Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Phew! That was a marathon, not a sprint - but Olivia Dean emerged as the biggest winner of the day. She had four songs in the Top 100, including the number one - Man I Need.

Sam Fender, her duet partner on Rein Me In, was close behind with three entries. Canadian sensation Tate McRae, bedroom pop icon PinkPantheress and BBC Sound of 2025 winner Chappell Roan also had three.

What have we learned? That music is in a really healthy place.

Very few of those songs could be accused of hopping on trends or playing it safe; and innovation is coming from every walk of life.

Artists like JADE, CMAT, Skepta and Chappell Roan are in a gleeful search for boundaries they can break; while bands like Wolf Alice, Turnstile and Geese are tenaciously pulling rock out of a decade-long doldrum.

But as I said a couple of hours ago, it feels like we’re at a transitional point.

No one artist or genre is dominant - but equally, there hasn’t been an album that defines the last 12 months (although Rosalía’s Lux stands head and shoulders above the competition).

Next year promises new music from the likes of Harry Styles, Madonna, Gorillaz and Beyoncé, while Radio 1’s Sound of 2026 longlist proves there’s no dearth of new talent.

To quote the long-forgotten 80s rock act Timbuk3, “the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades”.

If you want to relive the countdown of Radio 1's 100 Biggest Songs of the year, you can listen to these programmes on BBC Sounds:

• Part One - 100-51
• Part Two - 50-1

Eighty-five artists made up the final 100- song list of Radio 1's biggest songs of 2025, but who appeared the most?

As you can see below, most of the artists in the top 100 hail from England, with the US a (somewhat) close second.

And who are the artists from Austria, Ghana and New Zealand, we hear you ask?

Well it's Ely Oakes, Moliy and Lorde.

Image source, PA Media

Earlier, Radio 1 Breakfast presenter Greg James introduced number 12 - Take a Sexy Picture of Me by CMAT, who has "had a sensational year".

He reminisced about CMAT, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury earlier this year.

"It took her to a different universe", Greg said, describing how he and producer Tom pushed their way to the "middle-front" of the crowd, having had "about 65 beers" on that hot day.

"Everyone was in the most joyful mood. It was packed you couldn’t move - until she told us all to move and do a two-step – it was one of my favourite moments of any Glastonbury, ever.

"It was her arrival not just on the big stage at Glastonbury, but on the big global stage as well."

The moment we've all been waiting for is here - we can now reveal Radio 1's biggest song of 2025 and other hits that made it to the coveted top 10.

• 10: PinkPantheress - Illegal
• 9: Doechii - DENIAL IS A RIVER
• 8: Alex Warren - Ordinary
• 7: Calvin Harris featuring Clementine Douglas - Blessings
• 6: Taylor Swift - The Fate of Ophelia
• 5: Chappell Roan - Pink Pony Club
• 4: Sam Fender - People Watching
• 3: RAYE - WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!
• 2: Lola Young - Messy
• 1: Olivia Dean - Man I Need

"If I'd known when I made that song how much it would change my life this year, I wouldn't have believed myself. It's still, like... aaah!" Olivia Dean says when she hears Man I Need has been voted Radio 1’s biggest song of the year.

It's been an incredible year for Dean, her new album propelling her beyond her wildest expectations.

See more of what she had to say when she heard the news above.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Here’s something you might not have expected: Radio 1’s biggest song of 2025 was inspired by Michael Jackson’s 1987 single The Way You Make Me Feel, and Haribo’s insanely fizzy Tangfastic sweets.

The revelation comes from Olivia Dean herself, who explained the writing of Man I Need in an interview with the hit podcast And the Writer Is...

“I came in that day and there was a lot of energy in the room,” she recalled.

“We started with the drum beat and I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do something kind of like Michael’s The Way You Make Me Feel-esque’

“And I sat at the Wurly [a Wurlitzer electric piano] and we kind of just, like, wrote it."

If it’s that simple, maybe we should all have a go. I’m basing next year’s number one on the beat to Madonna’s Material Girl and a pack of Bourbon biscuits.

But seriously, from all that frivolity came an absolute belter of a song - classic in the best sense, full of warmth and nostalgia without ever feeling forced.

No wonder it’s topped the chart.

You can watch Olivia Dean perform Man I Need in the Radio 1 Live Lounge here., external

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, PA Media

Lola Young sang on the 2021 John Lewis advert, was featured on the BBC Sound of 2022 list - but it was Messy that turned her into a star.

It found her at her most vulnerable - stuck in a relationship where she was told she wasn’t good enough. The message was hammered home so often, she almost started to believe it.

But, as the lyrics attest, she stood up for herself and found “strength in who I am, scatty or not.”

Almost denied number one by the Wham/Mariah mafia last December, it soared to number one as soon as the Christmas cartel were dismissed from the charts.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, PA Media

When RAYE premiered this song on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage in June, it wasn’t finished. Some of the lyrics were different, the ending wasn’t as focused, and the song’s big hook (“I would like a ring”) wasn’t repeated.

Even so, it was obvious it’d be a huge hit. In the weeks after the performance, fans streamed it 1.2 million times on YouTube.

When the song came out in September, it went straight into the Top 10 and hasn’t loosened its grip since.

Big, bold and brassy - much like RAYE herself - it’s bound to see the singer back on the Brit Awards stage in March, two years after she scooped a record-breaking six trophies in one night.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

The title track to Sam Fender’s Mercury Prize-winning third album, People Watching sits a persistent guitar groove, like someone’s knee restlessly bouncing up and down with anxiety.

The song was inspired by visiting his mentor and "surrogate mother" Annie Orwin in a palliative care home - and he paints a bleak picture of a "facility fallin' to bits / understaffed and overruled by callous hands".

That only makes his presence more vital. “I stayed all night ’til you left this life,” he sings, “cause that’s just love.”

I don’t know how he ever performs it without collapsing in tears.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

OK, this one goes way back. There’s footage of Chappell Roan performing Pink Pony Club, alone at a piano, in front of a tiny audience back in 2019.

This year, she played it as the headliner of the Reading & Leeds festival to tens of thousands of screaming fans.

More than anything else, it’s the star’s signature song - a campy, liberated disco anthem written after her transformative first visit to a gay club.

Ignored when it was released in 2020, it’s now spent more than a year on the UK charts, peaking at number one in March.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Does Taylor Swift think she’s better than Shakespeare? After rewriting Romeo and Juliet on her breakout hit, Love Story; she’s taken a scalpel to Hamlet’s plot, saving Ophelia from her watery grave.

Of course, it’s all just a big metaphor for her romance with sportsman Travis Kelce – who has saved her from “drowning in melancholy”.

The lyrics are packed with cute references to their relationship, including his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the number 100 (the sum of Kelce's jersey number, 87, and Swift's lucky number 13).

Literate pop with a twinkle in its eye and an irresistible call-and-response chorus, it’s one of the year’s biggest singles.

Ophelia even set a new record for the most streams in a single day on Spotify - 30 million in total.

To put that in context, if you were to put the song on repeat 30 million times right now, you would not finish listening to the song until the year 2239.

Danny Howard
Presenter, Radio 1's Dance Party

Image source, Getty Images

It should be no surprise now that Calvin Harris pops up with your favourite new Ibiza anthem just in the nick of time for summer, and 2025 was no different.

Just as he was smoking the pain away, it was back to the bangers and there was no escaping this one!

Clementine steals the show with a flawless vocal showing yet again why she is the best house vocalist on the planet right now following a string of huge collaborations with the likes of David Guetta, Chase & Status, Sonny Fodera, Dom Dolla and now Calvin.

His knack for knowing what’s going to get his stadium sized shows jumping was evident yet again and he had Ushuaia bouncing on the weekly with this one.

Up there with one of our biggest Friday Hottest Records of the year!

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Primed to become the biggest-selling single of the year, Alex Warren’s Ordinary is nothing more complex than a love letter to his wife, Kouvr.

He wrote it late last year, shortly after their wedding - a fairytale ending to a story that began with the couple sleeping rough in a car in LA, after Warren was thrown out of his family home.

“She chose to do that willingly, whereas I didn't have a choice,” he told me earlier this year. “That was really, really crazy. And now we're 24 and we’re married.

In July, he recorded a session in the Radio 1 Live Lounge - you can watch his performance of Ordinary here, external.

Image source, Getty Images

Wow.

What a year it's been for Doechii. In February she won a Grammy for her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal, becoming only the third woman in history to win the award for best rap album. She also headlined Glastonbury's West Holts stage.

Oh she and also went viral after the infectious "breathin' exercise" outro from her hit single DENIAL IS A RIVER got millions of people trying to emulate the "Uh-uh-ooh, uh-uh-ah, uh, uh, uh, ah…" lyric.

With a sound reminiscent of 90's hip-hop updated to sit perfectly in 2025, the song plays out as an interview between Doechii and an interviewer with a computer generated high pitched voice.

It's a conversation between two people which is a perfect slice of modern hip hop, while respectfully nodding to its roots.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

In August 2024, PinkPantheress cancelled all her remaining tour dates – including lucrative support slots with Coldplay and Olivia Rodrigo – to concentrate on her health.

"I've reached a wall which I am struggling to penetrate through," she said in a statement to fans.

She put the downtime to good use, crafting her phenomenally successful, Mercury Prize-nominated mixtape Fancy That – a hypnotic, kaleidoscopic tribute to early 2000s dance music that showcased “a more fun side” to her personality.

The opening track Illegal even sparked a viral trend on TikTok – where pairs of people would film themselves shaking hands while miming the first line, "My name is Pink and I'm really glad to meet you.”

The videos were typically captioned with text explaining the intricacy of their relationships. “We survived the same man (my dad),” read one.

Katie and Emil are inching closer to the top of the chart now. There's not long to go until this year's biggest song of the year is revealed! Keep your ears open.

• 20: Chrystal - The Days (NOTION Remix)
• 19: Ed Sheeran - Azizam
• 18: Disco Lines & Tinashe - No Broke Boys
• 17: Huntr/x, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI, KPop Demon Hunters Cast - Golden
• 16: Gracie Abrams - That's So True
• 15: Sabrina Carpenter - Manchild
• 14: Lorde - What Was That
• 13: Fred again.. x Skepta x PlaqueBoyMax - Victory Lap
• 12: CMAT - Take A Sexy Picture Of Me
• 11: Sombr - Undressed

We're so nearly there. Let's get into the top 10.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

The breakout hit (alongside Back to Friends) for US singer-songwriter sombr, undressed was released in April and reached number four in the UK Charts.

It finds the singer stuck in limbo, reluctant to start a new relationship because he’s still longing for the intimacy he shared with his ex. sombr said he recorded it alone, “late at night in my home studio when I had time to reflect and everything was quiet”.

Eagle-eyed fans will note he quotes lyrics from the Neighbourhood’s Sweater Weather – one of the most streamed songs of all time – whose reverb-drenched harmonies are a direct influence on sombr’s sound.

CMAT wrote Take A Sexy Picture of Me after being fat-shamed during a festival appearance last year.

During her performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Luton, the singer-songwriter removed a shirt to reveal a different outfit underneath.

"I was just wearing clothes and everyone was very annoyed at me for that," she told Radio 1's Jack Saunders.

The track begins with CMAT singing about trying to wax her legs with sticky tape when she was nine, and how the pressure to be attractive has meant she's "been having a horrible time of late".

But the lyrics are contrasted with poppy hooks and the tongue-in-cheek solution of having someone "take a sexy picture".

A bass heavy, synth heavy Transatlantic collaboration between English producer Fred again.. and American streamer and producer PlaqueBoxMax with grime MC Skepta adding vocals.

And as if the star power on this wasn't enough already, they've also sampled Doechii and Rico Nasty to add an extra edge to the intro and chorus.

To celebrate the release, Fred again.. held a pop-up rave in Brooklyn which he streamed live on Twitch, but fans rushed to the venue to be part of it.

As RaveLink TV said in their review of the track: "(Fred's) not just dropping music. He's dropping moments."

Victory Lap has been nominated for a Grammy, where it's up for Best Dance/Electronic recording.