From pop queens to rap duos, and rave-loving singers to hardcore rockers, we pick our favourite music of the year for you to listen to now.

Ethan James Green

Addison Rae – Addison 

At the end of her Coachella set in April, Charli XCX passed on the mantle of last year's "Brat summer", by assigning summer 2025 to a variety of artists, including her friend and collaborator Addison Rae. And if Rae's self-titled debut LP hasn't quite had the zeitgeist-defining impact of Brat, then it can nevertheless lay claim to being one of the pop moments of the year so far. After her initial rise to fame as a TikTokker posting viral dance videos, last year's hypnotic, Lana Del Rey-adjacent single Diet Pepsi showed Rae was far more than a digital-era novelty act. And what followed here was equally compelling, a succession of tracks pairing dreamy ambience with exquisite, layered production. Highlights include the shimmering, iridescent Aquamarine and superbly snappy paean to the "glamorous life" Fame is a Gun: Rae's primary persona throughout is that of sun-kissed sybarite. It makes for a combination of charismatic frivolity and serious artistry that somehow feels like just what the musical landscape needs right now. (Hugh Montgomery)  

Black Country, New Road – Forever, Howlong

When frontman Isaac Wood left the band just four days before their last album's release, the remaining members of BCNR recalibrated as a sextet, redistributing vocal duties between its female members. BCNR's new era moves them from what Wood once called "the world's second-best Slint tribute act" to a kind of prog-baroque folk, backed by gentle guitars and piano with dashes of woodwind, mandolin and plenty of eccentricity. But that quirkiness belies its complex, and often dark concerns. Besties' paean to female friendship contains a painful, unrequited queer undertone; Two Horses is a propulsive ballad about a female traveller whose fling with a sexy highwayman-type ends in him killing her animals; Happy Birthday is a jaunty mandolin-tinged foot stomper about existential despair, and so on. A predilection for meandering slow-builds and medievalism won't be everyone's cup of tea, but Forever, Howlong is a treasure that bears sticking with. (Rebecca Laurence)

RCA Records

Born and raised in Ilford, Essex, Devonté "Dev" Hynes decamped to Brooklyn, NY in the mid-'00s, lending his writing and producing talents to Solange, Britney Spears and Sky Ferreira, among others. Recording first as indie artist Lightspeed Champion and then as the more R&B-forward Blood Orange, Hynes all the while retained a supercool over superstar status. Essex Honey – his first album as Blood Orange in seven years – sees Hynes return to British shores for his most personal and complex work yet, which deals with the death of his mother. Essex Honey's elegiac tone is set with the melancholic synths of opener Look at You, while first single The Field feat Tariq Al-Sabir includes a crystalline refrain of "hard to let you go" from Caroline Polachek. Featuring interstitial voice and street recordings, sometimes discordant stabs of mournful Arthur-Russell-esque cello and jazzy saxophone, it's a beautiful meditation on time, memory and loss. (RL) 

Central Cee – Can't Rush Greatness

As the title reflects, West London rapper Central Cee had steadily built his rep over several years – via an array of hit mixtapes and collabs – before releasing this debut album proper. Can't Rush Greatness will be a familiar catchphrase to fans of Cench (as he's also known) – the line also features here on the punchy, confessional 5 Star, and this entire collection is an outstanding statement of intent. There's a lively guest-list of featured artists, among them long-time compadre Dave; Puerto Rican vocalist Young Miko; and US hip-hop star Lil Baby (on the irrepressible banger Band4Band). But the core force is Cench's impressively fluid flow: he's a distinctly British voice and a global heavyweight, navigating life, love and crazy fame with confidence, delicious wit and candour. (Arwa Haider)

KAWS

Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out

Virginia rap duo Clipse, comprised of brothers Pusha T and Malice, haven't released a new album since 2009, with the latter denouncing their previously violent street tales and turning to God. It makes hearing their gritty voices come together once again a genuine thrill. Malice, in particular, sounds completely revived, and spends Let God Sort Em Out rapping with the kind of clarity and verve you rarely see from an emcee in their early 50s. The best moment here is The Birds Don't Sing, where each brother remembers the final moments of their recently deceased mother and father. They both sound in awe of their parents' many sacrifices and, by taking a break from referencing drug transactions, Clipse sound less like unapproachable street soldiers and more like friends you can have a heart-to-heart with. It's this artistic growth that will ensure Let God Sort Em Out is remembered as one of their best projects. (Thomas Hobbs)

CMAT – Euro-Country

Already a star in her native Ireland, singer/songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, aka CMAT, is a charismatically camp and relatably messy huge international popstar-to-be. Euro-Country, her third and most assured LP yet, includes the hit singles Running/Planning, a poignant, downbeat ode to the exhaustively narrow paths women are forced down, and Take a Sexy Picture of Me, a witty but heartbreaking riposte to negative comments the singer has received on social media. With its eclectic array of cultural references – Veruca Salt, Dorian Gray, Titanic – the album showcases CMAT's idiosyncratic songwriting prowess and powerful yodelling vocals, which are used to wrenching effect throughout, particularly on the title track. Euro-Country is an elegiac country-infused ballad that reflects on the artist's ambivalent relationship with her homeland, growing up in a post-Celtic Tiger, recession-era Ireland. That song highlights the powerful political sentiment that underpins CMAT's work, and the formidable talent that goes with it. (RL)

FKA Twigs – Eusexua 

Firmly embedding her mysterious take on alternative R&B into a smoky nightclub setting, FKA Twigs' Eusexua might just be the avant-garde pop artist's most accessible record yet. Effortlessly implementing dub step, house and chillwave textures, the primary purpose of these new songs is to evoke the feeling of locking eyes with a stranger on a 3am dance floor, losing yourself to their charms. Perhaps the best moment here is the sci-fi pop of Girl Feels Good, an ode to dance music's ability to make a woman feel empowered, which sonically feels like it's being broadcast live from a rave filled with gyrating aliens: "When a girl feels good, the honeybees to the flowers," sings Twigs in a euphoric falsetto. In the past Twigs has often felt unknowable, an enigma wrapped up in an enigma, but with Eusexua, she's never sounded more relatable. (TH)

Gumskool/ Jim Legxacy

Jim Legxacy – black british music 

The leading light of a new generation of alternative UK rappers, Lewisham's Jim Legxacy is adept at making pulsing, nostalgic songs that capture the angst of young Londoners trying to make waves in a city they've been priced out of. The artist's best mixtape yet, black british music sees the 25-year-old transition from spitting X-rated trap couplets to howling out his pain in a way that's more reminiscent of an indie-pop artist like Mitski at her most wounded. New david bowie also sounds unlike anything else in the charts right now, with loose drums, unintelligible female coos, and surreal piano melodies resulting in a real rush of blood to the head. With this project, Jim Legxacy offers an intoxicating collage of contrasting youthful emotions that should rubber stamp his reputation for being at the cutting edge of contemporary black British music. (TH) 

Lady Gaga – Mayhem

Gaga's first proper pop album in five years is a return to the devil-may-care maximalism that made her a star. Second single Abracadabra, a bombastic synth-pop stomper that borrows melodically from Siouxsie and the Banshees, climaxes with a ludicrous hook that only she could pull off: "Abracadabra, amor-oo-na-na!" But even when she's being silly – knowingly so – the singer is deadly serious in her pursuit of pop nirvana. Other highlights include the postmodern headbanger Perfect Celebrity, Prince-gone-punk theatrics of Killah and campy disco bop Zombieboy, which sounds a bit like Blondie soundtracking a horror film. This endlessly entertaining LP is also sprinkled with Gaga's own sonic signatures – see Garden of Eden's Poker Face-style stuttering vocal hook "I'll t-t-take you to the Garden of Eden". Mayhem isn't a misleading title, but "controlled chaos" sums up the whole endeavour more accurately. (Nick Levine)

Eoin French

Icelandic musician/producer Olafur Arnalds has spanned numerous musical styles, including neo-classical, punk rock and TV-and-film scores. A Dawning is an inspired collaboration, a celebration of kindred spirits and a deeply poignant commemoration; Arnalds began working with poetic Irish singer-songwriter Talos (aka Eoin French) when the two met at an independent music festival. However, French fell ill from cancer and died aged just 36, before this album could be completed. These songs undeniably become a meditation on mortality and grief, but they are also essentially shaped by love. Arnalds' instrumentation is sensitive and unaffectedly heartfelt, including ambient electronica and delicate strings; French sounds intensely present, and his gorgeously brooding vocals stay with you, through to the bittersweet folk harmonies of the closing number We Didn't Know We Were Ready. (AH) 

Pinkpantheress – Fancy That

Few artists leave you wanting more quite as masterfully as 24-year-old British singer-songwriter-producer Victoria Beverley Walker, aka PinkPantheress, whose whirlwind, sample-heavy songs often just reach over two minutes. Far from slight, though, this second mixtape of hers – running to just 20 minutes in total – is a piece of sonic alchemy, whose constant, exhilarating rush of melodic momentum belies its rich patchwork of influences and references. There's garage and drum-and-bass beats, hooks borrowed from old-school house tracks by the likes of Groove Armada and Basement Jaxx, and yearning, high-pitched vocal lines. Beguiling, too, are the lyrics, with Pink serving up a pithy, conversational exploration of romantic pains, from frustrated crushes (Tonight) to toxic exes (Girl Like Me). If she's this inimitable and self-assured at this stage in her career, you wonder, in the best way, where she can go from here. (HM)

Cody Critcheloe

Perfume Genius – Glory

Seattle-raised, LA-based Mike Hadreas was finding the strength in vulnerability long before wellness influencers made this idea commonplace. With Glory, his seventh album as Perfume Genius, the art-pop moniker with which he introduced himself on MySpace back in 2008, he sounds more powerful than ever before.  Working with his multi-instrumentalist partner Alan Wyffels and longtime producer Blake Mills, Hadreas has crafted a profoundly moving reflection on ageing, relationships and his anxiety in facing the outside world. "What do I get out of being established? I still run and hide when a man's at the door," he sings on the country-flecked It's a Mirror. He's equally affecting on the tender piano ballad Me & Angel, perhaps this year's most intimate and realistic love song. The more you listen to this remarkable alt-rock record, the more its shards of truth and beauty come to the fore. (NL) 

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Rose Gray – Louder, Please

Following a mixtape and two EPs, Gray's full-length debut is a great dance album that's also a great pop album. The rave-loving singer once worked the door at London superclub Fabric, so there's cool conviction to the way she pings between Balearic anthems (Free, Tectonic), tumbling drum and bass (First) and pounding piano house (Wet & Wild). Along the way, she finds a sweet spot between galvanising mantras – "Kiss the sky until the morning" – and winning cultural specificity. On standout track Hackney Wick, she guides us through a messy night out in East London with references to local landmarks. There's also a yearning for emotional connection threaded into the album's heady hedonism. "Everything changes, but I won't when the party stops being fun," she sings on Everything Changes (But I Won't). It all adds up to a life-affirming listen that's best enjoyed as Gray recommends in the title: louder, please. (NL) 

Turnstile – Never Enough 

Baltimore hardcore rockers Turnstile occupy an unconventional space; they're connected to their underground punk roots while increasingly extending their range, both in terms of creative expressions and commercial reach. Their fourth album Never Enough is a natural progression from 2021's excellent Glow On, but it also pushes their vision further, from the surging synths and mighty guitars of the opening title track. Rousing vocalist Brendan Yates leads the powerfully catchy melodies; Turnstile's sound is thrillingly unconstrained, embracing thrashy riffs and blissed-out reveries (sometimes on the same track), and multi-genre collaborators including Dev Hynes, Hayley Williams and UK jazz don Shabaka Hutchings (playing flute on Sunshower). It's a gloriously unpredictable, exhilarating headrush of a record. (AH)

Iris Luz

Wet Leg – Moisturizer

There's something beautifully immediate about the rock-craft of this British, female-led indie band, who came to the fore back in 2022 with the single Chaise Longue, which captured the imagination with its nagging, post-punk guitars and surreal lyrics, delivered deadpan. This follow-up to their self-titled debut album doesn't see them undergoing any radical shifts but instead confidently refines their formula, being both a tighter and more pumped-up listen. The big change, lyrically, is that their previous, amusing disaffection with romance, and twentysomething life in general, has been supplanted by frontwoman Rhian Teasdale's new relationship, which results in some love songs, albeit ones rushing with anxiety: opener CPR has her wondering "is it love or suicide?".  And they can still do a brilliant takedown: Moisturizer's highlight is Mangetout, in which they witheringly call an unspecified man a "bottom feeder" and tell him to "get lost forever". Altogether, it makes for a record of ferocious wit and unassailable riffs. (HM) .