The best songs of 2025 so far, according to Time Out (2025)

The title track from Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos is the crowning glory of a sublime album that’s a love letter to his native Puerto Rico. Blending elements of rap, Latin pop and reggaeton to create a deceptively dance-worthy backing track, ‘DTMF’(translated to ‘I should have taken more photos’)is both a touching sentiment and an absolute belter of a song.

After patiently waiting for five years, and having to sit through a number of commercial flops that came in the form of disappointing movie soundtracks, Lady Gaga fans have finally been rewarded with the electrifying ‘Abracadabra’. We’re going back to peak Gaga weirdness with this one: it’s got gibberish, witchy lyrics and a glitchy, industrialbeat, all whileGaga’s powerhouse voice delivers hook after hook.

Playboi Carti’s almost overwhelmingly long album Musicmay have some dud tracks – hey, you can’t win them all – but one absolute belter is ‘Rather Lie’. Eschewing the usual rage rap sound he’s become so known for, Carti enlists The Weeknd (on their third collaboration so far) and Keith Lawson to provide a melodic, chest-clutching chorus. The lines ‘I’d rather lie than confuse you, girl / Truth is, we lapped them, they want us gone / Truth is, they can’t handle me at the top,’ acts as a double entrendre for the cost of fame, while Carti’s unusually warbled vocals got the internet debating the use of AI within the track.

Gangster rap may not be the most conventionally beautiful of music genres, but there is patent, resounding beauty to Westside Gunn’s ‘055’. Atop a soulful, careening instrumental that leans heavily on a sample of the Jean Johnson Singers’ There Is No Greater Love, verses by Westside and Stove God Cooks boast of riches and success, cars, jewellery and calamari. The gorgeous sample, the extravagant boasts, the uproarious noise of Westside Gunn’s adlibs – it all radiates triumph. ‘You don’t have to die in order for you to hear what heaven sounds like,’ says longtime Westside collaborator AA Rashid in thespoken word outro – and that’s true, audial paradise is right here.

Portrait With Firewood, a 2018 album from UK bass musician Djrum, remains one of my favourites of all time – it’s a meeting of classical chamber music and strobey dance floors in a way that feels genuinely fresh and moving rather than gimmicky or over-ambitious. ‘A Tune For Us’, released as a single this year, has a similar contradictory flavour: luscious, tinkly piano is paired with rich, chocolatey cello, giving way to soft breakbeats and rippling percussion. Orchestral, multi-layered and delicately emotive, it feels like a journey to finding clarity.

Giddy up girls, there’s a new Chappell Roan single sweeping the country charts. Flipping the traditional gender roles that are so embedded within the genre on their heads, the Midwest Princess sings, ‘Cause, baby, I’m a giver / Ain’t no need to hurry / ‘Cause, baby, I deliver / Ain’t no country boy quitter,’ against a backdrop of highly camp Wild West instrumentals. Paired with a marketing rollout wherethe singercosplays various masculine-heavy professions with the strapline, ‘She gets the job done’, ‘The Giver’is fun, sexy, and stupid as hell.If there’s anyone who can combine drag artistry and blue-collared country, it’s Chappell.

FKA twigs’ third studio Eusexua is a lush homage to the sweaty, grubby dancefloors of Europe’s dingiest clubs. Piercing out of the headsy, metallic techno soundscape is ‘Childlike Things’. This fun-filled homage to J-pop features an unexpected guest appearance by North West who sings almost entirely in Japanese against a bubblegum sweet ‘dum, dum, dum’ singsong. It’s Twigs at her most playful: blending imagination and innocence with cherub-like vocal delivery to bring the fantasy to life.

Haim are back just in time for festival season with this bittersweet hit. With a blissful sound but angsty, introspective lyrics, Danielle, Alana and Este lament the pain that comes with being in a long-term relationship. Haim’s dreamy, pop-rock sound is as good as ever, and lends itself perfectly to this nostalgic-feeling track that captures the ennui and confusion that is so often a part of modern love.I imagine this song will provide the ultimate soundtrack for every single girl this summer.

