The Best Country Music Songs of 2025

Chappell Roan - The Giver

‘The Giver’ was first introduced to the world when Roan appeared as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in November 2024.

Fans and critics alike pined for an official release, but she kept both the recording and the single under wraps until the time felt right. Roan’s art has always existed on her own terms, and this was no exception.

The strategy paid off: the single debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and No. 5 on the all-genre Hot 100.

It is easy to see why. Working alongside frequent collaborators Daniel Nigro and Paul Cartwright, Roan crafted a modern, fiddle-blazing country anthem with an infectious chorus that would make Shania Twain herself proud.

The fact that it is an openly queer, boot-stomping banger is simply icing on the cake, further proving that country music truly is for everyone.

~ Soda Canter

Scotty McCreery - Bottle Rockets (feat. Hootie & The Blowfish)

We're all a bit partial to an interpolation and a sample, and when a country artist can enlist the help of the artist they are essentially covering to revisit their quite likely classic hit, doesn't that just make it all the more great?

'Bottle Rockets' was only brought to life in January of this year, when McCreery shared his love for Hootie & The Blowfish and the desire to collab with their lead singer and country legend, Darius Rucker. Luckily for us, everything fell into place.

We haven't had an interpolation hit this hard since Cole Swindell fell in love with the girl singing 'Heads Carolina, Tails California'. While Darius Rucker's vocals may only arrive in the post-chorus, the whole song is truly peak nostalgic escapism - McCreery pining for those summers staring at his lover with the "bonfire in her eyes".

~ Ross Jones

Hayes Carll - Progress of Man (Bitcoin and Cattle)

Written with Aaron Raitiere, the first taste of Hayes Carll's sublime We're Only Human album came with one of the 21st Century's greatest protest songs.

Light-heartedly philosophising on the hypocrisy of late-stage capitalism, Hayes Carll delivers a timely State of the Nation address on the relenting narcissism, selfishness and greed of the modern age, as he wonders if we really were all in this together after all. He calls for us all to collectively turn our backs on the constant barrage of (mis) information and conflicting opinions in favour of a better, kinder world for us all.

"The man on the TV keeps makin' strange faces / Folks flyin' rockets to faraway places /The world's gettin' turned on by assholes and racists / And it's all for the progress of man," he sings as a fiddle plays chirpily along with him.

~ Jof Owen

MaRynn Taylor - She Broke Up With The Boy

Country music fans have gone through the ringer with cheeky - albeit cringey - interpolation songs over the last decade or so, but few have been as fun and carefree as MaRynn Taylor’s ‘she broke up with the boy.’

Included on her highly-anticipated debut album, MaRynn, the radio-ready scream-along hit borrows the production and story from Trisha Yearwood’s 1991 blockbuster bop, ‘She’s In Love with the Boy.’ Serving as the sequel to the swoon-worthy ‘90s classic, the 2025 follow-up finds Katie in the wake of her breakup with Tommy, but she’s not as beat up about it as you’d expect.

Over the last several years, mostly due to modern country titans like Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers and the like, it’s felt like the genre has deeply sobered up, leaning less on catchy hooks and tempo and more on brusque lyrics and deeply emotional prose.

Yet, thanks to monster 2025 hits like Russell Dickerson’s ‘Happen To Me,’ Dasha’s ‘Not At This Party’ and Taylor’s ‘she broke up with the boy,’ it almost feels like we’re re-entering our whoo girl era - and we’ll take a double shot of that any day.

~ Lydia Farthing

Vincent Mason’s ‘Wish You Well’ was released all the way back in February, which makes it one of the songs from this year that has been playing on repeat in our heads the longest.

With a standout acoustic guitar pluck and Mason’s undeniable Georgia accent front and center, ‘Wish You Well’ is a masterclass in modern country songwriting.

An effective, alcohol-induced heartbreak tune, this was one of our first favorite songs of 2025, and after it’s all said and done, this Vincent Mason earworm will be living in our heads rent free for many months to come.

