For the first time in the quarter century that I’ve been carefully curating and arranging these countdowns, I have decided to pare my selection down to 20 songs. I have come to terms with the fact that the sheer quantity of top shelf music that has been released over the decades can no longer be matched with current artist sensibilities being what they are; there is no need for artists to attempt to make “hit singles” when ~vibes~ will suffice.
And so as fewer acts opt to write hooks, there will simply be fewer gems to unearth each passing year. These lists will get leaner as I no longer feel compelled to write lukewarm praise about songs that are just OK, but I will likely not listen to ever again. And yes, it is with great irony that in the year 2025 I have decided to whittle my long-running countdown from 25 songs to 20. But now only the best quality tracks will receive a written Opinion™ by me.
The Top 20 Songs of 2025
20. Reborn – Miley Cyrus—
There was a moment in time when Miley Cyrus felt the need to posture as a guitar girl, complete with the rasp and the sneer of a blues rock maven. She also dabbled in psychedelia and country in a similar attempt at garnering critical adulation, and while her hunger for artistry was clear she couldn’t quite nail the authenticity she desired as she racked up pop hits in between her experiments.
Something Beautiful is Cyrus’ magnum opus thus far. It is the record she has been wanting to make since she began distancing herself from her Hannah Montana days – a statement of an album that is both accessible and artisan. ‘Reborn’ is sonically dense, a club hit that sounds preternaturally organic and unlike any other dance song in recent memory. Every part sounds tangible and earthly, a machine constructed from ornate brass.
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19. A Cowboy Song – Kean Kavanagh—
The worlds of post-punk and country do not meet often. Long ago an artist named Daughn Gibson traded in that specific fusion but evaporated from the public eye quickly. Orville Peck has had much more longevity, but pivoted to straightforward country pop almost instantly after the underground hype machine launched his career.
“A Cowboy Song” is exactly that combination. A midnight ride that is simultaneously sleek and gritty, dark but soulful.
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18. Big Brass Band – Couplet—
From 2009 to 2012 there was a wonderful trend – almost its own genre – of songs with a foundation of intricate, busy percussion. Informed very obviously by acts like Timbaland and Animal Collective, not to mention dubstep, many bands tried their hand at this clattering, steam-engine approach to constructing a beat.
Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, Akron/Family, Yeasayer, Dirty Projectors and the indie R&B crowd all experimented with this style until the age of maximalism ended with Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.
Couplet use a rhythm that hearkens back to those days, with “Big Brass Band” sounding like if Thrice tried their hand at an Alt-J song.
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17. What Was That – Lorde—
After two incredibly disappointing albums, Lorde regains her footing as she returns to writing, you know, actual songs. Actual, fully realized, pop songs. With proper dynamics and choruses and everything. “What Was That” is no red herring either, with songs like “Favourite Daughter” and “Shapeshifter” being of decent quality as well.
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16. I Get Hurt – Victor Jones—
No artist has continually graced both my Instagram and TikTok recommendations pages like Victor Jones. Staggering around in a (mock?) drunken stupor, the quintessentially New York dance punk rolls out each song release with a series of clips teasing either a verse or a chorus, each in a different locale. His delivery can be grating at times, and he has a tendency to seemingly record his vocals standing halfway across the kitchen floor. Nevertheless he is a promising talent with the potential to become one of the biggest names in alternative rock in future years with his chaotic maximalist jams.
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15. Glum – Hayley Williams—
One of the best albums of the year comes from Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams and her genre-hopping record Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. There’s a bit of everything on the record, but the standout is this piece of angst-pop Williams’ band dealt so well in.
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14. Sweet Nothing – Saintseneca—
Another one of 2025’s best albums is Saintseneca’s latest, and it holds something I’ve been waiting a very long time for: the band’s attempt at a crossover hit. Of course it might be too late now with the state of the music industry, but an accessible single is an accessible single, and that is what “Sweet Nothing” is. This is what M83’s “Midnight City” was, this is what Passion Pit’s “Take a Walk” was, this is what Modest Mouse’s “Float On” was. It’s a band honing all their best elements into one streamlined, catchy song.
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12. Stateside – PinkPantheress—
To be a pop singer is to perform the most delicate balancing act in front of millions of people. Several balancing acts, in fact. The music must constantly be in the perfect state of accessible but unique. The artist’s fashion and artistic design choices must be the same. Same goes for their persona.
As someone not fully tuned in to the pop world, I cannot fully say if PinkPantheress is checking off all the boxes, but from what I can see with a cursory glance I’d say she is doing OK. Her brand of dance-pop is fresh and distinct from other similar artists, and in addition to this song she managed to score a viral meme in 2025 with the “is this illegal” trend.
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12. Alone With You – Swim School—
“De-fault. The two sweetest words in the English language.” – Homer Simpson
I know nothing about the band Swim School. I do not remember exactly where I first heard their song “Alone With You”, though it was likely in iTunes meagre New Music section. Yet something about it caught me right away, and that same something managed to catch me every time I came upon it in my playlist. It’s the kind of song you just don’t skip. And so gradually it racked up plays on my iPod, in rotation for months on end simply by virtue of being pleasant. A nice slice of melancholy post-punk that ended up as one of my favourite songs of the year by default.
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11. Dreaming – Turnstile—
Imagine for a moment, as I often do, that the entire Universe revolves around me.
Every year the sneering blue-blooded tastemakers of the underground music world deign an artist the Chosen One of that year. This artist is lauded with heaps of praise, proclaimed to be the second coming until the following year when another second coming comes around.
