Over the previous few months, the CAPC crew has compiled a listing of our favourite popular culture artifacts from the earlier 12 months. Not like most year-end lists, we don’t declare that these are the “finest.” Fairly, these are the issues that introduced us probably the most pleasure and satisfaction all through the final 12 months.
For 2025, our favourite music and podcasts included an exploration of the Satanic Panic, a hang around with mates, atmospheric post-punk, the return of folks heroes, and naturally, Tay Tay.
My House Is Not In This World by Natalie Bergman
Again in 2021, Natalie Bergman launched Mercy, a robust and haunting album about grief and religion impressed by her father’s demise by the hands of a drunk driver. As I wrote in my overview, “the album’s emotional heft comes from Bergman’s makes an attempt to steadiness her perception in, and want for, a loving God with the horror and sorrow of her father’s demise, which would appear to problem the very notion of a loving God.”
Leap forward to 2025, and Bergman is now in a really completely different place in life, married and with a toddler of her personal. As such, My House Is Not In This World is much less involved with grief as Bergman celebrates her newfound life and professes her love for her household. On “Tune for Arthur,” Bergman sings to her younger son, “For 3 lengthy years I couldn’t depart my very own mattress/‘Til you gave me a cause,” whereas “On the lookout for You” praises her husband: “How did I am going on with out you?/My tears had been dry for therefore lengthy/Now I thank God that I discovered you.”
Even so, the album’s strongest moments nonetheless evince a restlessness and craving not all that dissimilar to Mercy‘s tone. However somewhat than sorrow, these sentiments movement from realizing the vacancy of worldly wishes and pursuits. “You Can Have Me” is a heartbreaking plea to quiet down and resist fame’s attract whereas the title observe finds Bergman admitting “All my life I by no means felt like I belong” whereas nonetheless discovering consolation in life’s humble pleasures (“I need to go exterior/Inform the timber that I really like them/Open my eyes/See the youngsters within the backyard”).
—Jason Morehead
Satan and the Deep Blue Sea by Mike Cosper
In the event you weren’t a church child in the course of the ’80s and ’90s, then I’m unsure I can totally clarify to you what it was prefer to consider—with each fiber of your being—that there was a community of Satanists who had been kidnapping, torturing, and sacrificing youngsters everywhere in the nation. It’s clearly ridiculous now, however on the time, it was utterly believable because of grifters like Mike Warnke and Beatrice Sparks and worries over the results of heavy metallic and Dungeons & Dragons. Irrespective of how ridiculous it sounds, although, the Satanic Panic led to the break of quite a few lives, from those that had been falsely accused of committing horrific acts to those that had been led to consider that they had been victims of these acts.
It’s a convoluted story, to make certain, its roots mendacity in conservative considerations over the ’60s counterculture, with its intercourse, medication, rock n’ roll, and alternate spiritualities. However Mike Cosper, who beforehand hosted the acclaimed Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast, does yeoman’s work unpacking all of it. Generally it nonetheless proves a bit too convoluted, with Cosper taking place one too many rabbit trails. Total, although, Satan and the Deep Blue Sea is an interesting account of a really weird period within the historical past of the American Church, one whose results we’re nonetheless experiencing because of occasions just like the January 6 riot and the recognition of conspiracy theories like QAnon.
—Jason Morehead
Good Hold with Amy Poehler
You, like me, might have heard the phrase “male loneliness epidemic.” There’s a friendship disaster in America, significantly amongst males. I might, nevertheless, go as far as to claim that there’s a friendship disaster in America that isn’t distinctive to males or ladies; it has grow to be more and more exhausting to make and preserve mates or construct real-life neighborhood as adults within the trendy world. Because of this the (now Golden Globe-winning) podcast Good Hold with Amy Poehler made such an impression on me from its very first episodes.
As an elder millennial and longtime fan of the sitcom Parks and Recreation (for which Amy Poehler might be finest identified), I used to be the target market for Good Hold, which launched in March of 2025. I tuned in for the anecdotes and laughs however I used to be not ready for a way moved I might be by the deep connections and loving friendships. On every Good Hold episode, Poehler (who appears to know and have an abiding affection and enthusiasm for everybody) interviews somebody conversationally in a means that makes you are feeling such as you’re hanging out with them. Earlier than the interview, she calls a buddy of the visitor and invitations them to “converse good behind [the guest’s] again,” after which she surprises the visitor with the good issues that had been stated about them. Whereas all of these items are, in fact, nice, what impresses me probably the most concerning the present is what’s revealed about friendship by the course of those conversations. A number of males, particularly, have unabashedly lauded their female and male mates, laughing and even crying when relating tales of their interactions, and making it clear that their mates are like household.
