Chorus.fm’s Top 30 Albums of 2025

Best of 2025
Jason Tate

I had to re-read how I introduced this feature the past few years to make sure I didn’t repeat myself. But, here we are again at the start of a new year and it’s the best time to recap our favorite albums of 2025. Below you’ll find the contributor best of 2025 list with blurbs written by the staff talking about why we loved these albums. Each album title links to a streaming page so you can check out anything you may have missed. There’s also a playlist featuring a song from every album on this list, and a few staff members have shared their individual lists and some commentary in their blogs.

The final list is the combination of ten contributors and represents what each of these individuals liked most over the past year. It’s really that simple. So, before commenting something negative or mean, please think about the people behind the lists and the time spent putting together something that’s supposed to be fun and represent what the contributors to this website enjoyed the most over the past twelve months.

As always, thanks for spending 2025 with us, and I hope you find something new to check out and love.

Note: Check the bottom of this post for links to individual contributor lists.

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Sponsor: Albums – The Music Player That Cares About Music

Albums
Sponsored Post

Albums is the player that cares as much about your music library as you do.

Made by music-obsessed solo developer Adam Linder, Albums provides the best alternative to the built-in Music app on Apple platforms for true music lovers, now available on macOS as well as iOS! Relive the glory days of the iPod with album shuffle, and use robust tagging and filtering options to build the album collections of your dreams—you can even tag music not in your library to check out later. Beyond playback and organization, Albums is packed with features to enrich your musical life; the Release Feed keeps track of new and upcoming music from artists and record labels in your library; the app tracks your play history and generates regular listening reports, like Adam’s 2025 Listening Report, attached to this post; and the Insights tab offers dozens of personalized collections to help you experience your library in a new way.

Albums is deeply integrated with Apple platform features, including comprehensive Shortcuts support, a first-class CarPlay app, and interactive widgets. It is available for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. With over six years of iterative improvement on the App Store, the app is the best it’s ever been—and only getting better. When you’re ready to level up your music-listening experience, download Albums on the App Store. If you’re looking for something a little different, you can also check out Adam’s chaotic neutral music-discovery app, Univershuffle, which shuffles all of the music on the Apple Music catalog. Seriously!

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‘James Bond’ Coming to Netflix

James Bond
Jason Tate

Variety:

Twenty-six James Bond films (the 25 Eon joints, plus the prodigal Never Say Never Again) are coming to Netflix this month. The deal was inked last year, with Bond making the streamer jump alongside other MGM films like Legally Blonde, Rocky, and series The Man in the High Castle. Sources told Deadline the movie is a “strategic business decision designed to broaden global reach and reengage audiences.” To put in less business-speak terms, it’s to remind people James Bond exists before Denis Villeneuve’s version comes to theaters.

Prince Streams Surge After ‘Stranger Things’ Placement

Prince
Jason Tate

Prince is having a surge in streams after being featured in the Stranger Things finale:

According to data released by Spotify, “Purple Rain” saw a 243% increase in global streams between December 31st (when the Stranger Things finale debuted) and January 1st, 2026. Additionally, the song saw a 577% increase in streaming by Gen Z users, who hopefully weren’t hearing it for the first time. “When Doves Cry” experienced smaller but similar results: a 200% increase in global streams, with a 128% increase for Gen Z specifically. The feature also brought an increased interest in Prince’s catalog overall, with a 190% increase in global streaming.

Napster Pivoting to Being an AI Platform

Headphones
Jason Tate

Digital Music News:

Napster is no longer a music streaming service. We’ve become an AI platform for creating and experiencing music in new ways. That means the streaming catalog and playlists from the old app won’t work here,” the splash screen reads. “We know this can be frustrating, especially if you spent years building your playlists. To make things easier, you can export all your Napster playlists in just a few clicks.

Josh Ritter Talks With Rolling Stone

Josh Ritter
Jason Tate

Josh Ritter talked with Rolling Stone about his latest album:

“I’m going through all the things that all of us are in this country right now,” he says. “All these enormous feelings and uncertainties. In inviting the muse in to experience that, I’m inviting it to be witnessed. It helps me to make sense of my own life and make sense of my own feelings.”