STEVE’S TOP TRACKS OF 2025

Happy new year!  

I’m so excited to be sharing with you my annual list of the Best Tracks of The Year and a brief essay. But I’m even more excited to be including, for the first time, terrific essays from each of my Gen Z daughters, Abigail and Amelia, with their own takes on the list and the year in music, which are, no doubt, more insightful (and more entertaining) than my own. Interestingly, each of them makes reference to the idea that this year’s music owed a real debt to the music of when they themselves were 14 years old—which is especially fascinating since they’re four years apart in age and thus were each 14 at a different time (2012 and 2016, respectively). Now that I think about it, I myself inevitably include a song or two each year on my list that recall the music that came out when I was 14. As Baddiel and Skinner and the Lightning Seeds once sang “I know that was then, but it could be again.”  So, stick with us;  there’s lots of value for your money coming up: 

STEVE’S MUSINGS: 

There was a ton of great pop music this year, with the music world so fragmented that I had trouble eliminating songs from a much larger list of 144 “finalists”  because every elimination felt like negation of an interesting micro-genre that reared its head but didn’t spread broadly. Did pop have a center this year? Sure, the superstars (starting with Taylor) were able to command mass attention, maybe more attention than ever, yet music fans can continue to go down an ever-greater number of niche rabbit holes without feeling they’re missing the main event. 

For my top song of the year, it was a photo finish between Cola Boyy’s alternate universe disco funk “Babylon” and Moonchild Sanelly’s “To Kill A Single Girl (Tequila)”, with Cola Boyy pulling it out in a squeaker. Sadly, “Babylon” is from Cola Boyy’s final album, with the eccentric pop genius taken from us far too young as a result of a spinal disease he’d lived with since childhood. By all means check out his work; His collab with the Avalanches, “Don’t Forget Your Neighborhood” which three years ago made my year-end list, is a pretty good place to start. Once upon a time, Cola Boyy would have been considered “outsider music”. But music production today has become so decentralized that the distinction between insiders and outsiders has blurred to the point of irrelevance.  

As for Moonchild Sanelly, she’s a great South African artist who refers to her music as “future ghetto funk,” and she made one of the most consistently satisfying albums, featuring catchy melodies, funky beats, and lyrics which fly the flag of female empowerment. I easily could have put multiple songs from Moonchild Sannelly’s album on my list, but I’m sticking to the “one artist, one song” rule this year. If you like something you hear, you know how to check out more from that artist. 

This year’s list features artists from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and Asia; and pop, rap, afrobeat, urbana, folk, rock, dance, country, jungle, and even Italian Brainrot meme music can be found. Bad Bunny’s dominance in 2025 is but the most dramatic example of the audience’s continued embrace of not only Latin sounds, but of non-English language artists being at the forefront of formal experimentation and innovation in pop. Rosalia is, of course another. It really is starting to feel like audiences have become fully habituated to being genre agnostic. 

And while you’ll find some of the year’s most popular songs on the list (Bad Bunny’s DtMF has nearly 1.3 billion streams on Spotify alone), you’ll also hear some songs that have yet to get their moment in the sun, like Lil Fame’s “Bout That Life” which has fewer than 12,000 Spotify streams. (But what you won’t find is APT., which I loved so instantly when it came out at the very end of last year that I made it one of my top tracks of 2024.) 

I feel the need to note that I included Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” on my list despite the fact that I find the song’s first 2 ½ minutes entirely pedestrian; however, my boredom is more than relieved every time I hear the last part of the song, which might be the most perfect 90 seconds of pop I heard all year.

As has always been my practice, I do not include records with which I’ve been involved professionally via our S-Curve label or my other endeavors on the list, out of an aversion to conflict of interest. But at the very bottom of the list you’ll find great songs from AJR, Daisy the Great, Andy Grammer, Avery Cochrane, Netta, Yola, Bruce Melodie and Ryley Tate, so I hope you’ll stick around ‘til the end. 

Finally, I no longer  need to make sure the list includes, as it has since 2013, my favorite hyperpop songs of the year (traditionally released on the late, lamented PC Music label), now that hyper pop is so firmly entrenched in the DNA of mainstream pop it even warranted its own Google doodle in June. How about that? 

And now for two much better essays (maybe even rebuttals):

PARENTS (SOMETIMES) JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND

By Abigail Sylvor Greenberg

My sister and I always butt heads with our dad about his list.  We have a lot of disagreements, the most persistent of which is about Jessie Murph. She has a very cilantro voice—delightful to Steve, but soap to us. (We’ve succeeded in knocking her out in the final round of cuts for the last 3 years, so you won’t see her on the playlist.)

This year, I submitted a few of my own nominations after seeing my dad’s initial selections. I am proud (and of course humbled) to share that a few made the cut. Among them are “Lonely Road” by Natalie Bergman, “APEROL SPRITZ” by Laundry Day, and “Mii MUSIC ft. WHATMORE” By Yoshi T. (Watch the Yoshi T. space in 2026. I predict big things.) 

Not all of my suggestions landed. He passed on Tyler Childers’ extraordinary album, Snipe Hunter, which features the first ever country song about how fun Australia is, as well as the somber age-gap love ballad “Oneida.” I blame the Childers omission on the fact that my dad first listened to these songs by holding his iPhone to his ear while using his other hand to eat beef jerky with a fork. Context is everything. 

One of my biggest disagreements with my dad this year was about BigXthaPlug. He and I both became enamored with the Texan country-rap crossover artist this year, as he graced various festivals and Jingle Balls in his shirtless glory.  But we wondered which of his songs deserved a place on the venerated Stevie G leaderboard. 

To me, the obvious pick was “Hell at Night,” a duet with Ella Langley. It’s a breakup revenge fantasy. On the verses, BigX lists all the shitty things he hopes will happen to his former paramour. 

Lyrics include: 

“I hope you meet the right person but y’all never get along.” 

“I hope you turn your heater on and it blow cold” 

“Hope you leave your car running’ at the store and it get stolen” 

“Hope you go deep into the woods and you make the wrong turn.” 

When I suggested “Hell at Night,” Steve balked. 

“I don’t like that one,” he said. 

Why? 

“The message isn’t nice.” 

Personally, I find the lyrics to “Hell at Night” funny. At one point he says he hopes when she thinks of him, she hears thunder—like he’s a Disney villain or something. And I don’t know what this gal did to deserve it all, but I trust BigX. Plus, it’s not like he wants her to die or anything. He just wants her to have a bad morning and one hell of a night! Is that so evil? 

But my dad is blessed with indelible optimism. His optimism is at turns infuriating and inspiring. He’s inclined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and to wish the best for everyone. This includes me (slay) and my sworn enemies (flop). My dad would never wish for someone’s heater to blow cold. Brrr! Or for their car to be stolen. Expensive to replace! 

***

It’s clear my dad’s optimism gene was recessive. At 23, I can find ways to see even the most runneth-ing over cups as half-empty. But in my early years, I was pure sunshine. I was voted “Happiest Baby” at a Club Med once. 

Unfortunately, my good disposition peaked 10 years ago, in the best year of my life, 2016. 

Musically, that year was by far the best of my lifetime. There was Blonde, and then Anti, the last substantial projects from Frank Ocean and Rihanna respectively. There was Bon Iver’s 22, a million, Drake’s Views from the Six, and Beyonce’s Lemonade. Everything sounded sumptuous and new. Each album was also a movie, a movement, a mood—an option for how to be in the world. 

Most formatively for me, 2016 gave us the best version of Christian Kanye—ingenious gospel samples, a controlled performance of narcissism, and not one mention of going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” West dropped the masterpiece, The Life of Pablo, and then birthed a pious Chance the Rapper into the pop mainstream like a baby Jesus—buoyant with hope and faith. (Like Christ, Chance was crucified a few years later. Unlike Christ, he hasn’t been resurrected.) 

2016 was also the year I started high school. It was the first year of my life when a person’s music taste could earn them social popularity and a cool reputation. By that I mean, it was the first year of my life when I enjoyed social popularity and a cool reputation.

It was, moreover, the last year of Obama-era idealism (until Q4 of course). Hamilton won the Tony. It felt like we were on an endless continuum of progress. I thought we’d soon have a female president. I thought I might one day own a pair of Yeezys. 

I thought I’d keep getting more socially popular and reputationally cool, and never have a pimple again.  Maybe everyone just thinks the year they graduate from middle school to high school is the greatest year of all time. 

Will 2026 be 2016’s sequel? Will we find a progressive hope that doesn’t evaporate? Will hip hop and r&b top the charts again? Will we get ambitious auteur albums that shine when listened to all the way through? With songs as perfect as “Love on the Brain,” or “Self Control”? Will somebody invite me to the Great Lawn where I will see a Juul for the first time, and freak out? Probably not. 

I guess the cultural cycle doesn’t make neat, decade-long rotations. 

Instead, we seem to be getting echoes of millennial indie music, and I predict they’ll explode in the new year. Amelia’s note really covers this, but I do want to highlight the fact that Wolf Parade’s uplifting 2005 alt anthem “I’ll Believe in Anything” is going viral right now, thanks to a really good gay kiss scene set at the Stanley Cup in Heated Rivalry. I can only assume it will inspire copycats, and  soon enough, we’ll all be getting vintage bicycles, or tiny tattoos, or tiny tattoos of vintage bicycles.

Zohran Mamdani, the quintessential millennial optimist, might also be part of the trend. But, come to think of it, a former Soundcloud rapper running the city is the most 2016 thing there is—so maybe we will have a very Abigail’s-Freshman-Year 2026 after all. 

***

At the very least, good won over evil on my dad’s list. He skipped “Hell at Night” and included BigX’s breakthrough hit, “All the Way,” featuring Bailey Zimmerman. It doesn’t quite have the sparkle of “Hell at Night,” in my opinion, but it does the job. 

In Steve’s spirit, I’ll end with a “nice message”—a few optimistic reminiscences on the year in music. 

Tyler coughed up Chromakopia AND Don’t Tap the Glass, and Bieber surprised with SWAG AND SWAG II. Both proved that established artists don’t have to become fashion moguls or Nazis or judges on The Voice. They can keep innovating, dig deep, and work at high volume, if not at peak performance. 

Meanwhile, HAIM learned a new dance! Al Roker was one of ROLE MODEL’s Sallys!! Turnstile, the Baltimore hardcore band, blew up! Taylor Swift was not eligible for any Grammys! And white middle aged guys—a long-suffering bunch—received the gift of Geese! 

I think we had at least a little bit of fun, right? 

As we head into the new year, I’ll leave you with some wisdom from the country music pantheon: 

When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you go deep into the woods, and you make a wrong turn <3 

2025: A PRETTY 2012 YEAR FOR MUSIC

By Amelia Sylvor Greenberg

A newspaper once called my dad a tween guru. He’s not answering my texts to remind me which one because he’s in Vegas for Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve, but I guess I can’t argue with it. In addition to being the proliferator of inarguable Tiger Beat-style juggernauts like Hanson and The Jonas Brothers, he also said things when I was a tween that I found very compelling. I am of course referring to the catchphrase that he manufactured around 2013, “Love, Love, Love™”, later abbreviated to LLL™. (He held a private contest to pick the new catchphrase, where it won over “Suh-weet” and “Man” pronounced with a very long “A”. Everyone in our family voted.) I also remember the almost cheekily banal title of his best-of list from 13 years ago: “2012: A Pretty Good Year for Music”.  

“A pretty good year for”, and variations, has taken on a life of its own in my personal lexicon. Restaurants serving more wedge salads than they used to? Guess it’s a pretty good year for ICEBERG. The Grammys? That’s a pretty good NIGHT for music. If I’m trying to listen to Elvis Costello’s cover of George Jones’ 1970 country ballad “A Good Year for the Roses”, nine times out of ten I’m searching up “A PRETTY Good Year for the Roses” out of sheer habit. 

But was 2012 (and its siblings, the years 2009 to 2013) pretty good for music? From where I sit, totally. It was the era of recession pop, or “Bar Mitzvah Bangers” as they’re called on the Upper West Side, which was brought to a close in 2012 with tracks like “Starships” (RIP Nicki Minaj) and “Sexy and I Know It” (RIP the concept of the uncle-nephew nepo-baby duo). I’m not arguing that “Sexy and I Know It” was pretty good for music, but maybe I am? Sue me! (RIP the inclusion of Audrey Hobert on my dad’s 2025 list; where is she, Steve?!?) Outside the basement of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, it was a pretty indie time for pop. In 2012 we received both baby’s first Jack Antonoff with “We are Young” and baby’s last Gotye with “Somebody That I Used to Know”. We bore witness to exports from the indie sleaze division of the Warped Tour factory like “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees, or the entire concept of Gym Class Heroes getting a second chance. Stomp-clap music was born (“Ho Hey” anybody?). The blogospheres were nursing their Black Keys hangover with a hair-of-the-dog shot of Beach House, and the tumblrinas were gearing up for the second coming of The Arctic Monkeys. Basically, our kicks were pumped up and our tongues were tied, you feel me? 

