Taylor's Favorites – June 2025

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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. 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

🏆 First Day Back - Forward

  • Turnstile - Never Enough

  • mccloud - buster

  • Options - Beast Mode

  • Addison Rae - Addison

  • tommy oeffling - Picture of Health 

  • Kicksie - BIG SUCKER

  • Various Artists - Anthems: A Celebration Of Broken Social Scene’s You Forget It In People

  • Fleshtape - Gravesite

  • Spirit Desire - Pets

  • Lady Die - June (Photo Recap)

  • Subsonic Eye - Singapore Dreaming 

  • Career Woman - Lighthouse

  • Greet Death - Die In Love

  • Hotline TNT - Raspberry Moon

  • Young Fathers - 28 Years Later (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

  • Smut - Tomorrow Comes Crashing (Review)

Favorite Songs

🥇 Wednesday - “Wound Up Here By Holding On”

🥈 Greg Freeman - “Gallic Shrug”

🥉 hey i’m outside - “Routine”

  • Kerosene Heights - “New Tattoo”

  • Equipment - “espresso lemonade”

  • Liquid Mike - “AT&T”

  • Forth Wanderers - “Bluff”

  • Innerlove. - “Alarming Thoughts”

  • Eliza McLamb - “Quitting”

  • 9Million - “Creation - Single Edit”

  • Adebisi Shank, Yvette Young - "Orange Splash”

  • Squint - “No Cigar”

  • Oldsoul - “Told You So”

  • Pretty Bitter - “Outer Heaven Dude Ranch”

  • Hot Mulligan - “And A Big Load”

  • Pool Kids - "Easier Said Than Done”

  • Marble Teeth - “When The Water Broke The Damn”

  • Japanese Breakfast - “My Baby (Got Nothing At All)”

  • Cory Hanson - “Lou Reed”

  • Motion City Sountrack - “She Is Afraid”

  • Martha - “1978, Smiling Politely”

  • Caroline Polachek - “On The Beach”

  • OK Cool - "Safety Car”

  • The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - “ Se Sufre Pero Se Goza”

  • Jobber - “Nightmare”

  • Anamanaguchi - “Magnet”

  • Mini trees - “Close”

  • Worry Club - “Little Fucker”

  • Stay Inside - “Super Sonic”

  • Alex G - “June Guitar”