It’s been a great year for music, and music videos have been there (almost) all of the way. From Sabrina Carpenter’s pithy, tongue-in-cheek “Manchild” and “Tears”, to breakout newcomer EsDeeKid’s dark, Gotham-like “Century”, music videos have deepened and enriched some of the biggest musical moments of 2025. 

They are, however, starting to seem like a dying art. In the age of social media, a full four-minute music video is basically long-form content, and they are rapidly getting fewer views than their short-form counterparts. Case in point: NLE the Great’s (formerly known as NLE Choppa) controversial Tupac-themed NBA Youngboy diss track “KO”, of which clips of the video have generated almost 20 times as many views on TikTok and Instagram as on the full cut available on YouTube.

But the medium is still important to celebrate. Moments like Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” or, more recently, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” sparked discussion in all the best ways, and it’s hard to imagine the same sort of conversations happening around a 30-second vertical snippet. Fortunately, there have still been some bangers this year – and some have even sparked discussions of their own. Below, we rank our ten favourite music videos of 2025. 

10. JIANBO, “FOR THE HONOUR FEAT. NIX NORTHWEST”

Previously working as a sound tech in the film industry before diving into music full-time, Camberwell rapper Jianbo has long been known for his incredible music videos. Early bangers like “Chinatown Trouble” saw what he calls “suped-up fucking Subarus” speeding down the Limehouse Link tunnel, but “For The Honour feat. Nix Northwest” took things to a whole new dimension. The video recreates an East Asian dystopian city with the stylings of a Grand Theft Auto 4 cutscene, complete with neon-lit back alleys, weed grow rooms in skyscrapers and a mecha debt collector. It’s a strong illustration of the tales from the underbelly that Jianbo delivers in his lyrics – or, as one commenter describes it more succinctly, a “drill noir”. (SPM)

9. ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER, “MEASURING RUINS”

“Yoshi Sodeoka is one of the all-time great video artists.” This is what Oneohtrix Point Never, AKA Daniel Lopatin, told Dazed back in November. A bold claim! As previous collaborators on Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (2020), the pair reunited this year via the music video for “Measuring Ruins”, a highlight track from Lopatin’s recently released Tranquilizer. GOAT conversations aside, the visuals were a perfect fit. Tapping into both Lopatin’s and Sodeoka’s fascination with simulated realities, they follow a mechanical drone in a complex dance with a flock of birds. Then it’s a swarm of dragonflies, then butterflies; nature begins to glitch out of existence, and Sodeoka, with a musician’s eye, tailors each microsecond to the track’s skittering percussion and gliding synths. As Lopatin himself says: “Yoshi’s like an antenna. He’s tuned in.” (TW)

8. CHARLI XCX, “PARTY 4 U”

This one’s a bit of an underdog story. Originally released as part of her fourth album How I’m Feeling Now, “party 4 u” went viral in February of this year after a TikTok trend involving fans singing the accelerated second verse pushed the track back into charts around the world. It was after this that a video for “party 4 u” was released in May, featuring Charli stumbling through a barren industrial wasteland in America and setting fire to her Coachella billboard. The latter scene appeared to establish a connection between the two periods in her career, with “party 4 u”’s central message of a night unfulfilled being recontextualised in her post-Brat era, in which the album cover began to gradually decay on Spotify and Charli posted about being “interested in the tension of staying too long”. “Party 4 u” is great because, five years after its initial release, it created a moment that could have only happened at that point in her career. (SPM) 

7. LORDE, “MAN OF THE YEAR” 

Back in April, a few days before joining Charli xcx on stage at Coachella, Lorde posted a TikTok stomping along the streets of New York while teasing her new single, “What Was That”. Her outfit was pretty simple – baggy denim jeans, a loose white shirt and black boots – though there was a strange detail on her left foot. A strip of luminous silver duct tape was stuck to the top of her boot, which we shrugged off, until it made a reappearance during her Coachella performance. Then came the Met Gala look: a custom Thom Browne two-piece in silver duchess satin, a direct reference to her next music video, “Man Of The Year”, which dropped two weeks later. Since she first began teasing her Virgin era, fans speculated that Lorde might be using this new album as a vehicle to explore her gender identity. Famously, Chappell Roan asked her directly: “Are you nonbinary now?” to which Lorde responded, “I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.” With “Man Of The Year”, Lorde bravely took this one step further, not only with the song’s lyrics, but by taping her chest on camera. After writhing around in dirt, she returns to a fetal position, reborn with a new confidence and understanding of her own identity. (IVD) 

6. SABRINA CARPENTER, “TEARS” 

Sabrina Carpenter is no stranger to referencing camp horror classics. From Psycho to Addams Family Values, Death Becomes Her to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the pocket-sized star has become a scream queen of modern music videos, and the visual for “Tears” was no different. Released on the same night as her latest album, Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter surprised the world with Colman Domingo in drag and an ode to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With the help of her new-found drag mother, Carpenter is given a makeover and the ability to dance (see the unmissable dance break). She also kills a man with her stiletto heel, keeping up the pattern of sacrificing a man in each of her videos. Interestingly, it’s directed by Canadian filmmaker Bardia Zeinali, who appears again later in this list… (IVD) 

5. DAVE, “CHAPTER 16 FEAT. KANO” 

“Let’s make a track about this dinner and this stamp you gave me / And base it on the Book of Samuel, call it ‘Chapter 16’ if you're down?” arrives the kicker at the end of Dave’s “Chapter 16”, revealing that the preceding track – which features back-to-back bars from UK legends Dave and Kano – was essentially a recreation of a conversation the pair had had over dinner. The track is rich with poignant, heartfelt lyrics – from Kano urging him and Simbi (Little Simz) to “go grab the accolades they wouldn’t give me,” to a playful line about Dave not dating, but ‘Duolingo-ing’. The video captures this intergenerational conversation with elegance and restraint. It’s simple, focusing not on high-octane moments, but on quiet, telling details: the exclusively white diners surrounding them; the waiter placing the bill in front of the older Kano, only for him to pass it across to Dave. The duo previously faced off as enemies in Top Boy, but here, their chemistry is even stronger as collaborators and friends. (SPM) 

4. DOJA CAT, “GORGEOUS”

How many supermodels can you fit into one music video? Doja Cat found out in September, when she released the video to “Gorgeous” starring Paloma Elsesser, Alex Consani, Amelia Gray, Mona Tougaard, Imaan Hammam, Anok Yai, Irina Shayk, Alek Wek, Karen Elson, Ugbad Abdi, Sora Choi, Ida Heiner and Yseult. It also features an appearance from Doja Cat’s mother, Deborah Sawyer. Could this be 2025’s equivalent to George Michael’s “Freedom! '90” video (famously starring Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Tatjana Patitz)? Though nothing will ever truly live up to the original, Doja Cat certainly gives it her best shot, filmed like an 80s makeup advert and directed by Bardia Zeinali (who we mentioned earlier as the man behind Sabrina Carpenter’s “Tears”). (IVD) 

3. JIM LEGXACY, “‘06 WAYNE ROONEY”

With early grime samples and lyrical nods to UK rap greats, there’s a strong sense of nostalgia running through Jim Legxacy’s music – and few directors are better matched to this vision than the UK’s anonymous worldbuilder Lauzza. Together, they form a powerful pair in the video for “‘06 Wayne Rooney”, which reimagines Jim as a character in FIFA 06, while kids trade Match Attax cards bearing his likeness outside a London corner shop. In true Lauzza style, the video is crammed with Easter Eggs, from a spoof Match of the Day segment co-hosted by grime-era icon Vuj, to a livestreamed FIFA Ultimate Team pack opening that ends with Jim drawing a card of himself (his highest attribute? Aura). Perhaps the greatest detail is how the video managed to breach reality itself, with the real ‘25 Wayne Rooney commenting on a snippet of the video on Instagram. Goal(s). (SPM)

2. DOECHII, “DENIAL IS A RIVER” 

Towards the end of 2024, Doechii’s career skyrocketed. A string of viral moments, including her Tiny Desk and Stephen Colbert performances, saw her shift from rising Tampa rapper to global superstar. Kicking off 2025, she kept the momentum going by releasing a music video to her chatty, musical theatre-esque single “Denial Is a River”, taken from her 2024 mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal. In everything she does, Doechii’s bold ideas and their execution separate her from other artists, and this video was no exception. Inspired by classic 90s sitcoms Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, it follows the song’s narrative of catching her boyfriend with another man, before glowing up and going platinum. Like the song, the video is creative, comical and taps into a homely sense of nostalgia. It flawlessly transitions from gritty VHS video to cinematic storytelling, featuring a cast of familiar faces including Earl Sweatshirt, Teezo Touchdown, Baby Tate and DJ Miss Milan. In the YouTube comments, one user notes: “So bold of Doechii to release the best music video of 2025 on January 2nd”, and we can’t deny, it was a tough call. (IVD) 

1. ADDISON RAE, “HEADPHONES ON”

Most of our generation will remember being in the back of the car, plugging in our wired headphones (whether you were listening on an iPod shuffle, a Sony Walkman or an MP3 player), and dissociating as your dad put his foot on the gas and hurtled down the M5. Whatever weight we were carrying on our shoulders may seem as light as a feather compared to today’s pressures, but still, when our 3G was too slow to scroll through Tumblr, we relied on music to transport us elsewhere. Addison Rae’s “Headphones On” captures this exact feeling: navigating life as a troubled adolescent, existing in an imaginary, otherworldly realm by way of distraction.

The song itself is about Rae’s own experience coping with her parents’ divorce and relying on music to help shut out the real world. During that time, Björk was one of the musicians she turned to, so naturally, Rae’s personal escape would be Björk’s motherland, Iceland. At the beginning of the video, she’s working behind the till at Iceland (the British supermarket chain), with the Icelandic flag painted on her fingernails. Cut to her dreamscape, and Iceland the supermarket becomes Iceland the country, complete with mountainous horizons, waterfalls and black sand beaches. Rae herself becomes a pink-haired nymph, riding a white horse bareback with a breathtaking, volcanic backdrop. By the end of the video, the camera zooms out to reveal the singer back in the supermarket car park, riding a white rocking horse instead of the real one. Directed by Mitch Ryan, the video acts as the perfect visualiser for the phrase “headphones in, world out”, and sadly, in 2025, we had every reason to want to shut the real world out. Luckily, Addison Rae wasn’t one of those reasons, though she did provide the soundtrack to our distraction. (IVD)