Dear listeners,
The Grammys are Sunday night, which means it’s time for an annual Amplifier tradition: a playlist that introduces you to the latest crop of best new artist nominees. (They’ll all be performing at this year’s ceremony.)
In keeping with the Recording Academy’s recent trend toward reflecting what is popular on social media and the pop charts, the hopefuls include some bona fide hitmakers and rising stars: the British powerhouse Lola Young, the moody pop star Sombr and one of the most-followed people on TikTok, the influencer-turned-pop-artiste Addison Rae.
I am going to make a prediction, though: Olivia Dean, the old-souled and refreshingly jubilant British singer-songwriter, will take home the trophy — as she should. Dean has been music’s most delightful, unexpected breakout star of the past year. Though her warm and unabashedly romantic LP “The Art of Loving” doesn’t conform to any of pop’s recent trends, it’s still found a large audience and spawned two hit singles: the fleet-footed “Man I Need” and the bossa nova-inflected “So Easy (to Fall in Love),” both currently in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Dean’s only bit of bad Grammy luck may end up being that her breakout happened just a little too late. While “Man I Need” came out two weeks before this year’s Grammy eligibility window closed in late August, the song didn’t really catch on until the fall. As a talented young singer-songwriter with a throwback style, Dean has all the hallmarks of the sort of artist the Grammys love to coronate, but best new artist is her only nomination. Had the nominations come out even a month or so later, I have a feeling she would have taken home an armful of statues. (Dean’s album arrived in late September, so expect her to be back next year.)
It’s Dean’s award to lose. But I am here to prepare you for all possible scenarios. So if, say, the international girl group Katseye pulls off a wild upset, you can impress everyone around you with the appropriate response: “Gnarly.”
I kinda like it when you call me wonderful,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Olivia Dean: “Man I Need”
Like many people, Olivia Dean’s music first really clicked for me when I saw her perform this song on “Saturday Night Live” in November. In a time when so much popular music — to say nothing of the world itself — feels dark, dour and morose, Dean’s exuberance and the sheer joy she derives from performing feel like a blast of cool air. I’ve watched this performance at least a dozen times by now, and it never fails to lift my mood. 
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Leon Thomas: “Mutt”
“Feel like I just got offstage at the Grammys,” the 32-year-old R&B artist Leon Thomas sings in the opening moments of his 2024 album, “Mutt” — an auspicious premonition, since he’ll be performing at the ceremony on Sunday night. Thomas, who won his first Grammy in 2024 as a writer on SZA’s hit “Snooze,” scored his first major solo hit last year with this moody and somewhat self-deprecating tune, which seamlessly blends new-school swag with more traditional R&B atmospherics. If anyone is going to best Dean, it’s Thomas, given his six overall nominations — far more than any other competitor in this year’s best new artist category.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Sombr: “Back to Friends”
You’ve heard of the West Village Girl; now meet the West Village Boy. One of last year’s most notable breakout stars was Sombr, a 20-year-old native New Yorker who dropped out of LaGuardia High School in 2022 after his dreamy, angsty, acoustic-guitar-driven ballad “Caroline” went viral. As a pop-rock traditionalist who is not above making 67 jokes onstage, Sombr has amassed a devoted legion of young fans who hear their own yearning reflected in his songs. “How can we go back to being friends when we just shared a bed?” he sings on this ubiquitous hit, convincingly delivering the line with the astonishment and sense of injustice that accompanies first heartbreak.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Lola Young: “Messy”
Routinely and perhaps unfairly compared to Amy Winehouse (though they do share the same manager), the 25-year-old British singer-songwriter Lola Young makes music that can be startling in its candor — see: this 2024 viral smash — but derives its greatest force from the raw power of her voice. On Sept. 27, shortly after releasing her latest album, Young collapsed onstage at the All Things Go Festival and canceled all subsequent public appearances, telling fans she would be back “once I’ve had some time to work on myself and come back stronger.” This Sunday, she’ll make her triumphant return onstage at the Grammys. Expect it to be an emotional moment.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Katseye: “Gnarly”
Though the six-piece girl group Katseye exists within the framework of certain K-pop aesthetics — it was formed as a collaboration between the South Korean entertainment conglomerate Hybe and Geffen Records, on the Netflix competition show “Dream Academy” — its makeup is decidedly multicultural, with members hailing from the Philippines, Switzerland, South Korea and the United States. Katseye’s highest charting hit in the United States is the slinky “Gabriela” (which is also up for this year’s best pop duo/group performance Grammy), but I’m more partial to this brash and bonkers 2025 single that fuses hyper-pop and hip-hop with a healthy dose of over-the-top absurdity.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Addison Rae: “Diet Pepsi”
Addison Rae, now 25, skyrocketed to overnight fame in her late teens, when her relentless grind and girl-next-door style made the dancer and influencer one of the most followed people on the then-nascent app TikTok. But Rae had higher aspirations, and she began to realize them on this sultry 2024 single, which reintroduced her as a kind of Lana Del Rey meets Charli XCX-style alt-pop star. Some people I love and respect swear by her 2025 debut album, “Addison,” but I find that listening to it for too long makes me feel lightheaded, as though I have taken a dizzyingly strong pull of a cotton-candy-flavored vape and can no longer feel my legs. Just the same, Rae is nominated for best new artist at this year’s Grammys, and I am not.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. The Marías: “No One Noticed”
The Los Angeles-based band the Marías — which, I regret to inform you, contains only one member who is actually named María — makes shimmery, bilingual dream-pop that lulls the listener into a kind of pleasant, underwater stupor. You may have first heard them on “Otro Atardecer,” a beachy, lightly melancholic collaboration with Bad Bunny that appeared on his 2022 blockbuster “Un Verano Sin Ti,” but the Marías have since had a few hits of their own, including this weightless 2024 single. Having formed in 2016 and released their debut album in 2021, the Marías fill the annual but still confounding “No, but seriously how are they considered a new artist?” slot in this category.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Alex Warren: “Ordinary”
Improbably — or maybe quite inevitably, depending on how you look at it — this year’s group of best new artist nominees contains not one but two people who were once members of the Hype House, a collective of influencers who lived and made videos together. Rae is one, and Alex Warren — the 25-year-old singer-songwriter behind this maddeningly popular stomp-clap-revivalist love song — is the other. Given that it was one of the biggest hits of 2025, spending 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, you have probably heard this song before, even if it (likely) entered your brain subliminally while grocery shopping or doom scrolling. Here, then, is a chance to consciously consider the artist behind the song. His name is Alex Warren. Please direct all compliments, or complaints, to him.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“Meet the 2026 Grammys’ Best New Artist Nominees” track list Track 1: Olivia Dean, “Man I Need” Track 2: Leon Thomas, “Mutt” Track 3: Sombr, “Back to Friends” Track 4: Lola Young, “Messy” Track 5: Katseye, “Gnarly” Track 6: Addison Rae, “Diet Pepsi” Track 7: The Marías, “No One Noticed” Track 8: Alex Warren, “Ordinary”
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Lindsay Zoladz is a pop music critic for The Times and writes the music newsletter The Amplifier.
The post Meet the Grammys’ Best New Artist Nominees appeared first on New York Times.
