Music Monday: End of 2025 Playlist

And finally, my End of 2025 Playlist is available! It’s a little later than I wanted, but I ran into some delays over the last few weeks, and figured delaying it would be better than rushing things.

I think part of my anxiety about being late is how most places end up doing their year-end lists before the year itself even ends, which I maintain is just wrong; you might still find cool stuff in December! But I suppose it’s too much for me to change everyone else’s mind there. And I guess this isn’t really my “Year End” list anyway, since I kind of let each playlist stand on its own even when they share a year they’re covering. It’s just my “things I liked from the last four months of 2025” list, which is kind of a big difference, but whatever.

We of course have both the YouTube and Spotify playlists that correspond to this article. And just like usual, a lot of these artists are things that I found on Bandcamp; if you wind up liking their music as well and want to support them, that’s a great place to do so! And if you’d like your support to go even further, they even released the schedule for Bandcamp Fridays (where the site forgoes its usual cut in sales so it can all go to the artist) in 2026. I wasn’t quite ready in time for the one in February, but there’s one right around the corner at the start of March!




A quick note: 7mai isn’t on either platform; you can find their music on their Bandcamp page. And the Spotify Playlist is missing a few extra tracks on top of that; Alpha and Strawberry Station didn’t upload their tracks, while Powderpaint and June Jones have recently removed their catalogs from Spotify in protest of the CEO.

(And for a final reminder, I have an Out of Left Field mailing list separate from my baseball writing one. So if you’d like to know right when these articles come out, feel free to sign up here. I don’t use it for anything other than new article notifications too, so no worries about spam. Although if you are subscribed, make sure to check your spam filters.)

Built with Kit

With all that out of the way, let’s start the actual list:

The Playlist, as an Article

Sydney Sprague: I’ve been trying to organize these lists roughly with a “best stuff at the top” mentality for a while now, and while it’s not always perfect (the exact order isn’t always 1-to-1, and I’ll sometimes group stuff based on the flow of the written blurbs in the middle), I do tend to really think about what goes at the top of the list. And while that’s easy sometimes, one album or artist will just stand out to me, this time was a little more difficult. I kept flipping between the top three choices here, and I might even change my mind the day after publication. But I’ve got to publish this list eventually (I’m already behind my loose schedule…), so this is where we’re landing for now. 

Summer 2025 Playlist

I usually try and get my Summer Playlist article out for Labor Day weekend, since that’s the traditional “End of Summer”, but I was busy around then this year, so it couldn’t be done. I thought about waiting until next Monday to post this too since I’ve become really attached to the “Music Monday” column name that I use, but this already feels overdue as is, plus my schedule is getting crowded with the end of the baseball season (and my usual articles that come with it).

So here we finally have it: my Summer 2025 Playlist! I mean, it’s still fairly warm where I am anyway with a final early-fall heatwave, and it’s not like I let out-of-season names affect when my other articles come out (I refuse to move my “End of Year” articles any earlier than the next January, “End of Year” includes what I listen to in December and I need time to process all of that!). I tried to be a little more concise to help speed things up, but I don’t really think it worked.

Built with Kit

As per usual, if you’d like updates about my Out of Left Field posts, I have a mailing list for that here! (And it’s separate from my baseball one.) And also like usual, I’ll note that a lot of these artists post their music on Bandcamp, and that’s a great way to support them if you like their stuff!







Note: In a shocking first, almost every single track that I included was available on both YouTube and Spotify. The one exception was the two tracks by alpha, which weren’t on Spotify (but were on Youtube). Also, I’m still doing album and EP titles in single quote marks instead of italics, to make publishing easier.


The Playlist (but as an article)

Racecar: Without a doubt, ‘Pink Car’ by Scottish trio racecar ended up being the soundtrack of my summer this year. It’s basically perfectly designed for the task, a March release of breezy pop music that even invokes lazily hanging around all summer in the first lines of opening track “Lay Me Down” over a bouncy bassline and funky light guitar riff. It’s a catchy start (one that I couldn’t help but repurpose for the playlist here), and perfectly builds from there into a frantic little pop tune stuffed to the gills with catchy hooks, flowing melodic lines, and exciting little flourishes.

But the fun part is letting it carry you along with the flow and eventually realizing that what seemed like a fun little aural lazy river to float along with actually has some actual depth and currents to it that will sweep you away before you catch on. Racecar is a talented group of songwriters, and their arrangements are richly layered and show off the variety of styles they’re playing with. But the album is also structurally fun, as they let tracks flow into each other as they build out a fuller story about a tempestuous summer fling and the storm of emotions it brings.

Music Monday: Start of 2025 Playlist

And now, we have my second playlist of 2025, covering the stuff I was listening to for the first four months of the year! There’s some more catch-up from the end of 2024, but also a lot of new releases too! I really enjoy putting these together and talking about the music that I’ve been enjoying (and I’d even like to think that my ability to write about music is improving too), I just wish the whole “building playlists and getting it formatted and published” side of things was a little quicker.

Anyway, I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Memorial Day, but first, my usual quick reminders: a lot of these artists (especially the smaller ones) have Bandcamps where you can support them directly! And if you’re interested in these articles and would like to know when one gets published, I have an email list that I use to notify when new things get published! (It’s separate from my baseball mailing list too, for anyone on that one as well).

Built with Kit

Note: Only one song is missing from each list, which might be a first for these? Alpha and Natsume’s collab “Idea” isn’t on YouTube, but it is on Soundcloud. Meanwhile, Alpha’s solo effort “everything” is not on Spotify (or their Soundcloud, for some reason), but there is the YouTube video in the playlist. Also, I'm still doing that 'album title in single quotes' thing to make formatting a little easier.


The Playlist (but as an article)

Great Grandpa: I didn’t really know what to expect from Great Grandpa’s ‘Patience, Moonbeam’ going in other than liking the early singles, which I saw getting some praise before the album dropped. I wasn’t really familiar with their earlier records (which were from a few years ago anyway, as the band has been on hiatus since 2019 or so), and while I pay some attention to big stuff in the indie rock scene, I feel like I usually don’t stray as far into the more folk-ish side of things? I don’t know, maybe people more in tune with those sides of things will have different opinions, but I think so far, ‘Patience, Moonbeam’ is my favorite album of 2025.

It all just sounds so amazing, lush and layered, warm and intimate. But it’s all in service of such pretty arrangements, too, full earthy guitars and stacks of voices and string sections. There are just so many small parts that stand out in my memory because of how good they sounds, but also how good they are in the song, from the cello mirroring the melody on “Never Rest”, to the pedal steel guitar on “Junior”, the mirrored vocal harmonies of “It’s funny how I need you/Damn” on “Emma” and “Doom”, the drums and pianos on closer “Kid” (really, everything on “Kid” is amazing, it can easily bring me to tears when it all comes together).