Breaking down Rolling Stone‘s top country and Americana albums of the year on our Nashville Now podcast
Rolling Stone’s list of the 25 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2025 is live and out in the world. Check out the full list here.
On a very special Year in Country Music episode of Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, RS contributors and authors Marissa R. Moss (Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be) and Josh Crutchmer (the forthcoming Almost Almost Famous) join us to break down the top five albums on the list.
We also remember those we’ve lost this year, including the Mavericks singer Raul Malo, and tee up our final official interview of the year: singer-songwriter Brian Dunne, whose Clams Casino made Rolling Stone’s all-genre list of the year’s 100 best albums.
Our panel members also weigh in on their favorite albums and songs of 2025, the trends they’ve recognized this year, and what they hope to see in 2026. They also offer their take on which country albums they would have liked to have seen make the year-end best list.
New episodes of Nashville Now resume in January. Until then, download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Lainey Wilson, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Kings of Leon, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Breland, Marcus King, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Ink, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, and Brian Dunne.
