2025 was a challenging year, to put it mildly, for many people. However, the music was phenomenal. That’s the essence of art; it connects us as humans. Regardless of the triumphs and personal setbacks, that musical influence shows us, guides us, in how we move, nod our heads, mark the year, dance, and sweat.
It even keeps us sane while everything else seems off.
Personally, I could not get enough of that Pachyman record Another Place, and was taken by surprise with the music of Dijon and Rochelle Jordan. I think with the passing of all those greats—Sly Stone, Dwayne Wiggins, D’Angelo, Roberta Flack, to name a few—R&B and soul started to see and make a shift that had been in the works for a while now. Much in the same way jazz has been shifting on a year-to-year basis for the past decade.
Speaking of which, that digital fusion punch-up of jazz and electronic smatterings from the supergroup SML stayed on repeat for me and in a live performance, I got charmed and smitten with the ’70s Turkish funk meets Anatolian folk songs by the group Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek who turned The Chapel, right here in San Francisco this summer, into a palace overflowing with folk songs bent into a groove-psyche swoon.
But I needed more intel on the year in rewind. I wanted to present to you a cast of informed voices. I yearned to know what music gave others solace. So I reached out to Bay Area music insiders, producers, venue bookers, DJs, singer-songwriters, and radio officials to get a wider, broader perspective on the year’s music and how it shaped culture. I think you will find these insights poignant, vivid, and overall relatable.
Buckle up, folks…
MAE POWELL, BAY AREA SINGER-SONGWRITER
“There has been a lot of incredible music this year, but the record I keep coming back to is Hannah Cohen’s Earthstar Mountain. In a time so oversaturated with digital content and AI, this record is a warm analog fire to cozy up next to. It’s been what I need in every season, with “Rag” portraying the slowness of winter and “Summer Sweat” having me dancing in June. I also loved Big Thief’s Double Infinity and Alice Phoebe Lou’s Oblivion. I’m definitely into listening to slower, analog processes these days, with a lot of my listening time taken up by ’50s and ’60s crackly vocal jazz records. It was a wild year to release a record, with SO much good music constantly coming out, but I think my record found a home where it was supposed to, and I’m very grateful for that.”
ETHAN RAUP, CEO OF KEXP
The most significant trend to me this past year is seeing music and art start to emerge once again as a creative force capable of lighting the way through some dark times. We’ve seen this before, of course. The yin rises up to balance out the yang. It’s only natural. But it’s one thing to try to understand it in theory and quite another to experience it first-hand like this.
It’s pretty amazing, actually. How music can lift our spirits. Warm you up from the inside. Bring us together. It feels pretty good. It’s an antidote to fear and isolation. And that’s just a start. When those creative currents really get flowing, then watch out! That’s when things get interesting. There’s no holding back. It’ll burst right through all these brittle attempts at control and gush forth with resurgent life and vitality. That’s what music can do. Check it out and see for yourself. A creative force gathering steam. That’s what I’d look for in 2026.
As for my favorite musical experience of 2025, that’s easy: Ethel Cain at the Greek Theater in mid-August. I’d seen her the summer before at Thing Fest outside Seattle, and she was the highlight of the whole weekend for me. So I was already a fan. But walking into The Greek last August was like walking into a whole other world. She’s part of a younger generation of musicians tapping that creative wellspring without fear of being carried away to new and unexpected places. This is what renewal looks like. And it is happening all over the place.
MEAGHAN MITCHELL, ARTS & CULTURE JOURNALIST
One artist who has really stayed with me this year is Tyler, the Creator. I have always vibed with his work, but recently I have realized why it hits so close to home. I grew up in ’90s San Francisco as a creative kid who absorbed everything: alternative rock, new jack swing, techno, skate videos, indie films. And anytime you are the Black kid in spaces people do not expect you to be in, you carry this double awareness. You are fully yourself, but you are also the one. The only. The one who stands out because you are not supposed to be there.
Tyler’s journey feels familiar in that way. He has always been his own ecosystem: weird, brilliant, boundary pushing. He has evolved in front of us without shrinking or apologizing. His success feels like someone beating the odds while rewriting what the odds even mean. I connect with that deeply.
His latest album, Don’t Tap the Glass, has been my go-to this year. It is layered, playful, grown, and still very him. It feels like the kind of project you make when you finally trust every part of who you are. The polished parts. The strange parts. The parts people did not always understand.
ALAIN GRISSETTE, AKA DJ DELON, MUSIC BOOKER AT JUPITER & DRAKE’S DEALERSHIP
While putting some thoughts together, one hard thing to escape is the folks who passed this year. I know as we get older that you’re going to recognize more and more folks you grew up with passing away, but D’Angelo’s passing had me a bit wrecked, let alone Sly, Jellybean, Roberta, Trugoy, D’Wayne, Angie, Steve Cropper, Roy Ayers…
This year, I really dug El Michels Affair, 24 Hr Sports; The Visioneers, Def Radio, Jose James, On and On, as well as digging up random drum and bass edits on Soundcloud.
