Monthly Report: September 2025 Singles
1. Megan Moroney - "6 Months Later"
I had a polite disagreement recently with Milwaukee music writer Evan Rytlewski, who thinks that "nobody dunks on godawful country music anymore" and that mainstream country has become a sacred cow among critics in the age of Cowboy Carter. Personally, I don't see it. Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll are reviled about as much as Nickelback ever was, and most of the country stars who aren't at that level of crossover success are relatively invisible. There's a whole new generation of hot girls singing sad songs on country radio (Ella Langley, Megan Moroney, Lainey Wilson, Kassi Ashton), but they don't have a fraction of the same awareness among critics as Kacey Musgraves. who broke through well over a decade ago. Moroney got to sing her excellent current single for about 90 seconds at the MTV VMAs a few weeks ago, but I saw zero reaction to it on my social media feed that's full of critics and music lovers. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist that I update every month.
2. Justin Bieber - "Daisies"
The day Justin Bieber released Swag, I heard "Daisies" on the radio before the album, because I wasn't in a rush to hear a Justin Bieber album named Swag. And was blown away by it, having no idea that Dijon and Mk.gee worked on it and that was why it had kind of a quirky lo-fi sound completely different from anything Bieber had released before. And after the element of surprise wore off, I just kept liking "Daisies" more and more, I crank it up every time it comes on in the car.
3. Clipse - "So Be It"
I think Let God Sort Em Out is a great album but I find all the talk of Clipse having 'the greatest album rollout ever' kind of silly, especially given what happened with "So Be It." Apparently Clipse and Pharrell made the song, with the Talal Maddah sample, then shot and released a video for arguably the best and most radio-friendly song from the album without clearing the sample, and were fully prepared to release the album with an inferior version of "So Be It" with a different beat until Swizz Beatz intervened at the last minute and helped get the sample cleared. Sounds kind of sloppy to me, but all's well that ends well, I love the song.
4. Turnstile - "Never Enough"
At this point Turnstile have had so many career milestones that few or zero other Baltimore bands can lay claim to that I wouldn't be able to list them all, but a #1 alternative radio hit is pretty cool. The radio stations cut the ending short but I like having the album version on my playlist with the long cool-down coda.
5. 414BigFrank f/ Sunny Lou and Run Along Forever - "There It Is"
My brother Zac has lived in Milwaukee for a long time, before people really started to care about the rap scene there, and he put me onto this song before I started to hear about it from other regional rap enthusiasts (or the other person I know in Milwaukee, Evan Rytlewski). 414BigFrank's previous song "Eat It Up" inspired Milwaukee's big breakout hit of 2024, J.P.'s "Bad Bitty," and it's fun to spot J.P. in the background in the really fun "There It Is" performance on YouTube.
6. Coco Jones - "On Sight"
I was irritated that "Taste" came and went without really being embraced by R&B radio because I really love that track, but I'm happy with "On Sight" becoming Coco Jones's current hit.
7. Haute & Freddy - "Shy Girl"
I enjoyed interviewing Haute & Freddy for Spin recently, they had 5 songs out at the time and now they have 6, and all are good, but I understand why "Shy Girl" is the biggest so far. If they're huge a few months from now, I imagine it will be because of this track, that's a real dynamite pop song.
8. KenTheMan - "First"
KenTheMan's been on the margins of the girl rap scene for the last few years, I already wrote about the version of "First" with Monaleo in the Remix Report Card but I like the solo version to, definitely feels like it could be a tipping point song for her career.
9. Flowerovlove - "I'm Your First"
This more recent song is a pop twist on the same premise as the KenTheMan song ("I'm his/your first bad bitch"), I imagine they're probably both quoting the same social media posts rather than one artist biting the other, but I like both songs and they otherwise sound completely different.
10. Lainey Wilson - "Somewhere Over Laredo"
Lainey Wilson recently released a deluxe version of Whirlwind, one of my favorite albums of 2024, and I wish the CD in my car would instantly update with the 5 new songs, they're all worthy additions. I kind of rolled my eyes the first time I listened to "Somewhere Over Laredo" and heard the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" interpolation in the chorus, but the way they wove it into a lovely new melody really works well, it grew on me.
The Worst Single of the Month: Hardy f/ Ernest - "Bro Country"
It kind of feels like Nashville has collectively decided that 'bro country' is an era that has come to an end, which I think is kind of bullshit. Country radio is even more heavily male than it was a decade ago, and even though bro country poster boys Florida Georgia Line broke up, FGL's Tyler Hubbard recently got his third solo #1 single, and the current biggest star, Morgan Wallen, got his first hit with an FGL collaboration. So this song playfully eulogizing bro country, from two people at the forefront of 2020s bro country, just feels like a self-serving narrative to me.
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on Tuesday, September 30, 2025 at 4:09 PM.
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