After overall rankings and balance sheets, it is time to leave room for individual paths. In these playlists you will not necessarily find the “winners” of the year, but the sonic journeys that have inhabited our days: songs that have redefined a genre, discoveries born by chance or confirmations that have never abandoned us. It is a messy and sincere map of what has left its mark on our 2025, proposed not as absolute truth but as an invitation to explore new horizons. Hoping they will intrigue you as much as they have bewitched us!
Gabriele Benzing
There must be a leak somewhere in the plumbing of the world we've built. The water continues to rise and staying afloat becomes increasingly difficult. “We try to keep our heads above water”, sing King Hüsky, winking at the bittersweet flavor of early millennium indie-rock. We are in the middle of the shipwreck, like the protagonists of the last one concept album signed Mountain Goats: chased by the paranoia of the apocalypse, doing doomscrolling through our own lives. We are the sheriffs of “Eddington”, we are the beekeepers of “Bugonia”: perhaps it is the time of the flood, perhaps it is just the fear that takes our breath away as soon as we open our eyes.
And meanwhile reality is there in front of us, almost without us realizing it. “I went out looking for a real thing,” whispers Alex G, trying to evoke the ghost of Elliott Smith. “Didn't notice it was hanging by the door”. Reality is not the summary of our biography, nor is it the sum of our beliefs: we discover what we really are only by abandoning what we think we are. “There is a kindness in the loss of who I thought I'd be”, Jens Kuross' hymn to defeat confesses on the breath of the electric piano. We are the one who doesn't break when everything seems lost: “It's not broken, I'm not angry”, and Alan Sparhawk's wounded voice embraces his daughter's placid voice. We are the lumberjack-hermit of “Train Dreams” – “connected to it all”. Let's try to fix the pipes again.
Marco Bercella
Michele Corrado
There are so many musical genres and scenes, global and national, that today it is possible to follow and so many treasures that each of these areas holds, that with each passing year it becomes more difficult to produce a playlist that is concise and satisfying.
The only way to tackle such a mission is to impose stringent rules on yourself. In my case, otherwise I wouldn't finish it, a few years ago I said to myself “okay, 2023, only 23 songs”. Thus was born an inconsistent and uninhibited string of songs, which doesn't care about genres and limits, but only about beauty and rapid involvement.
What is coming to an end is 2025, so here are the 25 songs that captivated me the most this year.
Valerio D'Onofrio
Giuliano Delli Paoli
Certainly a chaotic year, elusive in terms of genres, geographies and variations, confirming a global period with a good probability of transition. However, wonders emerge from sometimes the most unthinkable places and at the hands of musicians submerged by time or by swamps. It's the year of the longed-for returns, of renewed country escapes or pop sophistications on the other side of the world. A year that was at times surreal, yet full of songs and records that were significant in their own way.
Claudio Fabretti
2025 was the golden year of Italian music. I rarely remember so many beautiful and important records like those we listened to from the various Andrea Laszlo De Simone, Carmen Consoli, Nero Kane, La Niña, Massimo Silverio, but also the same Lucio Corsi from Sanremo, plus Castelli, Dalila Kayros, Nowhere, Gaia Banfi, Deca and many others. My playlist tries to bring back some of the most memorable songs, in addition to the usual international overview, from Anna von Hausswolff, increasingly sovereign of the dark kingdom, up to revelations of the year such as Oklou, Maruja, Rún, Sophia Djebel Rose and expected and very welcome returns such as those of Swans, These New Puritans, Pulp and Stereolab.
Alberto Farinone
Never like this year have female voices dominated my listening. There are those who have looked to the Seventies – from the soft rock turn of Ellie Rowsell's Wolf Alice to the new wave references of Last Dinner Party and Sharon Van Etten – and those who have instead drawn heavily from Nineties: the indolent lo-fi of Horsegirl, the college rock of Momma, the return of riot grrrl thanks to Die Spitz, or singer-songwriter rock with a twist wing Blondshell Cranberries. Other rockers in skirts have grafted a strong country streak into theirs sound (from Wednesday to the more fluctuating HAIM), while there are also those who have chosen to go even further back in time, like the debuting New Eves, with their pagan punk-folk horror imagery.
There was no shortage of promising debuts (including the EP by the very young Irish Florence Road) and welcome reconfirmations, such as Wet Leg, grappling with the always insidious test of the second album. Among the most representative records of 2025 we cannot fail to mention at least Turnstile, with their most ambitious but also more accessible work to the general public, and the New Yorkers Geese, increasingly acclaimed by international critics. If you are a retromaniac in love with the Beatles and Big Star, do yourself a favor and listen to Sharp Pins, Kai Slater's solo project. And, speaking of nostalgia, they can also say they are satisfied aficionados of Britpop, pampered by the solid returns of Suede and Pulp.
