Indiecast - Which Albums Are Critics Going To Put On Their Year-End Lists?

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Steven and Ian begin with a quick rundown of Thanksgiving fixins, and ultimately disagree on the utility of turkey (0:55). After that, they briefly assess the fantasy albums draft, which already seems like a wrap (10:51). Then they talk about gearing up to make their year-end albums lists (13:14), after which they make some educated guesses about what they think critics are going to rate highly this year (28:44). In the "yay or nay" segment, they discuss the new comeback album by Tobias Jesso Jr. (49:52).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the emo band Ben Quad and Steven discusses the late singer-songwriter Todd Snider, who died last week (54:01).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 265 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to IndyCast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about potential candidates for the critical consensus album of the year. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He gives Turkey a 5.7. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

I mean, that is what I would give it. It's kind of a C-tier meat. Low floor, very low ceiling. strictly a vessel for gravy and or cranberry sauce. I'm rolling with ham if I have my, if I, if I had the option, you know, I'm a, I'm going to honey baked ham and sit outside of it for 10 hours like usual illusion two was dropping. That's how I get down.

Why not just have a bowl of oatmeal for Thanksgiving? Why not just have like a, like a bologna sandwich for Thanksgiving? I, I disagree strongly about this. Look, turkey as a food is not something that I'm going to dial up most day. of the year. I'm not going to say, hey, let's buy a, you know, a 10-pound turkey and throw it in the oven. But I am a big proponent of the turkey on Thanksgiving as a tradition. I love preparing the turkey. I love how the turkey looks on the table before you cut it. Now, granted, eating the turkey is a little bit farther down the list of things that I like about the turkey. But I love the tradition. In my household,

we're going to do turkey. The kids did talk about, oh, maybe we should do ham. But I, but I, I love the tradition. I, I love the tradition. In my household, we're going to do turkey. I'm I'm like, we can do ham any day of the year. You can eat ham in July. You can eat it in April. You can eat it in September. I think we're going to have ham for Christmas. So let's do the turkey. It's tradition. This is the one day of the year that we're going to do it. So I'm excited to eat the turkey for Thanksgiving. Also thinking about all the fixings that you have with the turkey. I don't know if you have like a ranking of your favorite Thanksgiving sides. You got the stuffing. You got the potatoes mashed.

You got the cranberries, whether you're doing the whole cranberries or you're doing the can. I'm a big fan. I don't know if this is like a dark horse pick besides. I'm a big proponent of the green bean casserole. I love the fake onions or like that fake onion. You know, those brown onion things. I don't know if they're like made from onions or if it's just brown flakes that It's like the pringles of French, it's like the pringles of onions where you get it in like a kind of paste and then you put it in a mold.

That's how they make pringles. So that's why they can't call it potato chips. But it comes in the can though. Yeah, totally. Yeah, you're getting like the thing of the onion product, whatever it is. And you're putting it on top of the green bean casserole. You're throwing it in the oven. You got like the cream of mushroom soup mixed up in there.

It doesn't seem like it should be good. Like, do they have this on the coast? Is this like a Midwestern thing? I feel like this is something that moms in the Midwest made up because they had to empty their cupboards and have a Thanksgiving side, and that's how you end up with green bean casserole. And I love it.

It's one of my favorites. Do they have that, though, like in San Diego? Do they eat that there? I mean, they definitely had it when I was growing up in Pennsylvania, which, you know, some parts of it might be considered the Midwest. But I'll tell you what, green bean casserole has been a surprisingly important factor. in determining the quality of my relationships.

Like, the most successful relationships I've been in are with people who view green bean casserole the same way you do and the same way I do, which is you've got to have the French's, crispy onions, you've got to have the Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Absolutely. And, you know, you might even want to go with canned green beans. Of course.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah, none of this high-end green bean casserole. Oh, we're going to get like the fresh cut green beans and we're going to, you know, make up our own. mushroom soup we're going to, you know, stir it. Get that crap out of here. You got to get the cans. You got to get the cans, just like you need the canned cranberry sauce. The canned people, they get most things wrong, but they got these things right. We can't, like, muck it up by making it

too fancy. Yeah. And the, and the previous relationship I was in, she saw a green meat casseroles. I quote, white trash food. And so I should have known that wasn't going to go the distance. But I, you know, in most circumstances, you know, I like the fancy. stuff for sure. Coastal elite guilty as charge. When it comes to Thanksgiving, I don't want stuffing. I want stovetop. Oh my God. Yeah. I don't want

the cranberry sauce that you made. I want it out of the can. Gravy, I think that's one place where you can show a little bit of ingenuity. Right. And mashed potatoes too. Like you're going with the real potatoes and you're going to get the right butter blend. Maybe put a little

garlic in there or something. I like real stuffing, But I also love the stove top. If you're giving me stove top, there is something very comfort food about that. So I'm not turning my nose up at that. But if you're making the real stuffing, that's good. You got like the sweet potatoes or the yams.

You know, I don't know if you're busting out some yams at your house. Extra syrupy, yeah. Very good stuff. Are you a pie guy? Do you get into pies? All right, so that is where I am. I'll get a little coastal elite with it. Yeah, I do love myself some pies.

oftentimes in San Diego you might have someone coming around from Julian, which is about an hour away. And they're known for that, like their apple pies are like legitimately famous. You know, you throw some hot cheddar cheese on that. It's good stuff. But yeah, if you can make a good pie, yeah, I'll take that over the store bought kind. But, you know, I'm making my own ice cream this year, as I always do. That's been my role in the Thanksgiving, in the Thanksgiving Cavalcade and the Friendsgiving. So you're not like a pumpkin pie guy? Oh, I love pumpkin pie. But to me it's a little bit like I don't, you know, that's not my first choice.

