Some things about the triple j Hottest 100 of 2025

Congratulations to Olivia Dean, who sounded genuinely chuffed to have won triple j's Hottest 100 of 2025. While it's not surprising she won in the sense that she was the hot favourite, I'm pleasantly surprised (and kinda fascinated) that the winner was someone whose latest album is full of jazzy chords and soul melodies. 

But that's what I love about the Hottest 100 - it's a snapshot of the musical tastes of a large number of young people (and not-so-young people), and that's always interesting.

Here are some other things I learnt.

The Leaderboard

28 - Hilltop Hoods

25 - G Flip, Billie Eilish

23 - Tame Impala

22 - Powderfinger, Foo Fighters, Flume

21 - Spacey Jane, Lime Cordiale

20 - Kanye West

19 - Ocean Alley

17 - Silverchair, Muse, Kendrick Lamar, Grinspoon, Bring Me The Horizon

16 - The Wombats, The Living End, Rüfüs Du Sol, Lorde, John Butler Trio

15 - Regurgitator, Florence and the Machine, Ball Park Music, Arctic Monkeys

14 - You Am I, Something for Kate, Placebo, Pearl Jam

13 - Illy, Green Day, Fred Again

12 - Vance Joy, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cat Empire, The Amity Affliction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Peking Duk, Garbage, Fisher, Eskimo Joe, Drake, DMA's

It shits me how controversial this is (and I'm sure my colleagues over at triple j are getting increasingly annoyed at me every time I point this out), but if Billie Eilish gets a point for being a featured artist on Charli XCX's Guess (#6 in 2024), then Hilltop Hoods get a point for guesting on Thundamentals's 21 Grams (#61 in 2017). And thus the Hoodies are on 28, not 27, despite what triple j says.

So the official leaderboard looks like the above (Flume is also higher on this than on triple j's official leaderboard because this counts his remixes/collabs/features etc.). There were some big movers this year. Hilltop Hoods (three entries) leapt clear of Billie Eilish, who didn't feature in the countdown for the first time in nine years. But they weren't alone - Spacey Jane had five entries to move to equal eighth, Tame Impala and Ocean Alley had four entries, G Flip and Fred Again had three entries, and Lorde and Fisher joined the big leagues with two entries.

And the bolded acts are the ones that have had Hottest 100 entries in the past few years. It seems incredibly unlikely to me that acts such as Powderfinger or Foo Fighters, for example, will feature in the poll ever again, and the leaderboard looks particularly interesting when you delineate between the "heritage" acts and the ones still in the running.

How many artists?

One criticism of the 2024 countdown was that a small number of artists were responsible for a large portion of the countdown - Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Gracie Abrams accounted for 20 per cent of the entire Hottest 100.

But the huge amount of collaborations and featurings meant that there were actually 82 unique artists last year. This year, there were only 67 unique artists - the lowest since 2005, when there was only 64 unique artists. That was the year Wolfmother, Bloc Party and The Cat Empire accounted for 14 per cent of the entire countdown, and 26 acts had multiple entries. By comparison, in the 2025 poll, there were 25 acts with multiple entries.

The lowest number of entries in a year is 64 in 2005 and 2002, giving 2025 the third least amount of unique entries.

The Hottest Number

Shout out to Tyler Jenke, who invented the idea of the Hottest Number. Basically, if you get #1 in a Hottest 100, you get 100 points. You place #100, you get one point. What this means is that you can have lots of entries in the poll, but if they're at the lower end of the chart, then your Hottest Number is low (I'm looking at you, Bring Me The Horizon).

Here's the Hottest Number leaderboard:

1. Hilltop Hoods - 1718

2. Spacey Jane - 1535

3. Billie Eilish - 1527

4. Tame Impala - 1516

5. Powderfinger - 1467

6. Flume - 1454

7. Lime Cordiale - 1340

8. G Flip - 1310

9 - Foo Fighters - 1245

10. Ocean Alley - 1123

11. John Butler Trio - 1062

12. Grinspoon - 1053

13. Lorde - 1052

14. Silverchair - 1046

15. The Living End - 1017

16. Ball Park Music - 1014

17. Regurgitator - 977

18. Rüfüs Du Sol - 972

19. The Wombats - 955

20. Fred Again - 933

When you compare this to the leaderboard, you see a couple of things. Firstly, Spacey Jane leaps up the table thanks to having had six top 10s, whereas G Flip is somewhat penalised for having seven songs in one year. John Butler Trio and Lime Cordiale are also beneficiaries of looking at polls this way.

Basically, this is the leaderboard through a slightly different lens.

The Hottest Streak

Billie Eilish didn't place in the 2025 countdown, bringing her active streak of eight consecutive Hottest 100s to an end. 

But waiting in the wings were Fisher, G Flip, and Lime Cordiale, who all polled in 2025 and now share the record for longest active hot streak, with eight consecutive Hottest 100s (Bring Me The Horizon also had an active streak of seven until 2025, but they failed to poll this year).

And should Fisher, G Flip and Cordiale fail to poll in the 2026 countdown, then Spacey Jane (current streak = 7), The Kid Laroi (6), Dom Dolla (5) and The Rions (5) are ready and waiting to take the crown for Hottest Streak.

The death of the band

As mentioned in this article, the Hottest 100 backs up the idea that bands are dying out. Up until 2004, there were, on average, more than 80 songs featuring bands per Hottest 100. That number has been steadily declining ever since. Here's what the past decade looks like for number of bands appearing on songs:

2016: 63

2017: 55

2018: 46

2019: 39

2020: 48

2021: 45

2022: 46

2023: 32

2024: 34

2025: 39

I've been asked a lot on radio recently to explain the reason for this, and I'd say the two key factors are technology and musical tastes. Changing technology means musicians no longer need a band and an expensive studio to help bring a song to life - you can do it at home by yourself on your laptop. And I don't know if it's causal or a correlation or a coincidence, but musical tastes have veered away from rock and metal (ie. music made by bands) towards pop and hip hop (ie. music typically released by solo artists) in recent years.

While bands such as Spacey Jane, Ocean Alley, Royel Otis, Hilltop Hoods, Playlunch, The Rions, The Dreggs, and Old Mervs had multiple songs in the countdown, it's hard to tell whether they are helping reverse the trend, or whether the trend is merely plateuing.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

That article also points out the decline in songs featuring Australian artists, and while the 2025 Hottest 100 reverses the huge drop-off in Aussies from 2024, there's still a long way to go to get back to the halcyon days of the 2010s. Here's the numbers of total Aussie appearances in recent years:

2016: 81

2017: 73

2018: 69

2019: 72

2020: 71

2021: 59

2022: 62

2023: 54

2024: 29

2025: 55

To its credit, triple j added an Australian tab on the voting page this year, effectively encouraging people to "vote Australian". This has potentially helped make 2024 look like a statistical blip brought on by brat summer and Billie Eilish releasing the best album of her career, rather than a nightmarish trend. 

Still, the graph for Aussie appearances is a mountain with 2016 as the flag at the pinnacle, and it's been all downhill since. Is this the Tik Tok influence or the rise of the Spotify algorthyhm? It's hard to say, but one fact remains - triple j is still the greatest champion of Aussie music around, and long may it reign.

The Power of #2

One of my favourite random Hottest 100 facts is that Blur's Song 2, a song that runs for two minutes and two seconds, came in at #2 in 1997 (and #22 in the Hottest 100 of the first 20 years in 2013).

This year, it was Keli Holiday's Dancing2 which landed at #2, falling victim to the power of #2. It was Holiday AKA Adam Hyde's second time placing second in the Hottest 100, having already achieved this feat with his other act Peking Duk in 2014.

It's a shame Sombr's 12 to 12 didn't come in at #12 (it was #8). But that's because Fred Again now owns that spot, having placed at #12 for three years running. 

Worship at the Church of Women

Also for the third year running, a solo female artist has won the Hottest 100. It's also the fourth year in a row where the winner has had a female vocalist, and the fifth consecutive year where the winner has featured a woman (Emma Wiggle represent). Suffice to say, this is the best streak of female and non-binary representation the Hottest 100 has had, which is something to celebrate.

The previous best run of female artists topping the Hottest 100 was Julia Stone and Kimbra in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Song Sung Blue (2025)

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on January 22, 2026.

