The 100 Best Songs of 2025

Despite its dire name, “End of the World” is on the dance-y side of Miley Cyrus’ concept album Something Beautiful. Written for her mom, Tish Cyrus, it shows Cyrus is ready for some lighthearted fun instead of focusing on her negative thoughts and feelings. She’s ready to go to Paris and Malibu and “throw a party like McCartney with some help from my friends.” It’s a sparkling, disco-inflected pop song from a star in her sparkling pop-song era. —Brittany Spanos

Another Four Tet track that’s tailor-made for headphones and stadiums? You don’t say! That’s become Kieran Hebden’s stock in trade, tracks that hover beguilingly, keeping the listener and/or dancer in an alert state so that when the drums land, they really land. They certainly did when Four Tet dropped this track into his headlining sets this year, whether as a change-up from the bonkier tracks at Lost Village in August or to climax his epic performance at Lightning in a Bottle in May. —Michaelangelo Matos

Two decades ago, the Kid Laroi would have topped the Billboard Hot 100 with “How Does It Feel?” Back then, it would have been a hit from Justin Timberlake, a clear influence the younger musician wears with charm and flirtation on the smooth single. There are echoes of the Neptunes in the mid-verse melody switches that keep the rhythm and groove flowing into a vocal showcase on the track’s slick R&B chorus. The Kid Laroi has been searching for his lane for a while. He finds it on “How Does It Feel?” —Larisha Paul

Two singer-songwriters with Southern roots, Julien Baker and Torres, got together to record the alt-country set Send a Prayer My Way, adding their shared voice to roots-music tradition. On the LP’s standout moment, “Sugar in the Tank,” the guitars vault and jangle, and Baker sings about a longing so intense it’s dangerous — “I love you deadly as a heart attack/I love you halfway in a paper sack.” They nail the chorus like they know they’ve got a classic on their hands. They’re right. —Jon Dolan

Charismatically blunted uptown-Manhattan rhymer Lord Sko links with one of his clearest stylistic inspirations for three minutes of outrageously chill pilot talk. The two heads float at sky-high altitudes over languid, jazzy keys, with Curren$y dispensing laconic wisdom (“Scan the parking lot, I got the oldest or the newest car out”) and Sko playing the young dreamer: “How’s it feel to be a millionaire? Don’t even know/Couple thousand-dollar sweaters smell like reefer smoke.” —Simon Vozick-Levinson

Carin León and Kacey Musgraves’ “Lost in Translation” blends norteño and rancheras, creating a bilingual duet that intertwines Musgraves’ soft country tones with León’s Mexican roots, layered with strings and tubas. “Yo te quiero yo … robarte un pedacito de corazón,” León sings in Spanish. “I want you, I want to steal a piece of your heart.” A sweet, cross-cultural moment, the track feels like a gentle counterpoint to our tense political climate. —Tomas Mier

Think you’ve heard every possible Eighties nostalgia permutation? Here Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes comes through with a dazzling pop-historical fantasy. “Westerberg” honors the beloved Replacements frontman by quoting the ‘Mats’ 1987 classic “Alex Chilton,” cleverly creating a tribute to a tribute; the song’s dreamy synth-pop lushness adds another sweet retro wrinkle, sounding like Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside getting on his keyboard after a long night listening to Pleased to Meet Me. —J.D.

“Burning Moonlight,” Marianne Faithfull’s posthumously released final bow, captures everything great about her stunning third act: vulnerable confessions like “Wherever I go, I’m alone,” sung over moody guitar that’s equal parts Leonard Cohen and Angelo Badalamenti. “Burning moonlight to survive,” she sings, “Walking in fire is my life.” It’s a moving reminder of how her passion could burn so brightly through her darkest times. —Kory Grow

The transition from música mexicana to reggaetón has become a natural rite of passage for young Mexican stars in search of a wider demographic. Netón Vega’s gift for perreo party vibes yielded one of the year’s bounciest Latin hits. The robotic downbeat and cartoonish synth lines are addictive, as Vega sprinkles his joyful paean to single life debauchery with a couple of hilarious rhymes — his mother-in-law didn’t care for him, but the feeling was certainly mutual. —Ernesto Lechner 

Hanumankind’s 2024 video “Big Dawgs” turned the live-wire Indian rapper into an instant action star, placing him in the center of a swarm of death-defying stunts — and racking up a few hundred million YouTube views in the process. For “Run It Up,” he goes even bigger, employing a cast of dozens for a martial-arts brawl. The beat keeps pace, full of Chenda drums growing more manic by the second; the raspy rapper stands square in the middle of the chaos, fighting against the beat and winning. —Clayton Purdom

