Perhaps it’s a little too prophesaurial, but, in 2025, what is a song? The world falls apart over and over in front of our screens before we see acts of humanity juxtaposing it all, reminding us there is hope running through the veins of the world. In and between all of this, we have music, the soundtrack to a life that just keeps. on. happening. We need the songs though, to sustain us, to lift us, and to sit with us when we need to wallow.
And there’s never a shortage of them. Another year passes and another proverbial cup spills over with tracks we adore and cherish. Our writers had songs from all concerns of every genre to celebrate and want to shine a light on. If we had our way, our list would be into the thousands, but we recognise that that’s perhaps a little too much to ask of our dear readers.
So as a socially acceptable compromise, here are our top 50, the songs that helped, nourished, and even saved us during this year. We hope that if they haven’t done so already, they bring you all the joy you need when you need it.
Listen to a Spotify playlist of our Top 50 Songs of 2025 here.
50.
Greet Death – “Country Girl”
[Deathwish Inc.]
On the incredible “Country Girl”, Greet Death vocalist Harper Boyhtari finds herself in a dream-like landscape of small town chaos, her mind ricocheting between 80s movie antagonists and the make-up of her own identity. There’s innumerable references here – from Halloween and Pavement to Short Circuit and The Fog. Boyhtari uses these as images of an eternal state, an uncanny experience within America’s broken social make-up that exchanges dreams for nightmares as both become interchangeable: “Slept through the screening, but I bought the DVD / I stayed up late for the satanic service / Three fucking weddings and a birthday, holy shit”. Anthemic and deeply alienated, “Country Girl” was destined to become a mainstream hit – but it was too present, too mournful, too intelligent to please a country torn apart. Maybe next summer, it will find its spring. – John Wohlmacher
49.
The Weather Station – “Body Moves”
[Fat Possum]
Tamara Lindeman’s work is saturated with curiosity and quiet revelations, each song a microcosm of human experience and personal internalization. Under the moniker of The Weather Station, she deals in measured catharses, not bombastic reactions but smaller, more intimate, moments that can shift our entire worldview without notice. “Body Moves” is a gorgeous and ruminative track from her latest album, Humanhood, and it feels particularly attuned to the minutiae of our complicated natures. Across droning rhythms and a voice so startlingly clear that it could shatter glass, we’re witness to an expression of jazzy ambience littered with gentle electronic ephemera designed to heighten your senses and fix your attention on her words.
The song deals with the sensation of being betrayed by your own body, of losing independence and being desperate to regain some measure of biological sovereignty. But then you have to stop and take a minute to try to understand what your body is trying to do, the reasons behind its actions. Maybe there is more going on than we know, and so we look for different interpretations – maybe we hear another song from somewhere deeper inside and give ourselves over to its call. We were never in control. – Joshua Pickard
48.
Chaeyoung – “Band-Aid”
[JYP Entertainment]
Thank whatever belief system you adhere to for Chaeyoung. For those that don’t overly closely follow the most universally beloved Korean girl group doing it, one might have expected TWICE’s main rapper to, well, rap. Naturally, Chae was gonna do just what she wanted. Which equated to diving into a fantasy world of her own creation; linking up with an unsung Japanese bedroom pop trio to write and compose a set of homegrown, deeply intimate songs; flipping through her insecurities, pride, romantic longings, sexuality, and more. Oh, and getting devoured by an anthropomorphic avocado. All in under 25 minutes.
Choosing a single track is a fool’s errand, given the gorgeous, placid lull of “Avacado”, exuberant lead single energy of “Shoot (Firecracker)”, lovelorne confessional of “Girl”, and more. Still, we’re gonna go with “Band-Aid”. Guided by loping bass and twinkling noise, it’s all so deceptively sweet. “I’ve been patient after all these years / So let me know right now / Can I count on you to hold me down?” We’re invested! “Stick you like a Band-Aid / Keep you around me”: it could be the most simply romantic, and charming pop ballad of the year. Then: “Could you be my Band-Aid? / Even when you hurt me.” Chaeyoung never digs deeper. After all, with the deceptive bandage applied, why would she? Just how toxic is the situation? She leaves it up to your imagination. You might start to feel a bit guilty finding it all so irresistible. – Chase McMullen
47.
Ghais Guevara – “The Old Guard Is Dead”
[Fat Possum]
If you don’t think you know this cut: take a second, because you might. Today’s controversy might be about a mostly Spanish-speaking American headlining the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show, but the 2025, Apple Music-sponsored version – co-starring Kendrick Lamar and SZA – was intro-and-outro’d by “The Old Guard Is Dead”. That politics makes for strange bedfellows doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s like Just Blaze meets Russian opera, specifically Anton Rubenstein: a figure at the center of Western (Rubenstein) vs. nationalist Russia during the late Tsarist reigns. Ghais Guevara, unsurprisingly, named himself for the communist posterboy and allies himself with leftist, Black politics, yet has a weakness for material goods. That his flow on this track is like Lupe Fiasco, whose moral certitude was equally frayed? It’s a glorious mess just like those of us listening and nodding along. – Steve Forstneger
46.
Florist – “Moon, Sea, Devil”
[Double Double Whammy]
“The earth is small, but I’m lost in it,” could be the most quintessential Emily Sprague line, and as it introduces “Moon, Sea, Devil” you immediately know this is nobody else but Florist. The band’s lovingly knitted art-folk has always been the perfect vessel for Sprague’s pontifications about the minutiae of life, and here her attention is focused on the miraculousness of the little electric pulses that connect us to other living things in it; the currents that help us awkwardly navigate the chaos. In her bandmates, she’s sure got a few of those connections to guide her through the chaos, and here they furnish her with a warm blanket under which she can shelter and dream. – Rob Hakimian
45.
Home Is Where – “migration patterns”
[Epitaph]
“migration patterns” kicks off in the most classic rock, southern fried way imaginable with a drum intro and guitar lick so goddamn U.S. of fucking A.-coded you might be momentarily flush with patriotic pride before you remember that the current administration is rife with belligerent bigots, spineless sycophants, and sexual deviants Making America Grotesque Again.
The song moves on quickly too, a harmonica painfully high in the mix announces that we’re in the off-kilter world of Home Is Where, in which Bea McDonald’s vocals remain the closest modern proxy to Jeff Mangum. They have a similar sense of poetic absurdity too; “migration patterns” is purportedly a song from the last-moments-of-life perspective of one of 13 different Elvis impersonators all dying in the same 13 car pile-up (the other songs on Hunting Season give us the tales of the remaining dozen all in service of writing The Great American Song). In it, the narrator confronts death with the resignation of a wounded animal ironically offset by McDonald’s joyous Ba-da-das during the chorus. Amid the closing cacophony, we are left with a casual indictment of modern America: “I’d never want to live forever / I’d still have to go to work.” I feel ya, hound dog. – Andy Johnston
44.
Clipse – “Chains & Whips” (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
[Roc Nation Distribution]
Folk talk about his disciplining of Travis Scott, but Pusha T really got on a chest-thumping, victory lap track with Kendrick and spent his entire verse deconstructing Jim Jones’ pathetic little world. Of course, the song serves as a grander indictment of hip hop at large, as well as a call to arms: whether it grows to be acknowledged as such or not, Clipse‘s “Chains & Whips” is the post-“Not Like Us” anthem. There’s Push “[closing] your Heaven for the Hell of it”, Malice spitting in the face of André 3000’s ‘rappers over 50 don’t have things to say’ talk with some of the best verses of the year, and Lamar himself doing absurd things to a rhyme scheme and offering his profits up to Rakim. Then, of course, there’s Pharrell offering up arguably the hardest beat of the album (there’s a reason this is the one they were previewing at fashion shows more than a year early). They needn’t even say “you can’t sit with us”: those that don’t belong were headed for the door, head hung in shame, before the first chorus. – Chase McMullen
43.
Racing Mount Pleasant – “Racing Mount Pleasant”
[R&R]
What a way to begin a new era. As a debut statement, “Racing Mount Pleasant” is a shock to the system. Racing Mount Pleasant – formerly known as Kingfisher – surge on midwest-emo warmth and post-rock force: sax wailing, guitars grinding, voices bursting in unison. It’s a group hitting high gear while discovering itself, with every blast carrying the weight and ambition of wanting to matter. – Kyle Kohner
42.
Cate Le Bon – “Heaven Is No Feeling”
[Mexican Summer]
The song’s title can be interpreted several ways, possibly as a retort to the stock phrase, “this feels like heaven”, but more likely simpatico with a line from the Ethel Cain song on this list (“To love me is to suffer me”) it means that love’s absence means peace. The vagueness fits the detached, Scary Monsters art-rock tones. Cate Le Bon’s diction reveals her education, as do the employed similes (“You smoke our love / Like you’ve never known violence”), and quasi-Freudian analytics. But she can’t legislate for emotion, and watches like a sedated patient witnessing her own open-heart surgery. Themes and words repeat but never quite tackle being a chorus, because that would require harmony. And despite her vocal heroics, there’s no harmony here. – Steve Forstneger
41.
Blood Orange – “The Field” (feat. The Durutti Column, Tariq Al-Sabir, Caroline Polachek & Daniel Caesar)
[RCA]
“The Field” feels like a dream assembling itself in real time – Blood Orange joined by The Durutti Column and Caroline Polachek in effortless harmony, with Daniel Caesar, Tariq Al-Sabir, and Eva Tolkin tinting the edges with hues of sunset oranges and pinks. Piano lines shimmer above a restless drum pattern, strings drift in like shifting light, and the whole thing glows with quiet wonder – it’s one of the most gorgeous songs released in 2025. – Kyle Kohner
40.
Barker – “Fluid Mechanics”
[Smalltown Supersound]
Look, I’m not a scientist, but I feel like Barker has presented some kind of proof of a convoluted physics theory with “Fluid Mechanics”. The ‘beatless techno’ producer’s sound skirts towards jazz on this album cut; a lounge-y space-y affair consisting mainly of atmosphere and piano chords.
The thing is, there’s just so much atmosphere, it feels like the cogs of the universe hissing and purring quietly deep in outer space. They keep the tipsy piano chords moving forward with an idiosyncratic, lilting form of balance and flow that feels unnatural to a classically trained musician – and certainly to a layman like myself. Drums come in to try to establish a framework, but they, too, are entangled in this gravity well and fall into its sway, producing splashy and echoing beauty. It’s a blackhole beckoning you to paradise. – Rob Hakimian
39.
Nourished By Time – “9 2 5”
[XL]
The struggle is real: managing your love and passion in a capitalist system. You get ground down during the day, aching to hold onto that glimmer at the end of the day, that joy that exists outside of your day job. On “9 2 5” Marcus Brown (aka Nourished By Time) recognises this and paints a vivid picture of holding that spark close to your chest. Over fluorescent piano chords atop a giddy drum track and vocal samples, Brown captures the conflict. The tempo stutters and stops, like a roadblock coming up – a last minute late shift added to your already long day, perhaps – but the hope steers it back on track. “He won’t let the dreamer die,” he sings, the optimism living on for another day, another 9 to 5. – Ray Finlayson
38.
Youth Lagoon – “Seersucker”
[Fat Possum]
Especially given the first word in the moniker, who would have thought Trevor Powers’ primary project would grow to enjoy such longevity? After letting Youth Lagoon lay dormant for nearly a decade, he returned in fine form. Heaven is a Junkyard was quiet and sparse and its follow-up Rarely Do I Dream digs further into personal nostalgia; into memory.
Arguably the album centerpiece, “Seersucker”, doesn’t need to do much. Largely guided by wounded piano and Powers’ nearly whispered vocals, it nonetheless packs a melancholy punch. As he slides into a repeated refrain of “we’re doing alright, we’re doing alright,” it’s hardly a celebration. There’s a palpable desperation lingering just behind the words. What’s more relatable this year? We’re all aging, the memories call us all back, helping and hurting, in turn. “Alright” is often the best we can do. – Chase McMullen
37.
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – “Super Nintendo”
[Backwoodz Studioz]
When The Alchemist is involved, so follows a lot of weed consumption. To commemorate the release of his latest record with Armand Hammer, Mercy, I got blasted off ⅕ of a joint, the psychoactive properties of the dispensary flower recycling the beat of “Super Nintendo” through my head in the cool California night. That looping synth floated around long after the album ended, repeated listens delivering the nuances of Elucid and billy woods’ respective verses. Elucid is all shit-talk til he sobers to the daylight: “Felt all out the loop, still woozy, been the moodiest, miss me with Yakubian news”. woods follows, reflecting on the irony of life: “We was drunk and high watching Intervention”. Yeah, maybe that joint was a mistake after all. But hey, we had a time. – Ethan Reis
36.
Little Simz – “Peace” (feat. Moses Sumney & Miraa May)
[AWAL]
Little Simz’s sixth album, Lotus, is filled with sociopolitical commentary and explorations re: betrayal and trauma. The sixth track, “Peace”, however, arrives as a respite or palate cleanser. Moses Sumney and Miraa May contribute fluid and calming vocals while Simz touches on meta-biography – releasing tension and striving to ground herself. “How can we sleep when there’s murders in the streets?” she asks, complemented by an acoustic strum, piano accents, a chorus-y ambience. She goes on to explore taking the higher ground, stressing how important it is to believe in one’s inherent goodness. With lines such as “How can you be the greatest but noble?” and “Make peace with what you outgrow”, she aspires to equanimity, in the process sharing some hard-won wisdom with her listeners. – John Amen
35.
Jiles & Grubby Pawz – “Neighborhood Watch”
[Van Buren]
In a word: sinister.
With high water marks such as All We Got iz Us, Hell on Earth, and The Price of Tea in China serving as clear reference points, currently (but surely not for long) massively underrated beatsmith Grubby Pawz linked up with the even more unknown Jiles for his most assured project to date. For his part, Jiles attacks tracks such as “Neighborhood Watch” like a damn prehistoric barracuda smelling blood in the water. His vocals float in like some bizarre spirit from a ghastly dimension. They slice like a ragged, jagged blade roughly snapping through sinew. Shit, he makes Jadakiss sound healthy and sprightly. – Chase McMullen
34.
Baths – “Governed”
[Basement’s Basement]
Will Wiesenfeld skillfully melded his experimental electronic pop that has become his signature with an alt emo edge on his newest Baths record, Gut, and one of the clearest examples of his prowess came in the form of “Governed”. The record overall is full of blunt lyrics detailing love, emotional hardship, self-worth, and sex and sexuality, and “Governed” represents that thrillingly, with Wiesenfeld commenting “I’ll have had less friends in my bed than most gay men,” or how he makes a “great show sincerity” but “fucks without honesty,” all over glitching, strutting electronics and percussion. But then the clencher is the chorus, which feels, ironically, critically sincere: “I will die waiting / I will be governed / Some crucial move / I never discovered.” His voice reaches an emo rock peak in the song’s thrusting climax, and the song — and album overall — shows just how well he has been able to synthesize his old habits with new ones, and be more honest than ever about the space he found himself inhabiting in his life. – Jeremy J. Fisette
33.
Luke Bell – “The King Is Back”
[All Blue Recordings]
The story of Luke Bell is, among many other things, the story of an artist who was profoundly confident in his singular talent long before any one else was. In an interview with Wyoming’s PBS, the late singer-songwriter’s family recall being initially “horrified” and bemused at Bell’s decision to quit college and move to Austin to pursue a career in music. But, soon the quality of Bell’s songwriting made it hard to doubt his true calling, and his 2016 studio debut LP had all the makings of a classic via tunes like the compelling character study “The Bullfighter” and the deceptively anthemic portrait of mental health woes on “Where Ya Been?”
Though under-recognised at the time of its release, Luke Bell, the album, steadily gained fans in the years that followed. But there continued to be no sign of the follow-up that would cement Bell’s status as a modern country great. It would turn out that Bell had battled with bipolar, grief and addiction in these years, which would culminate in his untimely death at 32-years-old in 2022 from an accidental overdose.
