<![CDATA[The Wax Museum]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rockshttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!VVce!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8c961734-eb5d-4baf-95bd-d951512490c0_300x300.pngThe Wax Museumhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocksSubstackFri, 31 Jul 2026 17:37:43 GMT<![CDATA[The Weekender #33: We're So Back]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-weekender-33https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-weekender-33Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:00:10 GMT

The Weekender has been asleep since March, but I am pleased to report that it has been poked with a stick and is alive again.

Even better, it is going weekly.

After 160 issues of The Wax Museum, this remains my favorite exhibit to put together: a Friday grab bag of records, movies, concerts, shows, books, and assorted rabbit holes worth carrying into the weekend. Beginning next Friday, August 7, a new Weekender will arrive every week for paid subscribers.

I’ve been fortunate to see an uptick of readers sign up for a paid sub lately, and I wanted to give those supporters something substantial and reliable in return. At $5 a month or $50 a year, patrons will now get 52 Weekenders a year, full access to the archives, and a $10 Gift Shop coupon. That’s less than a buck per issue.

The regular Wax Museum exhibits are not going anywhere. I’m still publishing two or three free longreads a month, and I don’t take your attention for granted. The fact that you continue to show up and read any of this means the world to me.

This week’s return is open to everyone, and I’ve loaded it up with a full stack of things to listen to, watch, and read. Consider it the Boar’s Head sample at the deli counter before you order the full pound.

Next Friday, the velvet rope goes up. Today, admission is free. Let’s dig in.

This Weekender may get clipped in your inbox, so click here to read the full issue in your browser.

The Listening Room

Records, songs, and other sounds for your weekend.

The Durutti Column – Renascent (2026)

Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Deluxe Coke Bottle Green | Yellow

You could say The Weekender is feeling renascent, which is a fancy way of saying active again and, conveniently, the title of The Durutti Column’s 28th (!!) album, their first in 16 years (!!!!). After multiple strokes permanently altered Vini Reilly’s virtuoso guitar playing, I never expected another record, much less one this luminous, achingly beautiful, and quietly strange, a comeback worthy of sitting beside The Return of the Durutti Column and Vini Reilly.

Curió Curió - Curió Curió (2026)

Get Vinyl: Neon Orange | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

The Strokes this, Charli xcx that, my favorite release from last Friday came courtesy of Mr Bongo, a label that apparently keeps a warehouse full of diamonds in the rough. Rio-born singer and actor Luiza Monteiro and German producer Dustin Braun stir MPB, samba, Brazilian jazz-funk, and icy European disco into one high-drama cosmic groove that had me in its pocket instantly.

snag - All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust (2026)

Get Vinyl: Juneberry
Stream: Bandcamp

Milwaukee screamo trio Snag’s third LP, and first for Deathwish, is all panic-stricken screams and pummeling stops and starts until “Juneberry” appears smack in the middle with pedal steel, horns, and layered harmonies, like someone opened the door to a haunted country bar. It could have stuck out like a sore thumb, but instead it’s the album’s emotional core and one of my favorite songs of the year.

fabric presents Mount Kimbie (2026)

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Fun one out today: London institution fabric handed Mount Kimbie the keys to its quarterly mix series, and they came back with 26 tracks built for the club. It is the duo’s most dancefloor-minded release in years, including new originals “Monroe” and “Jomox.” If this is anything like their 2018 DJ-Kicks mix, we’re in for a treat.

Aphex Twin - Drukqs (2001)

Get Vinyl: Deluxe Box Set | 4 LP Standard
Stream: Bandcamp

It was announced this week that Aphex Twin’s sprawling 2001 double album Drukqs is finally coming back to vinyl on October 30, rescuing physical media sickos from paying the $400 it has been fetching secondhand. Once greeted with mixed reviews, it now feels like one of those records the future had to catch up with, and its return means the entire Aphex Twin catalog is back in print.

Roy Ayers & Ubiquity - He’s Coming (1972)

Get Vinyl: Verve Vault Series
Stream: Spotify

Inspired in part by Jesus Christ Superstar, Roy Ayers’ 1972 jazz-funk sermon has everything you could want: deep basslines, nasty breaks, spoken-word passages, soul harmonies, and “We Live in Brooklyn, Baby,” one of the coolest songs ever committed to tape. It is now back on vinyl through the Verve Vault series, cut all-analog from the original master tapes and pressed on 180-gram vinyl.

The Screening Room

Movies, shows, concerts, documentaries, and assorted moving images.

Five Videos to Remember Glen Hansard

Some deaths hit harder than others. This one did for me. Glen Hansard died this week at 56, and if you ever watched him perform, even through a laptop screen, you know he never seemed capable of giving a song less than everything he had.

I came to know Hansard through The Swell Season, the folk duo he formed with Markéta Irglová, and through Once, the 2007 film they starred in together. Their duet “Falling Slowly” won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Hansard had a way of taking a song from tender to full-body exorcism. This NPR performance of “When Your Mind’s Made Up” is the best example I know. It spends several minutes tightening the screws, then blows the roof off.

Then there is his performance of “Fairytale of New York” with Lisa O’Neill and members of The Pogues at Shane MacGowan’s funeral. Shane’s widow and sister eventually leave the pews to dance, and the church turns grief into a wake. It does not get much better than this as a send-off.

Hansard began busking on the streets of Dublin at the age of 13, and even after the Oscar and sold-out concert halls, he never lost the instinct to play for whoever happened to be standing nearby. Here, a family on vacation in Sicily casually stumbles upon an Oscar winner singing in the street.

He also possessed the Irish gift of turning a quick anecdote into a one-man show. This story about meeting Van Morrison is hilarious.

We were lucky to live at the same time as Glen Hansard. I’m grateful so many of these performances were captured, each one proof of how completely he gave himself to music.

Lollapalooza 2026 Livestream

Stream: Hulu and Disney+

Lollapalooza takes over Chicago’s Grant Park this weekend, and those of us without wristbands can still watch from home. Tonight’s run of The Smashing Pumpkins into Charli xcx into Not for Radio is what I’m looking forward to most, and I’ll also be seated for The xx closing out the weekend, hopefully with a new song or two. Go here for the full livestream schedule.

Bon Dylan Full Set at Eaux Claires (Bon Iver Covers Bob Dylan)

Stream: YouTube

After an eight-year hiatus, Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner brought Eaux Claires back to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the clear highlight was “Bon Dylan,” a 90-minute Bon Iver-and-friends set tearing through Dylan songs from across the decades. The closing run of “All Along the Watchtower” into “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” especially rocks. An official release would be nice, but until then, this full recording will have to do.

For more live Bon Iver, I included VOLUMES: ONE among my 50 favorite records of 2026 so far.

The Wax Museum
2026 Best So Far: 50 Albums, 50 Sentences
The Wax Museum is billed as the record-mendation newsletter, and today we’re making good on that promise: fifty great albums of 2026, reviewed in one sentence each. For listeners with a growing backlog and limited free time…
Read more
a month ago · 87 likes · 23 comments · Jared Smith

The Yussef Dayes Experience - Live From Cape Town

Stream: YouTube

Yussef Dayes is one of those drummers who can make jazz feel loose, precise, and spiritual. His band features Elijah Fox on keys and Rocco Palladino on bass, son of the great Pino Palladino, and for this Cape Town performance they are joined by the Thanda Choir and Lizwi Choir.

Dayes also understands how to present live music better than almost anyone: beautiful locations, pristine sound, cinematic footage, all dropped onto YouTube for free. After the recent Fuji, Japan set, Live From Cape Town is another one to put on the biggest screen in your house and turn up louder than necessary.

The Reading Room

Books, longreads, interviews, lists, and internet rabbit holes.

Here’s a stack of all the books I’ve read since the last Weekender four months ago. Some I loved, some I didn’t. These are the four I’d press into your hands.

Biological War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen (2026)

Back in The Weekender #13, I called Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War “without exaggeration, the scariest book I’ve ever read.” She may have topped it with her latest scenario built around a genetically engineered, airborne strain of bubonic plague, reconstructed through interviews with epidemiologists, intelligence officials, military leaders, scientists, doctors, and policymakers. It moves like a thriller and ends like a nightmare, leaving me in the same fear-filled silence I now associate with finishing an Annie Jacobsen book.

Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams (1988)

For anyone who wants a summer beach read with a side of existential dread, Joy Williams’ 1988 Florida Keys novel follows Liberty and Willie, young married drifters who break into empty luxury homes, drink the owners’ champagne, sleep in their beds, and move through paradise like ghosts. It is bleak, very funny (the last line of Chapter 1 had me cackling), and full of sentences that make the whole world feel slightly off-center. This is one I’ll be returning to for the rest of my life.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (2024)

And speaking of writers trying to recover a sense of wonder from a damaged world, meet Cyrus Shams, a newly sober Iranian American poet obsessed with finding a death meaningful enough to justify a life. His mother was one of 290 people killed when the good ol’ U.S. Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655, and that inherited grief feeds a meditation on mortality, identity, and our desperate need to matter. Akbar is a poet first, and you feel it on every page: sentences dense enough to reread for pleasure, carrying the same aimless wartime ache you’d find in Hemingway or Fitzgerald into a much different kind of American life.

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover (1968)

Lastly, a perfect book for the dog days of summer. Henry Waugh is a bored accountant who retreats into an absurdly detailed baseball league of his own creation, complete with dice, scorecards, statistics, player biographies, and 56 seasons of accumulated lore. This is less a baseball novel than a black comedy about solitude, male obsession, and what happens when a harmless private hobby becomes the only world that still makes sense. Office Space meets Moneyball meets Synecdoche, New York, as the players break records, live, die, and carry on while their creator slowly loses his marbles.

A true lost classic, recently rescued by New York Review Books, who will also reissue Coover’s debut The Origin of the Brunists in a future season (take my money!). There are currently a bunch of NYRB titles discounted on Amazon, and I already have more than 10 sitting in my cart, so please send recommendations and/or financial intervention.

Hey, thanks for stopping by The Wax Museum. If you enjoyed your stay, pass this along to a friend whose weekend could use an upgrade.

The latest in crate-digging, sent straight to your inbox. Thank you for keeping music curation alive :)

I’ll be back next week with a massive signed-vinyl livestream and the first Weekender behind the velvet rope.

Until then,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[The Vinyl Repress Calendar: Midyear Update]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/2026-vinyl-repress-calendarhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/2026-vinyl-repress-calendarFri, 24 Jul 2026 16:16:18 GMT

Five months ago, I put together a calendar of upcoming vinyl represses and promptly underestimated how many labels would decide now is the perfect time to celebrate every conceivable anniversary.

So we’re due for an update.

Below you’ll find a chronological look at the most notable represses, remasters, deluxe editions, and box sets announced for the remainder of the year. Some are long overdue, while others are shameless attempts at your disposable income.

Bookmark this page and check back often, as I’ll continue updating it whenever new titles are announced.

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly. Support my work with a paid sub for less than $5 a month, thank you! 😊

This email may be too long for your inbox - click to read in browser mode.

July 24

July 31

August 7

August 14

August 21

August 28

September 4

September 11

September 18

October 2

October 16

October 23

October 30

  • Mitski - Puberty 2 (10th Anniversary Forest Shadow Colored Vinyl)

November 6

  • Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend (2 LP Expanded Edition)

December 4

For all these records, you’re gonna need a vinyl tote bag. Get $10 off that or anything else in the Gift Shop when you upgrade your subscription for just $5. Additionally, supporters get access to all past paywalled exhibits.

Thanks for visiting. Next Friday is the trumphiant return of The Weekender!

See you then,
Jared

SUB OR DIE!

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[Cheers to SPRITZCORE 🍹]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spritzcorehttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spritzcoreFri, 10 Jul 2026 17:18:16 GMT

Welcome inside The Wax Museum, broadcasting from Orlando, where the heat index will hit 110° today. Mamma mia!

Weather like this calls for bubbly drinks and bubbly music, so I went looking for songs that felt sun-drunk.

Before long, I had invented a new genre, and I will share it with you now, since this is the kind of thing you can do when you have your own newsletter and no editor around to stop you.

I’m calling it SPRITZCORE, the soundtrack to your Aperitivo Hour(s). It’s a little yacht, a little disco, a little French pop, a little Balearic, a little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side… sorry.

Bookending the playlist is Nirosta Steel, who’s the talk of music discourse right now, and for good reason. Steven Hall, under the Nirosta Steel moniker, just dropped his four-decades-in-the-making MY SKYSCRAPER, an 83-minute uneven collection of works-forever-in-progress.

Nirosta Steel’s MY SKYSCRAPER | Stream on Bandcamp and snag the vinyl.

The MY SKYSCRAPER cuts on constant repeat for me are the Balearic disco of “BOSS TRIX (BENNY’S SONG)” and the space lounge-y “GO FOR THE NIGHT,” both of which are pure bottled SPRITZCORE, baby!

Enjoy those two and the rest of the 33⅓-song SPRITZCORE playlist, aka The Spritz List. SPRITZCORE is less of a genre than a feeling, so go add your own suggestions in the comments. This is a mix I’ll continually update, so give it a follow and spread the good word of SPRITZCORE.

Like what you read? For less than the price of a coffee each month, you'll get full access to the archive, $10 off the gift shop, and help fund my increasingly questionable music habits.

The SPRITZCORE Playlist

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Tracklist:

  1. Nirosta Steel - BOSS TRIX (BENNY’S SONG)

  2. Chromatics - Cherry

  3. Washed Out - Amor Fati

  4. MUNYA - Un Deux Trois

  5. Tennis - I’m Callin’

  6. Paul Cherry - Our Night

  7. Air - La femme d’argent

  8. Todd Terje - Preben Goes to Acapulco

  9. Discovery - Orange Shirt

  10. Yuksek - Always On the Run (Peter & The Magician Remix)

  11. Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers (The Magician Remix)

  12. Panama - Always (Classixx Remix)

  13. Disclosure and Al Green - Feel Like I Do

  14. Daft Punk feat. Todd Edwards - Fragments of Time

  15. Tanlines - Real Life

  16. Little Dragon - The Pop Life

  17. 14KT - Gee Whiz

  18. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - PIMP

  19. Evans Pyramid - Never Gonna Leave You

  20. Marvin Gaye - I Want You

  21. Todd Rundgren - Hello It’s Me

  22. Ambrosia - How Much I Feel

  23. Joe Jackson - Steppin’ Out

  24. Ra Ra Riot - Valerie

  25. Crumb - Sleep Talk

  26. Jamie xx - Obvs

  27. Mr Twin Sister - Lady Daydream

  28. The Durutti Column - Future Perfect

  29. Télépopmusik - Breathe

  30. Everything But The Girl - Nothing Left To Lose (Four Tet Remix)

  31. The Juan Maclean - Running Back To You

  32. Delorean - Stay Close

  33. Zero 7 - In The Waiting Line

  34. Nirosta Steel - GO FOR THE NIGHT

This playlist is the latest entry in our ongoing, actually human-curated mixtape series. No algorithms or AI slop, just handpicked tracks from someone with too many records and not enough shelf space.

For more summer jams, check out the seasonally refreshed PATIO GROOVES (Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music)

And if you like your playlists with a side of paranoia, check out WEIRD SCENES INSIDE THE CANYON (Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music) with an accompanying longread of the CIA’s covert activity in 1960’s Laurel Canyon.

Lastly, if you missed it, I did a midyear album review, highlighting 50 killer records in 50 sentences. It’s the fastest way to catch up on the latest and greatest.

The Wax Museum
2026 Best So Far: 50 Albums, 50 Sentences
The Wax Museum is billed as the record-mendation newsletter, and today we’re making good on that promise: fifty great albums of 2026, reviewed in one sentence each. For listeners with a growing backlog and limited free time…
Read more
a month ago · 68 likes · 22 comments · Jared Smith

Before I sign off, I’m shipping up to Boston and Portland, Maine next week. The itinerary currently consists of lobster rolls, Narragansetts, and wandering into every record store I can find. If you’ve got recommendations for records, food, breweries, bookstores, or hidden gems, I’m all ears.

Until next time,
Jared

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly.

]]><![CDATA[2026 Best So Far: 50 Albums, 50 Sentences]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-best-albums-of-2026-so-farhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-best-albums-of-2026-so-farWed, 01 Jul 2026 19:37:42 GMT

The Wax Museum is billed as the record-mendation newsletter, and today we’re making good on that promise: fifty great albums of 2026, reviewed in one sentence each. For listeners with a growing backlog and limited free time.

To make it easier to browse, I sorted everything into ten categories, from essentials and debuts to short records, jazz, country, live albums, rap, dance records, and crate-digging detours.

This isn’t a ranked list (though the first five are my current favs). For that, I keep the Album of the Year Leaderboard updated throughout the year, where new releases rise, fall, and occasionally get bullied by whatever I’m currently obsessed with. You’ll find that at the bottom of this issue. Happy digging!

The best in crate-digging, emailed weekly. Please consider a $5 donation so I can continue making fun lists like this, thanks :)

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The Cream of the Crop

If you only hear five albums from 2026, start here.

Boards of Canada - Inferno

Get Vinyl: Red | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Scottish duo Boards of Canada return after a thirteen year absence to alter your brain chemistry with beats that feel like childhood memories, conspiracy documentaries, and the end of the world all at once.

Favorite Song: The Air-like “You Retreat In Time and Space”

heavensouls - westside trapped

Get Vinyl: White
Stream: Bandcamp

Nigerian-born, Houston-based producer heavensouls (born Chidi Obialo) is only 19, which makes the scope of westside trapped feel even more ridiculous: a sprawling, sample-heavy collision of Afrobeat, jazz history, and digital-age production that stands as one of the year’s most alive-sounding records.

Favorite Song: The nine-minute, rage-fueled anarchy of “shed a tear for me”

Puma Blue - Croak Dream

Get Vinyl: Deep Ocean Blue
Stream: Bandcamp

Puma Blue, the alias of South London’s Jacob Allen, takes his biggest swing yet on Croak Dream, a smoky late-night blend of dark, gothic R&B and trip-hop beats that sounds like Jeff Buckley wandering into a Portishead session.

Favorite Song: This is a question where you ask ten different people and get ten different answers — for me, it’s the title track.

Ratboys - Singin’ to an Empty Chair

Get Vinyl: Opaque Green (Autographed) | Hundred Acre Wood | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Chicago four-piece Ratboys have become one of those bands I trust with my time, and Singin’ to an Empty Chair rewards that trust with Julia Steiner’s open-hearted writing and a band that knows exactly when to twang, shuffle, and rip.

Favorite Song: My favorite 20 minute stretch of music this year, the penultimate three-song suite of “Just Want You to Know the Truth” → “What’s Right?”→ “Burn It Down.”

Thomas Dollbaum - Birds of Paradise

Get Vinyl: Roseate Spoonbill Pink
Stream: Bandcamp

Birds of Paradise spent three years in limbo before Dear Life Records rescued it, which is wild because Tampa-raised Thomas Dollbaum sounds completely in command here, turning Florida ghosts, pill mills, and I-95 exits into prime crunchy folk-rock.

Favorite Song: “Coyote” featuring MJ Lenderman on drums and backing vocals.

The Rookies of the Year

Five debut albums that announced themselves in a big way.

April + VISTA - Traditional Noise

Get Vinyl: Translucent Fly Green
Stream: Bandcamp

Never a dull moment on Traditional Noise, April + VISTA’s long-awaited debut, where cinematic strings, glitchy electronics, guitar bite, and April George’s stunning vocals are packed into short songs that refuse to sit still.

Favorite Song: “Very Bad News,” which sounds like a lost James Bond theme.

My New Band Believe - My New Band Believe

Get Vinyl: Oxblood Red with 7-inch | Black
Stream: Spotify

While Geordie Greep stayed big and loud after the Black Midi split, Cameron Picton went inward on My New Band Believe, turning 118 stringed instruments and acoustic textures into a solo debut that keeps revealing new corners.

Favorite Song: “Love Story”

Mon Rovîa - Bloodline

Get Vinyl: Red
Stream: Bandcamp

Bloodline is protest music with a soft voice, which feels like a magic trick when Mon Rovîa turns complicated questions of ancestry, war, and belonging into warm indie folk that comforts without letting anyone off the hook.

Favorite Song: Catchy opener “Black Cauldron,” a chill, folksy song about… checks notes… child soldiers, burning churches, lived trauma, childhood displacement..

Girl Scout - Brink

Get Vinyl: Clouds
Stream: Spotify

The Alex Farrar Cinematic Universe expands again with Brink, where Swedish trio Girl Scout deliver the kind of hooky, hazy, grunge-kissed debut that sounds engineered in a lab to make me say, “yep, that’ll do.”

Favorite Song: If you’re like me and waiting around for Alvvays LP4, songs like “Crumbs” and “Dead Dog” should hold you over.

Shaking Hand - Shaking Hand

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Shaking Hand’s self-titled debut is all tension and release, jagged guitars, mantric vocals, and slow-burn builds that make it one of the records I keep reaching for most this year.

Favorite Song: Math-rock insta-classic “In For a… Pound!”

All Killer, No Filler

My favorite albums under 33 1⁄3 minutes.

Feeble Little Horse - bitknot

Get Vinyl: Clear Green Swirl | White | Silver
Stream: Bandcamp

On bitknot, Pittsburgh’s feeble little horse sound tighter and stranger now as a trio, doubling down on noise-rock squall, pop hooks, and songs about trying to stay human while the algorithm keeps tapping on the glass.

Favorite Song: I have a different favorite every day, today it’s “Rewind.”

Greg Mendez - Beauty Land

Get Vinyl: Indigo Clear
Stream: Bandcamp

The Elliott Smith comparison is inevitable, but Beauty Land earns it the hard way, with Greg Mendez turning grief, addiction, and self-forgiveness into 14 small songs that somehow feel enormous.

Favorite Song: Opener “I Wanna Feel Pretty” is lead single for a reason.

Slippers - Slippers 08

Get Vinyl: Pink | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

At 22 minutes, Slippers 08 does not waste a second, serving up crisp guitars and pocket-sized power-pop songs that know better than to linger past the hook.

Favorite Song: “Blueberry Peel” and “Wants for Everyone,” both of which can be heard on my summer Patio Grooves playlist.

Quiet Light - Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2

Get Vinyl: Bundle on Marbled Green and Marbled Blue
Stream: Bandcamp

24-year-old Texas-raised electronic folk artist Riya Mahesh, aka Quiet Light, makes bedroom pop for the moment right before sleep, when old conversations and parking lot confessions materialize as you curse at the ceiling.

Favorite Song: The melancholic, saxophone-laced “Berlin”

Midrift - Silhouette

Get Vinyl: Purple Shadow Marble
Stream: Spotify

Midrift are barely out of high school, which makes Silhouette all the more impressive, a bruising emo-shoegaze debut that hits me like the first time hearing Taking Back Sunday.

Favorite Song: The penultimate “Safe and Sound” is a nice slice of Midwest emo.

Lost in Translation

Five incredible albums that just happen to not be in English.

Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland - Eternal Life No End | ليلة ظلماء ملعونة، كحياة طالبيها

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Built from years of collaboration, Eternal Life No End sounds like two musicians inventing a shared language for grief, where Radwan Ghazi Moumneh’s Arabic vocals cut through Frédéric D. Oberland’s synths and sax like a flare in bad weather.

Favorite Song: Centerpiece “The Serpent”

Anadol & Marie Klock — Manivelles

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

The best thing about Manivelles, Anadol and Marie Klock’s second collaborative album, is that it feels genuinely curious, mixing folk, krautrock, French pop, and organ-driven oddness without sanding down the parts that make it strange.

