My Top Ten
Favorite CDs of 2025
These are
my favorite CDs
released in 2025. My tastes lean
towards Americana, roots, alt-country, and folk. In the case of close
calls, I am likely to err on the side of the lesser-known performers
who need more recognition.
Although, I only discovered Willie Nile in 2020 through his fantastic
album New York at Night,
he has quickly become one of my favorite songwriters. I need to dig
back into his abundant catalogue of previous work. It's something to
look forward to.
Nile says he "walked away from the music business in 1982 because of business hassles with a former
lawyer, a former manager, and it was no fun. It wasn’t the smartest
thing to do in the world, but they were killing the buzz."
He
never gave up music and writing and returned to performing
in 1987 and has recorded or performed with several musicians,
including Ringo Starr,
Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Lucinda
Williams, Ian Hunter, and Barenaked Ladies.
"Wild Wild World"
From the little huts
and villages to the great metropolis
People chasing people
just to get a little kiss
From the mountains in
the valley to the sea shells on the shore
To the mysteries of
the jungle, tell me who could ask for more
cause it's a ... Wild
wild world
This is his 16th album or maybe his 20th or 21st, but 13 of them since 1999. He was inspired by Van
Gogh's letters to his brother about inspiration that he described as
"The Great Yellow Light." Nile has said for him, "... the
great yellow light represents awe and wonder. Whether it’s
sitting under an awning in the middle of a rainstorm, a child, the
ocean crashing – those moments of awe and wonder, whatever
they may be."
"An Irish Goodbye"
It's been great to be
here, I thank you my friend
May your rivers all
flow to the sea
There is no beginning
and there is no end
And that goes for you
and me
An Irish goodbye, an
Irish goodbye
Here's fire in your
whiskey, here's mud in your eye
"I’ve got friends who refuse to watch the news, but I pay attention. I
want to know what’s going on, because I write about it. Of course, I
write about what’s going on, but I try to do it in such a way that it’s
uplifting."
"Tryin' to Make a
Livin' in the USA"
There's nothing wrong
with me a hit record couldn't cure
The blues and the clap
yeah thay all can reoccur
But a song on the
charts could do a lot of good
Why I'd run buck naked
through my neighborhood
Ooo Wah Ooo Wah Ooo
Wah Yay
Tryin' to make a
livin' in the USA
My way of fighting back is with a guitar, a piano, a voice, and a pen.
That’s my way of pushing back against the weight, the darkness, the
negativity.
"Washington's Day"
Did you think I could
ever forget
The night by the
Arlington flame
Where the monuments
laugh over thousands of years
And you whispered and
called me by name
And when that sun goes
down at the end of the day
You know I'll always
remember you were tender to me
on Washington's Day
When the visions that
come are the visions that stay
The Gasoline Lollipops website proclaims: "Over
the course of six albums, Gasoline Lollipops have explored the far
corners of amplified American roots music." I've been a big fan since
2017's Resurrection The Lollipops are a solid group of musicians comprised
of front man Clay Rose, lead guitarist Donnie Amboy, Bad Brad Morse on
the bass, Scott Coulter on keyboards, and Kevin Matthews on drums. Most
are born and bred Boulder, Colorado natives or long-time transplants.
Clay Rose told Colorado Public Radio: “It's uncomfortable, my own toxic masculinity. Also looking at my own
feminine side and seeing in what ways I've suppressed this, and in what
ways I've seen this as a liability. That comes from growing up in rural
Tennessee. I had long hair and I painted my fingernails and I wore
eyeliner. I was a punk rocker."
"Kill the Architect"
There's a monster
beneath my bed
He been sleeping
there for years
I've been working hard
to keep it fed
on all my fears
But tonight, I'm
growling in my sleep
and I can feel the bed
a shakin'
There's a killer,
stirring way down in the deep
Things are gonna change
When that beast awakens
“We are all humans, and we all have everything in us,” said Rose. “We
got killer and prey and man and woman and creator and destroyer in all
of us.
"Humanity"
Outside it's hot
Smoke fills the air
There's a fire down
the block
Nobody cares
The only man at church
Is the bum on the
stairs
I guess you can't go
to hell
If you're already
there
I say
Hey, Humanity
You look a lot like me
You look a lot like me
When you're down in
that hole
That you dug, on your
knees
But don't it feel like
a drug
When they put on the
squeeze
"I think one of the reasons that there’s cohesion between these songs is
that all of these songs were written for a ballet, this ballet company
in Denver called Wonderbound. I just finished another ballet for him,
and I’ve written four for them now. All the songs on Kill the Architect
were from a ballet called Sam & Delilah, all based on the story of
Samson and Delilah."
"Working for the Devil"
If I could choose a
struggle
To extract from my
brain
I guess it'd be the
one
That's here now
driving me insane
about hope and high
glory
and ever-lasting life
‘Cause though it's
short and dull,
It cuts like a knife
“You listen to this record, this is what I do,” said Rose. “I'm all over
the place. I play all the music that I grew up with that's steeped in
me: the honky tonk and outlaw country from my mom, the psychedelic rock
and folk singers from my dad, and the punk rock from my sister.
"Honeysuckle and
Poison Oak"
We swore no power
would ever tame us
But we sank into the
dark till it became us
We looked into the
light, but it just shamed us
With the words our
parents spoke
Honeysuckle and poison
oak
"You know, I like to give myself some rules," Says Isbell about his new
album. "So, one rule was no overdubs, no harmonies, nothing like
that. Just I had to be playing it and singing it at the same time."
"Bury Me"
Well I ain’t no cowboy
but I can ride
I ain’t no outlaw but
I’ve been inside
There were men of
stone, boys
and there were men of
sand
Long nights alone boys
Head in my hands
"I wound up recording a record in New York with a single guitar and a notebook and came out
of there with an album, like people used to do in the '60s."
"Eileen"
It ended like it
always ends
Somebody crying on the
phone
You tell each other
you can still be friends
but you both know
you’re on your own
My own behavior was a
shock to me
I never thought I’d
have the nerve
I hope you’re sleeping
through the night Eileen
I hope they’re grading
on the curve
"It came out of the idea of
holding two concepts in your mind at once; that things can be
really, really, really bad, difficult, challenging, and still, you
can have an infinite amount of gratitude. You know, you got to be
able to pay attention. I'm not going to turn the news off, but I
got to stay on the right side of the point of diminishing returns. I
can't just curl up in a ball and think the world sucks and America's
awful and we're all going to die."
"Crimson and Clay"
I guess the city
didn’t kill me after all
Thing that nearly took
me out
was loneliness and
alcohol
I just put it down and
walked away
Crawled back to the
crimson and the clay
"I can take pieces and images and parts of stories and move them around
and put them wherever I want. There's no fiction or
nonfiction shelf in the record store. And I think the mistake happens
when people listen and start trying to connect the dots."
"Wind Behind the Rain"
I wanted you the first
time that I saw you
in that bar where all
my friends left me behind
I wasn’t even fishing
when I caught you
but I always had your
picture in my mind
I love you like the
morning loves the afternoon
Like the prairies love
the plains
If you leave me now
I’ll just come running after you
I’ll be the wind
behind the rain
"My job is to make these images, these narratives, these pictures,
happen. The song exists separately from my life. Of course, both of them
feed each other, but this is not my diary."
Hayes Carll claims it's hard for
him to comprehend that he's made ten albums. As a fan, it's for me as
well. Carll has had an album on my Top Ten Favorites list in 2021,
2019, 2016, 2011, and 2008 so I guess I've chronicled six of them
counting this one in the last 17 years.
"It's just about grace for yourself and others, and trying to settle in
and get a little stillness and not give up on your own spirit," Carll has said, summing up the theme of the new record.
"We're Only Human"
Whether you give up
Or you give it your
best
It’s hard not to feel
like
You’re failing the test
Cause tragedies happen
Mistakes will get made
We love and we cry
We stumble and try
To not feel so afraid
"Because I’ve got a great life, and
I’d like to enjoy it more than I have been ," Carll has said was a big
reason for writing these songs. "I ought to be able to figure it out for what time I have left."
"Stay Here Awhile"
It seems like forever
I was holding on so
tight
Life was a struggle
Oh, and love, it was a
fight
Won't somebody save me?
I cried and I cried
Turns out what I
needed all along
It was right here
inside
I worked so hard to
get that lesson learned
I'd like to spend time
with the peace I've earned
Sounds like my station
on the dial
I think I'll stay here
awhile
"I think I’m a decent human being, and I try hard. I just don’t always get it right."
"One Day"
But one day I'm gonna
get there
Where the livin' is
easy
And my spirit believes
me
When I sing my song
And one day I'm gonna
wake up
With the battle behind
me
Let the stars remind me
That I'm right where I
belong
"I can be grateful for what I have, without comparing myself to somebody else, I find I’m a lot better off."
