It’s almost 2026. Pause… does that number look fake to you? It looks fake to both of us.
If you grew up watching Blade Runner, you probably expected us to be dodging replicants in neon-soaked alleys by now. Instead, we’re still here, still human (we checked), and we still can’t get back to the moon. We got there with a calculator and dental floss in 1969, and now? We’re just trying to figure out which streaming service has the rights to that one obscure b-side.
But while the future didn’t deliver the jetpacks, 2025 delivered tons of lost music discoveries—and this year, we weren’t always in agreement about which records nailed it.
The “Wait, They Can Write?” Awards
We’ve reviewed hundreds of albums between us, but nothing beats the feeling of low expectations being completely shattered.
This year, the biggest surprises came from guys we knew strictly as shredders. When you see a solo album from a guitarist like Nuno Bettencourt (Schizophrenic) or Adrian Belew (Young Lions), you brace yourself. You expect 45 minutes of fretboard gymnastics and zero hooks.
J dug into Adrian Belew’s Young Lions and was blown away by the songwriting—something that reminded him of David Bowie’s early 80s work, but less eccentric. He picked it up Bandcamp (it’s not streaming). The production, the melodic sensibility, the whole package just connected.
Tim was equally shocked by Nuno’s diversity and songwriting strength on Schizophrenic—a record that could’ve been a vanity project but instead felt like a genuine artistic statement. No reaching for trends, just solid songwriting inspired by what was actually happening in the 90s.
Kill Holiday (Somewhere Between the Wrong Is Right) earned physical vinyl from J—a perfect storm of emo, shoegaze, and new wave that shouldn’t work on paper but sounds incredible on wax. Those moody, driving hooks? Unforgettable. If you missed that episode, go back. It’s the kind of record that makes you want to drive around at night pretending you’re in a movie.
Don’t Judge an Album by Its Single
We all have those bands we wrote off because their single was played every 14 minutes on MTV.
For Tim, that band was Eve 6. You know the song. You’ve heard the “heart in a blender” line enough times to last several lifetimes. Tim had pretty much despised that single since the late 90s, lumping it in with Lit and Vertical Horizon—all those overplayed pop-punk singles that got shoved down our throats until we tuned out.
But when we actually sat down with the self-titled album? It was smart. It was hooky. It was… good?
So here’s the lesson we keep relearning: dismissing a band based on their biggest radio hit is a terrible strategy. The album cuts that got buried on the B-side often tell a completely different story. Sometimes, what sounds shallow on the radio reveals real songwriting depth when you give it actual attention.
The Discoveries That Stuck
J’s top 90s finds this year were Hawksley Workman’s For Him and the Girls—a theatrical, ambitious record that blended influences from Jon Brion, Tom Waits, and the New Pornographers into something genuinely unusual. J went deeper into Fig Dish, an album we somehow never covered in all our years despite how many times they’ve been mentioned (shout-out to the Chicago connection).
There were other surprises too: The Connells’ One Simple Word (still amazingly ahead of its time for a 1990 release), Non Intentional Lifeform (just plain weird in the best way), and Lee Harvey Oswald Band’s Blastronaut, which delivered the track “Rocket 69”—a song so good it belongs in any late-90s/early-2000s garage rock playlist.
Even when we didn’t always agree on everything, there was real discovery happening. Ground Components hit Tim in a different way—that snarky, angsty rebellion mixed with 70s rock soul. Speedstar’s Bruises You Can Touch kept both of us coming back, a record that falls somewhere between Travis, Coldplay, Radiohead, and Starsailor. Not exactly an original combination, but executed so well that it holds up even on repeated listens.
The Worthy Club
We don’t always agree. Usually, one of us is onboard while the other is politely confused. That’s what keeps the podcast spicy. But this year, we had a rare run of unanimous worthy albums—records where Tim and J both walked away thinking, “Yeah, that one deserves another listen.”
If you need a cheat sheet for 2025’s best discoveries, start here:
The 2000s Are Calling (And We’re Answering)
Speaking of discovery, we have big news for 2026.
For years, we’ve dipped our toes into the 2000s—the “aughts,” if you’re feeling fancy. We’ve explored the garage rock revival, the dance-punk explosion, and the post-Britpop melancholia. But next year, we’re making it official.
We are fully integrating 2000s albums into the podcast.
Why? Because here’s the thing about the 90s: they didn’t end when the calendar flipped. The story keeps going. You can’t understand the 90s without understanding what came after—the reaction to it. The White Stripes stripping everything back. The dance-punk scene of the Rapture and Chick Chick Chick. The post-Britpop sound of Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs. Those bands were reacting to what the 90s left behind, and that conversation is essential.
We were both in bands during the 2000s. We watched as exciting things happened that could’ve gone in so many directions, could’ve been huge. Most of it didn’t last. Instead, we were left with Coldplay and the Killers (and technically Muse, if we’re counting the late-90s overflow). There’s a whole story there about what the music industry chose to push and what got left behind.
Plus, let’s be honest: 2002 feels like it was 10 years ago. It wasn’t. It’s classic rock now. Accept it.
Four Decades of Digging
This expansion means our Board of Directors members now have four decades of power. You can pick albums from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s albums.
We’re already seeing the results. We’re kicking off 2026 with a 70s pick: Leaf Hound’s Growers of Mushroom. And before you ask—yes, we’re pretty sure they’re talking about the 1970s kind of mushrooms, not the “functional mushroom coffee” you see in Instagram ads these days.
Whether it’s obscure 70s hard rock that sounds like it came from another planet (Buffalo, Captain Beyond) or 80s metal gems like Icon, we’re casting a wider net than ever. The 70s, in particular, have been wild. There’s stuff that came out before we were even born, or that we had no way of ever encountering. Some of it sounds like it’s from another world entirely. It’s exciting territory.
The Bigger Picture
This year, one theme kept coming up: expectations. How albums are promoted, whether they hit their commercial targets, whether the label stays invested, whether the band keeps making music at all.
When we dug into Icon, that backstory mattered. The lore around it, the passionate fanbase, the expectations that were placed on that record. It’s a pattern we keep seeing across both the 80s metal stuff and the 70s deep cuts—success and failure aren’t always about the quality of the music. Sometimes they’re about timing, label support, and whether the band managed to meet (or exceed) what their industry decided they should be.
It’s depressing and fascinating at the same time.
Thank You for Listening
We’re approaching 900 episodes. By the time we hit our 19th year, we might crack 1,000. That’s a lot of talking about bands that broke up 25+ years ago. A lot of “remember when?” conversations. A lot of vinyl and Bandcamp purchases.
We couldn’t do it without the Dig Me Out Union (our paid subscribers and Patreon members). Your picks, your comments in the Discord, your passion for bands nobody else remembers—that’s what keeps this going. Special shout-out to the guests who came on this year: James Barber and Kevin Alexander, Selena Fragassi, Daniel Bukszpan, Tom Beaujour, and Alex Williams. Those conversations went deeper than we could’ve gone alone.
So, here’s to 2026. No jetpacks yet. No flying cars. But there’s still great music left to discover, and we’ll be here, reviewing it with you.
Songs in this Episode
Intro - Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney
Outro - Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney
