CMAT scores Hot Press Annual double with both No.1 Album and Track of 2025

As the eagerly anticipated new edition of the Hot Press Annual lands in shops, we can finally reveal that CMAT has emerged as Team HP's undisputed favourite this year – claiming both the No.1 Album and the No.1 Track of 2025.

CMAT’s inexorable rise to superstar status has continued apace this year, as the Irish singer enjoyed huge critical and commercial success for Euro-Country. An utterly exhilarating collection of indie-pop anthems, incorporating CMAT’s usual country influences, the record – its cover showing the singer emerging from a fountain near her hometown of Dunboyne – provided a memorable snapshot of the singer’s generation, as well as Irish life more generally in the 2020s.

For good measure, CMAT has also topped our Tracks of the Year poll, with the superb ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’. With that instant classic, plus further hits like the title track and ‘When A Good Man Cries’ firmly established as crowd favourites, the sense of triumph around the album was cemented with CMAT’s end-of-year concerts, which found her playing barnstorming sets at a brace of iconic venues, Dublin’s 3Arena and London’s Brixton Academy.

And there’s plenty more where that came from, with the charismatic star hitting the road again in the new year, as her huge following continues to grow internationally.

Elsewhere, proof that the domestic scene is in rude health comes courtesy of top ten album placings for Junior Brother and For Those I Love, while there are also strong showings for Kean Kavanagh, Amble, The Murder Capital, Kingfishr and more.

On the back of 2024’s all-conquering Romance, Fontaines D.C. were also widely celebrated as the rock band of the moment over the last 12 months, with the stellar ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’ also landing in the top five track rankings.

On the international front, it has been widely remarked that it’s a golden age for female pop stars, which is also reflected in our charts, with Rosalía’s orchestral pop masterwork, LUX, charting high in albums, and ‘Berghain’ hitting number two in tracks.

Also featuring in our top ten albums is Lily Allen’s West End Girl, perhaps the most discussed record of the year, while also charting highly are Florence + The Machine, Self Esteem, Wet Leg, Lorde, Sabrina Carpenter and Lady Gaga. Elsewhere, perhaps rumours of indie-rock’s demise have been exaggerated, with Big Thief and Turnstile featuring in the top twenty alongside Tame Impala and Britpop veterans Pulp.

And it also proved a memorable year for the likes of FKA twigs, Dave, Bad Bunny, returning hip-hop heroes Clipse and outgoing President Michael D. Higgins, who delivered our Spoken Word Album of the Year.

Here’s to another memorable 12 months of action next year...

Explore the full Albums of the Year and Tracks of the Year lists – as well as our round-ups of the top Hip-Hop, Folk and Electronic projects – in the Hot Press Annual, out now: