Last year, my top 10 list was packed with pop bops and feminine energy (Kylie Minogue, the Last Dinner Party, all-night dance parties by Faux Real and the Dare, a Brat Summer that lasted all year long). But 2025 was the year when Euro-Anglo rock ‘n’ roll frontmen went bold and baroque, dominating my playlists while seemingly dividing the rest of the music-listening and music-list-making world.

Yes, aside from the inevitable and much-deserved Lily Allen inclusion, this just might be the most polarizing year-end albums ranking of my entire obsessive-countdown-compiling career. (Two of the artists on this actual list, the Darkness and Yungblud, even made headlines this year with an ongoing feud about their artistic merits!)

But hey, the heart and ears want what they want. And what my heart and ears, as well as my rubbed-raw nervous system, insatiably hungered for throughout this bonkers/bummer year was music that was unsubtle, audacious, elegant, and escapist — haters be damned. However, I do have wildly swinging musical moods and wide-ranging tastes, so I’ve also included 33 very honorable mentions. So, keep scrolling, and let’s do it all over again in 2026.

10. Ima Robot – Search and Destroy

For some dumb reason, in 2025 some dumb revisionist music historians randomly and wrongly decreed Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ perfectly pleasant “Home” the worst song of all time. But those internet trolls should’ve been funneling all that energy in a more positive way, by celebrating the unearthing of this long-lost 2006 treasure from Zeros frontman Alex Ebert’s electro-rock supergroup. It’s quite astounding that a band that sounded so utterly of-the-moment, futuristically flash-forward, and vacuum-sealed-’80s back in the aughts still sounds so funky-fresh more than two decades later. But Ima Robot’s quirky, herky-jerky post-rock (think Queen, Devo, and Andrew WK jamming at a Berlin disco circa 1982) still slaps. Forget the Zeros and get with these indie-sleaze heroes, who have finally come home.

9. Garbage, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light

Much speculation has been made about the future of Garbage, but if their eighth album ends up being their last, suffice to say they are not going quietly or gently into that good night. One would expect no less, of course, from the fierce, formidable, and forever flame-hearted/haired Dame Shirley Manson, but on this electrogoth fever dream of a record, for which she recorded much of her vocals at home in an opioid haze while recovering from double-hip replacement surgery, she often sounds uncharacteristically vulnerable. She confronts her own morality, or at least her own fragility, atop a dark, dense, and dystopian bed of super-producers Butch Vig, Duke Erikson, and Steve Marker’s analog synth hiss and angular guitars, and is at her most beautifully broken on “The Day That I Met God” — a first-take writing demo that she recorded in her bedroom, in her pajamas, on an afternoon when she, according to her stream-of-semi-consciousness lyrics, “found God in Tramadol.” But she’s still full of fire on tracks like the opening rallying cry “There’s No Future in Optimism,” and especially on the deliciously attitudinal “Chinese Fire Horse,” an anthem for all the unapologetically ungracefully aging women of Generation X. On that rebuke, inspired by Manson’s ludicrous experiences with ageist journalists repeatedly asking her when she’s planning to quit music, she snarls and snarks, “Just a fucking minute/Who you talking to?/You must be mistaken, or you are drunk/And failed to read the room/I may be much older, so much older than you/But I’ve still got the power in my brain and my body/I’ll take no shit from you.” Hell yes. So, perhaps rumors of Garbage’s retirement have been greatly exaggerated, because on this record the alt-rock innovators sound reborn, and they still sound like the (slightly optimistic) future.

8. Sloan – Based on the Best Seller

Canada’s finest never, ever disappoint. They’re such a consistently excellent import, in fact, that it’s all too easy to take the Nova Scotian gods’ greatness for granted after 33 years. Like all of Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott’s worthy predecessors, this, Sloan’s 14th studio album, comes across like a lovingly compiled mixtape or some really awesome K-TEL compilation of ’70s AM radio gems — swaggeringly swerving from flying V-brandishing, drumstick-twirling, muscle-car cock-rock to soft-rock mellow gold as the hits keep coming. Sloan are blessed to have four sublime songwriters among their ranks, and all U.S. powerpop fanatics living in Canada’s basement are very blessed to have them.

7. Damiano David – Funny Little Fears

On his stellar and surprising solo debut, Måneskin’s formerly leather-sheathed Italian stallion transforms into an Armani-suited pop crooner — fully leaning into the camp of his Eurovision era and the world of musical theater introduced to him by his now-fiancée Dove Cameron, and singing more beautifully and purely than his day-job band ever allowed. He penned an ambitious 72 songs for this passion project during a quarterlife crisis, and standouts among the 14 tracks that made the cut are the majestic “Silverlines” with electronic auteur Labrinth; the teen-heartache prom ballad “Next Summer” with Jason Evigan and Sarah Hudson; and especially the Hudson/Evigan avoidant anthem “Born With a Broken Heart” (three minutes and 28 seconds of elegant, eloquent euphoria, complete with an Old Hollywood mini-movie music video and torn-from-his-diary lyrics that make it hard to believe that English isn’t David’s first language). Funny Little Fears didn’t garner nearly enough attention this year, but it showcases one of the most convincing and thrilling male pop reinventions since post-One Direction Harry Styles.

6. Ghost – Skeletá

The bombastic, theatric, operatic metal Swedes have become unlikely stadium-rock superstars over the years, and with every album, the backlash by wet-blanket-wrapped rockist detractors has seemingly swelled along with their devoted Congregation. However, when one such hater recently bitchily dismissed Ghost as “the metal ABBA,” it was clearer than ever that the good Papa V Perpetua and his band of merry Nameless Ghouls had gotten it right on Ghost’s sixth mega-opus. As if being compared to the almighty ABBA, in any way, could ever be considered an insult!

5. Lily Allen – West End Girl

This zeitgeist-capturing record was such an event, such a moment, in 2025, inspiring dozens of thinkpieces and at least two viral SNL clips, that I almost don’t know what to write about it at this point. Allen was certainly never one avoid messiness, mince words, or miss her target, ever since she debuted in 2006 with the gleefully nasty breakup song “Smile.” But even by Allen standards, the dirty-laundry-strewing West End Girl is absolutely eviscerating in its wittily and coolly delivered female rage. And now Allen’s ex, David Harbour — once best known as a Stranger Things actor, now better and probably forever known as a world-class fuckboy/love-bomber/narcissist/toxic masculinity posterboy/sex addict/gaslighter/butt-plug-hoarder — could only wish that she’d written music about him as relatively benign as “Smile.” Throughout West End Girl, the cringey, creepy scenes from Allen and Harbour’s coerced open marriage unfold and unravel in what feels like real time — from the unsupportive Harbour’s jealousy over Allen’s budding theater career, to Allen’s devastating discovery of her new groom’s emotional affairs (and, of course, her discovery of that infamous Duane Reade shopping bag). And Allen narrates it all in her breezy, beguiling, sing-songy manner, which only renders her confessions more startling — yet somehow also relatable, and maybe not so surprising or startling, for any woman who has suffered a brutal romantic betrayal.

4. The Darkness – Dreams on Toast

There’s nearly nothing that gladdens my little rock ‘n ‘roll heart more than the fact that Justin Hawkins and his British brigade are riding high again, two decades after they were written off as one-hit wonders. I never stopped believing in a thing called the Darkness, and the band had a real moment this year. They finally released their long-gestating documentary (or Darkumentary, if you will); that supposed one hit, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” shot back to No. 1 after a clip of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce belting it at the U.S. Open Women’s Final went viral; Justin’s music-critique podcast, the aptly titled Justin Hawkins Rides Again, was a viral sensation; the Darkness announced their first major arena tour in 20 years; and their eighth album, Dreams on Toast, debuted at No. 2 in the U.K., their highest chart placement since 2003’s Permission to Land. And it couldn’t have happened to a more awesome gang of rock ‘n’ roll lifers, who against all odds have stayed the course and outlasted trends, even when there were diminishing returns (as the ever-clever Hawkins quips on the Dreams on Toast anthem “Walking Through Fire,” they “never stopped making hit albums, it’s just that no one buys them anymore”). The Darkness’s latest instant classic skewers tired macho-rock tropes (“Rock and Roll Party Cowboy”); faces shaggy-head-on the realities of middle age (“Mortal Dread,” “I Hate Myself”); and loopily veers from campfire country (“Hot on My Trail,” “Cold Hearted Woman”) to speed-metal headbangery (“The Battle for Gadget Land”) to swooningly romantic, ELO-style blue-sky pop (“The Longest Kiss”). And the Darkness do it all with the catsuited camp humor and glass-shattering falsetto flamboyance that made OG fans believers in the first place. Let’s all toast to the Darkness!

3. Pulp – More

My Anglophilia was in even fuller force than usual in 2025 (spoiler: my top five album picks were all by U.K. artists). But in a year when Oasis pulled off the comeback of the century, it was this Britpop comeback that thrilled me the most. (Back in the ‘90s, my answer to the great “Oasis or Blur?” conundrum was always either “Suede” — who also released a great record this year, by the way — or “Pulp.”) Nearly a quarter-century after the last Pulp album, Jarvis Cocker and company are still in a different class all their own. Cocker’s observational and often self-deprecating lyrics have possibly only grown even more sharply witty with age, but unlike 1998’s nihilistic midlife-meltdown This Is Hardcore, this record, as hinted by its bold title, is unexpectedly celebratory. Sure, “Tina” is a sad, Sliding Doors-style stalker song about a love affair that never happened, and “Grown Ups” is an all-too-relatable lament about life’s all-too-speedy transition from young, starry-eyed hipsterdom to suburban middle-aged malaise. But the meet-cute story-song “Farmers Market” is a sweetly hopeful ode to all the unexpectedly possibilities of late-in-life romance, and the centerpiece “Got to Have Love” — a hands-in-air disco anthem absolutely intended to be played for the festival masses and Hollywood Bowl crowds (if you didn’t see Pulp play this song on tour, were you even living in 2005?) — is pure elation. Plus, that latter track features one of the best grown-up realizations in Cocker’s lyric book: “Without love, you’re just jerking off inside someone else.” I’m so delighted that the much-missed Pulp decided to meet up with us in the year 2025.

2. Yungblud – Idols

To call Dominic Harrison’s fourth album “epic” would be the understatement of the year. The record’s gauntlet-throwing lead single — a sort of please-allow-me-to-reintroduce-myself statement song called “Hello Heaven, Hello” — is a nine-minute, multiple-time-signature, three-act mini-rock opera that practically makes Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell,” Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” or My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade” seem like exercises in economy and restraint. And it’s accompanied by a cinematic music video starring a shirtless, horseback-straddling, Prometheus-winged Yungblud posing and preening against black-and-white backdrops of cranked-to-11 Marshall stacks and Discovery Channel-worthy aerial shots of medieval snowscapes. Such a potentially frontloading album-opener would be a daunting act for most artists to follow, but clearly, Yungblud is not like most artists. Sometimes he does wear his influences on his Burberry sleeve — for instance, the cheeky Cool Britannia of “Lovesick Lullaby” evokes Parklife-era Blur (complete with Harrison’s Phil Daniels-esque rap), while the soaring and storming “The Greatest Parade” brings to mind Black Market Music-era Placebo, and the closing piano ballad “Supermoon” sounds like a lost cut from either the Velvet Goldmine or Hedwig soundtracks. Other songs are reminiscent of the swirling shoegaze of Catherine Wheel, the chiming post-punk of pre-Joshua Tree U2, the ‘60s-meets-‘90s college-rock psychedelia of Kula Shaker, the Charlatans, and Stone Temple Pilots’ Vatican Gift Shop, or pretty much every era of David Bowie. But despite all that, and despite the album’s impudent title, Idols never sounds an exercise in nostalgia. It’s all so utterly unexpected from the new-school punk/pop provocateur, and it’d almost seem like a parody, if it wasn’t so clearly sincere and undeniably great.

1. Luke Spiller – Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine

The audacious title of the stunning solo debut by the Struts’ frontman reflects all the ambition and emotion held within. The years-in-the-making project was inspired during Spiller’s rare between-tours downtime, when he was penning poetry and deep-diving into mostly classical music and Scott Walker albums, and his first two symphonic tracks created during this era of dark-L.A.-night-of-the-soul-searching were so fantastical, he actually pitched to them to be James Bond themes. And while didn’t happen (which is totally 007’s loss), there was no turning back after that. The result is a literal labor of love, in all love’s forms, but most of all, these 10 cinematic epics form a love letter to ex-pat Spiller’s second home of Los Angeles. “Hold me like Hollywood held you,” he croons on the classically noirish L.A. concept album’s title track, wearing his tattooed heart on his glittery sleeve, while he goes all Lauren Canyon on the sentimental seasick/lovesick Jason Falkner collab “She’s Like California,” and he so perfectly and specifically captures the wonder and anything-could-happen promise of late-night romance on “Magic at Midnight in Mel’s Diner”(which is as explosive as anything the Struts have ever recorded). For anyone in love with Los Angeles, or just in love with love, Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine is heady, addictive stuff. (Now, can we please get Spiller to sing the next Bond song?)

VERY HONORABLE MENTIONS:

AFI – Silver Bleeds the Black Sun

Billy Nomates – Metal Horse

Blone Noble – Life’s New Adventure

Coyle Girelli – Out of This Town

Elton John & Brandi Carlile – Who Believes in Angels?

Foxy Shazam – Animality Opera

Franz Ferdinand – The Human Fear

Jake Wesley Rogers – In the Key of Love

Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow

John McKay – Sixes and Sevens

Lady Gaga – Mayhem

Lambrini Girls – Who Let the Dogs Out

Lucy Dacus – Forever Is a Feeling

Lydia Night – Parody of Pleasure

Mareux – Nonstop Romance

Margaret Cho – Lucky Gift

Miles Kane – Sunlight in the Shadows

Olly Alexander – Polari

Orville Peck – Appaloosa

Perfume Genius – Glory

Peter Doherty – Felt Better Alive

Peter Murphy – Silver Shade

Public Enemy – Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025

Sextile – Yes, Please

Skunk Anansie – The Painful Truth

Suede – Antidepressants

The Horrors – Night Life

The Ting Tings – Home

The Weeknd – Hurry Up Tomorrow

The Wombats – Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come

Tunde Abimpe – Thee Black Boltz

Viagra Boys – Viagr Aboys

Wet Leg – Moisturizer

All tartan’d up for my epic conversation with Scottish rock royalty, Simple Minds. (photo: Ken Weinstein)

As the year comes to a close, I have rounded up the 75 published interviews I did in 2025 — as freelance assignments, at Licorice Pizza Records, and for Lyndsanity.com — and wow, it has been quite a year! I am always grateful for these opportunities to speak with people I admire.

ICYMI, here’s what I got up to…

FLOOD Magazine:

Gorillaz cover story – https://floodmagazine.com/212789/the-house-gorillaz-built-flood-13-cover/
This was my most exciting assignment of the year: Twenty-five years of Gorillaz, several hours of conversation with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, and so many weeks of deep-diving into Gorillaz’ discography that they were the No. 1 artist and comprised three of my top five songs on Spotify Wrapped! I am really proud of this one.

Lucy Dacus cover story – https://floodmagazine.com/190465/lucy-dacus-forever-is-a-feeling-digital-cover/
Lucy is always a delight to chat with, and our interview was as raw and real as the lyrics of her latest solo album, Forever Is a Feeling. The photos that accompany this piece are gorgeous as well. Lucy is a true work of art.

Lydia Knight – https://floodmagazine.com/202378/lydia-night-the-regrettes-parady-of-pleasure-feature/
The former Regrettes singer is also a complex and compelling woman. We discussed her artistic reinvention, her dating (mis)adventures during one hot and hedonistic New York City summer that inspired much of her debut solo album, love-bombing, sexual fluidity, mental health, workaholism, her early struggles when she was a vulnerable teenager in the music industry, and her unapologetic pop aspirations.

MUSIC CONNECTION:

Yungblud cover story – https://www.musicconnection.com/there-will-be-yungblud/
Dominic is a polarizing figure (even my much-adored Justin Hawkins has some not-so-adoring things to say about him!), but Idols was one of my favorite records of the year, and you can’t change my mind about that. Anyone who talks with Yungblud at length, as I did, and witnesses his unwavering conviction when it comes to this passion project, would surely be convinced and converted as well.

Damiano David cover story – https://www.musicconnection.com/damiano-davids-bold-new-euro-vision/
The Måneskin frontman also reinvented himself this year, as a pop crooner, on his own passion project. His solo debut, Funny Little Fears, didn’t garner nearly the critical acclaim nor commercial success it deserved this year, but I am glad that I had the chance to give him a front-page platform to discuss his art.

ROLLING STONE:

Yoshiki & Bi-ray – https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/yoshiki-bi-ray-talent-strong-1235366581/
The tireless and prolific Japanese rock legend sat down with me and his new J-pop girl group for an exclusive chat about their collaboration.

GOLD DERBY:

Sean Ono Lennon – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/sean-ono-lennon-mind-games-2025-grammys-interview/
Speaking with Sean about his labor-of-love project — reissuing his late father’s misunderstood Mind Games album — was truly special. The Mind Games boxed set later won a Grammy for Best Packaging, and this interview won second prize for Music Feature, Individual Artists at the L.A. Press Club’s National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.

Justin Hawkins of the Darkness – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/justin-hawkins-the-darkness-new-tour-album-dreams-on-toast/
Here’s another immensely enjoyable conversation with one of my favorite rock stars (disagreement about Yungblud aside). The Darkness’s comeback and Justin’s glow-up continue to delight me, year after year.

Devo – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/devo-netflix-doc-interview-politics-rock-hall-of-fame-snub/
Devo’s Netflix documentary is now nominated at the Grammy Awards for Best Music Film, so I am honored that I got to speak with Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale about their legacy and impact. Devo were right about everything. Give them that Grammy!

Belinda Carlisle – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/belinda-carlisle-california-covers-brian-wilson-go-gos/
I always enjoy speaking with Belinda, but to delve into her hardscrabble childhood in Southern California and the San Fernando Valley, which is where I grew up as well, was truly special. She is a  legendary L.A. woman.

Bad Company’s Simon Kirke – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/bad-company-simon-kirke-rock-hall-ceremony-paul-rodgers/
Sadly, Simon divulged to me during this interview that Paul Rodgers would be attending and performing at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which turned out not to be the case. But this was otherwise a really fun conversation about Bad Company’s history and long-overdue critical respect.

Japanese Breakfast – https://www.goldderby.com/film/2025/japanese-breakfast-michelle-zauner-materalists-celine-song/
Michelle Zauner, who is Oscar-eligible for her Materialists end-credits theme, really got into it discussing the complexities of modern dating and courtship. Plus, I got some good scoops about her next book and the status of the delayed Crying in H Mart movie.

Kate Pierson of the B-52s – https://www.goldderby.com/feature/the-b-52s-kate-pierson-interview-rock-hall-john-lennon-1206206732/
Kate discussed her new solo record, how the B-52s inspired John Lennon to come out of retirement in 1980, the B-52s’ against-all-odds comeback after the death of Ricky Wilson, how she feels about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame… and she even broke the news that the B-52s weren’t retiring after all and were in fact planning to tour with Devo (although that news flew under the radar at the time).

Simple Minds – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/simple-minds-dont-you-forget-about-me-breakfast-club-interview/
I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon than sitting with the abundantly cheerful Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill at the Hollywood Roosevelt, discussing the 40th anniversary of The Breakfast Club (with some pretty interesting “Don’t You Forget About Me” publishing/royalties info that was not widely known) and other things. I even wore plaid pants for this occasion.

Diane Warren – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/diane-warren-2025-oscars-biopic/
I never turn down the chance to chat with Diane, possibly the funniest woman in the biz. Hopefully I’ll get another chance in 2026, when she inevitably receives yet another Oscar nomination.

Rob Halford of Judas Priest – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/rob-halford-judas-priest-grammy-interview/
The Metal God is another interview subject to which I will always, always I say an enthusiastic yes. I adore this man. And after five years, I am still on a mission to get him on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Maybe it will happen in 2026…

Debbie Gibson – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/debbie-gibson-struggles-teen-fame-new-book/
This eternally electrically-youthful pop star is my girl! We have chatted many times, but this one, promoting her new autobiography, might be our best interview yet, as she opened up about her whirlwind rise to fame, her scuttled all-star movie, the mental health struggles that come with child stardom, and more.

Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/soundgarden-matt-cameron-rock-hall-induction-final-album/
Ahead of Soundgarden’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, Matt gave me a lot of exciting exclusive details about the upcoming Soundgarden album, which the band recorded shortly before Chris Cornell’s tragic 2017 death and are in the process of completing.

Grace Potter – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/grace-potter-on-why-mythical-magical-solo-album-with-t-bone-burnett-was-shelved-for-nearly-18-years-one-of-my-bandmates-said-to-me-dont-go-all-gwen-stefani-on-us/
This was a really interesting conversation about the shelved solo album Grace made with T Bone Burnett almost two decades ago, and how she finally managed to get it released.

