Indie rock band the Last Dinner Party have won the 2024 Brit award for Rising Star, given each year to artists tipped for success.
The five-piece have attracted huge hype since hitting London’s gig circuit in November 2021. They supported the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park in 2022 before they had released any music, got signed to a major label, and put out their debut single Nothing Matters in July 2023. Enlivened by a punk-Victoriana aesthetic and the theatrical stagecraft of frontwoman Abigail Morris, their maximalist, symphonic sound – produced by Arctic Monkeys collaborator James Ford – has earned them more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify.
The group said they were “proud beyond measure”: “It’s an honour to achieve something so iconic so early on in our career and we can only hope to keep making music that connects with all the incredible people who have listened to and supported us so far.”
Runners-up for the award, voted for by a broad panel of music industry and media figures, are a pair of pop singers: Caity Baser, whose single Pretty Boys cracked the Top 40 earlier this year, and Leicestershire artist Sekou, who has had a streaming hit with the piano ballad Better Man.
It’s only the second time a band has won the award since its inception in 2008, after girl group Flo won 2023’s award (2009 winners Florence and the Machine are classed as a solo act).
Other previous winners of the award, formerly called Critics’ Choice, include Adele, Ellie Goulding, Sam Fender and Jorja Smith, though it’s perhaps a less reliable predictor of chart success than it once was: none of the last four winners (Celeste, Griff, Holly Humberstone and Flo) have gone on to score a UK Top 10 single.
