This week, we’re looking back on the best art, music, food, movies and more from the year. See our entire Best of 2025 guide here .

If it wasn’t the rising cost of living , or the deaths of David Lynch and D’Angelo , it was the authoritarian regime . This year brought daily reasons to bury oneself in music, this miraculous thing that’s been sapped of its monetary value by parasitic streaming services in order to fund AI warfare but which still provides transcendence and joy, especially in a live setting.

I went to 38 shows in 2025, and only reviewed some of them for KQED. (After 30 years of writing about music, it’s a form of self-care to go to a show as a fan , and not for work.) So here — reviewed in just one sentence each, complete with bad photos from my phone — are 2

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