Jacob Alon has been crowned The BRIT Awards’ Critics’ Choice winner for 2026.

The Scottish singer-songwriter (Island) emerges victorious over fellow shortlisted nominees Sienna Spiro (Capitol Records) and Rose Gray (Polydor) in the race for the coveted trophy which recognizes stars at an early stage of their career. 

The award was introduced in 2008 and won by Adele. Other previous winners include Florence + the Machine (2009), Ellie Goulding (2010), Sam Smith (2014), Sam Fender (2019), and The Last Dinner Party (2024). 

Myles Smith was the most recent recipient of the prize (2025) which was known as the Rising Star Award from 2020 onwards; it will revert back to its original name for the 2026 ceremony. To be eligible, artists must not have yet achieved a top 20 album or more than one top 20 single on the Official U.K. Charts as of Oct. 31, 2025. The award is selected by the 1,200 members of the BRITs Voting Academy.

Alon will collect the prize at the ceremony held on Feb. 28. The ceremony will take place at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena, the first time that the show has been held outside of London during its nearly 50 year history.

“Taing mhòr to the critics for recognising my work for this award, you absolute dotes! In the wee town where I grew up in Scotland, it often felt like there was a limit to how high you could dare to dream. So being part of something like this makes me feel like I’m floating far above the sky,” Alon said in a statement.

They added, “In a world full of broken and rusted jaggy edges, I’m grateful to find a place for softness still. And I will keep fighting for it. I really care about and believe in this music, and it makes my world brighter every time it reaches someone else. Hopefully this means some more beautiful people might find something in my album. Thank you to anyone who has ever listened.”

Alon released their debut album In Limerence to critical acclaim in May 2025. The LP was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize (though lost out to Sam Fender’s People Watching) and appeared on Billboard U.K.’s albums of the year list for 2025.

In an interview on his Rocket Hour radio show, Elton John heaped praise on Alon saying, “I can’t think of anyone who sounds like you for a long time,” and that they were “destined for big things.”

Speaking to Billboard U.K., the 24-year-old discussed the numerous challenges they faced during their adolescence, including accepting their queer identity and navigating a period of near-homelessness, and how those experiences informed the songs on In Limerence. “I just feel so proud of myself for not ever giving up. It can be hard to exist in a world with so much pain,” they said.

Comedian Jack Whitehall will return to host the ceremony for the sixth time. Performer announcements and nominations are due in the coming weeks.

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The 2026 College Football National Championship game is finally here. The No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers are taking on No. 10 Miami Hurricanes in a hard-hitting finals matchup with plenty of big stakes. Indiana is fighting for its first national championship in school history while Miami is trying to snap a streak without a championship that dates back to 2001.

How to Watch Indiana vs. Miami, At a Glance:

With the college football championship game taking place at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, the Hurricanes do get home field advantage, which could help their odds. However, the Hoosiers remain undefeated this season and have steamrolled teams by outscoring opponents by 31.5 points per game.

Wan to stream the 2026 College Football National Championship game live? We’ve compiled every way you can watch and stream the game online without cable and for free. Keep scrolling to learn how.

How to Watch the Indiana vs. Miami Game Online for Free

If you don’t have cable, there are still plenty of ways to watch ESPN and the Indiana vs. Miami game online. Fans can take advantage of multiple streaming services that offer free trials, so you can watch the college championship game today without paying a dime. Signing up to streamers like DirecTV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV and Fubo you can get right into the football action.

DirecTV is offering a five-day free trial, which will let you watch ESPN and more for free. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network is included in all of the streaming packages. In addition to unlimited DVR storage, you’ll get access to local channels and the ability to stream on as many devices as you want.

With prices starting at just $4.99 for a day pass, Sling TV includes ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN 3 (for ABC simucast) with it Sling Orange and Sling Orange + Blue packages — which features dozens of channels that can be streamed on up to three devices at the same time. Sling Orange + Blue features FS1 and the NFL Network too

Please note: Sling TV’s pricing and channel availability depends on your local TV market.

