Music: An optimistic look into 2025

With the year coming to a close and witnessing the recent Taylor Swift Eras tour finishing up in Vancouver, we are left to wonder how could we top the things that transpired in 2024. It was a year in music that was filled with many ups – tours, breakout launches, massive hits, new collaborations, surprising award winners and so much new music, but as well a tough year to lose some iconic giants in Kris Kristofferson, Toby Keith and Eric Carmen.

The biggest news item heading into 2025 and one many are sure will dominate the entertainment news landscape are the allegations against P Diddy (Sean Combs) and recently Jay Z. The implications of many prominent musicians, actors, athletes and politicians to have purportedly participated in the allegations allow your mind to run wild as to who could be implicated. The thinking though is that the news could change the landscape forever, changing the way kids look up to these “idols”. Some of the biggest names in entertainment that have been rumored to be implicated, if true, can see their careers change forever. This will inherently be the most followed story in 2025 with many twists and turns which I have no doubt, will keep everyone invested.

Let’s have a fun forecast on what 2025 may bring!

2025 will also be a year of breakouts, just as we did in 2024 with Sabrina Carpenter reaching superstar status. The collective of Disney artists that go onto post-teen show stardom are many, and a storied one at that. In the past we have had Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake all transition from Disney to mainstream, the recent batch include the aforementioned Sabrina Carpenter as well as Olivia Rodrigo, Dove Cameron & Bella Thorne to name a few. We also saw female artist Gracie Abrams transition into a new star culminating in her opening for Taylor Swift on her Eras tour. The female presence in pop music will continue to dominate Spotify and Apple Music playlists.

In sticking with pop, we look to continue welcoming foreign music as we have with K-pop stars such as BTS, Blackpink and Jungkook. The area I am expecting to blow up soon on the international market is Japan, with their own megastars in artists such as B’z, Ayumi Hamasaki and Yoasobi. The Asian music market has an entire western world with an open ear to see what else it may have to offer, and it doesn’t look to change any time soon. The European music market, save for England and Sweden, rarely has had a lasting impact on the international pop scene as BTS has done, and they hail from South Korea. The Japanese music market is an extremely vibrant one, one that is far ahead of many nuances we have here in North America. Their music consumption is integrated with social media, messaging and transactional needs all on their phone. While we do have our phones as our primary source of music, it is not as worked into an ecosystem as they have in Asia, This may be an area that North America and Europe begins to catch up in. 

In Portugal, I fully expect that Portuguese people continue to support Portuguese music and Portuguese artists like never before. The rise and full support that people have for their own homegrown artists has been one of the most satisfying things to see, in contrast with how it was for so many years. Portugal has always been the country that supported everything else before their own. One would be lucky to see 2 Portuguese songs in the top 10 songs in any given week, whereas in other countries, the support for their own artists was far superior than in Portugal. Since around 2015, the support for Portuguese artists has been increasing more and more to unprecedented levels, the way Portuguese artists have deserved to have. There is also quite the support for Portuguese speaking African artists as the Kizomba style has been a windfall for them. Artists like Anselmo Ralph led the charge but now so many have diversified the landscape as well, all sung in Portuguese. And finally, Portugal will always still support all the Portuguese music that comes from Brazil, this is a component that will always remain. What I do hope to see in Portugal, is collaborations with other big artists from other countries as to expose and promote our artists there across multiple markets in hopes of taking our artists and getting them internationally known.

2025 will undoubtedly surprise us with good and bad news. It will be for sure an interesting one in the USA, hopefully we have great new music to keep us distracted from all of the craziness in the world today.

Reno Silva/MS