If you got a pecan pie, yeah, I'm going with that. If you have like a kind of a fruit pie, I think that does have a bit of a tartness that balances out the starchiness and the meal. Pumpkin pie, I like it and it feels at times a little redundant with the dinner. See, I just think that pumpkin pie like the turkey, it's so special. specific to this time of year, I'm not going to bust out a pumpkin pie in the middle of summer, even though, like, I love pumpkin pie. I'm sure I would enjoy it, but it feels more proper to have it at the end of November. And I'm going cool whip with it, not my ice cream. I don't have cool whip with the pumpkin pie. Ice cream with apple pie. I'll do that. But I think, and you did

the cheddar cheese thing. I've never really understood the appeal of that on the apple pie. That's a southern thing, I feel like. Yeah, I mean, yeah, throw some cheese on it. But yeah, Cool Whip is something I will absolutely put a spoon in and eat it just as it is. You know what I mean? I don't think we had ice cream with that with pumpkin pie back in the day. But yeah, I cool it like all of it. If it's in a can, if it's ultra-processed, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat it. You know, RFK, you're invited, you know, to see how I get down. I'm a dietitian. This is how I do Thanksgiving. Yeah, I mean, come on. There's no dietitian on Thanksgiving. This is lawlessness. You got to roam free. This is like post-apacalympic. This is like Mad Max of food. You know, you're just going nuts. Yeah,

pumpkin pie with the cool whip as the dessert, A plus always from me. I was actually talking with my wife last night about our pie plan. Are we going to have a backup pie along with the pumpkin pie? Because I have had a hankering for apple pie recently. And this is just like a great excuse to eat pie. It's like when you're at the airport and you feel emboldened to have a drink at like 9 a.m. Because you just feel like

I'm at the airport or if you're tailgating before a game. You're like, well, this is normally raging alcoholic behavior. But since I'm at the game or I'm at this airport, having a bloody merry at 9 a.m., it's not that big of a deal. So it's the same thing with pie on Thanksgiving.

Just load up on the pie. Packers play on Thanksgiving. We'll play the Lions, so we'll see how that goes. We play at noon, which I prefer just get that game out of the way. Hopefully we win that game. But I'm looking forward to it. I love Thanksgiving.

Big fan of Thanksgiving. Yeah, big fan of it as well. I'm just wondering whether I can get pumpkin pies for like half off at Rouse the day after, you know, like you can do with all the Halloween candy on November 1st. You know, I got to say, I have a hard time visualizing Thanksgiving in San Diego, just living in a place where it's sunny. 80 degrees on Thanksgiving. It's very antithetical to how I experience the holiday season.

One thing I love about this time of year is the temperature getting colder through the holidays. It's the best part of winter because you feel like it's supposed to be cold and it's so cozy inside and you have all the lights going. And then it starts to turn once you get to January and February. But I mean, you haven't always lived there. Is it weird? being there for the holidays. I just feel like it's too warm there for the holidays. I'll tell you what, I did see my breath while walking the dog this morning.

Really? Yeah, the lows are dipping into the 40s. I also live in, I guess one would call like a more mountainous part of San Diego, so it does get more cold. But yeah, it was definitely odd being in California doing Thanksgiving because I wasn't around my family. And so Thanksgiving was like, you know, three or four people, unless you have a friend's giving. But the way, weather part, I mean, it gets cold enough to convince yourself that, oh, this would be like Philadelphia if or unseasonably warm. And it might rain this year. So, but that, yeah, so that we, it's not, it's not a deal breaker. But yeah, I do miss the fall. But the last time I did experience the fall was when I was living in Kentucky. And what that was was, was like summer lasted until like October. It was like

80 degrees until like Halloween. There was one week of fall and then it was just like cold and rainy and shitty for until like April. Yeah, that's the worst. You want some fall. We've had a good fall here in Minnesota. So I feel good about it. We're still getting some 50 degree days here too.

So that's pretty nice for mid-November. Let's do a quick fantasy draft update here. You pointed this out. We've had some shifts in our scores in the past. few weeks. More shifting, I think, than usual. Although it doesn't really matter. I'm looking at my team. This is like the worst I've ever done. Like tortoise went up a little bit. At one point it was at 79. Now it's at 81. Claire Roussay at 78 right now. That's a disaster. And then Florence in the Machine and Brandy Carlisle both at 81. Pretty mediocre. And then my best, the anchor of my team,

86 year old, I think she is. Mavis Staples, pulling in a 90 for me. So thank you, Mabas Staples. You've had some shifts too, right, on your team? Yeah, I love how Mavis Staples is like the Kyle Kuzma or the Jordan Poole, just putting up big numbers on a losing team. But yeah, like, in the midst of doing, you know, my big album lists, you used to get like 35 places reviewing a single album. Now you're getting like six to. to 10 places max. And so one review can just throw a really big dip, a really big fluctuation. For example, Kia, she was at an 86 and 80 now because of one review from the wire.

Similarly, Armand Hammer was down from 83 to a 79. So she had archives in 81. Like left the center arm being ain't what it used to be, man. But, you know, I got Rosalia. She put up in 97. It's a wrap. I'm up by 10. Yeah.

And we'll talk more about like. like what that really means. But yeah, I'm up by 10 and provided nothing really shady happens between now and December. I think we can call it. Yeah, I mean, looking at your scores, I mean, it makes my scores actually not look as mediocre. I mean, you've got a lot of albums around the 80 mark. Yeah.

And I guess that is a reflection of, yeah, just there being fewer outlets pulling from. Up Rock's still not on Metacartic, by the way. Come on, can we just throw us in there? I mean, the skinny is on there. But yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting turn of events here. I mean, we're going to talk about Rosalia here in a minute, and maybe this is a good transition into our next topic

because we already talked about Thanksgiving here and the other big time of the year that it is, I guess, for people like you and me, is you know, you're getting ready for Thanksgiving and you're getting ready to put out your year-end list. the year-end lists might start dropping next week. Yeah. I feel like the English publications start putting them out.

