There is no obvious consensus for the best album of 2025, partly because the release calendar was sparse on major names and partly because some of the most anticipated albums of the year (including those by Swift and Sabrina Carpenter) turned out to be disappointing. However, this also means it was a great year for discovering new artists and diving into more niche releases, the kind that will likely inspire more diverse and less predictable year-end lists. The newspaper notes that Rosalía is an inquisitive and tireless consumer of the world and its ideas, and one of those rare artists in any medium who wants to leave the places she visits better than she found them. In her new project, Rosalía sings in thirteen languages, although Spanish is the primary one. The newspaper also praises Bad Bunny's new project, which had a successful residency in Puerto Rico from July to September under the name 'No me quiero ir de aquí' (I don't want to leave here), and refers to the artist as 'the main theorist of intergenerational exchange in pop.' The list could not fail to include 'The Life of a Showgirl' (TLOAS), Taylor Swift's twelfth studio album, which, according to Times critics, is perhaps her most 'evanescent' work. 'Lux' was released three years after the success of 'Motomami' (2022) and features collaborations with artists like Björk, Carminho, Estrella Morente, Silvia Pérez Cruz, or Yves Tumor, among others. So, let Bad Bunny, the main theorist of intergenerational exchange in pop, create an album so modern and current that it also explicitly roots itself in the joys of tradition and defends them. This means songs about the pleasures of being hated, the pleasures of hating, the pleasures of being the boss, the pleasures of domestic happiness, and the pleasures of pleasure, the publication highlights.
