What I'm Doing: Best Albums Of 2025 So Far, Springsteen's "Tracks II," The Killers Live, And More!

Plus An Update On My Upcoming Strokes Book Due Next Year

Hey! It’s been a while! I put the newsletter on hiatus last fall because I was just starting work on a new book and time was limited. Well, I’m nearing the end of the initial draft and I’m also concerned that the frankly effed-up state of the internet is burying all text-based content at this point. So I’m firing up the Evil Speakers machine once more to deliver my writing more directly to those who might be interested.

(There’s also the possibility that this newsletter one day becomes the primary home of my online writing. If this newsletter came out 2-3 times per week and covered all my usual bases, would you be willing to pay for it? Let me know!)

A quick note on the book: It’s about The Strokes and their first album Is This It. It will be out in time for the album’s 25th anniversary in September 2026. The book, of course, is about more than just The Strokes. It’s a love letter to bands — particularly five-piece bands. It’s about rock music in the 2000s and beyond. It’s about the stagnation (or not?) of culture. It’s about smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. It’s about the second Longwave album. It’s about the White Stripes, Interpol, Vampire Weekend, and Parquet Courts. It’s about my friend Craig who introduced me to the music of Robert Johnson. And other things, too. I think it’s my funniest book since Twilight Of The Gods, and probably my best overall. I think (hope) you’ll like it.

The book is also about The Killers, who I saw this week, incredibly, for the first time. It’s weird that it took me this long to see a band I’ve liked for over 20 years. I don’t really know how it turned out this way except that we all have bands like that, where the schedules never seem to align. Anyway, here’s what I wrote about it:

Let me just say up front: The show was last night and I loved it. If you ever get the chance to see The Killers play a special show for credit card holders in a theater, I heartily recommend it. Going in, I was a little worried that they might do some kind of “intimate” unplugged show, given the environment. Which is precisely what I didn’t want from this band. Your appreciation of The Killers hinges entirely on whether you like musical melodrama of the highest order. For many of my music-crit peers, Brandon Flowers singing about riding on the back of a hurricane in “When You Were Young” is simply too much. But not for me. The Killers still have their lane because outside of a few select icons (the aforementioned U2 and Bruce), few are willing and able to go to that place anymore.

Thankfully, The Killers went there again at this show. They played like they were at Madison Square Garden. (That included turning the volume up to levels that could be felt in the Twin Cities suburbs.) Their rock-star posturing was not at all tempered. They struck power stances, stood on amplifiers during guitar solos, and tossed drumsticks into the audience. They shot confetti into the air not once, but twice. And that suited the songs, so many of them recognizable hits, which sounded as immense and undeniable as ever.

Brandon Flowers also makes a cameo in the big thing I wrote for The Ringer about the new Bruce Springsteen box set, which is a real treasure trove. It’s called Tracks II, and it includes seven unreleased albums, one of which I’m prepared to call a classic Bruce record. Here’s what I wrote about it:

“Blind Spot” is taken from Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, the so-called “loops record” that he recorded mostly by himself in 1994 and has since become a mythical object among hardcore fans. (In the liner notes, Springsteen relates a story about Brandon Flowers of the Killers visiting him recently and immediately saying “I want to hear the loops album.”) His intention was to elaborate upon the experiments of his only U.S. Top 10 hit from the ’90s, with canned beats and sullen synths (which he recently likened, evocatively, to “dark clouds”) replacing the meat-and-potatoes guitars and drums of his most famous work. But while “Streets of Philadelphia” diverged from the mean, “Blind Spot” represents a clean break from his usual image. At least “Philadelphia” has an underlying piety, with Bruce empathizing with a dying AIDS patient. “Blind Spot,” meanwhile, sounds like the soundtrack to a sleazy Paul Schrader erotic thriller, mixed with the romantic dissolution of his 1987 “divorce” record, Tunnel of Love.

“We inhabited each other / like it was some kind of disease,” he purrs, exuding a sexual menace not heard on a Springsteen record since “I’m on Fire” from Born in the U.S.A. “I thought I was flyin’/ But I was crawling on my knees.”

It’s a fantastic song. And Bruce almost put it out in 1995, before deciding at the last minute to reunite the E Street Band and record some songs for a greatest hits record. The heroic Bruce Springsteen character, again, prevailed. But that other Bruce, the quiet loner conjuring dark clouds, couldn’t be repressed forever.

My biggest column of the week was about my favorite albums of 2025 so far. I’d say it’s been a good but not great year through the first six months — plenty of really strong albums but nothing that immediately stands out as an undeniable masterpiece. These things often reveal themselves over time, of course, so the verdict certainly isn’t in yet. Here’s my blurb on one of my top faves, Raspberry Moon by Hotline TNT:

On their 2023 breakthrough Cartwheel, Hotline TNT’s Will Anderson worked closely with co-producer Ian Teeple to create a furious, blown-out sound that nearly overwhelmed the melodies buried in the murk. On the new record, however, Hotline TNT worked more as an actual live unit, a byproduct of the constantly changing lineup finally solidifying during the Cartwheel tour cycle. Under the guiding hand of producer Amos Pitsch from DIY heroes Tenement – they recorded Raspberry Moon in Pitsch’s (and my) hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin — Anderson both streamlined and beefed-up Hotline TNT’s sound, sacrificing some of the gritty character of Cartwheel for extra anthemic power. You can hear it in the single (and one of the year’s best songs) “Julia’s War,” which has a “na na na” chorus I can imagine inspiring massive sing-alongs live.

If you want to hear me talk about this, the latest episode of Indiecast is also about our favorites records of 2025’s first half. (I actually give my top five in that ep.) In other podcast news, we recently talked about Another Side Of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s Any Day Now on Never Ending Stories.

Thanks for reading/listening everybody!