Turns out the class of 2025 Graduation Playlists aren’t crying to ‘Graduation (Friends Forever)’, they’re blasting Deftones, Metallica, and Slipknot while tossing caps and tearing up yearbooks.
A new study from US education platform K12 analysed over 200,000 public Spotify playlists tagged with terms like “graduation,” “grad party,” and “class of 2025.” The results? Heavy. Real heavy. Who would have thought?
Deftones took top spot as the most streamed metal artist on grad playlists this year, with Metallica and Slipknot right behind them. While pop still had its space, Taylor Swift’s ‘You’re On Your Own Kid’ was voted the most defining track of the year, it was The Killers’ enduring banger ‘Mr. Brightside’ that actually dominated the playlists. Some songs just refuse to die!
The breakdown also showed Queen, The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac leading the classic rock presence, while Drake, David Guetta, and Morgan Wallen repped rap, EDM and country respectively. TikTok’s grip on teen ears is still strong too, with 22% of grads saying they found their defining song via short form videos.
K12 also surveyed nearly 300 recent grads and 430 parents. The latter threw it back with names like Green Day, Guns N’ Roses, and Nirvana, proof that emotional catharsis through distortion never really goes out of style.
The study didn’t reveal which Deftones track made the biggest dent, ‘Change (In the House of Flies)?’ ‘Be Quiet and Drive’? We’ll leave that to the forums. None the less, the message is loud and clear. Metal still hits when life gets loud!
The kids aren’t alright, they’re screaming it into the void with the volume maxed and we like it!
You can check out the full study here.
Story originally written by Emily Spindler for Blunt Mag Australia!
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