From creative collaborations to personal tributes, North Carolina musicians were busy in 2025 making a solid cannon of music.
by David Menconi

This year brought notable new albums, interesting collaborations and some cool side projects
from North Carolina musicians. It also brought tribute to two late, great artists from our state.
Here are 10 landmark songs of 2025.

Wednesday, “Elderberry Wine”

Wednesday guitarist MJ Lenderman broke out as a solo star last year with his acclaimed album Manning Fireworks, but he’s still in this Asheville band’s lineup for their new LP, Bleeds. This one’s also an amazing breakthrough album touted by National Public Radio as one of the best rock records of the year.  

Tift Merritt, “Last Day I Knew What To Do”

Raleigh resident Tift Merritt has been spending most of her time lately working on an ambitious project, refurbishing the old Gables Motor Lodge near downtown as a boutique hotel and artistic retreat. But there’s still time for music, with a new album in the works plus this year’s reissue of Merritt’s Grammy-nominated 2004 album Tambourine. “Last Day I Knew What To Do” is one of the reissued version’s previously unreleased bonus cuts.

Third of Never, “Grab the Ground”

From the Lenoir County town of La Grange, Third of Never is one of this region’s best classic-rock-style bands. Judge them by the company they keep: One of the group’s regular collaborators is keyboardist John “Rabbit” Bundrick, longtime sideman for The Who. The soundtrack to an in-progress film, Third of Never’s latest album, Damage the Pearl, features another notable guest, Connells lead singer Doug MacMillan, as primary vocalist.

Salt Collective, “In the Shadow of the Moon”

This supergroup features members of R.E.M., Wilco, Blake Babies, Television and other stars, plus North Carolina’s Lynn Blakey, Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey. Blakey, a veteran of bands including Let’s Active and Tres Chicas, duets with R.E.M.’s Mike Mills on this single from the new Salt Collective album A Brief History of Blindness, and it’s lovely.

Neko Case, “Winchester Mansion of Sound”

This is a song that’s about rather than by a local artist: Chapel Hill’s late great Dexter Romweber, who has had quite an afterlife since his death in 2024. He was depicted on the TV teen drama series The Runarounds and also posthumously elected to the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. The same month Romweber was inducted, Americana songstress Neko Case released this elegy to his memory on her latest album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, including these lyrics:

I still think of you
And your wild, recurve guitar
Only you can play so far out of tune
And still kick me in the heart…

Bon Iver, “Day One”

Former Triangle resident Justin Vernon (known musically as Bon Iver) kept busy on multiple fronts this year, including serving as producer of his old DeYarmond Edison bandmate Phil Cook’s instrumental-piano album Appalachia Borealis. He also released a highly idiosyncratic Bon Iver LP of his own, SABLE, fABLE. From that album, “Day One” features the singer Dijon and Jenn Wasner (who performs as Flock of Dimes) in cameo roles.

The Mountain Goats, “Cold at Night”

Few songwriters are prolific enough to pull off a book as ambitious as John Darnielle’s latest, This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days, a quasi-memoir of mini-essays about a song for every day on the calendar. And the Durham resident’s latest Mountain Goats LP is Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, an elaborately conceived concept album about a shipwreck story. From that album, “Cold at Night” somehow features both Replacements/Guns N’ Roses bassist Tommy Stinson and Hamilton: An American Musical maestro Lin-Manuel Miranda on backup vocals. 

Chris Stamey, “Meet Me in Midtown”

Chapel Hill’s Chris Stamey had another busy year in the studio, with the previously-mentioned Salt Collective album as one of his productions. Stamey’s own 2025 LP, Anything Is Possible, shows off his knack for making new songs that sound like huge hits of classic vintage from some far-off alternative universe. “Meet Me in Midtown” features the aforementioned Lynn Blakey on the vocal chorus. 

The Mayflies USA, “Kickless Kids”

When Chapel Hill’s Mayflies USA went on hiatus following 2002’s Walking in a Straight Line, bassist Adam Price launched a successful parallel writing career under his full name, Adam O’Fallon Price. His writings include two novels, with a third in the works. Meantime, Mayflies reconvened this year to put out their first album in more than two decades. This is the title track.

Roberta Flack, “Eternally”

A native of Black Mountain, Roberta Flack first emerged as vocalist with the Eastern North Carolina R&B band The Monitors before going on to become one of the biggest soul-pop stars of the 1970s. “Killing Me Softly With His Song” was her defining (but far from only) hit, and she was posthumously inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame this year, after her death at age 88. From a 1997 session, “Eternally” was released for the occasion.   

This article originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.