The end of the year is upon us, and it's time to reflect on your favorite music of 2025! Here is Minnesota Public Radio’s All Things Considered host Clay Masters' favorite music of the year. Once you've made your own list, vote in The Current's Top 89 poll by Sunday, Dec. 14, and we'll count down your Top 89 of 2025 at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 31.

Top 10 albums

1)Marc Ribot – “Sometime Jailhouse Blues”

Guitarist Marc Ribot has a discography that includes everything from experimental and jazz to helping shape the sound of Tom Waits’ iconic Frank’s Wild Years Trilogy in the 1980s. Ribot returned in 2025 with an album decades in the making called Map of a Blue City that featured his own songwriting and reinterpretations of other writings. “Sometime Jailhouse Blues” is an Allen Ginsberg poem set to Ribot’s beautiful acoustic guitar accompaniment.

2) Jesse Welles – “Will the Computer Love the Sunset”

It has been a prolific year for Jesse Welles, whose career skyrocketed this year. I did this profile on him for NPR this year ahead of his performance at Farm Aid in Minneapolis. He put out numerous songs and records, but for me, “Will the Computer Love the Sunset” from Pilgrim is his best yet. It’s a song about humanity losing touch with meaningful experiences through society’s deepening reliance on technology.

3) Jason Isbell – “Ride to Robert’s”

Jason Isbell told NPR’s All Things Considered host Scott Detrow he made a rule for himself on his 2025 album, Foxes in the Snow. The rule was to make an album entirely of him just singing and playing the guitar: no overdubs. “Ride to Robert’s” was my most repeated song from the album this year.

4) Alan Sparhawk & Trampled by Turtles – “Screaming Song”

Duluth music scene mainstays Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles teamed up for a record after Sparhawk’s wife and longtime Low bandmate, Mimi Parker, died in 2022. Sparhawk said recording with the members of Trampled helped him. He performed “Screaming Song” solo into his phone on Low’s Instagram page a while ago and it was quite moving to hear it come to life on this new album.

5) Big Thief – “Los Angeles”

Big Thief continues to grow its sound on Double Infinity despite slowing down on the number of albums the group churned out early in their career. This song is the standout on this new album for me.

6) The Wood Brothers – “Pray God Listens”

7) S.G. Goodman – “Fire Sign”

8) The Mountain Goats – “Cold at Night”

9) King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – “Deadstick”

10) Margo Price – “Nowhere is Where”