Over the previous couple of months, the CAPC workforce has compiled a listing of our favourite popular culture artifacts from the earlier yr. Not like most year-end lists, we don’t declare that these are the “greatest.” Somewhat, these are the issues that introduced us probably the most pleasure and satisfaction all through the final 12 months.
For 2025, our favourite music and podcasts included an exploration of the Satanic Panic, a hang around with pals, atmospheric post-punk, the return of folks heroes, and naturally, Tay Tay.
My Dwelling Is Not In This World by Natalie Bergman
Again in 2021, Natalie Bergman launched Mercy, a robust and haunting album about grief and religion impressed by her father’s demise by the hands of a drunk driver. As I wrote in my evaluation, “the album’s emotional heft comes from Bergman’s makes an attempt to steadiness her perception in, and wish for, a loving God with the horror and sorrow of her father’s demise, which would appear to problem the very notion of a loving God.”
Soar forward to 2025, and Bergman is now in a really totally different place in life, married and with a baby of her personal. As such, My Dwelling Is Not In This World is much less involved with grief as Bergman celebrates her newfound life and professes her love for her household. On “Tune for Arthur,” Bergman sings to her younger son, “For 3 lengthy years I couldn’t go away my very own mattress/‘Til you gave me a motive,” whereas “In search of You” praises her husband: “How did I am going on with out you?/My tears had been dry for therefore lengthy/Now I thank God that I discovered you.”
Even so, the album’s strongest moments nonetheless evince a restlessness and craving not all that dissimilar to Mercy‘s tone. However reasonably than sorrow, these sentiments stream from realizing the vacancy of worldly wishes and pursuits. “You Can Have Me” is a heartbreaking plea to cool down and resist fame’s attract whereas the title monitor finds Bergman admitting “All my life I by no means felt like I belong” whereas nonetheless discovering consolation in life’s humble pleasures (“I wish to go outdoors/Inform the bushes that I like them/Open my eyes/See the youngsters within the backyard”).
—Jason Morehead
Satan and the Deep Blue Sea by Mike Cosper
Should you weren’t a church child through the ’80s and ’90s, then I’m undecided I can totally clarify to you what it was wish to consider—with each fiber of your being—that there was a community of Satanists who had been kidnapping, torturing, and sacrificing children everywhere in the nation. It’s clearly ridiculous now, however on the time, it was utterly believable due to grifters like Mike Warnke and Beatrice Sparks and worries over the results of heavy steel and Dungeons & Dragons. Irrespective of how ridiculous it sounds, although, the Satanic Panic led to the damage of quite a few lives, from those that had been falsely accused of committing horrific acts to those that had been led to consider that they had been victims of these acts.
It’s a convoluted story, to make sure, its roots mendacity in conservative issues over the ’60s counterculture, with its intercourse, medication, rock n’ roll, and alternate spiritualities. However Mike Cosper, who beforehand hosted the acclaimed Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast, does yeoman’s work unpacking all of it. Typically it nonetheless proves a bit too convoluted, with Cosper taking place one too many rabbit trails. General, although, Satan and the Deep Blue Sea is an enchanting account of a really weird period within the historical past of the American Church, one whose results we’re nonetheless experiencing due to occasions just like the January 6 riot and the recognition of conspiracy theories like QAnon.
—Jason Morehead
Good Cling with Amy Poehler
You, like me, could have heard the phrase “male loneliness epidemic.” There’s a friendship disaster in America, significantly amongst males. I might, nevertheless, go as far as to say that there’s a friendship disaster in America that isn’t distinctive to males or ladies; it has turn out to be more and more arduous to make and maintain pals or construct real-life group as adults within the trendy world. For this reason the (now Golden Globe-winning) podcast Good Cling with Amy Poehler made such an impression on me from its very first episodes.
As an elder millennial and longtime fan of the sitcom Parks and Recreation (for which Amy Poehler might be greatest identified), I used to be the audience for Good Cling, which launched in March of 2025. I tuned in for the anecdotes and laughs however I used to be not ready for the way moved I might be by the deep connections and loving friendships. On every Good Cling episode, Poehler (who appears to know and have an abiding affection and enthusiasm for everybody) interviews somebody conversationally in a manner that makes you’re feeling such as you’re hanging out with them. Earlier than the interview, she calls a pal of the visitor and invitations them to “communicate good behind [the guest’s] again,” after which she surprises the visitor with the good issues that had been mentioned about them. Whereas all of this stuff are, in fact, nice, what impresses me probably the most in regards to the present is what’s revealed about friendship via the course of those conversations. A number of males, particularly, have unabashedly lauded their female and male pals, laughing and even crying when relating tales of their interactions, and making it clear that their pals are like household.
