It was clear by last December that 2024 was the best year for music since, at least, 2015. Songs like “Espresso”, “Lose Control”, “Birds of a Feather”, “I Had Some Help” and others quickly proved to be true hits that stayed in power well into the new year. As clearly, 2025 produced a much smaller number of mainstream, broad-appeal, gold-worthy hits than years past.
Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” is undoubtedly the song of the year by every measure but has very little to compete with. Where it did have company was becoming a hit for Liveline listeners well before kicking in at U.S. radio. “Timeless” by The Weeknd, “Nokia” by Drake and “back to friends” by sombr were all #1 requested songs on Liveline and streaming smashes first. Even when it got to radio, “Nokia” only got to #8 despite being #1 song in requests, and leading streaming and Rhythmic radio for weeks. Radio was really late to the party in so many cases, and missed out on some great songs completely, old and new.
When tabulating our top requests of the year, we do not just simply tabulate the total number of requests and rank them. That would make things unfair for songs like “Man I Need” by Olivia Dean which came out much later in the year than “Messy” by Lola Young but had a much bigger impact and staying power. You often see this in the Billboard and Mediabase year-end rankings, which consist almost entirely of songs from the previous year, leaving songs released after October out completely. Then, by the time the following year ends, that song is too old. For instance, “Die with A Smile” by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars was ranked as our #1 song of 2024, though it didn’t even appear in the airplay or streaming Top 10 because it was released at the end of August.
When we analyze trends on a monthly basis instead of the calendar year, then average out which songs performed better during their peak, it’s easy to identify the real hits which will truly be remembered and timeless. From over 25,000 Liveline requests, billions of streams and digital sales, here is our official list for 2025’s Top 20 Songs
Top 20 Songs on Liveline
- Alex Warren – Ordinary
- Olivia Dean – Man I Need (#1 for ten weeks straight)
- Taylor Swift – The Fate of Ophelia (Biggest release of the year, making up for “TTPD” which was not good at all)
- Morgan Wallen, Tate McRae – What I Want (Country radio didn’t even play it, and Top 40 has dropped it almost completely, though still Top 10 requests on Liveline)
- Chappell Roan – Pink Pony Club (like a new national anthem, released six years ago but didn’t blow up until August 2024)
- Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
- sombr – back to friends (released December 2024, #1 and Top 5 for months before Pop radio played it)
- Drake – NOKIA (#1 party song of the year)
- Kendrick Lamar, SZA – luther
- Ravyn Lenae – Love Me Not
- The Weeknd, Playboi Carti – Timeless (consistent Top 20 streams and requests all year, with a disappointingly short life span on Pop radio)
- Billie Eilish – BIRDS OF A FEATHER (oldest song on our list, released April 2024)
- Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars – Die With A Smile (#1 song of 2024)
- ROSE, Bruno Mars – APT. (the only K-Pop song that adults actually request)
- RAYE – WHERE IS MY HUSBAND! (our special guest on Liveline in three weeks)
- Tate McRae – Sports Car
- Doechii – Anxiety (#1 and then Top 5 for a month, then quickly burned and forgotten)
- Lola Young – Messy (one-hit wonder so far, already forgotten)
- Lady Gaga – The Dead Dance
- Benson Boone – Mystical Magical (the bigger hit that radio took a long time to get behind, especially when “Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else” never received any requests or generated Spotify Streams)
Important note: Not including “Golden” from K-POP Demon Hunters may seem a bit strange, but we’ve always highlighted the fact that its requests were from kids or parents on their children’s behalf. In full transparency, if we included it in our request rankings, it is easily the #1 song of the year. We have never seen anything like it before. Kids are very passionate about it, and we will now say that there’s definitely a place for a song like that. Perhaps not every hour and twenty minutes, but enough so they hear it and bond with radio at a young age.
In down years like 2025, we believe that a lot of the hit music is neutral—not innovative, original, or sexy. “Nice To Meet You” by Myles Smith–#4 on Top 40 this week–is amongst the best testing songs of the past two years, but we’ve never gotten requests for it, not has it ever been in the Spotify Top 200. While there’s obviously a place for a true callout hit at radio, radio devotes a lot of time and spins to songs that never come through in the same way that “Nice” or Benson Boone’s “Sorry” eventually did. By sharing our request data each week, we’re helping radio find active hits a lot sooner, and without investing as many spins. Those songs should get the benefit of the doubt, too.
Thanks to everyone involved with making my life dream come true of hosting a live show and being able to have fun on the air all over North America every weeknight. Music, people, life and positive vibes are what I thrive on and being surrounded by a team that believes in this style of compelling, LIVE, engaging and spontaneous radio are the key to success. Scotty Meyers at Radiocraft has done a superb job, tripling our affiliate count in just one year. Stations we added include KHTT/Tulsa OK, WDOD/Chattanooga TN, WXXX/Burlington VT, KQHN/Shreveport LA (our first Cumulus station), KOZA/Topeka KS and our first two Canadian affiliates, CHWE/Winnipeg MB and CFLY/Kingston ON.
The first edition of Mason’s Observations was published on October 17, 2024. Big thanks to Sean Ross who invited us to contribute our data and viewpoints to his fabulous, well-respected column every week. Being able to point out the nuances, trends and raw data in a way that makes you think, explore and learn is critical to evolution and ensures that our industry stays fresh and develops new ways to win and capture audiences for years to come. We must continue to let personalities shine, be themselves and try new things.
As terrestrial radio’s future has been uncertain, there will always be a need for a platform that offers companionship, immediacy, interaction, fun and live programming which combines the best live air talent, the biggest hits and a listener participation. Talk radio figured this out years ago. Why are music formats still relying on uninspired, generic filler voicetracks? The arrival of streaming music presented radio with its most powerful competition. Instead Yet instead of getting better, radio went downhill adding 10 minute stopsets, compared to the superstations of fifty years ago that limited their formats to two 4 minute stopsets per hour! No other medium in the world makes you sit through all those commercials, with the inability to pick your own music and a DJ that says things you don’t relate to. Podcast and playlist options are endless. Radio must again embrace the best of what made us so successful decades ago. That is how we build against competition!
On behalf of everyone at Liveline, thanks for being here. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Most important, Be Your Dream!
Thanks for doing what you do so very well. Here’s to many, many, many more great things to come in 2026. Season’s Greetings!!!
Poor “likely-to-be superstar” Lola Young! “Messy” really did end up being a redux of “Escapism” from a couple years ago in how it looked well positioned to be absolutely massive at a particular moment (around the transition between years), only to end up not fully connecting and everyone seeming confused about what exactly happened and if the problem was that gatekeepers were too excited or insufficiently so. I hope this doesn’t play out yet again with Raye’s “Husband!” which I’ve only heard for the first time on radio today and don’t expect to hear on the air with any regularity for another couple of months. *sigh*
Seemingly making the executive decision to dismiss all of “Golden’s” requests as demographically irrelevant when it otherwise would have easily been the top song of the year is pretty extreme, but I appreciate hearing your words on it here. The song kinda grew on me in the end! It does have that “sounds nice on radio” quality that I can appreciate even in songs I don’t otherwise care for much.
In the end, “Messy” at least became a real record in the moment. There’s a long history of records, usually uptempo, often from a newcomer, that start out with a lot of PD enthusiasm and run aground in a few weeks–my all-time fave is “The Wreckoning” by Boomkat. Often those songs can destroy a career instantly. She also suffered from a slew of “okay, fine” songs immediately, none of which were a real follow-up. But I think she’s more likely to be Raye than Nicky Youre in terms of being able to have another hit.