I do this with some friends every year. They're mostly music producers and artists so I'm putting here as well. I'm a rock, indie pop and singer/songwriter guy but listen to other stuff here and there. Throw yours down below with links if you're feeling it. My personal faves of 2025. This was a good year for music imo. This is what turned me on, what sounded different or particularly well done. I, like many of you, pay more attention to production and mixing/mastering than the average muggle so some of these picks tilt that way for this audience. Also noticed that I ended up gravitating to female artists more than male by a count of like 2:1 in my big list. No reason really. The girls were just locked in I guess. I could have put down another 15 or so picks but I have a job. In no particular order... ======= Artist: Daughter of Swords Album: Alex Great weekender. Love the production, deceptively minimal, lofi sheen and minimal reverb but harder to pull off than it appears. Great use of negative space. I'm a sucker for "clever" artists. I wore this one out in late summer. Highlights: Talk to you, Alone together, Morning in Madison https://daughterofswords.bandcamp.com/album/alex ----- Artist: Foxwarren Album: 2 They clearly got a hold of a bunch of royalty free movie clips, sampled them and used as music bed for a lot of the songs. Another very clever record. His voice accent/affect kinda grated on me at first but now I love it. He does surprising things, little turns of his voice, certain notes, jazzy harmonies, catchy lines that just land. If you or I sang them, they wouldn't. Highlights: Say it, Deadhead, Yvonne, Strange https://foxwarren.bandcamp.com/album/2 ----- Artist: Billie Zizi Album: Levitate Tiny, criminally unknown singer songwriter in the Lucinda Williams vein but has a strong Leonard Cohen streak. She sounds like she's ever only barely breaking a sweat. Languid and sad but sorta funny and always sweet. I feel like the production is *almost* but not quite there. Still, it's a great record. Comfort food. Though she has a bandcamp, this one's not on it.

@Caleb Loveless Thank you so much for including all the info in the Vocal Intensive "learning to learn" video. I've been struggling with so many of those issues from ADHD to memory retention, especially watching all the video tutorials within our community. How frustrating it is to watch the 10 hour EQ or Compression lessons for example, then try to apply everything that was explained as I begin the mixing process, only to scratch my head asking myself, "what was I supposed to do first?" Though I have used some of the suggestions in the past, I now feel like I have a better path to help with my issues....now if we only had 26 hour days to go back and implement them all with the past replays that I've already forgotten to remember.

I am curious to find out what DAWs are being used. More importantly, does the DAW matter more than the skill put into using it? I personally use Cakewalk.

If you want to share a link to a new release or anything else music related, please post it in this thread. Thanks!

Welcome to any new members! Introduce yourself below and tell us about: - Why you love music - Where you’re at in your audio/production journey - What you can help people with - What you’re looking to get out of this community Take it away!