Happy New Year!

Please start your music year by enjoying this slideshow of many of my favourite releases of 2025. (Thanks to Tech Manager Courts for the amazing assistance with this!)

I titled this post “Brand New Loves (2025)” for a few reasons.

The song “Brand New Love” is one of my favourites (See playlist OPUS70 from the 11/3/2025 post.) It was written and performed by LOU BARLOW, (originally – a member of DINOSAUR JR., 🇺🇸), but written with two of his follow-up bands SEBADOH/ SENTRIDOH 🇺🇸

I got to see LOU play live for the first time (and play this song) at our wonderful METEOR CLUB this past August 20 (see post 1187 on August 24, 2025.)

https://share.icloud.com/photos/042Xjz70MXi8ROygAYhKlmSVg

As well, British band THE LOFT 🇬🇧 returned to record an LP after a 40 year hiatus! Here is a picture of the additional 7” with my copy of the limited edition LP. That single contains their cover of “Brand New Love.”

It seemed natural then to reference these “new musical loves” with reference to this personally earth- shifting song.

Yet, that’s not all. Talk about full-circle. My son Hayden got me this amazing box set of the first 10 7”singles ever released by CREATION RECORDS for XMAS! One of those 7” singles (#9) was by THE LOFT! (“Why Does The Rain” b/w “Like”.)

To celebrate these new vinyl loves I have curated a 70-song playlist to get you started in 2026.

[Ed. Note- Enough with the number 70 rex. Stop obsessing over that number…]

There are a few songs on the playlist that aren’t pictured in the slideshow. They are from top brand new 2025 loves that I haven’t yet found in a record store to acquire. One of my goals this year is to finish the collection.

Conversely, there are also a couple of vinyls pictured that are not uploaded to Spotify. I will rectify that in future posts by getting songs to you from those great releases. Promise.

Now, here is the SPOTIFY playlist!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MqMGkxIQ1JhM9KvRbLCZQ?si=1_5puftkRfe011qPTU_E6A&pi=7z7fnnkOTUGx6

(SONGS 1412- 1481)

I wish every one of you health, happiness and good listening in the year ahead.

PLAY LOUD IN 2026

1/1/2026