#20 Morgan Wallen - 20 Cigarettes

I wasn’t originally planning on making a “best list” counterpart to my “worst list” post from last month. Even now I’m still skeptical of the idea. Really, the main reason I’m doing this is because it wouldn’t feel right to spend a whole list talking about shying away from negative, mean criticism in favor of songs I’m actually passionate about, only to never actually say anything positive about the hit songs of 2025 that I did like. There’s been a ton of discourse over the quality of 2025 in pop music, especially in comparison to 2024’s pop culture defining moments ranging from the Kendrick and Drake beef to the rise of Chappell Roan. This year was a total wash, they say. Ruled by boring white men making Jesus music while rap struggled and the pop girlies didn’t have the cultural dominance we thought they had.

#19 Sabrina Carpenter - Bed Chem

Which on some level I get if your only barometer for mainstream music is the Hot 100. There was no worse year to be an avid chart follower for 2025. We reached enough of a lull period in 2025 where songs that have been hits for over a year remained in the Top 10 while huge releases from big stars faded instantly. I kinda knew this year was cooked when Lorde released a huge pop comeback single, it got a ton of attention and reached #1 on the streaming charts, only for it to suddenly tank and leave the Hot 100 and the streaming charts. Not the sign of a healthy music industry.

#18 Gigi Perez - Sailor Song

But it’s not like we didn’t get new music this year. We had plenty of new names come up from Gigi Perez, to Lola Young, to sombr, and the year ended with Olivia Dean on her way to outright dominate the pop scene. If anything, I think 2026 will probably end up a better year than 2025 right off the bat. Not just thanks to Olivia Dean, but with Billboard’s new recurrency rules that knock off long-lasting songs much earlier, there’s more room for the charts to represent a more active scene than before. As much as people talk about all the big things that happened in 2024, it’s easy to forget that year also had periods of stagnation on its charts. The year practically ended by the time “Die With A Smile” came out, with Kendrick’s GNX and Tyler The Creator’s Chromakopia bleeding into the following year.

#17 Teddy Swims - Bad Dreams

Actually, to be honest, I always felt like the way people talked about 2024 was… a little rose-tinted. I can’t deny that it was a banner year for pop music, but it always rubbed me the wrong way how many things were dismissed or overlooked in order to write this perfect narrative of pop music representing “the world” as if we were about to experience a major vibe shift into better days and brighter optimism. No doubt some of this was tied to some unfortunate political hopes that were swiftly dashed come November. But even then, a lot of what people raved about when it came to Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, especially Charli XCX… It’s not like any of this was new.

#16 Kendrick Lamar ft. AZ Chike - peekaboo

You go back to 2021 and you could probably craft a similar narrative. That was the year Olivia Rodrigo became an overnight sensation (someone weirdly ignored in the year where Sabrina Carpenter finally reached her peak fame), as was the moment Lil Nas X crossed over from one-hit wonder to genuine pop visionary. Billie Eilish released her long-awaited sophomore album that proved she was not only in it for the long haul, but that she could still surprise us with every new album. 2021 was also a banner year for a subgenre of trap music built around more soulful vocals and reflective lyrics, namely thanks to the success of Rod Wave and Polo G. That was also a year where Tyler The Creator dropped a phenomenal album! And Kendrick delivered maybe his best ever verse on Baby Keem’s “family ties”!

#15 sombr- undressed

My point is that while 2024 definitely had reason to be celebrated, I could tell a lot of the people who reported on it or made essays about it weren’t really paying attention to pop music themselves until that year. Pop music didn’t stop being interesting in 2016, you just weren’t paying attention. If anything, the dismissive way people talked about that period after the club boom annoys the hell out of me. Probably because I was there, paying attention to all the charts and seeing the rise and fall of many artists, and a lot of those moments deserved more scrutiny than people were willing to give it.

#14 Shaboozey - Good News

I’ve seen some particular ignorance to rap and country music of that era, which both found ways to thrive at a time where pop music was trying to catch up. 2018 was a huge year for rap music, where it finally overtook pop music as the dominant genre in mainstream music thanks to the rise of streaming and bypassing the need for radio to get a #1 hit. A time that many pop fans seem to remember as “dreary and unfun” was really just a symptom of darker trap beats ruling the mainstream while pop music tried and failed to replicate it for their own desperate pop stars. Pop stans should be a lot more honest about how much Ariana Grande was inspired by this era. As was Billie Eilish and, let’s be honest, pretty much every crossover k-pop hit we’ve ever had.

