The two sides of Sombr, the singer sparkling through the sadness

Fresh-faced alt-pop singer Sombr has taken third place on BBC Radio 1's Sound of 2026 list, which showcases the biggest new music artists for the next 12 months.

Going viral on TikTok, selling out a headline tour, appearing on Jimmy Fallon with songs about your ex (then finding 15 missed calls from her), being enthusiastically endorsed by Taylor Swift, scoring hits in the US and UK... Every time Sombr gets a big break, a bigger one soon follows.

In a few weeks' time, the Grammy Awards, where he's shortlisted for best new artist, could be his next and biggest breakthrough yet.

It wouldn't be the 20-year-old's first award, even at this stage of his career.

In September, he won a Moonman trophy at the MTV Video Music Awards and gave a performance that was intended to introduce the public to his musical persona.

Or personas.

Wearing leather trousers and a black shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, he launched into the angst-fuelled Back to Friends with a rock band, shrouded in dry ice, on a set modelled on a dingy club, looking every inch the moody indie messiah.

Then, after quickly donning a shimmering black jacket, he was carried aloft across the stage by scantily-clad dancers who proceeded to gyrate around (and against) him as he sang the distinctly disco 12 to 12 under a giant glitterball, while Ariana Grande bopped along approvingly.

That mash-up revealed the two sides of Sombr.

On the one hand, he's a tortured indie boy who has written an album with songs that are full (and I mean full) of heartbreak and heartache.

On the other, he's a flawless pop star who gives those songs catchy melodies and polished production, and performs them with swagger in sparkly suits.

He's the missing link between Jeff Buckley and Harry Styles.

Also in the mix are bits of Matty Healy from The 1975, Jim Morrison from The Doors and Justin Hawkins from The Darkness.

In today's genre-fluid music scene, you don't need to pick a side, though. It's possible to be both cool and pop, both Dr Buckley and Mr Styles.

Sombr names Buckley and Radiohead among his musical heroes, and says he has always been "an 'alternative music' person".

In fact, the name of his MTV Award was "best alternative", for the video for Back to Friends.

"That's just what I've always been drawn to throughout my life, all different kinds of alternative music," he says.

"But at the same time, I grew up listening to pop radio in the car or with my parents, and my favourite pop act would be - if it's even considered pop, I think it's considered pop - Daft Punk.

"With my natural taste and upbringing, I found this perfect in-between of poppy hooks and production in some of it, and indie approach to my instrumentation and writing.

"A lot of my songs are guitar-heavy. I can never make a full-blown pop song. It would always have to have that alternative touch."

Shane Boose, from New York, became Sombr when he posted his first song, the gorgeously wistful Caroline, on TikTok at the age of 16 in 2022.

"I woke up the next day and it was kind of viral, and pretty much every record label under the sun was in my inbox," he recalls. "So, as crazy as it sounds, it was an overnight success."

It has taken three years to go from overnight success to mainstream breakthrough, however, and the path hasn't always been smooth.

He signed to Warner Records, but by the end of 2024 had lost his way creatively.

"I was 18 years old. I had dropped out of high school when I signed to a label and, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing. And I still don't...

"It's always a weird [thing] on your mind when music goes from being a hobby to being a commercial thing or a job, you know? I didn't have a back-up plan. So it wasn't necessarily a success."

With his career stalled, Sombr was preparing for the possibility of moving back in with his parents, going back to school, and becoming plain Shane again.

"It was hitting a low, and that was affecting me creatively because I started trying to make what I thought people wanted to hear, or what I thought would do well, and it wasn't working. That never works," he says.

"So I said, [forget] it... I'm going to make exactly what I want to make right now. And that was Back to Friends."

Writing from the heart, not to please others, unlocked everything, Sombr says.

And it was from the heart. Back to Friends is about the pain of spending a night with someone only for her to treat it as casual and meaningless.

More material flowed, all on a similar theme of one-sided or lost love.

"These songs are just about relationships, and the few experiences I've had as a young man navigating love and loss and life," he says. "It came out pretty easily."

That brief explanation understandably underplays the aching sadness that smoulders under the surface of his songs.

"Now you're just crushing my soul, my lover," Sombr sings on Crushing, the opening track of his debut album I Barely Know Her.

Other songs have lines like: "You were never mine but I was always yours" (I Wish I Knew How To Quit You); "I try to go on dates but none of them are you" (Canal Street); and "I don't want the children of another man to have the eyes of the girl I won't forget" (Undressed).

When Sombr made his TV debut singing Back to Friends on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last May, he posted on TikTok that he'd come off set to see 15 missed calls from the girl who gave him all that inspiration by rejecting him.

What did her messages say? "Saying, 'I just saw you on Fallon. I changed my mind'," he says.

"You know, that's how it goes. That was the first thing I did that was [showing] the career is getting serious. So I think she saw that."

Like his songs, this is just his side of the interaction. Did he respond or had he moved on?

"I've moved on. There was no response to that on my end, and it's in the past, you know?

"It's in my art now, and that's the only place it lives."

Putting out your most personal feelings for public consumption has other unintended consequences.

In May, Sombr posted a clip of that line from Undressed with the caption: "Genuine question: How do I re-enter the dating scene after writing this song?"

How's that going?

"Not good, man, not good," he replies with a wry smile. "I'm figuring it out."

And after striking gold by mining one relationship experience, how has he found fresh inspiration to re-enter the songwriting scene?

That hasn't been a problem, he replies. "I'm living a very, very inspiring and action-packed life right now, so I'm not having much trouble.

"I'm travelling the world, doing what I love to do, seeing new places, meeting new people. So it hasn't been very hard."

The action is set to continue in 2026 with more sold-out tours, TV slots, award shows and acclaim - and hopefully, for his sake, some songs about falling in love.