rosalía’s Genre-Shattering Album Tops Guardian‘s 2025 Best Songs List
LONDON – Rosalía‘s latest album has been crowned the year’s best by The Guardian, signaling a shift in critical conversation away from rigid genre definitions and toward embracing aspiring artistic fusion. the album, lauded for its operatic scale and experimental sampling, heads a list of 20 standout tracks released in 2025, reflecting a year of boundary-pushing music.
The selection underscores a growing trend of artists dismantling customary musical boundaries. Rosalía’s work, which incorporates elements of classical music, flamenco, German lyrics, and even a sample of a Mike Tyson rant, exemplifies this movement.This year’s list isn’t about upholding established categories – whether the London Symphony Orchestra constitutes “classical” or Rosalía’s vocals are “opera” – but celebrating the audacity of artists who are redefining what music can be. The list impacts listeners, critics, and the music industry by highlighting innovation and challenging conventional expectations.
The Guardian’s list features a diverse range of artists and sounds, but Rosalía’s album stands out for its sheer scope and virtuosity. The publication notes the album’s references to 12th-century German abbess Hildegard von bingen and Björk’s contribution as “divine intervention.” The album’s immersive quality is likened to the Berghain nightclub, “subsuming the listener” in a way that mirrors the tumultuous relationship at the album’s core – a descent into overwhelming emotions. The Guardian writes that in the album’s scale, Rosalía “steals some power back for herself – leaving us in turn trembling with awe at her one-of-one magnitude.”
Listeners can explore The Guardian’s best songs of 2025 on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and other streaming services.
(Note: The original article was amended on December 3, 2025, to correct a sampling attribution. Bad Bunny sampled El Gran Combo, not “El Gran Colombo,” in Nuevayol.)
[Spotify Playlist Embed: https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/46HYdEpc15RFNETmv6Sdxs?utm_source=oembed ]
