# Best #1 Single of the Year: 2025 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 30, 2025, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167 "2025-12-30T05:06:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/1 "2025-12-30T05:06:03Z")
It’s that time again! (One day I really do need to re-run this whole series from scratch to make up for the fact that the old polls didn’t survive the migration to Discourse.) In contrast to several recent years, there were only 10 songs to make #1 on the Hot 100 this year. Mariah Carey tops the charts yet again, setting a new record for the most weeks spent at #1, thereby reclaiming the record that “One Sweet Day” set in 1995 after Lil Nas X broke it a few years back. For myself, as much as it hurts me to vote against Tay-Tay, “The Fate of Ophelia” isn’t a very good song. I went with “Golden” - I haven’t seen K-Pop Demon Hunters and I’m not a big fan of the genre in general, but it’s just a fun song. Place your vote, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars. _Poll ([view on site](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/1))_ ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/2 "2025-12-30T15:03:39Z")
I’m not familiar with most of those but “Golden” is a banger. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/3 "2025-12-30T15:08:06Z")
I’ll make my selection in the next couple days after I listen to the unfamiliar ones. In the meantime, I’d like to say this: FUCK MARIAH CAREY ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/4 "2025-12-30T16:27:50Z")
I just saw the movie yesterday, so “Golden” it is. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/5 "2025-12-31T02:06:32Z")
“Not Like Us” is easily the highest-rated song according to the world-famous **Ponch8 Music Rating System**. I nearly voted for it in 2024 (just being edged out by Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control”), and further analysis makes be believe that I made the wrong choice last year. Now the good Lord has given me a second chance to vote for “Not Like Us”! The songs by the redneck and by Mariah Carey are tied for dead-ass last. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/6 "2025-12-31T16:34:28Z")
Y’know, I missed the 2024 poll, else I would have at least got Not Like Us represented there. It was an anthem of its year for sure. I have a particular inclination to just rule out tracks that are automatically set for seasonal rotation year after year. Especially when by now it has turned meme-driven. So, sorry, no Xmas song unless it’s new, or just from last year. Still haven’t made up my mind but as of now it’s between Kendrick’s hit-in-more-than-one-sense, and the one from a fantasy property that last summer came out of seemingly nowhere to steamroller the streaming world and blow real bands off the chart. Not Like Us, or Golden? Decisions, decisions… ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/7 "2025-12-31T18:51:28Z")
Not a Bruno or Gaga fan and didn’t see Joker 2, but Die With A Smile is a really good song. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/8 "2025-12-31T19:19:34Z")
Only reason i didn’t vote Golden was it wasn’t even my favorite song in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/9 "2025-12-31T19:24:27Z")
I loath the Bruno and Gaga song, and I swear it was played four times an hour on every Top 40/adult contempo station all year long. Absolutely horrendous song, can’t listen to more than five seconds before I have to either stick steak knives in my ear or turn the station. Went with Not Like Us, but Golden was a close second. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/10 "2026-01-01T04:01:28Z")
I regularly drive my teenage granddaughter to school, and often _Golden_ is playing on the radio. I call it the “butter beans” song, based on what I was hearing. The actual lyrics are “That’s who we’re born to be”, but I can only hear “butter beans”. I love _Manchild_, especially after Sabrina Carpenter was on Seth Meyer’s show. I had never seen the official video, so my wife and I watched it. Surprisingly, we both liked it, so we watched it again to get all the references. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/11 "2026-01-01T08:09:42Z")
Just got done watching the Space Needle fireworks show on TV. (To the extent that it could be watched this year, since it’s so goddamn foggy that you can’t even see the Needle itself on the hard cam.) “Golden” was the only song from this year that they played on the soundtrack simulcast. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-1-single-of-the-year-2025/1026167/12 "2026-01-01T15:34:59Z")
Heh, yesterday evening watched several world celebrations as time went on and “Golden” was part of the Paris Arc de Triomphe fireworks soundtrack.