Every year the BBC makes up a list of what it thinks is “the definitive annual list of exciting new artists to watch out for” – as the list has been created by a number of industry “tastemakers”. They’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve been commenting at various points along the route.
This year, however, 32 of the finest music blogs around have come together to pick our favourites for the coming year. We’ve been wading through neck deep in the hype, and each picked five highlights for the next year, and these were then aggregated into the list you see below. Big shout out to all the Walrus friends and lovers involved – namely Breaking More Waves, God Is In the TV, Sweeping The Nation, The Von Pip Musical Express, The Recommender, Faded Glamour, Drunken Werewolf, Flying With Anna, Not Many Experts, Underclassed Idle Ideas, Sonic Masala, Mudkiss, The Pop Cop, The Ring Master, Both Bars On, Music From A Green Window, Dots And Dashes, The Daily Growl, And Everyone’s A DJ, Kowolskiy, Just Music That I Like, Cruel Rhythm, The Blue Walrus, Music Fans Mic, Seventeen Seconds, Eaten By Monsters, Seven Sevens, Unpeeled, New Rave Brain Wave,Peenko, Music Liberation and Song By Toad.
And which gems did we collectively pick as our Sound of 2012 longlist?
Houdini Dax – Psychdelic indie with a good few nods to the better parts of Brit-Pop
Houdini Dax – O.L.L. by See Monkey Do Monkey
Lianne La Havas – Soft and soulful acoustic beauty with a little tinge of jazz
Lianne La Havas – Gone (Live in LA) by Lianne La Havas
Theme Park – Tropical and danceable indie pop with a nod to the 80s [coverage]
Milk by Theme Park
French Wives – Uplifting and heart-warming indie from Glasgow
Numbers by French Wives
The Good Natured – Female fronted trio of electropop [coverage]
Video Voyeur by The Good Natured
Alt J – Groove filled, quirky, and slightly obscure but very catchy sounds from Leeds [coverage]
Breezeblocks (demo) by alt-j
The Jezabels – Soaring indie rock from Australia
Mace Spray by thejezabelsband
Lucy Rose – Sweet, subtle, and joyous acoustic beauty
Lucy Rose – Middle Of The Bed by Lucy Rose
Bastille – Soaring electropop that should get anyone to the dancefloor [coverage]
FLAWS by BASTILLE
Friends – Rhythm focused pop with an almost-carnival/ R’n’B sounds.
Friends – My Boo by LuckyNumberMusic
Meursault – Folktronica with songs built of beauty and noise [coverage]
Meursault – Flittin’ (Demo) by Song, by Toad
Daughter – Soft, slow, spacious and often haunting folk [coverage]
Daughter – Love (taken from ‘The Wild Youth EP’) by ohDaughter
Beth Jeans Houghton – All kinds of oddities rolled into an alt-folk package [coverage]
Beth Jeans Houghton – Dodecahedron by ronnierocket
Outfit – Wild Beats-esque exquisitely crafted indie.
Every Night I Dress Up As You by OUTFIT
Rachel Sermanni – Communion-supported Folk songstress with one of the best voices I’ve heard all year.
The Fog by Rachel Sermanni
This, ladies and gentleman, is a list and definitely worth a listen alongside the BBC’s own version.
Special thanks to Andy Von Pip for putting it together.
Who have we missed? Let us know in the comments.
UPDATE 02/01/2012: The winners have been announced…
Get People… Obviously.
Well you would say that Seb, but they are certainly up there – the new songs are pretty awesome.
My other picks that didn’t quite make the aggregated list above were Clock Opera, Pandr Eyez, and Connor Youngblood – all serious talents.
Nothing electronic seems to be a very big miss IMO.
True – the list was made from (mostly) indie/alt bloggers – so it will always be a bit skewed that way. Who in particular do you think we’re missing?
I think Trophy Wife could well do something this year alongside Monument Valley. i had Daughter on my list last year glad to see Bastille on the list another from my list last year Breton could well be big in 2012 . There is also an artist from Norwich kamilla Lovett who has great potential
Hey Mark,
Yeah, I’m hoping Bastille will be doing something big this year – he’s just got signed to a major so things are definitely looking up. I’ll have to look into Kamilla Lovett – thanks for the tip!
We’ve got the blogger’s top 5 of this list up now as well at: https://thebluewalrus.com/2012/01/02/blog-sound-of-2012-top-5/
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[…] on that list; the rest failed to click with me at all. A much more pleasing alternative was the Blog Sound of 2012 list, eventually topped by Friends, which brought a number of bands to my attention I most likely […]
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