The Worst Albums of 2025

Last year, for a bit of end-of-year fun in my newsletter, I decided to explore the records that the critical community had deemed the very worst of 2024.

The resulting journey—from SOPHIE to Katy Perry, via Ice Spice, ZAYN, and more landfill indie bands than a mid-tier UK festival line-up—was a wild ride. Occasionally, the record in question seemed unfairly maligned (Personal Trainer); more often than not, however, it was egregiously bad (Eminem, Bleachers, Jennifer Lopez).

It was particularly fascinating to consider the wider selection, and what it said about the state and mindset of modern music criticism:

Today’s writers have almost become too kind. We celebrate new releases and tend to sidestep things we don’t like. Essentially, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

It’s a nice mantra, but the natural end-point of #bekind criticism is a situation where everything is ostensibly good or great, leaving the reader none the wiser. This leads us to a perfectly valid question: What’s the point of music critics?

Heavy stuff for an end-of-year post, but it’s equally valid this year. Let’s dig into the figures.

Popular music aggregator Album of the Year collates reviews from a large number of sources—No Ripcord included—and generates an average critic score (out of 100) for every album of note. Unlike the more widely known Metacritic, AOTY focuses exclusively on music and therefore covers a greater number of releases, making it the ideal choice for this exercise.

In 2025, AOTY has aggregated a total of 232 albums with 10 or more critic reviews.

212 of these have an average critic score of 70/100 or above, which means they’re off the hook.

As a side note, this means 91.3% of notable new releases bagged an average score of 7/10 or higher. At No Ripcord, where we pride ourselves on a more balanced grading system, that figure was considerably lower at 73.7%.

The more astute mathematicians among you will have deduced that this leaves us with a satisfyingly round selection of 20 albums—which can reasonably be described as the year’s worst, or at the very least, the 20 records critics felt comfortable branding as such. We’ll touch on that more as we work through the list.

20. Sleep Token
Even In Arcadia
(RCA)

Sleep Token’s jarring fusion of pop and progressive metal really divided the critics. While Pitchfork and Sputnikmusic seemed to revel in putting the boot in, Kerrang! and Metal Hammer deemed Even In Arcadia end-of-year list-worthy. I’m not a fan. It sounds like Bastille making an unwanted foray into the metal arena—overly polite, bland, and utterly unremarkable.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

19. Franz Ferdinand
The Human Fear
(Domino)

“Ultimately, the brutal truth is that three half-decent tracks represent a meagre return for a band that once seemed a few steps ahead of their contemporaries. Those days are clearly gone, never to return.”

Those were my initial thoughts on The Human Fear, and my views haven’t softened. God Is In The TV proclaimed it their #14 album of the year—one place ahead of Ash—but most other critics seem to have swiftly moved on.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

18. Melody’s Echo Chamber
Unclouded
(Domino)

Music writers don’t exactly love a December release, and Unclouded—Melody Prochet’s fourth album as Melody’s Echo Chamber—arrived bang in the middle of EOY season. To be fair, this rating feels fair for a solidly impressive dream-pop record that just lacks a change of gear. It certainly doesn’t belong on a list of worst albums.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

17. The Weeknd
Hurry Up Tomorrow
(XO / Republic)

The first of many global megastars on this list, The Weeknd’s critical fortunes took a sharp downturn with Hurry Up Tomorrow, a bloated, self-indulgent mess of a record. Did the rot start with Abel Tesfaye’s grotesquely bad 2023 TV show, The Idol, or is it due to the continued ubiquity of Blinding Lights? The answer seems academic at this point. The consensus seems to be that Tesfaye is a fading force, and in this case, I tend to agree.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

16. Cardi B
AM I THE DRAMA?
(Atlantic)

A sharply produced fusion of pop and Hip Hop, AM I THE DRAMA is the first of several uppercase-styled records on this list. I have observed over the years that typographic experimentations often signify a paucity of ideas and an air of trying too hard. Another record that really should be on this list, Tobias Jesso Jr’s s h i n e, is a great example of this. AM I THE DRAMA isn’t particularly dramatic, but it’s not a total clunker. I’m really not sure what 2020 single “WAP” is doing on here, though.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

15. Neil Young
Talkin To The Trees
(The Other Shoe / Reprise)

Neil Young is an 80-year-old legend with an immense catalogue behind him. It’s no surprise that Talkin To The Trees fails to reach the heights of his best work, but it’s a solid little record with a few pleasing highlights. The Elon Musk-baiting “Lets Roll Again” (“If you're a fascist, then get a Tesla”) is the best of the bunch.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

14. Miley Cyrus
Something Beautiful
(Columbia)

Miley Cyrus’s last album, 2023’s Endless Summer Vacation, delivered acclaim, success, and a new signature song in “Flowers.” To her credit, Cyrus chose to follow that by making a sharp left turn on Something Beautiful. Critics gushed over Addison Rae’s Addison, but this is the bolder, more accomplished work. If you don’t believe me, start with the Brittany Howard feature, “Walk of Fame,” and take it from there.

AOTY Critic Score: 69

13. The Black Keys
No Rain, No Flowers
(Easy Eye / Warner)

By some strange quirk of fate, the thirteenth album by The Black Keys wound up being the thirteenth worst-reviewed of the year. The narrow range of scores for No Rain, No Flowers suggests that most critics just found it inoffensively middling, but in an age of no-contact criticism, that’s enough to condemn an unapologetically average record to a list like this.

AOTY Critic Score: 68

12. Frost Children
SISTER
(True Panther / Dirty Hit)

If you’re still nostalgic for early 2000s EDM and dance-pop, SISTER has you covered. I couldn’t be more indifferent to this record if I tried.