"What I Will Be"
And I'll take in a
breath as the sun hits the ocean
Home is a place where
they'll just let you be
I'm gonna tell this
old world that I'm done with pretending
From here until the
end, I'm gonna be what I will be
I'm gonna earn my scars
From livin' too close
to the fire
Get kicked out of the
choir
for singing my own song
There's not one thing
left
That anyone can sell me
Don't bother tryin' to
tell me
the way I live is wrong
"And the dream I had was I was working on an album and that that was its
title. And I had written it down in the app, so I wrote it down on a
piece of paper," explained John Darnielle, the Goats' lead singer and songwriter.
"So the thing is, I had to make sense of the title, right? 'Cause
your subconscious mind isn't concerned with your demand for rationality. So, the title was "Through This Fire Across From
Peter Balkan," right? I don't know a person named Peter Balkan. The
whole album kind of explores trying to explain the title, ttrying to sort of give it a narrative shape."
"Cold at Night"
Let yourself go in the
current
Only rise and fall as
the angles allow
Finally make a break
for the surface
Breathe in the sweet
air of the here and now
Wake
up in the arms of the earth
Fully
present at the second birth
Well,
the first thing you learn is how strong you can be if you have to
And the next thing you
learn is how cold it can get at night
"When
people ask me to describe my lyrics, I’ve always said they’re
personified narratives. Stories told by a narrator who I don’t tell you
about, but it’s not me most of the time. Many of my songs take place in
a fictive framework. There's a story that enriches each song."
"Through the Fire"
The last days come and
the last days go
Carried away in the
undertow
But on our trust we
rise and fall
Human after all
I calculated one week
to go maybe less
You were slipping in
and out of consciousness
What are seven days
worth
Seven days on this
earth
More than kings in
their castles might desire
Looking at you through
this fire
But it winds up being a story about care, right? It winds up being a
story about caring for one another. I used to be a nurse. This is
something I believe in. I believe that care is pretty close to the
center of the human experience, that, like, we're here to take care of
each other, and that's our - that's what we ought to do. And these are
people in a situation where they have to, and that's what draws me into
this story."
"Your Glow"
Find you babbling in
the sand there
Trying to find the
thread
Spend an hour or so
beside you
Cradling your head
It's time for you to go
But you never lost
your glow
"The fact is that I'm here and I'm 58, right? It's a terrible cliche to say that what didn't kill you made
you stronger, but I've managed to make good stories from the stuff that I
learned to live through, you know? And to me, like, would I trade those
experiences? I don't think that I would."
"Peru"
Like the flowers that
die in the winter
But never fail to grow
back new
In the cracks down in
the canyons in Peru
In the deep crevices
Where you wouldn't
think the light could reach
Distant as a dream of
the cradle
On this lonesome beach
“My father passed, and my stepmother asked if he’d ever
talked to me about his hallucinations, and I said, No, she said, you
don’t know about the black dog and the wandering boy, and I just thought
it would be a good song title. This song is not about Larry, but I just
took those and made them somebody else’s hallucinations.”
McMurtry
like his father is a purveyor of fiction. Not very many of this songs
are actually about himself or his life, past or present. His narrators
are most often a character other than himself.
"The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy"
The black and the wandering boy
Come around every night
The wandering boy never gets any older
The black dog doesn't bite
He just sits on the floor at the corner of the bed
Watching for the things that hunt
They oughta both go away when I take my meds
But they don't
"I worked with producer Don Dixon on my third record 30 years ago. I learned a lot
from him. I just wanted to see what he had learned
in the last 30 years. When digital first came in, Dixon was all over
it. Back then, he knew that was where the business
was going so, he learned it well. He uses a mix
of new and old technology, just whatever works for him. He’s not tied in
to any particular ideology."
"The Color of Night"
Your candid admission
barely thickens the plot
Seems you miss what
you're missin' more than you want what you've got
And I guess this beats
boredom, but it hurts just the same
Now I don't know if I
got time left to get any good at the game
[Chorus]
The color of night
It's a few drops of
blood in the parking lot dirt
I catch a hard right
I roll with the impact
no matter how bad it hurts
"I do believe that the myth sells better than the reality. And I don’t always sell the myth.”
"Sons of the Second
Sons"
Nowadays we're feelin'
stressed
It's all for us and
damn the rest
Tellin' each other
have a blessed day
All camoed up and
standin' tall
Buildin' bombs and
border walls
As all collective
conscience falls away
[Pre-Chorus]
And they wave those
stars and bars
Is that really who we
are?
