playlist: the best punk songs of november 2025

List season is in full swing, which is wonderful—a time for clicking around to see what all I’ve missed while living in the underground punk rabbit hole. Over the past several years, including while I was still at Pitchfork, I stopped feeling invested in how the lists at big publications shook out. Individual and genre/niche-specific lists have always seemed more functionally interesting to me. Give me records and voices outside the critical consensus.

I was just reading Marissa Moss’ new Don’t Rock the Inbox post (subscribe!) lamenting the lack of country music representation—aside from Morgan Wallen—in 2025’s first major year-end lists. “Morgan Wallen did not make the best country album of the year, nor the best song. Not even close.” It’s tempting to play that same game with punk music. CTRL-F the word “punk” in the Pitchfork songs list and you’ll find it used (by excellent writers!) largely to describe ethos or origins over sound.

So who made the best punk song of the year according to this year’s big Pitchfork list? The jury’s out. Punk’s a big tent, and even so, I’d argue that anything you could call punk on that list veers more toward indie rock, capital-r rock music, or pop. Even if you do count their new one as a punk album (it isn’t), Turnstile didn’t even make the best punk record of the year featuring the word “Turnstile.”

It’s not a surprise or remotely worth criticizing; while I was there, I never expected Pitchfork to confidently or definitively name the best punk songs of the year in the big lists. The last three years I was part of the voting system, the most highly ranked punk songs were by Mannequin Pussy, Fontaines D.C., and Turnstile.

And that makes sense! Those bands are big, they record big songs that people love, and they play them to big crowds. I’m not putting those songs or artists down—great big punk bands with managers and big labels and crossover appeal can be incredible. There’s just no chance the best underground punk songs of the year are going to appeal to, or necessarily reach, a broad group of experts.

That’s why I love a niche publication’s drill-down genre-specific list or a personalized list. Nina Corcoran and Madison Bloom’s best rock of 2024 list for Pitchfork ruled because it highlighted their individual favorites, several of which got lost in the overall consensus-based voting process.

Big lists are monoliths to get ears on good music that broadly appealed to a big group of critics. For me, as I’ve been deep in the weeds of my preferred niche, they’re incredibly useful as shortcuts toward “what is considered good and new” listening. But if you’re looking for the best country music of the year, you’re not going to find it in a big list. Same goes for punk and so many other subgenres.

Honestly, a lot of what I wrote here gets at why I started see/saw. Punk records are deeply important to me, and they deserve a platform of their own instead of being a sideshow to corporate media’s pop cultural overview. The see/saw best punk & rock'n'roll records of 2025 list is coming soon. Once again, it’ll be a big ass zine with sick artwork that I won’t publish online.

Quick note: Today (December 1) is the last day of the see/saw subscription sale. If you want to subscribe for $30/year for the first year instead of $40/year (25% off), go ahead and subscribe here. If you know somebody who loves punk music and think they’d be into keeping up, consider getting them a gift subscription for $30/year.

Now to business—a playlist featuring the best punk songs of November 2025. It’s embedded in the browser version of this piece below, or you can follow this link.

see/saw’s best punk songs of november 2025

Pill Mill: Yuppie Farm
No Idols: Into the Spiral
Baby Jane: McDonald’s Hiroshima
Attention Deficit: Attention Deficit
Power Pants: Hero in a Half Shell
Tee Vee Repairmann: Only a Memory
Flippeur: Le Monde Marche Sur La Tête
Italian Bed: Collapse
Enemic Interior: Eterns
Jacky Cougar & the Vampyres From Africa: Nancy
Clickbait: Fish Fillet
Smirk: Domestic Dog
BAG: The Problem
Mr. Strong: Bad Luck
Béton Armé: Coupde Foudre [ft. Fizzy]
Scrabbled: Waiting for Godot
Sub Rosa: Opie’s Song (I Eat a Little Cat Food Every Day)
Jacket Burner: All the Time
Payphones: Cold Call
Dr. Sure’s Unusual Practice: No Pigs
Prise Rapide: Prise Rapide
Extraña Humana: Desperdicio
Chained Bliss: Don’t Come Looking
Jimmy and the Boonies: Here Comes the Spectre
Amerol: Fuck Everything
Happy Farm: The Plan
Angstmäler: Dehumanization
KLINT: Swingtime Up in Haithabu
Dick Move: Run For Your Money
N.E. Vains: Running Down Pylons
Home Front: D.W.A.
Bad Vibes: Eeyore
Psico Falera: Imperfetto, sii Imperfetto
Hektär: Big Blood
Soft on Crime: Summer Fix
Fantasma: Onde Eu Estou?
Lifeguard: Ultra Violence
Bridch: PDM (Punk de Mentiras)
Bella Larson & the Scene Kids: Hotline BIB
Fruit Tones: Easy Peeler
Total Sham: Makes Me Wild
Pen16: King of Ska
Big Modern: Gatekeep
Parking Lot: Mini Pocket Liquidator
The Moats: Lead Hat
Tony Molina: Lie to Kick It
Sharp Pins: Takes So Long
Andresa Nugraha: Nothing Lasts Forever
The Wesleys: Magic Wand
Thee Headcoatees: I Can’t Find Pleasure
Fashion Bathers: Harder Than Fuck
Sweet Reaper: Motion
Itches: Mahahual
Strange Passage: Hunter’s Fancy
The Metric Ton: Hoomfree Hinkus
Total Revold of All Limbs: It’s Coming From Inside (T.R.O.A.L.)
Maraudeur: 58141
Casa Dragon: Mascletá
Rites of Hadda: Fuck Them
Frida Kill: Queen of the Thrill
Water Heater: No Longer Oba Yozo
snarewaves: Variable (Love Song)
Rat Art: Expression
The WRS: Watcha (Don’t Believe the Hype)
Havana Syndrome: AI Brain
Mini Skirt: Mud
Blood Cookie: Out at Sea
Team Trust: Got All Day
Onyon: Molasses
Wiccans: Prison Planet BIOS-4
Blood Rite: The Unending Hell
Selfish Teammate: It’s Your World
Industry: Manipulated Reality
screensaver: Drip Feeding
80HD: Elf Tavern
Detergent: Pain Is Pay
Hektiks: Wealth in Death
Glowing Orb: Power Reveals
Laughing Corpse: Slaughtered and Maimed
Tardive Dyskinesia: Numb Life