#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

1
🗣️ Tom Waits
💿 Rain Dogs

Not just Rain Dogs, but absolutely every album, song, and piece of music this great man has ever made.

I can't pick three favourites as I love them all - Rain Dogs was my gateway to Waits, and a lifetime of listening awaits.

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

2
🗣️ John Cale
💿 Paris 1919

From The Velvet Underground to an incredible album from one of many insanely epic alumni.

This is a baroque masterpiece, a genuinely perfect record.

Favourite songs:
- The Endless Plain Of Fortune
- Paris 1919
- Andalucia

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

3
🗣️ The Velvet Underground
💿 The Velvet Underground & Nico

One of the most important albums ever made. Beyond influential, a classic for very good reason.

Favourite songs:
- Venus In Furs
- I'm Waiting For The Man
- All Tomorrow's Parties

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

4
🗣️ Joni Mitchell
💿 Hejira

Choosing just one Joni album is a near-impossible task. But gun to my head, Hejira is the pinnacle of one of the most wonderful artists to ever exist.

Favourite songs:
- Amelia
- Hejira
- Refuge Of The Roads

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

5
🗣️ The Choir
💿 Circle Slide

An album that single-handedly changes everything you thought you knew about Christian Rock. As close to a religious experience as I'm likely to have.

Favourite songs:
- Circle Slide
- Sentimental Song
- Restore My Soul

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

6
🗣️ Sinead O'Connor
💿 I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

One of the most powerful records I've ever had the pleasure of hearing - devastatingly brilliant, and then some.

Favourite songs:
- Feel So Different
- Three Babies
- Last Day Of Our Acquaintance

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

7
🗣️ John Martyn
💿 Solid Air

The title track is one of the most affecting songs I've ever had the fortune of hearing. And the rest ain't far behind...

Favourite songs:
- Solid Air
- Don't Want To Know
- May You Never

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

8
🗣️ Television
💿 Marquee Moon

One of the most epic albums of all time, and it's been going up in my estimation with every further listen since that initial one early in the year.

Favourite songs:
- Marquee Moon
- Elevation
- Torn Curtain

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

9
🗣️ Suicide
💿 Suicide

And you thought Lou Reed's 'Berlin' was a bleak pick...

Favourite songs:
- Frankie Teardrop
- Che
- Cheree

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

10
🗣️ Lou Reed
💿 Berlin

Into the top ten with an absolute slice of bleak greatness - and one of my finest concept albums of all time.

Favourite songs:
- Caroline Says II
- The Kids
- The Bed

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

11
🗣️ Pharoah Sanders
💿 Karma

Avant-garde jazz has been one of my favourite genre discoveries of the year. The only con here is that Karma has set the bar too high.

Favourite tracks:
- The Creator Has A Master Plan
- Colors

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

12
🗣️ Frank Sinatra
💿 In The Wee Small Hours

One of the first ever concept albums. Almost three quarters of a century on, it remains one of the finest.

Favourite songs:
- In The Wee Small Hours...
- Last Night When We Were Young
- This Love Of Mine

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

13
🗣️ World Party
💿 Goodbye Jumbo

An album as good as its cover is terrifying.

It also was the springboard for my tardy love affair with late era Beatles.

Favourite songs:
- When The Rainbow Comes
- Sweet Soul Dream
- Is It Too Late?

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

14
🗣️ The Dolphin Brothers
💿 Catch The Fall

Another epic record from Japan's alumni. This time, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri join forces for a one-off sophistipop masterpiece.

Favourite songs:
- My Winter
- Host To The Holy
- Catch The Fall

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

15
🗣️ Marvin Gaye
💿 What's Going On

A classic with very good reason, but sadly getting more and more relevant with every passing year.

Favourite songs:
- Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
- Save The Children
- Wholy Holy

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

16
🗣️ Porcupine Tree
💿 Stupid Dream

I didn't love everything that Porcupine Tree did.

But when they were good, they were immense. And never more so than on Stupid Dream, for me.

Favourite songs:
- Stop Swimming
- Don't Hate Me
- A Smart Kid

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

17
🗣️ The Mahavishnu Orchestra
💿 The Inner Mounting Flame

One of the finest recommendations I've had from our music community here.

In a year of jazz discovery, this jazz fusion record is incredible.

Fave songs:
- Dawn
- The Dance Of Maya
- You Know, You Know

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

18
🗣️ Tom Tom Club
💿 Tom Tom Club

Talking Heads were my finest discovery of 2024, at least in hindsight.

Tom Tom Club weren't too far off that - this is an absolutely joyous record full of fun!

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

19
🗣️ David Crosby
💿 If I Could Only Remember My Name

Out of so much pain comes something so beautiful, a transcendent record which never fails to take me to another place.

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

20
🗣️ Cocteau Twins
💿 Treasure

I have nothing more to add to what's written below other than knowing that, yeah, this in no way should be in 20th - it's majestic.

Favourite songs:
- Pandora (For Cindy)
- Ivo
- Persephone

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

21
🗣️ Brian Eno
💿 Another Green World

I knew Eno's production work, ambient soundscapes, and the early days with Roxy Music.

Of course his solo songs were going to be amazing too!

Favourite songs:
- St. Elmo's Fire
- Everything Merges With The Night
- Becalmed

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

22
🗣️ Neil Young
💿 Harvest

On first listen, I didn't expect this to be my favourite Neil Young album.

But repeat listens over the autumn have made it essential listening.

Favourite songs:
- Old Man
- Out On The Weekend
- Heart Of Gold

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

23
🗣️ Nico
💿 The Marble Index

A complete reinvention for Nico, and a record that half a century later still sounds like nobody else.

Gothic in its truest and scariest form.

Favourite songs:
- No One Is There
- Ari's Song
- Evening Of Light

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

24
🗣️ Bruce Springsteen
💿 Nebraska

I wasn't expecting to fall head over heels for 'The Boss' this year. His music and presence has been a wonderful surprise. Nebraska is a muted masterpiece.

Favourite songs:
- Nebraska
- Johnny 99
- State Trooper

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

25
🗣️ Richard Hawley
💿 Coles Corner

Perhaps the closest cousin to The Blue Nile's 'Hats' in the 21st century.

It's also one of my favourite album covers discovered this year.

Favourite songs:
- Coles Corner
- The Ocean
- Born Under A Bad Sign

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

26
🗣️ Kolya
💿 Kolya

If you love Slint's 'Spiderland', you're bound to at, the very least, like.

This Slint superfan absolutely loved it.

Favourite tracks:
- Resuscitation
- Robots Dream In Black And White
- Horizons

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

27
🗣️ Spirit
💿 Spirit

I had a glut of great albums fall into my lap at the end of my 365 New To Me Album journey.

This late 60s psychedelic rock record is an absolute joy.

Fave songs:
- Fresh-Garbage
- Mechanical World
- Girl In Your Eye

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

28
🗣️ Bob Dylan
💿 Desire

An artist who splits opinion for many, and even amongst my own thoughts.

I don't love everything I've heard, but I have no mixed feelings on this.

Fave songs:
- Hurricane
- One More Cup Of Coffee
- Sara

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

29
🗣️ The Doors
💿 Strange Days

Controversial I'm sure, but while The Doors' debut does little for me, Strange Days was everything I was hoping for, and then some.

Favourite songs:
- You're Lost Little Girl
- My Eyes Have Seen You
- I Can't See Your Face In My Mind

#Top31NewToMeAlbums2025

30
🗣️ The Opposition
💿 Intimacy

Perhaps the record in my Top 30 that's most under the radar. Not only exceptional for such an unknown album, but great on its own merits.

Favourite tracks:
- Voice Has Changed
- My Room Is White
- In The Heart