Editors' Picks

South London punk upstarts Shame can lay claim to one of the best debut albums of the last few years. Songs Of Praise, released in 2018 to almost universal critical acclaim, was a storming, dizzying, and infectious cocktail – a genuinely exciting, sit-up-and-take notice offering from a band brimming with confidence, even if they were still trying to figure things out behind the scenes.

Cousins Jonathan Capeci and Joey Beretta grew up and played in a series of bands together around Philadelphia throughout their teenage years, but it wasn’t until the duo relocated to Nashville to pursue success with their band at the time, Dinner And A Suit, that they began to attract wider attention. Dinner And A Suit ultimately disbanded, but undeterred, Capeci and Beretta formed a new group with friends Stephen Cunsolo and Nicholas Sainato, and signed a deal with Interscope Records in 2016.

Formed in New York City in 2008, hard rockers The Pretty Reckless made a big impression with their debut album, 2010’s Light Me Up. It spawned a series of singles before the band dropped the follow-up Going To Hell in 2014. That album’s third single, Messed Up World, was something of a breakthrough track for the band, charting as it did at number one in Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart. The group’s third studio album, Who You Selling For, dropped in 2016, and was also a commercial success.

Throughout 2020, as the nation contended with lockdown, Northern Irish singer-songwriter JC Stewart was busy releasing a flurry of storming singles including I Need You To Hate Me, When The Light Hits The Room, and the pulsating Too Many Nights with 220 Kid. All these tracks added to the hype surrounding Stewart, who really started to turn heads with his 2019 ballad Bones.

JP Saxe and Maren Morris have just premiered 'Line By Line' via live broadcast. Prior to the video release, both discussed aspects of writing the song and the various ideas behind it. Maren explained this was her first Youtube video premiere of this kind, with both taking questions on a split screen layout.

Jared Leto, most famous for his acting and work with his band Thirty Seconds to Mars, has again turned his hand to directing, once again with stunning results. Many would remember his 2012 documentary “Artifact,” (directed under the pseudonym Bartholomew Cubbins) which so cleverly captured the state of the modern music industry. The film was adored by critics and fans alike, earning a standing ovation and People’s Choice Award for Best Documentary.

Dublin-based four-piece Post-Party only formed in late 2018, but are already winning over fans and attracting interest with their highly energetic live shows and ear for an up-tempo, fun and radio-friendly tune. On first listen, they’re most obviously comparable to the likes of Blossoms and Circa Waves, serving up as they do jangly guitar-driven numbers that can’t help but put a smile on your face.

Passenger – otherwise known as Michael Rosenberg – became an overnight sensation with his 2012 single Let Her Go, which was nominated for the Brit Award for British Single of the Year in 2014, and received the British Academy’s Ivor Novello Award for most performed work. It also went to number one in no fewer than sixteen countries – it was, in every sense, a smash hit record.

Mamas Gun didn’t let a global pandemic stop them from getting into their groove in their dashing online concert ‘The Tin Pan Sessions.’ The lockdown had forced all musicians to go into “hiding” in a sense; they couldn’t perform in concerts, they couldn’t shoot music videos, they couldn’t go to venues and give the people some live jams. But in crisis emerges resilience, as this British soul band partnered up with Tin Pan Studio to produce a live concert with each of the band members performing from their respective homes. 

Gabrielle Aplin navigates trust and infatuation in her new single ‘When The Lights Go Out.’ The English singer-songwriter is only twenty-eight and has already carved her a niche for herself. She thrives in low-key, subdued musical spaces, where she can freely express her vulnerabilities through melancholic sounds and stripped-back vocals.

London-based singer-songwriter AJ Wander made plenty of people sit up and take notice when he dropped his powerful single Time Out back in November, and he’s not taking his foot off the gas. Just a few weeks later, and the talented young performer has followed up with his latest effort Way We Walk.

American indie-pop outfit Foster The People are the brainchild of singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Mark Foster, and have been through a few lineup changes over the years since they founded in Los Angeles in 2009. They’ve been through a few different sounds too, regularly mixing elements of dance, pop, indie, rock and psychedelia on their three albums to date (Torches in 2011, 2014’s Supermodel, and Sacred Hearts Club, released three years ago).

Australian electro duo The Avalanches dropped their second album Wildflower in 2016, and so, by most yardsticks, the four-year wait for their newly released third album We Will Always Love You would be quite a long one. But when you consider that the group took sixteen years to release the follow up to their widely lauded debut Since I Left You, it becomes clear that they’re now positively motoring along, by their own standards.

