featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
December 14, 2025
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Nov 30: Favorite Covers
Dec 7: State of Americana
Dec 14: Favorite Songs
Dec 21: Christmas Christmas
Dec 28: Favorite Albums
You should probably tell some friends about us. Send some new ears our way. While there are plenty of other blogs who do good stuff, nobody cuts the stylistic swath that R&B does, what we call our kind of music. This would be a good entry point for your friends, as we go all AT40 (is that even a thing anymore) and count down our favorite songs for 2025.
So much very good stuff here, painstakingly culled from an original list at least three times its size. We wept to cast aside all that treasure, but the thirty (30) songs below each made their case so strongly that there was no ignoring them. About half of the songs are from LPs which will very likely appear on our favorite albums list at the close of the year. Others are from standalone singles, or from records that might not have landed another tune on our weekly ROUTES-casts.
These are in order of current preference, meaning that our very most favorites appear first, and that a year from now when we give our ROUTES-cast another spin we'll say, "Oh yeah, I do remember that! It seems so long ago." It's all about memory, the act of sinking new hooks into the part of our brain that holds all the music, carving deep new grooves. Perhaps it's the repository to which we'll return on days when the world just seems too much. If we're doing our work here, the music will lift us up and hold us aloft, deliver us and bring us safely back home. To quote our favorite song of 2025:
Still here, I'm screaming, "I want to remember it all
Even the hardest of harms that you're hurling at me"
Can't you hear me screaming, "I want to remember them all
All the arrows and the slings."
ROUTES-cast FAVORiTE SONGS 2025
^ Laura Stevenson, "I Want to Remember it All" Late Great (Really, Jun 27)
- Alex G, "Afterlife" Headlights (RCA, Jul 18)
- Luke Winslow-King, "Baby Wild" single (Bloodshot, Jan 24)
- Beirut, "Guericke's Unicorn" Late Great (Pompeii, Apr 18)
- Sarah Klang, "Childhood" Beautiful Woman (Nettwerk, Feb 7)
- Alan Sparhawk & Trampled by Turtles, "Not Broken" Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles (Sub Pop, May 30)
- Wednesday, "Elderberry Wine" Bleeds (Dead Oceans, Sep 19)
- Geese, "Taxes" Getting Killed (Partisan, Sep 26)
- Molly Tuttle, "That's Gonna Leave a Mark" So Long Little Miss Sunshine (Nonesuch, Aug 15)
- Low Gap, "If a Song Could Change Your Mind" single (Cloverdale, Jan 10)
- Pigeon Pit, "Josephine County Blues" Crazy Arms (Ernest Jenning, Jan 17)
- Fust, "Mountain Language" Big Ugly (Dear Life, Mar 7)
- Ryan Davis & Roadhouse Band, "New Threats From the Soul" New Threats From the Soul (Sophomore Lounge, Jul 25)
- Big Thief, "All Night All Day" Double Infinity (4AD, Sep 5)
- James Yorkston, "Oh Light Oh Light (ft Johanna Soderberg)" Songs For Nina and Johanna (Domino, Aug 22)
- Hermanos Gutierrez & Leon Bridges, "Elegantly Wasted" single (Easy Eye, Jul 17)
- Brown Horse, "Corduroy Couch" All the Right Weaknesses (Loose, Apr 4)
- Matt Steinfeld, "Resurrect the Tender" Matt Steinfeld (Steinfeld, Dec 5)
- Penny and Sparrow, "Jeopardy" Lefty (I Love You, Jan 31)
- Zack Keim, "25 Days" Battery Lane (Keim, Feb 7)
- Sunny War, "Cry Baby (ft Valerie June)" Armageddon in a Summer Dress (New West, Feb 21)
- Them Coulee Boys, "I Need a Friend" No Fun in the Chrysalis (TCB, Feb 28)
- Free Range, "Concept" Lost & Found (Mick, Mar 28)
- HORSEBATH, "Another Farewell" Another Farewell (Strolling Bones, Feb 7)
- Samantha Crain, "B-Attitudes" Gumshoe (Real Kind, May 2)
- Red River Dialect, "Again Again" Basic Country Mustard (Hinterground, Nov 14)
- Whiskey Myers, "Rowdy Days" Whomp Whack Thunder (Wiggy Thump, Sep 26)
- St Paul & Broken Bones, "Fall Moon" St Paul & Broken Bones (Oasis Pizza, Oct 10)
- Mavis Staples, "Human Mind" Sad and Beautiful World (Anti, Nov 7)
- Snocaps, "Angel Wings" Snocaps (Anti, Oct 31)
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To enjoy any Spotify ROUTES-cast, just open Spotify and search for "routesandbranches" to access this most recent playlist, as well as many others from past months. Or click here for a preview:
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