99 Lives 2025

20th anniversary edition!

Let’s not prevaricate; here are links to playlists on the three most evil streaming services.

Spotify:

Apple Music

YouTube

I first did a 99 Lives in 2005 (though my year-end singles tradition goes back to a 1991 list co-written with my sister, then aged 7; “From a Distance” won because she gamed my points system.) Not coincidentally, 2005 was my first full year with $2/month streaming thanks to Rhapsody student pricing. In some broad sense, my taste is the same—out of songs I heard that year, a podium of “1 Thing”/”Since U Been Gone”/”I’m Not Okay” still feels spiritually correct. What’s changed is the instant availability of songs from outside the Anglosphere. If you told 2005 Me, who already loved African music but had to fill out my list with new-to-me Seventies Papa Wemba and William Onyeabor hits to secure representation, that two decades on I could keep up with South African—and South Korean and South American—music in real time, I would’ve thought we’d attained a world of nigh-unlimited musical abundance, connecting the world so we’d all realize that other countries were just as real as ours and we’d no longer have illegal wars of aggression without any robust plans for the aftermath. Look, a lot of us were more naive in 2005. Well, at least we have musical abundance; the problem is making sure artists get paid for it. After reading Glenn McDonald’s book and half of Liz Pelly’s book, I don’t have a more original answer for Western semipopular musos (short of McDonald’s Universal Basic Income proposal) than to only put some songs on the usual services and make First Worlders pay separately for more music. Maybe thematic collections of songs: “albums”, you could call them. Yet note the system, with no intentional benevolence on the part of its creators, has rewarded some of the deserving, especially in the Global South: the fractions of cents accumulated by Jazzwrld and Thukuthela this year, even when further split amongst a long list of collaborators, sum to many times Johannesburg’s median income. Outsourcing—another word for cheap labor—wins again.

List guidelines: One song per album unless necessary; CMAT was granted an exception, ThukuJazz and BunnaB were denied. Reissues and slightly older songs I previously missed were fair game for the top half of the list and were discouraged lower down. A few artists on the bubble (PinkPantheress, Mary Halvorson) lost out on the basis that they did well enough on the albums list. Songs that deserve several orders of magnitude more streaming attention and/or income than they’ve received are in bold, if you want to skip to those.

1. NMIXX: “Blue Valentine” (South Korea)

   Their overdue commercial breakthrough and the year’s most thrillingly ambiguous pop banger: like “Bad Idea Right?” except both more confused and more precise.

2. Zuchu: “Amanda” (Tanzania)

   My favorite thing about this is her delivery of the Wakanda/Rwanda/Uganda rhymes—like she’s preparing to hundred hand-slap her man like she’s E. Honda.

3. Corook: “They!” (USA)

   Obviously I like the Kate Nash song at number 85, but this is much more useful for persuasion than wailing on Rowling for five minutes. And of course an artist has no obligation to do persuasion, and it may be cringe to try, but Corook has plenty of reason to.

4. Tropical Fuck Storm: “You Let My Tyres Down” (Australia, 2018)

   Letting this slip through at the time: one of the worst flubs of the Semipop Life era!

5. Dolly Style: “Yihaa” (Sweden)

   This led for a good stretch of the year. Glad it got overtaken so I don’t have to explain why a girl group that culturally appropriates, like, everyone was on top on my list.

6. Te Kuru Marutea ft. Naia Awatea & Bailee Tava: “Kei Wareware i a Tātou” (Aotearoa New Zealand)

   A brief national sensation that got a second bump a few months ago through a cover by a Californian choir (which I am absolutely not going to listen to.)

7. Jazzwrld, Thukuthela, Babalwa M, Dlala Thukzin: “uValo” (South Africa)

   How to choose a top dog from the hours of infinitely listenable 3-step variants Jazzwrld, Thukuthela, and Thukzin made this year? Just pick the track that has all of them (plus a fine duet vocal from Babalwa M), duh.

8. Joé Dwèt Filé: “4 Kampé” (France/Haiti, 2024)

   He makes us wait nearly three minutes for the konpasynths, and it’s worth it.

9. Nelly Furtado: “Corazón” (DJ Arana remix, Canada/Brazil)

   Yes, I know that the fact that (I think) my first Brazilian top ten finisher ever is by Nelly Furtado indicates a skill issue on my part.

10. CMAT: “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station” (Ireland)

    The other wrinkle is that CMAT’s some kind of celebrity herself, and you bet she’s aware someone out there’s staring at a DIY Magazine cover saying “god I hate her.”

11. Miya Folick: “Fist” (USA)

    I forgot to punch myself in the face on my last run-through of this list, so this dropped out of the top ten.

12. Ata Kak: “Batakari” (Ghana)

    I kind of downplayed it when I heard that after 30 years there was a new Ata Kak project, figuring his moment had passed. WRONG AGAIN

13. Wednesday: “Townies” (USA)

    I get the Drive-By Truckers comparisons, and she should be flattered by them, but the Truckers haven’t written anything that conceals the blade so artfully since the 2000s.

14. Mörda, Thakzin: “Vault” (South Africa)

    Such is the pace of South African dance music that Thakzin (as much as anyone) invented 3-step three years ago, and now he’s a classicist.

15. Snow Tha Product: “Sabado” (USA)

    Some suspension of belief is required because, as Facebook comments on this prove, nobody who voted for Trump is able to shut up about it.

16. Pongo: “Uwa” (Angola/Portugal, 2020)

    One of the most purely danceable songs of the decade. I’m sure everyone thought they had a club floor-filler ready to take off when this was released in February 2020.

17. Fridayy, Meek Mill: “Proud of Me” (USA)

    Meek keeps up his one or two great songs every ten years average. Fridayy is actually good too!

18. Huntr/x: “Golden”/Lily from NMIXX trying to hit the high A of “Golden” (South Korea)

    like I’m bAAAAAAWN<larynx explodes>

19. Kristina Dawn: “Onehalf and” (Philippines)

    Filipina rapper who went from a 42 million YouTube view hit two years ago to 364 views on this. Now that’s commitment to the avant-garde.

20. ALT BLK ERA: “Run Rabbit” (UK)

    Shockingly this didn’t get a People’s Pop Poll nom—thought it’d be there at the business end.

21. Jermaine Dupri, Bankroll Ni, BunnaB, J Money, Sean P: “Magic City Money” (USA)

    The most fun rappity-rap song of the year, in my not-widely-shared opinion!

22. Hüsker Dü: “Ticket to Ride” (USA, live 1985)

    The way Grant hits the “ow”s shows he understands non-verbals as well as Lennon, which is to say as well as any white guy.

23. J Noa: “No Me Pueden Parar” (Dominican Republic, 2023)

    Some of the deftest Romance language rapping I’ve heard (admittedly easier in Spanish than French.)

24. Les Savy Fav: “World Got Great” (USA, 2024)

    We’re much too young to give up on optimism.

25. James McMurtry: “Sons of the Second Sons” (USA)

    He comes close to a mea culpa: he’s spent his career profiling sons of second sons, and this is what they voted for?

26. BunnaB: “Ice Cream Girl” (USA)

    Rapping to the actual ice cream truck jingle: inspired. (As a New Zealander I’d have to rap to “Greensleeves”, which would be somewhat more challenging.)

27. Dj Luis do Grau, MC MTHS, Oliveira Mc 011: “Zn Bota Tudo na Oliveira” (Brazil)

    For those who, like me, have difficulty remembering funk songs by their titles, this is the One with the Key Change, as opposed to others below like the Train Sex One and the Ear-Splitting One (No, the Really Ear-Splitting One.)

28. Margaret Glaspy: “The Sun Doesn’t Think” (USA, 2024)

    One of the great songs about siblinghood, at least among those that didn’t wait for at least one sibling to be dead.

29. Shabjdeed: “Sa7bi” (Palestine)

    “He came and went, he came and went, my friend/Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?”

30. CMAT: “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” (Ireland)

    Ciara got the exemption because both this and “Jamie Oliver” had a clear life of their own outside of the album.

