Monthly Report: January 2025 Singles
1. Tucker Wetmore - "Wind Up Missin' You"
I had a good chuckle at Tucker Wetmore's name the first time I saw it on a Billboard chart last year, but he's growing on me, especially "Wind Up Missin' You," his first top 10 on country radio. He's from Washington state, and there's not a lot of country stars from the Pacific Northwest, probably should be more. I think my next favorite song from his album is "When I'm Not Lookin'," which has a similar vibe, wouldn't mind if it gets released as a single too. Here's my new 2025 singles Spotify playlist that I'll be adding 10 songs to every month for the rest of the year.
2. Tate McRae - "2 Hands"
I'm kind of indifferent to Tate McRae's current hit "It's OK I'm OK," but I absolutely love the second single from her forthcoming album and really hope it gets a radio run -- my local Top 40 station has been playing "2 Hands" more than "It's OK," but that appears to be unusual based on national radio charts. Amy Allen has been on an insane run writing hits lately, and the drums on this song are crazy.
3. BigXthaPlug - "The Largest"
I don't know of anyone else who had BigXthaPlug in their top 10 albums of 2024 but I really became a big fan of his last year and this is definitely one of his best songs, I love the way BandPlay chopped that War sample.
4. Kendrick Lamar f/ Lefty Gunplay - "TV Off"
DJ Mustard sampled different songs from the same 1968 album by saxophonist Monk Higgins for both "Not Like Us" and "TV Off," which makes me wonder if the latter was deliberately made as something of a sequel to the former, or if Mustard made them in the same batch of tracks and Kendrick just happened to pick both beats. In either case, it doesn't surprise me that "TV Off" has quickly taken off and eclipsed another very good song from GNX, "Squabble Up," which had a video and became the song from the album that debuted at #1. Of course, a big reason that "TV Off" is popular is that hilarious, instantly viral moment where Kendrick yells "MUSTAAAAAAAAARD."
5. Sam Fender - "People Watching"
I'm excited for Sam Fender's new album next month. I was initially a little underwhelmed that the lead single and title track isn't an absolute anthem like "Seventeen Going Under," but I like "People Watching" a little more every time I hear it.
6. Bishop Briggs - "My Serotonin"
I loved "River," the first and by far biggest Bishop Briggs single, but that was, wow, almost 9 years ago, time flies. And most of her output since then has been kind of underwhelming, but "My Serotonin" is a little more of an uptempo rock thing and, as weary of as I am of people using words like serotonin in pop songs, it has a pretty great chorus.
7. Kiana Lede - "Natural"
Cut Ties was one of my favorite R&B albums of 2024, and I wrote that it's "almost entirely slow jams, some of them breakup songs and some of them sex songs (more the latter than the former)." "Natural" is one of the sex songs, glad to see it getting some radio airplay.
8. Gelo - "Tweaker"
You gotta hand it to LaVar Ball, he spent years telling the world to expect big things from his sons, and right now two of them are in the NBA, while the other son whose basketball career had kinda stalled came out of nowhere with a Hot 100 hit. For the first couple weeks that "Tweaker" was going viral, I only heard people refer to LiAngelo Ball by his full name, so I was surprised to see that the song is credited to 'G3 GELO' on Spotify, and simply 'Gelo' on Billboard, I feel like people are probably embarrassed to call him that. A lot of the hype about "Tweaker" is at least a little ironic, or at least performatively amused about who made the song and its vaguely nostalgic early 2000s vibe, but it's undeniably a catchy song, I'm curious to see where this whole thing ends up, if he actually has a career beyond this song or if Def Jam is just insane throwing millions at the kid.
9. Q Parker - "Beg"
Slim was always the member of 112 with the most distinctive voice and the biggest solo hit, and Daron Jones had the most writing and producing credits on the group's albums. But Q Parker, who left 112 in 2018, has been getting some R&B radio spins with an independent single, and as a 112 fan I'm happy to see that, it's a good song, sort of a tribute to R&B's "beggin' song" tradition.
10. Chayce Beckham - "Everything I Need"
"23" took a long journey to reach #1 on country radio nearly three years after its release, and Chayce Beckham's follow-up single didn't do nearly as well, which is a shame because "Everything I Need" is really good too, with a totally different vibe.
The Worst Single of the Month: Akon - "Akon's Beautiful Day"
There's an argument to be made that Akon is one of the most consequential figures in popular music in the last 20 years -- he signed T-Pain and Lady Gaga, and was the biggest global star to come out of Africa before the recent breakthrough of Afrobeats. But Akon only really made some pretty good music for a couple years, and it's been a lot of garbage since then, including his recent pop radio comeback.
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