2024 was a historic year for music, with Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” tying Lil Nas X’s record for longest-running Billboard Hot 100 No. 1. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” put the recording ...

From tear-jerkers to mic-drops, NPR's music critics share the 2025 lyrics that made them laugh, cry and hit replay. Right about now, music critics are sharing their favorite albums of the year or ...

Every June, the Paste Music crew tallies up the best songs of the year so far. It’s a great way to present our favorites to you, but also to each other. This list is a snapshot of our favorite tracks ...

In the following list, Stereogum's staff and contributors attempt to make sense of all those competing impulses to determine the best and brightest tracks of 2025. Boiling a whole year down to 50 ...

If you were hoping for the pop madness of 2024 to slow down and start making sense: good luck, babe! Because there has never, ever, been a pop year like the hot-not-pretty mess that was 2024. Week to ...

NPR Music critics reflect on the lyrics that captured the year's mood, sparked emotions and stayed with them long after the music stopped. Lyrics of a song can reach us in ways that no other speech ...

The best songs of 2025 worked admirably toward the daunting task of attempting to describe what it feels like to be alive in the unpredictability matrix of the mid-’20s. Songwriters expressing pangs ...