I’m a music expert - here are my predictions for 2025 including a Britpop reunion I’m begging to happen

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Let our Culture and Tickets writer consult his Magic 8 Ball to make predictions for the year ahead in music 🔮🎶
  • 2025 is shaping up to be a very big year in music.
  • From Britpop reunions to pop music reigning the charts and households across the UK, there’s still plenty more to be announced in the months ahead.
  • Culture and tickets writer Benjamin Jackson makes his predictions about what could happen in the world of music this year.

Hello dear reader - as I shake my Magic 8 Ball as you start to read this article, feel free to cross my palm with your best mixtape or musical suggestion as a tithing.

Or don’t, because I’m already getting paid to do this, but the pomp and pageantry of staring into a Magic 8 Ball (I cannot afford a crystal ball) was worth commenting about tithing none the less to set the scene.

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Being the Culture and Tickets writer here, I often get asked to make some bold predictions about what might happen in the world of popular culture - be it music, comic books, wrestling or in this case the world of music and truthfully I’ve been known to get it right sometimes.

Like when everyone was curious about who The Chun-Ups were or who could potentially top the 2024 Christmas Chart - see, I get it right sometimes and then others I think Amyl and The Sniffers would be Glastonbury’s big 2025 secret act. I was wrong, it was Kasabian.

But having penned plenty of stories across the last 12 months and it being so early in the year, I’ve been asked to toss my hat into the ring to give my thoughts on what could happen in the world of music in 2025.

Can I caveat that by saying I’m not predicting who is going to die - this is not a dead pool - nor am I going to mention if music venues are closing for fear that if I do, chances are that venue in particular might go under. The UK nightlife scene is already in trouble, I don’t want to dogpile onto it.

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So allow me to shake my Magic 8 Ball won more time and offer you several predictions of what may happen in the world of music in 2025.

My predictions for 2025 in music

Culture and tickets writer Benjamin Jackson makes some bold predictions for the year ahead in music, including why guitar-music still to pull it's socks up.Culture and tickets writer Benjamin Jackson makes some bold predictions for the year ahead in music, including why guitar-music still to pull it's socks up.
Culture and tickets writer Benjamin Jackson makes some bold predictions for the year ahead in music, including why guitar-music still to pull it's socks up. | Canva/Getty Images

Pop music continues to be the predominant genre of choice

This prediction was a no brainer when I shook the proverbial Magic 8 Ball, but where 2024 saw constant chart and touring successes for pop artists including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams and Chappell Roan, that pop takeover I think is set to continue.

While Sabrina, Olivia and Billie have pretty much become household names thanks to their omnipotence throughout the last 12 months of music and beyond, both Abrams and Roan will be the next two pop artists that your mum or older family members will be talking to you about.

Which is the litmus test when it comes to pop culture and its place in the current mainstream consciousness; if an older family member knows who they are or ‘of’ them; which in Roan’s case as she headlines Leeds and Reading on what is her debut performance at the festival, will be sooner rather than later.

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Guitar music pulls its socks up in the wake of pop’s chart takeover

A controversial take admittedly, to the point I may have to head into the newsroom and hand over my “Punk” passport to the editors there but I haven’t really felt the same impact of guitar-based rock acts over the last 12 months compared to other years.

Now, I should point out that I am discounting the likes of Sam Fender, Ed Sheeran, Noah Kahan and Elles Bailey as they’re singer songwriters, but what’s the last big guitar band you’ve seen enjoy huge success on the UK singles charts compared to other years?

A look at the last 12 months on the UK singles chart, dating back to January 11 2025, not one rock track appeared at the top of the chart for the entire year, with the closest moment occurring in September 2024 when Linkin Park’s comeback track, The Emptiness Machine, debuted at number four in the chart.

Maybe the Britpop revival might inspire some guitar bands to try their hand at something different; metal community, stay as always as you are!

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More Britpop artists reunite - please Justine!

Oasis, Shed Seven, Richard Ashcroft, Suede and Ocean Colour Scene; I’m not reading off the mixtape I was once given while at University in the early ‘00s but instead these are just some of the Britpop acts that are either about to tour, or have been touring and elevated since the Gallagher brothers decided to get back for a couple more renditions of Live Forever and Wonderwall.

