The 2025 Remix Report Card: Final Grades

Saturday, December 13, 2025


 













Like last year and the year before, I reviewed more remixes in 2025 than in any of the years since I started this column way back in 2007 (this year I also updated my old Complex list of the best remixes of the 21st century). Sometimes I get these ideas that are just kind of an all-or-nothing proposition, and so I end up writing about just a staggering amount of music. In the case of rap remixes, though, it's just a a really fun thing to keep track of and dive into the minutiae of. 

Busta Rhymes, maybe the all-time remix MVP, hit the circuit hard for the first time in a long time in 2026, guesting on 6 remixes this year. GloRilla and Sexyy Red each guested on 4 remixes, and Lil Wayne, G. Herbo, Monaleo, and Cash Cobain each guested on 3. 

Here's the astonishing 8-hour Spotify playlist of the 150-ish remixes I reviewed in Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, and Vol. 4. 

The 20 Best Remixes of 2025:
1. "Affirmations (Remix)" by Flippa T featuring 2 Chainz
2. "ErrTime (Remix)" by Cardi B featuring Jeezy and Latto
3. "PTP (Remix)" by Babyfxce E featuring Monaleo
4. "Folded (Remix)" by Kehlani featuring Toni Braxton
5. "Back to the South (Remix)" by Zillionaire Doe featuring Yo Gotti
6. "Somebody Loves Me Pt. 2" by Drake & PartyNextDoor featuring Cash Cobain
7. "Shake It To The Max (FLY) - Remix" by Moliy featuring Skillibeng, Shenseea, and Silent Addy
8. "Gnarly (Ice Spice Remix)" by Katseye featuring Ice Spice
9. "Ride (Remix)" by Chance The Rapper featuring Twista and Do Or Die
10. "Egypt (Remix)" by Westside Gunn featuring Doechii
11. "Soft Spot (955 Remix)" by JMSN featuring Sada Baby
12. "Stateside (Remix)" by PinkPantheress featuring Zara Larsson
13. "Ecstasy (Remix)" by Ciara featuring Normani and Teyana Taylor
14. "Big Dawgs (Remix)" by Hanumankind featuring A$AP Rocky
15. "Shake Dat Ass (Twerk Song) (Remix)" by BossMan Dlow featuring GloRilla
16. "Push 2 Start (Remix)" by Tyla featuring Sean Paul
17. "Here We Go (Uh Oh) [Remix]" by Coco Jones featuring Leon Thomas
18. "Type Dangerous (The Remix of the Gods)" by Mariah Carey featuring Redman, Method Man, and Busta Rhymes
19. "Putting Ya Dine (Remix)" by Monaleo featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again
20. "It Depends (Remix)" by Chris Brown featuring Usher and Bryson Tiller

The 10 Worst Remixes of 2025:
1. "WTHelly (Remix)" by Rob49 featuring G Herbo
2. "I'm A Dog (Remix)" by Kevin Gates featuring Rick Ross
3. "Tweaker (Remix)" by Gelo featuring Lil Wayne
4. "Yey Yey (Remix)" by E.M.E featuring LaRussell
5. "Whites (Remix)" by Masicka featuring French Montana 
6. "Drugs Callin (Remix)" by Hurricane Wisdom featuring Lil Baby 
7. "Out (Busta Rhymes Extended Mix)" by Ann & Dom featuring Busta Rhymes and Wade Teo
8. "Mutt (CB Remix)" by Leon Thomas featuring Chris Brown
9. "Hips Don't Lie (Spotify Anniversary Version)" by Shakira featuring Ed Sheeran and Beele
10. "Blick Sum (Remix)" by Latto featuring Playboi Carti

2:30 PM

Friday, December 12, 2025

 





This week on Spin, I wrote a feature about Repelican's great new album. I also made a list of the best EPs of 2025 and wrote a Deep Cut Friday column about T. Rex. 

2:29 PM

The 20 Best Pop Radio Hits of 2025

Thursday, December 11, 2025



 



















I always do this list last, after I've kind of carved out all the songs that were on Top 40 radio that crossed over from other formats. And pop-as-a-genre feels about as strong critically and creatively as it's ever been, to say nothing of commercially, with a lot of these artists making cohesive albums that people enjoy as a whole. And there's still a nice bit of musical diversity, all these weird little subgenre niches bubbling up to the service, even on records by A-list pop divas. 

Here's the Spotify playlist, and the lists I've already posted for rap, R&B, country, and rock/alternative. 

1. Tate McRae - "Revolving Door"
#6 Pop Airplay, #22 Hot 100
Even having a really great 2025, I don't think Tate McRae really feels like one of the new main pop girls like Sabrina or Chappell or Olivia, a lot of her music just isn't that good or that memorable, but occasionally she makes a track that I think is amazing, and she did that twice this year with "Revolving Door" and the promo single "2 Hands" that sadly got no radio play. Most of McRae's songs are either choreography-ready uptempo tracks or introspective sad songs, and "Revolving Door" manages to be both to great effect. It was firmly her fourth biggest song of the year, after the Morgan Wallen duet (her first #1), the Kid Laroi breakup subtweet, and the "I'm a Slave 4 U" knockoff, but "Revolving Door" was my favorite thing to hear on the radio for a big chunk of 2025. 

2. Olivia Dean - "Man I Need"
#5 Pop Airplay, #4 Hot 100
Just such a lovely little beam of sunshine, it was really a pleasant surprise that Olivia Dean blew up in America almost as big as she did back home in the UK this year, that rarely happens now. And how she handled a ticket price snafu makes me think she's going to do good things with that spotlight aside from making sumptuous pop soul. 

