Before we wrap 2025, let’s find out what makes an album of the year?
I’m both eager and cautious to answer the question of what makes an album of the year.
There’s an added existential element to investigating this, for me, a music journalist, because my entire livelihood depends on understanding the answer to this question. Both ends of the spectrum of whether I am going to expose myself as a charlatan or am going to give away my secrets seem to haunt me as my fingers hover on the keyboard in preparation for this article.
But then, the important truth presents itself to me that this ultimately is a privilege, because every week, when I flick on whatever record it is I am about to review, I remind myself of how joyous it is as a music fan, to have found myself in a position where I can professionally engage with an art form I so love; however, that enthusiasm doesn’t guide me down a garden path of unwarranted optimism either.
Simply labelling everything with merit under the guise of art being perennially subjective is undoubtedly misleading in the lens of album reviewing, for there feels some objectivity necessary, especially those that exist within several contexts, be it technical or cultural, with the latter sometimes being the most important of all.
Because yes, a good album is about how it makes you feel, no doubt, and that is a subjective experience, but dig a little deeper and understand why it makes you feel that way, which lead to questions, such as whether it is because of what pedal the guitar has been put through, or maybe the vocal melodies that exist on top of everything.
Maybe it goes back to culture. Does it make you feel a certain way because of the societal backdrop in which it’s been released? I mean, Arctic Monkeys’ debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, didn’t break any of the sonic ground formerly mentioned, but it encapsulated a very real atmosphere of noughties Britain, which is why the generation of downstroking copycats who have tried to replicate that album in the modern era have failed to tap into the social consciousness.
I asked my Far Out music editor, Tom Taylor, for his thoughts on the concept, and he articulated this idea but with an appropriately heightened sense of eloquence. He explained, “For me, a great album and an album of the year are two separate entities, linked, of course, but not exactly the same. Some records require repeat listens, or their worth is revealed further in time. But then there are other LPs that speak to something larger than a collection of songs with such gripping immediacy that they seize the zeitgeist in some sizable way.”
Adding, “That doesn’t mean they have to be huge hits. On the contrary. Back in 2023, for instance, we championed H Hawkline’s Milk For Flowers as our pick of the year, and it remains as niche as it was upon release. But it also still remains right, because it’s still an album that I’ve never heard anything like, and coming out of the pandemic, the world needed that. Its quality was linked directly to that. Some albums arrive like waterproof tape to a man with his finger over a hole in a leaking pipe. Other classics are just closer to luxuries. And there’s a distinct difference.”
So in Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not, and Milk For Flowers, we have two separate albums that rose above the rest in the year of their release, but for two very different reasons: one for cultural context, the other for artistic nuance. So, in asking how two separate methods yield the same result, the common denominator is authenticity.
Both artists and both of their records operate within the realms of their truth, with the kernel of their expressive idea identifiable immediately upon listen, and it is executed with clarity. Rather than feel like a patchwork blanket of thoughts hastily cobbled together in an effort to create warmth, there’s a clarity and precision to their own ideas that feels inherently linked to the artistic voices creating them, and when stripped away to their very core, they’re intimate and uniquely them.
If that quality feels somewhat difficult to discern in an album, then allow me to turn you on to the description of Bristol musician Joshua Jarman, AKA Classic Trucks, who employs a charming metaphor to help provide some concrete qualities upon which your abstract considerations of a potential great album can hang.
“A good album should be a bit like walking around a stranger’s house when they’re not home. Like they’ve left the door open for you and you’re having a look around. It should feel a bit voyeuristic, like looking at the books on the bookshelf, the fridge magnets and the holiday photographs. Maybe you can hear the neighbours shouting through the walls, or the birds singing in the garden. You’re trying to get a sense of who this person is. You’re walking around in their world. Maybe some of the rooms have locked doors, or the doors are only a bit ajar. That’s important, I think, to retain that mystery. A good album leaves you with questions; it leaves you wanting to know more. That’s why you keep coming back to it. Looking for more clues, things you didn’t notice the first time.”
With all of that in mind, it’s probably time I share my album of the year, right? Well, it was one that came to me not through a review, nor on the week of its release, but from a place where all great albums come: a friendly recommendation.
Hannah Cohen’s Earthstar Mountain was suggested to me by a friend who knows I like music that sits somewhere between the groovy and delicate. Cohen’s album hits those notes and so much more, delivering a swarm of interesting ideas but with a laser-sharp focus that makes her ideas and personality seem so overtly obvious. Like the house Jarman describes, Cohen’s album offers a room for every feeling and tempo, but within each of them, you never feel too far from your dwelling.
