The Best Albums of 2025 (Part 2)

A ranking and review of the top 100!

Read about No. 100-76 here!

#75: Ryokuoushoku Shakai, Channel U 
Channel U is akin to a collection of motivational speeches, encouraging people to harness the power to change and brighten their own thoughts. … This album is not solely about seizing the day and living loud. “Magic Hour” compares loving partners to fireworks and the water’s surface; the water is ready to reflect the best of the fireworks, and the two sometimes appear as if “Flickering together [into] the same shape.” “Ienai” talks about a “monochrome” world that is present after a loved one leaves it. “Be a flower” describes people as beautiful simply as they are, so there is no point in acquiring “prettily garnished vases” or other cosmetic changes. Even when not at their most exuberant, Ryokuoushoku Shakai offer novel ideas for seeing things in new lights. Read more here!

#74: TWICE, ENEMY 
It remains impressive that whenever TWICE use the element of surprise, they do so in ways that stay on-brand, and ENEMY is a great example. Their music stays sounding like their music, even when it spins 180 degrees, like in angsty J-rock songs. Those stay rooted in TWICE’s typical optimism and encouragement. For example, the title track implies people should fear TWICE’s rage (“Don’t try to test me… I’m so mad”) but goes on to characterize the “burning” in them as a soft glow, lighting their paths (“Deal with it my way and glow”) - after all, “Even a flower cannot bloom without swaying.” The other focus track, “Like 1,” has both strong positive and negative feelings, as they sing about the fleeting and uncontrollable passage of time (“Know there will come a time / For a bittersweet salute… Stay in this moment now / But we don’t get to choose…”). The music video, which bids farewell to an imaginary friend, shows the simultaneous desire to cling to someone or something and accept that one’s grip will inevitably loosen with time.

TWICE continue to deliver classic pop music but prove to excel in far more flavors than those for which they tend to get credit.

#73: Nana Mizuki, CONTEMPORARY EMOTION
This album has appeal for fans of both pop music overall and enthusiasts of specific pop sub-genres. Rather than say Nana Mizuki covers a spectrum from “bubblegum and highly-digitized pop” to “in-your-face pop-rock,” it makes more sense to say she mixes and matches those extremes, both with each other and with everything in between. Her album is best represented by a slider, not a pendulum; sonic switches do not take the form of jarring big swings, yet they still feel momentous. The always-shifting, colorful kaleidoscope that is this album could be an easily adaptable soundtrack for everything from a kitschy computer game to an action-packed anime. Beyond bringing to mind various media that it would be a great fit for, CONTEMPORARY EMOTION is admirable for its stimulating soundscapes. While fan favorites likely vary widely - and likely change often, as listeners replay these full and fast-paced tracks and pick up on new details while doing so - the songs deserving of the most love include “Moment of Truth” and (the aptly-titled!) “ADRENALIZED.”

#72: Kai Band, Noir Midnight
This rock album stays ambitiously on-the-move. It confounds and compels by conjuring images of specific times and places that are never the anticipated ones. An extra guitar layer here, an extra vocal layer there, pitch changes, disarming sound/lyric contrasts... It all adds up to an elusive yet explicit equation, a musical presence that has certainty and feigned spontaneity. The main takeaway after listening to this album is that Kai Band know what they can do and do it not just well, but while being down to add new elements to it in real time. Adding to the awe are the ways they tend to produce the most easily stuck-in-your-head aspects of songs through sounds, as opposed to through lyrics or onomatopoeia. 

#71: G-DRAGON, ÜBERMENSCH
Psychologist Friedrich Nietzsche popularized the term “Übermensch,” referring to a human who transforms into the most idyllic and powerful state imaginable. This aspirational “Overman” transcends human categories, hence why artists’ depictions of an Übermensch take on superhuman traits. Since an Übermensch can play any human role one can think of but never needs to, human-describing adjectives are deemed irrelevant. An Übermensch does not need to be “this” or “that;” the Übermensch is beyond compliments and reproach alike. With this context in mind, it makes sense for G-DRAGON to defy clear categorizations for any part of this ÜBERMENSCH era… Read more here!  

