Link Digest: 12/17/25

Daniel D'Oca at Record Lung presents his 16 most-spun albums of 2025, and they're a nicely eclectic batch of LPs worth revisiting (or hearing for the first time);

The mighty Sarah Kendzior writes a lovely, earthy ode to William Prufrock, glottal stops, and human creativity;

Any Major Dude with Half a Heart serves up his fourth volume of smooth Christmas songs, baby;

For Flaming Hydra, Nathan Munn writes about what we stand to lose by surrendering to the bullshit of agentic AI;

Offline Crush offers a travel guide to Roku City, the screensaver millions of us know by heart without ever really thinking about it;

Niko Stratis, damn her, makes me see the beauty in "Wonderful Christmastime" while continuing to carry Studs Terkel's torch as a writer who never stops reminding us of the nobility and value of human labor;

Charlie Ricci at Something Else! interviews Jay Nachman about his new Graham Parker biography;

Ned Raggett writes rather eloquently about the complicated feelings that creatives tend to have about the Day Job;

JB at The Hits Just Keep on Comin' reminds me of the eternal majesty of Sister Mary Elephant;

The Quietus lists their favorite songs of 2025;

Culture Study offers a professional reader's picks for the best books of 2025;

Hearing Things presents some great under-the-radar hip-hop records from the last year;

Cabbages has another year-end hip-hop list packed with records that aren't the same old consensus picks;

Waxy alerts us to the list of works joining the public domain on January 1;

and Dan Gorman at The Discover Tab lists some of the happiest musical discoveries he's made over the past 12 months. (Note: this does not mean they were released in the past 12 months, or anywhere close to it. Impressively eclectic list, too.)