We are able to see a lot discuss “poisonous” relationships, folks, and masculinity on social media, however on Good Hold, I’ve listened to lots of Poehler’s company discuss friendships during which I see the goodness of God. It’s a reminder that good friendships are very important, and we needs to be unfastened with our reward of others and unreserved in expressing our love for the folks in our lives. And it’s given me hope that perhaps in doing these items, loneliness may be one thing we work at curing collectively.
—Ok. B. Hoyle
I Felt Known as by Tremendous China
On their earliest albums, like 2000’s When the World Sings and 2002’s You Make Me Hate Music, Arizona’s Tremendous China did completely nothing to cover their love for ’80s icons like New Order and The Smiths. Not that I’m complaining, thoughts you; I really like a very good Johnny Marr-esque riff as a lot as the following music nerd. However lately, bandleader Rob Withem started increasing and deepening Tremendous China’s sound, incorporating atmospherics and atmosphere à la late-period Speak Speak and Windham Hill.
After exploring and perfecting this new sound on a few EPs, Withem and his collaborators dropped I Felt Known as. Arguably Tremendous China’s most formidable recording to this point, I Felt Known as nonetheless accommodates loads of stable pop moments replete with bouncy melodies and jangly guitars (e.g., “Fraught with Hazard,” “Say Please”). However fortunately, Withem doesn’t really feel constrained to three-minute pop formulation, and on songs like “No Lengthy Face” and “Desert of My Goals,” he lets his songs linger previous the seven-minute mark, luxuriating in shimmering guitar tones and delicate synths.
“Desert of My Goals” is especially affecting in consequence. Set in opposition to a backdrop of sweeping keys, Withem makes use of nostalgia (“On the ocean, on the shore/I sleep like a toddler/And all I do know is recollections of yore”) to discover existential yearnings for issues that this world can’t present. When he cries out “Do you run lengthy?/I’ve run lengthy” on the tune’s refrain, I really feel it in my bones.
—Jason Morehead
Rushmere by Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons’ newest album appears like mendacity on a porch on a scorching summer season’s evening and looking out up on the sky whereas fascinated with what it means to be right here: the love, the ache, the remorse, the need, and the change. It places you within the temper to look at all the completely different items of lived expertise with an even-keeled acceptance. Nevertheless, the acceptance of the human situation that pervades Rushmere will not be synonymous with resignation. Each one among these songs navigates the tightrope that every of us walks day by day: a recognition of the fact of our state of affairs and a need to alter it.
There’s one thing of U2’s method to some of the numbers on Rushmere, significantly “Fact” and “Anchor.” Very similar to the Irish rock band, the English folk-rock group have made music of their new album which embraces the balancing act of seeing in ourselves the failings that we’re naturally get together to as damaged human beings whereas recognizing a deep craving to maintain working, preserve making an attempt, and preserve failing; because the lyrics in “Give up” remind us, “[T]right here’s some demise on the vine.” That craving runs persistently all through the album alongside the much-deserved return of the Mumford banjo. What was beforehand an instrument of caprice and playfulness on their early albums has made a reappearance on Rushmere with an unmistakable power that comes from expertise.
Rushmere takes us on the journey that all of us is aware of inside and outside, drawing a finger alongside the highs and lows, the pitfalls and triumphs, of being a flawed human striving for Christ. We really feel a way of overwhelm with “Blood on the Web page” and a simmering rage with “The place it Belongs.” We really feel dismay at injustice with “Fact,” on the “liars within the trustworthy locations.” And in “Carry On,” we really feel frustration on the hole between the love Jesus had for folks and what we really present one another. However we additionally really feel willpower within the title tune with its request for use for one thing worthy (“Gentle me up, I’m wasted at nighttime”). And in “Monochrome,” we merely really feel hope: “There’s life within the floor beneath your ft. Restoration.” Mumford & Sons’ new album actually is a snapshot of human expertise, recognizable not only for folks residing in 2025 however for all who’ve come earlier than and who will come after. It’s “a complete life in a glimpse.”
