What happened to music last year? This is a question that has been asked by people after the recent 68th Grammy Awards. After rising viewership between 2021 and 2024, the number of views for this year’s Grammys dropped by a million after an already substantial drop last year. This is a sign that many no longer care to tune into the award shows for popular music. People were not spurred on to see if their favorite artist, album, or song was going to win. There was a general sense of apathy surrounding the whole affair. The official awards seem to have been replaced by popular consensus around the official categories instead. It no longer matters what album wins “Album of the Year;” what matters is what the public views as the “Album of the Year.”
This leads to an important question: what was the “Song of 2025?” If the Grammy Awards no longer determine success, what song was determined best by popular consensus? The concept of the “Song of the Year” has been propagated over social media sites such as TikTok and Instagram, partially as a result of a lack of trust in award shows and their voters. Many recent scandals have revealed that voters for many of the prestigious award shows haven’t properly engaged with the media they are voting on before casting their ballot. The people’s “Song of the Year” is not always the most popular song on the Billboard, but it is a song that is seen by the majority of young people as encompassing the “vibe” of the year. This unofficial title is not necessarily about the quality or complexity of the music, but more about the way the song makes the listener feel.
There is an official “Song of the Year” title awarded every year at the Grammys. The songs nominated from 2024, technically in 2025, included “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish, “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar, and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozy. These songs had massive appeal upon release and are still widely played. “Not Like Us” even had a major moment with Lamar’s performance at the 2025 Super Bowl. All of these songs had listeners advocating for them to win both the Grammy and the public’s consensus as the “Song of 2024.” However, the popular consensus for the “Song of 2024” was surrounding the album “Brat” by Charli XCX. While many still argue over which song off the album “Brat” was THE song of 2024, this popular perception of “Brat” as a very important cultural moment of 2024 was also displayed through the album’s nine nominations and three wins.
“Brat” was a cultural phenomenon. “Not Like Us” was so popular that the halftime show seemed to capture more attention than the actual Super Bowl game. “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” the album that featured the song “Birds of a Feather,” was a deeply emotional piece of art that captured the attention of the public. Each of these albums/songs had major impacts on the culture of the time and caused some sort of uproar around their releases. Looking at the songs nominated for “Song of the Year” from 2025, the same thing cannot be said. While songs like “APT.” by Rosé and Bruno Mars, “Anxiety” by Doechii and, the winner of the category, “Wildflower” by Billie Eilish, each had their moments in the sun, none created the cultural phenomenon that the nominations for 2024 did. At the same time, “APT.” was originally released in 2024, “Anxiety” in 2019, only rerecorded in 2025, and “Wildflower” in 2024. This does qualify the songs for consideration at the 2026 Grammys, but it doesn’t make them songs of 2025.
Moving beyond the Grammys and public debate around a “Song of 2025,” there is still little buzz surrounding much of the music released in 2025. Of the Billboard Top 100 in 2024, exactly 49 of the 100 songs were released in 2024, 43 in 2023, and eight were released before 2023. Of the Billboard Top 100 of 2025, 49 of the songs were released in 2024, 45 in 2025, and six before 2024. While, at first glance, these numbers seem relatively similar, the similarities between the numbers actually demonstrate the problem. In both 2024 and 2025, exactly 49 of the 100 songs were released in 2024. This means that the music of 2024 retains the same level of cultural relativity as it did in 2024, signaling that the music of 2025 didn’t grip the public in a meaningful way. This problem is only further demonstrated by zooming in on the top 10 songs of the Billboard Top 100. In 2024, seven of the 10 songs were released in 2024. In 2025, only one of the 10 songs was released in 2025.
Nothing demonstrates the failure of the music of 2025 more than “The Life of a Showgirl” by Taylor Swift. For years, it seemed like Swift’s music was entirely immune to criticism. Every release was praised. Swift’s last three releases all had positive reviews. “The Tortured Poets Department,” released in 2024, was given four out of five stars by The Guardian, “Midnights,” released in 2022, was given five stars by the same outlet, and “Evermore,” released in 2020, was given four stars once again. While the reviews weren’t always completely positive, they remained in favor of the albums. The same can not be said about The Guardian’s review of “The Life of a Showgirl,” which they gave only two stars. In The Guardian’s review, written by Alexis Petridis, Petridis stated, “There are albums for which vast success seems preordained, and then there is The Life of a Showgirl.” If the princess of pop couldn’t find the right mix of lyrics and instrumentals to make her fan girls happy, who could?
Every year, there are articles that come out declaring this the WORST YEAR FOR MUSIC EVER. What these articles ignore is that there is music beyond the Billboard Top 100. There was good music released in 2025, no matter what the world of mainstream music is up to. There will always be small to small-ish artists working hard to release music that they are deeply proud of. Some of these artists and songs include “Yesterday Repeats” by Blake Rouse, “Fable” by Gigi Perez, and “One Thing” by Lola Young. No matter what the state of popular music is, there will always be something released that is worth listening to. There were also great songs released by mainstream artists, like “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga and “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter, even if they were few and far between.
2025 was not a good year for popular music. That is a fact that cannot be ignored. The Billboard was static, the Grammys featured very few songs and albums actually released in 2025, and even major pop stars released flops. However, the world of music, much like the real world, cannot be reduced to what the loudest people are doing. Songs that still have fewer than 100,000 listens are going unnoticed on whatever music streaming website you decide to use. The failures of mainstream music do not mean one should give up and only listen to music from before, although you should listen to old music because music doesn’t expire. This should be a sign to all that the concentration of fame and attention to the same dozen or so pop stars leads to stagnation in the industry. It is a sign to uplift the voices of artists that often go unheard. It is a sign to dig through the thousands of artists who are currently releasing music to find someone new to listen to.
A lot of the pop stars that are propped up now are the same people who have been in the limelight our entire lives. Taylor Swift released her first album in 2006, the year many of us were born in. Sabrina Carpenter gained fame for the first time in 2014, over a decade ago, when she starred on the show “Girl Meets World.” Even Tyler the Creator released his first album in 2009. While these artists have been around for a long time, they have earned their places in the music industry, to varying degrees. The need to uplift new musicians doesn’t mean one has to stop listening to the people who have brought them joy in the past. What it does mean is that one shouldn’t be listening to 525,600 minutes of the same artist every year.
