Olivia Dean Is Apple Music's 2026 Artist of the Year

Apple Music has named Olivia Dean its Artist of the Year for 2026. The British singer is the first UK artist to receive this award.¹² On the same day, November 9, the service released playlists and editorially curated content for its end-of-year music review, gathered under the title ‘Best of 2026’.³

Why did Apple Music choose Olivia Dean?

Apple explains its choice by pointing to what it calls the singer’s ‘leap to stardom’, the ‘most representative’ music story of 2026 for its positive tone and mood.¹² The album The Art of Loving, released late in 2025, found its full success this year. Ever since “Man I Need” entered the service’s daily chart, the Daily Top 100, on August 29, 2025, the single has not missed a single day on it.² Her world tour has sold out, and she has won a Grammy for Best New Artist and four BRIT Awards, one of them for Artist of the Year. In the autumn of 2025 she was the opening act for one Sabrina Carpenter show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Less than a year later she was back at that same venue for four nights of her own, and she then played six sold-out nights at London’s O2 Arena.³² According to Apple, the songs are about love and friendship. The service’s editors link them to the soul and pop tradition of the 1960s and to names such as Sade, Prince and Lauryn Hill. The idea that loving is an active practice is inspired by bell hooks’s 1999 book All About Love: New Visions.² “Being Apple’s Artist of the Year feels wonderful,” Dean said. Rachel Newman, co-head of Apple Music, said the singer “speaks from the heart, every time”. The service also released a video in which the artist comments on the honor.¹²

What is in ‘Best of 2026’?

In Apple Music’s ‘New’ tab there are ‘Best of 2026’ versions of well-known playlists such as Rap Life, R&B Now, A-List Pop and Today’s Country, along with other end-of-year content.³ Apple has also prepared a selection of playlists devoted to the songs and voices that defined the past twelve months, tied to Dean’s nomination.²

What kind of prize is the Apple Music Award?

Dean will receive a physical award. Every Apple Music Award features a custom Apple silicon wafer, suspended between a polished glass slab and a machined, anodized aluminum body.³² Apple presents this as a symbolic gesture: the prize is built around the same kind of chip that runs the devices people use to play a catalog of over 100 million tracks.² Tyler, The Creator was the 2025 Artist of the Year, preceded by Billie Eilish in 2024 and Taylor Swift in 2023.³

What changes

The list of recent winners, Swift, Eilish and Tyler, The Creator, shows that the title had so far gone to non-British artists. With Dean, the award breaks out of that group for the first time.³²

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Apple Music’s 2026 Artist of the Year is Olivia Dean, MacRumors, 2026-11-09 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Olivia Dean is Apple Music’s Artist of the Year for 2026 - Apple, apple.com ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Apple Music launches ‘Best of 2026’ content, reveals Artist of the Year, 9to5Mac, 2026-11-09 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