If guitar music needs a kick up the backside, then perhaps for a legion of younger music fans their first experience with the ‘Cool Britannia’ movement could inspire them from whatever post-punk or ‘indie’ derivative is currently the jangly-guitar du jour as of late.

But with that success, could we see a few more Britpop acts come back together for a few one-off appearances? I only ask because I would honestly give a body part I seldom use to see Elastica perform just one more time while the ‘Cool Britannia’ revival is going on.

But I would expect to see some more Britpop acts coming together as an older generation of music fan regales a younger generation about “the time I went to see Oasis in Knebworth and bumped into Robbie Williams.”

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Compact Discs enjoy a boom period as people realise they can still play them

It’s a hill I am prepared to die on; that the humble compact disc is due a comeback in 2025 and to surpass cassette tape sales owing to the fact almost everyone has access to a CD player of some kind.

Be it a DVD player, a car stereo or even a video gaming console that still allows you to boot up CDs, there is still a ubiquity as to how one can play a compact disc in their own home and the ease in which bands can pull together a tangible product that won’t destroy their credit rating (cough, vinyl press, cough).

While I am still a fan of cassette tapes (I still own an Elastica album on tape - hence why I want them to reform), more often than not I’m asked “how am I supposed to listen to that” while someone has a clutch of records under their arm - and no turntable. So I appreciate that it hasn't quite caught on with ‘mainstream’ audiences yet.

If Taylor Swift were to release variants only on compact disc rather than vinyl, we’d not be having this conversation in 2025, put it that way.

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The return of the beloved ‘mash-up’

Or bastard pop, however you want to call it - but we are about due the return of the 2000s very fun, very weird at times genre that takes two completely different songs and… well, mashes them up.

Those who used to live and die by LimeWire downloads would speak fondly still about the time they stumbled across Destiny’s Child vs Nirvana’s Smells Like Booty, or the remix of Eminem’s Superman with R Kelly’s Ignition (Remix).

Such was the popularity of mash-ups that Jay-Z teamed up with Linkin Park to record Collision Course, based on just how good the two acts found their songs mashed up by a bedroom producer, the never-ending love for Soulwax’s 2 Many DJs and Danger Mouse released The Grey Album in 2004 which combined Jay-Z's The Black Album with The Beatles' The White Album, sparking both acclaim and, of course, legal controversy.

With pop being the in thing, could that crossover with rock or other forms of music make a comeback - and will you be digging around your old hard drives to find that rare, hallowed mash-up you thought you made up many years later?

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Barber Beats becomes this year’s Vaporwave/Seapunk oddity

Looking to impress friends with some almost esoteric band names to flash to look cool? Me neither, but for those who found themselves heavily submerged in either the Vaporwave genre of Seapunk trends of almost a decade ago, Barber Beats might be your new go-to.

Barber beats is a microgenre of electronic music that emerged in the late 2010s and early 2020s, often described as a chill, nostalgic offshoot of vaporwave and lo-fi hip-hop. It's characterized by its relaxing, jazzy atmosphere and its heavy use of smooth, slowed-down samples.

“Gen Z acid jazz,” some of you older types might be thinking - and you’d be somewhat correct with that assumption.

The genre often evokes the aesthetic of classic barbershops, retro lounges, and cityscapes, blending these vibes into a laid-back auditory experience - but also draws its name from one of the first prominent artists of the genre, haircuts for men.

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There is going to be a Michael Jackson 'renaissance’ and all the discourse that comes with it

Like it or not, one of the most polarizing pop stars in history Michael Jackson is going to be the subject of a bit of a comeback later this year and with it the conversation about his place in music history.

Antoine Fuqua’s long-awaited biopic, Michael, is released in cinemas from October 3 2025, with Jackson’s nephew Jafaar taking on the role of the King of Pop, while Colman Domingo is set to play the patriarch of the family, Joe.

Cue a number of Michael Jackson songs entering the UK singles charts once again by virtue of streaming platforms, but with it expect the discussion of Jackson’s previous controversies to also occur once again, including the haunting documentary, Leaving Neverland.

Do you agree with some of the predictions that our writer has made early in 2025 or do you have some of your own predictions? Let us know by leaving a comment down below.

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