The 10 Greatest Worldwide Albums of 2025
As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the global sounds that expanded horizons. Here is a countdown of ten notable albums that shaped the year in music.
10. Sarathy Korwar – There Is Beauty, There Already
A continuous, 40-minute suite of insistent drumming could sound like it isn't the most accessible musical proposition. But, Indian drummer and composer Sarathy Korwar turns this persistent pulse into a strangely alluring album. Leading an ensemble of three drummers, Korwar crafts a dense percussive language over the record's ten parts. His composition channels the phasing techniques of Steve Reich combined with traditional Indian musical phrasing, each grounded in the repetition of a ongoing, pulsing refrain. Over its duration, this refrain begins to emulate the trance-inducing cycles of devotional music, luring the listener further into Korwar's distinctive percussive world.
9. The Lebanese Artist Yasmine Hamdan – I Remember I Forget
After an hiatus of eight years, Arab singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan makes a comeback with a mournful set of songs. She expands on the Arabic-sung, dub-tinged aesthetic that established her as a fixture in the Middle Eastern independent music landscape since the 1990s. Hamdan's vocal delivery is soft and ruminative, delivering soft melodies atop the bowing strings of a track like Hon and the rumbling trip-hop groove of Vows. For more upbeat numbers such as Shadia and Abyss, she employs a wavering, yearning vocal technique against north African synth lines and clattering electronic percussion. The production is lean and restrained, yet this simplicity provides the ideal canvas for Hamdan's emotive lyricism to shine through. The album proves to be that justifies the wait.
Number Eight: The Mexican Producer Debit – Desaceleradas
Mexican producer Debit specializes in eerie reworkings of historical sounds. For her latest release, Desaceleradas, she focuses on the 90s style of cumbia rebajada – a decelerated, dub-inflected version of the shuffling Latin American dance music genre. Debit decelerates this sound down to a crawl, running its characteristic synths and syncopated rhythm via layers of sludge and static to generate a fresh, sinister beat. Periodically atmospheric and discomfiting, Debit converts the celebratory dancefloor sound of cumbia into a persistent, spectral afterimage.
Number Seven: DJ K – Radio Libertadora!
Maximalism is the operative word for the output of São Paulo producer Kaique Vieira, also known as DJ K. Pioneering his own genre of "bruxaria" (witchcraft), Vieira piles a tumult of alarms, pummeling bass tones and shouted lyrics over the longstanding Brazilian dance style of baile funk. This captures the energetic sound of neighborhood block parties. On his follow-up release, Radio Libertadora!, Vieira escalates the ferocity, adding everything from driving techno rhythms to samples of the Islamic call to prayer into his unruly bruxaria mix. The result is a notably manic and punishingly loud forty-minute sonic journey. Submit to the assault and Vieira's bold productions become strangely liberating.
6. Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Disco Punjabi
Sikh devotional singer Mohinder Kaur Bhamra's 1982 album of disco music and Punjabi folk melodies is a newly appreciated gem. Produced by her son, music producer Kuljit Bhamra, Punjabi Disco's ten tracks offer an unusually engaging combination of the sharp sound of electronic keyboards and drum machines with her ornate classical Indian vocal technique. Drum machine patterns mimics the wavelike tones of the tabla, while synth lines parallels the traditional sound of the harmonium on tracks such as Pyar Mainu Kar. Meanwhile, bossa nova rhythm comes to the fore on Soniya Mukh Tera, and Nainan Da Pyar De Gaya boasts a driving funky bass rhythm. It's a club-ready hybrid delivered over a decade before the rise of Asian Underground music.
Number Five: Enji – Sonor
Mongolian singer Enji's delicate latest record, Sonor, expands on her jazz-inflected sound to present some of her most diverse music so far. Moving away from her training in traditional Mongolian "long song" singing, the record's 11 tracks veer from the gentle Norah Jones-esque melodics of slow-burning number Ulbar to the German spoken-word lyrics and twanging guitar lines of Unadag Dugui. The album also includes a energetic, funk-inflected cover of the 1980s Mongolian classic Eejiinhee Hairaar. Utilizing a ensemble rather than her typical setup of guitar and bass, Sonor's sound remains intimate, inviting the listener into the warm acoustics of her unique voice.
4. Derya Yıldırım and Her Band – Yarın Yoksa
Drawing on the 1960s legacy of Anatolian rock established by groups such as Moğollar, German-Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım's third record alongside her group merges the electric jangle of the amplified traditional lute with dreamy keyboard and R&B-inflected lines. It's a retro-70s aesthetic anchored in Yıldırım's strong falsetto and shaped by producer Leon Michels' analogue tape sound. However, on classic Turkish songs such as the nursery rhyme Hop Bico and 60s classic Ceylan, the group ventures into dynamic new territory. They develop smooth, slow-burning grooves and soaring vocals that lend a fresh, off-kilter twist to the Anatolian psychedelic style.
Number Three: The Colombian Artist Lido Pimienta – The Beauty
Catholic requiem mass music, Eastern European folk melodies and symphonic arrangements merge on Colombian-born singer Lido Pimienta's stunning latest work. Orchestrating music for the sixty-member Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett journey through everything from the liturgical vocals of opener Overturn (Obertura de la Luz Eterna) to the dramatic counterpoint melodies of Aún Te Quiero and the rhythmic reggaeton-inspired beats of the brass and woodwind-led El Dembow del Tiempo. It is Pim