Favorite Song: The wobbling “Magnitude 6.3,” shout out to the Roland Rhythm Arranger on this one.

Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti - Almost Waking

Get Vinyl: Transparent
Stream: Bandcamp

Mabe Fratti has made every year-end list I’ve done since starting this publication, and the streak continues with Almost Waking, where her gorgeous voice and cello meets legend Bill Orcutt’s guitar in a record as beautiful as its cover art.

Favorite Song: “El Inicio es cuestión de suerte”

Antropoceno - No Ritmo da Terra

Get Vinyl: Galaxy Orange
Stream: Bandcamp

Speaking of killer album artwork, Antropoceno’s No Ritmo da Terra pairs Poty Galaco’s jaguar-stalked cover with music just as wild, folding Amazon field recordings, Brazilian folk, post-rock, glitch, and metal into one massive ecological fever dream.

Favorite Song: The melodic metal of “Pe Rembi'urama.” And shout out to all the birdsongs sprinkled in throughout the record.

Kiss Facility - KHAZNA

Get Vinyl: Black (Sold Out)
Stream: Bandcamp

Kiss Facility’s KHAZNA pairs Sega Bodega with Arabic vocalist Mayah Alkhateri for a downtempo trance record so hypnotic I put it on during a run and ended up in a full meditative state, just drifting through life like Peter Sellers in Being There.

Favorite Song: The smooth, float-y “Plasma”

Country Roads

The country umbrella keeps getting bigger, and the music keeps getting better.

Gun Outfit - Process and Reality

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

On Process and Reality, Gun Outfit stretch cosmic country into panorama mode, filling 81 minutes with dusty guitars, homemade instruments, patient sprawl, and apocalyptic haze from a California ranch session with a forest fire burning nearby.

Favorite Song: The first track on Side B, “Cherry Blossoms in Leschi”

Daughn Gibson - Lake Mary not mysterious

Get Vinyl: N/A
Stream: Bandcamp

Daughn Gibson’s first full-length in over a decade heads into the Florida swamps, where his deep, haunted croon turns palm trees, dive bars, and bad decisions into country noir with a cocktail umbrella stuck in it.

Favorite Song: The back-to-back boozy duet of “Cocoa Beach” moving into “Sacred Life,” which sounds like a long lost classic.

Zoh Amba - Eyes Full

Get Vinyl: Blue
Stream: Spotify

Zoh Amba built their name in New York’s avant-garde jazz scene, but Eyes Full heads straight back to Kingsport, Tennessee, trading saxophone fire for muddy blues and Appalachian ache.

Favorite Song: “Another Time,” which you can hear on my summer Patio Grooves playlist.

Ovven - Gnawing At The Cord

Get Vinyl: Blue (Signed)
Stream: Bandcamp

Back-to-back Alex Farrar picks, since Eyes Full was recorded at his Drop of Sun Studios and he produces this one too, but Ovven’s Gnawing at the Cord more than earns the credit with loose, fuzzy alt-country that leaves Owen Burton’s sharp writing plenty of room to breathe.

Favorite Song: “Abbreviated” is the good stuff.

vegas water taxi - long time caller, first time listener

Get Vinyl: Galaxy
Stream: Bandcamp

On long time caller, first time listener, vegas water taxi basically asks “what if Matty Healy made a country record?” then turns British self-loathing, internet-era romance, and pedal steel into something too funny to be dismissed as a joke.

Favorite Song: Opener “brat summer,” a song about police rounding up those who aren’t living the Charli xcx lifestyle.

Movers & Groovers

The albums most likely to improve your mood, commute, or kitchen dance moves.

Jump Source - Fold

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Jump Source’s Fold has the rare electronic-album quality of working everywhere: in headphones, in the car, in a coffee shop, and at 1:20 AM when you suddenly decide you are a club person now.

Favorite Song: “Shattered” featuring Helena Deland is maybe my most-played song of the year. Also billy woods on “Empty Bars” is a left field cameo that works.

Telenova - The Warning

Get Vinyl: Red and Black Marble | Black
Stream: Spotify

Telenova’s The Warning is dreamy synth-pop with actual pulse, turning Angeline Armstrong’s ethereal vocals, sleek grooves, and real-life band turmoil into one of the year’s most replayable records.

Favorite Song: “IN THE NAME OF YOUR LOVE” slaps. Telenova also remixes their own songs under the Telenoir name and those are worth seeking out too.

Nightmares On Wax vs Adrian Sherwood - In A Space Outta Dub

Get Vinyl: Light Rose | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

As much as I replay Adrian Sherwood’s dub rework of Spoon’s Lucifer on the Sofa, I was always going to be all-in on In A Space Outta Dub, where he gives Nightmares On Wax’s classic a low-end second life for its 20th anniversary.

Favorite Song: His rework of “You Wish,” seen here as opener “You Bliss”

Johnny Blue Skies - Mutiny After Midnight

Get Vinyl: Red | Black
Stream: Spotify

Johnny Blue Skies gives Sturgill Simpson permission to get loose on Mutiny After Midnight, a fun, funky, proudly horny country-disco record that I assume absolutely murders live.

Favorite Song: “Don’t Let Go.” Then it’s the Eddie Murphy cover “Party All the Time.” I must also state my least favorite song, the cringe-y “Stay On That.”

Holy Fuck - Event Beat

Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Baby Blue

Canada’s Holy Fuck haven’t lost a step on Event Beat, which starts in a chaotic sprint and settles into the kind of hypnotic, body-moving pulse they’ve always made sound easy.

Favorite Song: “Gold Flakes” and “Elevate” are among their career best.

Rap Rotation

The hip hop records that stayed in heavy rotation. Hey, remember when Drake dropped three albums at once and everyone just moved on the next day lol

Tony Bontana - My Name

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Birmingham rapper Tony Bontana has dropped nearly 60 Bandcamp releases since 2020, but My Name is the ideal entry point, with lung-emptying bars about injustice and survival over this year’s most beautiful soul-loop beats.

Favorite Song: “Soft Dreams,” where he flays those who stay silent on the genocide against Palestinians.

Action Bronson - Planet Frog

Get Vinyl: Sold Out
Stream: Bandcamp

Planet Frog is my favorite Action Bronson project since Blue Chips 7000, a no-filler record full of hilarious one-liners, natural chemistry, and some of the best beats he’s rapped over in years.

Favorite Song: Can’t beat the backcourt duo of “LEBRON HENNESSY” and “OLYMPIC VINCE CARTER”

Tierra Whack - WHACK’S MUSEUM

Get Vinyl: Pink
Stream: Spotify

Tierra Whack opens WHACK’S MUSEUM by acknowledging that people wanted her to rap more, then spends 27 no-filler minutes making everyone sound extremely reasonable for asking.

Favorite Song: Lead single “WAX PAPER” with a classic Conductor Williams beat.

KNEECAP - FENIAN

Get Vinyl: Red & Black Splatter | Red & Black Tricolor | Black
Stream: Spotify

If Fine Art proved KNEECAP had the juice, FENIAN is where they start looking like something bigger: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí turning Irish rap, rave energy, and political heat into movement music with a smirk.

Favorite Song: “Liar’s Tale,” sound of the times.

.idk. - e.t.d.s A Mixtape by .idk

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

On e.t.d.s. A Mixtape, James Aaron Mills, aka .idk., somehow holds his own next to a guest list that reads like a dream blunt rotation: Black Thought, Madlib, RZA, Pusha T, MF DOOM, and DMX.

Favorite Song - The No I.D. produced “HALO”

Ya Like Jazz?

The year’s best excuse to listen to more jazz.

Fabiano do Nascimento & Vittor Santos e Orquestra - Vila

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Samba Jazz

Fabiano do Nascimento has released music at an absurd clip this decade (12 records since 2020), but Vila feels like a new peak, a lush, sixteen-piece samba-jazz bloom rooted in the Rio neighborhood where his guitar story began.

Favorite Song: Opener “O Tempo (Foi O Meu Mestre)” sets the tone.

Aaron Shaw - And So It Is

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

On And So It Is, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist Aaron Shaw turns the physical toll of a bone marrow failure diagnosis into a debut that feels startlingly alive, especially once you know his breath, the thing every wind player depends on, was no longer a given.

Favorite Song: Expansive ten-minute centerpiece "Heart of a Phoenix"

Adam O’Farrill - ELEPHANT

Get Vinyl: Opaque Blue | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

ELEPHANT is Adam O’Farrill’s first quartet record as the lone horn voice, and he makes the space count with sharp trumpet melodies, oceanic atmosphere, and a modern jazz palette wide enough to fit Ryuichi Sakamoto and Radiohead.

Favorite Song: “The Sea Triptych,” an ode to the mystery of the open water.

Momoko Gill - Momoko

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Vocal Jazz

Momoko Gill’s self-produced debut Momoko pulls half the London jazz-adjacent scene into her orbit, but the center always holds: drummer-first grooves, layered vocals, electronic flickers, and songwriting that gives all the moving parts somewhere to land.

Favorite Song: “When Palestine Is Free,” featuring a 50-person choir and full brass section.

Your Brother’s Keeper & Gary Bartz - Where Rivers Meet

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Contemporary Jazz

Where Rivers Meet captures the passing-the-torch energy running through London jazz, pairing new ensemble Your Brother’s Keeper with spiritual jazz legend Gary Bartz for a record that feels rooted in the smoky ’70s.

Favorite Song: Transcendent closer “Mantra”

Recorded in Front of a Live Audience

The concerts I’ve been replaying all year.

Manchester Orchestra - Union Chapel London, England

Get Vinyl: Sea Blue
Stream: Bandcamp

For my money, Manchester Orchestra are one of the best live acts on Earth, and this Union Chapel set shows they do not need volume to wreck you, just Andy Hull, Robert McDowell, natural reverb, and songs echoing off stained glass windows.

Favorite Song: Do yourself a favor and listen to encore “The Silence,” a slow-burner that turns into a damn-near spiritual experience by the end. Mamma mia.

Florry - Smells Like... Florry Live As Hell

Get Vinyl: N/A
Stream: Bandcamp

Dear Life Records gets another one on the board with Smells Like… Florry Live as Hell, a 14-track blast from shows between 2023 and 2026 that captures Florry sounding loose, loud, and on the edge of coming apart.

Favorite Song: Set staple “Take My Heart,” from Portsmouth, NH on 11.21.25

SML - Spontaneous Music Live

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Spontaneous Music Live is exactly what it says it is: two side-length pieces of unedited improvisation, recorded live at Zebulon during SML’s December 2025 residency, just weeks after the release of the band’s second album HOW YOU BEEN, with Side A as one track and Side B as the other.

Favorite Song: Do not make me choose a side.

Bon Iver - VOLUMES: ONE (SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND)

Get Vinyl: Ducky Yellow | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Bon Iver’s first non-studio release, VOLUMES: ONE, pulls ten live performances from 2019 to 2023 and reminds you that the band’s best versions often happen on stage, where the arrangements are bigger and stranger.

Favorite Song: Tough one. I was in the crowd for this “HEY MA” recorded at 2023’s Pitchfork Fest, but the version of “HEAVENLY FATHER” floored me.

Hurray for the Riff Raff - Live Forever

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Recorded over two nights at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Live Forever makes the case for Alynda Segarra as one of the defining voices of the decade, pulling The Past Is Still Alive and older standouts into a live set that crackles with grief, protest, and hope.

Favorite Song: Closer “Pa’lante” is a hell of a way to finish the performance.

Digging in the Crates

The best compilations and mixes released this year.

War Child Records - HELP(2)

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Spotify

Thirty-one years after the original HELP, War Child’s HELP(2) brings in a stacked lineup, including Arctic Monkeys (their first song in four years), Depeche Mode, and Olivia Rodrigo for a charity compilation that’s worth your time and money.

Favorite Song: “Stranger” is my favorite Black Country, New Road track since Isaac Wood left. But the one that really hits is Cameron Winter’s jarring protest song “The Warning.”

DJ-Kicks: Sofia Kourtesis

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

The best DJ-Kicks mixes feel like self-portraits through other people’s records, and Sofia Kourtesis makes this one feel especially personal, moving through grief, Peru, memory, and dancefloor release.

Favorite Song: The dazzling “Los Poemas No Siempre Riman” remix.

Various Artists - When There Is No Sun: Intergalactic Music Is Of the Outer Darkness

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Curated by Ricardo Villalobos, When There Is No Sun sends Sun Ra’s poetry and Arkestra recordings through techno, house, drum and bass, ambient, and deep-space electronics for some cosmic weirdness and spiritual healing.

Favorite Song: Groovy “The Endless Realm” featuring Tunde Adebimpe.

New Now - Red Xerox (Chicago Youth Beat 2020-25)

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

If you want to understand why people keep talking about Chicago’s young guitar scene, Red Xerox is the cheat code, packed with Wax Museum favorites like Horsegirl, Lifeguard, Friko, Sharp Pins, and Free Range.

Favorite Song: Friko’s demo of “Get Numb to It!”

Minnesota Artists United Against ICE - Melt ICE

Get Vinyl: N/A
Stream: Bandcamp

If Red Xerox documents Chicago music right now, Melt ICE does the same for Minnesota, pulling 110(!) local songs into a massive mutual-aid compilation where the scene shows up, gets loud, and puts its money somewhere useful.

Favorite Song: This is an impossible task with 100+ songs, but I’ll go with she’s green’s live version of “Cabin Song.”

Album of the Year Leaderboard (77 Songs)

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

And that’s the midyear damage report.

For the living, breathing version of this list, here’s the Album of the Year Leaderboard, where I keep tabs on the year’s best records as they rise, fall, and get body-checked by new arrivals.

The Best Songs of 2026 (So Far) (175 Songs)

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

And if the above albums wasn’t enough music, I’m also keeping The Best Songs of 2026 (So Far) playlist stocked with my favorite tracks of the year. Sort by newest added and dig in for the latest.

And now it’s your turn. Tell me what connected most with you, what I missed, and which album you’re taking with you into the second half of the year.

It’d mean the world to me if you’d support The Wax Museum. $5/month gets you full access to all exhibits and helps me keep making ridiculous lists like this one.

The best in crate-digging, emailed weekly.

I send out this publication roughly once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, join 25,000 other collectors and follow my other project, Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource!

Lastly, once a month I go live and auction vinyl records on Whatnot! Think of it as Twitch meets eBay. Here’s $25 free to spend on your first purchase anywhere on the app. Stay tuned for my next show in a few weeks.

Until next time,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[Your New Favorite Summer Playlist Is Here 😎]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/summer-2026-playlisthttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/summer-2026-playlistTue, 09 Jun 2026 15:37:00 GMT
Photo by Peyman Shojaei on Unsplash

After rigorous testing on patios, porches, pools, decks, and folding chairs, the PATIO GROOVES playlist is back, and better than ever (I mean it this time).

For the newcomers: every season, your esteemed curator emerges from his listening cave to share what’s been in heavy rotation lately.

The playlist has a few requirements: every song had to feel at home on a summer afternoon, and every song has to be something I could hear repeatedly without getting sick of it by Labor Day.

The result is 33⅓ tracks spanning 50+ years of music, with roughly half released within the last year. Sunny grooves, deep cuts, and a bunch of future classics.

Now pour something cold, hit play, and enjoy.

A programming note before the playlist. I am going live this Friday night, June 12th at 8 PM EST on Whatnot, auctioning off 50 records from the Vinyl Me, Please collection.

I’ve wanted to do this show for a long time, and it should be a baja blast. Everything starts at $1, there will be giveaways, good tunes, and plenty of deals.

Come hang out and get a record on me! Get $15 free on your first purchase through this link: https://whatnot.com/invite/thewaxmuseum

PATIO GROOVES 😎 Summer 2026

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Tracklist:

  1. Mato - Summer Madness

  2. Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters

  3. The Waterboys - We Will Not Be Lovers

  4. Man/Woman/Chainsaw - Nosedive

  5. Johnny Blue Skies - Party All The Time

  6. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right

  7. Kurt Vile - Chance to Bleed

  8. This Is Lorelei, Waxahatchee - Where’s Your Love Now

  9. Fontaines D.C. - Roman Holiday

  10. Khruangbin - August 10

  11. Thomas Dollbaum - Coyote

  12. Dirty Projectors - No Intention

  13. Wild Pink - Round Of Applause At The End Of The World

  14. The Allman Brothers Band - Blue Sky

  15. Fastbacks - In the Summer

  16. Slippers - Blueberry Peel (Reprise)

  17. Slippers - Wants For Everyone

  18. The Smashing Pumpkins - Perfect

  19. Jack Landess - Sun Soaked

  20. Nightmares On Wax, Adrian Sherwood - You Bliss

  21. Radiohead, Jacques Greene - Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene Remix)

  22. Delorean - Deli

  23. crushed - starburn

  24. Josaleigh Pollett, Crowd Shy - The Witness

  25. Weezer, Wednesday - We Might as Well Be Strangers

  26. Zoh Amba - Another Time

  27. The Avalanches, MGMT, Johnny Marr - The Divine Chord

  28. Kevin Morby - Javelin

  29. The Chameleons - Monkeyland

  30. Roxy Music - More Than This

  31. Lumidee - Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)

  32. Santigold - You’ll Find A Way (Switch and Sinden Remix)

  33. Girl Scout - Crumbs

  34. The Strokes - Oblivious

For more PATIO GROOVES, stream the full collection: Spotify | Apple Music

Thanks for visiting. If you enjoyed your stay, consider a $5 donation. Patrons will receive $10 off in the Gift Shop. Treat yourself to this vinyl carrying tote!

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Enjoy more music curation from The Wax Museum

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We’re 10 weeks into 2026 and it’s already been a strong year for new music. A few killer albums have made their way into this newsletter already, like Ratboys and Shaking Hand, while bigger names like Gorillaz and Mitski have also delivered. We even got a new Heavenly record after an unreal 30-year gap between releases…
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Catch ya Friday,
Jared

]]><![CDATA[The 15 Best Album Debuts of 2026 So Far]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-best-album-debuts-of-2026https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-best-album-debuts-of-2026Fri, 29 May 2026 15:56:29 GMT

Today is a big day. In fact, it might be the best new release day of the year so far.

I mentioned in my recent Blind Buys newsletter that I would have to resist kissing my mailman as he hands me new records from Boards of Canada, Kurt Vile, Iceage, and Manchester Orchestra. Oh yeah, and Paul McCartney’s first album in 13 years.

But as excited as I am for those albums, I've spent just as much time this year getting pulled into debut records from artists who seem destined to hang around for a while.

Last year brought us standouts like Saya Gray and Mei Semones. In 2024, we got Wishy, Friko, and Mk.gee. I dare say the freshman class of 2026 is even stronger.

For this list, I'm looking for fully realized debut albums that stick long after the first spin. One more requirement: they need to be available on vinyl, since this is The Wax Museum after all.

That means a few excellent debuts didn't make the cut, at least not yet:

The moment any of those land on wax, we’ll revisit the conversation.

Until then, with apologies to XXL, this is The Wax Museum Freshman Class of 2026: fifteen debut albums worth your time, your turntable, and maybe even your year end list.

The Wax Museum is the record-mendation newsletter. Subscribe to get the latest in curated crate-digging. Access years of exhibits with a $5 donation. Thanks for the support :)

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The Wax Museum Freshman Class of 2026

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Here’s a playlist of my favorite song from each album by our Freshman 15, clocking in at around one hour. The best hour of your week? Many are saying it.

Morgan Nagler - I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It

Get Vinyl: Purple

Genre: Folk Rock

Morgan Nagler waited until age 47 to release her first solo album, I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It. You may know her as the Grammy-nominated co-writer of Phoebe Bridgers’ arguably best song “Kyoto,” but after spending years helping other artists tell their stories, the collapse of her own engagement pushed Nagler to step to the front of the stage.

Produced by King Tuff and featuring a stacked cast of indie ringers (Courtney Barnett, Allison Crutchfield, Madi Diaz, Bethany Cosentino), the record hits the ground running with three straight knockout songs, with “Orange Wine” the one I keep returning to. I featured it on my Spring Playlist, and months later it still feels like an instant classic.

My New Band Believe - My New Band Believe

Get Vinyl: Oxblood Red with 7-inch | Black

Genre: Chamber Rock

Black Midi fans are not surprised to see both Geordie Greep and Cameron Picton delivering stellar solo debuts after their band’s breakup. We already knew they had the juice.

While Greep’s The New Sound leaned into the maximalist chaos that was Black Midi’s bread and butter, Picton’s My New Band Believe takes a different path entirely. The album is almost entirely acoustic, with minimal processing and a reported 118 stringed instruments woven throughout, revealing a new detail every time you spin it.

Aaron Shaw - And So It Is

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Experimental Jazz

What a stunning week for jazz. Sonny Rollins died at 95 on Monday. The next day would have been Miles Davis’ 100th birthday. If there was ever a moment to wonder who’s carrying the torch, Aaron Shaw makes a pretty compelling case.

On And So It Is, the Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist channels the physical and emotional toll of a bone marrow failure diagnosis into a debut that feels deeply alive. Knowing that Shaw’s illness affected his ability to breathe, and therefore his ability to play, gives the music an added weight. It’s a document of someone finding new ways forward through the thing he loves most, and it’s my favorite jazz record of the year so far.

Kiss Facility - KHAZNA

Get Vinyl: Black (Sold Out)

Genre: Arabic Downtempo

If you want to be put in a trance, pun very much intended, throw on Kiss Facility’s KHAZNA. I put this thing on during a run and ended up in a full meditative state, just drifting through life like Peter Sellers in Being There.

The project pairs Sega Bodega with Arabic vocalist Mayah Alkhateri, who studied artists like Slowdive, the Radio Dept., and Enya while shaping her approach here. You can hear all of it in the music. Even though the lyrics are impenetrable to me, the emotion lands immediately.

Mon Rovîa - Bloodline

Get Vinyl: Red

Genre: Appalachian Folk

Born in Liberia during the country’s civil war, escaping the life of a child soldier, and later adopted by a white American family, Mon Rovîa brings an extraordinary life story to Bloodline.

After initially making R&B, Rovîa found his way back to the indie folk he grew up loving, drawing from his love of Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver to carve out a space entirely his own. Bloodline is a warm record that wrestles with identity, heritage, and injustice. It’s protest music, but the kind that heals rather than riles.

Menzies - Holding My Cold Hand, Even Though Yours Is Warm

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Indie Rock

If Isaac Wood had grown up in New Zealand listening to MJ Lenderman, he might’ve made something like Holding My Cold Hand, Even Though Yours Is Warm. Genre-fluid four-piece Menzies fills these songs with hyper-specific slices of Kiwi life, delivered in a conversational, spoken-word style that feels like you’re hearing someone’s inner monologue. It’s one of the most fun debuts I’ve heard all year, full of sharp observations, left turns, and melodies that stick.

Cardinals - Masquerade

Get Vinyl: Red | Black

Genre: Irish Punk

As a vinyl sicko, I appreciate when a band thinks about album sequencing, and Cardinals clearly did their homework on Masquerade. The Cork boys crafted a distinct A-side and B-side experience, with the first half leaning into bright-eyed romance and vulnerability before creating something moodier and gothic on the flip side. It rewards listening front to back, a rarity these days.

Just a quick intermission to say I would love your support to keep this newsletter alive. Support for just $5 a month, and receive $10 off in the Gift Shop and access to over 3 years of paywalled record-mendations. Thank you, love you :)

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Shaking Hand - Shaking Hand

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Math Rock

Manchester three-piece Shaking Hand’s self-titled is built on tension and release. The record pulls from post-rock patience, 90s alternative grit, and nervous emo melodicism. It won’t take long to grow on you; probably the record I’ve listened to most on this list.