TODD KURNAT, VISUAL ARTIST
2025 sucked–bigly–for a lot of folks. The music did not. I’ve purchased more physical media (vinyl) this year (new, used, and all eras) than in the last 10 years combined. Well over 100 slabs. I experienced live music more than ever. I saw over two dozen live bands in 2025.
2025 is the first full year of KEXP Radio in the Bay Area. It has had a tremendous positive impact on my family. It’s connected us to more music, music history, and like-minded people than ever. It has brought us closer together because we are listening to more of it together. So much so that we are proud “Amplifiers” (monthly donors) to KEXP. I started a new monthly vinyl listening night.
After 60+ years of the US Congress voting to fund the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, we saw funding retroactively stripped by Congress, and the doors closed on this institution. Affects of this are TBD.
More attention and scrutiny are aimed at the corporate music streaming industry’s bad business practices—including huge profits for CEOs and very little for musicians, profits being used to invest in military technology, and, of course, the very unpopular infusion of AI into music-making.
I’m noticing more women bandleaders in music. Maybe they’re getting more coverage. Maybe they’re just starting more bands. But I’m noticing, and I like it.
For all the joy, wonder, and entertainment that music in 2025 brought me, I’d be remiss for not recognizing the music legends we lost: Roberta Flack, Jimmy Cliff, Sly Stone, Steve Cropper, Jellybean Johnson, Hermeto Pascoal, Brian Wilson, Roy Ayers, Ace Frehley, D’Angelo, Ozzy Osbourne, and so many more.
Here are a few releases that got or are getting heavy play around here:
Stereolab, Instant Holograms on Metal Film; Vinyl Williams, Polyhaven; Wrong Way Up, Totally Right; KILN, Lemon Borealis; El León Pardo, Viaje Sideral; Deep Sea Diver, Billboard Heart; Sam Prekop, Open Close; Pachyman, Another Place; Dead Pioneers, Post American; SAULT, 10; MadMadMad, Run EP; Kokoroko, Tuff Times Never Last
QUELA ROBINSON, ESQ (FORMER RADIO DJ)
I’ve spent most of this year in the airport, back and forth to Maryland, so what was in my headphones needed to be multifunctional and meditative. Enough to keep me moving forward for hours at a time without being too distracting or triggering as to the sorrowful realities of caregiving.
So here’s a quick 6: Blood Orange, Essex Honey; Chronixx, Exile; Asta Hiroki, Continuation ; Ganayva, Daughter Of A Temple; Nilam Venna, Malik; Loyle Carner, hopefully !
Honorable mention to Jidenna/The Bashmen for instant levity in the coffee lines.
JOHN KEAKA FRIEND, PRODUCER AND ARTIST (TRIP SHOW)
There’s always more to listen to: Lone, Sickly Sweetly Summer Movie; John Tejada, The Watchline; Om Unit, Acid Dub Studies; Mooninite, “Gems”; KAMM, “Crystalline Dreams”; Barker, Stochastic Drift; Secondo, Over Under; Filter Dread meets Seekers International, Temperature Rising; Single Cell Orchestra, A.M.; Olivares, Vaz Oliver, Olimpiada.
MICKEY DARIUS, LABEL BOSS, BROKEN CLOVER RECORDS
This obviously comes with exceptions, but it seems like most of the folks making and producing music and live events are doing it for the love of it. The shitty side to this is that this has proved so because there’s no fucking money in it… not on the level that us mortals are at. Yes, once you’re up in the echelon of Bad Bunny and Swift, and Queen Bey, you’re not really tripping on the economics as much. When you’re relying on ticket sales for a tour to make sure you have enough gas to get home and hotel rooms for everyone to sleep in, and relying on merch sales to make sure everyone gets fed, then you know what I’m talking about.
When every record order that comes in keeps the lights on for another day, you know what I’m saying. Myriad factors contribute to this, and while it’s not a great state for our industry right now, I am heartened by the folks that I encounter who are digging their heels in and are determined to get their message/art out there one way or another. As the financial allure doesn’t seem to be the driver it once was, and the exclusivity of the industry is pushed to the side by home TikTok stars and independent bedroom rockers, it seems that the folks who are in it are folks who love it. I’m not saying there aren’t people looking to cash in on some aspect of what we do in this ecosystem, looking to pollute and overfish these waters, but I’m seeing our side grow in fits and starts, and it gives me hope.
Also: Why aren’t more people more upset by AI’s continuing encroachment? I appreciate that there is a lot to be upset about right now, but AI push-back in creative circles seems eerily quiet. How am I the only one of my friends who not only feels like this shit is too slippery a slope to climb back from, and that by normalizing certain small use today will pave the way for normalizing much more fucked-up uses tomorrow.
