The 2025 race for the best new artist Grammy earlier this year was a heavyweight bout. In one corner was Chappell Roan, the singular superstar who had been dazzling huge festival crowds for months; in the other was Sabrina Carpenter, the former Disney Channel personality with multiple ubiquitous radio smashes. Both pop dynamos had been nominated in all of the Big Four general categories, and for best new artist, they were surrounded by potential spoilers, including Shaboozey, whose “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” had logged the most weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024; Teddy Swims, whose “Lose Control” eventually broke the Hot 100 longevity record; and other new-school stars like Benson Boone, Doechii and RAYE. Ultimately, Roan emerged victorious — and delivered an instantly memorable acceptance speech that advocated for artists’ wages and health care.

Eight months later, a fresh class of best new artist hopefuls is eager for such a moment at the 68th annual Grammys — but in a race that looks nothing like the previous one. Whereas the 2025 best new artist competition was unusually stacked, the 2026 trophy appears fully up for grabs, with very few sure-thing nominees by the time the eligibility period closed at the end of August.

Expect plenty of jockeying for votes across label groups, considering how, 60 years after The Beatles took home the award, it remains one of the industry’s most coveted co-signs of rising talent. “[Best new artist is] still a pretty strong indicator of future success,” says Joe Hadley, global head of music partnerships and audience at Spotify, which has hosted a Grammy party showcasing the best new artist nominees in recent years. Hadley cites recent winners like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo as well as ’90s icons such as Mariah Carey and Lauryn Hill. “They were [awarded] early on, in a different era, and they’re still superstars. And I genuinely believe that, if you look at the recent best new artist winners, a lot of them will still be superstars 20, 30 years from now.”

While the loaded 2025 class resulted from an onslaught of major new pop stars in 2024, over the past year, the Billboard charts have largely been run by long-established artists. At the top of the Billboard 200, major releases from Morgan Wallen, Tyler, The Creator, Bad Bunny and Playboi Carti have dominated; Kendrick Lamar and SZA topped the albums chart separately while scoring the longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 hit of 2025 so far with the collaboration “Luther.” In addition, the penthouse of the Hot 100 has been unusually stagnant over the past year, with smashes remaining in the top 10 for months on end. Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” and Boone’s “Beautiful Things” would be major contenders at the 2026 Grammys — had they not all competed at the 2025 ceremony.

The biggest exception is “Ordinary,” the stomping shout-along from singer-songwriter Alex Warren that exploded following a live performance on the Netflix series Love Is Blind and has spent 10 total weeks ruling the Hot 100. Warren — whose debut album, You’ll Be Alright, Kid, scored a top 10 debut upon its July release — could be considered a front-runner at the 2026 Grammys, especially after winning best new artist at the MTV Video Music Awards in September. Yet he’s also competing with recent history: A male artist hasn’t won best new artist since Chance the Rapper in 2017, and in the 21st century, the only other rock-adjacent male-led act to emerge victorious was Bon Iver in 2012.

None of Warren’s potential competition has a hit as big as “Ordinary,” but many have enjoyed mainstream moments. While 20-year-old alt-pop ­newcomer sombr has scored a pair of monthslong streaming smashes in “Back to Friends” and “Undressed,” neither has reached the top 10 of the Hot 100 yet. Ravyn Lenae reached the top 10 in July with her artful R&B single “Love Me Not,” although the viral track remains her only career entry on the chart. Despite featuring on Bad Bunny’s 2022 album of the year nominee, Un Verano Sin Ti, alt-pop band The Marías, who have soared this year with “No One Noticed,” are eligible for best new artist in 2026; R&B breakout Leon Thomas’ studio output prior to this eligibility year may make the “Mutt” star a question mark for the category. Other artists have had breakthrough hits in recent months — Gigi Perez with “Sailor Song,” Lola Young with “Messy,” Jessie Murph with “Blue Strips” — that they hope have endured long enough to punch their cards to the big dance.

After all, a best new artist nomination or win still matters in the streaming era, particularly for those who aren’t household names. When a left-of-center artist takes home the top prize, the effect can be transformative: After jazz artist Samara Joy won in 2023, her weekly streams skyrocketed (from 1.8 million the week before the ceremony to 6.9 million the week after, according to Luminate) and led to her most productive touring year to date.

At the 2025 ceremony, all eight best new artist nominees performed during the telecast, and seven of them earned significant streaming gains — led by Doechii, who more than doubled her weekly total (from 20.7 million to 42.7 million) thanks to her dynamic medley of “Catfish” and “Denial Is a River.” Even the figures for the heavily streamed Roan and Carpenter jumped in the week following the ceremony, by 18.8 million and 8.3 million, respectively. The field of nominees “saw a pretty significant lift in terms of consumption and general awareness,” Hadley says.

Should the Grammys decide to once again present performances by every best new artist nominee, plenty of others who may seem like long shots for the prize may have the chance to set foot on the stage of Los Angeles’ ­Crypto.com Arena. Can Addison Rae’s critically acclaimed debut album help the former influencer make the leap? Can a rising country star like Ella Langley, Megan Moroney or Zach Top take home the genre’s first win in the category since Zac Brown Band in 2010? Will any K-pop artist finally become the first to nab a nomination? Girl group HUNTR/X from the Netflix phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters has a No. 1 smash in “Golden” — and even though the act is fictional, no one can be counted out of this topsy-turvy race.

This story appears in the Oct. 4, 2025, issue of Billboard.