Ovven - Gnawing At The Cord

Get Vinyl: Blue (Signed)

Genre: Alt-Country

Owen Burton, the Nashville-by-way-of-Chicago songwriter recording as Ovven, makes a strong case for slacker alt-country having plenty of life left on Gnawing at the Cord. The songs are loose and fuzzy without burying Burton’s sharp writing under distortion. Wax Museum favorite Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Fust) produced, mixed, and engineered this one. Farrar is basically a genre tag on his own now — if his name shows up in the credits, I’m pressing play.

Mildred - Fenceline

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Americana

We stay in the same genre with Oakland quartet Mildred, who bring something fresh to the country indie scene with Fenceline. The fellas write and sing collectively, and you can hear that shared spirit in every nook of the record, from the warm melodies to the inspired songwriting and effortless harmonies. This baby is tailor-made for summer evenings on the patio.

Hiding Places - The Secret to Good Living

Get Vinyl: Lavender

Genre: Alternative Rock

Austin’s Keeled Scales has become one of the best labels at spotting talent early (Good Looks, Lunar Vacation), and they’ve done it again with Hiding Places. Though the band is now based in Brooklyn, The Secret to Good Living is rooted in the folk and guitar-driven indie rock of North Carolina, where the group first came together as college radio DJs in Chapel Hill.

The album throws a little bit of everything into the mix: slowcore, fuzzy indie rock, hushed folk. What keeps pulling me back is the tension between its whisper-quiet moments and the massive guitar leads waiting around the corner.

Girl Scout - Brink

Get Vinyl: Clouds

Genre: Dream Pop

Swedish trio Girl Scout first caught my attention opening for Alvvays, and the comparison makes sense. If you’re like me and waiting around for Alvvays LP4, songs like “Crumbs” and “Dead Dog” should hold you over.

Their long-awaited debut, Brink, arrives after a trilogy of EPs and finds the band teaming up with, oh look who it is, Alex Farrar, who seems determined to produce every album up my alley. Big hooks and gorgeous arrangements sit alongside shoegaze haze and a grungy edge that keeps the album from veering too far into indie-pop sweetness.

Touch Girl Apple Blossom - Graceful

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Twee Pop

Speaking of indie pop sweetness, Touch Girl Apple Blossom’s Graceful sounds like it was discovered in a shoebox full of K Records singles, which makes it fitting that the Austin band ended up signing to K Records. The band pulls from twee pop, jangly indie rock, and fuzzy lo-fi to concoct bubblegum sticky melodies.

Jump Source - Fold

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Tech House

My favorite electronic album of 2026 comes from Montreal duo Jump Source. Francis Latreille and Patrick Holland pack Fold with killer grooves, moving between dreamy headphone music, coffee-shop electronics, and full-on dancefloor bangers.

"Shattered" featuring Helena Deland is maybe my most-played song of the year, and the deeper you get into this nearly hour-long debut, the more rewards you find. Add in guest appearances from Loukeman, CFCF, and even rapper billy woods, and you've got the most immersive house record in recent memory.

Momoko Gill - Momoko

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Vocal Jazz

Momoko Gill steps out on her own with Momoko, a debut that pulls from her jazz, electronic, and singer-songwriter instincts. Gill’s been floating around the London scene for years, and you can hear it in how confident the record feels. She’s a drummer first, so everything moves through the grooves, while her layered vocals drift in and out like she’s sketching the songs in real time. The centerpiece is “When Palestine Is Free,” where a 50-person choir and full brass section blow the album wide open into something huge and communal.

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in! I’d love to hear what you’ve currently spinning; drop your favs in the comments or reply to this email.

I send out this newsletter once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, follow Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource!

Happy collecting, and stay tuned next week for a fun announcement!

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[My Blind Buy Records of Spring 2026]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spring-2026-recordshttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spring-2026-recordsFri, 15 May 2026 15:04:34 GMT

Pre-ordering an album after hearing just one single is either a sign of great taste, complete degeneracy, or a total lack of impulse control. Possibly all three. But this is the life vinyl collectors have chosen for themselves.

If I could buy stock in artists, I would. Unfortunately, the next best thing is blind-buying their records on faith… and I have too much of it. So consider this part release calendar, part peek into my increasingly questionable purchasing habits.

Here are 13 albums dropping over the next few weeks, including two out today, that I’ve already committed to owning before the rest of the Internet catches up.

Get the latest in crate-digging emailed weekly. Please consider a $5 a month upgrade to keep the curation spinning. Thank you :)

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Today, May 15

Rostam - American Stories

Get Vinyl: Coriander (Signed) | Sumac

Genre: Persian Americana

Iranian-American artist Rostam Batmanglij, formerly of Vampire Weekend and producer behind artists like HAIM and Clairo, uses his third record American Stories to explore both his American and Persian roots. Across lyrics touching on Gaza and campus protests, Rostam blends finger-picked guitars, pedal steel, and New York folk with Persian melodies (The Voidz’ Amir Yaghmai plays the lute-like Turkish saz throughout). It’s a record full of fun turns, textures, and “wait, what the hell kind of instrument is that?” moments.

Dua Saleh - Of Earth & Wires

Get Vinyl: Blue Sapphire

Genre: Experimental Soul

I bought Of Earth & Wires on the strength of the first two singles, “Flood” and “Glow,” both of which feature Bon Iver. But there’s more going on here beyond the Vernon bait: Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh threads together indie, R&B, electronic pop, UK dance, and baile funk into a record asking what happens when technology keeps accelerating and the world around us feels increasingly held together with duct tape.

May 22

Miles Davis - Live in Helsinki • Berlin 1964

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Post-Bop Jazz

Live in Helsinki • Berlin 1964 captures Miles Davis with the newly assembled Second Great Quintet of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and teenage menace Tony Williams, a lineup many consider one of the greatest groups in jazz history. These performances are as much about Shorter as they are about Miles; having only joined the band a few weeks earlier, Shorter was Miles’ most fascinating musical partner since Coltrane.

The big draw here is that the Helsinki performance has never been released before, while the Berlin set is finally getting its full original mono presentation on vinyl. The YouTube channel Milestones is fantastic for Miles performances, and here’s a 30-minute, lower quality snippet from the show.

May 29

Boards of Canada - Inferno

Get Vinyl: Red | Black

Genre: Electronic

I’ll have to resist the urge to kiss my mailman on May 29 when he shows up with three new records, none more anticipated than Boards of Canada’s first album in 13 years.

The Scottish electronic duo will attempt to save the 2020s with Inferno, and the first single delivers in spades, a haunting, hypnotic head-nodder that sounds unlike anything they’ve done before.

Kurt Vile - Philadelphia’s been good to me

Get Vinyl: Wooder Ice | Wissahickon Green

Genre: “Old Time, Lofi, DIY, Rock n’ Roll”

Kurt Vile is dropping his tenth album Philadelphia’s been good to me, an ode to his home city where he lives and records his music. The singles give you that laid-back Vile you know and love — lead single “Chance to Bleed” sounds like one long chorus and opener “Zoom 97” is also a great vibe. This is shaping up to be primo Patio Grooves material.

Manchester Orchestra - Union Chapel London, England

Get Vinyl: Silver | Sea Blue

Genre: Live Acoustic Rock

For my money, Manchester Orchestra is one of the best live acts going. In fall 2023, Andy Hull and Robert McDowell set up shop for a three-night run at Union Chapel in London, stripping everything down inside a gothic church where stained glass windows and natural acoustics did some of the heavy lifting. You can hear that chapel reverb all over these recordings.

Do yourself a favor and listen to encore “The Silence,” a slow-burner that turns into a damn-near spiritual experience by the end.

June 5

Rosa Walton - Tell Me It’s A Dream

Get Vinyl: Yellow (Signed Vinyl, Flexi Disc, Scrunchie) | Blue

Genre: Indie Pop

The Let’s Eat Grandma duo of Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth went their separate ways this year, with Jenny on Holiday’s Quicksand Heart dropping in January and Rosa’s solo debut arriving in June. Rosa is batting 1.000 so far, going three for three on the singles, all bright, ridiculously catchy pop songs.

Vince Staples - Cry Baby

Get Vinyl: Tri Color with Signed Birth Certificate (Sold Out) | Baby Pink | Red

Genre: West Coast Hip Hop

Multi-hyphenate Vince Staples can do no wrong in my eyes, and I’m curious to hear what he does on new label Loma Vista (also home to Manchester Orchestra) after spending more than a decade at Def Jam. After two introspective records (Ramona Park and Dark Times), the Long Beach rapper’s new album Cry Baby is advertised as a more confrontational piece of social commentary. Exhibit A is the music video for single “Blackberry Marmalade,” which was graphic enough that I became very aware of the people sitting around me on the train.

Zoh Amba - Eyes Full

Get Vinyl: Blue

Genre: Appalachian Folk

Zoh Amba has built a reputation as one of the more exciting saxophonists in New York’s avant-garde jazz world, but Eyes Full takes a hard turn back toward their Tennessee roots. This one trades the skronk for muddy blues, recorded at Alex Farrar’s Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, which has been ground zero for some of the best twang of the decade.

June 12

Kelsey Lu - So Help Me God

Get Vinyl: Bone | Black

Genre: Avant Pop

So Help Me God is the long-awaited second album from Kelsey Lu, arriving June 12 via Dirty Hit. There’s a Murderer’s Row of contributors here: production from Jack Antonoff and Yves Rothman, with appearances from Sampha, Kamasi Washington, and Kim Gordon. Call me Babe Ruth because I’m pointing to the bleachers on this one — based on the first three singles, I think this thing is headed straight for the top tier of my Album of the Year leaderboard.

June 19

Your Brother’s Keeper & Gary Bartz - Where Rivers Meet

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Contemporary Jazz

There’s been a passing-of-the-torch happening in London jazz over the last decade, and Where Rivers Meet is another great example of it. The record pairs spiritual jazz legend Gary Bartz, whose résumé includes everyone from Miles Davis to Charles Mingus, with new ensemble Your Brother’s Keeper. If you like modern jazz records that still feel rooted in the smoky, searching energy of the ‘70s, this looks very promising.

June 26

The Strokes - Reality Awaits

Get Vinyl: America | Metallic Gold | Black Ice | Black

Genre: Indie Rock

Last month, The Strokes ended their Coachella set with one of the coldest mic drops I’ve ever seen, playing “Oblivius” over a video backdrop cycling through CIA-assassinated political figures, bombed universities in Iran, and finally “the last university standing in Gaza” before the building explodes onscreen.

Now they’re rolling out their seventh album, Reality Awaits, and as a Strokes vinyl completist, adding the America-colored wax to my cart was never in question. Rick Rubin mentioned all the way back in 2022 that he had recorded with the band in Costa Rica, and four years later we finally get to hear what they were cooking up. The first two singles lean hard into Auto-Tune, and let’s just say I’m hoping it all makes more sense in album form.

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in! I’d love to hear what you’re excited about; let’s take this conversation to the comments or reply to this email.

I send out this publication roughly once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, join 25,000 other collectors and follow Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource!

Until next time,
Jared

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]]><![CDATA[Bandcamp Friday: 12 Records Worth Your Money Today]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/bandcamp-friday-2026https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/bandcamp-friday-2026Fri, 01 May 2026 16:34:59 GMT

Bandcamp Friday is back, which means your money goes straight to the artists instead of getting chipped away along the way. Hard to believe this started in March 2020, but here we are, six years later and it’s still one of the easiest ways to support those making the music you care about.

This is the last one until August, so if you’ve been meaning to pick something up, now’s the time. I did some digging and rounded up a mix of new releases and a few older records that have been in heavy rotation over here. All vinyl links to Bandcamp. Leggo.

Get the latest in crate-digging emailed weekly. Consider a $5 a month donation to keep the curation spinning. Thanks :)

This newsletter is likely too long for your inbox — click here for the full post.

KNEECAP - FENIAN (2026)

Get Vinyl: Red & Black Splatter | Red & Black Tricolor | Black

Genre: Irish Rap

Today’s a fun release day, headlined by Kacey Musgraves and American Football. Also BLARF! But let’s start with my favorite drop: the boys from Belfast are back, linking up with the great Dan Carey for their second album FENIAN.

If you heard Fine Art or caught their Netflix movie, you know the deal: Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap trade bilingual bars over DJ Próvaí’s blown-out, rave-adjacent production. FENIAN pushes that further, widening the sound while tightening the songs.

Recorded while Kneecap was the most talked about band in the country as Mo Chara was in and out of courtrooms for trumped-up terrorism charges, these lads are starting to look and sound like legends in the making.

Gia Margaret’s Discography (2018-2026)

Get Vinyl: Singing on Mental Clarity Clear | Mia Gargaret on Metallic Blue | Romantic Piano on Hinoki Cypress | There’s Always Glimmer on Coke Bottle Clear

Genre: Folk

Last week, Chicago composer Gia Margaret dropped her fourth album, Singing, and it lands with a bit more weight than your average release. After There’s Always Glimmer in 2018, a vocal injury forced her into silence, leading to two gorgeous ambient records, 2020’s Mia Gargaret and 2023’s Romantic Piano. “There was a time when I really didn’t know if I would sing again,” she says.

Singing is her first vocal album in eight years. The voice is back, but now it’s sitting inside something more deliberate, shaped by the years she spent working without it. You can hear that patience in the details, and in the way the songs open up with help from Frou Frou’s Guy Sigsworth, Stars’ Amy Millan, the Weepies’ Deb Talan, Pedro the Lion’s Dave Bazan, and Philly’s Kurt Vile. Taken together, these four records map a rare progression, where losing the obvious path opened a better one.

The Mystery Kindaichi Band - The Adventures of Kindaichi Kosuke (1977)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Japanese Disco Funk

Sometimes you see an album cover of an awkward Dracula playing the flute and go, “yeah I’m gonna need to hear this.” And that will be the best decision you make all day.

The Mystery Kindaichi Band’s The Adventures of Kindaichi Kosuke (1977) is an “imaginary” soundtrack to a cult detective series by Seishi Yokomizo (think Japan’s Agatha Christie), arranged by Kentaro Haneda and performed by a loose collective of top-tier ‘70s Japanese city pop and session players. The result is ten instrumental cuts of straight disco funk, breakbeats, grooves, and no filler. It’s been a crate-digger staple for years.

Your Bandcamp Friday money here goes to Paris label We Want Sounds, who consistently put out high-quality reissues.

Fust - Evil Joy (2021)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Alt-Country

North Carolina’s Fust snuck into my top 10 records of 2025 with Big Ugly, and now their debut Evil Joy is getting a much needed vinyl reissue for its fifth anniversary, courtesy of the great Dear Life Records. This one’s a bit looser and more barebones, but you can hear it clicking into place. If Big Ugly pulled you in like it did me, this is where to go back and see how it started.

Florry - Smells Like... Florry Live As Hell (2026)

Get Cassette: Black

Genre: Country Rock

We stay blessing the Dear Life label because they may have released the best live release of the year with Florry’s Smells Like… Florry Live as Hell.

Fourteen tracks pulled from shows between 2023 and as recently as March 2026 at Chicago’s Empty Bottle, this set gets close to what they actually sound like on stage: loose, loud, and on the edge of coming apart. Now please drop this on vinyl!

Eaves Wilder - Little Miss Sunshine (2026)

Get Vinyl: Yellow/Orange

Genre: Dreampop

One of my favorite April releases, and easily one of the stronger debuts I’ve heard this year, comes courtesy of North London’s Eaves Wilder. Little Miss Sunshine sits right in my sweet spot, 90s-leaning dreampop one minute, heavier, fuzzed-out guitar moments the next. If you’re a sucker for ethereal vocals and loud guitars like myself, this is an easy one to keep in rotation.

Mr Bongo Record Club Vol. 8 (2026)

Get Vinyl: Magenta | Black

Genre: Compilation

I’m going in blind on Mr Bongo Record Club Vol. 8, just trusting the curators at this point. These comps bounce across decades, genres, and moods, and usually send me down a rabbit hole of artists I’ve never heard before.

Early returns are strong. Kenny Dope’s rework of “Wish That I Could Talk To You” is a fantastic first single and has me sold on the rest.

The Visitors - Motherland (1975)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Soul Jazz

Jazz Dispensary is one of my favorite labels, and their Top Shelf reissues do a great job unearthing rare or previously unavailable titles. This month’s selection is The Visitors 1975 spiritual jazz album Motherland, returning to vinyl for the first time in five decades. The title track is my favorite.

War Child Records - HELP(2) (2026)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Compilation

Let’s end with one you’ve probably seen around, but if you scrolled past it, circle back. HELP(2) lands 31 years after the original, with War Child pulling in a stacked lineup including Arctic Monkeys (their first new song in four years), Depeche Mode, and Olivia Rodrigo.

There’s so much good stuff here. “Stranger” is my favorite Black Country, New Road track since Isaac Wood left. But the one that really hits is Cameron Winter’s “The Warning,” a jarring protest song that feels like it could outlast the moment.

All proceeds go toward supporting children affected by war, which makes this an easy one to spend on.

Appreciate you tuning in. Let me know what you picked up today, and if you’ve got a Bandcamp release, drop it in the comments so we can check it out.

I send this newsletter about once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, join 25,000 other collectors and follow Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource.

Until next time,
Jared

Enjoy more Bandcamp Friday curation from The Wax Museum!

]]><![CDATA[Where to Start With the 10,000 Concert Archive Everyone’s Talking About]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/where-to-start-with-the-10000-concerthttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/where-to-start-with-the-10000-concertWed, 15 Apr 2026 16:04:44 GMT
Photo via Aadam Jacobs Collection

There’s a new archive online that, if you care about music even a little bit, you’re going to lose hours to. Chicago legend Aadam Jacobs spent four decades bringing a tape recorder to shows and walked away with over 10,000 live recordings, everything from early R.E.M. and The Replacements to bands that never made it out of their local scene. That 10,000 number is absurd. At one show a day, it would take 27 and a half years to hit that.

As of this writing, 2,477 of those shows are up on the Internet Archive (there’s also an iTunes-style player if you don’t have an aversion to vibecoded sites). Archivist Brian Emerick says more are coming soon, including a 1984 James Brown set and 1989 Pixies performance; this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The collection spans from 1984 to 2019 all around Chicago. Some of the mid-80s tapes are rough, but the majority of these sound great. Sometimes it’s straight soundboard, sometimes room mics, sometimes a mix of both, with the idea he’d piece it all together someday. That day is now.

I’ve been binging this the last few days and pulled out 10 shows to get you started, listed in chronological order, and linked to the Internet Archive stream.

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly.

Before we begin, Record Store Day is this Saturday, and I’m doing something big. At 8 PM EST Saturday night, streaming live on Whatnot, I’m auctioning off a stack of vinyl, including signed sleeves, Japanese pressings, rarities, and a few grails, all starting at $1. Yes you read that right, just one dollar!

The plan is to run 50 to 75 record collection essentials in about two hours, plus free vinyl giveaways, live music, and a plenty of surprises.

Bookmark the show now, and use this link for $15 off your first purchase. Come jam out and maybe walk away with a free record or two!

everything in this pic starts at $1. you will have 15 seconds to bid. good luck :)

Tracy Chapman - Cabaret Metro - May 7th, 1988

Just weeks after her debut album dropped and right as “Fast Car” was starting to break, the great Tracy Chapman sounds completely locked in here, calm, precise, and in full command of the room. The recording itself is razor sharp, with her voice cutting through clean the entire set.

Sonic Youth - Cabaret Metro - November 5, 1988

I’ll let Aadam himself introduce this one:

“In the autumn of ‘88 I was working in a record store that was part of the Cabaret Metro building, so when Daydream Nation came out, I was able to hear it right away. Maybe a day before the show, I do remember taking it home and listening to it several times, something most of the audience did not have the privilege of doing. […] When SY took the stage it was of little surprise that they started with “Teenage Riot,” but it was surprising when they continued to play nearly the whole album […] I thought it quite glorious having spent so much time with the record the night before, but I recall talking to friends after and hearing disappointment because they hadn’t heard any of the songs before. No doubt that now, 30 years later, that they were very pleased to have been there. And now you can be there too.”

Nirvana - Dreamerz - July 8, 1989

Everyone’s talking about this one, and for good reason. Recorded just a month after Bleach dropped, Nirvana is still a four-piece here, ripping through a heavy set while the recording holds up well for a small club tape.

There’s likely another Nirvana show on the way, from September 30, 1989, where they opened for Eleventh Dream Day, who is in this collection a record 26 times.

My Bloody Valentine - Metro - February 14, 1992

Instead of the usual flat soundboard tape of other MBV shows floating around online, this Loveless-era set feels like you’re in the room getting hit with the fuzz. “Only Shallow,” “Soon,” “To Here Knows When” is all here, with that blown-out, wall-of-sound fully intact.

Uncle Tupelo - Lounge Ax - November 8, 1992

This set captures Uncle Tupelo as they lean fully into their country side without losing their bite; hear why they’re considered the first great alt country band.

Less than two years later they’d be kaput, with Jeff Tweedy starting Wilco and Jay Farrar forming Son Volt. There’s also video of this show online, courtesy of another archivist legend @sacramentomusicarchive.

Guided by Voices - Lounge Ax - October 1, 1994

There are four GBV sets in the archive, but this is the one to start with. Right in their mid-90s sweet spot, ripping through a stacked setlist, with Pixies’ Kim Deal jumping in on “Goldheart Mountaintop” and “Shocker in Gloomtown.” It’s a nice full-circle moment too, hearing her here and then popping up 20 years later fronting The Breeders at Pitchfork Festival 2013, where she opens with “Gloomtown,” which is also now available to stream.

Neutral Milk Hotel - Lounge Ax - May 1, 1997

Jeff Mangum was two months away from recording In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on this night, but you can hear it coming together in a big way, with an early version of “Oh Comely” opening the show, and three other songs including the title track sitting alongside deep cuts. Also on this bill was Athens’ Oliver Tremor Control, Mangum’s old band, who have two stellar 2005 shows in this collection.

Low & Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Schubas - October 10, 1998

There are four Low and four GY!BE shows in the archive, but this is the one. The encore is their famous live collaboration of “Do You Know How To Waltz?,” a 30-minute, 12-person, slow-burn drone that just keeps expanding. I’d pay big money to have this baby on vinyl.

The Swell Season - Schubas - October 24, 2006

God bless Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who make such beautiful music together. This show is pre-Once, before everything blew up, which makes it hit differently knowing what’s coming. “Falling Slowly” into “When Your Mind’s Made Up” is as good as it gets live, and you can hear the room lock in. A year later, “Falling Slowly” would take home the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Alvvays - Schubas - January 17, 2015

I’m an Alvvays connoisseur, so getting a live set like this, especially at this quality, feels like found money. The middle stretch is the highlight, featuring B-side “Underneath Us” (only officially released on last year’s 10th anniversary pressing), into deep Deerhunter cut “Nosebleed.”

I barely scratched the surface of this thing. The Cure, early Bangles, Fugazi, Pavement, Ratatat, Pinback, The Shins, Phish, Fountains of Wayne, Slint, Depeche Mode. What have I missed?

Thanks for reading. Consider a $5 a month donation to keep the curation spinning. And don’t forget my big Record Store Day show this Saturday! :)

]]><![CDATA[The Spring Patio Grooves Mixtape: What I’m Playing Right Now]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spring-2026-playlisthttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/spring-2026-playlistFri, 03 Apr 2026 16:36:34 GMTIt’s an exciting day here at The Wax Museum, as we roll out the seasonal refresh of the beloved PATIO GROOVES playlist. This is where your esteemed curator shares what’s in heavy rotation currently.

