Taylor's Favorites – March 2025

/

There’s new music coming out constantly, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. 

Since January of 2021, I’ve been creating monthly playlists with the sole purpose of housing new music. Say what you will about Spotify (and I have); the platform is at least good at showing you new releases from artists you follow, thanks to its robust social-media-like system. I’m currently following over 4,000 artists on the platform, so pretty much every day, I can log in, click “What’s New,” and be met with a steady scroll of fresh music. This is a double-edged sword because it feels like new songs materialize each day to sweep away the previous ones. For that reason, I started creating these playlists to keep track of all the latest music that’s on my radar as it comes out. 

In previous years, I’ve also used a note on my phone to jot down my favorite songs and albums. Each month, I’d crown one record as my favorite, adorning it with a little trophy emoji, then list a bunch of other albums, EPs, or splits that I liked. I’d do the same thing with songs, shouting out three of my favorites with similar wayfinding emojis and then listing any other tracks I enjoyed that month I enjoyed. It’s fun to condense hundreds of hours of music down to a shortlist of things I’ve been obsessed with, but I also hope there’s utility in it for friends who might not be keeping up with new releases in the same obsessive way. 

I’ve decided to publish both of these elements as a new regular feature within Swim Selects. Each month, I will publish this list of my favorite albums and songs to give people an overview of what I’ve been loving. On a related note, it’s probably worth stating that these are definitively my favorites, so the list is often biased, emo, and far from comprehensive, but hopefully it gives you at least one or two new things to check out. Anyway, onto the music.

Favorite Albums

🏆 Michael Cera Palin - We Could Be Brave

  • LAKE - Bucolic Gone

  • Downward - Downward 2

  • Harrison Gordon - Spring Break!

  • Tobacco City - Horses

  • Dutch Interior - Moneyball

  • Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

  • Great Grandpa - Patience, Moonbeam 

  • A Place for Owls, Birthday Dad - My Friends Were Here

  • Telethon - Suburban Electric

  • Nagasaki Swim - The View From Up There

  • Drunk Uncle - Fiction Years ii

  • Bambara - Birthmarks

  • Tiny Voices - Reasons I Won’t Change

  • Weatherday - Hornet Disaster

  • Lawn Enforcement - Lamb

  • Men I Trust - Equus Asinus

  • More Eaze, Claire Rousay - no floor

  • My Morning Jacket - is

  • Pictoria Vark - Nothing Sticks

  • Perfume Genius - Glory

  • Free Range - Lost & Found

  • Midcard - Sick

  • Hannah Cohen - Earthstar Mountain

  • Fust - Big Ugly

  • Star 99 - Gaman


Favorite Songs

🥇Michael Cera Palin - “We Could Be Brave"

🥈This Is Lorelei, MJ Lenderman - “Dancing in the Club - MJ Lenderman Version"

🥉Harrison Gordon - “Driver’s Side” 

  • Alien Boy - “Changes"

  • In Bedrooms - “Out Comes Crazy”

  • Harrison Gordon - “Spring Break!”

  • Feeble Little Horse - “This Is Real”

  • Flycatcher - “Dissolve”

  • Chappell Roan - “The Giver"

  • Common Sage - “Drown”

  • Adebisi Shank - “Start A Band”

  • Kinski - “Do You Like Long Hair?”

  • Disaster Kid - "Rare Bird”

  • Great Grandpa - "Doom"

  • Colin Miller - “Porchlight”

  • Ribbon Skirt - “Earth Eater”

  • Japanese Breakfast - “Honey Water”

  • Charmer - “Arrowhead"

  • Bon Iver - “Walk Home”

  • Freddie Gibbs - “Nobody”

  • Friendship - “All Over the World”

  • Ezra Furman - “Jump Out”

  • Pelican - “Indelible”

  • Moontype - "Four Hands ii”

  • Dowsing - “Get Grounded”

  • PUP, Jeff Rosenstock - “Get Dumber”

  • Pacing - “Pl*net F*tness”

  • The Wonder Years, Origami Angel - “I Don’t Like Who I Was Then”

  • Abel - “Scarecrow”

  • Quinn Cicala - “Lists”

  • Annie DiRusso - "Good Ass Movie”

  • Sufjan Stevens - “Mystery of Love (Demo)”

  • Lily Seabird - “Arrow”

  • Momma - “Rodeo”