If you already know what's up, feel free to go straight to the ballot.

Hey gang, in case you missed it, we recently revealed this sub's Top 101 Albums of 2025. And now with that out, we can officially choose the albums you'll see in the eleventh annual Indieheads Ultimate Rate!

Wait, what's a rate?

Every couple of weeks, the subreddit holds games every month called “rates” where a host selects a collection of songs and users give each song a score. We then get together over one big “reveal” weekend, as the host counts down the tracks by average, eventually giving the last remaining & highest scoring song the top spot, the crown, & bragging rights forever. It's a fun way to dive into both familiar & new-to-you music with dozens of other music enthusiasts at the same time!

We highly recommend those new to rates watch this video, or use this 30 second video to rates for the quick how-to guide from our sister sub r/popheads (please note our reveal process is thread-based instead of video chatrooms). And here's an example of a rate announcement and a rate reveal from the previous two Ultimate Rates.

The voting options

In the past, our annual Ultimate Rates simply used the top four eligible albums from the sub's AOTY results. Nowadays, the overall AOTY is the only locked album, and we vote for the three remaining spots from the next nine eligible albums from the list and the highest ranked album in the Debut of the Year not already on the ballot.

Geese - Getting Killed has been locked into Ult this year, and you'll be choosing from the following to join them:

• Wednesday - Bleeds

• Rosalía - LUX

• Viagra Boys - viagr aboys

• Oklou - choke enough

• Wet Leg - moisturizer

• Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

• Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong

• Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer

• Turnstile - Never Enough

• YHWH Nailgun - 45 Pounds

Please use the form below to vote for up to three albums:

Vote here

The deadline for voting is at the end of Friday, January 9th. The final results will be revealed in the Daily Music Discussion Thread next Monday, January 12th. The 2025 Ultimate Rate itself will begin sometime later this month.

Also, if you're interested in hosting or co-hosting Ultimate this year, you can let us know in the ballot, as well as what albums would make you more/less interested in hosting. We will be prioritizing first time hosts if possible, so if you've never hosted before and would love to, this is an excellent first rate to experience it.

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Feel free to use the comments below to reveal your votes or promote your picks (or talk shit about the picks you don't want in). Also, here are the upcoming rates & important periods:

• Due January 26th (about three weeks!): The Rate That Saved Bono's Life

• Beginning later this month: 2025 Ultimate Rate (Geese & friends)

• Beginning in February: Y2K Indie Rock (Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret; The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency and I; Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump; Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica)

• Beginning in March: Rate Submission/Voting Threads for the next cycle

• Beginning in April: IPA Indie (Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues; Destroyer - Kaputt; Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver; The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient)