A Debut is a first album by an individual as leader or first named credit. Groups should not be considered, although we might accept a first group album if no member of the group has a previous album as leader, first named credit, or member of some other group. That said, we allow some degree of discretion to critics to ignore especially obscure disqualifying albums. It is hard to define this boundary line definitively, but at a minimum, any artist who has received any votes in an earlier poll is no longer eligible to be considered under Debut. Votes for clearly ineligible artists are routinely rejected. On the other hand, if an artist is eligible, and releases more than one record in the year, we allow any new album from that year (i.e., we don't sort albums by release date within the year).
Critics were asked to designate any albums from their New Albums list that should be counted here. They were also asked to list up to 3 additional albums to count here. The lists are in the order provided, but there is no point system, so we only count votes.
The listings are sorted by votes (at the end of the line). The arrow at the end of the line will route you to a page listing all of the critics who voted for the album. Some entries may have footnotes. There is also a Notes section at the bottom of the page.
Total albums receiving votes: 0. Of these, 4 were initially released in 2024 (4.8%), and 79 in 2025. This is up from 3.3% in 2024.
This category was optional. 74 critics (44.3?%, up from 43.5% in 2024) did not vote in this category, so 93 critics did vote. Of those, 35 (37.6%) voted for 1 album, 16 (17.2%) voted for 2 albums, 41 (44.0%) voted for 3 albums, 0 (0.0%) voted for 4 albums, 1 (0.1%) voted for 5 albums..
Debut albums that received votes in 2024 as well as 2025. These are numbered by their position in 2024. In both years, all votes are counted equally:
The other '24 releases received no votes in 2025.
If an album received votes in the previous year, and received more votes this year, the two years' totals were added together. This applied to: