As anyone still wearing their Cowboy Carter or Brat hat knows, the ultimate goal of pop music is to define an entire year. For some artists, that means getting started early—and so it is that, at the dawn of 2025, we can inspect the last few months’ sprinklings of clues, teasers, and (frankly) press releases to map out a prospectus for the coming year in music. There are the festival-season floor-fillers, the bombshell comebacks, the boom-or-busts, the will-they-even-release-its (looking at you, Lana, Lorde, and LCD Soundsystem), and, of course, the most long-awaited, long-debated, and long-delayed of long players. We’ll start you off with one of the latter; read on for updates on Rosalía, Clipse, DJ Koze, the Weeknd, and many more.
A$AP Rocky: Don’t Be Dumb
TBA
A$AP Rocky had planned to release Don’t Be Dumb on August 30, but his Testing follow-up has been indefinitely delayed. As we wait for the Harlem rapper’s first project since 2018, he has released the songs “Highjack” (featuring Jessica Pratt!) and “Ruby Rosary.”
–Matthew Strauss
Baths: Gut
February 21
Will Wiesenfeld hasn’t put out a proper album as Baths since 2017’s Romaplasm, but that’s not to say he hasn’t been keeping busy. Far from it: In the last eight years, Wisenfeld released the Baths compilation Pop Music / False B-Sides II, worked on the soundtrack for the Netflix cartoon Bee and PuppyCat, and put out several records under the Geotic moniker. Gut, though, will be Romaplasm’s follow-up, and features the single “Sea of Men,” which came out last month.
–Walden Green
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Purple Bird
January 31
Bonnie “Prince” Billy gave fans a taste of his follow-up to Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You with “Our Home,” a rustic waltz pairing Will Oldham with mandolinist Tim O’Brien. Oldham cut The Purple Bird in Nashville with producer David “Ferg” Ferguson, who also co-wrote seven of its songs. In a press release, Oldham referred to Ferugson as “a giant of a man, an epic musical force, a dear friend.” He added: “Our work together on this record was the result of years of sharing hard times and great joys, songs and stories, of making music together and apart.”
–Madison Bloom
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Purple Bird
Clipse: Let God Sort Em Out
TBA
In 2020, 11 years after fourth album Til the Casket Drops and their subsequent hiatus, Pusha T and No Malice reformed as Clipse at their longtime co-producer Pharrell Williams’ Something in the Water festival. Now, after a smattering of shows and murmurs of new music, the influential rap duo is set to return with a full album. Reportedly titled Let God Sort Em Out—per a since-deleted Pusha T Instagram post—that album is finished, entirely Williams-produced, and set for release on Def Jam.
English (US) ·