3. Raye - "Where Is My Husband!"
#27 Pop Airplay, #37 Hot 100
Raye and Olivia Dean went to the same performing arts school as teenagers and have been very supportive of each other as rising stars, which I love to see. Right now Dean's having a serious moment, and I hope Raye is on her way too because her talent is just insane, I love the way she sings circles around this track that sounds like something Rich Harrison could've made in 2005. 

4. Zara Larsson - "Crush"
#17 Pop Airplay
Zara Larsson's been a major star in her native Sweden for the past decade, but she kind of comes and goes on the American charts, and I'm glad she finally seemed to plant her flag this year with the best album of her career. 

5. Justin Bieber - "Daisies"
#1 Pop Airplay, #2 Hot 100
I didn't really delve into Dijon and Mk.gee's own brilliant stuff until I heard them deploy their deconstructed pop style on the latest album by one of the biggest pop stars in the world. I wanna be cynical about Justin Bieber maintaining his relevance with something left-field and even a little lo-fi, but his voice sounds fantastic on "Daisies" and the gentle swing and crunchy guitar tone sounded fantastic when turned up really really loud on my car radio. Fantastic song, probably his best since "Sorry." 

6. Sabrina Carpenter - "Manchild" 
#1 Pop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
I rolled my eyes initially when I heard Sabrina Carpenter's lead single feature that same shrill trebly Jack Antonoff sound that drove me up the wall on her previous #1 "Please Please Please," but this song very quickly escalates with these dramatic guitar stabs and twangy riffs and Carpenter singing completely different vocal melodies on the first verse, second verse, and bridge. Just a really brilliantly assembled, funny, inventive song. 

7. Chappell Roan - "Pink Pony Club"
#1 Pop Airplay, #4 Hot 100
Lots of years-old songs chart these days thanks to random TikTok trends, but "Pink Pony Club" enjoyed an old-fashioned slow build. 2019: Chappell Roan and Daniel Nigro write "Pink Pony Club." 2020: After a year of hesitation, Atlantic Records releases "Pink Pony Club." 2021: Nigro suddenly becomes a name brand hitmaker after producing a pair of Olivia Rodrigo chart-toppers, and a prescient Vulture piece proposes that "Pink Pony Club" should be the song of the summer, but it still doesn't chart. 2022: Roan parts ways with Atlantic and signs to Island, but manages to keep the rights to "Pink Pony Club," knowing it's a key song for her debut album. 2023: That album is released, to relatively little fanfare. 2024: Roan suddenly blows up and several of her songs chart, but "Pink Pony Club" is outperformed by "Hot To Go." 2025: Roan performs "Pink Pony Club" at the Grammys, and it reaches its Hot 100 peak in April, just after the 5th anniversary of the song's release, and increasingly feels like it's supplanted "Good Luck, Babe" as her signature song. 

8. The Marias - "No One Noticed"
#22 Pop Airplay, #22 Hot 100
Usually the album cuts that go viral on TikTok and become surprise hits are big noisy hooky things, but "No One Noticed" was such a quiet little mood piece that I, well, didn't notice it the first time I listened to the Marias' album Submarine, until it suddenly started charting. Truly one of the most unexpected Top 40 breakthroughs in recent memory, I thought maybe they'd become an alternative radio fixture in a best case scenario. 

9. Ravyn Lenae - "Love Me Not" 
#2 Pop Airplay, #5 Hot 100
Another viral song from a critical darling that previously didn't seem to be on a pop crossover trajectory. It totally makes sense to me that "Love Me Not" bypassed R&B radio completely to become a monster pop hit, although I do wonder if some of her more overtly R&B stuff will do well in the future now that she's more established. 

10. Benson Boone - "Sorry I'm Here For Someone Else"
#2 Pop Airplay, #19 Hot 100
Between all the goofy backflips and the mustache and the horrid "Mystical Magical," I understand why Benson Boone became an easy target for ridicule this year. But his lead single was a really nice little fast guitar pop song. 

11. The Weeknd - "Cry For Me"
#5 Pop Airplay, #12 Hot 100
Hurry Up Tomorrow's big Max Martin-produced lead single "Dancing In The Flames" was absolute garbage. On the bright side, that left the field open for "Cry For Me," which was produced by Metro Boomin and Mike Dean and sampled an obscure '90s S.O.S. Band track, to become the album's big pop radio hit. 

12. Billie Eilish - "Wildflower"
#11 Pop Airplay, #17 Hot 100
"Birds of a Feather" was so massive for so long that it kind of felt like it didn't matter which of the various less immediate songs on Hit Me Hard and Soft was released as a follow-up single. "Wildflower" was a nice, kind of low key choice, but it ended pretty big in its own right, with 72 weeks on the Hot 100 and nominations for the same two big Grammy categories "Birds" was up for, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. 

13. Chappell Roan - "The Giver"
#27 Pop Airplay, #5 Hot 100
Given how huge both Chappell Roan and country crossover hits were in 2024, it was a reasonably smart risk for her to release "The Giver" as a single, especially after its well received "Saturday Night Live" debut. Unfortunately, it didn't really take off on pop radio after a nice big streaming debut, and only grazed Country Radio airplay at #60 (which is still pretty good for such an outwardly queer song). Her next single "The Subway" was also great but just barely fared better on the radio, peaking at #26 on Pop Airplay. I think she should just drop the album, people can pick the hits after the fact the same way they did with her debut. 

14. Doja Cat - "Jealous Type"
#9 Pop Airplay, #28 Hot 100
Scarlet was, on paper, a successful pivot, going platinum with a #1 single, but it really feels like it slowed down Doja Cat's career to a point that not even making a fun shiny '80s-themed pop album with Jack Antonoff didn't seem to rescue her momentum. Some really good songs on that album, though, I'm kinda glad she stopped trying to make some vague point about how she's above her most successful records. 

