Year-end festivities are well underway here at Stereogum. We've published our lists of 2025's best albums and songs, and we launched our annual readers' poll, the Gummy Awards. Now it's time to get personal.
As per tradition, in addition to the canonical list of best songs compiled by our staff and contributors, each person on our staff has assembled a list of 10 favorite songs from this year. None of the tracks included on the staff list were eligible here, and no song could appear on multiple staffers' lists. Otherwise, anything that came out in 2025 was fair game. Read on for some a few more recommendations close to our hearts. —Chris DeVille
Scott Lapatine
1. Nyxy Nyx - "in haze"
2. Planning For Burial - "A Flowing Field Of Green"
3. plantoid - "Dozer"
4. Acopia - "Chase Me"
5. Magdalena Bay - "Human Happens"
6. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - "Shangri La"
7. Mike Polizze - "Everybody I Know"
8. E.R. Visit - "Burning Bush"
9. Jane Paknia - "Waiting pt 1"
10. Addison Rae - "Money Is Everything"
In case you scrolled past this article's intro blurb: A rule for these individual lists is that none of the songs can be on the collaborative countdown that Stereogum published Wednesday. But there is no rule that says my #1 track can’t be a melancholy slowcore single released in July that technically first appeared as a B-side at the end of 2024 (limited edition of 13, "comes with vial of cemetery dirt"). I've also got some doomgaze, trip-hop, freak folk, jazz rap, and… now I see that this year I was drawn most to tunes that were mellow or by Addison Rae. Here’s to a mellow and lucrative 2026.
Tom Breihan
1. EsDeeKid, fakemink, & Rico Ace - "LV Sandals"
2. Zara Larsson - "Midnight Sun"
3. Haim - "Down To Be Wrong"
4. Tommy Richman - "Actin Up"
5. Turnstile - "Look Out For Me"
6. MOLIY, Silent Addy, Skillibeng, & Shenseea - "Shake It To The Max (FLY) - Remix"
7. Key Glock - "No Sweat"
8. XWeaponX - "Everybody Breaks"
9. Webbed Wing - "Come On"
10. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - "Grow Wings And Fly"
Look, I just like candy. That's it. Give me all the fucking candy. Can a piece of candy also be a powerful piece of artistic expression? Sure, maybe, I guess. I don't care. That's not my business. I'm just chasing the rush. The songs that I included here are the ones that give me a quick endorphin boost when I need it. A fizzy-sputtery beat with a bunch of flexes from British rappers, one of whom is widely-if-jokingly believed to be Timothée Chalamet? A super-basic festival singalong with a big chorus? A piece of blown-out Soulja Boy nostalgia from a singer who hasn't come up with a viable second idea yet? A horny dancehall posse cut that blew up on TikTok? Baltimore club beats showing up in unexpected places, whether it’s a Scandinavian pop anthem or a seven-minute epic from the world’s biggest hardcore band? I’ll take all of that. It's all delicious. A fearsome straight-edge fuck-you anthem with two or three breakdowns is still candy; it’s just the Atomic Fireball of this particular playlist. And if you're listening on Spotify, you’ll never know the gooey, sticky sweetness of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s heavenly orchestral space-choogle "Grow Wings And Fly." You're missing out on some good-ass candy.
Chris DeVille
1. MJ Lenderman & This Is Lorelei - "Dancing In The Club"
2. Golomb - "Real Power"
3. Jay Som - "Float" (Feat. Jim Adkins)
4. HUNTR/X - "Golden"
5. Backxwash - "Dissociation" (Feat. Chloe Hotline)
6. Haim - "Relationships"
7. Dan Meyer - "Lamplight"
8. quickly, quickly - "Take It From Me"
9. Tyler Childers - "Bitin' List"
10. Bill Fox - "My Servin' time"
I wanted to spotlight artists who were not on our album and songs lists, otherwise you might be seeing selections from Friendship (the album I returned to most this year), caroline, Water From Your Eyes, and Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, to say nothing of our dual list champions Geese and Wednesday. Some of my favorite releases this year, by the likes of Huremic and Los Thuthanaka, are exclusive to Bandcamp, and there’s no use putting them in a playlist like this one if they can’t be played. You get the point: To even begin to narrow this down to 10 songs, I had to set up some artificial parameters. What remains is a weird little compendium of tracks that blew me away and/or took over my life for a while, led by a cover of a song that nearly topped my list last year.
