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"
The 20 Best Rap Radio Hits of 2025
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
The news in October that there were no rap songs in the top 40 of the Hot 100 for the first time since 1990 occasioned a lot of handwringing about the health, commercially or otherwise, of hip-hop as a genre. I don't really have a hot take on it, I think this too shall pass, but I do think it's notable how cautious everyone has become in mainstream rap, from Carti and Cardi delaying albums for literally years to even Drake being a little more choosy about releasing music after the Kendrick beef. There are dozens of rappers who could get into the Top 40 on any given week with a new album or lead single, but they're all holding back at the moment, leading to more weeks with no rap in the Top 40, or just one or two inconsequential singles by Gunna or Megan Thee Stallion helping the genre hang by a thread.
Here's the Spotify playlist:
1. BigXthaPlug - "The Largest"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #71 Hot 100
I don't follow hip-hop producers like I used to, especially in southern rap, simply because it's so much harder to identify someone's sound or contribution when they're typically one of 2 to 6 producers on a given song. But Bandplay is one beatmaker that I became a huge fan of during his years working with Young Dolph, and he's one of the two producers who flipped the War classic "Slipping Into Darkness" into a monstrous, lurching groove for Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug. Within months of BigX's first top 10 album, he started releasing collaborations with country singers for a whole country rap album, which was better than I expected it would be, but I hope he keeps making a lot more music in this style instead of just gunning for that crossover money. Incidentally, one of BigX's country songs is the highest rap song on the Hot 100 this week, at #47.
2. Clipse - "So Be It"
#22 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #62 Hot 100
Pusha and Malice get a lot of well deserved credit for how great Let God Sort Em Out is, but the hype about how perfect the 'rollout' for the album felt a little ridiculous to me, especially after I realized how chaotic things were with the album's most accessible and radio-friendly song. They shot a video and did a whole Funk Flex premiere for "So Be It" without clearing the Talal Maddah sample, and were fully prepared to release the album with a mediocre remix Pharrell threw together, "So Be It Pt. II," until Swizz Beatz intervened and heled get the sample cleared at the last minute. Props to Swizz for that one.
3. Kendrick Lamar f/ SZA - "Luther"
#1 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
The 2024 documentary Luther: Never Too Much discussed how Luther Vandross was one of the greatest vocalists of his generation and enormously successful without quite reaching the brass ring he coveted, a #1 pop hit (even when he duetted with Mariah Carey, it peaked at #2). Vandross did get there via sample in his life time (on Twista's "Slow Jamz") but I feel like it was even cooler than Vandross's voice spent 13 weeks at number one on a song named after him. What a lovely, beautifully put together track.
4. Tyler, The Creator f/ GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne - "Sticky"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #10 Hot 100
Tyler, The Creator became one of the most popular rappers in the country in part by sneering at pop rappers like B.o.B on songs that were attention-grabbing but in no way radio-friendly, but by 2018 he started to openly pine for hearing his music on the radio like his idols. That started to happen gradually with songs like "See You Again," "Earfquake," "Wusyaname," and "Dogtooth" becoming minor radio hits. But he didn't really have a big radio song until he loaded up a track on 2024's Chromakopia with features from three rappers that are always in heavy rotation. And yet "Sticky" doesn't feel like a capitulation, because those brief 4-bar guest verses are woven into a weird, unpredictable structure that showcases Tyler really well as a rapper and as a producer.
5. Drake - "Nokia"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #2 Hot 100
By any normal standard, Drake had a great year, with three top 10 radio hits from $ome $exy $ongs 4 U plus one advance single from Iceman (the tepid, defensive "What Did I Miss?"). That's pretty mild compared to Drake in any year from 2009 to 2023, but I don't think he gets enough credit for bouncing back. And as someone whose favorite Drake songs are shit like "Nice For What" and 'stomach on flat flat,' I thought "Nokia" was awesome, instantly my favorite the first time I listened to $$$4U. But I really think that Elkan, the producer from Sierra Leone who made two different catchy-ass beats for "Nokia" and also delivered two catchy-ass hooks, really should've gotten a feature credit and appeared in the video, Drake didn't have to hog all the glory like that.
6. Megan Thee Stallion - "Bigger In Texas"
#29 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #84 Hot 100
One of her best songs ever, I feel like it could've been bigger if it wasn't released as a deluxe album bonus track, but I'm glad it got a little radio run. The songs Meg released in 2025 mostly got a cranky reception, but I think that's partly because people know how talented she is and what she's capable of on songs like "Bigger In Texas," and I mostly enjoy whatever she puts out.
7. Doechii - "Denial Is A River"
#12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #21 Hot 100
It was pretty fun when this witty high concept song with no chorus was briefly an exciting new rap star's biggest hit. Then a kind of embarrassing Soundcloud song she made in 2019 with a big obvious sample stole all its thunder.
8. Kendrick Lamar f/ Lefty Gunplay - "TV Off"
#3 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #2 Hot 100
For a few weeks from May to March, three songs from GNX were in the top ten of the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, along with SZA's "30 For 30," just a ridiculous amount of airplay saturation for one artist or one album, and it was very deserved. DJ Mustard made the beats for "Not Like Us" and "TV Off" at the same time with samples from the same Monk Higgins album, so it's not surprising that this became the album's big spontaneous viral hit, but I'm glad it did.
9. Cardi B - "Outside"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #10 Hot 100
2018's Invasion of Privacy was a total party of album by a newlywed and fast rising superstar, but it still had some pretty angry lyrics about Offset cheating. Seven years later, the newly divorced Cardi B finally released her second album, and even on the lead single her mood constantly alternates exhilaration about her new relationship and her anger at Offset, sometimes within a single rhyme. The crazy part is it actually works, we all know about Cardi's life and she has enough personality to pull off a club banger with this much baggage.
10. Metro Boomin f/ Quavo, YK Niece, and Breskii - "Take Me Thru Dere"
#6 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #69 Hot 100
Metro Boomin's A Futuristic Summa, a mixtape that lovingly recreated the sound and spirit of 2008 era Atlanta swag rap, is kind of the equivalent of, I don't know, Def Leppard namechecking a bunch of early '70s glam rockers on their 1989 hit "Rocket." That could've turned out terrible or forced, but I really did feel like it restored a feeling that had been missing from southern rap for a minute, even Quavo hasn't sounded like he was having this much fun since Takeoff died.
11. Lil Baby f/ Young Thug and Future - "Dum, Dumb, and Dumber"
#21 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #16 Hot 100
Part of the reason Atlanta rap needed a nostalgic pick-me-up from Metro Boomin this year is because the YSL trial completely disrupted the reign of one of the city's biggest current crews, and even after Young Thug got home, things became stranger and more bitterly divided between him and longtime associates like Gunna, and Thug's ill-fated comeback album was overshadowed by an increasingly bizarre series of leaked jail phone calls. For a moment, though, this posse cut from Lil Baby's latest album was the first big musical statement after Thug's return, and his verse had an encouraging spark of the offhanded wordplay ("dog on the side like a bus," "pocket full of grandparents") that had made him one of rap's most unique and influential stars.
12. Playboi Carti f/ The Weeknd - "Rather Lie"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #4 Hot 100
One of the reasons that I wish Young Thug's return hadn't fizzled is that we so completely live in a rap landscape that he helped shape. One of Thug's disciples is Playboi Carti, who mastered the art of maximizing fan anticipation with years of delays for his his fourth full-length project Music, resulting in the biggest first week numbers of any rap album in 2025 (way behind Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen, but well ahead of Drake/PND, Travis Scott/Jackboys, Cardi B, etc.). For a long time, Playboi Carti kind of moved like a cult favorite whose only serious radio hit was 2017's "Magnolia," so I was wondering if the album would spawn any big singles, and it seemed kind of boring that the song featuring The Weeknd was the one that popped off. But I have to admit, I was skeptical of the Weeknd/Carti pairing but all three of the songs they've done together have been good and have been hits.
13. Rob49 - "WTHelly"
#12 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Skrilla's "Doot Doot (6 7)" gave us the biggest meme of 2025, but the song was so utterly awful that radio didn't touch it. "WTHelly" is a more transcendently silly meme record, and the beat is hard as hell, although even this song didn't blow up the way it seemed it was going to when Rob49 teased a remix with Justin Bieber that never materialized (the official remixes of "Doot Doot" and "WTHelly" that did come out both featured G. Herbo, the journeyman Chicago rapper who inexplicably finally started getting national radio play in 2025, years after he stopped making decent music).
14. Gelo - "Tweaker"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #29 Hot 100
Almost a decade after LaVar Ball became a divisive sports media celebrity by confidently trumpeting his three sons' NBA career prospects, you have to hand it to him: two of the Ball kids are in the league, and the other one scored a left-field rap hit and signed to Def Jam for millions. It took a while for LiAngelo Ball's rap name on streaming services to be changed from 'G3 Gelo' after they realized that nobody on Earth was going to call him that, and ultimately he didn't do much with all the buzz that was around "Tweaker" at the beginning of 2025 -- he released an album in July, and it missed the Billboard 200 completely. But for a few weeks, everyone went absolutely nuts for the California former college basketball star's goofy approximation of early 2000s Louisiana rap.
15. YoungBoy Never Broke Again - "Shot Callin"
#11 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #43 Hot 100
NBA YoungBoy is actually from Baton Rouge but a lot of his music has always sounded to me like a middling imitation of early 2000s Louisiana rap. The kids love him, though -- he's actually been the most streamed rapper or the most streamed artist in general on YouTube just about every year since 2019, despite spending a lot of that time locked up or on house arrest from various assault and weapons charges. This year, YoungBoy received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, and thanked Trump by naming his 2025 album and tour MASA (which stands for Make America Slime Again) -- it's all really very embarrassing and horrible, the world we live in right now. But a whole lot of young NBA YoungBoy fans getting to see him live for the first time wound up being a pretty huge cultural event that even helped get one of his songs on the radio, one medium that has historically more or less ignored him.
16. Offset f/ JID - "Bodies"
#29 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #72 Hot 100
I've never totally loved JID's music (why is there a Kendrick soundalike on Dreamville? there's not a J. Cole soundalike on TDE!), but the guy is clearly talented. And he can be a lot of fun in a stunt rapper capacity on other people's songs, especially this one.
17. GloRilla - "Typa"
#5 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #42 Hot 100
After absolutely running 2024, GloRilla remained ubiquitous on rap radio in 2025 without really doing much besides coasting with songs riffing on old mid-2000s hits. I don't care at all for that song with Sexyy Red that's a lazy retread of "Wipe Me Down," but it was fun to hear Glo rap over Keyshia Cole's resurgent classic "Love." Glo raised a lot of eyebrows a couple weeks ago when she tweeted that she's going to do "a rnb album," especially since we've really never heard her sing, but if she's just gonna rap on R&B samples like on "Typa," that could be good.
18. Monaleo - "Putting Ya Dine"
#25 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay
Houston's Monaleo has been one of my favorite up-and-coming rappers of the last few years and it really feels like she reached a tipping point in just the last couple months, it's been fun to start hearing this song on the radio.
19. Travis Scott - "4x4"
#17 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
Travis Scott is the kind of songs that hit #1 on the Hot 100 without really feeling like #1s, "Sicko Mode" aside. "4x4" didn't totally disappear from pop culture after its week at #1 like "The Scotts" and "Franchise," but it didn't have a ton of staying power either. I loved how the "4x4" beat flipped a viral video of a marching band playing the minor Migos hit "Say Sum," though, it ended up way harder than the original Migos track.
20. Kendrick Lamar - "Squabble Up"
#7 R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, #1 Hot 100
"Squabble Up" was the song from GNX that got a big push -- previewed in the "Not Like Us," then given its own video as part of the album rollout and debuting at #1. Over the next few weeks, it felt overshadowed by the more fan-driven success of "Luther" and "TV Off," but "Squabble Up" ultimately didn't feel like one of those hollow Travis Scott-style #1 hits because it did stick around. "Squabble Up" was ultimately only the album's fourth-biggest radio hit after "Peekaboo," but it had legs and I enjoyed it every time I heard it.
The 10 Worst Rap Radio Hits of 2025:
1. G Herbo - "Went Legit"
2. Drake - "What Did I Miss?"
3. Zeddy Will & StaySolidRocky - "Twerkin Wit Ya Fiends"
4. DaBaby - "Phat"
5. Loe Shimmy f/ Don Toliver - "3am"
6. Bow Wow f/ Chris Brown "Use Me"
7. Jack Harlow f/ Doja Cat - "Just Us"
8. GloRilla f/ Sexyy Red - "Whatchu Kno About Me"
9. Doechii - "Anxiety"
10. Lil Durk f/ Jhene Aiko - "Can't Hide It"
Monthly Report: December 2025 Singles
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
1. Nine Inch Nails - "As Alive As You Need Me To Be"
I'm fond of saying that Trent Reznor has made more great music in the 21st century than any other '90s rock star, and of course he's done a lot of that via film scores and other projects that don't necessarily keep his music on rock radio. But the lead single from the Tron: Ares soundtrack hit #2 on both Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock Airplay, their best showing on either chart in 18 years or more, and it's nice to hear him rip into a big hooky anthem like this. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist I've updated all year, but I'll start doing my year-end singles lists this week.
2. Taylor Swift - "Opalite"
Despite being more popular than ever by any other metric, Taylor Swift's last few albums have rarely spun off multiple radio hits, and often even the lead singles seem to just coast on the success of the album and the general goodwill towards Swift. So while the moderately annoying lead single "Fate of Ophelia" is still firmly entrenched at the top of multiple charts, it feels notable that "Opalite" has become the people's choice, staying in the top 10 far longer than any song from The Tortured Poets Department and already top 20 on pop radio without being officially promoted. "Opalite" kind of feels like a microcosm of The Life of a Showgirl's sound when it works best: Fleetwood Mac on the verses, ABBA on the choruses.
3. Sarah Reeves - "Cloud Nine"
Sarah Reeves has been a CCM hitmaker for a decade, but in the last couple years she's started to cross over to secular pop with a few adult contemporary hits, and "Cloud Nine" is her first single to get on the regular degular Pop Airplay chart. And man, it's catchy as hell, love that synth bass on the chorus.
4. Khalid - "Nah"
I was an early fan of Khalid Robinson when "Location" first started getting buzz, but I found his output pretty hit-and-miss after that. I like After the Sun Goes Down, though, it feels like coming out of the closet he can loosen up and make music that's a little more individual and expressive, even while working with Max Martin-adjacent Swedish pop pros.
5. Cardi B - "ErrTime"
The remixes with Latto and Jeezy are great but I don't mind if radio stations just play the solo version, definitely one of the standout bangers on Am I The Drama?
6. JID f/ Ciara and Earthgang - "Sk8"
I enjoyed interviewing the Earthgang guys last year, I'm glad their fun guest spot on JID's latest album has become the album's breakout radio hit.
7. Tucker Wetmore - "3,2,1"
Tucker Wetmore's What Not To has really grown into one of the year's biggest debut albums in country, "3,2,1" is the album's second top 10 radio hit and "Brunette" has even more streams than that one after getting big on TikTok, they'd be smart to release that as his next radio single.
8. Madison Beer - "Bittersweet"
I've mostly dismissed Madison Beer over the course of her 10 years of semi-stardom, but I like this song, feels like she's finally making something that doesn't feel generic and robotic.
9. Rascal Flatts f/ the Jonas Brothers - "I Dare You"
A few years ago, I jokingly wrote, "If you told me that the recently disbanded Rascal Flatts had simply rebranded as Dan + Shay, I'd believe you." So I'm pretty amused that the biggest Rascal Flatts song since they reunited was co-written by Shay Mooney.
10. Megan Thee Stallion - "Lover Girl"
I still kinda wish this song had louder drums than those light cymbals and snaps, but I like that you can really hear the session bassist going off. And it's kind of fun to hear Meg rap about being in love with the same sneering attitude as her pimpin' Tina Snow shit.
The Worst Single of the Month: La Sserafim & J-Hope - "Spaghetti"
I like that K-pop takes every aesthetic to its logical extreme, but when it's bad, it's just horrible.
Monthly Report: November 2025 Albums
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1. Rosalia - Lux
Rosalia traveled in one direction over the course of her first three albums, from flamenco to reggaeton and from acoustic textures to electronic beats, so I kind of assumed that her fourth album would continue on that path, even slicker and more club-friendly than Motomami. Her fourth album isn't a reversal per se, but a pivot to this big ambitious song cycle accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, a bit like mid-period Bjork, who Rosalia collaborates with for the second time on "Berghain." "Dios Es Un Stalker" is the song where this all comes together really amazingly and feels like a natural evolution from her earlier work. But it all sounds fantastic and showcases her gifts as a vocalist better than ever before, and predictably I love the song in 5/4, "Divinize."
2. De La Soul - Cabin in the Sky
I was a little disappointed to find that Trugoy only has full verses on I think two songs on Cabin in the Sky, compared to the album Mobb Deep just dropped in the same series that had new Prodigy verses on every song. But I'm still really glad that Posdnous and Maseo put together this album after Dave's death, it's a good way to cap their career. That Roy Ayers sample on "Cruel Summers Bring FIRE LIFE!!" also really hits hard since Ayers passed this year too. I also wrote a bit about Cabin in the Sky when I added it to my Spin ranking of De La Soul albums last week.
3. Willie Nelson - Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle
There are a bunch of Willie Nelson albums where he covers the songs of a particular friend, peer, or influence, and hearing him delve into Haggard's catalog is a particular delight. It's funny to hear country's most famous pothead sing "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee," especially knowing that Nelson eventually converted Haggard to the pleasures of smoking weed many years after "Okie From Muskogee" was released. Workin' Man has some additional poignance because it features some of the last recordings by two longtime members of Nelson's band, Paul English and Bobbie Nelson, who died in 2020 and 2022, respectively. I didn't know that when I first put on the album, and I got pretty choked up when Willie said "sister, play" on "Swinging Doors" and Bobbie took a solo.
4. Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World
Like Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples is one of the very few musicians born in the 1930s that's alive and still making records today (I went down a rabbit hole the other day after I had this thought). And Staples is still game to sing all sorts of stuff, including Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Frank Ocean covers on this album, and a new song written by Hozier and Allison Russell. But what really blew me away was Staples singing one of my favorite Sparklehorse songs on Sad and Beautiful World's title track. I wish Mark Linkous was here to hear that. I'm going on a lot about the feelings conjured by hearing the work of deceased musicians in this post, but I'm really grateful that music can help keep someone's memory alive.
5. Summer Walker - Finally Over It
For a while I just broadly filed Summer Walker away in the 'toxic R&B' category, but after three albums of her Over It trilogy, it feels like her specific subject matter as a songwriter is total romantic disappointment and disillusionment, and a subsequent pivot to cold, calculating transactional relationships. My favorite song she released this year, "Spend It," which was not on the initial release of Finally Over It after underperforming at radio, articulated this well. But the album makes this point pretty entertainingly with both the Anna Nicole Smith-inspired cover art and the opening song "Robbed You" ("I should have robbed you" feels like an appropriate escalation of Keyshia Cole singing "I should have cheated" 20 years ago).
6. Wale - Everything Is A Lot
I've lived in Maryland and spent lots of time in Washington, D.C. and listening to D.C. radio in the, what, 18 years that Wale has been D.C.'s biggest and most famous rapper. And the city definitely has a love/hate thing with Wale, but I feel like it's mostly love, and I still hear his music hear a lot more than I think I would anywhere else. And while I think there's too much sulking that he was 'supposed to be the next Hov' or something, he's had a great career, and I'm pretty happy that he's made one of his best albums this far into his career, Everything Is A Lot is kind of a downbeat, introspective album but Wale still proves that he does the melodic R&B hook radio rap thing better than just about anybody of his generation. He even throws in an MMG-style banger, "Michael Fredo," that's fun and sounds like he just wanted to prove he can still get in that bag whenever he wants.
7. The Mountain Goats - Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan
John Darnielle runs in some of the same online music nerd circles that I do and seems like a really smart, funny guy, and The Mountain Goats are generally revered in all sorts of music nerd circles, but I'm only casually acquainted with some of their records, I suspect if I ever get really into them it'll be the early lo-fi stuff. But Jon Wurster is one of my favorite drummers of all time, and he's no longer playing in Superchunk, so I've start to appreciate more that Mountain Goats records are where I can hear him do his thing, and he's got some great moments on "Armies of the Lord" and "Cold At Night." Hearing Lin-Manuel Miranda's very recognizable voice on some backing vocals on an indie rock album is a little, I dunno, distracting, though.
8. Crack The Sky - Blessed
The West Virginia band Crack The Sky's self-titled 1975 debut, revered as a hit-filled classic rock album in Baltimore but an obscurity just about everywhere else, turned 50 in November. And 4/5ths of the band's original lineup is still performing and recording together, releasing the band's 21st studio album. I recently read a biography of the band and delved into a lot of Crack The Sky band's I hadn't heard before, so it was exciting to see that the new album was out the other day. John Palumbo still has an utterly unique songwriting sensibility, and Joe Macre is one of rock's great melodic bass players, in great form on "How Can You Sleep?" and "Brain Police."
9. Hatchie - Liquorice
Liquorice is the third album by Australian singer/songwriter Harriette Pilbeam, I wasn't familiar with her stuff before but I really like it. I'm a little amused when someone born in the '90s is so good at emulating '80s sounds, she gets a great Cure/Siouxsie and the Banshees guitar tone.
10. AVTT/PTTN - AVTT/PTTN
I'm not a Mike Patton superfan, but he is a pretty impressively versatile vocalist, and making an entire album with the folk revival band The Avett Brothers is one thing I did not expect from him. Hearing "Eternal Love" on WTMD surprised and intrigued me, and the whole album is pretty good. I wish Patton pulled them into his weird experimental world a little more, but it feels like a true collaborative push-and-pull.
The Worst Album of the Month: Portugal. The Man - Shish
Portugal. The Man have only released two albums in the eight years since their big 2017 platinum smash Woodstock, and neither of them even charted in the Billboard 200. Shish only has two members from the band's earlier lineups and it just feels like a band that was never great to begin with has just completely run out of steam. A totally arbitrary jumble of sounds, bombastic '80s metal occasionally wedged into lethargic indie pop.