Kelsea Ballerini dropped the most honest country song of the year with this just over two-minute diary entry about all that she’s sacrificed in pursuit of her career. Namely, that’s children, and the lyrics read like a conversation with her therapist. They’re highly specific to Ballerini — a mention of a Rolling Stone article, a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, the due date of her stylist’s baby — but her bare emotion makes the song a must-hear for anyone who’s set aside life in favor of work. —Joseph Hudak

“Bookends,” the centerpiece of U.S. Girls’ latest album, Scratch It, is a staggering tribute to Riley Gale, the frontman of thrash-metal favorites Power Trip who died in 2020. “Seventy thousand men, why am I wondering where Riley went?” Meg Remy sings, placing a personal tragedy against the endless body count of history. She’s not seeking absolution, let alone answers, though there’s a clue to what’s needed as the song shifts from a soul dirge to a disco hymn: “Now I’m suing you for mercy, mercy.” —Jon Blistein

In 2025, Latto not only lured internet-cryptid Playboi Carti out of hiding for a guest verse but squashed her long-simmering beef with Ice Spice in the most viral manner imaginable: a high-camp, twerk-heavy wrestling match. But the easygoing single “Somebody” is the crown jewel in the Atlanta rapper’s year. Riding waves of windblown ‘90s synth lines, Latto plays her dream-girl role so cool she earns the sly Aaliyah interpolations on the hook. It’s her best play at the pop-R&B crown yet. —C.P.

Sometimes, a catchy song is just a catchy song. Somehow, this three-minute earworm from Hardy’s latest album hasn’t yet been served to country radio, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of the most feel-good sing-along pop country songs of the year. It may contain just about all the Music Row tropes the genre gets ridiculed for (jacked-up truck, SEC football, and a Hank Jr. quote? Check, check, and check), but it sure works. —Jonathan Bernstein  

Jay Som toiled when recording “Past Lives,” redoing guitars, tweaking the intro, and reworking various vocals. Much of that labor was in honor of the track’s guest vocalist, Hayley Williams, and the results show: The mid-tempo rocker is a shimmering highlight of Jay Som’s 2025 album, Belong, full of crisp guitar and note-perfect two-part harmony in a soaring chorus that features some of Jay Som’s most incisive and catchy songwriting to date: “Melt off, defrost,” Williams and Jay Som sing, “I’m spiraling up.” —J. Bernstein

“Payroll,” from the Grenadian soca artist Muddy, celebrates the centuries-old Caribbean tradition of jab jab, where masqueraders blacken their skin with molasses, tar, or oil, don horned helmets, and satirize the way white colonialists have demonized them. The absolutely electric song reigned over Grenada’s annual Spicemas carnival and became a hit at carnivals all over the world. As Muddy chants in the song’s stirring first moments, “When stars align/Greatness outshines all hatred in space and time.” —Mankaprr Conteh

Tyler, the Creator’s Don’t Tap the Glass has the feel of a quick corrective, rebounding from the thematic sprawl of Chromakopia to something more focused and fun. “Sugar on My Tongue” is its anti-thesis statement, a slice of wildly horny Italo disco carried, in large part, by the force of Tyler’s personality, the joy of hearing him cut this loose. If there was any doubt about his intentions, he spends the entire self-directed video unlocking a paramour’s inner freak before grooving butt naked in the corner. —C.P.

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Audrey Hobert’s debut single introduces itself with a swaggering beat and organ-grinder synths, laying the ground for her defiant declaration of her needs. “Sue me, I wanna be wanted,” the frequent Gracie Abrams collaborator repeats in a sing-song tone. She not only brings her desired target home, she arranges a ménage à trois — although by the song’s end, she’s alone with her desire once more, navigating twinges of guilt while getting ready to move on to the next. —Maura Johnston 

On “This Is Real,” Pittsburgh’s Feeble Little Horse collide bedroom pop, noise pop, and hyper pop. It starts off as an electronic wash, turns into bubbly electro cuteness, then runs into a wall of power-drone grind, then becomes a Nineties-style grunge-punk tantrum, then a found-sound collage, then a sunny, folk-pop tune — all in just over three hard-spinning minutes. As depictions of reality go, it’s not a bad match for our violent times. Maybe the genre they’re really working in is folk music. —J.D.