And due to a combination of contrarianism and simply just Not Getting It™, every year I do NOT like the artist those sneering tastemakers pick.
For example, in 2010 when they were falling over themselves to canonize Ariel Pink I said “HUH??? This is not good.”
This year the elites picked Turnstile as that artist in the middle of 2025 and in a shocking development that upset the balance of reality, I approved of this pick. There were some fantastic songs on the band’s new record Never Enough.
Well this wouldn’t do. The tastemakers could not possibly be aligned with a pedestrian like myself. And so Turnstile fell out of favour and suddenly the band Geese became THE hip artist of the year. As I am not a fan of Geese, this put the Universe back into alignment.
I mean…this is the most logical explanation, right? Why else did Turnstile suddenly stop being hyped up when their album was this good?
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10. Sandbox – The All-American Rejects—
If Smash Mouth were to write a song for the Pixies, this is how it would sound.
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9. The Subway – Chappell Roan—
In 2024 two pop stars made their mark with equally successful and memorable albums: Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. One year later Carpenter seems to have taken the lead with her follow-up record as its lead single “Manchild” got some late year momentum while Roan’s “The Subway” languished. A shame because the latter is the better song, equal parts Cocteau Twins and Cranberries repackaged for sad TikTokers.
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8. S P E Y S I D E – Bon Iver—
Bon Iver began his career with the “sad guy sequesters himself in a remote cabin” story before eventually becoming the go-to guy in the music industry for weird electronic experiments. His music followed a similar journey, starting as sparse, lonesome folk before turning into all sorts of bleeps and bloops and alien vocals.
Justin Vernon has indicated that it may be the end of the road for the Bon Iver project, and if so he ends the journey with a song that harkens back to those late 2000s acoustic folk days. There’s a lot of keyboards and digital noodling on the new record, but surprisingly enough the standout on Sable, Fable is this simple, hooky song that consists of little more than one guitar and some strings filtering in during the bridge.
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7. It’s Amazing To Be Young – Fontaines D.C.—
The best new band of the ’20s continues to deliver their melancholy blend of late 80s/early 90s sounds. There’s a little bit of post punk, a little bit of pre-Brit pop, and a lot to like about this bonus track.
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6. Speed Freak – Youth Lagoon—
Sneaking in on the tail end of the 2010s indie rock boom, Trevor Powers of Youth Lagoon surprisingly went on hiatus after his fantastic 2015 album, returning just a few years ago after dabbling in some other projects. On his latest Youth Lagoon record Rarely Do I Dream Powers returns to the effortlessly melodic, sombre reflections that he’s always excelled at.
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5. Looking Back – Lord Huron—
Lord Huron didn’t make much of an impression with millennials, but his 2019 duet with Phoebe Bridgers has had zoomers in a chokehold for the past six years. His latest collaboration with Kristen Stewart didn’t quite reach the same level of popularity, but this solo outing from his new record was much more palatable and should have a long lifespan ahead of it.
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4. Moody – Royel Otis—
There are few things as important in music now as reviving the pool of new talent for future generations. The decline has been precipitous since 2014, and is now becoming incredibly evident by the looks of festival lineups (or the lack of them). The dwindling amount of festivals is one issue, but when you look at the ones that remain the situation isn’t much better. Legacy acts upon legacy acts, including artists who have unwittingly reached that stage (see: any millennial favourites), now make up the bulk of festival posters, with the remainder of the space filled up with names big on the streaming services and nowhere else. Let’s be real, nobody can actually name a Bad Bunny hit single, much less hum a melody by him.
This is why the success of a band like Royel Otis is one of the most heartening things a music fan can hope for in the 2020s. A new band, on the upswing, gradually building up a catalogue of 90s alterna-pop hits. Someone’s gotta be entertaining the zoomers when they reach middle age, and one of those someones will be Royel Otis.
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3. Seein’ Stars – Turnstile—
Another great song from Turnstile’s latest takes cues from The Police, along with 80s prog metal for an incredible guitar solo in the middle of the song.
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2. Milk of the Madonna – Deftones—
Deftones have never made a bad album, but the past decade has been various shades of lacklustre. Both Ohms and Gore were serviceable but lacked the big hooks last heard on Koi No Yokan in 2012.
There’s enough hooks in “Milk of the Madonna” alone to make up for that, with the song instantly becoming one the band’s best tunes. It’s all your favourite Deftones things conveniently wrapped into one package. The furious instrumental onslaught paired with ethereal vocals? Of course it’s there. The two-part chorus in different keys? It’s there. The ambiguously spiritual theme? You got it.
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1. Drum Show – twenty one pilots—
There’s a great quote in season 6 of The Office from Dwight Schrute:
“It’s never the person you most suspect. It’s also never the person you least suspect. [ It’s the person you most medium suspect ] “
Nearly every single year at least one artist surprises me by releasing an incredible song that I would not ever have expected from them. Yet it’s never one of my favourite artists, nor is it an artist I dislike. It’s always an artist I am either somewhat partial to, or tolerate.
Twenty One Pilots are pretty good. They were in fact in my top 10 just last year. Did I think last year that they would release my favourite song of 2025? Absolutely not.
Breach is a pivot to more uptempo music, leaning much further into the band’s rock side than their rap side, and “Drum Show” is clearly capitalizing on the 90s revival happening in music right now. Just like with Turnstile, there’s hints of Jane’s Addiction in the massive chorus, and sealing the deal is the grit in singer Tyler Joseph’s voice during the final third of the song, a grit that’s been missing from their music for far too long.
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OK that’s all, bye.
