As the good people of Bethany were heard to say to Lazarus, I thought you were dead! Welcome to the resurrection shuffle of the WIS blog with a look back at a whole year’s worth of new music. Enjoy!
First Word
When I stopped publishing the weekly edition of WIS at 5pm on Friday 15 August this year, it was my intention to keep writing on a more informal, occasional basis and publish when the muse took me. Four months of total silence later, I have finally prised open the laptop and committed a few words to virtual paper. I suppose it was inevitable that the removal of the weekly publication deadline would lead to a ‘sabbatical’ period as the pressure was off. But as the end of the year moved into focus, I decided it was time to get back on the horse, if only for one gentle trot round the paddock.
And so here we are. Although a glance at size of the playlist above tells you we are not in normal WIS territory. One outcome of stopping the weekly blog was that it allowed me to listen to a lot more new music. I would always try to keep on top of new releases but regular WIS readers (hello again!) will know that Friday nights were often focussed on tunes from the dim and distant past. With long, drawn-out stories to match.
So, this time round, the long, drawn-out stories are being put on the back burner and uncharacteristic brevity is the order of the day – well, kinda. However, the featured playlist is anything but brief, extending to a whopping 100 tunes! Over the course of the last 12 months, whenever I heard something that grabbed my attention, I would drop it into a virtual box along with other songs that interested me. I’d give them a spin sometimes and as the year wore on, I’d add more new tunes to more boxes whenever I heard something l liked on the radio or on a playlist or had something recommended to me by a friend. The big idea was to take all these virtual boxes and tip them out on to the floor, shuffle things around and add them to a single playlist which is representative of the new music I listened to in 2025.
There is a reasonably wide range of genres on show and I should be clear that I am not saying these tunes are the “best of” 2025. That being said, a quick look through some of the many end-of-year lists online suggests there is a bit of a Venn diagram going on. The only artist I’m going to specifically mention is CMAT who I felt deserved the Mercury Prize this year with the dazzling quirky pop of her third LP Euro-Country. When the brilliant When A Good Man Cries comes up on the playlist, remember where you heard her first, pop-pickers! (Hint: WIS 23Jun23 is the answer…)
There is a huge amount of music produced every year – wading through it can be daunting and all too often lead to reaching for the familiar. Why don’t you use what’s left of the festive break to explore this curated list, safe in the knowledge that if you don’t like what’s playing, there will be something else along soon that you will.
Last Word
I generated the above illustration from an online tool which analyses playlists and it shows the cover art for all 100 tracks at a very poor resolution – see if you can spot your blurry favourite. The tool also provided its own (no doubt AI-generated) description of the six and three-quarter hour playlist which is slightly patronising in tone and has only picked out three genres among many. But I thought I’d chuck it in here anyway:
A promising mix of alt-country, glam rock, and synth-pop, showcasing potentially great music from 2025.
Old readers (and they are usually always old) will be aware of another huge playlist of all the tunes I ever wrote about on the blog. This is available at the following link to any new readers who have stumbled across this nonsense under the influence of too many advocat snowballs – WeekInSoundMaster . The types of artists on there can be seen in the Frequent Flier Tag Cloud below.
As to whether this epistle from beyond the blog’s grave will encourage me to write again at some point in 2026, the jury is still out on that. But I left the subscription box in below just in case…
AR
WIS FREQUENT FLIER TAG CLOUD
Allison Russell Amy Winehouse Aztec Camera Billy Bragg Blondie Brandi Carlile David Bowie Eels Elton John Elvis Costello & The Attractions Emmylou Harris Everything But The Girl Ezra Collective Faces Gang of Four Gil Scott-Heron Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit John Grant Johnny Cash John Prine Lucinda Williams Madness Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Nick Lowe Paul Weller Prefab Sprout Public Service Broadcasting Ramones Sparks Steely Dan Steve Earle Talking Heads Taylor Swift The Beatles The Clash The Cure The Decemberists The Go-Betweens The Jam The National The Rolling Stones The Stranglers The Waterboys The Who Wilco
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