Tom Dunne: Women rule in my best albums of 2025 list
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Women writers have dominated fiction writing for years. Similar domination of the music charts was inevitable. Women writers now publish 60 to 70% of traditionally published novels. But this year their dominance of the music world has been startling.
It’s only when you make your end of year list, and you know I love a good list, that the shear extent of it becomes clear. Yes there were comebacks -Pulp, Sparks, St. Etienne etc –and great albums from Bon Iver, Geese and Bren Berry, but after that, in 2025, female writers were utterly in the ascendance.
It was already the Year of the Pop Princess. It was hard to move during summer without bumping into Charlie XCX, Sabrina Carpenter or Gracie Adams. But this was different. This is indie world. The traditional preserve of Nick Cave and others. Blokes basically.
But not anymore. These are simply my seven favourite albums of 2025. It wasn’t a gender balance exercise. It is the writing, the singing and the words. They are observational, informed, clever, and often raw, honest and brave. So, in no real order.
CMAT is the most welcome addition to the world of music since Kirsty McColl. I can no longer imagine a world without her. The songs are great, the gigs are wild, she is funny, honest, refreshing. I’d say 2025 was the Year of CMAT but she is only getting going.
People are crying at CMAT gigs. These are tears of happiness. When you make someone cry with happiness you are doing something right. I have a friend who has never used Spotify and has never heard of CMAT. He is righting both of those things as we speak. I envy that man. What a Christmas lies ahead for him.
I tend to talk about Adrienne Lenker with scant reference to her band mates in Big Thief. I apologise for this wholeheartedly.
For while her solo albums are a joy there is no denying that when she slips back into the structure of the band the song quality just reaches new highs.
There is not a bad track on this album, and it flows like a mountain stream.
Surprise of 2025 #1. We didn’t see this coming. It’s hard to imagine an album that is more of its time, swaddled in the reality of facing your life’s trials honestly and soberly. The songs started life more as an attempt to exorcise demons than have a hit. But recorded in just 16 days they have rejuvenated Allen’s career. Possibly a bit long, but 16 days! Wow!
Surprise of 2025 #2. Didn’t see this coming either. An album in 13 languages, with opera, the LSO, a Pulitzer Prize winning arranger and subject matter largely inspired by the lives of female saints. The Pope is a fan. Bjork is the least odd thing about it.
Some have sniped that it has a “Eurovision Vibe” to it, and it does a little bit. But in the absence of that competition in our lives in 2026 I see no problem with this.
You may see her still as the “singer in Paramour” but there is a reason David Byrne has been getting her to guest on some of his tracks. She is emerging as a much more interesting writer than you would suspect her to be in her main band. A huge solo tour beckons. Hayley Williams is just getting started.
A large part of the reinvention of Wet Leg from the floral dress phase of their debut is the emergence of Rhian Teasdale as a super confident front woman. Some people just bloom where others wilt. It’s all quite Velvet Underground influenced but incredibly more playful. We thought Chaise Lingue was a one off. We were wrong.
Another surprise but only because the idea that Maykay has never released a solo album before this is jaw dropping. She very often guests on other people’s tracks and when she does – with Elaine Mai or Mik Pyro – it is often scene stealing. There are few singers could deliver the heartbreaking poignancy of songs like or A voice for the ages.