David Archuleta – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/david-archuleta-embracing-sensuality-leaving-church-i-thought-it-was-worse-to-be-gay-than-to-experience-life/
It continuously gladdens my heart to see Archie’s glow-up and growing-up, as he comes into his own and embraces his truth. With every interview we do, he opens up even more. I hope to chat with him when his sure-to-be-page-turning autobiography comes out in early 2026.

Michael Des Barres – https://www.goldderby.com/article/2025/live-aid-michael-des-barres-power-station-robert-palmer/
The good Marquis never runs out of good stories, but his story about how he ended up onstage at Live Aid performing for an estimated global television audience of 1.9 billion, with almost no time to prepare or process, is definitely one of his craziest and coolest tales.

Baha Men – https://www.goldderby.com/music/2025/who-let-the-dogs-out-baha-men-25th-anniversary/
Yes, “Who Let the Dogs Out” is 25 years old. I spoke to three members of Baha Men about it, and the interview was actually much more interesting than I expected, leaving me with new appreciation for this canine novelty hit.

LICORICE PIZZA’S LPTV:

Redman – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/redman-talks-muddy-waters-too-self-healing-greatest-cribs-episode-of-all-time/
This was my absolute highlight of my year at the store. We discussed Redman’s “journey with self-healing”; why he waited so long to drop Muddy Waters Too; how ‘90s rappers changed the game; ageism in hip-hop; his future career aspirations, like finally winning a Grammy, dabbling in electronic music and movie-making, and appearing on his favorite reality TV show, Is It Cake?; and of course, one of the greatest reality TV moments of all time, his legendary Cribs episode. I was smiling the entire time, and the fact that this GOAT seemed to enjoy our interview just as much as I did meant a lot.

Robert Randolph – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/robert-randolph-on-working-with-leon-russell-preacher-kids-with-shooter-jennings-judith-hill/
The Grammy-nominated pedal steel virtuoso showed up to perform at Licorice Pizza with Shooter Jennings and Judith Hill, and he totally tore the roof off the joint. It was also National Leon Day, so this interview was truly cause for celebration!

Grandson – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/grandson-disgusting-us-politics-being-canceled-many-institutions-i-am-being-threatened-to-not-have-a-seat-at-the-table-arent-worth-anything/
The young rap-rock provocateur and activist discussed his unique political perspective as someone who was born in the United States and raised in Canada; why it’s so important for him (and his peers) to speak out; the importance of empathy, intersectionality, and community; and if he’d ever run for office. Grandson for President!

Kelsy Karter – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/kelsy-karter-back-after-bizarre-traumatic-legal-ordeal-i-dont-have-it-in-me-to-give-up/
The rock goddess opened up about how she rebounded after a truly bizarre legal/catfishing ordeal that was seriously stranger than fiction. Nothing can stop Kelsy and her Heroines.

Yellowcard – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/yellowcard-9-year-hiatus-lowest-point-finally-better-days/
The pop-punk veterans did a Q&A in front of a live audience with me at the store, where they discussed their against-all-odds comeback after a near-decade hiatus (“probably the lowest point in our career and possibly our lives”) and a “really rough time” when they didn’t even speak with each other. Now they’re living their best lives and have scored their first No. 1 alt-rock radio single with “Better Days.” This was a special afternoon.

DJ Lance Rock – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/dj-lance-rock-talks-full-circle-moment-playing-coachella-with-yo-gabba-gabba-an-acknowledgement-of-what-the-show-had-meant-to-people/
Hanging out with this legend in the Licorice Pizza parking lot, discussing The Simpsons and Yo Gabba Gabba’s iconic Coachella performance, was a pretty great way to spend a Saturday.

Briston Maroney – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/briston-maroney-bogus-label-showcase-for-a-bot-american-idol-audition-licorice-pizza/
I remembered this kid from when he was on American Idol at age 15 and I compared his audition to Jack White. Years later, he actually went on tour with Jack White! So, it was very cool and full-circle to interview him about his career in front of an audience of fellow longtime fans.

Olivver the Kid – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/bryan-sammis-the-neighbourhood-reinventing-himself-as-olivver-the-kid-happiness-is-a-choice/
I had a great time chatting with founding Neighbourhood drummer Bryan Sammis (who left the band, apparently not of his own accord, in 2014). We discussed his solo music under the name Olivver the Kid; his side gig writing production music (including an amusing story about when he was hired to write songs that sounded like the Neighbourhood and he of course “crushed it”); Buddhism; that time the Neighbourhood refused to be on Jay Leno’s show; and much more.

Ruby Friedman – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/ruby-friedman-invisible-women-civil-war-sex-workers-inspired-her-new-album-i-like-to-search-for-truth/
My fellow redhead and I talked Civil war sex workers, Narcan, forgotten ’80s actress Emily Longstreth, Frank Black, shitty male music execs, and the sometimes grueling process of songwriting and being an artist in general, among other things. Ruby was an unfiltered as you’d expect.

Daniel Seavey – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/daniel-seavey-may-never-escape-the-memes-of-his-past-but-the-former-idol-and-boy-band-star-is-already-on-his-third-wind/
Here’s another American Idol alumnus who grew up and made good! Daniel had a great sense of humor about his reality show/boy band past.

Slimdan – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/slimdan-growing-up-modern-orthodox-eating-non-kosher-hot-dog-changed-life-i-realized-i-wasnt-going-to-die/
I had a blast with this fellow Valley native, talking about him growing up Modern Orthodox in Sherman Oaks, the non-kosher hot dog that literally changed his life, Diet Snapple, the Galleria, and a bunch of fun and wide-ranging stuff.

Knox – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/knox-unexpected-career-matty-healy-dms-american-idol-write-for-katy-perry/
The singer-songwriter and I discussed his “unexpected” pop career, Matty Healy sliding into his DMs, being rejected by American Idol (all roads to lead back to Idol, it seems!), and his ‘big goal’ to write a song for Katy Perry.

American Mile – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/american-mile-chasing-the-american-dream-30000-in-debt-real-passion/
This was another rock band that raised and rattled the roof when they performed at the store. Backstage, we had a lot of laughs, but they also got real when discussing the logistical and financial struggles of being a totally independent band that plays 200 gigs a years.

One Outta Ten – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/tragedy-loss-inspired-one-outta-ten-album-it-was-like-tears-mixed-with-vomit-but-it-was-good/
I was truly touched by the story of this young band, who faced way too much tragedy in the space of a year (the death of a father, two aunts, a close family friend, and two of their dogs, plus having all their equipment stolen). But One Outta Ten made a great album about all of this loss, and they gave a great interview too.

Truman Sinclair – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/truman-sinclair-cultural-beauty-ofdivided-america-i-just-wanted-to-take-it-back-a-little-bit/
A folk troubadour for the modern age, this emo-rocker known for the local bands Fat, Evil Children and Frat Mouse discussed his surprising solo debut.

Jack Xander – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/jack-xander-bonkers-concept-album-casino-heist-i-want-people-gambling-away-their-their-pensions-while-my-music-plays/
This guy was a real hoot, taking over the store to play Casino Heist, a concept album recorded at KXLU about a fake French band playing “in the middle of a Euro seaside retirement haven, where pensions run wild and memories retreat.” I wore a tuxedo T-shirt for this occasion. Good times!

