To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2025. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
We had a lot of heavy news in the last 12 months, but 2025 also saw a lot of great local art and culture – and of course music. Each December, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck counts down the top 50 local songs of the year – always a tall order, and this year was no exception.
It’s time for an annual tradition: here’s (part 2 of) our countdown of the best local songs of 2025! And scroll all the way to the end for our Spotify playlist of all 50 songs!
First, a quick recap of the two ground rules: originals only, no covers, and we’re defining a “local” artist as anyone currently based in 97.9 The Hill’s coverage zone, which includes Orange, Durham, and northern Chatham counties.
Click here to look back on the first half of our countdown, from 50 to 26.
And now: here’s the top half of this year’s Live & Local Top 50.
25 (tie). Magpie, Descent of a Masked Man 25 (tie). Magpie, For a Moment Or Two
The kids are all right: Owen Russell is a 16-year-old junior at Carrboro High School, and yet he’s already accomplished and confident enough to drop “Nobody We Could Name,” a genre-busting debut LP that brazenly leaps from acoustic bedroom indie (“For A Moment”) to spitfire hip-hop (“Masked Man”). You can’t capture this project with a single track, so I’m giving you two.
24. Watchhouse, All Around You
“All Around You” was the highlight, but it’s hard to pick a single track from “Rituals,” which unsurprisingly was one of the best local albums of the year. A bit like late-period John Lennon, Andrew and Emily’s music feels a little more matured and mellow now but they haven’t lost any of their fire.
23. Emma Foley, No Contact High
Forget your internships and extracurriculars: Emma Foley’s spending her time at UNC becoming a bona fide Tik Tok star. A cathartic track perfect for highway driving, “No Contact High” is her best so far – but she’s only just getting started.
22 (tie). Joseph Terrell, Every Dollar 22 (tie). Lonnie Rott, Ode to Mark Fisher
“How come I see ten pennies for every dollar of work I do?” In a year defined by climate change, AI slop, PFAS pollution, and Elon Musk somehow seizing control of the U.S. government for two months, it’s not surprising that 2025 also saw its share of music and art that lashed out against the oppressive and exploitative insanity of late capitalism. Here are my two favorites: Terrell’s “Every Dollar” is an original, but it feels like we’ve known it forever – you can picture Florence Reese singing it at a coal miners’ rally – while Rott’s “Ode” is even more revolutionary, starting with resignation and rising in the final verse towards a (hesitant) step into rebellion. (His whole album ticks in that direction – even down to the Gabe Anderson-designed cover art, featuring a grainy black-and-white photo of Rott that makes him look eerily like Lenin.)
Want a bigger soundtrack for your own rebellion? Honorable mention to Rumbletramp’s radical sea shanty “Black Sunrise,” – or Django Haskins’ “Midnight Anthem,” if you don’t mind leaning all the way into despair.
21. Tift Merritt, Last Day I Knew What To Do
Tift Merritt had epic struggles with the industry in the mid-2000s, but now she’s getting the chance to celebrate the music she made in the process. For the 20th anniversary of her seminal album “Tambourine,” Merritt released “Time and Patience,” an album of alternate ‘kitchen’ recordings, plus some unreleased tracks that had been left off the original LP. “Last Day” is the best of those, a timeless song that feels as fresh and new today as it would have 20 years ago.
20. Flock of Dimes, Afraid
“I did not enter this world afraid, and I refuse to leave it that way.” Not a bad opening line to kick off “The Life You Save,” Jenn Wasner’s first solo album in four years.
19. Winfield, 1 + 1 + 1
Another killer opening track, “1 + 1 + 1” layers Victoria Roy’s light vocals over a dark post-punk soundscape to create a perfect soundtrack for a late night when everything seems possible – for better or worse.
18. Grady White, Delta 9
In a breakout year for Grady White, this humorously melancholy ode to THC stands out – though “It’s somehow legal, at least I think so” hits a little different now that Congress has passed a bill targeting these very products. (Though in fairness, that bill also hits a little different after hearing White marveling at how weird it is that he can buy this stuff in stores.)
Side note: until it’s confirmed otherwise, my head canon is that “Mrs. White” is an imaginary friend like Counting Crows’ Mr. Jones. Prove me wrong.
17. Amelia Riggs, T-Shirt Money
Riggs’ biggest release this year was the hyperliterate, trans-radical album “Creature” (“Benjamin ‘85” is the highlight there), but my favorite individual track was this standalone song she released a couple months earlier, with acid lyrics over a bouncy, catchy, fuzzy guitar riff. (Inspired by some actual specific jerk, or an entire industry that feels no compunction about chewing up artists and spitting them out? Both, would be my guess.)
Fun fact: Django Haskins isn’t on the list this year, so Amelia Riggs stands alone as the only artist to make our countdown four years in a row.
16. Jesse Fox, Leave
“If you’re gonna go, then burn down this house on your way out.” Always one of our favorites, Jesse Fox dropped five stellar singles this year – and your mileage may vary on which is the best, but I’ll go with “Leave,” a quintessential Fox song about a guy who can’t get over a recent breakup. (Or was it something that happened years ago? I could see it going either way.)
15. The Pinkerton Raid, We Tremble With The Noise
In a year full of radical protest music, the best political song of all might actually be this more conciliatory one from Jesse James DeConto, arguably his career best, which spotlights the genuinely good people who find themselves trapped in the middle – wanting justice, sympathetic to the movements, but also keenly aware that the movements’ success would jeopardize their own already-tenuous livelihoods.
14. Katie Rae, Help!
I might not have even come across Hillsborough’s Katie Rae if it hadn’t been for a nice writeup in the News of Orange last year, but thank goodness for it: she only just started releasing music in 2023, but her breezy electronic pop sound already stands proudly alongside the Triangle’s best.
13. Heavy Denim, Ain’t Good Enough
Unfamiliar with these guys? Allow me to introduce you to one of the best rock bands in the Triangle – and definitely one of the most underappreciated. “Ain’t Good Enough” is the spectacular closing track from their tour-de-force album “Young Hearts Die Hard”; sadly powerhouse vocalist Greg Arent has moved to Philly, a huge loss, but luckily the band isn’t going anywhere.
Fun fact: Heavy Denim is one of only three bands/artists to make our top 25 in each of the last two years. Jesse Fox is another – and we’ll get to the third in a bit.
12. CY&I, Happy For That
I think they’ve all graduated now, but three of the four guys in this band were still in Chapel Hill High School when they dropped this thing back in March. “Happy For That” rides like the best roller coaster, launching you out of the gate, whipping around unexpected curves and turns, and finally cresting the big hill about three minutes in, leaving you feeling briefly weightless.
(Not sure what the Richard Nixon clip is doing there exactly, but damn if it doesn’t work.)
11. The Gone Ghosts, Heard It All Before
No elaborate explanation needed: just pure, straight down the line, hard-driving, showstopping country-rock Americana from one of the best and most pivotal bands in the area. If country music was like this all the time, Breaking Rust wouldn’t exist.
“Heard It All Before” is also the centerpiece of one of the best longform releases of the year, the Gone Ghosts’ five-song EP “True ‘Til Death” – which includes a couple great tracks by Dave Hedeman’s daughter Eliza Mae, currently a student at UNC-G but also a rising star in her own right.
10. Anjimile, Auld Lang Syne II
It’s the sweetest warm blanket of a love song you’ll hear all year – though in typical Anjimile fashion, the lyrics go way deeper than you expect. Is it merely a love song? Or is it a breakup song? Or is it an unrequited-love song, addressed to someone who’s happily with another? I think it’s the latter, but I’ve heard it all three ways.
9. The Mayflies USA, Calling the Bad Ones Home
The comeback story of the year: the Mayflies USA returned better than ever with “Kickless Kids,” their first album in 23 years and easily one of the best we heard in ‘25. This catchy, bouncy lead single was another staff favorite, but you could fill this space with just about any of the album’s 12 tracks.
2025 was a pretty good year for one family in particular: Matt McMichaels is here with the Mayflies at no. 9, and his son Max is at no. 12 with CY&I.
8. Fust, Spangled
The sound is modern alt-country but the lyrics are vintage Springsteen, juxtaposing patriotic Fourth of July imagery (flags, sparklers) against a backdrop of economic devastation and existential despair. (With the year’s most enigmatic lyric: is “305” just a Maguffin, or is there some deeper meaning behind it? Your guess is as good as mine.)