31. Titi, Samba Diarra Mbaye: “Jëlël” (Senegal)

    It might seem obvious that the best thing about mbalax is the percussion, but sometimes we forget. (Sometimes her old boss Youssou forgets.)

32. Jeffrey Lewis: “Inger” (USA)

    The year’s most devastating relationship song, not least because it omits almost the entire affair: what if the relationship of your life was, for your partner, just a stepping stone?

33. Irmãs de Pau, Brunoso, Duquesa: “Queimando Ice” (Brazil)

    Department of Songs Big on Brazilian Bluesky That Dave Moore Has Valiantly Been Trying to Get to Cross Over, to Not Much Avail. (This is a fairly big department.)

34. Kamasi Washington: “Lazarus” (USA)

    This would’ve been the most notable contribution to a streaming service animation soundtrack in most years!

35. Taylor Swift: “Ruin the Friendship” (USA)

    Even in an artistic down patch, she comfortably takes Best Taylor Swift-Style Song of the Year. Nobody in pop can Pivot to Seriousness so flexibly; nobody in rock can do it so earnestly.

36. Sunnitharapper, OnlyHeaven: “Shake Down” (USA)

    Such is our present-day tolerance of sex acts formerly considered perversion that apparently we take “eat this pussy from the back” in stride. Well, if we do, it’d better be a wide stride.

37. CIZA, Jazzwrld, Thukuthela: “Isaka (6am)” (South Africa)

    The initiator of ThukuJazz’s boom year; it may or may not be their second-best, but gets this slot as a non-album track.

38. VIIS: “Chop Chop” (Thailand, 2024)

    slicing up eyeballs, ah ha ha ho

39. Fiona Apple: “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)” (USA)

    Average celebrity doing a charity song: I covered “Imagine”!

    Apple: I spent the last two years sitting in courtrooms researching the disparate impact of cash bail and pretrial detention. lethergohome.org

40. TXAI Band, Mística Samany: “Nai Mãpu Yubekã” (Brazil, 2024)

    One of the most moving vocal performances I heard this year came from Mística Samany, who sings from deep in the Amazon in the Hancha Kuin language. (She has an Instagram.)

41. Monaleo: “We on Dat” (USA)

    Importantly, she only resorts to pugilism when necessary, like when someone busts her lip in a Family Dollar.

42. Chuu: “Kiss a Kitty” (South Korea)

    Between this and Yves’s “White Cat”, it was a good year for ex-Loona members recording feline-themed songs, and a great year for shippers of [stop that—Mods]

43. OsamaSon: “Inferno” (USA)

    See, Americans can do avant-rap as well as Asian women! Occasionally!

44. Atmos Blaq: “Shimova” (South Africa)

    You can tell it’s one of his Serious ones because, as with “Mfana Wase Dobsi”, the cover’s just a disc.

45. Lella Fadda: “Tarat Tarat Tat” (Egypt/Italy)

    A symptom of my Arabic music problem (see below) is that I don’t even know how big a hit this was.

46. Lola Young: “Messy” (UK, 2024)

    I do know how big a hit this was.

47. Guspy Warrior, Mechanic Manyeruke: “Mutirangarire” (Zimbabwe, 2023)

    Joyful integration of the Donk with more traditional forms exemplified by Zimbabwean gospel pioneer Mechanic (Guspy’s dad.)

48. Queens Tafari, Astrallbass: “Ilegal” (Colombia)

    ¿Esto es ilegal? ¿Por qué?

49. Dieuf-Dieul de Thies: “Djirim” (Senegal, 2024)

    I can’t remember if I convinced myself that this was a 2017 festival performance or not, but it’s close enough.

50. Brother Ali, Ant: “Two Dudes” (USA/Turkey)

    The funniest song noted humorist KRS-One’s ever been associated with.

