The Ophelias’ Spencer Peppet tells us about her favorite albums of 2025

2025 is almost over, and we’ve been asking artists about their favorite albums of the year. The Ophelias lead vocalist and guitarist Spencer Peppet made us a list of 10 albums, and you can watch her talk about them, and read the list with her commentary below.

The Ophelias’ released the very good Spring Grove, which was produced by Julien Baker, this year, and you can stream it below.

SPENCER PEPPET’S FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2025

Greg Freeman – Burnover
Greg’s album is sonically lovely, twangy and wandering and full of twists, but what really gets me is his clear-eyed, almost historical lyricism. It can feel like listening to a poet oversharing in a dive bar, them and you both a little drunk, lights blooming and flickering. I’ve been singing “heaven like a ditch will sometimes spill into the street at night” from “Rome, New York” to myself for months.

Oklou – choke enough
God this album rules. It’s minimalist without being pretentious about being minimalist. Her voice is a little deadpan but conveys the minutiae of each moment as it comes. Family and friends… obvious… ict… choke enough… want to wanna come back… BLADE BIRD…. Blade bird alone would make this a top album, but it’s amazing front to back.

Addison Rae – Addison
The absolute GLAMOUR… I love it. She’s campy and tongue-in-cheek (the “cigarette pursed between my tits” line, the tearaway apron costume over the all-latex outfit) but manages to channel real vulnerability and pathos into a genre that in lesser hands could have been all surface-level. The music video for “High Fashion” is one of my favorite videos to come out in recent memory. I love when a pop star really does it right.

Jay Som – Belong
Jay Som has never made a bad record, and this one continues their streak. They don’t miss. I like how blocky and pop-y and digital this one feels. “What You Need” is propulsive and layered, “Casino Stars” is pleading and locked in, “D.H.” is earworm-y and crunchy.

h. pruz – Red sky at morning
Hana’s songwriting is just gorgeous. “Krista” is one of my favorite songs of the year. It’s delicate without being fragile, melancholy without being melodramatic. There’s a sense of ease in an h. pruz song, even as they’re describing tense or upsetting moments or feelings — you know you’re in good hands.

Bassvictim – Forever
I like this whole album but “Wolves Howling” hits such a specific need for me. I’m working on a writing project that requires listening to a lot of dance music, and this song has been on repeat. I love how vibrational it is, how the drums come in and out, the screeching sounds, how by the end of it she’s repeating “we’re dancing to go home.” That’s really how it feels, isn’t it? By the end of the night we’re dancing to go home.

Samia – Bloodless
“Bovine Excision” is my favorite kind of Samia song: hyper-specific lyricism (I love the lime flavored Lays shoutout – one of my favorite tour snacks), sprawling instrumentation, a build at the end that makes my eyes prick with tears. This album is folky, distorted, both distilled and expansive, and has a few of my favorite songs of hers to date.

Smut – Tomorrow Comes Crashing
I might be biased (Jo and I directed and shot the music video for “Syd Sweeney”), but this is one of the most underrated albums of the year. It’s a little power pop, a little shoegaze, a little dream pop, a little 90’s, a little MCR. Seeing them live (especially playing these songs) makes me cry – it’s so cathartic and intense. Note Tay’s perfect exhale at the end of “Waste Me.”

Alex G – Headlights
Well YES. Of course. His major label debut has the hits and some sleeper weird ones too. Another artist who has never put out a bad album. I think “Spinning” is an underrated track. My friend Jevin got me a Cameo from internet icon JustTatEm for my birthday and he sang “Spinning.” It was amazing.

ash tuesday – aught!
I’m genuinely stumped as to why ash tuesday isn’t the most-listened to emo-indie artist of the 2020’s. This album feels reflective of its predecessors without being overly referential, which is partially due to Ashlynn’s poetic, emotive, euphonic lyricism. I first heard “Scab” acoustic on Tiktok, and I’ll admit to keeping the 30-second video on hand for years to listen to before she released this massive, distorted, anthemic version.