The Future of Music 2020

I've already commented several times that on any particular day a different song or two would be uppermost in my mind - but I still really like all of the following. Possibly 'Bury a Friend' should be a little higher in the list, but 'Gone' is still a great signpost for 2019 :

• Charli XCX - Gone / 1999
• Rosalía - Con Altura / Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi / Aute Cuture
• Bishop Briggs - Jekyll & Hyde / Champion
• Billie Eilish - Bury a Friend / Bad Guy
• Mark Ronson - Late Night Feelings / Find U Again / Pieces of Us / True Blue
• Georgia - About Work The Dancefloor
• Rammstein - Auslander / Sex / Puppe
• Bat for Lashes - The Hunger / Jasmine
• Grimes - 4ÆM / My Name is Dark / Violence
• Rachel K Collier - Faith Over Fear (Hectic Remix) / Paper Tiger / Dinosaur

As mentioned in the intro I decided to cast a slightly wider net this year. I trawled through all the usual New Artist recommendations - and many of those lists had 100 candidates on them - so I compared and contrasted extensively and exhaustively - and settled on these 35 listed here below.

In contrast to previous years I've permitted artists who already have published album/s to feature - as long as they've still to reach mainstream acceptance and exposure. Typically the past this has been some fairly young hotshot, and my choices have not always necessarily born out long-term either - such is the fickleness of the music industry.

What has to be said is that all the varieties you will ever have loved are available in abundance today - all types of rock, metal and electronic, hip hop, house, soul, boogie and reggae - and near enough most major genres are represented in this year's selection - with the exception of country, hard-rock and metal really :

Genres : Afrobeat, Alternative Rock, Boogie, Chip-Hop, Chip-Tunes, Disco, Deep-House, Dream-Pop, Electronic Pop, Electropop, Experimental Electronic Pop, Funk, Gospel, Hip Hop, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, House, Jazz, Kwaito-House, Neo-Jazz, Neo-Kudura, Pop, Pop-Punk, R&B, Roots Reggae, Soul, Trap, Synth-Pop, Synth-Rock

Countries Represented : Angola, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Iceland (x2), Ireland (x2), Jamaica, Portugal, Sweden, UK (x18), Ukraine, USA (x5)

I like all of these obviously - not necessarily all to the same degree, but each of these artists has more than the one good song in them. I'm a big fan of supporting new music - and hopefully those who read this can find a new artists or two to explore and support. Note that the youngest artist featured here is 15/16 and the oldest is 34 - so a span of age and experience too!

2020 is looking pretty exciting on the release-front with lots of my long-term favourite artists releasing this year - and probably quite a few surprises besides. I'm looking forward to each and everyone of these in particular - with Georgia's sophomore album the most imminent :

(Alphabetical)

• Georgia - Seeking Thrills (January)
• Grimes - Miss Anthropocene (February)
• Die Antwoord - 27 (TBA)
• Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia (April)
• In This Moment - Mother (TBA)
• The Killers - Imploding the Mirage (TBA)
• Major Lazer - Music Is The Weapon (TBA)
• Rihanna - R9 (TBA)
• Rosalía - TBC (TBA)
• Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 4 (TBA)
• U.S. Girls - TBC (TBA)
• The Weeknd - Chapter 6 (TBA)