2026 In Music

 

Hello and happy new year one and all! I'm a few days late with my review of last year's many musical offerings but there was just so much for me to go through and re-remind myself of!

I'll start off with the only gig I managed this year the amazing Delilah Bon. Those of you who read 2024's Blog will remember that her Evil Hated-Filled Female was my favourite album of the year and I was really excited to see her live. The excitement was well worth it as she was absolutely fantastic (you can read my full blog about it here). I love small gigs - give me a gig in a club over a stadium any day, you can 'feel' the music more. 

Delilah also released an EP towards the end of the year 'Princeless Princess'. 

It's another great message of female empowerment and just being yourself without giving a fuck. My favourite song on it is Dragon. 

Another great thing to come from Delilah's show was discovering a new band who I'm really enjoying called Eville. 

At the Delilah Bon show

They also released their first EP back in the summer Brat Metal my favourite song from it is Accidents Happen. I really hope they play some more shows this year - they're actually from Brighton so them making the half hour train ride to Eastbourne would be much appreciated 😂

Before I go into detail on the (many) albums I enjoyed in 2025 here are some of my favourite songs of the year. As always click on them to check them out.

Nova Twins - Soprano

SkyDxddy - Her

RØRY - WOLVES

High Regard - White Lillies

Novelists - All For Nothing

Sludge Mother - Pig

Foo Fighters - Today's Song

Evanescence - Afterlife

Witch Fever - Fever Eaten

The Pretty Reckless - For I Am Death - As an aside I REALLY hope they tour next year as they're absolutely fantastic live!

Nine Inch Nails - As Alive As You Need Me To Be

tiLLie - Wake Up & Smell The Bacon

Ardenite - Virus

Lola Young - Who Fucking Cares?

Crae Wolf - On My Body and Whip Rock

And now it's ready for a deep breath as we dive into my favourite albums of 2025!

The first two on my list are sequels from 2024 so to speak. 

Hazbin Hotel Season 2

The second season had as many broadway-worthy tunes as the first one.

Wicked For Good OST

The moment I left the cinema after seeing the first Wicked film I was excited for the sequel. I even resorted to finding a bad YouTube recording of the Broadway show so I knew what happened next and, more importantly, learn the songs from Act 2! My favourite songs (that I was fully prepared for and humming along to) are The Girl In The Bubble (written for the film), No Good Deed and of course For Good which had me in tears with it's lyrics about saying goodbye to someone who has changed your life 'for good'.

Ghost - Skeleta

I got into Ghost back in 2024 and ended up with tickets to see them in 2025 which I was really looking forward to but unfortunately it was not to be. This has put a slight unfair dampener on the album (see also Lady GaGa below) as I was really sad not to hear it live. I love the first single Satanized (a video of a dancing monk what's not to love?).

I probably didn't work as hard as I should have to get into the rest of the album as I'd already sold my ticket by the time it came out but I do really like Lachryma and Cenotaph. Hopefully they'll be back in the UK again before too long and I'll catch them then!

Lady GaGa - Mayhem

I was SO excited when Mother Monster announced 'LG7' at the end of 2024 (in my blog I was really hyped) and when Abracadabra dropped my excitement reached fever pitch!

The album did not disappoint. The promised dark 'dungeon pop' was there and the vibe and artwork reminded me of my favourite The Fame Monster. Highlights for me were Garden Of Eden, Perfect Celebrity, Zombieboy , Killah and of course 2024's Disease. As I hinted at above my love for the album has been a dimmed a bit because of the mess that was trying to get tickets for the Mayhem Ball tour which meant I couldn't experience it live. GaGa is one of the best live artists I've ever seen and I'm so so sad that I didn't get to join the other Little Monsters on the road. 

Taylor Swift - The Life Of A Showgirl

Taylor's back! This album was so much fun and I found it so much easier to get into and enjoy than 2024's Tortured Poet's Department (nothing wrong with that album by the way - it made it onto the list). I think it was because of it's joyful and fun vibe. My favourite songs on the album are Eldest Daughter, Father Figure, Opalite and of course Fate Of Ophelia with it's lavish video. 

