picks 11-30 (+ honorable mentions) beneath the cut
#30 Dudu by yeule: Hit play on “dudu” by yeule and you’ll be met with a euphoric sonic landscape which’ll make you want to run through a field of lavender at sunset, all chirpy refrains and soaring keys. Then, yeule subverts the pretty landscape they've created with images of poison rain, cutting a line of coke, and needing to be restrained due to the severity of their unrequited pining. Even when painting in a candy colored trip-pop palette, their singular edge as an artist remains sharp as ever.
#29 About You by Now, Now: As long as Now, Now keep releasing heartsick sapphic synth-pop, my heartsick sapphic ass will keep gobbling it up with glee. It also helps that “About You” presents an intense, burbling brew of squelchy synths, thunderous percussion, and crystalline accents. Cacie Dalager’s lyrics still fixate on romantic transgression, but here the most potent yearning is for release from the evasive addressee's hold over her emotions and creative process. “I don’t want to write another song about you” she repeats over and over like a mantra, elevating the angst to divine heights.
#28 Something for Somebody by Mallrat: On “Something To Somebody,” Mallrat plays a forlorn ghost caught between past regrets and the possibilities of a new romance. The song is both homey and brooding, the sweet ambiance ruptured with a single raw synth which jaggs through the mix between verses, or the wan confession that her new beau is an “alibi” to show others she’s moving on. The song is ruminative and a little bit heedless, but that just makes it all the more human. “But I’m not at my best, yeah I’m so far behind / Just floating around with you still on my mind” Mallrat coos, knowing deep down she isn't fully over it yet.
#27 White Horses by Wolf Alice: Wolf Alice kick into a higher gear on “White Horses,” where drummer Joel Amey rapid-fires ruminations on identity and finding understanding beyond oneself. There’s a muscularity to the rugged drum beat and tangy bass timbres, Ellie Rowsell’s voice sailing through the mix like a specter in the wind. “I could just wander always, like a leaf on the southeast breeze,” Amey and Rowsell harmonize, vagabond instincts leading them towards the shores of “England waving” in the distance. Listening, I always picture the band standing at the helm of a giant ship, white sails streaming behind them, crowing out tales of adventure.
#26 Perfect Stranger by FKA twigs: “What we don’t know will never hurt us,” FKA Twigs murmurs on “Perfect Stranger,” a song all about the thrill of an anonymous fling, “You’re a stranger so you’re perfect.” This collision of mystery and intimacy creates an addictive, thrilling atmosphere, concocting glossy synths, hip-twitching loops, and echolalic ad-libs shot through layers of distortion. As the song reaches it climax, Twigs sheds any trepidation in lieu of the pure, basal understanding of bodies moving in tandem. “I love the danger,” she declares. How could you not, when it sounds this enticing?
#25 Words by Big Thief: As a writer, there’s no greater frustration than failing to translate emotions into language. It’s a relief to hear one of the greatest working songwriters has the same struggles. On “Words,” Adrianne Lenker revels in the frustration of failing to bring subconscious longing to the surface. My favorite moment arrives at the end of the chorus, where Lenker sings “Words are feathered and light / Words won’t make it…” and then there’s an extended pause of reflection before she adds the period to the end of the sentence, “right.” Atop squiggling guitars and rumbling atmospherics, the song's chaos feels inviting and grounded, filling in the blanks.
#24 Buckle by Florence + The Machine: Given they released an album called Everybody Scream this year, I wasn’t expecting to describe my favorite Florence + The Machine song of 2025 as “subtle.” But “Buckle”'s torment gently simmers in Aaron Dessner's strummed guitar and Florence Welch and Mitski’s lyrics about clinging to an indifferent lover like an agonized Labubu. Welch has a voice which can blow the roof off a stadium, but here her prowess shines in moments of subtle accentuation: an exhausted exhale in the second verse or frustration bleeding into the lament “Oh god I thought I was too old for this.” It’s a quiet yet persistent desperation, hoping someday the right love with cinch perfectly into place.
#23 Sugar On My Tongue by Tyler, The Creator: 2025 Tyler, The Creator lent a delicious new addition to the growing buffet of munch anthems with “Sugar On My Tongue.” For an artist whose career spans from Internet-addled provocation to critically acclaimed genre experiments, it was nice to remember that he’s also capable of making his own version of “My Humps” if he wants to. “Sugar On My Tongue” is so gloriously flagrant in its reverence for oral sex that it almost feels cute, all gasping breaths, on-the-nose (or mouth?) double entendres, and funky synth accents. But even more impressively, it also managed to become one of the year’s most indelible bangers which always got people from all walks of life up on their feet. How sweet indeed.
#22 Event of a Fire by Blondshell: Blondshell’s wry, disenchanted outlook remains wholly magnetic on her sophomore album If You Asked For A Picture, and the snapshot I returned to the most was burnout anthem “Event of a Fire.” Lyrically, Sabrina Teitelbaum approaches the cusp of self-reinvention or destruction, (likely both at the same time.) “What if I’m burnt out / ‘Cause I didn’t grow up?” she implores over escalating shreds of guitar, “Now I’m left open / When I’m in love / And my heart’s broken / When no one hurt it.” With the dread of starting “the rest of my life” looming after my college graduation, this song was a life raft against my own feelings of stagnation and self-imposed heartache. “Don’t look around just look ahead,” Teitelbaum sings in the outro, a reminder that even when your life is in flames, you can find an escape route one step at a time.
#21 iPod Touch by Ninajirachi: Australian electronic artist Ninajirachi burst only my radar this year with I Love My Computer, an album fixated on how identity can be shaped through the kaleidoscopic chaos of the internet. In the case of “iPod Touch,” Ninajirachi presents a raucous ode to music’s ability to anchor memories of self-actualization. “I’ve got a song that nobody knows,” she chrips on the chorus, “[didn’t know it would] turn a Monday to a memory and change my world…” The beat kicks like a doodled-upon Converse sole to the pavement, all nightcore-esque pitch shifting and grimy bass. It immediately rips me back to the adolescent moments of finding the meaning of life via a bass-boosted YouTube rip, or sneaking Vevo binges during computer lab. Both boisterous and achingly intimate, "iPod Touch" captures the ecstasy of a moment specific to our modern era yet so universal in its reverence for pure musical catharsis.
#20 Man I Need by Olivia Dean: I'd written over half of this post when I realized if I didn't include “Man I Need” by Olivia Dean, the list simply wouldn’t be complete. “Man I Need” was a discreet yet consistent pleasure in the dry chart landscape of 2025, a thoughtfully penned and agreeably performed song whose persistence on the radio never tainted its excellence. There’s something so lively and refreshing about Dean’s open-hearted and curious approach to love on “Man I Need.” She offers up tender little moments like a kiss to a boo-booed heart: the retro soul inflections in the instrumental, the butterflies elicited by being called “wonderful,” the beckoning lilt of “talk to me, talk to me.” For a fleeting moment, the prospect of love gleams with promise, simply lying at the other side of an intimate conversation. It goes down easily but sticks in the memory, Olivia Dean’s presence all elegant warmth and palpable joy. Men aside, she’s the pop star we need right now.
#19 You Killed The Music by Debbii Dawson: On her resplendent single “You Killed The Music,” folk-crooner-turned-dance-diva Debbii Dawon gets her creative juices back upon breaking up from a stymieing ex. While the song starts in melancholic piano ballad territory, Dawson quickly rips away the set dressing to reveal a dancefloor just waiting to be torn up, her twittery timbre blossoming into full-blown disco worship as soon as the chorus hits. And it just might be the best chorus of the year. That driving synth line which feels yanked from the Abba vault. Dawon’s fluttery intonation of “ah ha, ah ha” accented by a crisp two-clap. That drum roll! “You can’t stop me now,” Dawson proclaims in the final moments, and by the time the song is over, you feel that proclamation in body and soul, coaxing forth pure musical magic, more alive than ever before.
#18 Pussy Palace by Lily Allen: I don’t think anyone was expecting West End Girl, the latest record from British aughts hitmaker Lily Allen, to so searingly convey the dissolution of a relationship through approachable pop hooks and juicy celebrity gossip. My immediate standout was “Pussy Palace,” where Allen renders the moment of revelation of her ex’s betrayal in deceptively pleasant hues. The sonic palette is all twinkling keys and candied melodies sung in Allen’s upper register. Passive listeners might even miss the song’s lascivious subject matter if she didn’t state it so bluntly. Take the second verse where Allen unpacks her ex’s baggage both literally (a Duane Reade bag filled with condoms and lube) and figuratively (“You’re so fucking broken / How’d I get caught up in your double life?”) The result is a dissonance that’s humorous and devastating, taking comfort in the softness of the wool in the moment before it’s pulled from over your eyes.
#17 La Perla by ROSALÍA ft. Yahritza Y Su Esencia: Is “La Perla” by ROSALÍA the best diss track of 2025? It’s certainly the most unassuming one. Hailing from an album which accents traditional orchestration and features lyrics in fourteen different languages, “La Perla” waltzed through my headphones like the soundtrack to a romantic duet in some prestigious classical ballet, all lilting cadences and dainty string flourishes from regional Mexican trio Yahritza Y Su Esencia. Greater scrutiny to the lyrics, however, reveals ROSALÍA’s acidic evisceration of a no-good ex-lover, the Sugar Plum Fairy gone full Sour Patch Kid. You don’t have to be fluent in Spanish to register the indignance with which she spits out the words “un terorista emocional,” or catch the shing of a knife accenting the line which translates to “He's the center of the world / And after that, what else could matter?” It’s yet another example of how ROSALÍA continues to wield classical and contemporary modes of expression in tandem to push her sound, and pop music at large, in new directions. Making gems like this one, the world remains her oyster.
#16 Parachute by Hayley Williams: Just like with Lily Allen, it’s the second verse of “Parachute” that instantly made it one of the most notable songs of the year. Hayley Williams spills out words at a mile a minute, trying pinpoint the exact moment when the relationship at the song’s heart fell to ruin. Was it during a heart-to-heart held mid-flight? When she stepped up to the altar to marry another man? Williams has always been one of my favorite vocalists, but her escalation from numb detachment to bleeding-heart pleading in that passage, culminating in the simple confession of “I would’ve done anything” to pick up the pieces, might be one of her best moments behind the mic. She isn’t the first to take the notion of “falling in love” to its most visceral conclusion, her narrator swearing to never trust another person to catch their fall ever again. But as the distortion which buffeted the mix at the song’s start takes a sluggish turn in its final moments, Williams calls the fealty of those promises into question. “Watch me fly,” a distorted echo of her voice intones, the implied upswing a vulnerable, indelible truth about the nature of reconciliation. Shedding its protective gear, the song soars.
#15 My Crud Princess by No Joy: I checked out Bugland by Canadian shoegaze band No Joy on a whim after it received a Best New Album designation on Pitchfork. Mind you, I’ve only ever dabbled in shoegaze. I think I just liked that there was a snail on the album cover, and I think I gravitated towards the song “My Crud Princess” specifically because of its outrageous title. There can’t be more arbitrary reasons to check out an album and a song, and yet it resulted in one of my favorite musical moments of the year. I now refer to “My Crud Princess” as “shoegaze Sk8er Boi,” it’s such a potent blend of punky anthemic energy, blown-out guitar tones, and riveting drum lines. Add in the lively details of Jasamine White-Gluz’s giggle leaping into the mix, or the keys that glisten like a sno-cone melting in the August heat, and you’ve got a song that’ll charm you even in the most unlikely of circumstances.
#14 How Bad Do U Want Me by Lady Gaga: I’m gonna get spicy and say “How Bad Do U Want Me” by Lady Gaga was the best Taylor Swift song released in 2025. There’s a touch of Fearless’s teenage whimsy in the good girl/bad girl dichotomy Lady Gaga dramatizes on this song, all ripped jeans, spontaneous tattoos, and tongue-bitten confessions threatening to spill free. While I’m not the first person to draw the comparison, at the end of the day, it’s not about pitting two badass stars against each other. Mother monster ups the ante of “How Bad Do U Want Me” in a way only she could, belting to high heavens, cranking the jagged edges on her retro synth tones, and lending a campy deadpan to “That girl in your head ain’t real / How bad do you want me for real?” Who else could so stridently capture the mayhem of reckless infatuation, crafting a “psychotic love theme” to soundtrack young lover riding off into the sunset?
#13 House Tour by Sabrina Carpenter: I’m convinced if anyone other than Sabrina Carpenter presented the increasingly ridiculous metaphors that build up “House Tour,” the song would fall apart. Who else has the comedic dexterity and militant commitment to the bit to pull off Chips Ahoy product placement and punchlines about entering through “the back door?” It helps that the production from Jack Antonoff and John Ryan lends a fizzy disco energy that’s so infectious, (shout-out to the bass lick slinking through the second verse.) “House Tour” doesn’t just narrate the hopes for a steamy post-date hookup, but affirms Carpenter’s megastar status, the boss of Pretty Girl Avenue who dramatizes her desires to ridiculous and addictive heights. “My house could be your house too,” Carpenter intones with a wink, inviting the listener in (so long as they take off their shoes.) Damn right she should be proud of the design.
#12 Good Girl by Reneé Rapp: “Good Girl’ by Reneé Rapp is a perfect pop song in a way that’s hard to write about, so finely tuned in its satisfying catchiness that I can’t think of a single thing about it I’d want to change. Throw the song on during a boogie sesh and you’ll find yourself transported you onto the dance floor Rapp describes, eyeing up a partner who’s so irresistible she’s going to have her push all her innocent intentions to the side. Every production element oozes 80s nostalgia, all percolating synths and drum reverb to make the mix as lush and spacious as possible. It had me wondering when Carly Rae Jepsen handed her the keys to the studio, (and if you know me, that's one of the highest compliments I could possibly give.) Considering her music theater background, it’s no surprise that Rapp conveys the line between coy suggestion and reckless abandon so well. My favorite moment comes right before the final chorus, when Rapp insists “[I was] about to call it a night / I promise, I WAASSSS!” delivering those final two words as a euphoric shout. Being bad has never sounded so fucking good.
#11 It's Amazing To Be Young by Fontaines D.C.: Considering the impending climate crisis, political upheaval, emotional polarization and isolation encouraged by social media algorithms, and late- stage capitalism threatening to crush our spirits beneath Big Brother’s loving bootheel, is it, really, amazing to be young in 2025? Fontaines D.C. have decided that the only real choice we have to cope with the doom is to insist that it is. Written after the birth of a band member’s child, “It’s Amazing To Be Young” is one of the most immediately joyful tunes in their catalogue, the soaring guitar lines and sing-along melodies primed to trigger dopamine release no matter how dire the circumstances. Grian Chatten pronounces the word “amazing” like he’s amazed to even be saying it, extending it in the middle to linger in the moment of hope. Listening to this song, I wholeheartedly believe in it too.
Honorable Mentions: From by Bon Iver, In My Room by Julia Wolf, Sue me by Audrey Hobert, Can we talk about Isaac? by Rachel Chinouriri, mangetout by Wet Leg, Dracula by Tame Impala, Florida Girl by Nep, take me by the hand by Oklou ft. Bladee, Music by underscores, Stuck by Hatchie, December by Erika de Casier, My Mans by Grace Ives, Gnarly by KATSEYE, TIT FOR TAT by Tate McRae, Drive by Alessia Cara, and S.M.O. by Amaarae
And that's the list! 2025 had big shoes to fill in comparison to the year prior, but looking back at the last 12 months there was no shortage of gems to gush about. I'm sure I missed a lot of great stuff, so please let me know: what were your favorite songs of 2025?
Thank you all for the support for this blog throughout the year. Here's to keeping our eyes, ears, and hearts open in 2026.
stuilly gives gnaw and not anywhere by alex g but specifically the lyrics "but i am no fool, i know everytime i look in his eyes he sees me too" and "and i could hurt him cuz i know he wouldn't stop me" and i think thats beautiful they should softly kiss eachother now like now like yesterday like now
Albums, EPs, and/or Singles I think you should give a try if you haven't already, and they happen to be gay cause it’s Pride Month as I write this.
Now, Now's 2018 album; Saved.
Now, Now is a band I have been following since the 2010's and any piece of work they come out with always leaves me simply wanting more.
While this album has a more synthy-pop feel to it, which is different than their usual indie take, they still manage to really hone in on the vibe and growth/struggle that is of the subject of the song. It's just really nice to have a band you feel grows along with you with each new release.
I'd also recommend their latest EP; 01. I just cant really put into words how much I love this band and any work they put out lol.
