Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” is the song of the year, at least according to the people who voted in triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2025.
The result came on 24 January, at the countdown’s listening party, which started at 12:00PM AEDT. Dean called the win a shock. “It’s kind of crazy, I feel like this song only just came into my life recently so for it to just be everywhere — it’s changed my life,” she told Concetta and Luka afterwards.
“No other song has ever done what this has done, and I’m just really grateful.”
The track came together fast. Dean said it “fell out” of her while she was in the studio with collaborators Zach Nahome and Tobias Jesso Jr, after the core chords had been bouncing around in her head for a while. “It was a joy to make, this song,” she said.
How the countdown works
Every year triple j asks listeners to vote for the ten songs that soundtracked their year. The station tallies the ballots and plays the top 100 back in one long broadcast at the end of January. It bills the poll as Australia’s biggest music countdown.
The winner was not the end of the programming. The Hottest 200 ran in daily instalments at 8AM and 4PM from 27 to 30 January, and the full list went up on 31 January at 11:00PM local time. Double J’s Hottest 100 of 2005 aired on 25 January at 1:00AM local time.