We will see a lot speak about “poisonous” relationships, individuals, and masculinity on social media, however on Good Cling, I’ve listened to a lot of Poehler’s friends speak about friendships by which I see the goodness of God. It’s a reminder that good friendships are very important, and we needs to be unfastened with our reward of others and unreserved in expressing our love for the individuals in our lives. And it’s given me hope that possibly in doing this stuff, loneliness could be one thing we work at curing collectively.
—Okay. B. Hoyle
I Felt Referred to as by Tremendous China
On their earliest albums, like 2000’s When the World Sings and 2002’s You Make Me Hate Music, Arizona’s Tremendous China did completely nothing to cover their love for ’80s icons like New Order and The Smiths. Not that I’m complaining, thoughts you; I like Johnny Marr-esque riff as a lot as the following music nerd. However lately, bandleader Rob Withem started increasing and deepening Tremendous China’s sound, incorporating atmospherics and atmosphere à la late-period Discuss Discuss and Windham Hill.
After exploring and perfecting this new sound on a few EPs, Withem and his collaborators dropped I Felt Referred to as. Arguably Tremendous China’s most formidable recording to this point, I Felt Referred to as nonetheless incorporates loads of stable pop moments replete with bouncy melodies and jangly guitars (e.g., “Fraught with Hazard,” “Say Please”). However fortunately, Withem doesn’t really feel constrained to three-minute pop formulation, and on songs like “No Lengthy Face” and “Desert of My Goals,” he lets his songs linger previous the seven-minute mark, luxuriating in shimmering guitar tones and delicate synths.
“Desert of My Goals” is especially affecting in consequence. Set in opposition to a backdrop of sweeping keys, Withem makes use of nostalgia (“On the ocean, on the shore/I sleep like a baby/And all I do know is reminiscences of yore”) to discover existential yearnings for issues that this world can’t present. When he cries out “Do you run lengthy?/I’ve run lengthy” on the tune’s refrain, I really feel it in my bones.
—Jason Morehead
Rushmere by Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons’ newest album appears like mendacity on a porch on a sizzling summer time’s night time and searching up on the sky whereas fascinated about what it means to be right here: the love, the ache, the remorse, the will, and the change. It places you within the temper to look at the entire totally different items of lived expertise with an even-keeled acceptance. Nonetheless, the acceptance of the human situation that pervades Rushmere isn’t synonymous with resignation. Each one in every of these songs navigates the tightrope that every of us walks day-after-day: a recognition of the truth of our state of affairs and a need to alter it.
There’s one thing of U2’s strategy to some of the numbers on Rushmere, significantly “Fact” and “Anchor.” Very similar to the Irish rock band, the English folk-rock group have made music of their new album which embraces the balancing act of seeing in ourselves the failings that we’re naturally occasion to as damaged human beings whereas recognizing a deep craving to maintain working, maintain attempting, and maintain failing; because the lyrics in “Give up” remind us, “[T]right here’s some demise on the vine.” That craving runs persistently all through the album alongside the much-deserved return of the Mumford banjo. What was beforehand an instrument of caprice and playfulness on their early albums has made a reappearance on Rushmere with an unmistakable energy that comes from expertise.
Rushmere takes us on the journey that each one of us is aware of inside and outside, drawing a finger alongside the highs and lows, the pitfalls and triumphs, of being a flawed human striving for Christ. We really feel a way of overwhelm with “Blood on the Web page” and a simmering rage with “The place it Belongs.” We really feel dismay at injustice with “Fact,” on the “liars within the sincere locations.” And in “Carry On,” we really feel frustration on the hole between the love Jesus had for individuals and what we really present one another. However we additionally really feel dedication within the title tune with its request for use for one thing worthy (“Gentle me up, I’m wasted at nighttime”). And in “Monochrome,” we merely really feel hope: “There’s life within the floor beneath your toes. Restoration.” Mumford & Sons’ new album really is a snapshot of human expertise, recognizable not only for individuals residing in 2025 however for all who’ve come earlier than and who will come after. It’s “a complete life in a glimpse.”
—Sophie Pell
The Lifetime of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift
Did we actually want one other Taylor Swift album? In 2025, Swifties resoundingly mentioned “Sure.”
The Lifetime of a Showgirl, launched after the conclusion of the Eras Tour, got here on the heels of The Tortured Poets Division—which, fairly frankly, felt a bit tortured. (Now don’t get me flawed: I nonetheless love listening to “Down Dangerous” whereas downing some Ben & Jerry’s with my sorrows, however that’s an album for sure events of life.) Swift’s newest album, although, felt like turning a recent web page. If Tortured Poets was an train in endurance, Showgirl was an orange-and-teal infused, unapologetic return to pleasure.
America observed, and was, sure, prepared for it. The Lifetime of a Showgirl grew to become the fastest-selling album in historical past, and I don’t assume that’s simply due to advertising (as some naysayers may declare). I feel it’s as a result of the album tells a narrative a few of us have been ravenous for: a girl selecting happiness and singing about it unapologetically. On this period of moody seriousness—of status unhappiness—Swift gave us one thing oddly radical: buoyancy. So many anticipated an album about her tour to be a grievance, and as an alternative, it grew to become a pop anthem with lyrics that make you wish to dance round the home, the automobile line, and sure, even the airport terminals. It makes listeners really feel such as you wish to be a showgirl on tour—not down unhealthy in your sofa for yet one more day.
My 10-year-old daughter and I noticed The Official Launch Occasion of a Showgirl documentary in theaters collectively, and we got here dwelling with “Opalite” caught in our heads. (And with the brand new information that opalite isn’t solely Travis Kelce’s birthstone, but in addition a synthesized stone that symbolizes creating your personal happiness within the midst of sorrow.) In the course of a troubled yr, coming dwelling and singing about happiness on my daughter’s karaoke machine after faculty felt, one might say, like a small form of grace.
If the destiny of Ophelia is drowning in grief, then Swift refuses the tragic ending. She turns it round as an alternative, glittering, singing, and insisting that pleasure isn’t naïve however mandatory. And actually: who doesn’t wish to dream about being Elizabeth Taylor each infrequently, too?
This, I feel, is why The Lifetime of a Showgirl mattered as a cultural phenomenon in 2025. It was a reminder—nearly a permission slip—that pleasure isn’t the alternative of seriousness. No: within the Christian creativeness, pleasure is what we observe in the midst of sorrow as a result of we consider sorrow doesn’t get the ultimate phrase. I’m having fun with this new period for so long as I can as a result of understanding Swift, she’s already introduced the following one by the point you end studying this sentence.
—LuElla D’Amico
Something at All by Denison Witmer
I’ve been a fan of Denison Witmer’s heartfelt model of indie-folk for practically 30 years now, ever since I first heard 2000’s Protected Away, which was produced purchase The Innocence Mission’s Don Peris. For 2025’s Something at All, Witmer teamed up with long-time pal Sufjan Stevens, and the pairing proves completely magical.
Stevens’ trademark elaborations and orchestrations improve and deepen Witmer’s light songs with out ever changing into overbearing or squelching what makes them so particular within the first place: Witmer’s hushed voice, contemplative lyrics, and delicately picked acoustic guitar. The ensuing album is exactly what we want throughout these fraught and overwhelming instances: a name to let go, step again, and discover refuge within the pure, God-given rhythms of nature, vocation, and household.
On “Older and Free,” Witmer rejoices within the probability to get away from all of it and spend just a few days alone within the wilderness (“Older and free/To do as I please/Beholden to nobody else/For the primary time in weeks”) whereas “A Home With” celebrates the mundane pleasures of birds and crops. (My spouse is each an avid birder and lover of crops. As such, this tune took on some especial which means for me in 2025.)
“Clockmaker” finds Witmer—who owns his personal carpentry enterprise—appreciating the work of 1’s arms whereas additionally acknowledging the bittersweet passage of time. Lastly, “Sluggish Movement Snow” is an eight-minute rumination on what it means to stay life as each a father and pal. Witmer’s lyrics—”Now I like awake and ideas fill my thoughts/Have I made good use of my friendships and time?/I take daily, all you are able to do is attempt”—tackle an added poignancy due to Stevens’ lush manufacturing and preparations.
—Jason Morehead
