2024 was a year defined by its music. When neither Ariana Grande’s nor Taylor Swift’s albums released in 2024 even came close to the top 10 most important things that happened in music, there is most certainly something special about that year– And indeed there is.

From Beyonce’s venture into country music challenging traditional norms related to the genre, to Kanye West getting another Number 1 hit after more than 15 years despite all his previous controversy, to Hozier’s return to the charts after “Take Me To Church” in 2013, to Shaboozey’s hit single “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” coming from seemingly nowhere. To Kendrick Lamar thrusting rap back into the mainstream after “Not Like Us” and the album “GNX”, this year was packed full of mainstream music that defined itself. Not to mention, the phenomenon of “Brat Summer” was inspired by the album “brat” from Charli XCX and “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter defined the entire season.

With the breakout of pop star Chappell Roan proving revolutionary for the queer community as well, there is no reason to deny the impact of music that year. Many music critics who have been heavily negative about pop music over the 2020s, were pleasantly surprised with its resurgence in 2024 and optimistic for what the next year could bring  for it.

So what happened in 2025? To be honest, nothing.

In Billboard’s year-end top 10 for 2025, only one song came from the year itself, with eight songs in it coming from 2024, and one coming from 2020 (Pink Pony Club). Both of Bruno Mars’ collaborations in “Die With a Smile” and “APT” (that weren’t even mentioned in the introduction due to how much had happened that year), Billie Eillish’s “Birds of a Feather” and Kendrick Lamar’s “luther”, despite all being amazing songs in their own right, stuck around for way too long for the liking of any music enthusiast along with the other 4 songs from the same year.

To address what went wrong, we must look at what went right, and that can only be done by looking at the only song from 2025 in the list: “Ordinary”. This song was made by Alex Warren, former prank Youtuber and TikTok-er, Hype House co-founder and the host of AwesomenessTV’s reality competition series Next Influencer. His shift to music was something not many music critics saw coming, but its popularity becomes unsurprising upon first listen.

The song is not particularly genre defining or revolutionary. Warren’s voice is not the most pleasant and the lyrics are embarrassingly basic even on a pop music level, but it does one thing right, and that is masking all of it up with booming instrumentals and Alex croaking out a catchy tune. On a basic level, this song’s lyrics are straightforward enough, and the blaring instrumentals almost “instruct” the mainstream listener into how to feel, allowing it to sneak into playlists and marriage posts on Instagram and TikTok unnoticed, crawling its way into the year-end list.

From the tone that this song is being addressed in, you can tell that I’m not the biggest fan of it, and that’s mainly because of how contradictory this hit is compared to the music that defined 2024. In the summer of 2024, we had the upbeat, cheeky hit of “Espresso” and the entirety of “brat” that brought more alternative elements not usually seen in pop to the mainstream. In 2025 we have… this? “Ordinary” is, unironically, a painfully ordinary song, and when it’s the only one that makes it on the year-end top 10, something has gone painfully wrong.

Looking further down the list, Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” and “Just In Case” stand at number 13 and 18 respectively, being there purely because it was released in January along with Wallen’s undisputed dominance as a standout artist in the country genre. The fact that Wallen’s songs still couldn’t even outchart Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” stands out more than his actual placements on the chart. Moreover, “30 For 30” by SZA and Kendrick Lamar stands at 21 but also gets overshadowed by the obvious other song of the same nature from the same two artists, “luther”. “Nokia” by Drake, previous industry juggernaut, stands proudly at 24 and is, in all honesty, an embarrassing result for the man that was once on the same level as Michael Jackson (and has as many Billboard number 1 songs as him!), but a small win nevertheless in light of the terrible year he had previously.

In short, the songs that charted this year that had the most Billboard relevance simply were not very culturally relevant, unlike last year when I felt that music defined the moment. Music went from being the year to a mere cultural spectator. How could this year be so lacking after the “explosion” of the previous one?

A large part of this lack of material is, in my opinion, a long-forgotten foe of the past: COVID-19. With COVID forcing everyone to stay at home and more specifically disrupting artists’ recording sessions, this delay would most certainly have forced some songs and albums to be delayed, to ensure the efforts of the artists would not go to waste. It’s no surprise that many albums and singles are pre-planned at least 2 to 4 years in advance. Many collaborators, producers, concept artists, merchandise designers and many more creative outlets work together to churn out an overall album rollout. Perfectly harmonizing everything together to garner the maximum amount of plays, or showcase as much creativity as the artist wants. The impact of COVID on the music industry, therefore, would result in many albums and singles being delayed with artists’ fears of dropping at the wrong time resulting in lesser plays.

Perhaps this is why we were able to get the musically explosive year of 2024: it was the result of a backlog of good music waiting to be released in the right moment; and 2024 was when “enough” years had passed to overcome the COVID slump. The explosion of artists onto the scene in 2024 also naturally means that many artists would not be able to release another album that resonates equally as well in 2025.

Indeed, an album a year is not actually the standard for many artists. Very rarely does an album that comes just a year after a high impact album makes the same impact. This is evident with Sabrina Carpenter’s new album that although had its fair share of catchy pop tunes, did not resonate with the public; They instead chose to stick to her already established hits, with some also growing fatigue from listening to her hits from 2024 reducing the hit potential of her 2025 run. The delay of material that COVID caused potentially resulted in an abnormally large burst of creative content in 2024. Naturally, causing a slump in 2025, as artists choose to wait until another moment where it would be better to release an album instead of getting overshadowed.

Speaking of being overshadowed, this is also another potential reason why not many drops were made in 2025. Indeed, to release music after such a massive year, although it may instinctively seem natural, is a terrible move for most artists. Such a big year for music indeed carries the potential to just overshadow the music for the next year, and this would prove true in practice. Although this causes mainstream listeners to wonder where the music is, for most smaller artists to break out in a year after such a big one would be incredibly difficult.

A final reason that many are not talking about is the fact that no matter how much people want to admit it, music is unfortunately affected by the times as well. In 2025, with the election of a certain person in a certain country that shall not be named, more people than ever wish to find peace in what they can control: the music they listen to. The world has clearly shifted gears to become much more conservative in nature than before. 2024 was, in a way, the “calm before the storm”, and the music with the “calm” is allowed to sound much newer and unique, while the ones during the “storm” are forced to be safe, with differences almost undetectable to the human mind, which is already stressed out over a billion other things.

In such a polarized world where nothing is certain anymore, music acts as a source of comfort for many, and comfort is commonly found in familiarity.  This is the worst thing for mainstream music as this trend gatekeeps up-and-coming musicians while also forces music that rises (to…?) to be the most flat, boring type imaginable.

Or perhaps I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s not that deep after all.