Jacob Alon tells us about winning the BRITs Critics Choice Award: ‘I want more people to discover my music’

Jacob Alon has told Rolling Stone UK about the honour of winning the BRITs Critics Choice Award 2026, the importance of using their growing platform to amplify marginalised voices, and how a fledgling friendship with Mika was struck at the Rolling Stone UK Awards last year.

Alon, who won the Play Next Award at the Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025 in November, is today announced as the prestigious winner of the BRITs Critics Choice Award. It’s usually considered to be a reliable barometer of acts who will score big things in the coming year, with past winners including Myles Smith, The Last Dinner Party and even Adele.

Now Jacob, who achieved huge acclaim for their 2025 debut In Limerance, is hoping for similar fortunes.

“It’s a super cool feeling and it’s given me a nice pep in my step for all the new stuff I’m working on at the moment,” they said, after beating Sienna Spiro and Rose Grey to the accolade.

Check out our whole Q&A with Jacob Alon below.

Congratulations on the win, Jacob! You’re the BRITs Critics Choice Award Winner 2026…

Thank you so much! I feel really lucky and really grateful. It feels like a really nice recognition and I do hope it means hopefully more people will discover my music and give a bit more life to what I’m doing.

But we’ll have it on record that you won the Rolling Stone UK Play Next Award first!

Absolutely! That was the first thing I’ve ever won, so it was great to be in the room and to perform. I loved it.

Does it feel extra special when, traditionally speaking, the BRITs hasn’t perhaps been known for recognising folk music and certainly folk music with the magical edge that your songs have?

Yeah, 100 percent and that’s why I was really surprised. Because Rose Gray and Sienna Spiro are both pop queens and I had thought of the BRITs as being a traditionally more mainstream affair. So to know they’ve given my music a chance really means a lot to me, because I believe in it so much so it’s a really nice feeling to feel like I’m not alone in that.

You told us last year about “finding my people” through your music. What effect has that had on you?

It’s allowed me to feel so much less alone in the world and maybe the most sacred thing I’ve experienced is when someone has confided in me about their relationship and how they’ve found resonance in my stories and songs and what it means to them. It’s often different to what I find, but it’s so precious and so powerful and moving and I’m incredibly grateful that people trust me and have found me.

Has there been any unexpected fans you’ve met over the last 12 months? A pinch me moment perhaps.

Yeah. The craziest one is Mika!

Wait, was that at the Rolling Stone UK Awards?

Yeah it was! I couldn’t believe I was in the same room as him because he was one of my earliest obsessions and awakenings in music and he’s inspired me so much since I was like 7 years old. He knew my name and he even sent me a bouquet of flowers when he couldn’t make the show I invited him to. I wouldn’t always expect someone like that to be so nice, but he’s such a kind person, and I could tell immediately from just talking to him how generous he is.

What did he say about your music?

He said he was a fan, which was good enough for me to be honest. But I told him the story of how I would have been seven or eight going around Asda with my mum’s old iPod and the only two songs on it were ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna and ‘Grace Kelly’ by Mika.

In fact, the first time I ever pulled an all-nighter was when I stayed up transcribing the lyrics to ‘Grace Kelly’ just to understand it!

When you accepted the PlayNext Award at the Rolling Stone UK Awards, you used your speech to mark Trans Day of Remembrance. Is there the hope that this award will boost your platform and allow you to express the things that matter to you, to a much bigger audience?

That’s a huge thing for me. It’s a huge privilege to be able to have the responsibility to use my voice where I can and that’s something I want to do for as long as I can and as much as I can. This is a dark time we’re living in and it very much feels like we’re moving in a direction that’s just really scary and it feels like it’s getting worse. I had a fear quite early on that we’d see less and less representation within the industry, that naturally the cultural, zeitgeist and status quo would move away from even giving a chance to queer or marginalised voices. So I think we’ve got to double down. There’s so many beautiful, beautiful people in this world that just want to give love, make music and do right. Their voices need to be heard and the world is better with them in it, so I want to keep amplifying them whenever I can.

You released your debut album In Limerance last year. Where at you currently at in regards to new music?

I’m in genesis at the moment. I’m in that like messy period. Because for the last couple of years it’s been all guns blazing and I’ve been less in that contemplative, creative place where I really feel at home and that’s necessary for me to understand myself and the world around me and so it’s nice to like be dipping my toes back into that, yeah, and who knows where it’ll go. I definitely don’t want to do the same thing again. I want to move into a direction that’s very exciting and the things that excite me now are not the things that excited me when I was writing those songs, so you can expect the unexpected.

And what does excite you right now?

Hmm there’s nothing specific, let me think…

Scotland are in the World Cup, so there’s one…

Oh yeah that’s good! For a while there hasn’t been too many artists coming out of Scotland and I think as a country we have this habit of not bigging each other up. I hope that the sense of camaraderie thanks to the World Cup could brush off on us. Irish artists having such a good time and their attitude towards each other feels really like supportive, and I believe that we can have that here too.

And what’s the rest of your 2026 looking like?

Less crazy year than last year, I hope. I want to spend a lot of time in that creative place, but there’s some really exciting things coming up for sure, I plan to play some more shows and take some risks and try some wild weird things that I’ve not done before, try some new material and play with some new people. I hope to collaborate more this year too. I’m used to writing in isolation and I’ve had enough of that.

Anyone in particular you might want to hit up for a collab?

Well, I went on tour with Kae Tempest last year and we did a little bit together. I love him so much and his art means so much to me. It’d be the greatest joy to be able to work together again. And I recently came across Dove Ellis and I’ve been absolutely floored by their music. It’s the most beautiful thing.

Here’s hoping! Congrats again, Jacob.

Cheers!