#70: JISOO, AMORTAGE
AMORTAGE combines “amor,” meaning “love,” with “montage,” and this EP indeed tells a love story montage-style. At a brisk pace, it cuts out the filler and sums up a relationship’s highs and lows. Likewise, the “earthquake” music video just makes time to touch on key milestones. … The 0-to-100 way people go from hesitant to approach a crush to forgetting what a day was like before communicating with that crush throughout it is something “earthquake” perfectly captures. As for the EP itself, JISOO goes from sounding head-over-heels (in the first two songs, “earthquake” and “Your Love”), to sounding proud of breaking up (“TEARS”), to giving her now-ex a blistering chastising (“Hugs & Kisses”). If one wants to summarize what the rush of a romance feels like from start to finish, AMORTAGE and “earthquake” do the trick! Read more here! 

#69: The Rose, WRLD
A hopeful streak runs through WRLD, sometimes on the surface, sometimes buried, and always returning to the theme of cosmic fate. … After singing about having hope that “Tomorrow” will be better and calling out to the universe for answers in “Nevermind,” they end with “Ticket To The Sky” and lines like “Below the stars, we ignite.” Before that, in “Slowly,” they hit an emotional low point, but lines like “Faces come and faces go” share the “This too shall pass” outlook of the brighter songs. The myriad of ways the songs on WRLD allude to each other embodies its “full-circle” theme… Read more here! 

#68: IVE, IVE EMPATHY
Newness mixed with nostalgia remains IVE’s winning formula. IVE EMPATHY includes unconventional analogies, like comparing a “FLU” to a problematic crush, and using boxing terminology in “TKO” to express confidence. The nostalgia comes from their spins on classics: “You Wanna Cry” is inspired by Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” and “ATTITUDE” borrows from “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega. The album finds additional strengths in what listeners are familiar with by staying true to IVE. Some members have writing credits on the album, they re-team up with Ryan Jhun for “REBEL HEART,” and empowerment remains a go-to message. Read more here! 

#67: CLOSE YOUR EYES, ETERNALT
ETERNALT is the soundtrack for a lucid landscape to which one can always mentally retreat. When it does not conjure up an image of peacefully napping in a field, it conjures up the sensation of smiling and clapping through a campfire sing-along with friends. Unison, angelic videos and instruments lull and keep listeners in a state of contentment, and romantic lyrics and moments of voices growing faint add to the dreamy atmosphere. The songs offer the experience of gently awakening, as a good dream slips out of one’s memory to the point where its details become fuzzy, but one thing stays clear: it was indeed a good dream! A debut teaser trailer describes this group’s essence well: their music is for “the end of a youthful journey” where a “moment fades” but “Eternity never sleeps.” That simultaneous certainty in the fleeting nature of the present and in its essence lingering suitably summarizes the group name “CLOSE YOUR EYES”!

#66: THE BACK HORN, Shinainaruanatahe
The ethos of Shinainaruanatahe is summed up right away on the first and main track: “I’ll put my overflowing feelings into music / And make the roar of life resonate now.” Indeed, each song screams its message, metaphorically, whether that is frustration at feeling like a cog in a machine on the job (“Junk Worker”) or relief at the dawn of a new day (“Hikari to Synergy”). While the songs have a commonality in their “unflinching venting session” nature, they run a wide gamut sonically. “Shuraba” has the most personality, with an inflection that changes as the song does. “Toumei Ningen” stands out for the rising-action feeling in its guitar-playing. “Mayday” is memorable for its joyful chanting; rousing drums define “Sun Goes Down;” “Tsuki No Blues” is a piano-focused song apt for chill days at home; and the album has a two-part conclusion that returns to boisterousness, with “Timelapse” and “Asu Sekai Ga Owarutoshitemo.” The other song is “Saigoni Nokorumono,” which has the overall highest-quality production and greatest likelihood of getting stuck in listeners’ heads.