[Chorus]
Sons of the second sons
Products of genocide
Polishin' up our guns
Payin'
on double-wides
Sons of the peasantry
Tellin' ourselves
we're free
Sons of the loyal serfs
Salt of the blessed
Earth
In search of a savior
"My mother taught me three chords and the rest I just stole as I went along. I learned everything by ear or by watching people."
"Sailing Away"
I won't forget your
birthday 'cause you don't forget the score
I won't forget that
chorus like I did the night before
When I was tryin' to
remember, did I lock thе front door?
And have I any
business bein' in this businеss anymore?
“I always had an outsider’s perspective, which is an easy place to write
from. Because you’re outside, you can see the whole picture. If you’re
in the middle of it, you might not see it quite so clearly.”
Just
a few years back, it looked like the Troubadours had decided to hang it
up, move on to other business, maybe more music, but maybe not
together. It's an unexpected boon to get 2023's A Cat in the Rain
and then another fine album like this one in 2025. They are such
a super band, both instrumentally and vocally. We can only hope there
might be more fine albums to come. as well.
“I
feel like this one was a completely different thing,’ Felker says of
the new album which was sort of unexpected for them as well as for the
fans, ‘It was learning how to have fun again, learning how to trust your gut, and not overthink things.”
"Searching for a Light"
Well, I could spend a
lifetime making something out of sorrow
But I will not trade
tomorrow for a pain I feel today
So I pull my collar
closer and I let the wind blow by me
I've got no tears left
to cry about the world that's gone away
“At one point in time, I didn't have anybody around who had dealt with
alcoholism or addiction and come to the other side of it. That’s the
reason that I take the time to go through these stories.”
"Be Here"
And I'll bе back out,
yes, I will
Spend my money and
drink my fill
Long and еmpty hours
to kill
Well, ain't no
changing me now
Ain’t no changing me
My books and clothes
and soul unpacked
(Oh, the road that led
me here)
My roommate tells me
’bout Iraq
(Oh, the road that led
me here)
They patched him up
when he came back
I guess I've had it
easy
I guess I’ve had it
easy
“For us, our fictional songs have resonated really well because they’re roughly true stories,” Felker has said. “Being very personal with it is sometimes the key to it being good or authentic.”
"A Lie Agreed Upon"
Feels like the world
belongs to you and me
Finally free now, baby
Did our past just
disappear?
More than a little bit
of history
In this big old city
Well, are we out of
danger, dear?
“It’s a special thing, the relationship we have in this band. Every single part of it,
throughout the years, has added or at least made its mark on what we are
now.”
"Ruby Ann"
I wanna know your
loving, I wanna know it true
Sundowns and sunrises,
waking up with you
I've been hopeless
under melancholy skies
My savior was a
mountain girl with lightning in her eyes
“This isn’t something we have to do, we really enjoy it. The more we can
put out, I think the happier we are, and I think the happier everybody
is.”
“I said I wrote “To the Places We Lived” to be my last record, and it is. That’s another reason I wanted my own name on it," Anderson reiterates.
It is a matter of record that he was released from prison sober and with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
"Believers"
Sun come up this
morning, sky was speckled blue and gold
it looked like
something I took from a dream
a
five-hundred-year-old painting some old master never sold
like a picture up
there waiting for a frame
and I wondered for a
moment about the colors that we see
how they’ll disappear
and everything will end
and then I settled
down and listened to you breathing next to me
and let my mind go
drifting back again
to when you and me, we
were believers
looking for the
diamonds in the dust
and I made a promise
I’d never leave you
I’ll be with you ‘til
there’s nothing left but us
"When
I got out of prison, I moved back to Portland, where I grew up. I’ve
spent the last eight years there; I’ve got a wife and a kid and I work
in communities I care very much about. Trading a dream that didn’t feel
all that fulfilling in the first place for a life that does."
"Back to Nashville"
I spent some time in
Fairview learning how to read and write
in a house the size of
my hometown where the rooms were never quiet
the ghost of John the
Gambler came to visit me at night
gave me a deck of
cards and his gold tooth and then disappeared from sight
so I packed up and
moved into the Hermitage Hotel
changed my name and
changed my clothes, and found a tale to tell
nobody recognized me
and that’s probably just as well
but I could’ve used
some help when it came time to pay my bill
One
of my favorite songs of all-time is Anderson's "Lost Parade." It
appears again in a lsightly different arrangement on this album. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and it's playing in the back of my mind
"The Lost Parade"
Last night I led the
lost parade
up to the house to see
the mess I’d made
we filled every room
with smoke
and hollered until the
windows broke
it’s quiet now, the
streets are bare
I see the image of you
everywhere
in the back of my mind
"I’ve been making up songs, recording them, and singing them
for people with varying degrees of success since I was 20 years old.
