2026 VMA Best New Artist - You Vote
Seven acts, one ballot, and the one category fans can keep voting on into the show itself. Rank them on the only question this award should ask: is a career actually starting here, or is it just a hit? Streams get you nominated. What moves an act up this order is the rest of it: a catalog with more than one project in it, a live business that already sells out rooms, hands on the writing and the producing, and a second thing visible from where you are standing. Judged that way, a five-piece from Seoul with two EPs in nine months finishes above the British singer with the billion-stream song, and a singles artist with no album finishes last. Each entry links the one official video that makes the case, and says why that one and not another. The order is the argument, so vote it into shape.
- 1
CORTIS
Five members who write, produce and choreograph their own records, two EPs inside nine months, and a North American tour that sold out with dates added. 'FaSHioN' is the link because it is the one that traveled: filmed in Christchurch, the shots of Tūranga library and Gloucester Street standing in for a set, a million views inside twelve hours. Rookie trophies are easy to collect. Method is harder.
- 2
Sienna Spiro
Three singles sitting on the Hot 100 at the same time in early 2026, then a debut album she co-wrote and co-produced with a twenty-piece string section behind it. 'The Visitor' takes the link: she sits in the audience watching the ballet duet onstage as the romance in front of her turns into distance. Twenty years old, headline tour already sold out.
- 3
Malcolm Todd
A mixtape, a self-titled debut album and a second record's singles already out, all before he turns twenty-three, and he co-directed this one with Aidan Cullen. 'I Saw Your Face' gets the link, being the second single from Do That Again and the one where he squares up for a standoff with a giant onion. That gag only lands if you control the picture, and he does.
- 4
Myles Smith
The arrival mostly happened before this ballot, which is why he sits here: BRIT Rising Star in 2025, a billion streams on 'Stargazing', arena dates through November. 'Hold Me In The Dark' is the link because he directed it himself, with Stephen Graham as a father running out of time with his daughter, real nurses from the Luton hospital where Smith was born, and the mirrors carried up to the rooftop at the end.
- 5
Stella Lefty
Country and pop at once, and she is up in Best Country for this same song, so the lane is wider than a pop ballot suggests. 'Boston' gets the link, and it is a performance video rather than a narrative one, with her friends playing it with her, premiered on YouTube in June. A top-twenty Hot 100 hit, Stagecoach and Lollapalooza booked, first headline tour sold out in minutes.
- 6
Bella Kay
Number two in the UK in March, number one in Ireland and Norway, and opening slots with Noah Kahan now and Gracie Abrams into 2027. The breakout song's official visuals are a live take, a lyric video and an audio upload, so the link goes to 'i deserve better.' instead: the walk through the underpass, the glance over the shoulder, the rain. Spare, and it lands.
- 7
Magnus Ferrell
A run of singles going back to 2024, a soundtrack cut with Deacon for You're Cordially Invited, and no album yet, which is the thinnest file on this ballot. 'Ain't The Feeling' is the link: Jack Campise's dating-show pastiche, with Ferrell hosting the thing until he drops the format and offers Vanessa his hand at the bridge. The craft is real. The career has barely started.