Fubo is another great option you can take advantage of to watch ESPN online. The streamer offers a seven-day free trial that’ll give you access to ESPN free and more than 240 live TV channels. The service offers a promo that’ll get you up to $30 off the first month, which can get you access to ESPN and more for as low as $54.99 (reg. $84.99 per month).

For the most content options, Hulu + Live TV gives you access to the entire Hulu library in addition to more than 95 live TV channels — including ESPN for just $82.99 per month.

And, unlike the rest of the options, you can also expand your content library by bundling Hulu + Live TV with Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited. You’ll not only have all of the Hulu library to watch, but also exclusive and original programming available exclusively on ESPN Unlimited.

ESPN Unlimited is the official streaming platform for ESPN, and a subscription includes instant access to games and more exclusive content for $29.99 per month. You can save almost 17% off by purchasing an annual subscription for $299.99 per year. There is no free ESPN Unlimited trial, but it does include exclusive on-demand videos and access to content from what was formerly known as ESPN Insider.

In addition to live sports, ESPN Unlimited has original shows to stream on-demand, plus game recaps and analysis, a shorter version of NFL Primetime and full replays of historic NFL matchups.

To expand your savings and content offerings, currently, you can bundle ESPN Unlimited with Hulu and Disney+ for a single monthly price of just $29.99 per month for all three services for 12 months of streaming.

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard will be counting down our editorial staff picks for the 10 Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 all the next two weeks. Last week, we revealed our Honorable Mentions artists for 2025 as well as our Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year artists. Now, we kick off our top 10 with an artist who kept the pedal to the floor for 2025, trying new sounds and new mediums and ending up more ubiquitous than ever: Tyler, The Creator.

Listen to our Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussion about Tyler’s first year making our 10 Greatest Pop Stars list here.

About 15 years ago, in February 2011, a menacing group of young adults set the internet ablaze with its anarchic musical performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The rabble-rousers of Odd Future took their off-color, Tumblr-coded rap music to network television – and their appearance marked their introduction to the mainstream. 

But at the time, and for years after, Odd Future’s ringleader and breakout talent, Tyler, The Creator, seemed an unlikely candidate to ever transcend cult status. Odd Future’s left-field aesthetic and at-times nauseating lyrical content was a non-starter for many. Later that year, GLAAD denounced Odd Future’s homophobic and misogynistic subject matter; as late as 2015, the U.K. banned Tyler from entry due to his lyrics. All par for the course for an artist whose signature lyric up to that point was “KILL PEOPLE BURN S—T F—K SCHOOL.” 

A decade later, however, Tyler is an integral part of the pop cultural fabric, both domestically and abroad. Today, his high-concept hip-hop has placed him in rarefied air with rap superstars like Kendrick Lamar and Drake, with Grammy wins, lucrative world tours and impressive chart success — a position he cemented with his massive 2025. 

Tyler’s transformation from skate-rap misfit to hip-hop A-lister started in 2017, when he released Flower Boy, a conceptually ambitious project dealing with loneliness and sexuality that fused rap, jazz, and neo-soul — and kicked off a streak of four consecutive records nominated for the best rap album Grammy. With 2019’s Igor and 2021’s Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler continued to redefine himself as an artist, and while his material didn’t exactly lose its edge, it became less confrontational and drew in legions of new fans — including at the Grammys, where both sets won best rap album. 

Tyler’s 2025 effectively began in October 2024, with the release of that fourth-consecutive best rap album Grammy nominee, Chromakopia. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and all 14 Chromakopia songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100; that month, three of its songs – “St. Chroma,” “Noid” and “Sticky” — became Tyler’s first three top 10 entries on the Hot 100. And unlike many high-profile rap releases today, the album – which featured Doechii, Sexyy Red, Lil Wayne, Daniel Caesar and Lola Young, among others – stuck around on the charts: When the calendar had turned, and the glut of holiday singles had receded, three Chromakopia songs remained on the Hot 100. 

Tyler carried that momentum into the Chromakopia world tour, a nearly-100-date trek that kicked off in February – when he played six sold-out shows at L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena – and took him to arenas from North America to Europe to Asia, securing him a No. 11 rank on Billboard’s Top Tours chart for 2025, with $174.5 million grossed. Along the way, he headlined major festivals, including Governors Ball, Lollapalooza and Outside Lands. For years, Tyler’s concerts had been spectacles, and the pyro-laden Chromakopia was no different. 

