Where are the hits of 2025?
Are the charts of 2025 stuck in nostalgia? Has 2025 found its sound? A survey of the Billboard Hot 100.
artwork by Taylor Pate.
It doesn’t feel like 2025 has had any real hit songs so far. I’m talking about a song that reflects the sound of the current year, even if it was released towards the end of the previous year.
We’ve had songs like “Abracadabra,” which brought Lady Gaga back to the forefront of pop music just after “Die With A Smile.” With the track, she demonstrated that she can do it again, just as she had in the The Fame era. But with the flick of a wand, “Abracadabra” came and went.
“Luther” by Kendrick Lamar & SZA was number one for thirteen weeks, but it is too mellow to imagine it as a real hit. There is something particular about the emotions elicited by hit songs—for example, dance anthems or power ballads that evoke strong feelings—which this one doesn’t achieve. However, some hits do know their history well and execute samples effectively. The Luther Vandross sample and very memorable chorus make a good case for the record’s hit status, but it just doesn’t have the crowd-pleasing energy of 2024’s Record of the Year, “Not Like Us.”
Doechii has seen massive success with “Anxiety,” which is a rendition of Gotye and Kimbra's “Somebody That I Used to Know.” I don’t mind “Anxiety,” but I wish “Denial Is A River” had received the same momentum since the former is practically a cover of a 2011 song. Instead of creating new moments, we are once again relying on the nostalgia of 2010s pop, stuck in reminiscence. The 2020s has long suffered from this, disco and 80s synth pop having inspiring many of the decade’s most massive hits such as Doja Cat’s “Say So,” The Weekend’s “Blinding Lights,” and Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now.”
In 2024, it was the disco bop “Espresso,” but it seems Sabrina Carpenter has new plans for her upcoming album, Man’s Best Friend. Held back by Carpenter’s over-reliance on Jack Antonoff production, the album's single “Manchild” sounds too similar to “Busy Woman” and is arguably the worse of the two. That said, “Manchild” has mimicked the success of “Please, Please, Please,” debuting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. I respect Carpenter’s continued output, but this single doesn’t provide a refreshing sound at all. I’m not exactly excited for the new album because the lead single is just begging to be on the Short n’ Sweet Deluxe.
We don’t think of Lana Del Rey as a hitmaker, but she is undeniably a tastemaker. That said, she too is reheating nachos. Her latest singles haven’t been nearly as captivating as Ocean Blvd’s title track “A&W.” Lorde seemed to be doing a better job at going back to her basics with the lead single “What Was That,” but Virgin falls flat after the second single “Man of the Year,” which at the time of release seemed to be pointing towards a new direction for Lorde sonically even though the track sits between Melodrama and Solar Power production-wise.
It’s been a good year so far for small and upcoming artists, thanks in large part to the support coming from streaming. For example, Lola Young had a new hit contender, “One Thing,” a song that opens with a forward first verse. The track had the potential to perform as well as “Messy,” especially given the expensive Dave Meyers music video. But maybe her team just didn’t pull the right strings. Leon Thomas has also seen success with “Mutt,” so much so that he didn’t even need the Chris Brown feature. But that's a conversation for another day, as most contemporary R&B musicians still see something in Brown that the rest of us can’t (I’m looking at you, Victoria Monét).
Tate McRae was on her way to pop duchess status until her airplane was hijacked by Morgan Wallen. I wish “Revolving door” could have seen the same success as “Sport car” or her feature on Wallen’s “What I Want.” That flip alone in the first few frames of the music video for “Revolving door” makes this track deserving of more hitworthy attention.
The biggest surprise of the year so far has been Addison Rae’s debut album, which arrived in the top ten of the Billboard 200 Albums chart with forty-eight thousand units. Addison is a well-crafted pop album featuring catchy singles that fit together cohesively within a narrative, and its success appears organic. This feels natural, much unlike Benson Boone’s son, Alex Warren, who is signed to the same label. The TikTok influencer scored a number-one song with “Ordinary,” which is extraordinary because the song is unmemorable, and Warren’s commercial success seems to have come out of the blue like his musical father.
With Something Beautiful, Miley Cyrus has released arguably better quality music than Endless Summer Vacation. But she surprisingly hasn’t captured similar success despite releasing hit-worthy singles like the fantastic “End of the World” and my favorite “Easy Lover.” Like Doechii, Cyrus’s more ambitious stuff underperforms compared to the songs that the general public gravitates towards. Furthermore, 2023’s “Flowers” performed astoundingly better commercially compared to “Midnight Sky” or any other single from the Plastic Hearts era.
The general public is still stuck at the “Pink Pony Club” and isn’t giving in to Chappell Roan’s new ambitions in “The Giver.” And you might say maybe the country hits phase is no longer in vogue, but we still have “A Bar Song” by Shaboozey and Morgan Wallen stuck in the top 20. Still, the Midwest Princess is promoting the release of “The Subway,” a promising single which she first teased last summer. This year doesn’t have a Chappell Roan yet—a star heralded by a successful festival run followed by massive commercial success. PinkPantheress came close with her performance at Glastonbury and her subsequent single “Illegal,” which became her first solo Hot 100 entry. But I need more people to tune in to her mixtape, Fancy That, as well.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to gauge what will do well with the general public because the scene is oversaturated with music coming from novices and veterans. Speaking of veterans, Mariah Carey announced her sixteenth studio album, Here For It All, will be dropping on September 26th. With this odd musical influx, the public seems to be overwhelmed and is instead revisiting older songs from artists’ catalogs; for example, Charli xcx’s “party 4 u” went viral, and the Brat superstar even released a music video for the song. If we’re banking on old tracks, then I hope that the “Getaway Car” music video and vault tracks off of reputation (Taylor’s Version) are next since Miss Swift now owns everything she has ever released.
For those who do want nostalgia, I refer you to your new Destiny’s Child, FLO, because you would be helping them pay their “Bills, Bills, Bills.” It is unfortunate that these three talented Black women have garnered more attention for scandals than their music, causing their debut album, Access All Areas, to go unnoticed. I am glad to see that Ravyn Lenae is getting her flowers with “Love Me Not” becoming her first top ten Hot 100 single, but the real hits of Bird’s Eye are “Genius,” “Bad Idea,” and “Pilot.” The first two are bops; they have the production that makes you want to move, and “Pilot” has the emotional intensity that I mentioned earlier.
So, who’s gonna save us now? Olivia Rodrigo is due for an album as it’s been two years since GUTS’ release. The music industry is changing, and maybe that means we should stop expecting year-defining music releases. Thus, we should expect more fleeting hit moments like “Abracadabra” instead of songs that have a hold on us for the whole year.
edited by Dawn Heatherly.
artwork by Taylor Pate.
