Best of 2025, Pt. 4 - Songs

50 good songs instead of the approx. 1,000 other good ones

Dec 24, 2025

50 good ones chosen not entirely at random

This is year three of my newsletter, which makes it something like year six of what I jokingly call my “dumpster-diving” project. The idea that started to become clear to me around 2018, and that I formalized into this newsletter in 2023, is that the best way to find new music is to rapidly plow through lots of it — an ungodly, maybe inhuman amount of it. For whatever reason, I think I am well-suited to this task: I have ears that can pick things up quickly and I’m not precious about the process; I assume I’ve missed a lot, that I’m only hearing a minuscule fraction of what’s available, and that the universe will make me aware of what it needs to in this one precious lifetime I’ve got.

This is a marked change from my approach to music before that point, which was voracious but was never quite so frantic or anarchic. I did a lot of work to “keep up”—followed music chat, mostly, with a huge inclination toward a few specific voices pointing me in various directions (often abroad). I’m not sure what eventually clicked, or broke down, or opened up. Probably a combination of the world and just me, but I’m only me, so I couldn’t tell you for sure.

My point is, there is a fundamentally chaotic and chance element in my finding most of these songs—I am a highly unreliable narrator and tour guide, and I like to think I’ve been forthright about this in the newsletter, leaning in to the chaos and my own amused bewilderment.

This process—both making the newsletter itself and making peace with my bewilderment—has brought me great joy and fulfillment over the past few years. I like being at sea. I’m just kind of a sailor now, like Moby Dick minus Moby Dick, wild anecdotes and the tingle of the sublime in the air and a few stabs at dubious scientific inquiry and lots of jokes and the occasional gruesome description of something you’d rather not have ever known even existed. Sometimes I feature incomprehensible rituals between the other folks out on lonely boats, too; sometimes I just kind of stare out into the enormity of it all and feel very deep and very small all at once.

So here are few jewels—cœurs de la mer. I’ve chosen 50 of them, a silly round number, but a grid’s a grid. There are countless others down there.

The stuff that makes me wonder if you’re even allowed to do that

I don’t know where I’d put the songs in this first group on a list of best songs—I don’t know that they’re my favorites (maybe), or the ones I listened to the most this year (probably not). They’re the ones I heard and thought I can’t believe they got away with this or I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before or this might be awful but I want everyone to hear it.

Quick formatting note: I’ll be sharing YouTube view counts here. For the few actual three-digit view counts I will use an exclamation point to confirm it is not a typo. In lieu of a song review (I have already reviewed all of these at least once) I’ll boil it down to a tiny highlight.

Badger, TFace, Mayday, Dubzco: Canva (How?) (5.8K views)

“Spend the P’s!”

Kristina Dawn: OneHalf And (355 views!)

Gena Desouza: เข้าใจปะห์ (Do You Understand?) (11K views)

<jerk synths> “It’s G-G-G-G-G!”

DJ Danz: Sugdan Na Ang Pag Budots (53K views)

<bloops, clangs, oomphs>

Nelly Furtado: Corazon (DJ Arana remix) (51K views)

“Done, done, duh-duh-done, done”

NLE The Great: KO (9.7M views)

“Role model, you will never fit the shoe”

Snow Tha Product: Sabado (6.3M views)

“Que uno de nosotros votó por TRUMP…”

THÉA: Qui Fera Taire Les Kidz Fucked Up?? (134K views)

“Les kids fucked up ce soir?!”

Tommy Genesis: True Blue (3.6M views)

“But I’m not that little, I’m not that little, I’m not that little”

Vana: Bite Back (817K views)

“Walk you like a dog WOOF WOOF <screaming> whimper when you whine”

xiangyu f. Gimgigam: はっちゃKO (868 views!)

WeTalkSound, Fimi, SGaWD: Hei God (2.3K views)

The stuff that sounded like it should have been way more massive

I have a very poor track record of championing underdogs. My underdogs tend to stay way under. So here are the songs that I sort of assumed upon hearing them were or would soon be massive, only to find that I didn’t hear much about them anywhere else.

In some cases this might mean raw numbers: Marla, an Ivorian rapper who has had some success with other songs, has gotten about 100 views on her charming “On les a cramé.” In other cases it’s relative—Ari Lennox and Rico Nasty both broke a million views, but their songs sound worthy of many more millions. Sir Chloe seems to be more popular than my other indie rock fave later on the list, Miya Folick, but I hear Folick come up a lot in indie-leaning conversations and haven’t heard a peep about Sir Chloe from anyone. (This may be limited to my very specific music social circle, though.) And there are a bunch of regional hits with six-digit streams that sounded like they should have gone mega-global.

Arp Frique and the Perpetual Singers: Hold the Line (Another Taste Rework) (2.2K views)

“Praise the Lord with all I have to give”

Cannelle: Fille (135K views)

“Step it up bitch, step your cookies up”

chi: Life of the Party (6.4K views)

“‘Cause I’m the life of the party and somebody’s hottie”

Lella Fadda: OKHTY (239K views)

“Cue violins [sounds like ‘violence’]”

FLVCKKA: Tsunami (72K views)

“Brrrrrrrr….ciento ochenta carretera oop”

INJI: U WON’T! (160K views)

“You won’t take me to the Hamptons on a Wednesday cuz it’s random”

Ari Lennox: Soft Girl Era (1.3M views)

“Woop…yeah yeah yeah yeah”

Marla: On les cramé (126 views!)

Arianne Moffat: Jouer (141K views)

“Combattre le feu par le jeu…”

Nayomi & Perrie: Eih El Kalam? (158K views)

Emma Nolde: Indipendente (45K views)

“Indi-din-din-din-din-dipendente”

Rico Nasty: Teethsucker (YEA3x) (1.1M views)

“YEAH YEAH!”

Rocio Sensación: La Nueva Sensación (1.1K views)

“ayyyyyyy, corazon….”

Sir Chloe: The Hole (55K views)

“It’s not fun, it’s not fun, it’s not fun anymore…”

Tshegue - Plus de place nulle part (45K views)

“On fait du yoga, Coca Coca Cola”

The stuff that I did not think would be any more massive

This just means that I am not surprised by how many or few people were listening compared to my expectations. In some cases that means “huge smash” (Naija pop hit “Laho” and reggaeton hit “Secunena”) and in some cases that means “got a boost in music nerd attention,” like Pitchfork-approved “Sé MiiMii” or Sub Pop-distributed “Omorfo Mou.”

Miya Folick: Fist (16K views)

NMIXX: High Horse (685K views)

<drums!!!!>

Myaap: Fairy (7.8M views)

“With a fatty…on my daddy…”

Marina Satti: Epano Sto Trapezi (1.7M views)

“I guess I’m a butterfly” <squash>

Mei Semones: Animaru (105K views)

MiiMii f. Dj Skycee: Sé MiiMii (1.4M views)

“Hello!”

pinponpanpon: SO COOL (79K views)

“The cold never bothered me anyway-ay-ay-ayyyy”

Sayuri & Sopholov: Secunena (17M views)

“trai-go-lo-qui-tos-a-los-de-la-se-cu-dea-la-do…”

Shallipopi: Laho (70M views)

“Laho-o-o-o…laho-o-o-o…”

Zuchu: Amanda (14M views)

“You tryna dingi-dingi-dingi-danga-die”

Σtella: Omorfo Mou (78K views)

“Ooh ya ya”

The stuff that I found hard to categorize even given the tongue-in-cheek flexibility of the former three categories

And finally…the rest! I mean. They’re all just good songs. I’ve shared nearly all of them before, though this group does contain one that will technically show up next week (Say She She).

Atmos Blaq: Shimova (23K views)

<3-step intensifies>