Fabio Ferrara
Four hours of heterogeneous listening to accompany moments in motion (travel, commuting) or long waits which are moreover the dimension in which I happen to use playlists.
At the beginning I wanted the freshness of Peki Momes and the originality of Mohinder Kaur Bhamra, two songs that summarize the spirit of the selection well: curiosity, variety and a balance between lightness and character.
There is no shortage of protagonists of 2025, such as Geese, Maruja, Sam Fender, Sharon Van Etten, Viagra Boys and many others, but alongside them there are also small surprises and more personal discoveries.
The songs are grouped by assonance, following subtle threads of timbre, rhythm and atmosphere rather than by genre or provenance. To close, like every year, a roundup of Italian music, particularly successful this season.
Stefano Fiori
It was a year characterized by nostalgia for the 90s (and therefore for my adolescence), certainly due to the return of many illustrious names of Britpop but also to vaguely trip-hop sounds, from Jamie Woon to Lily Allen via FKA Twigs (here in her most impressive impersonation of Kate Bush). Plus 2025 gave me two of the most beautiful and swirling ones middle-eight like we haven't heard in a pop song for a long time (Rosalìa and Miley Cyrus).
Fabio Guastalla
Vassilios Karagiannis
You got a front row seat and I, I got a taste to the glamorous life.
A strange 2025 for a 2026 that would really like a little more glamour.
Claudio Lancia
This year I organized my work-in-progress-playlist into thematic chapters of five tracks each. Roughly the chapter titles could be the following:
1-5 – five different ways of being female pop
6-10 – angry girls playing rock music
11-15 – post-hardcore and surroundings
16-20 – electro euphoria pt. 1
21-26 – post-post-post-punk (here I put one more)
27-30 – rock & pop with female voices pt.1
31-35 – rock & pop with female vocals pt. 2
36-40 – Britpop & modern classics
41-45 – urban & nu-soul
46-51 – indie zone pt. 1
51-55 – indie zone pt. 2
56-60 – alt-country with intruder…
61-65 – electro women
66-70 – industrial & experimental
71-75 – pop ladies pt. 1
76-80 – electro euphoria pt. 2
81-85 – Hispanic delights
86-90 – dream & gaze
91-95 – songwriter
96-100 – pop ladies pt. 2
101-105 – kids with electric guitar.
Five complete the selection instant classic of the jazz area and a necessary bonus track, a tribute to the memory of Nell Smith, I don't know if you know her story…
Gianfranco Marmoro
In a year full of excellent confirmations, disappointments and crackling debuts there is room for 30 songs and an excellent promise for the new year contained in the first track of the playlist. Happy 2026!
Daniel Moore
Federico Romagnoli
Songs from the albums that I listened to the most this year, all reviewed by OndaRock (the refined folk of the Ukrainians Zgarda, the labyrinthine jazz-rock of the Japanese Betcover!!, the sociopolitical songwriting of the American Jesse Welles and the introspective indie pop of his compatriot Sombr, the mix between acid jazz and rap of the Argentine couple Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, the atmospheric hip-hop of Wos, also from Buenos Aires, and the electronic world music of the French Ko Shin Moon, whose collaboration I chose with the greatest contemporary Turkish singer-songwriter, Mabel Matiz), plus loose songs by other artists that I follow, who have also often been treated in the past on these shores (the standard bearers of Ukrainian progressive pop Ziferblat, the Argentine rock giant Charly García who duets with Sting, the Japanese pop legend Yumi Matsutoya, some important names of the Korean alternative scene such as Aleph, 4bout and especially Silica Gel). There are also a couple of Italians, but they don't need introductions. There are about fifteen songs in total, just to give you an idea.
Marco Sgrignoli
Songs and instrumental tracks: a playlist in two parts to represent the two souls of the listening that accompanied me throughout 2025. On the one hand riff and refrains that stick in your head and prevent you from doing anything other than humming them in your head: Petey and his synth-heartland-rockthe very smooth groove yacht rock by Young Gun Silver Fox, the liberating emo-pop of Anxious; on the other, the more discreet developments, capable of remaining in the background and enhancing with new colors the activities that take place every day (the greatest achievement in this sense are the glittering ambient-techno geometries of Aleksi Perälä).
Obviously the break is not so clear: there are songs, such as those by Bon Iver and Richard Sallis, where the mood it's everything, and pieces that even without words monopolize attention on the fly with zigzagging melodies and rhythmic interlockings – this is the case for example of the frenetic nu jazz of Varra and Jameszoo. There is borderline hip-hop (discovery of the year by the Italians Esseforte) and there is prog (lots of prog!) in which obviously choruses and riff they change, surprise, multiply.
Above all, far from the hype, 2025 was a musically rich, varied and decidedly satisfying year for me: I hope that with this playlist my enthusiasm can infect others too.
Francesco Inglima
Martina Vetrugno
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
