Looking back at the year in music, it was very much a “Golden” age. But, demon hunting aside, did it also count as golden with a small G? As we dived through our favorite music of 2025 to consider ...

The R&B world has had its share of heartbreak in 2025. And, sadly, another legend’s name has joined the list of those lost this year. As the clock quickly winds down and we approach 2026, the ...

Tell-alls, streaming service deep-dives, personal essays, and artist mythologies defined 2025’s printed year in music. Paste has picked its 10 favorite music books from the last 12 months, but I’d ...

Rap in 2025 was all about experimentation. From the year’s first runaway hit, NBA player-turned-musician Gelo’s single “Tweaker,” to the maximalist ecclesiastics of Playboi Carti’s Music, or even in ...

The R&B world has had its share of heartbreak in 2025. And, sadly, another legend’s name has joined the list of those lost in 2025. As the clock quickly winds down on this year, the following is a ...

If 2024 was the year of the situationship album (and, yes, there are still plenty that dropped thereafter), then 2025 was the year we danced through the fire. The hypnotic, high-tempo momentum of this ...

With 2025 coming to a close, that means we've reached the halfway point for this decade. Difficult as that may be to believe, it is true, and it technically marks six full years of music, counting ...

In 2024, the song of the year was so undeniable and inescapable that we don’t even have to bother naming it. This year, the landscape is much trickier. Twenty twenty-five hasn’t produced a ...

To make a list is immediately to begin second-guessing it. This year that’s especially true below the Top 10, in my list of 20 runner-up albums, for which I had double that many candidates I could ...

Welcome to the sound of public radio in 2025. Our list of the best 125 songs of the year was curated by more than 60 writers and DJs across the NPR Music Network, and runs the gamut of sounds, scenes ...

Listen to 48 tracks that broke new artists, blew apart genres and revived beloved sounds. By Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz Jon Caramanica On the one hand, living in an environment in which sounds ...

The Korean pop outsider Effie and the Brooklyn indie-rock band Geese top our critics’ lists this year. By Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz Jon Caramanica Musicians know how to make music, and they ...