What I’ve been jamming to most isn’t on streaming, but over at Nugs, where I keep coming back to Sturgill Simpson’s Red Rocks finale from September 2025. The four hour show, featuring 41 songs, concludes with a mashup of two anti-war anthems, Sturgill’s own “Call to Arms” with Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun.”

“I wrote this song in 2015… might as well wrote it yesterday,” Sturgill says about this modern day “Fortunate Son,” a call to arms against the US war machine that’s sending our “sons and daughters off to die for some oil.” If you’ve never heard it, check out the SNL performance, with The Dap-Kings playing horns. It’s a classic.

Sturgill and Jimi kick off this season’s mix, featuring 33⅓ handpicked tracks across genres, decades, and moods, with 14 from the past year and even a cut from today’s best new release, The Secret to Good Living by Hiding Places.

This one’s built for outdoor hangs. Grill going, cooler stocked, someone asking to change the song three tracks in… consider this your soundtrack for the season.

PATIO GROOVES 🐝 Spring 2026

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Tracklist:

  1. Sturgill Simpson – Call to Arms

  2. Jimi Hendrix – Machine Gun (Live At Filmore East, 1970)

  3. When In Rome – The Promise

  4. Telenova – THE DEEP

  5. High Vis – Mind’s a Lie

  6. Parquet Courts – Borrowed Time

  7. The Dead Bolts – Beau Monde

  8. Gary Davenport & Mannequin – In America There’s Everything

  9. Morgan Nagler – Orange Wine

  10. Alvvays – Hey

  11. Geese – Cowboy Nudes

  12. Ovven – Dishes

  13. Miriam Makeba – Down On the Corner

  14. Black Country, New Road & War Child Records – Strangers

  15. Spirit – Why Can’t I Be Free

  16. Spirit – Nature’s Way

  17. Blind Mr. Jones – Spooky Vibes

  18. she’s green – paper thin

  19. waterbaby – Memory Be a Blade

  20. Snail Mail – Heat Wave

  21. Hiding Places – One Hand

  22. Stuck – Net Negative

  23. Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong

  24. Tennis – My Emotions Are Blinding

  25. Gia Margaret – Good Friend

  26. Dream, Ivory – Welcome and Goodbye

  27. Toro y Moi – Goes By So Fast

  28. Blood Cultures – Unarchiver

  29. Rostam – Campus (Original Version)

  30. eee gee & Matthew Herbert – I Hear a String Quartet Playing Everywhere I Go (Herbert’s Northern Lights Dub)

  31. Holy Fuck – Elevate

  32. Nation of Language – Inept Apollo (Tom Sharkett Remix)

  33. LCD Soundsystem – You Can’t Hide / Shame on You (Live at Madison Square Garden)

  34. The Rapture – Sail Away

For more PATIO GROOVES, stream the full collection here: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Thanks for visiting The Wax Museum! If you enjoyed your stay, consider supporting for just $5 a month. Patrons will receive $10 off anything in the Gift Shop, like this vinyl carrying tote!

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Enjoy more music curation from The Wax Museum!

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]]><![CDATA[The Weekender #32: What to Listen, Watch, and Read This Weekend]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-weekender-32https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-weekender-32Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:08:06 GMTWelcome to The Wax Museum’s monthly exhibit The Weekender. If you’re new here, this is where I point you to the best things to listen to, watch, and read before the weekend disappears. I got a lot to recommend, so let’s get right into it.

What to Listen to This Weekend

Holy Fuck - Event Beat

Stream: Bandcamp
Get Vinyl: Apple Red

Genre: Electronic Rock

Today is the first stacked release day of 2026. The New Pornographers! Snail Mail! Courtney Barnett! Robyn! Slayyyter! The Twilight Sad! Flea doing jazz! And whoa, is that The Academy Is…?? Yes, their first album in 18 years.

But there are two releases I need to yank your eye toward immediately. First up, the unexpected return of Canada’s Holy Fuck, whose last album landed pre-pandemic, before whatever bizarro timeline we’re in now.

The quartet haven’t lost a step. If anything, they sound sharper than ever here. Event Beat moves fast, starting with the chaotic jolt of “Evie,” then settling into the kind of hypnotic groove they’ve always been great at, especially on “Gold Flakes” and “Elevate.” They still know exactly where to hit, whether it’s your legs or your brain.

DJ-Kicks: Sofia Kourtesis

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Electronica

Readers may be familiar with Peruvian multi-hyphenate Sofia Kourtesis, whose 2023 debut album Madres I highlighted in a recent Bandcamp Friday roundup. I described it as “house music with a heart, mixing euphoric rhythms with intimate storytelling,” as the throughline focused on her mother’s cancer diagnosis.

I had been waiting on what she’d do next, and it’s been a run of remixes, including a killer London Grammar take, so it makes sense her next release lands in the fabled DJ-Kicks series. During the song compiling process, Kourtesis lost her mother, and her perspective is worth a read:

“Losing my mother, my idol, knocked the wind out of me. But as the seasons shifted, I found myself back in Peru. Being there made me feel close to her again, like she was in the air. Slowly, music started to come back to me, not as noise, but as strength. It felt like reconnecting with her spirit, honouring everything she gave me. This chapter of my life has forever changed how I hear music. It’s more fragile now, and in a strange way, it feels like a gift she left me; a reminder that even in loss, there’s still beauty and connection.”

That shift shows up in this mix. It moves through melodic techno and house with a lighter touch, but still delivers real emotion, tension, and release. Excited to have this one on vinyl to turn my living room into a dancefloor.

Adam O'Farrill - ELEPHANT

Get Vinyl: Opaque Blue | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Trumpet, Modern Jazz

Brooklyn trumpeter Adam O’Farrill presents ELEPHANT, a debut from his first quartet as the sole horn voice. You might know him as a member of Hiromi’s Sonicwonder, which landed on our Best Albums of 2025 list.

ELEPHANT is some damn fine modern jazz, blending trumpet-led melodies with textural electronics, pulling from post-bop, minimalism, and even Radiohead and Ryuichi Sakamoto, including a cover of Ryuichi’s “Bibo No Aozora.”

The centerpiece “The Sea Triptych” is the highlight, an ode to the mystery of the open water, moving from the crashing energy of “Along the Malecon” into the meditative “The Three of Us, Floating,” before landing on the groove of “Iris Murdoch.” I just started Murdoch’s novel The Sea, The Sea yesterday, you just gotta love some synchronicity!

Band of Horses - Everything All The Time (20th Anniversary)

Get Vinyl: Gold
Stream: Bandcamp

Genre: Indie Rock

Band of Horses’ debut and arguable high point Everything All the Time turns 20, and it still hits like it did back in 2006. This anniversary edition arrives newly remastered on gold wax packed with demos, live cuts, and unreleased tracks. These outtakes are great, especially “(Biding Time Is a) Boat to Row.” Listening now feels like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in years, picking up right back where you left off.

Just a quick intermission as I shake the donation jar at you. A $5 contribution unlocks full archive access and gets you a $10 coupon to our Gift Shop — just the sign you needed to grab one of our sweet Weekender bags. Thanks for the support!

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly. Thank you for keeping music curation alive :)

What to Watch This Weekend

The Rise Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother Hillel Slovak

Stream: Netflix

Netflix dropped a new documentary centered on Hillel Slovak, the often overlooked founding guitarist of Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is easy to understand when you’re flanked by Anthony Kiedis and Flea. Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988 at 26, but his imprint on the band never really left, even after John Frusciante stepped in.

The film expands beyond just Slovak into the band’s early years, which they’ve publicly pushed back on, but it never feels exploitative. It’s emotional, clear-eyed about the highs and lows, and lands as a respectful tribute more than anything else.

And as mentioned up top, Flea has a new album out, surprisingly a jazz album called Honora; here he is covering Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You” on Jimmy Fallon. Fun listen!

Wolf Alice | Full Set from Laneway 2026

Stream: YouTube

Props to Australia’s triple j and crew for posting the full set of Wolf Alice’s recent set at Laneway Festival in Sydney. This is concert film quality; everyone involved in the sound mix and editing need to take a bow. Ellie Rowsell has one of the best voices in the game and it’s all on display here. The back half of her “How Can I Make It OK?” performance gives me goosebumps.

What to Read This Weekend

Underworld by Don DeLillo

I’m drawn to books that line up with current events, which led me back this week to the classic Underworld by Don DeLillo, a legendary doomscroller before the timeline existed. The 1997 novel opens with one of the most vivid pieces of baseball writing ever, centered on Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World,” a joyful American moment that’s instantly overshadowed by news that the Soviets just tested a nuclear weapon. That paranoia, everyday life colliding with the constant hum of annihilation, runs through the book as it tracks a single baseball across decades of Cold War tension. With Opening Day yesterday and the war with Iran intensifying, it’s a reminder that this uneasy overlap between normalcy and existential threat isn’t new, just recurring.

Hey, thanks for stopping by The Wax Museum! If you enjoyed your stay, pass this along to a friend whose weekend could use a little upgrade.

Share The Wax Museum

Next week will see the seasonal refresh of the Patio Grooves Playlist as we celebrate Spring. You got a few days left to grab your favorites before they get replaced.

Drop a comment card on your way out and enjoy the weekend,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[13 Great New Albums Flying Under the Radar]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/2026-albums-you-may-have-missedhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/2026-albums-you-may-have-missedTue, 17 Mar 2026 16:21:30 GMT

We’re 10 weeks into 2026 and it’s already been a strong year for new music. A few killer albums have made their way into this newsletter already, like Ratboys and Shaking Hand, while bigger names like Gorillaz and Mitski have also delivered. We even got a new Heavenly record after an unreal 30-year gap between releases.

For the full picture, I rank every new release on my Album of the Year Leaderboard (Spotify | Apple Music), where I keep a running list of the best albums of 2026 as they arrive.

One record you won’t find on there, because it isn’t streaming, is Sturgill Simpson’s new album Mutiny After Midnight, released under his Johnny Blue Skies name. It’s available in physical form only and very much worth a blind buy.

So with the headliners covered, it’s time to dig into the albums you may have missed. Below are 12 must-hear releases from 2026 across a range of genres, plus one bonus pick from late last year that slipped past me the first time around.

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13 Great New Albums Flying Under the Radar

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

I pulled my favorite track from each album to build this playlist. It makes for a damn fine hour of music if you ask me.

Fabiano do Nascimento & Vittor Santos e Orquestra - Vila

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Samba Jazz

We begin in a quiet courtyard in Rio de Janeiro’s Catete neighborhood, where a young Fabiano do Nascimento first fell in love with the nylon string guitar. That setting inspired the transfixing Vila, a collaboration with trombonist and arranger Vittor Santos, who leads a sixteen-piece orchestra across these lush samba jazz compositions. Now well established in the Los Angeles jazz scene and releasing music at a remarkable pace (12 albums this decade!), Nascimento reaches a new peak here. Vila is a springtime record that glows with warmth.

Ovven - Gnawing At The Cord

Get Vinyl: Blue

Genre: Alt-Country

Alex Farrar is on one of those runs where his name in the credits is enough to press play, and the Asheville producer delivers again on Gnawing at the Cord, the debut from Nashville-by-way-of-Chicago songwriter Owen Burton, who records as Ovven (pronounced “oven”). Produced, mixed, and engineered by Farrar, the record leans into the countrygaze lane he’s helped shape with artists like Wednesday and Fust, pairing Burton’s wry songwriting with slide guitars and fuzzy shoegaze textures. It’s a confident debut that expands the sound Farrar’s circle has been refining for the last few years.

Telenova - The Warning

Get Vinyl: Red and Black Marble | Black

Genre: Indie Pop

Telenova’s second full-length The Warning is what I wanted last year’s The Clearing from Wolf Alice to sound like, a dreamy synth-pop record that actually sticks the landing. The Australian trio dip further into that bag here, with Angeline Armstrong’s voice a perfect match with the ethereal melodies.

The album is shaped by a difficult period, as bandmate Josh Moriarty relapsed after nearly a decade of sobriety and spiraled in a way that began pulling everyone down with him, an experience that sits at the core of the lyrics and gives the whole record higher stakes. The result is extremely replayable and has already worked its way into my top five of the year so far.

Puma Blue - Croak Dream

Get Vinyl: Deep Ocean Blue

Genre: Trip Hop

Puma Blue, the alias of South London’s Jacob Allen, takes his biggest swing yet on Croak Dream, a smoky, late-night record that combines dark, gothic R&B with trip hop. Think Jeff Buckley’s falsetto over Portishead beats. For me, this was a grower. After each spin, I bumped it higher on my leaderboard, discovering more catchy hooks each time until it revealed itself as a true no-skips record.

Blackwater Holylight - Not Here Not Gone

Get Vinyl: Red | Clear

Genre: Doomgaze

Let’s keep the spooky vibes going, though it’s not nearly as terrifying as the bloodbath on the cover might suggest. Portland trio Blackwater Holylight return with Not Here Not Gone, a blender of heavy psych, shoegaze haze, and thick stoner rock riffs. Sunny Faris’ sultry vocals gives the record a nice push / pull between menace and melody. As drummer Eliese Dorsay describes it, “some songs we’re the predator, and some songs we’re the prey.” The first half leans into the band’s doomgaze side with darker, heavier grooves, before the back half loosens up into something dreamier and more expansive.

Abronia - Shapes Unravel

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Desert Psychedelia

We stay in Portland to hear Shapes Unravel by Abronia, a six-piece band that feels excessive on paper with two guitars, pedal steel, tenor sax, bass, and a massive drum that sounds like it could knock over a wall, but it all comes together into this psych-heavy swirl.

The pedal steel snakes through thick guitars and slow-building rhythms that feel closer to a film score than a traditional rock record. It reminds me of the 70s band Babe Ruth, that same kind of muscular, mystical rock.

Angel Du$t - Cold 2 The Touch

Get Vinyl: Red

Genre: Melodic Hardcore

Baltimore’s punk lineage runs deep, and Justice Tripp has been at the center of it for the past two decades. The Trapped Under Ice frontman formed Angel Du$t back in 2013 with friends from the Turnstile orbit, and while the lineup has shifted plenty since then, Tripp remains the constant. On sixth album COLD 2 THE TOUCH, he swings back toward hardcore after a few poppier detours, packing 26 minutes with a mix of punk, beatdown, indie, and grunge. It’s a quick, punchy listen that’s never boring.

.idk. - e.t.d.s A Mixtape by .idk

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: East Coast Hip Hop

The best hip-hop album I’ve heard this year comes courtesy of James Aaron Mills, aka .idk., with e.t.d.s. A Mixtape. The first thing you’ll notice here is the insane guest list that includes No I.D., Black Thought, KAYTRANADA, Madlib, RZA, Pusha T, MF DOOM, and DMX on the first posthumous feature approved by his estate. .idk. holds his own with the heavy hitters over production that balances dusty beats with bouncy instrumentals.

Some context to appreciate the record more: Mills was sentenced to 15 years at 17 for armed robbery and served three, teaching himself how to rap while inside. The shadow of that “what if” timeline, still behind bars until 2025, hangs over the whole project.

YĪN YĪN - Yatta!

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Neo-Psychedelia

Dutch quartet YĪN YĪN returns with their fourth album Yatta!, doubling down on their tasty blend of disco, funk, surf, and psychedelia. Think Khruangbin on steroids; it’s equal parts danceable and hypnotic, the kind of record that works whether you’re moving or zoning out. There may not be a funkier album all year.

Momoko Gill - Momoko

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Vocal Jazz

Momoko Gill steps out on her own with Momoko, a debut that pulls from her jazz, electronic, and singer-songwriter instincts. Momoko is a musician’s musician who’s been on the London scene for awhile. You can tell she’s a drummer first, the grooves lead everything, and her layered vocals kind of float in and out like she’s building the song in real time. The standout is “When Palestine Is Free,” which pulls in a 50-person choir and brass section that turns the whole thing into this massive, communal moment. Certainly one of the best debuts of the year and here’s hoping she’s around for a long while.

Alice Costelloe - Move On With the Year

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Indie Rock

If there’s a tearjerker on this list, it’s Alice Costelloe’s Move On With the Year. The former Big Deal songwriter trades fuzzy rock for more fragile affair, built on delicate piano, airy synths, and a dreamlike haze a la Beach House. The songs deal with trauma, reflection, and the slow work of moving forward. It lands somewhere in that Angel Olsen and Julia Holter lane, emotionally raw but light enough to not push you away.

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske - At Source

Get Vinyl: Silver | Black

Genre: Ambient

Caterina Barbieri and Bendik Giske’s At Source is what happens when a modular synth and a saxophone speak the same language. The Italian electronic composer and Norwegian saxophonist lock into four long extended pieces where twinkling, swirling synth patterns meet Giske’s skronky but controlled playing. It’s technically an EP, but at over 30 minutes and this complete, I’m adding it to the AotY leaderboard, my newsletter, my rules.

Blood Cultures - Skate Story: Vol. 1 (2025)

Get Vinyl: Red

Genre: Synth-pop

Let’s end with a late 2025 release I completely missed. Blood Cultures is an anonymous band, black hoods, masks, the whole thing, and their fourth album doubles as the soundtrack to the PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 game Skate Story.

From what I can tell, Skate Story is about a crystalline demon who’s given a skateboard by the Devil, and if they skate to the moon and swallow it, they earn their freedom. This is demon-doing-ollies music, baby! 📢 📢 📢

I threw this on during a run and tracks like “Emptylands” and “Unarchiver” had me levitating. Just great vibes front to back, and now I’m excited to dig into their back catalog.

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in! I’d love to hear what you’re currently spinning; drop your favs in the comments or reply to this email.

I try to send out this publication once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, join 25,000 other collectors and follow Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource!

Until next time,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[I’m Auctioning Off 50 Essential Records at 8 PM EST Tonight]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/im-auctioning-off-50-essential-recordshttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/im-auctioning-off-50-essential-recordsMon, 23 Feb 2026 21:30:01 GMT

Hey friends,

In a few hours, 8 PM EST, I’m hosting my first live vinyl auction on Whatnot!

If you’ve never used it, Whatnot is a live auction app where sellers run items in real time and the chat bids. Think eBay meets the Home Shopping Network.

I’ll be attempting to auction off around 50 sealed, mint condition vinyl that I consider essential. Albums I’d recommend to anyone building a serious collection.

So I’ve been lurking on Whatnot awhile and I see an issue with many of these vinyl streams: the prices end up looking a lot like retailer prices, or its the same marked down inventory.

That’s not what I’m doing.

Every record starts at $15.
Many of these are worth double or triple that. You get a few seconds to bid. If you win, I ship it out this week.

And here’s the best part:

You get $15 free on your first purchase through this link:
https://whatnot.com/invite/thewaxmuseum

It works anywhere on the app. Or use it tonight and grab a record on me.

There will also be free vinyl giveaways all night just for being in the room.

And if you buy anything during the stream, you’re automatically entered into a buyer giveaway where the winner chooses an autographed record.

Signed covers include:
Tame Impala
Charli XCX
Glass Animals
The Beths
and many more!

Even if you’re not planning to bid, come hang. We’ll listen to music and see how this experiment goes.

See you tonight at 8 PM EST, let’s upgrade your record collection!
Jared

]]><![CDATA[The Upcoming Vinyl Repress Calendar]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-upcoming-vinyl-repress-calendarhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-upcoming-vinyl-repress-calendarFri, 20 Feb 2026 17:42:57 GMT

Hello and welcome inside The Wax Museum, where this week’s exhibit is a chronological list of all the notable vinyl represses, reissues, and anniversary editions hitting shelves over the next few months.

Bookmark this page and check back often as I’ll be updating new titles consistently. For real-time alerts, join 25,000+ collectors and follow my other project, Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl deal and drop tracker.

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly. Support my work with a paid sub for less than $5 a month, thank you! 😊

February 20

February 27

March 6

March 13

March 20

March 27

The Wax Museum
The 26 Albums You Must Hear in 2026
Three weeks into 2026… how are those resolutions holding up…
Read more
6 months ago · 101 likes · 14 comments · Jared Smith

  • The Cramps - Bad Music For Bad People (Goo Goo Muck Green Vinyl)

  • Digital Underground - Sex Packets (35th Anniversary Splatter Vinyl with 3D Pop-Up Gatefold of Recording Studio)

April 3

April 10

April 17

  • Tycho - Epoch (10th Anniversary Blue and Black Marble Vinyl)

April 18 - Record Store Day 2026!

Saturday, April 18 is Record Store Day 2026. There’s over 400 (!!!) new releases dropping this day. Be sure to check my list of 10 records worth waiting in line for.

The Wax Museum
Inside the Record Store Day 2026 List: The Records Worth Chasing
Make room on your shelves. Record Store Day returns Saturday, April 18, when vinyl heads descent on more than 1000 indie record stores for a worldwide crate-digging frenzy. It’s a day that really tests my self control…
Read more
6 months ago · 27 likes · 7 comments · Jared Smith

April 24

  • Sade - Diamond Life (Rough Trade 50th Anniversary Clear Vinyl)

May 1

  • Rodrigo y Gabriela - S/T (20th Anniversary Gold Emerald and Black Ice Vinyl)

May 8

May 15

May 22

May 29

For all these records, you’re gonna need a vinyl tote bag. Get $10 off that or anything else in the Gift Shop when you upgrade your subscription for just $5. Additionally, supporters get access to all past paywalled exhibits.

Thanks for visiting. I hope to have something very exciting to announce next week. Until then, leave a comment card on the way out and talk soon!
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[The Valentine Weekender: Your Guide to a Lovely Weekend]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-valentine-weekenderhttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-valentine-weekenderFri, 13 Feb 2026 18:24:44 GMTWelcome to The Wax Museum’s exhibit The Weekender, which has been on hiatus since Halloween. For new members, this is your curated dose of must-hear records, must-watch gems, and must-read pieces to give your weekend a sensory upgrade. I got a lot to recommend, so let’s get right into it.

What to Listen to This Weekend

This Modern Love: My Favorite Love Songs of the 2020s

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends! As my little love note to you, I’ve updated this mixtape of my favorite new love songs from the decade. It’s called This Modern Love — so modern that it includes a track released today from Lykke Li.

Steam it now on Spotify and Apple Music.

Ratboys - Singin’ to an Empty Chair (2026)

Get Vinyl: Opaque Green (Autographed) | Black
Stream: Bandcamp

Ladies and gents, we have a new #1 on the Album of the Year Leaderboard! Ratboys have done it again. Singin’ to an Empty Chair continues their evolution into one of the most rewarding rock bands of the decade.

Like 2023’s The Window, this one finds the Chicago gang teaming back up with Chris Walla of Death Cab fame after frontwoman Julia Steiner reached out because of her love for The Con, the Tegan and Sara classic Walla produced. His ability to add emotional weight is all over the record.

I came in hoping for more “Black Earth, WI” — that winding, eight-minute highlight from The Window with its psychedelic, jam band solo. I didn’t hear it right away. But then the penultimate three-song suite hit: “Just Want You to Know the Truth” → “What’s Right?”→ “Burn It Down.” Each one stretches past five minutes, building, pivoting, shapeshifting. Taken together, it’s the best 20-minute stretch of music I’ve heard this year.

Park Ave CDs may be the last store in America with Ratboys signed vinyl, so get on it. And if you need proof this band can carry it live, check out their Cloudland Theater set from November featuring five songs from the new album.