It's been a tough 18 months for me, and some sparkle and fun was exactly what I needed so thank you Taylor!

And so to my album and artist of the year ... of course it's Yungblud! 

I've been a fan of Yungblud since around 2019 and his 2020 album Weird! was one of my favourite albums of the year. I also credit him as the person who got me back into live music post-covid when I saw him back in 2022 at the Royal Albert Hall (blog here). He was so energetic and fun and reminded me of what live music is all about. He's been my joint favourite artist with 30STM & GaGa ever since (he has a spot on my music tattoo section of my arm) and I've seen him 4 times now. 

It's been an absolutely crazy year to be a part of the Black Hearts Club. When the video for Hello Heaven Hello (also my favourite song of the year) dropped it was such a departure from his previous pop punk/rap/rock/punk vibe but I loved it's classic rock sound. 

When the album Idols dropped it was more of the same in the best possible way. He really stretches his vocals on the album and it's just wow! My favourite songs on the album are Zombie (nominated for a best rock song Grammy!), The Greatest Parade, Ghosts and my other favourite song from the album War with it's soaring guitar. 

Yungblud burst into the public consciousness in July with his performance of 'Changes' at the Ozzy Osbourne celebration show Back To The Beginning and showed the public what we've been saying all along about how awesome he is live!

He followed this up with a performance at the VMAs with Aerosmith which included Crazy Train - my favourite Ozzy song. 

The year was rounded off by the release of the joint EP with Aerosmith One More Time and the single My Only Angel  and on New Year's Day he dropped a collaboration with the Smashing Pumpkins on Zombie. 

I have a ticket to see him next year at the O2 which I'm so excited for! It's tinged with a teeny bit of sadness that I won't get to see him at small venues like I did  2023 when I saw him at a nightclub (Yungblud take 2). But I'll take whatever venue I can when it comes to hearing all these fantastic new songs live. 

Until next year .....

Love Jen

XxxX

You can find my previous year's music blogs here -

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025 In Airshows

2025 was another fantastic year in the airshow-world. I was lucky enough to get to loads of shows this year and two London flypasts. It was definitely a year for helicopters with the RAF Chinook & Army Attack Helicopter role demos appearing at both Duxford & RIAT and lots of foreign displays at RIAT from the Portuguese Merlin, Czech Sokols, German NH90 and Belgian NH90 at Duxford's Battle Of Britain Show. So without further ado these are my highlights of the 2025 season.  

My first aviation event of the year came nice and early with the VE Day 80 flypast in London.

My first meeting this year with the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster

The Red Arrows in formation with 4 Typhoons

My season started to busy up in June with the Trooping The Colour Flypast & Duxford Summer Airshow

Some photos from Trooping The Colour -

Globemaster & F35s

Voyager & Typhoons

Typhoons

The Red Arrows

This is the full flypast -

Duxford's Summer Airshow carried on with the VE Day theme with the appearance of R4D 'Ready for Duty' and it's team who had flown over from Texas.

The show was also my first appointment of the year with the RAF Typhoon Display. This year's display could only be described as thunderous. From it's new arrival from crowd rear into multiple barrel roles to it's exit via an inverted climb you really didn't get a chance to catch your breath. The team went on to win the 'Best Solo Jet Display' at RIAT and it was easy to see why.

Duxford also started the helicopter theme for the season with the appearance of a Cobra which I'd never seen before. 

I also got a nice close up view of the RAF Chinook Role Demo from the members area. The commentary this season was absolutely hilarious, I really hope they make it to more shows next year purely for the commentary alone!

Duxford was also the debut for the Army's Attack Helicopter Display Team featuring a Wildcat and 2 Apaches. It was absolutely fantastic and they also performed at RIAT with extra pyro!

These are some more highlights from the show -

Next up in July was the big one .... RIAT 

There was some slightly challenging weather in the vein of 2023's Monsoon Fairford and I did spend a lot of the mornings hiding from the rain ...