This March, the Norwegian electronic music duo Smerz (Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt) released one of the year’s coolest and most sensual ballads, a sing-speaky declaration of unadulterated lust over a Dean Blunt-esque groove. And while the track’s spring release ushered in the airy thrill of a fresh-blooming infatuation, November’s reimagined edit featuring Clairo evokes a lounge singer crooning onstage in a smoky room whose desire has become their demise. —Leah Lu

Shallipopi is one of the coolest street pop acts to emerge from Nigeria in recent years, making a splash with his 2023 hit “Cast,” featuring Odumodublvck, and repping for his hometown of Benin City on Rema’s “Benin Boys.” He’s created another moment with “Laho,” the laid-back anthem that’s taken over African social media with the empowering bars, “Minister of enjoyment/Intercontinental/Monumental/We go live forever.” Elsewhere, much of the song is performed in Bini, his local language. —M.C.

In astrology, 777 is an “angel number” and “a signal to get present with what’s going on between you and your significant other.” For Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, “777” is just about the luckiest number imaginable. The song, which reads like a tribute to a lover who is “wide like space, blue like heaven,” recalls the golden era of college rock (dig that sighing J Mascis-style solo). “I wanna figure you out,” Tudzin sings, but it sounds like she already did. —K.G.

When Young Miko was making her album Do Not Disturb, she put her phone on mute and dug deep into an arsenal of influences. One reference that kept popping up was the upbeat playfulness of 2000s-era throwback pop and hip hop, and “Wassup” honors that spirit fully. It’s bouncy, risque, and instantly catchy, putting her silky smooth rap delivery on display  — and it’s tied together with a hilarious, perfectly placed Lil Jon cameo that drives it all home.–Julyssa Lopez

A classic Wu Tang ruckus, styled as a legal thriller: Ghost and Rae play defendants in a courtroom drama, facing down a thicket of accusations, while their Wu brethren and some younger stalwarts get in on the drama. The MCs ping-pong bars back and forth as “attorneys” address the court and toss out a cavalcade of details — narcotic-sniffing dogs, white powder hidden in luggage — worthy of the finest Wu joints. —Christian Hoard

The Polish art-rock band offers up a swirling, psychedelic dream with a sly bass line that evokes 2000s Radiohead and a steadily mounting sense of tension. “Oh, let the mourners go,” guitarist Wojtek Juchniewicz sings and shouts. Bandleader Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, a poet and anti-fascist activist, provides a counterpoint with his Beatlesque backing vocal: “Let the mourners come.” Listen enough, and it starts to sound like a scream against the rising drone of right-wing authoritarian politics around the world. —S.V.L.

Vintage Chicago house throwbacks have been thick on the ground ever since Renaissance dropped. But Sudan Archives gives that old framework a fresh and playful urgency. On paper, “A Bug’s Life” describes a rocky relationship with someone who’s “so relentless … She never looks back/’Cause she can’t go home.” In the air, the Italo-house piano, hypnotically shuffling hi-hats, and soaring vocal-sample patchwork behind the chorus all work to make the song’s bittersweet tone even more tangible. —M.Matos

After catapulting into meme lore last summer with “Doot Doot (6 7),” Philadelphia rapper Skrilla spent the rest of 2025 proving that he’s more than a one-hit wonder. “Rich Sinners,” which finds him trading bars with Lil Yachty, marks a step forward. “I’m from the bottom, Bikini Bottom, who knew Patrick be a star?” raps Skrilla. But leave it to Yachty to offer the track’s most outrageous — and potentially offensive — line: “I’m the one call all the shots, I feel like Putin.” —Mosi Reeves

BigXthaPlug’s 2022 track “Texas” got noticed by the country community for its combination of grimy slide guitar, fluttering trap snares, and gospel-tinged bravado. That interest led to I Hope You’re Happy, an EP that twinned BigX’s husky bellow with crooning from current country-radio staples. The project’s first single, the breakup sulk “All the Way,” takes the minor-key sullenness that defines a hefty slice of mid-‘20s Nashville and adds BigX’s booming voice on top, creating a guilt trip in stereo. —M.J.

Will Anderson of Hotline TNT delivers shoegaze guitar majesty deepened by aching tunefulness. With its rousing, tidal distortion, “Julia’s War” is named after a great Philadelphia indie label and sounds like it could’ve been on MTV’s 120 Minutes in 1991, maybe between Swervedriver and the Catherine Wheel. Anderson reaches through the building noise to make a connection with someone slipping out of focus, as a perfect “na na na na na” refrain pushes him from faint hope to straight-up bliss. —J.D.

The party that Netón Vega and Peso Pluma attend on “Morena” is a lavish affair — with Balenciaga, tequila of the Cruz Azul variety, and a bit of white powder to get the blood flowing. Hopelessly hedonistic, right? And yet, this música mexicana gem is wrapped in a gauzy, slo-mo sheen of spiraling trombone riffs and pulsating bass that adds a near spiritual vibe to the story of the title’s captivating beauty. Melancholy to the core, and achingly beautiful. —E.L.

