The 2025 Year End Review: The 3rd Annual Roundup of Year End "Best Of" Lists Found on the Blogosphere

New Year's fireworks courtesy of Pixabay.

For the third year in a row Bloggerhythms is gathering a handful of "best of" posts published by some of the music blogs I read regularly, so just as the calendar gets ready to flip to 2026 this year's edition has arrived for your reading pleasure and musical education.

Similarly to the two previous editions, some of the bloggers mentioned below have national or international followings with large readerships. Others were posted by independent, personal blogs like mine with smaller followings. They're listed here in no particular order. Not all of the lists are specifically related to 2025.
    • Highway Queens, the excellent blog published by Michelle Lindsay in Scotland, offers readers two lists that highlight women's music because that's what she does so well. Here are Michelle's Top 10 Songs of 2025 and her Top 10 Albums of the Year.
    • Cover Me is a blog that only discusses cover songs. Here are their 50 best of 2025. It's quite an eclectic list.
    • Bruce Warren's Some Velvet Blog published his 18,973 best albums of 2025. He is the former program director of WXPN-FM, 88.5, Philadelphia. Do you really believe he listed that many records in his post? Be sure to check in to find out. Also, Warren posted his Best of Philly Music for 2025. This list isn't just a collection of Warren's favorite local albums. It encompasses live shows, artists, their work behind the scenes and more.
    • AllMusic's 100 best albums of the year are wildly eclectic and includes every genre you can think of. For example: Bad Bunny and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir are both represented on their list.
    • Casey Chambers, proprietor of The College Crowd Digs Me, writes a fun blog that's mostly dedicated to older vinyl purchases he finds. Occasionally, Casey posts about books he recommends, and today he discusses his 7 favorite books he read this year.
    • Here Comes The Flood is a blog named after a Peter Gabriel song. Proprietor Hans Werksman mostly writes about unknown artists who want him to say something nice about their music. Here are his 20 best albums of 2025 posted in four separate parts. You can access each of his posts in this brief series from the first one I've linked to here.
    • Ultimate Classic Rock recently posted their Top 50 songs that tell a story. Somehow, they left off Al Wilson's #27 hit from 1968, "The Snake." In my opinion it easily deserves a place on the list.
    • Even though Christmas was a week ago there are some holiday themed lists worthy of your attention. The first one is from Merry and Bright, a Christmas music blog that normally only posts during the holiday season. The owner uses the name Der Bingle as his online moniker. He's just finished up his posts for 2025 by publishing his holiday music award winners for this year.

    • Culture Sonar is one of my favorite blogs. They mostly cover older music with occasional excursions into the current world. Here's one of their unique posts featuring the Top 10 Christmas songs of the '80s.

    Comments

    Post a Comment

    All-Time Popular Posts

    Slower Than Slow: 16 RPM Records

    Image
    Have you ever heard of a long forgotten vinyl format, the 16 2/3 RPM record? They were half the speed of the 33 1/3 RPM albums that were the traditional standard for recorded music. Most record players in the 1950s and 1960s came with a speed setting to play these long forgotten discs that were considered novelties even during the years they were available. Because most, but not all, 16s had big holes and were 7" in diameter many of them were mistaken for 45 RPMs and at that size the speed allowed for up to 20 minutes of playing time per side. However, there was no true standard size and they were also manufactured to be 9, 10, or 12 inches in diameter, and these larger records played even longer. Just like the other speeds and formats 16s could be played one record at a time or stacked on a changer for continuous play. Radio stations often used the discs for pre-recorded radio shows containing interviews, dramas, and documentaries. More frequen...
    Read more

    Why Do 45 RPM Records Have Big Holes?

    Image
    Today we're going to find out why 45 RPM records have much larger holes than 78s and 33s. Believe it or not I often wondered about this burning question when I was collecting hundreds of these little seven inch gems back the 1960s. According to several websites, including Answerbag , the reason for the large hole used by 45s was simple. It was difficult for the old 78s, with their smaller holes, to find their way onto jukebox spindles. The large hole effectively eliminated that problem. Strangely, seven inch 45s were often pressed with the smaller holes used for LPs in many countries outside the United States, especially in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Overseas the inserts (commonly know as spiders) were manufactured into the large holes at the factories but they could be punched out if desired. The Beatles' British single of "Love Me Do," pictured here, is a typical example. Why were the spiders built into English 45s? I was unable to fi...
    Read more

    10 Great Beatles Songs You May Have Never Heard

    Image
    I recently paid a visit to a blog that I read regularly published by my British cyber-buddy, Martin Warminger. At his site, Music Obsessive , he just listed what are, in his opinion, the worst Beatles songs of all time . It's an idea I wanted to steal, and I could come up with a short but bad list, but for the sake of originality I decided to do something completely different instead. So, here is a list of ten songs by my all-time favorite band that deserve a better place in the annals of Beatles history. Most of them are only known by their hardcore fans. Here they are in chronological order. You can listen to a few of the rarer ones below. 1. I'll Be On My Way The only known recorded version of this very early, 1963, Lennon-McCartney ditty appears on Live at The BBC . The Beatles never put it on vinyl. Yes, it's simplistic and the lyrics even have the audacity to rhyme the word "moon" with "June." However, the song has one of those undeni...
    Read more