The influence of music in 2024 hasn’t gone away yet, so how does that define music in 2025?
Image made by Suzanne Bagia using Wikimedia Commons and Canva
Dear Readers,
I must admit I’ve had a slow start with getting into the new music released in 2025. I still felt hung up on the music of 2024 because I hadn’t given myself enough space to really sit with last year’s releases. I only discovered Nourished by Time’s second EP in December, it took me until February to get closer to understanding “Two Star & the Dream Police,” Matt Champion’s debut album is entering my rotation and I have yet to fully deconstruct The Marías or Magdalena Bay album.
As new releases have debuted this year, I found myself putting them on the back burner in pursuit of taking apart the interesting world that music created for itself last year. People may have been right when they said that 2024 was one of the best years in recent music history. There’s so much left to be picked apart and scavenged that the music coming out now becomes something to be saved for later.
It opened a vault for me that reveals the influences that shape the new sounds of music in the 2020s, specifically in alternative and pop music. The need to understand music, to decipher its meanings, keeps bringing me back to the space of visiting music’s past to understand what I’m hearing in the contemporary. It’s brought me to Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, Dolly Parton, Sade, DeAngelo, The Roots and the list goes on.
I found a playlist of all the songs from Frank Ocean’s Homer Radio (a quick 62 hours) and another playlist of Ocean’s Blonde Radio songs (a sweeter 24 hours). It’s a whole universe of musical influences and inspirations (from J Dilla to the Isley Brothers and Eric B & Rakim) that influenced a generational artist who created a generational album that defined the work of the late 2010s, who now is influencing a new crop of artists. Going into the vaults and archives of music history to learn about its reformulation feels exciting and intriguing. I feel like I’m in on something when I can hear the past in subdued ways in a contemporary song.
For music to evolve, it has to look to the past by learning its techniques and finding how to deconstruct those methods in recreated forms that are ingenious, creative and authentic. There’s nothing wrong with that; music should build upon itself. It only becomes a problem when contemporary music becomes dependent on the past, especially in efforts to replace creativity with technology or to simply make a profit. It’s not lost on everyone that we’re yearning for a sect of the past as a remedy for the present that never became the future we imagined. It’s the lost futures and nostalgic-obsessed people Mark Fisher theorized we would become as late-stage capitalism increases its chokehold on us.
How can we build upon what we’ve started in 2024, when it feels like the artists that breakthrough the year are only still getting started? The main artists headlining the major music festivals this year for Coachella, Lollapalooza and Governors Ball seem to be the artists that defined music in 2024. The concert industry seems to still be hung up on last year too.
Maybe some of this also comes from a hesitancy to move on from what feels so picturesque. Since the pandemic hit the music industry, the industry has been searching for new growth, new invigoration. It came in the form of concerts returning by Fall of 2021 (though masked), Summer of 2023 felt like a great return as Paramore, Taylor Swift and Beyonce returned to touring and in 2024 pop entered its revival led by Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. The collision of pop and notable indie and alternative releases appeared to be this possible sublime period for the 2020s.
Music found its reinvigoration with intentionality and authenticity as we saw with Kendrick Lamar’s motives and Tyler, the Creator. After being stuck in this cycle of being pressed to be profitable, musicians seemed to corral against that ethos and push themselves into creativity and ingenuity, and we all heard it come through. Especially as we’re meeting a cultural shift of creatives being unafraid to try, creativity intertwined with individuality is blossoming. We still have five more years of the decade to go to see if 2024 holds up as this pinnacle period, but in December of 2024 I couldn’t seem to escape YouTube video essays discussing why 2024 may have been one of the best year’s in music.
All of this is to say that I feel like I haven’t fully excavated the previous year in music. 2025 seemed to announce itself so quickly with rolling announcements of new albums. The beginning of the year can feel slow in shaking off the expectations it’s coming into. But with the first quarter of the year winding to an end, the album that still lingers with me is Bad Bunny’s “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” an album that has already become a cultural artifact, documenting the past to project into the future. It reminds you of hot summer nights dancing and memories with friends, family and neighbors that you still marvel at, forever suspended in time. Yet Bad Bunny still takes this joyous season of the past and uses it to scrutinize the role of imperialism, gentrification and tourist capitalism in erasing this past to facilitate a future where Puerto Rican culture and identity are erased – the album becoming the way to counteract such a future.
I realize I’m talking about the past again instead of what 2025 has to offer us. The major releases of March seem to mirror last year’s March, the point where the album and song releases stuck on top of each other, forcing the momentum for the rest of the year. The releases that were a catalyst for music last year were “Deeper Well” by Kacey Musgraves, “Eternal Sunshine” by Ariana Grande, “Cowboy Carter” by Beyoncé, “Bright Future” by Adrianne Lenker and “Tigers Blood” by Waxahatchee. All albums that would be a part of end-of-year discussions, one winning a Grammy for album of the year.
In March of this year, Lady Gaga seems to be doing that for pop, as are Japanese Breakfast, Lucy Dacus and Perfume Genius. Ariana Grande released a second deluxe edition of her album “Eternal Sunshine,” originally released in March of 2024. HAIM is also back, with their lead single “Relationships,” already a summer song.
To understand what defines a specific year in music, you have to look at the conditions the year is walking into. If anything, 2024 tried to continue the trend of country music-esque sound. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” became one of Billboard’s longest running number one songs after its release in April of 2024, which came off the success of the genre in 2023. Beyoncé sought to reclaim the genre’s Black roots with “Cowboy Carter,” which featured two appearances from Shaboozey and give rise to a new generation of Black country musicians. Hovvdy’s 2024 self-titled album fused elements of country with alternative and indie production. Julien Baker’s return to music this year, with Torres, comes in the form of a country album. This isn’t exactly far off for the two considering both are from the South.
Chappell Roan’s pushback against a potential country album after her country song “The Giver” could signal pop’s eventual steering away from country music. Having said that, I do think country music may be here to stay for a little longer. Though pop is entertaining, it has become maximalist again as the genre adopts more upbeat tempos and dance rhythms. The surrealist world of Magdalena Bay comes to mind.
What will happen to compositional arrangements that are reminiscent of classical music arrangements? Billie Eilish has always carried with her an ethereal sound to her compositions and vocals that evoke that classical tradition and made her loved by musical institutions like the Recording Academy. But, her second shutout at the Grammys puts that into doubt. Ethereal vocals and aesthetically beautiful compositions still have a place in music, but the rise of hyperpop soundscapes (that come in various versions of how sound relates to itself) are providing an alternate temporality for what music can sound like. Do we want more messier, harsher soundscapes in the sounds we hear? And if so, what cultural and personal gaps are these soundscapes fulfilling? The success of The Marías “No One Noticed” makes me reconsider, especially since most critics did love Eilish’s third album for its lushness and beauty. But hyperpop, club beats and multilayered reverbs through clashing soundscapes in alternative music, makes me wonder the direction compositions that nearly mimic classical music will go.
We’re looking to the voices we haven’t heard yet. Drake’s lawsuit against UMG and the success of Charli XCX and her fellow pop contemporaries demonstrate how algorithms have defined our access to music. Our tastes are attuned to what labels want us to hear: the people they’ve decided should be the next worthy star, rather than the artists making defining music. The algorithm and TikTok’s approach to breakout stars is failing the music industry. Audiences are tired of lackluster artistry, and last year’s breakthrough acts prove that. The pendulum swings back to artists who take time to craft their talent and sound to add and enrich the music landscape. This may not be a specific texture of music, but it is a theme we’re seeing rise. We want more breakout stars, more intentional artists dedicated to crafting their work.
As 2025 picks up momentum and I discover more artists, I hope 2025 continues what started in 2024. I hope our current cultural approaches to creativity and individuality fuel the music industry. The need for great art that sustains us drives more musical ingenuity and innovation.
Here’s my top five songs you may have missed last year and should listen to:
- “Are You Looking Up” by Mk.gee
- “Death & Romance” by Magdalena Bay
- “No Way to Relax When You’re on Fire” by Dora Jar
- “Hell of a Ride” by Nourished by Time
- “Aphid” by Matt Champion ft. Dijon
And here are my favorite releases from 2025 so far (see my previous Liner Notes on my Bad Bunny recs)
- “Relationships” by HAIM
- “Dirt” by Julien Baker and TORRES
- “Dancing in the Club (MJ Lenderman Version)” by This is Lorelei and MJ Lenderman
- “Glory” by Perfume Genius (album)
- “NuDivision” by Casper Sage ft. Amindi
Suzanne Bagia can be reached at [emailprotected].
This article was lightly edited after publication for clarity.
