John Hunter (Author) – A Year in Music – 2025
by Killian Laher

How has your year been?

For the most part, very good.

What albums have you enjoyed most this year?

Of the albums that came out in 2025, I have most enjoyed Horsegirl’s Phonetics On and On. A lot of the album kind of reminds me of the handful of Velvet Underground songs that Mo Tucker sang: Horsegirl’s music is very cerebral and artsy and cool, but there is also a winsome nursery rhyme feel to the vocals that is appealing. Songs like Anti-Glory from their debut were overwhelming bursts of energy, and this album is much more laid-back, but it reveals new depths with each listen.

The other 2025 album I listened to a lot was the Belair Lip Bombs’ Again, which breathes new life into the four-piece rock band setup. Hey You is one of the most anthemic songs I’ve heard in ages.

Finally, even though it’s not brand new anymore, I spent most of the year obsessively listening to Alvvays’s Blue Rev. Rankings and lists are dumb, but if Pet Sounds and Revolver and whatever else are some of the best records ever made, Blue Rev is already in that conversation for me. Just an astonishing set of songs, played by a band at the height of its powers.

On the reissue front, I’d been waiting for years for the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series to get to his early folk years, and although Through the Open Window was a long time coming, it doesn’t disappoint. I’m of the school of thought that Bob was and is a con man, a fraud, and a thief, and yet also one of the greatest creative talents ever to pick up a guitar. Two things can be true at once. When you get to the end of this exhaustive set and hear him sing The Ballad of Hollis Brown and Who Killed Davey Moore? at Carnegie Hall in 1963, you begin to understand why so many people were so upset when he abandoned this mode of songwriting in favour of electricity and surrealism.

What’s the most promising new act you’ve heard this year?

Although neither is strictly new, I’d repeat that I like Horsegirl and the Belair Lip Bombs a lot.

Any gig highlights?

As I approach 60, my gig-going days are largely over. Not proud of that, I’ve been to hundreds of great shows over the years, but these days after work all I want to do is spend quiet time at home with my wife and our cats. I’m also kind of amazed I made it out of all of the club shows I went to in my youth with my hearing intact, and I am pretty zealous about staying away from loud environments because I would like to keep enjoying listening to music at home as long as I can.

Can you recommend an album that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves?

In the ‘90s when grunge hit, I stopped listening to rock music for a while and pretty much only listened to jazz, and, while I eventually came back to rock, my jazz habit stuck, and one of the lesser-known jazz albums I return to over and over again is Sonny Clark’s Cool Struttin’.

Which I guess would be deemed “hard bop,” but I love how songs such as Blue Minor and Royal Flush start out with these insanely catchy unison horn riffs, then all of the musicians take extended turns soloing – quite well – and then they hit you with that original hook one more time. That’s jazz in a nutshell – you start out at home, then go out on a limb, which makes finally coming back home more special after you’ve taken some twists and turns along the way. Archie Shepp’s Fire Music is another jazz album that ought to be more widely recognized, in my opinion.

What inspires you these days?

My friends and family.

Anything interesting in the works yourself?

I am working on a sort of companion book to the book I wrote about R.E.M., focusing on the music of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, led by the dB’s and Let’s Active. I have wasted a lot of time finishing this book, in part because my day job has kept me very busy and in part because I’ve simply been lazy, but I’m working on it in earnest now.