The Best Songs Released in June 2025

We’re only a few days away from sharing our “Best Albums of 2025 (so far)” post – hope you’re excited! Here’s our list of releases from June to hold you over:

Noteworthy album & EP releases
Addison, Addison Rae
Imaginary Friend, After Ours
Whale Songs Vol. 1, Annika Bennett, Olivia Barton
American Heart, Benson Boone
Copper Changes Color, Caamp
endlessly, chanpan
The Rubber Teeth Talk, Daisy the Great
Dayglow (Superbloom), Dayglow
The Garden, Devon Gabriella
Happy Birthday, Finn Wolfhard
Different Talking, Frankie Cosmos
Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform, Girl Group
I quit, HAIM
Raspberry Moon, Hotline TNT
My sunny oath!, Jahnah Camille
Father Figure, Jon Bellion
Make Yourself at Home, JP Saxe
BEAUTIFUL CHAOS, Katseye
Phantom Island, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
Lotus, Little Simz
MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING, Lizzo
SIRENITY, King Isis
Blush, Kevin Abstract
as i watch my life online, late night drive home
THE ART OF BEING A MESS, Lauren Spencer Smith
Lotus, Little Simz
Virgin, Lorde
PRINCESS OF POWER, MARINA
dying art, Meg Donnelly
Nostalgia, Mother Mother
Grip, Pip Blom
Fall In Love With Her, Sabrina Claudio
growing down, Salem Ilese
backroads, Samara Cyn
Tomorrow Comes Crashing, Smut
If Nevermore, Sub Urban
After The Fact, Syd Taylor
Cult Leader, Susannah Joffe
Sonder, Tedious & Brief
NEVER ENOUGH, Turnstile
CURSE, Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Scratch It, U.S. Girls
Do It Afraid, Yaya Bey
Idols, Yungblud

In chronological order:

“Nice to Each Other” – Olivia Dean
Release date – May 30

It’s always a struggle to determine when to release of “best of the month” lists because we open ourselves up to the opportunity that we’ll miss an absolute banger, which is the choice we made when releasing our “Best of May” list last month just two days after the last day of May. But luckily, we can make our own rules around here, and that’s why two of the six songs on the list below were released at the very tail end of May, and they’re so good, we had to include them.

I’ve been a fan of Olivia Dean’s for the past couple years, admittedly late to the party but enjoyed her debut album, Messy, enough to keep tabs on and even seeing her perform at last year’s Lollapalooza. Since then, she’s been hustling with lots of live performances and most recently, a collaboration with fellow Brit Sam Fender.

“Nice to Each Other” is seemingly the track that has catapulted her to the next level, currently sitting at 26 million streams on Spotify after being released for less than a month and currently one of her biggest songs to date. “I’ve done all the classic stuff and it never works,” Olivia croons on the track, solidifying the idea that she is over the “traditional” antics that surround courtship and dating. “Can we say that we’ll never say the classic stuff, just show it? Water, sunlight, talking all night / Just enough to grow it” she sings.

In this day and age, words are empty, and all you can judge when it comes to dating someone is their actions. Just be nice and intentional! It’s that simple.
– Kristin

“Fame is a Gun” – Addison Rae
Release date – May 30

First off, I’m sorry to all of the Addison Rae fans that I may or may not have pissed off in the past for doubting her talent. Now I’m still not fully convinced, as I personally feel like the reason most of her music is hitting because of the talented women she is working with, but you cannot deny the banger of a a song that is “Fame is a Gun.” I’ve listened to this song so many times since its release, there was no world where I couldn’t include it in this list.

I know making sweeping comparisons to artists of pop’s past (cough cough, Britney Spears), can be controversial, but I do feel like “Fame is a Gun” is channeling Spears in the best way possible (I will acknowledge that I told this to my good friend, who is a huge Spears fan, who feels like it’s more of a Heidi Montag song than a Britney song, but I digress). Complete with single artwork that features Rae as a five or six-year-old (I’m very bad at determining age) posing for the camera with sunglasses, lipstick, and a tube top that I could only imagine is from a styling session at Club Libby Lu—iykyk, one thing is certain: Addison has been plotting for fame basically her entire life, a hustle that I can respect.
– Kristin

“Drug Dealer” – Medium Build
Release date – June 6

For some unknown, potentially psychological (or even biological) reason, I am not someone that fixates on slow songs. However, Medium Build’s “Drug Dealer” simply spoke to me, and I need to talk about it. A couple of months ago I saw a tweet that read: “you’re miserable because you view every stranger as a potential partner,” and I’ve been consistently bringing it up to people because I think I realized that is something that I have a tendency to do as well; “Drug Dealer” basically expands on this idea in a very simple way.

“We go on, and on, and on lookin’ for someone,” Nick (aka Medium Build) sings, and in his case he’s seeing a potential lover in his drug dealer, and in a bartender, and—and this part that felt like a personal attack—in a songwriter he’s never personally met. Looking for someone to love and someone to love us back is obviously a very human thing (there’s a few million songs that talk about this already), but I think this track in particular does a great job on exposing the sad, almost pathetic part of going through life like this. With a sort of desperation to find someone, anyone. Nick finally sings “looking for someone who can save us” on the final chorus, as he continues to repeat himself over and over, the same way we, over and over again, go on looking for love, pretending to find it in places where we were never going to find it. – Javi

“Victory Lap” – Fred Again, Skepta, PlaqueBoyMax
Release date – June 18

Fred again… is deep in his rapper-collab era and absolutely thriving. His latest release, “Victory Lap” with Skepta and PlaqueBoyMax, is a total knockout. He premiered the track during his surprise show at the newly reopened Brooklyn Paramount earlier this month, and from the clips I saw, the energy in the room was unreal. Fred has really mastered this lane: emotional, moody production layered under sharp verses and chopped vocal samples that somehow hit just as hard in your headphones as they do in a packed venue. Skepta sounds cool and collected, fully in his element, while PlaqueBoyMax brings a raw, hungry energy that cuts through in the best way.

Lyrically and sonically, it really is a victory lap—full of confidence, grit, and just enough vulnerability to keep it grounded. Fred’s ability to make club-ready music that still feels deeply personal is what makes him such a standout. This track is one of those songs that makes you want to throw your hoodie on and walk through the city like you’re the main character. One of my favorite releases this month, hands down. – Jesse 

“Man-Made Girl Bands” – Girl Group
Release date – June 20

“You’re no rockstar, you’re pretty and a woman,” the opening line of “Man-Made Girl Bands” states. I was already very into this British band, Girl Group, after stumbling upon them on a New Music Friday playlist, and absolutely enthralled after hearing this song and the rest of their debut EP, Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform. Turns out, Girl Group just performed two shows in London with another artist on this list, Olivia Dean, solidifying that not only should you get Girl Group on your radar, but that if you love Olivia Dean and a lot of artists we tend to write about, you’ll love this one, too.

I could have chosen any of the songs off of this EP to highlight, but there was something so jarring about “Man-Made Girl Bands” that spoke to the rampant sexism women continue to face in the music industry—whether it’s the meaningless controversy of a Sabrina Carpenter album cover or any of the other million ways women can breathe and cause a backlash.

“You can learn your lines and play the part and keep pretending you can play guitar / we’re gonna bring you up to drop you far / and then we’ll show them who you really are” pretty much sums up the entire meaning of the song and the band’s existence, whose Spotify bio mentions that they “aim to celebrate and make space for women in music.” Unfortunately, if artists don’t, who is going to? – Kristin

“Hammer” – Lorde
Release date – June 20

It almost feels irrelevant now that Virgin is out and the whole album is incredible, but Lorde’s final pre-release single, “Hammer,” dropped just a week ago—and it’s worth talking about. Alongside the track, she released a striking music video directed by Renell Medrano, shot on location in Hampstead Heath. Just two days earlier, she’d announced the single on Instagram with the caption: “Last song before Virgin. First song on the album. An ode to city life and horniness tbh.” The post was paired with another stunning photo by Talia Chetrit, showing Lorde in a silver top, grey underwear, and braids, drinking water from a bathroom sink. The shot is framed in a mirror, adding to the layered, reflective visual language that runs throughout the Virgin era. One detail I love: it looks like one of her braids is being pulled upward by some invisible force—another subtle nod to the album’s surreal, cohesive aesthetic.

As the opening track, “Hammer” is an incredible start. It kicks off with the line, “Don’t know if it’s love or if it’s ovulation”—a reference to Lorde coming off birth control and describing ovulation as “one of the best drugs I’ve ever done.” The next line, “When you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” keeps the theme of unfiltered desire going. She also drops what might be the most iconic lyric on the album: “Some days I’m a woman, some days I’m a man,” a possible callback to her response when Chappell Roan asked if she identifies as nonbinary.

The production is metallic and club-ready, pulsing with an energy that feels both raw and euphoric. She even name-drops New York—specifically Canal Street—which, as a New Yorker, makes this track (and album) hit even harder. And if you haven’t watched the video yet, do it. It’s Lorde at her most vulnerable, most exposed—literally and artistically. – Jesse

Follow our New Music Sunday playlist on Spotify HERE.