But by July, the creatively restless rapper threw fans a curveball: the surprise-released Don’t Tap The Glass, a 28-minute project that eschewed Chromakopia‘s grandiosity for a tight set of funky electronic bangers. Before the Chromakopia tour had even wrapped for 2025 (a brief Latin American leg is on tap for this March), Tyler was debuting Don’t Tap the Glass material at sweaty, club-inspired pop-up shows. Like Chromakopia and its two predecessors, Don’t Tap the Glass debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200; all 10 of its songs hit the Hot 100. The set’s “Sugar on My Tongue” became a breakout hit, spending 25 weeks (and counting) on the chart to become Tyler’s second-longest-running Hot 100 entry. Don’t Tap the Glass also scored a 2026 Grammy nomination for best alternative music album, meaning Tyler could take home not one, but two album Grammys in genre categories this February. 

At the same time, Tyler notched another accomplishment as one of the select few guests to appear on Clipse’s comeback album, Let God Sort Em Out, produced by his longtime musical lodestar, Pharrell Williams. The song he appeared on, “P.O.V.,” landed on the Hot 100 and represented a full-circle moment: One of the first established rap artists to champion Tyler was Clipse’s Pusha T, who featured the then-20-year-old on his 2011 single “Trouble on My Mind.” Clipse also played a small role in the Don’t Tap the Glass launch, making cameos – alongside LeBron James and his business associate Maverick Carter – in the music video for that album’s “Stop Playing With Me.”  Next month, Tyler will face off against Clipse – and himself – when Chromakopia and Let God Sort Em Out both vie for the album of the year and best rap album Grammys. 

A mammoth 2025, to be sure. But before the year wrapped, Tyler had another zeitgeist-seizing moment up his sleeve – on the silver screen, as Tyler Okonma. On Christmas Day, the Josh Safdie-directed, A24-distributed, Timothée Chalamet-starring ping-pong period drama Marty Supreme hit theaters, and featured Tyler in a prominent supporting role. As Wally, a taxi-driving buddy of Chalamet’s unstoppable Marty Mauser, Tyler stole each of his scenes, matching Chalamet’s energy and proving his charisma extends well beyond recording studios and festival stages. Since the start of his career, Tyler has directed many of his own music videos and played a key role in the creative direction of his concerts; Marty Supreme may be the first Oscar contender he’s had a hand in, but it’s likely not his last. 

For Tyler, it’s all somewhat poetic: The artist who once scared parents and grandparents who’d stayed up late to catch Fallon now appearing in a bona fide Christmas blockbuster, after a year where his music found more ears than it ever had before. As head-spinning as it might be for his Odd Future day ones, given his last decade, there’s little reason to think Tyler won’t become even more ubiquitous — mainstream, even — in the years. 

Listen to our Tyler, The Creator Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 discussion here, check back for our No. 9 artist tomorrow, and stay tuned the next two weeks as we roll out our top 10 — leading to the announcement of our top two Greatest Pop Stars of 2025 on Friday, Jan. 30!

Australian indie favourites Lime Cordiale have announced a new climate-focused live music event, unveiling the inaugural Lime Green Festival, a one-day, off-grid festival designed to place environmental action at the centre of the live music experience.

Set to take place on April 18 at Point Malcolm Reserve in Semaphore, Adelaide, the festival is being presented in partnership with Chugg Music and supported by the South Australian Government and City of Charles Sturt. According to organisers, Lime Green is being developed as a 100% off-grid event, with the goal of significantly reducing the environmental footprint typically associated with large-scale live music festivals.

Lime Cordiale brothers Oli and Louis Leimbach said the project emerged from years of questioning the environmental impact of touring and live events.

“From the accelerating loss of polar ice to the devastating algal blooms currently choking the South Australian coast, it is impossible to ignore that our climate is at a breaking point,” the duo said in a statement. “For the last five years, we’ve wrestled with a deep, personal dilemma as environmentalists: Is our touring contributing to the problem? Does it still make sense in a world that’s hurting?”

They added that the answer, for them, was not to stop touring, but to change how it is done.

