Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Bad Bunny are among the artists who either did better or worse than expected.
Ed Sheeran at iHeartRadio Z100’s Jingle Ball 2025 Presented by Capital One held at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 2025 in New York, New York.
Stephanie Augello/Billboard
2026’s BRIT Awards looks set to be one of the most monumental ceremonies in years following a regime change, a new location and the opportunity to recognise a truly bumper year for British music.
Helmed by Sony Music’s Stacey Tang (the organizing committee chair role is rotated between the major labels on a three-year mandate), this year’s ceremony, held on Feb. 28, will leave London for the first time in its nearly 50-year history to head to Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena.
It’ll provide a moment of well-deserved celebration to take stock after artists like Olivia Dean, Lola Young, Central Cee and RAYE saw huge gains on a global level. Each are recognised in 2026’s nominations across a multitude of categories in one of the strongest nominee fields in years. Potential winners in the most prestigious prizes (particularly album of the year) feel virtually impossible to call at this stage.
But the nature of awards shows means that not every artist can get nods, and some may feel disappointed that their work is not recognized. Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran – two of this century’s biggest male solo pop artists – did not receive the returns that their stature might have indicated, while BRIT Award darlings such as Florence + The Machine were ignored entirely.
There’s good news for some acts who receive their first nominations at the ceremony, particularly in the genre categories, but also for massive international names like Bad Bunny whose recognition feels overdue. Indie band Geese, hardcore favorites Turnstile and mysterious rock band Sleep Token also bring a louder edge to this year’s proceedings with their debut nominations.
Ahead of the ceremony in Manchester, we look at the biggest snubs and surprises from the 2026 BRIT Awards nominations.
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Surprise: Bad Bunny
The Puerto Rican star’s inclusion in the nominations is well-deserved, but the fact that this is his first-ever BRITs nomination feels mildly surprising. Latin music’s footprint in the U.K. is admittedly limited (Benito’s highest-charting album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, peaked at No. 13 on the Official Albums Chart), but Bad Bunny has been a household name for years, and is set to play two nights at London’s 62,000-capacity Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June. This does not happen overnight. He scores just the one nod in the international artist of the year category, but it breaks a drought for an artist long overdue recognition in the U.K. market.
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Snub: Ed Sheeran
Sheeran is a BRIT Awards icon, having amassed 25 nominations and scored 7 wins over his lengthy career. But in 2026 he earns just one nomination (song of the year, “Azizam”) despite promising his “big pop” comeback after years focusing on more intimate, quieter material. His 2025 Play LP spent just a single week at No. 1 in the U.K. Albums Chart back in September, a disappointing stat for a chart behemoth like Sheeran.
He remains a live draw — a U.S. stadium tour is slated for summer 2026 — but appears to be falling out of favor with the Brits Voting Academy; his last win to not come in an honorary category (songwriter of the year, 2022; global success award, 2018 & 2019) is now over a decade old (British album of the year and British male act, 2015).
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Surprise: Geese
It’s unlikely that any Geese fans (Quackers? Goosers?) could have seen this coming. 2021 debut LP Projector set the underground alight upon release, and the ambitious follow-up 3D Country showed that the rock group had boundless vision. 2025’s Getting Killed, however, is set to be a staple of every indie kid’s record collection in years to come, and mainstream praise continues to be heaped the band’s way. A nod in international group of the year — for a category where it is surely the favorite — is richly deserved, and a huge win for their label Partisan.
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Snub: Justin Bieber
Given that Bieber’s Swag was recognized by the Grammys, where it received nods for album of the year and best pop vocal album, the Canadian’s omission from the BRIT Awards nominations is majorly unexpected. The LP’s lead single “Daises” hit No. 1 on the U.K. Singles Chart in July, and Swag peaked at No. 4 following its surprise-release strategy.
Bieber’s record at the BRIT Awards is patchy, however. His last win came in 2016 in the international artist of the year category, and his two most recent nominations came following collaborations with Ed Sheeran and The Kid LAROI, rather than for his own solo material. Potential Grammy success and a Coachella headlining set could prove this to be quite the oversight.
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Snub: Florence + The Machine
This one doesn’t quite stack up. Florence + The Machine’s 2025 LP Everybody Scream received some of the best reviews of her career, and the album hit the top spot on the U.K. Albums Chart in October. In the past she’s been a BRITs favorite, with her debut Lungs winning album of the year, a year after she collected the prestigious Rising Star award. But Florence is absent entirely in 2026, including in the genre-specific categories. It is a strong year for British acts (alternative/rock act feels like the most competitive of the genre fields), however, and it shows that nominations are not a given, even for BRITs darlings like Florence.
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Surprise: Jacob Alon
Jacob Alon is not traditionally the kind of artist that gets recognised by the BRIT Awards. The Island signee’s debut LP In Limerence is a gorgeous, tender folk LP and deals with deeply personal subject matter; it peaked at No. 36 on the U.K. Official Albums Chart. A nomination for the Mercury Prize in October (and a mesmerising live performance at that ceremony) brought the Scot to a wider audience; Elton John has heaped praise on the singer-songwriter.
Alon, whose win in the Rising Star category was announced earlier this week, sees off two major label pop acts in Sienna Spiro and Rose Gray — even as the former hits a new peak on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Die on This Hill” (No. 54). Their 2026 will no doubt hit elevated heights following the nod in such a prestigious category.
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Snub: Yungblud
Over his career, Yungblud’s relationship with critics has been patchy at best; in a recent Billboard U.K. cover story, the Doncaster-born musician said that 2025 was the year that people finally took him seriously. Beyond hitting the top spot on the U.K. Albums Chart twice in 2025 (Idols in June; the One More Time EP in November), he also won acclaim for his performance at Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell concert in July. He is overlooked at the BRIT Awards for 2026, however, despite scoring a hat-trick of nominations in the rock categories for the upcoming Grammy Awards (best rock performance, best rock song, best rock album) and endorsements from Aerosmith, The Smashing Pumpkins and other rock royals. His wait for a BRITs nod continues.
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Surprise: Gracie Abrams
Abrams was curiously absent from the 2025 BRIT Awards nominations, despite her sophomore LP The Story of Us and breakout hit “That’s So True” hitting No. 1 on the U.K. Albums and Singles chart, respectively. She returns in 2026 with the latter being recognized in the international song of the year category, potentially the first of many such nods in her career.
