New year, new episode of our Waste or Taste podcast!

Let's leave the hype for these records in 2025.

"I’m really just getting an outlet to talk about things that I’m going through every single day. And luckily, I have a lot of fucked up material to work with." A conversation with the rapper who's posted a verse every day this year

For our latest edition of The Producers, we spoke to alt-R&B innovator KeiyaA, who broke down songs by artists like Brandy, Britney Spears, and Nine Inch Nails, and explains how they Influenced her brillaint sophomore album 'Hooke's Law'.

The title track from the latest Destroyer album, 𝘋𝘢𝘯'𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦, sounds like cruise music for a cruise that has been lost in the Bermuda Triangle for decades

Cindy Lee live is more of a haunting than a concert. Here's why it was one of our favorite shows this year:

“Love Takes Miles” makes me want to dance like Charlie Brown characters in a room with everyone I love, and really, what greater compliment in life is there?

Long Island rapper-producer Theravada is a healthy skeptic. On his standout album 'The Years We Have', The collapse of empire isn’t enough to scare him—he’ll be here, Maharishi sweatpants on, ready to shoot basketballs through your complacency.

Not all songwriters are tortured poets, but the good ones—like Fortunato Durutti Marinetti—at least respect the cruelty of an empty page, the thankless hunt for an apt metaphor, and the effort required to tame stray thoughts into lines worth singing

Tunisian producer Kadijah Al Hanafi’s '!OK!' candy-colored approach to dancefloor chants, obscure R&B and soul samples will have you ready to inline skate your way through a brick wall.

Haunted synth folk, top-tier rap shit-talk, dance music that hits like a mini meditation retreat, and a power-pop strummer guaranteed to make you forget it's winter for at least one minute

Music that made Julianne actually feel something when the easiest alternative was to dissociate from the chaos, from glittering techno to sub-bassy pop to innovative folk to Katseye's "Gnarly"

Niontay's 'Fada<3of$' (pronounced 'For The Love Of Money') throws the New York-via-Florida-via-Milwaukee rapper-producer into the voids of capitalism and stardom and sees him emerge with a cheetah-skin Nike tech.

Five older albums from that were new to us in 2025, including a woozy sophistipop joint from a British songwriter and guitarist, a classic hip-hop record from a pair of Brooklyn bruisers, and a drum’n’bass DJ set taped to cassette at a rave in ’93

In the spring, powers that be tried to silence Kehlani after she made her pro-Palestine views clear. Then she released one of the best songs of her career, which quickly became her biggest hit to date. It felt like a sweet kind of cosmic justice.

From Bay Area swag rap and psychedelic freakouts to a euphoric footwork/juke/rap hybrid, these are Dylan's favorite independent rap records of 2025

Berlin producer Jasss' criminally overlooked 𝘌𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘉𝘶𝘺𝘦𝘳𝘴 is all decay and sludge, with synths set to “corroded battery” and bass tones summoned from the bottom of the sea, where only the most awesomely ugly fish live

Why did it take a team of seven writers, composers, and producers to craft a SOPHIE ripoff?

Including nu-metal for centrist whiners, an epic misreading of Hamlet, and a celebrity freestyle that plays like a comedy skit spoofing old rappers

From drizzly digital grunge to jackhammering club music, lo-fi guitar explorations to glacial jazz standards, this is the music that moved me most this year. www.hearingthings.co/andys-favori...

At this point, I’m tempted to hold a permanent place on all of my future year-end lists for Claire Rousay—she’s that good, that consistent

Psychedelic easy-listening? Soundtracks to imaginary noir cartoons? It’s experimental, but it’s also a record you could put on at a dinner party with no problem, and maybe even get an impromptu dance party started in the process

Nothing clarifies one’s taste like writing for a publication that you run with your friends, where you can cover whatever catches your ear. Even more clarifying: putting together a year-end list of your favorite music for that very same publication!

Watch the Elijah Wood episode of 𝘐 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘓𝘈, just trust me www.hearingthings.co/i-love-la-po...

Shout out to @hearingthingsco.bsky.social for putting so many cool releases on my radar this year that I wouldn't have heard of before.

Trombone solo: check. Stereolab-style wordless backing vocals ping-ponging from left to right across your headphones: check. Multiple key changes: check, check, check.

"I wanted to shake myself after all of the trauma of the pandemic and these walls that I put up. The older you get, it can be harder to part all of the mud and get back to the idea that there are good things in this life if you let yourself find them."

If I die tomorrow, bury me in this groove

𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘺𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 is the only podcast I’ve ever heard that’s as emotionally rewarding as some of my favorite music

”If people are telling you going on the road is the only way to make money, be very wary about who’s saying it. I’ve never made any money touring.”

This holiday season give your favorite music obsessive the gift of Hearing Things! Because no one needs *𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦* a cheese board in the shape of a turntable.

Thrashy punk en español, brolic drum ‘n’ bass, post-punk hip-hop, goth dembow, slinky-cool new wave, and a contender for the shortest punk song ever—two juiced-up seconds of chunk guitar and the crew screaming “NEW YORK”? Yes

I tell Westerman his aching ballad ”Spring“ is the type of song Adele could sing. “That’s what my dad said,” he responds. “Those are good songs. Maybe I should try to give it to Adele.”

"What's that thing? The Beatles played it, I'd better check it out."

Chatting with the club DJ/producer about her fiery new music, 10 years of her party and label Magic City, and being one of New York's most reliable partystarters.

“I’m shredding because I’m trying to be like Jimi Hendrix.”

According to Hiatus Kaiyote bassist Paul Bender, this AI scam problem is “symbolic of how little these tech people give a fuck about actual music and the people who make it.”

"People can write really emotional songs, but if the production doesn’t match that emotional arc or contribute to it in a major way, it will fall flat."

"I don’t know why, but there is something about that instrument that makes you want to play slow, melancholic music on it."

Ambling freedom suits Westerman—𝘈 𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘢𝘭’𝘴 𝘞𝘦𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 is easily his most engrossing album to date

Just when we thought we'd make it through the year without the one anthemic pop song that unites everyone in either love or disdain, Ice Spice has swept in.

Art-pop innovator Sophie and country cult hero Blaze Foley both had suspiciously AI-sounding new material posted to their pages recently—odd choices of artists to target for a scam, considering that Sophie died in 2021 and Foley in 1989

"Charli XCX's 𝘗𝘰𝘱 𝟤 and the 𝘕𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝟣 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭 mixtape are some of the best pop music ever—crazy shit, especially at that time"

Ceebo's 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘦𝘴 includes some of the most tremendous world-building I’ve heard in years, on a gloomy, gleaming slate of beats by producers like Jim Legxacy and afrosurrealist

“I could feel my windpipe starting to close, so I made my peace with the fact that I was probably going to die.”

Max B is free. We're all excited to see what's next for the New York icon, but after being in prison for 16 years, let's also consider giving him some room to breathe.

"The violin is an instrument that used to bring the party. Even the white people in 𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴, they got their little jig they do. The violin is not a color. It’s just a vibe to bring people together.”

Anyone willing to shell out a few dollars per month for online music distributors like DistroKid or CD Baby is welcome to set up an account—and, if they so desire, to start flooding their favorite bands’ profiles with the shittiest music imaginable

Will Westerman is perched atop a grassy burial mound dotted with more than a dozen gravestones as he recounts the time a bowl of noodles nearly killed him...

Claire Rousay emphasizes that a piece of music is only as good as the person making it—regardless of what equipment they own. It’s an increasingly relevant point amid our era of AI slop, when anyone can pump out a constant stream of robot drivel.