London-based singer-songwriter Sody has been impressing with her sublimely rich vocals and ability to craft raw, honest pop songs since she dropped her debut release Wasted Youth back in 2016. Still a teenager, Sody (otherwise known as Sophie Dyson) is already clocking up almost two and a half million monthly listens on Spotify and has collaborated with the likes of Cavetown on her work to date.

Burrows, the long-awaited debut for Leeds-based trio Caro, is a beguiling beast. They’re a gloriously diverse band, skipping merrily from psychedelic electro to introspective folk and back again with a seemingly reckless abandon, and that makes Burrows a fantastically rewarding listen. For the uninitiated though, it’s a record that might take a while to settle into. But when you do, it’s an absolute delight, like passing through the wardrobe door into a musical Narnia, albeit a very troubled one.

Singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, global superstar – there’s plenty of labels you could attach to James Blake. But throughout his glittering career, which has so far featured a Mercury Prize win (and a further nomination), a Grammy Award (and five further nominations) and three Brit Award nominations, as well as projects working with everyone from Bon Iver to Beyonce, he’s never shied away from changing things up.

One Cure for Man has just dropped another gorgeous new single, following on from his May 2020 release, “Haunted.” Also known as James Parkinson, One Cure for Man is once again showing his amazing ability to take inspiration from the most heartbreaking losses, to teach and encourage us, through his apt and eloquent lyrics and catchy musical style.

After founding as a four-piece in 2009, indie hip-hop outfit Twenty One Pilots were reduced to the duo of vocalist Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun when fellow founding members Nick Thomas and Chris Salih departed in 2011. That might have derailed lesser bands, but Twenty One Pilots refocused, and have enjoyed a huge amount of success over the last decade or so in this guise.

A Belle And Sebastian live album has been a long time coming. The Scottish indie outfit have been bombarded by fan requests for just such a release for years, and it’s easy to see why: they’re a fantastic live band who excel in connecting with their audiences. This 23-song collection contains the pick of tracks from their 2019 tour, and from their appearances at their own Boaty Weekender festival, making it a sort of ‘best of’ live album, though there are one or two of the band’s most famous works missing, which might irk some. But there’s also plenty of big hitters, chief among them The Boy With The Arab Strap.

Ska-punk scamps Less Than Jake have been recording, touring, and starting drunken teenage parties around the world for closing in on three decades now. But, just like their legions of fans, they’re growing up and growing older. It's been seven years since their last studio album See The Light was released, and there must have been some out there among us that were wondering in the intervening years if we’d ever get them back.

It seems like in the jazz and folk scene, just about everyone’s heard of Dodie, and for a while, too, but it’s only now that she’s finally dedicated herself to an album. Part of that upcoming album is this newest single, titled “Rainbow”. Truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a song so appropriately titled for a track. It begins with a beautiful guitar progression, plucked one note, one string, at a time, and soon accompanied by the soothing, delicate voice of Dodie.

Sheffield sensations the Arctic Monkeys were widely heralded as the saviours of authentic indie rock when they burst onto the scene with breakthrough hit I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, and the album from which it was taken, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, which became the fastest selling debut album in British music history when it sold a staggering 360,000 copies in its first week of release.

Black Eyed Peas’ recent comeback scores a rush of excitement in the form of Shakira in their latest single ‘A Girl Like Me’. This beloved group has reassembled in the past year but most would notice that their latest work has been missing a certain feminine flavor. Though Fergie and her captivating vocals are still nowhere to be found, Shakira’s wild and over-the-top charisma shines through and makes an impact regardlessly. It helps that there’s a strong chorus to match Shakira’s spirit, one that distorts her voice at the end and layers it up a couple of pitches. The end-product is a fun, exaggerated, high-pitched refrain that echoes through the silence and builds up the mood for a rambunctious adventure. 

Texas-born singer and songwriter Alaina Castillo came to fame through YouTube after uploading videos of her singing to the platform in 2017. Her hushed, gentle tones saw her amassing thousand of views, before she dropped her debut EP, Antisocial Butterly, last year, and embarked on her first tour, with dates around the USA.

Mariah Carey recruits a coterie of phenomenal singers for her 2020 rendition of ‘Oh Santa!’ featuring Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson. The Queen of Christmas may very well glide through every holiday season through her most famous number but she chooses to update a more recent tune of hers. The original version of ‘Oh Santa!’ was released in 2010 but this tune featuring Ariana and Jennifer is set to be a leading single for Mariah’s Apple TV+ Christmas special titled “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special.” 

Folk rocker Lissie burst onto the scene a decade ago with her debut album Catching A Tiger, which was recorded in Nashville and spawned the hit single When I’m Alone, chosen by iTunes as their ‘Song of the Year’ for 2010. Three further albums have followed over the last ten years – 2013’s Back To Forever, My Wild West three years later, and Castles in 2018 – releases which solidified her reputation as a singer-songwriter with a real talent for crafting country-tinged modern folk songs.

David Guetta’s take on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ is scintillating enough without losing any of the charms of the original number. Guetta works his usual bit of magic and ends up transforming what was a gentle, whimsical composition into a glamorous, exhilarating affair. ‘Dreams’, as many would know, achieved widespread attention this year after Nathan Apodaca of Idaho Falls posted a TikTok in which he was seen riding on his longboard, drinking Ocean Spray, and lip-syncing to the iconic Fleetwood Mac tune. The video went viral, launched a number of recreations, created a trend, and spawned a couple of thousand memes. Both Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood of the band also joined in on the trend. 

Jennifer Lopez’s new single ‘In The Morning’ makes use of a familiar chord to take us through a touch-starved, ecstasy-filled ride through the artist’s deepest desires. The piece will immediately remind you of the early 2000s. The sharp acoustic guitar chords, the hypnotizing percussion arrangement, and J-Lo’s affective vocals come together to set up a moody, romantic atmosphere that’s brimming with a vulnerable sensuality. A sensuality that J-Lo has cultivated and mastered to perfection over the years. What really bolsters the composition is the central melody — it’s passionate, it’s infectious, and it perfectly encapsulates J-Lo’s strengths. She doesn’t dabble in vocal runs or wild soaring notes; however, she is adept at infusing each and every word with her sass, with her feminine energy, with the glamour and glitz that have made her a household name. 

Will Joseph Cook – the mutli-instrumentalist who earned legions of fans for his debut LP Sweet Dreamer back in 2017 – has long specialised in crafting dreamy, carefree summer-fuelled indie pop numbers. He started writing his own songs when he was in his early teens, with Sweet Dreamer being completed before he hit the age of twenty. Now firmly in his twenties and with his new album Something To Feel Good About, has the now all grown up Cook turned his back on his youthful optimistic self? Not a bit of it.

Lockdown has now become some much a part of our lives that it’s not just inspiring new music, it’s outright facilitating it. Take Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong; way back in March the punk-pop crooner, backed by his sons, jumped online to share his cover of the Tommy James and the Shondells track (made famous by Tiffany) I Think We’re Alone Now. He promised he’d carry on dropping a new cover song every week, dubbing the series ‘No Fun Mondays’.

The post-Busted careers of the trio that formed one of the early noughties biggest acts couldn’t have been much more different. After the runaway success that was the outfit’s first two albums (their self-titled debut in 2002 and A Present For Everyone the following year), the band parted ways at the peak of their powers in 2005 after Charlie Simpson quit the band to focus on his other outfit, the rock band Fightstar. That left Matt Willis to pursue a solo career, while James Bourne reemerged with the very Busted-like Son Of Dork. None of them achieved anything like the kind of success they had together, and in 2015 they reformed, recording two more albums together since.

Sam Fender is a man of many talents. After being spotted performing in a pub in his home town in the northeast when he was just a teenager, he went on to appear in ITV drama series Vera, and in the CBBC show Wolfblood. Music was his passion though and after signing a record contract he dropped his debut EP Dead Boys in 2018 and followed it up last year with his first full-length album Hypersonic Missiles, which received some excellent reviews. Along the way, he was named as one of BBC’s Sounds of 2018, and picked up the Critics’ Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards.

As prolific as they are entertaining, Cats In Space have won over plenty of earthlings with their 70s-inspired, riff-heavy classic rock sound since forming back in 2015. Now comprised of Greg Hart (guitars / vocals/ keyboards), Dean Howard (guitars / vocals), Steevi Bacon (drums / vocals), Jeff Brown (bass / vocals), Andy Stewart (piano / synths) and Damien Edwards (lead vocals) after some pretty significant lineup changes recently, the six-piece from Horsham still have a particularly strong reputation for putting on a hell of a live show, and have played alongside rock royalty such as Deep Purple, Status Quo and Bonnie Tyler.

You might not yet have heard of Australian singer-songwriter Kian Maxwell Bytyci Brownfield – known professionally just as Kian – unless your Down Under, where the teenager has already built a loyal following after dropping a string of alt-pop sensations over the last couple of years. Chief among them was Waiting, a delightfully low key and spacey indie-pop song that has amassed well over sixty million streams in Spotify, bagged an ARIA Awards nomination for Song of the Year and secured twentieth place in Triple J Hottest 100 for 2018.

Katie Melua’s latest single ‘Joy’ is a tender ode to the people that make each and every day worth living. The British singer-songwriter has spent over seventeen years building a decorated, beloved career, and her latest feature contains as much heart and complexity as her first pieces.