The US’ most listened to songs in 2025 from the past seven decades have been revealed. Check out the list below.
READ MORE: NME‘s 50 best songs of 2025
The rundown was shared as part of a year-end report by Luminate, which tracks data and insights across music, TV and film.
One section of the chart, titled ‘US: Top Songs in 2025, by Release Decade’, runs through the biggest tracks from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s and ’20s across streaming platforms last year.
Creedence Clearwater Revival had the most played cut of the ’60s in the US in 2025, having racked up 136.7million streams with 1969’s ‘Fortunate Son’.
Next up, Fleetwood Mac earned an enormous 387.4million streams with their hit ‘Rumours’ single ‘Dreams’ (1977). The song enjoyed a resurgence in 2020 when it went viral on TikTok, and previously re-entered the US chart thanks to a popular meme.
Journey‘s ‘Don’t Stop Believin” was 2025’s most popular song from the ’80s with 263million plays. The 1981 classic was named the biggest track of all time by Forbes in 2024, when it went 18x platinum.
Goo Goo Dolls‘ ‘Iris’ (1998) represented the ’90s with 337.9million streams, while The Killers clinched the ’00s spot with ‘Mr Brightside’ (272.1million listens).
The latter single beat Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ to become the UK’s official biggest single of all time yet to reach Number One in 2024, and later broke two Guinness World Records. “We just don’t get tired of it,” said frontman Brandon Flowers at the time. In 2023, ‘Mr Brightside’ was revealed as the UK’s most-streamed song in Spotify history.
Luminate’s top track of 2025 from the ’10s was Chris Stapleton‘s ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ (306.7million). It is officially the biggest country song of all time in terms of sales, too (per Pitchfork).
Alex Warren‘s ‘Ordinary’ (2025) was the biggest tune of the 2020s last year, registering 746.8million streams. The single was the most listened to song on Spotify in the UK last year, and the fourth biggest track globally on the platform.
According to Luminate, “short-form video platforms are a key driver in the success of many catalogue songs”.
The report noted that Goo Goo Dolls’ ‘Iris’ “connected with global listeners” in 2025 after it featured on the soundtrack to 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, and the subsequent short-form video trend that formed. In 2022, the song surpassed one billion streams on Spotify.
The full list of the US’ most listened to songs of 2025 by decade is:
1960s – Creedence Clearwater Revival – ‘Fortunate Son’ (136.7million)
1970s – Fleetwood Mac – ‘Dreams’ (387.4million)
1980s – Journey – ‘Don’t Stop Believin” (263.0million)
1990s – Goo Goo Dolls – ‘Iris’ (337.9million)
2000s – The Killers – ‘Mr Brightside’ (272.1million)
2010s – Chris Stapleton – ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ (306.7million)
2020s – Alex Warren – ‘Ordinary’ (746.8million)
You can check out NME‘s 50 best songs of 2025 here, and our rundown of the best albums here.
The post These were the most listened to songs from each decade in 2025 appeared first on NME.