As always there were some beautifully painted aircraft.

Jordanian Hercules

German Typhoon

Hunter

Friday was the best weather with blue skies and sunshine all day. 

The SAAB Gripen kicking off the show

The Finnish F18 was one of the standout acts of the weekend.

A 'Friday exclusive' RAF F35 in the hover

The Red Arrows closed the show on the Friday.

They also flew with an RAF Poseidon later in the weekend. 

 I also got up close to them taking off. 

This was Friday -

One of the poignant memories of the weekend was the Polish F16 and it's brilliant display. Tragically the pilot was killed just weeks later at a show in Poland. 

A highlight 'from the ground' was finally seeing a massive C5 Galaxy up close and also getting to go onboard and walk through. 

I couldn't zoom out enough on my phone camera to fit it all in 😂

The Frecce Tricolori made their first appearance for a couple of years-

The Frecce's history was also reflected by the pairing of a vintage G91 'Gina' and a T91 Master which is the aircraft the team will be transitioning to. 

I mentioned earlier that this was the season of helicopters and RIAT contributed to this with the aforementioned German NH90, Portuguese  Merlin and Czech Sokol demonstrations. 

Merlin

Sokol

NH90

A demonstration from one of the Fairford-based U2 spy planes

A surprising favourite display of mine was this graceful French Navy Atlantique. 

RIAT said a sad goodbye to the beautifully painted Danish F16 which was due for retirement at the end of the season .

Saturday's highlights -

Sunday's highlights -

The last of the 'summer' shows was an astonishingly sunny Airbourne! We had pretty good weather in 2022 but this year was exceptional. 

The absolute highlight of my year is the moment the Red Arrows shoot over the beach into their display. 

Diamond 9

I waited all season to get this shot!

On Thursday and Friday we were treated to the sight of an RAF A400M flying low along the seafront. 

Thursday's highlights -

Another standout moment of the 4 days was the BBMF and the Lancaster's departure over the crowd. An absolute wow moment as it's 4 Merlins thundered over the town. 

Heading in over the crowd

Continuing with the warbird theme P51 Mustang 'Moonbeam McSwine' made her Airbourne debut. 

I promised it was a helicopter-themed season and Airbourne carried it on with the Royal Navy's Black Cats display team performing all 4 days with their Wildcat pair. 

The blue skies made for some great photographs over the weekend. 

Rich Goodwin's Pitts

Jet Provorst

Rolls Royce Spitfire

The noisiest participant of the weekend was of course the Typhoon -

Even Easyjet stop for the Typhoon

Highlights from the other days -

As Autumn approached it was time to head to Duxford for their Battle Of Britain Airshow . They finished up the unofficial helicopter theme of the season with the Belgian Air Force's NH90 Search & Rescue Demonstration.

I'd never seen an AN26 Invader before until I met Sweet Eloise -

One of the highlights of the show was a record 8 Hurricanes in formation -

I hadn't seen a Sabre in years so I was really excited when it was announced that this Mistral Warbirds example would be attending. 

My final sight of the BBMF Lancaster before she goes into maintenance for 2 years

This is one of my favourite photos of the season - the Lancaster performing whilst the Spitfires taxi for the finale flypast

The show was of course finished by the mass Spitfire & Hurricane flypast.

Highlights from the Battle Of Britain show -

The final show of my season was Duxford's Flying Finale which was unfortunately weather affected by an incredibly strong wind. This put paid to the BBMF and smaller warbirds. The Duxford-based Catalina put on a valiant display.

Thankfully the wind dropped a little towards the end of the afternoon and I was able to see the Typhoon and Red Arrows one final time. 

Highlights from the show -

You can watch my highlights of 2025 season here (you may want to make a cuppa as it's quite a long one). 

I'm really excited for the 2026 season; Airbourne has already announced it will be returning (thank you for all your donations everyone) and RIAT has announced that the 2026 theme is 'Fighter Meet' which is bound to be noisy 😁😁😁

Love Jen

XxxX