My Favourite Songs of 2025
Here's a list of my top 30 songs from this year.
By Ryan McGreal.
1749 words. Approximately a 5 to 11 minute read.
Posted December 29, 2025 in Blog.
Contents
Best of 2025
1 Baxter Dury - Schadenfreude ↑
I can forgive Dury mispronouncing the title of his own song, because he absolutely owns the vocal delivery in his cool, flat Cockney accent, invoking Bill Drummond’s deadpan spoken word delivery of “The White Room” by the KLF.
2 Beach Bunny - Clueless ↑
Honestly, I could have picked just about any song from Beach Bunny’s latest album, Tunnel Vision, a pitch-perfect collection of infectiously hooky power-pop anthems ruminating on insecurity and disillusionment.
3 The Beaches - Takes One to Know One ↑
Known for their cheeky, self-aware vocals, Toronto’s The Beaches continue the trend with their 2025 album No Hard Feelings. This single, a hilarious and heartbreaking exploration of a wildly dysfunctional relationship, is built on gorgeous indie-pop hooks.
4 Briston Maroney - Real Good Swimmer ↑
Crunchy, country-tinged alt rock in the vein of early Beck with just a dash of Kid Rock, Real Good Swimmer is a trippy meditation on youth built on an infectious groove and growling ’90s guitars.
5 Chappell Roan - The Subway ↑
Possibly her most beautiful song yet, Chappell Roan’s The Subway is heart-rending dream pop yearning for an end to the sharp pangs of grief following a breakup. Roan’s gorgeous soprano voice soars and breaks with glottal grace notes that gently evoke the more overt Celtic stylings of the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan.
6 CMAT - The Jamie Oliver petrol station ↑
After umpteen listens, I still have absolutely no idea what this song is about, but the relentlessly driving beat and steadily rising intensity are impossible to resist. CMAT’s voice is wildly powerful, impish and soaring in equal measure.
7 Danny L Harle and PinkPantheress - Starlight ↑
I really want to like PinkPantheress, but like so much modern pop, her songs consist of one or two ideas repeated for three minutes. This song is not that - the rave/hyperpop hybrid keeps endlessly mutating and transforming as it builds in ominous intensity.
8 Del Water Gap - How To Live ↑
Dreamy indie pop with soaring harmonies and the slightest hint of folksy flavour, this meditation on what it means to live with meaning is produced beautifully.
9 The Faint - Projector Project! ↑
This frenetic electro-dance punk anthem opens with the clever line: “I contradict myself / No, I don’t” and continues with a brash reflection on the ways we protect our identities by reflecting our own most shameful traits outward.
10 George Alice - SOS ↑
A cry for help dressed in the lush garb of an indie synth pop anthem, this single by Australia’s George Alice explores loneliness and desperation in the era of smartphones.
11 Girlpuppy - I Just Do! ↑
The past few years have been excellent for female-led alternative rock bands, and Girlpuppy is producing some excellent music in this genre. I Just Do! is tender and bracing in equal measure, paralleling her observation that the same emotional vulnerability that exposes you to danger also opens you to love.
12 GUV - Let Your Hands Go ↑
GUV, the artist formerly known as Young Guv, solo project of Fucked Up guitarist Ben Cook, trades his iridescent jangle-pop shimmer for a dancedelic homage to the Second Summer of Love: melodic, euphoric, and irresistibly groovy.
13 Hannah Jadagu - My Love ↑
Dreamy indie pop with lush, reverby vocals and languid, cosy rhythms, My Love expresses the universal longing for a tenderness that has gone missing. “My love, I hope you get all my time.”
14 The Head and The Heart - Beg, Steal, Borrow ↑
A “Bitter Sweet Symphony” for the Stomp Clap Hey crowd, this track feels at once earthy and elevated - rustic piano-driven Americana with warm harmonies and a swelling, arms-wide-open chorus.
