drone

100 Best Albums of 2025

/ David James / 2 Comments

What a year, huh? Sometimes it seems like almost everything on earth is getting worse every single day, but we’ve also had an outrageous abundance of truly dazzling music, more than any of us could ever hear in a lifetime. The news sure looks bad most days, but you know who’s got our back? All the hardworking artists who create incredible work every single year, all while living in the same conditions that are making all of our lives collectively tougher. It’s a miracle, really, that despite everything going on, I can confidently state once again:

Every year is a great year for music.

In 2025, it’s easier than ever to just coast on whatever some corporation decides to put into your feed, consume the music that they paid to put in your ears, stay comfortably inside those guardrails that always seem to get narrower every year. So I applaud anyone going out of their way to discover something truly new, take a recommendation from a friend or even a stranger, roll the dice on an artist they never would’ve otherwise encountered. For some folks, I am that stranger. But I’m not special. I’m just a regular guy who spends a lot of time talking with artists and labels, scouring Bandcamp and reading music journalism, and mostly just spending time with great people who fill my life with magic every day. I’m forever grateful that I’ve found a community online where I can share it all and spread the love. I wouldn’t be here without all the great recommendations that have been shared with me all year long.

So, here we are with my ever-growing annual album list. Twenty five of them are singled out at the end as the best of the best – especially masterful, poignant, mindmelting pieces of music that affected me more deeply than anything else I heard this year. Every album below is listed with its full title, record label, cover art, and a link to listen and buy.

As always, I know that I missed loads of incredible music. I’m just one guy with only so much time on my hands, so please share your own recommendations in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno or bluesky. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my best of the best TOP 25 at the end:

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80 Best Albums of 2024

/ David James / 7 Comments

Like every year, 2024 was a great year for music, for anyone willing to look and listen. There are more people releasing more music than ever before, and I could feel despair over the fact that I’ll never have the time to hear all the incredible music that I might love. But I think it’s a good problem to have. I’m exposed to so much magic so frequently that I have to share the best of it just to keep track. That’s why I’m here, and why I’m always posting on twitter and now bluesky too. Algorithms have been nice for finding stuff that’s similar to what you already like, but lately they seem as broken as everything else that seemed so futuristically convenient a decade ago. All these services we’ve begun to rely on have eroded, often in line with mass layoffs at the companies that provide them. The human element is leaking entirely out of the corporate music infrastructure. So I think it’s more important than ever that regular people who are tuned in spread the word about the best new (and old) music they encounter.

So, here I am with the annual big album list. I couldn’t settle on just fifty again, or even sixty, so I’m dropping eighty great albums made in 2024 that I think you should really hear. Twenty of them are singled out at the end as the best of the best – especially masterful, poignant, mindbending pieces of music that touched me deeper than anything else I heard this year. Every album is listed with its record label and a link to check it out.

As always, I know I missed a ton of killer music. I’m only one guy with so much time on my hands, so please let me know about stuff you’d recommend in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno or bluesky. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my best of the best top twenty at the end:

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60 Best Albums of 2023

/ David James / 9 Comments

Like every year, 2023 was full of incredible music, a mountain of new releases so high that I could never climb it, a weekly firehose of albums, singles, soundcloud, bandcamp, trips to the record shop and adventures in discogs. I can’t keep up, but I try. There will never be enough time in my life to listen to all the brilliant music made in any given year, and that’s kind of amazing to consider. There are many things to feel pessimistic about in this world today, and I can give in to the dread when I read too much news or spend too much time on social media. But music is an unending source of joy and community and pure human expression. Like Vonnegut said, music is sacred. And despite the constant news about AI taking over everything, music like this will never be replaced. Music is vital, it’s part of who we are as a species and we make it because we are compelled to create. I feel blessed to live at a time when I can experience so much incredible beauty from across the world while sitting at my desk, buried in my headphones.

So, let’s get on with the list. I couldn’t settle on just fifty again, or close to it, so here we are. I enjoyed and loved a lot more than sixty albums in 2023, but I spent the most time and gave the most of my attention to these ones listed below.

I know I missed a bunch of great stuff, so let me know in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my super special top 20 at the end:

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50 More Best Albums of 2020

/ David James / 7 Comments

Lake Michigan in fog, January 2020

50 just wasn’t a big enough number to contain all the music that deserved serious attention and acclaim at the end of this interminable year. It’s a nice, round number and makes for a substantial but not overwhelming list. But I think 100 is also a nice, round number, so here we are: 50 more albums that absolutely deserve a close listen in 2020 and beyond. Please excuse the awkward title.