15. Sabrina Carpenter - "Tears" 
#6 Pop Airplay, #3 Hot 100
Sabrina Carpenter was on an insane hot streak with 6 singles that hit #1 on Pop Airplay in the space of 18 months ("Busy Women" peaked at #20 in that time, but that was just a track from the Short n' Sweet deluxe that didn't get a big push). Nobody can keep that kind of momentum going forever, though, and I'm not surprised that it ended with "Tears" -- the word "wet" is central to the chorus and the radio edit always sounds awkward with it blanked out. Really catchy song, though, grew on me a lot in the last few weeks. 

16. Taylor Swift - "Opalite"
#14 Pop Airplay, #2 Hot 100
"The Fate of Ophelia" is still entrenched at #1 on pop radio, too big to fail as the first Taylor Swift/Max Martin joint in over 7 years. But it speaks volumes that the most popular album track is already rising fast on radio charts, "Opalite" has a similar sound but is a much, much better song with much less annoying lyrics. 

17. Lady Gaga - "Abracadabra"
#6 Pop Airplay, #13 Hot 100
I feel like comeback-hungry Gaga fans got behind Mayhem more than it deserved, I'm still a little baffled that "Abracadabra" is nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. But it was fun to get such a frenetic, noisy old school Gaga song in heavy rotation. 

18. Disco Lines & Tinashe - "No Broke Boys"
#15 Pop Airplay, #36 Hot 100
I really love the original "No Broke Boys," I thought it was honestly a much better song than her big 2024 comeback hit "Nasty." I was a little dismayed that it blew up this year via a remix that speeds up the song and loses some of the things I like about it, but it's starting to grow on me in this incarnation. 

19. Lisa f/ Raye and Doja Cat - "Born Again" 
#25 Pop Airplay, #68 Hot 100
Blackpink was absolutely everywhere year, with a new group single as well as a ton of solo music from all four members, with Rose's Bruno Mars collaboration "Apt." becoming by far the biggest American hit involving anyone from Blackpink to date. But I really liked this disco banger from Lisa a lot more, which was clearly written by Raye aside from Doja's verse, and really set my expectations high for Raye's second album. 

20. Hunter/x - "Golden"
#1 Pop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
As ubiquitous as Blackpink were this year, they kind of lost their status as the most successful K-pop girl group in America after a fictional group of animated characters from a Netflix movie unexpectedly became a total pop culture phenomenon. I kinda like the David Guetta remix of "Golden" more than the original, though.  

The 10 Worst Pop Radio Hits of 2025:
1. Benson Boone - "Mystical Magical"
2. Alex Warren - "Ordinary" 
3. SZA - "BMF"
4. Tate McRae - "Sports Car"
5. Akon - "Akon's Beautiful Day"
6. Jessie Murph - "Blue Strips" 
7. Katy Perry - "Bandaids"
8. Blackpink - "Jump" 
9. Jonah Marais f/ Ryan Lewis - "Slow Motion"
10. David Guetta f/ Teddy Swims and Tones And I - "Gone Gone Gone" 

Previously: The 20 Best Pop Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. 

2:28 PM

The 20 Best Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2025

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

 




I grew up on WHFS, one of the greatest alternative stations of all time, and there's not much like it around anymore, at least not in this region. DC101 just barely plays any new music. The Triple A station I listen to, WTMD, plays more new music, so I've heard this year's singles by Lord Huron or Lucy Dacus on the radio more than some #1 alternative hits. So these lists always feel a little more theoretical than my other genre lists, I'm not talking about songs I've heard on the radio as much as songs I've seen on Billboard's airplay charts.

Here's the Spotify playlist, and my rap, R&B, and country lists. The last one up next is pop. 

1. Balu Brigada - "So Cold"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #7 Rock & Alternative Airplay
New Zealand alt rock has had a notable year, with a masterpiece from The Beths a new album from The Bats, a collection of unreleased recordings from The Chills, and these two brothers from Auckland who toured with Twenty One Pilots and scored a #1 song before they'd released their debut album.

2. Lola Young - "Messy" 
#1 Alternative Airplay, #1 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #14 Hot 100
Lola Young kind of had a Chappell Roan sort of breakthrough, with her 2024 album belatedly becoming a hit after "Messy" went viral, and it's just a stunning record, I heard it so much this yeat without ever feeling like I'd had my fill of it and could change the station when it came on. The follow-up album she just released is excellent too, it's a shame American radio hasn't really touched it, "Messy" is kind of singular bit she's got loads of songs that are just as good.

3. Wolf Alice - "Bloom Baby Bloom" 
#19 Alternative Airplay, #36 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I remember reading that Wolf Alice's new single was some kind of departure from the fuzzy guitar-heavy sound of their great first three albums, but I was still thrown for a loop when I Shazam'd this cool piano-driven song on WTMD. Then it made perfect sense when I learned that Greg Kurstin produced it, I put him on the Max Martin level of genius modern hitmakers who can make something great with almost anybody.

4. Turnstile - "Never Enough" 
#1 Alternative Airplay, #7 Rock & Alternative Airplay
The top 3 here are all artists from other countries, so appropriately the top American song is the first #1 hit by arguably the best band in the U.S. right now and the pride of Baltimore (not even the only #1 from a Baltimore band this year -- All Time Low's "The Weather" is currently at the top of the chart). 

5. Nine Inch Nails - "As Alive As You Need Me To Be" 
#2 Alternative Airplay, #2 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #2 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I'm fond of saying that no '90s rock icon has made more great music in the 21st century than Trent Reznor, and I would believe that just based on his NIN output (and that Halsey album), but obviously his dozens of film scores with Atticus Ross are what truly put him in the lead. And it was fun to finally see Reznor mix those two things together with NIN's Tron: Ares soundtrack, which features a handful of vocal songs and the band's biggest radio hit since 2007.

6. Sombr - "Back To Friends"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #2 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #10 Hot 100
It's rare for a new artist to have two breakthrough singles blow up simultaneously. But for several months, Sombr's "Back To Friends," which I really like, was in a Hot 100 horse race with "Undressed," a song I don't care for at all. So I felt mildly relieved when "Back" decisively pulled ahead by the end of the year. 'Sombr' is a deeply embarrassing stage name and Shane Michael Boose, who just turned 20, makes me cringe every time he gives an interview or performs on TV. But he's pretty talented, there aren't a lot of self-produced one-man-band types at his age and his level of fame making guitar-driven music so he cuts a unique figure.

7. Role Model - "Sally, When The Wine Runs Out"
#3 Alternative Airplay, #7 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Another alternapop solo-guy-with-a-band name who has an extremely embarrassing vibe but won me over with his big single.

8. Sam Fender - "People Watching" 
#25 Alternative Airplay, #28 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Another Brit who I wish was as big in America as he is at home, I love Sam Fender's voice and his whole 'if Springsteen was from North Shields' thing.

9. Almost Monday - "Can't Slow Down"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #8 Rock & Alternative Airplay
This San Diego band had a few minor radio hits going back to 2019 before this one went all the way and surprised me by crossing over to pop radio as well. That weird wheezing synth sound is such a fun instrumental hook.

10. Yellowcard - "Better Days"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #5 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I started doing more interviews for Spin this year and ended up talking to some pretty big rock stars, including Yellowcard, not long after they got their first #1 alternative hit ever, as weird as it is to realize "Ocean Avenue" never hit #1.

11. Rise Against - "I Want It All"
#38 Alternative Airplay, #18 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #47 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I also got to interview Rise Against's Tim McIlrath, and really enjoyed talking to him about retooling the band’s sound with producer Catherine Marks (Boygenius, Manchester Orchestra). Ricochet got the least radio play of any Rise Against album in 20 years, but I respect the way they knowingly took a risk of challenging their fanbase, it's a cool record.

12. Sleep Theory - "Stuck In My Head"
#31 Alternative Airplay, #1 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #11 Rock & Alternative Airplay
The biggest hit from this Memphis band's Epitaph Records debut really blew me away, it's always fun to hear hard rock with a really soulful lead vocal and lead singer Cullen Moore puts a nice little R&B undertone on an otherwise really heavy song.

13. Sleep Token - "Caramel"
#17 Alternative Airplay, #2 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #14 Rock & Alternative Airplay, #34 Hot 100
While I was getting into Sleep Theory, much of the rest of the world was becoming obsessed with Sleep Token, including my wife (her Spotify top 5 for the year included 4 Sleep Token songs), and New York Times critic Jon Caramanica, who named "Caramel" his top song of 2025. Beneath the masks and mythology, Sleep Token feel to me like a British equivalent of Linkin Park or Twenty One Pilots, an extremely nerdy but charismatic collision of rap and several styles of rock.

14. Limp Bizkit - "Making Love To Morgan Wallen" 
#23 Alternative Airplay, #9 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #9 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I genuinely think Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water is a great album, and found Bizkit's last couple albums enjoyable. But it still blew me away that a band that is so tied to defining a specific bygone era just game out of nowhere with an absurdist track for a video game soundtrack and made their best and most successful single in over 20 years. That made it even more sad that bassist Sam Rivers died mere weeks after the song's release.

15. Winona Fighter - "You Look Like A Drunk Phoebe Bridgers"
#33 Alternative Airplay
I was only familiar with the Nashville band Winona Fighter because my brother Zac is a huge fan who's seen them live several times and posts their music a lot. So I had no idea that they were on a trajectory to get some mainstream radio airplay, and they did it with one of their many tracks that has a memorably ridiculous title.

16. Mk.gee - "Rockman"
#25 Alternative Airplay, #30 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I didn't know much about Mk.gee when his debut album got a lot of buzz last year and he performed on SNL. But after his work on Dijon and Justin Bieber's great 2025 albums, I'm fully on board with his weird fuzzed out sound, and this non-album single became his first radio hit.

17. Blue October - "Hot Stuff"
#17 Alternative Airplay, #34 Rock & Alternative Airplay
If you're a midlevel mainstream band who's been around for 20 years, sometimes charting and sometimes not, I suppose you can do worse than writing a totally uncharacteristic '80s ZZ Top-type song and tossing it out into the world. 

18. Goose -"Give It Time"
#41 Rock & Alternative Airplay
I gotta say, I prefer Goose over Geese. 

19. Djo - "Basic Being Basic"
#1 Alternative Airplay, #15 Rock & Alternative Airplay
Stranger Things feels weirdly ubiquitous in the music industry, from putting old Kate Bush and Metallica songs on the charts to at least three of its young actors releasing albums, and another cast member infamously becoming the subject of Lily Allen's new album. Joe Keery is the most successful of the show's actor/musicians, and he also had a very funny, very entertaiming performance in the recent film Pavements, where he plays himself playing Steven Malkmus in the film-within-a-film Pavement biopic. And now Keery has a couple Djo tracks that have gone further on alt-rock radio than "Cut Yr Hair" ever got.

20. Billy Morrison f/ Ozzy Osbourne and Steve Stevens - "Gods of Rock N Roll" 
#8 Mainstream Rock Airplay, #17 Rock & Alternative Airplay
This was pretty much the last Ozzy track released before he passed away this year, and it feels like a fitting sendoff.

The 10 Worst Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2025
1. Jonah Kagen - "God Needs the Devil"
2. Falling In Reverse f/ Saraya - "Bad Guy" 
3. Royel Otis - "Moody"
4. A Day To Remember - "All My Friends"
5. Shinedown - "Three Six Five"
6. Three Days Grace - "Mayday"
7. The Smashing Pumpkins - "Who Goes There"
8. Pierce The Veil - "So Far So Fake" 
9. Tame Impala - "Dracula"
10. Lorde - "What Was That"

Previously: The 20 Best Rock/Alternative Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. 

8:55 AM

The 20 Best Country Radio Hits of 2025

Monday, December 08, 2025

 




2023 was a startling year of country music suddenly regularly topping the Hot 100 for the first time in decades. 2024 was even more surreal, with Beyonce and Post Malone leading a parade of major stars from other genres releasing country albums. 2025 wasn't as full of new cultural shockwaves, but it reflected mainstream country's new normal in a lot of interesting ways. Hardy released a song called "Bro Country" this year that eulogized that subgenre as a bygone relic of the 2010s, which I think is a convenient narrative for a country bro like him. But the fact is that the current top star, Morgan Wallen, scored his first hit with a Florida Georgia Line, FGL's Tyler Hubbard recently notched his fourth major solo hit, and there are actually fewer women on country radio now than there were a decade ago during the "tomato-gate" controversy. We're not out of the bro country woods yet, if we'll ever be. 

Here's the Spotify playlist, and the rap and R&B lists I posted last week. 

1. Parker McCollum - "What Kinda Man" 
#2 Country Airplay, #66 Hot 100
Texas singer Parker McCollum is coming off a string off a hits that I really liked, but "What Kinda Man" didn't sound like anything special to me the first few times I heard it, and it really grew on me over its long long climb to #2 (where it currently sits in its 63rd week on the charts). Oddly refreshing to hear a little harmonica on country radio and realize how rare that is now. 

2. Hudson Westbrook - "House Again"
#11 Country Airplay, #47 Hot 100
Hudson Westbrook, another Texan, recorded a sad, slow song about his parents' divorce that racked up 40 million streams before he'd signed with a major label, and released his debut album just after turning 21. I feel like the music that gets boosted by TikTok gets a bad rap and some of it is deserved, but the country that's been popularized on TikTok has by and large been pretty good, this being a strong example.  

3. Ella Langley - "Weren't For The Wind"
#2 Country Airplay, #18 Hot 100
Ella Langley was the only woman to hit #1 on country radio last year, just after I named "You Look Like You Love Me" my top country song of 2024. And I love that she's continue to thrive this year, in fact three of her songs from three different projects all rose on the Hot 100 last year, even as the influx of Christmas songs was pushing most new music down the chart. 

4. Lainey Wilson - "4x4xU"
#4 Country Airplay, #45 Hot 100
We're looking at yet another year where only one song by a woman hits #1 on country radio, with Lainey Wilson's "Somewhere Over Laredo" also slipping in under the wire late in the year. It was very chic how her other 2025 hit peaked at #4 on country radio and #44 on the Canadian Hot 100 (the U.S. Hot 100, however, was one spot off from being chic). I had to keep the theme going and put it at #4. 

5. Ty Myers - "Ends of the Earth"
#25 Country Airplay, #94 Hot 100
More young Texans! In fact, Ty Myers is 18, and was only 17 when he released his debut album earlier this year, getting on the Hot 100 without any radio play for the gorgeous "Thought It Was Love" and now starting to get spins for the also great follow-up "Ends of the Earth." 

6. Megan Moroney - "6 Months Later"
#8 Country Airplay, #30 Hot 100
"6 Months Later" and songs by Langley and Wilson were all in the Country Airplay top 10 last week, and it's sad that country radio is so overwhelmingly male-dominated now that 3 women in the top 10 felt unusual enough for me to notice. Those 3 are really leading the charge for their generation right now, although I think for the average music fan who dips their toe into country now and again, they haven't registered on the level of a Kacey Musgraves, which I think is a shame, we should all be updating our playlists of hot southern girls singing sad country songs. Megan Moroney is doing fine, though, she just announced her first headlining arena tour, and she got to play about half of "6 Months Later" on the VMA's this year in one of those rare gestures of MTV acknowledging country music's existence. 

7. Shaboozey - "Good News" 
#1 Country Airplay, #12 Hot 100
"A Bar Song (Tipsy)" tied "Old Town Road" as the longest-running Hot 100 #1 in history. Having a song that big kinda means you can never surpass it, so it just becomes a question of whether your other songs fall short of that success by a little or a lot. Shaboozey's initial follow-up single was "Highway," which got to #49 and then dropped away while "A Bar Song" was still going strong in the top 10, but once his big hit finally started to fade, "Good News" gained steam and ended up bigger than I thought it would be. I'm glad, too, I think it's better than "A Bar Song" to be honest. 

8. Russell Dickerson - "Happen To Me" 
#1 Country Airplay, #28 Hot 100
It's no secret that a lot of mainstream country is really just pop/rock now, and that's especially the case with Russell Dickerson. So it didn't surprise me at all when his biggest hit to date, the Cyndi Lauper-referencing "Happen To Me," crossed over to Top 40 radio and was remixed with the Jonas Brothers. It's a catchy song, though, I totally understand why it's gone further than his previous hits. 

