My favorite albums of 2025 weren’t exactly magic tricks, but you had to listen to them closely to keep from getting head-faked. A country music traditionalist was the freshest in his field. A middle-aged rapper sounded more alive than many half his age. There were conceptual pop albums with concepts that didn’t matter, and a TikTok superstar who was better at singing hooks than dancing to them. Each of these albums rewarded curiosity, attention and interrogation — rewards that felt significant as the soulless head fakery of AI continues to puree this world into a soup of meaningless superficialities.

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