Lime Green Festival is being positioned as both a music event and a community-driven platform, incorporating live performances alongside talks, workshops and interactive activations focused on regenerative practices and climate innovation. Organisers say the festival is intended to explore how live events can operate more sustainably, particularly in regional and coastal locations.

A major focus of the event will be its power infrastructure, with plans to run the main stage off-grid through a partnership with Aggreko, using industrial-scale mobile batteries backed by vegetable-oil generators. Additional initiatives include eliminating single-use plastics, prioritising re-use systems, offering renewable catering solutions, and encouraging low-emission transport options for attendees.

Food and beverage vendors will be curated to prioritise local, organic and carbon-neutral operators, with surplus food donated to charities and free drinking water available on site.

The Lime Green Festival line-up will be headlined by Lime Cordiale alongside The Dreggs, aleksiah and PASH, with an additional slot reserved for a triple j Unearthed winner. Further performance opportunities will be offered to emerging local artists through partnerships with the City of Charles Sturt and the band directly.

Formed in 2009, Lime Cordiale have released multiple albums, received 12 ARIA nominations and two wins, and toured extensively across Australia and internationally. The band said Lime Green builds on environmental initiatives they have already integrated into their touring model over recent years.

The festival will also incorporate the Solar Slice initiative, led by FEAT, which directs $1 from every ticket sold toward climate and nature-based projects. Funds raised from Lime Green will support a South Australian community-led response to the ongoing algal bloom affecting the state’s coastline.

South Australian Minister for Tourism Zoe Bettison described the festival as “a significant step forward for the arts industry and our planet,” while Minister for Climate, Environment and Water Lucy Hood said the initiative aligns with the state’s leadership in renewable energy and support for coastal communities.

Oli and Louis Leimbach said they see Lime Green as an evolving experiment rather than a finished solution.

“This is a genuine attempt to discover what is possible,” they said. “We aren’t claiming to be perfect; we will make mistakes along the way, but we are trying. We’re inviting you to be part of this experiment.”

Presale tickets for Lime Green Festival go on sale at 9 a.m. AEDT on Wednesday, Jan. 21, with general tickets available from 9 a.m. AEDT on Friday, Jan. 23. The event is licensed and all-ages.

Dolly Parton Day will officially be observed on Jan. 19 in the state of Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee has announced.

Gov. Lee proclaimed the tribute to Dolly Parton — honoring “her lifetime of achievement, service, and positive impact” — in coordination with the country music legend’s 80th birthday, which falls on Monday, Jan. 19.

“Dolly Parton, born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier Country, is a native Tennessean whose extraordinary life and career have brought pride to the State of Tennessee,” reads the state leader’s official notice of Dolly Parton Day, published by the Tennessee Department of State.

Gov. Lee’s proclamation highlights the star’s accomplishments, both professional and philanthropic, and how she’s affected the lives of Tennesseans.

“Dolly Parton is an acclaimed singer, songwriter, musician, actress, producer, and entrepreneur whose body of work embodies the spirit of Tennessee; and throughout her remarkable career, Dolly Parton has earned numerous awards and accolades and is widely regarded as one of the most influential and beloved artists in the history of American music; and in addition to her artistic accomplishments, Dolly Parton has demonstrated an enduring commitment to philanthropy and service, most notably through the Dollywood Foundation and the Imagination Library, which began in Tennessee and has provided hundreds of millions of free books to children around the world, helping to promote early childhood literacy and educational opportunity; and Dolly Patton’s generosity, humility, and dedication to improving the lives of others exemplify the values of the Volunteer State and serve as an inspiration to Tennesseans and people worldwide,” the proclamation says.

The proclamation issued through the Tennessee Department of State can be read in full here.

Jan. 19, 2026 marks a milestone birthday for Parton, the legendary singer-songwriter and performer whose 25 No. 1s on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart have spanned a career across four decades (and counting).

Parton’s latest musical release is a new rendition of her 1977 hit “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” featuring colleagues/collaborators Lainey Wilson, Reba McEntire, Queen Latifah and Miley Cyrus. Net proceeds from the song benefit the pediatric cancer research program at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville.