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The title track to Kristina Train's album "County Line" is one of GPB's best songs of the year. Train grew up in Savannah, Ga., and is now based in Nashville.
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Which albums and songs made the list? Here's GPB News staff's Best Music of 2025
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LISTEN: What music captured the vibes of 2025? The GPB News team shares the albums, artists and moments that elevated everyday life this year.
What music captured the vibes of 2025? The GPB News team shares the albums, artists and moments that elevated everyday life this year and pushed the culture forward. Here’s the Best Music of 2025.
2025 Recap
GPB's Kristi York Wooten spent this year connecting with artists and music lovers in Georgia and beyond, bringing their stories to our listeners, readers, and viewers. Here's her recap:
My favorite musical experiences of the year came from those adventures, from savoring Angelique Kidjo, Branford Marsalis and Ladysmith Black Mambazo at the Savannah Music Festival to rocking with Duane Betts in Macon and interviewing R.E.M.'s Mike Mills and virtuoso violinist Robert McDuffie about their decades-long friendship.
I spoke with Indigo Girls' Emily Saliers as she placed flowers at the memorial in front of the Carter Center after Jimmy Carter's funeral in January, and interviewed the Morehouse College alum whose brass work "Amen" formed the centerpiece of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's King Celebration Concert on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
GPB featured stories about singing with the Community ATL Choir, grooving with hip-hop dance stars in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward, talking with the Doobie Brothers about their Georgia influences and explaining how an Emory University professor's hit play made her the buzziest writer on Broadway.
We covered the 40th anniversary of Live Aid for NPR and caught up with new wave icons Howard Jones and Simple Minds' Jim Kerr ahead of their Atlanta shows. I also traveled from ATL to Edinburgh, Scotland, on a plane full of Atlantans headed to join 70,000 Britrock fans for sing-alongs with the reunited Gallagher Brothers on the OASIS Live 25 Tour. (Their 1994 track "Live Forever" captured the mood of moment.)
That same sense of belonging returned during many bursts of happiness at Paul McCartney's two concerts at State Farm Arena in Atlanta last month, prompting a call from a GPB listener who thanked us for paying homage to the music that spans generations and brings joy. And this year, seeking joy was what it was all about.
Through these 12 months, I enjoyed the talents of Atlanta jazz phenom Joe Alterman and breakout act Penelope Road (check out their viral version of America's "Ventura Highway" and see them live at Eddie's Attic, Terminal West and the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta this week), and queued up Gen Z singers like Stella Cole, Laufey, and Olivia Dean.
I also tuned into GPB's Peach Jam podcast, hosted by Jeremy Powell, to discover the latest up-and-coming Georgia acts as well as pros like Athens' Five Eight (who play Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta on Dec. 12), and Chuck Reece's GPB Salvation South podcast to hear deep dives on music moments such as OutKast's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Below, members of the GPB News staff share their top albums and songs of the year. (Please note, some linked music may contain explicit lyrics.)
Best Music of 2025
Kristi York Wooten / GPB Contributor
The 2025 album that got me through is The Revival of Survival by British neo-soul band Stone Foundation. With its positive mantras plus irresistible grooves, "The Beat I Know" counteracted the chaos with hope, whether on distant shores or looking out my window at home.
In recent weeks, I have listened nonstop to a rerelease of a cover song first recorded in 2024 by Lake Street Dive and the vocal group Tiny Habits, who opened for James Taylor at Atlanta's Chastain Park in September: Their version of John Denver's "Leaving On a Jet Plane" makes any Gen-Xer emotional with its yearning melody from a simpler time and a reminder of the power the songs we share.
But my favorite song released this year is "County Line" by Kristina Train, the Savannah singer-songwriter (now based in Nashville) who pays tribute to country music heroes on her latest album with heartrending storytelling and a voice for the ages.
Album of the Year:
The Revival of Survival by Stone Foundation
Song of the Year:
"County Line" by Kristina Train
Chase McGee / Senior Newsroom Producer
My album of the year is Getting Killed by the band Geese, from Brooklyn, N.Y. The band's frontman, Cameron Winter, put out a really well-received solo album last year; that kind of primed the pump for this year's album to take up a lot of space in indie music.
This album is so, so lyrically dense: I've seen people evoke names like Bob Dylan in comparison, and I wouldn't be surprised if you see a long future ahead for these artists. This cut is from their single "Taxes." If you're into it, check out the whole album front to back.
Runner-up goes to the band Wednesday's album Bleeds; it follows a previous album of the year for me, Rat Saw God in 2023. Wednesday is headed up by Asheville's Karly Hartzman, whose screamo-country vibe just consistently nails the feeling of growing up in and around the mountains. A standout cut is "Wound Up Here by Holding On."
Album of the Year:
Getting Killed by Geese
Song of the Year:
"Taxes" by Geese
Mark Chilla / Radio Operations Manager
My favorite album of the year was Rachael & Vilray's West of Broadway. Rachael & Vilray is the jazz duo of vocalist Rachael Price (of the band Lake Street Dive) and singer-songwriter-guitarist Vilray Bolles. This is their third album, and it’s such a delight for fans of that light, midcentury jazz-pop style, or any fan of the songs of the American Songbook by the great lyricists like Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter or Lorenz Hart.
It's an absolute delight. New York City, its landscapes, and eccentric characters are the main theme of the record, but all sorts of relationship dynamics are explored in the songs. They are all originals written by Vilray, rife with clever wordplay, endearing melodies, and plenty of whimsy.
Take my favorite song, “Is It Jim?”: It's all about a woman who wakes up to discover her partner has been replaced by a tortoise. It’s funny and bizarre, but it delights when Vilray rhymes “tortoise” with “enormous,” “courteous,” “support us,” “laborious,” and “fortress,” all while throwing in a few references to Sappho and Aeschylus.
Listening to this album has the feel of digging through the crates of a record store and uncovering a lost Broadway cast album from the 1940s or 1950s by your favorite songwriter. An absolute treat, if you’re an old soul like me.
Album of the Year:
West of Broadway by Rachael & Vilray
Song of the Year:
"Is It Jim?" by Rachael & Vilray
Mark Davenport / Audio Engineer
My album of the year is by a band called Shallowater. The album is called God's Gonna Give You a Million Dollars. It's this great combination of both Americana and slowcore. So we'll go from this beautiful ethereal country instrumentation to the loudest distortion you can imagine. Great album.
Album of the Year:
God's Gonna Give You a Million Dollars by Shallowater
Victoria Evans-Cash / Audio Engineer
My Apple Music Replay consisted of some of hip-hop's heavy hitters this year. As always, top of the list for me was Tyler the Creator's Don't Tap the Glass, closely followed by Kendrick Lamar's GNX, Clipse's Let God Sort Em Out, and Earl Sweatshirt's Live Laugh Love.
Also in my most replayed for the month of October were D'Angelo's albums Voodoo and Black Messiah featuring the Vanguard, which is appropriate seeing that his music was introduced to me relatively early in life. Black Messiah was a truly full circle moment for me, as I was in college studying music when it first released. As I relisten to the album as well as some of his press junkets from that time (2014) I get to relive how deeply personal his comeback was and thus how deeply his influence was felt before and after his untimely death this year at age 51.
Album of the Year:
Don't Tap the Glass by Tyler the Creator
Khari Sampson / Copy Editor
My clear album of the year is Pages of Philosophy by Ruby Francis, a neo-soul-styled R&B singer/songwriter/producer/DJ from London, England. I've been a superfan of Francis since her 2017 song "Paranoid." Not since Jill Scott have I so enjoyed following an artist and just loving everything that she releases.
Album of the Year:
Pages of Philosophy EP by Ruby Francis
Pamela Kirkland / GPB Morning Edition Host
For me, Wale's new album, Everything Is a Lot, ended up being one of my favorites this year. I've been a Wale fan for a long time since he first came out, and it's been a minute since his last album, but this one feels like a return to the sound that first hooked me.
From the samples that he chose to the laid-back beats and just some of the vulnerability in his lyrics, it's really an album that you can just chill out to. But when you listen, you can hear just how dynamic he is in those lyrics. No-skip albums are rare for me, but this is definitely one.
Album of the Year:
Everything Is a Lot by Wale
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