I’m not the only radio man who loves this song: NPR ranked it as one of their top 25 of the year.
7. Nnenna Freelon, Black Iris
Already a jazz legend with multiple Grammy nominations and nothing more to prove, Nnenna Freelon took a leap of faith in 2025 and released her first-ever album of originals: “Beneath the Skin,” a deeply personal meditation on love and loss and the bittersweet passage of time. Lead single “Dark and Lovely” goes down smoother, but “Black Iris” will stick with you longer, with its complicated melody, wise lyrics and gorgeous imagery – not to mention Nnenna’s incredible voice, cutting through the dim and smoky night. (Either song is worthy of this spot, though, so feel free to swap out one for the other if you prefer.)
6. Idol Talk, Accelerator
The only new artist of the year to make our top 10, Idol Talk immediately took their place as one of the Triangle’s best post-punk outfits with their debut album “Allure” – which one reviewer glowingly described as “smeared in mascara and malaise.” You get both in spades with “Accelerator,” with a soaring synth-drenched melody and an earworm of a riff pulsing insistently behind the darkest lyrics of the year, taking you on a tear-stained frantic late-night drive after a shattering personal tragedy that’s never fully specified.
5. Defacto Thezpian, Can’t Dance
The catchiest, bounciest, danciest, partiest song of the year. Defacto also put out a fantastic album in 2025, “Chicks & Rhymes, Vol. 5,” but “Can’t Dance” is the track that was still rolling around in my head three days later.
4. Slow Teeth, Sundials
People talk around it all the time, but here is the specific rule: yes, it’s fine to make a very long song, but you got to earn it. You better be doing something cool and new in that fifth or sixth minute; otherwise you ought to just stop after three and a half like everyone else. Think “American Pie,” or “Stairway to Heaven,” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” – or “Sundials,” Slow Teeth’s showstopping slow burner that’s seven and a half minutes long and earns every second, with three separate musical climaxes each bigger than the last. (Slow Teeth is also one of the best live bands in the Triangle right now, so don’t miss them in person either.)
For a very specific review, I’ll repeat what I told Justin Ellis the first time I heard “Sundials”: Pink Floyd’s late-period album “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” would have actually been good if this track had been on it.
3. Otis Ghost, The Good Die Young
“They say the good die young – I bet you we don’t die.” That’s the best lyric of the year, in the best hip-hop song of the year. 2025 saw solid albums and EPs from JonDaGreat, Jozeemo, 6razzo, and MayDayGlo, plus new singles from some of our favorites, like SkyBlew, Jabu Graybeal, and G Yamazawa – not to mention 9th Wonder teaming up with Common for a great track in honor of the late Stuart Scott – but Otis blows ‘em all away with this one.
2. Lennon KC, High Hopes N Paper Clips
“You’re shouting out to God above – he’s not around like me.” True story: I got a phone call this year from a regular listener who called just to tell me how much he hated this song. He’s wrong, but I get it: it’s a challenging track, and the more you listen, the more you let yourself fall down this rabbit hole, the more off-putting and discomfiting it can get. Our main character is a troubled dude who out-creeps Thom Yorke by a mile and a half, but are we supposed to be aware of that? Or are we supposed to be on his side? And is it okay that we kinda sympathize with him regardless, even when he lashes out in an explosive, cathartic final chorus that releases all the tension Lennon’s been carefully building for two and a half minutes?
Either way, “High Hopes” is one of the best, most provocative tracks of 2025 – and Lennon KC joins Jesse Fox and Heavy Denim as the third artist to make our top 25 in back-to-back years.
And finally…
1. Blue Cactus, This Kind of Rain
“I don’t know if I’m getting better or I’m getting worse, but I’m getting by.” A perfect song for troubling times, and it’s been one of our favorites for a while – since summer 2021, in fact, when Steph and Mario first played it at our Live & Local Live concert outside University Place. It took almost four years to get the recorded version (as the lead single on their spectacular third album “Believer,” whose title track is a classic too), but it was worth the wait. “This Kind of Rain” is one of my favorite songs of the decade so far: I hope it’s one of yours too.
What was your favorite local song of 2025? Comment and let us know!
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