On August 22, 2025, the famous alternative metal band Deftones released their newest and very anticipated album Private Music, following the release of two singles, “My mind is a Mountain” and “Milk of the Madonna” (the song titles are not capitalized). The release of Private Music caused an impressive spike of new monthly listeners on the Spotify music streaming platform.

The album was produced by Nick Raskulinecz. Other contributors included Chino Moreno as vocals and rhythm guitar, Stephen Carpenter as lead guitarist, Fred Sablan as bass guitar, Dominic Garcia as the main drum kit, and Frank Delgado on turntables. All were featured on Private Music and are now on their North American Tour throughout North America. The meaning of their latest album refers to a journey of transformation with each other including personal and public experiences that resonates with their new and long-time fans.

In a conversation with a reporter, Chino Moreno, lead singer of Deftones, said, “The lyric content… is like a reflection of the past and what we’ve done, and I think it’s the only song that really does that. And the lyrics are sort of a nod to all the times and the years we spent doing this and our love for it” (NPR).

In the early production of the album, the band started recording in mid to late 2024 into early 2025. Most of this time was spent producing lyrics for Chino, riffs and solos for the lead guitarist, bass lines, and music for the drummer, most of this takes up a bulk of their time not including the actual recording and successfully playing it.

After the release of Private Music, the album almost instantly hit with help of their two singles causing Deftones monthly listeners on Spotify to spike an impressive 836.6% and over 66,000 record copies sold after the anticipated release (Kennelty).

Deftones have surely proved something that many long time fans weren’t expecting. Many fans of the metal scene including myself have noticed that newer albums from older bands from the 80s and 90s have had less successful albums as they continue to get older based on what history has shown. But Deftones shocked the metal scene by their newest album and it’s only been out a month. We can only hope other bands will use their success to drive themselves to release new music with the hope it will be successful and or better than Private Music. We will just have to see…