Across 2025, I playlisted 2,797 tracks, and saw live sets by 323 different artists. I loved it all, but for the third year running, I’m having a crack at pulling together the fifty artists who gave me the most musical joy live and who made me mash the repeat button the most often. These are fifty of the most exciting artists I was lucky enough to encounter across 2025 both on record and on the stage.
Before I get into the list, it’s worth pointing out a few that aren’t on it. As last year – basically to make the selection process a bit less painful – the criteria was that I had to have seen an artist live and they had to have released something new (which also makes this list skew super-heavily towards more emerging artists).
That meant that there were some artists who were incredible live, but I couldn’t include since there was no new music uploaded – this included Amends, Ess-Em, C.O.F.F.I.N, or Raised As Wolves.
It also meant there were artists who clearly belong on a best-of-the-year list based on their amazing new music, but since I didn’t see them live I couldn’t include them. The ones that got away – but who would certainly have made this list – include total tommy, ixaras, 3%, Bad//Dreems, Chloe Parché, and Radio Free Alice.
Anyway, enough about that. Here’s the list:
50. Kitty Of The Valley
What I said about them this year:
“Kitty Of The Valley’s fearsome precision dominates their set, a vocal fit to divert shipping on top of songs that sound like earth quaking. The more off-piste moments fire pleasurable jolts though, danceable pounding and squalling punk feedback keeping us giddily on-course but happily off-balance.“
49. Dvrkworld
What I said about them this year:
“Dvrkworld roll in from Tassie on a wave of distortion but what hits hardest isn’t the weight, it’s the wild joy in it all. It’s a hard fork from foundational shoegaze, where bags of giddy fun coexist with the ear-splitting squalls, where the loons live happily alongside the librarians. Fabulous stuff.“
48. Bridge Dog
What I said about them this year:
“Bridge Dog’s charming shoegaze is both crisp and gauzy, sweetly soaring vocals over laid back but undeniably noisy squalls of guitar and rhythm. It’s all sunny day smiles, heat and contentment.“
47. Appletinis
What I said about them this year:
“Appletinis paint on a grand canvas, not only ambitious but also capable of work on this sort of scale. At its heart it’s classic guitar-driven pop but it’s a looong way from a bedroom-level project, this feels like it’s aiming for nothing short of Broadway. It’s pop fireworks, and it lights up the sky.”
46. Chiara Kovac
What I said about them this year:
“Chiara Kovac’s set has that Cure-ish, late-80s indie shyness bubbling under throughout, bookish and sharp – but make no mistake, there’s enough drive and thump to knock you flat too. Just when you think it’s safe to break out a cardigan, you wish you’d brought a crash helmet instead. Fun and furious, danceable and dark.”
45. Earth Cadet
What I said about them this year:
“A golden rule among many is that if you’re going to lean on 90s grunge, then for God’s sake don’t stint on the volume. Earth Cadet are clearly aware of this, and the titanic – spine-wrenching, eyeball-bursting – noise level tonight is surely the only way to deliver a set of haymakers like this. Every blow a knockout.”
44. Second Idol
What I said about them this year:
“Second Idol only ever bring strength, an iron will and a heat-forged fury to match its steel-hard sound. Few bands stand as tall as and as firm.”
43. Milly McPherson
What I said about them this year:
“Milly McPherson can clearly carry a song all on her own, but with a band around her it’s elevated, a giant voice standing on the shoulders of harmony and rhythm and melody. The songs range wildly from earthy and grounded to high-altitude soaring but none of them falter. It shines, basically.”
42. kayls
What I said about them this year:
“kayls is just a voice plus a guitar tonight but it’s like having stars burs quietly in your head. Shy and quiet as it is – damn near apologetic at moments – it’s a set of small movements that very slowly but irresistibly put you back on your arse. A set of raw material from which we can expect spectacular things.”
41. Haley Holgate
What I said about them this year:
“Haley Holgate plays the first live music of SXSW Sydney 2025, a set of sparkly charmers as bright as today’s sunshine.”
40. Problem Green
What I said about them this year:
“Problem Green’s savagery also soars, great big stamping boots with little wings attached to them. There’s lashings of lashing, sure, but there’s so much fun in the snarl it’s impossible not to grin along with it, a massive smile made of bared fangs.”
39. Max Quinn
What I said about them this year:
“Max Quinn conned us all – with actual social media fake news – into thinking he’d gone away for ever but the cheeky bastard lied through his shiny teeth and now all we’re stuck here, together, having to enjoy his clever bloody set that tingles the follicles as much as they do the feet. We were promised eternal silence! What did we get? Great big smart songs that make the world brighter is what we got. Damn his sparkly eyes.”
38. Lady Lyon
What I said about them this year:
“Lady Lyon’s mighty country blows the bricks off the walls, muscular and funny and tender and tough all at the same time. Built like a haybarn, designed for the hoedown, and here for the very best times.”
37. Last Quokka
What I said about them this year:
“Last Quokka’s edge is both as jagged as ocean rocks but as sharp as a freshly-whetted blade, furious rage landing with murderous precision. If you’re on their side, as angry and infuriated as they are by the injustices of the world, then you’re in the clear, and it’s a party fit to take the breath out of you. If not – well, you’ll end up bloody, and God help you.”
36. The Gooch Palms
What I said about them this year:
“The Gooch Palms’ return to to live action was one of the highlights of last year and their set tonight is just another reminder of how missed they were, how much light they bring. Nothing but fun, nothing but sharp and danceable, they’re a pleasure that reminds you how much you miss this sort of good time.”
35. Worm Girlz
What I said about them this year:
“Worm Girlz bring equal parts sugar and salt, tough and leathery while charming and hilarious, and all at the same time. The sweeter half dances in formation and makes us promise to be nice to each other – the spiky half stamps on your throat without mercy or hesitation. A perfect mix.”
34. Nerdlinger
What I said about them this year:
“A Nerdlinger set snorts out of the nose and sprays itself all over the room, sticking to everything it touches. Insanely technical in its speed and harmony without ever seeming to pay any attention at all, it’s a joyous burst of involuntary joy and mayhem, and you’ll be picking happy bits of it off your clothes for weeks, no matter how hard you scrub.”
33. Seaside
What I said about them this year:
“Seaside drive it to the line without distraction, their defining trait less a sound or a genre than a pounding sense of motion and theatre and feeling, a wonderful hammer to the nerves. It manages to both shy away and show off, an explosion of indoor voices amplified to ear-splitting levels. Glorious.”
32. Huck Hastings
What I said about them this year:
“Huck Hastings plays stripped back tonight, but these exquisite songs, so delicately constructed, lose none of their strength. Bashes the tiles off the roof without seeming to ever raise a voice.”
31. Holly Hebe
What I said about them this year:
“Holly Hebe’s crisp indie pop is shiny with glitter but run through with stories and emotion. Bright as a button and with a rich and rewarding undercurrent, the whole set is finely-cut songwriting delivered with poise and finesse.”
30. So I Says To Mabel
What I said about them this year:
“So I Says To Mabel blister the paint and crack the brickwork, flat-out and roaring West Coast punk, hardcore screams and gigantic choruses taking turns in beating your kidneys to a pulp. A full send, happy and glorious.”
29. Dani Marchio
What I said about them this year:
“You will see few sets constructed of as much sheer, primal joy as Dani Marchio’s. From start to finish it’s ankle-breakingly danceable pop, it’s grins wide enough to crack your face open, and it’s the whole weekend stretching out ahead of you. It’s a fully live pop band too – there are no backing tracks here, just pure and uncut fun, smashed straight into the veins. She could be singing about clubbing seals and you’d still end up sweaty and delirious.”
28. xiao xiao
What I said about them this year:
“xiao xiao whirl like a tornado, something you can’t stop nor stop staring at, moving with both purpose and the threat of malice. It’s a hurricane force sound, heavy and with purposeful intent, and it stamps through the room, enough to rip the house clear out of the ground and send you to a whole other world, you and your little dog.”
27. LEATHERMAN
What I said about them this year:
“Leatherman explode from the off and don’t let up, wild and untethered, with the throttle broken and set wide open. It’s a maniac of a thing that drives you towards the edge on purpose and then hurls you clear off it, while you grin and grin and grin.”
26. Phantastic Ferniture
What I said about them this year:
“It’s been just over eight years since I last saw Phantastic Ferniture, and nearly a decade since I first saw them crammed into the daft upstairs room of the long-lost Record Crate in Glebe. Time has passed, and singer Julia Jacklin’s solo career has bloomed, but this is no vanity project, no self-indulgent nostalgia trip. It’s easy to forget that on the back of just the one self-titled album from 2018, the ‘Ferns still clock up streaming numbers most emerging acts would gladly trade organs for. Back together onstage, they remain a real force – Jacklin’s voice was always their primary weapon (and it’s not like that’s got any worse over the years) but Elizabeth Fader is and has always been an inventive, intricate guitarist, and Ryan K Brennan’s pounding, insistent rhythms remain as commanding as ever. It’s like they stepped out of the room for a minute only to reappear years later. It certainly feels like they never left – the only remaining question at the end of the night is whether they’re back for good. We can only hope.”
