We’re nearly at the end of the year which means it’s time
for the 2 annual lists that Breaking More Waves has published ever since its
birth in 2008.
First up is the Ones To Watch list. 10 artists that it may
be worth keeping an eye out on for in 2025. As always this is not a tip list of
who will be big (although previous years have included artists that have gone
on to do very well indeed; from Lana Del Rey to The Last Dinner Party, from
Florence and the Machine to Fontaines DC who stream below) but just a list of relatively new
artists that are getting the Breaking More Waves thumbs up / seal of approval
and I hope will have great futures, be that commercially, critically, for me personally or
becoming even more awesome live.
This list was originally inspired by some of the other tip
lists that get published in late November or December – especially the BBC Sound
of list - which I was once a 'pundit' for (my 3 votes at the time were for Ellie Goulding, Stornoway and Unicorn Kid, two of whom made the final cut. In the past the BBC list was always an exciting list of new acts that
provoked much debate amongst new music fans about the merits of such lists, the
artists on them, major label influence and the power of London in terms of UK music, amongst many other things. For a few years a bunch of music blogs, including this one, created a poll that followed the exact same format of the voting of the BBC list to complement that list; arguably the Blog Sound of poll chose artists that were a little less established / newer in their careers, although there was some crossover with the BBC list.
However, unfortunately this year’s BBC list was very disappointing and has been pretty much universally panned. It feels here at Breaking More Waves towers like it's time to either abandon the thing or give it
a complete revamp with a bunch of voters who follow new music avidly. Although there were a handful of artists that you’d probably
expect to see on it (Myles Smith, Good Neighbours) a lot of the list consisted
of artists that are already very well known / not new, their inclusion defeating the original purpose of the list. Chappell Roan being nominated for the list seemed very
bizarre. Anyone who hasn’t heard of her has surely been living under a rock the
last 18 months. Likewise Confidence Man- I included them on my Ones to Watch
list 7 years ago when they were starting out! English Teacher was another odd one – having already won the
Mercury Prize they're beyond new now. The BBC list seems to be a long way behind the curve this year.
Unfortunately, with such a list forthcoming from the BBC it
perhaps says something about an underlying trend for new artists – that it’s
getting harder and harder to break through. Is
the music industry losing interest in new music completely? Would it rather
just re-release Dark Side of the Moon for the millionth time? Maybe next year Abba will feature on the BBC Sound of?
So with all that being said, welcome to the Breaking More
Waves Ones to Watch 2025. 10 artists posted over the next 2 days on the blog in
10 posts through the 48 hours. All the artists chosen I hope you would consider as still
relatively new. Everyone featured here has just released a small handful of songs, some only 1, others have got up to releasing a debut EP. Certainly none of them have released an album or had anything near a hit. This meant there were a couple of artists that I really wanted to include but decided were a bit too far off my criteria of newness for this year, namely MRCY (their 8 track EP is just a bit too long - its virtually an album) and Good Neighbours because their song Home spent 15 weeks in the UK Top 40. I'm sure those two bands will be on lots of other tip lists though and having seen them both live I can confirm they are worthy of any list. I'm just sticking to some fairly tight criteria on newness this year to contrast with the BBC list.
The first post will go up at 10am, so keep watching (and listening!) throughout the day for 5 artists today and 5 tomorrow. I'll also provide a playlist at the end of the list reveal so that you can dive into each act again.
Fontaines DC - Starburster