9. Morgan Wallen - "Just In Case" 
#1 Country Airplay, #2 Hot 100
The sheer scale of Morgan's popularity is hard to really quantify without sounding hyperbolic -- in the history of country, he's already way up in a stratosphere that arguably only Garth and Shania have touched, and in terms of current popular music, he's standing shoulder to shoulder with Drake and Taylor Swift. I rooted for Wallen as an underdog back when I first heard "The Way I Talk" or "7 Summers," but for a variety of musical and nonmusical reasons I'm pretty tired of the guy's ubiquity at this point. He still makes the occasional song I really enjoy, though, and "Just In Case" is the one from I'm The Problem. I also kind of liked his big pop crossover hit this year, "What I Want" with Tate McRae, which only spent a couple weeks on the country radio charts despite topping the Hot 100. 

10. Tucker Wetmore - "Wind Up Missin' You"
#2 Country Airplay, #31 Hot 100
Tucker Wetmore kind of sounds like Morgan Wallen, but he has a funny name and a better run of singles from his recent debut album, I say we put out support behind him as the less problematic Wallen alternative. 

11. Eric Church - "Hands of Time"
#14 Country Airplay, #70 Hot 100
Eric Church has always stood out as a renegade in the extremely risk-averse modern Nashville, but even when some of his lead singles flop, his albums still almost always generate a #1 single. But "Hands of Time" was pretty easily the most accessible song on the very different Evangeline vs. The Machine, so I think this album is gonna break his streak. I respect that he's really going for it with his records and his live performances these days, though. 

12. Justin Moore - "Time's Ticking" 
#15 Country Airplay
Country radio never really lets more than one song by the same artist do well on the charts at the same time (naturally, Morgan Wallen is the exception to this rule). So "Time's Ticking," which featured Dierks Bentley on the album version, was released as a single without him on it, probably at Bentley's behest so that it would compete with his (pretty subpar) solo single "She Hates Me." Fortunately, "Time's Ticking" sounds fine with Justin Moore singing the whole thing and is still climbing the charts higher than "She Hates Me" got. 

13. Riley Green f/ Ella Langley - "Don't Mind If I Do"
#3 Country Airplay, #32 Hot 100
Riley Green and Ella Langley had already recorded a second duet by the time "You Look Like You Love Me" became a huge hit for both of them. But again, since Nashville doesn't want anyone two have two singles out at the same time, it was a while before "Don't Mind If I Do" got its chance recently to be promoted to radio, and I'm glad it did, it's a lovely song. 

14. Kane Brown - "Backseat Driver"
#2 Country Airplay, #60 Hot 100
As a middle-aged dad, I unfortunately relate to cutesy, wholesome country songs like this so much now. 

15. Dasha - "Not At This Party" 
#44 Country Airplay, #97 Hot 100
Like Jelly Roll or Shaboozey, California singer Dasha Novotny was not really making country music before it became her meal ticket, but I really like her 2024 hit "Austin" and most of the stuff she's made since then, I hope she keeps at it and becomes a country radio fixture. 

16. Keith Urban - "Straight Line"
#18 Country Airplay
There aren't many people who have been country stars since the '90s who are really hitmakers anymore, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw still get a big song now and again and it's already been a few years since Keith Urban's last top 10. But I really liked "Straight Line," brought me back to his great early upbeat hits, kind of a bright spot in a year when he mainly made headlines for getting divorced from Nicole Kidman. 

17. Cody Johnson - "Travelin' Soldier"
#48 Country Airplay, #12 Hot 100
Back in March, I was walking around downtown Baltimore and noticed a conspicuously high number of guys wearing cowboy hats, and confirmed my hunch that a country singer was playing the local arena that night. I was a little surprised that Cody Johnson was the headliner, I didn't realize he was at that level, but I was happy to see it, "'Til You Can't" is a serious contender for my favorite country single of the 2020s so far. Johnson's cover of "Travelin' Soldier," best known as a Top 40 hit for The (formerly Dixie) Chicks in 2002, feels like it's traveling a similar path as the Luke Combs version of "Fast Car": Johnson performed the cover for years live and on social media, and when he finally released a studio version, it recently became the biggest Hot 100 hit of his career. 

18. Tigerlily Gold - "Forever From Here"
#54 Country Airplay, # Hot 100
Tigerlily Gold, a sister duo from North Dakota, hasn't really broken through yet, but I really like the stuff they've put out so far. 

19. Zach Top - "I Never Lie" 
#2 Country Airplay, #24 Hot 100
For the hip-hop heads in my audience, Zach Top is kind of the country equivalent of Joey Bada$$: a guy born in the '90s who's unfailingly devoted to evoking the sound of '90s music he was too young to really experience firsthand. Top is pretty good at mimicking neotraditionalists like Alan Jackson (does that make him a neoneotraditionalist?) right down to small details in the vocals and production, which feels a little like a schtick to me, but this is a decent song that doesn't rely too heavily on the aesthetic to work. 

20. Carly Pearce - "Truck On Fire"
#19 Country Airplay
One of the weird subplots of mainstream country that only I have noticed: a lot of the biggest female singers of the 2010s married less famous male country singers, and they've all gotten divorced. Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert (she was more famous than Blake when they married, anyway), Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini, and Carly Pearce...Gabby Barrett and Cade Foehner are still married, so best of luck to them continuing to be the exception that proves the rule. Pearce's 2021 album 29: Written In Stone is my favorite breakup record to come out of those divorces, but her recent hit "Truck On Fire" doesn't feel autobiographical, it's more of a textbook 'revenge on an ex' song in the style of "Before He Cheats." 

The 10 Worst Country Radio Hits of 2025:
1. Jason Aldean - "Whiskey Drink"
2. Blake Shelton - "Texas"
3. Jelly Roll - "Liar"
4. Chase Matthew - "Darlin'" 
5. Morgan Wallen - "I'm the Problem"
6. Preston Cooper - "Weak"
7. Blake Shelton - "Stay Country Or Die Tryin'" 
8. Chris Young - "Til The Last One Dies" 
9. Bailey Zimmerman f/ Luke Combs - "Backup Plan"
10. Lee Brice - "Cry"

Previously: The 20 Best Country Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. 

11:16 AM

Friday, December 05, 2025

 




This week's Deep Cut Friday column on Spin is about Garbage's "Hammering in My Head." 

1:43 PM

The 20 Best R&B Radio Hits of 2025

Thursday, December 04, 2025


 















Most years that I've done EOY R&B lists, it feels like I'm talking around the huge collapse of crossover success for R&B after pop radio kind of circled the wagons around white synth pop singers circa Lady Gaga and stopped playing people like Ne-Yo and Ciara. For the last decade or so, the story has been that Beyonce and Chris Brown are recession-proof, SZA's success is fairly singular, and everyone else is way more marginalized by the pop machine than previous generations of R&B stars. But this year it actually felt like the pendulum is swinging back toward R&B, for Leon Thomas and Kehlani most prominently but across the broad for a whole lot of artists, which is exciting to see. 

Here's the Spotify playlist, and the rap list I posted yesterday. 

1. Summer Walker - "Spend It"
#26 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Summer Walker is emblematic of the 'toxic R&B' that I've always had mixed feelings about -- I think the latest funny/mean nickname I've heard is 'chicken alfredo boomerang music.' But I've started to feel like she writes really thoroughly and consistently about how a cynical, materialistic view of relationships is often a direct result of the disappointment that can come from putting love first. "Spend It" in particular articulates that in a dryly funny way, and I'm annoyed that it was left off of most editions of Finally Over It after underperforming as the album's second advance single. 

2. Jenevieve - "Head Over Heels"
#26 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
I just fell for this song and Jenevieve's album Crysalis pretty recently, great stuff. One of my Twitter friends put me on to the fact that "Head Over Heels" is based on G. Dep's pre-Bad Boy 1996 independent single "Head Over Wheels," which itself sampled a 1981 track by Tom Browne of "Funkin' For Jamaica (N.Y.)" fame. I love when R&B songs are built on beats from relatively obscure rap songs, like Teedra Moses's "Be Your Girl" sampling the Nas song from the Street Fighter soundtrack. 

3. Coco Jones - "Taste"
#18 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Amber Mark made my favorite R&B album of 2025, but as far as records that got radio play, Coco Jones's Why Not More? isn't far behind it. Around here I heard the follow-up "On Sight" on the radio more than "Taste," even though it charted lower nationally. but both are awesome songs and I love how that sample from "Toxic" by Britney Spears just works on an R&B record so much better than I ever would've expected. 

4. Kehlani - "Folded"
#2 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #7 Hot 100
Kehlani had a pretty good 2024, releasing two full-lengths and appearing on the remix to a hit song named after her, but I really had no clue she was about to release by far the biggest song of her career. And "Folded" doesn't feel like any kind of reboot or departure, it's just a good-ass midtempo R&B song with some really nice vocal runs and harmonies. And I love that it was co-produced by D.K. The Punisher, a Baltimore native who I profiled a decade ago. 

5. Leon Thomas - "Mutt"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #6 Hot 100
I've always been a fan of Ariana Grande's more R&B-leaning stuff, so it's pretty cool that two people who worked on a lot of her records, Victoria Monet and her old "Victorious" co-star Leon Thomas, have become two of the fastest rising R&B stars of the past couple years, each with a bunch of Grammy nominations. "Mutt" is so overplayed at this point and I was pretty annoyed that a Chris Brown remix was part of the song's final push to crossover success, but I'm happy for dude and really like the new stuff on the Pholks EP. 

6. JayDon f/ Paradise - "Lullaby"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
JayDon is kind of a child-actor-turned-R&B-star success story like Leon Thomas. At 11, JD McRary voiced the young Simba as Donald Glover's counterpart in the 2019 remake of The Lion King, singing "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" and "Hakuna Matata." Now McRary is 18, recording under the name JayDon, is signed to Usher's new label, and I feel like every week I hear "Lullaby" on the radio more often, this record is really blowing up. 

7. SZA f/ Kendrick Lamar - "30 For 30"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #10 Hot 100
With rap/R&B collaborations, I kind of default to slotting the song into the genre of whoever is the 'primary' artist, but obviously that feel a little counterintuitive for something like Kendrick and SZA's two huge recent songs together. "Luther" is a gorgeous melodic song from Kendrick's album, and "30 For 30" is a fun uptempo banger that jacks the beat from Rich Boy's southern rap classic "Throw Some D's," so it's kind of funny to put them on the lists they're on, but they're both awesome records. 

8. Ella Mai - "Little Things"
#16 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #81 Hot 100
Obviously there are basketball stars like Allen Iverson who brought a real sense of swagger and style to the NBA, but I feel like people on social media have gotten too comfortable in thinking they're cooler than less outwardly charismatic hoopers like Jayson Tatum and Klay Thompson. So I appreciate the recent singles by Ella Mai and Megan Thee Stallion kind of unintentionally making the point that oh hey, those guys are still rich championship athletes who have beautiful women writing lovey dovey songs about them. 

9. Fridayy f/ Meek Mill - "Proud Of Me"
#32 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #87 Hot 100
"Proud of Me" and Clipse's "The Birds Don't Sing" both struck a big nerve this year and really reminded me that a lot of us have lost a parent or both parents, and quietly carry around pain from that every day, and it can really hit hard when to hear that expressed in a song so viscerally. Being a Meek Mill fan hasn't really been going great the last few years, too, so it was nice to hear him just rap his ass off on a track with no drums like "Dreams & Nightmares" again. 

