Pop Takes Back the Crown From Hip-Hop: The State of the Hot 100’s Top 10 for 2025

What were some of the most notable trends on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart during 2025?

Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits, has released its year-end 2025 State of the Hot 100 Top 10 report.

Here are three takeaways from Hit Songs Deconstructed’s latest in-depth research.

Pop Back on Top

Pop ruled as the most common primary genre in the Hot 100’s top 10 throughout 2025, contributing to 42% of all top 10 hits. It jumped from 29% takes in both 2023 and 2024.

“Pop notably rebounded in 2025 after generally declining since 2020,” Hit Songs Deconstructed notes, with the genre’s resurgence “largely driven by Taylor Swift,” who ran up 10 Hot 100 top 10s, earned concurrently upon the October debut of her album The Life of a Showgirl. Sabrina Carpenter claimed five top 10s in 2025, while KPop Demon Hunters spun off two acts each with two: HUNTR/X and Saja Boys.

Hip-hop/rap placed second with a 19% share in 2025 — half its 2024 total. “Hip-hop/rap’s representation in the Hot 100 top 10 declined sharply to its lowest level since 2016,” per Hit Songs Deconstructed’s report.

With pop at 42% and hip-hop/rap at 19%, the genres show the largest disparity since 2018, when hip-hop/rap ousted pop by 35 percentage points.

Pop and hip-hop/rap have traded annual titles as the leading primary genre in the Hot 100’s top 10 since the latter led in both 2017 and 2018. This decade, the genres are tied with three banners apiece:

Country has been the third-biggest primary genre the past three years, up to a 17% share of Hot 100 top 10s in 2025 after accounting for 15% in both 2023 and 2024. “This was largely driven by Morgan Wallen, who accounted for nine of the year’s 11 country top 10s,” Hit Songs Deconstructed points out. “Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ and Chappell Roan’s ‘The Giver’ were the other representatives.”

From 2017 to 2022, R&B/soul placed third each year, ranging from 8% to 17% takes of the Hot 100’s top 10. It holds fourth place for 2025 at 13% (up from 11% in 2024, after a 12% finish in 2023). Latin and rock round out the top five at 5% each over 2025.

We Love Love

“The themes of love/relationships and introspection both rose to their highest levels in over a decade in 2025,” in the Hot 100’s top 10, according to Hit Songs Deconstructed.

Love/relationships led all lyrical themes with a 67% showing in 2025, up from 52% the year before. Digging deeper, Hit Songs Deconstructed finds that “being in love” informed 44% of such hits; “love lost,” 31%; and “platonic” feelings, 9%.

Introspection soared to 44%, from 33% in 2024 and 14% in 2023. The theme is central in “diverse, inward-looking hits,” writes Hit Songs Deconstructed, including Hot 100 No. 1s “Die With a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, HUNTR/X’s “Golden” and Wallen’s “What I Want,” featuring Tate McRae.

Key Changes

Pop’s prominence helped result in major keys rebounding to drive the bulk of hits in the Hot 100’s top 10 in 2025.

“For the first time since 2015, major tonalities surpassed minor in the top 10, accounting for 55% of songs, compared to 44% in minor keys,” Hit Songs Deconstructed observes. “This shift was driven in part by the diminished presence of hip hop/rap, a genre that has historically favored minor tonalities.

“Despite this shift, the most common individual key in 2025 was D minor,” Hit Songs Deconstructed reports, appearing in hits ranging from Doechii’s “Anxiety” to Carpenter’s “Tears” and Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia.”