It’s been another very full on year here in AUK Towers, a year in which we got bombarded with albums but more than that, by the four minute pieces of music which make them up – we must have been sent when you include the album tracks easily in excess of 10 thousand songs to listen to, and as I have noted in recent years, it’s the timeless art of the song which resonates with me more than ever. It’s made me, like I suspect a lot of the population these days, struggle to listen to albums in one go, much to my shame. There are exceptions – album of the year for me was undoubtedly Briscoe’s “Heat of July” whose first half in particular has been played in rotation basically since it came out. I also thought Paul Kelly’s “Seventy” was the strongest album from the Australiana legend in many years, and Chicago’s Truman Sinclair’s “American Recordings” released right back at the beginning of the year feels like we’re right at the start of a really promising recording career – who knows what the future holds. Anyway, there is some good to come out of my writers block on albums. I pushed for us to start our “Best Americana Song ever” feature this year which some among us thought was too wide or challenging, but it’s actually been a great exercise, the point of lists of course being that they are one person’s opinion, there to be agreed with or argued against (sorry for the “needless to say I had the last laugh” vibes there). So in that light, here are my top 20 songs of the year. As a reader commented two years back now, they’re “soft and samey” – which will indeed be the epitaph on my gravestone.
20. Briscoe “Saving Grace”
Briscoe are an Austin duo whose new album “Heat of July” we reviewed earlier this year – scoring it a 9 out of 10, our writer commented “the songs here have an easy swing; a polish of skill and touch, but combined with the looseness of a campfire singalong.” ‘Saving Grace’ is the opener which according to the band “captures the singular experience of loving someone in a way unlike anything you’ve ever known”. It easily could have swapped places with the more plaintive ‘Escudilla’ from the same album, but their music is just so solidly rounded and gives me an idiot grin every time I listen.
19. Francis Whitney “Something I Wanted”
Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Frances Whitney identifies as a songwriter before all else (but also apparently identifies as Daisy the dog). Unlike most AUK writers who can barely get up a shallow flight of stairs, she was until recently a professional volleyball player, but one who spent much of her downtime with her guitar. As soon as she retired from sports and made her way back to the States, she also returned home to her identity as a musician. Her music has that kind of nostalgic LA 70s vibe to it but also one which has modern indie nods in terms of its production and arrangement, and ‘Something I Wanted’ is a good example of this – it’s just a beautifully earnest song about longing.
18. Wednesday “Elderberry Wine”
Wednesday are a band from North Carolina who include within their studio members the great MJ Lenderman, and their comback song for this year ‘Elderberry Wine’ saw them move away from their more shoegazey and heavily fuzzed-out leanings into a pedal-steel dripping slice of pure Americana. As lead singer Karly Hartzman notes, ““Elderberry Wine” is about the potential for sweet things in life (love, family, success) to become poison if not prepared for and attended to correctly. Elderberry is known as a healing fruit, and is an ingredient in many tonics and syrups to aid the immune system. One time, however, my sister consumed them raw, and it immediately induced vomiting. So “Elderberry Wine” is ultimately a love song about creating just the right environment for fulfillment. There’s a delicate balance that needs to be created, especially in love, for two lives to intersect without poisoning each other.”
17. Truman Sinclair “Dustland”
One of my great discoveries this year partly courtesy of my son – more on that tomorrow – was Truman Sinclair, a stupidly talented 23 year old musician from Chicago who had been playing in bands since he was 8, first in the emo and metal scenes before transforming into a purveyor of sublime singer-songwriter material. Just at the tail end of this year he released a new song ‘Dustland’ which he describes as “about coming of age and finding something to fight for in the chaos” and that fight contains two and a half minutes of folk-rock goodness. He’s meant to be heading over to the UK for dates next year which is very exciting, worth stayintg up on a school night for.
16. Moose Loon “Long Time No See”
Moose Loon is the solo project of Bendigo Fletcher’s frontman and songwriter, Ryan Anderson, and they released this single earlier this year full of summer vibes with a country flair. About the song Anderson says “‘long time no see’ is an offering to those who keep my heart soft from far away, the ones who are with me and the ones out in the wild.” The worst thing about it is it’s one of those lower case song titles which makes it look like as a journalist you’re either slapdash and can’t be arsed or you’re functionally illiterate (as a reflection on us, not you Ryan). It’s still not as bad as GospelbeacH mind you.
