No artists who currently call Minnesota home made Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 best albums of 2025, but several acts who used to did.
Former Hüsker Dü punk legend Bob Mould and the Hold Steady’s Edina-reared frontman Craig Finn each landed on the list with their respective solo albums. Finn’s more melodic and contemplative “Always Been” — produced by the War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel — came in at No. 64 on the list, while Mould’s rageful “Here We Go Crazy” was ranked at No. 90.
Another act who’s maintained a Twin Cities residency off and on over the past two decades alongside his home and studio near Eau Claire, Wis., Justin Vernon, took the No. 59 spot with his latest (and apparently last-for-a-while) Bon Iver album, “Sable, Fable.” And even though Lizzo’s 2025 release, “My Face Still Hurts from Smiling,” was billed as a mixtape and not an album, the decadelong Minneapolis resident also made it to No. 97 on the list, whose top entry was Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
One artist with a Minnesota zip code, Samia, made Rolling Stone’s list of 100 best songs. Her ode to unsolved cow mutilations, “Bovine Excision,” came in at No. 70 on that tally. Two other locally rooted acts also made the best songs list, Big Thief (“Incomprehensible”) at 51 and Hotline TNT (“Julia’s War”) at 72, both fronted by Minnesota natives.
Here’s the top 20 in Rolling Stone’s “Best Albums of 2025” tally with the ex-Minnesotans entries below it.
- 1: Bad Bunny, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”
- 2: Lady Gaga, “Mayhem”
- 3: Rosalía, “Lux”
- 4: Dijon, “Baby”
- 5: Geese, “Getting Killed”
- 6: Clipse, “Let God Sort Em Out”
- 7: Tyler Childers, “Snipe Hunter”
- 8: Wednesday, “Bleeds”
- 9: Hayley Williams, “Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party”
- 10: Playboi Carti, “Music”
- 11: FKA Twigs, “EUSEXUA”
- 12: Addison Rae, “Addison”
- 13: Sabrina Carpenter, “Man’s Best Friend”
- 14: Earl Sweatshirt, “Live Laugh Love”
- 15: Taylor Swift, “The Life of a Showgirl”
- 16: Silvana Estrada, “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias”
- 17: Billy Woods, “Golliwog”
- 18: Carter Faith, “Cherry Valley”
- 19: Olivia Dean, “The Art of Loving”
- 20: Justin Bieber, “Swag”
Also:
- 59: Bon Iver, “Sable, Fable”
- 64: Craig Finn, “Always Been”
- 90: Bob Mould, “Here We Go Crazy”
- 97: Lizzo, “My Face Still Hurts from Smiling”
