Yes, this is 2026, and I’m supposed to be recapping my year in music in 2025. To get there, we must begin by stumbling blindly backwards through the mists of time.
Regional accents, a new upbeat form of rock, records which sold in their millions. The cultural movement of Britpop (in its key timespan of 1993–1997), is responsible for some of music’s most triumphant scenes, fondly remembered by many who grew up alongside its rise.
Britpop’s pop culture dominance came at a turning point for 90s music, a reaction to the emotional, riff heavy sound of ‘grunge’, Britpop was equally as guitar driven, but a more lighthearted aesthetic, relatable songwriting and infectious nostalgia. The genre’s longevity and impact continues to be felt.
My ancestry is largely German, but there’s a 20-odd-percent link with England. In a small way, this genetic background informs a persistent dream, wherein I become a citizen of the United Kingdom and live in a closet somewhere near a pub with cask-conditioned ale, an airport with connections to the Dalmatian coast, and a quality Balti takeaway.
Although owing to the expense of all this for a pensioner, I’d probably be required to subsist on Marmite and white bread from Tesco.
Granted, I’d rather complete my days in Bamberg. But being a monoglot damages one’s options on the continent. On the other hand, becoming a Brit would be a political and historical statement, an American trading in his New World, American-Revolution-since-gone-badly-wrong credentials for a reversion to the Old World, accompanied by a courtly bow to King Charles. It strikes me as the ultimate in chef’s kisses.
Naturally, I’d soon learn to my everlasting chagrin that people aren’t very perceptive anywhere you go on the planet these days. But for a chance to finally achieve solace, peace and bliss through Ordinary Bitter, Mild and Brown Porter?
Got any crisps with that? Just spare me the tabloids, please.
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As a reluctant American who has never actually lived in the United Kingdom, I obviously am in no position to fathom Britpop as natives did, or to comprehend the phenomenon as it pertained to socio-economic and cultural markers unique to the music’s homeland.
I’ve never done the Twist, let alone the Poznań.
To be sure, any alert and perceptive reader might glean just enough about the British Isles to understand a little of Britpop’s controversies: blue collar versus white collar, council estates versus quaint villages in Cornwall, non-white Brits versus white Brits, lager louts versus CAMRA, toxic jingoism versus new-age meditation, and so on. I understand far more of it now than before.
Three decades ago, I liked grunge, and saw no conflict between it and Britpop even if Damon Albarn of Blur found grunge distasteful.
The presumed “fact” that Britpop borrowed heavily from classic rock didn’t bother me, either. By the end of the 1970s, I was shifting rapidly to Anglophilia in rock and pop, and this trend continued amid good times and bad. My interpretation of Britpop was that of a restoration, not only of guitars, but a coherent notion of melody; I believe Ray Charles once observed that if a song couldn’t be whistled while walking down the street, what good was it?
All I knew thirty-odd years ago was that I liked the music that Britpop bands were playing, and I tended to continue liking it, as well as liking what other British bands were doing irrespective of their presumed classification by genre: Supergrass, Blur, Pulp, Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Elastica, Radiohead, The Verve … and, of course, Oasis.
In case my readers have been residing beneath one of our mayor’s tainted creek rocks, in 2025 the brothers Gallagher reunited Oasis after 16 years, played 41 dates around the world, refused to vary the song list one solitary iota fro night to night, and raked in the cash as fast as it could be printed.
After 41 shows, Oasis ’25 is over and the numbers are starting to roll in. Around 2.7 million people attended, spending US$579 million on tickets and untold more on merch (I can’t wait to see those numbers.)
From the start, there wasn’t any doubts on my part that the tour was all about the money, with Noel and Liam reportedly earning $50 million each. But one pecuniary outcome doesn’t necessarily preclude a range of accompanying truths. The music still had to be persuasively performed, and the crowds were obliged to approve. It was, and they did. I certainly approved of Oasis’ comeback, because it provided me with recurring, cathartic joy during an otherwise grim, challenging, death-laden year.
I wasn’t the only one to disregard the prevailing advice, and choose to put my life (at age 65) in the hands of a rock and roll band. As Paste’s Lacy Baugher Milas put it, the Oasis reunion tour “was the year’s most wholesome story.”
And who saw that coming?
Oasis has always been more subversive than most realize. From their unapologetic and oft-stated determination to become the biggest band in the world to their complete rejection of the moody, grunge vibes that were so popular when their first album hit shelves, they and their music have always had a certain kind of aspirational undercurrent. (Don’t ever tell either Gallagher I said this, but it’s hard to think of two people who are more romantic about the power of their chosen profession, in the end.) Rock and roll is supposed to be a good time, music is meant to lift people up, and there’s nothing so shitty in the world that a good tune can’t make it better. (Even, apparently, after almost two decades of estrangement.) Oasis has never forgotten that fact. And if we did…well. Thank goodness they’re back to remind us.
Despite being neither British nor a teenybopper during the 90s, I nonetheless embraced Britpop. You may see a Grinch-like countenance on the surface, but my soul is melodic and anthemic.
Britpop coincided with my “pub years” of initial success and of my first marriage (which was a resounding failure). Those years were crazed, punishing, gonzo-laced, and not a hell of a lot different from the tumult of a rock band on tour.
As little as I drink nowadays, and it’s not much, my capacity during the 90s was Falstaffian. Truthfully, I can’t even fathom it today. It was that “best of times, worst of times” Dickensian shtick.
I’ve never wanted to “go back,” but such is the power of music in my life that I’m regularly taken back to the 1990s by songs and albums, especially during an entirely dreadful 2025.
So it was that I abandoned my usual listening routine, discarded the discipline, and conceded to Oasis ― both to the excitement of the tour, and to those same songs, over and over again. I seldom yield; in 2025, yielding seemed unavoidable. It’s how I managed the grief, stress and pressure in the here and now, all the while striving not to think too much about the tightrope I’d been walking when the songs first burrowed their way into my soul.
Much of it was Oasis, though not all. In 2025 I binged Supergrass, Radiohead, Suede and the Manics at various times. In addition, it wasn’t always Britpop. I ended the year with a 40-album excursion to my 1970s, high-school-era album and cassette collection.
One does what is necessary to get through tough times, and naturally I hope that 2026 will be better. Unfortunately, finding new music of the sort “that Roger likes” gets harder all the time; having glanced at the coming year’s album release schedule, I see maybe three items of interest during the first quarter.
Alas.
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Every now and then in 2025, I listened to classical, jazz and world music. Most often I didn’t, and that’s in the process of being rectified. Already in 2026 there has been an unprecedented cleaning-up of my home office, along with Diana’s purchase of a pre-used amplifier for restoring the viability of my audio equipment (the previous amp died in 2023 and I move SLOWLY in the best of time), giving me renewed access to the hundreds of classical, jazz and world music compact discs shelved nearby.
Headphones are great, but they’ve become tiresome. There needs to be music filling a damn room again as I work, and in 2026, it’s coming together.
Live music? Maybe I’ve gotten too old for traipsing around to venues. The only live music I heard all year long in 2025 came in Macedonia with this guy playing the accordion during what appeared to be a roaming wake.
Following are the rock and pop releases that I’ll remember from 2025.
Honorary Recognition (No Releases in 2025)
19, 20, 21 DMA’s … Hills End (2016), For Now (2018), The Glow (2020)
18 DMA’s … How Many Dreams? (2023)
Each year certain bands, performers and music come to my attention of which I was previously unaware. A few years ago, an example was Courteeners, a group from Manchester that has since become a great personal favorite. In late 2024, Courteeners released an album called Pink Cactus Café, with the song “The Beginning of the End,” featuring guest artist DMA’S. I’d never heard of them, but the collab stuck with me.
I still know very little about DMA’s apart from it being a band from Australia that has four albums, all of which I now own on CD. This means another DMA’s album is due soon; as an aside, the same is true of Nothing But Thieves, which last released an album in 2023 (might we also see new music from the Maccabees? The mind fairly reels).
Nine – Seventeen: Shuffle ‘Em Any Way You Like
17 Franz Ferdinand … The Human Fear
16 Shame … Cutthroat
15 Pulp … More
14 Mogwai … The Bad Fire
13 Sparks … MAD!
12 Counting Crows … Butter Miracle, the Complete Sweets!
11 Haim … I Quit
10 The Charlatans … We Are Love
09 Sam Fender … People Watching
Butter Miracle would score higher if not for half of it dating to 2021. I’m a fan, but damn, Duritz writes SLOWLY. There was something to like on each of these albums; they just didn’t become earworms.
Undisputed Four – Eight
08 Bob Mould … Here We Go Crazy
07 Cheap Trick … All Washed Up
06 Sunflower Bean … Mortal Primetime
05 Doves … Constellations for the Lonely
04 Wolf Alice … The Clearing
All Washed Up arrived late in the year and likely will carry over to 2026.
Undisputed Top Three
03 The Amazons … 21st Century Fiction
02 Suede … Antidepressants
01 Manic Street Preachers … Critical Thinking
These three albums dominated my internal air waves, and it isn’t even close. In February, I packed earbuds to Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro for the express purpose of listening to Critical Thinking, which was released right as we were leaving America. As with Antidepressants, the songs are uniformly strong.
In December of 2022, my best old ex-friend J. and I traveled to Chicago to see the Manics on a double bill with Suede; it was our last road trip before dissolution-ment set in, and a truly pleasant memory that informed my listening to the new 2025 albums by both bands.
As for Suede, I have a freshman year adolescent man crush on guitarist Richard Oakes, who eschews the flashy solo and relentlessly plays what the song demands. Think: Johnny Marr. I adore that in a guitarist.
The Amazons are from Reading UK and have nothing to do with the retailer, South America or stereotypically-configured women. The band has always been interesting to me, but this album is far more muscular, with stadium-sizes catchy numbers; Daddy likes this sort of thing.
My favorite song of the year is easy: “Hiding in Plain Sight.” It functions simultaneously as an indicator of optimism (2025’s beginning) and a rueful reminder that very little of that optimism survived the year. As an aside, I’ve always considered my favorite rock band to be the Who, and this might yet be true, but for the past 25 years, the Manics take the crown.
I also found three “classic rock” superduperdeluxewhatever re-releases interesting in 2025.
- The Rolling Stones … Black and Blue
- The Who … Who Are You
- Pink Floyd … Wish You Were Here
In each instance, I gave a pass to the many extras and remixes; those bore me. I just wanted to hear the album in its original order, then proceed directly to the live concerts: the Stones in London with Ron Wood and Billy Preston (1976); the Who (recordings from the U.S. leg of the 1979 tour with Kenney Jones replacing Keith Moon on drums; they’re better than we’ve been led to believe; and Floyd’s legendary Los Angeles show on April 26, 1975, as bootlegged by Mike “The Mic” Millard.
If you do not know the bittersweet story of Millard’s highly ethical bootlegging career, hit Google and prepare to be awed. It’s one of the best stories in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
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I listened at least once to each of these, and most twice. As always, I listen carefully to the new releases. If something doesn’t click after a couple times, it’s time to move on.
Turnstile … Never Enough
Van Morrison … Remembering Now
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts … Talkin’ to the Trees
Alison Goldfrapp … Flux
Rush … 50 (Anniversary Super Deluxe)
Stereolab … Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Bruce Springsteen … Land of Hopes & Dreams EP
Bono & U2 … Stories of Surrender EP
Suede … Sci-Fi Lullabies Vol. 2
English Teacher … This Could Be Texas
The Waterboys … Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
The 1975 … Still…At Their Very Best (Live from the AO Arena)
Don Airey … Pushed to the Edge
Sleaford Mods … Tied Up in the Bodega
Bruce Springsteen … Tracks II: The Lost Albums
Craig Finn … Always Been
Elton John & Brandi Carlisle … Who Believes in Angels?
Bryan Ferry (featuring Amelia Barratt) … Loose Talk
The Murder Capital … Blindness
Spiritbox … Tsunami Sea
Black Country, New Road … For the Cold Country
The Tubs … Cotton Crown
The Horrors … Night Life
My Morning Jacket … is
Squid … Cowards
Ex-Vöid … In Love Again
Inhaler … Open Wide
Doobie Brothers … Walk This Road
Tom Meighan … Roadrunner
Sloan … Based on the Best Seller
The Who … Live at The Oval (1971)
Oasis … Time Flies … 1994 – 2009
Sharp Pins ….Radio DDR
Florence + The Machine … Everybody Scream
The Belair Lip Bombs … Again