51. Dlala Thukzin, Mthunzi, Sfundo, Skillz: “Ngeke Balunge” (South Africa)

52. Rob49: “WTHELLY” (USA)

53. Théa: “Qui Fera Taire Les Kidz Fucked Up??” (France)

54. DJ Travella: “Mchakamchaka” (Tanzania)

55. Horsegirl: “2468” (USA)

56. Xiangyu, Gimgigam: “はっちゃKO (Hatcha KO)” (Japan)

57. Mamehy: “Je mitsiko ro mokotse” (domestic and export versions, Madagascar)

58. Bad Bunny: “Baile Inolvidable” (Puerto Rico)

59. Nobro: “I Don’t Feel Like It” (Canada, 2023)

60. Ale Hop, Titi Bakorta: “Bonne Année” (Peru/Congo)

61. Ari Lennox: “Soft Girl Era” (USA)

62. NLE the Great: “KO” (USA)

63. Amaarae: “S.M.O.” (Ghana/USA)

64. Jillian Jacqueline: “Year of the Dragon” (USA)

65. Anna Meredith, Dalia Stasevska, BBC Symphony Orchestra: “Nautilus” (USA/Ukraine/Finland/UK, 2024)

66. One OK Rock: “Delusion:All” (Japan, 2024)

67. Moliy, Silent Addy, Skillibeng, Shenseea: “Shake It to the Max (Fly)” (remix, Ghana/USA/Jamaica)

68. The Kasambwe Brothers: “Getu (Gertrude)” (Malawi)

69. CRXSHXL, Mc Gw: “21 Century Funk” (Brazil)

70. Beachside Talks: “Big Sky” (Japan, 2024)

71. Irene: “Winter Wish” (South Korea, 2024)

72. Lorde: “What Was That” (New Zealand)

73. Seyi Vibez: “Shaolin” (Nigeria)

74. Etran de l’Aïr: “Agadez” (Niger)

75. Darian Donovan Thomas, Ian Chang: “Ugly Betty” (USA)

76. Flo Milli, Coop: “Perfect Person” (USA)

77. Dj Kn de Vila Velha, Mc Jacaré, Mc 2G do SF, Mc Marcelo da Cj, TDK Rec: “Sentar pro Trem” (Brazil)

78. DJ Veek, Criimora b.k.z: “Nkosi” (South Africa)

79. Ezra Furman: “Power of the Moon” (USA)

80. Raye: “Where Is My Husband!” (UK)

81. Mic Raw Ruga: “Astro Jet” (Japan)

82. Margo Price: “Losing Streak” (USA)

83. DJ Danz: “Sugdan Na Ang Pag Budots” (Philippines)

84. Ninajirachi: “iPod Touch” (Australia)

85. Kate Nash: “GERM” (UK)

86. Jeffrey Lewis: “It Could Be Worse” (USA, 2024)

87. Justin Bieber: “Daisies” (USA)

88. DJ K, DJ Kadu: “Mega Suicidio Auditivo” (Brazil)

89. Marla: “On les a cramé” (Côte d’Ivoire)

90. Sabrina Carpenter: “Manchild” (USA)

91. Sturdyyoungin, Ohthatsmizz, Zeddy Will: “Trippin” (USA)

92. Nandipha808, JayMea, Morena Deh Keys, Nation Deep: “Daily Prayer (Chosen)” (South Africa)

93. Tito Double P: “Tattoo” (Mexico)

94. Willie Nelson: “Last Leaf” (USA, 2024)

95. Sunmi: “Blue!” (South Korea, video of the year btw)

96. Kusk, Óviti: “Hjá Mér” (Iceland)

97. Faheem Abdullah: “Saiyaara” (India)

98. Big Wett: “Top of the Class” (Australia)

99. Peter Stampfel: “You Fight for Your Life” (USA)

I’m pretty okay with how things turned out geographically, with the exception of music in Arabic, which I think my clique systematically under-covers. I made a conscious effort to correct for this, pushing Saeed Saeed’s rolling 2025 list to some success, but still ended up with only Shabjdeed and Lella Falla on mine. Well, I’ll keep trying. (India doesn’t show up until 97 and China doesn’t show up at all; I’m unconvinced I’m not better off just seeing the movies, however.) The other telling near-absence: longtime readers know that country-pop has been one of my favorite things during the 99 Lives era, yet there’s one country-pop song on the list and it’s Swedish. Gotta get better at predicting Chuck.

Coming next week: Miscellaneous lists; 2025 poll announcement; the long-awaited Semipop Life monetization plan.