Herb Sundays - Midyear MMXXV complete
A global survey of Herb faves of 2025
Herb Sundays Midyear MMXXV: The songs that hit us hardest
(Apple, Spotify).
Art by Michael Cina.
2025 out of the mouths of babes, now in expanded form.
I didn’t include mine in this list, but my sketchbook of songs lives here as Perpetual Dawn (Apple, Spotify).
The prompt was: “What song hit you hard in 2025 (new or old)?”
Pt 1 lives here:
Picks pt 2 (In No Order):
Dina Litovsky (
) - Stereolab - “Aerial Troubles”Lounge pop both baroque and futuristic, bristling with eerie optimism
Ken Shipley (The Numero Group) - Poke "Flip Flop" I spent a couple weeks in Iberia this summer and bought a lot of local records, but this 1984 slice of Portuguese balearic has barely left the turntable. Instant save.
Christene Barberich (
) - Tie between two older ones: “The Big Ship” by Brian Eno and Electrelane’s cover of “More Than This” (preferably live version)Both songs have changed for me the longer I Iisten to them, particularly Eno’s music….it gets under my skin in a way that heightens my awareness of everything else. Also as a rule I’m not a fan of covers (they are almost never better than the original), but this one from Electrelane is TIMELESS and always immediately takes me back to Brownies or Mercury Lounge in the 90s listening to live music from artists I’d never heard before….its just really freeing
Alec Hanley Bemis (
/ Brassland / OTH Songs) - YHWH Nailgun "Sickle Walk"With a run time of less than 90 seconds, YHWH Nailgun’s “Sickle Walk” stands as spittle-caked, frustrated, and groovy riposte to our era of smooth, lean-back, Perfect Fit Content for streaming services type music. Also on my playlist of recordings I’ve played obsessively on repeat this year are similar groove-driven tracks "Drop" by Tunde Adebimpe, "Abracadabra" by Lady Gaga and "Occapella" — a 1972 tune by Van Dyke Parks. (Deserving an honorable mention are Alex G’s “Afterlife" and its R.E.M. Out of Time style jangle, and the very different, very spacious "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by Erika de Casier.)
Cherie Hu (Water & Music) - “Gnarly” by Katseye
“Gnarly” might be the first truly post-AI pop single. It feels far from the machine perfection we often expect from K-pop. The beat is so zigzagged, the lyrics impressively vapid, some of the pronunciation both wrong and necessary (“chi-kun”). The crunchy choreography also confirms that the song begs to be performed much more than merely streamed. Over the next several months, we should expect artists, songwriters, and producers to make similarly abrasive and cathartic creative decisions, to send the message that REAL HUMANS — sweating, cringing, second-guessing, feeling — are still in the room. The pursuit of glitchy outliers as the default setting.
Rob Sevier (The Numero Group) Air - “Grieve Not The Spirit" - Recordings that begin with a little off-the-cuff laugh are always instantly more appealing to me, and this charming song feels so intimate throughout, more like a rehearsal or demo than a finished work
Travis Holcombe (FREAKS ONLY) - Ista - "Waves" 2025 has been a rough year all over the country, but especially in LA. This track takes me back to a simpler time and gets me in a good mood every time I hear it.
/ - “Feisty” - Smerz - I’m a huge Smerz fan and this whole album has held my attention, it's doing so much without ever breaking a sweat. They really know how to deliver a line, it's all so minxy and at times absurd. This song makes me want to get in the cab and head right to the after party.Toby Barnes (
) - “Vernal Fall” by DOVSAcid is one of my first true loves, from Acid Tracks, Voodoo Ray, FSOL, Acid Eiffel to today.
And a solid acid track will take a song where others can't. I love pretty much everything the guys are putting out on the Balmat label, and this collaboration between two favs - Johannes Auvinen, aka Tin Man, and Mexico City’s Gabo Barranco, aka AAAA.
It doesn't show off, it burns into the back of your head and before you know it, it becomes the main character. Love this and such a summer tune over here.
I couldn't just do one in the end… “The Milky Sea Song by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - I have a mini list of 5, and I am surprised I have chosen this as #1 but for some reason it keeps hitting the heart and the brain each time I hear it.
DJ Python - Maggie Roche - “Where Do I Come From” - elite song, elite lyrics, elite singing
Matt W (RVNG Intl.) P'o "Time and Time" - Is Wire the greatest band of all time? If based only on their prolific solo projects, from AC Marias to Dome to Colin Newman's incredible albums, the answer is yes. And while I've been going hard on Wire this year, here's something from the solo fray.
Laura David (
) “From” - Bon Iver - Love that mk.gee is all over everything. Just a very cool amalgamation of two powerhouses on a great new album. This was such a standout, distinct track. I love when songs have something inventive / innovative but are still listenable earworms -- this one gets at that balance really well to me.Jason DeMarco (Warner Bros Animation) - Fishmans- “Long Season” Last year I was away from home 7 months out of 12. I missed my family and my dogs like crazy. This song, this 35 minute album length song from 20 years ago by the Japanese group Fishmans, was my daily meditative ritual no matter where I was. The vibe is so mellow, slightly melancholy but not in an over the top way, and somehow warm and comforting. Now that I'm back home, I still find myself reaching for it with some degree of regularity. It's become an important song for me, and a continuing balm for my soul.”
