Dear listeners,
The end of the year is nigh, which means I’ve been hard at work putting together my lists of the best albums and songs of 2025. It happens the same way each November: As soon as I think I’ve got the order of my picks sketched out, I hear something new and totally awesome that completely upends my rankings. All told, this is not the worst problem to have.
Today’s playlist, comprising some of my favorite new releases from the past few weeks, is full of such potential year-end spoilers. It features the triumphant returns of a few living legends working in very different genres (the R&B lifer Mavis Staples; the electro-pop icon Robyn; the shape-shifting Spanish auteur Rosalía), along with a few artists I’ve been following for a long time returning to sounds wonderfully reminiscent of their greatest early work (Charli XCX and Oneohtrix Point Never, who, as it happens, have worked together).
Will any of these songs or albums appear on my best of 2025 lists? Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out.
Won’t you sing for me a melody into the night there,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Charli XCX: “Chains of Love”
Wisely, Charli XCX will be following “Brat” with something completely different: a full-album soundtrack to Emerald Fennell’s upcoming take on “Wuthering Heights.” The two singles she has released from it are a far cry from the confessional club classics of her 2024 breakout album — a moody, melodramatic collaboration with John Cale (who, to be fair, is brat) and this lush, reverb-drenched pop ballad that brings me back to the best moments of her 2013 debut album, “True Romance.” If “Brat” wasn’t your thing, give this one (and what I hear as its companion piece, her great 2011 single “Stay Away”) a try. 
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Avalon Emerson & the Charm: “Eden”
Avalon Emerson first made her name as a D.J. and a producer of minimalist techno (see: her entrancing 2016 track “The Frontier”), but she took an unexpected turn on her 2023 album “Avalon Emerson & the Charm,” a collection of exquisitely arranged dream-pop tunes centered around her sweetly plain-spoken voice. This new single picks up where that LP left off: A liquid bass line and antic breakbeat dance around Emerson’s serene vocals, all adding up to a sound that reminds me of the English trio Saint Etienne. “You’re still my favorite place in Eden,” Emerson sings, carving out of the chaos her little piece of heaven.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Sharp Pins: “Popafangout”
The Chicago-based musician Kai Slater, who records under the moniker Sharp Pins, follows the hook-filled “Radio DDR” with “Balloon Balloon Balloon,” an infectious collection of power-pop that seems to exist somewhere outside of time and plays out like an answer to the unprompted question, “What if Guided by Voices loved the Byrds even more?” I’ve been spinning it nonstop, and I suggest you do the same. This leadoff track aced my test of what makes an irresistible pop song: By the end of my first listen, I was already singing along.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. fanclubwallet: “Cotton Mouth”
Here’s another one-person outfit that sounds like a full band: fanclubwallet, the indie-pop project of the Ottawa musician Hannah Judge. She wrote this song, like much of her new album “Living While Dying,” while recovering from an illness, and her muted delivery captures the isolation and monotony of that experience: “If you asked me how I felt yesterday,” she sings, “well, I wouldn’t know / But every day’s the same.” Midway through, the song bursts into Technicolor, as insistent percussion and a blazing guitar riff suggest brighter days ahead.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Robyn: “Dopamine”
Robyn is back! The pulsating “Dopamine” is the Swedish musician’s first single in seven years, following the release of her 2018 album “Honey.” Like the romantic robot-pop of her “Body Talk” era, “Dopamine” mines the tension between head and heart (“I know it’s just dopamine,” Robyn sings with a sigh, “but it feels so real to me”), pairing processed voices and arpeggiated synthesizers with the flush of unruly human emotion.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Oneohtrix Point Never: “D.I.S.”
In recent years, Daniel Lopatin, the electronic producer who records as Oneohtrix Point Never, has collaborated with pop stars (the Weeknd, FKA twigs) and released a few highly conceptual solo albums (including the very good 2021 release “Magic Oneohtrix Point Never,” which was structured to unfold like transmissions from a very strange radio station). But I’ve been enjoying the simpler, back-to-basics approach of his latest album, “Tranquilizer,” which reminds me of the sound-collage approach of his earlier work, perfected on the 2011 release “Replica.” (I’m also excited to hear his score for the upcoming Josh Safdie movie “Marty Supreme.”)
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Rosalía & Yahritza y Su Esencia: “La Perla”
I haven’t spent much time with “Lux,” the latest album from the Spanish phenom Rosalía, so I can’t yet say what I think of it — it certainly demands the time and attention of close listening. What I can say for sure is that a baroque, opera-influenced album that muses on theology is not how I expected Rosalía to follow the futuristic pop of her 2022 album “Motomami,” but if we’ve learned anything about Rosalía by now, it is to expect the unexpected. A clear highlight is this waltzing, heart-aching ballad, which features the regional Mexican group Yahritza y Su Esencia and puts Rosalía’s unique vocal talent on display.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Mavis Staples: “Beautiful Strangers”
Finally, here’s a musical benediction from Mavis Staples, 86, who recently released her first LP in six years, “Sad and Beautiful World.” That album finds Staples interpreting material from some well-known icons (Curtis Mayfield, Leonard Cohen) along with more surprising material by a younger generation of songwriters (including Frank Ocean and Mark Linkous, who led the indie-rock band Sparklehorse). This track was written by the indie singer-songwriter Kevin Morby, who recorded it in 2016 as a tenderhearted protest song. Staples’s rendition honors the original spirit, but her incomparable voice fills it with a luminous gravitas. Morby said that hearing Staples sing one of his songs has been “hands down the greatest moment and highest honor of my career.” He added, “As the person who penned ‘Beautiful Strangers,’ I feel I have every right to say; her version is better.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“8 New Songs You Should Hear Now” track list Track 1: Charli XCX, “Chains of Love” Track 2: Avalon Emerson & the Charm, “Eden” Track 3: Sharp Pins, “Popafangout” Track 4: fanclubwallet, “Cotton Mouth” Track 5: Robyn, “Dopamine” Track 6: Oneohtrix Point Never, “D.I.S.” Track 7: Rosalía & Yahritza y Su Esencia, “La Perla” Track 8: Mavis Staples, “Beautiful Strangers”
Lindsay Zoladz is a pop music critic for The Times and writes the subscriber-only music newsletter The Amplifier.
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