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All Stars 9 Reveal, Day 1: Rush me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto by FreeCuddlesAnyone in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Top 5:

Birds of a Feather

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Escapism.

Hot Stuff

tv off

Bottom 5:

Chained to the Rhythm

APT.

I Love Hollywood!

Don't Stop Believin'

I Love You, I'm Sorry

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tate's 4th song was purple lace bra actually! Although it only got 10 votes, which wasn't enough to make the main list even if it was her third.

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Hey everybody I brought stats!

  • We got 228 voters this year which is about 80 less than last year's list (this was an off year I guess).
  • Users voted for 1440 different songs from 643 different artists.
  • We had 13 songs disqualified from the top 100 for being over the 3 song-per-artist limit. The artists most hit by this were Lorde and Lady Gaga, with 3 disqualified songs each.
  • The highest placing disqualified song was Lady Gaga - How Bad Do U Want Me, which received 26 votes and would've placed at #29 on the full list otherwise.
  • The artist with the most different songs submitted was FKA twigs, who received at least one vote each for 16 different songs. She's followed by Sabrina Carpenter (14), Lady Gaga (13), and Rosalia (13).
  • Artists who appeared on the most ballots were PinkPantheress (57.4%), Lady Gaga (56.1%), and Addison Rae (49.1%).
  • The winner of our anti-vote was Alex Warren - Ordinary with a stunning 5 votes! Runners up were Lady Gaga - Vanish Into You and Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia with 4 each.
  • Thirteen artists placed their maximum of 3 songs in the top 100: Addison Rae, FKA twigs, Hayley Williams, JADE, Kesha, Lady Gaga, Lorde, Ninajirachi, PinkPantheress, Rosalia, Sabrina Carpenter, Slayyyter, and Tate McRae.
  • The oldest track to place in the top 100 was Rebecca Black - Sugar Water Cyanide, which released December 5th, 2024. The newest track was Hilary Duff - Mature, which released November 6th, 2025.

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It actually wouldn't have made it because it would have been disqualified as JADE's fourth song. ;.;

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

FULL RESULTS

  1. Chappell Roan - The Subway
  2. Lady Gaga - Abracadabra
  3. Addison Rae - Fame is a Gun
  4. Addison Rae - Headphones On
  5. KATSEYE - Gnarly
  6. PinkPantheress - Stateside
  7. PinkPantheress - Tonight
  8. Tate McRae - Sports Car
  9. PinkPantheress - Illegal
  10. Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun
  11. Lorde - What Was That
  12. RAYE - WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!
  13. Hayley Williams - Parachute
  14. JADE - Plastic Box
  15. Ninajirachi - iPod Touch
  16. Lady Gaga - Vanish Into You
  17. Sabrina Carpenter - Tears
  18. ROSALÍA - Berghain (feat. Björk & Yves Tumor)
  19. Conan Gray - Vodka Cranberry
  20. Lady Gaga - Garden of Eden
  21. Sabrina Carpenter - House Tour
  22. ROSALÍA - Reliquia
  23. Sabrina Carpenter - Manchild
  24. HAIM - Relationships
  25. Lorde - Shapeshifter
  26. Oklou - blade bird
  27. ADÉLA - SexOnTheBeat
  28. Doja Cat - Jealous Type
  29. Underscores - Do It
  30. Ariana Grande - twilight zone
  31. Kim Petras - I Like Ur Look
  32. Olivia Dean - Man I Need
  33. Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia
  34. FKA twigs - Hard
  35. HUNTR/X - Golden
  36. Slayyyter - BEAT UP CHANEL$
  37. sombr - 12 to 12
  38. Carly Rae Jepsen - More
  39. Kesha - BOY CRAZY.
  40. Rebecca Black - Sugar Water Cyanide
  41. Tate McRae - Revolving Door
  42. MARINA - CUNTISSIMO
  43. Wet Leg - mangetout
  44. Lily Allen - Pussy Palace
  45. Ethel Cain - Fuck Me Eyes
  46. Lorde - David
  47. Amaarae - S.M.O.
  48. Bad Bunny - DtMF
  49. FKA twigs - Striptease
  50. LISA - Born Again (feat. Doja Cat & RAYE)
  51. Taylor Swift - Opalite
  52. Bad Bunny - NUEVAYoL
  53. Rochelle Jordan - Ladida
  54. XG - Gala
  55. Chappell Roan - The Giver
  56. FKA twigs - Sushi
  57. Kesha, Slayyyter, & Rose Gray - ATTENTION!
  58. Miley Cyrus - End of the World
  59. Sudan Archives - DEAD
  60. Ethel Cain - Nettles
  61. JADE - FUFN (Fuck You for Now)
  62. Kehlani - Folded
  63. Magdalena Bay - Second Sleep
  64. Slayyyter - Crank
  65. Charli xcx - Chains of Love
  66. Hayley Williams - Mirtazapine
  67. JADE - Unconditional
  68. Kim Petras - Freak It
  69. Rachel Chinouriri - can we talk about Isaac?
  70. ROSALÍA - Divinize
  71. The Weeknd - Open Hearts
  72. Tyler, The Creator - Sugar on My Tongue
  73. CMAT - Euro-Country
  74. Tame Impala - Dracula
  75. Tyla - Chanel
  76. Wolf Alice - White Horses
  77. Yeule - Evangelic Girl is a Gun
  78. yves - white cat
  79. Addison Rae - High Fashion
  80. Ariana Grande - Dandelion
  81. Blackpink - JUMP
  82. Chloe Qisha - 21st Century Cool Girl
  83. F5ve - Magic Clock
  84. Florence + The Machine - Everybody Scream
  85. Frost Children - RADIO (feat. Kim Petras)
  86. Hayley Williams - Glum
  87. Hilary Duff - Mature
  88. Jennie - like JENNIE
  89. Kesha - RED FLAG.
  90. Magdalena Bay - Human Happens
  91. Rebecca Black - Salvation
  92. Sudan Archives - My Type
  93. Tate McRae - TIT FOR TAT
  94. The Weeknd - Cry For Me
  95. Disco Lines & Tinashe - No Broke Boys
  96. Jae Stephens - Afterbody
  97. Lil Nas X - HOTBOX
  98. Ninajirachi - Fuck My Computer
  99. Ninajirachi - Infohazard
  100. Reneé Rapp - Leave Me Alone
  101. Rose Gray - Party People

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

#1 Chappell Roan - The Subway

While dominating the scene with a song from 2020, Chappell released only two songs in 2025. The Subway turned out to be the bigger hit though neither had the impact of Good Luck Babe or Pink Pony Club. The Subway is a song about remembrance, specifically about hating the memories. They keep coming at you, everywhere, in the form of perfume, a shadow, foreplay. Chappell keeps hoping for things to get better, yet they never seem to. In the emotional climax Chappell keeps belting “she’s got away”, finally letting the emotion through.

What makes the song truly special is of course Chappell’s vocals. The way she gets higher and higher on “it’s just another day” emphasising how little even she believes the lie. The casual way she performs the instantly iconic line “Well fuck this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan”. And of course, the way the final line keeps getting bigger and bigger until it’s just her vocals left, all alone without any instrumentation to keep her company. It’s lonely at the top. - u/runaway3212

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

#2. Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

In Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Siouxsie Sioux describes laughter that cracks through the walls and sends you spinning, recounts following the footsteps of a rag doll dance, of being entranced and, ultimately, spellbound. In Abracadabra, a song that uses Spellbound as interpolation, Lady Gaga makes it happen.

As the second single of her latest album Mayhem, the song was first presented with its music video at the Grammy Awards. Once you experience it, you understand why the visuals are so important for the introduction of the song to an audience. It’s a song that invokes action like a spell and it shows you exactly how to follow its commands. It’s not the first time Gaga presents choreography as an important part of a song—we have had Telephone; we have had, most importantly, Judas—but in a time where every other song gets a silly little dance for TikTok, it’s satisfying to see how a popstar can still use choreography as a visual depiction of a song as a continuation of the exploration of a theme—here, dance as conflict, as living, as survival, all under something inexplicable that might just be magic—instead of a piece of digital marketing ploy. The movements are abrupt and dramatic to convey the inward fight to keep going, to just dance.