MONO - Under The Pipal Tree (2001)

Get Vinyl: Forest Night
Stream: YouTube

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Japanese post-rock legends MONO are releasing their debut album Under The Pipal Tree on vinyl for the first time in years. Under The Pipal Tree captured a young MONO channeling Sonic Youth and Mogwai into a one hour epic that drifts from tranquil to thunderous and back again. Melodic washes unravel into scorched-earth guitar storms, then disappear into silence. If you’re into Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, this belongs on your shelf.

The limited Forest Night edition has been remastered by the great Bob Weston (Shellac) at Chicago Mastering Service. Don’t sleep on this one.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) (1993)

Get Vinyl: Black
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music

We got a proper Valentine’s Day surprise this morning: The Wedding Album by Duran Duran is finally getting a long overdue repress! Shockingly, it hasn’t been touched since its 1993 debut.

And now, a moment of silence for the poor soul who dropped $707 on a copy recently. The lesson, as always: if you wait long enough, it will get repressed.

Critics were not kind at the time, but history has been. “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone” are the obvious classics, but the deep cuts hold up too, featuring curveballs like the collaboration with Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento on “Breath After Breath.” Worth revisiting this weekend.

Just a quick intermission as I shake the donation jar at you. A $5 contribution unlocks full archive access and gets you a $10 coupon to our Gift Shop — just the sign you needed to grab one of our sweet Weekender bags. Thanks for the support!

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly.

What to Watch This Weekend

Binge-Watching Yussef Dayes Sets

There’s a tidal wave of modern jazz crashing out of the UK right now, and drummer Yussef Dayes is surfing the front of it. His band is tight, with Elijah Fox on keys and Rocco Palladino on bass (yes, son of Pino, who’s played with everyone from John Mayer to D’Angelo to The Who).

But what really sets Yussef apart is the way he captures these sets on video: picturesque locations gorgeously shot, flawlessly mixed, and thrown up on YouTube for free. The recent Fuji, Japan performance goes perfect with your Saturday morning coffee. Watch them full screen, volume up, and thank me later.

Let’s Go to the Movies!

I’ve got two movie recommendations that demand a theater and a crowd. Both courtesy of NEON.

First up: Sirāt, currently in select theaters and expanding soon. It’s one of the most nerve-wracking films I’ve seen in years. The setup is simple: a father and son travel to an illegal rave in the mountains of Morocco searching for their missing daughter and sister, Mar. From there, it plays like an EDM-fueled version of Sorcerer. The soundtrack took home the Cannes Soundtrack Award, and you’ll understand why within minutes. The bass alone is worth the price of admission. It’s also nominated for this year’s Best International Film Oscar. You may think you see the road ahead. You don’t.

On the opposite tonal spectrum but equally unpredictable: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, directed by and starring Matt Johnson, who last gave us BlackBerry, a film far better than it had any business being.

You don’t need to know the show. Just know that Matt and Jay are two lifelong friends obsessed with booking a gig at Toronto’s The Rivoli despite not actually having songs.

When their latest attempt to book The Rivoli implodes, Matt and Jay somehow wind up back in 2008, and the movie detonates from there. It operates in the same lane as Jackass or Borat, blurring reality and performance while dragging unsuspecting bystanders into the bit. It feels punk in the way those shock comedies did, but it is also sneakily meticulous, twisting itself into a tightly constructed time travel movie about friendship and creative delusion. I can’t remember laughing this hard in a theater since those early-2000s comedies.

What to Read This Weekend

The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans by Rachel Nuwer for the BBC

Colin Domnauer Bowls containing piles of brown mushrooms with bright yellow undersides (Credit: Colin Domnauer)

Psychedelics are supposed to be unpredictable. One person sees God, another sees geometry, a third stares at their hands for hours. But this mushroom is different. Across China, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea, the trip is strangely consistent: tiny humans. Marching under doors. Climbing your furniture. Hanging out on your dinner plate.

The mushroom is Lanmaoa asiatica, sold openly in markets with one clear warning: cook it for at least 15 minutes. Ignore that, and it’s tiny people time.

According to the BBC article, doctors in Yunnan, China treat hundreds of cases a year. Patients describe dozens of elf-like creatures, with the visions becoming even more vivid when their eyes are closed. The hallucinations can last one to three days, sometimes longer, and researchers still have not identified the compound responsible. Absolute nightmare.

I’ll leave you with this thought: are these tiny humans mean or fungis? Goodnight, everyone!

Hey, thanks for stopping by The Wax Museum! If you enjoyed your stay, pass this along to a friend whose weekend could use a little upgrade.

Share The Wax Museum

Drop a comment card on your way out, and I’ll see you back here next week,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[Inside the Record Store Day 2026 List: The Records Worth Chasing]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/record-store-day-2026https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/record-store-day-2026Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:44:23 GMT

Make room on your shelves. Record Store Day returns Saturday, April 18, when vinyl heads descent on more than 1000 indie record stores for a worldwide crate-digging frenzy. It’s a day that really tests my self control.

Here’s the full list of Record Store Day releases; there’s roughly 400 new vinyl releases, broken up into three categories:

  • RSD Exclusive: titles you’ll only find at independent shops.

  • RSD First: debuts that will likely see wider represses later on.

  • RSD Limited Run: vinyl specific to a region or store, often pressed under 1000

As always, there’s plenty of bloat. Live sets, remixes, remasters, reissues, EPs, 45s, zoetropes, and more gimmicks than any one shelf could ever need. But if you’re willing to wade through the muck, there’s a lot worth chasing.

Below are the essential records that jumped out at me. Put them on your radar, make a plan, and go support your local record shop!

The latest in crate-digging, emailed weekly :) Support The Wax Museum with a paid sub for just the price of a cup of coffee.

Sonic Youth - Diamond Seas (Grayfolded)

RSD First, limited to /3500

Let’s start with a record that stopped me in my tracks when I saw it on the list. Sonic Youth – Diamond Seas (Grayfolded) pulls together 32 live performances of “The Diamond Sea,” plunderphonically reassembled by composer John Oswald into two entirely new versions of the Washing Machine classic.

If you know Grayfolded, you know the deal. Oswald previously did this with the Grateful Dead, collapsing decades of “Dark Star” performances into a mashup document that felt both archival and brand new.

That project finally received its long-awaited vinyl reissue recently, and now Oswald is applying the same approach to Sonic Youth.

Side A focuses exclusively on 1995 performances, while Side B pulls from 1996, each clocking in at a precise 20:44. I cannot wait to hear how this one unfolds.

Gil Scott-Heron - Reflections

RSD Exclusive, limited to /1700

Originally released in 1981 and long out of print, Reflections is Gil Scott-Heron in the zone, fusing jazz, funk, and spoken word with razor-sharp clarity. The closer “B-Movie” is perhaps the most prescient track in his catalog. Decades later, its critique of spectacle, power, and hollow leadership still lands with accuracy. Here’s Gil Scott-Heron performing “B-Side” live at — well, look at that — The Wax Museum Nightclub.

This deluxe reissue arrives on purple marble vinyl with original artwork, a printed inner sleeve, and an OBI spine. With just 1,700 copies pressed, don’t expect this one to survive the weekend.

Mutemath - Mutemath

RSD Exclusive, limited to /3130

I’ll never forget the moment I sold my copy of Mutemath’s 2006 self-titled debut because I had less than $100 in my bank account. It made sense at the time. I’ve regretted it ever since.

For nearly two decades, this album has floated in reissue limbo, regularly selling for hundreds while fans begged for a proper return. Now it’s finally here: the first-ever color vinyl pressing, spread across sea blue double LPs. Sometimes the vinyl gods make things right.

Jhené Aiko - Trip

RSD Exclusive, limited to /2000

Here’s another wrong finally being righted. Jhené Aiko’s Trip has been fetching as much as $750 on the secondary market, turning one of the most immersive R&B albums of the 2010s into an unreachable grail.

The Los Angeles singer’s second album is designed to translate the hallucinogenic highs of weed, LSD, and shrooms into sound — something the psychedelic artwork makes clear. This RSD edition leans all the way in, pressed across a double picture disc for maximum trippiness.

Jazz Dispensary: Magia Brasileira

RSD Exclusive, Limited to /4000

Let’s keep the grooves spinning with Jazz Dispensary’s trip to Brazil. I never miss their RSD releases, and Magia Brasileira will be no exception.

This compilation pulls together sun-soaked samba, hazy vocal jazz, and funk-forward cuts from legends like Cal Tjader, Bola Sete, and João Donato. I didn’t see a playlist on Spotify yet so I made one. It’s an instant mood improver.

James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Ali Jackson, & Reginald Veal - Gold Soundz: A Jazz Tribute To Pavement

RSD First, limited to /1000

Originally released on CD in 2005, this brings together four jazz heavyweights: James Carter on sax, Cyrus Chestnut on keys, Ali Jackson on drums, and Reginald Veal on bass. They take the spirit of Pavement and run it through a free-jazz furnace. The result is loose, explosive, and joyfully unfaithful, turning slacker anthems into something closer to the Pharaoh Sanders arena. This edition marks the album’s first ever vinyl release, expanded into a double colored LP with bonus material, new artwork, and liner notes to breathe new life into this cult classic.

Paramore - All We Know Is Falling

RSD Exclusive, limited to /7000

Paramore’s 2005 debut gets the deluxe treatment it deserves, pressed to smoky red double wax. It’s easy to forget just how fully formed this album was right out of the gate, with instant classic bangers like “Pressure” and “Emergency.” This edition pairs the original album with a bonus LP featuring The Summer Tic EP, making its first ever appearance on vinyl.

Pink Floyd - Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th, 1975

RSD Exclusive, limited to /15400

RSD is always packed with live sets, so let’s close this roundup with two I’m yoinking. First up, don’t judge this one by its cover. The artwork is lazy, but what’s inside is a genuinely legendary Pink Floyd performance, and the story behind it is just as wild.

This show comes from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here tour stop at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in April 1975, captured by the late Mike “The Mic” Millard, widely considered the greatest concert taper of all time. Millard famously snuck pristine recording gear into venues using disguises, wheelchairs, and sheer nerve, and this tape has circulated for decades as the crown jewel of Floyd bootlegs. Unbelievably, the band never properly recorded shows from this era, which makes this audience tape the definitive document of a peak-era Floyd performance. Rolling Stone recently ran a deep dive on Millard’s story and how this once-illegal recording finally became legitimized, and it’s absolutely worth your time if you want the full, incredible backstory.

And now it’s official. Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena collects 16 tracks from that night, restored and remastered by the great Steven Wilson with care taken to preserve the sound of the room. The 4 LP set is pressed on clear vinyl, turning one of the most revered bootlegs in rock history into a proper archival release.

Steely Dan - Alive in America

RSD Exclusive, limited to /4000

Let’s go. For the first time on vinyl, Steely Dan’s first official live album, Alive in America, will finally be mine. The record pulls from the band’s 1993 and 1994 tours, marking their return to the stage after nearly twenty years, and captures Donald Fagen and Walter Becker sounding loose, sharp, and fully in control.

If you’ve never watched the accompanying VH1 documentary, it’s twenty minutes of dudes rocking, and features my favorite exchange: Fagen admits he no longer remembers what the lyrics mean, the reporter asks Becker if he does, and Becker shrugs, “What’s the difference?” Fagen nails the punchline: “You see, he doesn’t have to sing them.”

I’ve only scratched the surface of this year’s RSD — what’s on your list? Reply to this email or drop a Substack comment and let us know what you’re eyeing!

Support this newsletter with a paid subscription or else! Don’t make me angry!!! Perks include $10 off in our gift shop and other exclusive goodies. Thanks for helping keep indie music curation alive! Love you.

Catch you next week,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, The Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[The 26 Albums You Must Hear in 2026]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-26-albums-you-must-hear-in-2026https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-26-albums-you-must-hear-in-2026Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:53:33 GMTThree weeks into 2026… how are those resolutions holding up?

Yeah, same here.

So let me suggest one you might actually keep.

But first, a little housekeeping.

Our two most popular playlists, The Best Songs of the Year So Far (Spotify | Apple Music) and the Album of the Year Leaderboard (Spotify | Apple Music), have been updated for 2026! Join thousands of fellow music lovers and follow for a steady stream of great music all year long.

Alright. On to the good stuff…

My extremely reasonable proposal for 2026 is simple: listen to more records! Skip the algo slop and “Discover Weekly” noise. Just albums worth your full attention. The following 26 are a good place to start.

If you’re new here, consider this a crash course in how The Wax Museum operates. I dig through old crates, celebrate the present, and keep an ear out for the future. These albums are split between recent rotation staples, upcoming vinyl reissues worth grabbing, and 2025 albums I discovered too late to crack my 100 Best list.

Eight decades. Multiple genres. Zero filler. Let’s dive in and make this the one resolution that actually sticks.

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The 26 Albums You Must Hear in 2026

Stream: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

I pulled one favorite track from each album to build this playlist, and it flows surprisingly well front to back — but don’t let that distract you from your new resolution. Listen to the full albums, daggummit!!

1. Paul Johnson - Feel The Music (1996)

Get Vinyl: Smokey

Genre: Deep House

We kick things off with a foundational record from Chicago house legend Paul Johnson. Feel The Music is a 1996 masterclass in groove that’s locked in from the needle drop. Long out of print and commanding stupid prices on the resale market, it finally returns to wax this April on smokey double vinyl. A must-own for any house lover or dance floor romantic.

Lead track “Hear The Music” famously opened Daft Punk’s legendary 1997 BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix — and if it was good enough to start that, it’s good enough to open things here too.

2. Harlem Shakes - Technicolor Health (2009)

Get Vinyl: Picture Disc

Genre: Indie Rock

OG Wax Museum heads already know my love for Harlem Shakes’ Technicolor Health, which I consider the most underrated record of the blog rock era, and sadly their one and only album. Their exuberant sound is packed with hooks and choruses that hit like endorphin bursts. Lead single “Strictly Game” doubles as a accurate 2026 mission statement with the chorus “This will be a better year / Make a little money / Take a lot of shit / Feel real bad and get over it,” which hits harder with every passing year. Also be sure to check out the clever music video.

Technicolor Health is begging for a vinyl repress; the only LP available is an absurd 220 gram picture disc that currently fetches over $1000. I’m one of the lucky few to own a copy (that’s my picture above), but I’d gladly Go Fund any attempt to get this onto more turntables.

3. Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface (2017)

Get Vinyl: Silver | Black

Genre: Alternative Rock

My favorite two weeks of the year happen around Thanksgiving, when I pack up the family and road trip from Orlando to the Smoky Mountains. Three of the last four years, I’ve lucked out and passed through Atlanta during Manchester Orchestra’s annual hometown show, The Stuffing.

This past Stuffing was an all-timer. For the first time ever, the band played their 2017 album A Black Mile to the Surface front to back. It happens to be my favorite Manchester Orchestra record, so I was in heaven. (Side note: the venue The Eastern was incredible! My wife is 5 foot nothing so general admission gigs sometimes suck; this place is structured in a way where everyone can see the stage clearly, and the sound was banging; can’t wait to go back!)

Andy Hull’s Manchester Orchestra remains one of the most underrated live acts going. They sound even bigger and sharper on stage than they do on record. With the tenth anniversary of Black Mile coming up next year, odds are good this album will see proper tour treatment. Trust me, it should not be missed.

If you need proof, last week the band released a 2023 acoustic performance of the Black Mile closer, “The Silence”, recorded in Union Chapel. Listen to this on a good pair of headphones and tell me you don’t get chills.

4. Shaking Hand - Shaking Hand (2026)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Math Rock

The first great album of 2026 is here?? That’s my take after listening to Manchester’s three-piece Shaking Hand’s debut self-titled. Built on tension and release, the record pulls from post-rock patience, 90s alternative grit, and nervous emo melodicism. If this is how 2026 is starting, we’re in good hands.

5. Gwenifer Raymond - Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark (2025)

Get Vinyl: Eco-Mix

Genre: American Primitivism

This is the first of eight 2025 albums in this piece that deserve placement on my 100 Best Albums of 2025 list.

Let’s stay in the UK for some American Primitive ironically. Gwenifer Raymond is one of the most compelling guitarists working today, and Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark proves why. Drawing from Mississippi blues and Appalachian folk, Raymond’s finger-picking sounds otherworldly. This Bandcamp review nails it, calling the record “something impossible: it gives the guitar a unique new voice after all these centuries.” This is the kind of music you want to hear echoing in a room, or better yet, live.

6. Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan (2020)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Chamber Folk

Spellbinding is the word that comes to mind listening to Ichiko Aoba’s Windswept Adan, and it’s finally returning to vinyl on February 13. The record drifts between sprightly folk and ambient jazz, intimate one moment and vast the next. Aoba’s singing is stunning throughout, full of intensely beautiful moments. It’s the rare album that truly feels like an escape, and I’m thrilled to finally have it on wax.

7. David Bowie - ★ (Blackstar) (2016)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Jazz Rock

This month marks the tenth anniversary of David Bowie’s 26th and final album, ★ (Blackstar), released just hours before his death from liver cancer. It remains the greatest deathbed album ever made, with Bowie confronting his own mortality head-on, turning fear and acceptance into something strange, restless, and alive. Bowie surrounded himself with jazz musicians who pushed him into unfamiliar territory, resulting in a coda that feels exploratory rather than retrospective.

The anniversary has sparked a wave of excellent writing. ’s oral history is packed with insight, ’s retrospective is typically beautiful, and ’s interview with bandleader and saxophonist Donny McCaslin sheds light on how intentionally Bowie approached the album’s sound and structure.

Ten years on, it still feels impossible. Time flies. Time is short. Bowie knew it, and Blackstar stands as proof that there’s still room to take risks even at the end.

8. Gerald Wilson Big Band - Moment of Truth (1962)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Jazz

In 2022, Gerald Wilson’s 1962 album Moment of Truth was reissued as part of the Blue Note Tone Poet Series, cut all-analog and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and I finally grabbed a copy last month. Holy guacamole does it sound good. The nine-song set, seven written by Wilson himself, is pure action from start to finish.

This is why Blue Note’s reissue program is untouchable: a relatively overlooked record, immaculate sound, and endlessly fun to spin. Add in killers like Carmell Jones on trumpet, Teddy Edwards and Harold Land on tenor, Joe Pass on guitar, and Jack Wilson on piano, and you’ve got an easy record-mendation.

9. Todd Terje - It’s Album Time (2014)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Nu-Disco

Keep Todd Terje’s debut It’s Album Time in your back pocket for a rainy day. It is a instant mood reset. It also doubles as an elite Mario Kart soundtrack.

Terje dropped this joy-soaked record and then more or less vanished, now pushing over a decade of silence since. Maybe it was the three tropical cocktails he’s juggling on the album cover and he’s still recovering… So while it’s still not album time, maybe 2026 is finally the year.

Here’s a festival set from around the album release I still jam out to.

10. Yin Yin - The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers (2019)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Neo-Psychedelia

Dutch quartet YĪN YĪN blends disco, funk, surf, and psychedelia into something entirely their own. With their fourth album Yatta! dropping tomorrow, it’s a perfect time to go back to the source. Their 2019 debut The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers is an immersive trip through Southeast Asian grooves that turns your living room into somewhere much farther away.

11. Heavenly - Le Jardin De Heavenly (1992)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Twee Pop

Here’s a comeback I didn’t see coming: UK indie pop quintet Heavenly return next month with Highway to Heavenly, their first album in over 20 years. From 1989 to 1996, the band released four albums before disbanding after drummer Matthew Fletcher took his own life.

My favorite of the bunch is 1992’s Le Jardin De Heavenly, a sugar-rush of jangly guitars and harmonies that define peak twee pop. It’s a perfect entry point for anyone curious why this band’s return is a big deal.

12. Mia Wilson - Mia Wilson (2025)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Laurel Canyon Folk

Mia Wilson’s self-titled debut feels like it wandered out of a sun-faded Laurel Canyon bungalow sometime in the early 70s and landed gently in the present. Piano-led and warm, the songs glow with the same intimacy as Tapestry or Heart Food, tailor-made for a solo drive up the PCH, windows down, nowhere to be.

Speaking of Laurel Canyon, have you read my theory that the 1960’s music scene may have been orchestrated to neutralize radical politics? If not, grab your tinfoil hat and dive in!

The Wax Museum
Was 1960's Laurel Canyon a CIA PSYOP?
Welcome inside The Wax Museum, where this exhibit comes with a heavy dose of acid and paranoia. Our monthly curated mixtape is at the bottom, so if you’d rather skip the strange trip we’re about to take, scroll down and enjoy the tunes. For the rest of you, let’s head up into the hills…
Read more
a year ago · 13 likes · 6 comments · Jared Smith

13. Connie Converse - How Sad, How Lonely (2009)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Folk

Connie Converse disappeared in 1974 and was never heard from again. No body, no car, just a goodbye note and a clean break from the world. It’s impossible not to hear How Sad, How Lovely through that lens: her beautiful alto hovering over a lone guitar, full of intimacy and loneliness. She was doing something quietly radical decades before the world was ready for it, recording personal songs alone in her apartment during the 1950’s but never finding an audience. Listening now feels like tuning into a transmission meant for the future.

Third Man Records is reissuing How Sad, How Lovely this March, its first reissue in ten years, finally bringing this essential record back into the world where it belongs.

It’s halftime! Just a quick intermission to say I would love your support to keep this newsletter runnning. Support for just $5 a month, and receive $10 off in the Gift Shop and access to the full Wax Museum back catalog. Thank you, love you!

14. Bennie Maupin - The Jewel in the Lotus (1974)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Jazz Fusion

Bennie Maupin’s The Jewel in the Lotus is, quite literally, a jewel in my record collection. Original pressings go for serious money, so ECM’s Luminessence Series reissue is both welcome and long overdue, and it sounds fantastic. Maupin is best known for his work on classics like Bitches Brew and Head Hunters, but this leader debut stands comfortably alongside them. The record is built on space, restraint, and slow-burning ideas instead of flash. This reissue finally gives the record the attention it has always deserved.

15. De La Soul - Cabin in the Sky (2025)

Get Vinyl: Splatter | Cloud | Blue | Sky Blue | Yellow

Genre: Conscious Hip Hop

Here’s a quick history lesson for the uninitiated: De La Soul formed in Long Island in the late ’80s, a trio made up of Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove, and Maseo —high school friends who would go on to reshape hip hop with 1989’s 3 Feet High and Rising. Over the next three decades, they built one of the most creative and consistent catalogs in rap. Unfortunately, Trugoy passed in 2023, leaving a void in the hip hop community that grew up on his humor and honesty.

Their 2025 return, Cabin in the Sky, is everything I hoped for and more, especially in the final stretch: the title track wrestles with loss and longevity as Pos reflects on losing friends while his dad turns 90, then “Don’t Push Me” is a transmission from the cabin with Trugoy’s voice sounding at peace and eternal. Rest in peace, Trugoy. Enjoy your cabin in the sky.

16. jj - jj nᵒ 2 (2009)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: Balearic Pop

One of the most overlooked indie microgenres of the 2000’s was the resurgence of the Balearic beat, and two of my favorites from that era were Barcelona’s Delorean and Sweden’s jj, both of whom fizzled out by the mid-2010s.

jj n° 2, jj’s debut, is still a record I come back to. It’s 30 minutes of reverb-washed, slo-mo sugar with enough weirdness to keep you guessing. Start with “Ecstasy,” a hazy, euphoric mash-up of Lil Wayne and Will Smith.

