Moving right along with the Best of 2025 lists, we have my favorite 100 songs of the year. Like years previous, I’ve ranked the top 10, and listed the following 90 in alphabetical order. I’ve also included the Tidal playlist you can stream all of them (minus Los Thuthanaka).

Truthfully I had a really hard time assembling a playlist of 100 songs I loved. I listened to a good bit of music this year, but struggled to find a surplus of songs that bowled me over. My top 10 songs of the bunch, listed at the bottom of the post, were constant obsessions, but pale in comparison to the euphoric highs of years previous.

I do think I carved out a specific enough niche that you’ll find some new songs or reconsider a few projects you may have overlooked. Hope you enjoy listening!

Warm Visions’ 90 Favorite Songs of 2025 (alphabetical):

Listen to the songs listed below via the Tidal playlist HERE.

1. ALEX G – “Afterlife”
2. AMAARAE – “Kiss Me Thru The Phone Pt. 2 (feat. PinkPantheress)”
3. AUTOMATIC – “Mercury”
4. BADBADNOTGOOD – “Found A Light (Beale Street) (feat. V.C.R.)”
5. BARKER – Force of Habit”
6. THE BETHS – “Metal”
7. BIG THIEF – “Los Angeles”
8. BILLY WOODS – “BLK XMAS (feat. Bruiser Wolf)”
9. BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD – “Happy Birthday”
10. BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW – “The Eyes In Season”
    ~~
11. BLOOD ORANGE – “Mind Loaded (feat. Caroline Polachek, Lorde & Mustafa)”
12. BURIAL – “Comafields”
13. CATE LE BON – “Heaven Is No Feeling”
14. CHAT PILE & HAYDEN PEDIGO – “Never Say Die!”
15. CLOTH – “Polaroid”
16. CROSS RECORD – “Cutting A Cake”
17. CRUSHED – “silene”
18. DANNY BROWN – “Copycats (feat. underscores)”
19. DESTROYER – “Bologna (feat. Fiver)”
20. DIJON – “HIGHER!”
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21. DJ KOZE – “Buschtaxi”
22. DJRUM – “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other”
23. DRUGDEALER – “Real Thing (feat. Weyes Blood)”
24. ELIANA GLASS – “Good Friends Call Me E”
25. EMILY HINES – “All Of Our Friends”
26. ERIKA DE CASIER – “The Chase”
27. FACS – “Sometimes Only”
28. FCUKERS – “I Like It Like That”
29. FEEO – “The Hammer Strikes The Bell”
30. FUSILIER – “Hello”
    ~~
31. GIANT CLAW – “Pulled Me in Dark”
32. HAAI – “Satellite (feat. Obi Franky, Jon Hopkins, ILĀ & Trans Voices)”
33. HANNAH FRANCES – “Falling From and Further”
34. HATCHIE – “Lose It Again”
35. HAYDEN PEDIGO – “All the Way Across”
36. HORSEGIRL – “Rock City”
37. JAMES K – “Blinkmoth (July Mix)”
38. JÁNA – “More to Life”
39. JANE REMOVER – “angels in camo”
40. JOANNE ROBERTSON – “Gown (feat. Oliver Coates)”
    ~~
41. JOHN GLACIER – “Nevasure”
42. JONNY NASH – “The Way Things Looked”
43. KEIYAA – “k.i.s.s.”
44. KELLY LEE OWENS – “132 Techno”
45. KELLY MORAN – “Cathedral”
46. KOKOROKO – “Sweetie”
47. LAWRENCE HART – “Hear Ur Heartbeat”
48. LAWRENCE HART – “U DO (feat. Mera Bhai)”
49. LEON VYNEHALL – “Cruel Love (feat. Beau Nox)”
50. LIVING HOUR – “Texting”
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51. LOS THUTHANAKA – “Huayño ‘Ipi Saxra'”
52. LUCRECIA DALT – “agüita con sal”
53. MALIBU – “Vanities”
54. MARIA SOMERVILLE – “Stonefly”
55. MASON LINDAHL – “Long Prowl, Underwater”
56. MEI SEMONES – “Tora Moyo”
57. MEN I TRUST – “Carried Away”
58. MEREBA – “White Doves”
59. MOMMA – “I Want You (Fever)”
60. NILÜFER YANYA – “Where To Look”
    ~~
61. NOURISHED BY TIME – “9 2 5”
62. OLI XL – “DRIFT REGALIA (feat. james K)”
63. PANDA BEAR – “Defense (feat. Cindy Lee)”
64. PHOEBE RINGS – “Fading Star”
65. PINKPANTHERESS – “Tonight”
66. PURELINK – “Kite Scene”
67. PURITY RING – “imanocean”
68. ROBYN – “Dopamine”
69. ROCHELLE JORDAN – “Bite The Bait”
70. SAINT ETIENNE – “Glad”
    ~~
71. SEXTILE – “Push Ups”
72. SILVANA ESTRADA – “Como Un Pájaro”
73. SMERZ – “But I do”
74. SNOCAPS – “Angel Wings”
75. SNUGGLE – “Sun Tan”
76. SOFIA KOURTESIS – “Unidos (feat. Daphni)”
77. SPELLLING – “Portrait of My Heart”
78. SUDAN ARCHIVES – “A BUG’S LIFE”
79. SWORD II – “Halogen”
80. TAN COLOGNE – “Cloud of Mirrors”
    ~~
81. TAPEWORMS – “Love and Pop”
82. TATE MCRAE – “Revolving Door”
83. TITANIC – “Escarbo dimensiones”
84. TOPS – “Call You Back”
85. TWO SHELL – “Clutch”
86. VENNA – “Twisting (feat. Leon Thomas)”
87. VERSES GT – “Forever (feat. KUČKA)”
88. WALT MCCLEMENTS – “On a Painted Ocean”
89. WATER FROM YOUR EYES – “Nights In Armor”
90. WEDNESDAY – “Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On)”

Warm Visions’ Top 10 Songs of 2025:

10. GEESE – “Trinidad”

“There’s a bomb in my car,” paired with its delivery, might be the most iconic lyric of the whole year, just saying. Definitely makes me feel like going ape in the Whole Foods when I’m listening to Geese on my iPhone in the Whole Foods buying my slop to Getting Killed. 

9. YHWH NAILGUN – “Pain Fountain”

This year has been akin to a pain fountain. Additionally, the aggressive, revving sounds that start around 1:10 are just perfect. Being shot to death via firing squad? Being electrocuted? Being pulverized into the Earth by divine forces? I’ll order the whole menu, thanks.

8. NINAJIRACHI – “iPod Touch”

A delicious confection that’s 2010-flavored, referencing late nights spent listening to music, searching for more on your computer, and generally holding adoration for this old piece of tech you molded your life around. 

7. CAROLINE – “Two riders down”

The emotional pinnacle of the new caroline record, with a gut-wrenching swell in dynamics throughout the length of the track. A busted up train, on fire, blasting into the station one last time.

6. GELLI HAHA – “Bounce House”

The world’s first taste of Gelli Haha was one of the best introductions an artist has likely ever taken. Along with its video, it immerses listeners and viewers into the Gelliverse, a primary-colored play place with a great bounce and a knack for becoming unfurled and messy. 

5. SAFE MIND – “Born To Love”

The line “are you gonna hold my hand, until I fade away? Turn into something grand, and make it last all day?” was immediately striking to me. You could use that line for an aging couple, or a relationship on its last legs. Or it could be an artist’s relationship with their fans: are they gonna support them even when the hype cycle turns off and they move on? Will they listen to their music for a whole day? Either way, not many songs reference “holding hands” anymore, a simple, tender interaction.

4. OKLOU – “blade bird”

My favorite melody and chorus of the year by far, instantly getting stuck in my head and transporting me back to a false past where I was listening to this song from a rogue mini-disc that I found on the ground one day after school. A digital bird flying in a digital sky, your hand reaching into the screen to feel the sweet, digital wind against your skin.

3. MEN I TRUST – “All My Candles”

Listen to this song to get immediate main character syndrome. This will really make you feel like the camera’s pointed right at you, with a gentle rain showering against your window as you sigh, rethinking your life’s path. A pleasant, warm bath of a song with hints of melancholy. Just what the doctor ordered.

2. SALAMI ROSE JOE LOUIS – “A pool to cry in (feat. Flanafi)”

Blame it on that deep, hypnotic organ that echoes throughout the song. Something about it resonates with such deep melancholy, and recalls threads of 1980s ambient greats like Hiroshi Yoshimura, with Salami Rose Joe Louis’ cooing vocals dusting the top of the mix. Not a song that many people heard this year since it’s buried near the end of a longer album, but it immediately caught my attention on first listen and has stuck with me since.

1. REAL LIES – “Wild Sign I Choose You”

One line from this song that sticks out to me, especially in the context of this list, is “I want to live in a 2020s film, where we find heroes in each other, cause we’re living in an age of none.” My favorites of the year, and it generally felt like music as a whole, lost its heroes to gather around. Sure we had Geese, Wednesday, Rosalía, and other critical darlings, but the natural gravity around those names hasn’t yet anchored. It feels like everything is on the razor’s edge of blowing away with the wind. Nothing is here to stay, or leaves an imprint of any meaningful way. It will all be forgotten, replaced in the night by the next “thing,” unnoticed by the general public. 

“Wild Sign I Choose You” is not that something that will break the forgetful, 9-month cycle of obsession that the consuming public has been forced into by our corporate overlords, but more a song that feels as though it’s skating along this fleeting feeling. For one it starts with a monologue about “knowing you’ll feel like being 17 forever,” a steadfast confirmation of values and mindset and awareness of self. It throbs with steady electronic beats, rocketing down a night highway with reckless abandon. With this sense of self cemented, why not fly into the vast unknown of feeling, releasing yourself from the cycles that generations fall into. Break through the hype, carve a path of your own, cultivate your own culture dipping into pools from all sorts of decades, styles, genres, ways of thinking. As our heroes decompose, we must adopt our own selves as such. Emblazon your heart with your wild sign, against the tidal waves of despair. 

Thank you for reading.