triple j Hottest 100 2025: Inside Out & Outside In

The triple j Hottest 100 of 2025 arrived in one hell of a week, even if you’d accounted for the deep-seated sentiments stirred up around 26 January ‒ Invasion Day, or Australia Day as it’s officially known. For me personally, this was all the more so given that two or three most important dates to me in that timespan coincide with the birthdays of deceased loved ones, including my own birthday. But there were several shocks in store for the rest of the country as well: most significantly, the day following an attempted terrorist attack on Invasion Day in Boorloo/Perth was the hottest day on record since the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

The bushfire season being what it is, not even triple j coverage was unaffected; listeners in central Victoria were dealing with disrupted services after a transmission tower was damaged in the devastating Ravenswood-Harcourt grassfire, which destroyed three businesses and approximately 50 homes. Thankfully, the vital ABC Local Radio had been working with backups to keep the public informed about the state of emergency and by Friday 23 January, radio services were being restored with reassurances that ‘triple j has been prioritised for early restoration beginning today from mid-afternoon to ensure local listeners can enjoy one of the biggest music moments of the year with the triple j Hottest 100 this weekend.’

The countdown concluded with Man I Need by Olivia Dean taking the top spot, making her the third female solo act in a row and the fourth female solo act overall to do so. This was her debut countdown, but she placed in it five times ‒ tying with Aussie band Spacey Jane for the most appearances this year ‒ something that could partly be explained as a result of her being the third-most played artist on the radio station in 2025. triple j Manager of Music Programming Nick Findlay explains, ‘It’s no secret Olivia Dean has owned 2025. When Man I Need dropped in August, it immediately won us over and wrapped up everything we love about Olivia Dean in a neat package: dance ready soul that instantly warms your heart mixed with lyrics that uplift and empower, all driven by her stunning, flawless voice.’

Man I Need’s success must’ve been great news for Hottest 100 fan Emma, who timed her wedding so that she’d be walking down the aisle as the #1 song plays and had been hoping, as her sister and maid of honour Holly told radio hosts Dave Woodhead and Lucy Smith, that it would be Man I Need. A ‘high risk high reward’ gamble as Dave put it ‒ especially given the popularity of triple j Unearthed hit Keith by Playlunch (whom you definitely wouldn’t want to marry) ‒ but hey, it paid off.

Emma’s not the only one who’s celebrated the Hottest 100 on their wedding day (in the 2021 Hottest 100, for example, someone chose to let the song playing at 4pm Queensland time be the one they walked down the aisle to and ended up with Serotonin by girl in red), nor was the anonymous listener texting that they were giving birth that day the first instance of someone in labour whilst listening to the Hottest 100. This is part of the event’s appeal, because the listeners sure do get into the spirit.

A spirit that also spreads to the acts whose songs get played on air. On social media, triple j shared G Flip’s reactions from their plane as they witnessed their songs appearing in the countdown and finally called them, once they’d arrived in Toronto, at the pointy end of the Hottest 100. triple j first checked in with debut appearance Playlunch as they celebrated at one of their mother’s backyard; when they called in after Keith came at #4, said ecstatic mother couldn’t be heard amongst the rest of the crowd. Calling in with Hottest 100 regulars Ocean Alley, meanwhile, found them in their hotel room preparing for the first gig of their tour whilst Catani Gardens, the venue they were set to be playing at, allegedly blasted triple j from its speakers.

Someone who didn’t have a gig or tour was Hottest 100 regular Kevin Parker, Tame Impala ‒ his highest appearance coming in at #3 ‒ who was at home in Freo for once and had therefore been coerced into a barbecue. And what other act’s call did he gatecrash, sporting a Ninajirachi shirt that she’d given to him in Las Vegas (Nina herself calling in from her US tour)? That would be fellow Freo musicians, Hottest 100 regulars Spacey Jane, whom triple j called after their appearance at #6. Also at this barbecue, though not appearing in the countdown, was Jordi Davieson of San Cisco.