10. Mariah The Scientist - "Burning Blue"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #25 Hot 100
I don't know why "Burning Blue" was immediately huge in a way that none of Mariah The Scientist's previous songs were. Maybe the publicity of being in a relationship with Young Thug raised her profile, but I would think that as soon as she was no longer on Tory Lanez's label the universe just started sending good things her way. But I'm a sucker for any modern R&B production that imitates Prince's '80s LinnDrum sound. Mariah Amani Buckles was born in 1997, named after Mariah Carey, who'd just scored her 12th #1 single, so maybe it was fated for Buckles to have a successful singing career, even if her vocal range, well, it's not really on the level of her namesake. 

11. Mariah Carey - "Type Dangerous"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #95 Hot 100
Even in an unlikely year when she's not the most prominent Mariah on the charts (annual Hot 100 ascent of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" notwithstanding), Mimi had a pretty good year, singing words like "rigamarole" over an Eric B & Rakim sample on her biggest R&B radio hit in 17 years. 

12. 803Fresh - "Boots On The Ground"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
For me and a lot of music lovers, the phrase "southern soul" brings to mind Stax Records guys like Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding and their '60s contemporaries. But southern soul is increasingly identified with a growing movement of regional stars, a style with lots of organ and guitar and gospel-influenced vocals along but more contemporary drum machine-driven beats, and line dances to go with them, singers like King George, N'Tune, Nelly "Tiger" Travis, and TK Soul (Cupid of "Cupid Shuffle" fame also does shows with those artists). 803Fresh's "Boots On the Ground" feels like a serious tipping point song for that whole scene breaking into mainstream radio, with Tonio Armani's "Country Girl" following close behind it. 

13. Camper f/ Tone Stith - "Waiting On You"
#22 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Darhyl Camper Jr., better known as DJ Camper or simply Camper, has a produced a good number of the best R&B hits of the last 15 years, I guess he's released a couple singles from a solo project featuring various singles, and it's up to the standard he's set with his previous work, I'm looking forward to the album or whatever it is. 

14. Tyla - "Is It"
#25 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
As the first international star from the South African amapiano scene, Tyla has already far surpassed any reasonable career expectations. But there's this weird thing that happens when someone with really obvious beauty, talent, and charisma doesn't instantly become an A-lister and people start to treat them as a weird charity case, it's been happening with Tinashe for ages and it's happened really quickly to Tyla. But she's had a pretty good run of hits since "Water" that just aren't as great or as big as "Water," and "Is It" is my favorite of those. 

15. Moliy f/ Silent Addy, Skillibeng, and Shenseea - "Shake It To The Max (Fly) [Remix]"
#8 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #44 Hot 100
It feels like an illustration of just how much Afrobeats/Afropop/amapiano/etc. has supplanted dancehall and other Caribbean styles in the U.S. that Skillibeng and Shenseea, two of the biggest new stars to emerge from Jamaica in the last ten years, have each only gotten on the Hot 100 once by guesting on a Ghanaian artist's song. It was a pretty huge song, though, notably snubbed by the Grammys recently on a weird technicality, and I hope it helps the Jamaican artists get a bit more of a foothold on the American charts, "Puni Police" should have been a smash. 

16. Wizkid f/ Brent Faiyaz - "Piece of My Heart"
#37 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Wizkid was really the first African artist to break through in the 2010s and kickstart this current era of Afrobeats crossover, and he hasn't remained the biggest artist on that scene, but I like the stuff he puts out, his voice sounds great with Brent Faiyaz's on this, his biggest UK hit since "Essence." I also love the way the song doesn't have a sleek modern 'beat switch' but a sound effect of cassette tapes being stopped and ejected and inserted before "Piece of My Heart" transitions into a totally different tune for its last minute.  

17. Juiicy 2xs - "Leave My Man Alone" 
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Cincinatti-born singer Juiicy 2xs had the most popular track on the Future-curated 2019 compilation 1800 Seconds Vol. 2 and she kept it pushing from there and had her first radio hit this year, a funny little song from the perspective of a possessive girlfriend ("Even if it's his birthday, don't tell him happy birthday/ 'cause why the fuck you happy he's born?").

18. Chris Brown f/ Bryson Tiller - "It Depends"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #16 Hot 100
It's not surprising at all that the Cash Cobain "sexy drill" sound is quickly becoming the trendy flavor of radio R&B, I expect half the hits of 2026 to sound like this. 

19. October London - "She Keeps Calling"
#18 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
The whole uncanny valley Marvin Gaye impersonation thing made October London famous, but I'm glad he's actually moving on from that and making songs that sound like what I guess is just himself. 

20. Teyana Taylor f/ Lucky Date - "Hard Part"
#24 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
It's been nice to see so many former G.O.O.D. Music artists who evacuated from neo-nazi boy's sinking ship move on and do things elsewhere, from Pusha and Sean to Common and Cudi. Even Teyana Taylor, whose experience with G.O.O.D. was so shitty that she retired from music in 2020 returned this year with a pretty good album pointedly titled Escape Room, got her first Grammy nomination, 

The 20 Worst R&B Radio Hits of 2025:
1. EJ James - "Gas Station Love"
2. Chino - "Weird"
3. Sailorr - "Pookie's Requiem"
4. YahYah & Domo - "Nasty Work"
5. Rihanna - "Friend of Mine" 
6. Ciara - "Ecstasy"
7. Muni Long - "Superpowers"
8. Chris Brown - "Holy Blindfold" 
9. Marque Houston - "Hold On"
10. Queen Naija - "Good Girls Finish Last"

Previously: The 20 Best R&B Radio Hits of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

1:42 PM