Antidote is home to the best new alternative music in the UK and beyond—a celebration of independence, innovation, and artists who don’t just push boundaries but reduce them to rubble. Someone who embodied growth and rapidly expanding horizons in 2025 was Sam Fender. The North Shields singer-songwriter began the year by releasing his third album People Watching and ended it by winning the Mercury Prize—no mean feat considering the shortlist also contained Antidote regulars CMAT, PinkPantheress, Wolf Alice, and Fontaines D.C. In between those two events, Fender was filling stadiums across the UK, and it was put to him by Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that, give or take the gargantuan likes of Coldplay, he’d become the UK’s biggest artist. “That sounds very strange,” replied Fender. “I think I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable [with it], but it’s wonderful that everything’s been received so well over the last few years, and it’s amazing that there’s so many people that want to come out and see the band—and the band’s just got better and better over the years. We’ve got a new member now. We’ve got Brooke Bentham—we used to play buskers’ nights together when we were 17, so it’s amazing. We’re all going through it together.” Chances are, things will only get bigger and bolder for Fender and his bandmates in 2026. That goes for all the names on this playlist—artists who spent 2025 exploring and redefining all the divergent corners of alternative music, united by their drive to keep pushing things forward.