What are you looking forward to most in 2025?

Let's discuss everything great coming our way...

Earlier this week, I came across a newsletter I’d written but forgotten to send out in the unrelenting chaos that was December. For all of 2024, I’d compiled the dumbest shit that happened in the music industry. By the end of the year, the idea was that I would be able to point to it all and highlight just how batshit insane things had become.

Because some real dumb shit happened! Remember when Blink-182 flagged their sold out Christchurch show for no reason then fired shots at their pissed off fans? How about Jack Black cancelling Tenacious D’s entire Aotearoa tour because his mate made a silly joke? What about the $550 SZA tickets, the $600 Drake tickets, or the $4000 Metallica tickets?

Amazingly, it got even worse. Remember all of the acts who decided they no longer wanted to come to New Zealand and perform anymore? Or the Travis Scott show that cajoled the Houston rapper’s bored fans to fight by piping the sounds of cricket chirps around Eden Park?

How about Vultures 2?

Or ‘Woman’s World?’

Yikes.

I was about to send that newsletter out when I realised something. Last year was rough, in many ways for many of us. It sure was for me. We’re 11 days into 2025, and this year’s already gotten off to a bad start. After a week that’s involved right-wing politics ramping up, the incoming American president becoming a convicted felon, the world’s biggest social media company embracing a dystopian vision, and watching on in horror as wildfires burn across California (I hope Dave’s OK?), it doesn’t feel right to sit here and nitpick on the past.

Instead, I’m in the mood to elevate, and celebrate. As hard as it may be, I want to try and carry a feeling of optimism into 2025. So, today, that’s what I want to do. Ahead of us is a full summer of music absolutely stacked with major stars, huge shows and big festivals. I’m going to as many of them as I possibly can; if you’re a fan of this newsletter, then I’m assuming that you’re going to plenty of them too.

But which ones? Perhaps you’re dressing in a specific shade of green, heading along to Western Springs on February 6 and having a belated brat summer with Clairo, Beabadobee and Charli XCX as Laneway kicks off – without the 16-18-year-olds this time.

Possibly you’re heading to Christchurch to take in an expanded Electric Avenue, which, at two days and with 48 acts and more than 60,000 people going, has become the biggest festival not just in Aotearoa, but in Australasia too. (I can’t wait to see The Prodigy again; their latest reviews are incredible.)

Maybe you’re looking forward to getting your ripped Slipknot shirt out of your wardrobe, pulling your hair into spikes, pairing it with Doc Marten boots and letting it all go in the moshpit of their Spark Arena show on March 11. (I’m definitely going; reviews of their current tour are incredible too.)

Perhaps you’re going to put on some comfy sneakers and head along to Fisher tonight, or Kaytranada and Channel Tres next week, or Nia Archives, or Carl Cox, or Dimension, or Synthony, or any of the other big-name electronic shows coming our way to dance whatever’s stuck out of your system.

You might be going to Idles? Or Womad? Or Fontaines DC? Or Luke Combs? Or Fazerdaze? Or Dua Lipa? Or Shihad’s last tour? Or Nelly? Or Homegrown? Or The Pixies? Or travelling to Australia to see Oasis? Or Drake? (Maybe don’t do that?)

Or you could be looking ahead at all of the albums coming out and lining up exactly what you might be adding to your vinyl collection, everything from Lorde to Big Thief, Mac Miller, Chappell Roan, Clipse, FKA Twigs, Massive Attack, Mastodon, Spoon, The Shins, The Strokes, The Roots, The Weekend and The xx.

Perhaps there’s a song that’s really rocking your world right now. For me, I’m playing hey, nothing’s ‘Barn Nursery’ on repeat. It’s morose yet uplifting, and I find it completely captivating and delightful. If you’re a Big Thief fan, you’ll enjoy it too.

Don’t worry: there’ll be plenty of time for more dumb shit to happen. It’s definitely coming our way, and when it does, I’ll be right here waiting to call it all out and catalogue it.

For now, though, I want to hear about the good stuff. Tell me what you’re doing and how you’re feeling and the music you’re listening to and the shows you’re planning on heading along to. Get in touch! I want to know all of it…

Bonus beat.

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