Daily Newsletter, December 7, 2025

The 12 key albums of 2025.

It’s time to celebrate your faves – and discover something new to love. Here is NME’s list of the 50 best albums of 2025.

This was another noteworthy year for the best rock music. Some artists followed a debut with a stunning second LP and mainstays showed a return to form or evolved.

Not content to merely look back at the last 12 months of New Weird Britain’s musical content, fine as it’s been, this evening I’ve looked back eight years to the first of these year-ending listicle burbles I wrote, and each one after from 2018 to 2024. You can imagine how evocative a set of time […]

The best global music albums represent ten especially powerful examples of musical communion from the past year that defy the frictional fictions of borders.

“I’m gonna give you a piece of my mind”

In the annals of modern music, very few guitarists made a more enduring impact than Steve Cropper. Cropper, who died Dec. 3 at the age of 84, remained an

KIRA METCALF LESSONS IN MAJESTIC HUMILIATION SYMPHONIC Has the singer-songwriter categorization, as a genre, lost its meaning? If you think of it solely in the sense of its origins (a solo artist with an acoustic instrument, such as an acoustic guitar or piano), it surely has. In response to this, many modern artists categorized as […]

Sudden silence: 15 massive bands that vanished overnight, shocking fans and bandmates with their abrupt endings

Exploring the story of Quarteto Em Cy, the girl group who changed the sounds of Brazilian bossa nova forever, paving the way for the MPB and post-bossa scene.

A look at the history of Muzak from its formation as a company to becoming a subsidiary of Mood Music and the strange place it had at the heart of work culture.

Behind the hits and hero worship, these 15 bands were war zones of ego, excess, betrayal and dysfunction

The music of 'Love Actually', particularly the track 'Glasgow Love Theme', is the best part of an otherwise dreadful anthology film.

A legendary 1975 Pink Floyd bootleg by Mike "The Mic" Millard is included on the band's upcoming 'Wish You Were Here' 50th anniversary box set.

Electric Light Orchestra founder Jeff Lynne shares a list of his 13 favourite albums of all time, featuring the Beatles, Regina Spektor, and Roy Orbison.

From Bowie to Big Star, the 15 best albums of 1972 defined rock’s golden era - and shaped the music landscape forever

BBC film critics Caryn James and Nicholas Barber pick their cinema highlights of the year – from a "whip-fast" action thriller to a moving family drama and warm-hearted comedy.

David Byrne has released his playlist for "people who hate Christmas music," including Prince, 100gecs, Tierra Whack, and more.