Triple J’s Hottest 100: More than two million votes have been cast – but who will win? | Triple J hottest 100

Inside the offices of Australian youth broadcaster Triple J, the Hottest 100 results – which will be counted down on Saturday – are a closely guarded secret.

Mornings host Lucy Smith says presenters don’t see their section of the countdown until an hour before it goes live, with a select few staff ensuring votes and statistics are recorded correctly inside a special “Triple J bunker” that is occupied from the day voting closes.

“Sometimes there are no windows. They need to eat certain snacks there,” Smith says. “A lot of non-disclosure agreements were basically signed.”

It has been a historic year for National Youth Radio, which celebrated its 50th anniversary, shuffled its lineup of broadcasters and went on tour. As part of the celebrations, the station ran a special mid-year retrospective poll, The 100 Greatest Australian Songs, which attracted 2.6 million votes and saw INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart named the greatest Australian song of all time. The all-Australian countdown provided a nice correction to the 2024 Hottest 100 list, which featured the fewest Australian artists since 1996.

In December, Triple J published its annual statistics, recording 3% year-on-year growth in weekly metro listeners, up to 1.83 million, and over a billion views across its digital content. Although the station’s reach remains small compared to commercial radio, and although streaming algorithms continue to fragment listening habits, the Top 100 station list remains a cultural touchstone – so much so that Anthony Albanese was once again forced to share his voice.

Triple J confirms the final vote tally for 2025 will exceed two million – but as for the music itself, what surprises might it have in store?

It’s all about feelings

While pop music is firmly established in the Hot 100 now — Billie Eilish and Charli “I think we’re still in a kind of post-pandemic lockdown era,” Smith says. “People still gravitate towards elements of joy, nostalgia and escapism; music that feels warm, classic and familiar.”

This is the first countdown in nearly a decade without prediction site 100 Warm Tunas, which its founder Nick White has paused due to the increasing difficulty of collecting data from social media posts. However, a clear favorite emerged on Olivia Dean’s much-loved throwback single Man I Need, which continued her streak atop the Aria Singles Chart until 2026. Dean was also Triple J’s third most charted female artist in 2025 and boosted her Australian bona fides with her performance at the Aria Awards.

Journalist and Hot 100 obsessive Tyler Jenke, whose meticulous poll chronicling includes tracking down tape recordings of old broadcasts, predicts another busy year for popular music. “The party line has always been that Triple J is young people’s radio, and it reflects young people’s tastes. I think young people now are more interested in pop music.”

Other international nominees nominated by Reddit prognosticators include the effortless stylings of Raye and Sombr, the catchy dance music of Fred Again… and the pool party ready Disco Lines take on Tinashe’s No Broke Boys.

In the absence of the can’t-miss buzz of an album like Charli xcx’s Brat, these forecasts provide a window into the listening habits of young voters, with TikTok being a powerful driver – last year, Triple J reported that more than 70% of voters were under 30.

Where to for Australian music?

After the disappointing performance of Australian artists last year, signs point to a stronger return in 2025; Jenke believes a new feature on the voting page – allowing users to search by Australian artists only – could provide a welcome boost to local artists too.

There are plenty of contenders from Triple J favorites like Spacey Jane (the station’s most played artist last year), Tame Impala, G Flip and Ocean Alley, whose song Confidence won the 2018 countdown. Then there’s Keli Holiday’s ubiquitous Dance 2. Although Holiday didn’t appear anywhere on the station’s top 50 most-played artists last year, the song sparked a healthy trend on TikTok.

One area that is likely to see strong Australian representation is electronic music. Leading the charge are multiple Aria winners and Triple J’s second most played artist of 2025 Ninajirachi, whose stunning original debut album I Love My Computer has several songs in play; and international DJ-producer Dom Dolla, who became the first Australian solo electronic artist to headline a stadium show, playing to 40,000 people in Sydney last month.

And this wouldn’t be the Most Interesting 100 without an underdog. This year, that role falls to Playlunch’s “bogan funk” anthem, Keith, a fitting entry in an irreverent lineage that includes the likes of TISM and Regurgitator. “Sure, everyone loves Olivia Dean, but we also like to have fun yelling at the neighbors,” Jenke says.