The scramble of streaming services to get their end-of-2025 recaps out before Spotify’s Wrapped takes over social media continues. YouTube and Apple Music have launched their annual reviews, including charts of their most popular music and artists this year.
Bruno Mars is standing tall in those 2025 rankings with two blockbuster duets. Lady Gaga collab ‘Die With A Smile’ was YouTube’s top song of this year, while ‘APT.’ with Rosé was second in the rankings.’
‘APT.’ was Apple Music’s top song globally this year, meanwhile, with ‘Die With A Smile’ number three in that service’s end-of-year chart.
What else did the rankings reveal? No surprises to see the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack making a strong showing in YouTube’s top 10. Tracks from its virtual Huntr/X and Saja Boys groups occupied third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh spots in the chart.
Interestingly, it’s not quite the same story on Apple Music, although the film’s standout track ‘Golden’ came 15th in the rankings there. Apple noted that the track reached fourth place in its lyrics and sing charts.
2025 was also a strong year for Kendrick Lamar on both platforms. He had two tracks in YouTube’s top 10 – ‘Luther’ with SZA and ‘tv off’ on his own. ‘Luther’ was the second biggest song on Apple Music this year, while Drake-dragging ‘Not Like Us’ was fourth in that chart.
No Taylor Swift? Not in YouTube’s top 10 songs, and Swift only had one track in Apple Music’s top 100 tracks of 2025 – ‘Cruel Summer’ from her 2019 album ‘Lover’ in 45th place.
Her latest album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ has been a big hit on streaming services, but its early-October release date may be the key factor here: perhaps she’ll make a stronger showing in the 2026 recaps.
Getting back to 2025, though, and both YouTube and Apple Music have busted out some new personalised features for their users as part of their year-end reviews.
YouTube’s is its first Wrapped-style personalised recap, with cards showing people’s top artists and songs, as well as other data on their interests and even a ‘personality type’ assigned based on their viewing history.
Apple Music’s ‘Replay ’25’ has some new features too, showing people which artists they’ve discovered this year; which they’ve shown “loyalty” to by playing year after year; and “comebacks” – artists who returned to their rotation in 2025.
The recap will also highlight their total minutes and artists listened to this year, their longest artist streak and favourite genres among other data.
So, with Apple Music and YouTube’s recaps out in the wild, and Amazon Music and Deezer’s preceding them, which service could possibly be next? Answers on a postcard to…