The 40 Best Songs of 2025
For the last ten years, the musical landscape felt like a lonely, pixelated blur, awash with digital self-involvement. The world fell into a rut of mumble rap and solitary laptop producers making noises that, honestly, meant very little. I reached a point where I struggled to care about new releases, often preferring the silence of an empty room to another forgettable bass drop.
But 2025 was the year the fog lifted. It felt like nature was finally healing. We returned to the radical, vintage concept of “The Band”: three to five people in a room, writing songs, hitting instruments, and scoring hooks. It is a comforting, cyclical shift, and I’m here for it. We stepped through the wardrobe and found ourselves back in the simple warmth of the mid-2000s.
My list reflects this restoration: for the first time in a decade, nine of my top ten songs are indie rock. Here is the full Top 40 Best Songs of 2025, plus ten shortlisted stragglers. The list consists of a blend of rock, rap, ambient, classical, singer-songwriter, club, electronic anthems, and more.
2025 is the year we remembered that music sounds better with a Fender Stratocaster.
Playlist links at the bottom.
Shortlisted tracks (in no particular order).
- Dandelions – Whitney
- Cobra – Geese
- I’m So Serious – Daryl Johns
- See You On Monday (You’re Lost) – Tame Impala
- Letters From Sing Sing – BAMBARA
- Lonesome Is A State of Mind – Djo
- One Trick Pony – Charley Crockett
- Send Me Out – Fade Evare
- Is It Now? – Automatic
- The Fences of Stonehenge – Wild Pink
Top Tracks of 2025
40. Stay – Softly
Sounds like: dorm-room grunge at your local community college; finding out that someone ate your leftovers and it’s only 10 am.
39. Mind Loaded – Blood Orange
Sounds like: if Elliot Smith made R&B.
38. Line of Feeling – Monobloc
Sounds like: a band trying to find their sound, which might be a dreamy shoegaze vibe, and I’m here for it.
37. Mother of Riches – Cate Le Bon
Sounds like: driving golf carts after hours at a country club; misplacing one of your AirPods.
36. At the Wedding – Tennis
Sounds like: asking a girl out on a date; ordering an iced cappuccino; getting wifi on a cruise ship.
35. You Have a Way – Sharp Pins
Sounds like: when The Beatles are on rotation for too long, but you still don’t mind.
34. Noire – Sudan Archives
Sounds like: running an impromptu 5k at midnight; working a double shift; when the check engine light comes on, but you’re married to a mechanic.
33. Ultra Violence – Lifeguard
Sounds like: The Fall; Wire; 80’s NYC punk bands.
32. L’eclat – Natasha Pirard
Sounds like: Ambient music for private airline passengers; Touring the Spanish Steps at 5 am.
31. To Ease You – Men I Trust
Sounds like: Scoring a sourdough loaf; hitting all green lights on the way home from work.
30. Special Request to All Nice and Decent Real N****z – 509 BMG
Sounds like: Watching Cool Runnings in your friend’s studio apartment in the Upper West Side, hungover, at 3 am after walking home from a show at Terminal 5.
29. Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed) – Cameron Winter
Sounds like: Walt Whitman poems; stored memories of watching Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and listening to Whiskey Town’s “Strangers Almanac” on the same day when you’re 19.
28. Ina Rain – DJ Elmoe
Sounds like: Clubbing with a stranger; reading all the terms and conditions; undercooking asparagus.
27. Sticky – FKA twigs
Sounds like: Self-reflection, maybe; Aphex Twin interpolation is just a bonus.
26. Delusional – Erika de Casier
Sounds like: If an early Madonna time-traveled and learned to sample music from The Avalanches.
25. Victory Lap – Fred again…
Sounds like: Guy Richie movies; The Streets; Bar-hopping with your mate; Vlogging in Las Vegas.
24. Achilles – The Divine Comedy
Sounds like: Finishing the first draft of your book; Chore jackets; becoming best friends with a tailor; buying and using a cake stand.
23. Circlesz – GENA, Liv.e & Karriem Riggins
Sounds like: making ratatouille for the first time and nailing it; staying at hotels without swimming pools; Ubering home after a clothing line launch party.
22. Tokyo Rain – Loaded Honey
Sounds like: Snowboarding in a Tux; Running into your middle school BFF at the grocery store; PSA’s about buying more books.
21. Lee – Alexandre Desplat
Sounds like: Essential oil-scented candles; going to bed early; espresso for one.
20. Get to Choose – Dirt Buyer
Sounds like: 2000s college comedies; when your little brother discovers Green Day.
19. Strobe – Armlock
Sounds like: Noah Baumbach films; 3-mile walks around the park; ordering the brunch special;
18. Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World – Destroyer
Sounds like: Carpooling with Michael Stipe of REM; playing oneself at chess, and winning; hanging artwork without a level; fixing a flat tire on the interstate.
17. Daisy – Melody’s Echo Chamber
Sounds like: The Virgin Suicides meets Almost Famous.
16. QQQQ – Ela Minus
Sounds like: The nightclub owner’s daughter is Valedictorian; naming all 195 country flags.
15. Afterlife – Alex G
Sounds like: Randomly befriending Frank Black (Pixies) while waiting on Greek takeout; mirrorless cameras.
14. Henry, come on – Lana Del Rey
Sounds like: Dating your wife; having babies with your best friend (they’re the same person).
13. All Hail – Prostitue
Sounds like: When loud isn’t loud enough.
12. Spike Island – Pulp
Sounds like: Charles Dickens; open mic at a biker bar in ND; Pulp.
11. Born 2 – Water From Your Eyes
Sounds like: Accidental double bass drum; picking up a friend at the bus stop.
10. A Bug’s Life – Sudan Archives
Sounds like: Dirty martinis; friends with the opposite sex; not knowing what time you work tomorrow.
9. Love Takes Miles – Cameron Winter
Sounds like: Buying an iPod for the first time; writing your first poem; young Jeff Tweedy called, he wants to go out for Bloody Marys.
8. Gumshoe (Dracula From Arkansas) – Youth Lagoon
Sounds like: If Frank Ocean made indie alternative music; making home movies with your cousins.
7. Cold Heart – Nilüfer Yanya
Sounds like: Not being disappointed; Spike Jonze music videos; When cool isn’t cool enough.
6. Au Pays du Cocaine – Geese
Sounds like: Ed Harcourt; Making a mix tape for no one in particular; using the tracking feature on the VHS player.
5. Cataract Time – Destroyer
Sounds like: visiting a monastery in the fall; upholstered dining chairs; road trips to rural areas.
4. Exploding Trees – Patterson Hood
Sounds like: listening to Ryan Adams for the first time; wicker baskets; rolling your own smokes; Larry Bird shooting 3-pointers during warm-up.
3. Garbage Dream House – No Joy
Sounds like: The Princess and the Warrior; The underdog contestant at the spelling bee; buying your first guitar amp.
Note: Every time I listen to this track, I think “finally, an interesting song…” It’s not only a solid, modern shoegaze song, but it ends with a moment of silence for those who fell on the wayside.
2. Country Girl – Greet Death
Sounds like: All the things all at once; being a good sibling; rescuing 8mm film prints from your college dumpster; trivia night at the local bar; buying the most expensive but cheap wine at Walmart in rural Texas with a friend at 2 am.
Note: I played this song at random as I started a 5k run through my neighborhood at 6 am on a Saturday. Within two minutes into said run, I had to stop and walk, and for three miles, I walked with this song on repeat. It hit at the right time. I couldn’t get enough of it. When I got home, my wife was making eggs and coffee and washing raspberries in an oversized colander, and I played it for her. I still think about listening to this song for the first time, and when I hear it, I’m brought back to that moment in the kitchen, eating berries and feasting on life itself.
1. Dancing in the Club (MJ Lenderman Version) – This Is Lorelei & MJ Lenderman
Sounds like: Late check-ins at Hotel Chelsea; Free Admission at the Art Institute of Chicago; Chuck Klosterman editorials; Wilco’s She’s A Jar; Late night time-lapses near Duluth, MN; listening to Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather for the first time.
Note: A true #1 song of the year has to offer more than it asks of you. Dancing in the Club (MJ Lenderman Version) manages to be perfectly sad without being depressing, perfectly timed without coming up short, and it is the only song this year that paid its full emotional tab, so to speak.
It’s an elegy for self-reflection. The music speaks for itself.
But a loser never wins
And I’m a loser, always been
…
While you were dancing in the club
I gave my diamonds all away
