Best of 2025 | Albums | Guestlists | Irish Albums | Irish songs |
20.
Lily Allen
West End Girl
For her first album in seven years, Lily Allen takes us through the dissolved story of her marriage to actor David Harbour with an album of direct diaristic confessional songwriting with electronic and orchestral songwriting that feels partly inspired by Brat, and is filled with autobiographical-feeling salacious revelations about how the marriage fell apart through open-relationship, deceit and jealousy.
West End Girl was made in 10 days with musical director Blue May and features production from Chrome Sparks, Kito, Leon Vynehall and Seb Chew. Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes also plays guitar on ‘4Chan Stan.’
Come for the scandal, stay for the superior pop bangers? Yes, please.
It was the main subject a recent Nialler9 Podcast.
19.
Lonnie Holley
Tonky
The 75-year-old American art educator, sculptor and musician from Alabama enlists the likes of billy woods, Mary Lattimore, Open Mike Eagle, Saul Williams, Jesca Hoop and Alabaster Deplume among other for an expansive album of storytelling, ambience, poetry, collage, performance art and blues hymnals, drawn from personal suffering in his life.
While the opening song, ‘Seeds’ recounts a harrowing childhood time at the abusive Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, Holley places the hardship beside beauty, encouragement and solidarity, and in the context of the slavery struggle of Black Americans in recent history. At the same time, with a big heart, Holley also celebrates the joy and strength found in the collective Black community.
Jacknife Lee produces and co-writes throughout, and Tonky draws on the expansive cosmic nature of Holley’s collaborators’ to leap between genres to paint an uplifting and healing tapestry of the human condition.
18.
SMERZ
Big City Life
The Norwegian electronic duo smerz’s second album is rooted firmly on an arch art-pop vibe, with woozy tracks drawing from electro, R&B, synth-pop, DIY pop, minimal, trance and casually spoken-sung vocal styles.
When Smerz release music I am always interested in hearing what they’re putting down, and Big City Life is the duo’s best yet – drawing on strong vocal personalities and a wide variation of tones that keeps pulling you back in. ‘Feisty’ might just be the best girl-hang-in-the-club song out there, and ‘You Got Time I Got Money’ is a swooning and surprising soft string ballad to name two highlights.
17.
Ninajirachi
I Love My Computer
The debut album from Australian producer and DJ Nina Wilson is a thrill ride through digital electronic music – hyperpop, electro, tech house and a genre Ninajirachi has dubbed Girl EDM.
I Love My Computer is the sound of a Gen Z music producer being chronically online, with her computer as her closest companion, one made explicit on ‘Fuck My Computer’ and closing track ‘All At Once’.
The Rotten.com dark side of the internet is explored on ‘Infohazard’, Wilson lives vicariously through other people’s online experiences on ‘London Song’, a song about ‘CSIRAC’, Australia’s first digital computer and online social interactions – ‘Delete’ and her biographical tale of making music for the first time on ‘Sing Good’.
Sure, the subject matter is extremely online but it’s introverted subject matter is cased in an extrovert shell with shades of super-fun maximalist blog-house and indie sleaze electro of the early 2000s, Yaeji-esque vocal processing, Skrillex-esque dubstep drops, a glut of earworm vocals (if Grimes didn’t follow the dark timeline it could have sounded like this) along with wave-racing bouncy sound design and production touches that elevate the album beyond a mere long form bedroom status update. This laptop is going to the club, and only barely getting in over the minimum age.
16.
MIKE
Showbiz!
MIKE is a unique rap talent, a bit of a cult hero. Known for his collaborative album Faith Is A Rock with Wiki and The Alchemist and solo albums Burning Desire and Pinball with Tony Selzter, Brooklyn rapper MIKE is in the Earl Sweatshirt slipstream of rappers (he also appeared on Earl’s 2023 album Voir Dire).
His 2025 long player Showbiz!, is another drop of kaleidoscopic production and texture anchored by the rapper’s casually recited rhyme flow. I can’t help but think if DOOM was alive, he would be jumping on a MIKE track.
15.
Gelli Haha
Switcheroo
LA alt-pop artist Gelli Haha (Jelly Haha) revels in the kind of dayglow electronic pop music that I find hard to resist. ‘Spit’ comes on like early Confidence Man, while ‘Bounce House’ and ‘Funny Music’ sounds like 2010s indie blog pop and bands like Yacht.
‘Normalise’ was influenced by “80s Nigerian soul boogie” (I’m guessing the Doing It Lagos compilation has a far-reaching influence) and channels a similar vibe to the synth pop of Blood Orange, Washed Out and Nite Jewel.
Gelli Haha adds light and shade to the sprightly polychromatic pop on offer.
14.
For Those I Love
Carving The Stone
The second album from David Balfe follows up an intensely personal debut album about the passing of a best friend and the grief that engulfs in the aftermath, with a record that turns its attention to wider issues and the effects they have on working-class Irish man – technofeudalism, capitalism, the rise of the far-right, the ravaging of Dublin city’s soul and pushing through it all in search of a place to belong.
The productions are sharp, spectral and shaking with club-ready synths, piano, basslines and crashing drums, with a greater dynamic range in the songs and Balfe’s spoken rallying words.
Balfe is a rare songwriter, whose meaning and intent is keenly felt – you can feel the anguish, frustration and hope amongst the desire for something to hold onto throughout Carving The Stone. In doing so, Balfe wisely sidesteps the heavy expectation and themes of his debut, and establishes himself as a keen observer and commentator on modern urban dwelling.
13.
James K
Friend
My pitch for the third album from New York artist Jamie Krasner on AD 93, is “Caroline Polachek if she made an ambient shoegaze record”.
Its dreamy pop textures are tantamount to an afterimage of a summer just gone, a transitory ease into darker colder nights with sunny hazed production.
12.
Horsegirl
Phonetics On and On
The New York-via-Chicago trio’s second album, handily labelled on the cover, was produced by Cate Le Bon and pitched as “exploration of the lines between pop, minimalism, and playful experimentation.”
Phonetics On and On is a charming collection of indie-guitar rock with an emphasis on rolling arrangements, jangly clean chords, earworm melodies and a light alternative style, that references Stereolab, Pavement and The Raincoats.
11.
Stereolab
Instant Holograms On Metal Film
The cult indie synth-pop band’s first album in 15 years sounds like everything a fan of Stereolab would want to hear – the band’s typically bright and melodic synth pop French chanson style across an hour’s of music.
It will make you want to go back and listen to Dots & Loops, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and the band’s rich discography (complimentary), with its retro futuristic warm-toned krautrock-indebted avant-pop.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
