Social Picks: Discogs Community’s Favorite Albums of 2025 So Far

#1

Skeletá

Ghost

Few bands balance theatrical flair and sonic muscle like Ghost, and Skeletá might be their most intentional walk along that edge. It’s the band at their most playful, without sacrificing any of the grandeur. Tobias Forge’s knack for writing choruses that feel both anthemic and strangely intimate is on full display here.

Skeletá also stands out as a physical release. With multiple vinyl variants —including limited bone-colored and poltergeist editions. For collectors, this is already shaping up to be a future classic. And don’t just take our word for it, Skeletá earned more votes in our poll than the subsequent five records combined.

#2

More.

Pulp

Twenty-four years after their last studio album, We Love Life, Pulp come back not with a victory lap, but with something quieter and more deliberate. More doesn’t chase past glory, it offers a new kind of statement, one steeped in restraint, reflection, and emotional precision. The sound is lush but unhurried, built from reclined synths, aching strings, and Jarvis Cocker’s unmistakable voice, now aged, weathered, and all the more affecting for it.

Tracks like “Background Noise” drift through the mental landscape of middle age, full of longing, dry wit, and that signature British tension between glamour and grime. It’s less about spectacle, more about mood. Gone is the bombast of Different Class or This Is Hardcore; instead, More settles in and lets nuance to do the heavy lifting. The band sounds more cohesive than ever, as if time apart has only sharpened their sense of timing and taste. For fans who’ve aged alongside them, this is a record that feels like a both a mirror and a balm.

#3

Mayhem

Lady Gaga

After diving deep into ’90s house and club culture on Chromatica, Lady Gaga returns with Mayhem: a bold, genre-splintering album that reclaims the theatricality and unpredictability of her late-aughts rise. If Chromatica was Gaga seeking catharsis through dance, Mayhem is her embracing the life head-on.

From the explosive opener “Disease” to the haunted hush of “The Beast,” the album whips between extremes with intention and precision. It’s her most pop-centric album in years, but “pop” here is a loose framework. Gaga pulls from industrial dance, folk, goth rock, glam, and more, stitching everything together into something loud, vivid, and singular. It’s catchy, confrontational, a little messy, and fully committed.

#4

Instant Holograms On Metal Film

Stereolab

One of the most anticipated comebacks of the last two decades, Stereolab’s Instant Holograms On Metal Film arrives with effortless cool. They pick up right where they left off, reviving their singular blend of motorik rhythms, lounge-laced textures, and analog synth experimentation with fresh focus.

Tracks like “Melodie Is A Wound” showcase everything that made Stereolab such an enduring presence in the avant-pop world: layered guitars, hypnotic grooves, and liminal melodies that feel suspended somewhere between past and future. That duality has always been central to the group’s sound. Since the early ’90s, Stereolab have operated at the intersection of high-concept and pop accessibility, merging French New Wave aesthetics and Moog-heavy production into something surprisingly tuneful. No one else makes experimental music feel this inviting.

#5

Lonely People With Power

Deafheaven

For longtime Deafheaven fans, Lonely People With People is a welcome homecoming. Following the more subdued Infinite Granite in 2021, this record brings back the black in blackgaze. No more post-rock pastiches, the fury is back, and fans and critics alike are thankful for it.

As always, George Clarke’s vocals are piercing and fierce, sitting just as comfortably over the churning blast beats of “Doberman” as they do the shimmery reprieves of “Heathen.” Instrumentally, the band cherry-picked the best bits of the shoegaze-heavy Infinite Granite, sprinkling them throughout scenes of blissful menace in an effective 80/20 split.

The sound recalls the impact of 2013’s Sunbather — warm when you expect cold, accessible when you expect impenetrable, and fun when you’d assume self-serious. Roll down the windows, put on your shades, we’re blasting blackgaze this summer.