Who doesn’t love a good coincidence. Aurielle must’ve enjoyed it when they texted triple j about how they shouted how much they liked The Rions as they crossed Sydney Harbour Bridge, only to hear The Rions relate how they were headed to the studio when someone shouted ‘I love your music!’ at them on the way. But the best coincidence was no doubt during the Lily Allen interview, when Abby Butler mentions Kito, who Lily informs everyone is in Mexico with her, then calls over.

Other overseas listeners included Jacko’s 4am party from the basement of a hostel in London and Hal in the US, forcing their US-American boyfriend and his roommates to listen. Caller Tess seems to have taken the idea of “overseas” to an extreme; when Concetta Caristo and Luka Muller called her, the location that appeared on their screens was a series of longitude and latitude coordinates, X marking the spot somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Inside the country, one group called in from their hike to the peak of Mt Kosciuszko with plans to share beers at the top whilst triple j played. This was dependent on reception being there, as signal was apparently dropping in and out ‒ which, when you consider the still-active bushfire to the east of them, sure isn’t a situation I’d want to be in. Rationally speaking, 46 kilometres is probably safely out of the way of the disaster, but I’d want to at least check the Victoria and NSW Emergency pages on a regular basis.

Which I did. Just to assuage my worries.

But other listeners must’ve thought the Mt Kosciuszko group was onto something. Dobster texted in that they were on the last day of their 12,000-kilometre, 28-day trek from Naarm/Melbourne to Broome and back whilst William and Adrian called in at the 10-kilometre mark of their 80-kilometre hike from Bondi to Manly. We can only hope they remembered to drink water, just as radio hosts reminded everyone to drink responsibly and caller Chloe reminded everyone to drive safely after she got into a car accident.

Meanwhile, The Age’s Nell Geraets noticed a strange trend emerging on the triple j Instagram page: comparing countdown moments to moments in sport. It’s unclear why and you have to wonder if the triple j social media team knew the reasoning behind it, either, when they joined in on the jokes.

Funny how competitive people get. In past years, it was entertaining to watch ‘shoulda been higher’ on the Trending page; that’s no longer possible, given how spread-out social media has become. But triple j were also doing their bit, from radio hosts making a bet with producers how much they could raise within their timeslot, Concetta promising to leap off a diving board with each metre corresponding to the amount of her top songs ending in the countdown (one song meaning one metre, two songs making two metres and so on) and Luka promising to run 5 kilometres for every one of his songs that landed in the countdown.

The funny thing is, there’s absolutely no reason for any of this. The stakes are completely imaginary; Olivia Dean has only won glory, no money involved. As a public broadcaster, triple j doesn’t make a profit from the event. Merch sales go to a charity tackling what young people consider the most important issue of the moment. This year, as in last year, triple j raised funds for We Are Mobilise to combat homelessness. And whilst I thought final numbers would stay under half a million as they did in 2025, Justin was completely unsurprised when the donations at the end of the night surpassed $583,000.

This is another interesting metric to gauge the mood of the country. In past years, climate change and mental health were the big focus ‒ most notably the years following the Black Summer bushfires and coronavirus lockdowns, which were the longest-running and most restrictive lockdowns in the world here in Naarm. These worries no doubt haven’t gone away, but the growing awareness around the housing and cost-of-living crisis has led to a more immediate, material need amongst young people, who simply no longer believe we’ll own a house in our lifetime. These sentiments are reflected, Brianna from Queensland argues, in the #10 song, Please Don’t Move To Melbourne by Ball Park Music.

Yet it could also be a reflection that triple j’s audience has gotten older, not just dreading a future of financial insecurity but already living it. triple j listenership has always skewed older than the intended 25-and-under age range, so the aim must always be on finding younger people to supplant the listeners that age out of the target demographic.

It’s a challenge that, Shaad D’Souza’s laments, the 2025 Hottest 100 shows triple j is failing at. Admittedly, articles arguing triple j has lost relevance are a tale as old as time. But D’Souza’s biggest gripe, that just under three-quarters of the songs on the countdown come from established studio acts rather than independent musicians, shouldn’t just be ignored.

