Photo of Dijon by Kristina Loggia
By Sayre Piotrkowski and Nico Simonian
It is that time of year again! 2025 is the sixth consecutive year BAS has convened a committee of our most musically obsessed comrades to compile a list of the year’s essential songs.
The resulting playlist, “Saturday Night and the Rest of Your Life,” is HERE!
Note: This process was begun a while ago which is why it is on Spotify. Going forward we will no longer be using that service.
Every year, this process begins when panelists submit a list of songs for the group to consider. This year’s cohort consisted of eighteen contributors spanning the spectrum of musical tastes and practices. We heard from working musicians, writers, DJs, talent bookers, party promoters, and music teachers, and began with a staggering 1,140 selections.
Dijon’s “Yamaha” was this year’s most-selected song, earning love from seven panelists. “Au Pays du Cocaïne” by Geese and “It’s a Mirror” by Perfume Genius followed closely, with six selections apiece.
With ten of its fifteen tracks chosen by at least one panelist, Rosalía’s masterful LUX became the most uniformly celebrated project we’ve ever had. For comparison, in 2022, Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE saw nine tracks selected. Close behind LUX were Geese’s Getting Killed, which landed seven of its eleven tracks on at least one panelist’s list, and Clipse’s Let God Sort Them Out, which earned nods for seven of its fifteen.
The title of this year’s playlist comes from the chorus of Olivia Dean’s “So Easy”:
So, come give me a call, and we’ll fall into us
I’m the perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life
Anyone with a heart would agree
Ironically, this was not one of the six songs from her Art Of Loving album that our panelists submitted.
The 100 songs on “Saturday Night and the Rest of Your Life” include every track selected by at least four panelists, along with most of those chosen by three. From there, the list is rounded out via a draft.
If you’re a real sicko and feel compelled to dive into the master list, you can find it here:
