Best albums of 2025: Alison Krauss, Mavis Staples, Neko Case in all-female Top 10

It wasn’t by design or intent. But in assembling the list of my favorite albums from 2025, what initially surfaced was a roundup of nine recordings by women artists. Robert Plant’s psychedelic folk gem “Saving Grace” was the only male party crasher. Then the realization hit that S.G. Goodman’s brilliant “Planting by the Signs,” probably the best thing to hit my ears all year, had been omitted.

Sorry, Robert. We’re going to have to lose you.

And there it was. A lineup of critic’s picks for the year ruled by women. There are strong thematic links among many of the selections. Most explore songs dealing with some level of loss — sometime romantic, sometimes spiritual, sometime familial. There are exceptions, of course, as with Sierra Hull’s record of string band jubilance (“A Tip Toe High Wire”) and guitarist Mary Halvorson’s set of wondrously indefinable instrumental adventures (“About Ghosts.”) And then there is Mavis Staples, the matriarch of gospel soul singing about the horrors and hopes of the world around us.

It’s quite a company. As always, these purely subjective picks are presented as equals in no particular order — just 10 works of art of by 10 stunning women with a lot to say. Time to listen up, guys.

S.G. Goodman, Planting by the Signs

Folkish — make that folklore-ish — in design, but often intensely electric in delivery, the third album from Western Kentucky native S.G. Goodman is a stunner from beginning to end. There are songs of loss and reconciliation and small-town introspection with larger than life implications. Goodman underscores such variance and escalation throughout “Planting by the Signs,” but especially on the album-closing “Heaven Song” with a vocal wail as potent as it is otherworldly.

Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts

When championing the music of Mary Halvorson, one must be specific. As one of the most critically lauded guitarists of recent decades, she continually juggles recording and touring work with a variety of ensembles. “About Ghosts” is the newest album with her Amaryllis sextet. Bolstered by the equally engaging vibraphonist Patricia Brennan and a pair of guest saxophonists, Halvorson plays band member and composer more than guitar hero to create music that balances contemporary classical construction and jazz-rooted mischief.

Patty Griffin, Crown of Roses

On “Crown of Roses,” Patty Griffin takes us through a series of personal séances. Some are softly engaging, almost churchy. Several are less definable and more ominous. A few subtly grab you by the collar (the brittle, incantatory “Long Time”), while others quietly glide to the heavens (the elegiac centerpiece “The End.”) There are tales of family and loss, as well as works where both are linked. What we are left with is a map of survival with few easy outcomes but a bounty of Griffin’s beautifully internalized expression.

Margo Price, Hard Headed Woman

Margo Price’s first two albums were barn-burners of country restlessness, records masterful in their sense of songcraft and empowered by a voice of unwavering candor. After a few perhaps expected forays into other stylistic territories on subsequent albums as her popularity grew, Price has returned on “Hard Headed Woman” with a renewed, more learned country spirit that borrows from lessons of past masters (Kris Kristofferson being the most obvious) while further defining her own artistic profile.

Kathleen Edwards, Billionaire

Not since her exquisite debut album “Failer” has Kathleen Edwards procured a more effective electric setting for songs bearing more folk friendly narratives. The resulting music is often anthemic, as in the eulogy that envelops the album’s title tune. Credit some of the assurance in mixing personal reflection with worldly rock ‘n’ roll to “Billionaire” co-producer Jason Isbell, who dresses Edwards songs with a high-volume immediacy in ways that are often similar to the musical/emotive mix of his own fine records.

Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World

At age 86, Mavis Staples sounds steadier than ever as she brings the gospel fervor that has long defined her music to contemporary songs of strife, hard truths and, ultimately, hope. The album title sums up the mission statement of songs that seek comfort for the world’s seemingly irreparable hurt while embracing the beauty that the most severe pain cannot blemish. The Hozier/Allison Russell penned “Human Mind” chronicles such contrasts, but a hot-wired take on Tom Waits’ “Chicago” sets the spirits ablaze in a blast of ragged rock/soul fury.

Sierra Hull, A Tip Toe High Wire

Though one of the finer new generation bluegrass artists to emerge in recent years, Hull is awarded an emancipation of sorts on “A Tip Toe High Wire.” Her mandolin work more than packs the credibility to tackle the deeper rhythmic complexities of the string music she has grown into. But Hull also shows remarkable growth as vocalist, composer and producer on a fully independent recording that follows a career-rearing tenure with Rounder Records. One of the year’s bravest and most satisfying journeys into bluegrass’ more progressive outlands

Amanda Shires, Nobody’s Girl

There is a saying that the depth of a musical artist is never accurately measured until they come up with a record of heartbreak songs. Well, “Nobody’s Girl” is Amanda Shires’ three-alarm heartbreak album, her first since the full dissolve of her marriage to fellow Americana titan Jason Isbell. The record doesn’t examine the breakup, but surveys the wreckage with stark confessions like “The Details,” colored by grim piano and fiddle, along with songs of unrepentant electric grit that include “Piece of Mind.” An unflinching collection of crash-landed love songs.

Neko Case, Neon Grey Midnight Green

“If you think I’m talking about romance, you’re not listening,” sings Neko Case on her first album of new songs in seven years. “Neon Grey Midnight Green” does indeed favor love songs, but ones fashioned more as eulogies for varying stages of loss. But a moper Case is not. The album possesses a haunting but ultimately epic musical sweep, from the way “Destination” sets Case’s majestic vocals to a flight of fanciful strings to the voices that scatter like buckshot in “Wreck” to the whispering candor of “An Ice Age,” a tune born, as its first line admits, from “somewhere in the ladies’ room of my mind.”

Alison Krauss and Union Station, Arcadia

It has been 14 years since Alison Krauss’s last album with her Union Station mates, a period that has seen her further stretch a voice of sterling delicacy to myriad shades of folk and pop. Union Station has always been headquarters for music reflecting her bluegrass roots, but Krauss’ extensive moonlighting has allowed the band to become a more atmospheric workplace where her vocals turn songs of sadness and melancholy into works of almost ambient beauty. Sadness and melancholy have seldom sounded this graceful.