But, this year, listeners were let in on what the much awaited sophomore effort was shaping up to be, with a posthumous collection of 28 songs. The lead single and title track of said collection, “The King is Back”, is a chest-thumping statement of intent from a songwriter acutely attuned to his own gifts. “I’m sure you’ve all been dying to see me / I bet you’ve all been wondering where I’m at,” Bell declares with deserved bravado. Lightly chugging, fit with addictive guitar riffs and a dynamic vocal performance, “The King is Back” is a great song in its own right, but what makes it so compelling (and so tragic in the given context) is the promise it contains; a glimpse into Bell’s uninhibited ambition for his own music. “Yeah, that’s right, the party’s on and the king is back,” declares Bell in the refrain. But what should’ve been the sound of a grand re-entrance instead now marks a far-too-early final chapter. – Tom Williams
32.
Julien Baker & Torres – “Dirt”
[Matador]
On the acoustic opener to her collaborative album with Torres, Julien Baker pens a quietly devastating portrait of addiction and relapse. Here, the boygenius member adds a country twang to the themes that she has long mastered illustrating – self-destruction, heartache and remorse chief among them – and renders them in lacerating, devastatingly frank terms (“Spend your whole life getting clean / Just to wind up in the dirt”). Torres, for her part, provides added pathos through the perspective of the helpless, concerned onlooker (“Now you’re stuck back diggin’ ditches / And still can’t decide if you’ve run out of luck”).
But as with so many of Julien Baker’s dispatches from rock bottom, there’s something quietly reassuring about the clear-headedness with which her troubled narrators’ observe their own self destruction. And buried underneath it all is a rugged determination to dig one’s self out of whatever ditch they’ve got themselves into. “Got a shortcut to paradise that’s killin’ me”, Baker signs, before resolving, “But I still gotta try to get there first.” – Tom Williams
31.
CMAT – “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station”
[CMATBABY/AWAL]
Some feelings are just really hard to put into words; the kind where you have a swirl of conflicting thought processes and personal memories feeding into your big brain machine as you try to get it to regurgitate a simple sentiment. Feelings are rarely like this though: they’re messy, come with baggage, trauma, worry, and gut instincts. And sometimes when you try to convey these complicated cognitive processes out loud, it comes off as irrational, confused, and beguiling. You can see the look on people’s faces.
That’s what we get in real time on CMAT‘s “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,” a standout not just from her latest album EURO-COUNTRY, but in conveying how difficult projecting clear and concise thoughts can be. Over a rich and driving backdrop led by throbbing bass and a delightful piano melody, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson processes her dislike of British TV chef Jamie Oliver but also reckons with how toxic hatred and intolerance is in itself. These things are complicated and as she concedes “I’m still not explaining myself very well at all”, she reverts to the intangible, the poetic. References to her Mum, Sinéad O’Connor in the sky, teenage recklessness, and the feeling of returning home spill out from her in an ecstatic deluge. By this point it doesn’t matter if you get Thompson or not, because the ride where she aches to explain is worth the misunderstanding. – Ray Finlayson
30.
Lou Tides – “Autostatic!”
[Switch Hit]
“Autostatic!” rotates in like classic Can or a neighbor in a sitcom pilot: always been there, no need for introductions. Its effect is the same, as well. How long has this groove been here? For how long will it run? Lou Tides does her best to keep pace, servicing the melody like a robot until the sound of her inhales start to betray her. The song is about determining when changes will occur and how to adapt when they do while preserving ourselves in memory. That the synth tones bleed over their margins might say something about such futility, but for trauma survivors like Tides, the possibility is enough to keep trying – Steve Forstneger
29.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – “The Milky Sea”
[Mexican Summer]
Treading water is the least of your worries as the vast expanse of “The Milky Sea” threatens to saturate your senses completely. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has always had an affinity for large open canvases, stretches of open atmosphere and horizons yet to be explored and defined, but “The Milky Sea”, the centerpiece of his latest album, Gift Songs, is its own nigh-undefinable colossus.
He entangles a series of ambient, jazz, and neo-classical impulses into a gauzy rumination on existence, a longform thesis on the quiet but significant movements in life that occur when we’re not looking. Gentle lines of keys are blanketed by softly hissing distortion while a light percussive momentum maintains its gait in the background. It’s deceptively simple, with not much in the way of overt motion, but it’s deeper in this noise that the miracles happen; subtle variations that emerge and adapt to our emotional states. Cantu-Ledesma has fashioned a song which works to highlight the curious changes in our lives, and it suggests that more wonders are just waiting to be discovered and experienced. – Joshua Pickard
28.
HAIM – “Relationships”
[Polydor]
Danielle Haim began working on “Relationships” in 2017. It was worked, reworked, shelved, then resurrected with the help of producer Rostam Batmanglij, who helped turn it into one of HAIM’s best songs. The trialed saga of the track is fitting for a song about the one puzzle we humans may never solve. And as great as the song sounds, the lyrics reveal their narrator’s torment in trying to make a relationship work. Danielle might be in love, but she sucks at communicating. She’s not even sure if she’s friends with the guy. The bouncy, looped background vocals sound like “Hold tight, hold tight,” but she’s about a second away from calling the whole thing off for good. Fuckin’ relationships, am I right? – Ethan Reis
27.
Panda Bear – “Anywhere but Here”
[Domino]
An early standout on Panda Bear’s gorgeous Sinister Grift, “Anywhere but Here” explores the inner torment Noah Lennox suffered during his divorce. Though lyrically dark, it’s one of the most gorgeous tracks he’s ever produced. The rhythm is circular, a bit like the piano of “Unchained Melody” translated into dub guitar. But what makes “Anywhere but Here” truly special is the poem read by Lennox’s daughter in her native Portuguese. Arresting and profound, it speaks on the importance of love, even when it leads to hurt. To hear the man who once sang “My Girls” collaborate with one of them 16 years later is truly a special moment. – Ethan Reis
26.
Indigo De Souza – “Precipice”
[Loma Vista]
With her fourth album, Precipice, Indigo De Souza veers in a decidedly pop direction, forging hook after hook while retaining the pensiveness and mercuriality that infused earlier work. The LP’s title cut is moodily catchy, bubbling with newfound awareness, sorrow mixed with resolve, vulnerability tinged with stoicism. “Stubborn and clinging on”, De Souza sings, her voice as darkly crystalline as ever. The chorus is one long and unshakeable earworm, as she concludes, “Looking out into the world / Everything has gone dark”. The lyrical takeaway might be a sense of defeat; De Souza’s melody, however, is pure pop exultation, dissolving a listener’s travails, revealing a sunlit way – and all the time you need to get where you’re going. Or not. – John Amen
25.
Swans – “Birthing”
[Young God]
As it often does, the music of Swans forces us to reconsider the limits of modern music, both in terms of its amplitude and its emotional resonance. Michael Gira and Co. have always provided bursts of multi-directional gravity, moments that announce themselves through sheer fucking force of will.
“Birthing”, the title track to their latest album, is one such statement on the outer boundaries of sound and its ability to warp reality and our own innate expectation. Rarely do we experience a pleasure euphoria when addressing the band’s compositions, but here we are treated to a certain gargantuan release, twinkling electronics occupying space alongside empathic riffs – this song knows what you are thinking. Its considerable tenure allows for an almost prog-like examination of influence and purpose, whether we’re sharing time with childlike vocalizations or cannon fire percussion. Things decay and resolve and form new flesh as we witness the full life cycle of the song, and at its end, as the drums land like primal thunderclaps, we welcome the incoming flood to wash everything away and clear the land for whatever comes next. – Joshua Pickard
24.
Ichiko Aoba – “tower”
[hermine]
I may not know any of the words that Ichiko Aoba sings on “tower”, but that doesn’t for a moment rob the song of its staggering beauty. Over a piruoetting piano, Aoba intones in her trademark soft glisten of a voice, sounding like the aural equivalent of a light shard shooting through a cloud. Eventually some strings and twinkling keyboards enter the fray, and we hang on every note as Aoba guides us to the song’s gentle conclusion, swaying like water. And of those lyrics, it might not be necessary to understand them, but it doesn’t hurt to read a translation: “Should tonight be our last / Dance with me once more / A small light, a secret voice / Plеase listen / I love you.” – Jeremy J. Fisette
23.
Beirut – “Guericke’s Unicorn”
[Pompeii Recording Co.]
Twenty years in as Beirut and Zach Condon can still find a way to rework his magic into new forms that compete to be your favorite track from the band. The centrepeice to the stunning A Study of Losses, “Guericke’s Unicorn” just takes all those bits we love about Condon’s music and serves them up like a warm bowl of broth on a bitingly cold day. Sustained by a staccato synth, Condon lays on woozy layers and vocal harmonies that are as comfy as a goosefeather pillowfort. “Where did you go? / Where have you been?” he asks with a comforting melancholy. They are the same questions us listeners are asking when we realise this track has been missing from our lives all this time. – Ray Finlayson
22.
Circtuit des Yeux – “Skeleton Key”
[Matador]
The music of Circuit des Yeux exists in its own reality; it often feels like the extravagant soundtrack to a tour of her boundless mind palace; on “Skeleton Key”, she makes this explicit, unlocking every door to give us slow burning beauty, operatic crescendos, bubbling electronics, 80s synth pads, orchestral swells, wailing guitar solos, and bludgeoning industrial drums, all to create the impression of cavernous vastness, where the shadows hide untold, maleficent mysteries and the light through the stained glass windows is bedazzling. She presides over everything with the dramatic flair of a Disney villain: “enter the room of nothing, enter the room of me,” she commands towards the song’s close. On an album that often feels like she’s entering her Depeche Mode phase, “Skeleton Key” is uncompromisingly all Circuit des Yeux. – Andy Johnston
21.
Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – “Monte Carlo / No Limits”
[Sophomore Lounge]
You ever feel like you’re being dragged in all different directions? And every other distraction just gets on your nerves? That’s where we find Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band on “Monte Carlo / No Limits”; crashing cars, stealing cash, trying block out the neighbours screaming next door.
You see there’s one thing that’s got him really spun out: love. For that, he’ll do anything; there’s no limit to what he’ll do to make keep his other half happy – or off his case, at least. The Roadhouse Band perfectly sum up this sorta-euphoric exhaustion with a jaunty countrified piece with gorgeous pedal steel inflections – which suddenly spools up into breakbeat asides when things get truly headspinning; a simple flex from a sensational band. – Rob Hakimian
20.
Samia – “Bovine Excision”
[Grand Jury]
The country-tinged “Bovine Excision” blooms with confession and observation. Line by line, Samia unravels her relationship to the impossibilities of womanhood. There’s a woman who jokes that she’s old but not dead. There’s a reference to the fairy tale standards of femininity and a knocking at the bathroom door when all Samia wants is to read and enjoy a Diet Coke.
The small miracle of this song lies in its immediacy. Each verse rises and falls back on a tender, lullaby melody with the power of pressing on a bruise. “Bovine Excision” is both personal and existential, an intimate peek into the mind of Samia and of the endless need to compare yourself to the impossible. – Carlo Thomas
19.
Robyn – “Dopamine”
[Konichiwa/Young]
What does it mean to feel comfortable in our skin – to be aware of our limitations and to accept them while still moving forward? Robyn has always dealt with questions like these, introspection wrapped up in the glistening dance-pop aesthetic which she’s perfected over the last two decades. “Dopamine” finds her appreciating her own humanness, addressing the imperfections and beauty and chemicals which make us such complicated beasts and recognizing that it’s perfectly alright, essential even, to submerge ourselves the currents of our strongest emotions as we have no idea how long they might last. We’re in familiar territory here with the music. The dancefloor is lit by fluorescent stars, while the beats are channeled directly to the pleasure centers of our brain. Robyn’s voice is welcoming, an invitation to join in, claim your spot within the mass of whirling bodies, and find your own acceptance. If this is a precursor to a new album in 2026, then I’d say that we’re in for one hell of a workout at 2am in the club. – Joshua Pickard
18.
FKA twigs – “Room of Fools”
[Young]
The percolating synth that introduces “Room Of Fools” animates the perspiration trickling down the walls – gross, but it doesn’t matter, because nobody can see it. This is a dark, packed, nightclub, where light is sparse and sound is paramount. FKA twigs‘ club and body-forward record Eusexua reaches its hedonistic peak here, at its core, where the momentum of desire seems unstoppable and everyone feels like “demigods in unconscious flow form” and “fools” all at once. Anyone who has been in a cramped, convulsing space like this, where the beat is life and everyone is like one writhing entity will immediately understand the sheer euphoria that twigs captures here. “It feels nice,” she repeats in diaphanous falsetto, the simplicity of the statement matching the purity of the feeling. – Rob Hakimian
17.
Water From Your Eyes – “Playing Classics”
[Matador]
“Playing Classics” is both a rallying cry and a set of instructions to be followed. That’s because the song captures how, in 2025, there’s a palpable dread that comes from knowing so much about the world and having so little power to change it. The song’s opening – with Rachel Brown’s deadpan delivery over insistent programmed beats – has this very dread in mind. But when the song’s shiny, irresistible piano hook drops in, we see the song for what it is: Water From Your Eyes embracing a bleak truth as a chance for liberation.
“Practice shake it, you’re free”
The song patiently yet expertly builds on this danceable momentum with more rhythms, more effects, more vocals. By the time heavy neon guitar riffs embellish the song’s second half, any resistance is all but gone.
“Practice, shake it, two, three”
Are we free? Are we just following orders? We’d like to think our reasons matter, but either way, we’re shaking – again and again. – Carlo Thomas
16.
The Murder Capital – “Words Lost Meaning”
[Human Seasons]
Built from both friction and harmony, The Murder Capital‘s “Words Lost Meaning” came from a productive session from the Irish post-punk band but was also driven by venting anger from relationship troubles between band members and their partners. The band constructed the song in a few hours after Gabriel Paschal Blake presented a bassline caked in frustration, while lead singer James McGovern found himself mining words about sentiments that lose their meaning over time. The contrast is tangible and gritty, McGovern’s seething chorus contrasting what is essentially a loving sentiment while asking for a shift of perspective. It’s a track asking for intention, and does so by narrowing its focus directly at the listener. You could be forgiven for taking it personally. – Ray Finlayson
15.
Maruja – “Look Down On Us”
[Music For Nations]
“Look Down On Us” might be Maruja at their most feral and fed-up, a storm of pissed-off horns, barked rhythms and unmistakable urgency. One might say, it’s the closest the UK rendition of Rage Against the Machine there is – rap-rock delivered without posturing, only raw conviction. – Kyle Kohner
14.
Mandy, Indiana – “Magazine”
[Sacred Bones]
“Magazine”, from Mandy, Indiana’s upcoming album, URGH (scheduled for a Feb 2026 release), captures Valentine Caulfield at her most furious and irrepressible, as she continues to process and recover from being raped. Beats are sharp, caustic, metallic; accents are mechanistic, industrial, jarring. Valentine’s voice is urgent, brimming with volatility. Here’s the epic arc of dissociation, disorientation, re-embodiment, catharsis. “You won’t escape me”; “Abandon all hope”; “I’m coming for you”, Caulfield sings (lyrics translated from the French). Think Philomela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses meets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander. Over three-and-a-half minutes, Caulfield channels her rage and fiery talent into a spellbinding soundscape. – John Amen
13.
Sudan Archives – “MY TYPE”
[Stones Throw]
You thought a website called Beats Per Minute wouldn’t give special treatment to an album called The BPM? Oh, how you overestimated our integrity. Luckily, the latest record by Sudan Archives is so good, no-one would have questioned it had I not brought attention to it.
At the centre of that record sits the glistening, dance-floor filling “MY TYPE”; an Afro-retro-futuristic concoction filled with quicksilver rapping during the verses, an irresistibly hypnotic, synth-laden chorus, all generously seasoned with enough grin-inducingly goofy-cool sound effects to put Ross Geller and his keyboard to shame. – Andy Johnston
12.
Model/Actriz – “Acid Rain”
[True Panther]
Pirouette is a masterpiece of sinister no-wave, with standouts like “Diva” and “Cinderella” perfectly encapsulating Model/Actriz‘s unique take of burgeoning post-punk subgenre futurismus. But it’s “Acid Rain” which hits hardest – and became my favourite song of the year. Here, stripped of all punk rock, Cole Haden observes two hummingbirds in the garden, gliding effortlessly, moving in place, drinking nectar. Weightless, graceful and elegant, they embody everything Haden longs to be himself. He finds himself at the end of a phone call – a spiritual connection – he wishes would never end. But the voice is gone, and Haden can’t bring himself to hang up.
“Acid Rain” features the possibly most brutal line of the entire year: “And if I can be more plainspoken / Your voice is with me, I’m reminded / I sing in part because you often / Told me that you liked to listen.” It’s such vivid, painful poetry, delivered over one of the most yearning, heartbreaking melodies I’ve heard all year, sounding like a lost, intimate song from the White Album sessions. It’s an eternal reminder that love can bring forth the greatest in us, but also crush every sense of self and hope we retained. And all it takes to express that unspeakable, dreadful reality of human experience are three eternal lines of lost grace: “I don’t wanna leave this garden alone / While they come and go, I hover / Still enough to paint me with them.” – John Wohlmacher
11.
billy woods – “A Doll Fulla Pins” (feat. Yolanda Watson)
[Backwoodz Studioz]
GOLLIWOG hits different from other billy woods projects. It’s a sinister project which employs a vast amount of producers, while woods ricochets back and forth over divergent soundscapes. The only red thread seems the titular doll, a remnant of ancient voodoo practices. In that sense, “A Doll Fulla Pins” is almost like a theme-song, a climactic reveal of the doll; host to a retained soul. It opens with a reference to a Ray Bradbury story, but woods reverses the dynamic of the short narrative: where it’s originally the kids who lock a girl into a closet, where she misses the only sunny hour for seven years, here woods is on the run, hunted, hiding, leaving town, only to return when his pursuers are locked away.
Then, on the second verse, he dives into memories of a violent childhood, where the Golliwog doll comes to life and kills “the rats”. Allusions to The Babadook and Cat’s Eye hide the most potent line of the song: “They put the curse on the whole family, but it’s hard not to feel like we got it the worsest / Inquired if my soul was for purchase / I replied, ‘Unfortunately, it’s long gone, but might I interest you in something else?’” A grim, pessimistic track that encapsulates the everyday horror of the black experience, to the soulful tune of film noir jazz. – John Wohlmacher
10.
Rosalía – “Reliquia”
[Columbia]
What do we take from this life and what do we leave behind? What physical and emotional imprints can be made, and what events affect the time we spend moving forward? On the breathtaking “Reliquia”, Rosalía shares her thoughts on these questions, offering vignettes detailing her trips around the world while various loves and affections hang in the air.
The title translates to “relics”, and in the song, she describes the places she’s visited and occurrences which mark each moment in her mind. But it’s also about evolving and finding yourself in the noise of the world around you, leaving behind things which no longer work and assimilating others to further your own ambitions and desires. The music is also a reflection of the gradual shift in her musical perspective, with the opening strings moving in space before the track turns toward more synthetic pop landscapes, glitching voices and propulsive beats rising to meet her voice. She’s found the strength to understand that change and loss and growth is a part of life and embraces the unpredictable nature of ourselves in a temporary world. – Joshua Pickard
9.
Alex G – “June Guitar”
[RCA]
The line “Love ain’t for the young, anyhow” could only come from someone with a fair bit of life behind them. Perhaps this person is Alex G, a father and now signee to a major label. And perhaps this line is tucked in a track that imbues the spirit of the Philadelphia-based songwriter; earnest observations, bright yet painful production over tender guitar strumming.
Nevertheless, the centerpiece of “June Guitar” isn’t a guitar, but an accordion; one that swells with the song’s chorus. The instrument evokes nostalgia and hope – which emotion will win? Fortunately, the accompanying music video, one that features Alex G split-screen in a room surrounded by others, roots for the latter. Cue the smiles and jovial dancing. There’s still room for joy in our lives. – Carlo Thomas
8.
Perfume Genius – “It’s A Mirror”
[Matador]
On the hermetic, guitar-forward “It’s a Mirror,” Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius weighs the pros and cons of self-isolation with shuddering vulnerability. Someone departs for the stretching horizon, leaving Hadreas with no one to hold. “What do I get out of being established? / I still run and hide when a man’s at the door,” he admits, offering a slice of insight into how internalized fears and doubt lie deep in us, as natural as instinct.
For the marginalized in 2025, the fear of stepping outside is justified. The song’s expansive chorus – ominous drums, sizzling cymbals – mirrors these emotions coming to a head: “my whole life is / Open just outside the door.” Will Hadreas, and the community at large, push through? Queer history tells us they will. They always do. – Carlo Thomas
7.
Geese – “Cobra”
[Partisan]
Floating in on a sunny, vaguely Eastern guitar line straight out of the George Harrison playbook, the most straightforwardly accessible moment on Geese‘s breakout album is also its most seductive and addicting; Cameron Winter’s vocal performance is one I have had so much fun mimicking whilst spinning around my kitchen, the structure is quintessential perfect three-minute pop song fare, and there are indelible melodic hooks in virtually every bar. Its central conceit is that the entrancing pull of a potential lover’s attention is akin to the power of snake charmers. Winter’s narrator does ultimately resist (“you can make the cobras dance, but not me”), but us listeners, helpless as we are in the face of such distinguished songcraft, will be left dancing forever. – Andy Johnston
6.
Ethel Cain – “Nettles”
[Daughters of Cain]
Conceived in 2021 while working on Preacher’s Daughter, the eight-minute “Nettles” encapsulates the Ethel Cain struggle of self-consciously navigating pain in the face of others’ trauma. Nettles – the spiky, rash-inducing plants – are a metaphor for discomfort but pale in comparison to the unspecified shrapnel that has shredded the life of her totemic composite, Willoughby Tucker. Whether Tucker is a small-town, military volunteer or the victim of disasters like the recent plant explosion that ripped apart the community of Humphrey’s County, Tennessee, doesn’t matter. Its existence has pierced Cain’s heart equally and no matter how much she vows reciprocation she knows, “To love me is to suffer me”. – Steve Forstneger
5.
Big Thief – “Los Angeles”
[4AD]
Many of Big Thief’s songs evoke the imagery of a certain location – cattails swaying by the Great Lakes or desert mountains receding in the rearview mirror – but none quite as explicitly as “Los Angeles”. A standout from the band’s latest album, Double Infinity, “Los Angeles” sets the scene immediately: “Los Angeles, 3:33, nothing on the stereo,” Adrianne Lenker notes as if each moment is one beautiful eternity after another. Despite the lyrics being weighted by this specificity, the music itself is so light and airy that it feels like it’s levitating. Big Thief know how to transport the listener, and with “Los Angeles”, that includes space, time, and everything in between. – Grady Penna
4.
Bon Iver – “Everything is Peaceful, Love”
[Jagjaguwar]
“Damn if I’m not climbing up a tree right now” is truly one of the funniest hooks of the year, but I can’t deny its potency. As sung by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, ascending into his beloved falsetto, the line becomes a declaration of joy, of purpose, of place.
On SABLE, fABLE, Vernon looks forward by looking backward, melding the folk stylings of his beginnings with the jittery electronics of his latter albums, and almost nowhere is that mix more successful than on “Everything is Peaceful Love”. Stopping just short of being too sugary, the track presents a platonic ideal of where Vernon could go from here with connecting the two sides of his artistry – if only he wasn’t swearing that this would be the end of Bon Iver as we know it. – Jeremy J. Fisette
3.
Agriculture – “Bodhidharma”
[The Flenser]
Agriculture‘s The Spiritual Sound brims with riveting dynamics and striking juxtapositions. The eighth track from this stellar LP, “Bodhidharma”, breathtakingly exemplifies the band’s chemistry and compositional prowess. Wiry riffs sprawl, are then abruptly snuffed. In a silent, stifling pit, Leah B. Levinson moans, growls, pleads, prays, curses, claws, spews, and, like her mentor-hero, Dazu Huike, ultimately experiences the release of self. Soon enough, music and vocals are blended; guitars are elegant yet savage, clean yet soaked in corrosives. The song captures a trauma-related nightmare (the horror of samsara) and a dharmic vision, devastation and eureka. Enmeshment within and release from craving, aversion. A blistering solo erupts toward the track’s end, as if to illustrate the inseparability of realization and anticlimax – awakening into everything, into nothing. – John Amen
2.
Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”
[Dead Oceans]
There are many reasons to like “Elderberry Wine”: Wednesday frontwoman Karly Hartzman creating a timeless country classic with such ease it can’t but dazzle you; a chorus that just digs a hole in your brain to live forever; an important tale of balancing needs in a relationship, lest something tip over into becoming poisonous (like the titular elderberries in their raw form). But for me it is much simpler. When it was first released I hadn’t really connected with Wednesday’s new album – but someone I love did. They would play this song every morning in the bathroom and I would hear them softly singing it over the watery static of the shower. Now whenever I hear it, I think of them, their love and the comfort and joy they bring to my life. “Elderberry Wine” is a slice of my personal soundtrack for 2025 and the good things that came with it. That’s just me though; even without this, it’s still an excellent song. – Ray Finlayson
1.
Jens Lekman – “Wedding in Leipzig”
[Secretly Canadian]
Jens Lekman’s newest record, Songs for Other People’s Weddings, is a heady concoction of an album, telling a full story of a wedding singer named J and his complicated relationship with a woman named V. It’s extremely detailed, and one of the best instances of this is the 10-minute centerpiece “Wedding in Leipzig”. Containing too many lyrical highlights to possibly sift through, the song takes us through multiple phases — with different melodies, instrumentation, and tempos — as J sits through and works a wedding in the titular city. The song is at times darkly hilarious (“So this is the singles table, these are my people / Does anyone have cyanide, a razor blade or a pistol?”) and also sincerely moving, like when he can’t figure out what song to put on after a guest has a medical episode, and says of the dance floor “All that’s left is old confetti and a couple of sobbing lovers.” Fueled by Lekman’s own experiences as a wedding singer, and replete with lots of literary whimsy, “Wedding in Leipzig” feels like the quintessential Lekman song: witty, a bit ridiculous, and yet ultimately very touching. – Jeremy J. Fisette
Listen to a Spotify playlist of our Top 50 Songs of 2025 here.
