2025 is over

31 Dec 2025

wow that was a time wasn’t it

So yes today is the LAST DAY OF THE YEAR and so here are some thoughts which I have had on various topics. Do you agree? Do you disagree? That’s okay!

Music, sounds, etc

I guess for a lot of people 2025 was about waiting in virtual queues hoping to get tickets to big stadium shows from lowest common denominator pop acts. I’m not mad at you if you are in to that, I’m just disappointed and let’s not speak about it further.

We saw some really great stuff. Have A Nice Life. Divide And Dissolve. Earth. The Beta Band! High On Fire (plus incredible supports including Castle Rat) and I’m sure I’m forgetting so many excellent other bands. Queens of the Stone Age a couple of times.

I’ve heard people say don’t meet your heroes. They need to choose their heroes better. I’ve met pretty much all of my musical idols and they were almost all absolutely lovely.

Earth. Dylan Carlson of Earth.

How about new music?

So 2025 was a year where artists whose work I had been enjoying over the last few years released records which made me go “oh okay, that’s a shame.”

Here are some of those:

Earl Sweatshirt
Simz
Ikonika
FKA Twigs
JPEGMAFIA
Divide And Dissolve
Princess Nokia
Yaya Bey
Masters of Reality

None of these were bad! They were all fine but just not super great.

Anyone who had Eusexua on their best-of lists honestly probably just hasn’t recently revisited the best stuff Madonna and Bjork did in the 1990s.

While collating this list I made a note that I need to put some more time in to the newest Clipping and Kae Tempest records.

My favourite new record this year was PinkPanteress mixtape Fancy That and my favourite new song of the year was Music by Underscores and nothing else really came close to those choices for me.

Finally I’ve got to say “go and listen to Esdeekid” if you’re not yet in on that thing.

Live highlights?

My favourite performance I got to experience this year is a bit more tough. I’m going to pick individual songs from shows, why not.

The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull by Earth at the Electric Ballroom was like the whole world was revolving around the incredible patience of drummer Adrienne. Teased out over what felt like hours, this rendition of this track was so powerful I don’t know how we made it home afterwards.

Queens of the Stone Age, Long Slow Goodbye at the Royal Albert Hall. I didn’t have Josh Homme waving a hatchett around and Matt Berry pulling out all the stops on the monstrous RAH organ on my bingo card for the year.

The Beta Band, Dry the Rain. This was at the Roundhouse. It felt like a strange moment in my life. The two decades since their last shows, one of the first proper gigs I made it to, all of that seemed forgiven in that moment.

TV, cinema, audiovisual media

I am always saying I don’t feel like film is a great way to tell a story. Nothing in 2025 has changed my view on that. I have really struggled (and I have failed) to think of anything new I didn’t hate.

Films (i.e. long form storytelling)

The M word for films makes me feel a bit nauseous, like people get about words like “touch” and “moist” so I don’t say it. I think it might be because it sounds like something a toddler would say if they didn’t know the right word? Anyway, I hate it.

I’m a big motorsports fan and I think women are people so of course I watched and loathed that F1 film. It was painful to endure and I don’t understand why through the editing process no one said “this is embarrassing and we need to make this better” but I’m sure it earned plenty of cash.

The live action remake of Lilo and Stitch was unneccesary but basically fine and I thought the performance of the little girl was great. Shame not to get Ving Rames and I’m not sure why they added the portal gun from the Portal games but I like the Portal games and it was fun.

The other day we saw the Spongebob film and there were things about it which were pretty alright. I expected that to be a miserable couple of hours for me sat there but the nods to Greek myths and Mark Hamill was enough to keep me engaged.

I’m sure I saw some other new films but I don’t remember them. Honestly I don’t really care about films (outside of Takeshi Kitano gangster films) and if you want film recommendations then probably ask someone else.

Something positive though

There is some incredible work going on by people who don’t have the BBC or Netflix funding them but they just have something to say. I’m thinking of people like Josh Johnson, whose output has been just incredible through the year. Television and cinema are basically over but we don’t need the gatekeepers, just a camera and some time.

Motorsport

I felt like 2025 was quite a sad year for motorsport in general. The FIA and NASCAR organisations have their reputations absolutely in the toilet now. This doesn’t take away from some amazing performances by drivers and teams though.

Truck. British Truck Racing Championship. Brands Hatch.

Go and see some motorsport near you. It’s a great day out!

Single seaters

McLaren muddled over the line but the drivers need to tell the team that the perception of fairness is not as important as winning. At times it felt like Mac strategy was designed to give Max a chance!

Indycar never looked particularly close this year. I didn’t much like Will Buxton on the coverage. I’m glad Penske had such rotten results but otherwise there was little to be excited about.

Formula 2 was a mixed bag. There were some fun races but apart from the champ Fornaroli the whole field had such inconsistent performance that I can’t see any of these guys being world champions of the future. Dunne really faded but an absolute shocker was Gabriele Minì. F3 was much the same. I wonder if it’s because the costs are so high and the seasons so long.

I didn’t really follow British F4 this year or regional F3/F4 championships.

Endurance, sports cars, etc.

IMSA was great this year, full of excitement and great coverage. I am super into the AO Racing team with their dinosaur themed cars and getting the kids excited, making great merch and then throwing everything at the performances. The Vasser Sullivan team gets my respect too, turning up year after year with that ancient Lexus GT3 (that car was launched in 2014!) and achieving great things.

As a bonus IMSA has the best support series on the planet, the MX-5 cup, as well as the best commentary team in John and Shea.

It’s a great time to get into enduros as Verstappen draws attention to the Nurburgring and more manufacturers join the WEC.

People ask me how you enjoy endurance racing. It’s a strange thing to get in to! Basically you pop it up on a screen and get on with what you’re doing, looking over when you hear some excitement, tuning in and out as you please. It’s like test cricket a bit. You can sit and take in an hour here and there but you don’t sit and stare for the full event. Maybe I’ll write a full essay about how to enjoy enduros but that’s the gist. Daytona soon!

Rally, rallycross

The WRC was really hot this year. I’ve never been a big fan of watching rallies. They are great to drive in but they aren’t made for television. The WRC was great this year. I’m worried about next year with two of the top drivers quitting.

Rallycross had such a terrible year. It’s my favourite racing format but there just seems to be no way of making it sustainable. I don’t understand how no one makes a success of it, because RX is perfect for TV and really fun for more casual fans. RIP to WorldRX, Nitrocross, Extreme E.

But let’s not worry about that right now. Just make sure you’re watching the British RX and also RallyX.

Now the W2RC is the craziest thing in the world I’m sure and I am still in shock at Nassar losing the title over a timing technicality. The Dakar is coming up and you need to make sure you’re catching those daily highlights.

Random car bits

I was glad Tom Ingram got it done in the BTCC. One of the nicest racing drivers I’ve met, so much time for everyone. I remember when he was posting on his Facebook every week trying desperately to get helo funding the next weekend of racing.

The British Hillclimbing has been great fun. You’ve got to get to an event near you, it’s so much fun in person. The commentary team on youtube are excellent too.

I guess read this if you haven’t: Racing worth watching

Stop reading here

This is the end of the article (I might start putting this on everything I write)