The 20 Best Country Radio Hits of 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.
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on Monday, December 08, 2025 at 11:16 AM.
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