Before I dig into this, a couple of bits of housekeeping. Firstly, apologies to Nick Hasted, who we inadvertently omitted to credit for last month’s Nick Cave cover story. Secondly, a quick heads up to all print subscribers that this issue comes with a second CD – the latest instalment in our ongoing Selected Works series, this one celebrating Cassandra Jenkins. You might have noticed Cassandra’s recent album My Light, My Destroyer in our Albums Of The Year and we’re delighted to have been able to further support her work on this rather special, 5-track CD. If you’ve come to Cassandra’s music belatedly, this is a great way to catch up with some of her earlier recordings.

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There’s a lot going on inside our January 2025 issue, of course – including our Kate Bush cover story, Alastair McKay’s hilarious double-header with The Damned’s chief mischief makers, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies, Nick Hasted’s definitive dive into James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and Neil Spencer’s peerless adieu to Quincy Jones. But for us, the big piece of work this month is our annual review of the year to come. A masterful job by Sam Richards and Tom Pinnock here, it’s pretty much mapped out the key albums of 2025 – from Patterson Hood to Alabaster DePlume, Lucinda Williams to Modern Nature. Myself and both my predecessors have often been accused of blathering on about ‘vintage years’ for music, but looking ahead it genuinely feels like there’s plenty of new music to be excited by.

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