(M) ★★★★

Director: Craig Brewer.

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, Mustafa Shakir, Fisher Stevens, Jim Belushi, King Princess, Hudson Hensley.

"Jerry was a race car driver, he drove so goddamn fast..."

Music can do weird things to you. 

It can be a quiet private moment. It can soundtrack a marriage or a funeral or a romance or a workout. It can stir emotions and passions. It can make you dance or sing or do all kinds of stupid stuff.

In the case of Mike and Claire Sardina, the subjects of the 2008 doco Song Sung Blue, it got under their skin and into their blood, like a drug, becoming an addiction. It was the fuel of dreams, almost to the point of delusion.

In this vaguely fictionalised take on Greg Kohs' kooky slice-of-life documentary, that same theme of following your dream is strong (though the delusion is dialed down). This adaptation keeps so much of the reality but does a great job of fitting the facts into a biopic narrative, so that while the story changes, the heart of it shines through even stronger than in the doco. 

Song Sung Blue follows Mike and Claire through their careers as Lightning and Thunder, two singers from the nostalgia circuit who team-up to become a Neil Diamond tribute act and fall in love along the way. As their career waxes and wanes amid some incredible hardships, the musicians follow their dreams of becoming entertainers and sharing Neil Diamond's music with the world (or at the very least the Great Lakes region of America).

Fans of the doco might feel this has buffed off the original's rough edges, and Mike and Claire are certainly more sympathetic in this than in the doco, where their inadequacies and delusions are laid bare. Here, these foibles become heroic flaws to ensure we never stop cheering them on. There's a feeling of pity in the doco that is missing from the film, with this version leaning into the hope and heart, rather than making them look like low class fools.

It's also easy to cheer these two starry-eyed middle-aged lovebirds when they're inhabited by Hudson and Jackman. Indeed, Hudson in particular is magnetic as Claire AKA Thunder, impressing with her vocal chops as much as her wide-ranging performance. And we all know Jackman can sing, but his uncanny rendition of Diamond's voice is truly impressive, and matched by another workmanlike performance by the Aussie star. Also a joy to watch in this, and I never thought I'd type these words, is Jim Belushi, giving a delightfully goofy "aw shucks" turn as the duo's co-manager. 

The story wrings a lot of emotion out of the story - more than the documentary. Again, this may not be to all tastes, but for mine, this fictionalised retelling is punchier, more heartfelt, and yet still (mostly) true to its subjects. Just with fewer cigarettes, a bigger house, and less of a "white trash" overture to it all.

Both the doco and the new version are, at their heart, tales of little people dreaming big, and refusing to back down when the universe says "no". It's soulful and sad and weirdly uplifting, filled with a great soundtrack to remind you of Diamond's incredible songwriting skills.

Who will win triple j's Hottest 100 of 2025?

Olivia Dean is the hot favourite to win this year's Hottest 100.

It's with real sadness in my heart that I acknowledge the end of 100 Warm Tunas.

The last Hottest 100 predictor left standing, this social media-scraping algorithm has been shuttered by its creator Nick Whyte.

The reasons are many, varied, complex, and detailed here in this post from Whyte, but I would like to add that while triple j were never happy with his spoiler-iffic programming skills, I found it fascinating and invaluable in writing up my own half-arsed predictions each year. Thanks Nick, and all the best in the future.

But, as they say in the classics, the show must go on.

Before we dive into predicting the upcoming triple j Hottest 100, here's your annual reminder about some of the great songs that surprisingly missed the countdown over the years as included in this definitive list of the Hottest 100 omissions of all time compiled by myself, Tyler Jenke and Patrick Avenell (which is absolutely due for an update some day).

Anyway, I love the absolute shit out of triple j's Hottest 100. Much like Christmas, it's an occasion that brings people together to argue and drink too much, but with the greatest gift of all - quantifiable statistics about music.

The 2025 countdown is on January 24, and will once again deliver what triple j listeners deem to be the best songs of the past year, creating a musical time capsule for decades to come.

Predicting a winner in recent years has been somewhat easier thanks to there being clear favourites from the outset - Flume and May-a, Doja Cat, and Chappell Roan were all odds-on to win.

With Warm Tunas gone, that leaves the bookies and Tik Tok as the best indicators to predict a winner, though I will continue to throw the ARIA charts, Spotify and YouTube plays, and triple j's own most-played acts list into the mix.

So let's do this thing, shall we?

All stats/odds correct at the time of publishing.

And remember - gamble responsibly.

Olivia Dean - Man I Need

Why it will win: triple j has fallen head over heels for Dean, whose jazzy second album has rocketed the Brit singer from out of nowhere to being the third most-played act on their playlist. Man I Need is the biggest of her six songs to hit the ARIA charts last year (and of the five songs in the voting guide), reaching #2, and it's a hot favourite with the bookies. All of this (but especially the chart crossover success) mean it's the song to beat.

Why it won't win: If Tik Tok is truly ruling the Hottest 100 as many claim, then there are artists dominating that social platform way more than Olivia Dean, including Doechii and sombr. Also, triple j has been playing Spacey Jane and Ninajirachi more (though that probably doesn't matter), and there are songs in the voting guide with more plays on Spotify and YouTube (which also probably doesn't matter).

triple j's most played acts: #3

Sportsbet: $1.44 (favourite)

Ladbrokes: $1.35 (favourite)

ARIA: #2

Spotify streams: 570 million

YouTube plays: 42 million

Keli Holiday - Dancing2

Why it will win: One of the dudes from Peking Duk has a massive hit on his hands with this love child of Gang Of Youths and LCD Soundsystem. Performing it at the ARIAs gave it a massive bump, and  when it kicks in proper three and half minutes in (complete with saxophone) it's hard to deny. While it doesn't have the same crossover appeal of Olivia Dean's Man I Need, it's the song most likely to beat it if the buzz, bookies and readers of Rolling Stone Australia are to be believed. 

Why it won't win: There's a sizeable online backlash against Holiday (real name Adam Hyde) for reasons that I don't fully comprehend - sample reddit thread titles include "Why does everyone hate Keli Holiday so much?", "Dancing2 sucks", "I Hate Keli Holiday and I sadly can never look at Tim Curry the same way again", and "Adam Hyde can't sing for shit". Will that be enough to keep Keli from top spot? 

triple j's most played acts: Not in top 50.

Sportsbet: $3.75 (second favourite)

Ladbrokes: $4.25 (second favourite) 

ARIA: #66

Spotify streams: 10 million

YouTube plays: 606,000

Playlunch - Keith

Why it will win: This is the surprise hit of 2025. An hilarious film clip starring ex-footballer Barry Hall has helped make this super niche "bogan funk" band go viral, it could be the kind of jokey throwback reminscent of such novelty Hottest 100 winners as Denis Leary's Asshole, The Offspring's Pretty Fly For A White Guy, and The Wiggles' cover of Elephant. The big thinking around The Wiggles winning was that it was exactly the ray of sunshine we all needed in the dark days of 2021. Maybe the same theory could apply to Melbourne's Play Lunch in these dark days of 2025.

Why it won't win: I was certain back in 2021 that The Wiggles couldn't win, but dammit, I know I'm right this time when I say Play Lunch won't win. The novelty song largely died in the '90s, and although this has enough momentum to propel it into the top 10, it seems impossible that it could win.

triple j's most played acts: Not in top 50

Sportsbet: $5 (third favourite)

Ladbrokes: $9 (equal third favourite) 

ARIA: N/A

Spotify streams: 1.3 million

YouTube plays: 727,000

Ninajirachi - iPod Touch

Why it will win: With three ARIAs, a top 20 album, and two J Awards, and as triple j's second most played act of 2025, it's truly been Ninajirachi's year. A top placing in the Hottest 100 would really cap it off, and there's a lot of love out there for Nina Wilson's glitchy, catchy "girl EDM". While Fuck My Computer should also chart high, iPod Touch is the standout track on her much-loved album I Love My Computer. If anything from Ninajirachi is gonna win it, it's iPod Touch.

