We listened to a lot of music in 2025. The Independent culture team’s collective Spotify age would rival Methuselah, as we took in everything from fresh-faced Gen-Z pop to veteran rock’n’roll. Our tastes were eclectic, too, with some of our number championing the critically maligned Swag by Justin Bieber, while also falling for our anointed Album of the Year, Rosalía’s Lux.
When it came to individual songs, things got even weirder. This is not a ranked list attempting to find the definitive “best” songs of 2025. Instead, this is a personalised collection of the tracks that really resonated with the culture team. Here are our favourites:
