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Challenge #6

Top 10 Challenge.

I struggled for a looong time on what subject to use for this, but I finally settled on my top 10 favorite vocal synth songs released in 2025! (With links!)


10) MINIMUM RAGE by MonochroMenace
This song was definitely my anthem during my brief stint into customer service work last year. The lyrics were, and remain, impossibly relatable. (Bonus: I Love Being Part Of The Economy, It's What I Was Born To Do is about a similar subject matter, and is, similarly, an absolute banger.)

9) Doomscroller by Ferst
Big fan of the typography in this MV! An earworm about a sadly commonly-familiar subject matter.

8) OUCH! by Zoofles
I liked this one so much that I wrote a fanfic based on it! The lyrics are so evocative, and very relatable to someone who has gone through trauma.

7) Self-Made Man by grimbot
I love meta songs about Vocaloid as robots, and combining that with GNC trans man Miku is enough to make my heart sing~!! Describing one's experience with gender as "my own performance, just for me / something no one can take from me" changed my brain chemistry. (I also recommend this cover of the song, which uses a voicebank whose voice provider is a trans man!)

6) Confessions of a Rotten Girl by SAWTOWNE
I have my issues with fujoshi culture as a whole, but I really love the character-building in this song. It's the sort of nuanced, flawed fandom-inspired character I've been desiring for a long time! (Plus, as someone who grew up in a Christian household while getting into fandom, I Get It.)

5) Retry Now by NAKISO
I love the idea of a lovesick character stuck in a timeloop, of sorts, who kills their beloved to force reincarnation!! The switching between the dark visuals and pink, cutesy, magical-girl inspired sections, and the combination of the two at the very end, is fantastic.

4) Spoken For by FLAVOR FOLEY
The usage of puppet-style animation to emphasize Teto's lack of autonomy is so great. I love the usage of Rhythm Heaven as framing, and I find the themes of burnout, violent intrusive thoughts, and feeling as if your life is being lived to please someone else very relatable.

3) Q&A by ぴーなた
AN UTAU KASANE TETO ORIGINAL IN 2025? AND it has heavy religious imagery, BANGING animation for the MV, and commentary on AI chatbots?? HELL YES!

2) FLOP ERA by ePiaeon
I was so psyched that Neru got a new, amazing song this year!! And it is one that is... really intensely relatable to me, as a fellow painfully average social media artist, haha. I love all the motifs taken from past songs related to Neru (Triple Baka, Mesmerizer, Stop Nagging Me), and how much the struggles portrayed in the song suit her current status as mostly remembered by Vocaloid oldheads; it really makes it feel like a love letter to her and her character!

1) BIRDBRAIN by Jamie Paige
How could I not put BIRDBRAIN here? It's super catchy, for one, but it's also so purposefully amateur in ways that are intensely endearing, and that suit the song's themes. Keeping in Teto's "bad takes", making it sound like she strains her voice on "say you like what I've got inside" (I'm not even sure how that was done in SynthV)... and, of course, as per many of the songs at the top of my list, I find it very, very relatable, as someone who grew up autistic and had my symptoms get perceived as me being "ditzy", "a clutz" or "forgetful" for most of my childhood.
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