Why it won't win: Despite the ARIA acclaim, that hasn't translated on to the actual ARIA singles charts. And while you can argue the relevancy of them, the fact remains that Chappell Roan's Good Luck Babe spent 37 weeks in the singles chart prior to winning the Hottest 100 (including 16 weeks in the top 10), Doja Cat's Paint The Town Red spent 23 weeks in singles chart prior to winning (including 10 weeks at #1), and even Flume and May-a's Say Nothing spent nine weeks in the top 50 prior to winning (including debuting at #16). Outside of The Wiggles' Elephant, being in the ARIA charts still seems to matter.

triple j's most played acts: #2

Sportsbet: $11 (fourth favourite)

Ladbrokes: $9 (equal third favourite)

ARIA: N/A

Spotify streams: 6 million

YouTube plays: 483,000

Tame Impala - Dracula

Why it will win: With 19 annual Hottest 100 entries (and #19 in the All Time Aussie Hottest 100 earlier this year, thank you very much), Kevin Parker AKA Tame Impala is triple j royalty. Parker's never gone higher than #4 in an annual countdown, so maybe he's due. The album Deadbeat was a worldwide hit and Dracula is only the second Tame Impala song to crack the ARIA top 50, which is a good sign. Given the way acts age out of triple j's playlist, this might be Parker's last chance to win the thing without having The Wiggles playing one of his songs.

Why it won't win: There's a certain subset of people that feel Tame Impala's best work is behind them. And while Dracula is catchy and dancey and Parker's best chance to win since The Less I Know The Better in 2015, it's got a big battle to beat Olivia Dean and Keli Holiday.

triple j's most played acts: #12

Sportsbet: $13 (fifth favourite)

Ladbrokes: $17 (fifth favourite)

ARIA: #28

Spotify streams: 178 million

YouTube plays: 13 million

And some other songs to keep an ear out for....

Spacey Jane - Whateverrrr

Raye - Where Is My Husband!

Sombr - 12 to 12

Dom Dolla feat. Daya - Dreamin

Ball Park Music - Please Don't Move To Melbourne

Addison Rae - Fame Is A Gun

Doechii - Anxiety

Chappell Roan - The Subway

REWIND REVIEW: Ocean's Eleven (2001)

(M) ★★★★★

Director: Steven Soderbergh.

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Eddie Jemison, Qin Shaobo.

Rare image of Brad Pitt not eating during Ocean's Eleven.

"Siri, show me the epitome of cool, circa 2001."

*Siri begins playing a clip from Ocean's Eleven featuring Brad Pitt and George Clooney looking stylish as fuck, backed by David Holmes' new-millennium funk score.*

They don't make films like Ocean's Eleven any more. Even when they made Ocean's Eleven, they didn't make films like Ocean's Eleven any more.

Here's how director Steven Soderbergh put it while promoting the film:

"When I say Ocean's Eleven is a throwback to an earlier period in cinema, I mean that the movie is never mean, it's never gratuitous, nobody is killed, (and) nobody is humiliated for no reason or is the butt of a joke.  

"It's probably the least threatening film I've ever made in a way. That was conscious on my part. I wanted it to be a sort of light entertainment and I didn't think darker or meaner ideas had a place in a movie like this. I wanted it to be sparkling."

And sparkle it does. In fact, it sparkles in a way the original didn't, something the cast and crew seemed to be aware of. 

"The original Ocean's 11 is probably more notorious than it is good," Soderbergh conceded while on the junket.

Clooney was equally honest. "The truth is, most people never saw the original Ocean's 11," he told reporters. "They just think they have because those guys were the coolest." 

"Those guys" were the Rat Pack, led by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. The original Ocean's 11 was released to middling reviews - Rotten Tomatoes' consensus calls it "easy-going but lazy, blithely coast(ing) on the well-established rapport of the Rat Pack royalty". Empire Magazine, in rating  Soderbergh's remake the 500th greatest film of all time back in 2013, noted "Soderbergh's starry update of the Rat Pack crime caper not only outshines its predecessor, but all the lights of The Strip combined".

It's obvious from the get-go that Soderbergh's sights were set on more than just surpassing the original. Save for the name of George Clooney's character, the notion of robbing multiple casinos at once, and a couple of blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos, Ocean's Eleven pays little heed to the original. 

Instead, Soderbergh plots and pulls off the gold standard for the modern heist movie, and does it via a film that doesn't have a mean-spirited bone in its body. It's somehow relaxed and friendly yet tense and thrilling. It's cool AF yet utterly approachable. It's droll and dry but absolutely fun. It's made in an era when every crime film wanted to be Tarantino-esque or Ritchie-esque, yet no one gets killed or shot or horribly maimed. It just sparkles.

Soderbergh's deft touch is responsible for a fair amount of this. He sets the tone early, ensuring that just like the members of the Eleven, we are won over by the charm. The aces up his sleeve, played within minutes of sitting at the table, are George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Pitt hasn't been this laidback on screen ever, and Clooney is a commanding presence without really trying. Together, they're so chill, they're liquid nitrogen. As Empire put it, the movie is "cooler than the penguin's crown jewels".

Similarly, Roberts is low-key and sublime, underplaying almost every moment. Even Garcia manages to fit the mood, avoiding chewing the scenario - something Pacino couldn't totally avoid when filling the villains' shoes come Ocean's Thirteen. And the rest of the Eleven are a testament to the importance of good casting. It's a perfect mix of burgeoning talent (Cheadle, Affleck), old pros (Reiner, Gould) and the solid team players of the time (Damon, Mac).

On paper, it looks like a royal flush. Great cast, director who was on a roll (previous four films: Out Of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic), and a story about a bunch of beautiful people doing an impossibly cool thing to someone who absolutely deserves it. But Ocean's Twelve shows how that can be a losing hand, so let's take a moment to appreciate Ted Griffin's screenplay. 

While its rabbit-out-of-a-hat plotting doesn't hold up to magnifying-glass-levels of scrutiny, it doesn't need to. One of the many impressive things about Ocean's Eleven is it maintains a nice level of tension despite nothing overly bad happening to any of the characters. There are ups and downs, and the underlying pressure of the heist, where every minimal thing has maximum consequences, keeps things ticking along. But it does so in the most remarkably laidback and relaxed way possible. People rarely yell and scream - they just sweat and undersell everything. It's a neat trick, because it puts us on the edge of our seats without pushing us there.

Heist films are bountiful, but Ocean's Eleven is evergreen. It stole all the money and our hearts in the process, and people are still talking about it almost 25 years on. A lot of that is down to the cool vibes and killer cast, but it takes real skill and effort to pull off a job like this. And Soderbergh is the mastermind, despite having never made a movie like this before. Yes, Out Of Sight was criminally cool, and Traffic had a cast to die for, but Ocean's Eleven showed he could do anything and everything, something he's still doing to this day.

My top 10 albums of 2025

Haven't done this for a while. But here we go.

Thanks to Joe Gardner and Brady Jones for the inspiration and reminder that this is a thing I used to do.

1. The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre

I'm a sucker for something that can sound both classic and fresh at the same time, especially when it makes something that sounds truly unique. And while it's fun to say this sounds like Kate Bush fronting some kind of mashup of Queen and Fleetwood Mac, it's so much more than that - maybe PJ Harvey & The Bad Seeds? The first half of this record is as good as any in recent years, while the last half holds the late night growers. Filled with radiant harmonies and spicy riffs in amongst the baroque melodrama, this is as good as their debut from last year.

2. Merpire - Milk Pool

Remember being at parties and wondering if you could ever pluck up the courage to talk to some guy/girl? All those awkward anxieties fill Milk Pool, Merpire's second album, but in a good way - here they're like a nostalgic soundtrack filled with the coolest 'melodies and beautiful '90s-era scuzzy guitars. Merpire writes damned good songs that are just effective when she plays them solo on an electric guitar as they are on this dreamily produced album with a backing band.

3. Mclusky - The World Is Still Here and So Are We

Who said reunion albums have to suck? More than two decades on from the brilliant The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire, mclusky return with plenty of absurdist vitriol and demented angst to make this feel like a very vital part of their legacy. The down-and-dirty riffs of Chekhov's Guns and The Digger You Deep are worth the price of admission alone.