Salem Ilese – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/salem-ilese-talks-tapping-into-her-sequined-inner-child-on-growing-down/
This was an interesting chat with the rising pop star, who has also written for Demi Lovato, Gwen Stefani, K-pop sensations Tomorrow X Together, and even Pussy Riot.

Kurt Deimer – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/kurt-deimer-unlikely-second-act-career-i-cant-even-really-comprehend-it/
This fiftysomething rocker’s story was fascinating. He worked for years in the family oil business and founded several coolant companies, putting his rock ‘n’ roll dreams on hold for decades, until a random encounter on the set of a film starring John Travolta and Shania Twain led to an unplanned speaking role — followed by a whole new second-act career as a horror-movie actor/producer and musician. Someone make a movie about this dude!

And here’s a few more…

Strawberry Fuzz – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-X9qpLD2M
Marilyn Hucek – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OPF-dOp0Sk&t
CLSTL – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOOg6c4yxf0

LYNDSANITY:

Shirley Manson – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/garbage-shirley-manson-talks-injury-aging-ageism-if-some-journalist-thinks-im-old-i-dont-give-a-f/
Shirley is another one of my favorite interview subjects, and our latest interview (conducted months before that whole weird beachball controversy) features one of my favorite expletive/asterisk-filled headlines ever. She is a quote machine and the best of the best.

Garbage – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/garbage-30-years-being-unprogrammable-unique-algorithm-we-are-an-alternative-rock-band-for-a-reason/
Garbage’s Let All That We Imagine Be the Light was one of my favorite albums of the year, so of course I had to interview the entire band too. We discussed the bizarre way they came together, the bizarre circumstances surrounding their new album’s creation, and how they have stayed together with their original lineup for THIRTY years, which is almost unheard-of in rock ‘n’ roll.

Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/dawes-griffin-goldsmith-musicians-for-fire-relief-interview/
Perhaps no local artist became the face and voice of this year’s tragic L.A. wildfires more than Dawes. Singer/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith lost his Altadena recording studio and most of the band’s equipment in the Eaton Fire, while Taylor’s brother/bandmate/neighbor, drummer and percussionist Griffin Goldsmith, lost his home. The brothers’ parents lost their own home as well, and the Malibu house where the Goldsmiths grew up also burned down in the Palisades Fire. Amid all of this devastation, however, Griffin experienced some incredible highs, both personally and professionally. He became a father just two weeks after fires, and then Dawes found themselves playing the star-studded Fire Aid benefit and even opening this year’s Grammy ceremony. With all of this going on, Griffin barely had “a moment to stop and just process,” so I was honored and thankful that he took the time to speak with me, at such length and so candidly and eloquently, for Musicians for Fire Relief. I was greatly impressed by his optimism and resilience.

Margaret Cho – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/margaret-cho-lucky-gift-lgbtq-female-voices-proud-to-be-a-queer-elder/
Another one of my quote-machine faves! A true music savant, Margaret peppered our conversation with liberal references to Jellyfish, the Hold Steady, the Deftones, GWAR, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Haysi Fantayzee, Björk, Belle and Sebastian, Bob Mould, the Flaming Lips, Lilith Fair, Oasis’s famous Knebworth concert, K-pop, and the pre-Underworld art-pop band Freur (whose 1983 one-hit-wonder “Doot Doot” gets the cover-song treatment on her new LP). But we discussed serious stuff too. (Bonus: We later chatted again at the Grammy Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro98zgLT54s)

Rufus Wainwright – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/rufus-wainwright-decadent-memories-marianne-faithfull-hell-of-a-lot-of-fun/
I Zoomed with Rufus for TalkShopLive to discuss and sell his Dream Requiem orchestral opus, but that event happened to be the day that his friend and collaborator Marianne Faithfull died, so he graciously also answered questions about his Marianne memories. What a charmer.

Budgie of Siouxsie & the Banshees – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/siouxsie-and-the-banshees-budgie-on-death-divorce-autobiography-its-truth-its-real-and-its-neither-good-nor-bad/
Talk about a charmer! I could listen to Budgie’s velvet voice all day. But his unique voice really came out this year in his harrowing biography, The Absence – Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, which opens with his account of witnessing the sudden death of his mother, and closes with him parting personally and professionally with the other major female power-figure in his life, bandmate/ex-wife Siouxsie Sioux. He was as candid in our interview as he was in his book, and I am very grateful for that.

Shaun Cassidy – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/shaun-cassidy-talks-nepo-babies-phil-spector-keith-moon-returning-to-music/
Shaun is a story machine. I guess that is why he went into TV writing! But I am so glad he returned to making music, after many decades, because that means I get to interview him from time to time. This time, he discussed being a nepo baby, being held at gunpoint by Phil Spector, Keith Moon crashing on his couch, and writing a horror movie about cats, among other topics, and it was just as fun as that sounds.

Pussy Riot – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/pussy-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova-punks-not-dead-forcing-myself-to-think-hopefully-about-the-future/
Sharing a room with this brave woman, Nadya Tolokonnikova, is always humbling. What a heroine.

Andy Bell of Erasure – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/erasure-andy-bell-solo-album-vince-clarke-critics-a-little-respect-they-missed-the-point/
Andy is just so lovely. This was my second interview with him, and we covered a lot of ground: his Debbie Harry fandom as a young boy, the next Erasure album and how Vince Clarke is doing these days (Vince’s wife passed away last year), why Erasure didn’t get critical respect back in the day, his fears that HIV drugs might become less accessible, the loyalty of Tauruses, religion, aging, and of course his fantastic solo album Ten Crowns. I give this man more than a little respect.

Steve Kilbey of the Church – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-church-steve-kilbey-talks-45-year-career-record-label-idiots-tour-with-duran-duran-more/
This one was a doozy! We discussed the Church’s early struggles and awkward transition to the grungy ‘90s, the surprise success of “Under the Milky Way,” and why he’s still on a “mission” to “provide quality music” after 45 years in the business, plus he went off on a bizarre but amusing tangent about his hatred (or loveless fascination, if you will) for Duran Duran. [Kilbey’s opinions expressed here belong solely to Kilbey, and do not reflect the views of this writer, obviously.] Suffice to say, whatever Kilbey was talking about, he was passionate and wildly entertaining.

Luke Spiller – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-struts-luke-spiller-symphonic-solo-album-the-last-thing-i-wanted-was-just-electric-guitars/
The Struts frontman’s debut solo album, Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine, is EPIC, like a whole album of James Bond themes. It’s also an instant-classic L.A. album and my favorite record of 2025. Therefore, it was an honor to conduct a Q&A with Luke in front of 150 invited fans at his private record release show at the Sun Rose, which left everyone in the room both shaken and stirred. Please, can someone have this gentleman do the next Bond theme, for real?

Martha Davis of the Motels – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-motels-martha-davis-fame-loss-motherhood-regrets-comfortable-in-own-skin-wish-i-hadnt-been-such-an-idiot/
This interview was amazing. From the get-go, Martha was an open book (which is why she really needs to write a memoir), in a way few interview subjects are. She opened up about her dysfunctional ‘50s childhood; her dangerous days in ungentrified L.A.; her alcoholism battle; the mistakes she made as a mother and how she has tried to right them; the death of her firstborn child, Maria, and her years-long estrangement from her other daughter, Patricia; her uneasiness with fame and decision to retreat from the spotlight; and how the loss of a beloved pet helped her finally learn how to grieve. We also had a lot of laughs, discussing daytime Zoom makeup and ringlights, sci-fi rock musicals, David Bowie, Cal Worthington, Henry Miller quotes, and even Steve Martin’s The Jerk.

The Ting Tings – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/ting-tings-reclaim-reinvent-name-soft-rock-album-home-we-want-to-get-old-writing-songs-like-this/
Home by the Ting Tings is one of my surprise fave albums of 2025, a yacht-rock opus that is NOT what one would expect from the indie-sleaze du0 famous for “That’s Not My Name.” I chatted with the band’s Katie White and Jules De Martino all about their comeback and reinvention (and yes, the in-jokey sweater I wore was deliberate, as all of my on-screen fashion choices are).

David J Haskins – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/david-j-haskins-spoken-word-album-poetry-book-the-hunger-coachella-2005-love-and-rockets-tour-janes-addiction
The Bauhaus/Love and Rockets legend and I discussed his spoken-word album and poetry book, largely inspired by his late mother, but we also talked some key career memories, including David’s amusing encounter with David Bowie on the set of The Hunger; how he feels about that song being the theme to my favorite recurring Saturday Night Live sketch, “Goth Talk”; Bauhaus’s iconic entrance at Coachella 2005; and what the future holds for Love and Rockets after their tour with Jane’s Addiction came to an abrupt and disastrous end. This interview ran on World Goth Day, and it was the perfect way to celebrate.

Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/vicki-peterson-john-cowsill-romance-predicted-by-teenage-fan-fiction/
Vicki and John are true powerpop power-couple goals. If they weren’t so nice and cool, they’d almost make me sick. I did an adorable interview with them about their new album (a tribute to John’s late brothers, Bill and Barry Cowsill) and the adorable way they met. We laughed, we cried (literally), and we had a wonderful time.

Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/gary-kemp-talks-solo-album-anxiety-aging-grief-spandau-ballet-reunion-true-soul-train/
I know this much is true: Interviewing Gary Kemp about his new album This Destination and his illustrious career for over an hour was pure gold. To cut a long story short, he discussed grappling with post-pandemic anxiety, a sense of his own mortality, writer’s block, and going to therapy; memories of the Blitz Club, Band Aid, Live Aid, and Spandau Ballet’s rivalry with Duran Duran; the possibility of another Spandau Ballet reunion; how Seal once almost replaced Tony Hadley in a later Spandau lineup; the new wave ingenue who inspired “True”; performing on Soul Train; working with Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard; mourning his parents, who died just four days apart; the sexism behind why New Romantic bands weren’t taken seriously in the 1980s; touring with Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets; and if he’s finally figured out his destination.

Mitch Grassi – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/pentatonix-mitch-grassi-electrogoth-project-messer-ive-never-been-the-clean-cut-normal-member-of-the-band/
Mitch is one-fifth of the Grammy-winning a cappella group Pentatonix, but his solo career as Messer is a completely different thing — an electronic project that draws from darkwave, synthpop, electroclash, and PlayStation 2-era video game soundtracks, and is influenced by Imogen Heap, Royksopp, Kraftwerk, and Madonna. In our conversation, Mitch opened up about his “bicoastal” romance with his partner of two years (who he recently married); the “slow-burn damage to the identity” he felt while growing up with rigid gender stereotypes in conservative Texas; his evolving fashion sense; how he “delved a lot into shadow work,” “turned toward the darker parts of myself,” and experienced “a bit of an ego death” while making his new album, Cuts; and why he feels he’s finally singing the way he “was meant to sing.”

Ringo Starr – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/ringo-starr-85th-birthday-in-california-peace-and-love-in-this-state-is-incredible-other-states-are-trying/
You say it’s your birthday? I had a blast celebrating with the 85-years-young Ringo again at his annual Peace and Love Celebration.

Linda Perry – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/linda-perry-talks-4-non-blondes-reunion-album-staying-power-of-whats-up-somebodys-always-trying-to-f-with-us/
I wasn’t expecting a new 4 Non Blondes album — the follow-up to their debut album, more than 30 years later — in 2025. But here we are! I chatted with Linda about the band’s surprising reunion and their still (sadly) all-too-relevant protest anthem, “What’s Up?”

Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/dexys-midnight-runners-kevin-rowland-opens-up-about-addiction-religion-misogyny-my-beauty-backlash/
To celebrate the release of the Dexys legend’s harrowing autobiography, I conducted a raw, nearly hour-long chat with him. Yes, of course we talked about the greatest song of all time, “Come On Eileen,” but also about addiction, religion, misogyny, the My Beauty backlash, and much more. I appreciated his candor and vulnerability. Let’s make this precious, indeed.

Blancmange’s Neil Arthur – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/neil-arthur-blancmange-25-year-hiatus-spectacular-return-i-would-be-less-sane-if-id-carried-on/
I was living (and dancing) on the ceiling and up the bloody tree when Blancmange played L.A. for the first time in 39 years at this year’s Cruel World festival. I interviewed Neil ahead of the festival (a several months before band cofounder Stephen Luscombe died), and we had a fun chat about their inexplicably banned music video, why they broke up at Royal Albert Hall in 1986, an upcoming covers album Neil is working on with Vince Clarke, and why Blancmange’s record label was initially against releasing their hit ABBA cover. Yeah, that’s all right with me!

The War and Treaty – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-war-and-treaty-michael-trotter-jr-tanya-trotter-talk-biopic-war-brought-him-music-music-brought-him-love/
What a story this couple has! I am so excited for the upcoming War and Treaty biopic, about which they gave me a little scoop. Maybe it will come out in 2026? Just give them all the Oscars already.

Diane Warren and Albanian pop star Arilena Ara – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/diane-warren-arilena-ara-this-girl-can-fng-sing-this-is-celine-level/
Like I said, I never pass up a chance to interview Diane!

Andy Grammer – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/masked-singer-andy-grammer-grounded-optimism-grief-why-the-word-happy-gets-bad-rap/
I spoke with the artist formerly known as The Masked Singer runner-up Boogie Woogie, and currently the No. 1 “Happy Pop” artist on Spotify, about grief, the secret to writing cheerful songs, ignoring the haters, and more.

Brooke Eden – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/queer-country-star-brooke-eden-line-dancing-raising-son-surprise-support-from-brittany-aldean-be-bridge-instead-of-setting-on-fire/
I had an insightful conversation with this rising queer country star at the OutLoud Festival at WeHo Pride, after first meeting and interviewing her at OutLoud in 2023. Brooke is the future of country, and I am so delighted for her continued success.

