2025AD
Some people keep journals.
I keep a playlist.
Every January 1, the playlist resets to zero. Then the floodgates open. By December, only 100 remain: one per artist, all released in 2025, selected because they changed something in me. If a song is here, it’s because I couldn’t shut up about it.
STREAM 2025AD
APPLE / SOUNDCLOUD / SPOTIFY
Music is how I track the shape of my life. It’s the marker for who I was, who I am, and whoever I’m becoming. It follows me through quiet mornings and chaotic travel days, fills every room I walk into, and scores all the key moments.
Truth be honest, I am not a music critic. I don’t give importance to genre quotas or feel beholden single-versus-album politics or subscribe to whatever the discourse machine is calling essential. I care about songs. Songs that grab me by the hair, shake something loose, and make me text a friend, “Have you HEARD this?!”
My taste belongs to songs that demand attention, build worlds, and understand the architecture of a great melody. I want hooks that light up my bloodstream. I want production that snaps me out of whatever spiral I’m in. I want lyrics that rearrange something in me.
These 25 did that better than any other songs this year.
25. damn (club edit) – ROSE GRAY
The art of the album opener has slowly become lost in the streaming era. Thankfully, Rose Gray has something to say about that. In 2025, she delivered two openers that blew the doors off expectations for her debut Louder, Please and its remix project A Little Louder, Please. On the standard edition, “Damn” is infectious, full of movement, and instantly drops you into one of the year’s best pop soundscapes.
When the tape clicks in and the vocals flutter on “Damn (Club Edit),” you may mistake the song for a cut from ODESZA’s Summer’s Gone. The production opens up as if someone has lifted the ceiling off the original track, letting all its pressure escape upward into a new world. Gray’s voice floats rather than punches, and the beat begins to spiral instead of march. It breathes more freely than the original ever could, creating the transcendent yet dizzying rush of a club epiphany.
“First!” asserts Gray, a bratty Spice Girls energy deep in her throat, as the song snaps into high gear. By the time the sirens and breakbeats ignite, she has her claws in your veins. As she skids into static breakdowns and trance buildups, Gray keeps beckoning you into her world through the warm floating vocals. Calling this a remix feels unfair. The Club Edit is the definitive version.
24. higher! – dijon
I spent the first three months of 2024 only listening to Prince. He is one of those artists who can quietly reshape your entire musical palette if you let him. So when I heard Dijon’s Baby, I felt a familiar jolt. The record is not an homage, but its energy is unmistakably inspired. Songs like “HIGHER!” carry the raw, magnetic pull of Sign o’ the Times, which is a compliment of the highest order.
“HIGHER!” shows Dijon refining the rough edges instead of smoothing them out. The guitars bend and scrape, the percussion lands with tension, and the production crackles with the purposeful sense of imperfection he embraced throughout Baby. This song is cacophonous. But Dijon’s voice rises above all of it, urgent and exposed, channeling desire, frustration, and hope at once. It feels lived in rather than polished, and that is the point. The song emerges like a breakthrough.
“HIGHER!” is the sound of someone letting instinct win. Part pre–Love Symbol Prince, part uncompromising alt-R&B futurism, part DGAF Bon Iver, it proves that Dijon’s refusal to sanitize his sound makes it unforgettable.
23. rapture in blue – daniel avery feat. cecile believe
Reinvention is usually reserved for female pop stars, not electronic artists known for making drone music. But step aside girls, Daniel Avery may have delivered the year’s best sonic shake-up. With Tremor, he steps out of the purple-lit nightclubs he’s inhabited since his 2013 debut Drone Logic and into the rock venue down the street.
The looping Avery mindset remains, but analog instruments and vocalists transform Tremor into one of the year’s most intriguing alt-rock pivots. At the center is “Rapture In Blue,” featuring Cecile Believe, a track that feels like it slipped off a Yeah Yeah Yeahs album before being slowed and reverbed into something ghostly. In many ways, the song maintains the eerie mood that defines Avery’s discography but the guitars, courtesy of Ride and Oasis member Andy Bell, bring in a whole new sort of thunderous energy. Part dirge, part last-song-of-the-night sendoff, part indie euphoria, it’s the rare magic that happens when an artist builds in a brand-new sandbox without fear of messing up.
22. BEAT UP CHANEL$ – SLAYYYTER
Catherine came on this track mad as hell. Even by the average Slayyyter chaos meter, “BEAT UP CHANEL$” comes in like an eighteen-wheeler barreling down a rainy highway at 120mph. Slayyyter is always driving too fast, but with this one she’s leaning out the window with a megaphone shouting the lyrics like a rapturous verse from a holy book. The vocals evoke a kind of ecstatic fury that turns the entire track into a dare, as if she’s challenging the production to keep up with her.
And somehow it does.
Then, in the final stretch, the song makes one final swerve off the highway. Slayyyter slips into a Lana Del Rey baby-deer hush as Crystal Castles-style synths and drums detonate behind her. It’s a fireworks montage from the Tumblr era encapsulated in 60 seconds. The shift is outrageous but a perfect reminder that Slayyyter’s always been most powerful in the extremes.
On release day, she said, “I think the contrast between dirt, muddiness, distortion, and grit with soft and euphoric release is what my music is all about.” No song in her catalog proves that more than “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” which crystallizes her entire ethos into three deranged and exhilarating minutes of pop combustion.
21. COMAFIELDS – BURIAL
Every year, nearly without fail, we get a new Burial single. The quality ranges: usually decent, sometimes great, occasionally boring. This year, though, we got “Comafields,” a certifiable banger. Yes, a Burial banger in 2025. Believe it.
Like most of the enigmatic producer’s work over the last decade, “Comafields” is long, stretching to twelve minutes. We expect that. We also expect several minutes of dissociative soundscapes and strange samples that dissolve into nothingness. Not this time! On “Comafields,” the beat drops within the first ninety seconds, and from there the track spends nearly eight minutes showcasing everything Burial does best: pulsating moods, menacing bleeps and boops, and that uncanny sensation of being watched by a stranger while you dance in the shadows. “You put your arms around me,” the vocal sample murmurs, giving the song a strangely intimate pulse.
Burial has always taken pride in staying hidden, in refusing the spotlight or even the suggestion that he might appear at your party. Yet with “Comafields,” he sounds energized, precise, and, for a moment, almost happy to be here.
20. NEVER ENOUGH – TURNSTILE
I am not supposed to like Turnstile. They are a hardcore band and I was blasting Britney Spears on the way to high school. But holy hell, “Never Enough” is undeniable. It feels like the sound of a band stepping into a new dimension without abandoning the intensity that shaped them. When it begins, you could almost mistake Turnstile for a dream pop outfit. The vocals are soaring, the synths glimmer, and everything shimmers with a sweetness that has no business being this gorgeous.
When the guitars finally enter, it becomes obvious. Of course this song is going to be loud as fuck. The lyrics repeat with a hypnotic pull, the titular phrase “never enough” walking a tightrope between humble admission and desperate insistence. “Never Enough” builds and builds until euphoria bleeds through every decibel in Turnstile’s expanding wall of sound. The near two minute outro feels designed for a festival crowd to lose their minds. It is a moment that confirms Turnstile as one of the most exciting rock bands working today. And it is fully deserved.
19. STRIPTEASE – FKA TWIGS
One of the year’s greatest musical tragedies was the cancellation of FKA twigs’ US tour behind her phenomenal album Eusexua. Few artists are as fundamentally built for the stage as the dancing phenom, and “Striptease” more than any other song on the record feels designed to be experienced in a dark room with a trembling floor and a crowd holding its breath.
The track begins with polished trap beats that flicker like stage lights warming up, then gradually gives way to a euphoric drum and bass eruption. It features the year’s most stunning wordless vocalization, a kind of sonic exhale that only twigs can deliver. The entire thing hovers between vulnerability and invocation. When the hook returns over the breakbeats, the effect is total body shivers. The song lifts off, detonates, folds inward, and reassembles itself again, never staying still for more than a few seconds. “Striptease” becomes an exercise in elasticity, in how far a pop structure can stretch before it snaps. The lyrics make the metaphor explicit: “I'm stripping apart, till my pain disappears / Opening me feels like a striptease.” The production mirrors that unraveling, peeling back layers only to reveal more pressure underneath.
Eusexua contains other perfect moments (particularly “Girl Feels Good”) but “Striptease” is the clearest example of what twigs does better than anyone. It is a physical, emotional and otherworldly song she was unmistakably born to create.
18. davina mccall – Wet Leg
Wet Leg’s moisturizer has no duds. The urgency of “catch these fists,” the sticky melodies of “mangetout,” and the pulsating rhythm of “pillow talk” all build into a fantastic sophomore album from the British band. It is sharper, stranger, and more confident than their debut, and it proves the band can expand their sound without losing the sly humor and emotional directness that made them huge in the first place.
At the center of the album sits “davina mccall,” an absolutely sap-drenched love song named after the English television presenter. It is Wet Leg at their most open hearted and lovey-dovey. The song captures the kind of early romance where you are ready to give everything away and contort yourself into whatever shape your lover desires. It is naive in the most disarming sense, and the sweetness is purposeful rather than annoying. Davina McCall’s catchphrase, “I’m coming to get you,” emerges right at the top of the track and becomes the thematic thesis of the entire lust filled ode.
“I'll be your Shakira, whenever, wherever / You know I'll come sailing through the stormy weather / Ohh-oh, it's that kinda love,” goes the song’s second verse. Yes, it’s that kinda song.
17. Afterbody – Jae stephens
By the time we reach 75 seconds into Jae Stephens’ “Afterbody,” she is gliding over the rhythm. Every line in the second verse rhymes, with the perfection of, “His attention never shared / Run his fingers through my hair / If I'm water, he’s Sahara / I'm essential, necessaire,” sitting pretty in the middle of the incantation like it’s nothing.
The track moves with this confidence that never needs to show off. Stephens stays breezy, letting the groove build naturally rather than forcing a climax. “Afterbody” could easily pivot into something explosive, but the choice to keep it in the pocket becomes its own flex. The restraint sharpens the pulse of the song and gives it the kind of heat that sneaks up on you.
“Afterbody” is stealthy. It weaponizes memorable lines, pristine vocal control, and a dance breakdown that nods to the 2000s without ever lapsing into nostalgia. Stephens moves like someone who already knows she is controlling the dancefloor.
16. pink + pink – rusowsky & ravyn lenae
There are two types of dance songs: the ones anyone can dance to, and the ones dancers can move to. “pink + pink” is the latter. This is not a traditional four-on-the-floor filler. It is a flamenco-meets-reggaeton seduction, built on rusowsky’s twitchy percussion and melodic tricks, with Ravyn Lenae’s angelic vocals hopping across the production like she already knows she owns the room.
When rusowsky enters, he folds his voice into harmony with a harp. From there, he and Lenae circle each other, slipping in and out of focus without ever revealing too much. It feels tremendously sexy and unmistakably cinematic. The harps and handclaps create the sense that we are watching this courtship unfold in real time, each element landing exactly where it needs to in order to heighten the tension.
“pink + pink” is only one example of how rusowsky builds dense, inviting sonic worlds throughout his excellent DAISY. The longer the sounds pour out of the speakers, the more impossible it becomes to resist his seduction technique.
15. BLISs – TYLA
According to my streaming data, on June 4 I listened to “Bliss” 14 times in a row. I am neither surprised nor embarrassed. “Bliss” has that repeatability factor. It ends and your only instinct is to start it again. And then again. When Tyla hits the chorus with, “You take me to bliss / Never found a love like this,” the rest of the world dissolves. Her delivery walks a perfect line: urgent but soft, controlled but teetering on the edge of unhinged devotion. It captures the exact sensation of falling for someone in real time. It’s mildly dangerous.
The production from Nova Wav, the duo with eight credits on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, is immaculate. They grow the track from a single slinky spark into an amapiano kaleidoscope, each layer unfolding until the entire song becomes a place you want to live in much longer than its 2:40 runtime. Their smartest choice is the simplest one: they give Tyla the space to shine. Every element feels engineered to elevate her phrasing, her tone, her ability to bend a melody into something emotionally exact.
“Bliss” is not a deep song. It is blatantly simple. But that makes it addictive and fully realized. That simplicity makes it fantastic.
14. human happens – magdalena bay
Probably too much has been said about Magdalena Bay. Everywhere you click online, someone is trying to shove Imaginal Disk, the duo’s fairly good album from last year, down your throat. So it was almost refreshing that instead of dropping another record in 2025, the duo opted for four double singles. Of those eight songs, most were great, one was just fine, and one was miraculous.
“Human Happens,” the third release of the year, is the kind of catchy, swagged out alt-pop we have not heard since maybe the height of Chairlift. It has that mix of playfulness and danger, that sense that the melody is smiling while the lyrics are scanning for an exit. The chorus says it all: “Human happens / Have to have him / ’Cause it’s just how I feel and I like it / I’m in trouble.” Mica Tenenbaum’s voice keeps ascending, as if trying to escape the feeling she is confessing, which only amplifies the tension.
Tenenbaum’s love of Fiona Apple shows up everywhere in the songwriting here. There is a specificity to the phrasing, a willingness to let desire sound both embarrassing and undeniable, and a refusal to resolve the emotional knot too neatly. Wrapped inside the band’s devotion to dreampop synthesizers, the song becomes a perfect collision of crisp pop instincts and self aware melodrama.
“Human Happens” is an instant yes, the rare track that justifies the hype rather than buckling under it. It is more ammunition for the internet to keep pushing the Magdalena Bay agenda. Thankfully, here that enthusiasm feels earned.
13. DOPAMINE – ROBYN
Amongst the genres my friends and I have created over the years, Crying In The Club is the one I consider under my personal jurisdiction. And like any self-respecting genre, it has a reigning queen. That queen is Robyn, the 46-year-old Swedish pop icon whose 2005 self-titled album and 2010’s Body Talk stand as two of the most important pop releases of the Millennial era. Robyn shaped the emotional blueprint for a generation of dance floors. She made euphoria feel honest and heartbreak feel communal.
So when she quietly returned in November with “Dopamine,” the expectations were high even without the fanfare. Within seconds, any listener will recognize “Dopamine” chooses refinement over reinvention. Unlike Honey, “Dopamine” demands Robyn stand centerstage and perform at her best. In an interview with BBC Radio 1, she said the song was defined by having a strong chorus. If you are crying in the club, the chorus is everything. It is the place where devastation meets release. “Dopamine” delivers on that promise. The synths shimmer, the beat pulses with patient confidence, and Robyn’s voice cuts with the same truth that made her a cultural touchstone fifteen years ago. It is immediately infectious, immediately emotional, immediately Robyn. It feels like a promise that her reign is far from over.
12. david – lorde
When “Royals” arrived, its shock value came from its simplicity. It refused the maximalism dominating pop at the time and, in doing so, redefined the landscape. “David,” the closer of Virgin, carries a similar charge. Compared to much of the album, it’s strikingly stripped back, sparse in a way that feels defiant. It’s a reminder that Lorde’s most powerful statements often come from restraint rather than beat drops.
When Lorde sings, “I don’t belong to anyone,” the delivery carries a tone and force that runs counter to Virgin’s themes of embracing uncertainty and growth through surrender. That unexpected tension becomes the track’s spine. The production unfolds with unusual patience, widening until it splinters around the standout admission, “I made you God because it was all I knew how to do,” a line that reframes the emotional stakes of the entire project.
The final song on every Lorde album is a thesis for the album’s purpose in her artistry. “David” continues this streak, clashing her enigmatic past with the ego-less present. From a soft Pure Heroine shoutout to a Melodrama infused synth that never stops cascading to the pointed “A World Alone” callback in the final lyric, “David” doesn’t just end Virgin, it contextualizes it.
11. la yugular – rosalía
There are a litany of perfect things about Rosalía’s Lux, but few are greater than the third verse of “La Yugular.” It starts with the deceptively simple, “I fit in the world / And the world fits in me,” then rushes headlong into a chain of impossible images: a haiku occupying a country, a pyramid fitting in a glass of milk, an entire galaxy fitting in a drop of saliva, a golf ball overtaking the Titanic. It’s a cosmic whirlpool, absurd and holy at the same time.
Just as it reaches its outer limits, the verse lands exactly where it always meant to: “But He fits in my chest / And my chest occupies His love / And in His love I want to lose myself.” What begins as playful surrealism crystallizes into devotion, with the infinite collapsing into the intimate.
And then, almost too perfectly, Rosalía hands the microphone to Patti Smith because, well, of course she does. The interview excerpt used in “La Yugular” is from 1976 and operates as a thesis for the entirety of Lux. Smith rejects the idea of some neat seventh heaven, spits at the promise of The Doors’ “Break On Through (to the Other Side),” and then admits that love is the one thing that keeps generating more to reach for. It’s just a million doors, some leading to God, some to desire, some to hell. That’s Lux.
10. ON 2 SOMETHING – rochelle jordan
Just before “On 2 Something” kicks in on Rochelle Jordan’s immaculate Through The Wall, she offers a reminder that doubles as the album’s thesis: “don’t be afraid to take up space.” Then, the song kicks in and she takes off towards the center of the room.
Through The Wall is a body of work filled with stunning, rhythm-forward bangers that highlight both Jordan’s unmistakable voice and the finesse of her wide-ranging production partners. For an artist long celebrated for collaborations, this album is a decisive claim of authorship. She is at the center of every track, shaping the mood, the movement, and the emotional depth.
At the album’s midpoint, “On 2 Something” is where the party slips into its sexiest, most infectious territory. With Machinedrum guiding the production, Jordan’s voice flutters over handclaps and percussive thumps like it’s weightless. The groove is undeniable but controlled, landing somewhere between a dancefloor heater and a private invitation. It’s the rare kind of banger that could easily light up a packed club and soundtrack the quiet proximity of two people who shouldn’t be dancing as close as they are. It’s chorus is a suave melody of repeating syllables and sounds, with Machinedrum’s handclaps guiding the way. As we used to say, it is very hot.
Even without Rochelle Jordan raising her voice, “On 2 Something” will elicit ass shaking and ayyys from the crowd. In that way, the song crystallizes the confidence, sensuality, and impeccable craft of Through The Wall. It propels Jordan away from the margins of other people’s work and allows her to burst straight through the center of her own.
9. PARACHUTE – HAYLEY WILLIAMS
As a millennial, Hayley Williams means a lot to me. When I hear her voice, I feel seen in a way few artists can manage. This year’s surprise album Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party has several undeniable songs and presents Williams as an artist who may never have needed a band to validate her power in the first place. It is important in the alt-rock canon of the year, no matter how little fanfare the album arrived with.
Just as the album reaches its conclusion, Williams delivers “Parachute,” possibly her best song with or without bandmates in a decade. It has all the qualities associated with Williams: devastating candor, melodic bravado, and a sense of emotional combustion that never feels theatrical. The verses quiver with vulnerability while the chorus opens with a clarity that feels earned rather than ornamental. By the time the song reaches its guitar crushing bridge, we are all mid fall with her, suspended inside a feeling that is equal parts surrender and defiance.
“Parachute” is a reminder of why Hayley Williams became one of rock’s most beloved front-women. It confirms she still deserves the crown and that she is now wearing it on her own terms.
8. You Got Time & I Got Money – Smerz
Sometimes a band discovers a melody so juicy they just run it over and over into oblivion. That is exactly what happens on Smerz’s “You Got Time & I Got Money,” the bright centerpiece of the duo’s otherwise gloomy and feisty Big City Life. The song is so simple it becomes a reminder that less is often so much more.
Here, the rambling synth line loops like it is hypnotizing you, while the whisper-sung vocals drift in and out like a secret only half-told. The track holds your attention by refusing to change its shape too drastically, which is precisely why it works. It is the rare song that feels transferable across moods: falling in love, watching a sunset, driving home from the club, or gliding through your day with a tiny smirk because the world suddenly feels cinematic. It is a perfect loop you never want to break.
7. FROM – BON IVER
In a recent interview, Justin Vernon suggested SABLE, fABLE might be the final Bon Iver album. If that is true, “From” functions as an elegant bow for one of the century’s most transformative bands. Since pivoting into fractured electronica on 22, A Million, Bon Iver has continued to push further outward while preserving the vocal vulnerability that defined their earliest work. “From” continues that trajectory with remarkable ease.
When Vernon opens the bridge with “I am ready, run from fear,” it lands like the floor disappearing beneath you, making way for a final thirty seconds that belong among the most cathartic releases in their discography. The track gathers its emotional force quietly, then releases it in one perfect sweep. “From” isn’t the most celebrated or showy song on SABLE, fABLE, but it sits atop the album’s entire message. It is a culmination of Justin Vernon’s risks and reinventions, and potentially the last goodbye from a band that reshaped indie music in real time.
6. DOWN TO BE WRONG – HAIM
Danielle Haim not only knows how to write a devastating song, she knows how to sing it like her life depends on every syllable. “Down To Be Wrong” begins with a quiet proclamation of humility and sincerity, a calm that feels almost deceptive given what follows. Bit by bit, the track builds, each section leveling up from the one before it, slowly reintroducing the confident, come and get me attitude that HAIM taps into on their most enduring songs.
What makes “Down To Be Wrong” so striking is how fully it sketches the arc of a relationship. This is not simply a breakup song. It sets the table, establishes the stakes, foreshadows the end, and then grieves that end with a honesty that feels both grounded and theatrical. By the time the song reaches its final stretch, it has moved through longing, resignation, and a kind of hard won acceptance, all while Danielle’s vocal performance keeps sharpening the emotional knife.
This is a song built for communal release, even though its core is deeply personal. HAIM are masters at this genre of alt-pop and have been unwavering in their devotion to that release. And on an album titled I Quit, “Down To Be Wrong” functions as proof of why HAIM should keep going.
5. WHITE HORSES – WOLF ALICE
Wolf Alice should be the biggest band in the world. “White Horses” is their latest and most confident argument. Pulling threads from King Gizzard’s psych sprawl and Fleetwood Mac’s shimmering melodicism, it’s the kind of song that comes on in a bar and elicits a collective, “wait… what song is this?”
Its immediacy is undeniable, thanks partly to Ellie Rowsell’s singular voice but even more to her seamless vocal handoff with drummer Joel Amey. The last time these two shared a track was “Swallowtail” a decade ago and the chemistry remains pristine. It is as catchy as it is moving, with lyrics embedding themselves into your brain instantly. Wolf Alice have showcased this ability since the early days of their career with songs like “Bros,” but “White Horses” is an absolute masterclass in anthemic alt-rock.
On Blue Weekend, Wolf Alice insisted the music, “isn’t loud enough.” With “White Horses,” they suggest that volume was never really the issue. What matters is precision, confidence, and a band firing at full power.
4. DELETE – NINAJIRACHI
There is a tremendous amount of power in the vulnerability at the center of Ninajirachi’s “Delete.” It captures a very modern, slightly deranged impulse: posting something solely so one person can see it, then deleting it minutes later. It is the kind of behavior almost everyone recognizes but almost no one articulates. “Delete” does it without blinking.
Among the many highlights on I Love My Computer, “Delete” stands out because of how directly it describes that emotional spiral. There is no metaphor and no distancing. It is digital confession. The production intensifies the feeling, building massive synth walls, bright melodic shards, and euphoric bursts reminiscent of early Porter Robinson. The track moves at broadband speed, mirroring the psychological whiplash of its subject matter.
The result is a confession turned into a data supernova. “Delete” converts passive listeners into fans because it does more than just document a digital behavior. Ninajirachi translates it into a club track, a diary entry, and a glitch in the emotional matrix all at once.
3. TONIGHT – PINKPANTHERESS
It’s simple: you want to have sex with PinkPantheress. “Tonight” is just her politely asking what’s taking so long. The centerpiece of her perfect Fancy That mixtape, the track instantly breaks away from her signature minimalism, which often breeds sameness across her catalog. With “Tonight,” any question about whether PinkPantheress could transcend the TikTok hit with Ice Spice narrative disappears. She absolutely can, and she already has.
With its dubby bounce, cheeky percussion, and Pink’s impossibly warm vocal tone, “Tonight” feels like a whisper disguising a demand. The verses twist your diction and the chorus commands your hips. It’s a reminder that her power lies not in volume but in specificity: every choice is clean and intentional, yet fully intoxicating.
More importantly, “Tonight” is evidence of a maturing pop architect. This is an artist who knows exactly how to design a hook, shape a mood, and keep you pressing repeat. PinkPantheress is here to stay. While she’s here, you might as well move with her.
2. SNC – DARKSIDE
We have come a long way since Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington smashed their oversized mirror at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 2014. That performance had so much mythology baked into it that Darkside could have disappeared entirely and still remained electronic legends. Instead, they made a decent record in 2021 and returned triumphantly this year with “SNC,” the lead single from their shockingly catchy third album Nothing.
Built around a warped sample of Duke Jupiter’s “Rock ’n’ Roll Band,” “SNC” stretches and obliterates the source material until it becomes something entirely wild and untethered. A funk-bass crescendo linked with Jaar’s spectral, half-whispered vocals keeps building until it feels like nothing could withstand its weight, leading to an anti-drop back in the simple bassline. It’s a devilish reminder of what kind of band Darkside is. They have never delivered with this sort of pop sensibility, which may alienate some of the band’s more self-serious fans. Nevertheless, “SNC” remains as ecstatic as it does haunted.
This duality is the heart of Darkside. The song is a groovy, disorienting, and weirdly soulful reminder of Darkside’s ability to make dance music that unsettles and seduces at the same time. “SNC” and Nothing are bold articulations of the band’s mission: haunt the mind while moving the body.
1. Abracadabra – lady gaga
It is striking that the phrase “dance or die,” the ethos hoisted by Lady Gaga throughout the Mayhem era, never actually appears in “Abracadabra.” Because “Abracadabra” has everything. Bloody Beetroots-style cataclysmic beat drop? Check. House piano? Check. Catchy pre-chorus? Check. Viral-dance-ready post-chorus? Check. Acid bass? Check. Opera? Check. Gibberish? Check.
Yet none of it is superfluous. All of it is structural.
The urgency Gaga carried into the making of Mayhem, her best since 2011’s Born This Way, is on full display here. She pulls from the melodic directness of her debut, infuses it with the industrial edges of Born This Way, slams those instincts into the pain that shaped Chromatica, and welds the collision into something unmistakably fresh.
“Abracadabra” breathes like machinery coming alive. Metallic percussion ticks at your ribs, acid bass snarls under the surface, and the house piano keeps trying to burst out of its cage. Everything is engineered for lift-off and by the time the post-chorus detonates, Gaga sounds like she's conducting a storm.
For over a decade, Lady Gaga has been trying to reestablish her voice inside the mainstream pop ecosystem she once defined. In that time, the mainstream machine drifted toward arena-rap bombast, stomp-clap country anthems, and high-gloss diary entry emotionality. Gaga tried her best, but she is none of those things. Her clearest reintroduction came in 2018, when A Star Is Born’s “Shallow” delivered a once-in-a-generation power ballad that won her every award under the sun and a legion of middle-aged fans. Then came 2020’s Chromatica, a glossy but incomplete reset, and last year’s disastrous Joker: Folie à Deux. A real 2025 Lady Gaga comeback required one of the greatest songs of her career. More importantly, it had to be the most Gaga she’s ever sounded.
“Abracadabra” is that song. Many popstars could try to make a song like this, but only Gaga can make you obsessed with a chorus delivered entirely in a gibberish hex. Its success is result of how rigorously the track is built, from the calculated repetition to the percussive vocal delivery to the harmonic bed of live and digital instruments. Through it all, Gaga’s theatricality gives the ridiculous wordplay a strange, aching humanity. She turns nonsense into musical logic. It becomes the hook.
And that is the spell of “Abracadabra.” Once it starts, you have two options: dance or die.
