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Indiecast's Favorite Albums Of 2025

December 12, 2025·1 hr 3 min·4 clips

Stephen says This Is Lorelei’s Hollow Boy is “the great album to come out in December” and Ian compares Nate Amos to Ariel Pink.

1. Indiecast’s favorite albums of 2025 episode centers on Stephen Hyden and Ian Cohen talking through their year-end picks. 2. Stephen Hyden is the host and Ian Cohen is his co-host, and both frame the episode as a list discussion tied to indie releases and culture talk. 3. The episode asks which 2025 albums mattered enough to land in each host’s top five. 4. The conversation opens with Charli XCX’s The Moment trailer, which Stephen links to the Brat Arena Tour and to a possible shift from millennial culture to Zoomer culture. 5. Ian answers by describing Charli XCX’s appeal as a self-aware, postmodern pop star whose Brat era made her feel like a full-fledged star. 6. Stephen then complains that Charli XCX has started a Substack and jokes that she is entering the same lane as independent writers. 7. Ian extends the joke by comparing celebrity newsletter writing to famous people entering podcasting and other creator spaces. 8. The hosts then move into sports banter about the Packers, Bears, Eagles, and fantasy football before returning to music. 9. Stephen introduces This Is Lorelei’s Hollow Boy as the major December release he already placed on his list because he interviewed Nate Amos for Uproxx. 10. Stephen says Nate Amos has put out nearly 70 Bandcamp releases and describes Hollow Boy as re-recorded material that works as a skeleton key to that catalog. 11. Ian compares Nate Amos to Ariel Pink and says Hollow Boy also recalls Car Seat Headrest’s practice of revisiting older material. 12. Stephen argues that the album works on its own rather than as a playlist of older songs because the new versions hold together as a record. 13. The hosts step back and ask whether 2025 was a good year for music before answering with their own criteria and examples. 14. Stephen says his top five contains artists who had never appeared in his top five before, which he takes as a sign of a healthy year. 15. Ian says 2025 produced discernible trends like David Berman influence, 80s and 90s indie rock revivals, and easier-to-mock male pop stars. 16. Stephen adds that Taylor Swift drew more blowback this year and that emerging artists still found ways into timelines and eardrums despite algorithmic pressure. 17. Ian’s number five pick is Real Lies’ We Will Annihilate Our Enemies, which he connects to rave memories, club beats, and a Vice Deftones link. 18. Stephen’s number five pick is Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band’s New Threats from the Soul, which he places in the David Berman lineage while praising the seven-track, long-form structure. 19. The episode has a conversational, joking tone with long stretches of pop-culture analogy and sports riffing before the list starts. 20. Listeners who like indie year-end rankings and music comparisons will get the most out of it, while people wanting tightly focused criticism may skip it.

As heard by us

A loose, funny Indiecast year-end episode about 2025 albums, indie trends, and the pleasure of a shared favorite.

Indiecast turns its favorite-albums episode into a loose, critic-brained temperature check on 2025: indie rock feeling unusually present again, David Berman's influence surfacing in newer records, unmastered-album energy, Taylor Swift catching some real blowback, and a new batch…

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Why you'd press play

A year-end chat about favorite albums of 2025, with a Charli XCX mockumentary tangent and plenty of music nerdery.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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