Abby Jones
1. Sabrina Carpenter - "House Tour"
2. They Are Gutting A Body Of Water - "sour diesel"
3. Algernon Cadwallader - "noitanitsarcorP"
4. Sudan Archives - "Come And Find You"
5. Sword II - "Even If It's Just A Dream"
6. Graham Hunt - "East Side Screamer"
7. Jane Remover - "Dreamflasher"
8. My Wonderful Boyfriend - "I'm Your Man"
9. Greg Freeman - "Point And Shoot"
10. Horsegirl - "Switch Over"
I won’t soon forget my jaw colliding with the floor upon hearing Wednesday's "Townies" for the first time, immediately grinning ear to ear while watching Momma debut a then-unreleased "I Want You (Fever)," or passing the time on an intercity bus in Cyprus this summer with an hour-long loop of "Headphones On." All those songs have already been represented on our Big List and are thus ineligible here, but rest assured they were far from the only memorable musical moments I can attribute to 2025: Algernon Cadwallader's comeback album is a blast. I nearly tipped the DJ at my best friend's wedding reception $100 just for spinning "House Tour." Jane Remover singing "a thousand people scream my fuckin’ name" has been stuck in my head since April. Songs, man. I can't get enough of them!
Danielle Chelosky
1. 2hollis - "destroy me"
2. Addison Rae - "Summer Forever"
3. Ariel Pink - "Everyone's Wrong"
4. Molly Nilsson - "Get A Life"
5. Cold Gawd - "Bomb Pop"
6. Mechatok, Ecco2k, & Bladee - "Expression On Your Face"
7. TTSSFU - "Call U Back"
8. Irish Exit - "Thank You Mitsky (no problem)"
9. Fine - "I could"
10. Acopia - "Falter"
What are you supposed to do when Brat Summer is over? I'll tell you: Get really, really into 2hollis, despite having preconceived notions about this extremely memeable 21-year-old who looks like if Slenderman had luscious blond hair; get really into Drain Gang legend Ecco2k, who might have the best voice in the Swedish music collective; forget Addison Rae's TikTok past and get swept up into the hype for her pop stardom; ignore Ariel Pink's internet presence and accept that he just put out a great record, maybe the best of his career; give up on bar italia’s new album and listen to Acopia instead; appreciate the chic stylings of dream-pop up-and-comers Fine and TTSSFU. That’s what I did, anyway, and I had a great time.
Margaret Farrell
1. Ben Kweller - "Dollar Store" (Feat. Waxahatchee)
2. Sorry - "Love Posture"
3. Slayyyter - "CANNIBALISM!"
4. total wife - "naoisa"
5. glaive - "Asheville"
6. Prewn - "Cavity"
7. Pile - "Bouncing In Blue"
8. Living Hour - "Best I Did It"
9. DITZ - "The Body As A Structure"
10. Vundabar - "Feels Like Forever"
2025 was one big, wild, and weird year for me. I started becoming a regular contributor to the Gum (one of the internet’s last sacred places, and a site that’s saved my relationship with music time and time again). I moved to London. I got bangs. Even with all that happening, 2025 felt particularly momentous for falling in love with music. Looking at this list, it’s clear that I was moving through extremes — from the watershed climaxes on "Dollar Store" or "Feels Like Forever" to the primal howls of Pile, Prewn, DITZ, and Living Hour. I was clinging to moments that turned me into a puddle of myself, following them up with immediate cures — the prowling bass lines of "Love Posture" and "CANNIBALISM!" or the propulsive freneticism of total wife or glaive that helped me feel the ground again. Whether they were left on repeat out of pure magnetism or I sought them out to have a good scream-cry, all of these songs have moments where they come apart at the seams, yet somehow leave me feeling more whole in the end.
