This list is for the individual songs that either weren't part of albums this year or were part of albums that didn't make the Top 10 list.
Marina Diamandis will probably never reach the heights she did in her Diamonds days, but that's okay; neither will any of us. There is no such thing as going back to the garden. But sometimes we pass a flower whose perfume takes us back to that place, lets us sit in nostalgia for a fleeting moment, and dissipates before the grief of loss can truly settle in again. That's what DIGITAL FANTASY is: a perfectly good throwback to what made us all primadonna girls in the first place.
I couldn't not put CUNTISSIMO on the list. You cannot write the lyric "Cuntissimo (oh baby it's a way of life)" without going down in the annals of pop music history; I have a big soft spot for songs that have this sort of fucking audacity. While I like DIGITAL FANTASY more, the rules are the rules. Hence, the tie.
Wet Leg makes the kind of music I appreciate but don't always love to listen to on a regular basis. They are unabashedly weird, digustingly horny, and unafraid to be themselves. I gave their album from this year a spin, but CPR was the track that stuck around on my playlists even after the rest had shuffled out of rotation. I like a fuck jam that sounds just a little bit like a threat.
I am not weird or horny enough at the moment to truly appreciate the entirety of what FKA Twigs can offer, but I'm working on that. I couldn't fully get into Eusexua, but I really liked what I heard, and I especially liked this track. It's sultry, sensual, weird, and just a little bit foreboding. In 2026 I hope to get to a mental place where I can become the sort of person that can fuck with (and to) FKA Twigs a lot more than I have in the past. That's a new year's resolution I think we can all appreciate.
Peach PRC makes adorable sapphic pop perfection, including "God is a Freak" which you probably heard on tiktok a few years back. This year she gave us an ode to strapping that includes the line "Can you have me hands free?/I don't mind a little imitation plant-based meat/And you can call me princess/I'll bow down to your royal harness". It's perfect. No notes.
Remember the thing I said about pop songs that have the fucking audacity? This is another one. Allie X's album was largely a miss for me, but I immediately fell in love with this track. Smack dab in the middle of the LP, Allie X sets out to do exactly one thing: ruin the iconic riff from The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" for an unnamed ex. She interpolates the melody into a scathing piano-driven tune with lyrics like "I hope this melody starts to haunt you endlessly/It's everywhere you go, it's in the gym, it's at the show." As someone who has dealt with the near-universal experience of having a beloved piece of music ruined by its association with an ex, I aspire to this level of sheer artistic pettiness. This is what Taylor Swift could have done with her fucking shitshow of an album this year, if she wasn't creatively bankrupt. As it stands, Allie X is filling a specific niche for the pop girlies who are not deranged enough for Peaches but are too normal for Caroline Polachek, and that's honestly beautiful.
Look, I've loved Charli since the Pop 2 era. I think I'm the only person on earth, including Charli, who remembers her self-titled 2019 masterpiece. I know that there's lots of kerfuffle about the accuracy of the upcoming Wuthering Heights movie, but I didn't read that book in school, and the only thing I really care about is that Emerald Fennell knows how to assemble a hell of a soundtrack. Chains of Love is dark, delicious, haunted, desperate, jarring--in other words, exactly what you'd want from this project. BRAT summer will always live in my mind, but Wuthering Heights Winter kicked off with a hell of a bang.
What can I even say, fam? What can I say that hasn't already been said? Robyn is a fucking icon. She's been killing this shit since 1994. She gets to do whatever the fuck she wants, including dropping a song called "Dopamine" that's just a hilariously on the nose example of how her kind of pop music will activate the titular neurotransmitter and take you to heaven for three and a half glorious minutes. Whatever she does next, I'm there. May 2026 be the Year of Robyn's Return.
I'm really glad Chappell Roan took a break and seems to be thriving, because her next album--whenever it arrives, I'm more than happy to wait--will be just as much of a masterpiece as her first, if her singles are any indication. "The Subway" is a wrenching bit of sapphic heartbreak, depicting the classic time after a breakup when everything still reminds you of what you lost. The couplet of "she's got a way/she got away" instantly flung this song into the stratosphere where it belongs, which is appropriate. No one does it like our midwestern princess.
Ellis-Bextor's album Perimenopop didn't make the top 10 this year (check out that list to find out what replaced it) but I had to highlight this track, my favourite off a perfectly solid bunch of fun disco pop songs. The moment Sophie slides from the minor key verses to the major key pre-chorus, I was a goner. It's a perfect song for getting you up and on a walk (or, more appropriately, a strut down a fucking runway), with a driving beat and those classic strings that remind us that disco was great, actually, and that dance music can and should feel like a luxury item--or, at least, the most glamorous knockoff Canal Street can provide.
Fun fact: pop music didn't actually exist until ten years ago, when Carly Rae Jepsen released E-MO-TION and changed the world forever. Don't look it up, just trust me. CRJ is my favourite artist, my ride or die, so of course I celebrated the 10 year anniversary of her most important work along with all the other gays. Carly graced us with a few fun extras, including four bonus tracks, and this is one of them. And what can I say? It's a Carly Rae Jepsen song about how big and grand it feels to be in love. It's a masterpiece. If I'd been in charge, I would have put this on the tracklist for EMOTION instead of "Gimme Love", but I am a mere pophead queerdo, so instead I'll just celebrate this great song now. Just fuckin listen to it, you dork. I love you.