~ LF

Anne Wilson - Twenty Three

Country music has always been revered for the maturity and sensitivity with which it can tackle some of life’s thornier struggles. Anne Wilson’s ‘Twenty Three’ is a prime example of this, with the Kentucky prodigy reflecting on the new waves of grief that emerged when she turned the age at which her brother, Jacob, died.

Wilson powerfully and nimbly conveys the dawning realisation that she has the privilege of growing past 23, while her brother never did. It’s subject matter Wilson has touched on throughout her career, but never as viscerally and soulfully as she does here. Wilson’s striking vocals float gently across the piano-driven backing, as she paints a vivid portrait of her blowing out her birthday candles, before mirroring this with the moment Jacob did the exact same thing around eight years ago.

But as Wilson so often does in her music, she offers a faith-inspired glimmer of hope at the end of the darkness, determined to make her brother proud of her (“Here's to one more trip around the sun for me / I know you and God are looking down on me / I'll make you proud of me / In my twenty-three”).

Wilson might have started in the Contemporary Christian sphere, but ‘Twenty-Three’ is country songwriting at its finest, and serves as the perfect closing chapter to her stellar 2025 album, Stars.

~ Maxim Mower

Kashus Culpepper - Southern Man

‘Southern Man’ finds Kashus Culpepper stepping into his sound with a confidence that feels both old as time and brand new. His voice; that smoky, baritone drives the track with a force that could level a room. It’s Southern rock shaken loose from its past, rebuilt with raw emotion and a storyteller’s edge.

There’s a poetry at the center of this song, the kind born from red clay roads and quiet reckonings. Culpepper doesn’t romanticize the South; he embraces it, and wrestles with it all at once. The guitars snarl and his delivery feels carved from the same grit he’s singing about. ‘Southern Man’ is a portrait; not polished, not softened, but true.

It’s the sound of an artist fully stepping into his power, using the weight of his voice and the sharpness of his writing to show exactly who he is and where he comes from. If there was any doubt about Culpepper’s place in the new guard of the genre, this song wipes it clean.

~ Caitlin Hall

Laci Kaye Booth - Daddy's Mugshot

“I wrote this song after scrolling on Facebook and seeing my dad’s mugshot going around". Booth explains. "I didn’t know he’d been arrested. He was grinning from ear to ear. He’d be here tonight, but his probation officer wouldn’t let him come,” she shares with a wink and a smile, all before performing ‘Daddy’s Mugshot’ during her Grand Ole Opry debut, of all places.

It was a singular moment that introduced the arresting star power of Booth - an evocative singer who knows exactly who she is and where she’s headed.

Singing, “I might look like my momma, but I smile like my daddy’s mugshot,” Booth lays her upbringing bare with fearless honesty, using her story as both a declaration and a warning to anyone who might stand in her way. A remarkable voice in country music.

~ SC

Austin Snell - Home Sweet Hell

Included on one of the genre’s standout EPs of the year, Austin Snell’s ‘Home Sweet Hell’ is awash with introspection, vulnerability and a healthy dose of electric guitar for good measure.

A no-holds-barred release, ‘Home Sweet Hell’ finds Snell leaning into his grunge country sound while depicting his gut-wrenching autobiographical upbringing in a house that saw domestic violence, alcoholism and more.

“Every now and then, you write a song that is bigger than yourself. All the thoughts of its success go out the window to make room for the thoughts of just how much it could impact someone’s life," the Georgian singer-songwriter shares.

“This song is the most vulnerable and forthcoming I’ve ever been as an artist. Being truly honest with the world can be one of the scariest things, but I feel like there are people out there without a voice who need honesty.”

~ LF

Julia Cole - Day Late & A Buck Short

You never know what men are up to these days. You can't trust them to be honest about anything! There’s no fooling Julia Cole though. She knows bullshit when she smells it.

'Day Late & a Buck Short' is the kind of eye-rolling badass country song Miranda Lambert regularly scoops up awards for, as Julia gives her duplicitous boyfriend short thrift when he returns home from a hunting weekend on a Monday morning without so much as a squirrel.

"Camo can't cover up the smell of her sweet Dior," she snaps as she dumps his suitcase out on the front porch and sends him packing with some colourful wordplay and a dollop of country sass.

30 million streams on Spotify alone gives you an idea of just how big this song was in 2025.

~ JO

Megan Moroney - Beautiful Things

Our first glimpse of ‘Beautiful Things’ was a video of Megan Moroney’s live performance in Charleston, South Carolina on her Am I Okay? Tour.

Fans desperately craved the heartfelt track, which she released shortly after as part of the run up to her third studio album, Cloud 9, slated for release on February 20th next year.

Inspired by her niece, Moroney addresses the tumultuous complexity of being young. Her perfectly broken voice rasps with the weight of having been through it all before, bringing her agony aunt perspective to life.

Sonically, it’s simple. Moroney’s inimitable vocals and her guitar open the track, building to her full band in a gentle, emotive way. It is quite literally a beautiful thing, and has country music fans primed and ready to embrace Moroney’s next project.

~ Georgette Brookes

Scott Wolverton - Do Si Do

Scott Wolverton’s ‘Do Si Do’ may very well be the best sleeper single of 2025.

Released in mid-June to not much fanfare - unsurprising since you’ve likely never heard of the guy - the folkified country hit-in-the-making feels like a runaway train.

Seemingly packing in as many words into its chorus as humanly possible, it’s a rip-roaring, two-stepping hit from an artist who will no doubt be a name you'll recognize in no time at all.

With star quality and a Noah Kahan-inspired sound that could also happily exist on mainstream country radio, this swanky earworm marks just the start of Wolverton’s sure to be illustrious career.

~ LF

Kassi Ashton - Sounds Like Something I'd Say (Feat. Parker McCollum)

Kassi Ashton drops her tough girl image on this soulful, bluesy come-hither of a song.

Her rich, creamy vocal soars above McCollum’s swooning sweet nothings, swilling seductively to demonstrate exactly why the narrators can’t stay away from each other.

From pleasure to shame, it covers the full gamut of emotions of misguided one night stands and situationships, whilst its heartbreaking final line hangs in the air like smog.

With its dour beat and swelling steel guitar, it’s one for lonely nights and a few too many at the bar.

~ Holly Smith

Ella Langley - Choosin' Texas

Ella Langley brought us the heartbreaking ‘Choosin’ Texas’ towards the end of 2025. It addresses the well known Southern pull between Texas and Tennessee, the cowboys and musicians and their true loves.

Hidden among fun twangy guitars and bluesy beats, Langley’s distinctly smoky vocals tie together a catchy hook and a sad song. She sings with an air of defeat, knowing that Texas is bigger than her. It’s not just the Lone Star State - it’s the girl, the music, the life she can’t compete with.

‘Choosin’ Texas’ is another track that clearly demonstrates Langley’s ability to tell a story and capture what it means to be a country artist. She’s authentic and poetic, but she’s also self-assured and gritty, and that’s why she’s up there with some of the best this year.

~ GB

Jackson Dean - Be Your Man

Released in May 2025, the dazzling ‘Be Your Man’ marked Jackson Dean’s first single of the year, as well as the first taste of what would be exciting things to come for the ‘Heavens To Betsy’ star.

An unfettered proclamation of affection, the summer single is just as skilful as it is sensual. Tip-toeing keys, slinky bass line, easy strings – the song is all grooves and good times.

There are plenty of reasons the song has stuck with us these last few months, but the swaggering country-blues opus, with its insistent words and breezy arrangement, is undoubtedly an ear-worm for the ages.

~ Alli Patton

Chanel Yates - Big Girl Boots

It’s no secret that the UK country music scene has come on leaps and bounds over the past year, and Chanel Yates is at the forefront of this exciting new wave. Arriving in March, ‘Big Girl Boots’ is the infectious, empowering anthem that introduced Yates to the world as a country phenom.

The track pivots around the tale of a young woman who decides to give her soon-to-be-ex a taste of their own medicine, drawing on the wise words of Nancy Sinatra as she defiantly resolves, “Just like you did to me, I’ll walk all over you”.

The beauty of ‘Big Girl Boots’, though, is that it has evolved into a rallying battle-cry for any situation you find yourself in, whenever you’re in need of a confidence boost. The protagonist grows from nervously calling her father for some encouragement, to then fiercely declaring that she is no longer scared, making the crescendo all the more moving.

The real star of the show, though, is the hook - Yates elevates the galvanising, earworm melody with her sleek, polished vocals, ensuring ‘Big Girl Boots’ is still stuck in our heads some eight months after we first heard it.

~ MM

Shaboozey - 'Amen' (Feat. Jelly Roll)

On 'Amen,' Shaboozey doesn’t just break genre lines, he walks right over them.

It’s a revival meeting disguised as a banger, a testimony delivered with its hands raised and its boots planted firmly in the mud. Jelly Roll’s voice folds in like a late-night confession, rough and holy in its own way, giving the track a weight that hits straight in the chest.

What makes 'Amen' electric isn’t just the collaboration, it’s the clarity of purpose. Shaboozey sounds like a man who’s gone through the dark and comes out swinging, using faith not as a soft landing but as a weapon for survival. The production pulses, the harmonies swell, and the chorus moves like a prayer said through gritted teeth. There’s a rebellion threaded into every beat, the kind that says salvation isn’t passive, it’s fought for.

'Amen' feels less like a single and more like a statement: this is what genre-blending looks like when it’s done with conviction and zero fear of the fire.

~ Caitlin Hall

MacKenzie Carpenter & Midland - I Wish You Would

Mackenzie Carpenter and Midland blessed us with this classic country throwback in early 2025. It carries the sentimentality of an iconic country twosome - quite literally referencing “a Kenny and Dolly duet”.

It’s got a vintage haze that’s pulled straight from a neon-lit sawdust floor dancehall, with Carpenter’s bright vocals intertwining seamlessly with Midland’s smooth drawl.

Sonically, we’re treated to that bluesy country sound that Midland do so well - steel guitars, warm bass-lines and soft drums - complemented perfectly with Carpenter’s sincerity and authentic charm.

The song navigates the unspoken ache of craving someone to make the first move. The pair take us through a night of delicate touches, intimate two-steps and dutch courage, both desperate for the other to initiate something more.

It’s a song that balances vulnerability with a playful lust, marking an exceptional collaboration of 2025.

~ GB

Gavin Adcock - Need To

Gavin Adcock’s 2025 was marked by single release after single release, with the rowdy hitmaker having dropped around a dozen songs in the lead-up to his Own Worst Enemy collection.

A stand-out among them was ‘Need To’. When it was released in February, the pensive number, with its yo-yoing riffs and contemplative beat, quickly gained traction. Its sharp hooks held a lot of world-worn wisdom and its creeping groove made the pull undeniable.

‘Need To’ would initially solidify Adcock as one to watch in the New Year, and the tune has since held strong, the perfect example of what the artist is capable of when he quiets all the noise he’s become famous for in the last several months.

~ AP

Thelma & James - Happy Ever After You

It wasn't exactly announced to the world that MacKenzie Porter was collaborating with her husband, Jake Etheridge, for the first time. Instead, this song appeared like a blinding light in the dark, a gorgeous, tear-filled memory that had us all bawling by the end of our first listen.

The duo, now known under their pseudonym group name of ‘Thelma & James’, have been the providers of many of the most moving and beautiful songs this year ('Parking Lot Prayers' nearly had us picking two of their songs for this list), but it was their debut song together that truly opened our eyes to what could be in store from this pair - hopefully for years to come.

~ RJ

Margo Price - Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down

Margo Price gave us the first taste of her full return to country with the incendiary 'Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down,' a song that spoke for the downtrodden and marginalised at a time when people all over the world were feeling the full weight of oppression and authoritarianism.

Despite having a title that nods to a mock Latin call for resistance in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale - "Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum" - Price was mostly inspired by the words that Kris Kristofferson reassured Sinéad O'Connor with when she was booed on stage at a Bob Dylan anniversary concert in 1992.

Margo Price's anthem for the underserved was a timely reminder to always keep fighting for justice and your beliefs; a message that resounds as strongly today as it did 33 years ago when Kris Kristofferson first whispered the words to O'Connor.