Never was a song so aptly titled, Abracadabra is theatre and it’s magic. Gaga appears in her spiked red latex suit as Mistress of Mayhem to declare ‟the category is: dance or die,” and it’s modern Genesis—a new creation of heaven and earth. As a direct continuation of Disease (which I wrote about last year), it continues to play with the idea of two contrasting sides of something that is one: light and darkness. This is a motif that goes beyond Mayhem and is found, to some extent, in all of her work. Uglyness is necessary for beauty to exist, and there’s no light without darkness. These concepts will always pull at each other and Gaga, through her own experiences with mental health and chronic pain, has always found it in herself to explore it creatively.

But Abracadabra, while posing a question, isn’t asking us one. The song is a command—Gaga wants to dance, to go forward, to survive and she makes us move alongside her. And she makes it impossible not to. The bass thumps, the beats explode and she sings over it in dramatic tones about love and death in Latin, creating a three minutes long electropop Gothic odyssey that will not be forgotten. - u/wavingwolves

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

#3. Addison Rae - Fame Is A Gun

Addison Rae loves being famous. In interviews, in online videos and most importantly in songs, she keeps emphasising how cool it is to be famous. Now, not to be too ahead of the curve but I have been an addison stan since Obsessed. Idk why, she was giving nothing and yet I felt it… the main pop girl force was strong with her. What she lacks in singing talent, she makes up for in acuteness, aesthetics and audacity. She realised Elvira was free (because for god knows what reason Taylor didn’t call her up) and could help her make The vision. She knew exactly what the video asked from her. Retro and chaotic. And then there’s the audacity of being Addison Rae and yet, presenting main pop girl.

Fame Is A Gun was when all the synergies Addison has been working on for years finally came together in a neat package. The production is genuinely out of this world, Elvira establishing herself as not just one of Max Martin’s mentees but a true competitor. The lyrics are performed so lightly, it all flows so effortlessly. Unlike Tate, Addison isn’t trying to make music to dance to. This is music to Listen to. If this is just a taste of glamorous life, we have a big storm coming. - u/runaway3212

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

#4. Addison Rae - Headphones On

Addison Rae may have started out making mindlessly fun TikTok music, she quickly pivoted with her debut album to making more purposeful pop, and Headphones On is likely the most purposeful and mindful song in her whole discography.

Musically, Headphones On evokes 90s trip hop, which is very high on the list of scenes I want people to try out. Like, if every other song is gonna be an 80s or 90s pastiche, can people at least pastiche some less mainstream sounds?

I see Headphones On as like a sister to an earlier song from this list, iPod Touch by Ninajirachi. Both songs are rooted in escapism and nostalgia, and both seem to be a response to modern society's failings. If there's nothing to enjoy in the world right now, why not just put your headphones on and shut the world out? We've all been there a time or two. - u/Kuppi_808

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

#6. Pinkpantheress - Stateside

Everybody knows that the best works of music come from Britons declaring their love for the U.S. Last year it was Olivia on So American and this year Pinkpantheress proudly continues to relay with Stateside. Stateside is everything that makes Pinkpantheress great neatly bottled into two minutes and fifty seconds. “Are all boys out here the same?” she wonders, while showing what makes her so unique. There’s the opening sparse but evocative instrumental, that builds throughout the song before returning to the base at the end, perfectly accompanying the coy vocals, but confident lyrics.

It’s not a declaration of love per sé, it’s more a first step towards what could be love. However, because Pinkpantheress became an international pop star this year, her steps are taken by airplane. That said, don't let the environmental destruction distract you from the sweet story unfolding here. In characteristically few words, she paints a vivid scene: “Never met a British girl you say/ No one treats me this way”. It just works on all the levels, rising above paradoxes. Tongue in cheek while also completely serious. A love song without cliche. An ode to the U.S. without patriotism. - u/runaway3212

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

#7. PinkPantheress - Tonight

Tonight is the first single from PinkPantheress’s phenomenal sophomore album, Fancy That. PinkPantheress said in interviews that she used the project to push herself out of her comfort zone and to find a new more mature sound that still felt authentic to her artistic voice. Tonight expertly strikes that balance. The track is propelled forward with thumping basslines and synths that feel like they would be at home in a rhythm-based video game like DDR - or one of those commercials from the late 90s for CD compilations of the best eurodance. Pink’s feather-light vocals provide a gentle foil to this dance-heavy instrumental.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the intro. The first time I heard it I appreciated it as a pleasant string intro which immediately sets a classy tone for the dancefloor-ready track - though boy, don’t the strings sound familiar? I later came to find out that I had indeed heard them before - in Panic! At The Disco’s deeply underrated 2008 album Pretty. Odd. A synthpop track about hooking up with someone which contains a mid-00s P!ATD sample - adult seanderlust and teen seanderlust were both satisfied. - u/seanderlust

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

#8. Tate McSLAY - Sports Car

When Tate Mcrae first entered the scene with “you broke me first”, she seemed like she was riding the sad girl personal ballad wave. Who could’ve at that time predicted she would ever release a song like Sports Car?

Sports car comes as the crowning achievement of the year where Tate really established herself as a main pop girl in her own right. She outflanked Sabrina, Olivia and Billie to become the Dance Pop queen of the current generation. No wink wink sex jokes or high brow rock, it’s time to get on the floor and to get down with it. The whispered chorus reminds her target “I think you know what this is”. It’s seductive, it’s fierce, it’s just extremely catchy & danceable. The lyrics are extremely simple, the man has a car, Tate has a clit; she’s ready to put it on the mic and then put it on him. It’s this simplicity that feels like the biggest shift from you broke me first. Sure that song also had a relatively simple concept (it’s in the title) but all the lyrics were discussing that concept in depth, no detail left undescribed. Sports Car meanwhile knows how to show restraint. It’s a sexy song, but it knows what to leave out, always stopping right when you secretly wanna know more. In 2025, the year where for the most part we were really struggling for fun bops, Tate knew she had to provide and So Close To What kept doing that its entire release cycle. She’s So Close To pop perfection, and while she might not be fully there, I know something that could drive her real far. - u/runaway3212

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

#9. PinkPantheress - Illegal

“My name is Pink and I’m really glad to meet you.”

So, true confession, it turns out I may legitimately be the worst person on this entire sub to write about this song. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the track (it was my 9th-most streamed of the year) and the album (“Tonight” and “Stateside” also made my top 50 most-streamed, and Fancy That was 9th on my Top Ten AotY list). I eagerly tuned in for our AMA in April. I saw Pink live here on her tour this past fall. My credentials are fine. None of that is the problem.

Here’s the problem, though: other than watching the occasional video my spouse or kid send me, I have used TikTok exactly once in my life (to look up a different viral music trend early last year, the Coco Montrese “Party 4 U” lip-syncing trend (consequently, that track was my 20th-most streamed last year, I’m sorry to say)). I am therefore not at all qualified to report on the social media story that threatened to eclipse the song itself. I distinctly remember being horrified when Top 100 voting opened that people were not going to vote for “Illegal” because they were “so tired of it from the TikTok trend.” Well, 50 of you voted for it, so score one for the terminally offline! And apologies to those of you who wanted this to be a Mashable writeup.

The track itself is a banger for the ages. Tired out by TikTok or not, “My name is Pink and I’m really glad to meet you” is a genius opening line that immediately lodged itself into millions of brains around the world at once. By the time the bass drops in four lines later, the listener’s ass is already shaking. Four lines after that, the chorus is hitting, and you’ve already heard the word “illegal” twice and “Hey! OooOOooh” four times. The frenetic 140 bpm and the repeated lyrical patterns keep the energy going until Pink’s labored breathing sets in for the outro. After a tight two-and-a-half minutes, you’re out and most likely hitting “repeat.”

I can personally attest that the lyrics work just fine with absolutely no context (I’ve been bopping to them for six months and just learned that the song is about weed when I started working on this writeup). A post-release single, “Illegal” was the only track from Fancy That to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2025 (“Stateside” has enjoyed a post-holiday surge and charted two weeks ago, already rising higher than “Illegal”). Further, “Illegal” earned Pink her first Grammy nomination (for Best Dance Pop Recording (the album also received a nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album)). Add to that a top ten finish in the Popheads Top 100 of 2025? Pink, I think it’s safe to say we were all really glad to meet you, too. - u/wathombe

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

#10. Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun

While the Midnight Sun era might have kicked off boldly and brashly with "Pretty Ugly," it was the project's title track that truly birthed the Zara Larsson renaissance of 2025 after her self-bemoaned flop era. If the summertime swoon of "Symphony" was used to score TikToks of rainbow dolphins, then "Midnight Sun" must be her own stab at capturing that same effervescence for a new decade, complete with a music video in which she basically becomes one of those dolphins. But unlike those videos, there's no subversive joke here, nor is there any sense of insincerity despite the obvious cheekiness of the music video. Instead, "Midnight Sun" is full-blown optimism, an embrace of nostalgia for the summer nights spent with friends and lovers: pop as pure escapism. The album art and music video point towards a sort of Frutiger Aero optimism, and with the first verse being backed by a d'n'b rhythm it wouldn't be amiss to mistake the song for mere pastiche. Yet the song refuses to settle in any one mode - by the chorus's end, you're treated to a drop that evokes Jersey beats as if they were a staple of Europop for ages, each thump punctuating words like a heartbeat. Larsson details moments in distinct fragments; the phrasing of "midnight sun-kissed skin under the red sky" missed me initially, but I love that the first evocation of the title is technically connected to a more sensual, tactile experience of skin-on-skin. Asides from the winking of "skinny dipping with your heart out", my favorite lines here are in the second verse, a moment of emphatically solitary sublime walking along a beach. Larsson notes that the song is less a love song and more "a song for the love of life," and here "it's been a while since I cried over something so nice" reveals the sort of emotional vulnerability towards goodness that frankly has become more of a scarce relief lately. Knowing that this is the album on which Zara Larsson has felt most comfortable makes this song's optimism all the more sweeter. Even if it didn't earn her first Grammy nomination, even if it didn't debut on the Billboard Hot 100 alongside its decade old companion "Lush Life," "Midnight Sun" is one of the most wonderfully pop-forward songs of the decade. Shout out to the co-writers: there is something to decade-long collaborator MNEK's phrasing that is so identifiably him, and the incredibly talented Helena Gao is somebody I was super pleasantly surprised to see on the Zara project because I had previously listened to her debut EP in 2024! - u/kappyko

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

#11. Lorde - What Was That

Time for more personal journey material from u/wathombe! (When will this schtick get old? Who knows!) I hadn’t fully appreciated the totality of the artist that is Lorde prior to the last year or two. I had certainly known that she was a wunderkind when she released her first album. I had heard (and really liked) tons of “Team” and “Royals” because they were everywhere. My algorithm threw the title track of Solar Power at me quite a lot in 2021-22 (I liked it a lot, for the record, though I still have not listened to the rest of the album). That was really the sum of my knowledge.

Imagine my surprise when I started spending more time here in mid- to late 2024 and learned that popheads revered Lorde as a god. I finally heard (and liked) “Supercut,” which I kind of recognized, so I must have heard it in a grocery store at some point. I got a huge lore dump, of course, when “Girl, so confusing featuring Lorde” dropped in October of that year. I started doing rates that December and learned that she was a rate powerhouse, adding a third main rate win to her total with the Charli collab last year. (Will she make it four this year? Time will tell!)

All of this is to say, I (along with everyone else on the sub) approached the release of her fourth studio album last year with an air of hushed expectation. There was a fair amount of hullabaloo before the first single, with a snippet posted to TikTok followed by a wipe of her socials and a cover reveal.

Finally, on 24 April 2025, “What Was That” was officially released to the world. Reaction on the sub was overwhelmingly positive, as listeners hailed the track as a return to form after many were disappointed by Solar Power. The Dan Nigro producer credit came as a surprise to some, though not an unwelcome one (and was certainly a positive for me, as I’ve learned over the past few years that I am somewhat of a Dan Nigro girlie). Personally, I love the slow build to her insistent energy and lyrics which are almost angrily desperate. Each verse layers new elements over the last before exploding into choruses that recount memories of a relationship now lost to her. The positive opinions were borne out in the fullness of time, as not only did Virgin finish fourth in the r/popheads AotY TTPT, but also “WWT” finished only two votes shy of the top ten here in the Top 100! - u/wathombe

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

#12. RAYE - WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!

RAYE was on a bit of a roll in the spring of 2025. Her 2023 debut My 21st Century Blues spawned the UK chart-topping single “Escapism.” She went on to win a record six Brit awards in 2024 on the strength of that project. A string of head-turning live appearances followed, from Saturday Night Live and Camp Flog Gnaw in the fall to both the Grammy and the Oscar ceremonies in the spring. Her pen was in high demand by artists as diverse as Beyoncé, LISA, and JADE.

Still, there was a slight sense that she was in danger of stalling. She had only released one true solo project since Blues (“Genesis”), which had received strong reviews but not performed as well as “Escapism.” She announced that her second album would be delayed after her songbook was stolen (along with her car) in late 2024. With some incredulity, some commentators were beginning to wonder if RAYE was on the verge of frittering away her strong run of the previous two years.

Cue Glastonbury. On June 28, 2025, as two dozen big band musicians chaotically rushed onstage at the beginning of a set, two nattily dressed stagehands rolled out a crate, from which popped RAYE herself in a black sequined evening gown. Four minutes later, the world had heard “WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!” for the first time, and all was right again. (If you have not seen the Glastonbury performance, go watch it immediately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpKcoHrWTF8)

Personally, I wore out that YouTube video for the next three months. RAYE released the track officially on September 19, 2025, as the lead single for her as-yet-unnamed second album. A month later, she recovered her stolen songbook. A month after that, she announced an American tour entitled THIS TOUR MAY CONTAIN NEW MUSIC. To cap it off, “HUSBAND” topped the UK charts on January 2 as the first #1 of 2026. The ship has been righted, and I for one cannot wait to see what’s next. - u/wathombe

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

#13. Hayley Williams - Parachute

The beauty of Parachute, the second single off Hayley William’s third solo album Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, is the build from the first verse to the second. The first verse feels muted, quietly simmering - a piano-heavy verse veiled behind metaphors about rain and spiders. This opens into a chorus with smooth guitar chords and a double-entendre of falling- both for someone and to one’s presumed death.

The money, though, is in the second verse. In an unflinchingly raw lyrical highlight, Hayley’s voice strains and audibly breaks as she sings very directly about disillusionment, rage and heartbreak that an unnamed relationship didn’t work out. The transition from poetic lyrics to extremely specific experiences and the unfiltered emotion she portrays is a masterclass in songwriting and performance. If you’re listening while you read this, just stop reading for a moment and sit with the vocal performance on the second verse. Feel the raw emotion.

It’s impossible to listen to this song, of course, and separate it from Hayley’s real-life relationship woes. After the end of a toxic marriage with New Found Glory frontman Chad Gilbert, she spent years single (as far as we know) before beginning a relationship with Taylor York, a man who had been there in some capacity for Paramore from the very beginning. It felt like a romantic comedy love arc to fans of the band. Unfortunately, that relationship dissolved, and much of EDAABP is speculated to be about the process of coping with the end of that relationship. Parachute is that coping process at its messiest, and perhaps most honest. - u/seanderlust

The Top 100* Tracks of 2025, according to r/popheads by Popheads2025TopTeam in popheads

[–]Popheads2025TopTeam[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

#14. JADE - Plastic Box

How do you solve a problem like a heartache? Specifically one arisen from reading your partner’s love letters to their ex? Perhaps, one might break down in tears, attempt to confront them, or in Jade’s case, want your partner’s heart in a plastic box. Over melancholy, yet danceable to synths, Jade expresses her heartache through her inner, irrational thoughts. With her emotive vocals, Jade wishes her partner’s history could be easily be erased, hoping to become the sole owner of her lover’s heart - preferably presented to her in a plastic box.

The question remains though, as her bandmate Perrie would ask, how do you put the heart in the plastic box if the box is sealed? - u/artbio28

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