I’ve already gone over why this year was particularly hard for me – beyond the pandemic – in the 50 best albums of 2020 post, so I’ll just keep it brief now: I heard a LOT of music this year, as always, and I fell in love with so much of it. So many artists made a positive impact on my headspace, my disposition, my life during this trying year. This music helped me keep my head above water, helped me center myself and find little moments of grace to take a breath, step back, and start again. These albums were the soundtrack to my days, working at home, raising my son, navigating the world with a mask on and sanitizer in my pocket, six-plus feet from everyone else at all times. They filled my home while I helped homeschool my son, focused on repairs and cleanup and all sorts of things I suddenly had more time for, with nowhere to go and no friends to see for the majority of the time. They were there with me in the dark nights alone while everyone else slept, trying not to let the despair inside. This music is all meaningful and powerful and deserves to be heard by as many people as possible.

(I’ll be adding blurbs for each of these as the holidays go on, but for now I just wanted to get it out there so everyone can check out this music while they’ve hopefully got a little free time. Just picture me like this by the end)

I hope you find joy in here just as I have.

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20 Best Ambient Albums of 2019

/ David James / 5 Comments

Hi. Welcome to the Optimistic Underground list of the best ambient albums of 2019. Of course, I’m just one person so this is the list of music I personally heard – and I know I missed a LOT. But I also heard an incredible amount of brilliant music. Far too much to fit on the 50 best albums of 2019, in fact. Because the two genres I listen to most, ambient and techno, composed a great deal of the albums I had saved over the year, I decided it would be a good idea to give them each their own list. So here we are.

Although some of these albums were on the main list and some were not, consider them all equally and highly recommended for any ambient music fans. From pure dreamy drone workouts to more knotty, experimental stuff, there’s a broad range of experiences here. Even still, it’s only a glimpse at the vast expanse of what this genre is capable of producing. Many fans and artists have different definitions of what, exactly, ambient music is. To me, it’s an open idea, encompassing a whole ecosystem of sounds that can be placid, nervous, swooning, sad, beautiful, even triumphant. I made a list of the 32 best ambient albums ever made a few years ago and, while I could probably swap any of them out for another beloved record, I stand by  every choice completely. Similarly, I can’t recommend the below albums enough.

[Techno fans: don’t miss the 25 best techno albums of 2019.]

When there simply wasn’t enough room to include everything I loved in the year, I made a new list. A specific list. Here we go, in alphabetical order:

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50 Best Albums of 2019

/ David James / 12 Comments

My favorite neighborhood basketball hoop.

Hi. Welcome to the Optimistic Underground album of the year list for 2019. Every single release here is something special, worth your time to listen, worth every minute I spent writing it all down in the hopes that you’ll check it out.

These fifty albums were painfully carved down from over one hundred twenty – I keep an open document every year, adding a name every time I feel deeply struck on any level. There’s always so much incredible music to love every year. Too much to catch it all. So that’s why I keep doing this every year; I find so many treasures in others’ lists. If any of these artists make a new fan with my help, I’m happy. That’s all I’m here to do. They enrich my life so much, and I try to spread the love.

I wouldn’t rank anything if I thought it’d be just as effective, but let’s be honest: ranking makes a list more interesting. Plus, I feel far more strongly about some of these albums than others. So, while the exact numbers may not matter so much, the general direction of the list does. The albums at the top are the ones I’ve spun more than anything, the ones I most clearly see myself looping years into the future.

As with every year, there’s always an overabundance of magical music; the trick is just finding it, and finding the time to hear it all. I’m just one person so I know I’m forgetting loads of great releases – please let me know what I’m missing in the comments.

Be sure to check the 20 best ambient albums and 25 best techno albums of 2019 if you’re a fan of either genre, want to catch up, or just want to get into them. I simply had too many great examples of both this year, so I made a couple extra lists to better cover them.

Anyway, here are the 50 best albums of 2019. I hope you find something special.

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Hypersleep [mixtape]

/ David James / 3 Comments

It’s October, my birth month. The time of the year when everything in Michigan melts into cold mush and outdoor summer adventure turns to quiet moments by the window, watching leaves fall on the wet grey world. When I think of autumn, I think of decay, decomposition, death, dissolving. There’s a kind of freedom in that sense of letting go. Giving yourself over to an experience, a long slide into the dark of winter, a plunge that turns gelid and snowblind before it ends.

I don’t romanticize this time with hot apple cider or maple brushed bonfires in the backyard, but I do have a sort of entropic affection for the way life near the forty fifth parallel changes so completely within a month. So I made a mix to kind of sound like how this time feels. Because I’m a total dork, I called it Hypersleep.

As I hastily but pretty spot-on wrote as my upload finished, it’s a deep dream dive from atmospheric future techno through a wormhole of ambient, drone, and new age, toward an altogether weirder, experimentally tinged genre-agnostic ending. These 80 minutes are meant to feel like one long freefall that gradually slows and transforms as it goes deeper and darker. The final pieces are so far from the first, stylistically & emotionally. Listen when you want to feel different than you do right now.

Press play to hear it now:

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