Chappell Roan has been announced as the winner of BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2025 poll.
The US pop singer, 26, was chosen by a panel of more than 180 industry experts and artists including Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa.
Jack Saunders, who hosts Radio 1’s Future Artists and the Official Chart show, 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!”
Roan’s win comes after a change in eligibility criteria for the award: to qualify, artists cannot have more than two UK Top 10 albums or two UK Top 10 singles prior to 30 September 2024 to their name.
Previously, artists were deemed ineligible if they were the lead act on a UK No 1 or No 2 album, or if they had more than two Top 10 singles.
The longlist for this year’s Sound Of poll raised eyebrows when it was announced in November due to the number of established artists on the list.
This included Roan, who became one of the most talked-about pop acts of 2024 following the release of her critically acclaimed debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, in September 2023.
Its slow-burning success spawned a number of sleeper hit singles, including “Red Wine Supernova”, “Casual”, “Pink Pony Club” and “Hot to Go”, while the album eventually topped the charts in the UK and peaked at No 2 in the US.
Roan is also up for six Grammys at next month’s ceremony, and will headline Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK and Primavera in Barcelona this summer.
She made headlines last year for speaking out against what she described as intrusive or entitled behaviour from fans.
“People have started to be freaks,” she told Drew Afualo, host of the Comment Section podcast. “They follow me and know where my parents live, and where my sister works. All this weird s***.”
She later shared a statement to social media explaining why she needs to “draw lines and set boundaries”, which drew praise from a number of her peers.
The rest of Radio 1’s Sound of 2025 top five comprises Mercury Prize-winning jazz quintet Ezra Collective, electronic music producer Barry Can’t Swim, singer-songwriter Myles Smith, and rock band English Teacher, who won the 2024 Mercury Prize award.