#65: HANRORO, JAMONG SALGU CLUB 
Here is one way to interpret this album’s fictional story: the point of view keeps changing between HANRORO and a love interest (whether that is platonic or romantic love is up to the listeners to decide, although it is platonic in the “Goodbye, My Summer” music video). “Welcome!” and “Light or Rain” are HANRORO’s songs. She sings with relief about a stranger who is her “savior.” “May I dare to cry out with you in this moment?,” she asks during her high-energy “Welcome!” She has a pinch-me moment, wondering if this is all “just a dream.” “For a day, I delay the dive,” she decides. In “Light or Rain,” backed by a soft acoustic sound, she asks related questions: “If I pour all my warmth into those growing weeds, will they become the tallest tree?;” “If I send my dreams afloat in this sleeping dawn, will I become the finest grown-up?” 

While HANRORO wonders if “it’s okay to cry here” and seems to be foreshadowing, the other person’s point of view appears to be in hindsight and is therefore more cynical; the other person does offer a safe space for tears but is aware of that space’s limits. … Other songs can more plausibly be interpreted as coming from either point of view… Read more here!

#64: SIX LOUNGE, more than love
more than love is an audacious alternative to the average rock EP. It gets better and more daring as it goes on, starting with a “woe is me” song about wishing they were better songwriters! “Donzoko” (“Rock Bottom”) is also self-deprecating, but with more of a shrug than an axe to grind! They decide to just dance out their feelings, which escalates to a pledge to be so honest that they get “embarrassed all the time” (in “You and I”) and to let people “laugh at [them] for being stupid” (in “Shinuhodoaitaikaradakaraainiikuyo”)! After throwing accelerating caution to the wind, their humorous brand of self-disgust culminates in “Grotesque LOVESONG.” The self-described “gross song” is enjoyably excessive, especially when a note is held for a jaw-droppingly long time!

#63: P1Harmony, DUH!
While long-time P1Harmony listeners will hear many of the boy band’s hallmarks in DUH! - ad libs galore, singing and rapping flexes within the same song, heavy hip-hop inspiration - this project stands apart from their past ones. It is not so much that they have honed their sound, nor is it so much that they have grown more confident. It is both and then some, and what feels the most new-to-them is the apathy they have towards those who wish for their creative and commercial downfall. Those people are jokes to them, and that comes across in their music loud and clear! While being more fun-loving than forceful, the group exudes a triumphant “Doubt us at your own peril” attitude, and their music is better off for it! Read more here!

#62: Sakurazaka46, Make or Break (Special Edition) 
Under the umbrella message of “You miss every shot you don’t take,” Sakurazaka46 give the thoughts and feelings of young adults the wonderfully odd musical equivalents they deserve! In “Renaimusou,” they compare the odds of success to a lottery and sports that are both worth playing: “If you don’t do anything, there won’t be any problems / But still, you have to try, [or else] nothing will be different from yesterday;” “The minimum requirement is to [do] the required batting.” The other songs have more atypical metaphors (not to mention more colorful instrumentals). In “Shindafuri,” they sing about how they would rather “play dead” than live in an inauthentic way: “Reject! I don’t like it! Sorry!;” “I can’t compromise on anything.” In “Minatoku Parsley,” they treat those as code words that indicate a pending confession. And in “Make or Break,” they cannot decide if love is more like a knife or a bumblebee, so they compare it to both! 

#61: Fujii Kaze, Prema 
Fujii Kaze fills this collection of crisply-produced 80’s and 90’s homages with his own worldview and personality. Although this is his first full-English-language album, physical album copies come with Japanese translations, and one of its main singles is “Hachikō,” named after a dog who became famous in Japan for extreme loyalty to his owner. Fujii Kaze also embeds his spiritual sensibilities into these songs: “Prema” refers to a supreme form of love in Sanskrit, and he sings in the song “Prema” about meditating on a relationship that opens his “third eye.” Terms including and similar to “blessing,” “salvation,” and “prayers” appear throughout the music, and his laid-back demeanor during disco-tinged jams and lower-tempo R&B grooves alike makes his inner peace believable. Even when singing about messier, more negative emotions, a sense of contentment emanates out of each song, and he has a “free at last” way of thinking about cutting ties with what and who do not satisfy his emotional needs. Prema has a widely accessible and appealing sound for pop music fans worldwide, but its soul is solely rooted in Fujii Kaze.

#60: Sunset Rollercoaster, QUIT QUIETLY
As much as this indie band claims to have made this album with a “back to basics” mindset, it is far from dull! Their sound continues to stand out for its jazz/pop/psychedelic fusions, and their lyrics continue to stand out for not needing deciphering yet staying very recognizable as their own. “Why didn’t I think of that?!” is an understandable response to their instrumental and lyrical choices; they come across as simple yet also not! “Wind of Tomorrow” is Sunset Rollercoaster’s interpretation of a Japanese proverb, “Tomorrow’s winds will blow tomorrow,” about not worrying about things that might not even happen. The group takes the voice of a greyhound in “Piccolo Amore,” likening their loyalty and instinct to comfort a lover to those of a pet! They give voices to other non-humans, too, including Pluto and one of its moons in “Charon’s Gone”! When singing from their own perspective, they still show their eccentricities… Read more here! 

#59: YdBB, CODA
CODA follows a meandering, mild-seeming yet momentous path back to one’s inner child. With lots of references to leaving a metaphorical island to navigate new waters, a nice mix of the group’s classic indie-rock sound with more stripped instrumental portions that zone in on their main message, a new extent of hands-on involvement in making each song, and a heartfelt music video about bringing the drawn and dreamed-up worlds of children to life, CODA tells an observant, understated tale. Read more here!

#58: BOYNEXTDOOR, No Genre
As the album title suggests, this BOYNEXTDOOR era is defined by its disinterest in coming across in any particular way. It is not about thinking or doing as much as just being. As they put it in “I Feel Good,” “Meaning? Theme? Who needs stuff like that?”! They don’t overthink anything, for better and for worse! They do not choose their words carefully: “Get the hell outside, bruh!,” they yell in “I Feel Good;” “We just hate being lonely,” they admit as to why they won’t call a relationship off in “Next Mistake.” In addition to lacking tact, this group represents the “BOY” in “BOYNEXTDOOR” with the immature disposition that deep introspection is not ideal. Rather than look for life lessons to take from bad times, they would rather just grumble, as they do on the jealousy-focused “Is That True?” And rather than reflect on the deeper reason for a crush, their answer in “123-78” is simply, “I just like everything about her.” Their impatience is thematically appropriate, as is the fickleness of their genre leanings. 

None of this is to say that BOYNEXTDOOR sound like insolent nuisances! The prickliness is amusing, the songs stay mostly upbeat, and it is commendable for a group with a baked-in concept (given the band name) to stay surprising. Read more here!

#57: Jin, Echo
Soft reverb, live instruments, and melodies on which Jin’s voice effortlessly glides are just a few of the many highlights throughout Echo. The songs are well-crafted and make up for simplistic lyricism with detailed instrumentals. Jin gets right to the point, crooning through the self-explanatory “Don’t Say You Love Me” and “Nothing Without Your Love.” Two other similarly straightforward songs: “To Me, Today,” a self-reminder to live in the here and now, and a song about feeling relegated to a “Background” actor in a loved one’s life. Jin has the necessary voice for taking these songs to the next level, but the real can’t-miss gems are the ones that play it less safe. “Loser” is a head-turning glam-metal twist for both Jin and collaborator YENA, and they fully get into character as a couple having a heated argument! “Rope It” is another admirable toss in the dark for Jin; it’s his first time trying country-rock. The third new-to-Jin song is “With the Clouds,” with an atypical structure in terms of both tempo and formatting. Echo has many flavors and hopefully encourages Jin to keep exploring his vast musical tastes. 

#56: Pets Tseng, Stay Tuned
Stay Tuned is a gentle and accessible meditation on life imitating art and vice versa. Soft guitars and pianos are the main events, sometimes for ballads, sometimes for more upbeat material, and always for songs with “life as a show” framing. … The last song, “What Love Feels Like,” expresses anticipation for “the next season,” and it makes an astute observation about why the TV show analogy is useful. TV shows are something that goes “From impermanence to daily life;” they become parts of people’s daily routines, so in a way, TV is life. “Count to Ten” gets at the same sentiment: TV is like a date on a calendar, something that might mean nothing to outsiders but can be personally significant and important for the viewer. Pets Tseng sings about the importance of always remembering the day of a breakup, much like someone always remembers when they tune in to a favorite show or when they found out a favorite character’s fate. Numbers are a way to recall and categorize memories, making them more meaningful and understandable. TV shows are a tool for the same ends, to make sense of the world both after and as it is unfolding. As she puts it in “Unforgettable,” TV stars who “have your time” and attention recognize “It’s short, but it’s forever,” just like life. Read more here!

#55: PassCode, INSIGNIA 
PassCode prove they are always in fighting form! With head-spinning speed and frequency, the electronic/pop/rock group balances guttural screams and metal-adjacent tendencies with periods of glitchy hyper-pop. Their words share their sound’s combustible energy. ... They are aggressive cheerleaders, wielding words of encouragement like weapons more than seeds to passively plant in people’s minds. The relentless advice-giving avoids getting annoying or tedious, though, thanks to both the all-consuming sound and some more inspired lyrical detours… Read more here!

#54: BAEKHYUN, Essence of Reverie 
Suiting the title, which includes the French word for “daydream,” Essence of Reverie lets listeners indulge in BAEKHYUN’s dreamy and romantic voice. He smoothly elevates each R&B-rooted song, while adding pop pizazz for the perfect finishing touches. He switches to a more talk-like pace and tone partway through “No Problem,” “Black Dreams” features ad-lib interjections, and the string melodies in “Lemonade” give it extra sweetness! The best song, though, is “Love Comes Back,” and the most smile-worthy is “Elevator.” The latter brings to mind “Candy” but has even cuter lyrics! One more dose of swoon-worthiness comes from the acoustic ballad that ends the album, “Late Night Calls.” It is the perfect bow on this present, concluding with a simple reminder of BAEKHYUN’s voice’s silkiness. 

#53: Stray Kids, Mixtape : dominATE 
This mixtape is playful, punchy, and personalized. It is unmistakably a Stray Kids release, filled to the brim with braggadocio and cheeky ways with words, while also laced with layers of sincere sweetness and personal pride. Blending everything together is a consistent conviction and charisma. Read more here!

#52: TOMONARI SORA, East West 
As the title suggests, East West is a spirited selection of songs that stir the sounds of Eastern and Western cultures together. A few tracks prioritize ambiance, like “Coffee - Album ver.” and “white out,” but the majority contain sprightly storytelling. The best songs are the ones easiest to visualize, “HOKO” and “Yoimatsuri.” The former brings to life a fight scene (making its purpose as an anime tie-in song a natural one), complete with battle cries, stomping, sword clashes, and the noises of weapons being unsheathed. As for “Yoimatsuri,” its sing-song nature and buoyancy set the right tone for his description of a midsummer festival. Elsewhere on the album, TOMONARI SORA sets and changes tones in continuously riveting ways. Theatricality threads the songs together, with plentiful playful pianos, clap-along moments, and creative characterizations (especially in “Niramekko,” which compares crushing to a staring contest, wondering who will “blink” first)!

#51: f5ve, SEQUENCE 01
SEQUENCE 01 is a glitchy, hyper-pop whirlwind with corresponding bite-size music videos. But while f5ve adhere to current trends, they also stay true to their roots. “Underground” sounds straight out of the 80’s/90’s Japanese dance music scene. “UFO” has punny lyrics about gachapon, a Japanese toy, and its music video location is one that is considered the J-pop idol scene’s original turf. The Japanese “Rika-chan” fashion doll is referenced in “Television.” And the J-pop sonic influences in “Real Girl” and “Jump” are evident. Read more here! 

Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown!

View the Substack version of this piece here!