This standout off Samia’s excellent LP Bloodless has it all: Diet Dr. Pepper, Raymond Carver, leeches, and Degas dancers. It’s a slow-burning odyssey into the indie rocker’s mind — she sings that she wants to “be impossible” before the song culminates in the refrain, “And drained, drained bloodless.” Samia uses the bizarre concept of cattle mutilation to explore themes of patriarchal society and purity — as she put it, “this clinical pursuit of emptiness.” The result is the prettiest song about slaughtered livestock to date. —Angie Martoccio

“You better stop doing that pocket watchin’, keep a good eye on your hoe,” Veeze warns in his typically slurred vocal style on “L.O.A.T.” Set over skittering 8-bit digital production by Rocaine, the track — an acronym for “lamest for all time” — is a two-minute showcase for the Detroit rapper to flip imaginative metaphors, from comparing himself to Iron Man to referencing Destiny Child’s “Cater 2 U,” while satiating fans eager for a follow-up to his acclaimed 2023 breakout, Ganger. —M.R.

For their first official collaboration, U.K. staples AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith flip Brandy’s 2002 deep cut “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out” into a grime hit. The London rapper and R&B star trade verses about second chances throughout the track, including one in which Smith slips into a silky-smooth rap cadence herself, crafted in her distinct Walsall accent. Tracey matches his collaborator’s reluctant tone with clever, streamlined bars that make a pretty undeniable case for hitting repeat. —L.P.

You gotta love a guitar band whose one-liners snap just as hard as its riffs. Wet Leg’s new album, Moisturizer, crackles with searing guitars and brash jokes that distill their “make a mess now and worry about it later” philosophy. “Mangetout” chugs out of the gate as Rhian Teasdale makes quick work of a “bottom feeder” with the devastating line, “You wanna fuck me, I know most people do.” If the casual contempt here wasn’t so fun, you’d almost kind of feel bad for the poor fool. —J.D.

Rochelle Jordan never lets you see her sweat. She nimbly navigates rhythm tracks that effortlessly commingle house music with R&B and pop, and this track may be her peak to date. It chimes with the year’s dance-floor swerve toward vintage U.K. garage — the snares skip suavely, and Jordan’s syllables are cut up over the coda — and whether she’s semi-rapping the verses or infusing the chorus with grainy soul, she commands everything with subtle but unmistakable aplomb. —M.Matos

“Verano Rosa” was famously left on the cutting-room floor during Karol G’s sessions for Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season); the star revealed the song was a collaboration with fellow Latin music titan Feid in her 2023 Rolling Stone cover story. After two years, Karol and Feid delivered with a wistful, summer-ready track. Against a sunny reggaeton beat, the two musicians embody former flames who long for each other over drunken mid-party phone calls, liquor bottles in hand, and remember their unmatched love. —Maya Georgi 

The latest from the Iowa country upstart is a whip-smart, fiddle-heavy travelogue about the trials and travails of being an aspiring heartland country star. Sound familiar? “The Colonel just called/said the next song might go all the way to the top,” Hailey Whitters sings over a throwback earworm arrangement that conjures everyone from Miranda Lambert to Alan Jackson. If there’s any justice, the Colonel’s false promise would become prophecy. —J. Bernstein

What’s more fun than a dance-pop song about depression? The answer is clearly a Marina song about depression. On this Princess of Power cut, she opens up about loneliness and anxiety through a candid, lyrical inner monologue. The lyrics are refreshingly blunt and at times devastating, but when paired with the bouncy Eurodance house beat, they feel like a badge of honor she wears bravely and proudly. —B.S. 

Katseye proved they weren’t afraid to get a little messy with “Gnarly.” But “Gabriela” is where they leaned into undeniable girl-group pop — the kind tailor-made for the choreography they serve onstage. Produced by Andrew Watt and John Ryan, the track layers in Latin-tinged guitars as the members glide through the vocals, and Daniela taps into her Latina roots with a full Spanish verse. It’s a reminder why Katseye are pushing the idea of what a global girl group can look like. —T.M.

Few artists can probe the multifaceted nature of grief like Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner. On “Picture Window,” she confronts its long shadow in the face of love, contrasting her anxiety-racked self with a more carefree partner who “only cries on Ferris wheels.” In a note to fans, Zauner wrote that this disconnect can be “both a relief and a struggle,” but it’s not something to run from. “Picture Window” is warm and inviting — indie rock mixed with cosmic country — even as our ghosts live among us. —J. Blistein

Doechii dropped the inescapable “Anxiety” in March — except, she actually made the song in 2019 and only rerecorded it after a snippet of the original gained traction online. It’s a clear testament to the potency of her creative instincts. The song rides a mesmerizing flip of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” and finds Doechii deploying a dexterous yet playful flow as she navigates feelings surrounding the emotion in the song’s title. It’s no wonder it took off. Doechii articulates the feeling of the moment. —J.I.

The U.K. punk duo Lambrini Girls’ songs are an onslaught of riot grrrl shrieks, violent riffs, and flashing synths. On “Cuntology 101,” singer-guitarist Phoebe Lunny relishes repeating the song’s chosen expletive. But the list of what constitutes cunty — standing up for yourself, respecting others, learning how to say no — has an explicitly Gen Z feel. As Lunny said earlier this year, “It was genuinely just about, like, how many stupid funny things can someone say in a song and relate it back to self love?” —Elisabeth Garber-Paul

British Nigerian artist Obongjayar’s second album, Paradise Now, was inspired by David Bowie and Prince. “There’s not too much fat,” he told Rolling Stone of their work. “It’s so fine and understandable and also very unique.” “Talk Olympics” with Little Simz is great at this. The frenzied percussion elicits the commotion of an African market but mirrors the similarly incessant chatter that can spill from the internet into real life. Obongjayar plays with high life, electro-pop, all kinds of rock, and a touch of rap. —M.C. 

The 21-year-old 2hollis is quickly shaping up to be Gen Z’s experimental pop It boy, and “Nice” solidifies it. The song is a hyper-pop dream, bouncy and ecstatic. In the lyrics, 2hollis is talking to a lover whom he promises he just wants to be nice to, in spite of some missteps in his past. While the rest of Star leans toward the weirder, “Nice” feels like the type of pop cut that any pop star working now would kill to put out. But only 2hollis could truly sell it. —B.S.

It’s fitting that “Dark Thoughts” came together in a flash. The 22-year-old rapper Lil Tecca speaks to a generation driven by instinct, able to decipher a hit from a few seconds of a snippet. He told Rolling Stone that he made the song at nine in the morning “straight off the wake up as a vibe check,” after looking for a “Pharrell type beat” on YouTube. “Dark Thoughts” cuts to something more than just nostalgia, though. With its glistening production and buoyant melody, it’s a showcase for one of hip-hop’s brightest new talents. —J.I.

“Marlboro Rojo” was the beating heart of Fuerza Régida’s excellent 111Xpantia, the clearest example of the Mexican stars tapping into what frontman JOP called the “old Fuerza.” And while the album went into new sonic territory, the single leaned into the tuba, charchetas, and guitars that built the group’s original sound. It also extended the winning streak of songwriter Armenta, who’s the pen behind some of Fuerza’s biggest hits, including “Bebe Dame” and “Sabor Fresa.” —T.M.

The beloved New Zealand indie-rock foursome speak the truth in “Straight Line Was a Lie,” over the maddeningly catchy guitar jangle. It’s the melodic power-pop title tune from their first album since their 2022 breakthrough, Expert in a Dying Field. Elizabeth Stokes rejects the whole idea of personal, creative, or commercial growth. “I guess I’ll take the long way,” she sings, “Because every way’s the long way”—that’s the kind of tough wisdom we needed (but didn’t want) this year. —Rod Sheffield

Florence + the Machine’s lead single off their latest album, Everybody Scream, is a simmering track packed with killer lines like, “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can.” Florence Welch reflects on both her own mortality and legacy as a musician in a misogynistic industry; each line tumbles out with a hurried necessity. The lyrical ferocity is matched with moody, dissonant guitar riffs, courtesy of Idles’ Mark Bowen. —M.G.

“Shake It to the Max” was released last December, but it became a song of the summer contender with a remix featuring Shenseea and Skillibeng. The two added their vocals to a beat from producers Silent Addy and Disco Neil that melds classic dancehall vibes with modern instrumentation. Moliy’s intercontinental collaboration made the club a prime venue for a breakup anthem. But even those who don’t resonate with lyrics like “Said he want me back, he can’t touch this” can jam to the song’s irresistible hook. —Andre Gee

Big Thief marry the commonplace and the cosmic like a 2020s version of the Grateful Dead. When Adrianne Lenker performed the lead track on their new Double Infinity a year before the album’s release, it was an acoustic tune in the vein of Neil Young’s “Helpless.” The band turned it into a gorgeous psychedelic swirl, perfect for Lenker’s lyrics, which begin with a missed flight and spiral into a road-trip meditation on memory, time, family, aging, and freedom. —J.D.