If you do, then you’re in luck, because oh my god is it 2012 again, which is well reflected on my dad’s 2025 list. When listening, I was struck by all the crazy analogous entries. “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” by Hemlocke Springs could easily fit in on an early album by Marina, formerly of “& the Diamonds” (RIP), an artist who my dad showed no interest in when I tried to introduce him the first time around. “Babylon” by Cola Boyy (RIP in a real and earnest way) sounds like a sugared-up Ariel Pink from when he would get funky. “We Go To Russia” by Victor Jones possesses all the bloggy irony of a “Das Racist” track, but reskinned as like, Tom Waits or something. Tchotchke is Best Coast, Sombr is Grizzly Bear, Geese is Vampire Weekend at their most melancholic. I could go on. When listening to “God is Laughing at Me” by Caleb Hawley, “Hydroplaning at the Edge of the World” by destroyer, AND “Knockin Heart” by Hamilton Leithauser, I found myself exclaiming over and over again: you know what they say…Portugal. The Man. YES, I know Portugal. The Man is more of a late 2000s thing, but I’m picturing it in a soundtrack-to-HBO’s-Girls way (a show that’s also come back into vogue recently), which plants it firmly in early 2010s territory. 

The trend cycles are absolutely turbo-charged right now. Last year was all about indie sleaze, a decidedly 2005-2008 flavor of nostalgia. It was The Dare and rockstar girlfriend aesthetic and BRAT, so much BRAT. I can’t help but notice that lately the contents of my TikTok feed, which used to be littered with clips from Skins, collages of Cobrasnake photos, and Olson Twins distressed birkin inspo, has been replaced by Valencia-filtered montages of Greenpoint with the caption “oh to live here during the Obama Administration”, and the assertion that we will all be wearing chunky necklaces and moccasins in 2026. I went to the new American Apparel store (it’s called Los Angeles Apparel now, but we all know what they mean) in SoHo the other day, and the waistlines of the shorts sit firmly above the belly button, much to my chagrin. Something is in the air. Perhaps, as the Trump administration is firmly back and set to continue for what feels like a hundred million years, the people are craving the millennial optimism of pre-2014, but cannot dare to even dream of the raw “everything’s fine now” hedonism of the mid 2000s, preferring to find safety in the recession/housing market crash era of curated individualism, makin’ it work, and indie twee?

This brings me back to Recession Pop. Where is it? Doesn’t it stand to reason that in this particular throwback era, it would be here? WHERE IS THE GEN Z TAIO CRUZ (I scream into the void only to hear my echo 1000 times and get embarrassed for asking for such a thing)??? 2008-2012 was marked by massive party songs, which always took place in the club and were sung to the collective, the “we”. “We r who we r”, “When we drink we do it right, getting slizzard”, and other beautiful sentiments. Where is the “We” in 2025 pop? The dance pop on this year’s list, even when clubby sounding (though no clubs are ever mentioned), is intimate, dwelling on one-on-one interpersonal relationships, like Tinashe and her lame ex in “No Broke Boys”, or Pinkpanthress and her clandestine encounter on “Illegal”. Maybe it’s that young people are partying less (Gen Z drinks less than previous generations for health, social repercussions of social media, financial concerns, yadda yadda), so the need for a fat stupid rallying club banger about popping bottles and doing shots with like 100 other people just isn’t there. Maybe it’s that in such a divided political climate (cringe) it’s hard to imagine uniting as a “we”, even if it’s just to light it up like it’s dynamite. I don’t know. Maybe. I do hope that recession pop makes a return in the coming year. I mean, if we’re having a recession anyway. What are they supposed to play at the Bar Mitzvahs? “The Subway”? You can’t grind to that! 

I hope that everyone has a happy and healthy 2026! If you need me, I’ll be walking through McCarren park, en route to get a latte with elaborate foam art of a man in a bowler hat and mustache, which is also what the barista who’s making said coffee will look like. Maybe I’ll even pick up a cronut or a ramen burger while I’m out. YOLO. Kony 2012. 

(Note from Steve: Back in the early teens, we used to sing at home a parody of the 60’s doom-pop song “In the Year 2525” updated to the 2012-2016 club aesthetic as “We’re Gonna Party In the Year 2525”, with lyrics like “In the year 4545, chillin’ in the VIP with a robot by my side”. Now the year 2525 is only 499 years away, so we’ll soon know whether people in that future time are at all in the partying mood.)

Here’s wishing everyone a great 2026. Let kindness reign. 

Cheers,

Steve