Hot Weather, Hotter Music, Hottest 100
Summer weather, partying with friends, and good music, what could it be other than Triple J’s Hottest 100?
2025 marks Triple J’s 50th anniversary and their 32nd annual Hottest 100 competition where artists from around the world duke it out for a spot as one of the Australian population's top 100 songs of the year.
Over on our Instagram in the lead up to the countdown, we shared some of our votes and asked you the same. I’m glad to report that two out of the five of us (myself included) had the winner in our top ten, with plenty more of our picks finding a spot in the list.
That’s right, making her Hottest 100 debut, Chappell Roan grabbed first place with the single that launched her into the mainstream, Good Luck, Babe!. With Good Luck, Babe! being her only eligible track this year, this marks the first ever time a solo female artist has made their debut at number one.
More records come from Billie Eilish and Charli xcx, with them tying and becoming the artists with the most songs on a single countdown (8 each, with one being their collab of Guess featuring billie eilish from ‘Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat’). This broke G-flip’s record of seven tracks last year.
Billie herself has also set a new record, now featuring in 8 consecutive Hottest 100s with a total of 25 tracks, beating Hilltop Hoods record of 24 total tracks.
In third place of the most tracks this year with 5 is Gracie Abrams, coincidentally also snagging Taylor Swift her first Hottest 100 feature with Gracie’s song us. (feat. Taylor Swift).
(Fun fact that I learnt recently, Taylor would have debuted all the way back in 2015 with Shake It Off until Triple J straight up banned the song from the competition basically because it ‘didn’t fit the Triple J vibe’)
Now, you may have noticed a pattern with all the artists mentioned so far… they’re all mainstream pop girlies and, oh yeah, none of them are Australian. Well I can assure you, other people have noticed it too.
Out of the top ten, only three songs were by Australian artists, two of which were Like A Version covers of US and UK artists’ songs.
In fact, this year marked the year with the lowest number of Australian entries since 1996, almost 30 years ago, with only a shocking 29 Australian entries. In this extremely Australian competition on this extremely Australian radio station, we were beaten out by both the US (43 entries) and the UK (31 entries).
To me though, the divide in genre and nationality between the Hottest 100 and regular Triple J programming is no mystery at all. In fact it’s the same reason I’m even writing this article in the first place: Normies Love The Hottest 100.
For the other 364 days of the year, I don’t listen to the radio. I’m barely aware of what’s played on mainstream stations like Mix or Nova, so I Certainly don’t know what’s played on Triple J, who focus more on up-and-coming and local acts.
But who am I to turn down the invite to my friend’s yearly Hottest 100 party? And I love voting for the things I enjoy! So I vote. And I vote for the things I know. And what I know is Chappell Roan and Taylor Swift and Charli xcx.
Multiply this by thousands of people only tuning in for this one day, PLUS a year with So Many New Albums, it’s no wonder you get Chappell winning with the most votes ever recorded and record after record being taken away from Australian artists who would probably win on any other day of the year.