~ JO

Dasha - Not At This Party

It's not easy to follow a billion-streaming monster hit like 'Austin (Boots Stop Workin'),' but with 'Not At This Party', Dasha proved that lightning really can strike twice.

The song was originally conceived at a party in Nashville, one that Dasha was feeling out of place at after a breakup and had been reluctant to even go to in the first place. Making a note of the song title in her phone, she finished off the idea later with Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson.

It ended up giving emotionally disconnected wallflowers the world over a new anti-party anthem, as well as David Guetta an excuse to do an EDM remix of a country song.

~ JO

Morgan Wallen - I'm A Little Crazy

It often feels like Morgan Wallen is able to churn out chart-topping, record-breaking mega-hits with such casual ease these days, that there is little incentive to stray from the blueprint and try something a little rawer.

Which is why ‘I’m a Little Crazy’ is such a satisfying and surprising deviation from the heartbreak and whiskey that permeates much of I’m the Problem. Penned by Wallen’s good buddy, HARDY, alongside Smith Ahnquist, Hunter Phelps and Jameson Rodgers, ‘I’m a Little Crazy’ finds the Sneedville native stepping into the shoes of a Boo Radley-esque figure, living by himself in an eerie old home (Creel House, anyone?) and yelling at the kids that ride by on their Santa Claus bikes.

Much of Wallen’s storytelling is devoted to the constant struggle of how he perceives himself, and how others, in turn, perceive him (usually exes, particularly when it comes to the blame of a break-up). At various points on the album, he is the problem, the tragic hero, the proud redneck and the charming Lothario.

But on ‘I’m a Little Crazy’, he throws all these personas out the window, and embodies a lonely, paranoid old man who has grown tired of the cruel ways of the world. It’s an ominous, eerie tale, yet the haunting chorus - “Oh, once you get to know me / I'm a coyote in a field of wolves” - feels like a true cri-de-coeur from Wallen. He is a little bit crazy, he admits, but that’s nothing compared to today’s world.

The songwriting is intricate and sinuous, while the pared-down composition allows the spotlight to fall on Wallen’s enchanting, evocative drawl. He captures the weather-worn, jaded spirit of our protagonist, and brings this mysterious, heartfelt tale to life.

One of Wallen’s most popular songs remains his beautiful cover of Jason Isbell’s ‘Cover Me Up’, and you can’t help but feel ‘I’m a Little Crazy’ is the closest thing to an Isbell-penned song we’ve heard from the ‘Last Night’ hitmaker since.

~ MM

Russell Dickerson - Happen To Me

Like we said, it's the year of the sample and interpolation in country once again, and there hasn't been any more effective or, quite frankly, better than Russell Dickerson's 'Happen To Me'.

Amidst the Hulk Hogan tributes and sold out RussellMania pay-per-shows, Dickerson has bought in and provided us some of the most joyous moments of the year.

Whether it's a ridiculously persuasive TikTok dance, a screaming sold-out live show, or a pitch-perfect sample of Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun', Dickerson knows how to instil both his charisma and effective songwriting into a certified smash.

- RJ

Tyler Childers - Bitin' List

If you’d told us at the beginning of January that our 2025 Song of the Year would be a darkly comical track about biting your enemies and infecting them with rabies, we’d have been confused.

If you’d have told us it was going to come from the Kentucky born Tyler Childers, it would have made just a little more sense.

This year, Childers released the album that no one quite saw coming. Produced by Rick Rubin, Snipe Hunter is a masterpiece of organised chaos. The stand out track from the album is deceptively minimalist in terms of music, yet has a production style as bold and shameless as the sentiment. In terms of lyrics, it’s as outlandish and acutely ridiculous as could be imagined - it’s unhinged. Throw in some dog barking, some incoherent Childers yelling and a banjo and you’ve got a Song of the Year right there.

For a year as universally chaotic, painful, tedious, and beautiful as 2025, one of country’s most beloved artists admitting that hey, if he doesn’t like you, he wouldn't be upset about using his last breath to give you a quick bite just seems… appropriate.

Here’s to 2025, the year that Childers truly lost his filter - we’re so here for it.

~ DI