Lola Kirke - Trailblazer

Trailblazer is Lola Kirke's most fully realized record yet, ten songs that split the difference between country twang and rock and roll bite, produced by Grammy winner Daniel Tashian.

Kirke spent years better known as an actor, playing an aspiring oboist on Mozart in the Jungle before her own music career started catching up to her screen work, first with a self-titled EP, then 2018's Heart Head West after she'd relocated from New York to Nashville. This 2025 record is the version of her sound that finally sounds settled rather than borrowed, Tashian's production giving the songs real polish without sanding down the specificity, someone equally comfortable citing Zeppelin as a country radio hook.

Marlboro Lights & Madonna is the record's clearest thesis statement, name-checking the exact cultural touchstones that built her, and Zeppelin III does something similar from the other direction, rock and roll worship filtered through a country songwriter's ear. Hungover Thinkin' carries real emotional honesty under its wry title, and Bury Me in NYC closes the album pulling her two cities, the one that shaped her and the one she left, into direct conversation with each other.

An actress who kept making music on the side long enough that it stopped being the side project. Trailblazer earns the title.