—Sophie Pell
The Lifetime of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift
Did we actually want one other Taylor Swift album? In 2025, Swifties resoundingly stated “Sure.”
The Lifetime of a Showgirl, launched after the conclusion of the Eras Tour, got here on the heels of The Tortured Poets Division—which, fairly frankly, felt a little bit tortured. (Now don’t get me incorrect: I nonetheless love listening to “Down Dangerous” whereas downing some Ben & Jerry’s with my sorrows, however that’s an album for sure events of life.) Swift’s newest album, although, felt like turning a contemporary web page. If Tortured Poets was an train in endurance, Showgirl was an orange-and-teal infused, unapologetic return to pleasure.
America seen, and was, sure, prepared for it. The Lifetime of a Showgirl grew to become the fastest-selling album in historical past, and I don’t assume that’s simply due to advertising (as some naysayers would possibly declare). I feel it’s as a result of the album tells a narrative a few of us have been ravenous for: a lady selecting happiness and singing about it unapologetically. On this period of moody seriousness—of status disappointment—Swift gave us one thing oddly radical: buoyancy. So many anticipated an album about her tour to be a grievance, and as an alternative, it grew to become a pop anthem with lyrics that make you need to dance round the home, the automotive line, and sure, even the airport terminals. It makes listeners really feel such as you need to be a showgirl on tour—not down unhealthy in your sofa for yet one more day.
My 10-year-old daughter and I noticed The Official Launch Celebration of a Showgirl documentary in theaters collectively, and we got here residence with “Opalite” caught in our heads. (And with the brand new information that opalite will not be solely Travis Kelce’s birthstone, but additionally a synthesized stone that symbolizes creating your personal happiness within the midst of sorrow.) In the midst of a troubled 12 months, coming residence and singing about happiness on my daughter’s karaoke machine after faculty felt, one might say, like a small form of grace.
If the destiny of Ophelia is drowning in grief, then Swift refuses the tragic ending. She turns it round as an alternative, glittering, singing, and insisting that pleasure will not be naïve however vital. And actually: who doesn’t need to dream about being Elizabeth Taylor each every so often, too?
This, I feel, is why The Lifetime of a Showgirl mattered as a cultural phenomenon in 2025. It was a reminder—nearly a permission slip—that pleasure will not be the other of seriousness. No: within the Christian creativeness, pleasure is what we apply in the midst of sorrow as a result of we consider sorrow doesn’t get the ultimate phrase. I’m having fun with this new period for so long as I can as a result of realizing Swift, she’s already introduced the following one by the point you end studying this sentence.
—LuElla D’Amico
Something at All by Denison Witmer
I’ve been a fan of Denison Witmer’s heartfelt model of indie-folk for practically 30 years now, ever since I first heard 2000’s Protected Away, which was produced purchase The Innocence Mission’s Don Peris. For 2025’s Something at All, Witmer teamed up with long-time buddy Sufjan Stevens, and the pairing proves completely magical.
Stevens’ trademark gildings and orchestrations improve and deepen Witmer’s mild songs with out ever turning into overbearing or squelching what makes them so particular within the first place: Witmer’s hushed voice, contemplative lyrics, and delicately picked acoustic guitar. The ensuing album is exactly what we want throughout these fraught and overwhelming instances: a name to let go, step again, and discover refuge within the pure, God-given rhythms of nature, vocation, and household.
On “Older and Free,” Witmer rejoices within the likelihood to get away from all of it and spend just a few days alone within the wilderness (“Older and free/To do as I please/Beholden to nobody else/For the primary time in weeks”) whereas “A Home With” celebrates the mundane pleasures of birds and crops. (My spouse is each an avid birder and lover of crops. As such, this tune took on some especial which means for me in 2025.)
“Clockmaker” finds Witmer—who owns his personal carpentry enterprise—appreciating the work of 1’s fingers whereas additionally acknowledging the bittersweet passage of time. Lastly, “Sluggish Movement Snow” is an eight-minute rumination on what it means to stay a very good life as each a father and buddy. Witmer’s lyrics—”Now I like awake and ideas fill my thoughts/Have I made good use of my friendships and time?/I take daily, all you are able to do is attempt”—tackle an added poignancy because of Stevens’ lush manufacturing and preparations.
—Jason Morehead