15 Holy Holy - So Be It ↑
I was never a huge fan of Australian indie rock band Holy Holy, but with this haunting elegy to their indefinite hiatus, I’m starting to think I’ve been missing out. The sound is richly textured, while the lyrics embrace a gentle acceptance of the inevitability of changes and endings.
16 Indigo De Souza - Heartthrob ↑
In this bracing anthem of resistance and resilience, Indigo De Souza reclaims her agency over her own body in the face of abuse and manipulation. Combining urgent guitar riffs with raw, tender vocals, the soaring major scale balances the emotional charge of the lyrics.
17 Jessica Winter - L.O.V.E. ↑
Certainly my number #1 earworm of the year, L.O.V.E. proves that you can create something majestic from the simplest of parts: a catchy four-on-the-floor beat, bright piano chops, warm strings and Jessica Winter’s cosy, theatrical vocal stylings.
18 The Last Dinner Party - Count the Ways ↑
Transmuting the swagger of AM-era Arctic Monkeys through baroque chamber rock, The Last Dinner Party prove with their sophomore album that they weren’t one-trick ponies.
19 The Lemonheads - Cell Phone Blues ↑
Their first album came out almost 40 years ago, but The Lemonheads show they can still bang off an incredibly fresh-sounding single, combining raw, catchy musicianship with gorgeous harmonies.
20 Michael Marcagi - Midwest Kid ↑
Michael Marcagi caught lightning in a bottle for his EP Midwest Kid, and the title track perfectly captures the agony and despair of the heartland in this roots rock anthem.
21 Milk & Bone - Forgone ↑
Atmospheric synth pop combining lush vocals and cold, mechanical noises, this song sends chills up my spine.
22 Momma - Rodeo ↑
With this muscular alternative rock masterpiece. Momma channel the great female-led rock bands of the 1990s through a glossy modern indie-rock lens.
23 Nep - Daytona ↑
Have I mentioned it’s been a great year for female alternate rock bangers? Nep perfectly execute the quiet-LOUD dichotomy of Pixies-inspired rock with this nostalgic paean to a once-iconic hometown in decline.
24 Ninajirachi - Infohazard ↑
It was hard to choose a single from Ninajirachi’s brilliant debut album, I Love My Computer, but I landed on this one for mostly nostalgic reasons: it just about perfectly evokes the triumphal space trance of Mike Olson’s Guardians Of The Earth, which, as I check the dates, came out around the time Ninajirachi was born. I’d love to know if there’s a direct line of influence there.
25 Peel Dream Magazine - Seek and Destroy ↑
Twee like Belle and Sebastian and effervescent like Stereolab, Peel Dream Magazine fuse motorik rhythms with turbid synths, soupy reverb, and wispy vocals for a fresh, gently swirling take on indie post-rock.
26 Robyn - Dopamine ↑
This song was a slow burn for me: it took a few listens to get into it, but once it clicked, Robyn’s meditation on the duality of physical chemistry and emotional resonance launched into my top 30.
27 Sam Fender - Little Bit Closer ↑
Is it awful that I think Sam Fender sounds the way I wish Bruce Springsteen sounded? He has moved from strength to strength since his 2019 debut, plumbing ever-deeper emotional hollows in his unique brand of Geordie roots rock, and this exploration of faith and disillusionment might be my favourite song of the year.
28 SG Lewis - Back of My Mind ↑
SG Lewis is just so freaking good - this pulsing dance track swirls with emotion, combining warm synth plucks with twirling arpeggios and haunting vocals.
29 Sharon Van Etten - Idiot Box ↑
When I was a kid, the “idiot box” was the TV to which we all glued our eyes, watching hour after hour of garbage. As Sharon Van Etten warns us in this irresistible tune, today’s idiot box lives in our pockets and replicates the 24-hour crap cycle with infinite scroll, leading us ever farther away from each other.
30 Wolf Alice - The Sofa ↑
The Sofa is the comfortable emotional stasis that stops us from taking risky steps out of our comfort zone. This song combines stunning vocal harmonies with languid, ‘70s tinged indie folk in a refreshing break from Wolf Alice’s typical harder sound.