I’m 44 now, so nearly 25 years."
"Paint It Gold"
You coulda learned
from your mother,
kept a low profile
but moving under cover,
it ain’t your style
you’re Lichtenstein,
baby
your blues are too bold
now you can’t sell
your silver
so you paint it gold
“One of the privileges of being a writer is I get to decide how and when
any given story ends. I’m glad I hung around long enough to finish this
one.”
It's been awhile, nearing a decade,
since Tom Catmull put out a new album. I'm glad I kept checking in. I
almost missed this one.
"The Come and Go"
I walked into the bank
to give my blood today
They said they
normally would never turn away
But they can't but
hear the things that people say
that are sometimes true
There is a tiny little
globe on a string
that keeps the trouble
down below everything
There is a little boy
who keeps his aim low
Who finds your fortune
in the come and the go
"I’m chipping away at making what my musical career will eventually be. I
like just how much there is to know. It’s overwhelming and inspiring at
the same time.”
"Narrow"
Everybody’s got a
shaky hand
all the news and all
the noise inside their head
says, the friends that
used to hold you up could be carrying the killer ‘round instead
The governor’s a good
man
I mean no disrespect
to him. That said
We had better narrow
the distance.
“Playing original music allows for much more than only playing covers,”
said Catmull. “Playing originals allows for sharing a story
together. I’m different from you and you are different from me, but
there is something concentric about it, something personal to the
listener.”
"Bank Heist"
God told me just this
mornin'
as he polished off the
Yuban Joe
Don't take this as a
warnin'
but stop holding to
what you don't know
I'm pretty sure you're
just a sacrifice
All you had to do was
play nice
“I want to take what’s inside me, and I want it to be out there and inside other people’s heads, and to affect people."
"Dead End"
On the street where
people get taller
There's a sign they
used to call the Dead End
If you were younger,
if you were smaller
You'd walk around it
killing time with a friend
Eventually, all that’s left is the chords, words, and performances.
Ultimately, your body of work is what you have, the language that you
have used, the chords you choose, the instrumentation.”
Los Angeles folk-rock act Dawes, co-founded by brothers Taylor and
Griffin Goldsmith, found itself with not much of a band left after the
amicable departures of bassist Wylie Gelber and pianist and keyboardist
Lee Pardini.
"Because of the way I play guitar and
Griffin plays drums, I feel like our identity is in place and so solid. I
don’t think people would hear this and think it sounds like a different
band. That’s something I’m really proud of — the fact that our essence
transcends a personnel lineup."
"Front Row Seat"
I got good at changing
subjects nearly everywhere I went
Until all my
conversations all got too good to be truе
This world can wax
poetic about airborne toxic evеnts
While I'll take the
time that's left me, and I'll give it all to you
'Cause if that's the
ball game
If the experiment's
complete
And we both stand
around
To watch it all come
down
At least we got a
front-row seat
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the
same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird
implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human." shares Taylor Goldmsith.
"House Parties"
House parties and
local bands
Good weed with some
Joni fans
Old friends playing
Mega Man
And a little Donkey
Kong
I don't wanna see
Disneylands
Beer bellies and
farmer tans
House parties and
local bands
That's where I belong
“We knew he* understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I
always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says
Goldsmith.
*He is producer Mike Viola, a close friend,
who has also worked with Mandy Moore, Taylor’s spouse, along with Panic!
At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis.
"The Game"
Millie came up playing
in the boys' clubs
But they made her play
at midnight or at 8
Her friends all said
the times were finally changing
It only felt a few
centuries too late
Her eyes were always
deep inside her notebook
Her hands were always
tuning her guitar
And while some stayed
busy waiting for permission
She was on her way to
be a star
[Chorus]
But if you asked her
if anyone had held her back
She'd tеll you she
forgot most of their names
Thе losers only think
about the winners
The winners only think
about the game
“It forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways,
and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m
really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album
of a new phase.”
"Hilarity Ensues"
Knucklehead One falls
in love with Knucklehead Two
They tell each other
all their secrets
They start to share a
point of view
There's a bit lost in
translation
Always something
misconstrued
And hilarity ensues
Honorable
Mention:
Osborne by Trapper Schoepp
Life is Just a Vapor by Paul Thorn
Devils Den by Jesse Welles
Puff of Smoke by the Wood Brothers