#13 Saja Boys - Soda Pop

In general I feel like there’s not enough respect given to rap whenever people write these thinkpieces about “the state of music”. I understand those who mainly want to focus on just pop music, but I think we’re far enough in the streaming era to admit that the same people who listen to Sabrina and Billie also listen to 21 Savage and Lil Baby. But I rarely see them brought up as more than a side note, or at the very least it’s selective. I’ve seen several people designate the term “theatre kid core” to rappers like Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator and Doechii, which both as a theatre kid and a rap fan doesn’t sit right with me. Would you say the same about Future and Metro Boomin, the two artists who kickstarted the Kendrick and Drake beef in the first place and continued having dominant hits throughout the year? Why haven’t I seen the same energy for GloRilla and BigXThaPlug, who also had really big notable years? Is it because they don’t wear extravagant costumes or smile at the camera mid-performance? Do you really like these artists for their music, or just because they look and act like pop stars?

#12 Saja Boys - Your Idol

That may sound really harsh but I do ask that question with full sincerity: How much of our love for the music of 2024 has to do with the appearance of iconic pop culture? Which, for the record, nothing wrong with that! That’s what makes pop culture so fun to look back on in the first place. It’s why everyone is obsessed with the 80s and why the 2000s is seeing a major resurgence. Not like the 2020s are currently giving us something to look forward to. I do empathize with contextualizing the modern pop culture landscape through the lens of what brings us joy and nostalgia. I just wish we could be a little more critical and reflective of it. Because it’s not like that 80s and 2000s nostalgia tells the whole truth of those decades.

#11 Justin Bieber - DAISIES

The 80s may have been a boon of innovation and unreachable heights, but it was also smack dab in the middle of the Reagan era, the AIDs crisis, and prevailing racism that didn’t go away just because MTV begrudgingly allowed “Billie Jean” to be added to their rotation. The 2000s may have cute aesthetics, and some of us grew up as children of that decade (myself included), but you look back at some of the articles and posts of that era and they were incredibly mean and riddled with misogyny. We may be saying #FreeBritney now but back then people were outright mocking her in the midst of her mental breakdown. I’m not saying you can’t be nostalgic for those eras, obviously. But there should be at least some self-awareness that a lot of the romanticism that comes with those decades tend to hide a lot of the less flattering parts of it.

#10 Kendrick Lamar & SZA - luther

But let’s bring it back to 2025. I spent a lot of time talking about 2024 but that’s primarily because it’s kind of hard not to when talking about 2025. You look at the year-end charts for 2025 you’ll find a distressing number of hits from the previous year at the very top. In fact only one song that actually released in 2025 is in the year-end Top 10, that being Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”. Which in itself caused a lot of panic discourse about whether or not pop music is “doomed” because the only big hit of the year is a song so mediocre and uninspired. I find that idea silly. Songs like “Ordinary” have and will become huge again and again. Audiences love romance, Alex and his wife have a touching story, and it’s an easy song for the radio to latch onto and for streaming services to sprinkle all over their pre-made playlists.

#9 sombr - 12 to 12

2025, if anything, was just a repeat of 2022. A year where nothing really happened after a year that promised a more active ecosystem than we got. If you ask me, this is more an industry problem than it is a “people aren’t listening to new music” problem. I mean, the latter is still true. But I think it’s more the industry’s fault than they’d like to admit. I was over at my parents’ house for the holidays, and my mom always has one of Spotify’s pre-made holiday playlists in her car to get her in the Christmas mood. I made one too many comments about disliking some of the songs in the playlist and she started poking fun of me saying I hate Christmas music. Which isn’t necessarily true, but I am very picky when it comes to Christmas music. Meanwhile, my mom is just happy with anything that sounds like Christmas, even if she’d never seek it out otherwise.

#8 ROLE MODEL - Sally, When The Wine Runs Out

Streaming platforms have gotten so overwhelming that most people have given up on digging deep for new favorites. When there’s so many Christmas songs to pick from, it’s easier to just let Spotify’s algorithm give you exactly what you want. Which is great for Spotify’s model, but not good for a music industry that wants to keep new artists and new music moving and making money that isn’t just royalties. That’s not even getting into TikTok, which I feel like Billboard and Spotify see more as a competitor than a potential ally. TikTok popularity has also become so oversaturated that whether or not its most popular sounds get external streaming traction is very inconsistent. “Pretty Little Baby” by Connie Francis was the biggest song on TikTok last year, which you’d think would translate to huge chart success, but it never even made it out of the Bubbling Under (likely because Connie Francis or her estate didn’t feel the need to play the game).

#7 Bad Bunny - BAILE INoLVIDABLE

The brutal truth is that pop music is just in a weird place this decade. I don’t think we’ve escaped the accidental niche the industry has created for itself. It may have had some big headlines and trending topics in 2024, but it still feels like only a fraction of 2020s pop culture compared to TV and movies. Hell, TV and movies are outright dictating the path of music at the moment. KPop Demon Hunters becoming a massive hit caused the music to outlap our biggest pop stars, including Taylor Swift of all people. And as I write this, the Stranger Things finale has caused several songs to surge on streaming platforms, including a song from one of its own actors, “End of Beginning”.

