Follow all our Best of 2025 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.
Last year’s unexpected theme was Tom Petty covers. For no obvious reason, he popped up again and again on our 2024 year-end list. And whaddya know, Tom’s back this year, with two more Petty covers on our list. This year, however, he is not the most-covered artist on our list.
That’s a tie between two artists, one extremely of-the-moment, one timeless. With three covers apiece, Chappell Roan and Neil Young share the most-best-covered crown. (Artists with two covers apiece this year, in addition to Petty, are Gillian Welch, John Prine, and—this one’s surprising—Nelly Furtado!)
Spoiler alert: None of those appears in the number-one position. Number one covers an artist who I don’t think has ever appeared on one of our year-end lists. But don’t skip ahead. There are 49 equally (well, almost) as good covers to get through first, spanning genres and sounds and eras and ages. Here we go.
Cover art by Hope Silverman
My cover of the year has to be Fontaines DC’s take on Bring Me The Horizon’s Can You Feel My Hear (with a sprinkling of Nirvana for good measure) but it’s all subjective of course. Once again you’ve delivered us with a cracking run of covers throughout the year and a list of gems to round it off. Thank you and have a great Christmas.
I just discovered this site two weeks and its given me the precious gift of music. I’m the only member of my family who is still ambulatory this holiday season; the shadows grow for Generation X. Just wanted to pass on some drunken thanks as I listen to Ghost Town and I Want to Know What Love Is.
I’m from a mining town so I won’t pretend to spar with urban hipsters, so I’ll vulgarly suggest Newer Wave|Newer Wave 2.0 and Projekt’s Xmas covers because they are up there with ‘I’m Your Fan’ in my nostalgia books.
As always: Death to the Anglo-American Empire – but peace and goodwill to all the people within the dying belly of the beast. Music is our solace, salve and prod.