Dominic's Best of 2025

2025? Did that happen? It sure did and now we are a month deep into 2026. Time for the mandatory look back on the year past and to pick out a few of our highlights.

I think I can speak for everyone here by saying that this hasn’t been an easy task this year. I am struggling to find positives in a long year of horrors. However, as the saying goes, life goes on, and there were still a lot of cool and interesting things happening in the world of music and the arts in general. I’m going to stick to the music for my best of the year round up. To make things simpler, I divided my list into a few categories. I’ll give you my top pick and one or two notable runners up. As with any of these types of things, it’s all subjective. I know I have forgotten loads. In fact, whilst looking over releases for the year I found several albums by artists that I like that I had not even known about. Shame on me. And I work in a record store. LoL. Just shows that no matter what you know, there is still way more that you don’t.

Favorite New Artist

The Cords: S/T LP – There comes a time when you must let the younger generation just get on with it, but it is always nice when a record comes out that has cross-generational appeal. The Cords are a couple of young ladies from Scotland who have made an enjoyable pop record. On Slumberland Records, which has a whole roster of bands in love with the sound of UK DIY and C86.

Honorable mentions:

Annie Achron: Never Paradise LP. Cool synth-pop.

K9: Thrills LP. Post Punk, jangly, lo-fi from Richmond.

Autocamper: What Do You Do All Day LP. More C86 and 80’s Scottish pop inspired indie from Manchester.

Puppet Wipes: Live Inside. LP. Lo-fi post punk from Canada.

Added Dimensions: Jane From Preoccupied Europe LP. More cool lo-fi indie post-punk from Richmond.

Favorite New Record from an established artist

Pulp: More LP. Sheffield’s finest (there’s stiff competition for that title) return after twenty-four years since their last studio album with a banger. Touring and playing shows like it’s 1995 all over again. Jarvis for president/prime minister.

Honorable mentions:

The Lemonheads: Love Chant LP. Everyone’s favorite rogue pop star Evan Dando returns with his Lemonheads and a new album. Like hearing from an old friend after many years.

The Liminanas: Faded LP. The French psych duo return with a great record aided by some friends, including Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream.

Gruff Rhys: Dim Probs LP. Welsh hero and Super Furry Animal main man delivers another fine solo album. Clever, witty pop of the highest order.

Lady Wray: Cover Girl LP. Her third album and another produced by Leon Michels for Big Crown Records. Great mix of retro-inspired soul and R & B with modern pop and hip-hop influences.

Stereolab: Instant Holograms On Metal Film LP. Another fine return from a group that has been out of the spotlight for some time. The ‘Lab came out with an album that sounds just like vintage Stereolab from the 1990s. Really good. John Scott went to see them when they came to North Carolina and said they were ace.

Best single.

Psychoactive: S/T 7”. L.A. punk featuring members of Rough Kids, who Sorry State released records by. Two blistering, classic old school punk blasts. Limited single, but there was a second pressing. Get one.

Best cassette tape.

The Ancient Pulse: S/T Totally brilliant horror soundtrack-inspired music. If you dig John Carpenter, then you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this cassette. For added authenticity, the same keyboard used by Carpenter was utilized for these recordings. Up there for release of the year in my opinion. I had this on repeat over the Halloween period.

Honorable mention:

Canned Snakes: Live At Budgetcan. Local supergroup of sorts casually releases a cool tape. Hard to put a tag on it, genre wise. Indie/post punk/rock? I don’t know. We liked it around here.

Best compilation.

All The Young Droids LP. Terrific compilation of synth-pop and post-punk, mostly from the U.K. and released between 1978-1985. A well put together comp with great liner notes and information. You’ll discover a lot of new favorites on this one. Highly recommended.

Honorable mentions:

Chiswick Records 1975-1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM LP. Nicely put together collection of punk, pub rock and pop singles from the great Chiswick Records label.

Secret Superstar Sounds LP. Cool compilation from the folks at Soul Jazz Records concentrating on more obscure British DIY, punk, power pop and new wave singles released between 1977 and 1980.

Best Live Album.

Johnny Marr: Look Out Live! LP. The coolest guitar slinger out there gave fans another fun live album taken from his more recent solo career outings, but with some Smiths songs for good measure. Highlight of the autumn, if not the year, was travelling to Norfolk, Virginia to catch the man play live. He did not disappoint. An absolute legend and so cool and friendly.

Reissues and rarities from older artists.

Dennis Bovell: Sufferer Sounds LP. Top-notch U.K. reggae and dub from the late 1970’s. A brilliant-sounding collection of prime-period productions from Dennis Bovell. A must-have for dub fans.

Sister Nancy: One, Two LP. Reissued for Record Store Day, this is the much in demand reggae album that includes the classic Bam Bam. Always tough to find, so nice to have available again.

Vince Guaraldi: You’re A Good Sport, Charlie Brown OST LP. We’ve been loving the Charlie Brown TV special soundtracks that have been getting released recently. All filled with cool, mostly unheard music from the great Vince Guaraldi. This one was released as a zoetrope record, so you get to see Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown and other animations as your record spins. Nice.

Longineu Parsons: S/T LP. Rare and hard to find funky and righteous jazz originally released in 1980 and never fully reissued until now. Another good Record Store Day release.

Best used record score.

Eugene McDaniels: Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse LP. Saving the best and most special one to the end. I have known about this jazz grail for decades and have had a reissue LP and CD to keep me satisfied over the years, but finding an original copy in the wild has proved tough. In the stores that I have worked at, it has come in once or twice and I have seen it for sale at record shows, but either the price or the condition wasn’t right. Finally, in 2025, a beautiful copy still in the shrink with the lyric sheet came into my possession. How, you ask? Well, whilst rummaging through one of our dusty storage lockers looking at mostly junk records, Daniel found this one and a few other decent titles that we could easily sell at the shop. When he saw how hyped I was over the Headless Heroes record, he simply gave it to me. Wow! Amazing. That’s the sort of thing our Doctor D does. He is the best boss, the best friend and best person ever. If you aren’t familiar with this record, do yourself a favor and go check it out. You’ll recognize some of the sounds, as they were sampled by, among others, A Tribe Called Quest. Total banger of a record and just as meaningful and relevant now as it was fifty years or so ago. Thank you, Daniel.

Okay, that’s a small sampling of highlights of the year for me. Loads missing and still more I need to hear and catch up on. Fun homework.

Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting our store, thanks for ordering from us and thank you to all the artists and bands that made all this fantastic music for us to love and enjoy. 2026 might well be a shit show in the making, but let’s hope we’ll all be here this time next year to review the top sounds and good things that happen this year. Fuck you know who.

Cheers - Dom