Olivia Dean and Lola Young have cemented their breakthroughs to the front rank of British pop by topping the nominations for the 2026 Brit awards.<\/p>\n
The singer-songwriters earned five nominations each. Dean is nominated for artist and album of the year, pop act, and has two chances at winning song of the year for Man I Need and Rein Me In, the latter thanks to a guest spot with Sam Fender<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old Dean already had a good measure of success from her 2023 debut album Messy, but the follow-up The Art of Loving \u2013 featuring songs about the confounding and joyous business of being in love, in a sophisticated range of styles from bossa nova to neo-soul \u2013 has been a global sensation, topping the UK charts and currently sitting at No 3 in the US. Lead single Man I Need has barely been out of the UK Top 10 since its release in August and reached No 1.<\/p>\n Dean is the first announced performer at the awards ceremony, held for the first time in Manchester, at the city\u2019s Co-op Live arena on Saturday 28 February and broadcast on ITV, with Jack Whitehall hosting.<\/p>\n Young, 25, is up for artist of the year, breakthrough artist (renamed from best new artist) and appears in two of the genre categories, for alternative\/rock and pop, reflecting her deft grasp of different styles on 2025 album I\u2019m Only F**king Myself: a charismatic and magnificently sweary portrait of addiction, romantic frustration and more. She is also nominated for song of the year for Messy, which was released back in May 2024 but continued its commercial success right through the awards\u2019 eligibility period: it spent four weeks at No 1 and 60 weeks on the chart in total. Both Young and Dean are up for best new artist at next month\u2019s Grammy awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n As well as the nod for Rein Me In with Dean, Sam Fender is nominated three more times, including for artist and album of the year, thanks to his social-realist portraiture on UK No 1 album People Watching which won the 2025 Mercury prize.<\/p>\n Lily Allen caps one of the most remarkable re-entries into British pop with three nominations, including artist and album of the year. After four albums which had earned nine Brit nominations between them (including a 2010 win in the now-defunct British female solo artist category), she stepped away to focus on acting and podcasting, but returned in 2025 with West End Girl: a portrait of a failing open marriage, including huge resonances with her own personal life. The ultra-candid lyrics \u2013 featuring sex toys, hook-up apps and heartbreakingly toxic relationship dynamics \u2013 ensured it became massively discussed, and a commercial hit.<\/p>\n Rapper, singer, songwriter and producer \u2026 Jim Legxacy. Photograph: Igoris Tarran<\/p>\n Also with three nominations each are two of the brightest talents in British rap. Dave is up for artist and album of the year, after releasing the typically self-searching The Boy Who Played the Harp in October, which went to No 1, as did its single Raindance. One of Dave\u2019s regular collaborators rises out of the underground to join him: Jim Legxacy<\/a>, a rapper, singer, songwriter and producer who co-produced Dave and Central Cee\u2019s huge Brit-nominated hit Sprinter in 2023, and returned to work with him on The Boy Who Played the Harp. He is nominated for his own work, the mixtape Black British Music (2025), earning nods in the rap, R&B and breakthrough artist categories.<\/p>\n Rockers Wolf Alice round out the album of the year nominations on their way to three nods overall, and dance star Fred Again<\/a>, who had a major hit with Skepta and PlaqueBoyMax collaboration Victory Lap and continued his sweatily received live sets, was also nominated three times.<\/p>\n Also in the running for artist of the year are Jade, Little Simz, PinkPantheress and Self Esteem: one demonstration of how well represented women are in this year\u2019s nominations. There has been consternation in previous years at how male-dominated the Brit awards could be, including as recently as 2023<\/a> when all the artist of the year nominees were men. But this year, 70% of nominees are female or non-binary, or mixed-gender groups.<\/p>\n That representation arguably disguises a deeper malaise in British music, however. Of the 116 albums eligible for British album of the year \u2013 those that reached the UK Top 30 \u2013 only 41 were by female acts or mixed-gender groups, and of those 41, only 25 were solely female.<\/p>\n In the international categories, the established likes of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Haim are joined by breakthrough acts such as Geese and Sombr, plus the international group category\u2019s first ever animated act: Huntr\/x, the trio from Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters.<\/p>\n Huntr\/x in a scene from KPop Demon Hunters. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n Artists smarting from a snub this year include Ed Sheeran, who released his album Play last year but was nominated only in the song of the year category, which is based on commercial performance, not votes by the Brit awards<\/a> voting academy. Florence + the Machine, a 12-time nominee, wasn\u2019t recognised this year, even in the alternative\/rock category; nor were Yungblud, Mumford & Sons and Biffy Clyro, who all topped the UK album chart last year. Major stars such as Drake, the Weeknd, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Addison Rae, Lorde and Tate McRae were left out of the international categories.<\/p>\n Central Cee was passed over in the British artist and album categories, while UK rap\u2019s biggest new name, EsDeeKid<\/a>, was not nominated in the rap category \u2013 though he did get recognised for breakthrough artist, up against Young, Legxacy, dance producer Barry Can\u2019t Swim and pop-R&B singer Skye Newman.<\/p>\n The awards are voted on by the Brits academy, made up of more than 1,200 individuals across the music industry, except the two song awards, which are voted for by the public via WhatsApp \u2013 meaning that songs with heavily invested fanbases, such as Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked as performed by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, could cause an upset.<\/p>\n One award has already been handed out: the critics\u2019 choice award, renamed from the rising star award, is given to Scottish singer-songwriter Jacob Alon<\/a>. \u201cIn the wee town where I grew up in Scotland, it often felt like there was a limit to how high you could dare to dream,\u201d they said. \u201cSo being part of something like this makes me feel like I\u2019m floating far above the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n Jarvis Cocker\u2019s infamous incident at the 1996 Brit awards. Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n Come 28 February, the ceremony\u2019s security guards may be keeping an eye on one person in particular: Jarvis Cocker, whose band Pulp are nominated for group of the year their first nomination since their four in 1996. At that ceremony, Cocker caused a storm by bending over and presenting his clothed bottom towards the audience as a distraction from Jackson\u2019s performance of Earth Song, resulting in Cocker being questioned by police.<\/p>\n