And maybe some of them have already put them out. I haven't seen any yet, but they might start putting them out next week. For sure, the week after, you know, because we're going to be at the beginning of December after the Thanksgiving weekend. So you're going to start seeing lists drop. Well, there are a couple looking at album of the year. We got Mojo and Uncut, always first on the scene, decibel, rough trade, and bleep. Bleep is a, bleep is a publication that, uh, ah, what a bummer.

They did, uh, alphabetical. Did, uh, oh, they didn't, they didn't rank? Oh, did Mojo rank? Let's, uh, see. I'm gonna let's go. Oh, my, there's 75 of them. God bless Mojo. Um, yeah, I don't know if I've, like, listened to 75 albums more than twice, but, uh, yes, they ranked it.

And this is great. This is, this is, do you want to know what number one and number two is? Well, it's Willie Nelson, right? It is not. Oh, okay. Because this album of the year had Willie Nelson first on Mojo's list. Huh. Okay, well, then what's first on the list that you see?

All right, so it's pulp, and because of that, I bet you can guess number two. Pulp number one? Yeah. Is it like another British band? Yes. Same era. Why am I blanking? I can't remember.

What is it? Swade. Oh, I forgot they put out an album. Yeah, very well. very well reviewed and number three is CMAT this is a this is that album CMAT

Euro country I don't know if it's pronounced CMAT or whatever but that's going to kill it on British publications I can say that for sure I don't know how it's going to do statewide but yeah Paul have you heard that record

I have not it does not seem like the kind of thing I'd be into what is it I'm not that familiar with it I think it's like Irish and there's it's like kind of country pop if I'm not mistaken Oh, no. Yeah, so Rolling Stone, UK describes it.

Issues on both personal and political levels. Friveless and life dependent are tackle with equal importance on Eurocountry. A catchy, important, and hilarious album from a singer, who is deservedly set to be the breakout star of 2025. So, yeah, it's campy, it's charming, it sounds extremely Irish. Oh, man. Yeah, it's got an 89 on album of the year. Annie and the Caldwell's number five, but don't know that record. I don't know that.

Big Thief was at number four on their list. Six, stereo lab, seven, Robert Forster from the Go-Betweens. I didn't know he had a new record out. I like the Go-Betweens. The Tubbs at number eight, Adrian Sherwood, and then Wet Leg at number 10. Very British list. Extremely. From Mojo.

With definitely some legacy artists there at the top. We're going to talk in a minute about prognosticating for critical critical consensus, album of the year choices. I guess thinking more about America than England, I did not have pulp in the running here in America. But just looking at the year-end list season in general, like you and I, we've been doing this for a long time. You know, it is a bit of a reflex in a way to start thinking about what we're going to put on the year-end list. And I have to say, I go back and forth over the years on like how much I care about this or how much I, you know, look forward to doing this.

And I have to say that at this moment in my life, and maybe this is like, you know, middle-aged serenity, I've really landed in a place where I'm not that invested in, like, being correct, and I'm putting correct in quotes, or having a list that I think is going to stand the test of time or that I'm going to be able to stand by in five, ten years. Because I know that never happens. I know that any list I make at the end of the year

starts to feel obsolete almost as soon as it publishes. And then I start to look at it as a moment in time, that this was something that captured how I felt at the end of that particular year. And now I actually really enjoy looking at my old lists and realizing how disconnected I feel from the person that made that list, that this is not necessarily how I would feel about the outside, albums of that particular year now. But it's how I felt then.

And it is like bumping into a version of yourself from the past. Almost like that version of yourself is like a person you went to high school with. But it's a version of you or a person you used to work with like 10 years ago. And now you're bumping into them and you still recognize them. But you're like, I don't feel the same connection to you anymore because we're not in the same space. I actually really like that aspect of these lists now. And that's how I approach making them, that I'm just making this thing almost like a footprint in the sand. And this is going to be something that I look back on and remember as like where I was at that particular moment and not really putting any pressure on myself to like be definitive for a particular year.

Does that any of that resonate with you? Does that make sense to you? Yeah, there are two footprints in the sand and one of them was a proto-marter. I don't know. I was trying to make some sort of footprint in the sand joke, but I need, that one needs to get back in the lab. I was, I was bringing this back around to Jesus at some point. I was going to bring up how Jesus was a carpenter and he had to build things just like we build lists. And, you know, I'm joking.

But anyway, you were saying. Yeah, I do like the old coworker one more than the high school friend because I don't know if you're ever on LinkedIn. I am because people just in my real life job. will add me and it's like oh yeah I remember working with that person back in 2018 oh that's super cool and yeah it's that kind of vague recollection of this album that really you're very passionate about being the 14th best thing to come out that year and it's like yeah I guess I haven't listened to it in a couple years I mean you're enlist time like I used to be very obsessive about that we're talking let's say 2011 to 2014 I would just have the top 10 like right

to drop in a moment's notice if you asked me. And I think a lot of that was based on the social component of it, you know, being a staff or a pitch for discussing it throughout the year and feeling like it was something that we all did as a team and I was a contributor to. And when the year end list dropped, it was like Christmas morning. I get to see what we came up with. But, you know, I've thought about it now. And I think every single year since 2016, I kind of forgot.

what my album of the year was. Oh, I definitely forget. I never remember. And I forget quickly. Like I said, not only does it seem out of date, but it's like I make the list. And then if you ask me in January, what was in your top 10? Like, I would maybe have trouble reproducing my own top 10. It's that quick, because you just are so focused on it for a while.

And then you go into the haze of the holiday season and it's wiped away. And all of a sudden, you're washed up on. a new year. And it is like ending up on a new desert island. And it's like, oh, I have a whole new life. Like my 20, 25 self is dead. 2026 now. This is the new me. And you kind of put that old self aside. Yeah. And I think this year is a little different, though, because, you know, not only do I know what my album of the year is, but it's one that might actually be an album of the year contender on most real year end list. So no more doing what I've done in the past couple of years, which is just peeking at like, you know, stereo gum or paste or whatever to see if, you know, like,

near my God snuck in at number 47. So I feel more in some ways, like disconnected from the narrative, but more invested in, I just, I feel like my tastes are actually weirdly aligned this year with the greater discussion more than they had in years past. It almost feels like, you know, 2002 or 2004 when I was more of an observer than someone who was actually creating these lists for the place I'm going to read. And we've talked about this on the show. I feel like critical narrative has broken down in 2020.

That's one of the trends of the year. And it has to do with the media implosion and also the social media implosion. You know, critics aren't all on Twitter anymore talking to each other. So the idea of a certain album having discernible momentum, I think it's harder to gauge that now. And that is one of the challenges that we'll have in a minute here when we start prognosticating about critical consensus. Just getting back to List for a second, you know, like for me at this point, you know, people like to look at lists and they get upset because their favorite album isn't on there. Or they're like, oh, this is too low or this is too high. And I don't know if you're like this, but I'm at the point now, and I think I've been like this for a while, where I am more looking at how lists are constructed than,

the content of the list. I always like to look at a top, you look at a top 10 and you're like, okay, the album they put at number six is actually the album they like the most, but they don't feel like it's important enough to put it number one. So they're lowering it a little bit.

Meanwhile, the album at number four is the album that maybe they don't like as much, but they feel like is going to be considered a great album in 10 years, and they want to put their flag down and say, like, I liked it when it came out. and like number nine is maybe the record that like they heard for the first time last week and they really like it but it's causing them to maybe overrate it and they put it in their top

10 and they're not going to care about it in a month you know like those types of things I feel like you can look at these lists and you can kind of figure out how they were made because these lists are never just oh these are the albums I like the most they're always not always but a lot of the time it feels like it's the critic trying to make a statement about what they think is important. And I do think there's certainly a thing, and you alluded to this, where sometimes critics will put records up high because they feel like no one else will put it up high. So they are overrating it in a way to compensate for other people underrating it. And I don't know if that still happens as much again because the consensus thing is harder to gauge,

but you know what I mean? I feel like you can look at these lists and figure out, okay, what's the thing? the gamesmanship going on with these things. Yeah, we're like wine supertasters, you know, just like, oh, there's real notes of like oak and tobacco, whereas, you know, the average person just wants to drink wine and get drunk and see, like, what's the, what are the best albums? But yeah, I mean, I think if you're doing a publication, uh, you have to think about the greater, like what, what do we stand for? Like, what was 25, like for us as this institution? Um, and yeah, there's some gamesmanship. I know there's

some gamesmanship because I've seen it, you know, with my own eyes back in the day. And it's, you know, it might not be as granular as we're saying, but it's like, yeah, maybe this got the most votes, but like it feels more like a number three. And, you know, you're trying to maybe, like, outwit your opponent, opponents, you know, just people, you don't want to necessarily have the same thing as everybody else. So, yeah, I mean, no one wants to be, you know, I think very, I think a lot of critics would say, oh, the album I listen to the most is actually the seventh album by this band that I've loved for 15 years. But a lot of critics are too sort of intellectually vain to put that at number one because

they feel like this is going to make you look like you're some stodgy person that just listens to the same bands over and over again. So you're going to put maybe the record you don't like as much up higher because it's the, you know, sort of the pick that makes... It's not even a bad thing. Sometimes you're doing it. It's not even like a sort of fashion choice. It is this idea of, does this represent the year more?

Is this something that is going to, like, am I betting on this mattering more in a few years? And maybe I'm going to even like it more then than I do now. I mean, so there are those types of things where it's not just the gut. But there, I do think there is a danger a lot of times with these lists where people overthink it. And that's when you end up with lists. that like really don't age well. Yeah, but I love it.

I want those. I want the ones that don't age well. Like I need like, like, and I've talked about this distinction before between like the best and the most out, like, you know, the most 205 album. Totally. Yeah.

The definitive work of, you know, any given year to me, isn't necessarily the thing that falls in the top five, but rather it's like the number 36 or 27, whatever number you want to throw out where it's, and we're going to talk about this actually with our yay nay about like when you when you look at that it was like oh that was what it was like to be invested

in that year like anyone can remember brat you know anyone can remember you know SOS from SZA but like can you remember the thing that people like cared about for like a couple weeks you know it's like the Donnie trumpet record what's gonna be the

what's gonna be the Donnie trumpet I mean in the reverse of that I always think of the band always as being the beneficiary, at least on their first couple records. I mean, their last one, Blue Rev, was hugely acclaimed, but, like, their self-titled record. I feel like that album benefited from people really liking it, but not feeling like, oh, this is album of the year potential, so we're going to put it in the 20s or 30s.

And then, like, a decade later, people are still listening to that album because it just has great songs on it that aren't tied to a particular year's trends. and you also feel better about loving it because it wasn't a record that was shoved on your throat when it came out. If you can be that record, that is the best position to be in. Just like the really good record

that everyone likes, but you never felt like it was overhyped. You never got sick of it. And always, to me, is the definitive band of that. Like, they just always in that lane, always was always in that lane. And then Blue Reb is where it paid off. They were playing the long game with that album.

And now it's going to be, probably another, you know, a couple years before the next album comes out. It'll be long enough where people will have forgotten about them. And they'll be like, oh, always is back. And they'll probably put out another great record that'll do really well. I mean, they've mastered the year-endless placement, I think. They're one of the modern masters of that, I think. Yeah, that's absolutely what they're thinking when they're making a record.

Yeah, I know Molly Rankin is very, you know, of course, that's all she cares about. She's very conniving in that way. Where are we at with the... Well, let's pivot here to prognosticating about album of the year according to critical consensus, whatever that means in 2025. This is always something I like to talk about. I obviously have my own list and I make my own list. I'm in my own world. I don't really care what anyone else thinks when it comes to my own list.

But I am interested in critical consensus. And I do like talking about it like it's draft kings. You know, like we should have a draft kings for music writing. This would be the thing that would save music writing. Because it saves sports writing. If you took draft kings out of the sports writing world, that would be done. I mean, that is totally being floated by gambling at this point. So we need to figure out some sort of like polymarket or draft kings for, I'm joking here, but maybe not completely joking.

time it's like i'm just imagining like if those are draft kings at coming to me i'd be like hey yes please uh hook me up uh in 2020 26 we're gonna like do over unders and parlays on uh you know like uh fka twigs and if you took the under of nine then you're getting like your family like goes hungry that spring i mean yeah the possibilities are endless but also you know with it it is the type of person who would do off track betting on music um the type of person who has disposable income. I don't know if the profit margins are there. Yeah, I don't know.

Probably won't happen, but draft kings, reach out if you want to talk. I wrote a piece for Up Rocks. This is like a regular column for me. I do this every year where I try to take a guess on what I think are going to be the albums that you're going to see at the top of lists as they start coming out. Most consistently, albums that will either top the list or be in the upper reaches. the most. And let's just throw up Mojo, because none of the albums I'm talking about here are on their list. They're such an outlier, though. And like you said, there's not that many year-end lists

anymore, but I do think there's enough that we could talk about this. Of course, Up Rocks, where I work and where you write, we have the critics poll, so this would apply to that, I guess. So this was my, I did eight albums, and this is like from what I think is most likely to be album of the year to least likely. And I want to get your take on this and let me know if you think I missed anything here. Number one, I had Rosalia's record. Like you said, 97, I met a critic. It's the best reviewed album of the year or at least pop album of the year. There might be a box set or something that has a higher score. But it's the closest thing to a critical jug or not this year. So I put that at number one. Number two, bad bunny. Because I feel like every year we need to have like one huge pop star in the mix.

Like that's the current critical discourse requirement. You got to have a Beyonce, a Taylor Swift, you know, well, I guess I didn't, Suprina Carpenter I don't even have in the mix here. That's maybe one oversight. You can talk about that. But Bad Bunny, very well-reviewed album. He's going to be on the Super Bowl, not long after year-end list come out. So I think he'll be in the mix at number two.

Number three, geese. This is the choice for you and I, maybe, or at least for me. And I want to hear from you if maybe I'm underrating it here because it's my dog in the fight. I also think Cameron Winter, heavy met, that might in a weird way split the geese vote, but we can talk about that. For Dijon, the indie R&B slot, as you have often said, Ian, the North Star from Modern Music Critics is indie R&B. Number five, Haley Williams. I wrote this in my column. I don't know if this is a crazy analogy, but I almost feel like she's like Neil Young in the 90s.

at this point. She's like the elder Stateswoman of indie pop, indie sort of adjacent rock music. Her album was incredibly well reviewed. I feel like a lot of like millennial people are going to feel loyalty to her. Number six, I had FCA Twigs.

Maybe a dark horse. Maybe I underrated that one. Number seven, Oakloo. I think that's going to be like a big... I'm going to stop you right there. I think it's pronounced OK Lou. Okay, Lou, really? Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay Lou. Oak Lou. Okay, Lou.

I'm going to call you Oak Lou. We'll call you okay Lou. Or maybe O'K-L-O-U. Maybe it's that. Anyway, French electronic artist, I think she's going to be big among critics under the age of 30. I think she's going to be a big choice there.

At number eight, at the end, I have Wednesday coming up. Solid choice, critically acclaimed album. I think it'll do well on list. I don't think it's going to top list. There's also that snowcaps record that came on at the end of the year that I think maybe could steal some of the thunder weirdly from Wednesday. So anyway, that's my top eight.

I don't know what you think about anything that, Ian. I don't know where you want to start. Do you agree that Rosalia is like the album to beat on critics lists? You know, yes, it is the closest thing to a critical juggernaut and it is the best reviewed album of the year. And this is going to be a theme with a couple of the artists on this list where, yeah, it is. is, you know, killing it in 2025. But I also wonder if in their overall catalog, it's more beloved than the stuff that came before it.

You know, I think it's sort of like the NBA MVP where, you know, novelty matters. And you want to see an artist excel in a way that they had it in the past. And, you know, with FGA Twigs album, I do think it was a, you know, it was a wise move to put out a, I think it was like a remix or a reimagination of her album, which is called you sexual. Yeah. It never ceases to amaze me that this album is called you sexual. And it came out, it came out a long time ago. It came out in January.

Yeah. So I wrote this in my column that I think doing this, I don't know if it's a reimagining or like leftovers from that album, but it's like a sister album to that one. And it's one of those things like where it's going to remind people that that came out in January, but it's not going to threaten the first record. So, yeah, I agree that's going to help that album do better. Yeah. And I can't get a read on like whether people think it's better than Magdalene or her first album.

And it's kind of the same thing with the Rosalia album where it's like, do people love it more than Motomami or the one before that? Like, is it more impressive than it is loved? Is there going to be votes splitting between the two? And that's the wrinkle there with yeah Yeah because in the pro and con case I made in my column the con was yeah is this considered the best Rosalia record I think that would be I still think it's a juggernaut I would still put my money on it I mean to me it's between bad bunny and rosalia like do you think bad bunny has the edge? Yeah I think it does because you know with with I think with twigs it it's like you know the left of center pop girly for lack of a better term

but it doesn't really feel like it had the same sort of monocultural impact as like Charlie XEX or Caroline Polichek did. And Rosalia has, you know, got the recency bias, which might actually work against it. I don't know. But Bad Bunny to me seems like, you know, Rosalia has had her year, you know, in 2022. Same with Twigs, whether it's in 2014 or 19. I don't think Bad Bunny's really had his year on albums list yet. and that makes the kind of novelty a bit compelling. Plus, you got like the Super Bowl thing, which has had people in his mind.

I think his music is inherently political and explicitly political in a way that matters in 2025. So, yeah, it came out like, I think on like January 5th, but we might have like a SZA in 2023 thing going on where, yeah, it's been out all year. But when you look at the, you know, you look at the sum total of the year, I think this one mattered. If I had to make a pick for like, you know, your mainstream ones, your places that review like pop and rock and rap, like, you know, your pitchforks, your Rolling Stones. And I have no inside intel on this. But I do think Bad Bunny is going to be at the top of places like that.

Yeah, I mean, I would bet on Bad Bunny topping Rolling Stone. I'd put a lot of, I think Rosalie would probably be pitchfork, but I don't know. You have a better sense of the makeup over there than I do. You would think, but. Well, it's better than me. I'm not saying it's good. It's better than me. But Bad Bunny, that is like the resistance vote.

You know, if you're like the kind of music critic who it's like, I love this album. I also like want to stick it to the red hats out there that didn't like Bad Bunny being booked for the Super Bowl. If that is your state of mind, I mean, I think that would make a lot of sense. And again, I do feel like, it's funny, I wrote about this in my column, that there was this cliche for a long time that when people talked about music critic music. They would always talk about like the sort of leading already indie rock band of the era. Like in the 2000s it was Radiohead. In the 2010s it was like maybe Bonnie Vare or the national. You know, again, this is like the stereotype. And that's not true anymore and it hasn't for a while. Like music critic music now is Rosalia. It is bad bunny. It is stuff like that.

So either one of them I think makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about geese though for a second. in here because I've already staked my claim here. I said when this album came out that I think it's the, I said the indie album of the year. It's certainly also the album of the year for me. And I don't see that changing. There is like one really great record coming out in December that I'm going to be writing about. I did an interview with the artist and that album will be on my list. But geese to me is for me, the album of the year. From what you were saying earlier, I feel like it might be for you too. I mean, you seem to be implying that pretty heavily. I added number three on my list as far as it being like an album of the year candidate. I think it's going to do great on year-end list.

I guess there's a part of me that feels like there are a certain coterie of critics out there that are just, you know, sort of, it's like an endemic in their bones that they could not put an indie rock band at the top of a list in 2025, that it would just be. sort of an anathema to how they see the world, that this music is not relevant enough to put a band like that up there, no matter how buzzy they are, how great getting killed is. So, feeling that way, and again, I think I'm talking about, like, critics are age, because I don't think younger critics feel that way.

I don't think younger critics think in these, like, raucous versus pop-timist terms, which is such a, like, freaking old-person conversation. Like, old people this year were still talking about pop-timism. That is such a like an over 45 conversation at this point. When I see young critics, people in their 20s, like they're so far beyond that, which is great. You know, they just like all kinds of music and they aren't having these like proxy wars. Like I have to knock down this band because they represent an archetype that I am against and I feel was overrated by Anthony de Curtis in the 1990s. You know, I don't have that baggage, which is great.

But I still feel like there's enough of that where it would lower geese a little bit. Yeah, I think there is an element of that. And, you know, the Anthony to Curtis. I love pulling that one out. It's like, you know, this, like, this like, no shots at Anthony to Curtis, by the way. I'm just saying that I feel like there were, in our generation, there was a certain, like, like, screw you, dad. Yeah. Like, like, element to people like that.

Like, they read something in Rolling Stone in 1997 that is still stuck in their cross. like it was dismissive of like some you know pop record and now they're reacting to it in perpetuity and that was something that animated people in our generation I don't feel like that's happening in the younger generation yeah it's this belief that like you know people like if people knew about Janet Jackson or Madonna albums they wouldn't like pavement so much and it's like yeah you know what both of those things were around besides those albums were like really critically acclaimed in their time it's kind of a false reading of history you know totally Exactly. Even like the Velvet Rope, a record that people, I think was underrated. I mean, that's a great record. I love Janet Jackson. No shots at her either. But yeah, anyway, we're old people. We're about to talk about optimism. We have to put that aside. But that would be the, I was just going to say that to me, that would be the one thing maybe holding geese back. Because otherwise, they are checking a lot of the boxes you said earlier. Like they are the buzzing band of the year. They are a band that's undeniably at a piece.

peak, you know, and they are, I think they made the best album of the year, and they made the most 25 albums. So they did both of those things. So I think they would be deserving to be in a number spot. I mean, it's my favorite album for sure of the year. And you know, when you listen to like Long Island City here, I come in the way that ends. You listen to it's like, yeah, that's an album of the year right there. It's just the, the sequencing of it. Everything about it is just like, this is good as indie rock gets right now. And I think that you've talked about

it's the most divisive sonically album of the year. Like some people, like we just had a few weeks ago. It's like, oh, what's up with this guy's voice, man? And at the same time, I think it unifies a lot of,

you know, discrete categories of listeners. Like, it's got the ever important rock album that people who listen to only rap like. Maybe it's like the producer in there. But yeah, it feels. like it's got like this broad appeal despite being so sonically divisive. And it's got the juice in a way that like even the big pop albums that we've talked about so far don't. I think people

talk about geese in a way. It's like kind of mean in a way that like Brat sort of was last year. And everything about it just seems like this is what I'll remember from 2025. Because, you know, they're also peaking now in a way that, you know, bad or that Rosalia or FK8 Twigs aren't. And, yeah, the only thing that might be holding it back is like, is it only an indie rock record? I don't think it's only an indie rock record. I do think it'll top some lists. It'll top mine. And, you know, maybe there's some vote splitting with this and heavy metal.

But, you know, person pitch, strawberry jam. Person pitch was album of the year. So, but which one is strawberry jam in this category? I think that it's going. it's going to do really, really well. I think it'll top some big, big lists. Yeah. Well, the thing about that album, too, is that for a lot of these indie rock records that bubble up,

I feel like when I go to the show, you see a lot of 50-year-old guys in flannel shirts on the periphery hanging out. And I'm one of those people, so those are my people. But, like, when I saw Geese, obviously I was there. I don't know if I was wearing a flannel shirt. I might have been. But it was mostly people who felt like they were at 22, 23. I mean, there was like a real, like you said, they got the juice. There's like a young vital thing.

And even someone like M.J. Lenderman, who again, love M.J. Lenderman. And I do think that he actually also has a similar generational appeal. I see a lot of young people talking about him. He has the meme thing going on as well. But like his music, I think, naturally appeals also to the Wilco fan of, you know, who graduated high school in 1997, you know, and Geese has that as well, but I just feel like the people at the front of the line who are really controlling that conversation are people who are in Geese's cohort. And I think that's great and that's how it should

be. And it does, I think, add to whatever appeal they might have on lists like this. So, I mean, really, I mean, I think those three Rosalie a Bad Bunny geese, they kind of feel separate from the pack, I would say, on the list that I made. I don't know if there's anything you would add. I wouldn't add anything as like a, you know,

like a number one choice. It's sort of like the NFL where there's like no real dominant entity, but there's definitely like an upper crust. And I think those three are the ones I'd go with. You know, you brought up Dijon as like the indie R&B slot. And yeah, you know, he's got like a lot of juice going on 2025 as well because, you know, he was on the Justin Bieber album and Boni Vair. He was in one battle after another.

One of the funniest scenes. Yeah, great scene. I didn't even know it was him. Mexican hairless. You've seen the movie. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Don't make us explain that line.

Yeah. So it feels a little bit smaller in a way, even though he's like on SNL. it doesn't feel like it has the same momentousness. I know that's not really a word. But, you know, that's going to be top five everywhere. That's going to, you know, that's, it might be kind of like SGA last year where, you know, they won the championship. Wait a minute, he did win it. Did he win MVP last year?

He won finals MVP. I'm sure he did. Oh, fuck, man. This metaphor is falling apart. But yeah, I think that's going to be every top five, maybe not number one. um hailey williams um i feel like this is going you know this is going to feel a little uh i might rub some people the wrong way with this but i do feel like this is an artist who people are reviewing the artist i think more so than the music um i don't hear people so much talking about the songs from

this record as you know her you know dissing kid rock on stage in nashville i would say that like haley williams has really benefited from taylor swifts um relatively, you know, relative lack of juice in 2025. Like she's doing all the things publicly that people wish Taylor Swift would do, like be outwardly political. You know, she's brought her own masters back and putting out her albums independently. You know, but a lot of people I do, whose tastes I do rely upon and find that they are astute critics of Powermore extended universe. They're like, yeah, these songs aren't really that good.

So shout to what she's doing I think it'll do well But I don't think it's a serious album of the year contender Was this the son of a woman El Pacino argument for this album where Because I feel like with Haley Williams There maybe was a sense that in the 2000s When Paramour came out that they didn't get their due

No I feel like this has been going on a long time With Haley Williams and Paramore I mean Perrimor Put out some like really cool records in the 2010s That people liked But she's also been benefited from just being like, oh, she seems like a really cool person, and maybe critics weren't

nice enough to her in the past. So, let's give her do now. It's like, we didn't give Al the Academy Award for Godfather Part 2 or Dog Day Afternoon or, you know, Serpico, but we'll give it to him for hoo-a in the 90s. I mean, maybe this is her hoo-a. You know, so I do think that this album is going to end up high. Like, go to the Rolling Stone list. I bet this will be top five.

Yeah, Rolling Stones. Yeah, Rolling Stone, definitely for sure. So Haley Williams, you're Al Pacino, but you're also Neil Young. There you go. I'm sorry to keep comparing you, Haley Williams, to middle-aged guys from the 90s. Hopefully you take that as a compliment. Yeah, and not write a song about her, call you out when she does her tour in Minnesota.

That'd be kind of amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Lou, though. I think that one... Okay, Lou. Yeah, that's going to be... That one's going to be easily the best, the most overperforming,

relative to how it was reviewed. I looked it up. It had like an 84 on Metacritic, but it was only reviewed by six places. Pitchfork gave it an 8.0. That is shockingly low. Yeah, that just seems like a record to me. I would buy stock in that record, doing well on list, and then being well regarded in subsequent years.

It just has that feel to me. again, I think especially like younger critics who call her okay Lou, I call her Oak Lou, or I also call her Oak L-O-U So we'll see, I don't know It would be interesting to see. I'm curious to see how this pans out. We'll find out here in a few weeks

And maybe we can revisit. Let's get to our yay or nay segment. This is for the IG kids. This is for the TikTok generation. We do this every week. We take an artist or an issue or an album and we apply the most thoughtful and sensitive rubric to it that you can. We give it a yay or nay verdict this week.

We're going to be talking about one of our old favorites, Tobias Jesso Jr. He has a new album out today called Shine. And we're going to talk about this record. The Tobias Jesso comeback, is this a return for a canny pop tombsmith or a pretty boy, I will go first. Let's give some background on Tobias Jesso. He originally came on the scene in the mid-2010s, playing these pretty piano, soft rock ballads,

and basically being this really cute guy with nice curly hair. Sonically, he sounded like Father John Misty a little bit, only his lyrics were romantic and sincere rather than funny and sarcastic. He put out a record in 2015 called Goon, and he got really good reviews, and then he became this gun for hire for pop stars, writing songs for people like Adele, Duolipa, and Justin Bieber, and I imagine he made millions upon millions in the process. In a way, you could define him as like an indie rock one-hit wonder from the 2010s,

but he's also this hugely successful songwriter behind the scenes. And now he's back. I guess because he can, he can afford it, with his first record under his own name in 10 years, and it's called Shine, and it basically picks up where Goon left off. There's lots of piano, there's lots of ballads, there's a heavy soft rock vibe. And I have to wonder, like, did he write these songs, like, specifically for this record? Or were these, like, the leftovers of demos that he offered to Adele and Duolipa, and they just didn't want him?

Because I have to say, like, listening to the record, it sounds like that a little bit. I mean, like, the songs are fine. I mean, he's a craftsman, he's good at what he does. but they feel a little anonymous to me. There's not a whole lot of distinction here. And they're lacking even like the moderately memorable hooks that he had on Goon. Tobias Jesso Jr. is clearly a talented guy and he's found his lane behind the scenes. And I'm sure he's a nice enough dude.

I mean like Dakota Johnson's hanging out in his music video. He's got beautiful women around him all the time. But the feeling that he's a lightweight, which you definitely got from listening to to Goon, that hasn't really faded in the past decade. So unfortunately, I have to say that this album confirms that Tobias Jesso Jr. is a nay for me. Yeah, I'm firmly yay on the actual comeback, because the only thing more fun to say than Goon is Tobias Jesso Jr. I don't think this would be, like, I don't think this would be as fun if his name was like to think of another artist from his time, like Matthew White or something like that. And, you know, I don't care how many millions he's made off

Fidel and Taylor Swift and everyone else he's written for. I'll always think of them as like, you know, as you mentioned before, Donnie Trumpet or Shamir as 2015 core. As far as the music itself, scientists would be hard pressed to come up with something that's less my shit than Tobias Jesso Jr. And, you know, on some level, I prefer shine to Goon because being someone who was a full-time music writer in 2015, I had to reckon with Goon and care about it and just like wince at what this guy was bringing to the table. I mean, was he the original somber? Was he the original role model? Many are asking. I actually kind of prefer this because it's a, you know, it's an intentionally tossed off Friday news dump of an album meant to be forgotten before he eventually writes

Goon 2, the Goonining, which I believe he will do. So, yay, if this gets us closer to Goon 2, nay, if I actually have to listen to it. We've now reached the part of our episode that we call recommendation corner where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? Well, first I want to recommend our good friend Bill Barnwell just dropped what looks like 8,000 words on Nick Siriani. So, Steve, that one's for you, Steve. Ooh, I can't wait. Beyond that, that's like 7,500 more words than Nick Siriani probably knows in his vocabulary. Well, for me, we're going to bring it back to Emo, of course. You know, it's been a struggle putting together my year-end list for uprocks.

I'm very close to putting out a cold call of like, you know, are there any good emo bands in 2025 that sound like they were influenced by something other than 2025 emo? But, you know, I've, then again, I've been working on the braid chapter on my book. And the whole thing with Framing Canvas was, you know, we were really inspired both the get-up kids and Sarge and the other bands we were touring with were doing. So, you know what? You know, the more things change, more they stay the same.

So that gets us to Ben Quads Wisher. definitely one of my most highly anticipated albums of 2025 since they put out my favorite emo record of 22 and signed a pure noise in the time since. And their big leap emo album, you know, it's not a goodness, it's not a harmlessness, but it's inspired by taking back Sunday and Motion City soundtrack. And it was a little disappointing at the outset because they were leveling up in that way. But you know what? They're really, really good at this.

It's a really fun album. and they come to this genre as songwriters rather than someone who's just doing vibes. You know, you got to review the album that you got, not the one that you hope for. And hopefully some bands out there doing the hotel year the World's Beautiful Place thing.

But if you want like 2002-2003 fuse TV type stuff, no one's doing it better than the Oklahoma guys in Ben Quad. There's synth, there's banjo, there's yelling, there's even more yelling. Wisher. So I'm going to do, unfortunately, a sad recommendation corner this week.

I want to talk about the late great East Nashville songwriter Todd Snyder, who passed away on Friday after, frankly, a very strange couple of weeks that played out in the media in very unfortunate ways. And I don't really want to get into that at this point, just because I feel like there's giving me a lot of time to parse those details. And at the moment, I think it's just worth talking about this. guy's songs because he is someone that definitely had a fan base, but I do think he existed under the radar for pretty much his entire career. It was interesting, like,

pitchfork ran a short obit of his life after he died. And in the headline, they referred to him as a satirical songwriter, which is kind of true. I mean, he definitely had songs that touched on political issues that you could describe as having. a satirical bent, but it doesn't quite get at what was so good about him, which was that he was an artist that could write about really sad subjects, and he could tell these stories that had a strong melancholic edge to them, but he was just a naturally funny person, that he could make sad stories funny. He could make you laugh at the tragedy of life. In my own obituary I wrote for Todd that you can find on my substack, evil speakers, I said that, listen to me.

to him was like getting Mitch Headberg and John Prine at the same time. And there really is, I think, that element of he could have a sly one-liner and then he could also have just a turn of phrase that could break your heart. And the thing that really sets him apart, I think, is that while he was influenced by all these great

singer-songwriters of the 70s, the John Prines, the Chris Christoperson's, the Jerry Jeff Walker's, he was rare in that he felt like he could have come out of the 70s. He wasn't just emulating. He wasn't just, you know, cosplaying. He was a genuine character. And I really think that if you haven't listened to Todd Snyder,

there's no time better than now. I mean, I guess it would have been better while he was still alive. But this is a good excuse to dig into his catalog. And I highly recommend his 2004 album, East Nashville Skyline. The album he put out after that called The Devil You Know. He put another studio record a few years later called Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables. Those are his three best studio records by my estimation. And they're a great combination of folk song, folk music, great lyrics,

and like this kind of sloppy rock and roll vibe reminiscent of like Exile on Main Street and Ragged Glory. He also put out a bunch of excellent live albums. There's an album called Near Truce and Hotel Rooms, and another one called The Storyteller, which really highlight his ability to not just play these great songs, but he would have these long stories in between songs, which were basically like stand-up comedy. I mean, he was a hilarious person.

And again, it's more of that, I guess, Mitch Hedberg element that you get from the live records. Anyway, he's a great, great artist. Definitely dig into his records if you haven't already. And, yeah, sad to see him go. RIP, Todd Snyder, one of my favorites. That about does it for this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week.

And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.