About Radio 1's Sound Of
What is Radio 1's Sound Of?
The Sound Of list started in 2003 with the aim to showcase the most exciting rising stars in music. In 2025, the aim is the same - to continue predicting some of the biggest and most exciting global superstars including previous winners Flo, PinkPantheress, Adele, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, HAIM, and Celeste. 2025's winner is Chappell Roan.
How are the pundits selected?
This year, UK and international tastemakers were selected to vote for the most exciting new artists they are tipping for success in 2025.
The pundits represent a huge spectrum of music from across the world and when choosing the pundits, we are looking for the most genuine and passionate music fans to help showcase the best new music to a wider audience. None of the pundits are paid to take part.
Who can the pundits vote for?
The panel are asked to nominate acts who they believe have the best chance of mainstream success in 2025 - there is no predetermined list. We want 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 1’s Sound Of to be based on music quality, audience appreciation and innovation, disregarding hype or record deals.
Artists from any musical genre and country are eligible, whether or not they’re signed if they fit the criteria. Artists are not eligible if:
- The artist has not had more than two Top 10 albums in the UK Official Albums Chart by Monday 30th September 2024
- They have not been the lead artist on more than two Top 10 singles in the UK Official Singles Chart by Monday 30th September 2024 (features do not count)
- They have not featured in the Sound Of list previously
Pundits are also not allowed to vote for their family or close friends, or any artists who they have a commercial relationship with.
What kind of artists end up in the final list?
The panel are asked to pick their favourite new artists they are tipping for success in the following year and because our pundits have a level of influence over the music that gets heard by the general public, it can be seen as a good barometer of future success.
The winner often has quite broad mainstream appeal but it’s not just about predicting the artists that will be famous in 2025 - the longlist often includes a mixture of mainstream and alternative acts. In recent years, Sound Of Alumni have included huge commercial success stories such as Stormzy, Billie Eilish and Sam Smith as well as supporting more alternative acts including James Blake, Jai Paul, Banks and FKA twigs.
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Discover previous Sound Of winners and longlists
Watch archive interviews and performances courtesy of Sound Of acts from years gone by.
How does the voting process work?
The pundits vote by email, choosing their three favourite new acts in order of preference.
There’s only one panel of voters and two rounds of voting. Pundits are asked to vote on 3 artists in order of preference, their first choice gets 3 points, second choice gets 2 points and third choice gets 1 point. After the first round of voting the responses are counted and verified to reveal a list of twenty artists who received the most points overall. In the second round pundits are asked to vote again on their top 3 from the list of 20 artists. These votes are counted and verified to reveal the final Longlist and top 5/winner within. This year there was a tie therefore the final list includes 11 artists. Only the shortlist of the Top 5 artists (announced in January 2025) is listed in order by points scored, the artists placed 6-11 are listed alphabetically.
The vote remains impartial and unbiased, the 麻豆官网首页入口 will exclude artists or individual votes at its discretion if it believes there has been a breach of these criteria, there is a clear conflict of interest or there is a deliberate attempt to manipulate the result, the vote remains impartial and unbiased.
What happens after the votes are counted?
From when the voting closes until when the winner is revealed we work closely with the artists (and managers and labels) to get promotional content including interviews and live performances which are used across 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 1 and 麻豆官网首页入口 platforms including online, on socials and on air.
The longlist (11 artists) was announced in alphabetical order on the 21st November 2024 and the top 5 are revealed in a countdown from the 6th – 10th January 2025.
What do the artists gain from being on the list?
麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 1 Sound Of is a platform used to spotlight artists and help them to reach new audiences and fans. This list along with other similar new music lists such as the BRITs Rising Star award, are generally thought to be used by the UK music and media industries to give a broad steer when it comes to promotion priorities and live bookings, but this obviously isn’t guaranteed. There’s no prize for the winner, and the artists on the list aren’t contractually guaranteed any future promotion from the 麻豆官网首页入口 as part of their involvement.