For many years now, we’ve seen an industrial revolution in the Australian music industry as independent artists slowly chipped away at impacting the commercial music scene. In 2025, however, we’ve seen a tipping point occur where major labels are no longer the dominant force in domestic recorded music success. 

It’s often assumed that to have success, you need to sign to a major label, but the numbers are in, and this year’s chart share for Australian artists will surprise many. The Music looked at all Australian singles and albums that have entered the ARIA Top 100 singles and albums this year, with an industrial shift like we have never seen before. 

In all, 130 Australian releases entered the top 100, although frighteningly, only nine of those entered the singles chart. Three were tracks from the Tame Impala album, two from The Kid LAROI, while a further two were from Joji, an artist that ARIA lists as Australian, although online sources suggest that, despite having an Australian parent, he was born and raised in Japan and moved to the US for university, where he still resides. It is unclear if has ever lived in Australia. 

This leaves just two other Australian songs to chart in the entire ARIA top 100 in 2025 – Keli Holiday’s Dancing2, which has so far peaked at #75, and Dreamin’ by Dom Dolla, which peaked at #33 back in February.

Interestingly, only two of these artists are on a major, with Tame Impala and The Kid LAROI both signed to Sony. Joji is with Universal’s independent distribution arm Virgin, Keli Holiday is independent with distribution by Aussie indie Gyro, and Dom Dolla is also independent with distribution handled by Sony’s distribution arm The Orchard. 

Over on the albums chart, there’s more Aussies represented, with 121 Australian albums appearing in the top 100 across the year. This is largely based on physical sales, with the majority of albums appearing in the chart for only one week. However, it shows the breakdown of the major label stranglehold, with an incredible 85.9% of releases entering the chart on a label other than the big three.

Throwing the traditional idea of major label dominance to the wind, Universal’s share of charting releases came in at just 9.1% with Warner and Sony on just 2.5% each, both being bested by Australian-owned indies Mushroom on 6.6% and ABC Music on 5.8%. 

This, of course, only accounts for the number of releases, not the success of them, so it’s worth also celebrating releases that made it to #1 on the Albums chart, of which there were six this year: Ball Park Music’s Like Love, Bliss N Eso’s The Moon (The Light Side), Jimmy Barnes’ Defiant, Calum Hood’s ORDER chaos ORDER, Hilltop Hoods’ Fall From The Light, and 5 Seconds Of Summer’s Everyone’s a Star. 

Of these, three were on Universal, two on Mushroom and one independent (via Inertia distribution).

The numbers show that frontline dominance and investment are no longer the game the majors are choosing to play in Australian music, with distribution now the key battleground. Universal’s Virgin, Warner’s ADA, and Sony’s The Orchard and AWAL are now where the key deals are being done to ensure major labels have a broad impact on the market. 

Having said this, Australian companies are still punching above their weight, with the majors still struggling to hoover up enough market share in distribution to retain dominance. 

In the distribution race, Sony is currently leading the pack for Australian charting artists (combining Sony Music, The Orchard, and AWAL), with 21.5% of releases. Interestingly, totally independent artists (those self-distributing or via self-serve digital platforms) hold the second-highest market share at 13.2%. 

In third place, Universal (including its Virgin distribution arm) has 12.4%, and rounding out the top five are Brisbane-based independent Gyro and Sydney’s MGM distribution on 9.1% and 8.3%, respectively. Other Aussie companies Mushroom (6.6%) and UNIFIED/Community Music (5.8%) are next in line, showing a growing market for Australian companies filling the breach where multinationals used to be. 

Nearly 30% of all charting albums are now doing so via Australian-owned companies. These operations are punching well above their weight, beating much larger overseas-owned companies, including Warner and [PIAS]/Inertia in the distribution space. 

So, what does this all mean? Well, it’s simply one way of looking at things. It is not tracking overall sales or consumption of music, but simply the number of records that have been popular enough to reach the top 100. With so many indies showing how possible it is to achieve that result in the albums chart, however (many with no marketing budgets at all), it is a reasonable representation of how many Australian records are being invested in.

While overall the music market is being dominated by the three major labels, the figures show that for Australian artists, this is simply no longer the case. 

It was 2004 when the John Butler Trio became the first artist ever to top the Australian albums chart with an independently distributed album. Now, two decades later, charting with an independent album is not just possible, it’s the most likely path to have gotten there.

On this week’s singles chart, only five of the top 100 singles are not via one of the three majors or their distribution arms. On the albums chart, nine of the top 100 are independent, so we shouldn’t shed a tear for Universal, Sony, and Warner. They are doing just fine from the Australian territory with a dominance just as strong as they’ve ever had, but for Australian artists, a new economy is opening up. Australian music is not disappearing, it’s simply going underground. 

New businesses like Gyro and Community Music are pushing forward with new models. MGM Distribution, arguably the pioneers of the current model, continue to go from strength to strength in both digital and physical. 

Physical-only businesses like Rocket and Circle Distribution are giving options for artists wanting something different. Artists sick of making pennies from streaming are trying physical-only release strategies. Some are ditching that and going streaming only because streaming is working for them. 

Never before has the Australian recorded market looked so diverse or had so many options attached as the Australian territory grapples with what a “new norm” looks like when signing to a major is no longer a career path that can be banked on. 

This study was undertaken using ARIA Chart data from the calendar year 2025 up to and including week commencing November 24th. Label data was taken from the ARIA Charts and in some cases verified for accuracy.