Vinyl Reviews

A year in review

Ned Lannamann

Ned Lannamann

— 6 min read
Some of the records we've reviewed this year.

As the holidays wrap up and the calendar comes to a close, it seems like the right time for a quick look back. We launched this newsletter at the beginning of September and are humbled and honored by the response we’ve gotten in just a few short months. Along the way, we’ve been learning—in real time—what we thought The Vinyl Cut was, what it actually is, and what it potentially can be. We’re grateful for the readers and subscribers who have been bold enough to come aboard as we build this airplane while flying it.

No crash landings yet, but we have reviewed a heck of a lot of vinyl so far. And since things have been a little slow around here lately—don’t worry, more stuff is coming later this week—we wanted to give people a chance to catch up on anything they missed. So today we’re providing a 2025 index of sorts, with links to all the reviews we’ve published thus far. And since we have yet to invest in a functioning search feature for this site (wanna help? Upgrade your subscription here!), we thought this could be a useful stopgap.

One thing we’re not doing this year is a “Best Reissues of 2025” type of post. Bob and I have done plenty of time in the music-writer trenches, and frankly, year-end best-of lists are frustrating exercises. They essentially take all the work you’ve done over the past year and boil it down into a flashcard of stats, removing all the context, thought, research, and explication that is part of the reviewing process. And I find ranking things to be painful and unsatisfying; I have trouble making my brain work that way. That’s not to say we’ll never do a best-of feature in the future—just that we won’t be doing one for 2025. This newsletter has only been active for a third of the year anyway, so it wouldn’t really make sense to make a list that skips out everything released January through August.

So here’s the list of all the stuff we have covered over the past four months. If you really want to know what we liked and what’s worth your time and money, click through and read. Again, we’ll have new reviews for you later this week. Thanks again for devoting a bit of your time to The Vinyl Cut—it really means the world to us!

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