Songs, 2025

20 songs that spoke to me this year, nothing from my favorite albums, it’s getting cold out

20. Wishy “Over and Over”
Velocity girl the sundays matthew sweet the year punk broke lemonheads juliana hatfield “you know what band i can’t stomach: belly” 120 minutes carry the zero y2k “the los angeles duo’s bland simulations of millennial pop-rock will make you feel like it’s still 2006 isn’t there more to life” frutiger aero maria somerville snuggle some like it hot

19. Tek lintowe/thumpeezy_713 “Come Down to the City”
Chopped and screwed iconography has been worked to death but this song is a revelation, a new perspective on familiar comforts. You cannot predict when the thing comes to recontextualize the reality you know; thump sounds like old Z-Ro or Big Moe even though he’s not trying to sound like anyone other than himself 

18. Eli Escobar “I’ll wait all day (4 u)”
Play this at the unction

17. Samba Jean-Baptiste “born again freestyle (shed a tear).mp3”
Frayed-edges R&B/hip-hop lo-fi pop songwriting is in a moment but the silken loop and subdued vocals sound like a dispatch from a real loner figuring it out in his bedroom

16. CONNIE/Tisakorean “FUCK”
I just wanna rock 

15. Sayuri & Sopholov & Fuentes Prod “Secunena”
I didn’t see any discourse about Song of the Summer. Anytime I turn the radio on in Philly it’s Meek Mill Chris Brown Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan—maybe I just tune out the country songs. My summer was insanely busy and bookended by two life-altering trips to Mexico so I had no investment in whatever folks wanted to rally around (what was there even to rally around this year [obviously nothing]). The lack of discourse is proof nothing matters; democracy dies in darkness (lol)

14. Fish Narc “Interstate”
Someone dissed this record by comparing it to Foo Fighters which is accurate if you mean Foo Fighters (1995), the melodic, low-key, one-man band debut Grohl recorded by himself. He was confidently pulling melodies out of everywhere on that album—Fish Narc, former Lil Peep collaborator, does that with his. This is one of its quietest songs, his vocal performance is affecting and candid

13. Tweet “Toot Toot”
My cd of Southern Hummingbird made the cut when moving across the country; it still sounds like it came out yesterday. About a month after D’Angelo passed this dropped like pitch-perfect homage (always revitalizing to hear the real deal and not settle for store-brand)

12. Bfb Da Packman/MIKE/Starlito “MoreThanBRILLIANT!”
A former one-hit wonder gets introspective. The song soars because each verse contextualizes the next one. MIKE unifies Pack's lingering jokiness and Lito's gravitas; Starlito (who released a good record this year) still has a voice that sounds like 1000 cigarettes mixed with 1000 beers and it’s one of the best I know. The first time I heard this song and he started rapping I nearly cried at my desk; the elder is here. If this song came out in 2013 I’d probably play it on the college radio station whenever called in for duty which is the highest praise I can give a piece of music, you know, when it just takes you there 

11. rusowsky “malibU”
Spaniards get away with too much. This record is fun but I don’t like the songs that are just “Remember Mario? Remember B2K? Remember Chingy?” Here he unites his vision of reggaeton with ‘00s R&B with freaky singing and it sounds great especially when played as loud as possible 

10. Metro Boomin/Quavo/Breskii/YK Niece/DJ Spinz “Take Me Thru Dere”
Aging comes in spurts (apparently 44 and 66 are big years) but there are times when lots of things happen at once that make you realize how much time passes. Case in point: HR guy saying Jeezy was his favorite rapper “growing up”; hearing the OJ da Juiceman sample in “Whim Whamiee” and thinking “this sounds old” the way nineties boom-bap samples always sounded old to me in the middle of the ‘00s; I’m big enough to admit I had fun with the Gelo song for 48 hours in January; Futuristic Summa dropped and thrilled me for a day before realizing “these are throwback songs.” “Futuristic” Summa in 2025? Maybe in 2016 or 2006. Why would I look to this record for innovation; Metro Boomin has scored comic book movies. Yet I need more than spamming dj drops from a decade plus ago to take me somewhere. The key to valuable curation is knowing when to cede the floor and between amazing songs from the likes of Young Dro and Roscoe Dash was this hit that united new voices with old, updating Atlanta firmware

9. Lil M.U. “Top of Cars”
Perfect juke jam 

8. Rio Da Yung OG “Shake Back”
Calling this one of the funniest songs of the year feels like a bad-faith reading of how Rio raps but it is as well as the song that most makes me want to strap on ACG boots and go to war

7. Myaap “Fairy”
When the beat here and on “Top of Cars” cascade down you feel the full weight of the music in your chest, except “Fairy” also sounds like evil Ren Faire

6. Jaysanityy “singsong flow”
I don’t have the vocabulary to talk about time signatures but beat is crazy bassline is groovy and it would make this list even if Jay wasn’t dropping incredible bars about holding too much lust, avoiding blue light before bed, losing his job—2025 concerns. His twisty writing deadpan humor and nonchalant insight ignite my forever love of American rap and art as expression, a wonder of the world

5. dexter in the newsagent “Special”
You know when you hear a song for the first time and you’re like, I’m glad I can add this three minutes to my life now

4. Addison Rae “Headphones On”
Imagine a world where time drifts slowly; in a year of great basslines this has the best, an instinctual throb that pushes Addison past potentially problematic Janet comparisons and Pure Moods cosplay. I’m skeptical of this album as the millennial-, male-, rockist-approved (individually and any combination therein) pop album of the year and I’m not there, but this song broke my defenses and took me there all year long. Main character music (I am still saying this because I am still the main character on the train in a world where music carries me away)

3. Haim “Relationships”
God forbid white girls get a little motion

2. Hit-Boy/Spank Nitti James/AZ Chike/Babytron “Start Dissin’”
Something I would have loved in my dorm room in ‘09 at the aforementioned radio station in ‘13 at the dive with smoke machines clearing my sinuses on the edge of downtown in ‘16 during a zoom dj night in the summer of ‘20 in my airpods on septa in the summer of ‘25 and again near-blackout at a Blade-themed birthday party fall ‘25 feeling like it was the only song that mattered

1. Kehlani “Folded”
Twenty years ago when I was in high school I was reading music magazines and blogs and wondering why all the adults were freaking out. I was young and invincible and didn't need a band or critic to tell me the world was fucked under Bush because I knew that already and had unwarranted optimism we could un-fuck the world. I didn't need “When the President Talks to God.” This year I let the music talk.

“Folded” is a spurned lover/but also I'm spurning you r&b classic that could have come out any time within the past fifteen years. The guitar chime reminds me of “Confessions” but it's not nostalgia trap, it's gateway. I've never connected to Kehlani because while their voice is undeniable their songs have left me cold, bordering on musical theater. I ignored this song for a few months until I asked a trusted friend what to play to start a birthday party. His answer changed everything for me. Everyone can get behind a song about rising and falling relationships. You can dance to it, sing to it, it even transcends age (like why was I listening to Deborah Cox in fifth grade?). I didn't consider what this song was capable of until I let it happen. As “Folded” suggests, surrender can be the best way to experience something.