D’Souza puts it down to music programming being driven more by social media than a search for new gems amongst local talent. And, looking at the countdown, there’s merit to that argument. The multiple appearances from TikTok influencer Addison Rae. Several songs that went viral on social media, like DtMF by Bad Bunny or Anxiety by Doechii ‒ although that particular song also uses samples from a track that has not just a deep connection with Aussie music history, but with triple j Hottest 100 history, so that also factors into the popularity of it.

Even when you look closer to home, you have Peach PRC, who’s big on TikTok (and a whole sapphic mood), encapsulating the OnlyFans side hustle in Miss Erotica. Playlunch garnering notoriety via the Keith music video on YouTube. D’Souza considers even Ninajirachi’s success to stem more from the internet than triple j, despite her being the second-most played artist on the station last year (behind Spacey Jane).

And then, of course, there’s Dancing2 from Keli Holiday. Look, it’s sweet that he wrote the song about his partner and it’s touching to see them embrace during the triple j party for the song on social media. And admittedly, the TikTok trend it inspired was pretty wholesome. But the biggest reason that trend took off at all is because Abbie Chatfield’s an influencer with massive reach who rallied behind the song from day one. It’s a good thing she was just using her personal platform to promote it and that no potential sponsor decided to jump on her bandwagon, or it may have gotten banned from the countdown the way Taylor Swift was disqualified.

Imagine if that did happen, though. Would people be more likely to boycott triple j for disqualifying Dancing2 or go after the hypothetical sponsor?

That people would rally behind Dancing2 is for certain. Unlike in the case of Shake It Off, Adam Hyde is one half of Peking Duk, which has already appeared regularly on triple j. D’Souza doesn’t mention this particular home advantage, but does consider Dancing2 to be unoriginal for its similarities with All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem, though Annabel Ross argues in The Age that the comparison is far more surface level.

As Keli Holiday has never appeared in countdown before, this does count as one of the record-breaking number of debuts in the Hottest 100. Other debuts likewise come from already-established artists. There’s Olivia Dean, of course. Hayley Williams has no doubt had a great year, but Paramore never gripped triple j audiences when they were at the height of their popularity; why the attention now? Djo might have something of the sound of popular triple j tracks ‒ something of that “sunny malaise” ABC reporter Al Newstead considers integral to Spacey Jane’s success ‒ but he also has the name recognition of Stranger Things behind him.

Speaking of records: Hilltop Hoods. Nobody can say they’re surprised Hilltop Hoods took their record of most songs in the Hottest 100 back from Billie Eilish, given their backlog starts in 2003 and not 2019. I’ll warrant that some of their Hottest 100 appearances in the past have been inventive enough to justify their staying power, but no matter how much I enjoyed them, Don’t Happy, Be Worry, Never Coming Home and Something Bigger Than This don’t necessarily stick out in that oeuvre.

The other record this year was the most back-to-back appearances from the same artists in a countdown, which leads me to wonder whether this was helped or hindered by the new maximum of 5 songs per artist in the selection, a new rule instituted after Billie Eilish and Charlie XCX took home a joint record of 8 appearances last year. It’s understandable, if triple j want to keep to their objective of exposing audiences to as many artists as possible, but isn’t there something to be said about more listeners than ever familiarising themselves with artists’ discographies rather than limiting themselves to the top hits? Personally, I’m somewhat irritated by it, not just because I would’ve written in Sing Good by Ninajirachi if I’d realised this earlier, but also because none of us complained when G Flip held the record of seven appearances previously and I know they’ll surpass themself eventually.

Because triple j has the track record it does, though, I don’t mean that ageism is the answer. Rather, I’m saying that they can’t rest on their laurels. We can’t have a triple j Hottest station without worrying that it’ll cannibalise itself one day and we end up with a countdown full of Hottest 100 regulars and already-established debuts.

At least the new feature that allowed you to search through Aussie acts and identify songs by Aussie artists worked out. I’m there sure was a collective sigh of relief at triple j when they realised 54 Hottest 100 appearances in the countdown were local, meaning they could say that even when programming is out of their hands, they can hit their quota of over 40% local acts.

triple j just needs to make sure it’s fulfilling its second obligation of nurturing young talent. Which, if the absence of the acts from A Gathering For Gaza ‒ most notably Folk Bitch Trio, who’ve had a remarkable year ‒ is any indicator, they’ve only made harder on themselves by censoring Miss Kaninna. After all, why would those young musicians tuned into the local arts industry trust the public broadcaster when it censored a First Nations artist for speaking out against an ongoing genocide the year after she was declared Unearthed Artist of the Year?

Personally, I find it strange trying to explain my interest in the triple j Hottest 100. I’m an American, born as far from Australia as someone could reasonably be. The simplest reason is this: I’m fascinated by the pop culture of other places, but especially music. What filters in, what the trends are. The Hottest 100 serves as a perfect synthesis for me; a numbered list voted on by a large enough sample size to get the vibe check for what is pumping out of radios in the whole country. It’s a little peak into the vast Australian pop culture, more interesting because of the cross-continental exchange of musical acts between Australia and the US (and Canada and Britain).

Since Sarah introduced me to the Hottest 100 a few years ago, I look at it as a musical popularity contest. But there is a certain energy to it that I find fascinating. Not just the Australian acts that maybe I’ve heard of but usually haven’t, but seeing which cultural imports managed to worm their way into the Australian hivemind. So, this year feels strange, because I’m looking at the Hottest 100 more critically than I usually do. I don’t have the cultural context or history of what The Hottest 100 is. Sarah keeps trying to tell me about triple j’s intended audience, the kind of music that usually gets played, all of these articles criticizing what the Hottest 100 is.

I understand, for example, D’Souza’s frustration about triple j focusing on mainstream, label-published music over Australian indie music. If I had more of a cultural backdrop with triple j, maybe I’d feel more of the same. But I can’t help but see this as a strange sign of culture closing in, the way it’s been for over a decade now. As culture is consumed via streaming, as various internet platforms overtake the minutes and hours of a person’s day, this kind of thing becomes more and more inevitable. Every possible social platform is trying to make it harder and harder to find artists, to “unearth” them, to use the triple j term.

YouTube’s algorithm is fine-tuned to serve you content you’re gonna watch anyway, but the website’s design makes the use of Subscriptions ever more useless. The Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram, continue to constrict and become more difficult to promote from generally. Twitter/X is nearly unusable unless you’ve spent a decade calibrating the kind of content you’re being presented, and that presumes you’re willing to deal with the possibility of a Nazi landmine. Spotify disincentivizes smaller artists from even participating in its platform with each passing announcement from the company. TikTok’s algorithm is equally arcane and strange, and posed to swing extremely far-right compared to its already far-right leans.

This hasn’t even taken into consideration how these platforms rely so heavily on memeification, brainrot, in-jokes, stan culture, or the way they’ve all become part of a much bigger global political conflict. Hell, this hasn’t even taken into consideration the way these platforms cut away at API functionalities that make working with them easier. This year’s Hottest 100 was notable to me because it lacked a lot of cultural imports I would expect, yet Addison Rae (whom I really don’t care for at all) had multiple spots. I have to assume this is down to her prior TikTok fame.

And this is all what I mean. While these social platforms have expanded culture politically, for good and very bad, the pop cultural influence has been one of contraction. Mainstream music has been on course towards becoming that fabled MONOCULTURE that people sometimes imply existed once, but now on a global scale. It’s not just that these songs are popular, but they’re popular everywhere. Olivia Dean triumphs in the States, in Australia, in Britain, and far beyond, forever and forever…

Although that’s not quite true either. Maybe the Hottest 100 is no longer the bastion of indie music that people say it was; I can’t speak to that . But 2025 has been decried here in the States for being one of the worst years in pop music, where so much of the charts was populated by songs from last years, the year before, ten years, twenty years ago. While the songs that were new seemed to leave much less impact, which feels so distinct from 2024’s Brat Summer and Kendrick’s cultural domination. In a year so void, I expected the Hottest 100 to reflect that. Primarily, I was expecting the triple j audience to vote for those songs that were seemingly monocultural.