AOTY Critic Score: 67

11. The Darkness
Dreams On Toast
(Cooking Vinyl)

Yeah, this absolutely belongs here.

AOTY Critic Score: 67

10. Central Cee
CAN’T RUSH GREATNESS
(Columbia)

Another uppercase title, another critical flop. Central Cee’s huge success, brash claims, and polished persona led to questions over his authenticity—a boring line of debate, regardless of genre—before CAN’T RUSH GREATNESS even dropped. However, the brutal truth is that UK rap contemporaries (and “Sprinter” collaborators) Dave and Jim Legxacy released far superior records this year, leaving Central Cee in the unenviable position of sounding like yesterday’s man on his own debut album.

AOTY Critic Score: 67

9. Alison Goldfrapp
Flux
(A.G. Records)

There’s nothing particularly offensive about Flux, but there are no distinguishing features beyond Goldfrapp’s typically impressive vocals either. The songwriting is flat, and the tempos are strikingly pedestrian.

AOTY Critic Score: 65

8. Kesha
.
(Kesha)

Kesha’s first independently released album . (“Period”) is a restless hodgepodge of hooks and ideas—the sound of freedom, I guess, after her well-documented legal battle with former producer, Dr Luke. I’ve never been a fan, but this sounds like a solid mid-tier pop record to me.

AOTY Critic Score: 65

7. Mumford & Sons
RUSHMERE
(Island)

Mumford & Sons have never fared well with the critics. Indeed, RUSHMERE has performed better than their last three albums, but listening to the band run through the same tedious playbook, you do wonder who even cares at this point?

AOTY Critic Score: 64

6. Justin Bieber
SWAG
(Def Jam / ILH Productions)

It’s all big hitters from here on in. Justin Bieber’s SWAG (more uppercase shenanigans) started promisingly enough, only to drop off a quality cliff a third of the way through. A torrent of badly executed skits forms the rancid cherry on top of this catastrophic misstep.

AOTY Critic Score: 61

5. Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco
I Said I Love You First
(Friends Keep Secrets / Interscope)

I Said I Love You First is serviceable mid-tempo pop music with a smugly self-satisfied vibe. The engagement gift no one asked for, basically.

AOTY Critic Score: 61

4. Taylor Swift
The Life of a Showgirl
(Republic)

Reviewing last year’s The Tortured Poets Department, I wondered, “Could this be the beginning of [Swift’s] artistic decline?” The Life of a Showgirl adds further weight to this hypothesis.

Writing about a cultural phenomenon with an obsessive fanbase is a risky business at the best of times—we received some hateful messages simply for not covering this one—but reading the reviews for Showgirl, it seems the critical mass has shifted sufficiently for writers to feel comfortable pointing out flaws in the music of Taylor Swift. Finally. Perhaps the tipping point came with “Wood,” the musical equivalent of a badly timed dick joke? Sadly, in stark contrast to her subject matter, the inexplicably immature Showgirl sounds small and underwhelming.

AOTY Critic Score: 61

3. Tame Impala
Deadbeat
(Columbia)

My listening note from Deadbeat’s release week: “Lame Impala. Exudes the fetid whiff of a decaying career.” I’m not going back for another listen.

AOTY Critic Score: 60

2. Ed Sheeran
Play
(Gingerbread Man / Atlantic UK)

Whether you view him as a lovable scamp or a loathsome purveyor of elevator music, everyone has an opinion on Ed Sheeran. Critics generally adopt a negative one, it has to be said, but is Play really that bad? If we’re being honest, it absolutely is. It’s beyond bad—it’s utterly hateful, generic, lowest common denominator slop, devoid of any redeeming characteristic, and capable of transforming a beaming smile into a pained grimace in mere seconds. In a strong field, this has to be the worst record of the year.

AOTY Critic Score: 60

1. Arcade Fire
Pink Elephant
(Columbia)

Or…is it Pink Elephant? No. It’s definitely Play. It’s true that Arcade Fire’s seventh album finds the Canadian band in heavily diminished form, but the allegations against Win Butler are surely a factor in the savage critical response. Is this really any worse than WE, or the ghastly Everything Now? Not really, but the magic has gone, and the band’s chief creative force, who I should stress has denied the allegations, remains heavily tainted. Arcade Fire’s first three records are their best and will almost certainly remain their best. And next to those, Pink Elephant sounds like a joyless, hollow retread.

AOTY Critic Score: 56

So, there you have it. Some middling records, some terrible ones, and Ed Sheeran’s irredeemable Play, which deserves its own category. But what did we learn?

1. Debutants Get Off Lightly

The only debut release here is Central Cee’s CAN’T RUSH GREATNESS. Critics feel less comfortable hammering a newcomer, but if that newcomer is already rich and successful, they are probably fair game.

2. Uppercase Titles Fare Badly

Stop messing around with typography, people!

3. Music Critics Grade Too Highly

The tenth worst-received album of the year has an average score of 6.7/10. That’s a pretty respectable score in my book. If all music is rated relatively highly, how are we supposed to know which releases truly are worth our time? This is something I wrote about earlier in the year, which ties in with No Ripcord’s mantra of honest music criticism.

4. It was a bad year for Columbia

With four albums on this list—three in the top ten—it’s clear that Columbia had a 2025 to forget. I’d almost feel bad for them if you weren’t foisting Ed Sheeran records on us. Which brings us onto…

5. Ed Sheeran Really Is Terrible

We knew this already, of course, and yet he’s somehow getting worse.

This irreverent journey through the virtual bargain bin of 2025 releases has come to an end. I’m signing off for 2025 and will be back in January with a more positive approach to new music, in what promises to be a big year for No Ripcord. Juan and I truly value your support and hope you will keep reading our work in 2026.