Bruce Springsteen

Piling on, stripping down, looking back, pushing ahead: Musicians found all sorts of uses for the album form this year, long after the jukebox in your pocket first threatened its existence. Here are the 25 LPs that held together the shards of my attention span in 2025.

Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.

1. Jensen McRae, “I Don’t Know How but They Found Me!”
The year’s sharpest pop songwriting came from an overachieving L.A. native who understands at 28 that romantic relationships don’t live — and certainly don’t die — between just two people. In chatty yet carefully measured tunes with nearly as many hooks as words, McRae illuminates the accumulated humiliations and misunderstandings against which every couple flails. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder whether her ex’s sister had any luck with the baby.

2. SZA, “Lana”
The only dishonest thing about “Lana,” which arrived just before Christmas last year as 15 new songs slipped under the wrapping of 2022’s “SOS,” is that SZA says it’s not an album.

3. Madi Diaz, “Fatal Optimist”
Nothing to lose and nowhere to hide.

4. Morgan Wallen, “I’m the Problem”
It’s his party, and he’ll cry if he wants to.

5. Dijon, “Baby”
An album about new parenthood that feels like new parenthood.

6. Bad Bunny, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”
After the adventure, the homecoming.

7. Tobias Jesso Jr., “Shine”
A pop-star whisperer takes a moment to listen to himself.

8. Parker McCollum, “Parker McCollum”
Beware the Nashville authenticity play — and admit that sometimes it works.

9. Gigi Perez, “At the Beach, In Every Life”
Like an emo-folk snowglobe.

10. Justin Bieber, “Swag”
On which, having survived teen-pop stardom, he flicks another ash out on the old patio.

11. Geese, “Getting Killed”
Rock is safe in the hands of the 25-and-unders.

12. Alemeda, “But What the Hell Do I Know”
Seriously.

13. Sam Fender, “People Watching”
A pint hoisted in the heartland.

14. Lady Gaga, “Mayhem”
The second (third?) life of a showgirl.

15. Bon Iver, “Sable, Fable”
“I could leave behind the snow / For a land of palm and gold.”

16. Sabrina Carpenter, “Man’s Best Friend”
Every himbo has his day.

17. CMAT, “Euro-Country”
Hungry for love, hungry for sex, hungry for anything not cooked by Jamie Oliver.

18. Haim, “I Quit”
Lots of breakup albums seek comfort in certainty; Haim’s lives on the slippery surface of doubt.

19. Lucy Dacus, “Forever Is a Feeling”
Sensual or cerebral is a false dichotomy.

20. Summer Walker, “Finally Over It”
A sculpted eyebrow arched in perpetuity.

21. Lily Allen, “West End Girl”
[Flush-faced emoji]

22. Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Philadelphia Sessions”
From the Boss’ “Tracks II” trove of lost albums, a more vivid depiction of Bummed-Out Bruce than director Scott Cooper’s leaden “Deliver Me From Nowhere.”

23. Zach Top, “Ain’t in It For My Health”
Nashville’s friskiest traditionalist.

24. Eddie Chacon, “Lay Low”
Shimmering slow-mo psychedelia.

25. Mariah Carey, “Here for It All”
Crinkly ’70s soul, jumping slap-bass gospel, a faithful cover of Wings’ wonderfully gloopy “My Love”: As its title promises, Carey’s 16th studio album opens its doors to a little bit of everything.

Joe Ely, a singer-songwriter and foundational figure in Texas’ progressive country-rock scene, has died. He was 78.

According to a statement from his representatives, Ely died Dec. 15 at home in New Mexico, from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s disease and pneumonia.

Ely had an expansive vision for country and rock, heard on singles like “All My Love,” “Honky Tonk Masquerade,” “Hard Livin’,” “Dallas” and “Fingernails.” Born in 1947 in Amarillo, Texas, Ely was raised in Lubbock before moving to Austin and kicking off a new era of country music in the region, one that reflected both punk and the heartland rock of the era back into the roughhousing country scenes they came from.

After founding the influential band the Flatlanders with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock (which dissolved soon after recording its 1972 debut), he began a solo career in 1977. He released several acclaimed albums, including 1978’s ambitiously rambling “Honky Tonk Masquerade,” before finding his popular peak on 1980’s harder-rocking “Live Shots” and 1981’s “Musta Notta Gotta Lotta.”

Ely, beloved for barroom poetry that punctured country music’s mythmaking, was a ready collaborator across genres. He befriended the Clash on a tour of London and sat in on the band’s sessions recording their epochal “London Calling” LP. He later toured extensively with the group, singing backup on “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and earning a lyrical tribute on “If Music Could Talk” — ”Well there ain’t no better blend than Joe Ely and his Texas men.”

Ely was a favorite opener for veteran rock acts looking to imbue sets with Texas country swagger. He performed with the Rolling Stones, Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen, who later sang with him on “Odds of the Blues” in 2024. Springsteen once said of Ely: “Thank God he wasn’t born in New Jersey. I would have had a lot more of my work cut out for me.”

In the ‘90, Ely joined a supergroup, the Buzzin Cousins, with John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine and James McMurtry, to record for Mellencamp’s film “Falling From Grace.” Robert Redford later asked Ely to compose material for his film “The Horse Whisperer,” which led to collaborations with his old Flatlanders bandmates and a reunion in the 2000s. He also acted in in the musical “Chippy: Diaries of a West Texas Hooker” at Lincoln Center in New York City and joined the Tex-Mex collective Los Super Seven — he shared in the band’s Grammy for Mexican-American/Tejano Music Performance in 1999, his only such award.

Ely was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in 2022 and released his last album, “Love and Freedom,” in February.