We are almost halfway through 2025, and we’ve already heard quite a bit of new music. Plenty of popular artists have released new singles, albums, and deluxe albums in the last few months, but how good are these songs? Do they measure up to last year’s music? Let’s talk about it.
Tate McRae
Tate McRae released her newest album, So Close To What, in February. Compared to her previous two albums, the songs aren’t as varied. In fact, they all have exactly the same style. Instead of carving out a niche for her music by establishing a new signature style, it feels like her music is less personal. Instead, it’s all based on marketing and caters to the pop audience. Admittedly however, her marketing strategy is working. Her fanbase has grown dramatically with the release of her new album, but at the cost of personality. While many songs from her first two albums like “stay done,” “plastic palm trees,” and “she’s all i wanna be” all tell an emotional story, only one song, “Nostalgia,” from So Close To What sounds like it was truly written from the heart. I like “Nostalgia” because the music truly carries the weight of the lyrics. Singing about regret and her family, the lyrics hold a lot of emotion by themselves. But paired with the acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies, the music itself tells her story.
Sabrina Carpenter
2024’s Short n’ Sweet, with platinum singles like “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” propelled Sabrina Carpenter into major stardom. While I like both singles, I don’t particularly like many songs on the rest of the album. When she dropped the deluxe version of Short n’ Sweet in February, I didn’t have high hopes. After listening, I found that the deluxe tracks just didn’t compare to the songs from the album’s original August release, which was already a low bar. Other than “Busy Woman,” the other four tracks just don’t have any distinguishing qualities in vocals and instrumentation. And while “Busy Woman” is more interesting than the rest, it still isn’t incredible. Overall, the five songs just sound lazy. “15 Minutes” sounds like a mix of “Busy Woman” and “Juno,” which is a track off of the first version of the album. “Couldn’t Make it Any Harder” sounds alarmingly similar to “Hopelessly Devoted to You” by Olivia Newton-John. “Busy Woman” has a demo-like sound quality, and the vocal melody of “Bad Reviews” is mundane and falls flat. “Please Please Please (feat. Dolly Parton)” isn’t really anything new, just a country version of the original track, so there’s not much to talk about there. But despite most of these tracks being catchy—and showing off Sabrina’s vocal talent—they all sound like an afterthought rather than thought-out, well-written pieces. Is Sabrina finding her personal style, or is she catering to the market after the success of “Espresso?”
Chappell Roan
“The Giver,” Chappell Roan’s latest single, has been a huge hit, and I like it. “The Giver” is an upbeat, danceable song that sounds distinct from other recent pop hits. Its main distinguishing feature is most likely the fiddle that starts off the intro and prominently features throughout the song. I feel like the vocal melody isn’t as unique—and it definitely reminds me of other songs—but Chappell Roan’s personal style brightly shines through. I would still consider Chappell Roan’s 2024 debut album to be better than “The Giver,” but the new song is definitely one of the best from this year so far.
ROLE MODEL
ROLE MODEL is one of the only pop artists so far to release unique, emotion-driven hits in 2025. He released his new album Kansas Anymore in 2024, but dropped four new tracks on the deluxe version in February. “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out” was a huge success and earned the artist some long-awaited mainstream fame. I consider this song, along with “Old Recliners,” to be the best songs released in 2025 thus far. “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out” is very catchy, but it is a genuine kind of catchy, that truly sounds like it was born from his feelings rather than a desire for more Spotify streams. This song really showcases his personality, with flairs like “whoo-hoo” and “hey!” sprinkled throughout the song, and that is what makes it stand out from other, blander, songs released in 2025. “Old Recliners” might be one of the saddest songs of this year. Even just from the intro, you can hear the raw emotion poured into its composition. This track, “Some Protector,” and “The Longest Goodbye” simply sound like heartbreak personified—which many fans speculate comes from his recent breakup with YouTuber Emma Chamberlain—and this type of feeling could be what has lent his music the individuality that it has. Another possible explanation for ROLE MODEL’s resistance to the trend of waning originality could be his genre change. Before Kansas Anymore, his music used to be more alternative. His debut album Rx and singles like “Cross Your Mind” fit more into the alternative genre. It could be the case that with his new pop album Kansas Anymore, he didn’t feel the same pressure that many pop artists do, since he hadn’t already entered the mainstream. This could have allowed him to take more time in writing his music and pour more emotion into it. In any case, the deluxe tracks on Kansas Anymore are distinctive, expressive, and could possibly be the best music releases of 2025.
2025 Music Overall: Originality
Tate McRae, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan, some of the most popular artists of 2024, released new music this year that doesn’t measure up to their previous albums. Unlike their past releases, these songs don’t sound emotional and honest; they sound unoriginal. Pop music is beginning to sound like it was only created to top charts, and it’s missing a spark that was very prevalent in 2024.
So what happened to originality? Music feels more formulaic, like producers are trying to fulfill a checklist that they believe will produce the perfect catchy pop song. Because of this “copy-paste” type of music, artists are losing sight of their personal styles, and leaning into what they think will be a hit.
There has been a serious lack of quality checking in music production for the last few months. I often listen to the radio, especially the hit/new music stations, and most of the music is so mediocre that it sounds like every single song idea ends up being produced and released. It appears that labels are prioritizing “quantity” over “quality,” a mistake that has cost them creativity.
I theorize that the reason why music is losing its uniqueness is because of pressure that the music industry puts on artists. In the digital age, it is so easy to release music, which means that more and more music is constantly being injected into streaming services. Because music is so accessible for artists to release and for audiences to listen to, record labels want their artists to increase their supply since that would earn the labels more money and keep them on top of the charts despite rising competition. However, since artists have to increase the quantity of their music, the quality decreases.
In light of the success of 2024 music, which is often dubbed as one of the “best years for music ever,” labels may also be trying to prolong its success. They might want the musical prosperity of 2024 to extend into 2025, so they are pushing their artists to release music now to prolong this era of great new releases. If this is the case, these strategies have certainly backfired.
The Roar 