Warning: This might get sappy…

For the first post of 2025, I’m tackling all of the albums that I already know and love and couldn’t dare to pretend I didn’t

Before this was a Substack series, it was just a playlist—a playlist full of albums that were being released during a time in my personal life where I didn’t have the expendable energy to listen to new music. I had just arrived in Edinburgh, was unpacking and settling in, and dealing with my mortal enemy, FedEx as they had misplaced a bag of my personal, handwritten notebooks and journals. Needless to say, I had enough on my plate emotionally and I still had lectures to attend, so while I was grateful to have had my courses to keep me focused and moving forward every day, it also meant listening to new albums wasn’t high on the list of priorities. Which is how the Spotify playlist came in to being. I would just dump albums I wanted to listen to in there and figured I would get to them eventually. And now, over two years later, I am getting to them, along with a few hundred more that I’ve added.

I often think that albums find me when I need them most and I must have needed these sooner rather than later. When I decided to focus on an album and write about it, I want to capture my genuine first time reaction and thoughts. But for most of these albums, they are the soundtrack of my year in Edinburgh and are so much apart of my life already that I couldn’t give an honest first time reaction. So all I can do instead is gush about how much I love them and how they got me through a hard few months in my life.

SUBJECT TO CHANGE—Kelsea Ballerini

As I think will be a common theme for many of these albums, I don’t remember what it was that first prompted me to listen to them. I don’t know if it was a TikTok or a spur of the moment decision to hit play on this album, but I did and I fell in love with it. Earlier that summer, I did a massive country music deep dive, but that was all classic country and this was my first taste of new country and my first introduction to Kelsea Ballerini. She skyrocketed to greater fame a few months later when she released her EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, but I think listeners are missing out by not going back to this album. It’s super country sounding, but still fun pop songwriting a la Ballerini predecessor Taylor Swift. I will always have a soft spot for this album. It brought me joy and made me excited about new music during a tough and gloomy time. I’m super disappointed I didn’t go see her show in Glasgow when she was touring this album, but I’m hoping to go to her upcoming tour, where I’m also hoping a few songs from this album might make it onto the setlist.

My favorites are “SUBJECT TO CHANGE,” “THE LITTLE THINGS,” “I CAN’T HELP MYSELF,” “LOVE IS A COWBOY,” “MUSCLE MEMORY,” “I GUESS THEY CALL IT FALLIN’,” “WEATHER,” and “HEARTFIRST.”

Outside Child—Allison Russell

One of my favorite things about being a Hozier fan is discovering all of the incredibly talented musicians he surrounds himself with and collaborates with. That’s how I discovered Allison Russell, who I have since talked about with anyone and everyone I can. Not only does she have a beautiful and powerful singing voice, but her writing, particularly on this album, is some of the most beautiful writing about trauma I’ve ever heard. Be forewarned before listening that Russell is bravely honest and transparent about what she has experienced in her life, and it’s a lot, but she does so with a fearlessness and a strength that left me absolutely speechless. And if I didn’t love her solo work already, the work she has done with Hozier, Brandi Carlile, Joni Mitchell, Our Native Daughters with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythst Kiah, and Leyla McCalla, amongst others in the folk and Americana genres has cemented her amongst one of my favorite artists of all time. I’ve been lucky to have seen her open for Hozier twice, once from the second row, and just as I told the other concert goers around me that she would, she put on an incredible show. Her performance was so incredible in fact that the people around me turned to me during her set to mouth “Wow, she’s really good.” She opened her set in Glasgow with “4th Day Prayer” a song where she, in no uncertain terms, lays bare what happened to her as a child. I was wowed and impressed by this brave choice to open with such a song because it shows her strength and power over her own story. She’s currently playing Persephone in Hadestown on Broadway, but it’s only a matter of time before she takes over the world.

My favorites are “Hy-Brasil,” “Persephone,” “Nightflyer,” “The Runner,” and “4th Day Prayer.”

Preacher’s Daughter—Ethel Cain

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is the definitive concept album. It’s everything a concept album should be—it has a strong narrative structure while still delivering on the musical and vocal fronts. It’s not hard to imagine, knowing what bit we do about the artists’ background, that it is in some respects autobiographical, or at least maybe what could have been her autobiography, had things been different. But the artist behind Ethel Cain, Hayden Silas Anhedönia, has kept much of her real life close to the chest so that Cain as a persona can stand on her own as a living, breathing character. It is a heavy album thematically, and out of respect for the creative vision, I don’t dare to shuffle and listen out of order, but that does mean I’m not often in the headspace to listen to a heavy album for over an hour. But when I do have the time and can handle it, I’m reminded how this is the album I think Born to Die wishes it was. Where Del Rey was more inspired by Americana and Cain’s album is quintessentially Southern Gothic, Preacher’s Daughter has the darkness and danger that Born to Die was trying to portray, but just didn’t quite hit the mark.

My favorites are “American Teenager,” “Western Nights,” and “Gibson Girl.”

Stick Season—Noah Kahan

This is the album that taught me that not everyone’s For You pages on TikTok are the same, because when I pitched this album as a review for the student newspaper at the University of Edinburgh, all of the other students looked at me like I had three heads. Apparently the sensation that was Noah Kahan’s breakthrough song did not have the same breakthrough on UK TikTok that it had on my FYP. Nonetheless, this album really hit me when it came out, particularly “The View Between Villages.” It was personally striking to me as an early 20-something who had just spent a year post-grad living at home, not knowing what was next and grappling with the love I have for my home but also wanting to leave and go somewhere else. It’s a good thing “You’re Gonna Go Far” didn’t come out until close to when I was coming home because if I had to spend a year away from home with that song at my disposal, I would have been crying every day. I know when I leave on my next adventure, whenever and to wherever that may be, that song is going to hit even deeper and I am not looking forward to that mental breakdown, but I am looking forward to that crying session that just might dehydrate me. I held out and waited to get this album on vinyl, hoping that a version would be pressed with all the bonus tracks and collaborations and between the We’ll All Be Here Forever release and the Town Hall collaborations RSD release, my wish came true. Since I’ve been listening to the full record on vinyl, I’ve only fallen more in love with it. This album was made for girlies from small towns and Kahan is a masterful folk songwriter. He’s one of those who leaves me bewildered with how they’re able to string words together in a way that has never existed before. Like these songs just came from his brain?? I guess that’s the magic of songwriting and art right there, to create work that seems like it has always existed.

My favorites are “Northern Attitude (feat. Hozier),” “All My Love,” “She Calls Me Back (feat. Kacey Musgraves),” “New Perspective,” “Halloween,” “Still,” “The View Between Villages,” “Dial Drunk (feat. Post Malone),” “Paul Revere,” “Call Your Mom,” “and You’re Gonna Go Far.”

Being Funny in a Foreign Language—the 1975

This is one of the only albums I’ve ever rushed to the record store to buy on vinyl. In hindsight, the release of this album set off something in my life that I’m so grateful for. It set me off on a path of rediscovering and reclaiming my teenage fangirl interests from the clutches of cringe and shame. This culminated in me writing two papers, both directly and indirectly and including my official master’s dissertation, on the 1975’s work and my experience of being a fan. For one paper I wrote about the band’s stage show for their (Still) At Their Very Best tour which supported this album. In my paper, I wrote about how the sincerity of this album in its lyrical content contradicted the inherent artifice present in the stage show. I had to submit the paper between the UK and US legs of the tour, so there was lots I didn’t get to include and always meant to go back to and develop further. Now with a new album being teased, I’m chomping at the bit to get back into the world of this album and that tour and finally flesh out my initial work on what was really going on on that stage. I have very mixed feelings about Jack Antonoff as a producer, but on this album I think he worked miracles in that he was able to get this band to make a short 11 track album—truly a feat. And while making me choose a favorite album from this band is like making me choose between my own imaginary children, I do think this is amongst the band’s career best. It’s Healy at his peak as a songwriter, his most sincere writing to date, and the rest of band don’t miss a step (not they ever usually do.) Most artists, by the time they get five albums in, understandably start to lose a bit of the magic that they had when they first started. But not the 1975. They really are only getting better.

My favorites are “The 1975,” “Happiness,” “Looking For Somebody (To Love),” “Part Of The Band,” “Oh Caroline,” “I’m In Love With You,” “All I Need To Hear,” “Wintering,” “Human Too,” “About You,” and “When We Are Together.”

Midnights (3am edition)—Taylor Swift

A lot hinged on this album release for me. It was announced a week before I left for Scotland and would be released a little over a month after I got there. I remember thinking it would be something to look forward to, an important reminder for me that there was light on the other side of this big, scary move. As a diehard folklore fan, this was very different from that and while I was happy for the Swifties who love 1989 and Taylor’s poppier eras, I remember feeling meh about this one. But in the two years that have passed since this album was released, and including the 3am and Til Dawn editions with additional songs, this album has grown on me. I particularly had an a-ha moment when I saw the Eras Tour film on a big theatre screen. After almost 3 hours of being awed by her songwriting and the spectacle and opulence of that show, even just on screen, I saw the Midnights set in a new light. And while I recognize not every album will be folklore and I should allow Taylor to grow and experiment, I should learn by now that just because I might not love every album as much as folklore, I still end up liking every album she puts out, so I really should learn to have more trust in Swift.

