\/Cleaning out your garage, where did you get all this stuff?\u201d Dan Riggins sings wearily. Plus, who can beat an album that includes the line \u201cwho\u2019s that shithead in my living room playing Resident Evil?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While I wasn\u2019t so big on their first two efforts, this year\u2019s work by Geese, <em>Getting Killed<\/em>, is one of the best albums I\u2019ve heard in years. I\u2019ll confess the first time I listened to <em>Getting Killed<\/em>, considering all the hype I\u2019d read online, I was underwhelmed. But the album works its way under your skin as it mixes elements of The Velvet Underground (notably the Nico era), Beirut, and, one might argue, Big Thief, among other influences. There\u2019s a shiny, optimistic melancholy to the album. If on \u201cTrinidad,\u201d lead singer Cameron Winter opens the album caterwauling \u201cThere\u2019s a bomb in my car,\u201d later on \u201cCobra\u201d he croons \u201cYou can make the cobras dance, but not me yeah\/Cobra in my hand she\u2019s calling me back again,\u201d and still further on he pleads on \u201cAu Pays du Cocaine\u201d \u201cYou can change baby, you can change\/and still choose me.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/geese-getting-killed\/\">Sam Sodomsky<\/a> described Winter\u2019s voice as a \u201cstraining warble whose cryptic delivery can feel like both sides of an argument you\u2019re overhearing through apartment walls,\u201d a pretty good evaluation in my opinion. It\u2019s an emotionally resonant album that musically flows over you, immersing you in a worldview clear-eyed but hopeful.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Finally, speaking of Beirut, I\u2019ve been a fan for years and while <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/beirut-a-study-of-losses\/\"><em>A Study of Losses<\/em><\/a> is not the band\u2019s best album, it\u2019s worth a spin (especially in these says of iTunes and Spotify). If you dig Zach Condon\u2019s work, check it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured image (at top): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/2014715506\/\">Photograph shows Ethel Leginska, born Liggins (1886-1970) who was a British pianist, music teacher, composer and conductor<\/a>. Leginska is listening to a battery powered radio, Bain News Service, between 1920 and 1925, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Editor\u2019s note: To read our other selections for Best of 2025, see here] Beyond the obvious \u2013 Beyonc\u00e9, Taylor Swift, and a handful of others \u2013 there are fewer big stars, groups or bands around to set any kind of dominant sound these days. Music journalism, like much of the rest of the industry, has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[17618,1238],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-342091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-metropole","tag-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Best of 2025, Music \u2013 The Metropole - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=342091\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Best of 2025, Music \u2013 The Metropole - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[Editor\u2019s note: To read our other selections for Best of 2025, see here] Beyond the obvious \u2013 Beyonc\u00e9, Taylor Swift, and a handful of others \u2013 there are fewer big stars, groups or bands around to set any kind of dominant sound these days. 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