4. Paul Dempsey - Shotgun Karaoke Vol II

Cover albums have no right to be this good. No one has the right to be this talented. Who the hell can sing Cher and Don Henley alongside Bright Eyes and Sugar with equal power and emotion? Truly the sign of someone who has made a deal with The Devil. 

5. Geese - Getting Killed

I'm still trying to figure out what this album is. All I know is I love it. The band fuses experimental  arrangements with beautiful rock songs, and Cameron Winter sounds like a crappy Thom Yorke and its amazing.

6. Deftones - Private Music

I haven't properly listened to Deftones for a while, but the first thing I heard of Private Music (Milk Of The Madonna) made me leap into it and I wasn't disappointed. This one is heavy yet beautiful, like the best vintage Deftones. Every song had me captivated.

7. Floodlights - Underneath

Euphoric and anthemic, this Melbourne band pull plenty of surprises in between their massive singalong hooks. The trumpet is a beautiful touch to the big rock numbers that sit somewhere between Gang Of Youths and Echo & The Bunnymen.

8. Bring Me The Horizon - Lo-files

All my favourite Bring Me The Horizon songs turned into lo-fi muzak is exactly the album I didn't know I needed, but here it is and I love it. It's super chill and super simple, but fantastic.

9. The Beths - Straight Line Was A Lie

So many great melodies and so much to love in the fourth album from NZ's finest. It's all there in the sweet pop of Til My Heart Stops, the jangle-pop of Metal, the fuzzy rock of the title track, and the punk pop of No Joy. So many great songs.

10. Viagra Boys - viagr aboys

Funny, funny shit, but also cool. Punk is at its best when its killer riffs are used to have a bit of fun or tear apart society, and somehow this is both those things. Like Butthole Surfers but with better hooks.

Honourable mentions: 

Bleak Squad - Strange Love

Pulp - More

Ball Park Music - Like Love

Ben Kweller - Cover The Mirrors

An ode to Paul Dempsey

Early in his career, rightly or wrongly, Paul Dempsey was considered A Very Serious Young Man.

A reluctant frontman, thrust before the mic out of necessity by his bandmates in Something For Kate, Dempsey came across as someone uncomfortable in the limelight, only fulfilling his lead singer duties because it meant he could live out his dream of playing music, but unsure how to deal with the bells and whistles that came with it.

He wrote earnest songs and sung them with an equally earnest voice that's probably the most distinctive and instantly recognisable Aussie voice outside of Jimmy Barnes.

But somewhere between the somewhat monochromatic debut album of his band Something For Kate and the present day, Paul Dempsey blossomed into an affable genius of the Australian music scene, with a charming stage presence to match his remarkable talents.

No longer the Very Serious Young Man, Dempsey has become many other things - Aus music elder statesman, extraordinarily ranged vocalist, under-rated songwriter, equally under-rated guitarist, charismatic frontman, and an alt-rock icon for those in the know.

But perhaps the most unexpected transformation is Dempsey's appointment as Australia's King of Covers.

Maybe we should've known this was coming back in 1998 when Something For Kate covered Jebediah's Harpoon on a split EP, or Duran Duran's Ordinary World as a b-side to The Astronaut in 2000, or even their much-loved cover of Truly by the relatively unknown American band Hazel on SFK's Intermission EP.

But it didn't become truly apparent until later, and the exact moment differs depending on who you are. Maybe it was covering David Bowie's Ashes To Ashes on the Moving Right Along single in 2004. Maybe it was his astonishing cover of Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball on Triple M, or doing Middle Kids' Edge Of Town on triple j. Maybe it was those closing credit duets on Rockwiz.

Either way, it's all proof he is the righful heir to the throne (who he overthrew, I do not know). In those covers and many more,  Dempsey had unlocked something - a profound gift for picking wonderfully melodic songs and rendering them in a manner that was every bit as earnest as his original material. Some of them have been pop hits - the type that would have been readily dismissed by those who fell in love with Something For Kate from the moment they heard Captain (Million Miles An Hour) or Subject To Change in the late '90s - while the others have been uber-cool deep cuts, opening up whole new musical worlds for many of his grateful fans.

