Every new year brings the same question for music fans: what’s next? After a year that brought about some amazing albums, it reminded listeners that great art still rises to the top, even within an ...

And now we turn our attention to 2026 with Stereogum's annual preview of what we're excited to hear next year. This time, I've broken the list into sections to provide context around which inclusions ...

As 2025 draws to a close, Metacritic has unveiled its annual rankings of the best albums of the year, highlighting a diverse and genre-spanning collection of critically acclaimed releases. From ...

In a year that had no rap songs in the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 for the first time since 1990, rap thrived in so many other ways. This list of the 25 best rap albums of 2025 includes grand ...

The number of albums released year upon year seems to grow exponentially, with self-released albums increasingly the norm. Much of the most interesting and courageous modern jazz is released on small, ...

Ayyoun is a staff writer who loves all things gaming and tech. His journey into the realm of gaming began with a PlayStation 1 but he chose PC as his platform of choice. With over 6 years of ...

90 tracks! Five hours! Remix the year in pop however you wish. By Lindsay Zoladz The longest Amplifier playlist of the year is finally here: five hours, 90 tracks, each of which was chosen as a 2025 ...

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 ...

If we needed any more proof that the album isn't dead, 2025 was it. On this episode, Stephen Thompson is joined by Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen to run through 12 dazzling albums that stuck with ...

In 2025, bands had a lot to say about the state of the world, from La Dispute’s No One Was Driving the Car, which surveyed late-stage capitalism, and End It, who examined class structure through ...

From Mavis Staples to the Kronos Quartet—these are our music critic’s favorite works from this year. The Lebanese Civil War. Corporate agri-capitalism. Tips for surviving a nasty divorce. Violence, ...