Adam Shore - Water Damage "Reel 25" - Maximal minimalism. Sheer bliss, Pity it is only 20 minutes long. Sounds better on repeat.
Anthony Naples - Niall Ashley - “Ghosts Of Your Life (Feat. Raquel Martins)”
Gabbie (
) -wet leg - “catch these fists” - I've been obsessing over Wet Leg's evolution from coy ingenues to fully realized, space-hogging rockers. Rhian's in her element as the front woman, and even Hester's retreat into the background honors the reality of her social anxiety without dipping from the band. This song is catchy, racuous, and hasn't overstayed its welcome even after nearly daily play over many months.Martyn Bootyspoon (Booty Analytica Enterprises) Smerz - “You got time and I got money” - Extremely Montréal-Hot-Girl-Summer Track, and I am Hot Girl.
Douglas Stuart (Brijean) - Cameron Winter - “Love Takes Miles” - It’s a song that kinda has it all for me. It’s raw, poetic, feels good to listen to but still makes me want to cry a little. It’s somehow so innocent while at the same time deep and profound.
Bobby Solomon (
) -"The Boy” - Smashing PumpkinsEric Harvey (Professor and critic,
) - Erika de Casier - “Miss”Clark Warner (Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation; ambient DJ) - Susumu Yokota “Naminote” - My life is mixing Jazz and techno so this one is elemental in 2025. It samples the classic Gary Burton & Chick Corea “Senor Mouse”, a blueprint for more than Jazz since 1973. Susumu kindly handed me his ‘Sakura’ CD in Tokyo in 1999. I continue to share it and study it, 25 years in.
- "Defense" by Panda Bear and Cindy Lee Cindy Lee is reviving our love for what we used to call Indie Rock.Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records) - Jay Z - “Renegade (feat. Eminem)” - Feels like drinking a cold coca-cola on blistering hot day.
Matt Brinkworth (Captured Tracks) Annahstasia - “Villain” - I first heard Annahstasia’s Surface Tension EP towards the end of last year, and like basically everyone who hears Annahstasia for the first time, I was immediately all in. I’m selecting “Villain”, which I believe was the first single from the album that followed this year, as the hardest hit of 2025 so far because it was almost like a second realisation. I’m not entirely sure how to describe what I mean. A confirming moment, maybe?
To hear music with incredible promise and then go on to witness that promise fulfilled is its own kind of hard-hitting and subjective feeling as a listener. It may take time to arrive at over the course of several albums, for example. But here we are, straight out the gate: first single of a phenomenal first album, everything you wanted to hear and the gateway to sounds and a future discography of things you didn’t even know you wanted to hear yet. So exciting. The best part of music.
Jane Penny (TOPS) - “She Comes from Nowhere” by Neggy Gemmy - It sounds like a James Bond theme song written by Saint Etienne, need I say more.
[editors note: new TOPS album on Ghostly soon!]
Yasi Salek (
/ Bandsplain) - Geese - “Taxes” “I should burn in hell” is a powerful opening line, god is so back!!! (Read Max) - "Lucky (CFCF Remix)" - Seren 4 EverThis is recency bias speaking but CFCF's big shimmery remix of Seren 4 Ever's lovely "Lucky" dropped just in time for it to soundtrack some gorgeous sunny drives along the New England coast--I could have put it on repeat from Rhode Island to New York City and been satisfied the whole way
(emwhitenoise) - The Weather Station - “Neon Signs”Robin Sloan - Paul Simon - “Think Too Much (b)”
This one's a new discovery for me this year -- and now sometimes I will just listen to it on repeat. An anthem for our age!
( ) - - "Might" — A beautiful song by any measure, from a great album, built on time-shifted harmonies between an artist pre-transition and post-transition. They've been touring their homeland of Canada this year, after cancelling plans for a U.S. tour for reasons anyone reading the news can imagine.
Adam Offitzer - (
) - Indigo De Souza - “Heartthrob”Josh Terry (
) - Greg Freeman - "Gallic Shrug"I do not connect with artists or their work in a deep way very often, which I know as a writer is maybe silly to admit. But once in a while I will start hearing my own voice spoken back at me by a musician like some sort of divine echo. It happened a few years ago with Sturgill Simpson who is by turns heartbroken, angry, and sarcastic in ways that burrow themselves down inside me. I have never had the urge to write a musician a fan letter, but I have thought many times of trying to reach out to Sturgill to tell him what his music has meant to me over the years. "I Don't Mind" has made me cry every time I've heard it, and I've played it dozens of times in the last year alone.
sturgill simpson will go down in the great american canon. i saw him and john prine at radio city music hall in the 2010s, and it still sends shivers. part of my family is from pikeville, kentucky, and High Top Mountain is a spectacular (and funny!) masterpiece.
Full, heart felt agreement on the Sturgill Simpson recommendation and commentary. A few of the songs on his bluegrass albums are on may all time favorites list, including I Don't Mind, which is probably the best one.