But KPop Demon Hunters had no songs on the Hottest 100. Golden didn’t make the cut.

Lady Gaga and Sabrina Carpenter released albums with songs that were inescapable, but they were not to be seen.

There are strange irregularities, the kind that do fascinate me trying to understand Australian music tastes. Doechii and Tyler, The Creator made it high. Bad Bunny made it in. It seems as though triple j’s audience has embraced Djo in a way that I don’t think the States have. Though, triple j listeners also seemingly embraced Tate McRae, so there’s maybe evidence their tastes aren’t perfect. There are many other examples of cultural imports that made into the list, but from an outsider’s point of view, so much of it seemed to just be Australian.

Perhaps triple j is completely washed. Maybe it doesn’t serve the cultural purpose that it once did. Maybe they need to double-down and work harder finding those indie talents. Again, I just don’t know. But I see the Hottest 100, I see the the overwhelming presence of Australian talent, and I wonder if maybe that’s enough. There is an evidence here that the global MONOCULTURE isn’t entirely dominant. I can say that if I got to have more songs from this Hottest 100 on rotation on American stations, I’d be happier.

But I don’t want to speak to Australians like that. I know I’m a filthy foreigner and I’m quite familiar with how they treat foreigners. Instead, I want to draw this out with two sets of final thoughts:

Firstly, I find it difficult to look at the Hottest 100 strictly as the music list that it is. Sarah discussed some of the people calling in to triple j during the countdown, and that strikes me as equally important. If people are treating the Hottest 100 as a cultural moment, I feel like it serves some purpose.

Sarah and I have forever bonded over the group we call “the cheese girls”, a small group of friends who pledged to eat one entire cheese wheel for every Charli XCX appearance on the Hottest 100 that directly came after Brat Summer. I wonder if they survived. I’m invested in the “I’m walking down the aisle to the number one song” person or the intermittent check-ins from one very large cookout filled with musicians taking calls from triple j. Maybe it’s the pro wrestling fan in me, but I like a good storyline.

Secondly, there is the case of 100 Warm Tunas. 100 Warm Tunas was a project that would annual predict the Hottest 100s songs and their placements, using tools designed to scrape people’s publicly posted votes. Sarah’s sent me links to it in previous years, but I usually prefer to go into the Hottest 100 completely blind. This year, the post was about 100 Warm Tunas sunsetting as a project. It explains, primarily, that this is because of what’s happened to Instagram and Twitter/X’s API changes, and every structural change that Instagram makes to make finding this data impossible. But the post also specifically mentions ‘changing of social sharing trends: People prefer private accounts these days, and prefer ephemeral posting, like stories.’

Is it any wonder that people prefer private accounts? Some desperate, likely futile, attempt to keep their information away from the litany of databrokers. Ephemeral posting has been propped up as the main way to interact with many platforms for years, as those same platforms flood themselves with AI-generated content, and the people become as ephemeral as the things they put online. Better it disappear, otherwise your government might see the watermelon you posted. Social media shrinks, wraps the bag around the heads of those who use it, and wants to choke people off of the platforms. People didn’t initially prefer private accounts ‒ there was a desire to interact, but the same algorithms that churn people towards certain music preferences also burns them.

I feel like having a radio station that’s run by people and plays music they like, that their listeners end up liking, with musicians who want to support them, is actually a good thing. A radio station whose big, annual song popularity contest is probably is probably fine, regardless of the mainstream success of those listed on it, given that it’s really a massive charity event. Maybe I’m doomer-pilled because in the States our public television, arts, and radio institutions have been stripped clean. Maybe I just prefer triple j’s nation-wide popularity contest to the idea of ceding space to the platforms that want a genuine MONOCULTURE that is dictated by their computer, maybe generated by them too.

I will agree with my Australian brothers-in-arms, though. Keith shoulda been higher.