New year’s predictions: How music will change in 2026
Every New Year’s Eve, my friends and I sit around the dinner table and try to guess what the year ahead might bring. Predicting our own lives feels impossible, so we focus on pop culture instead. We speculate about which celebrities might pass away, who might have a baby or get divorced, and how different industries could change in the coming months.
The world of music is in flux and has been in hyperflux since the early 2000s, when streaming emerged and changed absolutely everything. From the second music was available at the click of a button, everything was different, from the financial state of the music world to the way the general public engaged with it, and decades on, there has been no recovery, only more change.
To attempt to trace all the various ways the music industry has morphed would take all day, but with a new year, we’re invited to remember that there is no past, there is only present and future, and so with months looming ahead of us, wondering how the world might change even more is a wondrous thing.
There will be good, there will be bad, there could be all-out revolution as new artists emerge, with sites like Spotify risking completely losing their hold, while the neighbouring worlds of film and art change too, and the ephemeral nature of celebrity continues to evolve with the times: it’s impossible to know what will happen, but we can wonder.
Thus, with the knowledge of what’s been happening over the past few years, and the current trends we’re seeing in fan behaviour and industry changes, here are some somewhat educated guesses, along with some hopes and some theories.
How music might change in 2026:
A closer relationship between music and film
One of the most hotly anticipated releases of 2026 is undeniably Charli XCX’s Wuthering Heights, with already the two singles shared from the record demonstrating two opposing but equally glorious new sides to the artist. On ‘House’, the party girl is long gone as she teams up with John Cale of all people for a dark, ominous and dramatic track, screaming “I think I’m gonna die in this house”, and on the flipside, ‘Chains of Love’ is a ballad through and through, sounding like an 1980s hit.
With more to come in February, fans are excited to see how she’ll follow up Brat, but one wonders if this should be considered a Brat follow-up when really, this isn’t a Charli XCX album at all; it’s a film soundtrack. When other artists have taken on movie soundtracks in the past, we never really considered them part of an act’s discography, but here, we seem to be doing just that.
It all comes down to XCX herself: Charli is handling this record as if it’s exactly that, releasing music videos and crafting her own aesthetic amidst the movie, and as an avid film fan who routinely shares her Letterboxd reviews, it’s clear that films greatly inspire her, so why should she minimise her care for these songs?
Charlie is refusing to cast off this work or belittle it as just a soundtrack, but is instead drawing the worlds of movies and modern music closer than ever, thus, in 2026, I predict we’ll see more of this. Modern acts being trusted with soundtracks is definitely something we should see more of, as people like Idles with their Caught Stealing tunes, or Erin LeCount being trusted with a National Theatre score recently proved how impactful it can be. Now with Charli sharing a soundtrack as if it’s simply another album, the boundary between the two industries will hopefully keep getting thinner.
Spotify sinks, radio soars
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Massive Attack, and My Bloody Valentine are a few of the names that pulled some, if not all, of their music from Spotify in 2025. In protest against the platform’s mounting issues and disgraces, from not paying artists to investing in companies connected to Israeli weaponry, artists are walking out, and they’re taking fans with them.
While the actual stats from Spotify still show a rise in users, any talk amongst the biggest music fans in your life lately has likely brought up the matter of exiting the streamer. People have been sharing ways to help offload treasured playlists, discussing the best alternatives, or even simply bringing back more physical media and upscaling their CD and vinyl collection, and in this, I point to the radio. I’m not talking about Radio 1 or Smooth or anything like that, but the rise of cool, independent and community-run radio stations popping up in beer garden sheds, home studios or even just online.
It’s not that there even really needs to be a revival, as NPR has held it down forever, and then NTS has gone from strength to strength as a modern radio hero in recent years, but in 2026, could radio see a booming resurgence as people leave behind streamers and also surrender back to tastemakers choosing their tunes? Is the decision fatigue of the world finally overwhelming enough that people could get back into simply turning the radio on and enjoying what’s there?
When it comes to some of the best independent stations around, what’s there is guaranteed to be great, so why faff about with Spotify’s AI slop playlists when you could put on Boogaloo radio and hear a band chatting, or get into Voices’ Radio’s 24-hour schedule of eclectic offerings.
Music with less musicality, in an anti-AI way
As AI music makes it way into the world, it undeniably poses a threat to musicians in terms of work, such that we’ll see adverts and lazy companies commissioning AI music cheap and quick, rather than respecting the cost and time needed for real people to make better real art, but one thing it will never actually pose a threat to musicians over is quality. It is a fact that a machine will never make a better song than a human, for it has no heart, no soul, no guts, no friends to create with, no local scene to be inspired by, and no past experiences to draw from other than an algorithm.
AI music is all formula, chewing up prompts and spitting something out, but there is surely no formula in the world that could spit out Geese, or Cameron Winter solo, so stay with me here as I declare that the rise of Geese is anti-AI protest.
In both cases, and both of their most recent releases, the music is characterised by a lack of musicality; they don’t really allow you melodies or through-lines to follow, especially when playing live and improvisation takes hold. It seems like we’re seeing this more and more with new acts like The Orchestra (For Now), where their music talent and skill aren’t in doubt, but there is no musicality in the traditional, standard way when they’re breaking all the rules and going fully on feel.
I wondered if 2026 would simply see a continued rise of guitar music, but I think it’s more than that, for we will see a rise of bands designed to trip you up and fuck with you. The four chords and a dream way of living will be dead, the machines took it, and instead, things will keep getting weirder as a way to outrun it.
Artists as festival curators
In 2025, a definite highlight on the live music scene was Charli XCX’s Partygirl Day at LIDO festival, which she cherry-picked and curated, bringing together a lineup of her collaborators, friends and favourite artists that cast off any idea of genre to simply be tied together by her Brat-green world. At the same time, just on different stages, a ticketholder could get into the dreamy pop of Magdelena Bay or rapped 070Shake alongside the alt-indie of The Japanese House, or the boisterous club tunes of The Dare, and all of it made sense, because it was all Charli’s world.
When companies curate day festival lineups, they can end up playing it too safe, sticking tight to the genre of the headliner so it can wind up feeling one-note, or it can look like every other day festival as bookers do secret handshakes and get the same three or four names on every single lineup, so when you’ve got an artist themselves sharing their opinion, things get interesting.
In 2026, there are more tests of that coming up: CMAT is stepping up to the plate for LIDO this year, and already, the lineup includes Father John Misty, Sharon Van Etten, Getdown Services, Katy J Pearson and more, feels interesting and exciting, spanning all corners of rock, indie and folk. While the support acts haven’t been announced yet, Nick Cave’s homecoming show in Brighton’s Preston Park is sure to be another one, as his most recent tour supports spoke to his eclectic tastes, and with his status and sway, surely he could rope some big names in for something special.
It’s a reminder that while companies might think they know what sells tickets, no one knows their fans better than the artists, who know their fans are just as broad as they are, so they know the lineups under them can be too.
Artists as critics
In a similar vein, 2026 seems set to be the year that people realise that there’s perhaps no one more in the know about music than artists themselves, especially in the grassroots world, where no one is seeing more bands than people in bands; so, when it comes to recommendations, takes on the industry or suggestions on fixing it, we should listen closely.
This is a fine line, though, as since the dawn of music journalism, things have always been in flux. Artists don’t allow writers as much access anymore, and so in response, a lot of publications have gone soft and become nervous to share their true feelings in order to protect relationships and their ability to access artists. Now, with social media, artists have proven they can clap back, sometimes in funny and other times in scary ways, especially when a stan army starts doxxing some freelancers, but in 2026, it could get interesting, intelligent, and genuinely valuable.
We’ve already seen how much people love to see artists themselves in conversation with one another, as almost every publication has some kind of take on Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ series, or loving the Criterion Closet’s videos. In the next stage, personally, I’d like to see some truthful takes, artists hyping other artists up, while also talking about how they really feel. If celebrities are increasingly becoming the tastemakers themselves, I’d like to see them truly take on the role and run amok with the responsibility.
