Kevin Bronson on December 17th, 2025

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Here’s our annual year-ender — Popular With Us 2025: The Buzz Bands LA 101 (Spotify, Apple Music) is our attempt to pluck the best songs from this year’s playlists. We compiled 49 almost-weekly mixes this year, covering almost 1,500 tracks, so it was no easy task.

I made Fime’s “Better Half of a Dollar” the No. 1, not just because I’m a sucker for guitars that blow my hair back, or because it sounds as pissed off as we all ought to be in 2025, but because the song (and for that matter, Fime’s Melina Duterte-produced album “Just Can’t Win” itself) embodies The Struggle. So raise a glass to Fime (and so many bands like them, who are burning the candle at both ends) for making rent and making an album.

Here’s 2024’s Buzz Bands LA 101. And 2023’s. And 2022’s.