Honourable mentions:

▪️Memorials - All Clouds Bring Not Rain
▪️Joshua Idehen - I know you’re hurting, everyone is hurting, everyone is trying, you have got to try
▪️Bonnie Prince Billy - We Are Together Again
▪️Ladytron - Paradises

#chopsfives #aotm

Good films SB is not in much

▪️The Vanishing
▪️Infamous
▪️Bullet Train

#chopsfives #sbwatch

Honourable mentions:

▪️Our Brand Is Crisis
▪️While You Were Sleeping
▪️Two If By Sea
▪️The Thing Called Love

#chopsfives #SBwatch

And that’s the lot. At least, until Pratical Magic 2 comes out later this year. I started this back in December 2019 so it’s taken me longer than expected to get to the end.

There will be a top five soon #SBwatch #chopsfives

Honourable Mentions:

▪️Shaking Hand - Shaking Hand
▪️Lande Hekt - Lucky Now
▪️Tyler Ballgame - For The First Time, Again

#chopsfives #aotm

Here you go..

1. One Battle After Another
2. The Ballad of Wallis Island
3. A Real Pain
4. Sinners
5. A Complete Unknown

#topfive #chopsfives #filmsky

I did not see that many new films in 2025, maybe 19 though some of those were late 2024 releases. I only made it to the cinema (🍿) three times and those have all made the list. Will try harder this year.

Later I’ll share my top five “new to me” films #chopsfives #film2025

Top 5: Books I read in 2025

1. Helen Mort - Black Car Burning
2. Ben Myers - Rare Singles
3. Cathi Unsworth - Season of the Witch
4. Rory Stewart - Politics on the Edge
5. Amy Liptrott - The Instant

#chopsfives #topfive

1. James - Percival Everett
2. Cuddy - Benjamin Myers
3. The Great When - Alan Moore
4. Modern Baptists - James Wilcox
5. Arcadia - Tom Stoppard

#topfive #chopsfives #booksky

Honourable Mentions:

Marlen Haushofer - The Wall
Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time

#chopsfives #books2025

#chopsfives Top 5 albums of 2025

1) The Besnard Lakes Are The Ghost Nation
2) Suede - Antidepressants
3) Kronstad 23 - Sommermørket
4) pôt-pot - Warsaw 480km
5) Holden & Zimpel - The Universe Will Take Care Of You

▪️Brown Horse - All The Right Weaknesses ▪️The New Eves - The New Eve Is Rising ▪️Slime City - National Record of Achievement ▪️Delivery - Force Majeure ▪️Alan Sparhawk - With Trampled By Turtles ▪️Little Simz - Lotus ▪️Flora Hibberd - Swirl ▪️The Bug Club - Very Human Features ▪️Aesop Rock - Black Hole Superette ▪️Kathryn Joseph - WE WERE MADE PREY. ▪️caroline - caroline 2 ▪️Water From Your Eyes - It's a Beautiful Place ▪️Ezra Furman - Goodbye Small Head ▪️Penfriend - House of Stories ▪️The Nightingales - The Awful Truth ▪️Lily Allen - West End Girl ▪️Big Thief - Double Infinity ▪️The Cords - The Cords ▪️Geese - Getting Killed ▪️Tom Williams - Out of Nowhere ▪️Maruja - Pain to Power

▪️Billy Nomates - Metalhorse ▪️AAA Gripper - We Invented Work For The Common Good ▪️Orchard - Argentum ▪️Samantha Crain - Gumshoe ▪️Orcutt Shelley Miller - Orcutt Shelley Miller ▪️W.I.T.C.H. - SOGOLO

Honourable Mentions - I found it really hard to pick my 5 favourites this year. I think any of my 32 AOTY contenders could be in the 5 and I’ll still feel I’d got it right. There’s a load more I loved too but you have to draw the line somewhere #chopsfives #2025AOTY

Top 5 gigs 2025
#chopsfives #gigs2025
1) Paul McCartney, SB Bowl, Santa Barbara, CA
2) Grandaddy, Glasshouse, Pomona, CA
3) Yama Uba, Knockout, San Francisco, CA
4) Jens Lekman, Lodge Room, Highland Park, CA
5) Bruce Cockburn, Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara, CA

#chopsfives 7! #gigs2025

Neil Young & Chrome Hearts - Hyde Park
Divine Comedy -Wolves Civic
Cameron Winter -Albert Hall, Manchester
Shack - Olympia
Edwyn Collins -Festival Hall
Broadside Hacks/Incredible String Band EOTR Festival
*Gillian Welch & David Rawlings -Apollo, Manchester

*Numero uno!

#chopsfives #gigs2025

E L U CI D - Cafe oto
Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals - Hootananny Brixton
billy woods + dj haram - The Scala
Beta Band - The Roundhouse
Tortoise / Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer- London Barbican

#chopsfives #gigs2025

1. Tortoise / Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer- London Barbican
2. SML - London Church of Sound
3. MJ Lenderman - Brighton Chalk
4. Stereolab - Dover Booking Hall
5. Protomartyr - Leeds Brudenell Social Club

#chopsfives #gigs2025

1. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings - The London Palladium
2. Lana Del Rey - Wembley Stadium
3. Cassandra Jenkins - Colchester Arts Centre
4. Bill Ryder-Jones - Cambridge Junction
5. Air - Latitude Festival

@chopstopfives.bsky.social

Possible that I saw (or remember) only 5 shows in 2025, so here they are (chronological). Hope to do better next year

Oceanator, Open Mike Eagle - Sonia
Ekko Astral, Jeff Rosenstock, PUP - Roadrunner
Winter - Warehouse XI
Belly - Paradise
The Beths - Royale

#chopsfives #topfive #gigs2025

HMs to Heartworms (Scala & Elec Ballroom), Picture Parlour (HotBox), Sharon Van Etten (RAH), Blondshell / Westside Cowboy (Electric), The Tubs (Oslo), Drink The Sea (Jazz Cafe)

#chopsfives #topfive #gigs2025

Look like I was just to your left at Nation of Language 🤜🤛

1. Jack White - Troxy
2. Annahstasia - Hoxton Hall
3. Father John Misty - EOTR
4. John Grant - Cambridge Jct
5. Nation of Language - Roundhouse

#chopsfives #topfive #gigs2025

1. Radiohead, Bologna
2. Beck, Royal Albert Hall
3. LCD Soundsystem, Brixton
4. Pulp, Glastonbury
5. The Ting Tings, Gibson guitar shop, Denmark St
5: Sensitive album launch, The Social
#chopsfives #topfive #gigs2025

1. Wilco - Royal Albert Hall
2. Throwing Muses - Waterfront Norwich
3. Magpie Arc - Cecil Sharp House
4. Joan As Policewoman - Norwich Arts Centre
5. Mandrake Handshake - Fabric
#chopsfives #gigs2025

#chopsfives #gigs2025

1. Mt.Misery & The Cords (Sidney & Mathilda, Sheffield)
2. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (Band on the Wall, Manchester)
3. Mo Dotti & Cigarettes For Breakfast (Just Dropped In, Coventry)
4. Mt.Misery (Cumberland Arms, Newcastle)
5. Healees (The Victoria, Birmingham)

Top 5 gigs of 2025 #chopsfives
#gigs2025

1. Neil Young - Hyde Park
2. Slowdive - Brixton Academy
3. Waterboys - Roundhouse
4. Secret Shine - Strongroom Bar
5. Just Mustard - Hoxton Hall

#chopsfives
#topfive
#top5songs2025

I’ll change my mind, obviously, but for now:

1/ Mhaol - DM:AM
2/ Wombo - Danger In Fives
3/ The New Eves - Highway Man
4/ lor2mg - pour it out
5/ Little Simz - Flood

#Chopsfives #topfive

1. The Thousand First - Cindy
2. Square Root of None - Ulrika Spacek
3. For the Girls - The Charlatans
4. Melodie is a Wound - Stereolab
5. The Sun Ain't Doing it For Me Lately - William Doyle

#Chopsfives. Top 5 TV of 2025

1. This City is Ours
2. Black Rabbit
3. Such Brave Girls
4. The Death of Bunny Munro
5. Slow Horses

Special mention to Just Act Normal.

Top 5 EP’s 2025
#chopsfives
1) Say Sue Me: “Time Is Not Yours”
2) Forty Winks: “Love Is A Dog From Hell”
3) Nodega: “Rot In Helvetica”
4) Adrian Sherwood/African Head Charge/Speakers Corner Quartet: “Barbican Heights”
5) Peel Dream Magazine: “Taurus”

Honourable mentions

▪️The Orchestra (For Now) - Plan 75
▪️Office of Aurora - Everything Burning, Nothing On Fire
▪️Tenderness - Heat Wave Love Song
▪️Adam Hopper - Remember to Have Fun

#chopsfives #2025eps

My top 5 songs from 2025:

1. A Song By Me - Jim Bob
2. Sweet Sister Sorrow - The Primitives
3. Jack's Been to the National - Half Man Half Biscuit
4. Amsterdam via Rotterdam - Eden Gray & Cornershop
5. Fabulist - The Cords

#chopsfives