The Best Books of 2025
Our Best Books of 2025 draws from inventive authors and scrappy publishers. Has there ever been a better time to be a reader than these tumultuous times?
PopMatters Staff
The Best Music of 2025/Feature Sub Head/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Lists/Music/Music Features/PopMatters Picks
The 10 Best Soul/R&B Albums of 2025
In these challenging times, the best soul and R&B albums walked tall and carried a big stick, while also being a much-needed balm and source of warmth.
The Best Music of 2025/Feature Sub Head/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Lists/Music/Music Features/PopMatters Picks
The 30 Best Rock Albums of 2025
This was another noteworthy year for the best rock music. Some artists followed a debut with a stunning second LP and mainstays showed a return to form or evolved.
12 Horror Movies That Burrow Into Our Psyches
These 12 psyche-burrowing, Halloween-perfect horror movies indulge our damned desire to explore the dark inner recesses of our selves and society.
Music/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Lists/Music Features/PopMatters Picks/The Best Music of 2025
The 70 Best Albums of 2025 So Far
The 70 best albums of 2025 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.
The 15 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2015
No year in the best hip-hop was as eclectic as 2015, representing various gender identities, sexualities, geographies, worldviews, and genre infusions.
The 100 Most Memorable 1999 Albums
PopMatters recently turned 25, and these memorable 1999 albums celebrate the popular music that defined the year of our birth, for better or worse.
The 50 Best Albums of 2005
Journey back 20 years, listen to the best albums of 2005, and hear the state of the art. It was an era of brilliant veterans and bold, new innovators.
Between the Grooves of Radiohead’s ‘The Bends’ at 30
Radiohead’s first musically important album, The Bends is 30. It’s where the group’s experimental inclinations initially took flight.
The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2005
Jump back 20 years, listen to the best jazz albums of 2005, and hear the state of the art. It was an era of brilliant veterans and bold, new innovators.
Music/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Lists/Music Features/Pop Past/PopMatters Picks/The Best Music of 2005
The 10 Best Electronic Albums of 2005
Jump back 20 years, listen to the best electronic albums of 2005, and hear the era’s state of the genre’s art. It was a highly innovative and influential time.
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The 80 Best Albums of 2024
The best albums of 2024 challenged orthodoxies, blended and created new genres, and spanned a vast range of musical styles and traditions, while looking forward.