25. DZ Deathrays
What I said about them this year:
“DZ Deathrays playing acoustic is so wrong as a concept it should be barred from pubs, but their first-ever go at turning face-melters into head-nodders is honkingly odd yet wildly good fun. It’s odd for the obvious reasons – these songs scream out for ear-splitting distortion and bassy mayhem – but the mad charm of hearing it ping about the room with treble and twang is a wonky delight of the highest order. One of the strangest – yet strangely wonderful – shows of the year, easy.”
24. BIG NOTER
What I said about them this year:
“BIG NOTER are like all the good things about being hit in the face with, say, a fridge. Heavy as hell, generationally angry, and relentless in rhythm and rhyme and riot, it’s a blast you’ll struggle to get up from but one you’ll never regret taking squarely on the chin. Quality, quality mayhem.”
23. Hard-Ons
What I said about them this year:
“Hard-Ons’ thunderous noise blows the bricks off the walls of Metro Social tonight, a howlingly loud set made of melodic chaos and muscular punk. The room is packed for this masterclass in songs at unsafe speed and volume, and despite the hurricane from the speakers – as well as basic common sense – trying to push us all backwards, we surge closer into the eye of it. A perfect storm from a storming band.”
22. Hellcat Speedracer
What I said about them this year:
“Even if Hellcat Speedracer were more traditional head-down, hand-wavy tech nerds lurking behind the equipment, this would be a monster of set, poundingly danceable and wildly, manically bloopy. It’s the stage energy that takes you to near cardiac arrest though – there are punk bands who spend less time in the crowd or clambering up the walls, and the untethered spectacle of the thing, on top of the blockbuster beats, is a high pleasure indeed.”
21. Sonic Reducer
What I said about them this year:
“Sonic Reducer only shop from quality stores, connoisseurs of the very best musical ingredients. Velvets, Ramones, Pistols, Stones – all the classic plurals are referenced either in song or in style, but what comes blaring off the stage is both the art smashed into the attitude and the innovation built on the influences. Familiar notes, hitting new. S H O W.”
20. REDD.
What I said about them this year:
“REDD. brings literally all the energy, enough to bounce, deafen, or scar you, depending on your given mood. A gigantic pop sensibility runs through it, but the wild veering in various directions of fun keeps you happily off-balance, just as worried about snapping an ankle as banging your head off the ceiling.”
19. Great Job!
What I said about them this year:
“Great Job! disguise the sad things they sing about in wildly fun songs, a black dog in a puppy’s clothing. You happily play and roll around and laugh, and it’s only later you get the message, emotional timebombs wrapped in laughs and sweat.”
18. Gordon’s Grandson
What I said about them this year:
“Gordon’s Grandson’s pop wants to be wonky but can’t help being flawlessly smooth, oddball notes flying on perfectly pitched wings. Nuttier than a squirrel’s lunch underneath, it somehow keeps both itself and us on a dead level keel, masterclass and mischief rolled into one.”
17. Sacred Hearts
What I said about them this year:
“Sacred Hearts sound and move like shadows projected on a screen, high-contrast and twanging post-punk swirling in misty whorls. It’s incredibly restrained – most of the time – but it carries a high voltage, buzzing and crackling with menace and threat. Fabulous but shadowy, dark but danceable.”
16. Full Flower Moon Band
What I said about them this year:
“Full Flower Moon Band stalk around in your blind spot like a dark painting come to life, all menace and strength and determination. You might think you’re at the top of the food chain, but there’s always something out there with bigger teeth. And it’s right behind you.”
15. DOWNGIRL
What I said about them this year:
“DOWNGIRL are all sorts of contradictory, subtle and sly but still as heavy as a hammer blow to the head; mayhem on a stick but still clear and precise; angry as all hell yet warm and welcoming. Fabulously wild, wildly fabulous.”
14. Destrends
What I said about them this year:
“Destrends take post-punk, punk, and general bloody chaos and serve it up right under your nose, whether you ordered it or not. It’s a magnificent racket, driving and pounding and losing its bloody mind, a glorious mess of vehemence, volume and vim.”
13. Clay J Gladstone
What I said about them this year:
“A Clay J Gladstone set runs electrical thrills through the body, a positive charge for negative times.”
12. Georgia Mulligan
What I said about them this year:
“Georgia Mulligan plays a – recently, anyway – fairly rare full-band show tonight, which gives the songs the added dimensions and heft from the records. Not that they need much, that voice continues to defy and delight – but when sitting atop a full-spectrum sound it’s yet another level of glorious. Hypnotic and wonderful, and as long as these songs are sung, I’ll stand in front of them, a little stunned and a lot giddy with happiness.”
11. MEOW MEOW AND THE SMACKOUTS
What I said about them this year:
“MEOW MEOW AND THE SMACKOUTS’ spiky yelp never runs out of fun, bouncing off the walls and taking chunks out of your leg. It’d be easy to make a cartoon out of this band but that would be to sorely underestimate the sharp songs that underpin it.”
10. FVNERAL
What I said about them this year:
“FVNERAL play with a brand new lineup tonight but the deeply emotional pop remains the same. Raising funds for the amazing Transgenre event later this year – and being smushed into this tiny venue – reminds us we’re here for each other too, and not just because of these glittering, wonderful songs of shared pain.”
9. The Buoys
What I said about them this year:
“On Hottest 100 day, it’s mandatory that everyone in the country says, at some point, “should have been higher”. That The Buoys didn’t get parked in spots one through ten is nothing short of criminal.”
8. Gut Health
What I said about them this year:
“Gut Health are widely regarded as one of the best bands in Australia right now but if – like me – you’ve only caught the records and not the live show, you’ve only been getting half the story. Arty punk-punk can often be pretty dour but the torrent of fun that comes off the stage tonight is genuinely something to behold, twitchy and dance-y and grinning like a maniac. Bubbling like it’s about to explode – music-wise and career-wise – it’s something new and fresh and wonderful, and it’s having the time of its damn life at the same time. Glorious.”
7. 2charm
What I said about them this year:
“2charm act like it’s no thing but this set is scaldingly hot, precision choreography done deadpan, high-energy pop delivered with a casual flick of the wrist. A moody thread of modern paranoia runs through the music but you’re propelled at speed on its bow wave, dancing and dancing and dancing. A wild, wild blast.”
6. Antenna
What I said about them this year:
“Antenna burn like a flare, all heat and light and sparks. The rhythms don’t so much pound as they incite, the guitar roars like a train in a tunnel, and then there’s Shogun’s vocal, which scampers up and down the scales like a squirrel through the trees. It’s enough to burn the retinas out of your eyes, scorch the flesh off your bones, and warm every last dark cockle of your heart. It is a truly magnificent racket.”
5. Maple’s Pet Dinosaur
What I said about them this year:
“Maple’s Pet Dinosaur have waaay more than one trick up their sleeve, with 2025’s viral sensation ‘lego’ being just one part in the big machine of this wildly impressive set. Make no mistake, there are equally large piles of talent and enthusiasm here – the manic and charming teenage goofiness adds giddy fun to singer Maple’s eye-raising, ear-popping, glass-cracking vocal, and to the floor-shaking thump of the band at their heaviest.”
4. Retail Therapy
What I said about them this year:
“Retail Therapy shake both hair and walls, physically mobile and shudderingly noisy. Shoegaze and goth and punk and sheer primal noise are the trampoline on which this voice bounces, like a giddy and unhinged monkey – one second a delight, the next a piercing high note to tear the wallpaper down. A band that really understands raw, bloody-fingered power.”
3. Swapmeet
What I said about them this year:
“Swapmeet cut with a scalpel and cauterise with heat, a gentle movement just the feint before crushing pain. At its loudest it’s dark and raging, but it’s still oddly optimistic – you’re in very real peril, but it’s strangely and hypnotically beautiful to watch.”
2. sleepazoid
What I said about them this year:
“sleepazoid’s set is a pack of wild horses thundering over your body and through your mind, deafeningly loud, crushing all in its path, and utterly, utterly beautiful to watch. It’s a spectacular set of noise and song, impressive and confident, a grin a mile wide while it levels the building around you.”
…BUT THE TOP SPOT OF THE NIFTY FIFTY 2025 GOES TO…
Lotte Gallagher’s been just building and building and this year saw her explode with both her best recorded work yet and a live set that absolutely knocked me over.
On record, the year was built around the October release of the ‘Blasé Vengeance‘ EP, a murderously good collection of the year’s tracks, including the stellar ‘F U In Morse Code‘, which managed to be both hilarious and furious in equal measure.
Live, Gallagher is spectacular – good-humoured, occasionally goofy, and having a whale of a time while dropping pounding pop songs with dark edges. It’s one hell of a set, built on one hell of a songbook.
2025 saw her fulfil the promise of the last couple of years – my bet is that 2026 and beyond will see her take it to a whole new level.
To every artist on this list and not, to all the photographers whose talent I envy daily, to everyone I see at shows, and to everyone who dives into music with wide eyes and open hearts, thanks for another blazing year. I fucking love you lot.
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