Released when Doechii took home her first Grammy for Best Rap Album with Alligator Bites Never Heal, ‘Nosebleeds’is effectively the rap star’s victory lap – and a big one at that. Instrumentally, itopens withbuzzing, brash bass and departs to a lighter, bubbly melody – but it’s all grounded by her growling vocals, gleaming with lyrical wit and narrative depth. Theatrical and self-referential, like all of her best work, the rapper references Kanye West’s legendary speech from the 2005 awards as she boasts about her success, effectively cementing herself into music history once and for all: ‘Everyone wanted to know what Doechii would do if she didn’t win / I guess we’ll never know’. Listening, you can’t help but want to join in her celebrations.

It’s been a hot minute since Selena released anything at all, and most of us expected a few more classic ballad-esque pop tunes and yearning ‘Lose You To Love Me’-style dance tracks. And we got a fair bit of it with I Said I Love You First, her new album with bae Benny Blanco. But then, there was ‘Bluest Flame’ – a fresh, boppy, fun tune with a distinctly ‘Bratsummer’-esque vibe with the repetition of, ‘I just wanna go all night/I just wanna go insane’. Could this be a contender for2025’s song of the summer?

The intro to ‘Sports Car’sounds like it’s been lifted from a 2000s Pussycat Dolls album. And when you get into it, the lyrical content isfrighteningly similar, too. But it’s this toying with new and nostalgic influences that has affirmed Tate McRae as one of the most exciting pop stars working right now. This single from her second album So Close To What is a metaphor for various parts of her life, including the adrenaline rush of love and sex, and potentially alluding to her sudden rise to fame. But whatever’s going on beneath the surface, one thing is guaranteed: it slaps.

If there’s one thing you can be sure of on a Weeknd album, it’s bangers – and arguably the biggest previously-unheard smash on Abel Tesfaye’s 2025 album, Hurry Up Tomorrow is this one. ‘Open Hearts’ is a skyward synthpop hit à la ‘Blinding Lights’, ‘Save Your Tears’ and ‘Take My Breath’ (and was created with those tracks’ super pop producer/writer Max Martin), which is achieved with a carefully concocted blend of irresistible influences: Hi-NRG ecstasy, flashy trance, throbbing French electro. Oh, and it has a belter of a hook (this is the Weeknd, after all).

Winter felt like a particularly long drag this year, but the release of a deluxe version of Role Model’s 2024 album Kansas Anymore, which features the gleeful, bouncy track ‘Sally, When The Wine Runs Out’, was exactly the kind of uncomplicated bop we all needed to brighten the days. It went viral after the artist (real name: Tucker Harrington Pillsbury) started inviting ‘Sallys’ onto stage during the North American leg of his tour to boogie through the bridge with him and it’s actually worthy of all the attention. Don your headphones and embrace the silly, exhilarating energy of, ‘Heard through the grapevine / she can be a diva / cold like Minnesota / hotter than a fever’: it’s a solid, summer-ready pop song.

Initially written as a poem, ‘Free’ is Simz at her most lyrical. Backed by dreamy orchestral arrangements, she calls for renewal and growthwhile juxtaposing verses on love and fear. She raps, ‘I think fear can be exposed in abundance of wealth / And then creeps in when you’re not loving yourself / Fear can be dressed in the form of protection / Fear can be the culprit of slowing progression’. It’s a strong message on the power that love can have in transforming one’s outlook on a fear-riddled world. That’s something we could all be reminded of once in a while.

American musician 2hollis has shrouded himself in internet lore, garnering a heavily online fanbase for his futuristic sort-of-rapping style that combines Playboi Carti-informed grandiose basslines withsincere teenage sentimentality reminiscent of early Justin Bieber. Taken from his newest album star, this song starts with a chunky bassand surprisingly switches up halfway through, ditching the trap vibe in favour of explosive hyperpop. With a light echo on his voice, he sings, ‘when the flashlights go, and you fall out of control.... get home safe, baby, secure on the phone.’ It would almost be sweet if the instrumentals weren’t so bonkers.