17. Night Tapes - portals//polarities (2025)

Get Vinyl: Blue Marble (sold out) | Clear

Genre: Dream Pop

What an exciting debut from Night Tapes, an aptly named trio who make music for the twilight hours. portals//polarities is transportive and addictive, led by Estonian vocalist Iiris Vesik’s ethereal delivery and wrapped in lush, shifting soundscapes that recall Cocteau Twins or Magdalena Bay. It’s a rare kind of versatile record, blissful enough to drive to, dance to, or fall asleep to, depending on where the night takes you.

18. Rocketship - A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness (1995)

Get Vinyl: White Swirl

Genre: Indie Pop

Here’s a quick lesson in patience. On January 10, someone paid $240 for a 2015 pressing of Rocketship’s delightful 1995 debut A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness. Just five days later, the album received its first repress in 10 years for just $21. That’ll sting.

19. Jobber - Jobber to the Stars (2025)

Get Vinyl: Emerald Green | Ruby Red

Genre: Sludge Pop

What a debut from Brooklyn quartet Jobber, who’s wrestling themed Jobber to the Stars is right up my alley, featuring 11 twisty, power pop songs with killer melodies. Vocalist and guitarist Kate Meizner uses the world of pro wrestling as both metaphor and mirror, capturing real-life anxieties and capitalist struggle with humor, energy, and flair. One of multiple standouts from the Exploding in Sound roster’s killer 2025 run.

20. Prewn - System (2025)

Get Vinyl: Cloudy Orange

Genre: Alternative Rock

We stay in the Exploding in Sound universe for Prewn’s sophomore album System. Led by exciting up-and-comer Izzy Hagerup, System sharpens everything that made Through the Window so compelling, pairing Izzy’s unmistakable voice with crushing strings, warped cellos, blown-out guitars, and a constant push-and-pull between beauty and grit.

21. Baton Rogue - Totem (2014)

Get Vinyl: Black

Genre: French Punk Rock

I stumbled onto Baton Rogue recently and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. A now-defunct band from Lyon, they released just two albums, but Totem packs in emo, punk, noise rock, and post-hardcore with zero hesitation, all delivered in French. It’s raw, loud, and immediately gripping, the kind of record that makes you wonder how it slipped past everyone. This one rips, you’ll love it!

22. Population II - Maintenant Jamais (2025)

Get Vinyl: Green Split | Black

Genre: Psychedelic Rock

We stay in the French dialect a little longer with Montreal trio Population II, whose third album Maintenant Jamais (“Now or Never”) is a swirling, prog-laced psych rock trip. The grooves and melodies call to mind pre-Currents Tame Impala, with songs that bleed into one another beautifully.

For a taste of how sharp they sound live, check out their mini-concert filmed among the monoliths in Carillon, Québec, a nod to Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii, and a perfect visual companion to the epic scale they’ve dialed in here.

23. Rusty - Fluke (1995)

Get Vinyl: Neon Splatter

Genre: Post-Grunge

“I hit top speed, I smoked the dragon” is how Rusty’s 1995 debut Fluke kicks off, and from there it’s full throttle. This Canadian alt-rock gem blends post-grunge grit with big melodic hooks, and it still holds up three decades later. After years of being CD-only nostalgia, it’s finally landing on wax for the first time — long overdue and worth the wait.

24. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)

Get Vinyl: Pink

Genre: Indie Rock

Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade is considered one of the most influential indie rock albums of the 2000s, and it’s finding new life thanks to the hot new show Heated Rivalry, which introduced single “I’ll Believe in Anything” to a new audience. Sub Pop is wisely riding the wave with a hot pink vinyl reissue, landing at the end of next month — perfect timing to rediscover just how good this record still is.

25. A$AP Rocky - Don’t Be Dumb (2026)

Get Vinyl: Black and White | Alt Cover

Genre: Hip Hop

A lot has happened since A$AP Rocky last dropped an album eight years ago. He started a family with Rihanna, acted in films by Spike Lee and Mary Bronstein, collaborated with Wax Museum favorite Jessica Pratt, and even debuted a Ray-Ban partnership in the middle of his criminal trial. All of that feeds into Don’t Be Dumb, an album that feels like an event, complete with an over-the-top rollout helmed by director Tim Burton. Musically, it’s eclectic and ambitious, with Rocky rapping over everything from trap to jazz piano, and backed by cameos from Damon Albarn, Doechii, Thundercat, Tyler, The Creator, Westside Gunn, and Danny Elfman. It’s his strongest record since Long. Live. ASAP, and after the long wait, it more than delivers.

26. DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Fantasy (2025)

Get Vinyl: 6 LP Signed Box Set

Genre: Plunderphonics

We end this playlist with a bang. London’s DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ has conjured more sorcery with Fantasy, a 4 hour, 40 song dopamine overload that casts a spell on you and before you know it, an hour or two has slipped by.

Since 2023, DJ Sabrina has blessed us with over 12 hours of top shelf tunes!!! No one is doing it like her.

OK that’s 26 albums to get your started! And if that’s not enough, I recently asked some of my favorite artists (including DJ Sabrina herself) what music they loved most in 2025 — dive into that rabbit hole here.

The Wax Museum
I Asked My Favorite Artists What They Loved Most in 2025
Season’s Greetings from The Wax Museum, where instead of gifting you socks or scented candles, I come bearing something far more useful: a bag full of record-mendations straight from the source…
Read more
7 months ago · 22 likes · 2 comments · Jared Smith

Hey friends, thanks for tuning in! I’d love to hear what you’re currently spinning; drop your favs in the comments or reply to this email.

I try to send out this publication once a week. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, join 25,000 other collectors and follow Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource!

Until next time,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[I Asked My Favorite Artists What They Loved Most in 2025]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/i-asked-my-favorite-artists-whathttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/i-asked-my-favorite-artists-whatMon, 29 Dec 2025 16:00:09 GMTSeason’s Greetings from The Wax Museum, where instead of gifting you socks or scented candles, I come bearing something far more useful: a bag full of record-mendations straight from the source.

I reached out to some of my favorite artists — all of whom dropped killer albums this year or last — and asked a simple question: What’s the best thing you heard in 2025?

Their answers delivered plenty of new favorites, deep cuts, and surprises. Below, you’ll find each artist’s picks, along with a link to their latest record — all of which have been praised in these pages before and belong on your shelf.

Plenty of rabbit holes await, let’s jump in.

The Wax Museum is a reader-supported publication. Yes that means you 🫵 Support non-AI curation and become a free or paid subscriber.

Will Anderson (Hotline TNT)

Get Vinyl: Raspberry Moon (2025) on Sapphire Slush Puppy | Signed! | Black

Best thing I heard this year? This is kind of boring, but I finally drank the whole pitcher of Kool-Aid on Cindy Lee. I always thought it was good but it wasn’t until 2025 that we finally ran the whole album [Diamond Jubilee] front to back in the van a few times and collectively realized it was deserving of every bit of hype it received and agreed that it’s a genius record. So I am trying to track that one down on vinyl whenever I find it in the wild.

Honorable mention to the new Mystic 100’s tape that just came out this month “First Day of Peace”, I have been listening to that a lot in my office as I ship out Christmas orders.

Kenny Boothby (Little Kid)

Get Vinyl: A Million Easy Payments (2024) on Brick | Black

A big and consistent listen for me this year has been the podcast Drifting Off… with Joe Pera. I generally have no trouble getting to sleep at night, but sometimes I suddenly find myself wide awake around 3 or 4 AM for no reason and it can be hard to get myself back to sleep. I find Joe Pera’s podcast to be one of the most reliable ways to help ease back into sleep for the last few hours before my alarm goes off for work. The episode called “D(r)iving” is especially effective for me. I subscribe to the Patreon, so I have access to the “Max Drift” versions and his read-through of Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia,” which I am really enjoying while listening to it in tiny chunks before falling asleep.

I also listened to Allegra Krieger’s I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane almost exclusively in January and February this year as well, and it has remained in pretty steady rotation since then as well. I think she’s the best songwriter going right now. The chord progressions and melodies are transcendent, and her lyrics are great too. The production is so unique on that album, which is what makes it my favourite of hers.

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ

Get Vinyl: Fantasy (2025) on 6 LP Signed (!) Box Set

Best thing I’ve heard this year would be HAIM live, when they came to the UK and did their tour. I hadn’t heard the new album yet so to hear the songs in this setting live for the first time was incredible, as well as so many of their amazing classics and hits. Hearing “The Wire” live (first HAIM song I fell in love with) was such an experience! HAIM are such brilliant musicians and singers and they really put on a fantastic show, one of the best I’ve seen. Definitely a highlight of 2025 for me!

Heems (Das Racist, veena.nyc)

Get Vinyl: Lafandar (2024) on Blue
Lafandar

I’ve listened to the song “Death Wish” by Baby Nova a lot the last two weeks. I listened to a lot of Oklou’s album.

Vinicius Lourenço (terraplana)

Get Vinyl: Natural (2025) on Red | Black

One of my favorite releases this year was Contato by Pelados. This Brazilian indie band released this record and it shows a lot of cool rhythms, textures, melodies, samples and with very fun lyrics. One of my favorite songs is “planeta oxxo” (that features another great artist called Felipe Vaqueiro), which talks about a mini market franchise that’s taking over Sao Paulo, sadly replacing local markets, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, galleries, etc. The themes in the album are very diverse and it’s a really fun listen, very electronic based but still with good acoustic instruments and real drums on top of some beats and samples.

Nina Maia

Get Vinyl: INTEIRA (2025) on Cream | Black

Two of my favorite records from this year were Big city life by Smerz and HANDYCAM by Brazilian composers Sophia Chablau and Felipe Vaqueiro.

Smerz was a big revelation for me. I didn’t know the duo until I heard “You Got Time and I Got Money” from a Caroline Polacheck post. Was immediately struck by it. When the whole album came out, I thought it was the coolest thing I have ever heard.

And HANDYCAM is a beautiful record. Full of great compositions based in MPB with some rock and punk influences to it, which reminds me of the best of Tropicalia, mostly Caetano Veloso’s “Transa”. It’s young, it’s political, it’s rare. Shoutout to my talented friends!

Amy Millan (Stars, Broken Social Scene)

Get Vinyl: I Went To Find You (2025) on Hot Pink

The Besnard Lakes, the great band from Montreal, put out their new album [The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation] this year and their live show to celebrate the new album was a mind blower. I was completely enveloped by their sound and the band was absolutely on fire. It was my favourite show of the year they have stadium hearts.

Soffi Peters (Blush)

Get Vinyl: Beauty Fades, Pain Lasts Forever (2025) on Pink

An old song but new discovery would be “The Boy” by The Smashing Pumpkins via their The Aeroplanes Fly High (Deluxe) release - new to me but I feel lucky to be able to enjoy it ever 🎃

Really love “…Said Sadly” too, featuring Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt and the cover of “Dreaming” by Blondie. Maybe the best discovery after all was this 5-disc release and my new penchant for James Iha songs.

Marco Pini (Sorry)

Get Vinyl: Cosplay (2025) on Red | Black

I wish i could say anything other than Witness One Hope by Roots Manuva, it could be cameron winter, it could be geese, it could be world peace dmt, but its not, its always Witness One Hope. Every house party deserves better and its still witness one hope by roots manuva. Heard hes lost hims mind which is a shame, but either way its still witness one hope by roots manuva.

Ben Seretan

Get Vinyl: Allora (2024) on Orange and Bone | Highlighter Yellow

I think the best, like, true sound I heard all year was probably the sad, piercing whistles of the camote / sweet potato carts that toot toot around Mexico City. Using the same steam they use to cook the plantains and sweet potatoes on their little homebrew vending push carts, they make these unbelievably beautiful tones that bend and echo as they walk around the neighborhood (plus they taste amazing).

I think I played, attended, or mixed well over 100 different sets of music in 2025 and heard many wonderful things, a very incomplete list - a semi acoustic (???) version of “Pass the Hatchet” when Yo La Tengo played at the 100ish cap Avalon Lounge in Catskill, NY, some really hilariously druggy audience reactions to the late night SML set I caught at Pickathon, a truly inspiring one man set by Gull in Richmond, VA, a beautifully disorienting in-the-round set by Chuquimamani-Condori at Dripping, my friend Nico’s new band Folding (who don’t have any music online yet but they are LOUD and GOOD), plus I got to see Nine Inch Nails play Barclays which was overwhelmingly great but at the very end they suddenly turned all the lights on full and blasted “Laura’s Theme” from Angelo Badalemnti’s score for Twin Peaks and it was so jarring and perfect.

But I think top spot for best thing I heard this year’s gotta go to my buddy OHYUNG who, after making a ton of inspiring work as more of a noise artist and film scorer, swung for the fences with an honest-to-goodness shiny pop record with great outfits and choreography and everything.

I’ve had the melody from “dancing on the soft knife” stuck in my head for months and they just released a feverish live version on the remix album that does a good job of capturing her violent, infectious mania as a live performer (see her play if you can). Plus all proceeds from the remix album go to NYC ICE WATCH because maybe hearing people shout “FUCK ICE” is the actual best thing I heard all year.

Sonia Weber (Alien Boy)

Get Vinyl: You Wanna Fade? (2025) on Smokey Clear | Baby Blue

Best thing I’ve heard all year?? Tough with a year that brought us so much great rock music. I became a Geese/Cameron Winter head just like everybody else, I fell in love with HAIM all over again and got to see them too that shit was incredible, Turnstile hit it big again and hearing their new album in theaters along with the music videos was so fucking cool, my longtime friend and collaborator A.P. Fiedler put out a collection of demos titled ALEX 100 I’d been hearing him making in our house over the last few years — finally hearing it all together I was so impressed by the new range of songwriting he achieved, the Momma record, the Water From Your Eyes record, Waxahatchee AND MJ Lenderman AND Cameron Winter all covering This is Lorelei this year, the list and this run on sentence could go on and on and on.

All of this stuff was amazing and inspiring but nothing comes close to seeing Oasis in LA at the Rose Bowl. I went both nights, second night I snuck into GA and screamed the whole fucking time. There were a ton of emotional transcendent moments but one that sticks out to me as the most memorable is when they played Rock and Roll Star. Last song of the set before the encore (which was fucking INSANE! Don’t Look Back In Anger AND Wonderwall AND Champagne Supernova with thousands of people singing along it felt like we were all going to levitate or something). I got so emotional singing “I live my life for the stars that shine people say it’s just a waste of time” I burst into tears. I’ll never forget it. That band is larger than life, I would see them a hundred more times if I could and it would always take the top spot.

My thanks to all the above artists for contributing — go support their work, buy a record, see a show.

On your way out, exit through The Wax Museum Gift Shop. We’ve got a mousepad for your desk, a vinyl tote for your record hauls, a coffee mug for your morning spins, and a Weekender bag for any adventure :)

Thanks as always for stopping by and I’ll see you in 2026,
Jared

]]><![CDATA[The Wax Museum’s Gift Guide for Physical Media Lovers]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-physical-media-gift-guidehttps://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-physical-media-gift-guideWed, 10 Dec 2025 19:06:05 GMTPhysical media needs our support more than ever. Streaming services already interrupt everything with ads, and now we are staring down a near future where AI tools literally rewrite scenes in real time to shove products into the story. Characters will break script mid-sentence to hold up a branded drink, smile, and sell it to you. Here’s the demo if you want to see the nightmare unfold. And with Netflix set to acquire Warner Bros., entire film libraries are being swallowed by platforms that rarely bother with physical releases.

That’s why I put together this guide: to celebrate media you can actually hold. Vinyl, books, Blu-rays — the kind of stuff that makes collectors light up and won’t vanish when the licensing deal runs out.

The Wax Museum is a reader-supported publication. Yes, you 🫵 Please support my curation and become a free or paid subscriber.

Vinyl Record Gifts

Gift an Album of the Year

Pictured: Blood Orange’s Essex Honey on Basketball 2 LP, $44.98 at Urban Outfitters

I dropped my 100 favorite albums of 2025 last week, and any one of them would make a killer gift. Whether you’re shopping for a crate-digger or someone just getting into vinyl, there’s a perfect match waiting on that list.

Gift a Signed Album Cover

Pictured: ’s illuminati hotties’ Power on Blue Vinyl, $31.98 at Park Ave CDs

A signed sleeve instantly turns a record into a keepsake, and they look great framed above your turntable.

There’s two spots worth checking out for artist signed covers at retail price. First, my local shop, Park Ave CDs has current inventory featuring Hotline TNT, Home is Where, Glitterer, Tim Heidecker, and more. Another great source is Long Beach’s Fingerprints, with autographed vinyl by The Waterboys, Gwen Stefani, Matt Berninger, and DIIV to name a few.

Sequoia Box Set

$250, Numero Group

What a gift from Numero Group, who’ve become one of the top purveyor labels of archival music reissues. Sequoia is a 77-track time capsule chronicling the roots of ‘90s emo through this 7-inch vinyl box set, accompanied by a 136-page hardcover book packed with flyers, photos, and deeply researched liner notes that map the scene from D.C. basements to San Diego garages. To begin sampling, I recommend dropping the needle on short-lived, Chicago four-piece The Lazarus Plot (tracks 63 to 68).

Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee 3 LP

$49.99, Bandcamp

What better physical gift than something that isn’t available on streaming services! At a sprawling 32 tracks and nearly two hours long, Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee might seem daunting in the age of TikTok-length attention spans. But once you press play, you’re hooked. This lo-fi, psych-rock gem balances the accessible with the avant-garde, crafting nostalgic stories of love and longing. Bold and immersive, it’s no wonder Pitchfork chose Diamond Jubilee as the third best album of the decade.

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm 20th Anniversary

$150 for 4 LP Deluxe Box Set, $44.98 for 2 LP

Silent Alarm is a desert island record for me, and it has never had a vinyl pressing worthy of its legacy until now. Bloc Party’s debut is still a razor-sharp snapshot of mid-2000s indie rock, all jittery guitars and wide-eyed anthems, and my old copy has been worn down for years while never sounding great to begin with. This new 20th Anniversary edition finally fixes that. The double white vinyl gives the album the space it deserves, and the deluxe box adds two more LPs of demos, B-sides, and live sessions. The jump in quality is immediate — the kick drum hits harder, the mix feels massive, and it’s easily the best this album has sounded on wax. If you want to give someone the definitive version of a modern classic, this is it.

Boogie Nights Soundtrack

$32.99, Capitol Music

🗣️ SPILL THE WINE, TAKE THAT PEARL!

Give the gift of one of the greatest film soundtracks of all time. Boogie Nights is finally back in print, and for the first time ever it’s on colored wax. Capitol Music announced the pressing yesterday and it’s already shipping out Friday, just in time for New Year’s. If you need reminding, Boogie Nights is the GOAT New Year’s Eve movie.

4K and Blu-ray Gifts

Studio Ghibli SteelBook Collection

Starting at $17.99, Amazon

Studio Ghibli’s SteelBook collection is one of the classiest ways to gift someone a film. The minimalist packaging, lush restorations, and timeless animation make these releases look incredible on a shelf. Just a tip though — if you’re gifting Grave of the Fireflies, maybe prepare them emotionally first. Good lord.

American Psycho 25th Anniversary 4K UHD

$39.99, Lionsgate Limited

Mary Harron’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho is one of the great satires of the modern era, with Christian Bale channeling Tom Cruise to terrifying perfection as Patrick Bateman. Released this week, Lionsgate went all out on this 25th Anniversary collector’s edition featuring the film in 4K along with plenty of goodies like business cards, a Blockbuster card (for returning video tapes) and best of all, a Huey Lewis and the News’ Sports inspired CD case.

Dirty Work 4K UHD “Dirtier Cut”

$32.99, Amazon

For the comedy nerd in your life who loses entire evenings to Norm Macdonald rabbit holes on YouTube (guilty), give the gift of Dirty Work. Easily one of the year’s most surprising home video releases, this restored 4K edition comes courtesy of cult film preservers Vinegar Syndrome, who unearthed the long-lost R-rated cut that’s been missing for over 30 years. I watched it a few weeks ago and was cackling to myself like a madman. RIP Norm, director Bob Saget, and Chris Farley, whose final screen performance is perfectly unhinged.

JFK Director’s Cut 4K UHD

$19.49, Amazon

Another distributor doing things the right way is Shout! Factory, who currently has a 40% off sale on 4K’s and Blu-Rays. One title I’ll always push, especially for your conspiracy-minded friend (again, guilty), is Oliver Stone’s JFK. Few films feel more American: you vote for change, they kill the guy you picked, and 60 years later we are no closer to the truth. Stone’s paranoid epic plays like a three hour middle finger to the military industrial complex, and its prescience grows scarier in our age of nonstop conspiracies and creeping collapse.

Possession 4K UHD and Blu-ray

$29.99 Standard, $64.99 Limited, DiabolikDVD

For the horror fan in your life, you can’t do much better than gifting Andrzej Żuławski’s psychodramatic freakout Possession. For decades, this 1981 cult classic was a legendary white whale for American collectors. The only way to see the real film in the US was to import a pricey region-locked disc or track down a friend of a friend with a sketchy rip. Now, at long last, Possession arrives on UHD with a new Dolby Vision color grade and a mountain of extras, including a 220 page hardback book and a full 211 page shooting script.

Flow 4K + Blu-ray

$39.96, Criterion
Flow

Criterion saw every boutique label leveling up this year and said fine, watch this. In the last few months alone they’ve dropped Eyes Wide Shut, Burden of Dreams, The Breakfast Club, Altered States, the Wes Anderson Archive, and Flow, the Oscar-winning triumph from Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis. Flow was one of my favorite films of 2024, a wordless stunner created by the smallest team to ever win Best Animated Feature. It’s a visual feast and a total crowd-pleaser, equally great for animation nerds and kids who just want to watch a cat survive the apocalypse.

Book Gifts

Skylight Books Signed First Edition Club

Typically between $24 and $30 a month, Skylight Books

One of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself is joining the Skylight Books Signed First Edition Club, and now I’m gifting it forward. Each month, you get a signed first edition of a newly released book, usually fiction, handpicked by the Los Angeles bookworms. The archive is stacked with heavy hitters like Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! and Katie Kitamura’s Audition, and I’ve discovered so many gems I never would’ve picked up on my own. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to build an eclectic library that could also accrue value over time.

Frank Sinatra Has A Cold by Gay Talese and Phil Stern

$70, Taschen
Gay Talese. Phil Stern. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - Image 1 of 7

“Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” is widely considered the greatest celebrity profile ever written, and this coffee table edition gives it the museum treatment it deserves. In 1965, Esquire sent Gay Talese to profile Sinatra, who refused to speak with him, so Talese wrote off observation, detail, and vibe alone. The result, which you can read for free in its entirety here, became the crown jewel of New Journalism, later crowned Esquire’s best story ever published. This edition pairs Talese’s original notes with Phil Stern’s stunning photographs from four decades of shadowing Sinatra, making it a perfect gift for readers, writers, and anyone who loves watching a legend come undone at the edges.

Gay Talese. Phil Stern. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold - Image 3 of 7

This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days by John Darnielle

$35.50, Amazon

For the Mountain Goats fan in your life, or for anyone lyrically obsessive, This Year: 365 Songs Annotated is the holy grail. Across 800 plus songs written over three decades, John Darnielle has built one of the most sprawling catalogs in modern music, and this new book offers the definitive deep dive. Pairing 365 of his most meaningful lyrics with personal commentary, Darnielle reflects on the people, places, and oddities behind the songs. It’s equal parts memoir, lyric archive, and creative writing masterclass.

