Chappell Roan has been named as the winner of BBC Radio 1’s Sound Of 2025.
The Missouri-born pop superstar, who has topped the UK Albums Chart, drawn historically big festival crowds and opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘GUTS’ tour, has come on top of the prestigious list, almost 16 months after the release of her debut album ‘The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess’.
The shortlist has been counting down all week, with Mercury Prize-winning NME Cover stars English Teacher landing at Number Five and 2025 BRIT Rising Star winner Myles Smith taking the Number Four spot.
Scottish electronic producer and DJ Barry Can’t Swim came in at Number Three, while yesterday (January 9), London-based jazz quintet Ezra Collective secured the Number Two slot.
The longlist was first shared late last year and also contained names like Kneecap, Confidence Man, Mk.gee and NME 100 2023 alumni Doechii.
Congratulating Roan, BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders has said: “No one deserves this accolade more than Chappell Roan. She was the most exciting artist of the last 12 months and is now set to be THE artist of the next 12 months. The success is all her own doing: standing tall in the face of the doubters and keeping her community close to fuel the energy of her shows and musical movements. Congratulations Chappell, 2025 is your year!”
The Sound Of… list, which began in 2003 and counts 50 Cent, Adele and The Last Dinner Party among its former winners, aims to highlight acts with “the best chance of mainstream success” in the next 12 months and is chosen by a panel of 180 music industry experts. This time around, the panel included Elton John, Dua Lipa and former winner Sam Smith.
Upon its release two months ago, the longlist for 2025 drew a mixed reaction from fans on social media, with many arguing that the chosen names were already too established to be considered a “rising” act.
Looking at the Top Five, Barry Can’t Swim, English Teacher and Ezra Collective have all been nominated for Mercury Prizes – with the latter two going on to secure the prestigious award. Myles Smith, meanwhile, has already been announced as a winner of a BRIT Award in 2025 too.
As for other longlist artists, Mk.gee recently made an appearance on Saturday Night Live and Croydon drill star Pozer became the first UK rapper in history to have two debut singles chart in Top 40.
The most successful of all on the list is Roan, who landed a UK Number One album in August, won the Best New Artist prize at the MTV VMAs the following month, and later earned six nominations at the Grammys 2025. She has also been announced as a headliner of next year’s Reading & Leeds and Primavera Sound.
Her inclusion on the list came after new rules were implemented for 2025. Previously, an artist would not be eligible if they had been the lead on a UK Number One or Number Two album by the cut-off point. However, this year that rule changed so that an artist “cannot have had more than two Top 10 albums in the UK Official Albums Chart” by 30 September 2024.
Asked about the change to the rules, a BBC Radio 1 spokesperson told NME: “The Sound Of list has a strong track record of predicting future superstars and we periodically review the criteria to better reflect how audiences consume music.”
Roan’s huge 2024 included the release of the ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ single, which was recently named by NME as the best song of the year.
The year also saw her take a lead on confronting toxic fan culture. Speaking honestly about her rapid ascent to stardom, she has shared reflections about the normalisation of extreme fan behaviour, which she has noted as including “stalking” and people “talking shit online” who “won’t leave you alone”.
She compared fame to “an abusive ex-husband”, and took to TikTok to share her thoughts on “weird” and “creepy” followers. She then went on to call out the “predatory behaviour” of so-called “superfans”, including “nonconsensual physical and social interactions”.
