The Never Hungover Best of 2025

Music, Books, Movies, Brooklyn Nets Draft Picks, and More

Love December…we all just sort of agree that it doesn’t exist and get to look back at the year instead. Have come around on lists—they’re fun, help you find something new, argue. It’s good. Still short on gift guides though—no idea how you guys buy that much stuff or even know about what’s out there available for purchase. Anyway, Lane Kiffin is an LSU Tiger, Danny Wolf has crossed up Giannis Antetokounmpo in a real NBA game, and it’s time again to take stock of the year’s best music (no Cameron Winter, sorry bud, should’ve not dropped during Mickey Mouse December), movies, books (kind of?), and Brooklyn Nets draft picks. Blurbs when compelled. Hope you all find something new to enjoy or have you priors confirmed in a way that feels good.

Best Music of 2025

1. Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz

   A record showcasing the most ambitious contemporary musician at the peak of their powers. Since Frailty, I’ve been higher on Jane’s NTS mixes than on their actual records, but Revengeseekerz is Jane Remover at their most fully realized. These songs flit from rage to emo, dubstep to what kids call shoegaze now, at a hyperkinetic clip. It’s art that captures modernity to a T: right as a melody assumes its shape, it evaporates like sand through your fingers. Music to sprint to, music for airplanes, music for sort of just geeking on your lonesome…just the best. Can’t believe I’m 30 years old and my favorite song of the year is called “TURN UP OR DIE,” but that’s the power of music.

2. oklou - choke enough

   Didn’t make sense to me until a friend told me that I wasn’t listening to choke enough loudly enough. Since then, I’ve lost days of my life to (or, rather, had mundane chores like watering my garden or driving my perfect overweight cat to the vet enhanced into something transcendent by listening to) this album. I didn’t believe in angels or that annoying ASCII shit every “modern writer” uses to scam publishing houses into book deals until I listened to choke enough. Now I know they’re real because I’ve heard them.

3. DERBY - Slugger

   Best album of the year that nobody has talked about. Common sense says this should be tedious and derivative—scuzzy softboy-coded record indebted to Dijon, Alex G, Mk.gee, all those bedroom cologne guys. Trick here is that it works. Sort of album that makes you feel like a teenager in a good way.

4. OsamaSon - Jump Out

   For a while I would box on Wednesday nights and the only album I could bring myself to box to was OsamaSon’s Jump Out, and then when I was done I would continue replaying “I Got The Fye” on my way to my post-boxing burrito. But then I lost my AirPods (ironically enough while on a run in Miami listening to Jane Remover’s Revengeseekerz for the first time—it was too hot and the Danny Brown verse was stressing me out upon first listen) and then I couldn’t box with music anymore, and after a few months of boxing without OsamaSon my resolve slowly dissipated, and now I don’t box anymore, but I still love this album.

5. Chuquimamani-Condori - ILY Travis (Chuqi Chinchay Is God & God Bless America) Mix / Edits

   Cheating here, but: Edits compiles my favorite DJ E flips from the last few years of DJ mixes, but ILY Travis is my favorite mix of theirs outright. So, splitting the baby, or I guess choosing two babies. Transportive, elated music. Nothing better.

6. Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love

   Earl’s dad album, except unlike most of the other dad albums this year, this one is good. The sort of dense rhymeplay and idea fragments you could spend years untangling, but it doesn’t sound like homework. An invitation rather than a challenge. “Get these white girls out my home like Babyfather?” Delightful.

7. Ethel Cain - Perverts

   Demon music.

8. Dijon - Baby

   First time I listened to this record, my girlfriend and I were driving in a rental car with the sort of shitty speakers that flatten even the cleanest recorded music into a tinny dirge. It sounded bad, we set the volume progressively lower, and by the end I think she had a minor panic attack—vibes were not good. The relisten took place under far more favorable conditions, and I still came away from it relatively unmoved. In fact, I didn’t really connect with Baby until about my tenth listen. Why did I listen to an album that I disliked ten times? I don’t know—sometimes in life, things just happen. The stock market keeps going up, Austin Reaves is an all star…not everything in this world adheres to basic notions of common sense. But I’m glad I did, is all. The only other good Dad record—messy, exhausting, full of life.

9. Skrillex - F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3

   Culture moves in fascinating ways—one day you pick your head up and realize you can admit that you love Skrillex.

10. Oneohtrix Point Never - Tranquilizer

    A record brimming with possibility, not least of which: a goat may become unwashed.

11. Corbin - Crisis Kid

    It’s pretty crazy that Spooky Black made one of my favorite guitar music albums of the year, but, again, sometimes that’s the way life goes. The standout track, “Carbon Monoxide,” is the best pop song of the year (at worst 1a with the really good Smerz single), but the entire record is easy to get lost in.

12. Syzy - Syzy ➜ NTS Radio - 05.22.25

    Not an album, but that’s the joy of being self-employed: you can just include things. Explosive and ecstatic mix from the most exciting electronic musician since Rustie. Listened to this mix like fifty times in a row when I wrote the blog post making fun of Jalen Brunson that convinced a bunch of you to subscribe to this humble newsletter—thank you.

13. billy woods - GOLLIWOG

    Best writer in the world, truly scary record. Won’t rehash what I wrote when I had the privilege of speaking with woods for POW, other than to say that if you haven’t listened to this, you should.

14. Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka

    Betting favorite for Pitchfork’s album of the year, so you don’t need me to proselytize about this one too much, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest that this is what the future, past, and present would sound like if simultaneously overlaid.

15. SML - How You Been

    Insanely cool record from the LA jazz supergroup, which like their first is comprised of live recordings cut up Burroughs-mode into coherent, experimental chapters. Tried to pitch a review framing it as a sort of thesis on the possibility of creative existence in the era of mass surveillance and networked connection, but it didn’t land, so run with it if you’re so inclined.

16. Nick León - A Tropical Entropy

    Simultaneously some of the headiest and most fun dance music I heard this year. As a guy who lives in New Orleans, I’m inherently partial to art that’s committed to asserting a vision of a city that rejects its more odious public imagery. Awesome Miami record.

17. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Mercy

    Hagler and Hearns for a world where the NFL splits its ad space between FanDuel and the United States Army. A rap masterclass.

18. The Hellp - Riviera

    

19. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo - In the Earth Again

    First Chat Pile record I’ve really gone for—Pedigo yanks them out of their comfort zone to reveal my favorite heavy music of the year.

20. Alien Boy - You Wanna Fade?

    Sort of album that helps me understand what emo adults are on about—perfectly moody, regret-soaked, massive.

21. Barker - Stochastic Drift

22. Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

23. Hayden Pedigo - I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away

24. Loidis - Good Work - 12 July 2025

25. Maria Somerville - Luster

    Chinese Nikola Jokic, Israeli D’Angelo Russell, Irish Grouper. Lush, wistful, total, stunning.

26. Geese - Getting Killed

    Under the radar little album that I haven’t seen anybody really put on for. Worth checking out.

27. Nourished By Time - The Passionate Ones

28. Dean Blunt - lucre

29. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Gift Songs

    Never Hungover Airplane Album of the Year.

30. james K - Friend

31. Safe Mind - Cutting the Stone

32. Wednesday - Bleeds

    Hartzman’s writing often takes me out of a song—she’s enamored with the sort of contemporary realism that I find distracting and distasteful—but when these songs hit, they really hit.

33. Shlohmo - REPULSOR

    Probably buoyed by the fact that it came out on Halloween, so I listened to the Corbin feature like thirty times in a row setting up a house party, but wasn’t brave enough to actually play it out loud for people. They probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway—lots of chats, fun party. Never Hungover Party of the Year, if we were doing that sort of stuff here.

34. Corridos Ketamina - Corridos Ketamina

35. Jim Legxacy - black british music (2025)

36. Fen Magus - Offering

    Colossal New Orleans doom music from a true Twitter goat. If you’ve ever used the “Lakers fascism” tweet to deride one of your opps, you owe it to Richard to at least check this record out.

37. Water From Your Eyes - It’s A Beautiful Place

38. $ilkmoney - WHO WATERS THE WILTING GIVING TREE ONCE THE LEAVES DRY UP AND FRUITS NO LONGER BEAR?

39. Snuggle - Goodbyehouse

    Favorite Copenhagen Music 2025.

40. Joanne Robertson - Blurrr

41. d.silvestre - Oque as Mulheres Querem

42. Addison Rae - Addison

43. Lucy Bedroque - Unmusique

    Under-discussed and joyous thrill-ride. Probably what a significant portion of rap music will sound like in five years when listeners and artists alike get a little tired of being so angry all the time.

44. Playboi Carti - MUSIC

45. Trhä - lact’eben

    Heard at the wire thanks to a sage recommendation from friend of the blog eli. Got teary at the final track the first time I heard it then rewound and hit my deadlift personal record—upgrade to paid before asking what it is.

46. Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

47. che - Rest In Bass

48. David Michael Moore - Umburkus Returns

    Coolest record of the year that nobody talked about—totally sui generis music from this old head in Rosedale, Mississippi who handcrafts all of his insane instruments. Vote with your dollars.

49. Bassvictim - Forever

    Love these kids…they’re just so insane. I think it’s a really cool idea to constantly crash out in the public eye while retaining the ability to put out music like this. Outside chance of at least one of these songs ending up in an athletic shoe advertisement in the next five years. Don’t laugh, crazier things have happened, like the 6 7 song is pretty scary and we all know what came next.

50. Darkside - Nothing

Honorable mentions: Feng - What the Feng?; Cate Le Bon - Michelangelo Dying; Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie; Panda Bear - Sinister Grift; skaiwater - #mia; the AI Tyler the Creator song; the AI Charlie Kirk song, Kevin Gates screaming at Bobbi Althoff.

Best Movies of 2025

Heavy caveats here…haven’t seen Avatar…let’s just call these some movies I enjoyed in theaters this year.

1. One Battle After Another

2. Eddington

3. The Shrouds

4. Magic Farm

5. Black Bag

6. Cloud

7. The Phoenician Scheme

8. Eephus

9. Sorry, Baby

10. Bugonia

Best Books of 2025

Not going to rank books—it’s unkind. Shout out to everyone who writes a book. Seriously, good for you. The best new book I read this year, of course, was Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff’s Your Name Here. Some books I enjoyed reading that came out this year: Andrew Lipstein’s Something Rotten, Jeff Weiss’s Waiting for Britney Spears, Giri Nathan’s Changeover, Grace Byron’s Herculine, Joshua Wheeler’s The High Heaven, Jeremy Gordon’s See Friendship, Sophie Kemp’s Paradise Logic. Didn’t read the Pynchon yet but heard it bangs.

Best Brooklyn Nets Draft Picks of 2025

Nets draft…disaster. Perhaps the sort of disaster from which one might recover—these things happen, Jersey Strong, etc…—but a disaster nonetheless. Still, I feel my heart softening toward some of these young men. Either way, I’m stuck with them.

The kids who play:

1. Drake Powell - The only guy who I felt unreservedly okay about on draft night has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been my favorite of the five Nets rookies. What has surprised me, though, is what exactly about his game has excited me. Powell is the first proper athlete I can remember watching play for the Brooklyn Nets—he chases offensive players around like a puppy—but it’s his eye for creation and aggressive shot-making that has convinced me he has a star leap in him. Needs to eat more and do some esoteric tendon work for longevity.

2. Egor Dëmin - Being dope, having fun, chilling, smiling. Love this kid…he’s like what would happen if you told Timothee Chalamet mid-Marty Supreme press tour that his next project was playing a Russian hooper whose ceiling is a slightly more connective Joe Ingles. Dëmin’s a weird watch—cone on defense, didn’t shoot a two-point shot for like ten games, randomly a knockdown shooter—but he observably grows each game. Love his accent, seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, needs to put down the Cyrillic Book of Mormon and pick up a glass of milk and some Luka tape. I feel a level of paternal care toward this young man.

The kids who don’t play:

3. Danny Wolf - I don’t want the Nets to ever play Danny Wolf. Nothing personal—I don’t see how he works at his athleticism level in the league, but that’s a head concern, not a heart one—but I think Danny Wolf is best realized as basically the Jokic of the G League. Five, ten, fifteen years from now we’ll still be posting that video of him cutting up a bunch of suburban eleven year-olds in those insane pink jerseys as a cautionary tale for how elite NBA talent is. He seems like a nice young man and I’d buy him a drink if I met him, but I suspect our conversation would feel pretty forced on both ends.

4. Nolan Traore - Guys who actually know ball instead of firing off esoteric vibes-based analyses tell me that he’s cooked…he probably is. But I like that his only observable asset is his speed—it’s sort of a good bit, like oh, like at this fast short guy who can’t do anything else. Very middle-school lunch coded. I’ve got a soft spot for the French in general. Didn’t make any sense on draft night, makes even less sense now, but let’s see if he can learn how to make a layup before we cast too many aspersions.

The Israeli D’Angelo Russell:

5. Ben Saraf - It’s so awesome that this kid started at point guard on opening night. Jordi Fernandez, who’s objectively a sort of crazy guy, like Joe Mazzulla if he never learned about aura-farming, decided that the best path to fielding a competitive team included starting a kid whose remarkably accurate draft-night comp was “the Israeli D’Angelo Russell.” Saraf can’t do anything—I’ve watched him, this isn’t just some politicized close-mindedness, I’m a free thinker here—because he can’t shoot. Decent driver, decent passer, less-than-decent-athlete, it all comes apart because he doesn’t have a shot to undergird everything else. So what we end up with is just the Israeli D’Angelo Russell. Hope I never watch him play as a Net again—or that he somehow proves me wrong and turns out good, because that would be really funny.