#6 Kehlani - Folded

Honestly, it kind of explains why some of mainstream music has felt more… let’s say “conservative coded” than usual. I didn’t mention this when talking about those 2024 essays, but they were all very dismissive of country music and seemed to only care when Beyoncé did it. Which makes me very sour as someone whose watched the rise of country music this decade in a way that no one outside of country music circles even wants to engage with. Likely because a lot of it, yes, is conservative, comes from Republican artists, and will rarely if ever bring about a “progressive revolution” in comparison to the pop girlies who are outspoken against Trump. But it’s still worth reckoning with because at this point, country has become big enough to even crossover into other countries like the UK and Australia.

#5 Doechii - DENIAL IS A RIVER

So how do we take this? Is this a product of the rise of fascism and a cultural rejection of progressivism? No, don’t be silly. Every genre of music is capable of being conservative. Lana Del Rey can be just as conservative in her music as Morgan Wallen. Sabrina Carpenter can flash “Protect The Dolls” signs at her performances all she wants (I encourage it, even!), but it’s hard to ignore how much she indulges in conservative, submissive gender roles in her music. That doesn’t mean I think those artists are secretly MAGA or anything like that, but I do think there is a lot of insecurity over the popularity of “conservative” music being some sort of dogwhistle for something far more sinister.

#4 Bad Bunny - DtMF

I’d argue the same is true for the shockingly prevalent religious music that has crept onto the charts. Your Forrest Franks, your Brandon Lakes, your Elevation Worships, arguably Alex Warren and Benson Boone having traces of that in their music. This one is a bit harder to really explain? These songs have always been on the fringes of the mainstream, but they’re primarily carried by Christian radio and have only recently started seeing some attention on streaming. I doubt it’ll amount to anything further though. More than anything I think it’s just a sign of the pop industry being in such a bad state that more reliable ecosystems like country radio and Christian radio can keep doing what they’re doing and score easy hits. Plus, Morgan Wallen being one of the only artists people care about these days.

#3 Olivia Dean - So Easy (To Fall In Love)

Maybe that’s the big dirty secret behind the stagnation of pop music. We’ve kind of burnt out all our big pop stars, and no one’s left except for Taylor, Morgan, Bad Bunny, and Sabrina. Charli seems to be content letting Brat be her commercial peak and is off to do her own little passion projects. Chappell Roan is too smart to let herself get caught up in the industry games and would rather take her time and cherish those who stay rather than chase the hit. Same with Kendrick, who we probably won’t hear from for another three or four years. Drake certainly isn’t getting that throne back, try as he might. Billie and Olivia Rodrigo are probably the only other major artists who could keep up their momentum, but when they decide to drop is anyone’s guess. Everyone else? Either burnt out too fast or are struggling to live up to their first big moment. We’ll see which fate Olivia Dean ends up with, I guess.

#2 MOILY, Silent Addy, Skillibeng & Shenseea - Shake It To the Max (FLY) (REMIX)

So what’s my point in all this? Was 2025 a good year for music? No, I don’t think so. But I don’t think this was a sudden cratering so much as an inevitability of a failing industry that either can’t or doesn’t want to escape the trap it made for itself. Every industry is kind of a mess right now, and try as we might to romanticize the moments where everything falls neatly into place, there’s still the occasional gap that signifies that it won’t be forever. I can’t imagine a lot of the artists on this list or even on my worst list are doing all that well for themselves either. They’re just as screwed over by this shitty industry as those of us who want to watch these trends and talk about what will soon be ancient history. Still, every artist on this list made something of value this year. Same with the artists on the worst list. No matter what, making art is good and having that art resonate with people is what builds and creates culture. Rather than worrying if 2025 will look good in a future retrospective, let’s celebrate the artists and their teams who made something that made us turn our head. Whether it was for better or worse.

#1 Chappell Roan - The Giver

I hope you all enjoyed this list! Again, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna do this again, I’m not even sure if I will do this again in the foreseeable future, but I have enjoyed writing these a lot. Makes for a good warm-up for my upcoming best songs list too. Speaking of, minor grain of salt for this list, I excluded four songs that were hits this year that already made my best songs of last year (I Never Lie, tv off, squabble up, and Sticky), because otherwise they would have just topped this list and it would have been boring and predictable. Thank you again for the reception to the worst list, I was kind of blown away by it and now the pressure’s on to keep writing and trust myself more instead of starting and deleting every attempt at a thinkpiece like this. Feel free to ask me about any of these songs! I do have pretty extensive thoughts on them, but you’ll see a good chunk of them on my best songs list anyway. Stay tuned for that, up next!