The 100 Best Songs of 2025: Reading Between Rolling Stone’s Lines

Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs of 2025 list lands at the end of a year where pop felt like a constant scroll: Lady Gaga dropping precision‑engineered anthems, Bad Bunny bending genre and language with ease, Sabrina Carpenter turning meme‑able moments into radio dominance, and underground scenes bubbling up in real time. The ranking doesn’t just document 2025’s biggest tracks—it doubles as a snapshot of how fractured, fast, and strangely fun the music world has become.


Illustration collage for Rolling Stone's Best Songs of 2025 list
Rolling Stone’s collage for the 100 Best Songs of 2025 captures how chaotic and crowded this year in music really was.

Below, we break down how the list reflects 2025’s pop culture, where it feels ahead of the curve, and where it still leans on old habits.



How Rolling Stone’s 2025 List Fits into the Playlist Era

These days, “best songs” lists compete with algorithms. Spotify’s personalized mixes, TikTok’s For You Page, and YouTube’s recommendations all do their own silent curating. A list like this is less about telling you what to hear and more about offering a narrative you can’t get from a shuffle button.


Rolling Stone leans into that by juxtaposing megastars—Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter—with newer names and regional sounds. The implicit argument is that 2025’s music story is less about genre silos and more about how songs travel: from Latin club circuits to U.S. Top 40, from bedroom producers to stadium stages, from TikTok edit to GRAMMY campaign.


  • Pop is still the lingua franca, but it’s increasingly multilingual.
  • Streaming stats matter, but narrative, innovation, and cultural “moments” weigh heavily.
  • Lists like this double as yearbooks for an attention‑span‑starved era.

Person listening to music on headphones while holding a smartphone
In 2025, “best songs” live simultaneously on streaming playlists, TikTok edits, and end‑of‑year critics’ lists.

Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter: Why These Names Keep Rising

The headline names on Rolling Stone’s list tell their own story. Gaga’s inclusion underlines how legacy pop stars now play a long game: each new single has to be both an event for fans and a sound that fits seamlessly into a Gen‑Z‑driven playlist.


“The challenge now isn’t just making a hit,” Gaga has said in past interviews, “it’s making something that feels human in a world made of data.”

Bad Bunny’s presence near the top of any 2020s list is almost inevitable. He’s not just a Latin star anymore; he’s a global pop institution who can turn experimental, genre‑blurred tracks into stadium sing‑alongs. Rolling Stone’s ranking reflects that shift from “Latin crossover” to simply “pop.”


Sabrina Carpenter, meanwhile, represents something newer: a singer who understands that hooks now live on multiple layers—chorus, caption, and captionable one‑liners. The songs that show up on the list aren’t just catchy; they’re quotable, meme‑friendly, TikTok‑ready.



Singer performing on stage under colorful lights
Stadium‑scale pop stars still dominate the top of the list, but they’re now sharing space with viral newcomers.

Genre Chaos as the New Normal

One of the list’s strongest points is how casually it treats genre. You’ll see pop next to regional Mexican, K‑pop rubbing shoulders with UK rap, Afrobeats nestled beside indie rock. That isn’t just critic chic; it mirrors 2025 listening habits, where your commute playlist can jump from corridos tumbados to glossy EDM without anyone blinking.


  • Latin music continues to be more than a “trend”—it’s structural to the global charts.
  • Afrobeats and amapiano get more than token representation, signaling that U.S. outlets finally recognize their staying power.
  • Rock and indie still appear, but now as texture rather than center stage.

“Genre is less a fence and more a suggestion,” one critic quipped in coverage of the 2025 list, “and Rolling Stone seems finally comfortable admitting that.”

DJ mixing tracks at a club with colorful lights and crowd
Genre lines in 2025 are blurry at best—something the list acknowledges by mixing club, pop, rap, and regional styles freely.

What Rolling Stone Gets Right About 2025’s Best Songs

As a piece of year‑in‑music storytelling, the 2025 list is more adventurous than many of its predecessors. It balances obvious hits with slightly left‑of‑center choices that critics have been championing all year.


  1. Global reach without pure tokenism – Non‑English tracks aren’t just novelty picks; several rank high, reflecting reality on platforms like Spotify and YouTube.
  2. Balancing virality with craft – Not every viral TikTok audio made the cut; the list favors songs that still work away from the scroll.
  3. Respect for veterans and rookies – Gaga and Bad Bunny coexist with newcomers breaking through on their first or second single.


The list reflects how songs now have to work in headphones, on stage, and on social feeds simultaneously.

The Blind Spots: What the 2025 List Still Misses

For all its strengths, the ranking isn’t flawless. Longtime readers will notice a few familiar blind spots and some predictable placements.


  • Underground scenes get limited space. Hyperpop offshoots, experimental club scenes, and smaller DIY communities mostly show up as a handful of token picks.
  • Rock nostalgia still tugs at the wheel. Some placements feel driven more by Rolling Stone’s brand identity than 2025’s actual listening landscape.
  • Regional nuance is thin. Global genres appear, but country‑specific movements—say, in East Asia or Africa—are often compressed into one or two representative names.

One critic summarized it this way: “It’s a solid portrait of what mainstream culture noticed in 2025—not necessarily everything that mattered.”

Person browsing music charts on a laptop
Popular lists inevitably privilege visibility; plenty of influential 2025 tracks lived far from the official charts.

What the 2025 Rankings Reveal About the Music Industry

Read closely, and the 100‑songs list doubles as an industry report. The dominance of certain artists hints at who labels and platforms chose to invest in heavily: the tracks that got marquee playlist slots, branded campaigns, and tour support.


At the same time, a handful of lower‑budget or independently released songs sneaking into the ranking suggests that word‑of‑mouth and grassroots fandom still matter. It’s just that those communities now organize on Discord servers, TikTok comment sections, and fan translation accounts rather than street teams.


  • Marketing pushes can boost a song up the list, but can’t fabricate the kind of cultural moment critics rally around.
  • Non‑English music is no longer an “import” story—it’s a structural part of the business model.
  • Critics are still trying to square data‑driven hits with what they feel will age well.

How to Use the 100 Best Songs of 2025 List Without Letting It Use You

Lists like this are best treated as conversation starters, not commandments. They’re a map, not a law. The fun is in arguing over what’s missing, what’s overrated, and what you discovered for the first time.


  1. Start from the bottom. Work your way up to avoid just playing the same top‑10 you’ve already heard everywhere.
  2. Follow the unfamiliar names. Any list can confirm your taste; the point is to stretch it a little.
  3. Cross‑reference with other outlets. Compare Rolling Stone’s picks with lists from places like Pitchfork, NPR, or local music blogs to see different angles on 2025.


Close-up of a hand adjusting volume on a home audio system
The best way to read a year‑end list: as a curated playlist and a prompt to form your own canon.

Looking Beyond 2025: What Comes After This Crazy Train

If 2025 was, to borrow Ozzy’s phrase, a “crazy train” for music, Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs list is a snapshot taken between stations. It captures a moment when global sounds, micro‑genres, and megastar campaigns all collide in the same feeds—and where a Lady Gaga single and a breakout regional hit can plausibly sit on the same canonized roll call.


The real legacy of the 2025 list won’t just be which song landed at Number One, but which tracks we’re still arguing about—and still playing—five years from now. Until then, it’s worth treating this ranking the way you’d treat a great DJ set: let it surprise you, complain about the transitions, and remember that the best song of the year might still be the one you discovered on your own.