This has been his real talent as a cover artist - the ability to sound like he means it, no matter what he's singing. From Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time to Grant Lee Buffalo's Mockingbirds, from INXS' Never Tear Us Apart to Hüsker Dü's Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely, from Michael Jackson's Billie Jean to Middle Kids' Edge Of Town, from Hall & Oates' Out Of Touch to Wilco's Jesus Etc., from Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball to The Smith's There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, each song is brought to life with heart-rending honesty, despite coming from disparate ends of the mainstream/alternative spectrum and delivered by a man who didn't write them. 

It's easy to just put it down to that voice. Dempsey distinctive vocals are smoky and sincere, helping him sing it like he means it, with that huskiness adding a raw tinge that helps sell the emotion. And those who don't like Something For Kate typically say it's because of his voice. Apparently it's a love-it-or-hate-it voice - the coriander of vocals.

But his voice is a goddamned weapon - more habanero than coriander. In his chest voice, he boasts a Christ Cornell-like range. He calls it "stunt singing", but that's classic Demspsey Dismissiveness - the ability to sing-scream the middle eight or key change in If I Could Turn Back Time or the chorus of Boys Of Summer is incredible and not something to be dismissed as a mere "stunt".

Holy shit, when he bursts into the chorus of Sheryl Crowe's If It Makes You Happy...

... that's a helluva range. That's spine-tingling shit right there.

Somewhere between Something For Kate's debut Elsewhere For Eight Minutes and their second record Beautiful Sharks, Dempsey's songwriting and indeed the whole of SFK burst into technicolour. Along with this, Dempsey's voice gained extra hues. By third album Echolalia, he was starting to figure exactly where his voice could go - that falsetto on opening track Stunt Show wasn't something we'd really heard before, but it was a sign of things to come.

Those who can't stand his voice will never get it, but they're also missing out on his incredible guitarwork, his surprising under-stated wit (sample lyric: "You're not the first to think that everything has been thought before"), and his generally remarkable musicality. 

All of this is a long-winded way of saying Dempsey's covers gig at the Palais in Melbourne on November 22 was revelatory. The whole time I had to keep reminding myself "this is just a covers gig - they aren't even his songs!", as one tune after another was brought to life in hi-res emotions by just one man and a guitar. It was powerful - more powerful than it had any right to be. 

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The 3,000-strong crowd ate it up, and Dempsey obviously knows he's discovered a form of alchemy, as dismissive of his own abilities as he might be. You don't do two covers albums and sell-out tours playing nothing but other people's songs without realising you might have a bit of a gift for this.

It's highly unlikely anyone in the audience wasn't already a SFK fan. But on the off-chance they weren't, they will be now. And there are people out there who still can't get past that voice and, well, all I can do is pity them.

Flow

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on December 11, 2025.

(G) ★★★★

Director: Gints Zilbalodis.

Finally. The gritty reboot of Madagascar we've all been waiting for.

Flow, in case you have forgotten, is the little Latvian film that beat out Pixar, Dreamworks, and Aardman to win the Best Animated Film Oscar back in March.

With no humans, no words, and no significant plot to speak of, it's an astonishingly beautiful film that shows us how effective simple storytelling can be, and reminds us how animated movies truly are a balm for the soul.

The story, in so much as there is one, is of a cat forced to give up its solitary life when rising floodwaters submerge its home. In a search for dry land, the cat ends up in a boat alongside a capybara, a ringtailed lemur, a Labrador and a secretary bird, drifting on a new ocean that seemingly covers most of the world.

Though the film is not without its drama, it's a quiet tale told at a gentle pace, yet it's never short of engrossing. It leaves plenty of questions unanswered to ensure we get a cat's-eye view of the world, and a similar level of understanding. Flow is quite clever in its ability to get you into the cat's head, and if the cat doesn't understand it, then you probably won't either.

The animation style is beautiful, and not a million miles from The Wild Robot, in that it covers its CG in painterly brushstrokes, except that Flow has an endearing added layer of pixelly imperfections. The end result has a picture book quality to it, yet is still immersive and filled with raw power.

One of the many amazing qualities of Flow is its appeal. Young kids will be mesmerised by its animal stars, while adults will be equally entranced. And don't be surprised if you find yourself trying to unravel some of the film's big unanswered questions long after the credits have rolled.