My favorites are “Maroon,” “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” “Question…?,” “Vigilante Shit,” “Sweet Nothing,” “Mastermind,” “The Great War,” “Glitch,” “Hits Different,” and “Snow On The Beach (feat. More Lana Del Rey).”

Take It Like A Man—Amanda Shires

For this album, I actually do remember how it came to enter my life. For the first few weeks I was in Edinburgh, I was reading a book called Her Country by Marissa R. Moss. I bought it on my last trip to Pittsburgh to visit with my best friend before I left, so every time I opened it, I thought of her and our last weekend together. In the book, Moss talks about modern women in country music who are doing what they can to push back against the homogenous patriarchy that governs Nashville and the mainstream country music establishment. In that book, Amanda Shires was mentioned for her work with the Highwomen and in fact in the back of the book is a playlist of women mentioned throughout the book so I was always meaning to go back to that playlist and deep dive all of the artists there (and still am meaning to!) but when I was catching up on Youtube videos one night and saw Amanda Shires did an episode of What’s in My Bag with Amoeba Records, I clicked on it immediately. The series features mostly musicians, but also actors and other people of interest as they go through the massive Amoeba Records store in LA and pick out records to take home, and they often share a little bit about each album and why they picked it. In the beginning of the video, as they’re introducing Shires, a bit of her song “Here He Comes” played and I was hooked in that moment. From then on, this album was on a constant shuffle for months. I still love this album very much and even now, every time I listen to it, it feels worn in and soft, and like I’m visiting an old friend.

My favorites are “Hawk For The Dove,” “Take It Like A Man,” “Empty Cups,” “Don’t Be Alarmed,” “Fault Lines,” “Here He Comes,” “Stupid Love,” “Lonely At Night,” “Everything Has Its Time,” and “My Own Galaxy.”

Cuts and Bruises—Inhaler

Another album that came out while I was in Scotland and when this album came out in February, I had no idea that I would be seeing them play live at a festival in July. I had been hearing singles from this album for a few months leading up to the full album release, but when I first pressed play on the album before setting off on my day of errands, I remember being floored. There’s a lot that could and has been said about nepo babies and there’s a lot that could be said about this band for the fact that the lead singer is Bono’s son, but I really feel like they’ve carved out their own identity and fanbase beyond Bono’s shadow. And this album in particularly really proves that. There are a few songs in their discography that I think, right, that’s just a U2 song, but I think that’s probably inevitable. But on this album those songs are few and far between and I think the band’s experiments with sound really pay off as they found a sound that’s their own. I studied this album going into their set at TRNSMT in July 2023, but their festival set was largely songs from their first album, which I didn’t know as well. Plus from where I was standing, I couldn’t hear the set very well so it wasn’t amongst my best gig experiences. I do remember, however, thinking how impressed I was with their playing. All was forgiven and set to rights when I got to see them play in Pittsburgh this past October. I had studied up between TRNSMT and then so I knew much more of their discography and they played a good mix between albums and some new ones. And while they sounded amazing as always, I could actually hear the set and had an overall much better time.

My favorites are “Just To Keep You Satisfied,” “Love Will Get You There,” “So Far So Good,” “These Are The Days,” “If You’re Gonna Break My Heart,” “Dublin in Ecstasy,” “When I Have Her On My Mind,” “Valentine,” “The Things I Do,” and “Now You Got Me.”

Salt—Angie McMahon

I’ve written about Angie McMahon before and how I discovered her through my favorite way of discovering new music—through the music and artists I already love. She’s another artist I found and started listening to because she’s performed with Hozier. From when I initially saw a video of her singing “Work Song” with Hozier, I only knew a handful of her songs and really loved her voice, but at that point, I had yet to dig deeper and listen to her full album. But then I saw she was playing in Pittsburgh this past August and I knew I had to go. Not only does Pittsburgh seem to be skipped on a lot of big artists’ touring routes, preferring Philadelphia and Ohio over us, but to see a small artist like Angie McMahon playing Pittsburgh, I was afraid if I didn’t go then, I wouldn’t have another chance and I’d always regret it. So I went, even though I was not as studied up as much as I would have liked to have been. And I still had a great time! I was blown away with her voice and her sound and it was that push I needed to fully dive into her albums. This one I picked up on vinyl at the show and have been spinning ever since. Her lyrics are vulnerable, existential, and relatable while her voice is low, but lilting. I’m so glad I decided to go to that show and she has since become one of my favorite artists.

My favorites are “Soon,” “Slow Mover,” “Missing Me,” “Push,” and “Pasta.”

The Show—Niall Horan

I will always have the best memories of walking around Glasgow on my 24th birthday listening to this album in preparation for seeing Niall play at TRNSMT later that night. So much had to fall in just the right place for this weekend to happen the way it did. Usually the festival takes place the second weekend in July, but this particular year, the year I happened to be in Scotland, it fell over the first weekend of the month, which also happened to be my birthday weekend. And across the whole weekend, so many of my favorites were playing including Inhaler and the 1975, but on my actual birthday I got to see Niall Horan and George Ezra. Aside from obvious superstar that Harry Styles became after One Direction, Niall Horan is objectively the next best solo One Direction member and this album firmly cements him in that position. He sounds amazing, he puts on a great show, and while I still think his songwriting isn’t quite there yet, it’s still really good, but I just think it’s missing something that could make it great. It was also super fun seeing Niall just over a month after I saw Harry Styles on the first of his two nights playing in Edinburgh. As I had been writing my dissertation about pop fandoms and had been thinking about my own experience in the One Direction fandom, it was cathartic and healing to revisit that music and those artists while I was writing academically about them.

My favorites are “Heaven,” “If You Leave Me,” “Meltdown,” “The Show,” “Save My Life,” “On A Night Like Tonight,” and “Must Be Love.”

Light, Dark, Light Again—Angie McMahon

This album came out shortly after I came home from the UK and when I was still emotionally unpacking everything that happened, so much like the year before, I was in no place mentally to be listening to new music. But a year after that, in my attempt on the day of the Angie show to learn the new songs, sitting in a Commonplace Coffee, I thought “She did it again.” Once again, Angie McMahon has written the perfect collection of songs for overthinkers, chronic existential crisis havers, and excessive worriers. What I mean is me, she’s written songs for me and everyone else like me who feels so much about everything both on a macro global level and a micro personal one. I received this album on vinyl for Christmas and feel satisfied that my Angie McMahon collection is complete, should the internet ever go down and I’m left with only my analog collections of vinyls, DVDs, and books (as I’ve often worried will happen one day.) Also for any fans of Shrinking on Apple TV (which you should 1000% check out if you haven’t already,) you might recognize her song “Letting Go” which played during an episode in this latest season.

My favorites are “Saturn Returning,” “Fireball Whiskey,” “Letting Go,” “Divine Fault Line,” “Mother Nature,” “Black Eye,” “Exploding,” and “Serotonin.”

The Forest is the Path—Snow Patrol

As I wrote in my Favorite Albums of 2024, this album is a long-awaited return to form by one of my favorite bands that everyone seems to love to hate. Lead singer Gary Lightbody has spoken before about his several bouts of writer’s block which is what largely contributes to the large gaps between albums. But even when he loses it, he always gets it back again and this album is no different. To me, this album is like a greatest hits but it’s all new material. What I mean is that even though these songs are new, I can still hear elements of past albums in the songs, like “These Lies” lyrically parallels “Chocolate” from 2006’s Eyes Open or “Everything’s Here and Nothing’s Lost” sounding like “Shut Your Eyes.” Maybe because Snow Patrol are an Irish-Scottish band, with the vast majority of band members being from Northern Ireland but the band formed in Dundee, Scotland, their music just sounds like the UK to me. Say what you like about Snow Patrol, but you can rip them and this album from my cold dead hands.

My favorites are “All,” “Everything’s Here and Nothing’s Lost,” “Your Heart Home,” “This Is The Sound Of Your Voice,” “Years That Fall,” “These Lies,” “What If Nothing Breaks?,” “Talking About Hope,” and “The Forest Is The Path.”

I had a few options for how I wanted to handle these albums that were on the list, but I already knew and loved—I could have just ignored them or quietly removed them from the list, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to talk about albums that really feature prominently in my life. But it also didn’t make sense to dedicate solo pieces to each of these albums, mostly because they’ve already become so integrated into my life and my day to day that I don’t know that I could fully describe what they mean to me. But I hope these little blurbs give you an idea.