Downtown: Music acts to look out for in 2026

The past year has seen an eclectic range of musical talent break through from small venues to some of the biggest stages.

Social media platforms such as TikTok, endorsements from famous faces and radio play launched many artists into the UK charts and mainstream in 2025.

The coming year will undoubtedly bring a new wave of stars. Here are the acts to keep on your radar in the coming months.

Fcukers

Beloved by The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, Charli XCX and Beck, Fcukers look set to take this year by storm.

The duo have amassed millions of listeners on streaming platforms for their catchy brand of electroclash, inspired by the likes of The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and Soulwax, with hints of dub reggae and hyperpop.

Made up of singer Shanny Wise and producer, bass player and keyboardist Jackson Walker Lewis, the New York band are yet to release their debut album (latest news suggest March), with their first EP Baggya$$ released on Ninja Tune’s sublabel Technicolour Records emerging in September last year.

In 2025, the band played an energetic set on the Woodsies stage at Glastonbury Festival, supported Tame Impala on the US leg of the Deadbeat tour, and sold out three nights at London’s Colour Factory, having only played their first gig in 2023. They also performed at Dublin’s Forbidden Fruit Festival in 2025

Their debut single Homie Don’t Shake ripped the riff from Them’s 1966 rocker I Can Only Give You Everything and plunged it into pounding electronica, while single I Like It Like That, released in October, has kept up the high standard of their releases, with a full-length album likely to be on the way.

• Listen: Bon Bon, a pounding indie house number featuring sultry vocals from Wise that has amassed almost eight million listeners on Spotify.

Olivia Dean

Nominated for best new artist at the 2026 Grammy Awards, London-born singer songwriter Olivia Dean reached a wider audience in the past year with the release of her second studio album, The Art Of Loving, which topped the UK albums chart in October.

Her sophomore album also birthed a UK number one single in Man I Need, along with further top 10 hits in So Easy (To Fall In Love) and Nice To Each Other.

Her debut album Messy, released in 2023, reached the top 10 of the UK albums chart, with one of its singles Dive reaching number 17 on the UK singles chart in 2025, two years after its release.

The 2025 record is being followed by the Art Of Loving Tour in 2026, which will begin in Glasgow in April and conclude in Auckland, New Zealand, in October, seeing her perform at New York’s Madison Square Garden and London’s O2 Arena, and Fairview Park in Dublin on June 20 and 21.

Dean, who is a fan of Premier League football team West Ham United, also featured on a live duet with Sam Fender on his song Rein Me In, having supported him on his People Watching Tour, and released the single It Isn’t Perfect But It Might Be for the film Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy in 2025.

She has also opened for Sabrina Carpenter on her Short ‘N’ Sweet tour in the US during the past year.

The 26-year-old, whose mother is the deputy leader of the Women’s Equality Party, is fast becoming a household name in the UK for her soulful style, but it is expected that 2026 will see her become a worldwide superstar.

• Listen: Nice To Each Other, an acoustic ballad about dating, with a soulful vocal.

Geese

Three studio albums in, New York rock band Geese eventually broke through as 2025’s favourite indie band following the release of Getting Killed, and a highly acclaimed solo album from singer Cameron Winter, Heavy Metal, which had been tipped for a Grammy Award nomination.

The band are the latest in a long line of cutting-edge New York bands that began with The Velvet Underground and saw the likes of Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, and The Strokes follow, with their sound taking elements of their predecessors and adding in some of their own experimentation.

Winter’s voice is particularly unusual, bending and twisting to fit each song perfectly, ranging from an energetic punk chant to a gentle and damaged croon, while guitarist Emily Green provides her own take on the angular style of Television’s Richard Lloyd.

Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy is a super fan of the band, after admitting in an interview that he is “obsessed” with them, and described Winter’s solo album as “amazing”.

The band have already sold out two London concerts this year including one which had to move venue due to the demand for tickets, and recently appeared on Radio 1’s Live Lounge, where their cover of The New Radicals’ You Get What You Give went viral on social media.

They begin touring in February.

• Listen: Crusades, a driving New York street rocker that Lou Reed and Tom Verlaine would be proud of.

Rosalia

One of the most successful Spanish artists of all-time, Rosalia, whose full name is Rosalia Vila Tobella, is already a household name in her home country but chart success in wider Europe has eluded her, until now.

The release of her fourth album Lux saw the alternative pop singer become the highest-charting female Spanish artist in UK albums chart history, as it reached number four, while she also achieved her highest place on the singles chart with Berghain, which reached number 36.

The 2025 album has earned rave reviews for its complex concept, which sees songs inspired by the lives of female saints including Hildegard of Bingen, Rabia Al-Adawiya, and Miriam, and for exploring Rosalia’s own relationship with religion.

The singer, who hails from Sant Esteve Sesrovires in Catalonia, has previously released the albums Motomami (2022), Los Angeles (2017) and El Mal Querer (2018), and has won two Grammy Awards for best Latin rock or alternative album with her 2022 record, and for El Mal Querer in the same category.

Rosalia is touring for the record in 2026, having not done so since the 2022 Motomami World Tour.

• Listen: Berghain, a unique pop single featuring Bjork and Yves Tumor which mixes classical strings, opera and pop.

The New Eves

Made up of guitarist and violin player Violet Farrer, cellist and guitarist Nina Winder-Lind, bass player Kate Mager, and drummer and flautist Ella Oona Russell, with each of their members sharing singing duties, The New Eves were one of the most different groups to emerge during 2025.

Their debut album, The New Eve Is Rising, was named Rough Trade’s album of the month on release in August.

The record mixes the experimentation of The Velvet Underground and krautrock, with feminist punk and folk to create a truly original sound, while their visual style continues the witchy vibes of The Last Dinner Party and Florence And The Machine.

The sound of the band’s first album matches the ominous atmosphere created by its brilliantly haunting cover image, featuring the band carrying a flag with the record’s name on it up a hill, Wicker Man-style.

Speaking after its release, Winder-Lind said: “This project has been about us redefining ourselves, and we hope anyone whose listening can be inspired by that.

“We’re seeing how far we can go as four people by creating our own mythology.”

The Brighton-based band played two atmospheric sold-out shows at London’s Hoxton Hall in 2025, and followed up on the success of their debut album with a single featuring the songs Red Brick and Whale Station, which showed a more accessible side of the group.

• Listen: Highway Man, one of 2025’s coolest tracks, with a penetrating riff backed by honking violin.