Words by Brian LaBenne
Brian LaBenne is a former co-host of the Best Song Ever podcast, Feats.(/Bar None) columnist, and contributor to Off Shelf along with other music publications. As a lifelong enthusiast, he has been a fan of hip-hop and r&b since middle school and now enjoys keeping up with mainstream and underground releases, and diving deep on the sampled and influencing sub-genres. Here are his top ten albums in descending order.
Titanic – Hagen (Unheard of Hope)
Hagen is an album that hinges on revelation, each song a knot waiting to be untangled. Much like finally figuring out how to loosen a knot, there’s an exhilarating moment on just about every song where things fully click into place and you understand the big picture of how the knot came to be. For this reason, I wasn’t initially sure where I’d land on this album. I’ve been a fan of Mabe Fratti’s music for several years now, but none of her work has hit me quite as hard as this album. It’s a unique take on art-pop built around Fratti’s cello and vocals, perfectly paired with I. la Católica prepared piano, guitar, keyboards and backing vocals. It really is an album that’s best to sit with and let wash over you. Don’t worry, your patience will be greatly rewarded.
Kelela – In the Blue Light (Warp Records)
What Kelela has done with this album is unlike anything I’ve heard before. This is really a study in adapting sound to naturally fit in a specific space. The space in question is New York’s legendary Blue Note jazz club, which required Kelela to strip her song’s down to a more intimate place. If this all sounds like a MTV Unplugged album, let me assure you that it is not that. Instead, it’s as if Kelela allowed these songs to find new parts of themselves, while still retaining the core of who they are. Yes the songs are stripped down a bit; however, the sequencing, the jazzier feel, the personal storytelling and, most importantly, the addition of harp elevates these songs to new heights. I can’t oversell how beautiful and spine tingling the harp is on this recording, it’s worth the price of admission just for that. If you want to hear R&B artistry at its highest-level then look no further.
End It – Wrong Side of Heaven (Flatspot Records)
And now for something completely different… Wrong Side of Heaven is a 15 song, 22 minute thrill ride of a debut album from the incredible Baltimore hardcore band End It. It’s an album that thinks and feels as hard as it pulverizes. This is catharsis that you can play loud and be cleansed by the oddly uplifting communal rage directed toward the moment we find ourselves trapped in. It’s (unfortunately) the perfect soundtrack to play through the horror of a downward spiral into fascism. Spoiler Alert: late in the album there is a song that acts as a huge pull the rug out from under you moment and was the most thrilling moment I experienced from any album this year. This is also the song that is linked here, so if you’d like to experience this in album context it is very much worth the other 19 minutes to get there.
Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer – Purity (10k) / MIKE & Tony Seltzer – Pinball II (10k)
Look, I’m always trying to find ways to work around the limitations of providing only my top 10 albums. Every year I plead with the oppressive overlord of Off Shelf and every year my pleas fall upon deaf ears… but they don’t call me the bad boy of Off Shelf for nothing! Anysia Kym and MIKE are artists I’ve enjoyed for many years now, but neither had quite broken through to the elite level that they both did this year. A lot of that has to do with Tony Seltzer’s production on both albums. I’m a simple man, I love when rap music bumps and bumps are exactly what Seltzer brings to the table with these two albums. They are very different endeavors, however. Anysia Kym’s Purity is an experimental quick burst, whereas MIKE’s Pinball II is more straightforward but still rewarding in it’s own right. Together, they’re a nice yin-yang that perfectly displays the full power of three incredible artists.
Amaarae – BLACK STAR (Golden Angel LLC / Interscope)
I’m not sure I can put a price on how much I owe Amaarae for being my entry point into modern Afrobeats music. Back in 2020 I stumbled upon her album THE ANGEL YOU DON’T KNOW (also my #6 album of that year), which at the time felt like discovering a dispatch broadcasting from some faraway planet. Since that album, Amaarae has been pivoting toward making a huge star turn, which is exactly what BLACK STAR is. This album brings the rave, putting you squarely in da club – or the abandoned old factory building or wherever raves take place these days (I honestly have no clue). Drawing on hedonistic dance music from various cultures, Amaarae delivers a manifesto on how to feel radiant, desired, and rooted all at once.
Oklou – choke enough (True Panther Records / Because Music)
No album made me cry more this year than Oklou, which is honestly saying a lot because the tears, much like the beer in Aspen, flowed like wine. Oklou is a French pop artist who makes alt-pop indietronica… no, that’s not quite right, is it minimal hyperpop? Yes, but still not quite right. Maybe it’s best described as deconstructed rave? Kind of, but isn’t it also ambient dreampop with alt-R&B inspired vocals. choke enough is all of the things and more and really dug it’s nails into me and they keep digging in further with each listen. All of these elements shouldn’t work as well as they do here, but they are all buoyed and connected by Oklou’s superpower: restraint. There’s somehow so much space to breathe amongst all of these elements and, if there was ever a time to prioritize the importance of taking a moment to breathe, it is the year of our lord, 2025.
billy woods – GOLLIWOG (Backwoodz Studioz) / Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Mercy (Backwoodz Studioz)
I’d like to title this write up, “Oops I did it again: how the bad boy of Off Shelf snuck in another album”. That’s right, I’ve combined these two incredible rap albums into a single entry with the connecting thread being billy woods, aka: the best rapper currently making music (and, honestly, in the “all time” greats conversation). Yes, billy woods is on a never-ending winning streak with both his solo work and the music he creates with E L U C I D as Armand Hammer. I have loved albums from both of these artists for many years now, but I think GOLLIWOG and Mercy could stand the test of time as their absolute best. GOLLIWOG, much like the rest of bill woods discography, is so much more than just an album. It honestly feels most like Evil Dead 2’s Necronomicon. It’s horrific but it’s alive and when you hear about the terrors and blood in woods’ lyrics, you feel the terror physically shake the book and see the blood ooze from its pages. It’s incredibly difficult, dense, and demanding. Armand Hammer generally operate in the same space, but Mercy sees the duo turn over production reigns to absolute all-star producer, The Alchemist. E L U C I D, billy woods, and an amazing cast of featured artists all rap at top form here, but Alch’s production constantly makes its case as the star of the show. This album may just be his single best full length production, which is saying a lot.
Rochelle Jordan – Through the Wall (Empire)
I’m a sucker for intricately assembled, emotionally vulnerable, dancey and fun R&B music. Thankfully, Rochelle Jordan put out a masterclass with her album Through the Wall. Sleek, upbeat, body-moving production meets amazingly delivered intimate vocals on an album that hits hard from front to back. That’s right folks, we have ourselves an album with no skips here to be sure. If that sounds a bit simplistic, don’t worry, it’s not. Rochelle’s lyricism, when you really pay attention to it, presents the dancefloor as a place of freedom, somewhere you can truly express yourself and let all the aspects of yourself come seeping out through the wall.
Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones (XL Recordings)
Back in 2023 I stumbled upon an album called Erotic Probiotic 2 by Nourished by Time and honestly, I think I listened to it just to hear what an album titled Erotic Probiotic 2 sounded like. I’m so happy I did because it ended up also being my second favorite album of 2023. The Passionate Ones is most definitely a level up album and one that makes you feel Nourished by Time is only just getting started. There’s some old school 80s R&B vocals, melodic songwriting, and heartfelt lyricism all over unique synthy indie-pop music. As a whole, The Passionate Ones serves as a great soundtrack to play as you contemplate how capitalism’s oppressive focus on profit makes living a full human life, especially as an artist, practically impossible.
Bad Bunny – Debi Tirar Mas Fotos (Rimas Entertainment)
I knew immediately, from the opening moment of Debi Tirar Mas Fotos (DTMF) when Benito yells “Nueva Yol!” that this album was going to be something special. Even with that gut feeling I wasn’t prepared for what followed. I am not a Spanish speaker, but I am very much an empath and there’s no album I felt as fully as I did with DTMF. Coming out early in the year, I’ve had so much time to listen to it, to feel it, and to research more about Bad Bunny’s love letter to Puerto Rico. Over the course of the year I discovered many other things that made my love for the album and the artist grow even more: how he recruited a band of young adults from a musical school in Puerto Rico to play throughout the album (and bring them to his Tiny Desk concert), the social media trend of Bad Bunny fans playing DTMF for their Abuelita who would get teary eyed feeling like they had been transported back to their home island, how Benito refused to tour in the United States out of a concern for ICE making their oppressive presence felt and endangering his fans. The list goes on and on, and really none of this would bring us here if the songs didn’t hit, and hit they most definitely did. This is an album that feels alive with kinetic energy and is backed up by the singular vision from one of the biggest and most important pop artists of our time.