Over the next 10 days Breaking More Waves will be posting our Ones to Watch for 2014.
This feature is run in the same format every year since the blog started. The artists chosen represent the tastes and output of the blog rather than necessarily being a list of what we think will have critical or commercial success. However, each year we’ve published this series some of the acts featured have gone on to light up the singles and albums charts or had some degree of acclaim. This hasn't always happened in the following year; Marina & The Diamonds cropped up on the BBC Sound of list a year after our Ones to Watch tip and then went on to have success, likewise Foxes recently scored a top 10 UK chart hit but featured on our Ones to Watch for 2012.
Others of course have been forgotten; sometimes this is for the best, but sometimes their music keeps a fond place in our heart even if the rest of the world didn’t agree. Such is the unpredictability of pop music – nobody has a fully functioning crystal ball and anyone that claims that they know 100% what lies ahead is very deluded.
The two previous years we've published 15 artists in this series, this year we've reverted back to 10 (but come our albums of the year list in December we'll be expanding that from 10 to 15 - more on that later).
This feature is run in the same format every year since the blog started. The artists chosen represent the tastes and output of the blog rather than necessarily being a list of what we think will have critical or commercial success. However, each year we’ve published this series some of the acts featured have gone on to light up the singles and albums charts or had some degree of acclaim. This hasn't always happened in the following year; Marina & The Diamonds cropped up on the BBC Sound of list a year after our Ones to Watch tip and then went on to have success, likewise Foxes recently scored a top 10 UK chart hit but featured on our Ones to Watch for 2012.
Others of course have been forgotten; sometimes this is for the best, but sometimes their music keeps a fond place in our heart even if the rest of the world didn’t agree. Such is the unpredictability of pop music – nobody has a fully functioning crystal ball and anyone that claims that they know 100% what lies ahead is very deluded.
The two previous years we've published 15 artists in this series, this year we've reverted back to 10 (but come our albums of the year list in December we'll be expanding that from 10 to 15 - more on that later).
If you follow new music closely and have been reading Breaking More Waves (as well as following us on Twitter) many of the artists on this list will come as no surprise. This isn’t 10 totally unknown acts that we think we might be writing about next year – we don’t know who those acts will be yet, they’re still waiting to be discovered. Instead this list celebrates relatively new artists we’ve featured in 2013 that will hopefully go on to bigger and better things artistically in 2014 as well a few new ones that have yet to be featured on Breaking More Waves.
No doubt as we head towards December and New Year every blog, website and magazine will be publishing something like this, but as we've done the last few years, we're going early, more for practical reasons revolving around life away from the blog than anything else.
This year it has been harder than ever to pick our 10. In 2012 we were already convinced that Haim was going to sparkle, having had the opportunity to see them play live a number of times, and Chvrches similarly seemed to have a bunch of great songs up their sleeves. Both bands deserved the buzz they attracted. This year however there doesn’t seem to be that singular gigantic gem, but a bag of smaller ones. We’re going to dip our hand in and pick out a few and hope that as 2014 goes on they’ll begin to grow and shine even brighter.
But before we get underway with the Ones to Watch 2014 posts, let’s remind ourselves of who we picked in previous years. Whatever did happen to Spark and Visions Of Trees?
Ones to Watch 2009
La Roux, Little Boots, Passion Pit, Yes Giantess, White Lies, Skint & Demoralised, Alessi’s Ark, Florence & The Machine, Mumford & Sons, Marina & The Diamonds
Ones to Watch 2010
Ellie Goulding, Hurts, Beth Jeans Houghton, Unicorn Kid, Delphic, Clare Maguire, Stornoway, Mirrors, Holly Miranda, Clock Opera
Ones to Watch 2011
Clare Maguire (2nd nomination after failing to release anything in 2010), James Blake, Misty Miller, The Vaccines, Starsmith, Let’s Buy Happiness, The Milk, D/R/U/G/S, Visions Of Trees, Spark
Ones to Watch 2012 (Expanded from 10 to 15 artists)
Lucy Rose, Spector, Alabama Shakes, Foxes, Dot Rotten, Lianne La Havas, Lana Del Rey, Willy Moon, Michael Kiwanuka, Queen Of Hearts, The Staves, Ren Harvieu, Outfit, Charli XCX, Rachel Sermanni
Ones to Watch 2013 (Expanded from 10 to 15 artists)
Chvrches, Haim, Gabrielle Aplin, Savages, Chasing Grace, Tom Odell, Sons & Lovers, Avec Sans, Laura Mvula, Curxes, Matt Corby, The Night VI, Luke Sital-Singh, Valerie June, Alice Jemima
Misty Miller - Petrified (demo)
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