Favorite Songs of 2025

Once again we have reached the end of a calendar year and one of the greatest days of the blogging year: the unveiling of my favorite songs of 2025.

This year the process was as fun as I can recall. As you know, I keep a running list throughout the year, constantly shuffling songs in and out as they catch my fancy. When fall arrived this year I wasn’t really sure about the songs I had stashed away for the final evaluation. But once I dove in I realized this was a pretty solid collection. Often when I begin that review process, I immediately delete a swath of tracks. This year, though, my list stayed pretty constant at around 30 songs. That kept the final size of this year’s favorites in question until just a few days ago. In the end I saw a pretty clear delineation right around the #20 spot.

Thus, I present my twenty favorite songs of 2025.

A couple other notes before we dive in.

Be warned, there are a lot of gay songs this year. Well, the songs themselves aren’t gay, but they are performed by queer artists and are about queer love. Although since I believe love is universal, their sentiments apply to us all. Unless you’re a fascist and think we should deport the gays. If that’s you, you’re probably not reading this post or listening to the music I listen to.

The geographic breakdown this year:
8 artists from the US
7 from the UK
2 from Australia
2 from Canada
1 from Ireland

Finally, honorable mention goes to the following bands, who each released multiple excellent tracks from excellent albums but weren’t quite good enough to crack my top 20: Momma, Rocket, The Berries, and Snocaps.

20 – “Forever” – TTSSFU
Tasmin Stephens is one of the most innovative, daring, and interesting artists in the indie rock world at the moment. And here she made a song that would have sounded perfect in an ‘80s or ‘90s teen movie.

19 – “Chrome Dipped” – CIVIC
I’ve been a fan of this band for a couple years. On their latest album they shifted from a classic, Aussie punk sound to a more traditionally heavy one. This track punches you in your stomach over-and-over and you love every second of it.

18 – “Coinstar” – Runner
A gorgeous, billowing song about all the freedoms that go with becoming an adult and the pressures they can cause.

17 – “When Your Heart Is Broken” – Bob Mould
The legend returned this year – I saw him live! – with another fine album of loud, melodic, indie rock. Late in the year he announced that Sugar was getting back together as well. This was the most Sugar-ish song on his solo album.

16 – “T&A” – Blondshell
Sabrina Teitelbaum has a knack for writing songs about the messy parts of relationships. Last year’s #9 song was her “Docket,” on which she and Bully sang about the perils of remaining faithful while being a touring musician. Here she sings about how easy it is for a casual friendship to slip into something more, and the consequences of letting that happen.

15 – “Everything Is Coming Up Roses” – World News
Is this a song about keeping your head up when things get heavy? Or a sardonic reminder that the world is on fire? The music supports the first interpretation, but the words seem to lean towards the second. “Bad things happen all the time…”

14 – “NW1” – Mên An Tol
I don’t understand most of this song because it is filled with references that only someone who is from London would get. What is unmistakable, though, is the intense love of one’s hometown, in this case the borough of Camden.

13 – “Knockin’ Heart” – Hamilton Leithauser
Leithauser’s solo work has never been as intense as when he led the legendary Walkmen. His This Side Of The Island album was all about growing older and being comfortable with that. A long way from “The Rat.” While it may not been as angry as the greatest Walkmen songs, it was the rare solo effort that at least had some of the same energy.

12 – “Hero’s Blood” – Pastel
Oasis returned this year, to the delight of many. But Pastel reminded us that The Verve was actually the best British band of the Nineties (non-Radiohead division) [1] by basically morphing together several songs from Urban Hymns into this monstrous stomper.

11 – “Andromeda” – Preoccupations
A ferocious song by the best current practitioners of post-punk. Like all the best post-punk records, you could drop it in any year from 1983 to today and it would fit in.

10 – “Touch Myself” – The Beaches
When an ex is so in your head you can’t…well, you know.

9 – “It’s Amazing To Be Young” – Fontaines D.C.
Last year’s #4 song was about IDLES lead singer Joe Talbot being totally in love with his daughter. This song was inspired by FDC guitarist Carlos O’Connell becoming a father, and the sense of hope and possibility it filled him with.

8 – “Not In Surrender” – Obongjayar
The horniest song of the year? The “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” lines are one of the best musical moments of the year.

7 – “East London Hotel” – Broken Fires
Best opening line of the year:

The neatest Scottish whiskey flows,
Into tumblers trimmed with gold

Makes me wish I still drank scotch.

A glorious sounding song about…gentrification. That has to be a first on these year end lists.

6 – “Bethany” – Craig Finn
Arguably our most literate songwriter, Finn’s latest album was built around the concept of a minister who had fallen from grace because he did not believe in God. In classic Finn form, from there he spun out tales of the minister and the people around him. As an added bonus, he brought in The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel to help write and produce the album. And Granduciel brought some of his TWOD pals to play. This track features four members of the band. Their presence is unmistakable, especially Robbie Bennett’s piano and Granduciel’s solo.

5 – “Nostalgia’s Lie” – Sam Fender
Granduciel also helped produce Sam Fender’s latest album.[2] Of the songs on the People Watching album, none were as obviously influenced by Granduciel as this one. Those big, open chords are the perfect middle point of his sound and Fender’s. That’s Adam on the acoustic guitar, too.

4 – “If She Was A Boy” – Gatlin
A first-crush song for the modern age, when all those sweet and overwhelming feelings of any teenage love are complicated by wanting to be with a person you’ve been taught you shouldn’t want to be with.

3 – “Sugar In The Tank” – Julien Baker & TORRES
When I first read that these two indie rock artists were making a country album, I figured it was a joke. Or if not a joke, a lark; a slapdash side project done to pass the time.

Then I heard this song.

Good Lord!

It blends a healthy dose of traditional country music – both Baker and TORRES (Mackenzie Scott) grew up in the south and went to college in Tennessee – with modern production underneath that tethers it to their indie rock roots. And it is subtly, or maybe not subtly, subversive: two queer artists making a song in Nashville that co-opts the sounds of that town while singing about their personal lives. Not your normal Country Music Awards fare.[3] The song is so warm and joyous that I bet a lot of anti-gay country fans would not get offended by it until someone explains who is singing it and what they are singing about. Or maybe I’m not giving those folks enough credit and they will accept that a song is a great song, no matter who sings it.

Hell, it turned this anti-country listener into a fan. Maybe Baker & TORRES have the magic that can bring our nation together!

2 – “Change My Mind” – Phantastic Ferniture
Of the surprise albums of the year, none was a bigger surprise[4] than Julia Jacklin getting her pre-solo era band back together. PF were a one-off deal to begin with, which made it especially crazy they returned with two new songs this year. Both were very good, and this absolute banger came out early enough in the fall to shoot up my rankings.

I don’t listen to tracks on repeat as often as I used to. This and the #1 song of the year were the two that had me hitting the Back button often. I love how it addresses a heavy topic – the dissolution of a relationship – but there’s such a lightness to Jacklin’s voice, and openness to being swayed, that it sounds flirty and fun. And that bass drum gets me pounding my steering wheel every time I hear this in the car.

1 – “mangetout” – Wet Leg
Any questions about Wet Leg being a flash-in-the-pan, borderline novelty act were erased with the release of their second album, moisturizer, this summer. There was a pronounced growth in their lyrics and the ideas within the songs without losing the fun and quirkiness that characterized their 2022 debut.

This was the finest example, and my favorite song of 2025. So many clever lyrics that make me cackle every time I hear them, including the lines of the year:

You think I’m pretty, you think I’m pretty cool
You want to fuck me, I know, most people do

The balls, or ovaries I guess, to sing a line like that! Few songs telling an unwanted romantic advance to shove off have been as enjoyable.