The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing, edited by Kimberly Witherspoon

$23.88, Amazon

For the traveler, the chef, or the cynic, The Anthony Bourdain Reader is an essential addition to any bookshelf. This beautifully curated anthology treats him first and foremost as what he always believed himself to be: a writer. It pulls together his sharpest essays, travel dispatches, kitchen war stories, and newly unearthed material like teenage diary entries, unpublished fiction, and fragments from his unfinished novel, offering the fullest portrait yet of his restless mind. If someone on your list still misses hearing his voice, this book brings it back better than anything in years.

Texas!

$50, A24

A24’s Texas! is the sequel to their Florida! book, one of my favorite coffee table staples. I’ve lived in Central Florida my whole life, and I can confirm Florida! is freakishly well researched, so I trust them to capture the unhinged corners of another giant, chaotic state. Texas! is a 624 page, hyper-local love letter featuring an intro by Kacey Musgraves, excerpts from icons like Larry McMurtry and Jia Tolentino, original stories from Texas filmmakers, fold-out maps, recipes, and photography that spans highways, canyons, marshes, and dust storms. It’s a perfect gift for anyone who loves oddball Americana.

Thanks for flipping through The Wax Museum Gift Guide — hope it sparked some ideas for the physical media lovers in your life (or, let’s be real, for yourself).

And while you are in the gift-giving spirit, swing by The Wax Museum Gift Shop on your way out. We’ve got a mousepad for your desk (pictured below), a tote for your record hauls, a coffee mug for your morning spins, and a weekender bag sturdy enough to survive a few bookstore detours. Treat yourself, treat a friend, and keep the analog good vibes rolling.

Thanks for reading and catch you next week,
Jared

The Wax Museum is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, Wax Museum may earn money from qualifying purchases made by users that were directed to Amazon.com via one of our affiliate links at no cost to you.
]]><![CDATA[The 100 Best Albums of 2025]]>https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-100-best-albums-of-2025https://www.thewaxmuseum.rocks/p/the-100-best-albums-of-2025Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:42:47 GMT

Welcome inside The Wax Museum, home to exhibits on new vinyl, curated mixtapes, culture recs, and most of all, LISTS! Glorious, unnecessary lists.

I love making lists. Some fear them, I sprint toward them like a man spotting a vinyl grail in a Goodwill crate. Maybe it’s because I grew up on Grantland and AV Club, or maybe I just crave the dopamine hit of ranking things that don’t need to be ranked. Either way, here we are.

The last few years I dropped the 100 Best Records of the Year as paywalled PDFs and paperbacks. This year, I’m feeling either generous or unwell, so the full hundo lives right here, free of charge.

I rank records all year on the Album of the Year Leaderboard™. Still, I am just one man with a full time job and two rugrats, so yes, I’ve missed things. A January addendum is coming with even more gems, because I stay in discovery sicko mode. The playlist is at the bottom; drop your missing album nominations in the comments to shame me publicly.

So whether you’re here to debate, discover, or just scroll until you spot an album you already like and mutter “finally, someone gets it,” let’s begin. The 100 Best Albums of 2025, complete with my favorite vinyl variant of each, starts now.

I got a ton of good stuff coming up. If you are not subscribed yet, get on it. Consider a paid sub to keep the curation spinning, thank you!

The 100 Best Albums of 2025

100. Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World

Get Vinyl: Clear Pink | Marbled Violet | Black

Let’s begin with 86-year-old Mavis Staples, who’s still out-singing entire generations. Here on her 14th full length album, she turns covers of Tom Waits, Sparklehorse, Leonard Cohen, and Curtis Mayfield into straight-up protest hymns. With MJ Lenderman, Derek Trucks, Bonnie Raitt, and Jeff Tweedy riding shotgun, Sad and Beautiful World lives up to its name. It’s a rich gospel blues hug from one of the last true legends we’ve got.

99. Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong

Get Vinyl: Red | Black

Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is their first proper post–Isaac Wood release, and boy are those some giant shoes to fill. With temporary frontwomen Georgia Ellery, Tyler Hyde, and May Kershaw tag-teaming vocals, the band leans into theatrical whimsy and chamber-folk charm, proving they’re still one of the most fascinating indie acts of the decade.

98. Sunny War - Armageddon In A Summer Dress

Get Vinyl: Glacier Blue, Signed Cover | Clear Pink, Signed Cover | Black Swan

Sunny War throws a Molotov cocktail of blues and punk with Armageddon in a Summer Dress. Written while living in her late father’s house, Sydney Ward thought it was haunted due to eerie sounds and scary visions. Turns out, there was a gas leak on property. That’ll do it… At least it inspired the gorgeous “Ghosts.” Another standout is “Walking Contradiction,” a critique on how U.S. tax dollars fund atrocities worldwide, featuring legend Steve Ignorant; punks from all ages in this fight together.

97. PLOSIVS - YELL AT CLOUD

Get Vinyl: Black

Four years after their debut, the supergroup of Rob Crow (Pinback), John Reis (Hot Snakes), Atom Willard (Against Me), and Jordan Clark (Mrs Magician) return with YELL AT CLOUD, a gift for anyone who falls down the same annual Pinback rabbitholes I do. They made it during a brutal Winnipeg blackout with generators humming, candles for light, and daily blizzard treks for COVID clearance, basically The Thing with guitars. All that cold seeped into the music, giving the record a tense pulse that feels shaped by the conditions that birthed it.

96. Sharp Pins - Balloon Balloon Balloon

Get Vinyl: Orange | Black

Sharp Pins, the solo outlet of Chicago’s busiest 20-year-old Kai Slater, follows this year’s great Radio DDR reissue with Balloon Balloon Balloon, a 21-song-in-43-minutes blur of indie pop that feels beamed in from another decade. Kai is also one-third of Lifeguard, whose noisy debut Ripped and Torn just missed my top 100 (stacked year!).

95. Snocaps - Snocaps

Get Vinyl: Red Pink Splatter | Frosted Blue | Sky Blue | Black

Suck it, Oasis… there’s a new sibling reunion in town. Twin sisters Katie (Waxahatchee) and Allison (Swearin’) Crutchfield reconnect for the first time in 15 years with Snocaps, a surprise Halloween debut full of warm, twangy Americana backed by Brad Cook and Wax Museum mascot MJ Lenderman.

94. Tame Impala - Deadbeat

Get Vinyl: Smoke (sold out) | Yellow | Black

Kevin Parker returns after five long years with Deadbeat, a techno side quest that swerves hard from his signature psych-rock. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the old Tame — Deadbeat is uneven and meanders a bit — but there are still enough vibes to earn it a spot in the Top 100.

If you’re craving something closer to vintage Tame Impala in 2025, scroll down to #16 on this list for a record that also received polarizing reviews that I enjoyed much more.

93. Wolf Alice - The Clearing

Get Vinyl: Flower Filled (sold out) | Coke Bottle, Signed Insert | Picture Disc | Black

Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend is one of my favorite albums of the decade, and while The Clearing doesn’t live up to its predecessor, it boasts one of the songs of the year in “Bloom Baby Bloom.”

And speaking of blooms, maybe my favorite looking vinyl this year was this flower filled record from the UK’s Bad World — an off shoot of Blood Records — who specialize in liquid filled vinyl. Take a look at this beauty, which sold out in minutes.

92. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out

Get Vinyl: Pink

16 years ago, two roads diverged in a yellow wood — one paved with bricks of coke, the other with gospel reflections — and thankfully brothers Pusha T and Malice have found their way back together for Let God Sort Em Out, with Pharrell at the helm like it’s 2006 again. It’s not Hell Hath No Fury–level divine, but the bars are sharp, the beats are head-banging, and the “THIS IS CULTURALLY INAPPROPRIATE!” tag deserves its own Grammy.

91. Glitterer - erer

Get Vinyl: Red

erer, the fourth full-length from D.C.’s Glitterer, shoots out of a canon with Albini-sized guitars, spiraling melodies, and Ned Russin’s urgent lyrics.

Speaking of Russin, last month I went deep on why new vinyl is so gotdamn expensive, which was sparked by seeing erer priced at $18 — so I asked him how the hell he’s pulling that off in 2025, and his philosophy is absolutely worth a read.

90. Bill Fox - Resonance

Get Vinyl: Black

Cleveland enigma Bill Fox returns after a 13 year absence with Resonance, a lo-fi gem of folk-pop melodies and quietly devastating lyricism. An elusive recluse, he lets the songs do the talking, and they speak volumes.

89. Marshall Allen - New Dawn

Get Vinyl: Transparent | Black

At 100 years old, Marshall Allen, the Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist, just released his first solo album, New Dawn, making him the oldest debut artist in history. That is indeed a Guinness World Record, beating the previous titleholder by over a decade. The record is cosmic and deeply alive, a spiritual free-jazz dispatch from someone who’s been bending sound since the Eisenhower era. Watch out for this promising newcomer.

88. Alien Boy - You Wanna Fade?

Get Vinyl: Smokey Clear | Baby Blue

Portland’s Alien Boy have been at it for a decade now, but You Wanna Fade? is the best they’ve ever sounded. The wall of sound is huge; you got three guitars swirling around Sonia Weber’s wistful, heart-on-sleeve vocals, layered with synths, drum machines, and just enough shoegaze haze to keep things dreamy.

87. Sea Lemon - Diving For a Prize

Get Vinyl: Apple Red (sold out) | Coke Bottle Clear (sold out) | Black

We stay in the Pacific Northwest with this debut from Seattle’s Sea Lemon. Diving for a Prize is full of swirling reverb, hushed melodies, and just enough unease to keep things interesting. Natalie Lew’s lyrics play like short stories where fantasy and anxiety collide. With production from Andy Park and a feature from fellow Seattleite Ben Gibbard, the album floats somewhere between Loveless and Plans.

86. Destroyer - Dan’s Boogie

Get Vinyl: Coke Bottle Clear with Black Swirl

Dan Bejar’s 14th (!!!) album somehow still crackles with new energy; single “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World” is a Best Song of 2025 candidate; Dan’s Boogie is Destroyer at his effortlessly cool best.

85. Hiromi’s Sonicwonder - OUT THERE

Vinyl: Black

You know I love me some jazz fusion, and Hiromi Uehara’s Out There checks all the boxes I look for: playful, complex, and overflowing with energy. After building a new band for 2023’s Sonicwonderland, she takes that same crew and expands their language across eight new compositions including a wild four-part title suite. The chemistry is unreal, the solos are ridiculous, and Hiromi’s approach to melody and harmony is refreshing. Top tier modern jazz!

84. TURQUOISEDEATH - Guardian

Get Vinyl: Turquoise and Black Marble

TURQUOISEDEATH’s Guardian is atmospheric drum and bass at its finest. The 30-minute closer “Close Your Eyes” is ambitious to say the least (who makes a half-hour DnB track and sticks the landing???). If I still played video games, this would be the soundtrack to whatever world I’d be lost in all night.

83. Wet Leg - moisturizer

Get Vinyl: Black

Wet Leg double down on the unique charm of their debut with moisturizer, now fully expanded from the Rhian and Hester duo into a five-piece. Produced again by the great Dan Carey, it’s sharper, louder, and more self-assured. The lyrics especially have leveled up, and I like this one more than their debut.

82. OK Cool - Chit Chat

Get Vinyl: Orange

OK Cool’s long-awaited debut album, Chit Chat, delivers ten melodic guitar-pop songs that capture their passion and self-aware sense of humor. Their sound is a bridge between the indie rock of Chicago forbearers like Sarge and the modern folk rock of Moontype. Chit Chat is a confident debut from a band with a classic somewhere in their future, and this record feels like the first step toward it.

81. Go Kurosawa - soft shakes

Get Vinyl: Green

Go Kurosawa, frontman of the great psych-rock band Kikagaku Moyo, steps out on his own with his first solo album. soft shakes was born from a process of unstructured jamming, with Go picking up whatever instrument was around in his Rotterdam studio and following the sound without plan or pressure. I’m talking tambourines, woodblocks, bongos, and cowbells, to name a few. The result is rhythmic yet delightfully unexpected, exactly what you want from a personal jam session.

80. keiyaA - hooke’s law

Get Vinyl: Black and White Milk | Blue | Black

Hooke’s Law says the more you stretch something, the harder it pushes back — which tracks perfectly for KeiyaA, who turns five years of pressure into hooke’s law, an experimental blend of jazz, RnB, and soul that never snaps into easy release. She wrote and produced the whole she-bang herself, using tension as the engine rather than the payoff, and the result feels like listening to someone rebuild in real time.

79. Gigi Perez - At The Beach, In Every Life

Get Vinyl: Picture Disc | Black

Gigi Perez’s self-produced debut faces the grief of losing her sister with raw power, pushing her folk roots into stormy electronics and indie rock. From the billion-stream breakout “Sailor Song” to the wrenching swell of “Normalcy,” there’s intensity here that will hit you straight in the tear ducts. I swear I was not crying listening to this at the coffee shop.

78. Tune-Yards - Better Dreaming

Get Vinyl: Blue | Black

Better Dreaming is Tune-Yards’ most vibrant, free-flowing release in over a decade, a joyous burst of instinct and rhythm that ranks among their best. Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner approached the album with a “first thought, best thought” mindset, letting songs emerge naturally and follow their own danceable logic.

77. Nina Maia - Inteira

Get Vinyl: Cream

A label I swear by for digital crate-digging is the UK’s Mr Bongo, known for unearthing hard-to-find Brazilian gems, and they’ve just brought us a stunner in Nina Maia. The 22-year-old’s Inteira is a knockout debut, blending samba canção, trip-hop, and moody pop into something wholly her own. It’s intimate on headphones but built big enough to echo through stadiums.

76. Pile - Sunshine and Balance Beams

Get Vinyl: Smoke | Black

Boston band Pile returns with their ninth album Sunshine and Balance Beams, which distills a decade of the band’s intensity into one snarling, sorrow-soaked record. It’s pensive, dense, and furious in all the right ways — a career highlight.

75. Broken Record - Routine

Get Vinyl: Clear Red

Denver’s Broken Record come out swinging on Routine, a 30-minute blast of stadium-sized emo and late-capitalist dread that feels both furious and cathartic. Co-produced by Justin Pizzoferrato (Pixies, Sonic Youth) and channeling peak Jimmy Eat World, it’s loaded with towering choruses and turbulent guitars, the kind of righteous energy that leaves you buzzing.

74. The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation

Get Vinyl: Splatter | Clear

Montreal husband-and-wife duo Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas are The Besnard Lakes, who’ve spent the last two decades perfecting their brand of neo-psychedelia, and their seventh album The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation (a reference to the threat of Canada as the 51st state) dazzles with eight gorgeous slow-burners. If you’re a Beach House fan, you’ll find plenty to love here.

73. Erika de Casier - Lifetime

Get Vinyl: Black

Erika de Casier’s Lifetime arrived without a rollout, a label, or guest feature. Just a quiet flex featuring some of the most beautiful downtempo pop you’ll hear all year. After two solid 4AD albums, she’s back in full command, self-producing a hazy swirl of trip-hop and ‘90s R&B that splits the difference between Velvet Rope Janet and Ray of Light Madonna. It’s music for after the party — gorgeous, moody, and built to loop.

72. Amy Millan - I Went To Find You

Get Vinyl: Hot Pink

Amy Millan, one of my favorite voices in indie rock via Stars and Broken Social Scene, returns with I Went To Find You, her first solo album in 15 years. She’s reaching back toward the feeling of singing beside her father, who died before she turned five, and the music that’s kept her tethered ever since. With Jay McCarrol handling production, she weaves a dreamlike patchwork that feels like flipping through old home movies and finding new meaning in every frame.

71. Youth Lagoon - Rarely Do I Dream

Get Vinyl: Dracula Red | Thunderstorm | Black

Boise’s Trevor Powers trades his lo-fi bedroom pop for grander affair on Rarely Do I Dream. I’ve been struggling to describe what it sounds like to listen to Youth Lagoon and the best I’ve come up with is it feels like chugging NyQuil around golden hour: hypnotic, surreal, brazen, unhinged. If you’re looking for an album that makes you feel more than most, this is it.

70. Bad Bunny - Debí Tirar Más Fotos

Get Vinyl: Red | White

The upcoming Super Bowl halftime performing superstar reinvents himself on Debí Tirar Más Fotos (“I should have taken more photos”), a love letter to Puerto Rico and a statement on colonization that ditches the bloat and shallowness of his last album. Packed with salsa, jíbaro, and live instrumentation, featuring students from Libre de Música San Juan and rising local artists, it’s a vibrant celebration of his roots and a defiant, danceable step forward for Bad Bunny.

69. FKA twigs - EUSEXUA

Get Vinyl: Bone | Clear | Black

FKA twigs makes her grand return with EUSEXUA (bad title alert!), her third album and first in five years. If you can look past some gimmicks (North West rapping on “Childlike Things”), you’ll discover a techno-disco-club hybrid filled with sounds you’ve never heard before. twigs’ vocals have always been the star, but here, she’s matched with production that’s just as dynamic and innovative.

68. Cymande - Renascence

Get Vinyl: Coral | Black

In what may be the most surprising comeback this year, afro-soul icons Cymande shatter a 51-year silence with a record that slips right back into their pocket-deep grooves, turning Renascence into the spiritual successor to 1974’s Promised Heights. It’s funky, politically tuned-in, and full of warmth, like they never left the stage.

67. Tennis - Face Down in the Garden

Get Vinyl: Cobalt Blue | Sea Glass | White

One band returns as another bows out. Face Down in the Garden is Tennis’ final serve after a quietly prolific 15-year run. It’s everything they do best one last time: dreamy melodies, slinky basslines, and jazzy flourishes wrapped around Alaina Moore’s ever-lovely, late-night vocals. LONG LIVE TENNIS!

66. feeo - Goodness

Get Vinyl: Black

London experimentalist feeo (Theodora Laird) blew me away with Goodness, a hauntingly beautiful record and definitive headphone music that pulls you under to whisper secrets from the static. With frequent collaborator Caius Williams (bass, guitar, baritone) grounding her spectral vocals, feeo builds a world of drone, ambient, and minimalist electronics that fans of Beth Gibbons will fall for.

65. Durand Jones & The Indications - Flowers

Get Vinyl: Iceberg Blue

It should be illegal to be this smooth. Flowers is Durand Jones & The Indications at their silkiest, blending Durand’s gospel grit with Aaron Frazer’s featherlight falsetto on a slow-burning, Motown-steeped soul record. Exhibit A is “Flower Moon,” which is in the running for my favorite track of the year.

64. billy woods - GOLLIWOG

Get Vinyl: Black

billy woods’ GOLLIWOG is not a “press play and chill” record, no siree. You need a certain mindset (and a stiff drink) to take on this harrowing trip through racism, imperialism, and everyday violence. The production is spooky and jagged, matching woods’ gut-punch lyricism, and by the time the album shifts from rage to more mournful fare, you’re already deep inside his brain with no easy way out.

63. Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

Get Vinyl: Splatter | Blue and White | Black and White

Australian DJ Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer is a killer debut, a hypercharged blend of euphoric EDM and digital-age anxiety that feels both personal and built for festival stages. Fans of Flume and Porter Robinson will eat this up, especially if you like your electronic music bright, glitchy, and heart-on-sleeve.

And don’t miss the “Infohazard” video, which might be the best-edited music video of the year. It boggles my mind thinking how they pulled this off.

62. Sudan Archives - THE BPM

Get Vinyl: Silver Nugget | Red | Black

Brittney Parks, better known as Sudan Archives, has always been a shapeshifter, but THE BPM is her boldest move yet. The self-taught violinist who blurs the lines between R&B and hip-hop steps fully onto the dance floor, combining thick basslines, trap kicks, D&B rushes, and Jersey club bounce with her trademark violin and vocal delivery. THE BPM feels like a train speeding through time and geography, connecting Chicago house to West African strings. Big leap forward for Sudan Archives.

61. Terraplana - Natural

Get Vinyl: Red | Black

Terraplana, a Curitiba quartet, layers Portuguese-language vocals, both male and female, over swirling walls of noise that split the difference between Sonic Youth and Slowdive. Their sophomore album is the kind of record that reminds you why swirling noise and dreamy melodies make such perfect bedfellows.

60. Cory Hanson - I Love People

Get Vinyl: Signed Cover

Wand frontman Cory Hanson follows the unfortunately titled Western Cum with I Love People, a gentler, Laurel Canyon-folk record full of strange characters and his trademark wit. Grab the vinyl (Cory signs and ships every record himself) and then put on “Bird on a Swing,” a certified instant classic.

59. Dutch Interior - Moneyball

Get Vinyl: Evergreen (sold out) | Black

Dutch Interior is a six-piece rock band from Long Beach serving up a blend of Americana, alt-country, and indie rock on their third album (and Fat Possum debut) Moneyball. While there’s plenty to love across the record, what really lit me up is the track “Sweet Time,” a finger-plucking jam that evolves into an Allman Brothers’ “Jessica” riff that completely electrifies the track.

58. Rose City Band - Sol Y Sombra

Get Vinyl: Coke Bottle | Black

Rose City Band, led by Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips, has been crafting breezy, cosmic country rock for years, but their latest album is their best yet. Effortlessly uplifting and brimming with laid-back charm, it’s the kind of record you’ll come back to whenever you need a moment to slow down and breathe.

57. Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love

Get Vinyl: Black | Black and Orange (Alt Cover)

Earl Sweatshirt’s LIVE LAUGH LOVE is 24 minutes of disorienting, stream-of-consciousness raps, full of off-kilter time signatures, sideways punchlines, and producer Theravada’s dusty beats that keep the ground wobbling under you. And in between the abstract rhyme mazes, Earl sounds happy? content? maybe even settling into fatherhood? But don’t worry, it’s still weird, raw, and deeply Earl.

56. High. - Come Back Down

Get Vinyl: Yellow

North Jersey’s High. have delivered one of the year’s most addictive shoegaze albums with Come Back Down, a record that proves you don’t have to sacrifice melody to drown in reverb. Unlike many of their peers, High. put hooks front and center, wrapping big, fuzzy guitar swells around the tender lyrics. Easily one of the year’s most replayable debuts.

55. Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Get Vinyl: Clear | Black

After fifteen years away, Stereolab whipped up their eleventh album in six weeks, and it sounds like they teleported their 90s prime straight into the present. From that first synth blast to Lætitia Sadier’s loungey, weightless vocals, Instant Holograms On Metal Film quickly asserts itself as their best since their classic run and proof The Groop still has plenty of tricks humming in the circuitry.

54. Bon Iver - SABLE, fABLE

Get Vinyl: Black and Salmon | Black and Yellow | Black

If this really is the end of Bon Iver, as Justin Vernon has been alluding to in recent interviews, SABLE, fABLE is a tender farewell. Split into two halves (greyscale grief, then salmon-hued serenity), it lands as a quiet victory lap, the kind of beauty that asks nothing of you except to sit with it.

53. Sam Fender - People Watching

Get Vinyl: Blue Eye Yolk | Black and White Striped | Picture Disc | Black

With The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel co-producing half the tracks, Sam Fender’s third album soars on sprawling guitarscapes and widescreen production. The result is heartland rock with Springsteen-sized ambition and a distinctly British soul.

52. Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Get Vinyl: Daydream | Coke Bottle | Black

If you can’t tell by now, metal is my blind spot (I get enough screaming at home with two toddlers), but Deafheaven remains my exception. Lonely People With Power brings back George Clarke’s full-throttle shrieks that were missing from predecessor Infinite Granite, yet it’s still packed with enough earworms to keep a metal lightweight like me hooked.

51. Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays Mulatu

Get Vinyl: Black

At 81, Mulatu Astatke said “Let’s run it back.” Mulatu Plays Mulatu finds the Ethio-jazz legend re-imagining his own classics with a killer band, better gear, and the swagger of someone who’s lapped the genre he helped invent.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the halfway point. If you’ve bought a record or two so far, you need The Vinyl Tote Bag.. it’s perfect to carry your records in and will look as good hanging by your turntable as it does on your shoulder.

Support The Wax Museum for $5 a month, and receive $10 off in the Gift Shop, which you can put toward the Vinyl Tote or something else that catches your eye.

Now enjoy the top 50…

50. Water From Your Eyes - It’s a Beautiful Place

Get Vinyl: Coke Bottle (sold out) | Black

Water From Your Eyes’ It’s a Beautiful Place is six songs, four interludes, and at least a dozen moments where you’ll say, “Wait, what is this?” in the best way. Rachel Brown and Nate Amos (This is Lorelei) keep their streak of genre-bending alive with cosmic themes, unreal guitar grooves, and enough surprises to remind you they’re one of indie’s most unique duos.

49. Squid - Cowards

Get Vinyl: Clear | Black

The Brighton boys of Squid are three-for-three in my book with Cowards. They’ve tossed their post-punk roots aside for a layered psych and art-rock journey that’s as freewheeling as it is intriguing. While the melodies sometimes vanish in the chaos, if they can hone that energy a bit, they could be an album or two away from dropping a masterpiece that tops a list like this.

48. Perfume Genius - Glory

Get Vinyl: Cobalt | Black

Blake Mills’ third production of 2025 finally sticks the landing after two high-profile whiffs with Japanese Breakfast and Lucy Dacus, this time pairing perfectly with Perfume Genius on Glory. He frames Mike Hadreas’ voice in raw, cinematic detail, as experimental folk and haunted Americana swirl into something nervy.

47. Blush - Beauty Fades, Pain Lasts Forever

Get Vinyl: Pink

Here’s a band more people need to hear: Singapore’s Blush, who quietly dropped one of the year’s best shoegaze records in Beauty Fades, Pain Lasts Forever. Their debut Supercrush landed on my 2023 year-end list, and this follow-up also gets crowned. Swirling guitars, velvety vocals, jangly undercurrents.. it’s all here, and it all hits.

46. Uwade - Florilegium

Get Vinyl: Orange Vinyl, Signed Insert | Cream

Uwade’s Florilegium — Latin for “a gathering of flowers” — lives up to its name: a radiant debut where soul, folk, and West African rhythms bloom under her luminous voice. Few first albums feel this assured, or this alive.

45. Laura Stevenson - Late Great

Get Vinyl: Clear with Red, Black, Beige Splatter

Laura Stevenson’s Late Great is raw to say the least, chronicling the blow-up of a 17-year relationship with her husband, co-parent, and bandmate. Released on Jeff Rosenstock’s Really Records (including Rosenstock himself on multiple instruments), the album finds Stevenson’s singular voice floating above lush arrangements. It’s a record about rebuilding yourself from the wreckage, and it creeps up on you and then never leaves.

44. caroline - caroline 2

Get Vinyl: Blue (Signed) | Red | Black

On their sprawling second album, UK octet caroline push deeper into avant-folk, post-rock, and ambient collage. The appropriately titled caroline 2 is disorienting in all the right ways, an immersive, slow-blooming record that rewards attention.

43. Cloakroom - Last Leg of the Human Table

Get Vinyl: Green Orange Splatter | Black White Split with Splatter

Story of the Egg, Cloakroom’s fourth LP, is a dreamy, shape-shifting triumph that drifts between alt-rock grit, twangy Americana, and hazy dream-pop with ease. It carries their signature melancholy grandeur, but with a looseness that makes it feel like it was a joy to make and an even better one to play.

42. La Dispute - No One Was Driving The Car

Get Vinyl: Green Smoke | Tri-Color | Eco Mix | Black

Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is in my Letterboxd Top 4, so my expectations were sky high hearing La Dispute’s first album in six years was directly inspired by it. I’m happy to report No One Was Driving The Car not only meets expectations but stands as the post-hardcore band’s best work since 2011’s Wildlife. Channeling their rage into ambitious compositions and dark writing, La Dispute stares into the void and creates a work of art from the despair.

41. Shallowater - God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars

Get Vinyl: Black

Self-proclaimed “West Texas dirtgaze” trio Shallowater have returned with their striking second album, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars. Produced by Wax Museum Hall of Famer Alex Farrar (who has at least three albums on this list!), the record balances slowcore patience with sudden walls of distortion, folding in shades of alt-country and Americana along the way. This gives the songs an intimacy that makes the quiet moments tender and the heavy ones devastating.

40. Winter - Adult Romantix

Get Vinyl: Red and White Smash | Cherry Kiss | Blue and Red Nova | Black

Friends, I listen to a lot of new dreampop and shoegaze, which means I wade through plenty of forgettable efforts, so believe me when I say that Samira Winter’s Adult Romantix is the real deal. Her Winspear debut, inspired by Mary Shelley novels and 90s rom-coms, is a perfect blend of swirling guitars and smoky vocals. Nostalgic, woozy, and moving, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Adult Romantix mentioned among the great modern shoegaze albums in the years to come.

39. Purity Ring - Purity Ring

Get Vinyl: Pick Acid Wash Splash

Purity Ring’s new self-titled album is the triumphant return to form we’ve been waiting for, definitely their strongest work since their 2012 debut, Shrines. Inspired by Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy, the record plays as a concept soundtrack, charting the journey of two characters as they seek to build a kinder world from the ruins of a broken one. It’s a beautiful listen and an invigorating reminder of why they mattered in the first place.

38. John Michel & Anthony James - Egotrip

Get Vinyl: Black (sold out)

I have no idea who John Michel and Anthony James are, but they just dropped perhaps the best hip-hop debut of the year. Egotrip sounds like two friends dared each other to make a classic… and then actually did it. Warm jazz rap, sharp conscious bars, and East Coast grit collide with a confidence most major-label acts couldn’t fake with a million-dollar budget.

37. Militarie Gun - God Save the Gun

Get Vinyl: America (sold out) | Iridescent Blue | Black

“Ooh ooh!” It feels good to be back in the raucous world of Militarie Gun. Their 2023 debut won the Waxy for Best Debut thanks to its blistering pace and undeniable hooks. Sophomore record God Save the Gun is still rooted in hardcore punk, but now brushes up against pop rock with a surprising amount of vulnerability. Ian Shelton turns his sudden battle with alcohol addition into a three-act emotional sledgehammer, making this one hell of a cathartic rock record.

36. Alan Sparhawk - With Trampled by Turtles

Get Vinyl: Sunflare

The self-explanatory title With Trampled by Turtles finds Low’s Alan Sparhawk teaming up with fellow Duluth-ers Trampled by Turtles. Alan’s signature slow-burning sorrow meets the band’s warm, bluegrass embrace. Following the recent passing of Sparhawk’s wife and bandmate Mimi Parker, Trampled by Turtles brought him on tour, offering comfort through music. That chemistry spills into these songs of loss and resilience. Sparhawk’s voice is raw and unadorned, especially on “Not Broken,” a highlight that tricks the ear into thinking Mimi is singing, only to find out it’s his daughter. A beautiful collaboration and tribute.

35. Little Simz - Lotus

Get Vinyl: Electric Pink | Moonstone | Black

A phoenix rising from friendship betrayal and self-doubt, Lotus finds Little Simz at her most raw and refined. Over lush orchestrations and pulsing noir beats, she excoriates former allies while wrestling with her artistic identity. The stellar supporting cast (Sampha, Michael Kiwanuka, Yussef Dayes, Wretch 32 and Moses Sumney) form a constellation around her brilliance.

34. Kokoroko - Tuff Times Don’t Last

Get Vinyl: Purple | Black

For those needing a jolt of happiness, London’s Kokoroko has the cure with Tuff Times Never Last. This Afrobeat album is groove after groove, effortlessly cool as the other side of the pillow. It serves as an optimistic reminder to embrace life’s many dualities. Start with “Sweetie,” my vote for Song of the Summer.

33. Dijon - Baby

Get Vinyl: Clear

Dijon’s Baby is an ecstatic celebration of love, lust, and fatherhood, blending horny Prince-esque funk and Springsteen ballads into raw, personal pop. Co-produced by Mk.gee, who handles half the record, it’s a soulful tribute to his wife, his newborn son, and the messy beauty of trying to get it all right.

32. Florry - Sounds Like…

Get Vinyl: Apple Red | Black

Florry’s Sounds Like… is a raw, rollicking blend of alt-country and early ’70s rock, led by Francie Medosch’s vivid storytelling and a band that absolutely cooks. Fiddles, pedal steel (you know I love me some pedal steel), and fuzzed-out guitars collide into a glorious murk, delivering the most heart-on-sleeve jams to come out of Philly this year.

31. Hotline TNT - Raspberry Moon

Get Vinyl: Celestial Cardinal | Black

After landing high on my 2023 list with Cartwheel, Hotline TNT continue the hot streak with Raspberry Moon, their fuzz-drenched “next phase of New American Shoegaze.” With a full band lineup behind Will Anderson for the first time, the wall of sound hits harder. File this under 2025’s most satisfying guitar record.

30. Anna von Hausswolff - ICONOCLASTS

Get Vinyl: White | Clear | Black

ICONOCLASTS is Sweden’s Anna von Hausswolff at her most ambitious, an art-pop opera where pipe organ duels with sax and scorched guitars, strings swell to the heavens, and guest spots like Iggy Pop and Ethel Cain add to the grandeur. The first two tracks set the stage, but once the 11-minute “The Iconoclast” lands, it’s a full-body experience from there on out. If you’ve never tuned in to Anna before, this is the perfect entry point.

29. The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie

Get Vinyl: Blue Sky | Sapphire | Sherbet | Black

Everyone’s favorite New Zealand indie quartet The Beths go four-for-four with Straight Line Was a Lie, yet another entry in their spotless catalog. Following frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes’ battle with Graves’ Disease-induced writer’s block, the band returns with their most introspective album to date. While still packed with their signature catchy hooks and big guitar riffs, the melancholy that always lingered at the edges now takes center stage. It may have been their most difficult record to make, but it’s another reminder that The Beths remain one of the most consistent bands of the last decade.

28. quickly, quickly - I Heard That Noise

Get Vinyl: Frosted Coke Bottle

In Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine, we learn that Graham Jonson, aka quickly, quickly, was one of the casualties of Spotify’s shift toward AI ghost artists in their ambient playlists. I Heard That Noise is his spirited rebuttal — a charming, detail-packed record where lush instrumentation crashes into jagged guitars, especially on standouts like “Enything” (a song so dense it broke his computer). More than just surviving the algorithm, Jonson reminds us why real musicians still matter.

27. Mei Semones - Animaru

Get Vinyl: Pink Marble

If there’s a more charming debut this year than Animaru, I haven’t heard it. Mei Semones blends samba, math rock, and chamber pop with sweeping strings, bilingual lyrics, and guitar work that feels both effortless and virtuosic. It’s graceful, self-assured, and surprising from start to finish.

26. Racing Mount Pleasant - Racing Mount Pleasant

Get Vinyl: Burgundy (sold out) | Citrus | Black

Racing Mount Pleasant, the eponymous debut from the Michigan-based seven-piece, knocked me sideways with this lush, wildly ambitious record. Fans of Black Country, New Road will feel right at home, but this Ann Arbor collective builds their own world of lilting time shifts, weeping sax, and sweeping, bruised crescendos. It’s one of the prettiest albums I’ve heard all year and one of the most striking debuts in recent memory.

25. Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down

Get Vinyl: Bi-Color

Speaking of striking debuts… Bite Down grabs you and doesn’t let go. Fronted by Anishinaabe singer-guitarist Tashiina Buswa, Ribbon Skirt channel post-punk tension into nine sharp, urgent tracks produced by Scott Munro (Preoccupations, who also dropped a killer new album) and Marlaena Moore. Buswa’s lyrics cut deep, delivered with a swagger and presence that signals a true breakout moment.

24. McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!

Get Vinyl: Orange

Chicago’s McKinley Dixon cements himself as jazz rap’s modern torchbearer with Magic, Alive!, a cinematic concept album where harps, horns, and live drums collide with force. Framed as 11 short stories touched by grief, memory, and survival, it’s a masterwork that honors the genre’s roots while pushing it forward.

23. Liquid Mike - Hell Is An Airport

Get Vinyl: Black

After last year’s Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot (which landed #14 on our 2024 leaderboard) nailed the sweet spot between prime Blink-182 energy and Fountains of Wayne wit, frontman Liquid Mike Maple quit his day job as a USPS mail carrier to go all-in. Now a fully locked-in five-piece, the band returns with Hell is an Airport, cramming 14 fuzzed-out, hook-stuffed songs in a frantic 27 minutes. It’s one of the tightest, most exhilarating power pop records of the year.

22. Hannah Cohen - Earthstar Mountain

Get Vinyl: Translucent Yellow

After six years away, Hannah Cohen is back with Earthstar Mountain, a radiant, genre-blurring record that feels like sunlight through leaves. Co-produced with partner Sam Evian at their Catskills studio, it stretches her folk roots into warm ’70s rock, dreamy pop, and subtle funk. With sticky choruses, rippling guitars, and cameos from Clairo and Sufjan Stevens, it’s a comeback worth the wait.

21. Horsegirl - Phonetics On and On

Get Vinyl: Crystal Clear | Black

Horsegirl dodge the sophomore slump with Phonetics On and On, a crisp, Cate Le Bon–produced gem that swaps their debut’s noisy scrappiness for softer grooves and hypnotic vocals. This set of swooning harmonies, rich guitar layers, and earworm melodies feel timeless.

20. Home Is Where - Hunting Season

Get Vinyl: Green, Purple, Brown | Splatter | Green

Hunting Season cements Home Is Where as one of the most thrilling, unclassifiable bands working today, doubling down on their country-screamo and conceptual ambition. Across 13 songs of 13 doomed Elvis impersonators, Bea McDonald’s lyrics cut deeper than shattered glass, turning Americana’s rot into gory punk poetry.

19. Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH

Get Vinyl: Snow | Orange Clay | Purple | Black

NEVER ENOUGH is Turnstile’s victory lap and reinvention all at once — the sound of a band refusing to stand still after breaking through. If GLOW ON cracked the hardcore ceiling with dream-pop haze and rhythmic ambition, this one fully breaks free, fusing dancefloor bounce with pit-starting energy.

18. Larry June, 2 Chainz, The Alchemist - Life is Beautiful

Get Vinyl: Black

The rap album I’ve spun the most this year is Life is Beautiful, a collab where Larry June’s effortless cool meets 2 Chainz’s boundless energy, all gliding over The Alchemist’s masterfully crafted beats; the producer remains the ultimate cheat code for elevating any rapper’s game.

17. Loaded Honey - Love Made Trees

Get Vinyl: Marbled

Imagine Sade covering Moon Safari at a poolside jam session: Loaded Honey’s debut floats on jazzy chords, soulful whispers, and the chemistry of two new lovers (Jungle’s J Lloyd and Lydia Kitto, seen embracing on the album art) composing in real time. The perfect summer album and a future classic.

16. The Mars Volta - Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio

Get Vinyl: Black

Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacío might be the most misunderstood album of 2025. Critics shrugged, but I’m hooked. The Mars Volta go back to their roots with Latin-tinged psychedelia, smoky jazz grooves, and mini-suites that reward full immersion. The final three tracks are the highlight, blooming into a lush, sax-laced crescendo. This isn’t the Volta you remember, but it might be the one you need right now.

15. Panda Bear - Sinister Grift

Get Vinyl: Curacao Blue | Black

The psych-pop alchemist delivers his sunniest, most immediate work in over a decade, trading Animal Collective’s kaleidoscopic sprawl for Beach Boys-worthy harmonies and crystalline hooks. Sinister Grift is a career highlight, proving Noah Lennox’s gift for warping nostalgia into something blissfully new.

14. Friendship - Caveman Wakes Up

Get Vinyl: Autographed | Black

Caveman Wakes Up is Philly band Friendship’s finest work yet, a slow-burning collection of cracked Americana where Dan Wriggins delivers surreal, sorrowful dispatches in a voice that barely rises above a whisper. With key players from 2nd Grade and Dear Life Records in the mix, the band drifts somewhere between David Berman’s wit and Jason Molina’s ache.

13. Wednesday - Bleeds

Get Vinyl: At least six colorways

Wednesday have owned my year-end lists two years running — Rat Saw God at #1 in 2023 and MJ Lenderman’s solo record in my top five last year — and Bleeds keeps their hot streak alive. It’s their Southern-fried sludge at its finest, hooky country haze that sticks in your cortex, none more so than “Elderberry Wine,” which I assume Spotify Wrapped will show me as my most listened song of 2025.

12. Greet Death - Die in Love

Get Vinyl: Poltergeist

Die in Love is the latest from Flint’s Greet Death. Known for their brooding slowcore, they’ve pivoted to love songs inspired by Paul McCartney. Basically if Paul wrote “Maybe I’m Amazed” after a long Michigan winter… With a fuller lineup and a sound that’s more expansive, Greet Death proves that even the darkest bands can find new light. One of the most exciting acts in shoegaze today.

11. Rosalía - LUX

Get Vinyl: Crystal Clear

Rosalía’s LUX is a four-act, genre-smashing supernova where she trades MOTOMAMI’s quick-hit chaos for something way more ambitious. With the London Symphony Orchestra recording every track and collaborators ranging from Pharrell to Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo in the mix, she turns a pop record into an opus on power, beauty, and whatever sparks between the divine and the painfully human. It’s dense and demanding, but give it your attention and it absolutely pays you back.

Before I reveal the top 10, here’s a reminder that I send out this newsletter a few times a month. For those looking for up-to-the-second vinyl news, drops, and deals, follow my other project, Vinyl on Sale, the Internet’s #1 vinyl resource trusted by over 20,000 fellow collectors!

Now drumroll please for the top 10….

10. Titanic - HAGEN

Get Vinyl: Cream | Black

I’ve been singing the praises of Mexico City–based, Guatemalan multi-hyphenate Mabe Fratti for a while now. She made last year’s Top 100 list, she cameos in our #1 pick this year, and her collaboration with her partner Héctor Tosta under the Titanic moniker starts off our top 10.

Trust me when I say HAGEN may be the most spellbinding half hour of music you’ll hear this year. One moment they’re channeling the soft funk of Sade, the next they’re wrangling heavy metal blast beats beneath Fratti’s soaring falsetto. It’s an endlessly surprising album that cements her as one of this generation’s rising stars.

9. Colin Miller - Losin’

Get Vinyl: Black

MJ Lenderman’s touring drummer Colin Miller steps into the spotlight with Losin’, an album about grief, memory, and the weight of love. Written after the loss of his close friend and father figure, and produced by my guy Alex Farrar, the record pairs warm instrumentation with tender, often brutal lyrics.

Losin’ makes me miss my best friend, but more than anything, it makes me grateful for the time we spent together.

8. Fust - Big Ugly

Get Vinyl: Beer (sold out) | Black

Back to back Asheville and Alex Farrar joints in the top 10!

Fust’s Big Ugly blends folk and cosmic Americana with the heartfelt storytelling of Wild Pink and Trace Mountains. With a seven-member band and guests like Merce Lemon and Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs), Big Ugly is rich with pedal steel swells, dynamic rhythms, and vivid soundscapes that’ll have you dreaming of misty Blue Ridge Mountain mornings.

7. Panchiko - Ginkgo

Get Vinyl: Sweet Tart (sold out) | Clear with Blue and Pink Splatter

Panchiko’s second act keeps getting more surprising and sublime. Ginkgo transforms their myth (abandoned ‘90s demos turned internet lore) into meticulous indie-rock, with Radiohead’s ghost humming through glitchy lullabies, a wild billy woods appearing to spit bars in the haze, and melodies that feel infinite. It’s the kind of record that makes you marvel at how far a once-forgotten band has come.

6. Benjamin Booker - LOWER

Get Vinyl: Clear | Black

Eight years after his last album, Benjamin Booker returns with LOWER, and he’s swapped blues-rock grit for grungy, beat-driven fire. With Kenny Segal behind the boards and a sharpened focus on systemic injustice, Booker channels personal trauma into raw, righteous fury. It’s the sound of an artist with nothing to lose.

5. Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band - New Threats From The Soul

Get Vinyl: Black

For those looking for the best country album of 2025, I present Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band’s New Threats From The Soul, a sprawling, 57-minute journey that seamlessly weaves in psych-prog and subtle electronica among the alt-country. The seven long, winding songs unfold like a great movie you never want to end, each listen revealing new punchlines and harmonic shifts. It’s a prime example of an artist stretching the boundaries of what country music can be.

4. Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars

Get Vinyl: Green and Red Marbled (Sold Out) | Black

No album this year lit my brain up quite like The Scholars, Car Seat Headrest’s first record in five years and easily their boldest yet. It’s a full-blown rock opera —theatrical, messy, and gloriously over-the-top. Think Ziggy Stardust by way of American Idiot. The band sounds bigger and tighter than ever, and the record delivers both narrative sweep and immediate bangers. It’s the kind of album that begs for repeat listens and keeps giving more every time you come back.

3. Saya Gray - SAYA

Get Vinyl: Clear (sold out) | Black

Canadian-Japanese singer-songwriter Saya Gray blew my socks clean off with SAYA, a wild, genre-resistant debut that slips between psych-folk, art-pop, and glitchy prog like it’s second nature. No two people will have the same favorite track, usually a sign you’re hearing something special.

2. Geese - Getting Killed

Get Vinyl: Red Splatter (sold out) | Ultra Clear | Blue | Eco Mix

Geese already floored me with their 2023 rock freakout 3D Country, winning the highly prestigious Waxy for Best Sophomore Album, and Getting Killed somehow takes things even further. It opens with screams of “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR!,” the funniest windows-down anthem ever, and “Taxes,” which boasts one of the best transitions (and music videos) of the year.

Getting Killed is razor-sharp, carved from 30-minute LA jams with producer Kenny Beats while wildfires literally burned outside. And the craziest part? According to this GQ interview, they’ve already got the next album nearly done, and frontman Cameron Winter claims he has over a thousand more songs in his Dropbox. The sky’s the limit for these Geese, sheesh. (Dr. Seuss over here…)

1. Blood Orange - Essex Honey

Get Vinyl: Orange | Marble | Black

After the death of his mother, Devonté Hynes wasn’t sure he’d ever make music again, until hearing Sufjan Stevens’ “Fourth of July” for the first time (also a song about a mother’s passing) cracked something open and reminded him of music’s ability to heal. That revelation pulses through every moment of Essex Honey as Hynes threads childhood memories into a warm, shimmering tapestry of sound.

Caroline Polachek, Lorde, Zadie Smith, Turnstile’s Brendan Yates, Daniel Caesar, and Mabe Fratti all show up, but Essex Honey still feels unmistakably Hynes. It’s genre-fluid, deeply human, endlessly replayable, and the most moving thing I’ve heard all year. Essex Honey is the rare album that feels like a life being pieced back together, and it’s my undisputed #1 of the year.

Album of the Year Leaderboard (151+ Songs)

🎧 Stream Playlist on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

The 100 Best Albums of 2025

🎧 Stream Playlist on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music

Hey friends, thanks for reading my tome! I’d love to hear your new favs; send some record-mendations my way!

OK I’m exhausted, it’s nap time, and I’ll catch ya here next week!

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