WHY ALBUMS WILL ENDURE

PILING ON, stripping down, looking back, pushing ahead: Musicians found all sorts of uses for the album form this year, long after the jukebox in your pocket first threatened its existence.

- MIKAEL WOOD

Here are the 25 LPs that held together the shards of my attention span in 2025.

1. JENSEN McRAE, 'I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME!' The year's sharpest pop songwriting came from an overachieving L.A. native who understands at 28 that romantic relationships don't live and certainly don't die between just two people. In chatty yet carefully measured tunes with nearly as many hooks as words, McRae illuminates the accumulated humiliations and misunderstandings against which every couple flails. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder whether her ex's sister had any luck with the baby.

2. SZA, 'LANA' The only dishonest thing about "Lana," which arrived just before Christmas last year as 15 new songs slipped under the wrapping of 2022's “SOS,” is that SZA says it's not an album.

3. MADI DIAZ, 'FATAL OPTIMIST' Nothing to lose and nowhere to hide.