OOPS! Top 50 of 2025: #45-41: Hittin’ the Club, Modern Jazz and Back from the 90s

We keep going on with the OOPS! series for 2025. This is a pretty eclectic block, which is the main reason the OOPS!list is there…to highlight tracks that may slip through the cracks. The best thing is, all of these bands are first timers to any Cigar Jukebox lists. Let’s get into it!

45. Water From Your Eyes: Life Signs

Water From Your Eyes has been putting out some modern post-punk for a few years now. It is reminiscent of Wet Leg or even Butthole Surfers and Dead Milkmen before them. In that, there is a crunchy punk outer layer that surrounds glittery nonchalant pop. Water From Your Eyes has distilled both punk and pop to their very essences, so Life Signs is less of a song than it is a shot of music straight in your vein.

44. James K: Play

Clubby EDM does not get a lot of time on Cigar Jukebox, which is why I go out of my way finding some when I do the OOPS! list. Play is a great fusion of glittery pop with neon club EDM, which makes it both heart pounding and fun to sing to. You get it all here. Some excellent pop hooks and some hard edged synth and drumbeats that will keep all the EDM heads happy. Play lives in this middle ground that make it both accessible and also well crafted.

43. Tortoise: Oganesson

This track by Tortoise is part jazz, part R&B 4/4 beats and part synth performance art. Much like Robert Glasper’s work, Tortoise is expanding the form and questioning what jazz is. The song is both familiar and alien with some tried and true jazz guitar licks, which are surrounded by sci-fi buzzing. I think the reason the track works is that the more traditional jazz aspects keeps you grounded enough to go with the band when they jump way off the page with vast synth landscapes and searing electro squeals. It is an excellent sonic achievement that deserves a listen.

42. Suede: Broken Music for Broken People

To be honest, I didn’t think Suede was still making music…and to my defense…they weren’t. Their last record was about 4 years ago and we didn’t hear much. Broken Music for Broken People has all the 90s guitar riffs and Pixie-esque musicality you can ask for with some urgent vocals. This is a call to action for people to rise up in the face of social ills with some of that 90s punk energy their early records were famous for. This may not hit like Animal Nitrate or Beautiful Ones, but it is a tight song by a band that still has something to say.

41. Aya: Off to the Esso

Have you ever listened to Death Grips? They were part Nine Inch Nails electro industrial, part hip hop, part metal…and part raw aggression. Aya takes a page out of their book with a track full of sharp synth, industrial electro accents, a bit of club bop and a raw vocal that beats you into submission. You can’t look away. The track gets your heart pounding and you stay along for the ride. It is a brave track that really challenges how you define music.

The next block promises some more fun and non-traditional tracks to expand your music library.