15. Icarus Phoenix “Poor Sad Everything”
An end-of-year list without Icarus Phoenix for me would be like a day without oxygen, and 2025’s output was as prolific as ever. Probably my most played song was the golf-game stroke getting it on ‘Love’ which I found I ended up knowing word for word, but since even by our own broad definition of americana it’d be a hard push to describe it as such, so instead I’m going for ‘Poor Sad Everything’ which has such Mercury Rev-Holes vibes to it that you’re half expecting it to morph into a cover as it plays. It never does of course and stands up as an incredible song in its own right. As Drew comments: “Sometimes a moment of beauty stays with us. A moment that shines through brilliantly and sears itself into our brain. We’re lucky to experience said moment. We recognize that. So we write it down. Document it. Save it for later. We go back in our memory when times are hard. Something that gives life meaning. Purpose. Joy. Well….times are hard.”.
14. Paul Kelly “Take it Handy”
Australian legend, not an overused word in this case, Paul Kelly returned in 2025, barely a year having passed since his previous record, with one of the best albums he’s released in years. “Seventy” celebrates seven zero years of existence with a hallmark jangle guitar that goes right back to the Messenger era. More than anything, he just seems like he’s enjoying life so much these days and through that is creating some of the most convincing music of his career. There’s a wonderful new version of ‘The Magpies’ which originally appeared on the ambitious “Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds” album, but it’s the subject of crows pecking at the bones of the Roman Statesman Cicero on the song ‘Take It Handy’ which stands out on the new album over and above all other tracks – well, all but one.
13. Bright Eyes “1st World Blues”
If you’d told me at the beginning of the year a topical ska-inflected song would end up on my best of the year list, I’d have presumed we’d been hacked but ‘1st World Blues’ from Conor Oberst’s Bright Eyes arrived with a Jared Sherbert–directed video and contains classic lines such as “Reaganomics was my favourite subject” and “all these babies snorting coke while your older brother’s smoking crack”. According to Oberst, “‘1st World Blues’ is an homage to ska in all its waves.. From Desmond Decker to Tim Armstrong, we’re just happy to add our track to the bin. The video is inspired by NYC ’90s hip hop, which like ska, has a long tradition of unifying people and using celebratory music to convey subversive political themes. To be played loud. Windows down. Summertime.”
12. Jesse Welles “Friends”
Jesse Welles released his debut studio album “Red Trees and White Trashes”, in 2018 which kind of passed us by, we’re not that hip, and has played with a variety of artists in recent years including Margo Price, but in 2024, Welles garnered attention on social media for writing and performing folk protest songs, including ‘The Poor’, ‘Cancer’, ‘The Olympics’ and ‘United Health’, as well as the superb ‘War Isn’t Murder’, a track about the Gaza genocide. Vulture has described his music as “A mix of old-fashioned folkie signifiers and trending-topic populism, delivered in hooky snippets on social media several times weekly” and he’s also been described as a modern Woody Guthrie. If you want to see how lovely his fans are, have a delve here for multiple interpretations on the lyrics of this song ‘Friends’ released at the start of this year.
11. Keaton Henson “Don’t I Just”
Keaton Henson has released six studio albums, a graphic novel and a book of poetry among other things but has always shied away from media coverage which is a shame when you think about some of the people to definitively not shy away from coverage who maybe should. In his own words on the opening track to his latest album “Parader” he says: “I think Don’t I Just acts as a bridge from more of my known sound to the Parader sound. It gradually grows out of something quiet to something more outwardly snarky, culminating in something loud and brash. Musically, it feels to me directly influenced by the local bands of my youth, fuzzy and tuned down with lazily strummed open chords. Lyrically, it’s pretty much me at max self-loathing, but in a newly snarky way. A half-hearted anthem to the moments in life where you just give up trying to be better and surrender to the mess that you are.”