Madonna collaborators Tracy Young, Niki Haris & Donna De Lory – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/madonna-collaborators-tracy-young-niki-haris-donna-de-lory-express-themselves-so-important-to-tell-our-stories/
I chatted for over an hour with superstar DJ Tracy Young (who was the first woman to win a remixing Grammy for her work with Madonna), and Niki Haris and Donna De Lory (the iconic singers who shared the stage with Madonna throughout the ’90s and beyond). We reminisced about the groundbreaking Blonde Ambition tour, Truth or Dare, those historic VMAs performances of “Express Yourself” and “Vogue,” Niki and Donna’s favorite stage outfits, and so much more, as well as Tracy’s work and her 2025 gig as the pre-show DJ on the farewell tour by another ’80s female pop trailblazer, Cyndi Lauper. We laughed, we laughed, we nearly cried, we laughed some more… and Niki and Donna even broke into song at one point! We all expressed ourselves, and it was a blast.

Ryan Guldemond of Mother Mother – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/ryan-guldemond-talks-20-years-of-mother-mother-im-really-proud-of-us-for-not-quitting/
This was an thoughtful one-on-one about the Canadian band’s 20th anniversary; their 10th album, Nostalgia; interpersonal band relations (Guldemond’s older sister and ex-girlfriend are both in the group); how Guldemond deals with his shyness as an onstage performer; Mother Mother’s unexpected resurgence on TikTok and why their music appeals to Gen Z; and what the next 20 years might hold.

And of course, some reality TV stuff…

The American Idol judges (Carrie Underwood, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan) – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/american-idol-judges-executive-producer-react-to-historic-season-23-finale-america-needed-to-see-the-two-of-them-standing-together/

American Idol Season 23 winner Jamal Roberts – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/american-idol-season-23-winner-jamal-roberts-interview/

American Idol Season 23 Season 23 runner-up John Foster – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/american-idol-season-23-runner-up-john-foster-interview/

The Voice Season 27 winner Adam David – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-voice-season-27-champ-adam-david-addiction-redemption-i-felt-very-much-trapped/

The Voice Season 28 winner Aiden Ross – https://www.lyndsanity.com/music/the-voice-season-28-winner-aiden-ross-almost-quit-music-feeling-like-i-had-lost-everything/

See you in 2026!

It’s that most wonderful time of an admittedly not-always-wonderful year, when I make my list and check it twice, or thrice. (Well, if I’m being honest, I’ve checked this one, obsessive-compulsively, at least 45 times in the past week alone.)

I’m talking about my year-end best albums list, of course. And while the headline of this article spoils what my No. 1 pick is, whittling down 2024’s rich sonic bounty — ranging from Zeitgeist-capturing or downright culture-shifting modern dance-pop triumphs to stunning comebacks by four of my favorite legacy bands — to only 10 LPs was daunting.

Therefore… I have also included 45 very honorable mentions. So, keep scrolling, enjoy, and let’s do it all over again next year.

10. Primal Scream — Come Ahead

Over the past 35 or so years, Bobby Gillespie has segued from twee pop jangle to leather-sheathed punk to ambient to acid-house to industrial to dub to pub to Southern-fried classic blooze-rawk — all with surprising ease and credibility, creating some truly decade-defining (if not easily definable, genre-wise) albums along the way. For Primal Scream’s first official studio LP in eight years (following Gillespie’s country-tinged collaboration with Savages’ Jehnny Beth, Utopian Ashes, an old-school call-and-response divorce album that was No. 2 on my best-of list for 2021), Gillespie has now metamorphosized into a funk soul brother raised on A Certain Ratio — groovin’ and movin’ on string-laden, Stax-does-disco epics like “Ready to Go Home,” “Love Insurrection,” “Circus of Life,” and “Innocent Money,” and conjuring the perfect screamadelic soft-porn soundtrack with the bedroom ballad “Heal Yourself.”

9. Kylie Minogue — Tension II

Few pop stars as have enjoyed a career as dazzling and deserved as this impossible princess of reinvention, who after exploding onto the charts nearly four decades ago with her Stock Aitken Waterman-produced hi-NRG hits, pivoting to indie in the ’90s with Nick Cave and the Manic Street Preachers, and staging one of the biggest comebacks of the aughts with “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” pulled off yet another stunning comeback in 2023 with the surprise club banger “Padam Padam” and Tension. This year, the tension didn’t let up on that album’s sequel (and Minogue’s 17th album overall) — a slinky, sexy, sparky collection of irresistibly fizzy Eurodance anthems. I already can’t wait for Tension III.

8. Redd Kross — Redd Kross

2024 was The Year of Redd Kross (a celebration that’s been long overdue), with glam/punk/powerpop phaseshifters Jeff and Steven McDonald entering their “third act” by not only releasing a career-spanning documentary and oral-history-style memoir, but also returning from a five-year recording hiatus with their most ambitious effort yet: the 18-song, double-disc, red-velveteen-swathed Redd Kross. (Or The Redd Album, if you will.) And the despite their reputation for trafficking in ‘60s and ‘70s nostalgia, after 45 years Redd Kross still sound so ahead of their time — from the swirling, lava-lamp-lit psychedelia of “Candy Coloured Catastrophe” and “Emmanuelle Insane,” to the Bic-flicking power balladry of “The Main Attraction” and “The Witches’ Stand,” to their origin story “Born Innocent” (the Oscar-worthy end-credits theme song to their film of the same name).

7. Faux Real — Faux Ever

It’s almost impossible to describe this post-post-post-ironic electro-glam duo — shirtless, shag-haircutted, high-kicking, high-camp Franco-American himbos Virgile and Elliott Arndt, rock’s quirkiest brothers since the Maels — without instinctively lapsing into a Stefon-from-Saturday Night Live voice. This band has everything: Y2K boy-band choreography, heart-shaped Daisy Rock guitars that may or may not be plugged in, crop-tops, tongues forever planted in sculpted male-model cheeks, phallic flutes, amateur stuntwork, homoeroticism… and some of the greatest glossy-but-glitchy synthpop of the post-post-post-modern age. Faux Real fake it so real they are beyond fake. They’re desperate but not serious, yet also as serious as a sheer heart attack. And their debut LP, which the Arndts accurately describe as “an 11-piece symphony for headbanging and longing,” backs up their style with surprising substance.

6. The Dare — What’s Wrong With New York?

“Indie sleaze” is back, apparently, and in 2024, the Dare, aka Harrison Patrick Smith, almost singlehandedly brought back all those hazy memories of the aughts — that halcyon neon era of skinny ties, Karen O haircuts, Sparks drink binges, electroclash, nu-rave, and new-new-wave, when everyone looked good on the dance floor and had it captured for posterity by the Cobrasnake. Everything the Dare creates — including this year’s sexxxed-up, panty-tossing remix of Charli XCX’s “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish — sounds like something DJ Ultragrrrl would have spun at a Dim Mak Tuesday club night at the long-gone and much-missed Cinespace in Hollywood. What’s Wrong With New York? is so wrong, it’s right: obnoxious, stoopid, and just aggressively fun. And I am here for it. Pass me a can of Sparks.

5. The Libertines — All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade

“If you’ve lost your faith in love and music, the end won’t be long,” Pete Doherty slurred 22 years ago, in his cigarettes-and-alcohol Cockney rasp, on the Libertines’ thrilling debut, Up the Bracket. But at times it was hard for a Libs fan to keep the faith, as the shambolic band tragically (albeit fascinatingly) unraveled in real time in the British tabloids, and the end came way too quickly. The Likely Lads staged an unlikely comeback in 2015 with their third album (their first since 2004), the possibly-not-ironically titled Anthems for Doomed Youth, but then they went away again for another nine years. That’s why All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade is such an against-the-odds triumph. Carl Barat and the now-sober Doherty’s finest work since, well, Up the Bracket, the album showcases their innate intelligence and unending ability to create something fresh from their scrappy punk-/pub-rock influences (the Jam, Kinks, Who, Stones, Pistols, Pogues). The handclap-syncopated “Run Run Run” and guitar-chiming “Oh Shit” sound like the anthems of two starry-eyed Camden boys still in their twentysomething prime, while world-weary sea shanties like “Man with the Melody,” “Merry Old England,” and “Songs They Never Play on the Radio” reflect the now-grizzled Barat and Doherty’s hard-earned life experience and unbreakable bond. This album was truly slept-on (at least in America, where the Libertines could always get arrested in the literal sense but never in the figurative one), so give it a spin if you missed it.

4. Aaron Lee Tasjan — Stellar Evolution

A queer Orange Country misfit who cut his teeth in the NYC club scene as a founder of Lady Gaga-associated glam-rock trailblazers Semi Precious Weapons; later vamped it up in a revamped lineup of actual glam-rock originators New York Dolls; along the way rubbed glittery shoulders with Yoko Ono and Lydia Lunch; and then moved to East Nashville and found himself at the forefront of an alt-country revolution, Tasjan is the ultimate shapeshifter. And his aptly titled sixth album — a heady blend of rhinestone-cowboy heartland rock, grievous-angel folk, electric-lit-orchestral powerpop, John Hughes-soundtrack synthpop, ‘90s slacker indie, and wry, Petty wit — sounds totally of-the-moment, like the past, present, and future. It may not sound classically “country,” but it certainly is a classic.

3. The Last Dinner Party — Prelude to Ecstasy

It takes true audacity to open one’s debut album with a 96-second orchestral overture, but that’s a fitting introduction for these witchy-woman Brontë heroines, who have swashbuckled onto the scene fully formed and festival-ready with their maximalist coquette-core, trailing vintage silks and velvets and ribbons and pheromones and hormones in their wake. On the nonstop-erotic-cabaret that is their James Ford-produced debut, LDP truly go for baroque, evoking Country Life-era Roxy Music, nearly every era of Sparks, and a Gothic ABBA. But they also sound startlingly fresh and original, earning every column inch of their U.K. press hype. Hopefully this is the prelude to long and iconoclastic career.

2. The Cure — Songs of a Lost World

Robert Smith has always grappled with a sense of mortality and impermanence, but on the Cure’s first album since 2008, the aging icon’s reflections on love and loss just hit different. Songs of a Lost World is a work of sonic grandeur and melancholic majesty along the lines of its obvious companion album, Smith’s midlife-crisis masterpiece Disintegration. But this is only the second Cure album to have Smith credited as sole songwriter, so it also sounds like a record crafted in solitude, a deeply and devastatingly personal passion project. At age 65, Smith has experienced actual loss — the deaths of  his mother, father, and older brother — and his lyrics have become plainer, blunter, and arguably even more potent as a result. (“And Nothing Is Forever,” a deathbed confessional inspired by his real-life broken promise to be by a loved one’s side in that person’s final moments, just might be the saddest and sincerest thing he’s ever written.) An instant classic best listened to in a tightly curled fetal position, Songs is a stunning, absolutely expectations-confounding comeback.

1. Charli XCX — Brat

Forget about Brat Summer; 2024 was a Brat Year, and Charlotte Emma Aitchison was my girl for all seasons. It may seem cliché to pile on and choose the Metacritic-topper as my own No. 1 pick, but Charli is so much more than just some 365 partygirl; I literally believe she is a genius. While I’ve been a fan since her punky Sucker era, and have been fascinated by her artistic evolution over the past decade, it was the now-32-year-old hyperpop provocateur’s raw, starkly confessional lyrics that drew me in this year. On Brat, Charli boldly goes places that no pop star has ever dared or even thought to explore before. One moment, she’s brimming with swaggadocio on audacious it-girl anthems like “360” and “Von Dutch” and bumpin’ that on partystarters and floor-fillers like “Club Classics,” “365,” and “Spring Breakers”; the next, she’s opening up about her imposter syndrome and insecurities (“Sympathy Is a Knife” “I Might Say Something Stupid,” “Rewind”) or even tenderly contemplating motherhood (“I Think About It All the Time”) and wondering if her whirlwind clubbing lifestyle is ultimately meaningless and purposeless. Whether it’s the messiness of romantic entanglements (the looping love-triangle lament “B2B,” or “Talk Talk,” a relatably cringey account of her awkward early courtship with fiancé George Daniel); the messiness of female frenemy-ships (“Sympathy,” “Mean Girls,” and especially the uncomfortable honest Lorde remix of “Girl, So Confusing”); or generational trauma (the surprise TikTok hit “Apple”), Charli unflinchingly examines it all with a foxeyelinered wink though her vibrant Pantone 3507C lens. I will be bumpin’ this thinking-parytygirl’s collection of club classics for a long, long time.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

A Certain Ratio — All Comes Down to This

Adam Lambert — AFTERS EP

Amyl and the Sniffers — Cartoon Darkness

Beachwood Sparks — Across the River of Stars

Ben Platt — Honeymind

Beyoncé — Cowboy Carter

Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft

Billy Tibbals — Nightlife Stories EP

Bleachers — Bleachers

Brigitte Calls Me Baby — The Future Is Our Way Out

Bright Light Bright Light — Enjoy Youth

The Black Crowes — Happiness Bastards

The Bug Club — On the Intricate Workings of the System

Childish Gambino — Atavista

The Dandy Warhols — Rockmaker

Dizzee Rascal — Don’t Take It Personal

Dua Lipa — Radical Optimism

Elbow — Audio Vertigo

Empire of the Sun — Ask That God

Ferry Townes — Side Effects of Happiness

Fontaines D.C. — Romance

Ginger Root —  Shinbangumi

Gossip — Real Power

Green Day — Saviors

Gruff Rhys — Sadness Sets Me Free

IDLES — TANGK

John Davis — Jinx

Judith Hill — Letters From a Black Widow

Justice — Hyperdrama

Kendrick Lamar — GNX

The Lemon Twigs — A Dream Is All We Know

The Midnight Cowgirls —  Midnight Cowgirls EP

Modern English — 1234

Molchat Doma — Belaya Polosa

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — Wild God

Orville Peck —  Stampede

Pharrell Williams —  City of Limitless Access – Black Yacht Rock

Richard Hawley — In This City They Call You Love

Ride — Interplay

Sabrina Carpenter — Short ‘n’ Sweet

Sheer Mag — All Lined Up

Sleater-Kinney — Little Rope

Travis — L.A. Times

Wallows —  Model

X — Smoke & Fiction